anjoufic

Title: Aquinnah

Author: Anjou (Anjou@rocketmail.com)

Posting Date: March 2000

Rating: mild NC-17 for sexual situations

Classification: MSR, Angst

Keywords: None

Archive: Gossamer, Ephemeral; Others please ask

Spoilers: slots into the US7 timeline post-Closure, assumes a
general level of knowledge of all preceding action.
Summary: A journey home for Mulder is one of discovery for
Scully.
Disclaimer: All X-Files personnel belong to 1013 and Fox.

Aquinnah
by Anjou

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

As the ashes trail away from the urn and over the precipice
of the cliff, a curling breath of wind catches some and hurls
them back into his face. The grit of the residue bears within
it a small, stinging slap, a bone fragment resounding against
his cheek. An ironic smile curves the hard line of his
normally relaxed mouth. This is so like his mother as she was
in life, this sharp turning, the sudden lash of her anger. He
should have expected it, this final testament to their
relationship. The accumulated dust of her existence blowing
into them is the only reason there are tears in his eyes.

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

He stands at the prow of the ferry and looks across the
broad expanse of water, his lean figure limned against the
blue of the afternoon sky. They could have easily flown here,
but he had surprised her by saying he'd rather take the ferry.
She had slept much of the trip across the country, but had
been awake for the long, mostly silent drive from Boston to
Woods Hole. She had not known what to say. About him there
now resides an air of expectancy that she cannot fathom,
considering the circumstance.

He leans against the railing, seemingly unaware of the cold.
Above him, the seagulls wheel and beg, hovering, hoping for a
handout. He spares them not even a glance. Occasionally, he
looks down to where the water sluices away from their
conveyance before returning his gaze to the horizon.

She recalls how seasick he was on that lost ship in the
North Atlantic, the tremble of weakness even before the true
illness began to affect him. There is no indication of that
man in his easy stance as the ferry dips and rolls, flowing
across the surface of things. Now it is her equilibrium that
is disturbed, and not by the roil of the ship or its sturdy
engines as they chug below her feet. He is changed.

She tries to compel herself from the hard plastic seat
inside the cabin to his side, but cannot. She knows that she
should go and put her arms around him, try to share the grief
he must be feeling. On this unusually bright February day, he
is returning to the island that had been his childhood home to
commit his mother's ashes to the sea. There are no remains of
the sister he has loved and searched for so long, none that
can be found.

She dreads the outpouring that surely awaits her, the
accumulation of pain that will breach her walls as it did the
night when she confirmed his mother's death as suicide. She
closes her eyes against the memory of the wildness of his
grasp, his arms crushing her so closely that she had been
pulled down by the force of his emotion, bent backwards by his
need. As if she were the only thing that mattered, the only
thing he had left to cling to.

She shivers and buttons her coat over her breast, feeling
the resistance when she does so. The overcoat is too tight,
unwilling to accept the layers of clothing she surrounds
herself with these days. Yet the chill sea air of midwinter,
damp and familiar, still insinuates itself next to her skin.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The rise of the shoreline is shockingly familiar. He has
seen it so many times from just this angle, watched as it
appeared out of mists and snow or through the haze of a summer
fog, but he has consciously forgotten it. With a shock of
clarity, he realizes that his dreams often find him standing
on this deck, watching for that first glimpse of the arc of
the land above the water. He has never felt the pang of
recognition so sharply, nor felt it resonate within his heart
before. As they approach the dock at Vineyard Haven, he feels
the first sense of urgency he has had during this long trip.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

She does not think of him like this, does not think of him
as a sea creature or a man with a home. His past is one long
blur of sorrow, his goal some unknown terror of a possible
future, looming but distantly. His seeming complacency in the
face of such a terrible resolution, even if it is the one she
has always anticipated, is incomprehensible to her. He
approaches her from the prow of the ship with a bright light
in his ever-changing eyes and urges her from her seat with a
pull on her hand. He does not react to the jarring bump of
their docking, does not seem startled by or unsure of anything
he is doing.

They travel down the gangplank that leads to the empty
asphalt parking lot. He is carrying both of their bags, the
straps clasped loosely in one long-fingered hand. The other
lightly holds the urn. He seems barely cognizant of its
weight, the import of the burden he bears. Instead, his eyes
are scanning above her hungrily, as if looking for someone.
She is about to speak when a sudden sharp smile breaks over
his face.

