Sunlight Fading by: Annie Jennings Auralissa@aol.com DISCLAIMER: Well, let me start off to say that I have no control over these characters. Who here is really surprised? Yeah, that's what I thought. Chris Carter and Ten Thirteen Productions own the ones that you heard of, and anyone else that you meet, I made up. I have no rights whatsoever to use the following songs: "Strong Enough" by Sheryl Crow; "The World Before Columbus" by Suzanne Vega; "Amen" by Jewel; "Painters" by Jewel; "Adrian" by Jewel; "Caramel" by Suzanne Vega; "One Headlight" by The Wallflowers; "In the Absence of Sun" by Duncan Sheik. Any comments/flames can be sent right on over to Auralissa@aol.com. I'll be wearing my Asbestos underwear. SUMMARY: The truth shines brighter than ever when Mulder and Scully investigate abductions in Fargo, North Dakota, involving abductees from the 1960's and government experiments--- but what happens when only one of them can see the light? ARCHIVERS: Ship this puppy on out! Gossamer, Newsgroup... all of em. Just keep my name on it. RATING/CATEGORY: PG-13, angst, conspiracy, violence, UST, MSR. DEDICATION: I want to dedicate this story to all those who are visually impaired, whose light burns bright in spite of their inability to see it. The rest of the world certainly does, and we are ever grateful to bask in its glow. This is for you. AUTHOR'S NOTE: The portrayals of the Scully family are written prior to "Gethsemane", when we actually caught a glimpse of one of the invisible brothers(gasp!). Just ignore every description or view of Bill Jr., and indulge in this little depiction... Please??? ************************************************* ************************************************* "SUNLIGHT FADING" ************************************************* ************************************************* Propping his feet on the desk full of messy papers and disorganized files, he revelled in the slight slivers of light that he allowed in his office. Living in a metaphoric world had always appealed to him, and so shrouding himself in darkness was a natural transition for him. He aimlessly twirled a pencil in his slender fingers, and finally decided to turn on a desk light, letting some light into his crowded and cramped space. Shadows danced in a flattering tribute across his exotic features, perfectly touching his profile with sharp contrasts of skin and darkness. He put on a pair of wire-rimmed glasses, and opened up the first manilla folder that awaited him. Fox Mulder had stumbled on to something wonderful, and his elation shone through only in his expressive and youthful eyes. The door to the dungeon of darkness that Mulder kept opened, and there stood a slender, petite, fiery-haired woman in a tailored suit and pumps, holding two styrofoam cups that were brimming with a familiarly scented liquid. "Please tell me that you didn't sleep here," Dana Scully said, exasperated, and he gave her his sly smile that instantly gave her her answer, as well as a clue that he had found something new to pursue. "That smells too good to be Bureau mud, Scully," he said, and she gave a short smile. "I figured that you would have put in a late night, and so I decided to take pity on you," she admitted. "It's Brazilian. Just the way you like it." Giving a low purr of contentment, Mulder graciously took the fresh-brewed cup from his partner, and sipped it. "Marry me, Scully," he growled, and she was seriously tempted to say, "Show me the engagement ring!" a la "NYPD Blue". Instead, she just gave him her small look of amusement, and sipped from her own cup of coffee. Temptation leads only to ruin, she reminded herself, and let the warmth of the coffee fill her body. "So, what do you have today, Mulder?" she asked, and he gestured to his desk. "As much as you try to tell me that I have poor organizational skills, I divided the files up into three piles," he said, and with every label, he tapped a stack with his finger. "The first one consists of cases that should be up in Violent Crimes. The second includes the one and only case that is worth a moment of our time. And the third stack is full of cases that are just too funny to miss. Check this one out, Scully," he said, passing her a thin manilla folder. Crossing her legs and perching herself primly on the edge of an office chair, Scully opened up the case, and arched her right eyebrow. "A woman claims that she was beamed up into a flying casino that was run by Elvis Presley?" Mulder gave her the smile that instantly gave away the punchline that he had been saving. "And this is also an excuse as to why she didn't file her income taxes on time," he said, and she groaned. "That's really disgusting, Mulder," she admitted, and shivered. "Why is it so cold in here?" Her breath shone in the frigid air of his crowded and disheveled office. She had attempted to clean it once before, but that had only ended up with him screwing around with it the next day. Scully had given up hope of a proper work environment a long time ago, and had learned to adapt to the one she existed in. He shrugged, and she stood up, walking to the thermostat. "Oh, my God! This is set at ninety-three degrees, Mulder!" Giving her a look that clearly stated that he had figured that out a long time ago, Mulder stood up and made his way to the small box that dictated the temperature of his meagerly adorned basement office. "The Bureau decided that I could live without heat, seeing as how spooks don't need warmth to survive," he quipped, but Scully found only minor points of humor in the freezing climate. "I can't wait to see my Christmas bonus." Leaning back in the office chair and using her trench coat to cover up her sheer stockings, she watched, both amused and aroused at the sight of his trim body bent over the box, and drank in the sight of his perfectly-formed face contorted in concentration as though it were fine wine. Upon finally losing his temper and hitting the box with his fist, Mulder gave up, returning to the paper-covered desk. "That's it, Scully," he said, and she shrugged slightly. "Well, Mulder, there's always tomorrow," she said. "Until then, what do you say to bagels and cream cheese at the deli? My treat," she tempted, and the inviting hint in her bright blue eyes was enough for Mulder to make up his mind. Picking up the only decent file that he had received, he followed her out of the door. ************************************************* ************************************************* The deli that Scully frequented was a quiet, uncrowded, and inconspicuous restaurant in a non-descript part of town, so she had little trouble convincing her paranoid partner that no one had followed them. It was famous for lox and bagels, as well as fresh pastries made by a German immigrant named Helga. The deli was fairly near utter desertion when the two agents arrived, and Scully wisely asked for a table in the back. She assured Mulder that everything was kosher, knowing full well that the irreverent Jew would eat whatever he could with asking little. It had been a running joke between the friends for a while now, and Scully had plans on making him an actual kosher meal one day, just to see what he would say. Biting into her cream cheese filled bagel, Scully gestured with a swift nod of her head to the file on the table. "So, Mulder, what do we have here?" He opened it up and passed her three obscure shots of a snow-covered country side. Bleakly frank and blunt, the photographs were nothing remarkable. "This is Fargo, North Dakota," he said, shoving the photos to her. "Nothing remarkable, no sightings of UFOs, no paranormal or unexplained activity whatsoever. Until two weeks ago." Scully kept her eyes fixed on him, enjoying the usual drama that came with Mulder's introduction of a case. She had told him numerous times that he could have been a successful politician, but Mulder had jovially told her that if he did pursue such a career, then he would have to change his mantra from "Trust no one" to "Trust the government", which would go against his policy of absolute truth. Now, munching thoughtfully on a bagel stuffed with calorie-infested cream cheese, Scully admired the boyish twinkle in his brilliant green eyes and the melodramatic grin that played on the corners of his sensual and generous mouth. He continued, wrapped up in the complexity of the case. "Sixteen women, ranging from the ages of twelve to thirty-five, have been reported missing from their homes in the suburb called Fantasia," he said. "No evidence of a break in, nothing. But it gets even better. With every missing woman, another woman is returned. A missing woman from the 1960's to 1970's." He leaned forward, his eyes blazing with intense light. "The abductees from thirty years ago, Scully," he murmured. "They're all being returned for new ones." Shaking her head, she cocked it to the side. "Well, Mulder, I'll give you this much," she admitted. "This is certainly interesting as to how Tonya Basilwood from Hawaii got to North Dakota, in Yolanda Ferguson's bed. You have stumbled on to somthing here." Flashing her the infamous Fox Mulder lady-killer grin, Mulder leaned back in his seat, quite pleased with the case. "Pretty darn good," he said in a poor imitation of Frances McDormand's pregnant cop from "Fargo". ************************************************* ************************************************* "So alone And this room looks so cold No one to care and no one to hold Yeah the Lord knows That I'm needing somebody like you, just like you Can you see The passion burning in my eyes Do you sense The rush you give my heart And if you knew The secret way I feel for you Would you come running To me or would you turn away "At night I pray With hope and faith As I lay me down to sleep I pray together we will be And there will come a time You'll be mine, all mine And I'll be yours always But until that day comes at night I'll pray "Should I feel These emotions inside of me Should I reveal what's locked up in my soul I'm so afraid But it's something that you've got to know How I want To touch you every time you're near I long to feel Your body next to mine And if you knew The secret love I have for you Would you come running to me or would you turn away "If all our prayers were answered Our hearts would be enraptured We would find our heaven Inside each other's arms This lonely room would finally see the sun shine through But until that day comes at night I'll pray I'll get down on my knees, I'll get down on my knees and pray" --Wild Orchid "At Night I Pray", Wild Orchid, 1996 ************************************************* ************************************************* Flipping off the television set, Mulder crossed his arms over his chest, and blew a stray lock of hair from his brow, twisting his mouth into a half-smirk. The adrenaline pumped through his body, as usual on such a case, and he had been burning fuel staring at a science fiction flick that Mulder had almost memorized. Insomnia came to haunt him like a personally known demon on these nights, and tonight was no exception. Tilting his head back and forth, Mulder looked down at his toes, just trying to find some sort of distraction in the barren apartment. He could do no more work on the case until he got into Fargo, and this was the moment when he felt utterly, utterly, useless. Scully always told him that he had a complex with truth. Smiling, Mulder wiggled his toes. Scully... a distraction and a point of ponderment that could last him well into the wee hours of the morning. To use the word "complex" in a different format, Scully was all of that and so much more. She could be an absolute pillar of strength, or she could be just as sensitive and as emotional as an insecure adolescent. There were times when he was unsure of whether to feel admiration or sympathy toward her, and then there were times when he wasn't sure if he was supposed to feel both. Well, one thing was for certain. He was definitely not supposed to feel what he did feel about her. Jesus, Mulder, this was his fucking partner, not his girlfriend. <> Heaving a sigh, Mulder raked a hand through his dark hair. He had been wrong to try to initially deny what he had felt about her. It was wrong and directed only from him, he tried to tell himself. But just as Mulder was stubborn and obstinate to Scully, he was stubborn against common sense altogether. Over time, he had only grown to love her more. A small smile lingered on his well-sculpted face as he looked at the lines that the Venetian blinds cast on his mostly blank walls. There was this inner light inside of her that absolutely enthralled him. Just as moths flocked to lightbulbs, Mulder could not help but be drawn to her. It had been this way for quite some time now, and Mulder had learned that there was no use resisting the strong and deep emotions that he harbored towards her. Funny, but when he thought about the odd combination of emotions that created his love for her, they were quite an intriguing potpourri of feelings. Oh, there was certainly a great deal of absolute love for her. There was admiration, adoration, attraction... and those were only the A's. But tucked under those wonderful, glorious feelings, there was a nagging sense of guilt, self-loathing, and shame. Just as he had created his love, he would destroy it, and eliminate the both of them in the process. Mulder was the ultimate cause for the cancer that plagued Scully's body and poisoned her health. Due to his relentless crusade for the truth, he had been the one to destroy the only woman that he had ever loved. When she died, he did. Though he had believed this for quite some time, only now had he realized just how very true that was. When she passed on, he would never be the same. A broken and shattered man. He had a history of being blessed with wonderful people, and then having them taken from him. His sister, Samantha, had been one such person, and the loss of her had shaped his history. Scully, he had come to acknowledge, meant more to him than any one person ever had. And his losing her would be even more searing and hurtful. Mulder knew that she was hurting, knew that she was in pain, and could only watch from a distance as she fell in a spiral to her imminent death. Turning on his side, Mulder curled up, his face falling at the thought of her dying. How could he ever let go of her? There was no way possible, no earthly way to live without her. Without Scully, he was nothing. Clenching his fist in anger, Mulder narrowed his eyes. That was what they wanted, those men who had planned her abduction. They had known all along that once they had done away with Dana Scully, Fox Mulder was out of the picture. The irony in that was agonizing. Kill the innocent to take out the guilty. Was this the way that the justice system reasoned today? Perhaps that was the reason the government had gotten its poor reputation. Mulder was so afraid of losing her. It was an all-consuming fear that was part of the territory of all-consuming love. He possessed both, and both haunted him. They were specters that followed him where ever he went, and those were the wraiths that made him Spooky Mulder. She was a part of who he was. The night before he went to Fargo, Fox Mulder did not catch one moment of sleep, and he let his eyes wander the circumfrence of the apartment until dawn. ************************************************* ************************************************* Scully leaned back in her airplane seat, and sipped on the warm cup of coffee that had been passed to her by her perky flight attendant, Lynda!(with the exclamation mark, to make it even more demeaning and irritating). Mulder, the lucky bastard, had managed to take a nap, a smile spreading across his handsome face. Lynda! had payed particularly close attention to the debonair federal agent, causing a small tinge of jealousy to possess Scully's body. She reasoned with herself, reminding herself that he certainly did not belong to her, and that he could screw any dye job that he wanted. Bitterness had become quite an interesting pursuit of Scully's recently, and she had revelled in the idea that she was a bitter old maid, as nasty and as cynical as such a label was. But when she thought of herself as an underachieving F.B.I. agent, then there was little sanctuary or comfort in that prospect. A bitter old maid was certainly a more mundane and suitable aspect of herself, and Scully just let herself roll in self-pity while she had the opportunity. They would soon land in Fargo, where she would have no time to feel sorry for herself. All of her time would be used on reigning in her stubborn and persistant partner. Speaking of which, Mulder stirred slightly in the seat in the aisle, drifting lightly in the soundness of slumber that he so rarely partook of. His insomnia aided his brilliance as well as his madness, and so she rarely complained. The years melted from his face as he let himself float away in the rapture of sweet repose. Lovingly and fondly, Scully brushed a stray lock of deep brown from his brow. Her sweet Fox, though it was only Scully who knew that she was his master. Mulder listened to no one, but on occasion, she could manage to tame him. Skinner knew this, and he had a grudging respect for anyone who could bear to work with a relentless thunderstorm of a man like Mulder. But Scully loved him, and the love was enough to sustain her when she thought that no energy was left. And, she had to admit to herself, the energy that had once been so abundant in her lithe and slender body was fading away with every passing day. Lynda! walked by, and smiled warmly at Scully. "We'll be landing shortly, ma'am," she said. "Please put your seat in the upright position, and instruct your husband to do the same." It was a common mistake, and she had grown used to the error over the years. Now, she did not even bother to correct the unsuspecting observor. What reason was there for Lynda! to ever guess that they were not a happily married couple, going to visit family in Fargo, but instead a pair of maverick F.B.I. agents going to investigate a case involving alien abductees in the snowy city? Hesitantly, Scully shook Mulder's broad shoulder, the heat of his skin burning through his dress shirt. "Mulder, wake up," she whispered, and the sleeping agent did not stir. For a moment, this amused her, and then she realized that she had to wake him up, whether she liked it or not. Finally, Mulder woke up, his thickly lashed eyes fluttering for a moment, breaking off the daze and euphoria of sleep. "Are we there yet?" was his sarcastic waking question, and she rolled her eyes. "Shut up and buckle your seat belt." ************************************************* ************************************************* SUNLIGHT FADING 2/12 by: Annie Jennings (disclaimer in part one) ************************************************* ************************************************* "It's a bad day It's a train ride It's a bad day And you're my medicine "It's a snow day It's a full moon It's a snow day "When'd you get down to my bones? Where'll I find my wishing stone? The beads, the records, All the calls and the drinks alone "First by mind, then by music You'll make it all less confusing It's a slow dive down A fast distraction A strange fall forward My lame reaction "It's a bad day It's a long ride It's a bad day You're a medicine "It's a sinking feeling Pulls me through the seated chairs When will you come rescue me Find solace, and then take me there? "You'll say, 'You're not too tired for this life, And it's not gonna matter if you fall down twice. You're not too tired for this life And it's not gonna matter if you fall down twice "When'd you get down to my bones? Where'll I find my wishing stone? The beads, the records, All the calls and the drinks alone "It's a bad day Two miles to go It's a bad day You're my medicine "You'll say, 'You're not too tired for this life, And it's not gonna matter if you fall down twice. You're not too tired for this life And it's not gonna matter if you fall down twice "You're my medicine You're my medicine You're my medicine You're my medicine It's a long ride" --Lisa Loeb and Nine Stories "Snow Day", Tails, 1995 ************************************************* ************************************************* The bleakness and the lack of color in the Fargo landscape was startling and blinding. Mulder casually recalled the warning against driving off of the road, and was especially careful not to turn the car right off of the road and into the wooden fences. Snow liberally decorated the windshield, and it created a thick and beautiful blanket of white frosting on the metallic version of a birthday cake. He squinted through the haze, and groaned. "I hate snow," he muttered, and she shrugged, carelessly. "I have to disagree with you on this, Mulder," she argued. "I think that the snow is lovely. Look at this. It's gorgeous." He took a quick, fleeting glance at the material on his windshield, and shrugged. "Nothing special," he dismissed, and she rolled her eyes. He never did appreciate the finer and the simpler things in life. She at times wondered if Mulder had to see everything in black and white, without the fanciful edges of lace to decorate the lines in between. If so, she pitied him more than ever. Actually, Mulder often did stop to admire the beauty in his life. And one of the most beautiful sights was Dana Katherine Scully, sitting primly in the car seat next to him, staring with fascination at the snowy landscape. Fargo was known for its thick winter blanket of snow and ice, and it was no wonder that she was enthralled by the rich and blank countryside. The lodge that they were set up to stay in was up ahead. Skinner had given them more comfortable surroundings to stay in this trip, knowing that there was a possible blizzard coming up. Travel arrangements had been made with that fact in consideration, and Scully had packed accordingly. There was a thin trail of smoke that floated up from the chimney, adding a dash of grey to the bleak sky. "Here we are," she murmured, and he turned the ignition off. "Well, Scully, this will either be charming or terrifying," he said. "You know, like in 'The Shining'." He tossed her a devilish grin. "Redrum, redrum..." Playing alone, she tossed a thumb to the valet. "And heeeeeere's Johnny," she added. Mulder nodded, pleased that she was taking a humorous view on this situation. "Pretty darn good." The valet opened the door up, and gave a warm smile. "Are you Agents Mulder and Scully?" he asked, and Mulder nodded, flashing his I.D., and Scully did the same. "Oh, super. Your rooms are just this way. Follow me." After they had gotten their duffle bags out of the trunk, Mulder arched an unassuming eyebrow at Scully. "Jesus, I'm expecting William H. Macy to appear in a minute here." The lodge was perfectly decorated, and was the picture of a perfect little ski inn. There were guests seated around, drinking hot cocoa and milk, along with reading magazines full of trash. Scully chuckled a little at the scene, and shivered after walking in from the cold, Fargo weather. "Well, Mulder..." she muttered, and he grinned. "It's lovely, Scully," he said. "And if I die, this is going to be my personal hell." She could not help but smile at him, amused by his typical detestment of anything normal or urban. Scully walked into her warm, airy room with a sense of gratitude. The lodge might have been decorated with paraphernalia from the banned redneck store in South Carolina, but the room was beautifully garnished with old-fashioned merchandise. Scully gave a wry look to the king-sized bed. As though she would be sharing it with anyone... even though when the weather got cold, she certainly would not mind having her tall, dashing partner as a bed-warmer... Flopping down on the couch, Scully looked through the file that she had assembled so far. Sixteen women gone, sixteen women returned. They were mostly children that had been taken, with the exceptions of some twenty to thirty-year-old women. Only females. Not one male from Fargo, which Scully though odd. There was obviously that something special that a woman possessed... There came a knocking at her door, and Mulder stood there, dressed to go. "We don't have any time to waste, Scully," he said. "The blizzard will settle in before long, and I want to get as much work done as possible." Scully shook her head, a small smile playing on her lips. He was still playing the supervisor to her, something that she had always resented. But in this case, he had to recognize her advice as indispensable. She was his anchor when he risked sinking. It was always Scully who brought the wandering ship to shore. He had often mentally compared her to his personal light house. Standing, she picked up her thick winter coat, and shrugged into it, tossing her red hair over her rabbit-trimmed collar. Mulder shook his head at the collar with a sense of chiding. "It's not 'wabbit' season yet, Scully," he said in an Elmer Fudd voice. She rolled her eyes, and flicked the tip of his nose. She had always admired it, thinking that its' slightly overbearing size was cute on his exotically built face. "It's faux," she excused, and winked daringly at him. "Let's go, Mulder, if this is all so important to you." ************************************************* ************************************************* The lights in Marianne Hilton's home were like beacons of defiant markers in an otherwise unending road of white. Mulder handled the car on the icy road beautifully, and did not let the slippery gravel intimidate him. He had dealt with aliens and liver-eating monsters. Let the blizzard do its worst. Marianne Hilton lived alone, a widow with her twelve-year-old daughter, Claire. About one week ago, Claire had been abducted, and Marianne had reported all that she had seen immediately. Mulder wanted her version of the story. The partners stepped out of the car and into the coldness of the Midwest winter. "Lord," Mulder muttered, wincing in the frigid air. "Remind me never to move here." Zipping up her coat all the way to her chin, Scully shivered in agreement. The front door opened when Marianne realized that she had company, and she quickly gestured for the cold agents to enter her home. "Hurry!" she called, and they hastily obeyed, Scully rubbing her leather-gloved hands together in an attempt to bring some warmth to them. Once they were safely inside the warm home, Marianne shut the door. "You must be the F.B.I. agents," she said, smiling. "I heard that you were coming down. How do you like the weather?" Surprised at the welcome, Mulder gave a brief smile. "It's lovely," he replied, and Marianne laughed heartily. It was startling to think that this genial Midwestern woman had recently lost a daughter. "Oh, yah, it's really something out there," she agreed. "We're all hoping for a white Christmas this year. We usually get one, but with all of the unpleasantness, it would be a real blessing." Scully had never seen a white Christmas, though that had never stopped her from seeing pictures in books. Her family had always been in warmer places, except for the season in Minnesota. Marianne directed them to a comfortable-looking sofa, and sat the two down. "So, you want to talk to me about Claire, right?" she asked, and Mulder nodded, removing his warm and comfortable fur-lined coat. "We need to ask you a few questions, especially about what you witnessed that night," he explained, and Marianne nodded back, her smile fading. "I had just tucked Claire into bed," she recalled. "Claire's my only child. My husband died just before she was born, so it's always been just Claire and me. We get by fine though. Anyway, I had gone downstairs to finish watching television, when I was interrupted by these screaming lights... It was awful, Mr..." She gave a short laugh. "Oh, silly me. I never asked for your names." Scully flashed her badge, as did Mulder. "I'm Agent Scully, and this is Agent Mulder," she introduced, and Marianne nodded, and returned to her story. "I felt like time froze," she said, and Mulder interrupted her. "You lost time?" She nodded. "How much?" She thought for a moment, then replied with a sense of trepedation. "Oh, about ten minutes. I got up, and went upstairs to check on Claire, but she was gone. It was so bizarre... and there was another girl sleeping in Claire's bed. A woman, all bruised, and crying." "That would be Jessica Martin," Scully filled in. These were the typical symptoms of an alien abductee or an abduction witness. Mulder found nothing untruthful or implicating in the Midwestern woman's monologue, and stood up, zipping up his warm coat again. "I'm sorry for your loss, Ms. Hilton," he said, and Scully looked up, startled by his minimal interrogation. With a case like this, this was particularly unlike Mulder. "I didn't mean to take up your time." She shook her head, and smiled kindly. "Oh, no, not a problem," she said. "I just miss my daughter so much, and she was all that I had..." Mulder nodded, wrapping a dark-colored scarf around his neck. "I understand," he said, quietly, thinking of the sister that he had lost. In his own chaotic family, she had been all that he had. And Scully's own abduction that had spawned her cancer and her... Pausing in his tracks out of the door, Mulder turned his head. "Ms. Hilton, I have a question for you," he said, and the tired woman gave Mulder a look that stated her cooperation. "Had Claire menstruated yet?" The question threw Scully and Ms. Hilton off, but Marianne quickly recovered, and answered his question. "Why, yes," she said. "She started her period about a year ago." Scully gave her partner a side-long look, and Mulder nodded, taking in this information. "And would say that her periods are regular?" he asked. "Yes..." she said, eying the agent closely. "Why do you ask, Agent Mulder?" Putting on his gloves, Mulder shook his head. "No reason yet, ma'am. Have a merry Christmas." And with that, Mulder walked out to the car, leaving a slightly bewildered Scully to follow his path. Once they had gotten safely bundled up in the car, Scully looked at him with a great deal of interest. "Mulder, why did you ask if Claire Hilton was menstruating?" she said, and Mulder backed the Taurus out on to the highway. "All of the girls and women that had been taken were of or near enough to child-bearing age," he said. "Even the returned ones from the sixties and seventies were when they were taken." Scully nodded, encouraging him to continue. "What if, and this is a pretty big what if, these women were being abducted for experiments involving the female reproductive organs?" Scully narrowed her eyes, and shook her head. "Mulder, if this did involve the experimentation of human sexual reproduction, then wouldn't male abductees be required? The last time I checked, human prolification was not asexual." Mulder gave her a look that she had now become familiar with. The dark, appealing, spooky-look. A favorite look of hers. The look that prepared her for the stuff that he had gained noteriety with. It was the look of Spooky Mulder, the one and only... and there was probably good reason as to *why* he was the one and only. "What if they weren't interested in human sexual reproduction?" he proposed, and she gave him her own patented look of "thou art insane". "Mulder, if you try to mate a chicken and a dog, you don't come out with Kentucky Fried Schnauzer," she tried