Beating the Darkness Back, Part 4
Oct. 27th, 2008 08:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anjouficTitle: Beating the Darkness Back 4/7
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
comice aka Anjou (Anjou@rocketmail.com)
Posting Date: October 2008
Rating: R for language and sexuality; M for Mature readers
Classification: Mulder/Scully, MSR, post-ep for IWTB
Archive: No archival until the story is completed, please. I'll be submitting to Ephemeral and Gossamer myself.
Spoilers: Through I Want To Believe
Disclaimer: All X-Files personnel belong to 1013 and Fox. All other elements are mine.
Author's Note: Beating the Darkness Back will be posted in seven parts. Parts 1 & 2, and 3 & 4 will be posted together, as they are just long sections that needed to be cut in half for ease of posting. This story is finished, although still undergoing final editing for Parts 5-7. I expect it will be all posted in a week's time. Posts can be read on my fic journal:anjoufic, as well as Ephemeral and other XF fic sites. The whole tale will be archived at my website, No Other … , maintained by the generous dtg, when it is completed.
Thanks to Konrad Frye and especially the fabulouslilydale for not only willingly answering questions about the novelization of "I Want To Believe" that clarified the timeline for this writer, but for being brave enough to have read it in the first place.
As always, my biggest thanks go to my sister and editrix, Suzanne, for her support, and above all, her patience.
Summary: Where do we go from here, now that we are free?
~*~
March 30, 2008
Mulder felt a curious mixture of nervousness and relief as he and Scully said good night to the resort staff after their day of sailing. She had been inquisitive about what he had in the cooler under his seat as he rowed them out to meet the boat, but she seemed to have forgotten about it in her excitement over today’s adventure. He smiled to remember her enthusiasm, and was doubly glad that he’d brought the camera to record the sight of her lounging on the bench on the stern of their boat, wearing that purple bikini from their first day on the island.
Mulder’d been unable to get his camera out and snap a photo of her in a similar pose when they'd been in the rowboat, and even if the image of her was burned into his retinas, he now had photographic proof of how Scully looked when she was totally relaxed and happy. The days of sunshine had tinged her skin with a bit of gold scattered here and there, freckles that made her scowl and slap on more sunscreen, but that Mulder absolutely adored. His own skin had become lightly tanned, despite her desire to keep him as white as possible.
He waited until the captain and mate were well away in their dinghy, then shucked his swim trunks and dove into the crystal blue waters of the sea. He had remembered how much he hated trunks after two days, especially sitting around waiting for them to dry. Consequently, he only wore them as clothing, and not swimwear, much to Scully’s amusement. He swam around their anchored sailboat, going underneath once to tug on the anchor line and assure himself that they were indeed, all set for the evening.
When he surfaced, Scully was kneeling on the padded bench at the stern with her elbows on the railing, watching him with amusement. “All ship shape, nature boy?” she inquired sweetly.
He spit a stream of water up at her like a dolphin. “Come out and play,” he said, licking his salty lips.
She ducked out of the way of the stream, then reappeared, holding the camera. “Smile, Mulder,” she said.
“Looking for a little something to keep you warm those long nights at the hospital, Scully?”
She quirked an eyebrow. “I suppose it would be tactless of me to point out that the water, while warm, is not that warm.”
“If you’d consent to swim the way your God intended us to,” he shot back. “I’m sure that I could get respectably warm fast enough.”
“Nice try, Mulder,” she murmured, focusing on taking his picture.
He tilted his head back while she fiddled with settings, attempting to gain some sort of order over his hair, then sank below the waterline again, filling his mouth.
“Mulder,” she warned from above him. “I’ve got the camera.”
He rose from the sea and aimed a warm stream of water at her, soaking the crotch of her purple bikini as she exclaimed in surprise.
“Happy to see me?” he asked cheekily, then turned and dove into the ocean before hearing more than the first of her imprecations against him. He felt the water surge out toward him as she dove in, and lengthened his stroke as he swam, grinning when he came up to the surface. The chase was on.
~*~
At dinner, he watched Scully dig into the conch salad that the resort had provided. Her salt-soaked hair had dried in long curls, and she had a fresh smattering of freckles on her slightly pink nose. She’d changed into yet another bikini, one that he’d decided was his absolute favorite as soon as she’d appeared in it. It was turquoise, and the top was a strapless sculpted band with a tortoise shell loop between the circles that covered some of his favorite pieces of flesh. The bottom, unfortunately covered by a colorful but unnecessarily large piece of cloth that she'd wrapped low around her waist, had similar loops over her hip bones. It was a mystery to him how these bits of fabric could be so alluring when he well knew what was underneath them, but they were simply enchanting. He wondered if there was any way he could talk her into wearing a bikini around the house on a regular basis, but decided it probably wasn’t worth the risk of asking.
“Mulder,” she said, in a tone that let him know this was not the first time she’d said his name. “What time is the captain coming to sail us back tomorrow?”
“Around two,” he said, then paused. “So, are you enjoying your very late birthday present?”
She smiled at him, and speared a large piece of conch with her fork. “How many times am I going to have answer that question affirmatively, Mulder?” she asked.
“Once more would be nice,” he answered, leaning in.
She leant forward and kissed him softly, then rubbed her pink nose against his. “I like it very much,” she said, then kissed him again, letting him taste the conch and champagne on her tongue. “I never realized how much I missed sailing,” she sighed. “And you’ve done wonderfully well.”
Mulder looked out at the placid water. Once the sun had gone down, the wind had dropped down to nothing. The sea around them barely rippled. “So far, so good,” he said, omitting the unspoken ‘I told you so’.
Scully finally pushed back from the table, something he’d done a full ten minutes before, and he smiled to see it. Ever since her cancer, he’d loved nothing more than to see her eat a full and hearty meal. Her complaints that if she ate the way he wanted her to that she’d be enormous fell on deaf ears -- she’d been adorable when she was heavy. Besides, he was at least twenty pounds heavier than he’d been at his fighting weight, and she still loved him.
Scully sipped at her champagne, watching him. “Why do I think that I’m the only one who’s going to gain weight on this vacation?” Her hand reached out and strummed the tender muscles over his ribs, the ones that ached from all the swimming he’d been doing.
“As I always say,” he began, but she covered his mouth with her hand.
“I’m just glad to see you so relaxed and happy,” she said, then ducked her head. “I feel like I should apologize to you, Mulder,” she said in a quiet voice.
“For what?” He was utterly flummoxed by this turn in the conversation.
“I …” she sighed, and then leaned back in her chair, separating herself from him. “I’ve been very selfish,” she said. “I knew how unhappy you were, trapped in the house day after day, but I …” she held up her hand to silence him as he began to protest. “I would have been perfectly happy to have you stay there, hidden away forever.”
He smiled at her admission. “Scully, do you think that you’re telling me something I didn’t know?”
She scowled at him. “I don’t think you really understand what I mean,” she said.
