A Winter's Tale, Part 23
Jan. 15th, 2008 07:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anjouficTitle: A Winter's Tale 23/23
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
comice aka Anjou (Anjou@rocketmail.com)
Posting Date: December 2007/January 2008
Rating: R for language and sexuality; M for Mature readers
Classification: Mulder/Scully, UST/MSR, AU
Archive: No archival until the story is completed, please. I'll be submitting to Ephemeral and Gossamer myself.
Spoilers: Through Two Fathers/One Son (S6), then AU. In other words, no Arcadia and beyond. Mytharc-y.
Disclaimer: All X-Files personnel belong to 1013 and Fox. All other elements are mine.
Author's Note: And now, the end. Thanks to all who read and took the time to comment. More notes are located after the story.
Daily 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.
As always, thanks to my sister and editrix, Suzanne, for her support.
Summary: Cast your memory back to the dark days of Season 6, to the period immediately following the confrontation between Mulder and Scully in the Gunmen's Office. It is late winter, dark and cold, the landscape obscured and transformed by snow and ice. One must step carefully, for the very ground can be treacherous. This is a lesson Mulder and Scully have already learned when the pristine snow in Antartica yielded a long-buried secret. But the winter can hold many secrets, and could tell many tales, if it so chose.
This is but one.
~*~
May 9, 1999
In the end, it was four weeks from the day that Mulder ditched her to when they finally returned to the Hoover Building.
Their time away hadn't just been about refining their plans, however. An additional complication had manifested itself in the form of the nanites that Assistant Director Skinner bore in his bloodstream. Ten days after their disappearance, Skinner suffered another, more brazen attack and was hospitalized and in critical condition for three days. When the Gunmen were able to arrange for one of their allies to get to him, he was adamant that he be left alone and not be told any information regarding Mulder and Scully's whereabouts. The nurse supervisor who'd made contact with Skinner had had a sister who died of nasopharyngeal cancer after frequent disappearances in their youth. She arranged for a blood sample of Skinner's to be diverted into the Gunmen's hands for further study. She also reported that during one of his worst attacks that the Assistant Director had been muttering something that sounded like a Slavic swear, a word that ended in 'check'. This information was dutifully reported to Mulder and Scully, and redoubled Mulder's determination to get Krycek's name and face on the Ten Most Wanted.
When Skinner's attack had occurred, he'd been on his way to a rendezvous with Mulder and Scully. As far as the FBI knew, he had been en route to California for a face-to-face progress report. In reality, he would have been meeting Mulder at the airport in Chicago to hand over a small case full of pediatric vaccines, procured by the Gunmen, before continuing on to California for his 'meeting'. This time, however, his seizure in the main lobby of the Hoover was witnessed by a number of Agents and other Bureau personnel. Skinner had always had a reputation as a tough but fair Assistant Director. He worked hard, and he expected excellence from his teams, but he was perceived as a straight shooter and a boss whose ambition did not outweigh his talent. The Agents who had seen him fall, his veins bulging and skin ominously and unusually darkened, knew that the official line that Skinner had had an angina attack didn't add up.
The fact that he was on his way to meet the equally absent and always mysterious Agents Mulder and Scully only added fuel to the fire; a murmuring in the building about biological attacks and dirty tricks began, and no matter how the official statement to the rank and file was phrased to counter such impressions, the rumors did not stop. Of course, it didn't help matters that such communications were coming through Assistant Director Kersh, who had never commanded the level of respect that Skinner had among the rank and file. When Skinner had been in charge of the X-Files, it was noted, Mulder and Scully had taken their share of lumps. In the brief period when Kersh had been in charge, however, both of the newly-assigned Agents had gone missing in a matter of months. The puddle of Agent Spender's blood had not been forgotten. In a building full of trained, elite hunters, hard questions began to be asked, if only covertly.
Of course, Scully had her own questions. Mostly, they were about the accuracy of Frohike's sources within the Hoover Building, although she had to allow that she'd witnessed Agents being far from discreet. Their time in the bullpen had been highly informative in that regard – she'd been shocked to see that Agents would routinely leave sensitive information in full view on their desks during their breaks or even overnight. They thought nothing of having candid discussions about cases, not to mention office gossip, in the full hearing of anyone who happened to be in the area, Agents or not. The news of the rumors might have been exaggerated, but there was probably a kernel of truth in it. At the very least, she knew that Kersh was generally loathed by the Agents in the bullpen, who considered him more loyal to those in power, and fueled by his own ambition to rise to their level, than to the ethos that was supposed to rule the Bureau.
With Skinner incapacitated, Frohike had brought the vaccines himself when he'd arrived for a brief visit the day after the aborted meeting. Scully had her suspicions that Frohike had come to check up on her, which she kept to herself. Frohike had still seemed angry with Mulder when he first arrived, but had changed his behavior abruptly when he saw the effect his attitude was having on Hannah. Hannah's attachment to Mulder was both sincere and obvious, and Mulder never made any effort to discourage that affection, and every effort to encourage it between Hannah and Scully. Hannah's confusion and upset at Frohike's manner, in concert with Mulder's tender solicitude toward both Hannah and herself, had gone a long way toward breaking the tension between the two long-time comrades-in-arms.
In truth, it was probably Hannah herself who changed Frohike's opinion. It had taken Hannah less than 48 hours to make a conquest of her 'Uncle Fro'. Scully knew that she was biased, but Hannah was a charming and loving child – the neglect in her early life almost ensured that she would be responsive to those who showed her affection. Happily, she'd also proven to have her own powers of discernment about people. Scully was constantly amazed at Hannah's ability to distinguish individuals amongst the clones that surrounded them at Prometheus. With the addition of Frohike to the mix, Hannah's happiness at making a new friend was contagious, and Frohike was helpless to resist.
The afternoon he left them to return to DC, she'd found Frohike in the warehouse playing hopscotch with Hannah, on a court that Mulder had painted for Hannah on the floor. Mulder was sitting at a nearby desk in front of her laptop, on the phone with his feet up, a bemused and slightly smug expression on his face. Before he left, Frohike had solemnly promised her that the Gunmen would do whatever was necessary to ensure that Hannah was safe. Scully had kissed Frohike on the cheek after he said it, touched at the value of his promise, and the both of them got a little misty-eyed. Frohike had broken away with a gruff, "I got to get on the road," accepted a hug from Hannah, and flinched away from Mulder, who had puckered up for his own kiss goodbye. He walked out the door of Prometheus disparaging Mulder's ancestry under his breath.
Frohike's visit had also brought about an unforeseen alliance. He was fascinated with the clones in general, but had actually bonded with a number of them over discussing Skinner's nanite problem. Several of the Kurts were intrigued by the possible implications of the nanite technology, and much data had changed hands between the Gunmen's lair in Takoma Park and the Prometheus installations in Minnesota and elsewhere, as they posited methodologies for freeing Skinner. The Crawfords had a basic knowledge of the technology that had gone into the creation of the nanites, and their work in creating the dampening field around their own facilities had led to long discussions about high-altitude satellites, and radio waves and their roles in the implants, among other topics.. A germ of an idea to aid Skinner began to take shape: until the nanites could be safely removed, a dampening device would be created to ensure that he would be free of the predation of whoever had implanted them in the first place. It was a stop-gap measure that showed great promise, although Frohike also seemed to be onboard with Mulder's idea of finding Krycek and beating the answers out of him, unfeasible as that seemed to be.
The alliance between the clones and the elder Gunmen found common ground elsewhere. Since Mulder had first met the Crawfords in Allentown, they had eschewed any more public contact with MUFON or its membership out of fear of exposure. In so doing, however, they had also cut themselves off from the abductee community, losing both access to information and a pool of vaccinated humans. The Gunmen's ties within the abductee community however, gave them access to both with the promise of anonymity so that they could continue their work on the creation of a viable vaccine. It was ironic, but the failure of the alien/human hybridization program had proven what Mulder's father had argued all along: the only way that the human species would survive colonization was for immunity to be established via a working vaccine, or perhaps with gene therapy, if some of the clones' new avenues of research proved fruitful. Still, Scully could not help but mourn the fact that the theory had been proven only after the deaths of hundreds of abductees, and the sacrifice of an unknown number of children created to suffer unspeakable experimentation.