to explain, and he tried to concentrate on something other than the endless white snow. God allmighty, it was bright. "What makes you think that extraterrestrials could replicate with human female women?" Mulder shifted gears impatiently, trying to avoid the ice on the road. "Well, Scully, do you have a rational explanation as to why seven women of fertile age suddenly disappeared, and were then replaced with adults that were missing as children?" She hated when he answered her questions with questions. ************************************************* ************************************************* "Oh, so just let me try And I will be good to you Just let me try And I will be there for you I'll show you why You're so much more than good enough" --Sarah McLachlan "Good Enough", Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, 1993 ************************************************* ************************************************* The bellhops were bustling about when the agents returned to the hotel, and Mulder noticed that it was snowing again, heavily and steadily. "What's going on?" he asked, and a bellhop dressed in gold tipped his hat. "I'm sorry, sir, but all of the guests are checking out and driving home," he said. "There's a blizzard coming. The airport's already closed..." "Shit," Scully cursed, and shivered in the snow. Mulder winced when he heard the news, and his breath froze in the air. "Well, what do we do?" The bellhop shrugged his shoulders, and gestured to the hotel. "The lodge'll stay open, if you want to stay. We have only one other person here, and she rents an apartment, but I doubt that she'll bother you." "Are you sure?" Mulder asked, and the bellhop smiled, nodding enthusiastically. "Oh, yah." The lodge hall was warm and cozy, and as the day passed on in their first day of being snowbound, Scully migrated to the hall with her laptop and her files. She had work to do, and no distractions in which to worry over. Mulder was up in his room, doing his own work, and she folded up her jean-clad legs in a comfy chair, and opened up her work. The tests on the women had all come up with the same results that Mulder had predicted. The returned women were all infertile, with their ovaries and uteruses mutilated to the point of non-recognizable. Their ova had been harvested for some purpose that Scully could not put her finger on, but she still had her doubts about aliens trying to impregante these women. Mulder's radical theory involved recycling the women. The old abductees were now barren, and had no use to them. They discarded them and traded them in for newer models. Scully remarked that it sounded like a sick version of "The First Wives Club", and Mulder just rolled his eyes. He wanted the women's DNA and ova count checked, as well as any prior records from any obstetrician or gynecologist. Mulder was upstairs, checking out the stories and logging them, as she waded through the ocean of medical information. Just as she began to type, there was a flop on the couch across from her, and there Mulder sat, his lanky limbs dangling over the sides of the couch. His posture and smirk screamed, "Shut up and do me", but Scully resisted the urge to smirk back. He had changed out of his suit and tie, and opted for the more casual grey sweatshirt and backwards Redskins hat. His jeans hugged his thighs and calves, and Scully looked him over once before reluctantly returning her eyes to her computer screen. The view of ovarian diagrams was far less appealing than the one of her partner's butt. "I can't believe you," he said, shaking his head mockingly. "You claim that I'm the work-obsessed one, but the instant that we get a sudden extension, you sit down and type." "Mm-hm," she grunted, not wanting to make eye contact with those seductive and alluring eyes. "It's snowing, Scully. When was the last time that it snowed like this in D.C.?" he asked, and she did not look up. "It snowed last year, and we were bored out of our minds," she replied. "The Blizzard of '96." Mulder rolled his eyes, and pushed the computer screen down on the laptop, forcing her to start back as he leaned into her face. "Don't you remember how it was when you were a kid? You know, the first snowflakes hit the ground, and you run downstairs to turn on the T.V., hoping that school will be cancelled... It was probably the best part of the day." Scully saw that eager, adrenaline-filled child in Fox Mulder's eager and anxious hazel eyes, waiting with great anticipation for any chance to get out of school. But she also saw that excited child whenever he pulled up any evidence of the so-called impossible, bringing it to her with hopes that she would have no explanation for what he saw or what he read, and then she had watched with a certain amount of guilt when she deflated his hopes with her pin-prick of logic. She knew that Mulder believed that she lived for poking holes in his theories. He had once accused her of memorizing the Encyclopedia Brittanica just for that particular purpose. Ironically, she had at times wished that Mulder would always be right, so that she wouldn't have to be the one to let him down. And she would have to let him down now. "Mulder, the difference is that there are lives depending on us," she said. "Our job is to recover these missing children and to figure out what is going on in Fargo. I intend on following that job through." His face fell, and he slowly stood up. "Yeah," he said, and walked out of the room, his shoulders slumped over slightly, and his eyes downcast. He shoved his hands in his pockets, and walked away. Sitting alone in the lodge, Scully tilted her head, and tried to work again. Her thoughts drifted to the downtrodden Mulder, and felt that same sense of burden and shame come over her again. She had hated to hurt his feelings, and wished that she had done something better. Putting her face in her hands, Scully groaned to herself. Great, now she was willing to slack off on her work to mess around with a bored partner. This was going all too far. Absorbed in her thoughts, Scully was startled to hear a low, long whistle as a woman entered the room. She was tall, a good three or four inches taller than Scully, with a slender figure and long legs. There were lines on her face and smile marks around her eyes, with an olive complexion, friendly brown eyes, and long, dark brown hair that was just beginning to streak through with grey threads. Clad in an Indian-print peasant dress and sandals, the woman seemed a remnant of the sixties, and she held a twelve-string acoustic guitar in her hand. "Boy, oh boy, did you see one of the F.B.I. agents?" she asked, her voice heavy with a Southern accent and brash qualities. "A real hot one. Cutest butt that I've seen in a long time." Secretly amused, Scully looked over at the ex-hippie, who was making a warm and comfortable place by the crackling fire. "Really?" she asked, and the woman tossed her thick mane of hair behind her shoulder. "Oh, yeah," she said, a wicked grin stretching across her attractive face. "I'm telling you, if I was younger, that fox would be mine." She allowed herself a grin of her own at the woman's accurate adjective to describe Scully's dashing partner. "You don't seem that old," Scully said, and the woman smiled even bigger. "Honey, I can already tell that we're going to get along," she said, her voice smooth and sultry. "I'm Lily Whiteside, high school English teacher here at Fargo High." She extended her hand for a forthright shake, and Scully gave Lily her dainty white hand. "Dana Scully, federal agent," she said, and was impressed by Lily Whiteside's reaction. The woman laughed heartily, not seeming embarrassed in the least. "Then you know that hunk?" she said, and Scully shut the computer down. This could be counted as work, she told herself. She was, after all, interviewing the teacher of some of the missing children. "Yes, he's my partner," she replied. Putting the guitar down for a moment, Lily ran her hands through her long, coarse-seeming chestnut hair. "Lucky you," she replied. "So, you're investigating all of the disappearances?" Scully nodded, and turned her attention to the bubbly teacher. She was probably an excellent role model for these kids, and was most likely a favorite teacher. "What's going on?" Shaking her head and smiling tightly, Scully answered her. "Well, Ms. Whiteside..." "No way, call me Lily," she said. "I hate it when people call me by my ex-husband's name. I always feel like I'm still married to the punk." "Okay, Lily, we don't quite know what's going on in Fargo," she said, and picked a stray piece of lint from her cerulean cashmere sweater. "We don't have a lot of information to go on." Picking up her guitar again, Lily strummed it thoughtfully. "A lot of my students have expressed a fear of being kidnapped," she said. "And there are rumors going around. Silly stuff, like mountain men with rifles, and space aliens with anal probes. You know how kids are. They're scared silly, and parents are starting to get worried, too." Scully wondered if the kids and parents had reason to be worried. Lily crossed her slender ankles over on her knee, and fingered a bell-covered musical anklet. "I just want to be able to assure the children that there's nothing to be afraid of," she said. "I don't think that there's a lot of comfort in the F.B.I." Nodding in slight agreement, Scully glanced at her guitar. "An English teacher who plays a twelve-string?" she asked, and Lily laughed, her melodic voice carrying through out the empty room. "Oh, yeah, well, everyone needs a hobby." Scully leaned forward, clasping her hands in her lap, a cool look of assessment on her petite face. "I see... and your hobby also involves checking out my partner in the Bureau?" The wicked and sly look returned to the woman's finely aging face. "Oh, yeah... about your partner, is he married?" Scully shook her head. "Great. Is he taken?" Scully paused. This was an interesting question. Mulder was, by all terms, single, but taken away by his work and his obsession with the truth. She had often wondered if Mulder had any time or any patience for love, and the answer mystified her. Would she be good enough to even begin to satisfy his thirst for truth and his sister? The answer still eluded her, changing from time to time and from case to case. Moody and mysterious, she wondered if she knew her partner as well as she thought that she did. As Lily awaited a reply, Scully looked away, and then realized what kind of spectacle she was creating. The federal agent who was supposed to be deeply involved in solving a case was instead devoting precious time to dreaming of a man that she would never have. "He's single," she said, and Lily, perceptive and analytical, nodded knowingly. "But not by your standards," she finished, and Scully was a little taken back by the English teacher's boldness. The only English teachers that she had ever had had been mild-mannered and shy, always Republicans, always the kind of little home-maker that men adored. A little homely, a little mousy... nothing like the brassy liberal that sat in front of her, plucking aimlessly at guitar strings as though they were dental floss. "I don't understand what you mean," Scully said, and Lily looked pensively at Scully. "I'm sorry, Agent Scully, but I have a knack for reading people. I always liked to believe that I held a bit of a sixth sense, but expressions are easy to interpret," Lily explained. "You obviously are more than a little protective of this guy. He should be lucky, but he doesn't recognize the fact that you're trying to keep him safe. At least, you don't think that he recognizes it." Interested, Scully rested her jaw on her fist, sitting Indian style in an imitation of Lily. "I don't think that he recognizes it?" Nodding enthusiastically, she tuned the instrument. "Oh, yeah. He knows the lengths that you go to in order to keep him a little sheltered. He's sensitive. I picked that much up from him when I passed him in the halls. That, and he smells really great," she added, and went on. "He's definitely grateful." Scully was about to go on, when she realized that she was being thrown off track by this spiritual school teacher. "I'm sorry, I'm off subject," she apologized, and Lily tilted her head, her eyes wide and innocent. "Was there a subject to begin with?" Scully supposed that there wasn't, and the woman went back to playing her guitar. Picking up her computer and her files, Dana prepared to leave her alone when she heard the woman begin to sing, her sweet voice blending in with the sounds of the warm guitar. "When I tell you that I just don't care When I'm throwing punches in the air When I'm broken down and I can't stand Would you be man enough to be my man?" The lonely agent walked away, back to the solitude and the confinement of her room. ************************************************* ************************************************* Lying on the bed, Mulder counted the cards that he had left in his hand. Solitaire was the name of the game, and Mulder was cheating so badly that Newt Gingrich would have applauded him. He was bored, and he was restless. Becoming snowbound in North Dakota had not been part of his plan, and he did not want any kind of setback on this case in particular. Ordinarily, he might have shipped he and Scully off from this place as soon as possible, but not on this one. There was something underlying this case that fit Mulder's collection of weird cases to a tee. And that factor that Mulder so adored was the one of the possible return of Samantha Mulder. Samantha... Mulder had been close before, he knew that, but this was extraordinarily close. The women that were being returned were all near Samantha's age when she had been abducted. The odds were decidedly in Mulder's favor; something that had only happened on rare occasions. Shuffling the deck aimlessly, Mulder felt a twinge of guilt for keeping Scully in Fargo. She had wanted to be home with her family for Christmas, and things weren't looking too good for such an event. Mulder had no desire to see his mother, and the only relative worth visiting was in the frozen Midwest city. He had tried to apologize in the typically cryptic fashion that he was known for, but he had a feeling that he had only managed to piss Scully off even more. Gnawing thoughtfully on his lower lip, he stood up, placing the deck of playing cards in his back jeans pocket. Mulder had a job to do, and that was to make amends with his angered partner. He hated himself for misdirecting her life, and he hated it when she was upset with him... especially when he knew that she had a right to be. Knocking on the adjoining door, Mulder ran a hand through his floppy brown hair, assuring that he looked somewhat decent when he saw her. She came to the door, a slightly annoyed look on her face. "What now, Mulder?" she asked. "I'm just in the middle of doing this work that you've given me, and now you want to come and distract me from it?" Stinging from her biting and truthful words, Mulder kept himself from flinching. "I'm sorry, Scully," he said, his voice honest. She didn't move. "Look, I know how much you wanted to see your mom this year, and I never meant to keep you from seeing her. And I didn't really mean it when I called you obsessive, either." Scully was genuinely surprised. An apology from the most stubborn and obstinate person that she had ever known? He must be bored. But the unexpected apology did reach her, and she let down her guard. The busy work that he had given her was to blame, she told herself, and bunched up a ball of fiery hair in her fist, feeling more than a little foolish. "You have something, Mulder?" she asked, and let him step into her room. He looked around sheepishly, and pulled out the pack of cards. "You know how to play poker?" ************************************************* ************************************************* SUNLIGHT FADING 3/12 by: Annie Jennings (disclaimer in part one) ************************************************* ************************************************* "Ante up. And don't be shy. Who is that man who is catching my eye? What's underneath all of the deadpan face? Sitting so pretty with a criminal grace?" --Suzanne Vega "No Cheap Thrill", Nine Objects of Desire, 1996 ************************************************* ************************************************* Three hands later, Mulder was out of twenty bucks, and Scully was smiling, quite proud of her accomplishment. Every time, she had bluffed her cards, and every time, he had fallen for it, hook, line, and sinker. Wondering if he was letting her win so that he could keep her playing, Scully presented her hand. "Full house," she said, triumphantly, drinking from a bottle of Coors. "Damn," Mulder muttered, coughing up ten bucks. "Where did you learn how to play poker, Scully? Prison?" "Yes, Mulder," she replied, the alcohol loosening her tongue a little bit. "I learned how to play from Switchblade Sally. Deal again, loser." He put down the cards, and chewed on a pretzel. She was sitting cross-legged on the hotel chair, her legs folded up as though she were practicing yoga. Titian hair framing her face with elegance and fluidity, she was extremely appealing to Mulder. Her close proximity did not help with his restraint, either. "We're probably going to be in Fargo for three days," he said, and she looked up. "That passes through Christmas. I'm sorry, Scully..." Tilting her head, she turned her attention from Mulder's guilt-filled eyes into the brown glass of her beer bottle. The odd thing about this revelation was that she was not really disappointed... Oh, sure, she had wanted to see her mother, and her brothers were coming down at last, but this meant that she had no choice but to spend Christmas with the man that she loved most: Fox Mulder. She knew that he did not celebrate Christmas, but also knew that he was not exactly the most religious man on the face of the Earth. Scully often wondered if his religion was not Judaism, but his job. Tucking a falling part of hair behind her ear, Scully smiled slightly at him. "That's all right, Mulder," she said. "Just don't keep me here past New Year's, and I'll make you make it up to me." "You name it, Scull." She would have a little fun with this one. "You have to spend Christmas with me," she said. Raising his own bottle, he tipped it against hers. "Scout's honor," he promised. ************************************************* ************************************************* Mulder walked downstairs to get something to drink for himself and for Scully before the night closed to find a slender, older woman sitting by the hearth, guitar on her knee and singing softly to herself. Her voice was as rich and as soothing as her dark, cacao bean eyes. Filling the doorway with his slender frame, he watched her play and sing the music. "If your love were taken from me Every color would be black and white It would be as flat as the world before Columbus That's the day when I lose half my sight" The guitar harmonized perfectly with the woman's alto tones, and she tapped her sandal-covered feet in time to the music. Mulder was fascinated by the way she sang, the way the firelight danced off of her ring-covered fingers, and by the beauty of the words that she rolled effortlessly off of her tongue. "If your life was taken from me All the trees would freeze in this cold ground It would be as cruel as the world before Columbus Sail to the edge and I'd be there, looking down" The music's tempo quickened, and her fingers nimbly stroked the wire strings, her voice husky and soaring at the same time. "Those men who lust for land And for riches strange and true Who love those trinkets of desire Oh they never will have you "And they'll never know the gold Or the copper in your hair How could they place the worth Of you so rare" Mellowing out once more, the musician gently picked at the strings, each sound resonating in the empty hall. "If your love were taken from me Every light that's bright would soon grow dim It would be as dark as the world before Columbus Down the waterfall and I'd swim over the brim "Those men who lust for land And for riches strange and true Who love those trinkets of desire Oh they never will have you "And they'll never know the gold Or the copper in your hair How could they place the worth Of you so rare" Mulder felt the urge to applaud, but had no time to do so before the singer stood up and brazenly put the guitar down, taking two swooping curtsies. Mulder obligingly clapped, and the older woman smiled even broader, causing a sly smile to stretch its way over Mulder's face. "Oh, thank you so much," she said, beaming at him with the full power of her white smile. "Usually, I have to settle for a pimply-faced bellhop to applaud me. Now, check out my audience. An improvement by far." Her voice was flirtatious and joking, and Mulder appreciated the change of pace. He gave a humbled shrug, and extended his hand for her to shake. "Fox Mulder, FBI," he introduced, and the woman arched her eyebrow. "How appropriate," she remarked, and flashed him a grin to show that she was just kidding around with him. "Lily Whiteside. I teach English at the high school. Call me Lily." "Call me Mulder," he said, and there was a flicker of wry amusement in those expressive eyes. "Did you teach any of the abducted children?" "Your partner already asked me that, only *she* didn't use the term 'abducted'," Lily said, her voice interested. "Can you tell me, Mulder, why that is that you seem to share a completely different point of view on this?" Stuffing his hands into his pockets, Mulder assessed Lily. She was sharp, very perceptive, which he supposed came from teaching public high school these days. She was also very suspicious and rather paranoid. Not a trait that he minded. And there was a definite concern for her missing pupils that was quite admirable. "All right, I believe that there is considerable evidence that points to a chain abduction," he said. Lily raised her dark eyebrows. "Abduction by who?" she inquired. Mulder shook his head, and turned to leave. "Abduction by what," he corrected, and left the woman to mull over his explanation as he picked up two piping hot mugs of herbal tea. One for Scully, and one for him. As Mulder carried the ceramic mugs upstairs, a dark-eyed busboy watched him carefully from the shadows, a slow smile spreading across his face. ************************************************* ************************************************* Tylenol had become a staple in the shopping list of Dana Scully, and she certainly needed one right about now. Migraines followed her with surprising regularity, and she knew that this was another symptom of the growing tumor in her sinus cavity. The powerful pills packed a much-needed therapeutic touch, and she popped open the child proof cap. Just then, there was a knock at the door, and she called to the only person that she knew would answer. "It's open," she signaled, and Mulder sauntered in, bearing a warm, steaming mug of herbal tea that wafted across the room to her. "Brought you something to help you through the night," he said. "It's addictive, I swear. Worse than nicotine." She arched her eyebrow. "How would you know, Mulder?" she asked, and he gave her his usual look of boyish innocence in response. "Rumors, Scully, rumors," he said, and she gave an understanding nod. His sharp eyes trailed a path to the open bottle of Tylenol, and he met her gaze, worry lines appearing around the hooded orbs. "You feeling okay?" Hastily, Scully shook her head, using her old cover that never fooled Mulder one bit. "Oh, the computer screen just gives me headaches," she lied, and she could tell by the wariness in his eyes that her lies were not working in the slightest. But she held still to her fib, and he refused to break that hopefulness in her china-colored eyes. Anything to keep her happy. He put the mug on her desk, next to her keyboard, and he lightly stroked the side of her bobbed red hair, ruffling the vermillion strands with his long, thin fingers. His hand lingered there for a moment, and as he moved it away, silky strands had entwined themselves around his palm, as though they were clinging to his skin in magnetic comfort and attraction. His touch lined fire down to the nape of her neck at his velveteen caress. "Sleep well," he breathed, and walked out of the room, agonizingly peeling his eyes from her beautiful form, sitting huddled over the computer with the tell-tale bottle of medicine at her side. The sound of the door closing was painfully loud in the near-silent room, and it added a seal of finality on her lonely life. Reaching a tremulous hand up to the slightly mussed wisps of hair, Scully lightly breezed over them, hoping to kindle some of the sparks that his gentle touch had ignited in her fiery hair, smiling softly and sadly to herself. ************************************************* ************************************************* Standing before a full-length mirror, Lily Whiteside studied her appearance with an astute eye. She was still slender, and still lovely, with chocolate-colored eyes that carried with them the essential warmth and comfort of hot cocoa. Her skin was just beginning to wrinkle pleasantly about the eyes and mouth, created from years of broad smiles and those few lines from cigarettes and marijuana from her hippie years. Turning, she admired her still taut and firm body. She had not permitted an ounce of flab to enter her torso or behind, and her breasts were still young. Lily could afford to gain a few pounds, and then she could always easily lose the weight. Of course, she was not as thin as a rail like the attractive red-headed agent that she had met, but she was still curvy and rather voluptuous. Running her hands over her flat tummy, Lily smiled, approving of the way that she looked at forty-seven. In her days, she had seen quite a few things happen. The revolution of the American youth had been a part of Lily's life. She had been to Woodstock, and had burned incense and peppermint with the rest of her flower child generation. Sex, drugs, and classic rock and roll had dominated Lily's teen years, and the last part of her former motto still remained with her. She had a passion for Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, and the Rolling Stones, and had learned to play the guitar just so that she could belt out "Blowing in the Wind" like Joan Baez. It was saddening to her how much older she had gotten. Her twenty-fifth high school reunion had been a disappointment for the poor flower child, and her life had turned out even sadder. Her high school boyfriend, the sexy and dangerously cute Phil, had lost all of his hair and wore some sad excuse for a toupee. Lily swore that Phil had run over an opossum and stuck it on his skull with crazy glue. The life of Lily Susan Haynsworth Whiteside had been a wild ride, and she had stuck on the roller-coaster with the expectation that the drop would come later on in life. She had married the first man that had asked her, Daniel Whiteside of the College of Charleston. Daniel had turned out to love alcohol more than his wife, and had beaten her badly when she finally called it quits and divorced him. Growing up as a debutante in the South during a time when possessions were considered evil had been difficult for the rebellious Lily, and she had always been expected to grow up to become a lawyer or a business woman. Actually, for a while, she had been a wealthy executive, but a miserable one, too. Her love was for children, children that she could never have. One night, Daniel had come home soaked in martinis, and had hit his pregnant wife in the stomach with a baseball bat. The same wooden bat that Daniel had bought with the jubilation of a hopeful father for a son that he killed. The damage that the miscarriage had done to her uterus prevented Lily from ever having more children, and she had hated Daniel for what he had done. And then what he had done about her sister... Helen's last days... Shortly after her divorce to Daniel, Lily became a high school English teacher in Fargo, North Dakota. With little money to support herself after her father's death and her husband's lost alimony, she was forced to give up a formerly rich lifestyle for that of a teacher's salary. From princess to pauper, Lily had become a true flower child at forty-six. Such a turbulent ride had finally reached a downfall when the children began to disappear. The night before the first one left, Lily had had a nightmarish premonition about the consequences that might stem out from this incident. She had dreams of more children to follow, of someone dying at her hands, and of meeting two spirits to change her life forever. Lily had reason enough to believe that Scully and her partner were those spirits. She sat down, and ran her hand through her mass of black hair, shaking out every last strand until not one defiant tangle remained. "So much for winter break," she muttered, and drank from her tea until it was empty, and she fell, unconscious to the ground. ************************************************* ************************************************* The storm raged through the night, covering the ground with a blanket of snow and ice, ensuring that the agents and the teacher would not leave the hotel. All three slept without waking, while the storm pounced upon its prey. During the night, the hotel staff was evacuated, leaving Mulder, Scully, and Lily snowbound and helpless until the storm subsided. They were completely abandoned. While Mulder and Lily slept peacefully, Lily on the carpet of her floor and Mulder half-dressed on the easy-chair, Scully tossed and turned, a headache lingering and nightmares thrusting her thin body about the bed. Dreams of blinding snow, blinding snow... Of men in black causing blackness... Abstract images... Sunlight fading, sunlight fading, sunlight fading... Knowing not what these flashes meant, she was left to writhe in the king-sized bed without refuge in consciousness. Lily Whiteside was the first one of them to wake up, and she did so with a pounding headache. Her vision was a little blurry, fogged with the heavy aftermath of a deep sleep. "What the hell..." she muttered, pulling herself to her feet. The tea mug lay shattered in ceramic fragments at her sandal-covered feet, and she was veiled in a thin sheet of sweat. The room was baking her. Rubbing her head and discovering a slight bump from her fall, Lily walked to a mirror and looked at herself. There were tell-tale circles under her eyelids, and a redness to them that came with either alcohol abuse or what she was dreading. Her mouth was dry, and she walked to the sticky remains of the mug. Bringing one shard to her sharp nose, Lily took a whiff. "Oh, God," she whispered. Pacing the room, Lily contemplated her options. The drug in the tea was not dangerous, really... it was just a harmless herbal tranquilizer, one that only knocked someone out for ten to twelve hours. She knew the drug well from working on Indian reservations, but there was still the question as to why she had been drugged. It couldn't have been Dana Scully, could it? How about her strikingly brooding partner? No... Lily suspected something worse. Never had she felt so confused or so alone. Gusts of dusty snowflakes swirled around her window, and she shivered from the fear of the blizzard and of the drug. The next