"Caleb," he says aloud and she turns to see a man walking
toward them from the ferry office, a matching smile on his
face. He is smaller than Mulder and thinner, dressed in jeans
and boots, his padded denim jacket a darker shade than the
faded colour of his jeans. His black hair is brushed straight
back off his brow and shows no sign of thinning or greying.
Mulder moves swiftly around her and strides over to his
friend, wrapping him in a hug. Somehow, Caleb has taken the
urn and is holding it carefully upright against Mulder's back.
Even in the heart of midwinter, his skin is brown and ruddy at
the same time.

"Fox," the man says. She can see the tears in his brown
eyes. His face is from an ancient race of people, one she had
not expected to see here. "Welcome home, Fox."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The cliff at the top of the moor has changed with time and
erosion, but he is pleased that his imagination had not
enlarged it so that it would now appear diminished by reality.
He has not been here for years; even in his dreams, he has
denied himself this place. Today, he has earned the right to
be here, earned it by honoring his own vows. He turns before
walking up the headland path to see her standing at the edge
of the snow-covered moor, oblivious to the wind whipping the
dried saw-tooth grass against her long overcoat. She seems
small and unsure in this place that he knows best above all
others, despite time and distance. He smiles and holds his
hand out to her, waiting until she joins him before he walks
to the cliff edge.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Welcome to Aquinnah," the voice at her elbow says. She
turns to the speaker, and with the long custom of habit,
begins to look up. She is startled to be looking directly
into the sharp brown eyes before her. He is clearly the most
elderly person she has ever seen, this small man who stands in
front of her. The sun gleaming off his uncovered white head
is reflected in the field of snow behind him. The few people
that are scattered around the pathway waiting had acknowledged
her presence with murmured hellos, but other than Caleb, he is
the only one to directly address her. The others are focused
on Mulder, waiting for the release of Teena Mulder's ashes.
The air is respectful, if not reverent, and somewhat surreal.
Mrs. Mulder has requested that there be no funeral held for
her, that her body be cremated and her ashes disposed of. In
death, she is no different than she had been in life in her
lack of consideration for her son.

This will be only ceremony Teena Mulder will have, her ashes
being released into the wind by her son and witnessed by a
group of Native Americans and herself. Their tableau in this
field is largely silent, the only sound that of the wind as it
rustles the grass and the heather that stands crisply frozen
in the sharp winter light. The shuttered shops at the base of
the rise add to the starkness of the scene. There are no
trees on the verge to stop the unrelenting wind that rises
over the edge of the cliff. Far below them, she can hear the
unseen water as it crashes against the beach.

"You must be Dana Scully," the man says. He is remarkably
unlined for a man of advanced years. She has seen enough of
humanity to believe that he must be more than ninety years of
age. His white hair is tied back and tucked under his collar,
but some of it has escaped and is blowing toward her.

She clears her throat and answers affirmatively, finding
that she can do so after all. She had just smiled and nodded
at Caleb when introduced. He, too, had seemed to know exactly
who she is.

"I'm Jacob Lester," the man says, extending a hand. It is
smooth and dry in her hand, the veins prominently displayed.
This, more than anything else, confirms the impression she has
of his great age.

"Caleb's grandfather?" she asks, having at last found her
voice.

The older gentleman smiles fondly. "Something like that,"
he says. "Is this your first time at Aquinnah?"

"I've been to the Vineyard before," she answers.

He smiles again. "But you haven't been here," his shod foot
stamps the ground beneath them, "to Aquinnah."

She shakes her head and looks at her own feet in their thin,
impractical shoes.

"Fox hasn't told you about this place, has he?" Jacob asks.

"No," she says, not looking up. "I didn't realize..." she
hesitates for just an instant, trying to think of the polite
way to phrase this, "that the people were still here on
Martha's Vineyard."

Jacob's laugh is almost like a bark. "Yes. We're still
here. We've been here on this island for more than 4,000
years and maybe as many as 10,000." He leans into her a
little more closely, sharing a secret. "The use of that
phrase 'the people' has always struck me as a little self-
conscious sounding. It's really more simple than that." He
waves his arm around. "Here is the land. Those are the
animals." He gestures between the two of them. "We are the
people. Weren't your people 'the people' someplace else?" he
asks mischievously.