The Crawfords' new working relationship with the Gunmen meant that when Mulder, Scully and Hannah finally left the Prometheus warehouse behind that first full week of April, their car was the first in a loose southerly bound caravan, all taking different routes. Prometheus had set up operations in an office park near the Gunmen in Takoma Park, and Scully suspected Mulder had used some of his inheritance to ensure that their research went forward.
The day that they left the office park that had been their home for three weeks was clear and bright, and Scully felt a bit like Persephone, arising from the wintery gloom of the windowless warehouse into the spring. Of course, it had been hard to reconcile the vistas that first greeted them with the idea of spring. The sun shone brilliantly on the fields of white snow on the by-ways that led them to the highway. Scully had seen a robin on a split rail fence near one of the larger snowfields and excitedly pointed out the harbinger of spring to Hannah, while Mulder smiled at them both. Everywhere they drove, the snow was melting, even the hard mounds of salt-rimed and blackened snow that was piled along each roadside and corner.
Hannah hadn't truly understood her mother's enthusiasm at the sight of the robin – her excitement stemmed from the fact that they were going somewhere else – she'd long since grown bored with the confining environment of the warehouse. She'd only been out in the real world for a tiny fraction of her life, but she was her grandfather's daughter, and couldn't resist the lure of exploration. Scully couldn't wait to take her out on the sea in the summer – she had visions of herself teaching her daughter to sail, to always reach for the horizon.
When they'd finally entered the DC limits, after two days of travel and innumerable games of I Spy, they'd gone directly to the Gunmen's to pick up Mulder's car, as well as appropriate work attire for them both. This also gave Langly and Byers an opportunity to meet Hannah. Langly deemed Hannah 'cool', but in Byers' wistfully soft smile as he spoke with Hannah, Scully saw a longing that didn't surprise her. She'd often wondered where the woman was that had given John Byers her ring to wear. She very much doubted that he had a family that he'd left behind, but it was clear that at some point, he'd had a hope of one. She knew that she and Mulder had received a miracle in the form of their daughter's life, and felt sorrow that her gentlemanly friend had so little hope of receiving a similar boon.
They'd left the Gunmen and driven into the District just after lunch on a Friday. As they'd moved further and further south, the snow pack had receded and they'd been rewarded with the sight of nature softly retaking the barren earth, decorating it with greenery and delicate flowers. Scully had harbored a secret hope that their return would be in time to at least see some of the celebration of sakura, the Cherry Blossom season in the District. Her dream had been realized when she cajoled Mulder into driving by the basin to find the trees just past their bloom but still glorious. Hannah had been wide-eyed at the sight, and they'd slowly driven along with the windows rolled down, letting the soft spring breezes awash with the scent of the flowers, envelope them. Despite being nervous about being out in public with Hannah without a battalion of armed guards, Mulder couldn't resist Hannah's desire to see the blossoms up close. The image of Hannah, dancing in delight around her father while he broke off a flower for her as the cherry blossom petals rained down around them, was one that she would always treasure.
Their time under the blossoms had been sadly abbreviated as they had appointments to keep at the Hoover Building. They had a private meeting scheduled with her mother before the press conference. Scully knew that her absence during Easter, and her silence during most of the previous month, meant that her mother would be quietly frantic with worry. She also knew that her mother would forgive her when she understood all that had occurred. Hannah's safety was paramount, and Scully couldn't trust that communication between her and her mother wouldn't be compromised, jeopardizing it. In addition, they'd needed every available hour of the day to not only put Mulder's plan into effect, but also to ensure that Hannah had some basic inoculations in her system before she was once more exposed to the wider world. Standard pediatric guidelines for uninoculated children of Hannah's age recommended giving her a vast number of shots at the same time, but Scully had been unwilling to do that, and Mulder had agreed with her decision. They'd been cautious, and so far Hannah had not had an adverse reaction to any of the shots that she'd had, other than a slight fever.
Still, she could not help but regret the expression of pain and shock on her mother's face when she had seen Hannah for the first time. Their arrival on the floor where Skinner's office was located after such a long absence and with a child caused a buzz of activity. Of course, the presence of Senator Matheson in Skinner's office, and the rumors about the impending press conference, had caused enough discussion that her mother heard their names and opened the door to the conference room where she'd been waiting. She had immediately recognized Hannah for who she truly was, and her surprised expression of recognition had given credence to the stories that began circulating the building once the press conference was underway.
Once past her initial shock, however, Margaret Scully had accepted her new granddaughter right away. As Scully watched the two of them interacting now, she found it hard to remember the frank and angry conversations that she and her mother had had about her intransigence over clarifying her relationship with Hannah's father through the years. Her repeated mantra of "It's complicated, Mom," had been met with exasperation that had begun to fade as this day had gotten closer. She knew that her mother would never understand her true relationship with Mulder, and that she could never explain how exactly Hannah had come to be, but was pleased that her mother had finally begun to accept the answers that she'd been given. Just yesterday, Scully had overheard her mother sharply telling her brother Bill that it was entirely appropriate that there were things that Dana only shared with Mulder, just as there were things that he only shared with his own wife, and that he should mind his own business.
She smiled at the memory, and checked her lipstick one last time in the mirror.
"You look beautiful," Hannah said to her worshipfully, and Scully smiled at her daughter. Hannah was dressed in a white dress that had a pale blue overlay, complementing the blue-toned white of Scully's own dress. In the month since they'd been back, Hannah's curls had been tamed with a more flattering haircut, and were now crowned with a circlet fashioned from the same flowers that Scully would carry.
"So do you, pumpkin," Scully answered. "How's Daddy look?"
"He's beautiful, too," Hannah said seriously.
"Oh, Hannah!" Margaret Scully exclaimed, pausing from where she'd been fussing with the back of Scully's hair to hide a smile, as her daughter laughed aloud. "Men aren't really beautiful," she explained, "but your dad does look very handsome."
Hannah looked dubious at this pronouncement. "I don't know about handsome," she said skeptically, "my Daddy is beautiful."
"I agree," Scully answered, putting an end to her mother's protests. "Are we ready to go?" she asked her mother, looking at her in the mirror. At her mother's teary nod, Scully adjusted one of her mother's pearl and diamond earrings so that it sat correctly on her ear. Then she straightened the bow on the basket of flower petals before she handed it to Hannah.
"Now, that's a pretty picture," Frohike said from the doorway.
Scully smiled. She'd seen Frohike push the door open, but her mother started, not having had heard him.
"Hannah, just move a little bit closer to your mom," Frohike said, "And Mrs. Scully, please take one step forward." They did as he suggested, and then smiled at his urging. Scully's smile was a little larger than the others, due to her own happiness as much as to her amusement over the situation. Frohike certainly was taking his role as wedding photographer quite seriously.
"Agent Scully," Byers said from the doorway, "we were just coming to tell you that we're all ready for you downstairs."
"Thank you," she said to Byers. Both he and Frohike were dressed in suits that complemented Mulder's own – even Langly had consented to wear a suit for this one occasion. "We'll be right down."
"Thanks again for letting us commandeer Mother's Day, Mom," Scully said as she stood up, carefully smoothing her dress. She bent to straighten out Hannah's bow, which had gotten crushed when she'd pressed up against her mother to watch her wedding preparations.
"Don't thank me, Dana," her mother answered, "this day is as important to you now as it is to me." She fussed a bit more with Scully's hair, and Scully could see her biting her tongue. Scully knew that her mother would have preferred it if she'd consented to wear a veil, but she wasn't interested in wearing that, or a tiara, or even a crown of flowers like Hannah's. Aside from the fact that such an item wouldn't complement the sophisticated sleeveless sheath that she was wearing, it simply wasn't her. She was going to walk down the aisle to Mulder exactly as she was, albeit wearing a beautiful dress and carrying a beautiful bouquet of flowers, with Hannah and her mother as her attendants. Her brother Charles, home from wherever it was his latest secret assignment had taken him, was her official witness. He took great pride in referring to himself as the Maid of Honor, although he'd laughed aloud at Langly's calling him the 'Dude of Honor'.