to wake up was Mulder, his gangly legs hanging off the side of the chair, his pants only half-way removed. Groaning from stiff joints, he sat up and rubbed his head. "Great," he muttered, and kicked the offending jeans off the rest of the way. The clock read ten, and the snow was building up outside. The blizzard was surrounding the lodge, providing little of a view for him. The wake-up call that he had requested never came through, and he noted this with mild irritation. Rubbing the sleep from his lashes, Mulder yawned slightly. He never slept like that without being woken up by his own subconscious. His mouth felt as dry as a desert, and he went to turn the water on. Glancing in the mirror, Mulder winced. He looked like hell. Stubble shadowed his face from the night before, and his eyes were red-rimmed and watery. There was sweat staining the collar and sleeves of his shirt, and he wiped perspiration from his brow. Shit, Mulder felt like hell, too. After a long shower, Mulder felt ten times better, and pulled on a clean pair of jeans and a grey cotton tee-shirt, as well as thick socks and Nikes. Wondering how his partner was, he walked across the hall to her room. He knocked on the door, but got no reply. "Scully?" he called, and tried the door. Funny, it was unlocked, too. He opened it up and sharply took in his breath. His heart skipped a beat, and the world spun around him. Mulder was feeling faint at the scene that was set up. Dana lay in bed on her side, her red hair spilling out on to a pillow. There, the crimson mingled with another shade of crimson. Scully's blood. Her entire pillow was splashed liberally from it, and there were small fountains of it that gushed from her left nostril. "Oh, my God," Mulder gasped, and he dashed to her side. The sound of the silence in the room was deafening, and it pounded in his ears as he shook her thin, too thin, shoulder. One spare thought escaped him, and it echoed in his head. <> But the mouth that hung slightly open, also colored with her blood, was pushing out small heaves of air. She was alive still, and Mulder's fear lowered slightly. "Scully, wake up," he urged. "Scully..." Stirring uncertainly, she sat up, and immediately noticed that the front of her green silk pajamas were soaked in blood. "Oh, shit," she muttered, and he thrust his arms around her, hugging her tightly to him to her immense surprise. His embrace was so firm that she was unable to catch her breath. She would never understand how terrified he had been for that moment. As irrational as it may have seemed, he had thought that she was dead, and the horror of such an idea was too real to him. The beginning of the end had been his only thoughts, and he would never have forgiven himself if he had walked in and found her still corpse instead of her live body, trapped in a deep sleep. "I'm okay, Mulder," she protested, and he finally released her, uncaring of the fact that the blood that had been running and drying on her pajamas and collarbone was now splattered across the front of his tee-shirt. Keeping his arms loosely encircling her spine, he looked seriously and painfully at her. "Don't scare me like that," he said, his voice gruff with suppressed emotion. "Jesus, Scully, why didn't you wake up?" As he spoke, he was rapidly handing her Kleenex to wipe the blood from her face and body. "I don't know, Mulder," she admitted. "I never sleep in like this... Could you get me some water? I'm parched." Funny, but he never slept like that, either, and when he woke up that morning, he was thirsty, too. There was something odd going on, when he noticed that there was a mug of tea by her bedside. "Did you drink that last night?" he asked, still worried over her bleeding nose. When she nodded, he picked up the cup. He had had the same tea, and had drunken about the same amount. "I had this tea, too, Scully, and I fell asleep standing up. I woke up with the same complaints that you did... minus the um, well..." The difficulty of him saying "nosebleed" was heart-rendering, and she waved it off. "You mean that we could have been drugged?" she asked, and Mulder nodded. "That's an interesting suspicion, Mulder, but who would have done it?" The door creaked open, and there stood a colorfully-dressed and frenzied looking Lily Whiteside. Her eyes widened at the blood on the bed and at the tissue at Scully's nose. "Oh, my God, what happened here?" she asked, and the flustered female agent shook her head. "Nothing, everything's under control," Scully assured her. Lily was not convinced, but didn't know what else to say. The short-statured woman's nose was bleeding as though she had just finished a skirmish with Mike Tyson, and lost miserably. "The humidity," she explained, and this time there was a sharp look from Mulder. She had gotten too good at making excuses for something more serious than she let on. "Uh-huh," Lily said, still not thrown over by the lie. "The hotel staff is gone. They left over the night. I checked the rooms, the garage... Everyone's gone except for the three of us." Furrowing his brow, Mulder shook his head. "Why would they leave during a blizzard?" Mulder asked, and Lily shrugged, her cocoa-colored eyes wide and startled by the abandonment and by the blood in the room. "I don't know, but I woke up this morning to find that my tea was drugged," she said, her voice grated with irritation. Scully threw a quick glance at Mulder, and turned her attention back to Lily. "You say that your tea was drugged?" she asked, and the brunette nodded. "How did you know?" "I used to work on a Navajo reservation in New Mexico, Agent Scully," she explained. "I learned a great deal about the medicines and herbs used to heal and to induce sleep. We used this particular tranquilizer as a sedative for injuries, like setting broken bones and such." Mulder's hand strayed to cup Scully's perfectly shaped elbow, and she gave him a quick glance, a little startled and embarrassed by his overprotective nature. "But why would Scully have such a violent reaction?" he asked, and Lily paused, racking her memory. "We once had a reaction like this," she recalled. "Kaleb, who also taught at the reservation, had a tooth-ache, and the medicine woman, Resada, used the drug on him as a form of anesthesia. He had a violent nosebleed, like yours, but that was the extent of the damage." She bowed her head for a moment, and the words that she spoke next filled the silence surrounding the two with the power and dread before them. "Kaleb later died of a tumor. I suppose that the medicine just reacted with the cancer oddly." Mulder noticed with a pang in his heart that her head dropped slightly when Lily relayed her memories, and his hand supporting her elbow tightened, keeping one supportive arm cast around her shoulder with a protective air. "Oh," she said, her voice low, and Lily's curiousity was peaked by the hushed tones in the woman's words, as well as the shadows in Mulder's eyes. Lily tactfully interrupted the tense silence with her words. "We're truly snowbound, guys," she said, her words conversational and friendly. "I don't have any plans for tonight, even though it is Christmas Eve. I'm what you call a loner, you know?" She waved her hands in a flutter-by fashion, and laughed heartily. Mulder found himself reluctantly grinning at the woman's outspoken and genial mood. "Look at me, going on and on like this. You've probably got work to do, or something that I can't see, you know how it is..." She gave a conspiratorial wink to a slightly brightening Scully, and Mulder was pleased to know that this bubbly woman was cheering up Scully's dull spirits. There was jealousy in the knowledge that she was doing something he had been unable to acheive, but the carefree and lackadaisical air was something that was not really Mulder's forte. "No, I think that we need to be close by," Scully said, giving a glance to Mulder and then one to Lily. "There's obviously someone or something out there that does not like our investigation, and I don't like the thought of somebody drugging our drinks or breaking into our rooms. Lily, stay in your room and don't let anyone in unless Agent Mulder or I clearly identify ourselves." Lily nodded, and gave one last concerned look to Scully. "Are you sure that you're all right, Agent Scully?" she asked, and Scully nodded, throwing away a blood-stained tissue. "Just fine," she promised, and Mulder gave her a look of absolute concern and sadness that Lily's heart was torn in two. There was something here that she had never seen before, and something more to both of them that she had never witnessed before. It was utterly and completely unique to them alone. Without saying anything else, Lily Whiteside retreated to her room with curiousity brimming inside of her. Once Lily had left, Scully felt the tension between them creep back in with the nearness of his body and the hangdog look in his sweet brown-green eyes. "I'm really all right, Mulder," she said, and did not try to bowl him over with a half lie. "The tranquilizer reacted with me, that's all. I've had worse." She winced mentally when she said that, knowing that it was the absolute worst thing that she could ever have said to him. Letting him into that newly found aspect of being Dana Scully could only serve to disturb and unsettle him further. Needless to say, Mulder's eyes were full of surprise and concern, and he looked over at the reddened and ruined pillowcase and sheets with distress. "Worse than this, Scully?" he asked, his voice eerily calm. Keeping his face so near to hers, he shook his head, mournfully. "How long has it been going on, Scully? How bad do they get?" Pulling away from his embrace, Scully stood up, and crossed her arms over her chest. "Mulder, I'm fine." Three words that he had grown too accustomed to hearing from her, always knowing that they weren't really true. "I have work to do." After a fleeting and pleading glance at her, he started on his way out as Scully opened up her computer. Just before he closed the door on her, she called out his name. "Mulder, come here!" she said, and he turned on his heel to go back to her. She pointed to the screen, and there was surprise in her eyes. "All of the files... they're gone. Someone came in and erased the case from my computer." "Shit," he cursed. "That's why we were drugged, Scully. To make sure that we wouldn't wake up when they came in to cover up their latest mistakes. There's definitely something sinister going on here, something more than what it appears to be. How much do you have left?" Shaking her head, Scully pulled out one blue disk. "I copied only two of the files on to the disk before the tea knocked me out," she said, regret apparent in her voice. "I'm waiting for an E-mail from the crime lab on pieces of shrapnel placed in the women's bodies," she said. Mulder perked some at this. "What shrapnel?" he asked, and she turned around to face him. "During the medical examination of the returned women, small pieces of what appeared to be metal were found in the women's ovaries and uteruses," she explained. "The shrapnel seemed to have some sort of serial code on them, and I sent them down to Agent Kerrison to have him determine what they meant. I'm expecting a reply soon." Nodding, Mulder walked away. "Wait for that E-mail," he instructed. "I'm going to check out the hotel staff and see if there were any recent employees. Make some copies of those files. I don't like the way that this is turning out." As soon as Mulder left her, Scully walked to the mirror and looked in it. The reflection was one that she had grown used to seeing. A woman with tousled hair, crusted with drying blood, and a ruby-stained pajama top. She had ruined many sleep wear shirts in this same manner over the course of the past few months, and the truth was that many of them had been in a worse condition than this one. Nosebleeds were a common way of life, and Scully had taken to carrying around a small box of tissues in her suit pocket, as she now thought of purses as a burden when working with Mulder. Wetting a washcloth, she began the tedious process of washing the rusty blood off of her face. ************************************************* ************************************************* SUNLIGHT FADING 4/12 by: Annie Jennings (disclaimer in part one) ************************************************* ************************************************* Hours passed, and the storm only raged on. The power remained a constant that both agents and the school mistress were grateful for. Scully had taken a couple of Tylenol 3 pills, and had dozed off in front of the computer screen as she waited for the small "ping", letting her know that Kerrison had replied to her mail. In Mulder's room, he stretched his long and trim body out on the bed and read through the recent hiring files of the Eagle Lodge. Nothing but, as Lily had said, pimply-faced teenagers looking for money to buy a cheap Buick or Volkswagen. As he sorted through the files, a knock sounded at the door. He jumped, startled for a moment, and heard the Southern voice of Lily Whiteside. "Agent Mulder?" she asked, and he walked to the door, undoing the lock. Lily was waiting outside, her cocoa butter eyes focusing on his paper-covered bed. "I'm sorry to disturb you, Mulder, but I have to ask you something," she apologized, and he shook his head, rubbing the back of his head. "No, I wasn't that busy," he promised her, and Lily shifted her weight from one Indian-sandaled foot to the other. "I wanted to know... Is Agent Scully sick?" she asked, and Mulder was numbed by the question, thrown. "I just wanted to know. The nosebleed that she had wasn't from humidity, nor was it from the drug, was it?" Mulder hated giving out information about Scully, and respected her privacy even more than he respected his. He shook his head, and started to close the door on the folk singer. "I'm not at my leisure to release any information about my partner," he said. "You'll have to ask Scully herself." But with one firm and unwavering hand, she stopped the door from closing. Damned if *he* was going to shut her out. "It's brain cancer, isn't it?" she demanded. "A ferengital mass in her sinus cavity." The medical terms that flew out of the Southern woman were startling. She had just given the complete and cold medical diagnosis of Dana Scully's slow and precise murderer. He slowed, turning back around to her. "How did you know that?" he asked, his voice low. Lily's eyes clouded. "My sister, Helen, had the same thing," she revealed. "She had been missing for three months, and about two years after she returned, with only a few memories of a white light and syringes, she had the same cancer in her brain." Lily looked down, her voice growing soft and halting. "She died about five years ago." Mulder looked down with new sympathy for her. "I'm sorry," he said, and she looked up sympathy for him in her eyes. "I'm sorry, too," she said, and Mulder realized that Lily had been in the same boat that he was in now. She had lost someone that she had loved a great deal, and now Mulder was in the position to lose the only woman he had ever loved with a full and honest heart. Lily knew how he felt, and why he felt that way. Scully had met the Allentown women, and had known those in her situation. She had witnessed Penny Northern's death, and he had been there, trying to understand how she felt, and trying to offer whatever comfort that he could. All the time, his heart wrenched with the thought of one day losing her. Lily could identify with the emotional struggle that Mulder was going through. "She seems like a remarkable woman," Lily said, wisely. Mulder did not meet her eyes, and the beginnings of a small, melancholy smile curled his lips. "She is," he murmured, and Lily caught that strain of heartbreak in his voice. Putting her hand on his shoulder, she squeezed a muscle there, giving her support. "You're lucky to have this time with her, and I think that she's lucky to have this time with you. Make her happy, Mulder. I never got to see my sister before she died, and the one thing that I regret was that she died alone." There was a wise sadness in her brown eyes. "She deserved more than what I gave her. Make sure that Scully gets all that she deserves from you." Without anything else, Lily walked back to her room, her head hanging low and sad. Mulder watched after the woman, wondering as to how she had known everything he had felt from just one look into his eyes. Did he truly wear his "heart on his sleeve"? Sighing, Mulder walked back to the bed, and picked up the next file. The photograph drained Mulder of his color, and he felt like balling the paper up and burning it. "Krycek," he muttered, his tone low and sinister. "The son of a bitch." At that moment, there came another knock at the door, accompanied by Scully identifying herself. "Mulder, let me in!" she said. "I got a reply from the lab." He walked over to join her, and she passed him some printed sheets of paper. She had showered, and wore a flattering blue crewneck sweater. Her gold crucifix glittered in the hollow of her throat, and she tucked a strand of shining red hair behind her left ear. "The shrapnel wasn't shrapnel," she said, pointing to close-up photographs. "They were meticulously placed implants. The same sort of implants that Duane Barry had. The same sort of implant that I found placed in my neck. The crime lab can't determine what kind of material the implants are made out of, but Kerrison did say this: the implants were made in the United States." His eyes widening with every single shot, he shook his head, in awe. "My God, Scully, we did this to ourselves," he whispered. "These women were abducted by the same laws meant to keep them safe." "Mulder, we might have stumbled on to one of the most meticulate and best-concealed conspiracies of the twentieth century," she said. "And someone is desperately trying to ensure that we never uncover it," he finished, and the partners shared a long, powerful gaze. "So much for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Shaking her head, she looked at the paper in his hand. "Is that Alex Krycek, Mulder?" she asked, stunned, and Mulder nodded, returning to his own find. "Krycek applied for a job here," he muttered. "He was the one who drugged our tea, and he was the one who erased your files. It was Krycek all along, Scully. Only this applicant was named Ralph Emerson, and Ralph here is missing his left arm. He wears a prosthetic one." Blinking rapidly, Scully looked down. "Oh, my God, he is," she remarked, and she continued to keep her eyes on Mulder. "What is going on around here?" Before he could reply, the lights turned out, plunging the partners into complete darkness. Reflexively, Mulder reached for Scully, and the lightning flashing outside of the hotel illuminated the room for seconds, allowing Mulder to catch glimpses of his startled and anxious partner. "Jesus!" he uttered, and scampered for his flashlight during the flickers of blue and gold light. Groping for it, he quickly switched it on, shining it around the room. Aura-like bursts of blue and violet flashed as the light danced around. Lily pounded on the door, and called out to him. "Mulder! Mulder, there's someone in the hotel!" she cried, and he rushed to the door, unlocking it and practically throwing her in the room. Her eyes were wide with fear, and he took out the gun from his drawer. "Take this and get in your room," he instructed. "Hide in the closet, lock the doors. If anyone other than Scully and I enter the room, don't hesitate to shoot them." Lily looked panicked. "But I can't shoot anyone!" she protested. In the background, Scully was racing around the room, picking up whatever warm clothing that she could find. Hats, gloves, scarves, sweaters... Mulder knew what she was doing, and was impressed by her quick reaction. "You'd better learn," he said briskly, and brought her to her room, locking her inside before leaving. He heard the footsteps below him. Three, maybe four men. His hand strayed to his gun, and he ran through the darkened halls to the bedroom where Scully was hurriedly throwing on layers of his sweaters, putting two pairs of warm socks around her hands. Tossing him his own pile of warm clothing, she pulled his Knicks cap over her smooth red hair. "Hurry, Mulder," she warned, and he followed suit, hearing the voices and the footsteps growing nearer with every passing second. "Jesus," she whispered, and the heavily-clothed agents ran out of the room and into the halls. "Search the hotel's perimeters!" Splitting up, Mulder braved the cold outdoors with his weapon drawn and ready to fire at any sight of something suspicious. The ice and snow blasted him, and he winced at the chill that coursed through his body. Covering his face with his arms and squinting through the white haze, Mulder paced his steps carefully, approaching the automobile with precision and drawn firearm. ************************************************* ************************************************* Dana kept her gun raised, her eyes darting through the halls. The voices, hushed whispering voices, seemed to be coming from the direction of the kitchen. Praying to God that they hadn't gotten to Lily, she looked for a way to get down there without being detected. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the perfect escape route. The dumbwaiter led to the kitchen, and she was just small enough to fit to into the cramped, enclosed area. Scully opened up the door to the dumbwaiter, and fit her compact body inside, crouching up and in the process, cramped up her muscles. "Shit," she muttered, and had barely enough room to keep her weapon drawn. Resting the Smith and Wesson on her lap, she worked the controls of the tiny elevator, pulling the lever so that she could get into the kitchen. Oiled well, the dumbwaiter allowed her to operate it without anyone hearing her, and she gritted her teeth as she sent herself down. It lived on electricity, and she hoped that the machine wouldn't break under her meager weight. The dumbwaiter stopped, and Scully had reached her destination. Yes, they were in the kitchen, and they sounded as though they were splitting up. Three men; she could hear them. Their voices were cold, and they spoke in whispers. "Check the upstairs," one man murmured. "Hit the agents' rooms, and the teacher's room, too. Make it fast, too." "Yah," another said, and there was the sound of one pair of footsteps exiting the room. "I'm going to stay down in the kitchen. Agent Mulder's out by the car, the bastard..." This was a voice that Scully knew all too well. Alex Krycek, the son of a bitch. She would love to kill him if possible, and hand the traitor's head on a silver platter to Mulder, a la John the Baptist and Salome. "You stay here. I'm going to go get that mother fucker if it's the last goddamn thing that I do." Her heart leapt into her throat, and she had to swallow it again, as always. Oh, God, Mulder had better be careful. She had to get out there as soon as possible, but she had some work to do first. There was the sound of Krycek walking away, and Scully waited for a moment before opening up the door to the dumbwaiter. She did so slowly, with cool and unwavering hands, though her heart was pounding in her chest. There was one man dressed in warm winter clothes, his back turned to her. Raising the gun, Scully aimed, and fired. The bullet shattered the back of the man's skull, blasting his brains over the kitchen counter in bloody gray remnants of thought. His head gushed blood like a geyser, and he slumped to the ground. She crawled out of the dumbwaiter, and took the man's high-powered firearm, complete with silencer, from his hand. The Sig Sauer that he wielded was more powerful than the small pistol that she had taken from Mulder's room, and she wanted to make sure that she was properly equipped for a raid on the small hotel. ************************************************* ************************************************* Creeping toward the car, Mulder felt his hat blow off, and he did nothing to stop his steady path to his goal. His breath froze with crystals like frost, and he was painfully cold. Mulder was almost there... The snow that crunched beneath his boots grew only thicker. Placing his glove-covered hand on the handle of the car, Mulder started to open it before he heard the click of the hammer behind him. "You son of a bitch," Mulder muttered. "Well, it looks as though we meet again, Mulder," came the arrogant, snide voice of Alex Krycek. "Trying to hot-wire my car? Turn around, you asshole." Slowly, Mulder pivoted to find Krycek standing there, a sinister smile on his still handsome face. Krycek wielded the weapon with his right arm, and his left hung lifelessly at his side. "How you doing, Lefty?" Mulder asked, and the remark hit home. "Fuck off, Mulder," Krycek shot. "You have no business here. Get out of Fargo, and take that walking corpse you call your partner with you." Krycek's cruel words whipped Mulder's heart, and he leapt forward, knocking the gun out of Krycek's hands, forcing the gun to fire as it fell into the snow. The bullet hit no one, and the men began to wrestle in the snow as Scully ran into the drive. ************************************************* ************************************************* Huddled in the closet, Lily Whiteside prayed for her life. How had she gotten into all of this? She had come to Fargo to make high hopes, a new start. She had come here to help the children that she loved, and to help mold an enlightened and intelligent future. Instead, she was curled up in a dark closet, wielding a gun that she had no idea how to fire. Footsteps echoed outside of her door, and she heard a gun go off downstairs. Stifling a scream, Lily shook with terror. She heard the sound of a door being kicked in, and her eyes widened, her skin as pale as paper. "Oh Jesus oh Jesus oh Jesus," she whispered, her speed increasing as the footsteps grew nearer and nearer to her closet door. Just as the door opened, Lily Whiteside, Southern high school English teacher and flower child of 1969, aimed the Smith and Wesson at the assassin and fired, killing him with only two shots. Dropping the weapon, Lily cried out softly, and tears streamed down her face. She had killed the first person in her life, and she felt no regret for what she had done. What kind of person did this make her? Jumping with sharp, jerky steps over the corpse, she walked to her window and looked down below her. There was Mulder, walking through the swirling snow to what seemed to be a car. Another dark shape was moving toward him, gun drawn. "Oh, God," she whispered, and the lights came back on in the hotel, flooding her room with false sunlight. Seeking a way to calm herself, Lily picked up her twelve-string guitar and sat on her bed, plucking out the notes as her fingers and voice stopped shaking, settling into a rhythm that she was afraid to leave. Wrapping herself in comfort and solace, Lily's voice rang out true and beautiful. "You're mothers' child But night lays you down Hair aflame, wild look in your eye Naked belly to the ground" Outside, Krycek slugged Mulder in the face, but Mulder leapt back, dodging Krycek's good right fist. Scully ran to the men, but before she knew it, Krycek had taken to attacking her, using his prosthesis to lash the gun out of her slender hand. Crying out in pain, Scully clutched her injured hand as snowflakes attached themselves to her bright red hair, decorating the crimson with delicate white stars. Lily played on, her voice low and ominous. "A forest fire Nibbles at your veins Crawls up your arm Runs away with your mind And burns dry thoughts like leaves "Amen..." As Mulder was knocked to the snow, the chill ripping through his layers of clothing and biting his face, Lily's voice soared. "Eyes stare up But something's in the way In the Bible Only angels have wings And the rest must wait to be saved" Krycek's eyes sought something to attack the regathering agents with, and his calculating eyes caught sight of a pile of firewood. Running towards it, his arm limply flapping in the winds. Mulder pulled himself out of the snowdrift, the wind blowing his rich mahogany hair in the weather. "A dry tongue Screams at the sky But the wind Just breathes words in As a strange bird tries to fly..." Scully saw the log in his hand first, and ripped off the socks from her hand. With a heave, she clawed Krycek's face, leaving five bloody slashes down his near-perfect face. Howling with pain, Krycek started to swing the log at Scully, her eyes widening with fear and terror as the heavy object threatened to make a connection with her skull. "Amen..." But just before the log hit her, Fox Mulder leapt in front of the log, his cry of "Dana!" ringing through the desolate lands. The log meant for Scully hit Mulder with full force in the back of his head, and Scully screamed, her heart bleeding with the back of her beloved's head. "NO!" The last thing that he saw before losing consciousness was the intensity and the clarity of Dana Scully's crystalline blue eyes. Krycek saw his chance, and got in the car, speeding away from the scene with no thought as to the injured agents that he had left in the snow. Lily's voice grew hushed and soft, emotion swelling in her voice as Scully cradled her partner in her arms. "Pieces of us die everyday As though our flesh were hell Such injustice As children we are told That from God we fell" "Mulder..." she whispered, her voice hoarse and haggard. The threads of silken brown were mingled with the blood that Krycek's board had drawn, and the stickiness of it clung to her small palm. His head lolled back, and she clutched him to her, starting to cry in spite of herself. "Mulder!" The tears froze on her face, like diamonds. "Where are my angels? Where's my golden one? Where is my hope now That my heroes have gone? Some are being beaten, Some are being born And some can't tell the difference anymore" The snow swirled around her, creating a fog from star-shaped snowflakes, and it slowed, the winds calming, leaving a light mist of whispering snow on the weeping Dana and on the still form of Fox Mulder, his breath barely clouding the frigid sky. "Amen Amen Amen..." The snow fell in sad droplets of moonbeams as she dragged him into the hotel, glittering icicles of salty tears coating her cheeks and lips, and Lily Whiteside stopped playing the guitar as the sunlight was fading. ************************************************* ************************************************* SunlightFading2.htmlSunlight Fading - Continued 5/12 by: Annie Jennings Auralissa@aol.com (disclaimer in part one) ************************************************* ************************************************* Urgency interrupted her, and Lily turned to see Scully dragging Mulder's limp body on the ground. "Lily, help me out here!" she said, desperation apparant, and Lily abandoned her instrument, going to the limp agent. "Oh, my God," she whispered, and Scully gave her a despairing look. "He's alive, but he was hit in the head," she said, her voice harried and breathless from carrying such a heavy weight. "They're gone, Lily. They won't come back, I don't think. Help me with him." The women put Mulder on Lily's bed, and Scully started removing layers of his clothing as Lily ran for a washcloth to staunch the bleeding in the back of Mulder's head. Scully sat down and braced the cloth against