by Jesemie's Evil Twin
eviljesemie@yahoo.com
 

Disclaimers: Not mine
Archive: Please ask
Slightly Prettier HTML Version:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/jetfic/14321.html#cu
tid1
Feedback: Please and thank you --
eviljesemie@yahoo.com
Spoilers: Post-"The Truth"
Category: Shmaltz Bizarro
____________________________

December 2003
Still, IL
 

Sing patience, patience
Only still have patience
-- Robert Graves
 

There is such unexpected light in the house, pale
sunshine filling up all the corners.  It must have
something to do with the land, she thinks, flung out
in all directions flat and razed for winter, with
occasional, spiky trees to break up the horizons of
long thin roads and fields.  She has tripped walking
ahead of Mulder, and the warm towels bump out of the
basket onto their child, who looks up from his spot
on the couch in surprise and laughs once.  This first
laugh since she sent him away (since she was given
him again, she corrects) has no room to echo in the
small room full of second- and third-hand furniture,
but it reverberates in her throat as she smiles at
him and then looks up into her husband's warm eyes.
 
 

"What do you miss, Scully?" Mulder asks.

She takes a long time choosing her answer while she
stirs a skillet of buttery onions.  She misses her
mother and brothers, lined suits when they were fresh
from the cleaners, the flare of pulling her gun, Y-
incisions, Skinner's grimace of annoyance when she
and Mulder were on the other side of the desk.  She
misses Doggett and Reyes and knocking up against
people in grocery stores, on subways, in airports.
She misses the bed where she and Mulder undressed
each other so carefully that first night, their hands
coaxing from their bodies another language, one their
hearts had long heard.

The onions sizzle and pop.  William sits on the
kitchen floor, stirring imaginary food in a saucepan
with a badly abused spatula, and watches her with an
expression of dawning comprehension, as though he's
concentrating on this recurrent conversation, is just
about to figure out the entire situation.
Occasionally he glances, curious, at Mulder and
Mulder's growing pile of potato peels on the kitchen
table.

"I miss Starbucks' coffee," Scully says finally, and
Mulder smiles, shaking his head.
 
 

They'd decided in New Mexico that daily exercise was
essential therapy, and a long walk down to the
street's end pushes exhilarating air into her lungs.
A frosty morning, the landscape smudged in soft
pastel ivory, and she stretches up on her toes.

The urge to run and never stop is strong today,
dangerous as a live wire sparking after a storm.

Returning, she finds William giving Matilda (he
whispered her name to Scully a few days ago, one of
only four or five words he's spoken aloud) a drink of
milk.  Mulder makes quick work with a damp paper
towel and William studies him with patience.  Matilda
remains stoic during the scrubbing/blotting ordeal.
When William is finished with his triangles of toast,
he eases out of the red folding chair (the only chair
he'll sit in) and takes Matilda, smoothing her dark
hair as he walks, to his tiny room off the hallway.

Mulder tucks a strand of Scully's long hair behind
her slightly sweaty ear and kisses her hello.

"I bet he loves that doll as much as Samantha did,"
she tells him before kissing him back.

An odd look passes over his features and he replies,
"She was my doll, actually."

"Oh," she says, letting his eyes find hers before
reaching up to touch his temple, his jaw.
 
 

The folding table opposite the washing machine
rattles during the spin cycle.  Her pencil jerks its
way to the edge and jumps.  She's bending to pick it
up when the cold pricks the back of her neck.

She straightens up and the washer clicks off.

A moment: "What do you want, Krycek?"

The barest rustling.  Scully turns and the
translucence of the man coagulates into a firmer
shadow.  He doesn't speak.  Between two fingers he
holds a scrap of paper.  He lays it on the washer,
nods, and vanishes.

One address, for a warehouse that belonged, at one
time, to Strughold Excavation, Quartzsite, Arizona,
1800 miles from Still, Illinois.

After she tells Mulder that evening, they sit in the
silent living room until the snap of tension -- that
hit of adrenaline, fear and indecision, terrible
incomplete knowledge of what's next, the future like
a train jumping its tracks -- fades and they each
stand without words.  Later, her hands will come into
focus like an image sharpened by a magnifying glass,
her reddened hands flat on the wet cold shower tile
as Mulder slides roughly, perfectly, in and out of
her, one of his arms around her waist, his hot mouth
on the side of her throat tying her to the present.
 
 

Still, still, still
One can hear the falling snow
 
 

Snow drifts onto the fields and casts its glow
through the drafty kitchen windows.  Using fat
generic crayons, William has been marking a large pad
of newsprint with toddler hieroglyphics.  He brings
Scully a torn piece featuring a large depiction of
either Santa Claus or an exploding ketchup bottle.
She strokes his hair and he smiles at her, just a
little, around the thumb he's sucking.