Charles had offered to walk down the aisle with her mother and Hannah as an attendant to the bride should, but there was only so far she was willing to stretch convention. Instead, Charles would simply join her and Mulder at the altar from his seat, along with Lindsay Matheson, who was serving as Mulder's Best Man. She knew that it was just this kind of break from tradition that had her older brother Bill seething, but mostly he was angry that she'd not even entertained the notion of him walking her down the aisle to 'give her away' for more than ten seconds, before she'd firmly rebuffed him. In truth, that was more consideration than the idea deserved: she and Mulder were committing themselves to each other, and no one else was involved in that process. She would give herself, binding her life to her partner, as he was giving himself to her.
She came out of the bedroom at the top of the stairs of their new house in Alexandria, ignoring the Agent with the earpiece who reported her movement to their colleagues downstairs and outside. She was slightly exasperated with the amount of security that they had been talked into accepting for what she wanted to be a private event, but there was not much she could do beyond laying down certain ground rules and trying to be gracious in her acceptance. Skinner had been adamant about the security plan, and although she knew that he was acting out of real concern for her and for Hannah, she also suspected that he was reacting to all that had happened to him in the past few months. Even with the dampening device that the clones and the Gunmen had made for him clipped to his belt, she knew that Skinner would never be easy until he was rid of the nanites. For that, she could not blame him – the feeling of relief she had at the absence of her implant had not waned in the weeks since it had been removed.
Besides, Skinner wasn't the only one who wanted the tight security on their family. The press conference with Senator Matheson and Director Freeh about her own kidnapping and Hannah's birth and long confinement away from them had provoked a staunch groundswell of support within the ranks of their coworkers. It was true that law enforcement officials tended to react negatively whenever one of their own was hurt or killed, but this went beyond that. The idea that she had been kidnapped, violated, and had her children kidnapped had been met with anger. Nor had the intimation that Emily's illness and subsequent death was somehow related to her kidnapping gone unnoticed. There had been a list of volunteers for their security detail, from a number of branches of federal law enforcement, before the press conference had finished airing.
Likewise, where there had been plenty of Agents who had disparaged Mulder in the past, there was a new and unexpected sympathy, and not just for him as a bereaved father to the twin that had been found, only to be lost. The idea of Samantha Mulder, the sister who had been kidnapped and never returned, suddenly became real to many of their colleagues. That Mulder had had a sister who was kidnapped was unusual enough, but to have his partner kidnapped, and their children stolen from them and hidden by unknown conspirators? It was unthinkable. While both Mulder and Scully were officially on parental leave, they had been in the building on enough occasions in the past month that Hannah's charm had worked its usual magic, while the idea of her dead twin slowly but surely began to inflame their colleagues. Perhaps, the thinking went, there always had been something to the wild theories that Mulder had spouted.
It had been extremely strange to hear her history being re-written, but she was powerless to stop it. Where once their colleagues had been determined to disparage, now it seemed they were equally determined to praise. After all, Mulder had been one of the best profilers in the history of the Bureau, and Scully was no investigative slouch. The painstaking pathological work that she had done for many of her colleagues was suddenly remembered, and Scully found herself in the odd position of being thanked for having done her job, on cases that had sometimes been closed years before. On one of her solo trips to the Hoover, Scully had overheard Mulder's loudest detractor in the bullpen opining that the real reason Mulder hadn't pulled his weight on background checks was because he'd been desperately, actively searching for Hannah to keep her from her sister's fate. Furthermore, he believed that Mulder and Scully's reassignment had been designed to keep them from discovering the truth about Hannah, and that Diana Fowley had more than likely been in on it from the beginning. The whispering that had begun with Skinner's collapse in the lobby got ever louder, and speculation on what part Assistant Director Kersh had played in their colleagues' suffering became a frequent topic of discussion. Agent Spender, the rumors said, must have discovered something that had led to his ominous disappearance.
Mulder had had his own firsthand experience with the bullpen's newfound solidarity with them when he'd stopped in to file paperwork declaring their new insurance status as a family. He'd forgotten one form, and commandeered an empty desk to fill it out while Hannah had chatted with a few of the nearby Agents. With Mulder seemingly distracted, their colleagues had formed a loose protective phalanx around their child. When Mulder had heard a meaningful quiet come over the bullpen, he'd told Scully in a still amazed tone, he'd been astonished to note that there were agents covering all of the access points to the area, most of them with their hands on the butt of their guns. The hush heralded the arrival of Assistant Director Kersh, who came sweeping into the bullpen seemingly ignorant of the high level of animosity directed toward him by the rank and file. He came over to Mulder and Hannah with more than his usual false bonhomie, speaking loudly and extending a hand to Hannah, who immediately drew away from him and moved back toward her father. One of the larger bullpen Agents stepped between Hannah and the AD saying, "Miss Mulder's been told not to allow strangers to approach her," in a firm tone.
Kersh's blustering remark that Hannah was certainly more safe here at the Hoover Building than she was in her own home was met with an ominous and chilly silence. It also did nothing to move the Agent blocking the way. Only when Hannah was situated in his arms, and after Mulder had asked, did Agent Bailey begrudgingly stand aside. Mulder was further surprised to find that he was flanked by several Agents, all of them radiating incredible levels of hostility toward Kersh. Hannah, probably reacting to the not-so-subtle posturing of the 'nice men at Mommy and Daddy's office', had said 'hello' to Kersh, and then hidden her face in Mulder's neck for the rest of the conversation. Hannah's reticence toward Kersh only served to fuel the rumors about his potential involvement.
Shortly after that incident, Skinner had informed them that he'd been approached by a Senior Agent who wanted to know why there was no Task Force investigating the crimes against Mulder and Scully. The SA had insinuated that he'd heard that the lack of a Task Force could be laid at Kersh's feet, and he questioned whether Kersh should have a role in the investigation, considering his well-known antipathy to both the Agents involved. He also told Skinner that there was a rumor going around that Kersh was trying to cut the security force watching Mulder, Scully and Hannah, and warned him that if it proved true, that he was not alone in being prepared to expose it, and Kersh, to the tender mercies of the press. Skinner's mordant wit and professional mien defied the description of gleeful, but that had been the impression Scully had been left with as he detailed the sharp turn Kersh's fortune had taken. For his part, Kersh was doing all he could to counter his negative image with the brass, but it had been irrevocably tainted –first, by his inability to find Agent Spender or to account for the whereabouts of Agent Fowley, and now by the rumors questioning his possible involvement in the crimes perpetuated against them. Skinner knew very well that a man suspected of culpability in a case with such a magnitude of harm would never rise to a leadership position beyond the one he now occupied. For all intents and purposes, Assistant Director Alvin D. Kersh's career at the FBI was over. Scully had to agree with their AD about one point – even if it hadn't been their original intention, it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
Their notoriety didn't just extend to the FBI. The sensational nature of the crimes against them had guaranteed that there was extensive media coverage of the press conference and many subsequent interview requests. Assistant Director Jana Cassidy had tried to get them to accede to a number of these, arguing that both she and Mulder, whom she characterized as photogenic, would be good for the FBI's recruitment efforts. Considering everything that they'd been through, and the reasons that they'd become notorious, Scully wasn't sure AD Cassidy's reasoning was sound, but kept her opinion to herself, promising only to discuss it with Mulder. In the end, she and Mulder had kept their exposure minimal, consenting only to an appearance on America's Most Wanted with John Walsh, a man who understood the loss of a child and was more than happy to broadcast the faces and names of those they sought to bring to justice.
They'd moved into their new house the day after the broadcast had aired and the Chief of Police for Alexandria had been one of their first visitors. He came to welcome them to the neighborhood and to assure them that the Alexandria PD would be paying particular attention to the Scully-Mulder household. As a housewarming gift, he'd brought a map enumerating all the law enforcement officials in their immediate vicinity, including contact numbers. They'd accepted his information graciously, although they were already aware of most of it – the numbers of law enforcement officers in the general vicinity had been one of the deciding factors in their buying a home in this particular neighborhood.
The large scale publicity had also allowed them to get a waiver from the Archdiocese to hold their wedding at home, in a location more private than a church. Father McCue was waiting for them under the flower-bedecked tent that stretched from the back deck to the back fence in an attempt to keep the photographers at bay. One of the more unsettling outcomes of John Walsh's publicizing Hannah's kidnapping and recovery on America's Most Wanted had been the fact that Mulder and Scully had become prime fodder for America's insatiable appetite for celebrated crime stories. In fact, their security team was mostly occupied with keeping tabloid reporters away from them. There were only so many concessions they were willing to make to keep Hannah safe, however, and loss of privacy on their wedding day wasn't one of them.