She smiles at him, a true smile even if it is small, then
drops her eyes to the ground again. She catches a glimpse of
the appreciative expression on Jacob's face as he watches her.
"I guess we were."

"Fox is waiting for you," Jacob says, before he moves away
to another knot of neighbors.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The ocean is deep blues and purples at its depths, with
green demarcating the shallows and the sandbars. The waves
roll in one after another, breaking against the massive
standing black rocks in sprays and plumes of white. The sound
of the stones being tugged into the depths by the rolling
backwash is a clattering babble. The high tide line is rimed
with frozen salt and ice, glittering in the hard winter sun.
It is unrelentingly primal in its beauty, the ocean at the
base of the cliffs of Aquinnah. He holds her hand tightly for
a minute, astonished that he is finally here and that she is
still by his side.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

She had never considered that the sun could set over the
ocean on the East Coast, but they had watched it set here over
this beautiful winter beach after he released his mother's
ashes to the wind. The view had reminded her of the grandeur
of Big Sur, but it is different somehow, smaller, older. It
is an isolated place, this Aquinnah, apart from the larger
world of the island it inhabits. She did not cry and although
Mulder shed a tear or two, she did not feel that he was
overwhelmed by sorrow. His continued calm is a stunning
contrast to her own feelings. She had watched the wild beauty
of the surf roiling below her at the cliff's edge and felt a
kinship with its seething.

She is wandering around the cramped, plain confines of the
Town Hall, reading the historical plaques while Mulder talks
to the small assemblage. She can feel his eyes on her now and
then as she moves around the clean, simple structure. When
they were in Home, Pennsylvania years ago she had thought that
he was embellishing his description of an idyllic childhood.
She had seen the houses his family had owned here and
elsewhere and drawn inferences from them. She has never
considered that perhaps he doesn't talk about his childhood
more because the loss of the simple innocence he described was
sincere.

"Small town, huh?" Jacob has returned to her side, bearing
chocolate chip cookies in a napkin and a cup of warm and
bittersweet tea. He is wearing a red and blue plaid shirt and
workingman's boots. Underneath the shirt she can see the
collar of his long-winter underwear.

"It would seem so," she says quietly. She is unnerved by
all that is taking place, still feeling adrift.

Jacob is watching Mulder across the room. He is standing in
the middle of a small crowd of middle-aged women who are
listening ardently to what he has to say. "I wish my Rose
were here to see this," he says quietly.

She doesn't know quite what to say at first, but after a
minute she asks, "Was your wife a friend of Mrs. Mulder's?"

Jacob snorts, his eyes still on Mulder. "Those people had
no friends." He turns to look at her, saying, "It's hard to
imagine that Fox came from those people at all, but if you had
known Katje you would have seen where Fox came from." He
continues speaking, answering her unvoiced query. "Fox's
grandmother was a good friend to both Rose and me. Katje
loved Fox. She left him her house when she died. His
father's house he sold, but he kept Katje's, although he
hasn't been here in years." He smiles at the sight of Mulder
laughing quietly at some comment, his face transformed by the
emotion. "Beautiful Fox. That's what Rose used to call him.
There never was a sweeter boy than Fox."

Scully finds herself smiling at the warmth of his memories
and the love in his voice. "Sweeter than your grandson?" she
teases gently.

Jacob laughs again. "Caleb is my great-grandson," he tells
her. "And he and Fox used to get in all sorts of mischief
together, mostly because Fox was so curious about everything."
He pauses. "It's very unusual, I think, for white people to
name their children so aptly, but Fox ... Fox is his name." He
turns and catches a glimpse of her skeptical expression. "You
don't believe me?" he challenges her. "The first time I saw
Fox, he was lying in the long grass on the moor, watching me.
I could feel him, but I couldn't place where he was, couldn't
see him." He nods, lost in the memory. "First I saw a flash
of his dark hair, then those big green eyes, just a slightly
different colour than the grass around his face." His sharp
eyes focus on her again. "He is just like the fox: a
chameleon far smarter than all those who would prey upon him.
Wouldn't you agree?"