When Mulder sits down at the table, William carefully
edges closer to her.

"He doesn't like me, Scully," Mulder said earlier as
they dressed for the day.  In a quiet voice, he said,
"I think he remembers you, somewhere in his
subconscious, but I'm, I'm a complete stranger."

"He watches you all the time, Mulder," she said.
"Haven't you noticed?  He watches you constantly."

"That's not the same thing," he said, sadly squeezing
her shoulder.

He cuts strips of newsprint, polka dots them with
William's red and green crayons, and begins to form a
chain.  He shows the small boy how to put a smear of
paste on one end of a strip, fold the other end over
through a loop, and hold.  William catches on
quickly, miniature hands sticky by the end of the
chain.  He splays his fingers while Mulder wipes
them, and Scully watches the child's gaze never leave
Mulder's face.
 
 

The paint smells sharp and toxic, whitening the walls
in the untrained swaths Mulder creates with a long-
handled roller.  The house is old, the last remnant
of a bankrupt farm, and was cheap, isolated, and
inconspicuous.  Somehow Scully hadn't thought it
could be more nondescript outside or in, but Mulder
seems determined to clean it up in the most neutrally
decorated way possible, the polar opposite of a
thousand motel rooms they stayed in over the years.

Not that they have access to money for anything
fancier.

The dryer buzzes and she goes to unload the
bedclothes.  Her meticulous files, with their
spreadsheets, charts, maps, lists of contacts, lists
of projects, secret bank accounts, remain where they
were three days ago, despite her visitor and his
contextless information.  She's researched what she
can, and she expected Mulder to contact someone
through twisted back channels, to jump to his
intuitive conclusions, to have a next step, a
tentative plan.  But the folding table is untouched.

William is introducing Matilda to the three Christmas
trees -- all less than 15 inches tall, made of
painted aluminum or faux greenery, and purchased in
thrift stores by Mulder the year he fled for his life
-- in the living room window when Scully comes back.
Mulder has started working on the trim with a
horsehair brush.

"You're nesting," she blurts out.

Mulder stops painting and turns on his ladder to peer
down at her.  "What?"

"You're nesting," she repeats.

He squints at her, confused, and asks, "What does
that mean?"

"I don't know," she says, taking the sheets to the
bedroom, trying to ignore the uneasy sourness in her
stomach.
 
 

"What would you like for Christmas?"

Scully helps William into his footed pajama bottoms
and Mulder lobs a tiny long-sleeved t-shirt at her.

"I can't decide," she says as William plays with the
button on her shirt's left cuff (the right one has
been missing for weeks).

She really doesn't know -- their funds are limited
and their necessities are paid for for the time
being.  What she wants most won't fit in a box.

"What do you want, Mulder?"

The question falls away in the room as he holds out
his hand to William, to help him down from the bed,
and William climbs down on his own, wandering out
into the hallway (with a stride like a duck, she
thinks not unkindly).

Mulder seems to shrink a bit, and steps back when she
moves toward him.  She wraps her arms around him,
presses a kiss to his throat.  He lays his cheek on
top of her head for a minute and she listens to him
breathe.

I want so much for you, Mulder, she thinks, for us.

The day has passed and he hasn't made a phone call,
hasn't talked to her about a strategy.  He wants her
to show him how to make sugar cookies, so that's what
they're going to do tonight, with unspoken weight
surrounding them.

Soon she's rolling quick dough on the kitchen
counter, William beside her, hanging on to her jeans
with one fist.  A tray of perfectly browned cookies
is cooling next to a floured blob of dough.  She
sprinkles powdered sugar on the hot cookies and
causes more mess than intended, snowing William with
sugar by mistake.  Startled, he steps backward onto
Mulder's shoes, grabs Mulder's hand, looks up at him
as he's steadied like a penguin on his father's feet.
 
 

After 24 hours without any communication from Mulder,
Scully swings William into her arms and walks to the
Still Just a General Store, a mile south.  There's
rain, and shifting wind -- William helps her hold the
umbrella -- and more dread in Scully's mind than she
can be expected to tolerate.

Nathan, a farmer who lives on the property behind
hers, opens the door for her at the store, and she
gives her thanks as William wriggles down.  She
unzips his dripping jacket and he tugs free of it
before strolling up to the counter where the locals
order hamburgers.

"He's a quiet kid," Nathan observes.  "You all having
lunch?"

"I, uh.  Yes."  Scully hasn't actually thought far
enough ahead for food, but William likes hamburgers;
she tells the teenage girl working the counter to pat
a thin one for him.  He holds her hand while she
fishes the $1.25 out of her pocket and puts it in the
change box on the condiments table.