She stood near the back door of their kitchen, looking out across their deck to where Mulder stood, at the end of the aisle directly opposite her, talking to one of the Agents on security detail. From the look of him, not to mention the hand gesturing, he was talking about sports. Her eyes skimmed over his lean form and surveyed the backyard with an assessing eye. The flowers really had come out well, if she did think so herself, and Mulder's idea for laying out the backyard to accommodate the wedding had turned out to be quite striking. When she'd rejected the idea of walking down the aisle to meet him while he'd waited for her, Mulder had drawn up his notion of a wedding floor plan, announcing "X marks the spot!"
Father McCue stood in the center of the X awaiting them. Mulder and she would meet in the middle, and be joined by Lindsay and Charles coming in from either side of the X. They would marry, after receiving a brief blessing. Although Mulder had been very congenial about the whole Catholic aspect of the ceremony, he would not agree to the inclusion of a Mass, much to her mother's chagrin. Secretly, she was glad of his recalcitrance, because it had allowed her more latitude in the planning. She had wanted this day to be intimate and about them, and despite the number of Agents that were inside and outside the house to provide security, it was. It was a gloriously beautiful afternoon, with blue skies, white clouds and abundant sunshine. They had been provident in choosing this weekend, as it had turned out to be one of the rare spring weekends where the weather was warm and pleasant, with no hint of the oppressive DC summer to come.
The number of guests was small, and slanted toward the Scully side of their soon-to-be merged family, not that Mulder seemed to mind. He had finally consented to invite his mother, but only after much debate. Mulder loved his mother, despite her many faults, and the fact that he was tremendously angry with her. Still the image of Mrs. Mulder sitting, dignified and subdued, next to Senator Matheson and his wife was a sad one. Lindsay and her daughter were seated in the row behind them. Scully was pleased to note that Lindsay and her daughter seemed to be engaged in a friendly conversation with John Byers, as Langly fidgeted next to them, uncomfortable in his suit. If anyone could understand heartbreak and loss, it was Lindsay Matheson, whom she'd liked the instant she met her. Perhaps she and John might hit it off – but that was for another day. Her thoughts drifted as she caught sight of Frohike prowling the tent, taking candids of the guests. She would have liked to have the Kurt with whom she'd spent the most time in Minnesota present for the wedding, but he'd demurred the invitation, and she'd understood. Skinner was conducting one last sweep of the Agents in the backyard before he went to take his seat.
On her side of the tent, her brother Bill looked as miserable as her old friend Ellen looked happy. Charles caught her eye from across the distance and smiled. They spoke so rarely, and saw each other even less often, but the bond of understanding that existed between them was as strong as ever. Charlie knew what she had here, and she was more grateful for his quiet support than she could express. She smiled at him instead, radiating all of the happiness that she felt at seeing the jumble of family, friends and colleagues who'd been a part of their lives all together to celebrate this day with Mulder and her.
Across the backyard, Mulder turned away from the conversation he'd been having and toward her. His heartfelt smile at seeing her clearly expressed his appreciation, but just in case she was in doubt of his sentiments, he pressed his hand over his heart and made a subtle motion like he might swoon at the sight of her. She shook her head at him, but unlike the old days, made no move to check her smile. The diamonds in the wedding ring that Mulder would soon give her sparkled in the filtered light as he gestured. He'd taken her ring off to have it cleaned, but other than that, had worn it on his little finger while it awaited the transfer to her hand. She pressed her finger against her left thumb, running it over the ring that she'd bought for him. The band was both white and yellow gold, forged together in an unbreaking circle. It reminded her of the two of them, with their differing temperaments. She'd seen it and immediately known that it was the one for Mulder, and he'd agreed.
Behind her, the Agent murmured that 'all systems were go' and she rolled her eyes, but the smile never left her face. The strains of "The Wedding March" began and her mother turned to look at her one last time before she stepped across the deck and began her trip down the aisle.
"Be happy, Dana," her mother said to her, kissing her cheek.
Her smile grew even wider. "I am, Mom," she assured her. "I am."
Hannah was nervous after her grandmother left her to walk down the aisle, but Scully was calm, bending down to kiss her after they walked down the deck stairs together. "Are you all ready?" she asked Hannah. "All you have to do is walk down the aisle to Grandma, but if you want to throw some flower petals on your way, that would be very nice."
"OK," Hannah said solemnly, her eyes wide. "I can do it."
"I know you can, pumpkin," Scully said. "3, 2, 1 … off you go."
She stood at the end of her aisle and watched their daughter walking, intently focused on strewing her petals. When she got to the center of the X, she bypassed her grandmother in favor of walking toward her father, strewing petals in his path before she hurried back to her grandmother, swinging her empty basket.
She could hear Mulder's soft laugh from clear across the tent, above the murmur of the crowd chuckling at Hannah. She looked away from their daughter to find him regarding her with a wry but apologetic smile on his face.
She shrugged her shoulders as if to say, "Why not?" and Mulder laughed again.
They stood there smiling at each other one minute longer, Mulder as beautiful as Hannah'd said he was in his dark green suit. As their gazes caught and held, she knew that he was thinking about the miracle of this moment, as was she. She took a deep breath in and savored it, and saw him doing the same. The small crowd stilled, while the music wound around them.
Suddenly, Hannah's voice rose above it in a loud whisper. "Aren't we starting now?"
Scully could hear her mother shushing Hannah as she fought the bubble of happiness that threatened to send her into gales of laughter. She could see Mulder's eyes twinkling with restrained mirth at her from across the tent.
He nodded at her, and as one, they both took one step toward each other and then another, knowing that they would meet in the middle, forever.
~*~
The End
End Notes:
Well. Nearly nine years after I had the original idea, and almost 65,000 words later, A Winter's Tale is finished. I'm elated, and exhausted. This has been a labor of love, but there were times when it was really hard to get through as much as a paragraph of new text. In a story of this length and scope, that's a lot of days sitting staring at the ticking cursor as it taunted me.
Thanks to Jigzone, Super Mah Jong and Santa Balls 2 for helping me "think" my way through the rough passages. Also, thanks to Portishead, John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman, Placebo, Beth Orton, Joe Jackson, Mighty Mouse and the Vince Guaraldi Trio for providing the soundtrack for my writing.
Thanks as always to my sister Suzanne, who is patient when I am not, and who challenges me to be a better writer.
As always, you can direct your comments to Anjou@rocketmail.com, but I will state for the record that I have no plans for a sequel, at least at this moment.
Give me another nine years, though – who knows what will happen!
You can find the rest of my stories at No Others … Love Stories for Mulder & Scully, a site maintained by the generous dtg. Newer stories, outtakes and fragments are also available at my fiction journalanjoufic.
Thanks for reading.
Author:
comice aka Anjou (Anjou@rocketmail.com)Posting Date: December 2007/January 2008
Rating: R for language and sexuality; M for Mature readers
Classification: Mulder/Scully, UST/MSR, AU
Archive: No archival until the story is completed, please. I'll be submitting to Ephemeral and Gossamer myself.
Spoilers: Through Two Fathers/One Son (S6), then AU. In other words, no Arcadia and beyond. Mytharc-y.
Disclaimer: All X-Files personnel belong to 1013 and Fox. All other elements are mine.
Author's Note: And now, the end. Thanks to all who read and took the time to comment. More notes are located after the story.
Daily 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.As always, thanks to my sister and editrix, Suzanne, for her support.
Summary: Cast your memory back to the dark days of Season 6, to the period immediately following the confrontation between Mulder and Scully in the Gunmen's Office. It is late winter, dark and cold, the landscape obscured and transformed by snow and ice. One must step carefully, for the very ground can be treacherous. This is a lesson Mulder and Scully have already learned when the pristine snow in Antartica yielded a long-buried secret. But the winter can hold many secrets, and could tell many tales, if it so chose.
This is but one.
~*~
May 9, 1999
In the end, it was four weeks from the day that Mulder ditched her to when they finally returned to the Hoover Building.