“I do,” he insisted. “And you have to know that I'd feel, and do, the exact same thing if it were you that had to be hidden away.”
She looked at him sharply.
“Besides,” he said, “I didn’t have anything better to do.”
She shook her head. “Don’t joke about it, Mulder,” she said. “I know that you were depressed.”
“I was,” he said equably. “But the past tense is the operative here.” She looked surprised at his admission. “And let’s be clear: at no time did I feel like your prisoner, or that I was unwilling to wait it out. I just … I couldn’t bear the thought of being away from you the way I’d been that year …” She knew which of the two years that they'd been apart he was referring to – the first had been torture, the second a waiting game -- and he was upset to see her eyes fill with tears. “Scully,” he said sorrowfully, “do we have to talk about this on your fake birthday?”
She nodded, and a tear rolled down her face but she was smiling at the same time. “Yes, we do,” she said. “I don’t want us to forget how to be honest.”
He nodded, but gritted his teeth against the surge of irritation that swept over him. He had planned for other topics of conversation. “OK,” he said. “Then I want you to think about this: if I wasn’t with you, hiding in our house, sleeping in our bed at night, I would have been in a real prison, if I was still alive. Or I would have been on the run, always looking over my shoulder, alone. Hopeless.” He let his words sink in. “I don’t think I would have survived that reality, either.”
Her eyes widened as his implication of self-harm hit home.
“Why would I want to live that way?” he asked her. “So, yes. Maybe I felt trapped sometimes, and maybe I wanted to be more physically involved in some of the things that I’ve been doing, but … I never felt like you were keeping me there against my will. I don’t blame you, Scully.”
Her smile this time was tremulous. “I know that I’m not the easiest person to live with,” she began, and he laughed.
“Does that mean that you think I am?” he teased.
She couldn’t keep a straight face at his remark.
“We’re not easy people, Scully,” he said. “We spark off each other in so many ways. That’s what makes us so good together, but …”
“It’s also why shouldn’t be together,” she said softly, echoing the conversation they’d had most recently had in a hallway at Our Lady of Sorrows, but more times than he cared to remember over the years.
“But we are, right?” he said, his voice equally soft.
“Yes,” she said.
He pushed the table away and sat next to her on the bench, wrapping his arms around her. He kissed his way down from her forehead to her lips. “Whither thou goest, Scully,” he whispered, then sealed his vow with a kiss. “I promise.”
She nodded, wrapping her arms around his neck to pull him down to her. He knew that she couldn’t speak for fear of crying, so let her make her promise to him with her lips and her tongue.
When they resurfaced, he pulled her back against his chest, dragging the table within reach so they could get at their champagne. “Happy birthday, Scully,” he said, clinking her glass.
“Thank you, Mulder,” she said, and he understood that she meant more than his last few words.
They lay there sipping their champagne until Scully spoke again. “Is there any chocolate?”
He laughed his answer, and watched as she got up and searched the galley for dessert. He followed her, bringing in their plates and putting them in the tub designated for dirty dishes. He saw the cooler on the floor and hesitated, then went outside to get the rest of the dishes. When he returned, Scully was, of course, rearranging them in the tub. Even though they weren’t going to be washed until they were returned to the resort, she still wanted them to be just so. He stood there, wordlessly watching his ever-so-slightly obsessive compulsive love, and tried to work up the courage to broach the topic that was the true reason for which he'd planned this private dinner.
“You know,” he began, trying to sound casual, “we could get married now.” He handed her an empty serving dish.
“Mulder,” she said in a negative tone. “After all this time, why would that matter?”
“We could get married in the church,” he countered quietly. “Get a blessing.”
That caught her attention, and she stared up at him, wide-eyed but quiet, her cross dangling from her neck. “You’d have to take classes,” she said after a minute.
“I know,” he said. “I know what I would have to do.” He paused. “I also know that it would mean something to you, Scully.”
“It would have meant more … before,” she said, carefully. “I just … I’m not sure that anyone in my family would come to our wedding, Mulder.” She looked down at her hands, and picked at a tiny chip in her perfect manicure. “I don’t know if I’d want them to be there.”
He knew that she'd been hurt by her mother's failure to accept her choices, but he doubted that she truly wouldn't want her to be there. Her brothers, however – Mulder tread lightly, knowing that the estrangement between them had complex underpinnings. He might not have ever finished his practicum, but Scully was his partner, his love, and sometimes his only client. “Is that the only reason to be married then? The public aspect of it?”
She blinked, looking at him blankly before she spoke again. “You know that I'll never leave you, Mulder,” she said firmly. “Even when I couldn't come home those nights, it was just a stress reaction. I never should have done that.” She rounded the bin and came to stand in front of him, speaking earnestly. “We made our vows a long time ago,” she said, and he had a flash of memory of their motel room in Roswell. “What means something to me, Mulder, is that you would do that for me, to give me something that you think I want.” She kissed him, and he stifled his disappointment to stay in the kiss. “Thank you,” she said, breaking away. She put her hand on his cheek. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, Scully,” he echoed, and he meant it, despite the hollow ache he felt at the moment. He bent over and retrieved the cooler, opening it so that the cake box on top was clearly displayed.
She grinned and clapped her hands at the sight, and he smiled at her delight. “Now, feed me some of that birthday cake!” she ordered.
~*~
Later, in the tiny bed below deck, he thought about their earlier conversation as he twirled her bikini top around his finger, spinning it by the loop that had lain between her breasts. She was drowsily pressed up against him, barely covered by the sheet, both of them sweaty from the combination of their exertions and the still air. Even though his body was satisfied, his restless mind wouldn't settle down. He hadn't expected her to jump with joy over his proposal, and didn't need to be married to sanctify his commitment to her, but all the same, he wanted to be married. Wife, after all, was a word he could use to describe her easily, a socially acceptable shorthand for the far more complicated truth of what they were to each other. But, it was a name he couldn't use, a right that he'd been unable to exercise without jeopardizing her because he had no legal status. Now, he'd had his name, such as it was, returned to him. Scully, however, had already dismissed the idea, and unless he reintroduced the topic and reframed it, she wouldn't consider it again, at least not any time soon.
“Maybe I just want to change my name for real this time,” he announced suddenly, as inspiration struck him.
She looked up at him, peeling her cheek from his chest. She’d been stroking those newly developing muscles in his side again, seemingly fixated on them. He’d decided that he needed to find a gym with a pool as soon as they got back to Richmond. "You'd change your name?"
He shrugged. "It's not really my name, is it?" he asked. "Besides, you've been my family longer than anyone that came before you."
She looked astonished. "Fox Scully?" Her mouth made the foreign shape awkwardly.
"Oh, I don't think so," Mulder said swiftly, and with a wince. "I was thinking … Mulder Scully."
She goggled at him. "That would be hopelessly confusing," she said.
"Why?" he said. "Everyone calls me Mulder. It's my name."
