By Lesdean A. Warner
xangst@marina-pt.com
 

Date: 13 Jul 1995 14:12:31 -0400

This is a little vignette I wrote after seeing One Breath a couple of
weeks ago. I sat on it because I thought you all should know Brian
Callahan before I unleashed this. It could be seen as a companion piece to
Lincoln in the Snow, and Brian will certainly confuse people who haven't
read the original story. Also, if you haven't read the last two parts of
Lincoln, but intend to, DON'T read this first. It gives away Lincoln's
ending.

Alright, enough of that. Here comes the fun part--THE DISCLAIMER:
Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, and the X-Files are the sole intellectual
property of Ten-Thirteen Productions and Chris Carter, as produced by Fox
Broadcasting Company. Their use is without consent from said owners, and
is not meant as infringement, nor is it to be used for profit.

Brian Callahan is purely my invention, not based upon any ideas expressed
by the above-mentioned.

Oh, and here's the story, too.

*********
Out There
by Lisdean Warner

   Fox Mulder sat at his partner's favorite diner--alone. It had been more
than two and a half months now, and the will to keep going was getting
harder to summon up all the time.
   Dana Scully was gone, and there was every possibility that she was
never coming back. He cursed silently, taking another sip of the coffee he
barely tasted.
   "Hey, Spooky." The tired voice belonged to a blond giant with gentle
eyes. Special Agent Brian Callahan sat down across the table from him, not
waiting for an invitation. "How are you doing?"
   Mulder shrugged.
   "That good, huh?" Brian signalled the waitress to bring over another
coffee. "Any more news?"
   Mulder snorted bitterly. "There's never any more news, Brian." He
raised cold, dead eyes to his friend. "She's really gone. And I can't even
figure out *why.*"
   Brian nodded sympathetically. He and Dana had been lovers off and on
now for a year. Her disappearance was wearing on him more and more
everyday. It almost made him understand what made Fox Mulder the way he
was. After only three months of Dana's unresolved absence, he was climbing
the walls. Mulder had been going through the same thing over his sister
for going on twenty-two years now.
   Intellectually, Brian knew Dana had to be dead. A federal agent,
kidnapped by unknown assailants--everyday she was missing was another nail
in the coffin. Except that there was no body in it.
   Somewhere in the back of his mind, he hoped she would come back. It was
like the dreams he had had for years after the death of his family, where
their deaths had been the dream, where they were back with him, happy and
safe. He hoped she was out there somewhere, but not with any real
conviction.
   Not like Mulder, he thought. The agent had never stopped trying to find
out *something.* He had used every avenue open to him, had even driven the
wrong way down a few that were closed. He had come up with exactly
nothing, and desperation was starting to set in.
   Mulder leaned forward slightly, asking the question he always asked
when Brian saw him these days. "Have your friends come up with anything?"
   Brian shook his head, watching sadly as Mulder's face fell. Brian
Callahan had to be the best connected agent in the FBI. He knew everyone,
had powerful friends, but all of it was useless against the shadows at
work here. "Spook, you know I would have told you. As always, the
information is just not available. Either nobody knows, or nobody can
say."
   Mulder nodded angrily, playing his fingers along the top of his cup.
"Her mother called me yesterday."
   Brian nodded. He had met Margaret Scully a few months before Dana's
disappearance. He liked her, a lot. She reminded him of his own mother,
now twenty-five years in her grave.
   Mulder pushed his cup away desperately, not noticing the splash of
coffee that ran down the side. "She wants me to come with her to..." He
took a deep breath. "To pick up Scully's gravestone."
   Brian nodded. "It's been three months, Spooky. It's about time--"
   Mulder sat back, glaring. "It is *not* about time, Brian. We don't even
have a body--"
   "We may never have a body, Mulder," Brian reminded him gently. "Her
family has to move on somehow."
   Mulder gazed miserably into the middle distance. "But what if she's not
dead? What if she's out there... somewhere..." He cursed and sipped at his
cooling coffee.
   Brian sighed. Out There. Fox Mulder's mantra, his *raison d'etre.*
Samantha was Out There, the "Truth" was Out There, and now Dana Scully was
Out There. Out There was this place where you could put all the things,
all the people, you had lost, that place you could pretend that you could
get to, maybe, someday.
   When Out There was finally discovered, it would be better than Heaven.
   "Are you going to go with her?"
   Mulder snorted. "She's her mother," he said simply. "I have to go. It's
just that..."
   "It's just that you're afraid that this will prove she's really gone,"
Brian said gently.
   Mulder glared up at him. That was exactly the problem, but he did not
need Brian reinforcing it. Callahan was perhaps as close to a good friend
as Mulder let himself have. The similarities between them were almost
eery--their sisters, both named Samantha, both lost at the age of eight;
their relationships to Sharon Raese, Mulder her lover, Brian her partner,
both in love with her in their own ways.
   Actually, Mulder mused bitterly, they were in the same situation now.
Scully was his best friend, the only person in the world he trusted, and
Brian was clearly more serious about her than he would ever let her know.
Mulder closed his eyes and prayed to her God that he and Brian wouldn't
have to go through the loss of another woman they loved.
   He opened his eyes again, avoiding Brian's. "Gravestones are for dead
bodies, Brian."
   "Sam has a gravestone, Mulder." Brian watched him tense, about to
attack, then relax as he saw the futility of it. He knew Brian was only
trying to help, but it probably didn't make it any easier.
   "Gravestones are a way to remember those we've lost. If Dana comes
back, we can crush that gravestone, but for now, her family needs it as a
reminder of her."
   Mulder rose, not really understanding, not really wanting to. "She
doesn't need that reminder, Brian," he said resolutely, the old longing,
the old hope building again. "She's coming back."
   He left Brian sitting there without another word. The blond giant
remembered what he had said to Dana when she had worried for them both,
"My family's dead. Sam's just... gone." Out There.
   He sent up a silent prayer to God to return her.
   <Dana,> he cried silently, <are you Out There?>