Their time away hadn't just been about refining their plans, however. An additional complication had manifested itself in the form of the nanites that Assistant Director Skinner bore in his bloodstream. Ten days after their disappearance, Skinner suffered another, more brazen attack and was hospitalized and in critical condition for three days. When the Gunmen were able to arrange for one of their allies to get to him, he was adamant that he be left alone and not be told any information regarding Mulder and Scully's whereabouts. The nurse supervisor who'd made contact with Skinner had had a sister who died of nasopharyngeal cancer after frequent disappearances in their youth. She arranged for a blood sample of Skinner's to be diverted into the Gunmen's hands for further study. She also reported that during one of his worst attacks that the Assistant Director had been muttering something that sounded like a Slavic swear, a word that ended in 'check'. This information was dutifully reported to Mulder and Scully, and redoubled Mulder's determination to get Krycek's name and face on the Ten Most Wanted.
When Skinner's attack had occurred, he'd been on his way to a rendezvous with Mulder and Scully. As far as the FBI knew, he had been en route to California for a face-to-face progress report. In reality, he would have been meeting Mulder at the airport in Chicago to hand over a small case full of pediatric vaccines, procured by the Gunmen, before continuing on to California for his 'meeting'. This time, however, his seizure in the main lobby of the Hoover was witnessed by a number of Agents and other Bureau personnel. Skinner had always had a reputation as a tough but fair Assistant Director. He worked hard, and he expected excellence from his teams, but he was perceived as a straight shooter and a boss whose ambition did not outweigh his talent. The Agents who had seen him fall, his veins bulging and skin ominously and unusually darkened, knew that the official line that Skinner had had an angina attack didn't add up.
The fact that he was on his way to meet the equally absent and always mysterious Agents Mulder and Scully only added fuel to the fire; a murmuring in the building about biological attacks and dirty tricks began, and no matter how the official statement to the rank and file was phrased to counter such impressions, the rumors did not stop. Of course, it didn't help matters that such communications were coming through Assistant Director Kersh, who had never commanded the level of respect that Skinner had among the rank and file. When Skinner had been in charge of the X-Files, it was noted, Mulder and Scully had taken their share of lumps. In the brief period when Kersh had been in charge, however, both of the newly-assigned Agents had gone missing in a matter of months. The puddle of Agent Spender's blood had not been forgotten. In a building full of trained, elite hunters, hard questions began to be asked, if only covertly.
Of course, Scully had her own questions. Mostly, they were about the accuracy of Frohike's sources within the Hoover Building, although she had to allow that she'd witnessed Agents being far from discreet. Their time in the bullpen had been highly informative in that regard – she'd been shocked to see that Agents would routinely leave sensitive information in full view on their desks during their breaks or even overnight. They thought nothing of having candid discussions about cases, not to mention office gossip, in the full hearing of anyone who happened to be in the area, Agents or not. The news of the rumors might have been exaggerated, but there was probably a kernel of truth in it. At the very least, she knew that Kersh was generally loathed by the Agents in the bullpen, who considered him more loyal to those in power, and fueled by his own ambition to rise to their level, than to the ethos that was supposed to rule the Bureau.
With Skinner incapacitated, Frohike had brought the vaccines himself when he'd arrived for a brief visit the day after the aborted meeting. Scully had her suspicions that Frohike had come to check up on her, which she kept to herself. Frohike had still seemed angry with Mulder when he first arrived, but had changed his behavior abruptly when he saw the effect his attitude was having on Hannah. Hannah's attachment to Mulder was both sincere and obvious, and Mulder never made any effort to discourage that affection, and every effort to encourage it between Hannah and Scully. Hannah's confusion and upset at Frohike's manner, in concert with Mulder's tender solicitude toward both Hannah and herself, had gone a long way toward breaking the tension between the two long-time comrades-in-arms.
In truth, it was probably Hannah herself who changed Frohike's opinion. It had taken Hannah less than 48 hours to make a conquest of her 'Uncle Fro'. Scully knew that she was biased, but Hannah was a charming and loving child – the neglect in her early life almost ensured that she would be responsive to those who showed her affection. Happily, she'd also proven to have her own powers of discernment about people. Scully was constantly amazed at Hannah's ability to distinguish individuals amongst the clones that surrounded them at Prometheus. With the addition of Frohike to the mix, Hannah's happiness at making a new friend was contagious, and Frohike was helpless to resist.
The afternoon he left them to return to DC, she'd found Frohike in the warehouse playing hopscotch with Hannah, on a court that Mulder had painted for Hannah on the floor. Mulder was sitting at a nearby desk in front of her laptop, on the phone with his feet up, a bemused and slightly smug expression on his face. Before he left, Frohike had solemnly promised her that the Gunmen would do whatever was necessary to ensure that Hannah was safe. Scully had kissed Frohike on the cheek after he said it, touched at the value of his promise, and the both of them got a little misty-eyed. Frohike had broken away with a gruff, "I got to get on the road," accepted a hug from Hannah, and flinched away from Mulder, who had puckered up for his own kiss goodbye. He walked out the door of Prometheus disparaging Mulder's ancestry under his breath.
Frohike's visit had also brought about an unforeseen alliance. He was fascinated with the clones in general, but had actually bonded with a number of them over discussing Skinner's nanite problem. Several of the Kurts were intrigued by the possible implications of the nanite technology, and much data had changed hands between the Gunmen's lair in Takoma Park and the Prometheus installations in Minnesota and elsewhere, as they posited methodologies for freeing Skinner. The Crawfords had a basic knowledge of the technology that had gone into the creation of the nanites, and their work in creating the dampening field around their own facilities had led to long discussions about high-altitude satellites, and radio waves and their roles in the implants, among other topics.. A germ of an idea to aid Skinner began to take shape: until the nanites could be safely removed, a dampening device would be created to ensure that he would be free of the predation of whoever had implanted them in the first place. It was a stop-gap measure that showed great promise, although Frohike also seemed to be onboard with Mulder's idea of finding Krycek and beating the answers out of him, unfeasible as that seemed to be.
The alliance between the clones and the elder Gunmen found common ground elsewhere. Since Mulder had first met the Crawfords in Allentown, they had eschewed any more public contact with MUFON or its membership out of fear of exposure. In so doing, however, they had also cut themselves off from the abductee community, losing both access to information and a pool of vaccinated humans. The Gunmen's ties within the abductee community however, gave them access to both with the promise of anonymity so that they could continue their work on the creation of a viable vaccine. It was ironic, but the failure of the alien/human hybridization program had proven what Mulder's father had argued all along: the only way that the human species would survive colonization was for immunity to be established via a working vaccine, or perhaps with gene therapy, if some of the clones' new avenues of research proved fruitful. Still, Scully could not help but mourn the fact that the theory had been proven only after the deaths of hundreds of abductees, and the sacrifice of an unknown number of children created to suffer unspeakable experimentation.
The Crawfords' new working relationship with the Gunmen meant that when Mulder, Scully and Hannah finally left the Prometheus warehouse behind that first full week of April, their car was the first in a loose southerly bound caravan, all taking different routes. Prometheus had set up operations in an office park near the Gunmen in Takoma Park, and Scully suspected Mulder had used some of his inheritance to ensure that their research went forward.
The day that they left the office park that had been their home for three weeks was clear and bright, and Scully felt a bit like Persephone, arising from the wintery gloom of the windowless warehouse into the spring. Of course, it had been hard to reconcile the vistas that first greeted them with the idea of spring. The sun shone brilliantly on the fields of white snow on the by-ways that led them to the highway. Scully had seen a robin on a split rail fence near one of the larger snowfields and excitedly pointed out the harbinger of spring to Hannah, while Mulder smiled at them both. Everywhere they drove, the snow was melting, even the hard mounds of salt-rimed and blackened snow that was piled along each roadside and corner.
Hannah hadn't truly understood her mother's enthusiasm at the sight of the robin – her excitement stemmed from the fact that they were going somewhere else – she'd long since grown bored with the confining environment of the warehouse. She'd only been out in the real world for a tiny fraction of her life, but she was her grandfather's daughter, and couldn't resist the lure of exploration. Scully couldn't wait to take her out on the sea in the summer – she had visions of herself teaching her daughter to sail, to always reach for the horizon.