"Yes, but Mulder? It's kind of a horrible first name to give a kid."
"Like Fox?" he said with a scowl. "Yeah, that's an awesome name for a kid."
She smiled at him, but he could see her mulling it over, which was his whole point. She was quiet for a few minutes, curled up next to him as their small boat stirred slightly in the calm waters. "You'd really change your name?"
He held up his hand and wiggled his ring finger. "You put a fat diamond on that finger and I'm all yours, baby."
He loved making her laugh, maybe more than anything in the world, so he delighted in her giggles even as he thought forlornly of the ring tucked away at the bottom of the cooler in a Ziploc bag. He could be patient, he reminded himself. He had years of experience. He’d already planted the seed -- he just needed to tend it.
“Mulder Scully,” she said slowly, shifting up in the bed. She kissed a path up from his chest, her fingers playing lightly over his sternum and his pecs, before they slid up to cup his face. He turned his head to kiss her fingers, drawing her ring finger into his mouth and sucking on it deliberately. She straddled him, sitting up, and then tilted her head to regard him, her sun-streaked curls streaming over her bared breasts.
He smiled at her. “That’s me,” he said.
“Hmm …” she purred, then leant forward to capture his lips with her own, as his hands slid up to cup her breasts. Her hair made a curtain around them. “You still do keep me guessing, Mulder,” she murmured.
He closed his eyes, and sank willingly into her embrace, and then her body, with a sigh. As long as she was there with him, he would always be home.
~*~
There really was nothing like the ocean, he thought as he floated drowsily. His back scratched lightly against the bottom of the lagoon, and he struggled up to consciousness, not aware that he’d drifted so far. He must have dozed off. He staggered up out of the water to find an entire sand city that stretched all the way from the water's edge to the cabana and the path that led around to the front of their bungalow. He felt suddenly awake as he searched the nearby area, looking for the expected small form. Seeing no one, he shaded his eyes and looked at the city again. The skyline looked familiar, with the water lapping at its edge. Just outside the city, spaceships had crashed into the ground, their large disks half buried in the sand where the sea grasses and the flowers began.
There was something disturbing about the tableau that he couldn't – they had built a lot of spaceships over the years, but this kind of scale, with the looming dead hulks of the ships in the ex-urbs, was new. And where was he? Mulder turned and rushed up the path to the patio.
Scully lay on the hammock in repose, her arm outspread over the narrow back of a boy, his skin dusted with sand that glistened in the dappled sunlight as they swung back and forth. He could hear the low murmur of her voice as she talked to William, something that had never happened, not once in all the years that he’d dreamt of their son. William and Scully were laying on the hammock facing each other, but he could only see Scully’s face, and the love on it as she lifted her hand, stroking their son’s dark hair and then wiping at his cheek.
“Scully,” he said urgently, and she looked up at him, her smile radiant.
“See,” she said to the boy. “There he is.”
William turned his head, and his expression was so ineffably, utterly sad that Mulder felt his own heart clench in his chest. “William,” he said in concern and took a step forward, but before he could take another, William disappeared, and all that was left was a diminishing pile of sand and the sound of Scully’s choking sobs.
“Where is he, Mulder?” Her question sounded like an accusation, and he shook his head in bewilderment, his eyes fixated on the sand slowly drifting off the hammock as it rocked back and forth. Above Scully, the trees were filled with parakeets, all watching.
“I …” he said helplessly, before he turned to run back to the lagoon. The path that he'd taken before had disappeared, so he blundered through the jungle-like growth, slapping the vines away that clung to his arms and legs as he tried to force his way through. Finally, he burst out of the undergrowth to the lagoon’s edge, but William was nowhere to be seen.
“William!”
The sound of his voice echoed, and he looked up to the empty sky and saw that the birds were filling the trees across the lagoon, watching him impassively. “Where is he?” he yelled at them, but they remained silent.
He glanced down at his feet and saw that the city was smashed to ruins around him, but not by his heedless actions. His blood ran cold as he realized that the spaceships that had before crashed harmlessly outside the city had instead laid waste to it entirely, leaving only rubble and the skyline itself unrecognizable.
“William!”
Mulder was afraid that he’d said their son’s name out loud, but Scully slept on in their little bunk. He'd sat up in the narrow bed grazing the low ceiling above the bunk, chest heaving, heart pounding. He lay back down and tried to regulate his breathing, his hand gripping his aching head as he resisted the urge to gather Scully to his chest like a teddy bear, to wake her with his need for reassurance as had happened so many nights when they were first reunited.
What did it mean? Was the dream trying to tell him something, or was it just a manifestation of new anxiety? He was free, but there had been a kind of safety in his solitude in their house. Was it merely the uncertainty of what was to come now?
Scully shifted and murmured next to him, and he turned toward her, trying to will himself to not wake her up, to not use her as a sedative to ease his anxiety. It was a bad habit that he’d go back to in times of trouble, that desperate loving in the middle of the night so that he could lapse into unconsciousness. He moved to the edge of the bed and rolled out, careful to keep his head down as he fumbled his way in the dim light to the ladderlike staircase that led above deck.
It's just post-traumatic stress he told himself, trying to will himself into rationally analyzing the dream. He'd gotten his life back, something he'd never thought would happen. Now that he was free and seemingly of no concern to the collaborators who were trying to bring about Armageddon, it was only logical that his subconscious mind would wander to William. After all, it was his fault that he was gone. He never should have left them alone in the first place -- it was his job to protect them, and he'd failed. Mulder shivered at the thought, and pulled Scully's sarong off the bench and wrapped it around his shoulders.
The stern of the boat was facing east, and it was still early enough that the stars were out above his head while the horizon was warming from red to pink as the sun readied its rise. He sat down on the bench and tried to push his morbid thoughts away, but his remembrance of William's face tore at him. Never once in all the years that they'd built sandcastles had William looked at him with anything other than happiness. Of course, the dreams were his, and subconsciously, he wanted to believe that William would still love him, even after everything. He'd taken comfort from the time that they'd spent together, silent as it usually was. So, why had he suddenly changed the dream scenario? Why had Scully been there? Why had William needed to be comforted? His heart was pounding with anxiety again, but he struggled to rein it in as he heard Scully's sure footfalls coming up from behind him.
"Mulder …" he could hear the sleepy concern in her voice when suddenly she gasped. "Oh!"
He turned and looked at her, and her face was transformed with wonder. He followed her gaze and saw a pair of dolphins arcing from the water in the distance, ahead of the sunrise. "Wow …" he said. All the years on the X-Files, he'd seen some amazing things, but they weren't usually wondrous.
"Oh, Mulder," Scully breathed out. She knelt on the bench and watched the dolphins playing, rapt at the sight, her freckled shoulder peeking out at him from the loose-slung toga of the top sheet.
They were silent until the dolphins disappeared behind one of the nearby islands that dotted the landscape.
"Were they here when you came up on deck?" she asked him. Her eyes were still shining with absolute joy and excitement, allowing him to see the little girl that she had been long before he knew her.