the wound, applying pressure carefully. He moaned, and she swept a hand over his brow. "Shh..." she whispered. "It's all right, Mulder." Mulder's eyes fluttered open, and they darted about, blankly. "Scully?" he sputtered, and she looked into the familiar green orbs. Her stomach plunged when she realized something. They were empty, vacant. Nothing was there. "Scully..." "I'm here, Mulder, I'm here," she said, her voice soothing. He blinked his eyes rapidly, and his breath quickened. "I can't see you, Scully!" he croaked, and she felt frozen with his revelation. "I can't see anything... it's all blank..." Frantically, Scully pressed her hand to his forehead, checking for a fever. There was none that she could tell, and she couldn't understand as to why Mulder couldn't see. Then, she thought of the wooden log that Krycek had slammed him with. The back of his head... Oh, God, oh no... "Lily, come here," Scully beckoned, and the woman followed, handing Scully a new washcloth to replace the bloody one that she took from Mulder's head. "Look at the wound on the back of his head." Lily examined it. "Yes..." "Could the hit have been direct enough to sever the nerves that control his sight?" she asked. Lily shrugged at first, her mouth open in an unspoken "I don't know", and Scully closed her eyes. "It was, oh, Jesus, it was..." she whispered, her tongue feeling thick and heavy in her mouth as she spoke the dreaded words. "Krycek blinded him, he blinded him, the goddamn son of a bitch *blinded* him..." Putting her head in her hands, she felt the room spin around her. What would she do? What would he do? What was going to happen to them? Oh, God, he couldn't be blind, he just *couldn't* be. Hearing Mulder's voice, sane, rational, and small, she was brought out of her nausea and her hatred. "Blind?" he asked, his voice no more than a whimper. Turning her attention back to him, she shook her head, and was stung again. He couldn't see the calming motion that was so often used to him. Stroking his hair with her hands, she pressed the cloth to the blood. "I don't know, Mulder," she said, honestly. "Just rest. There'll be a concussion. Go to sleep, please, go to sleep." Closing his eyes and entering a new kind of blindness, Mulder spoke to her once more, breaking her heart with his words. "Don't go, Scully," he pleaded, and she wished that there was more that she could do other than sit there, holding back tears like mad, her hands sweeping his hair, her mouth hung open. She had no words to offer, nothing other than the touch of her hands on his brow and the sound of her voice. "I'm not going to leave you," she promised. Silently, she put an addition to that sentence. <> He fell asleep, and Lily had her hand clasped over her mouth, stricken and broken-hearted. She felt immense pity toward the sightless man and the shattered woman, and watched from her corner as Scully gently, tenderly, caressed his feathery brown hair, fingering the satiny chestnut strands with graceful, light fingers, her other hand pressed against the bleeding wound that might take away his sight forever. "He's asleep," she confirmed, and Lily walked to her closet, bringing out various jars and bottles. Mixing some of the compounds together, she made what seemed to be a pulpy and fragrant medicinal broth. "This will help with the bump and the pain," Lily promised. Scully took the wooden bowl, and brought it to his parted lips. Cupping his chin with her hand, letting the cloth rest behind his neck, she opened his mouth the rest of the way and poured the liquid down his throat. As he downed the medicine, she gently stroked his jaw. "I'm so sorry, Mulder," she whispered, but he did not hear her, unconscious already. Leaning on the wall for support, Lily closed her eyes. She was exhausted and drained of all of her strength. Her day had been arduous, and it wasn't over yet. "I'm sorry, Agent Scully," she said, offering the dying woman her sympathy. "If he is blind, what will you do?" Shaking her head, Scully's words were muted and soft. "I don't know," she murmured, still smoothing her partner's hair. It was so impossible to resist, and the gentleness and the softness of it astounded her. She was unable to keep her hands out of it, and the gestures helped soothe him. "I'll do whatever I have to do to help him. That's all that I can do." Retracting from the scene, Lily picked up her guitar. "I'm going to leave you here," she said, keeping her voice low. "Keep an eye on him. I need to take a nap." Before Scully could protest, Lily walked out of the room, her head bowed. Scully looked down at the handsome, slumbering face of the man that she had grown to adore more than any other man alive. He was sleeping soundly due to the medicine that Lily had prepared, and Scully had no idea as to what was going on inside of his body. With every second, was his vision dying, or strengthening? Her own eyes grew heavy with sleep and exhaustion, and she curled up next to her peacefully sleeping partner. Sleep in heavenly peace... it was a line from one of Scully's favorite Christmas carols. Oh, the irony of it all. She could have lost the control of her tears with the memory that the midnight had come and passed, and it was Christmas. Merry Christmas, Dana. The only man that you'll ever love will never see your face again. Stretching her arm across his broad chest, she muffled her tears in the crook of his arm. "Sleep in heavenly peace, Mulder," she whispered between her tears. "Sleep in heavenly peace." ************************************************* ************************************************* "So this is Christmas And what have you done Another year over And a new one just begun "And so this is Christmas I hope you have fun The near and the dear one The old and the young "A very Merry Christmas And a happy New Year Let's hope it's a good one Without any fear "And so, this is Christmas For weak and for strong For rich and for poor ones The world is so wrong "And so happy Christmas For black and for white For yellow and red ones Let's stop all the fight "A very Merry Christmas And a happy New Year Let's hope it's a good one Without any fear "And so, this is Christmas And what have we done Another year over And a new one just begun "And so, happy Christmas We hope you have fun The near and the dear one The old and the young "A very Merry Christmas And a Happy New Year Let's hope it's a good one Without any fear "War is over..." --John Lennon "Happy Christmas(War is Over)", Shaved Fish, 1971 ************************************************* ************************************************* Waking up, Mulder opened his eyes, stirring from the darkness of sleep into the newfound darkness of consciousness. He could feel Scully next to him, and felt the small weight of her arm across his chest. The smell of her shampoo was near to his nostrils, and he knew that it could only be her. There was mounting fear in Mulder's heart. What had happened to him? He remembered only seeing Krycek coming toward Scully with a log and malicious intent in his dark eyes, and he remembered leaping in front of her, taking the blow for her. There was memory of pain, of the remarkable blueness of Scully's incredible eyes, and then nothing. Except for Scully's fright-filled diagnosis... Gripping her slender, slack palm with his stronger brown one, he needed her near to him now. He needed to see her, he needed to fucking *see* her. Blind? How could he be blind? Mulder couldn't have lost his sight, he just couldn't have. It was temporary, right? Right? Mulder rarely indulged in self-pity. Scully rarely allowed him to. But now, now he had damn good reason to feel sorry for himself. What if he never did see again, and the last sight that he saw had really been Scully's azure eyes? To never rest sight on her flawless face, or on her radiant smile was a nightmare for him. Using all of his will, Mulder tried his best to focus on something. Anything. He turned his head to where he knew Scully's head rested, and tried to concentrate on seeing her face. Lips, eyes, cheeks... Mulder did not see anything other than blackness. "Oh, God," he whispered. He was blind. She woke up, and saw that his eyes, those once expressive and fantastic eyes, were blank and empty. "Mulder," she whispered, and he shook his head, his eyes turned to a spot just above her brow. So close to being on target... but not quite. "Tell me the truth, Scully," he croaked. "Am I blind? What did he do to me? I can't see anything, nothing at all." Licking her lips, she couldn't bear to meet eyes that had once held so much emotion and so much magic for her. "I don't know," she said, struggling for the right words. "I think that when Krycek hit you, he severed the nerves that allow you to see. I don't know if it's temporary, or if it's permanent, or if it's operable." Her head was bowed, and her eyes downcast. "I'm sorry, Mulder. It shouldn't have been you. It should have been me." Shaking his head, he tried to grab her shoulder, but missed and his hands rested on the sides of her face. Patting down her neck, he finally found her shoulders, and Scully was heart-broken. He couldn't even tell where her shoulders were. How bad was his sight? "It shouldn't have been either one of us, Scully," he said. "Don't say that it should have been you. I'll be all right. I'm still alive, right?" Smiling a small smile, then remembering again that her facial expressions made no difference anymore, she pressed her cheek on the back of his hand as reassurance. She did not hide the love that swelled up in her eyes, knowing that that sight would remain secret, and hidden from him by his own blindness. She sat up, and checked the washcloth that rested behind Mulder's head. The bleeding had stopped, and she removed the cloth, stained with the blood that had also been shed for the cost of his vision. "You are definitely still alive, according to my expert medical opinion," she said, sparing him the possibility of false brightness. She knew him well enough to know that he wouldn't want anything more than the truth at this point. "Well, that's always a good sign," he muttered, and she brought the cloth to the sink, wringing the blood out of the cloth. He could hear the faucet turn on, and thought about the old saying that those who lost one sense had a heightened use of the other ones. He couldn't tell about that, but he had only lost his sight hours ago. Mulder did know that the scent of her shampoo and her perfume lingered on his shirt sleeve, and could feel the wetness of her tears on the wool around his elbow. He also smelled incense in the room, and heard the slight rustling of beads around the door. There was the absence of the rustling of wind, and he felt that the bedspread was a quilt, not an embroidered cotton comforter like the ones that he and Scully had had. "Where are we?" he asked. "We're in Lily's room, Mulder," she replied. "I brought you in here last night after you blacked out in the snow." She turned off the faucet, and Mulder heard her padding softly back to his bedside. "She took her guitar and slept somewhere else last night." Mulder sniffed the air, and caught a waft of something that smelled oddly disgusting. He would recognize that scent anywhere, after the work that he had been doing. "Scully, something smells like a corpse in here," he commented, and she shrugged. "I don't smell anything," she said, and she looked around, noticing that the closet door was shut. She opened it up, and out fell a corpse. Giving a short yelp of surprise, she looked down. "Oh, my God. She killed one of the assassins." Mulder really needed his sense of sight back. "What?" "Lily used the gun that you gave her. Shot him right in the heart. It's a mess, but she has incredible aim," she mused, bending down to get a closer look. "The wound's a clean entry. She killed him instantly." He started to sit up, wincing and rubbing the knot in the back of his head from Krycek's damned blow. "Ouch," he muttered, and she left the corpse to attend to her partner. Supporting him with her arm, she helped him sit up. "Can you walk?" she asked, and Mulder tried to stand up, wobbling on his knees for a moment, then regaining his balance. Looking pathetically appealing in his warm brown sweater and his blue jeans, Mulder ruffled his hair, messing up the fine strands that Scully had so carefully combed with her fingertips the night before. She could only smile momentarily, and took his hand. "I'll guide you to the door, Mulder." Grasping her warm, comforting hand, he walked behind her as she smoothly and slowly led him to the door. "Oops, duck," she said, and he swiftly lowered his head, avoiding a veil of love beads that Lily had hung from her ceiling. "This place is incredible, Mulder. It's like a scene from 'Woodstock' or something. There's tie dye everywhere, and love beads wherever they can go. I used to have the same Sgt. Pepper poster that Lily has framed." Smiling, Mulder absently rubbed her hand with his thumb, massaging the skin with small, circular motions. "She's an interesting woman," he remarked, and she led him downstairs, using the now-operational elevator. Scully couldn't keep her eyes off of him, and he never knew that she was staring at him, though she wondered if the heat of her gaze was a clue that he was the focus of her attention. Standing before the huge picture window, staring out at the piles of seemingly floating snow drifts, was Lily, holding a mug of tea. She had slept for maybe an hour, possibly two. Most of the night had consisted of her sitting on the couch, playing the guitar, pacing the hotel, and crying. Scully guided her blind partner into the room, one hand squeezing his hand tightly, and the other cupping his elbow. "Lily's in here," she said. "Looks like she made tea." Directing this next description to both Mulder and Lily, she continued. "It also looks like she didn't sleep very much last night." Lily flashed a blazing smile at Scully and Mulder, and when she realized that the federal agent still couldn't see, she shook her head. "I didn't sleep very much," she admitted. "How are you, Mulder?" Mulder shook his head at her. "I can't see shit, Lily," he mournfully replied, and Lily broke what had the potential to be a maudlin moment with a bright remark. "Well, Mulder, shit can be pretty ugly, so don't feel like you're missing too much," she quipped, and there was a moment before Scully couldn't help but laugh, causing Mulder to join in in spite of himself. Directing him to a chair, she helped her partner sit down. "The storm's over," she observed. "I'm going to pack up our stuff and get Mulder to a hospital. I want this checked out as soon as possible. I want a specialist's advice." What she really wanted was for him to be all right. She knew that she might not get that. Lily nodded, and glanced at him. His eyes stared vacantly out into space, and they were fixed to a blank wall. He was seeing nothing, sightless, vision-impaired. She didn't know what Scully was going through, but she knew that she had to be terrified and upset. "I'll pack up everything, Scully," she murmured. "Take him to the hospital in Fargo." Giving Lily a grateful and appreciative look that was equivalent of a hug, Scully guided her partner away. ************************************************* ************************************************* Crossing her arms over her chest, her hair tucked behind her ears, Scully looked at the doctor who had examined Mulder. "I don't know what to say, Agent Scully," he said, and the words were not promising at all. "The blow to his head was the reason behind his blindness. But the blow was so severe that the nerves were damaged to the extreme. His blindness is permanent, I'm afraid." Shaking her head, refusing to give up hope, she tried again. "What about laser surgery?" she asked. "There's been incredible progress in that field of operation. Could the lasers help to give him back his sight?" The doctor sighed. "I'm sorry, but no hospital or clinic has that kind of technology. It simply isn't possible. Years from now, we could do something, but not now. The precision and the science does not exist." Struggling to keep from screaming out every twinge of pain, every reaction that she had, Scully put her head in her hands. "What do I do?" she asked herself, and the doctor put his hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry, ma'am," he apologized. "He's going to need a live-in nurse, at least for a while. Someone to help him learn how to move around his apartment, how to live with his disability, how to read Braille, how to live on his own. What would Agent Mulder look for in a nurse? He'll need someone that he can trust for these next weeks." Trust... it had been such a hard-earned virtue, and one that Scully had worked so arduously to get from him. How many times had he told her that she was the only one that he trusted? Scully thought about that one word, and about how much trust would matter when Mulder would have to learn about living without his sight. She knew what she was going to have to do. "I'll do it," she said, a little hesitant at first, and the doctor was surprised. "Excuse me?" he asked, and she repeated herself with more confidence. "I'll take care of him," she said. "Agent Mulder needs someone who knows him well, and someone who he can trust. As of right now, I'm the only person who fits those qualifications. I'll talk to him about the arrangement, and see what he says." The doctor shook his head. "Miss Scully, your devotion to your partner is very nice, but he's going to need someone who can be there twenty-four hours a day for the next couple of weeks. No one else but that person," he warned her. "I'll stay there," she promised. At the doctor's still-wary look, she leaned in closer. "Agent Mulder has a very extraordinary history. He has had great reason to have mistrust, and suspicions. He's a unique individual. Our friendship is very close. His mother suffered a stroke a while ago, and can't do this. He only has me. And I need to do this with him." Pausing, the doctor picked up some papers, and handed them to Scully. "These are the papers that will describe his medication to deal with any headaches that he might suffer from," he said, and Scully looked them over. "You'll need to make sure that he takes these every night. Do you have any experience dispensing medicine?" "I'm a medical doctor," she said. "I take pills like this myself." The doctor gave her a wary look. "These are some pretty strong pills, Miss Scully," he said. "You must have some severe headaches." She did, but her problems weren't of top priority. "What else is there?" "Braille classes and handbooks, step-counting, therapy is recommended." The doctor patted Scully's shoulder. "You must have a special friendship to take all of this on." Her eyes gazing away, she murmured her reply. "Yes... Yes, we do." ************************************************* ************************************************* Mulder was sitting on the edge of his bed, stirring a cup of coffee aimlessly. At the sound of her hello, he spoke, not turning to bother to face her. What was the point now? "It's all over, Scully," he said, bluntly. "No more X-Files. No more FBI. Nothing else, ever again." She shook her head, and watched as he continued to stir the coffee, not pausing to drink it. "It's not over, Mulder," she said in hushed tones. "I highly doubt that Skinner would let a blind agent work, Scully," he said, his tone sarcastic. "And without me, the X-Files go." Arching her eyebrow habitually, completely aware of the fact that he did not see it, she crossed her arms. "With me, the X-Files stay," she said, stubborn and obstinate. "I'm keeping them open, Mulder. I talked with Skinner over the phone, and he sends his regrets and his sympathy. He asked me if I requested reassignment, and I declined. I'm keeping the section open, Mulder, and Skinner's looking for a new field agent to replace me, as I am replacing you as supervisor." She walked a little closer, not coming too close to him. His paranoia had to be jumping off of the scale right now. "And Skinner has given me three weeks off." Mulder, finally interested, turned around. "Why did he give you three weeks off?" he asked, and Scully decided that now was the time to break all of this to him. "You need a live-in nurse, Mulder," she explained. "For the first weeks, there has to be somebody there to help you learn to live with this disability. You would have to trust this person completely. The doctor wanted a stranger. I volunteered to fill the position. If you want me, Mulder, then I'm here." God, he did want her. And he did need her, more than ever now. He felt lost, completely lost without her. He always had. But he couldn't make her put her life aside for his, as he had done so many times in the past. Because of his problems, she was dying. Shaking his head and looking down, he stirred the coffee without cease. "I can't burden you with me," he said, his tone sad and lonely. There was a breeze behind him, and he felt the coffee cup being taken gently from his grasp. The weight on the bed shifted, and he felt her sit down next to him, placing her hand firmly and yet kindly on his knee. "Mulder, you've never been a burden," she promised. "We'll get through this; you and me. Just tell me that you want me, Mulder." Knowing that her eyes had to be on his face, he put down the coffee stirrer that was still in his right hand. The words that he spoke were heavy and deep with emotional subtext that she dared not read into, and he rather wished that she would. "I want you," he breathed. The slender hand left his kneecap, and Mulder felt two soft, slim arms encricle his back, hugging him tightly and softly. "Then I'm here," she whispered, her breath tickling the hair on the back of his neck. "I'm here." Hugging her back, Mulder thought of everything that he had lost, and all that he had suddenly gained. Tears spilled from sightless, useless, hazel eyes, and fell on to her shoulder. "I don't know what to do," he whispered, and she held him tighter, stroking the grown man's back like a mother or a dutiful wife would. "I'm so lost..." Casting circles of warmth and consolation on to his back, Scully's heart was wrenching. The feeling of being lost consumed them both, but she was the light now. She was the moonlight in the dark sky. "I'm here," she repeated, and then she pulled away. Looking down at those blank jade eyes, shining with the glean of tears, she cupped his face in her hands, remembering the abatement that he had given her in the hospital after the death of Penny Northern. Closing her own eyes, she kissed his forehead. The touch of her soft, moist lips on his brow was more comforting and more tender than any other kiss that Mulder had received from any woman. Passion played too big of a role in those other disastrous relationships, and though it certainly had a place in this one, the strongest emotion that he felt for her was love, not desire. Wondering if there was a stain of the lipstick on his brow, Mulder consented to letting her hold him and soothingly rock him back and forth, her hands placed softly on his shoulderblades. "Merry Christmas, Dana," he whispered, his voice lighter than air, and she wanted to cry herself then. Oh, what a merry Christmas indeed. Pain and suffering were the Christmas presents that had been given to her, and each one had been wrapped in snow and ice. "Merry Christmas, Mulder," she responded, and closed her eyes, one tear escaping her lid. "Merry Christmas." ************************************************* ************************************************* SUNLIGHT FADING by: Annie Jennings (disclaimer in part one) ************************************************* ************************************************* Learning to be his eyes, learning to be his sight, and learning to be his guide was not difficult for the most part. Their language, however, had consisted of subtle glances, of emotions read in slanted eyes, or in facial expressions. Words that had passed between them had been clipped, and never full of the warmth that existed. When there was now no chance of any such verbiage existing, other avenues would have to remain. Words were all that were left. Christmas passed them by in a hospital room in Fargo, and that hospital was where the two agents spent their next six days. Mulder went through the prep courses on how to get around and how to use the collapsible cane that he had been rewarded with. After almost ten years working with the Bureau, his prize was a cane that he couldn't even see. Margaret Scully had been stunned and heart-broken to hear the news. Though she had met Fox Mulder only on rather somber occasions, she knew him to be energetic, filled with life, and determined. But what truly broke her heart to hear was the news that her daughter was going to be the one to take care of him. Margaret and Margaret alone knew about how deeply Dana loved him, and she didn't know how long Dana would be able to last with the object of her desire in the next room every day. Mrs. Mulder cried on the telephone to learn of her son's disability, sobbing to herself when she heard that he would never see again. Scully had broken the news to her before handing the telephone to Mulder, who had kept control of himself quite well as she wept. As soon as the conversation was over, she sat down, and asked the unspoken question. "How will he ever tell her?" ************************************************* ************************************************* "When all we wanted was to dream To have and to hold and Precious little things Like every generation yields A newborn hope unjaded By their years" --Sarah McLachlan "Wait", Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, 1993 ************************************************* ************************************************* She stood before her mirror, looking at the reflection of the woman before her. She was petite, she was attractive, she was fetching. But she was also living willfully in the claws of great temptation and destroyed, utterly destroyed that night. In the next bedroom, tucked in under covers that Scully had bought and paid for for guests, slept Mulder, knocked out from the powerful headache pills that the doctor had subscribed for him. She had watched him curl up under those covers, and watched him turn on his side, falling into slumber. Dana had taken him straight to her apartment when they got off of the plane, and had sent him directly to bed. The guest bedroom had been designated for him, and she had promised him that they would go to his apartment and move some of his belongings into the apartment that they now shared. He had jokingly asked for his video tapes, and she had shot back with a remark about listening to some bimbo moaning. Changing into a clean pair of black silk pajamas and brushing her hair out, Scully climbed in bed, turning off the Tiffany imitation lamp. The room was plunged into the same darkness that Mulder would never wake from with the knowledge that the sun and the light was there. How would they possibly manage? They used to share a dream, they used to have a goal. Certainly and definitely, the place that they used to stand had been dangerous, barely balanced, and rocky, but at least it had been a place. Now, she felt unsure of where she stood. The dream was gone, or at least weakened considerably. Together, they would have to create a new place to stand. But would she be in that new place that he found? ************************************************* ************************************************* The first week that Dana Scully spent with the blinded Mulder was one spent getting used to his disability. Scully had adapted to using long, drawn-out descriptions, and had become the eyes that he could not use anymore. She had driven him to his apartment, and had spent hours there, reading him names of papers, of classification systems that only he understood, and of packing up his clothing and putting it into boxes. CDs, pictures, and books were all packed away and brought down to her car with the help of Frohike, Langly, and Byers. Frohike had looked at the agents and realized that although they were the supposed "most unwanted", they were the agents that carried the most scars. One agent blind, and one agent dying of cancer. If one should ever doubt the importance of Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, or the importance of the X-Files, then all one had to do was take one glance at them. Mulder had taken to wearing a pair of Serengeti sunglasses, masking blind eyes from the world. Scully still loved to gaze upon the color of his hazel eyes, but the blankness and the lack of soul in them haunted her. They were dead eyes, and not fitting to such a life-filled man. Once the possessions that Mulder wanted to keep had been moved, and the videos donated to Frohike with some melodrama, Scully had gone to work at carefully organizing his clothes into stacks coordinated by color and by style. Black pants, grey pants, blue jeans... Mulder would have to memorize where they were and how many were in each stack, with his photographic memory and his determination, the task was not as gargantuan as Scully initially thought it would be. He had already bought a Braille workbook and tapes, and listened to them for hours every night, trying to figure out which bumps meant what with great dedication and comprehension. She had learned with him, and the headaches that he suffered from were almost as severe as her own, and the winces that he gave broke her heart. She knew, however, that while his would fade away, hers would only grow worse as the tumor grew. Sweat beaded his face, and she spent a good number of nights at his side with a cool washcloth as he endured the splitting migraines. Skinner had been updating her on the progress surrounding finding her a new partner, and there were only a few candidates left. Scully walked past his room on the morning of December 31, and looked in on him. He was lying stretched out on his bed, his eyes tightly closed against light that he wouldn't see anyway, and she leaned in the doorframe, watching his still form. She sighed, and tucked hair behind her ear. The past days had been difficult for her to stand witness to, although she had promised Mulder that she was all right, she had been suffering, too. Every fumbling, stumbling step was hard for her to be witness to, and every missed count to her kitchen or her bedroom that resulted in his hitting a wall made her eyes water with tears when his did not. Music filled his room, and she listened with sadness at the sounds of the music that now surrounded her ears. Music had become a staple in his life, and he had to have it on at all times. It was equivalent to sight now, and he had replaced vision with the images that came with chords and voices. "Eighty years, an old lady now Sitting on the front porch Watching the clouds roll by They remind of her lover, how he left her And of times long ago When she used to color carelessly Painting his portrait a thousand times Or maybe just his smile And she and her canvas would follow him Wherever he would go Cause they were painters, and they were painting themselves A lovely world" Her fingers looped around the wooden frame of the door, and she watched him sleeping, so still that he could have been mistaken for the dead. Fingering one red tendril of hair, she marveled at how angelic and