When they'd finally entered the DC limits, after two days of travel and innumerable games of I Spy, they'd gone directly to the Gunmen's to pick up Mulder's car, as well as appropriate work attire for them both. This also gave Langly and Byers an opportunity to meet Hannah. Langly deemed Hannah 'cool', but in Byers' wistfully soft smile as he spoke with Hannah, Scully saw a longing that didn't surprise her. She'd often wondered where the woman was that had given John Byers her ring to wear. She very much doubted that he had a family that he'd left behind, but it was clear that at some point, he'd had a hope of one. She knew that she and Mulder had received a miracle in the form of their daughter's life, and felt sorrow that her gentlemanly friend had so little hope of receiving a similar boon.
They'd left the Gunmen and driven into the District just after lunch on a Friday. As they'd moved further and further south, the snow pack had receded and they'd been rewarded with the sight of nature softly retaking the barren earth, decorating it with greenery and delicate flowers. Scully had harbored a secret hope that their return would be in time to at least see some of the celebration of sakura, the Cherry Blossom season in the District. Her dream had been realized when she cajoled Mulder into driving by the basin to find the trees just past their bloom but still glorious. Hannah had been wide-eyed at the sight, and they'd slowly driven along with the windows rolled down, letting the soft spring breezes awash with the scent of the flowers, envelope them. Despite being nervous about being out in public with Hannah without a battalion of armed guards, Mulder couldn't resist Hannah's desire to see the blossoms up close. The image of Hannah, dancing in delight around her father while he broke off a flower for her as the cherry blossom petals rained down around them, was one that she would always treasure.
Their time under the blossoms had been sadly abbreviated as they had appointments to keep at the Hoover Building. They had a private meeting scheduled with her mother before the press conference. Scully knew that her absence during Easter, and her silence during most of the previous month, meant that her mother would be quietly frantic with worry. She also knew that her mother would forgive her when she understood all that had occurred. Hannah's safety was paramount, and Scully couldn't trust that communication between her and her mother wouldn't be compromised, jeopardizing it. In addition, they'd needed every available hour of the day to not only put Mulder's plan into effect, but also to ensure that Hannah had some basic inoculations in her system before she was once more exposed to the wider world. Standard pediatric guidelines for uninoculated children of Hannah's age recommended giving her a vast number of shots at the same time, but Scully had been unwilling to do that, and Mulder had agreed with her decision. They'd been cautious, and so far Hannah had not had an adverse reaction to any of the shots that she'd had, other than a slight fever.
Still, she could not help but regret the expression of pain and shock on her mother's face when she had seen Hannah for the first time. Their arrival on the floor where Skinner's office was located after such a long absence and with a child caused a buzz of activity. Of course, the presence of Senator Matheson in Skinner's office, and the rumors about the impending press conference, had caused enough discussion that her mother heard their names and opened the door to the conference room where she'd been waiting. She had immediately recognized Hannah for who she truly was, and her surprised expression of recognition had given credence to the stories that began circulating the building once the press conference was underway.
Once past her initial shock, however, Margaret Scully had accepted her new granddaughter right away. As Scully watched the two of them interacting now, she found it hard to remember the frank and angry conversations that she and her mother had had about her intransigence over clarifying her relationship with Hannah's father through the years. Her repeated mantra of "It's complicated, Mom," had been met with exasperation that had begun to fade as this day had gotten closer. She knew that her mother would never understand her true relationship with Mulder, and that she could never explain how exactly Hannah had come to be, but was pleased that her mother had finally begun to accept the answers that she'd been given. Just yesterday, Scully had overheard her mother sharply telling her brother Bill that it was entirely appropriate that there were things that Dana only shared with Mulder, just as there were things that he only shared with his own wife, and that he should mind his own business.
She smiled at the memory, and checked her lipstick one last time in the mirror.
"You look beautiful," Hannah said to her worshipfully, and Scully smiled at her daughter. Hannah was dressed in a white dress that had a pale blue overlay, complementing the blue-toned white of Scully's own dress. In the month since they'd been back, Hannah's curls had been tamed with a more flattering haircut, and were now crowned with a circlet fashioned from the same flowers that Scully would carry.
"So do you, pumpkin," Scully answered. "How's Daddy look?"
"He's beautiful, too," Hannah said seriously.
"Oh, Hannah!" Margaret Scully exclaimed, pausing from where she'd been fussing with the back of Scully's hair to hide a smile, as her daughter laughed aloud. "Men aren't really beautiful," she explained, "but your dad does look very handsome."
Hannah looked dubious at this pronouncement. "I don't know about handsome," she said skeptically, "my Daddy is beautiful."
"I agree," Scully answered, putting an end to her mother's protests. "Are we ready to go?" she asked her mother, looking at her in the mirror. At her mother's teary nod, Scully adjusted one of her mother's pearl and diamond earrings so that it sat correctly on her ear. Then she straightened the bow on the basket of flower petals before she handed it to Hannah.
"Now, that's a pretty picture," Frohike said from the doorway.
Scully smiled. She'd seen Frohike push the door open, but her mother started, not having had heard him.
"Hannah, just move a little bit closer to your mom," Frohike said, "And Mrs. Scully, please take one step forward." They did as he suggested, and then smiled at his urging. Scully's smile was a little larger than the others, due to her own happiness as much as to her amusement over the situation. Frohike certainly was taking his role as wedding photographer quite seriously.
"Agent Scully," Byers said from the doorway, "we were just coming to tell you that we're all ready for you downstairs."
"Thank you," she said to Byers. Both he and Frohike were dressed in suits that complemented Mulder's own – even Langly had consented to wear a suit for this one occasion. "We'll be right down."
"Thanks again for letting us commandeer Mother's Day, Mom," Scully said as she stood up, carefully smoothing her dress. She bent to straighten out Hannah's bow, which had gotten crushed when she'd pressed up against her mother to watch her wedding preparations.
"Don't thank me, Dana," her mother answered, "this day is as important to you now as it is to me." She fussed a bit more with Scully's hair, and Scully could see her biting her tongue. Scully knew that her mother would have preferred it if she'd consented to wear a veil, but she wasn't interested in wearing that, or a tiara, or even a crown of flowers like Hannah's. Aside from the fact that such an item wouldn't complement the sophisticated sleeveless sheath that she was wearing, it simply wasn't her. She was going to walk down the aisle to Mulder exactly as she was, albeit wearing a beautiful dress and carrying a beautiful bouquet of flowers, with Hannah and her mother as her attendants. Her brother Charles, home from wherever it was his latest secret assignment had taken him, was her official witness. He took great pride in referring to himself as the Maid of Honor, although he'd laughed aloud at Langly's calling him the 'Dude of Honor'.
Charles had offered to walk down the aisle with her mother and Hannah as an attendant to the bride should, but there was only so far she was willing to stretch convention. Instead, Charles would simply join her and Mulder at the altar from his seat, along with Lindsay Matheson, who was serving as Mulder's Best Man. She knew that it was just this kind of break from tradition that had her older brother Bill seething, but mostly he was angry that she'd not even entertained the notion of him walking her down the aisle to 'give her away' for more than ten seconds, before she'd firmly rebuffed him. In truth, that was more consideration than the idea deserved: she and Mulder were committing themselves to each other, and no one else was involved in that process. She would give herself, binding her life to her partner, as he was giving himself to her.
She came out of the bedroom at the top of the stairs of their new house in Alexandria, ignoring the Agent with the earpiece who reported her movement to their colleagues downstairs and outside. She was slightly exasperated with the amount of security that they had been talked into accepting for what she wanted to be a private event, but there was not much she could do beyond laying down certain ground rules and trying to be gracious in her acceptance. Skinner had been adamant about the security plan, and although she knew that he was acting out of real concern for her and for Hannah, she also suspected that he was reacting to all that had happened to him in the past few months. Even with the dampening device that the clones and the Gunmen had made for him clipped to his belt, she knew that Skinner would never be easy until he was rid of the nanites. For that, she could not blame him – the feeling of relief she had at the absence of her implant had not waned in the weeks since it had been removed.