"No," he said, smiling, reaching out to her. "They appeared when you did. They were waiting for you."
"I have always wanted to see dolphins in the wild," she said warmly. She pushed and pulled him until his back was to the rising sun, then straddled his lap. "Ever since I was a little girl," her eyes were darting from the horizon back to him, alert for the possibility of the dolphins' return. "My father used to tell us stories of dolphins following his ship, of them playing in the wake, and every time he took us sailing," she shook her head. "I waited and I looked for them, but they never came."
Mulder smiled. "Until now."
"Until now," she echoed. She shrugged her shoulders out of her cocoon and wrapped her arms around his neck, playing with the hair at his nape. "Have you ever seen them before?"
"Twice," Mulder said, considering. "The first time I was really little, and I stuck my head between the railings of the ferry to get a good look at them. I was so far over the bottom one that I almost fell overboard."
Scully laughed at the image.
He smiled at her. "You know, I don't think I ever saw them after Samantha disappeared."
"You know what this means, Mulder?" Her eyes were still gleaming at him. "Your luck has changed."
"Scully," he said in delight. "Are you giving credence to an old wives' tale?" He squeezed her as he teased, pulling her in to kiss her neck.
"I don't think the old wives were on the fishing boats, Mulder," she said, tilting her head backwards.
"So you say," he said, "I think that the old husbands might have a different story to tell."
"Nice outfit," she commented. "First I have to worry about my stockings, now I have to worry about my sarongs."
"What can I say?" Mulder said. "I'm secure enough in my masculinity to embrace my feminine side. Or yours, more accurately."
She grinned at him, then regarded him searchingly. "Why were you up so early?"
He rotated his hips below her in answer.
"No," she said, narrowing her eyes.
He sighed. "OK," he said. "I was feeling a bit claustrophobic below deck." He hoped that she would not call him on his prevarication.
"Claustrophobic?" she asked.
"A little," he said. "It made me anxious."
That answer was acceptable, it seemed, as she lapsed into silence for a couple of minutes, tracing his shoulders with her fingertips. "Are you sure you're not upset about our conversation last night?"
He was immediately on alert. "Why would you think that, Scully?"
She sighed, ducking her head. "I wasn't entirely honest with you," she said, her cadence very slow and careful.
He was surprised to hear that, and his expression showed it.
"It's true that I'm touched that you want to get married, Mulder. And," she continued seriously, "it is true that a part of me feels that it's unnecessary after all this time." She paused. "But it's also true that I'm angry that we weren't married long before now."
"Scully …"
She held up her hand. "I'm not angry with you," she said firmly. "I'm angry about all the time that we lost, everything that's been taken from us, how we've been toyed with and tortured. We should have been able to get married after William was born," she said in a harsh whisper. "We should have been able to be a family." She looked up at him. "But we weren't allowed any peace. And I cannot help but feel," her voice rose in anger, "resentful of the role that our government played in what has happened to us, to our family."
He nodded.
"And so it's that," she said. "That idea that they would have some role in sanctioning what we mean to each other, after all they have done to destroy us, that I cannot stand to think of."
He was well and truly surprised at her words.
"Can you understand that, Mulder?" she asked him. "They have no place here, between us. We exist, despite them."
"This is why you were so vehemently opposed to helping the FBI, even though you wanted me to work the case," he said.
"Yes," she admitted. "Yes. It galls me that they have had the power to take you away from me, all this time, when they're the ones who are the criminals. It galls me that they had power over me all those years when that chip resided in my neck, and that I might still have to depend upon that thing someday, to save my life." She paused, and swallowed. "I know that the FBI is not wholly, or solely, to blame, but … there are plenty of people in it who are wielding authority that they've stolen, working for an illegal government." She shook her head. "I don't want anything to do with them. And when I talk to my family, and have to listen to my brothers defend what they don't understand … how they denigrate and deny what has happened to me …" she shook her head, and he saw how impotent she felt.
"I don't think I understood that until just now," Mulder said. He gathered her up against him. "Thank you for telling me this, Scully."
"Don't thank me, Mulder," she said, pushing him back so she could see him, "for not being fair to you. I shut down the conversation without real consideration."
"No, you didn't," he said diplomatically.
"Yes, I did," she said. "And what I'm trying to say is that if you really want to get married, I'll marry you."
He smiled. "You know what?"
She shook her head in mystification.
"It means a lot to me that you said that."
"Mulder!"
He could see that she thought he was mocking her. "I'm being completely serious," he said quietly.
She regarded him skeptically.
"You've given me a lot to think about," he said, "now that I understand how you feel." He paused. "We could do it here, you know. We're not in the US," he could see her mulling it over, her expression considering, but not really open. "My point is: we don't have to get married at home." He paused. "Think about it, OK? We can just go somewhere and do it alone, just the two of us."
She nodded.
"And while you're thinking about it," he stretched over to reach the cooler, which was on the floor, tucked into a corner. "I want you to have this." He rummaged around in the ice and found the Ziploc bag, pouring the velvet box into his other hand. "Man, that's cold."
"Oh, Mulder," she said. "What have you done?"
He smiled. "All these years, and yet, I never knew how frugal you were until just recently," he said. He opened the hinged box to reveal what he'd been assured was a deep green emerald framed on either side by blue sapphires. "Did you know that sapphire is one of the birthstones for not only Pisces, but Libra?" he asked.
"Mulder," she said, smiling. "You have always maintained that astrology is, and I quote, 'total bullshit'."
He shrugged. "It's just an interesting fact," he said. "You don't have to believe it."
"And the emerald?" she asked quietly.
He knew that she knew. "The birthstone for Taurus," he answered. "Or the month of May."
Her eyes filled with tears, but she was smiling. She held out her hand and he slid the ring home. "Thank you, Mulder," she said quietly before she kissed him. She pressed her forehead against his and said mischievously, "Does this ring mean you're not going to change your name?"
He laughed aloud, then gasped as she reached between them to push the sarong out of the way. As the sun began to crest over the horizon, it cast a blush on her skin as she rose like Venus from out of the bedsheet and made love to him, making him forget anything other than her.
~*~
Part 5
Author:
comice aka Anjou (Anjou@rocketmail.com)Posting Date: October 2008
Rating: R for language and sexuality; M for Mature readers
Classification: Mulder/Scully, MSR, post-ep for IWTB
Archive: No archival until the story is completed, please. I'll be submitting to Ephemeral and Gossamer myself.
Spoilers: Through I Want To Believe
Disclaimer: All X-Files personnel belong to 1013 and Fox. All other elements are mine.