innocent he appeared in the blanket of sleep. "Oil streaked daisies covered The living room wall He put water-colored roses in her hair He said, 'Love, I love you, I want to give you the mountains, the sunshine, The sunset too I want to give you everything as beautiful as you are to me Cause they were painters, and they were painting themselves A lovely world" The song went on, describing the death of the lover, the screams of the woman in the orchard, the water-colored roses in his hands for her, and the old woman with her canvas, still waiting for her artist to come home. She mused over the ballad, wondering if she and her Mulder were those painters, painting themselves a lovely world. Painting with false reassurances, and making those oil-streaked daisies the words, "I'm fine". She watched that still, curled up body under the blankets, and wondered if they were the weavers of warmth and the carpenters of love, and if the smiles he gave her were really those water-colored roses. Startled out of the maudlin musings, Scully watched as he coughed and reached behind him for a glass of water. His hand swept the nightstand, but the cup was unattainable. He almost had it, but the aim was off. Breaking from her stance, she walked to the bedside and handed him the glass. Gratefully, he brought the cup to his lips, and then coughed again. "You can't do everything for me, Scully," he said, his voice hoarse. "I have to learn to do this on my own." She looked down at him, the blanket wrapped around his bare chest, and he was clad only in boxer shorts. "And you also have to learn that you need someone," she murmured back. Mulder, startled, held the glass in his hands. "You're not living under the same circumstances that you used to be under, Mulder. You're not the freelance bachelor. I'm here." Holding her hand, he looked up at her, and spoke the words that were mixed with comfort and with pain. "And I'm grateful that you're here," he promised. "But what's going to happen when you're gone?" They both knew what he meant, and she paused, looking down at the sight of her small white hand in his brown, larger one. "I'm not going to leave you," she whispered, but as though to contradict her, a small drizzle of blood streamed down from her nose, running onto her lip. Breaking away from his grip, she was intensely glad that he couldn't see her. But just because sight failed him did not mean that he couldn't tell when she suffered. The sound of the water faucet, the sniffles as she staunched the bleeding... He knew what it all meant. Putting his head in his hands, he held back the sorrow that filled his heart. She was going with every moment, and nothing he could do would prevent it. It was out of his hands now, and he was left behind to be a blind witness as she died with every minute that passed. "I'm not going to leave you," he whispered to himself, and she washed the blood from her face. She would be the one to abandon, the one to betray, and the one to hurt the only person that she cared about. Her voice echoed through his head, and he stood up, moving to the spot where she stood, wiping at her nose with tears mingling with the salty blood, and embraced her with tight arms as she broke down and cried for the first time since he lost his sight. "I'm so afraid, Mulder," she confessed, he held her tightly, feeling her tears fall on his bare skin. "I don't want to die." "I don't want to let you die," he whispered back, and she started to sob, great, hacking heaves. She nearly collapsed in his arms, the bloody tissue slipping from her fingers and falling to the floor. "And she sat by his side And watched the years fly by He looked so fragile, he looked so small And she wondered why he was still alive at all" She fell asleep again in his arms, and he sat on the bed, her head resting in his lap as he stroked her hair with love and affection. She was still now, and in the arms of sleep. The body-racking sobs had left her, and she rested there, one last drop of blood staining her upper lip, but Mulder did not see it. He saw nothing, but the image of a broken-down Scully was fresh in his mental eye. "Why her?" he whispered to no one, but the eternal darkness held no answer for him. She woke up eventually, and was not as embarrassed as she had thought that she would be. Standing up, and smoothing the shirt and jeans that she had fallen asleep in, she wiped the last remains of the nosebleed from her lip, and she tried to apologize. "No, Scully," he said. "I'm sorry. You should have been able to do that for months." She gave a small pat on his shoulder, which had now become synonymous with a smile in their newfound language of touch and voice. "Get dressed and come on into the living room. I'll fix some coffee." *********************************************** *********************************************** SUNLIGHT FADING by: Annie Jennings(Auralissa@aol.com) Disclaimer in part one ************************************************* ************************************************* Hours later, as Scully was fixing dinner for Mulder and herself, Skinner called with news. One volunteer, and six selections from the Bureau. "To be frank, Agent Scully, I want to assign the volunteer. Her name's Renee Townsend, and she seems to be very enthusiastic about the position. She's admired you and Agent Mulder for a long time." Scully smiled when she heard this. "One of the few, sir," she said with surprising bitterness. She hated to think that with the departure of Mulder, the cynicism of his attitude had been impressed upon her. Skinner cleared his throat. "How is he?" he asked, his tone more personal. Stirring a pot of spaghetti, Scully glanced across the apartment. Mulder sat on the couch, his slender fingers tracing the Braille words of a Robin Cook novel and drinking a Coke. Music had filled the apartment ever since he had moved in, and for once in her life, Scully felt near-comfortable in it. "He's fine," she murmured, and Skinner was a little surprised by the warmth in her voice. "He's already sped through the Braille courses, and his headaches are still pretty violent. I think we'll be fine." Mulder perked at the mention of him, and stopped reading to listen to her. Though she tried to keep her voice under the sounds of the music, he could always hear her anyway. "No, sir, I think that three weeks is enough," she assured. "No, I won't hesitate to ask if I need more." Smiling at this, he returned to the book. He wasn't really paying it much attention, and enjoyed hearing the noises that she made while working in the kitchen. "Thank you," she said, and Mulder wondered what Skinner had said to put that breezy tone in her voice. He could tell that there was a smile on her face by the emotion in her throat. She hung up the phone, and stopped for a moment, thinking about the end of the conversation that she had just had with her boss. "Agent Scully, take good care of him," he had said. "He needs you right now. I'll keep you informed about the new partner." Threading her hair back into a ponytail, Scully watched him with her head in her hands as he stretched out on her couch. Such a sight was a comfort to her... Lying on her sofa, at home in her home, his long legs using up the space of the couch that she never took up with her shorter stature. Dreamily, she gazed at him with her full attention. "Good book, Mulder?" she called, and he put it down. "Not as good as his last one," he admitted, and she smiled dryly. "But not too bad. How's that spaghetti coming, Scully?" She stretched out her arms, and went over to the oven. "Garlic bread's done," she said. "It looks pretty good. Golden brown, like Mom tried to teach me to make. Funny, Mulder, but this is the first time it ever turned out right," she added. Shaking his head, he stood up. Counting the steps mentally to Scully's kitchen, he walked to her and used his nose to pick out where the pan of garlic bread was. She picked one out for him, and passed it in his direction. Biting into it, he shook his head again. "You're too good to me, Scully," he teased, and she ruffled his hair as though he were an irritating son or husband. "I know," she replied, and told him to go sit down on the couch. Obediently, he did so, and she brought out the dinner to him, complete with a bottle of wine that she had saved up. "I thought that New Year's required some kind of celebration," she explained at the sound of her popping the cork. "Do you agree?" "Certainly," he said, and she placed a slender wine glass in his hand. She looked up then, and was struck with deja vu. Eddie Van Blundht, sitting in Mulder's body, with that seductive smile on lips that did not belong to him, leaning in to kiss her. She remembered how she could feel the heat of his breath on her face, on her mouth, as he moved closer and closer to her, and then he was on top of her, and... And Mulder had come in. Mulder, with a panicked, frenzied look on his face, and when he saw the scene set before him, there was a look of shocked confusion on his face. Could she really blame him? But now... now there was no one there but the two of them, with wine and solitude. Mulder rolled the stem of the wine glass between long, sensitive hands. Scully started to describe the wine, but Mulder held out a finger. "Let me," he interrupted, and drank from the glass, and stopped. "Ahh... 1976 Burgandy." "Not even close," she said, smiling. "Not a drinker, are you, Mulder?" He shook his head. Alcohol made him lose control, and it made him feel fuzzy and not himself. Mulder always needed his mind to be razor-sharp, and never drank except on rare occasion. He considered this to be occasion enough. New Year's Eve, with the delectable Dana Scully seated beside him. "Not really," he admitted. "But I always have liked bragging in areas of which I have little to no expertise." "Including psychology?" she teased, and he chuckled, a sly grin reaching across his face. "But of course, Scully. I never went to Oxford, you know. I applied for truck driving school, but I dropped out before I got my air freshener," he quipped. She smiled, and passed him a plate and a fork. Taking his hand, she lightly described what was what and where it was to him, and he dipped his finger in the chocolate mousse. "Move over, Julia Child," he said, and she just picked up her own plate, an unseen smile and warmth on her face. The dinner went well, casual and calm on the light sofa, with music playing in the background that was sumptuous and jazzy. "It won't do To dream of caramel To think of cinnamon And long for you" Taking a last sip from his wine glass, Mulder listened to the sounds of her pouring him another glass. He could see her perfectly in his mind's eye. A graceful, timed, turn of the wrist, pouring the red liquid into the glass, and passing him the glass with a smile in her eyes, though knowing that he could not see her. "You know, Scully, I haven't told you how much I've appreciated the sacrifices you've made for me," he murmured, and put the plate of food on the table. Subtly, she pushed the plate away from its precarious perch on the edge, and payed him closer attention as he went on. "You've meant a lot to me." Shaking her head, she crossed her legs on the couch, facing him with full attention on the face that was slightly flushed with the rush of the wine. "You've meant a lot to me, too," she breathed back, and her breath was hot and musky in his face. He realized then what he was doing. His guards were let down by the excitement of the night, by the nearness of her body, by the alcohol that he had consumed. There was something in the air that sang of seduction, and something in the wind that trumpeted temptation. In spite of his usual control, he was slipping out of his tight reigns, and letting himself become close, very close, to her. Giving a more self-doubting, unsure half-smile, Mulder put the glass on the table, perfectly on center. "I just wish that there was some way for me to do something for you," he said, and she shook her head. "Mulder, you've already done so much for me," she assured, taking his hands. "When I first met you, I was basically naive. I had my strict beliefs, my stubborn faith, which I still have, by the way, and my unrelenting philosophies. I was cookie-cutter Bureau." He spoke the unspoken words, breaking a once unsaid taboo. "But you were also healthy," he said, and she furrowed her brow, her heart reaching out to him as she squeezed his hands. "I still am, Mulder," she said. "Right now, this moment, sitting here, I'm fine. Everything's all right." There was silence as he thought this over. She was fine, sitting there, at that moment, with him. Everything was all right. But what about the next moment, and the moment after that... So many moments, so many right nows, and there would be so many present times that they were going to have to miss. Knowing what he had to be thinking, she leaned in closer, so close that her sweet and husky breath danced across his face. "But this moment is all that matters," she whispered, and he listened to her voice, his eyes blank but his mind's eye seeing, as the moment surrounded them... Pulling away, Scully stood up and walked to the CD player. "Stand up, Mulder," she ordered, and feeling a little disappointed and a little relieved, he obeyed. "I'm going to teach you a lesson that you won't learn in any conventional therapy." Raising his eyebrows wickedly, Mulder gave her an irresistable look. "Oh, Scully, don't take advantage of me," he said, and the note in his voice implied that that was exactly what he wanted her to do. The stereo blasted The Wallflowers, and she took his hands, leading him to the middle of the living room floor. "These courses teach you how to live with your disability on your own, but they never once mention socializing and living a normal life with it," she explained. "Something that you and I have had trouble with without your blindness. Now, I'm going to teach a poor man how to dance." "Oh, this should be good, Scully," he said. "You never heard of the age-old tradition involving Caucasians and lack thereof of rhythm?" Groaning at his cynical and pessimistic attitude, she stood before him, and directed him to sway in count to the music. His cool exterior didn't allow him to put his entire effort into the task at hand, and she sighed, exasperated. "Come on, Mulder. You said that you wanted to do something for me?" "Yeah," he said, hesitantly drawing out the syllable. "Then dance with me," she replied, and she began to instruct him in time to Jakob Dylan's rock and roll voice. "Come on, try a little Nothing lasts forever There's got to be something better than In the middle "We incinerate it Put it all together We can drive it home With one headlight" She ended up with her body pressed to his, her back against his chest, moving his arms and his hips for him with her hands and her torso. Laughing at his droll and darkly humorous asides, as well as making her own pushes at his expense, Scully had him dancing with an alternative grace that was incredibly sexy and sensual. "You're doing great!" she chortled, and the fast-paced songs lasted until near midnight, when the first slow song came on. "For all the good you say it does It feels no better when you've had your say You may believe it's just because The words get colder when you've gone away" Looking with uncertainty at him, waiting for his reaction, and what he wanted to do, Scully watched his face fall from an exuberant, near-blissful smile into a somber, unsure visage. Confusion and sudden tension filled the air. "Thought I understood What I was to you" She realized that so many of her problems, so many of her despairs, so many of her regrets stemmed from her always waiting, always considering, always analyzing everything. She needed to forget her responsibilities, her consequences, and live for the moment. She did not have many moments left. And so, as the strings and the bass began to stroke the music, she haltingly put her arms around his neck, and directed his arms around her waist. The strings broke into the chorus, and they swayed in time to the music. "I don't want to feel this way no I don't want to say I'm just a friend I don't want to wait around here Cause you don't want to feel no pain again And we just lie about it As we become shadows of ourselves" Nestling her face into his collarbone, she closed her eyes as their bodies moved in synchrony to the soaring acoustic guitars and the orchestra. The feeling of his strong, muscular arms around her slender, hourglass waist was extraordinary. They had been dancing like this since day one, she thought to herself, and her hands gripped his shoulder blades as touchstones of solace. "Am I dancing, Scully?" he whispered into the softness of her hair, and she caught her breath in her throat. "Yes," she whispered back. "Yes." "Some may fear committed lives I sure am one of them without you Does it come to you as some surprise I laid the grounds beneath to doubt you "Was it ever, girl Something you could hold" As his hands clasped one over the other in the small of her back, Mulder spoke to her over the chorus. "Scully, no one's ever going to dance with me," he said, the first hint of non-sarcastic pity for himself that she had heard yet. She shook her head, and murmured to him no. "There are going to be many lucky women to dance with you, Mulder," she replied, and she ached at the thought of the women who would line up to dance with him. He paused. "Are you lucky?" "And I don't want to look away I don't want to be the one denied It ain't no fault of mine That someone somewhere told you lies And we don't talk about it As we become shadows of ourselves" The cello dramatically underlay the words, and Mulder spoke again. "Do you know what I miss most about sight?" he whispered, and she shook her head no into his chest, almost fearing and anticipating the answer. "I miss seeing you." "We don't talk about it As we become shadows of ourselves" Pulling away for a moment, she stroked the side of his face. "But you still see me, don't you," she breathed, her voice lofty and tender as she lined his jaw with affection. "With your memory. See me with not your eyes, Mulder, but with touch, with scent, with sound..." His hands began to trace the sides of her face, from the sides of her mouth along to her cheekbones, and across to her closed, still eyelid. He slowly ran his hands through her hair, and smelled the aroma of her perfume and shampoo. As his hands went to her neck, cupping her face in slender, sight-seeing hands, he confided the last sense. "Taste..." As the crescendo of the violins, the basses, the violas, the cellos, and the acoustic guitars mingled with the clash of drums and voice, he brought his lips to hers and passionately kissed her, with more emotion and more love than she had dreamed ever existed. Yet, within the boundaries of that one, single, and impossibly intense kiss, lay all of the love in the world, and she took it with eager mouth and eager breath. The moment was upon them as the clock turned to midnight, ringing in the new year. ************************************************* ************************************************* SUNLIGHT FADING 8/12 by: Annie Jennings (disclaimer in part one) ************************************************* ************************************************* Years pass by with little regard to the people that they affect, or the lives that they can either grace or curse. The simply turn and turn, such as life is meant to do, and we can either take each moment and each minute as it comes with praise to God for blessing us with the opportunity to live and breathe for that moment, or we can simply sit by and watch the moments turn from one to the other, wasting and squandering years meant to be cherished and remembered by us. It is always those blessed by time who take it for granted, and those who have so little time who see its priveledge and its possible rewards. Life is not a right-- it is an opportunity. Never should we waste life, for, in the end, life will only waste us. ************************************************* ************************************************* Sitting up on Scully's bed, Mulder gently stroked her bare back, his fingers surfing effortlessly over the ridges of her spine, as she dozed on her belly in his lap. The New Year had come, and it was going. The last year of Scully's life, possibly. His heart ached to think of walking through a cemetary, his cane scampering over wilting grass, and having someone read to him the memorial that would mark the final resting place of Dana Katherine Scully. Silence was upon him, and he mused over the rather interesting couple that they made. A blind man and a terminally ill woman. There was such irony and such sheer sadness about them that it made him want to cry. She took care of him, and he took care of her. They were each other's keepers. But for how much longer? She woke up, and looked up at him, his face straight forward and smiling. Reaching her hand up to his cheek, she stroked his jaw with the back of her hand, running her forefinger over his smooth, silky lips. "I love you," she whispered, and Mulder kissed her fingertip. "I love you, too," he whispered. "I always have." He stood up, allowing the blanket to drift over her nude body, and pulled on a pair of boxers that he found on the floor. The talking alarm clock that Scully had bought for him told him that it was seven o'clock, and he decided to get dressed. Turning on the faucet, he picked up the razor from his proper place, and prepared to shave. She watched him with love-filled wonder, and then with pity as he brought the razor to his face and clumsily began to shave away at the foam that covered his jaw and upper lip. He was trying to do so without any sight, without any knowledge of which was which, and she stood up, walking to join him. Turning on the bathroom light and pulling her terry-cloth robe on over her bare skin, she quietly took the razor from his hand, and cupped his chin in her hand. Thoughtfully and patiently, she ran the blade over familiar planes, skimming the foam off carefully and lovingly, with the respect and adoration of a lover. He closed his eyes, remembering how Kristen Kilar had done the same thing, only Scully's act was one of complete and utter devotion, not possession. She finished, and put the blade in the sink, running the water over it. "Let me," she murmured, and he kissed her powerfully and passionately, before taking her back into the bedroom. ************************************************* ************************************************* Taking the driver's seat, Scully folded up Mulder's collapsible cane and put it in the back seat. "It's a nice day," she described, looking up through the windshield. "It's certainly chilly, though. Better than Fargo, at least." Nodding to himself, Mulder reached down with scampering hands to buckle his seat belt. Upon locating the strap, he pulled it down, but had trouble connecting the buckle. "Fuck," he exerted, and she placed her hand over his, clicking the belt in place with her fingers covering his. Giving a gracious smile, Mulder sat up. "Thanks." She started up the car and pulled out. "That's what I'm here for," she replied. The sounds of the car engine and the motor quickly made the attention-lacking ex-agent bored and jittery as she drove him to her mother's house. Knowing that Scully's car was the same make as his own, he felt for the stereo system. He turned on the radio, and found the seek buttons after a minute. Settling on Smashing Pumpkins' "1979", he leaned back. "Well, Scully, you never have to whine about driving anymore," he commented, and she smiled. "That's certainly true," she agreed. "But now I have to be the one who fills out the car rental forms, and I hate that." "Poor baby," he said, and she gave him the finger. Well, there you go, she thought. Now he'll never see me flip him off. The first true silver lining about his blindness, and what a shitty lining it was. "So, tell me what your brothers look like." Acting as his eyes again, she started her descriptions. "Bill takes after my father," she started. "He's going bald, poor guy. The little hair that he has left is black, and he looks a great deal like Dad did. He's an uptight sort of guy, and his wife, Lisa, is a lawyer. I've often felt like I never measured up in Lisa's eyes, and she never liked me very much, anyway." Easily falling into talking about her family, she drove with greater ease as Billy Corgan sang in the background. "Lisa's tall, extraordinarily tall. She's about six foot three, and talks as though someone put a baton up her ass. Pardon my language, but you'll understand what I mean when you meet her. "She has graying light brown hair, and the combination isn't exactly flattering," Scully continued, and Mulder was already getting the mental picture of a woman he would never see. "Her family's from Boston, and Daddy loved them. We were always living on bases, moving from place to place, the entire military drill. We didn't have time to be the socialites that Lisa's family is. When you hear her talk, she sounds like some bad Buffy and Muffy stereotype. She constantly brags about the donations to charity that she makes, and I haven't spoken to her in months. "Charles is fantastic. We were always very close growing up, almost as close as Missy and I were. He's fun-loving, wild, very boisterous. His wife, Marie, is back in Ohio with her mother for Christmas, but he brought his son, Kenneth, and his daughters, Rachael and Laura. Kenneth is five, Rachael is eight, and Laura is ten. Kenneth looks exactly like Charles, who takes after Daddy as well. Only Charles still has a full head of dark hair, and dark eyes. Mom always says that they're dancing Irish eyes." Scully paused, allowing herself a small smile. "Mom also told me that I used to have those 'dancing' eyes. I don't see it." Smiling himself, Mulder relished the memory of Scully's sky-colored eyes. She didn't see it, but he did, and he loved those graceful, bright eyes. What a last memory, he thought, and Scully continued. Her descriptions were of a typically dysfunctional family, and probably would have been a typically dysfunctional family forever. He had been the one to change that, or so he thought. "Kenneth's a lot like his father, bright and energetic," Scully said, smiling at the memories of her favored nephew. "Rachael's very inquisitive... She likes to ask questions, often ones that make you question her age. She'll probably interrogate you to the bone before we go. She's maybe four feet, and has the infamous red hair that you've commented on so many times. She reminds me of Missy. Laura's quiet, and when she does speak, it's apparent that she's brilliant. Laura's a bookworm, and we can never get her to put down a novel, either Maya Angelou or Stephen King. She's fun to watch, and if she gets to know you and considers you a kindred spirit, she'll be a friend for life. She's the only blonde out of Charles's kids, and she looks a lot like Marie." The house of Margaret Scully was filled with light, and one station wagon from Ohio that had to be Charles's was parked in the drive. Bill and Lisa had flown in. First class, all the way. She knew instantly that Lisa and Mulder were going to hate each other. "I don't know how my family's going to receive you, but this situation will be interesting," she murmured, and Mulder gave Scully a soft smile. "You make a great pair of eyes," he said, and brushed her cheek with his hand, showing more affection than she expected from him. He felt the small tug of her lips as she smiled, and then the brush of hair on to the palm. There was a small look of contentment on Mulder's face that she adored, and she leaned over to kiss him amorously, her lips tender and soft on his. But Scully pulled away when she saw that the front door was opening. "They're coming out to meet us, at least Charles is," she said, and he could hear the smile in her voice. "God, get ready, Mulder." Passing him his cane and stepping out of the car, Scully was met by a loud cry of "Sis!", and there was her handsome, trouble-maker brother. Mulder had elected to wear his designer sunglasses, as not to startle anyone with his blind, rather disturbing eyes. Especially if there were kids. He heard the energy-filled voice of the brother called Charles, and Scully's laughter that was full and floating. "Dana, Dana, Dana," Charles teased, and lifted her up in the air, swinging his sister around before putting her on the ground. He examined her with brotherly eyes, making sure that his little sister was still okay. "You look great. How're you feeling?" Scully was then painfully reminded that this was the first time that she had seen her brothers since her diagnosis of terminal cancer. There was new concern in those merry eyes, and he handled her as though he were afraid that she might break. "I'm fine, Charles," she replied, and then broke away from a hug and kiss on the cheek to attend to Mulder. With sweeping strokes of the white cane, Mulder made his way across the lawn, and to the point where Scully met him halfway, taking his elbow and guiding the blind man to her brother, who was waiting with incredible patience. "Charles, this is Fox Mulder," she introduced, and Charles tilted his head at the man. He had heard a great deal about Fox Mulder from his sister and from his mother, who was the only other person in the Scully clan to meet this mystery agent who had become so important to Dana. "Mulder, this is Charles." This Mulder man gave a lop-sided grin to the older brother, and extended his hand. "Should I pull a Willy Wonka and throw the cane away while doing a somersault?" he cracked, and this remark brought a broad smile to Charles Scully's face. The former agent gained a few points in his book, and the grin brought relief to Scully's mind. Mulder was accepted by Charles, and that was all that mattered to her. Charles saw the look of relief on Dana's face, and he realized then that this man meant more to her than any of the Scullys knew. "Only if you want to risk falling into a puddle and ruining those jeans," Charles said back, and Mulder cocked his head at Scully, his grin widening. "So, Scully, you put me in jeans today?" he asked with a licentious and flirtatious tone, and Scully clenched her jaw, pretending to be irritated. "Don't be obscene," she said. He just flashed her a brilliant white smile, and this pleased her immensely. He looked fantastic when he smiled. Watching this interplay of flamboyant flirtation, the Scully mother walked out to see her daughter and Mulder. "Dana," was the soft, warm call of Maggie Scully, and Scully touched Mulder's shirt sleeve. "Mom's coming, and she seems to be bearing gingerbread," she briefed, and Mulder nodded. Sure enough, moments later he heard the sounds of clothing rustling from a tight embrace, and then the feeling of kind, maternal arms around his neck. Surprised by this, Mulder paused before returning the hug. "Fox," was the murmur of Margaret. "I'm sorry." "What for?" he asked, and she hugged him again. Maggie accepted Fox as one of her own children, and tried to treat this poor, troubled one with special doses of love and affection. "For all this," she replied, and he heard Charles laugh. "That's Mom," he said, buoyancy in his warm voice. "Trying to make everything all right with gingerbread and hugs. You'll get used to it, Fox." Scully had forgotten to mention her ex-partner's