Besides, Skinner wasn't the only one who wanted the tight security on their family. The press conference with Senator Matheson and Director Freeh about her own kidnapping and Hannah's birth and long confinement away from them had provoked a staunch groundswell of support within the ranks of their coworkers. It was true that law enforcement officials tended to react negatively whenever one of their own was hurt or killed, but this went beyond that. The idea that she had been kidnapped, violated, and had her children kidnapped had been met with anger. Nor had the intimation that Emily's illness and subsequent death was somehow related to her kidnapping gone unnoticed. There had been a list of volunteers for their security detail, from a number of branches of federal law enforcement, before the press conference had finished airing.
Likewise, where there had been plenty of Agents who had disparaged Mulder in the past, there was a new and unexpected sympathy, and not just for him as a bereaved father to the twin that had been found, only to be lost. The idea of Samantha Mulder, the sister who had been kidnapped and never returned, suddenly became real to many of their colleagues. That Mulder had had a sister who was kidnapped was unusual enough, but to have his partner kidnapped, and their children stolen from them and hidden by unknown conspirators? It was unthinkable. While both Mulder and Scully were officially on parental leave, they had been in the building on enough occasions in the past month that Hannah's charm had worked its usual magic, while the idea of her dead twin slowly but surely began to inflame their colleagues. Perhaps, the thinking went, there always had been something to the wild theories that Mulder had spouted.
It had been extremely strange to hear her history being re-written, but she was powerless to stop it. Where once their colleagues had been determined to disparage, now it seemed they were equally determined to praise. After all, Mulder had been one of the best profilers in the history of the Bureau, and Scully was no investigative slouch. The painstaking pathological work that she had done for many of her colleagues was suddenly remembered, and Scully found herself in the odd position of being thanked for having done her job, on cases that had sometimes been closed years before. On one of her solo trips to the Hoover, Scully had overheard Mulder's loudest detractor in the bullpen opining that the real reason Mulder hadn't pulled his weight on background checks was because he'd been desperately, actively searching for Hannah to keep her from her sister's fate. Furthermore, he believed that Mulder and Scully's reassignment had been designed to keep them from discovering the truth about Hannah, and that Diana Fowley had more than likely been in on it from the beginning. The whispering that had begun with Skinner's collapse in the lobby got ever louder, and speculation on what part Assistant Director Kersh had played in their colleagues' suffering became a frequent topic of discussion. Agent Spender, the rumors said, must have discovered something that had led to his ominous disappearance.
Mulder had had his own firsthand experience with the bullpen's newfound solidarity with them when he'd stopped in to file paperwork declaring their new insurance status as a family. He'd forgotten one form, and commandeered an empty desk to fill it out while Hannah had chatted with a few of the nearby Agents. With Mulder seemingly distracted, their colleagues had formed a loose protective phalanx around their child. When Mulder had heard a meaningful quiet come over the bullpen, he'd told Scully in a still amazed tone, he'd been astonished to note that there were agents covering all of the access points to the area, most of them with their hands on the butt of their guns. The hush heralded the arrival of Assistant Director Kersh, who came sweeping into the bullpen seemingly ignorant of the high level of animosity directed toward him by the rank and file. He came over to Mulder and Hannah with more than his usual false bonhomie, speaking loudly and extending a hand to Hannah, who immediately drew away from him and moved back toward her father. One of the larger bullpen Agents stepped between Hannah and the AD saying, "Miss Mulder's been told not to allow strangers to approach her," in a firm tone.
Kersh's blustering remark that Hannah was certainly more safe here at the Hoover Building than she was in her own home was met with an ominous and chilly silence. It also did nothing to move the Agent blocking the way. Only when Hannah was situated in his arms, and after Mulder had asked, did Agent Bailey begrudgingly stand aside. Mulder was further surprised to find that he was flanked by several Agents, all of them radiating incredible levels of hostility toward Kersh. Hannah, probably reacting to the not-so-subtle posturing of the 'nice men at Mommy and Daddy's office', had said 'hello' to Kersh, and then hidden her face in Mulder's neck for the rest of the conversation. Hannah's reticence toward Kersh only served to fuel the rumors about his potential involvement.
Shortly after that incident, Skinner had informed them that he'd been approached by a Senior Agent who wanted to know why there was no Task Force investigating the crimes against Mulder and Scully. The SA had insinuated that he'd heard that the lack of a Task Force could be laid at Kersh's feet, and he questioned whether Kersh should have a role in the investigation, considering his well-known antipathy to both the Agents involved. He also told Skinner that there was a rumor going around that Kersh was trying to cut the security force watching Mulder, Scully and Hannah, and warned him that if it proved true, that he was not alone in being prepared to expose it, and Kersh, to the tender mercies of the press. Skinner's mordant wit and professional mien defied the description of gleeful, but that had been the impression Scully had been left with as he detailed the sharp turn Kersh's fortune had taken. For his part, Kersh was doing all he could to counter his negative image with the brass, but it had been irrevocably tainted –first, by his inability to find Agent Spender or to account for the whereabouts of Agent Fowley, and now by the rumors questioning his possible involvement in the crimes perpetuated against them. Skinner knew very well that a man suspected of culpability in a case with such a magnitude of harm would never rise to a leadership position beyond the one he now occupied. For all intents and purposes, Assistant Director Alvin D. Kersh's career at the FBI was over. Scully had to agree with their AD about one point – even if it hadn't been their original intention, it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
Their notoriety didn't just extend to the FBI. The sensational nature of the crimes against them had guaranteed that there was extensive media coverage of the press conference and many subsequent interview requests. Assistant Director Jana Cassidy had tried to get them to accede to a number of these, arguing that both she and Mulder, whom she characterized as photogenic, would be good for the FBI's recruitment efforts. Considering everything that they'd been through, and the reasons that they'd become notorious, Scully wasn't sure AD Cassidy's reasoning was sound, but kept her opinion to herself, promising only to discuss it with Mulder. In the end, she and Mulder had kept their exposure minimal, consenting only to an appearance on America's Most Wanted with John Walsh, a man who understood the loss of a child and was more than happy to broadcast the faces and names of those they sought to bring to justice.
They'd moved into their new house the day after the broadcast had aired and the Chief of Police for Alexandria had been one of their first visitors. He came to welcome them to the neighborhood and to assure them that the Alexandria PD would be paying particular attention to the Scully-Mulder household. As a housewarming gift, he'd brought a map enumerating all the law enforcement officials in their immediate vicinity, including contact numbers. They'd accepted his information graciously, although they were already aware of most of it – the numbers of law enforcement officers in the general vicinity had been one of the deciding factors in their buying a home in this particular neighborhood.
The large scale publicity had also allowed them to get a waiver from the Archdiocese to hold their wedding at home, in a location more private than a church. Father McCue was waiting for them under the flower-bedecked tent that stretched from the back deck to the back fence in an attempt to keep the photographers at bay. One of the more unsettling outcomes of John Walsh's publicizing Hannah's kidnapping and recovery on America's Most Wanted had been the fact that Mulder and Scully had become prime fodder for America's insatiable appetite for celebrated crime stories. In fact, their security team was mostly occupied with keeping tabloid reporters away from them. There were only so many concessions they were willing to make to keep Hannah safe, however, and loss of privacy on their wedding day wasn't one of them.
She stood near the back door of their kitchen, looking out across their deck to where Mulder stood, at the end of the aisle directly opposite her, talking to one of the Agents on security detail. From the look of him, not to mention the hand gesturing, he was talking about sports. Her eyes skimmed over his lean form and surveyed the backyard with an assessing eye. The flowers really had come out well, if she did think so herself, and Mulder's idea for laying out the backyard to accommodate the wedding had turned out to be quite striking. When she'd rejected the idea of walking down the aisle to meet him while he'd waited for her, Mulder had drawn up his notion of a wedding floor plan, announcing "X marks the spot!"
Father McCue stood in the center of the X awaiting them. Mulder and she would meet in the middle, and be joined by Lindsay and Charles coming in from either side of the X. They would marry, after receiving a brief blessing. Although Mulder had been very congenial about the whole Catholic aspect of the ceremony, he would not agree to the inclusion of a Mass, much to her mother's chagrin. Secretly, she was glad of his recalcitrance, because it had allowed her more latitude in the planning. She had wanted this day to be intimate and about them, and despite the number of Agents that were inside and outside the house to provide security, it was. It was a gloriously beautiful afternoon, with blue skies, white clouds and abundant sunshine. They had been provident in choosing this weekend, as it had turned out to be one of the rare spring weekends where the weather was warm and pleasant, with no hint of the oppressive DC summer to come.