It appears all the farmers in the area are eating
here today, the pant legs of their overalls damp,
their heavy boots muddy.  An older man makes room for
her to sit on the old church pew that serves as
seating while she waits.

"Bad day, cold as hell," he says.

"Yes," she agrees, choking down all the things she
wants to scream at the top of her lungs.  I let him
go alone to check the post office box, to make the
calls, I let him go alone, she doesn't yell -- I
promised I wouldn't leave for three days if he didn't
return right away, I promised but what if he's hurt,
oh god, what if he's missing or hurt or gone forever?

William's hamburger is ready.  She tears it into
pieces for him and he eats calmly, unaffected by her
tamped down panic.

"He's such a good boy," the teenage girl praises,
grinning at them, and Scully looks at him -- he isn't
just unruffled, he knows something.

Mulder walks in then, soaked to the bone and pale,
relief flooding his eyes as he sees them, and she
realizes she shouldn't be amazed that he's arrived.
 
 

Lea, their closest neighbor, has just put two jars of
homemade blackberry jam on the kitchen table when a
loud "Ow!" resonates from the bathroom.  Scully gives
a hasty apology and hurries to the back of the house.

A suds-covered William sits in the tub, slapping
together two washcloths and seeming entirely
unperturbed.  She peeks in the big bedroom and finds
Mulder standing by the dresser, looking spooked.

"Are you okay?" she asks.

Mulder says, "He bit me," holding his right hand like
it's been mangled.

Scully opens and closes her mouth before saying,
"He's two and a half."

"He bit me," Mulder says, sounding bewildered.

She repeats, "He's two and a half.  That's what two
and half year olds do.  He probably just wanted to
see how you'd react."  She gently takes Mulder's
hand, examines it.  Small tooth marks are faint on
the back and she swallows a laugh.  "Although I doubt
anyone would've expected you to run out of the room."

"What do I do now?"  Mulder seems so genuinely
baffled she wants to hug him.

Instead, she says, "You go back in there and tell him
not to do it again."  She skips the lecture about how
little water it takes for a child to drown and leads
him into the bathroom.

"Don't bite," she admonishes William, leaving Mulder
to deal with his attacker in private.

After Lea goes home, Scully sticks her head into the
bathroom, where William, looking grouchy, is coloring
the back of Mulder's hand with an orange soap stick.

"I'm making him disinfect the wound," Mulder says.
 
 

The alley was slimy with rain, leaves, moss, trash,
and the bird was huddled against the garage wall.
She picked it up and it began to squeak, a constant
terrible bleat of sorrow and alarm.  Its feathers
were wet fuzz, spread out like ink leaking into the
crevices of her palms.

A nest was visible, built between pipes that
connected the buildings; if there was a mother bird,
she was choosing to disregard her daughter's keening.

The baby's eyes never shifted to Scully's, but the
heartbeat beneath its delicate bones was a fast
flutter, an inexplicable pulse in a broken body.
There was no place to take the bird where it would be
safe, no shelter as rain poured.  She couldn't leave
it to die and she had to, forced herself to put the
bird on the sole patch of grass that grew through the
pavement cracks.

She walked out of the alley, the weakening screech
trailing her, smearing all other noise until it was
static in her head.

The heartbeat still flutters in her hands as she
wakes, rain drumming the roof.

It takes probably ten minutes before she notices
Mulder isn't in the bed with her.  She goes to
William's room and finds them both, William fast
asleep, curled in a ball, Mulder on the floor beside
the bed, his hand on William's head.

Mulder shifts, and she sits beside him.  He looks at
her and the haunted hollows beneath his eyes show her
it's happened again, his dreams and hers bleeding
together.  This, she thinks, was a memory, something
that happened to him while he was on the run,
something he will never tell aloud.

"He's fine," Mulder says, voice rough.

"I was just checking on you," she says.

Scully touches William's curled hand and remembers
him in Mulder's arms, as a newborn, the hoarse,
hungry cries of an infant in early hours of the
morning.  The sob breaks from her before she can
cover her mouth.  She remembers Opal nearly throwing
William at her, the frantic trip to the hospital,
Mulder coming into the waiting room, Wyoming's state
flag hoisted beside a wall-mounted television, and
saying that Terrance and Rachelle were okay, the
chips had arrived in time, We have to go tomorrow,
the last vial of their mingled blood dripping into
their child, the timeline that had to be accelerated,
the punch of horror over every bump in the road, the
drive to Illinois with William's scared eyes on every
move they made.

"Shh," Mulder says, but he's crying too.  He rocks
her until they are both quiet again.