Across the room, Mulder is holding an infant gingerly in his
arms. He looks over at her, a shy smile on his face. Jacob's
question hangs in the air, unanswered.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

It has been a hard winter here on the island; the proof of
it is piled on the obscured and snow-muffled landscape
surrounding them as they drive. He can only remember rare
snowbound winters from his childhood. The elevation of Noepe
is so low that the winter storms are usually converted to rain
by the heat of the Gulf Stream passing the island. It is
oddly fitting, somehow, that this winter there are fields of
snow on the cliff-top moor and below on the cranberry bogs on
their way to his grandmother's up-island house. He is tired
beyond belief but feeling the anticipation of going home, of
bringing her home with him.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

She is surrounded by mementos of a life that she scarcely
knew existed until this day. Despite his shocking revelation
on the first trip of their partnership so long ago, he has
somehow never mentioned much of his family beyond Samantha.
During their years of stakeouts and plane delays, he has heard
all about her family, their lore and history, anecdotes and
bad behaviour. He has always asked to hear these stories, and
she had interpreted his silence to mean that he had no similar
tales to tell. Perhaps it is as simple as this: she never
asked. She does not think of him as being one of the many
generations of his family. But here, inside the grace of this
house, she is surrounded by the artifacts and evidence that
belie that notion. She can see that in the soft smile that
has remained on his face since he pulled up the driveway in
the ancient Saab that Caleb drove to the ferry. Evidently it,
like the house, is his.

He is below the deck of the back porch fiddling with the
heat, trying to raise the temperature. No winterized cottage,
this is a house, simple but expanded over the years, built to
endure. A plaque on the salt-stained wood shingles above the
front door reads est. 1765. It has a whale engraved below the
date, a harpoon above it. There are pictures scattered around
this bookshelf-lined room, pictures of Mulder and his sister
that she has never seen, pictures of Mulder alone in his teen
years, his mouth full of braces, his skin testifying to the
ravages of adolescence. In one, his mouth is half-covered by
his hand, a gesture she remembers making. There are pictures
of Katje and Mulder's grandfather, Leo, from when they were
far younger. Looking at Katje, she can see where Teena Mulder
got her fair skin, where Mulder got his mercurial eyes. Leo
is darker and more severe looking, with a haunted expression
in his eyes that she also recognizes. She is grateful that
these remnants of Mulder's life are left to him, preserved by
his grandmother's bequest in a place that Teena could not
touch with her selfish cruelty. She is appalled that Teena
burned the evidence of her shared past with her children, as
if none of it mattered once she died, as if both of her
children were dead, not just the one.

The furnace booms from somewhere nearby and she can hear the
gurgle as more hot water is forced through the old-fashioned
radiators. She pokes at the fire and considers putting
another log on it, but lets it be, warming her hands over it.
Her eye is drawn to an easel she assumes is Katje's, standing
in front of the window that looks out at the snow-covered
plain surrounding the house. Behind it, on a nearly hidden
window seat, she finds a history of Martha's Vineyard,
carelessly tossed there as if its reader expected to return.
It is somehow emblematic of the feeling this place gives her.
The house has an unlived in air, but still feels occupied
somehow, not forlornly stopped in time. The old book is
relatively dust free; Mulder must pay someone to take care of
this place for him. She cracks the ancient spine and finds
that it is well read, the pages thumbed and smudged with use.
Jacob's cryptic comments of the day become clarified. Direct
archaeological evidence proves that the Aquinnah Wampanoag
have lived on this island they call Noepe for more than 4,000
years. They have hunted whale and fished, cultivated the wild
grapes and roses that used to grow everywhere in the fertile
soil. She has a sudden sharp image of Jacob standing at the
prow of a ship, harpoon raised high in his hand. It seems
right.

The air is warming around her, provoking a tired yawn. She
leaves her overcoat on the coat rack as she wanders to the
bedroom with her book. Mulder has situated her in the room
that was his grandparents' and she readies herself to sleep,
intending to read first. She has underestimated the level of
exhaustion she feels, however, and barely reads the
frontispiece before she falls into a deep slumber, the images
of the day swirling through her mind in random order, like
fish darting in and out of coves. Under the heaped covers of
his grandparents' bed, below the blankets Katje made, she
curls herself into a small ball, covers tucked around her
carefully to ward off the ever-present chill.

Aquinnah, Part Two