Author's Note: Beating the Darkness Back will be posted in seven parts. Parts 1 & 2, and 3 & 4 will be posted together, as they are just long sections that needed to be cut in half for ease of posting. This story is finished, although still undergoing final editing for Parts 5-7. I expect it will be all posted in a week's time. Posts can be read on my fic journal:
anjoufic, as well as Ephemeral and other XF fic sites. The whole tale will be archived at my website, No Other … , maintained by the generous dtg, when it is completed.Thanks to Konrad Frye and especially the fabulous
lilydale for not only willingly answering questions about the novelization of "I Want To Believe" that clarified the timeline for this writer, but for being brave enough to have read it in the first place. As always, my biggest thanks go to my sister and editrix, Suzanne, for her support, and above all, her patience.
Summary: Where do we go from here, now that we are free?
~*~
March 30, 2008
Mulder felt a curious mixture of nervousness and relief as he and Scully said good night to the resort staff after their day of sailing. She had been inquisitive about what he had in the cooler under his seat as he rowed them out to meet the boat, but she seemed to have forgotten about it in her excitement over today’s adventure. He smiled to remember her enthusiasm, and was doubly glad that he’d brought the camera to record the sight of her lounging on the bench on the stern of their boat, wearing that purple bikini from their first day on the island.
Mulder’d been unable to get his camera out and snap a photo of her in a similar pose when they'd been in the rowboat, and even if the image of her was burned into his retinas, he now had photographic proof of how Scully looked when she was totally relaxed and happy. The days of sunshine had tinged her skin with a bit of gold scattered here and there, freckles that made her scowl and slap on more sunscreen, but that Mulder absolutely adored. His own skin had become lightly tanned, despite her desire to keep him as white as possible.
He waited until the captain and mate were well away in their dinghy, then shucked his swim trunks and dove into the crystal blue waters of the sea. He had remembered how much he hated trunks after two days, especially sitting around waiting for them to dry. Consequently, he only wore them as clothing, and not swimwear, much to Scully’s amusement. He swam around their anchored sailboat, going underneath once to tug on the anchor line and assure himself that they were indeed, all set for the evening.
When he surfaced, Scully was kneeling on the padded bench at the stern with her elbows on the railing, watching him with amusement. “All ship shape, nature boy?” she inquired sweetly.
He spit a stream of water up at her like a dolphin. “Come out and play,” he said, licking his salty lips.
She ducked out of the way of the stream, then reappeared, holding the camera. “Smile, Mulder,” she said.
“Looking for a little something to keep you warm those long nights at the hospital, Scully?”
She quirked an eyebrow. “I suppose it would be tactless of me to point out that the water, while warm, is not that warm.”
“If you’d consent to swim the way your God intended us to,” he shot back. “I’m sure that I could get respectably warm fast enough.”
“Nice try, Mulder,” she murmured, focusing on taking his picture.
He tilted his head back while she fiddled with settings, attempting to gain some sort of order over his hair, then sank below the waterline again, filling his mouth.
“Mulder,” she warned from above him. “I’ve got the camera.”
He rose from the sea and aimed a warm stream of water at her, soaking the crotch of her purple bikini as she exclaimed in surprise.
“Happy to see me?” he asked cheekily, then turned and dove into the ocean before hearing more than the first of her imprecations against him. He felt the water surge out toward him as she dove in, and lengthened his stroke as he swam, grinning when he came up to the surface. The chase was on.
~*~
At dinner, he watched Scully dig into the conch salad that the resort had provided. Her salt-soaked hair had dried in long curls, and she had a fresh smattering of freckles on her slightly pink nose. She’d changed into yet another bikini, one that he’d decided was his absolute favorite as soon as she’d appeared in it. It was turquoise, and the top was a strapless sculpted band with a tortoise shell loop between the circles that covered some of his favorite pieces of flesh. The bottom, unfortunately covered by a colorful but unnecessarily large piece of cloth that she'd wrapped low around her waist, had similar loops over her hip bones. It was a mystery to him how these bits of fabric could be so alluring when he well knew what was underneath them, but they were simply enchanting. He wondered if there was any way he could talk her into wearing a bikini around the house on a regular basis, but decided it probably wasn’t worth the risk of asking.
“Mulder,” she said, in a tone that let him know this was not the first time she’d said his name. “What time is the captain coming to sail us back tomorrow?”
“Around two,” he said, then paused. “So, are you enjoying your very late birthday present?”
She smiled at him, and speared a large piece of conch with her fork. “How many times am I going to have answer that question affirmatively, Mulder?” she asked.
“Once more would be nice,” he answered, leaning in.
She leant forward and kissed him softly, then rubbed her pink nose against his. “I like it very much,” she said, then kissed him again, letting him taste the conch and champagne on her tongue. “I never realized how much I missed sailing,” she sighed. “And you’ve done wonderfully well.”
Mulder looked out at the placid water. Once the sun had gone down, the wind had dropped down to nothing. The sea around them barely rippled. “So far, so good,” he said, omitting the unspoken ‘I told you so’.
Scully finally pushed back from the table, something he’d done a full ten minutes before, and he smiled to see it. Ever since her cancer, he’d loved nothing more than to see her eat a full and hearty meal. Her complaints that if she ate the way he wanted her to that she’d be enormous fell on deaf ears -- she’d been adorable when she was heavy. Besides, he was at least twenty pounds heavier than he’d been at his fighting weight, and she still loved him.
Scully sipped at her champagne, watching him. “Why do I think that I’m the only one who’s going to gain weight on this vacation?” Her hand reached out and strummed the tender muscles over his ribs, the ones that ached from all the swimming he’d been doing.
“As I always say,” he began, but she covered his mouth with her hand.
“I’m just glad to see you so relaxed and happy,” she said, then ducked her head. “I feel like I should apologize to you, Mulder,” she said in a quiet voice.
“For what?” He was utterly flummoxed by this turn in the conversation.
“I …” she sighed, and then leaned back in her chair, separating herself from him. “I’ve been very selfish,” she said. “I knew how unhappy you were, trapped in the house day after day, but I …” she held up her hand to silence him as he began to protest. “I would have been perfectly happy to have you stay there, hidden away forever.”
He smiled at her admission. “Scully, do you think that you’re telling me something I didn’t know?”
She scowled at him. “I don’t think you really understand what I mean,” she said.
“I do,” he insisted. “And you have to know that I'd feel, and do, the exact same thing if it were you that had to be hidden away.”
She looked at him sharply.
“Besides,” he said, “I didn’t have anything better to do.”
She shook her head. “Don’t joke about it, Mulder,” she said. “I know that you were depressed.”
“I was,” he said equably. “But the past tense is the operative here.” She looked surprised at his admission. “And let’s be clear: at no time did I feel like your prisoner, or that I was unwilling to wait it out. I just … I couldn’t bear the thought of being away from you the way I’d been that year …” She knew which of the two years that they'd been apart he was referring to – the first had been torture, the second a waiting game -- and he was upset to see her eyes fill with tears. “Scully,” he said sorrowfully, “do we have to talk about this on your fake birthday?”
She nodded, and a tear rolled down her face but she was smiling at the same time. “Yes, we do,” she said. “I don’t want us to forget how to be honest.”