disgust at his own first name, and Mulder would have shot her a look of irritation and tolerance if he could only pin-point her location. After Maggie moved away from him, Mulder tried to figure out where the red-headed woman he was looking for was standing. Using the slender cane, he traced his way to the sound of her voice, and stood next to her. "Where're the kids, Charlie?" she asked, and Charles groaned. "Dana, honey, you had better learn to call me Charles," he warned, "or the kids stay in with their beloved Gramma before they ever see you." "All right, *Charles*, just refrain from calling him Fox," she agreed. "Mulder will do fine." He grinned at the chivalrous note in the fair lady Dana's voice, and she rubbed his shoulder, vigorously. Scully watched as her handsome brother shook her hand, and wink at her. "You bet, Dana the Pain," he teased, and Mulder chuckled. "Ooo, Scully, I'm not going to forget that one," he said. Charles smirked at that, and bounded into the house. Taking him by the elbow, Scully helped him up the steps. "Did you tell your family that we're together?" he whispered, and she hesitated. "These kind of announcements are the most fun to make in person," she whispered back, and led him into Margaret's house, which smelled of pine and gingerbread. It smelled like Christmas. Scully looked around with a smile on her face and with Mulder on her arm. Bill Scully appeared with a mug of coffee, and Lisa was shortly behind him, dressed immaculately in an expensive cashmere sweater and slacks. Lisa's eyes scanned over her sister-in-law's infamous partner with interest. Though his blind eyes were hidden by expensive sunglasses, the frames added to his dangerous good looks and his over-all untouchable facade. He was tall, and Lisa could tell from the way the dark V-neck sweater, leather jacket, and jeans hung off of him that he had a great body. The way his passionate lips were curled at Dana in what could be interpreted as either a smirk or a smile was intriguing, and Lisa twirled her cinnamon stick in her apple cider. <> Scully gave Lisa her own wary look, as was now the usual whenever they met. "Bill, Lisa, this is Fox Mulder," she introduced. Gesturing for the married couple to come closer, she whispered to him. "Lisa's the one in the unflattering cashmere." Bill gave an uncertain look to his sister, and Mulder blindly reached out his hand. Bill did nothing, and Scully gave her brother a look that clearly stated, "Shake his hand or die." Finally, he shook the other man's slender hand, and Lisa approached. "So, this is Fox," she murmured, and Mulder heard the haughty tones of the snotty Bostonian loud and clear. He had grown up near and around the city, but had never had enough money or enough care to speak with any accent indigenous to any particular area. "Charmed." He couldn't believe that she actually said, "Charmed." He was tempted to flash the renowned Mulder smile, and bend down to lick her hand. Scully wished that she could flash him a warning look, but he refrained from making an ass out of himself and Scully. "Ditto," he said, and Scully stifled a laugh at the look on Lisa's face. "Aunt Dana!" He heard the rushing of footsteps, and giggles of small children echoed in the room. Children that Scully would never have, all because of you, his mind reminded, and he would have winced if he wasn't still the focus of the Scully family. "Aunt Dana?" he teased, and she just laughed as her niece and her nephew bombarded her with hugs. Little Kenneth attached himself to Scully's waist, and his sister hugged her as well, nearly knocking the petite woman to the ground. Their proud father watched with a fatherly glint of affection in his dancing eyes. The children loved Dana so much, and he hurt at the knowledge that he would soon have to explain why they would never see her again. Charles had not taken the news that she was dying well. Maggie had called the family with the knowledge of her cancer immediately, and there were tears in the mother's voice at the words. It was hard to think that he was going to lose his only surviving sister to her job, just as he had lost Melissa. Trepidation had surrounded his meeting Fox Mulder, for Charles had secretly believed that his sisters wouldn't be dead or dying if it weren't for this paranoid man. Maggie had stood up and vouched for him, but he had never gotten over that belief. "Charles, he's had a difficult life," she tried to explain, "more than I think Dana even knows. Let him be, please. Be kind, for your sister's sake." And Charles had been when he met Mulder, and then when he realized that this man had taken his own cost for the deeds that he did, he could be more open about getting to know the ex-agent. Rachael smiled up at her pretty aunt. "Aunt Dana, we missed you," she lisped, and the woman smiled at the absence of her two front teeth. "I missed you, too, sweetie," she said, and kissed her cheek. Laura stood in the background, a paperback edition of "The Eyes of the Dragon" in her hands. "Hi, Laura!" Laura gave Scully a shy smile, and turned her attention to the bespectacled Mulder in front of her. His head was straight forward, and the dark sunglasses concealed the direction in which his gaze was locked. Tilting her head, she thumbed the pages of her book. "Hello," she said, her voice lilting and innocent. Scully looked over at the man and the child. "Laura, this is Fox Mulder," she said. Laura reached out and shook his hand with more confidence than she had seen her niece with in a long time. "Hello, Mr. Mulder," she said politely. Mulder broke into a smile for the girl, charming her immediately. "Hello, Miss Scully," he returned, and Laura blushed, a shy smile on her face, which in turn caused Scully to tilt her head. Though he never believed it himself, he possessed the ability to win over any female with natural charisma and sex appeal. He had easily grabbed Scully's heart with one intense and mysterious glare in the dark light of his basement office, and she had never wanted to get it back since. After the initial welcome of the children, Scully was able to get comfortable in the dining room with Mulder, Maggie, Charles, Bill, and Lisa. Sitting next to him and laughing as Charles assumed control of the conversation, Scully wished that her life could be as normal as it was then. Sitting at the family table with the man that she loved at her side, and reminiscing over childhood memories with her family... It was a way of life that she would probably never have. "So, Dana and Missy figured that if they borrowed Bill's convertible, which, I might add, had just been paid for with his money from working at the college coffeehouse, they could have a rowdy day off of school," Charles said, and Scully groaned. "Mulder, don't listen to him," she pleaded. "It's all a lie, all a dirty, rotten, lie." Shaking his head, Mulder leaned forward, interested. "No, keep talking. I never get to see the wild side of Dana Scully," he said, and gave her a wicked grin. Lisa was amused for a moment before acting bored again. "They left for school, but instead of going there, they went to Missy's friend's stables, and went horseback riding with some senior boys," he said, and his tone was one of confidentiality to Mulder. "So, the boys claimed that they could ride bareback, right? Dana has to prove that she's just as good as the other kids, so she brags that she can ride bareback, too." Scully groaned, knowing just which part was coming up next. "The day was wet, the horse was wild, and she fell off, into the mud, breaking her arm in the process! But what made it worse was that Caroline, Missy's ditz friend, started screaming that they were going to have to cut it off, and Dana passed out." The entire family laughed as a whole at Scully's expense, and she restrained from blushing in front of them. "Charles, stop!" she begged, and Mulder laughed even louder. Her face flushed red, and Charles grinned wickedly at her. "Sorry, sis," he mockingly apologized. "But I thought that Mulder here should know every side of you, huh?" There was a nasty comment somewhere in there, and Mulder could have said it except for the fact that Scully's family was still in the dark about the two's newfound romantic status. Maggie stood up and began to clear away dishes with the help of Charles and Dana. Bill had left a while ago to have a cigar, leaving Lisa at the table alone with Mulder. Lisa pulled out a slender cigarette, and lit it. She blew smoke out at him, watching with interest as the haze swirled around Mulder's sunglasses as he pointedly coughed. "Sorry," she said, not apologizing for smoking, but apologizing because she was going to continue smoking with no regard to his preferences. "So, Mulder, rumor has it that you're one of those UFO nuts," she said, a snotty tone in her voice that grated on Mulder's nerves. Giving her a charming smile, he waved the smoke away from his face. "We prefer to be called flying saucer fanatics," he said, his tone sardonic and acidic. She smiled slowly at this response, and crossed her delicate ankles, completely aware that he was not able to see. "Why are you sticking around with Dana?" she asked, bluntly. "What is this, 'Singled Out'?" he replied. "Just making small talk," she said, innocently. "Come on, Mulder, you seem to be a bright guy, even if you are near being committed. I'm sure that she'll visit you in your institution." "And I'm sure that you'll throw many tight-ass society parties to benefit the poor convalescents such as myself," he shot back. Hoping to God that she was shocked by this, he continued. "I don't know what your business in all of this is, but I doubt that you have any right to be discussing your sister-in-law's life behind her back without her knowledge or her consent." "Why, Mulder..." "Fuck you," he replied, tired. ************************************************* ************************************************* Scrubbing a glass of cider-stained plastic, Margaret Scully glanced up at her remaining daughter, who was putting dishes away with accustomed reservation. There was something about her that had not existed the last time she had seen her, and it lay in her small smile that rested on her lips, and in the glow that she emitted. Tilting her head to examine her usually cool and strong daughter, Maggie detected notes of warmth and tenderness in her eyes and in her cheeks. Looking up suddenly at the sensation of eyes on her, Scully reflexively swiped at her nose, making sure that she wasn't bleeding. Stares had become that miniature and rather morbid alarm for her, but this stare was one more of fascination than one of concern, or, from Mulder, heartbreak. "How are you getting along, Dana?" Maggie asked, and Dana smiled briefly, picking up another plate to put away. "Surprisingly well," she said, the words layered with a double-meaning that only Scully or Mulder would have understood. "Quite surprisingly well." Charles looked at his sister with a sly look, but kept his thoughts to himself as Maggie turned off the water. "What's he going to do when he leaves?" she asked Scully, and Scully cocked her head, accepting the unbeknownst invite from her mother. "Well, Mom, he's not going to leave," she said. Both members of the Scully family looked with surprise at the usually conservative Dana. "We've agreed that we're just going to stay together." Margaret walked to her daughter, sudden hope in her heart. "Dana, does this mean that...?" Scully nodded to her mother, and she hugged her, smiling. "Everything's going the way it should be, Mom," she promised, and realization dawned on Charles. Dana and Mulder... He just grinned a wide smile, and ruffled his little sister's hair. "I'm glad for you, Dana," he said. "Really glad." ************************************************* ************************************************* Bidding good-bye to her family, she escorted him to the car. "Your sister-in-law's the spawn of Satan," Mulder remarked, and she nodded. "The spawn of Satan who ages about as fast as Barbra Streisand," she added, and Mulder wondered as to how true that statement was. "Want to go horseback riding, Scully?" he asked, and she punched him in the ribs, smiling as she did so. "Very cute, Mulder," she replied, and opened the car door for him. He flashed her a charming smile, one filled with sarcasm and with devilish flirtation. "I'll drive," he volunteered, and she shut the door in his face, noting that Mulder's smile just broadened before treating him with a long, breathless kiss. ************************************************* ************************************************* SunlightFading3.htmlSunlight Fading - Continued 9/12 by: Annie Jennings Auralissa@aol.com (disclaimer in part one) ************************************************* ************************************************* Renee Townsend sat before Walter Skinner with her long, slim, shapely legs crossed daintily at the knees. She exuded confidence and self-assurance, and her cat-green eyes were fascinated and excited at the interview questions. Townsend had been the only agent in VCS who had dared to even think of filling the now-open space in the X-Files division. The news of Mulder's sudden blindness had spread through the Bureau like wildfire, and she had been rather saddened to hear it. She knew Mulder to be the most talented profiler in the FBI, and had held a great deal of respect for the outcast agent and his newly ostracized partner. The paranormal and the unexplained were mysteries that Townsend believed to be the essence of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. A case entered in that no one can deal with, and a closed one with an answer. She had heard of them three years ago with the abduction of Agent Scully, and she had been secretly following them ever since. The circumstances under which she was able to work on the division were not pleasant ones, however, and she was deeply sorry for Fox Mulder's loss of sight, and for Dana Scully's current predicament. "It says here that you're married," Skinner remarked, and she nodded. "To my husband, Hugh, of three years," she said, pride in her voice. "He's been very supportive of my endeavors, and of my job." He leaned forward, and looked Renee Townsend in the eyes. "Agent Townsend, the X-Files division has not had the best record with safety," he admitted. "These two have been in the hospital more than any other agent in my supervision. There is a high amount of risk involved with this position." "I am fully aware of the risks involved," she assured. "Hugh and I have talked it over, and we're both willing to make sacrifices. I believe that the X-Files are highly underestimated as for matter of importance in the Bureau, and I want to make sure that in the future, they are treated with a greater deal of respect. I have a great amount of respect and admiration for Agent Scully, as I do for Agent Mulder." Removing his glasses, Skinner looked down at the file on Agent Renee Townsend. She had done field work, graduated top of her class from Quantico, and had a degree in criminal psychology. He noted that her skills with firearms were extremely high, and he also looked at her family history. Born in San Diego, moved to Richmond when she was fifteen. Graduate of Duke University. High school as well as college valedictorian. She had an exemplary record. Flawless. And Skinner also knew that the Cigarette Man did not want her on the job. He had said that Skinner's superiors believed her not to be a threat to the project, but that she could end up becoming one as time went on. He had been told this, but had never been forbidden to assign her to Scully. After a long pause and a long stare at the prestige and dignity in Townsend's emerald eyes, he nodded. "I'm sending approval for your request, Agent Townsend," he finally stated. "You will report to Agent Scully's office on Monday, and be prepared for work. She has one more week off to take care of Agent Mulder, and she will then return for work. She will be your technical superior, and you will be asked to submit field reports for every case. This is only a trial run, Agent Townsend. If I hear one bad word from Agent Scully, then you're off." With one final handshake, he sent her off with the information that she would need. Driving home that night in her convertible, Townsend smiled to herself. She had won, she had won, she had won. The truth that had eluded her for so long would soon be hers. All of the secrets, all of the lies, everything that the government denied would soon belong to Renee Dionne Townsend and her work, and she marvelled at all of the possibilities. And in the meantime, perhaps she could get back the missing ten years of her life. ************************************************* ************************************************* Pressing toe to heel, she walked along the line in the pavement of her driveway in Fargo. Morgan Washington carefully balanced herself along the crack in the concrete, and walked it like a tight-rope. She was cold in her army jacket and baggy jeans, but the ice was beginning to melt in the near-Arctic city. There was more than the usual chill in the air, and it came from the absence of more than twenty people. There was a crisis going on in the town, and it was worrying Morgan more than she let on. In the past month or so, every single female freshman who lived in Fantasia had been missing for some period of time. Sometimes, it was just for three, maybe four minutes. Other times, it was for days or weeks. Morgan was the last one who had remained safe from the flashing lights, the stopped time, the chills, the seizures, and the implants. Nightmares plagued all of her friends, and Morgan had slept with ease. She had no computer-like chip placed in the base of her skull, and no bruises or no gashes. No early symptoms of hypothermia. But she was becoming scared and terrified. Her beloved Ms. Whiteside had told her that she would be fine, and that she was going to live, but Morgan had her doubts. She was afraid, deadly afraid. She was the last one, right? But what would happen if she was taken, too? ************************************************* ************************************************* "I know it's not fashionable To be this hopeful ...Well laugh away "I didn't think it was possible To be grateful ...Anyway "I know it's not sensible To be this passionate ...Everyday "Days go by I catch myself smile More than you'd ever expect It's been a long while Since it's been O.K. To feel this way "In the volumes of history Have you ever seen anything ...So pure "In the wildest mythology Were the gods and goddesses ...Ever so in love "In your own experience Have you ever known tenderness ...Like this "Days go by I catch myself smile More than you'd ever expect It's been a long while Since it's been O.K. To feel this way These are the most precious Of all my days" --Duncan Sheik "Days Go By", Duncan Sheik, 1996 ************************************************* ************************************************* Sitting by him on the couch and revelling in the electricity that crackled in the incredible massage that he was giving her, Scully tilted her head on to the slender hands that gripped her shoulders with masculinity and delicacy. He knew her flesh better than she did, and that was fine with her so long as he continued to give her back rubs like the one he was inducing upon her now. Nibbling at her neck with kisses, Mulder pushed his thumbs into her soft, good-smelling flesh, and nuzzled the tendrils of her hair with his nose. "Your shampoo smells delicious," he murmured into her ear, and she passionately kissed his cheek, paying close attention to the corner of his mouth. "Is that all that smells delicious?" she asked him, playing the coquette, and Mulder chuckled, bidding her to lean her back on his bare chest, and she stretched out on the couch, putting her elbows on Mulder's legs as rests. "Not in the least," he growled, and moved his mouth to hers. "You're delicious as is." "Sweet talker," she replied, and kissed him again, running her hands through his hair wildly and possessively. Just as he began to unbutton her blouse, a knock sounded at the door, and she pulled away. "Shit," she muttered, and ran a hand through her hair, fixing her clothes. She hastily inspected his attire, and smiled when she realized that he could care less if it looked as though they had just been fooling around. Which was, of course, exactly what they had been doing. There was a strange woman at her door, clad in an expensive-looking wine-colored suit, and with perfectly tamed and managed wine-colored hair. She was the essence of alcohol, and her anxious, joyous cat eyes looked at Scully. She was a good eight inches taller than Scully, and another two in the high heels that she wore. Warmly smiling a pleasant, innocent smile, the woman revealed perfect white teeth. "Agent Scully?" she asked, and Dana nodded, unsure of who this woman was. "Yes," she said, warily, and the woman extended her hand, eagerly. "My name's Agent Renee Townsend," she introduced, and the name was familiar to her. "I'm your new partner." Looking now with more interest at the agent that Skinner had spoken so highly of, Scully deduced that she couldn't be more than twenty-eight. She was young, and eager-faced, and naive-seeming. She was the old Dana Scully. Except that Renee Townsend could be a runway model, with a slender figure, long, perfectly shaped legs, flawless olive skin, chartreuse eyes, and dark red hair that floated like a cloud of raspberry silk over her shoulders. Agent Townsend was obviously very excited to have landed such a position, and Scully hoped that working on such desolate cases wouldn't destroy such innocence as it had destroyed hers in an instant. "I'm sorry to barge in on you, but I wanted to introduce myself in person," she apologized. "I wasn't interrupting you, was I?" <> "No, not at all," Scully assured. "Do you want to come in?" Elegantly and yet still eagerly, Townsend stepped into her new partner's apartment, and feasted her eyes on the famous Fox Mulder, who sat on Dana Scully's couch with a pair of sunglasses to shade his eyes from the woman, and wearing a rather sloppily put on tee-shirt and blue jeans. Scully noticed this with some relief, and she gestured to him. "Townsend, this is Fox Mulder, my old partner," she said, and Townsend walked to him, extending a smooth, manicured hand, and putting it in his. "Mulder, this is my new partner, Agent Renee Townsend." "It's an honor to meet you," she exclaimed, breathlessly, and Scully was almost glad that he couldn't see the attractive Agent Townsend. "I've admired your work for a while now." "I doubt that the membership for that fan club is particularly high," he cracked, and Scully gave a grudging smile, only for Townsend's benefit. "How did you get stuck down in the hell hole with Scully?" "Oh, and you act as though working with you was perfect heaven," his ex-partner said dryly, and Mulder gave them both a charming look. "Wasn't it?" he said, and she rewarded him with an invisible(to Mulder, at least) middle finger. Townsend admired the camaraderie between the two while also making herself aware of the sparks that flew between them. There was definitely lightning amongst them, and she wondered at it. She doubted that she and Hugh possessed such chemistry. "It's still a pleasure to meet you, Agent Mulder," she said, and turned her attention to Scully. "I'm sorry to intrude on you, but I knew that I wouldn't be able to introduce myself to you for another week. AD Skinner said that you still had a week's vacation left, so I thought..." "Actually, Townsend, Scully's going to be at work bright and early on Monday morning," Mulder interrupted, and Scully gave him a look of surprise. Oh, was she? But the answer illuminated Townsend's perfect face, and she smiled with the blaring whiteness of her teeth. "I'll look forward to it," she promised, and shook both the agents' hands before leaving. "Have a nice weekend." Once Townsend had closed the door and left the room, Scully groaned and flopped down on the couch, allowing Mulder to wrap his arms around her slender body, rubbing her baby-soft skin with his hands. "Mulder, tell me that when you met me, I wasn't nearly that naive," she pleaded, and he gnawed playfully on the lobe of her ear. "No, darling, you were as seductive and as sexy as you are now," he rumbled in her ear, and she let herself smile before asking him to tell her the truth. He resisted from kissing her, and she sat comfortably with his legs surrounding her hips. "Scully, when I first met you, you were bright, you were skeptical, you were a little trusting in the government and the job that you had been given, but that's only expected of anyone. I'm not saying that paranoia is the correct way to live, but for the line of work in which we lived, it was the only wise lifestyle. You were certainly different from Renee Townsend." "Thank God," she muttered, putting her bare feet under his. She was cold, and she picked up a warm blanket, covering the two with it. Mulder paused then, tensing and becoming very much like the normal Fox Mulder. "But she reminds me of Alex Krycek in her aim-to-please and her enchanted words," he said, darkly. "Krycek was just a little too eager to become the next Mulder, and I hope that Townsend's not the same kind of 'eager'." The name of Alex Krycek had not been uttered once in Scully's apartment since he had moved in, and there was the element of sadness and danger to add to the room. Scully was a little afraid of meeting Krycek again. She was afraid that she would forget herself and kill the son of a bitch. Turning the conversation away from such a hateful topic, she chafed his denim-clad knees teasingly. "And what is this about my going back to work on Monday?" she asked, and he smiled. "You have a job to do, Dana Scully, and don't forget it," he reminded. "There are still missing women in Fargo that need you. I can't do anything else for them. It's up to you and Kathie Lee now." She turned to him and looked him in the eyes, playfully removing his sunglasses with her teeth. "Don't make decisions for me, Fox," she warned, and he smiled when he felt her breath coming closer. "Call me Fox again, Scully, and I'll deny you sexual favors," he warned, and she nipped his nose with a kiss. "No, you won't," she said in a low, husky voice. He smiled. She knew him too well. ************************************************* ************************************************* The Federal Bureau of Investigation was in quiet awe of the return of Dana Scully, and everyone who knew or knew of her watched her walk down the halls in an elegant and business-like pant suit. She knew that all eyes were on here, and all minds were on Fox Mulder, so she kept her head held high and coldly ignored their curious stares. Vultures, all of them. Fucking carrion. The basement office no longer read "Fox Mulder, Special Agent", but instead "Dana Scully, Special Agent". She had her desk, and the thought of that ironic victory almost stung. Some harsh words and sarcastic mentions of Bullwinkle and Battleship had passed that day. Bracing herself for the perky Townsend, she opened the door. "I'm going to miss you, Mulder," she muttered to herself, and she walked inside, bombarded by the images of his "I WANT TO BELIEVE" poster and the photographs of elegantly designed crop circles. Townsend stood in front of them, a forest green pair of slacks and jacket hanging perfectly from her six foot frame. Her red hair was held back with a matching green head band, and Scully felt blase in comparison. Regaining pride by remembering that Mulder loved her, and that that was all that mattered, she put her briefcase on what was now her desk. "Good morning, Townsend," she greeted, and the stunning woman turned around, smiling brightly. "Good morning, Scully," she replied, and gestured around the apartment with exuberant hands. "This is fascinating. I take it that Mulder was the decorator?" Pointing out a photograph depicting crop circles in Kansas, she chuckled. "Either this is a crop circle, or a new ad for lawn mowers." Scully gave a dry look around. She had thought that going to work without him would be easier than it actually was. His shadow sat in that office chair, feet kicked up on the desk with casual grace, a sexy and seductive smile on his face. She could see him, from only a few weeks ago, standing in front of the thermostat, his hands balled up into fists, pounding the reluctant box. Now, the thermostat hummed with hot air. Townsend sat down in what used to be Scully's seat and crossed her slim legs at the ankles, looking demure and polished, as well as sophisticated and demure. Scully had read the file on her new partner, and committed many parts to memory. Renee Dionne Kelley had been born in San Diego, California, to the wealthy Kelleys. Her father was a successful playwright, and her mother was a brilliant neurosurgeon, and very agile with a scalpel. She had been brought up in boarding schools and in raised to be a debutante, but the details of her life between the ages of four and fourteen were shady, and with little event. She had married Hugh Bartholomew Townsend III in 1994, and had been with him since then. Hugh had one daughter of seven, and Renee was noted to be a perfect step-mother, and that they were trying to have a child of their own. Renee was a very talented agent, with incredible profiling skills. Now, the elegant debutante sat perfectly across from Scully and smiled charmingly. "So, what's first up on the agenda?" she asked, and Scully picked up a thick, dog-eared file. "This is the file dealing with the abductions in Fargo, North Dakota," she introduced. "The same case that Agent Mulder lost his sight for, and the same case that I think will bring along some very interesting questions. The last total of females abducted from the Fargo area was two hundred and twenty-eight. Twenty-nine remain missing, and one hundred and ninety-nine are returned. Six casualties. All are returned with computer implants in their necks, near the base of the skull, and some return with seizures and bruises. I suspect sexual abuse was involved, and the range of the ages are eight to thirty-seven." Shaking her head, Townsend flipped through the files. "The implants are noted to have been produced and categorized by the United States government," she mused. "That's impossible, isn't it? How can the government perform tests on their own citizens?" This rookie had a lot to learn, Scully thought, and looked Townsend in the eye. "Through my work on the X-Files, Townsend, I've seen a lot of things, and learned more about the secret workings of this government than anyone should ever want to know," she said, seriousness invading and dominating her tone. "And of all of the operations that I have been both witness and subject to, I still do not have the answer to your question." The shadows in Scully's eyes and in her voice told her that that was the truth, and she shuddered to herself, thinking of the torture that being involved with the X-Files had wrought upon this petite and prestigious woman. "I'm sorry," she murmured, and brought herself back to Earth. What this level-headed woman must think of her... "What is this about abductees from the 1960's?" Nodding, Scully walked around to Mulder's desk, and recited what she knew. "The reports that Agent Mulder filed and the reports that he looked