Outside, the rain turns to snow.
 
 

"We'll need to start packing after New Year's," she
says from the couch.

He puts down the file of cross-referenced genetics
facilities.  He waits for her to continue speaking.

"Maybe I could get boxes from the general store after
the holidays, when they're switching out some
inventory," she says.

"If there's enough stuff worth taking, if we have
time."

"Yeah," he says, "that's always the question."

"Mulder," she says.

"I know," he says, biting his lip.

"We can't stay here."

"I know."

"The longer we stay, the harder it will be on
everyone.  These people, our neighbors, they're good
people.  We'll be putting them in danger if we don't
keep moving.

"We'll be in danger if we don't keep moving.
Krycek left that address for a reason--"

"--Yeah."

He wrinkles the edge of the folder, glances at
William, who's piling matchbox cars on Matilda's
stomach.  The longing she sees Mulder blink away
causes her eyes to burn, and she pushes her face into
the cushion.

A blip of time, and she's floating on a tranquil
wave, Mulder carrying her to bed.  He puts socks on
her cold feet.  She opens her eyes when he takes off
her jeans -- "You don't have to stop there," she
whispers, and he strokes his hand up her leg and
underneath her sweater.  They strip each other naked,
so slowly, in the faint snowgleam.

They drink each other's moans.
 
 

The flashing mirrors of the snow
keep turning and returning still:
To see the lovely child below
and hold him is their only will;
Keep still, keep still
-- WR Rodgers
 
 

She's listening to the radio announcer read Christmas
poems when, from the window, she can see William
running through the snowy yard toward the house in
new display of exuberance.  She made Mulder take him
to town for last minute shopping; in a second, she
hears the front door bang open, the wind getting away
from Mulder.

Before she can utter a word, William sobs, "Sklee,
Sklee," rushes to her.  She scoops him up, his whole
body heaving with cries, and he presses his hot face
into her neck and holds onto her like the wind might
steal him away.

Mulder closes the door and stands apart, looking
altogether ill.

"He just started crying and I have no idea why."

Scully rubs William's back.  "Did he, has he been
coughing or doing anything to indicate he's sick?"

"No, nothing, we were coming back and he suddenly, he
just, he just started crying."  Mulder's voice
quakes.

"Okay.  It's okay," she tells them both.  She takes
William into his room, lays him on the bed and feels
his forehead, his glands, presses on his stomach,
does her doctor's routine.  He wears himself out with
cries and sleeps, exhausted, cheeks damp.

In the kitchen, Mulder sits at the table, trembling.
"I realized...I checked the car," he says, "the
backseat.  The map we keep in the pocket behind the
passenger seat -- it was on the floor near the baby
seat.  I didn't move it, Scully."

Oh, then, she thinks, taking Mulder in her arms;
tears streak her face; please, God, her repeated
prayer.

Night comes, Eve with a roast in the oven, a scatter
of wrapped presents on the windowsill, all the hush
in the house like a roar.

William awakens, comes into the kitchen, brushes his
fingertips against hers, seeming strangely wise,
acquiescent now.  Marvelous, brave child, she thinks,
second equal wonder of my life.  She watches William
put a thumb in his mouth and go to Mulder, whose
grief is barely contained -- William pats Mulder's
knee gently, Mulder holds out his hands to him, palms
up, and William climbs into his lap, leans his head
against his chest.  Unmoving, Scully watches as
Mulder, hands shaking, holds his child fully for the
first time in such a long time, she watches as snow
splatters the windows behind them, the future becomes
so clear, awful and awesome as rising fire, as the
silence of the moment shows itself a blessing, her
two dearest loves finding one another once more.

____________________________

An end
____________________________

As my cousin's wife said recently, in a rare moment
of lucidity, happiest of holidays to you whatever or
however you celebrate, and may the new year bring you
something your heart has always desired.
 

Annoying Author's Notes;
Or: Annoying-Author's Notes
* This is unbeta'd.  In case you couldn't figure that
out.  ::rolling eyes::  Trust me, this all made a lot
more sense in my head.
* Still, IL is not a real place.  Moonshine, IL is,
and they have a general store run by a woman that
sells and serves burgers until 12:30p on the dot; if
you don't have your burger ordered by then, too bad.
* As a self-imposed exercise -- brought about by
seasonal insanity -- each scene here has a specific
number of sentences; namely, the number that
corresponds to the day on the calendar.  There are 12
sections in honor, er, of the song (I left out the
partridges).  I promise not to make a habit of this
sort of thing.
* I have never in my life used the word 'quiescence'
in casual conversation.
 

December 2003
http://www.livejournal.com/users/jetfic/