He nodded, but gritted his teeth against the surge of irritation that swept over him. He had planned for other topics of conversation. “OK,” he said. “Then I want you to think about this: if I wasn’t with you, hiding in our house, sleeping in our bed at night, I would have been in a real prison, if I was still alive. Or I would have been on the run, always looking over my shoulder, alone. Hopeless.” He let his words sink in. “I don’t think I would have survived that reality, either.”
Her eyes widened as his implication of self-harm hit home.
“Why would I want to live that way?” he asked her. “So, yes. Maybe I felt trapped sometimes, and maybe I wanted to be more physically involved in some of the things that I’ve been doing, but … I never felt like you were keeping me there against my will. I don’t blame you, Scully.”
Her smile this time was tremulous. “I know that I’m not the easiest person to live with,” she began, and he laughed.
“Does that mean that you think I am?” he teased.
She couldn’t keep a straight face at his remark.
“We’re not easy people, Scully,” he said. “We spark off each other in so many ways. That’s what makes us so good together, but …”
“It’s also why shouldn’t be together,” she said softly, echoing the conversation they’d had most recently had in a hallway at Our Lady of Sorrows, but more times than he cared to remember over the years.
“But we are, right?” he said, his voice equally soft.
“Yes,” she said.
He pushed the table away and sat next to her on the bench, wrapping his arms around her. He kissed his way down from her forehead to her lips. “Whither thou goest, Scully,” he whispered, then sealed his vow with a kiss. “I promise.”
She nodded, wrapping her arms around his neck to pull him down to her. He knew that she couldn’t speak for fear of crying, so let her make her promise to him with her lips and her tongue.
When they resurfaced, he pulled her back against his chest, dragging the table within reach so they could get at their champagne. “Happy birthday, Scully,” he said, clinking her glass.
“Thank you, Mulder,” she said, and he understood that she meant more than his last few words.
They lay there sipping their champagne until Scully spoke again. “Is there any chocolate?”
He laughed his answer, and watched as she got up and searched the galley for dessert. He followed her, bringing in their plates and putting them in the tub designated for dirty dishes. He saw the cooler on the floor and hesitated, then went outside to get the rest of the dishes. When he returned, Scully was, of course, rearranging them in the tub. Even though they weren’t going to be washed until they were returned to the resort, she still wanted them to be just so. He stood there, wordlessly watching his ever-so-slightly obsessive compulsive love, and tried to work up the courage to broach the topic that was the true reason for which he'd planned this private dinner.
“You know,” he began, trying to sound casual, “we could get married now.” He handed her an empty serving dish.
“Mulder,” she said in a negative tone. “After all this time, why would that matter?”
“We could get married in the church,” he countered quietly. “Get a blessing.”
That caught her attention, and she stared up at him, wide-eyed but quiet, her cross dangling from her neck. “You’d have to take classes,” she said after a minute.
“I know,” he said. “I know what I would have to do.” He paused. “I also know that it would mean something to you, Scully.”
“It would have meant more … before,” she said, carefully. “I just … I’m not sure that anyone in my family would come to our wedding, Mulder.” She looked down at her hands, and picked at a tiny chip in her perfect manicure. “I don’t know if I’d want them to be there.”
He knew that she'd been hurt by her mother's failure to accept her choices, but he doubted that she truly wouldn't want her to be there. Her brothers, however – Mulder tread lightly, knowing that the estrangement between them had complex underpinnings. He might not have ever finished his practicum, but Scully was his partner, his love, and sometimes his only client. “Is that the only reason to be married then? The public aspect of it?”
She blinked, looking at him blankly before she spoke again. “You know that I'll never leave you, Mulder,” she said firmly. “Even when I couldn't come home those nights, it was just a stress reaction. I never should have done that.” She rounded the bin and came to stand in front of him, speaking earnestly. “We made our vows a long time ago,” she said, and he had a flash of memory of their motel room in Roswell. “What means something to me, Mulder, is that you would do that for me, to give me something that you think I want.” She kissed him, and he stifled his disappointment to stay in the kiss. “Thank you,” she said, breaking away. She put her hand on his cheek. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, Scully,” he echoed, and he meant it, despite the hollow ache he felt at the moment. He bent over and retrieved the cooler, opening it so that the cake box on top was clearly displayed.
She grinned and clapped her hands at the sight, and he smiled at her delight. “Now, feed me some of that birthday cake!” she ordered.
~*~
Later, in the tiny bed below deck, he thought about their earlier conversation as he twirled her bikini top around his finger, spinning it by the loop that had lain between her breasts. She was drowsily pressed up against him, barely covered by the sheet, both of them sweaty from the combination of their exertions and the still air. Even though his body was satisfied, his restless mind wouldn't settle down. He hadn't expected her to jump with joy over his proposal, and didn't need to be married to sanctify his commitment to her, but all the same, he wanted to be married. Wife, after all, was a word he could use to describe her easily, a socially acceptable shorthand for the far more complicated truth of what they were to each other. But, it was a name he couldn't use, a right that he'd been unable to exercise without jeopardizing her because he had no legal status. Now, he'd had his name, such as it was, returned to him. Scully, however, had already dismissed the idea, and unless he reintroduced the topic and reframed it, she wouldn't consider it again, at least not any time soon.
“Maybe I just want to change my name for real this time,” he announced suddenly, as inspiration struck him.
She looked up at him, peeling her cheek from his chest. She’d been stroking those newly developing muscles in his side again, seemingly fixated on them. He’d decided that he needed to find a gym with a pool as soon as they got back to Richmond. "You'd change your name?"
He shrugged. "It's not really my name, is it?" he asked. "Besides, you've been my family longer than anyone that came before you."
She looked astonished. "Fox Scully?" Her mouth made the foreign shape awkwardly.
"Oh, I don't think so," Mulder said swiftly, and with a wince. "I was thinking … Mulder Scully."
She goggled at him. "That would be hopelessly confusing," she said.
"Why?" he said. "Everyone calls me Mulder. It's my name."
"Yes, but Mulder? It's kind of a horrible first name to give a kid."
"Like Fox?" he said with a scowl. "Yeah, that's an awesome name for a kid."
She smiled at him, but he could see her mulling it over, which was his whole point. She was quiet for a few minutes, curled up next to him as their small boat stirred slightly in the calm waters. "You'd really change your name?"
He held up his hand and wiggled his ring finger. "You put a fat diamond on that finger and I'm all yours, baby."
He loved making her laugh, maybe more than anything in the world, so he delighted in her giggles even as he thought forlornly of the ring tucked away at the bottom of the cooler in a Ziploc bag. He could be patient, he reminded himself. He had years of experience. He’d already planted the seed -- he just needed to tend it.
“Mulder Scully,” she said slowly, shifting up in the bed. She kissed a path up from his chest, her fingers playing lightly over his sternum and his pecs, before they slid up to cup his face. He turned his head to kiss her fingers, drawing her ring finger into his mouth and sucking on it deliberately. She straddled him, sitting up, and then tilted her head to regard him, her sun-streaked curls streaming over her bared breasts.