up had to do with reported 'alien abductees' that have been replacing the kidnapped girls. He has a theory that involves recycling the victims for new ones, and I believe that the government is doing the recycling without any involvement from extraterrestrial entities." She looked down then at Mulder's empty chair. Her chair now, and she was supposed to sit down and brief the brand-new agent sitting before her. She hesitated, and Townsend gave her a sympathetic look. "Just because he's not with you doesn't mean that he's not here, right, Scully?" she asked, and Scully blinked, startled at the accuracy of Townsend's words. "Sit down." Scully paused, then gingerly seated herself in the chair. Mulder's chair. "The task at hand is to figure out where the missing children are and what has been done to them," she said. Reading through the file's medical records, Townsend made her first great impression on Scully. "All of the deceased females were barren," she stated, and Scully's eyebrows shot to the top of her forehead. "Excuse me?" Pointing out the medical charts, she highlighted areas. "Every woman is born with a preset number of ova," she recalled, and Scully nodded. "These dead children had very few to no ova in their ovaries. They were barren, and they were the only ones who were killed." Impressed, Scully gave her a look that clearly stated her approval. "Good catch, Townsend," she said, and Townsend nearly beamed. "Mulder had a theory about that; about the use of sexual reproductive organs in the tests. All of the returned women are barren as well, and I bet that if we looked at the files of the new abductees, the ones that have been brought back would be infertile." "A good chance," she agreed. "I probably need to go to Fargo and check this out, so I reserved myself a plane ticket. Just for some preliminary interviews, nothing special. Cool?" Unpreterbed and quite swept away by the agent's enthusiasm, Scully nodded. "Yes," she replied, and Townsend stood up, picking up the file. "I'm going to copy these; be right back," the dark red-head said, and left the basement office. Scully sat in Mulder's chair for a moment more, hesitating to move, and picked up the phone, dialing her apartment. The voice that picked up was a sarcastic and bored one, and she was immediately comforted by it. "Scully Crematorium, you kill 'em, we grill 'em," was the droll greeting, and she played along, using a husky and low voice to respond. "This is a new customer who would like to have the body of Fox Mulder incinerated to go, with an order of fries and a milkshake," she said, and the tones of the other party brightened. "Hey, Scully, what's up?" he asked, and she sighed, running her hands through her hair. "Nothing yet," she sighed, and flicked a dead mosquito carcass from off of her desk. "I just wanted to call and check in on you. How are you?" "Lonely," he replied, and she chuckled. "Want to blow off seventh period and get lucky?" "Very tempting offer, but I'll pass," she said, smiling at his tone. "You sure?" he tried again. "I'm sure," she responded. Mulder smiled to himself on the line at home, and put his Braille copy of "Farenheight 451" on the nightstand. "It's so odd to be here at work without you," she admitted. Sighing, he leaned his head on the armrest of the couch. She heard soft whispers of Fiona Apple in the background, and could tell that he had been on that sofa for most of the day. In fact, Mulder had been doing push-ups and sit-ups on her living room floor, attempting to keep his body in shape. "It's going to be all right, Scully," he promised, and he had to admit something to her. "It's kind of strange to be alone in the dark without you." She wanted to say something more to him, but the sounds of Townsend's heels clicking on the cement stopped her. "I miss you," she said, and he smiled. "I love you," he said into her ear, and she saw the shape of the woman's feet underneath the door. "I love you, too," she said, hurriedly, and hung up as Townsend opened the door. The wine-haired woman looked at Scully with cool assessment, and then sat down again. "So, Scully, what do we do until Wednesday?" she asked, and Scully picked up a file, passing it to her. "Figure out what the connection to the United States government is to all of these women," she said, and tapped the folder with carefully trimmed nails. "Every last one of these women." Nodding to herself and looking down at her manicured red nails, she asked for the phone. "I need to call Hugh and Cara, and tell them that I'm coming home late," she explained, and Scully gestured with open hands to please dial. She only heard Townsend's half of the conversation, but the love in her words were quite apparent and blatant. "No, honey, I won't forget to eat... Be sure to read Cara the bedtime story that we started last night... Don't wait up for me, I might be here for a while... I love you, too, Hugh." What a normal conversation, and what Scully wouldn't give for that to be her life with Mulder. Townsend hung up the phone, and began her work with a cup of coffee. ************************************************* ************************************************* "No one said it would be easy But no one said it'd be this hard No one said it would be easy But no one thought we'd come this far Oh, and look, we've come this far..." --Sheryl Crow "No One Said It Would Be Easy", Tuesday Night Music Club, 1993 ************************************************* ************************************************* The day passed into night, and Scully sat at Mulder's desk, the computer that he never touched still off, and her eyes beginning to hurt from the strain of the desk light. Yawning, she pulled out her bottle of prescription headache pills from her pocket and popped two into her mouth, swallowing them dry. Townsend looked over at Scully's pills with interest and concern before picking them up, reading the label. "Scully, these are some serious pills," she murmured. "How severe are these headaches of yours?" "They can be violent," she said, her tone demanding that Townsend leave it at that, and the stunning red-head refused to do such a thing. "You should go to a doctor and get it checked out. It could turn out to be something serious," she warned, and Scully nearly choked on the irony. No, really? Scully considered a brain tumor to be pretty damn serious. Of course, no one in the Bureau other than Mulder knew about her terminal condition, and Scully was in no particular mood or position to reveal such information. Sympathy was something that she loathed, along with self-pity. "Thanks for the concern, Townsend," she said, finishing the conversation. "I'll remember that." The phone rang, and Scully picked it up reflexively. "Scully," she answered, and the low tones of the man who responded made her dart her eyes at Townsend. "I've been waiting for you, Scully," he said, and his voice was low and seductive. He was teasing her, knowing that Townsend had to be in the room, and also knowing that Scully did not want her new partner to be aware that she and Mulder were sleeping together. Bored with reading, and listening to music, or listening to television, he had decided to call her. "Do you miss me?" "I'm sorry that I forgot to call, Mulder, but I'm working late tonight," she said, and her tone was clenched with warning and irritability. "There's leftover pizza from the other night in the freezer..." "Are you coming home to feed me dessert?" he asked, and she winced, knowing exactly what he was trying to do. She wondered if he was trying to get her in trouble on purpose, or if he was just being a S.O.B. for the hell of it. "I'm starved." "Then eat alone," she said, and the subtext was there and easy for Mulder to read. He chuckled at the nastiness and spite in her voice, and continued to murmur into the receiver. "I have a craving for something else," he implied, and she put her hand to her forehead, embarrassed and annoyed with him. "If you're going to be this whiny, Mulder, then I'm not going to cook for you again," she retorted, and he arched his eyebrows, picturing the irritation on her face. "Get something 'real' to eat, and I'll be home soon." "Soon enough?" "If you leave me alone and let me do my goddamn job," she said, and he laughed, going into the kitchen and pulling out a Cola from where he knew now that they would be. "I'll see you later, Mulder." "Love you, Scully," he said, leaning on the counter and allowing some of the pleading to enter his voice. Sighing and knowing that Townsend's eyes were on her, she sat up, getting ready to hang up. "Same to you, Mulder," she said, and hung up the phone. Groaning, she pulled off her pumps and crossed her legs under her. "How helpless can he be?" Renee asked, and Scully shook her head. "You have no idea." Ten minutes passed, and Townsend's eyes widened at something. "Scully, look at this," she pointed out, and took out a red pen. "Do you have a map of the United States anywhere around here?" she asked, and Scully stood up, the chill of the cement pouring through her bare feet. She pulled one out, and unrolled it on the desk still messy with Mulder's paraphernalia. "Each victim was abducted in a certain order from their homes, and returned in the same pattern. The first woman was taken from her home in Pennsylvania, and she was returned home, too. They all follow this pattern." Using the pen, she dotted each area, and Scully looked at the region left untouched by Townsend's pen. "The Massachusetts area," she muttered, and put her hand to her head. "Fuck." Looking with surprise at Scully, she nodded. "The Massachusetts area is the next one up," she agreed. "We should be looking for returned abductees from the 1960's to 1970's from this state, and within the next weeks. This is another step, isn't it, Scully? And the women were barren, all of them returned." Shaking her head, Scully picked up her trench coat and her briefcase. "Go home, Townsend," she ordered. "Be in tomorrow around eight o'clock, and be ready for a long day. I have to get home." "See you tomorrow," the red-head called to her, and Scully just walked away, temper blazing in her eyes. ************************************************* ************************************************* SUNLIGHT FADING 10/12 by: Annie Jennings (disclaimer in part one) ************************************************* ************************************************* The opening and slamming of the door indicated that Scully was home, and that she was pissed. "I can't believe you," were the first words out of her mouth. "You went down to Fargo to find Samantha, Mulder. That was what you did, wasn't it? You went for her. How could I have been so fucking stupid?" "Scully..." he began, but she cut him off. "Cut the crap, Mulder, and spare me your talks about how important the truth is to you," she snapped. "The truth is that you lost your sight over your damned quest for her. That's the truth, Mulder. You went over the edge; so far over the edge that you might not find the solid land again. Is that what you want, Mulder? Huh? Because you're not only hurting yourself with this search, you're hurting me, too." Wincing at the power and force behind her words, Mulder put his face in his hands. Yes, it was all truth. She was absolutely right. The truth was simple; the reason that he was blind was because of his search for Samantha. He had lost his sight because of her, and maybe the sight he lost was not only physical, but spiritual, too. Losing himself in his work had been a common habit for him, but losing himself was not right. "I knew going in that I might find her," he admitted, his voice slow and halting. "But I didn't know just how much I was getting into. Dammit, Scully, I didn't want to go blind. This was never something that I wanted. It hurts everyday to think that I'll never see little things, like the moon, or what you're wearing, or even your face. But I had to know, Scully... And this time, the consequences caught up with me." Losing the fury in her voice, she sat down next to him, holding his face in her hands with desperation to understand him and his ways. "Why this, Mulder?" she asked, her voice pleading. "I never wanted this for you, and I never wanted this for us. Why is it always you, or always me? We get the shitty end of the deal, and we get picked on, and stepped on, and dragged on, but we never have the evidence or the ability to retaliate. We always end up failing, and falling, and letting ourselves get set up again for failure. It frustrates me, Mulder. "I want more for us than sitting on this couch and asking why. I wanted more for us than sympathy and injury, but maybe I should just resign myself to that, because the odds don't ever turn in our favor." She smoothed hair from his eyes, and clutched his body to hers. "We gamble with our lives, Mulder, and we never have won. If this is our set of luck, then why do we insist upon rolling the dice, day after day?" He raised his head, and pressed his cheek against hers, contrasting the roughness of his stubble-covered face to her smooth cheekbone. "Because the chips that we place and bet include the lives of others, Scully," he whispered. "Because those chips are innocent human beings, and we are forced to gamble with their lives in order to win the truth." Knowing that he was right, she rested her head on the top of his and let herself cry. The hand that she played with always seemed to be a bad one. ************************************************* ************************************************* Hugh Townsend held the hand of his little daughter, and kissed the back of it. "Happy, Cara?" he asked her, and Cara nodded, her gap-toothed smile adorably charming with her English accent. "Yes, Daddy!" she exuded, and pointed to an animal in a cage. "Look, a lion!" The father and daughter walked along with the rest of Cara's class, pointing from animal to animal in awe of the natural beauty involved in every single beast from Mother Earth. Hugh had volunteered to take his sweet daughter on the field trip with her prestigious private academy class, and was having a fabulous time with the bright-eyed brunette with wide blue eyes. Cara was the spitting image of Hugh's deceased first wife, Rebecca, and the pride and joy of Hugh's life, next to Renee. Rebecca had died in childbirth, and Hugh had raised Cara on his own in their charming English manor in the countryside. Realizing that the place held too many memories for the distinguished gentleman, he moved to the United States to raise her in the presence of more modern conveniences. That was when he met Renee Goldsmith, a beautiful, mysterious, and sexy FBI agent in training at Quantico. He had fallen for her then and there, and had married the woman shortly after her graduation. He knew that Renee's past was shadowy, and unexplained, and he also knew that Renee wanted to remember the lost decade in her young life. She could recall nothing, nothing at all, and that fact frightened and worried her. Wandering through life, Renee had little guidance and even less self-confidence. Hugh had supported her climb from FBI agent to Special Agent Renee Townsend of the X-Files division, and would continue to support her. Cara looked up at Hugh with bright eyes, and skipped along with her fellow pupils. "Daddy, can we feed the ducks?" she lisped, and Hugh stopped at a quarter machine to buy his princess some seeds. As Hugh and Cara Townsend turned away and parted momentarily from the rest of the second-graders, a gunshot sounded, then another one, and they fell down amidst terrified screams from schoolchildren and teachers as birdseed scattered from the little girl's limp hand. ************************************************* ************************************************* Crying out at the news, Townsend turned white, and tears rolled down her face as Scully looked on, shocked. "Townsend?" she asked, dropping the files on her desk and attending to her partner. The phone slipped out of her hand, and she shook in body-racking sobs. "They're dead, oh, God, they're dead," she whispered. "Scully, they're dead..." Shaking her head, she held her new partner tightly to show support. "What happened, Renee?" she asked, and Renee sat up, her eyes brimming with tears. "My husband... my daughter... They're dead. Someone... some... monster... killed them, murdered them. They're dead!" she choked, and Scully was shocked. "Murdered?" she asked, stunned at the outburst from the slender agent. "How did this happen? Why..." And she realized what happened immediately. The Consortium, the Syndicate, whatever they could be called, had found out about their latest discoveries. The path of returned abductees, the implants... It was a ploy to keep Townsend off of the case. "If you don't mind, Scully, I have to go to the mortuary and identify the bodies," she whispered, and started to walk away. "I'm sorry, but..." Shaking her head, pale and alarmed at the murders, she nodded. "If you need to talk about it, Townsend, then I'm here." Nodding shortly, distracted and distraught, Renee Townsend left the room, her arms loosely clutching her tan trench coat to her body. Her hair fell in her face with rich, shining red beauty, but she did not bother to swipe at the loose and perfectly arranged curl. Shock and pain radiated with a nuclear force through her entire being, and she was screaming on the inside with grief. Her daughter, her husband... Why them? Sniffling back fat tears that threatened to streak down her cheeks, she walked to her convertible and opened the door. "Oh, Hugh," she whispered, her voice cracking. "Oh, Hugh..." Suddenly, there was a rough pull on her elbow, and Renee was pulled into her car and a gun was aimed to her head. "If you scream, you will join your family in the morgue," was the rough threat from the other person in the vehicle. Her eyes wide with fear, Renee turned to look at the person next to her. There were three men in the car with her. One was the driver, who sped off with her the moment that she was safely thrown in the car. The others were the gunman and a tall, older man in an expensive and non-descript suit, smoking a cigarette lazily, as though her discomfort and fear were of no concern to him. "Who are you?" she demanded, and the gun was pressed into her temple. The smoking man took a long drag from his Morley's, and he blew the smoke in Townsend's face. "We need to have a discussion, Agent Townsend," he said, his voice sinister and deceptively slick. "A discussion about what?" she asked, her voice cold and stony. "A discussion about your career and its path," the man explained. "You were recently placed in the X-Files division, were you not? Under the supervision of Agent Dana Scully. Working on the Fargo case..." "I am not answering any questions about my work or my career's path," she snapped. "Get the hell out of my automobile." "Why, Agent Townsend, we thought that you might appreciate a ride to the county coroner's office," he said. "Your husband waits for you with your daughter. I thought that you might want to see him." There was a sharp turn, and Renee fumbled for a moment. "How do you know about Hugh and Cara?" she demanded. The man smoked on the cigarette before extinguishing it on Renee's dusty mauve skirt, burning a hole straight through the expensive tweed. "Do you know how they died, Agent Townsend?" he asked, his tone conversational for such harsh, personal words. "They were shot in the head, point-blank range, execution style. Very professional." Her eyes widened, and she screamed at him. "You killed them!" she accused, and lunged for the man. Immediately, the gunman pulled harshly and brutally on her carefully curled red hair, and she cried out in pain as he pulled her back from the cigarette-smoking man. "You son of a bitch!" Lighting another cigarette, the man looked with close examination at Renee's face. "You don't have the strength or the ambition to replace Agent Mulder," he observed. "He was a fine agent. You're nothing. Just another pretty little paper-pusher, just like half of the other female agents in the Bureau. A law enforcement leech. You'll never make it, Townsend. Why bother to even try?" "Because this division has no one other than Agent Scully who cares about it now," she said, her tone teary and determined. She was a flawed angel with her mascara streaking inky black down her face. "And I care about it. I might not be as good as her, or as Agent Mulder was, but that was no reason to kill my family!" Shaking his head, the smoker turned his head, paying more attention to the scenery than to the upset woman in the car next to him. "Of course not," he agreed. "But did I ever state that the motive behind the murders was your ability as a federal agent? I'm making you an offer, Agent Townsend, and I expect you to listen when I speak." He put extra emphasis on the word *I*, leading Townsend to believe that the smoking man was someone more important than a child molester or a control freak. He was more than a simple assassin. There was something darker and more menacing than she had initially thought. "What kind of offer is that?" she asked, bitterness stealing its way into her throat. "An offer concerning Agent Mulder's sight and the success of the X-Files," the cigarette-smoking man murmured, and she stared at him. "I thought that there was nothing that any doctor could do for Agent Mulder," she said, shocked. "I thought that there was no way out for him. That he was permanently blind. Besides, what can I do?" "More than you would imagine," he said simply. "The Fargo case is a threat. I want the case slowly removed from the office. Bring me the research that he and Agent Scully have done, and I will set up an appointment for Fox Mulder." Shaking her head, she set her jaw. "This case could be one of the most important..." He interrupted her, his voice oily with unspoken subtleties of evil. "You loved Hugh very much, didn't you?" he said, and the question was an amused one, one that had no concern for her emotions. A casual statement. "I loved him more than anyone," she said, her voice rough. "And if he lost his sight, then no case would get in the way of his regaining his sight?" he continued. "No case," she said. "Then why should you punish Agent Scully, who loves Agent Mulder more than anyone?" he persuaded, and the reference was rather surprising. She loved Mulder? "If you care so much about the success and the furtherment of the X-Files, then one would think that you would be more willing to preserve the physical health of the guru of the unexplained." Her eyes closed, and she contemplated what this man was saying. "What business do you have in the X-Files?" she asked, and he blew a cloud of thick, nicotine-saturated smoke into her car. "Enough to keep my interest," he said, and the car screeched to a halt, the gunman tightening his grip on Renee. "All we want is the Fargo file, Agent Townsend. Give us the file, and we will give Agent Mulder the gift of sight." She paused for a moment, thinking of Dana Scully's shadowed and pained eyes. They were full of secrets untold and souls sold, and she thought about the elusive and fascinating reports on Fox Mulder. What would she do... "I'll deliver the files to the empty USA Today newspaper stand on Dakota Street," she said, her voice confidential. "Be there at six thirty. Leave the details involving the operation in the file's place, and I'll take it to the hospital. Anonymously." "You will not inform anyone of this conversation, including Agent Scully," he said, his tone droll and bored. "We have never met." She nodded, and she was thrown from the backseat onto the lawn of the coroner's office, dazed and afraid. ************************************************* ************************************************* The woman that walked through the door into Scully's office three hours later was not the same woman who walked out. Certainly, they both had that supermodel stature, the same bones, the same elegantly curled and perfectly tamed red tresses, but this woman was stronger and more stoic. "What happened, Agent Townsend?" she asked, her voice softer than a whisper. "They were shot in the back of the head," she said, her tone lifeless. "In front of school children. At the zoo." Her voice broke, and rose with tears. "School children, Scully! All of those kids, standing there, watching the animals when their classmate and her father were shot in the head!" Scully flinched when she heard that, and put her face in her hands, shocked and disturbed by the calculation involved in the murders. "I'm so sorry, Townsend," she offered. "It's such a tragedy." Raising her lowered eyes, Townsend met Scully's blue eyes with emerald-colored ones. "There's more," she said, her tone dead serious. "Three men ambushed me in the parking garage, and hijacked my car. One stuck a gun to my head. The other one, a man in a suit, told me that we were going to have a talk about my *career*. He told me that I was never going to make it as an X-Files agent, and that I would never live up to you or Mulder." Scully began to shake her head at this, but Renee shook her own head, stopping the protests. "He made me an offer, Scully, one that you need to hear." Tilting her head at the woman, Scully didn't understand. "Excuse me?" "A deal. The Fargo files for Mulder's sight," she said, her voice low. "He said that if I brought the files to him, then an appointment for Mulder to regain his sight would be made. A surgical procedure." Scully shook her head, and put her hands down on the desk. "Mulder lost his sight permanently," she whispered. "The technology to repair nerves so severely damaged as Mulder's were does not exist. How could one man promise to make Mulder see again?" Thinking rapidly, remembering that with every moment, the time for the papers to be dropped off was approaching. "Scully, there's more," she murmured. "This man claimed that you loved Mulder. Is that true? I'm not here to judge you, nor am I here to persecute you. I just... need to know. Do you love him?" This last bombardment almost made Scully blanch. She instead grew very quiet, and very protective of herself. "Yes," she whispered. "I do love him. And he loves me." Renee nodded. "Then I made the right decision," she exerted. "I agreed to bring the papers to him in exchange for Mulder's sight. He will drop off papers that will describe his operation in detail, and check Mulder into a hospital." Scully's head was spinning, and she felt dizzy. "This can't be... be true... How could... Renee, this would never work out, never at all. Who offered to you this deal?" Shrugging with grace, Townsend rapped her fingers against the side of the chair. "He never gave me his name... Older fellow, low, slimy kind of voice. He dressed in a uniform-type business suit. That damn cigarette he had left a hole in my skirt, though. My entire car probably reeks of Morley's." Freezing, Scully leaned into her. "This man chain-smoked?" she asked, and Townsend frowned. "Yeah, a lot. Why?" she asked, and Scully shook her head. "No reason..." she muttered. "Bring him the files. I'm making copies. Call the airline and reserve three tickets to Salt Lake City under my name, your name, and Mulder's name. The Bureau will pay for those due to the fact that it's an X-File. Then, make reservations to Fargo with a different airline for the three of us using aliases. Pay for these tickets with cash. Make sure that the flight time is after the flight to Utah." Renee took close attention to Scully's rapid-fire orders, and picked up the phone. "Great, a holiday," she murmured sarcastically. "I'm missing my husband's funeral for this, Scully. My family's dead." "Townsend, maybe you should transfer..." Townsend's reply was abrupt. "No! I have to know why Cara and Hugh were killed, Dana. Nothing else matters. Nothing. I need to know what they died for, and why I didn't die instead," she said, and the innocence and naivete was gone from her voice. Eradicated with the news of their deaths, a part of Renee Townsend's heart died, too. ************************************************* ************************************************* The plane lifted off, and Scully squeezed Mulder's hand with reassurance. The transactions had been performed with little trouble, and the two agents along with the blinded one were headed to Fargo to try to save the truth from distortion. Mulder put on headphones, and listened to music soon into the flight, and mulled over the news that Scully had delivered to him. The Fargo files in exchange for his sight... He was intensely glad that Renee had come to Scully first with the news about her momentary abductors, and agreed with her on the part that this man had to be him. The one and only Marlboro Man, as he had labelled him from time to time. To see again, to feast his eyes upon Scully's perfect face, and to work on the X-Files again... It would be fantastic. It would be heavenly and divine. Thirty minutes into the flight and three-quarters of the way through his Verve Pipe CD, Mulder felt a weight fall on his chest, and smiled to recognize that weight as Dana Scully's fine, red head. She had fallen asleep, and was breathing into his leather jacket, inhaling the scent of the well-worn leather and the cologne. Her hand slipped naturally and instinctively inside the coat, her fingers entwining his lapel. He bent down and nuzzled the top of her head with his cheek, and put his arms tightly and lovingly around her. Watching the two had been a comfort to Townsend, who sat across the aisle and was quite taken with the chemistry and magic between the two ex-partners. They were incredibly in love, and she remembered her days like that with her precious Hugh. Hugh, who she had adored and worshipped as her own Greek god, and Hugh, who would have walked on fire to do anything for her. She knew that she had killed him, and that because of her damned ambition and her selfishness, she would never be able to touch him, to kiss him, to see his perfect, familiar face again. And she would spend the rest of her life trying to find out why he had died. The operation to restore Mulder's sight was scheduled for the following Thursday. The instructions were simple-- Bring Mulder and Scully to Cisco's Cafe, and leave them there. Pick them up in one day. And he would see again. Scully and Mulder had been notified of these plans, in spite of the cigarette-smoking shmuck's instructions, and were prepared for any kind of attack. But there was business to be attended to in Fargo at the moment, and that was exactly what Renee had to do. Focus on work, on nothing but work, for through her work lay the path to revenge. And revenge is truly a dish best served cold. ************************************************* ************************************************* SUNLIGHT FADING by: Annie Jennings (disclaimer in part one) ************************************************* ************************************************* The motel was not as posh as the lodge where Lily Whiteside lived, and Scully longed for the intimacy of the rustic inn. She also longed to see Lily again, who had been such a comfort and such a help when Mulder had been dragged in from the snow, blinded and bleeding. Scully still had no idea what she would have done without the cool-minded Lily there to help with her partner, and wanted to have the opportunity to thank Lily in person. The two lovers took a room by themselves, while Townsend volunteered to sleep