He smiled at her. “That’s me,” he said.
“Hmm …” she purred, then leant forward to capture his lips with her own, as his hands slid up to cup her breasts. Her hair made a curtain around them. “You still do keep me guessing, Mulder,” she murmured.
He closed his eyes, and sank willingly into her embrace, and then her body, with a sigh. As long as she was there with him, he would always be home.
~*~
There really was nothing like the ocean, he thought as he floated drowsily. His back scratched lightly against the bottom of the lagoon, and he struggled up to consciousness, not aware that he’d drifted so far. He must have dozed off. He staggered up out of the water to find an entire sand city that stretched all the way from the water's edge to the cabana and the path that led around to the front of their bungalow. He felt suddenly awake as he searched the nearby area, looking for the expected small form. Seeing no one, he shaded his eyes and looked at the city again. The skyline looked familiar, with the water lapping at its edge. Just outside the city, spaceships had crashed into the ground, their large disks half buried in the sand where the sea grasses and the flowers began.
There was something disturbing about the tableau that he couldn't – they had built a lot of spaceships over the years, but this kind of scale, with the looming dead hulks of the ships in the ex-urbs, was new. And where was he? Mulder turned and rushed up the path to the patio.
Scully lay on the hammock in repose, her arm outspread over the narrow back of a boy, his skin dusted with sand that glistened in the dappled sunlight as they swung back and forth. He could hear the low murmur of her voice as she talked to William, something that had never happened, not once in all the years that he’d dreamt of their son. William and Scully were laying on the hammock facing each other, but he could only see Scully’s face, and the love on it as she lifted her hand, stroking their son’s dark hair and then wiping at his cheek.
“Scully,” he said urgently, and she looked up at him, her smile radiant.
“See,” she said to the boy. “There he is.”
William turned his head, and his expression was so ineffably, utterly sad that Mulder felt his own heart clench in his chest. “William,” he said in concern and took a step forward, but before he could take another, William disappeared, and all that was left was a diminishing pile of sand and the sound of Scully’s choking sobs.
“Where is he, Mulder?” Her question sounded like an accusation, and he shook his head in bewilderment, his eyes fixated on the sand slowly drifting off the hammock as it rocked back and forth. Above Scully, the trees were filled with parakeets, all watching.
“I …” he said helplessly, before he turned to run back to the lagoon. The path that he'd taken before had disappeared, so he blundered through the jungle-like growth, slapping the vines away that clung to his arms and legs as he tried to force his way through. Finally, he burst out of the undergrowth to the lagoon’s edge, but William was nowhere to be seen.
“William!”
The sound of his voice echoed, and he looked up to the empty sky and saw that the birds were filling the trees across the lagoon, watching him impassively. “Where is he?” he yelled at them, but they remained silent.
He glanced down at his feet and saw that the city was smashed to ruins around him, but not by his heedless actions. His blood ran cold as he realized that the spaceships that had before crashed harmlessly outside the city had instead laid waste to it entirely, leaving only rubble and the skyline itself unrecognizable.
“William!”
Mulder was afraid that he’d said their son’s name out loud, but Scully slept on in their little bunk. He'd sat up in the narrow bed grazing the low ceiling above the bunk, chest heaving, heart pounding. He lay back down and tried to regulate his breathing, his hand gripping his aching head as he resisted the urge to gather Scully to his chest like a teddy bear, to wake her with his need for reassurance as had happened so many nights when they were first reunited.
What did it mean? Was the dream trying to tell him something, or was it just a manifestation of new anxiety? He was free, but there had been a kind of safety in his solitude in their house. Was it merely the uncertainty of what was to come now?
Scully shifted and murmured next to him, and he turned toward her, trying to will himself to not wake her up, to not use her as a sedative to ease his anxiety. It was a bad habit that he’d go back to in times of trouble, that desperate loving in the middle of the night so that he could lapse into unconsciousness. He moved to the edge of the bed and rolled out, careful to keep his head down as he fumbled his way in the dim light to the ladderlike staircase that led above deck.
It's just post-traumatic stress he told himself, trying to will himself into rationally analyzing the dream. He'd gotten his life back, something he'd never thought would happen. Now that he was free and seemingly of no concern to the collaborators who were trying to bring about Armageddon, it was only logical that his subconscious mind would wander to William. After all, it was his fault that he was gone. He never should have left them alone in the first place -- it was his job to protect them, and he'd failed. Mulder shivered at the thought, and pulled Scully's sarong off the bench and wrapped it around his shoulders.
The stern of the boat was facing east, and it was still early enough that the stars were out above his head while the horizon was warming from red to pink as the sun readied its rise. He sat down on the bench and tried to push his morbid thoughts away, but his remembrance of William's face tore at him. Never once in all the years that they'd built sandcastles had William looked at him with anything other than happiness. Of course, the dreams were his, and subconsciously, he wanted to believe that William would still love him, even after everything. He'd taken comfort from the time that they'd spent together, silent as it usually was. So, why had he suddenly changed the dream scenario? Why had Scully been there? Why had William needed to be comforted? His heart was pounding with anxiety again, but he struggled to rein it in as he heard Scully's sure footfalls coming up from behind him.
"Mulder …" he could hear the sleepy concern in her voice when suddenly she gasped. "Oh!"
He turned and looked at her, and her face was transformed with wonder. He followed her gaze and saw a pair of dolphins arcing from the water in the distance, ahead of the sunrise. "Wow …" he said. All the years on the X-Files, he'd seen some amazing things, but they weren't usually wondrous.
"Oh, Mulder," Scully breathed out. She knelt on the bench and watched the dolphins playing, rapt at the sight, her freckled shoulder peeking out at him from the loose-slung toga of the top sheet.
They were silent until the dolphins disappeared behind one of the nearby islands that dotted the landscape.
"Were they here when you came up on deck?" she asked him. Her eyes were still shining with absolute joy and excitement, allowing him to see the little girl that she had been long before he knew her.
"No," he said, smiling, reaching out to her. "They appeared when you did. They were waiting for you."
"I have always wanted to see dolphins in the wild," she said warmly. She pushed and pulled him until his back was to the rising sun, then straddled his lap. "Ever since I was a little girl," her eyes were darting from the horizon back to him, alert for the possibility of the dolphins' return. "My father used to tell us stories of dolphins following his ship, of them playing in the wake, and every time he took us sailing," she shook her head. "I waited and I looked for them, but they never came."
Mulder smiled. "Until now."
"Until now," she echoed. She shrugged her shoulders out of her cocoon and wrapped her arms around his neck, playing with the hair at his nape. "Have you ever seen them before?"
"Twice," Mulder said, considering. "The first time I was really little, and I stuck my head between the railings of the ferry to get a good look at them. I was so far over the bottom one that I almost fell overboard."
Scully laughed at the image.
He smiled at her. "You know, I don't think I ever saw them after Samantha disappeared."
"You know what this means, Mulder?" Her eyes were still gleaming at him. "Your luck has changed."
"Scully," he said in delight. "Are you giving credence to an old wives' tale?" He squeezed her as he teased, pulling her in to kiss her neck.
"I don't think the old wives were on the fishing boats, Mulder," she said, tilting her head backwards.
"So you say," he said, "I think that the old husbands might have a different story to tell."
"Nice outfit," she commented. "First I have to worry about my stockings, now I have to worry about my sarongs."
"What can I say?" Mulder said. "I'm secure enough in my masculinity to embrace my feminine side. Or yours, more accurately."
She grinned at him, then regarded him searchingly. "Why were you up so early?"
He rotated his hips below her in answer.
"No," she said, narrowing her eyes.
He sighed. "OK," he said. "I was feeling a bit claustrophobic below deck." He hoped that she would not call him on his prevarication.
"Claustrophobic?" she asked.
"A little," he said. "It made me anxious."
That answer was acceptable, it seemed, as she lapsed into silence for a couple of minutes, tracing his shoulders with her fingertips. "Are you sure you're not upset about our conversation last night?"
He was immediately on alert. "Why would you think that, Scully?"
She sighed, ducking her head. "I wasn't entirely honest with you," she said, her cadence very slow and careful.
He was surprised to hear that, and his expression showed it.
"It's true that I'm touched that you want to get married, Mulder. And," she continued seriously, "it is true that a part of me feels that it's unnecessary after all this time." She paused. "But it's also true that I'm angry that we weren't married long before now."
"Scully …"
She held up her hand. "I'm not angry with you," she said firmly. "I'm angry about all the time that we lost, everything that's been taken from us, how we've been toyed with and tortured. We should have been able to get married after William was born," she said in a harsh whisper. "We should have been able to be a family." She looked up at him. "But we weren't allowed any peace. And I cannot help but feel," her voice rose in anger, "resentful of the role that our government played in what has happened to us, to our family."
He nodded.
"And so it's that," she said. "That idea that they would have some role in sanctioning what we mean to each other, after all they have done to destroy us, that I cannot stand to think of."
He was well and truly surprised at her words.
"Can you understand that, Mulder?" she asked him. "They have no place here, between us. We exist, despite them."
"This is why you were so vehemently opposed to helping the FBI, even though you wanted me to work the case," he said.
"Yes," she admitted. "Yes. It galls me that they have had the power to take you away from me, all this time, when they're the ones who are the criminals. It galls me that they had power over me all those years when that chip resided in my neck, and that I might still have to depend upon that thing someday, to save my life." She paused, and swallowed. "I know that the FBI is not wholly, or solely, to blame, but … there are plenty of people in it who are wielding authority that they've stolen, working for an illegal government." She shook her head. "I don't want anything to do with them. And when I talk to my family, and have to listen to my brothers defend what they don't understand … how they denigrate and deny what has happened to me …" she shook her head, and he saw how impotent she felt.
"I don't think I understood that until just now," Mulder said. He gathered her up against him. "Thank you for telling me this, Scully."
"Don't thank me, Mulder," she said, pushing him back so she could see him, "for not being fair to you. I shut down the conversation without real consideration."
"No, you didn't," he said diplomatically.
"Yes, I did," she said. "And what I'm trying to say is that if you really want to get married, I'll marry you."
He smiled. "You know what?"
She shook her head in mystification.
"It means a lot to me that you said that."
"Mulder!"
He could see that she thought he was mocking her. "I'm being completely serious," he said quietly.
She regarded him skeptically.
"You've given me a lot to think about," he said, "now that I understand how you feel." He paused. "We could do it here, you know. We're not in the US," he could see her mulling it over, her expression considering, but not really open. "My point is: we don't have to get married at home." He paused. "Think about it, OK? We can just go somewhere and do it alone, just the two of us."
She nodded.
"And while you're thinking about it," he stretched over to reach the cooler, which was on the floor, tucked into a corner. "I want you to have this." He rummaged around in the ice and found the Ziploc bag, pouring the velvet box into his other hand. "Man, that's cold."
"Oh, Mulder," she said. "What have you done?"
He smiled. "All these years, and yet, I never knew how frugal you were until just recently," he said. He opened the hinged box to reveal what he'd been assured was a deep green emerald framed on either side by blue sapphires. "Did you know that sapphire is one of the birthstones for not only Pisces, but Libra?" he asked.
"Mulder," she said, smiling. "You have always maintained that astrology is, and I quote, 'total bullshit'."
He shrugged. "It's just an interesting fact," he said. "You don't have to believe it."
"And the emerald?" she asked quietly.
He knew that she knew. "The birthstone for Taurus," he answered. "Or the month of May."
Her eyes filled with tears, but she was smiling. She held out her hand and he slid the ring home. "Thank you, Mulder," she said quietly before she kissed him. She pressed her forehead against his and said mischievously, "Does this ring mean you're not going to change your name?"
He laughed aloud, then gasped as she reached between them to push the sarong out of the way. As the sun began to crest over the horizon, it cast a blush on her skin as she rose like Venus from out of the bedsheet and made love to him, making him forget anything other than her.
~*~
Part 5
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Date: 2008-10-28 02:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-28 06:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-28 02:06 am (UTC)I can't wait to read the rest of your story!
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Date: 2008-10-28 02:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-28 02:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-28 02:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-28 03:49 am (UTC)Bwahaha, oh, Mulder!
William! Although I don't wish nightmares on anyone, I'm somewhat glad Mulder is still dreaming of William.
Huh, I never thought about the possibility of Mulder wanting to get married and Scully being angry that way, but it makes perfect sense.
Beautiful work and I greatly look forward to more!
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Date: 2008-10-28 04:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-28 02:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-28 02:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-28 05:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-28 02:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-28 02:54 pm (UTC)Also, typo, I think: "I don't think I understand that until just now," Mulder said. Understood.
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Date: 2008-10-28 03:02 pm (UTC)P.S. ICON!!!
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Date: 2008-10-28 03:39 pm (UTC)I'm just in love with this story, and echoing everyone above me, I love Scully's feelings on marriage.
Can't wait to read more of this!!!!
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Date: 2008-10-29 01:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-28 05:11 pm (UTC)Anyway. I love your concept that the idea of getting married would actually anger Scully. It makes a lot of sense.
Other than the angsty William dream, I love the way they are with each other in this fic, on vacation - silly and happy and (mostly) carefree.
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Date: 2008-10-29 01:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-28 05:37 pm (UTC)Thanks --
Date: 2008-10-29 01:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-28 06:41 pm (UTC)and i agree with what the others say about the marriage issue. good stuff!
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Date: 2008-10-29 01:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-29 08:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-30 12:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-30 03:48 pm (UTC)