alone. Mulder had protested initially, but the smooth, sophisticated, and almost authoritative tones of the once-giddy, now sobered woman had told him that he had damn well hop in bed with his ex-partner. Scully had no protests or qualms whatsoever. The snow in Fargo was still white as rain, and Scully hated that she had to drive through the fluffy white snowbanks. She personally hated driving through ice or snow, and though the scenery had once seemed enchanting and inviting, she could only remember the sight of Mulder's blood, seeping into the icicles and the snowflakes, as his sight vanished. There was only one teenager left in the entire suburb of Fantasia who had not been implanted with the computer chip, and that was Morgan Washington. The house was covered in floating, sloping, banks of snow, and Scully pulled the car to a halt in the driveway. Reflexively, she passed Mulder his cane, and stepped outside to gather close to him for warmth. There was something in the air that chilled her to the bone. <> The front door opened, and a tall, slender, sullen-faced girl walked out to meet them. Her eyes were lazy-seeming, and she was tall and blonde, with sandy hair that fell languidly in her face. "Who the hell are you?" she asked, and Mulder was startled at the voice he heard. <> "My name is Agent Benson, this is Agent Toll, and the consultant for this case, former Agent Davis," Townsend rolled off in a bored monotone that Mulder could have applauded her for. "We're with the FBI. I'm assuming that you're Morgan Washington." "Yah," she said, and Mulder stifled a grin. Her Midwest quaintness contrasted sharply with the degree of nastiness in her tones. "I didn't do anything wrong." "No, you haven't done anything wrong," Scully assured. The wind blew snow in her face, and it clustered around her Roman nose and her lips. "We need to ask you a few questions pertaining your current condition." Standing with a wary expression on her pouty and plain face, Morgan turned on her heel and walked into the house. "Come in," she called, and the agents followed her, Mulder keeping his arm wrapped tightly around Scully as she helped him up the steep stone steps. The living room felt incredibly warm and comfortable compared to the cold air outside. Mulder could feel the warmth and the heat on his skin, not only with Scully's body draped around his, but with the blazing fires that sent heat through the house, the comfort was apparent here. "You wanna sit down?" she asked, and he felt Scully's arms directing him to a chair. "Right here," she murmured, and he kept a hold on her hand as she sat next to him. He heard the girl's voice, impressed and blunt. "Oh, phat, is that dude blind?" she asked, and he felt Scully's hand squeezing his tighter. He knew that she wanted him to be calm, not to do anything stupid. "No, I'm just trying to sell cheap pencils," he snapped, and Scully pinched his palm with warning. "Yes, I'm blind." <> "Cool... So, like what do you want with me?" she asked, and from the origin of her voice, Mulder deduced that she was seated across from him. "We need to ask you a few questions about your health, Morgan," Townsend purred. "Is your mother home?" "My parents are here," she said, and screamed at the tops of her lungs. "MOM! DAD! THE FBI IS HERE!" He heard thundering footsteps, implying that the girl had left the room. Mulder groaned inwardly, and leaned to whisper in his supportive lover's ear. "Great, now I'll be deaf as well as blind," he lamented, and Scully tilted her head, breezing by his face with the sides of her hair. "I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice not matching her words. "Poor baby." "Kiss me and make me all better?" Her middle finger replied when Scully could not, and Townsend chortled. "Watch it, Mulder, she's getting frisky and making obscene gestures involving her hands," she described, and Scully turned the finger to her lovely partner. "Why, Dana, I never knew you cared." The sounds of footsteps approaching shushed the agents, and Mulder sat up with perfect posture. Scully saw that these parents were very intelligent, very kind-looking, and perfectly normal. "What's wrong with our daughter?" Mrs. Washington demanded. "Mrs. Washington, nothing is wrong with your daughter," Mulder assured. "We want to make sure that nothing does happen to your daughter, and we want to know why she's the only girl in Fantasia who has not been taken from her home." "We don't know," Mr. Washington said, his voice concerned. "We're just grateful to God that our baby girl is still alive, and we want to make sure that she stays that way. Is there anything horribly wrong with being a worried parent?" Scully's cool, calm, and soothing voice overrode the agitation in Mr. Washington's tone. "There is no question as to your genuine concern for Morgan, sir," she promised. "Agent Davis is just asking about how Morgan has been able to stay out of the target zone for these attacks." The interview lasted for an hour, with Townsend and Scully directing most of the questions and Mulder leaning back, thinking and comprehending. "Agent Toll, what do you think?" Mrs. Washington asked. "Why... Why is Morgan still here?" Mulder finally intervened. "Has Morgan ever been to a gynecologist?" he asked, and Mrs. Washington was startled. "Yes..." Scully and Townsend watched as Mulder leaned forward, keeping his status laid-back and low, and Scully watched in admiration as Mulder did what he did best. He was still brilliant; the genius of the Bureau. "Is Morgan sexually active?" he then asked, and Mrs. Washington shook her head. "No, she's a virgin still," she responded. "It's rather unusual for someone as young as Morgan to go to a gynecologist if she has never engaged in sexual intercourse, isn't it, Mrs. Washington?" Mulder continued, and the mother shook her head. "Morgan needed to go. She had problems with her menstrual flow. She still has not had her first period," she said, and Scully's eyebrows shot to the top of her brow. "That's certainly rather unusual, isn't it?" she asked, and Mr. Washington looked suitably uncomfortable when discussing his little princess's menstrual flow, or lack thereof. "Morgan has no uterus," she finally said. Mulder leaned forward. "Has there ever been a time when your daughter was missing for a period of time?" he questioned, and Mrs. Washington nodded, slowly. "When she was three years old, just a baby, she was missing for three weeks," she confessed. "No one knows about it. She was gone, and she came back. With this weird chip in her neck." "And you never told Morgan about this?" he asked, and Mrs. Whiteside shook her head, a little ashamed. "No, we agreed that it could prove to be psychologically damaging," she admitted, and Mulder stood up, shaking her hand. "Thank you," he said, and grabbed his cane, finding his way to the door as Scully stared at him, astonished as usual. He always managed to shock her completely with his deductive skills. Spooky Mulder. ************************************************* ************************************************* Sitting in the motel with her legs crossed, Townsend was getting irritated as hell with Mulder's paranoia, and she could tell that Scully had had just enough of it as well. "Mulder, for Christ's sake, why would the government select innocent American citizens for tests when it could use foreign military prisoners for the same ideals?" she asked, and the blind man ran a hand through his feathery hair. "Because there is a military agreement stating that prisoners of war cannot be misused or abused," he explained, "and the tests would bring smaller suspicion on the government." "This is ridiculous and paranoid," she argued. "I don't know what you have in mind here, Mulder, but I'm tired of this shit. Tell us what your fucking ideals are, and then we'll listen." He cocked his head in Scully's direction, and she sighed. "Sorry, Mulder, but I'm in with Townsend on this one," she said, and she didn't sound sorry in the least. "We need to know what your theory on this one is." Sighing, Mulder folded his long legs up on the bed. "The women are all barren, correct?" he asked, and Townsend nodded. "It's all a part of hyper-ovulation. The government needs human female ova for the formula for hybridization." "Clones," Townsend stated, disbelief in her voice. "Clones." "Yes. The question here is this: are these clones human hybrids, or alien ones?" he posed, and the two women stared at him, though he was oblivious to their looks of absolute incredulity. <> Scully closed her eyes, and popped a migraine pill from her bottle. <> Mulder knew that they didn't believe him, and so he closed his eyes. "Go to bed, Townsend," he ordered, and took off his sunglasses, revealing his dead eyes to the pretty young woman. She took the sight in as a rarity, and looked at them with interest. They were extraordinarily beautiful, heavily lashed, mysterious, and hooded with shadows. But the brilliant hazel color was detracted from by the lack of light in them. They were blind to the world, and oblivious to all. "Yeah," she muttered, and stumbled into her room and back into bed. Left alone with her ex-partner, Scully looked in his direction. "There is one thing that you have never had in abundance, Mulder, and that one thing is tact," she said, and he smiled in an unappreciated attempt to make peace. "Yes, but I compensate in charm, don't I?" he asked, and Scully sat down, her eyes on him and serious. "I don't agree with your theory, Mulder, to a degree," she said, slowly, as to now hurt him, though she did anyway. "The prospect that the government would abduct innocent women and harvest their ova just to create clones for a purpose of which we have no idea is preposterous and offensive to the United States of America. We have no evidence that this is true." To hear that coming from her was ironic pain. He kept thinking back to the infertility clinic and the identical Kurts that were walking around. The men in the tanks of fluid, all alike, all living. The drawers full of ova, and the one silver drawer imprinted with Dana Scully's name. "These women are your mothers..." The phrase echoed in his mind, and he spoke again, hushed. "Scully, they did this to you as well," he murmured, and Scully looked up, sharply. "Excuse me?" she asked, and Mulder put his sunglasses back on, running his hands through his hair in now-unnerved fashion. "When they abducted you, Scully, they left you with brain cancer and barrenness," he revealed, and she shook her head. "I don't understand, how do you know this?" she asked. The guilty look on his face was enough, and she closed her eyes. "Oh, my God, Mulder, why didn't you tell me this earlier, for God's sake? Why did you keep this hidden? Why didn't you tell me?" The rapid-fire questions were shot out with such mental anguish that her soft cries were like screams in Mulder's ears. "Because I didn't know for certain, Scully," he admitted. "I know now." She would never have children... No more Scullys to continue from another daughter. The Scully women were through. Melissa, dead. Dana, barren and soon to be dead. The words hurt her greatly, and she thought of the impact that they left on the short fragment of her life. She was through, through, through. Mulder did not need to see the hurt and confusion on her face to know that she was upset. It was the only reaction that a woman like Scully could have, and he opened his arms to her. Seeking any kind of acceptance and refuge that she could find, Scully crawled into his lap, allowing him to hold her and comfort her with strong arms and small kisses. "I'll never be a mother, Mulder," she whispered. "That dream, too... Gone." "I'm sorry, Dana," he whispered back, and she bit back tears. She had cried too often in the past three weeks, and she felt as though she couldn't cry anymore. "I'm sorry that I never told you. I should have told you. I didn't want to believe any of it. Funny, right? Fox Mulder, not wanting to believe. But I kept walking on, thinking and wondering from time to time, and then knowing when we started the Fargo case. There's no other explanation." He told her of the red-headed men in the clinic, and of the tanks full of other Kurts waiting to be born, and of the cabinets full of ova that was from the other women abducted. "You do have children, Scully," he said, as though this was of some comfort to her. "They are out there, and they love you, even though they never have met you. They're trying to save you. They're trying to save their mothers." Now, she was crying. Sons, red-haired sons, and she had met only one of them, of which could have been hers. "Children?" she asked, and the tears welled up from her eyes and rolled languidly down her face. He felt them fall onto his neck, and he used his thumbs to wipe them from her cheekbones. "I have children..." "Yes," he promised, and she gave a small, faltering smile. "You do have children." He rubbed her shoulder, encouragingly, and she kissed his cheek, lining his entire face with the imprints of her lips. "Then maybe there is hope," she said, and he touched her mouth with his in a kiss so passionate that she surrendered, hope filled with love and life. ************************************************* ************************************************* Nightmares raced through Renee's mind... Nightmares of being locked in a large, white room, with her arms and legs tied to a gurney. She tried to scream, and her vocal chords vibrated without making a sound. The screams were empty threats in a silent sky, and she felt the pain take her body again. She was just a little girl... Just a little girl... How old was she now? Six? Seven? She didn't remember getting presents from Mommy or from Daddy. She didn't remember how many candles were on the cake this year, or even if there was a cake. She had forgotten how old she was. But she knew that she was too little to be hurt like this. There was the teenager again. She came around to the littler girls, and held their hands, and told them that the tests would be over soon. They just had to be patient and wait. "Shhh..." she promised. "The doctors won't come back for a while, and then you'll go home to see your parents. No one here will hurt you for a long time, little Renee." Renee smiled for her, and held the dark-haired girl's slender hand with more bravado and courage. She had such pretty hands, delicate, slender, tapering fingers, but strong at the same time. The girl was so pretty, with dark, dark curls, and bright, intelligent hazel eyes. "'Kay, Samantha," Renee promised dreamily, before the darkness and the pain swallowed her back up again. ************************************************* ************************************************* SUNLIGHT FADING 12/12 by: Annie Jennings (disclaimer in part one) ************************************************* ************************************************* He awoke the sounds of his door being broken, and the sounds of the crashing and the thrashing of someone struggling to get in. "Dana," he whispered, but the still, unclothed woman with her arms wrapped tightly around him did not wake up. "Dana." The door burst open, and Mulder's eyes darted around nervously. Oh, he wished for his sight, he wished so hard for his sight... But the voice was familiar, and he recognized it well. "Hello, Mulder," Alex Krycek said calmly. "Long time, no see... Oh, that was a little mean, now, wasn't it?" Cringing at the information that Krycek knew about Mulder's blindness, he put his arms tightly around Scully's bare shoulders in a protective stance. In response, the deeply sleeping woman smiled and hugged him tighter, and purred deep in her throat as she draped her leg over his knee. Krycek smiled at this, and aimed the weapon at Mulder's throat. "So, how's the little woman?" he said, venom in his voice. "Tell me, Mulder... Is she good?" "Leave her out of this," Mulder said hoarsely. "This is between you and me, Krycek. Leave Scully alone." Finally, she stirred, and woke with the sensation that Mulder was tense and drawn. "Fox..." she murmured, and opened her eyes to see Alex Krycek smiling licentiously at her barely-covered body. "Jesus!" "Not quite, Scully, but I thank you on behalf," he said. "Nice scene that I find for me, huh? A blind man and a whore. Not too surprising." She reached under the covers and picked up her gun. "Get out of this room, and get out of Fargo," she said. "You mother-fucking son of a bitch, you did this to Mulder, and I'm going to make you pay for it. By the time I'm through with you, you'll never see the light of day." "Just how you like 'em, huh, Dana?" he sneered. "Completely without sight? What, is blindness kinky or something?" At the same moment that Mulder realized that she had a gun under the blankets and that Dana was ready to fire, the adjoining door between Renee Townsend's room and Mulder and Scully's room flew open, with an armed and wild-eyed Townsend who quickly grabbed Krycek, poising the gun at his temple. "One word, motherfucker, and I pull the trigger and redecorate this room with your brains," she threatened, and Mulder smiled at the steel in her voice. "Hear me?" Krycek did not utter one word. "I know how hard this will be to comprehend, dickhead, but you're going to follow *my* instructions and my orders," she continued, poking the barrel of the gun harder into Krycek's temple. "First thing is to give me the gun, okay?" He resisted, but started to hand her the gun before kicking her and rolling away. Renee cried out, and fell to the floor, clutching her knee. Scully grabbed a terry-cloth robe from the chair and threw it on, covering her nude body as she, too, entered the fray, leaving a dazed Mulder in the bed. Scully aimed the gun at Krycek's head, and Krycek hurriedly aimed his weapon at hers. "Drop the gun, Krycek!" she yelled, and Mulder felt desperation at the sounds of her panicked cry. "Scully!" he called, and she had no time or space for distraction. "Drop the fucking gun!" she repeated, and he refused. Mulder scampered around, yanking on his boxer shorts, and jumped out of bed. He put his now-sensitive hands to the floor, feeling around while being unnoticed by the others in the room. He felt the weapon lost by Townsend, and picked it up, his eyes darting about. "Drop the gun, Krycek!" he ordered, and his strong, bold voice rumbled through the room. Townsend took time out to notice him, and called out to him. "Turn the gun to the right, Mulder!" she directed. "Turn it further, a little higher..." Following the cautious and quickly given directions from her, Mulder had the gun aimed perfectly at Krycek's head. Krycek turned around quickly, and his eyes widened to see Mulder standing there, his blind eyes tilted above the target, but his weapon sharply on the spot. "Give it up," Scully ordered, proud and exhilerated at the attention her lover commanded. "It's over, Krycek. It's over." Darting his eyes in Mulder's direction, Krycek ducked as the two fired their weapons at the traitor's head, and he ran out the door, into the cold night. "Shit!" Scully exerted, and she led the chase outside, Townsend grabbing Mulder's arm and dragging him behind her. "Mulder, run!" Outside, there was the screech of a car's wheels as the cold air blew on Mulder's half-naked body, and Scully felt frozen solid in the scanty robe that she wore. Then, just before Townsend could call out her inquiries as to Krycek's whereabouts, there was a searing flash of light, and Mulder and Scully ducked to the sounds of Renee's screams. Seconds later, the screams were gone, and Mulder was left crawling, lost, in the snow, inches from where Scully shivered in her robe. "Mulder?" she asked, and she covered his bare body with her terry-clad one. "Jesus, what the hell was that?" "What was it, Scully?" he asked, his teeth chattering. "It was... a flash of light," she said, her voice detached and unsure. "I think it was, at least... I don't know. Renee? Townsend? Townsend!" She looked around, still crouched in the parking lot, but Renee Townsend was nowhere to be found. "She's gone," Scully breathed. "Mulder, she just disappeared!" But there came a rustling from the snow, and Scully looked up in time to see a thinly-clothed, dazed, and bleeding woman emerge from a snow drift, as though she were a living, breathing snow angel. "Hello?" she called, and her voice was ragged, confused, and she was shivering. "Is anyone here? Hello...?" Scully watched, bewildered, as the woman approached Dana. Standing, keeping her arms tightly wound around Mulder, she looked at the brunette with alarmed hazel eyes who stood before her. "Where did you come from?" she asked, and the woman shook her head, snow falling like glitter from her long, auburn hair. "I came from somewhere," she murmured, her tones confused. "I don't know where I came from. Where am I now?" "You're in Fargo, North Dakota," Scully informed her, and Mulder coughed. Jesus, he could catch pneumonia like this. So could Scully and this mystery woman. "Come inside with me. My name is Agent Dana Scully. I'm with the FBI." Keeping her eyes on Mulder, who was flinching against the bombardment of snowflakes on his face, the attractive woman crossed her arms over her chest. "Samantha Mulder," she called, and Mulder passed out. ************************************************* ************************************************* Scully shifted her weight, uncomfortably, in the small waiting room in Georgetown Medical Center. She was nervous and anxious over the return of Mulder, and she wanted nothing more than to storm into the operating room and demand to see him. Three weeks had gone by since the death of Renee Townsend, and Scully was still grappling with the aftermath of her passing. Townsend's body, bleeding, broken, and bruised, had been found in a ditch three days after she had vanished. Scully was baffled as to what had happened to her, and Mulder had found out why she was dead. It turned out that when Renee was four years old, she was missing for three years. No explanation, nothing. She had been buried and declared dead after eight months of fruitless searches, and then she was put in her parent's bed one night, safe, sound, and sleeping. From the ages of seven to fourteen, she would disappear for weeks at a time, and once for another year. She had a computer chip in her neck as well. The missing ten years of Renee Townsend's life had been spent in the same facility with Samantha Mulder. This was the one and only Samantha, with her dark, cascading curls, and her green-brown eyes so similar to her older brother's. She had been captive for twenty-five years, and was now back to her brother's. The siblings were shocked to know each other, and Sam had been heartbroken to discover the life that her brother led. "Oh, Fox, you should have moved on without me," she whispered to her blind sibling. "That's what I would have wanted for you." The tears that had been shed from Mulder's eyes had made Scully near crying herself. Seven of the girls were missing still, but Morgan Washington remained untouched. Her friends suffered nightmares, and medical emergencies, and most of them were in the hospital with cancer that couldn't be treated. Morgan was left to be the survivor, and pick the pieces when they would die. Before Mulder, Samantha, and Scully left Fargo for good, Lily Whiteside paid them a last visit. She had brought something for Mulder with her. It was her autographed picture of John Lennon, and she handed it to him with some regrets. "I really loved that shot, Mulder, but he was a big help for me when I went through Helen's illness. I kept thinking of that song, you know the one. 'Imagine'. It's such a breathtaking song, don't you think?" And Mulder kept the picture by his bedside, waiting for the day when he could see it. He had been in the hospital for a week now, waiting for the doctors to take the bandages off. But now Scully was left in the hospital, waiting for the results of Mulder's surgery. Would he see? Would he know her face with the same familiarity that she knew his? She could only hope so, and pray that Renee's dying act was not a farce, or a lie. She couldn't stand to think that she had died in vain, and that the end results would only end up in betrayal and deceit. Samantha sat next to Scully, her eyes full of worry and concern. "How much longer will they keep us here?" she muttered, and Scully patted Sam's hand. "It won't be much longer," she promised Mulder's dark-eyed sister. "I promise." She gave a smile that was tight and rarely used, so like Mulder himself. "You've been such a godsend, Dana, to him," she whispered. "Without you, I don't know how Fox would have turned out. He certainly wouldn't be anywhere near the man he is today. He's happy with you, really, truly happy. I thank you so much for that." Impulsively, Scully reached over and hugged Sam, and a surgeon entered the waiting room. His eyes were wild, and he was in disbelief. "Agent Scully?" he asked, and both women stood up, Scully stepping forward. "How is he?" she asked, getting to the point. "Can he see?" "We're going to remove the bandages," he said. "It's incredible... the surgery was so advanced. His vision was so badly damaged, but the lasers used were timed perfectly. I believe that he'll be all right. He requested to see you immediately, ma'am." As though in a dream, Dana followed the doctor down the halls, her pumps clicking on the floor faster and faster as she approached his room. He sat in bed, eyes covered in gauze, and an eager look on his face. "It's me," she breathed, and he smiled at her. "I want to see you first, Dana," he promised. "You and only you." The nurse stepped forward, and unwound the bandages, layer by layer of white surgical gauze falling from his head. The cloth fell onto his lap, and she walked closer, waiting as Mulder opened his eyes up. Foggy at first, shapes moving, and he caught the red in her hair. He focused on that, blinking, and then he smiled, broadly, his eyes crinkling in the wideness and the joy of the smile. He knew her, he saw her, the anxious and loving look in her blue eyes, and he met her eyes. "I can see you, Scully," he whispered, and she broke into tears, hugging him with all of her strength and all of her love. "I can see you!" She laughed then, her laughter bringing smiles to the faces of the doctors and the nurses, as well as bringing tears to Samantha Mulder's eyes. Her brother had grown up. ************************************************* ************************************************* "Imagine there's no heaven It's easy if you try No hell below us Above us only sky "Imagine all the people Living for today "Imagine there's no countries It isn't hard to do Nothing to kill or die for And no religion, too "Imagine all the people Living life in peace "You may say I'm a dreamer But I'm not the only one I hope someday you'll join us And the world will live as one "Imagine no possessions I wonder if you can No need for greed or hunger A brotherhood of man "Imagine all the people Sharing all the world "You may say I'm a dreamer But I'm not the only one I hope someday you'll join us And the world will live as one..." --John Lennon "Imagine", Imagine, 1971 ************************************************* ************************************************* Lights laid low, and the music that once sustained Mulder and now lived with him playing, Mulder caressed Scully's cheek with his gentle touch. Her eyes were lit up with beauty and love in them, and she kissed his eyelids. "You're so much to me, Mulder," she whispered. "You mean so much to me." "When I lost my sight, all I wanted to see was your eyes, and the love in them for me," he whispered in her ear, and he luxuriated in the brilliant red of her hair. "That was all that I wanted to see, Mulder." "Oh, Mulder, you didn't have to wait to see that," she murmured back, her eyes closed as she felt the sensuality of his touch and his kisses in the back of her hair. "The love was always there, from Day One to now." As he kissed her neck, and moved his hands down the length of her svelte body, she bent her head to kiss his collarbone, and felt the blood spurt from her nostril onto his bare skin. "Oh," she breathed, and sat up, her hand flying to her nose. He saw the blood on her upper lip, and she was embarrassed. Her eyes could not bear to meet his, and she looked around, anywhere but those bright hazel orbs. Anywhere else. Just as Mulder reached to wipe the blood away with a tissue, she was struck by the stabbing pain in her head. Another migraine was coming on; a bad one. She felt nauseous already, and Mulder knew from the grimace on her face that she was in serious pain. "Dana," he whispered, and she shook her head. "It's all right," she croaked. "Just a headache. I need to go to bed." But before she could stand up, Mulder had swept her up in his arms, and she shook her head, protesting. "Mulder..." "No," he gently denied, looking with pain and love at the blood on her face. It hurt him as much as it hurt her. "You spent the last weeks taking care of me. Now, let me take care of you. Because it's always going to be you and me." She knew that he needed this more than she did, and put her arms behind his neck, allowing Mulder to carry her into her bedroom, draped in his arms. "I love you so much," she murmured, and he nodded. "I know," he promised. "And I love you." He put her in bed, and pulled the sheets over her slender body, watching as she turned on her side, pain racing through her head with the energy and persistence of a train. Lying down next to her, he stroked her hair with tenderness, and he kissed her to sleep. ************************************************* ************************************************* "You're the bravest of hearts You're the strongest of souls You're my light in the dark You're the place I call home You can say it's all right But I know that you're breaking up inside I can see it in your eyes Even you face the night Afraid and alone That's why I will be there "When the storm rises up When the shadows descend Every beat of my heart Everyday without end Every second I live That's the promise I make Baby, that's what I'll give If that's what it takes If that's what it takes "You can sleep in my arms You don't have to explain When your heart's crying out Baby, whisper my name Cause I've reached out for you When the thunder is crashing up above You've given me your love When you smile like the sun That shines through the pain That's why I'll be there "When the storm rises up When the shadows descend Every beat of my heart Every day without end I will stand like a rock I will bend till I break Till there's no more to give If that's what it takes I will risk everything I will fight, I will bleed I will lay down my life If that's what you need Every second I live That's the promise I make Baby, that's what I'll give If that's what it takes If that's what it takes "Through the wind and the rain Through the smoke and the fire When the fear rises up When the wave's ever higher I will down my heart My body, my soul I will hold on all night And never let go Every second I live That's the promise I make Baby, that's what I give If that's what it takes If that's what it takes "If that's what it takes Every day If that's what it takes Every day..." --Celine Dion "If That's What It Takes", Falling Into You, 1996 *********************************************** *********************************************** THE END