The number of guests was small, and slanted toward the Scully side of their soon-to-be merged family, not that Mulder seemed to mind. He had finally consented to invite his mother, but only after much debate. Mulder loved his mother, despite her many faults, and the fact that he was tremendously angry with her. Still the image of Mrs. Mulder sitting, dignified and subdued, next to Senator Matheson and his wife was a sad one. Lindsay and her daughter were seated in the row behind them. Scully was pleased to note that Lindsay and her daughter seemed to be engaged in a friendly conversation with John Byers, as Langly fidgeted next to them, uncomfortable in his suit. If anyone could understand heartbreak and loss, it was Lindsay Matheson, whom she'd liked the instant she met her. Perhaps she and John might hit it off – but that was for another day. Her thoughts drifted as she caught sight of Frohike prowling the tent, taking candids of the guests. She would have liked to have the Kurt with whom she'd spent the most time in Minnesota present for the wedding, but he'd demurred the invitation, and she'd understood. Skinner was conducting one last sweep of the Agents in the backyard before he went to take his seat.
On her side of the tent, her brother Bill looked as miserable as her old friend Ellen looked happy. Charles caught her eye from across the distance and smiled. They spoke so rarely, and saw each other even less often, but the bond of understanding that existed between them was as strong as ever. Charlie knew what she had here, and she was more grateful for his quiet support than she could express. She smiled at him instead, radiating all of the happiness that she felt at seeing the jumble of family, friends and colleagues who'd been a part of their lives all together to celebrate this day with Mulder and her.
Across the backyard, Mulder turned away from the conversation he'd been having and toward her. His heartfelt smile at seeing her clearly expressed his appreciation, but just in case she was in doubt of his sentiments, he pressed his hand over his heart and made a subtle motion like he might swoon at the sight of her. She shook her head at him, but unlike the old days, made no move to check her smile. The diamonds in the wedding ring that Mulder would soon give her sparkled in the filtered light as he gestured. He'd taken her ring off to have it cleaned, but other than that, had worn it on his little finger while it awaited the transfer to her hand. She pressed her finger against her left thumb, running it over the ring that she'd bought for him. The band was both white and yellow gold, forged together in an unbreaking circle. It reminded her of the two of them, with their differing temperaments. She'd seen it and immediately known that it was the one for Mulder, and he'd agreed.
Behind her, the Agent murmured that 'all systems were go' and she rolled her eyes, but the smile never left her face. The strains of "The Wedding March" began and her mother turned to look at her one last time before she stepped across the deck and began her trip down the aisle.
"Be happy, Dana," her mother said to her, kissing her cheek.
Her smile grew even wider. "I am, Mom," she assured her. "I am."
Hannah was nervous after her grandmother left her to walk down the aisle, but Scully was calm, bending down to kiss her after they walked down the deck stairs together. "Are you all ready?" she asked Hannah. "All you have to do is walk down the aisle to Grandma, but if you want to throw some flower petals on your way, that would be very nice."
"OK," Hannah said solemnly, her eyes wide. "I can do it."
"I know you can, pumpkin," Scully said. "3, 2, 1 … off you go."
She stood at the end of her aisle and watched their daughter walking, intently focused on strewing her petals. When she got to the center of the X, she bypassed her grandmother in favor of walking toward her father, strewing petals in his path before she hurried back to her grandmother, swinging her empty basket.
She could hear Mulder's soft laugh from clear across the tent, above the murmur of the crowd chuckling at Hannah. She looked away from their daughter to find him regarding her with a wry but apologetic smile on his face.
She shrugged her shoulders as if to say, "Why not?" and Mulder laughed again.
They stood there smiling at each other one minute longer, Mulder as beautiful as Hannah'd said he was in his dark green suit. As their gazes caught and held, she knew that he was thinking about the miracle of this moment, as was she. She took a deep breath in and savored it, and saw him doing the same. The small crowd stilled, while the music wound around them.
Suddenly, Hannah's voice rose above it in a loud whisper. "Aren't we starting now?"
Scully could hear her mother shushing Hannah as she fought the bubble of happiness that threatened to send her into gales of laughter. She could see Mulder's eyes twinkling with restrained mirth at her from across the tent.
He nodded at her, and as one, they both took one step toward each other and then another, knowing that they would meet in the middle, forever.
~*~
The End
End Notes:
Well. Nearly nine years after I had the original idea, and almost 65,000 words later, A Winter's Tale is finished. I'm elated, and exhausted. This has been a labor of love, but there were times when it was really hard to get through as much as a paragraph of new text. In a story of this length and scope, that's a lot of days sitting staring at the ticking cursor as it taunted me.
Thanks to Jigzone, Super Mah Jong and Santa Balls 2 for helping me "think" my way through the rough passages. Also, thanks to Portishead, John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman, Placebo, Beth Orton, Joe Jackson, Mighty Mouse and the Vince Guaraldi Trio for providing the soundtrack for my writing.
Thanks as always to my sister Suzanne, who is patient when I am not, and who challenges me to be a better writer.
As always, you can direct your comments to Anjou@rocketmail.com, but I will state for the record that I have no plans for a sequel, at least at this moment.
Give me another nine years, though – who knows what will happen!
You can find the rest of my stories at No Others … Love Stories for Mulder & Scully, a site maintained by the generous dtg. Newer stories, outtakes and fragments are also available at my fiction journal
anjoufic.Thanks for reading.
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Date: 2008-01-15 01:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-18 03:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-18 03:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-15 04:00 pm (UTC)This was a blast to read. I loved the Kurts and Hannah, especially -- nicely drawn. I may have to haul out the DVDs again.!
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Date: 2008-01-18 03:33 pm (UTC):: blows you kisses ::
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Date: 2008-01-15 08:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-18 03:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-15 10:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-16 06:58 am (UTC)I like a happily-ever-after.
This is beautiful.
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Date: 2008-01-18 04:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-18 03:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-16 12:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-18 04:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-16 02:32 am (UTC)Jenka
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Date: 2008-01-18 04:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-16 07:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-18 04:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-16 07:38 am (UTC)Well, I'm a bit sad it's over, but it was a wonderful ride and that was a beautiful ending.
As always, I was impressed by your attention to detail in wrapping up the conspiracy. Mulder and Scully's acceptance by the Bureau was truly heartwarming, and the wedding was lovely.
Thank you for this great story, and for making me remember how much I love XF fanfic and these characters and this show.
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Date: 2008-01-18 04:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-18 11:53 pm (UTC)BEAUTIFUL!!!!
*MightyDana*
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Date: 2008-01-21 06:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-20 07:10 pm (UTC)Congratulations!
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Date: 2008-01-21 06:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-21 10:01 pm (UTC)Primeiro, quero te agradecer por escrever esta história tão linda.
Agora, sobre A Winters Tale: maravilhosa. Sinceramente achei que você deixaria Scully doente também, quando Hannah começou a ficar doente, assim Mulder teria que se preocupar com as duas. Mas, o rumo que você tomou também foi bom, mas eu achava que, de repente, a Scully teria como ajudar a filha a se curar também, não sei bem.
Sobre a parte de Diana. Como eu queria um confronto! Adoro quando a Diana se dá mal. Acho que ela deveria ter sido pega por Mulder, e ter confessado realmente o que Scully tinha lembrado.
Agora, essa ultima parte, com toda essa proteção de todo mundo em cima de Mulder, Scully e principalmente Hannah, foi linda. Demais mesmo. Eu amo quando todo mundo está do lado deles.
A história foi toda muito bem criada. Parabéns pela idéia e desenvolvimento, pelos diálogos e tudo mais, eu sempre imagino tudo que leio, então, quando a história é boa, parece que estou vendo na tela da televisão o que se passa na história. Parabéns mais uma vez.
Pena que acabou. Ainda bem que as edições eram diárias, senão eu teria envelhecido uns dez anos aqui esperando cada capítulo ;)
Muito obrigada e parabéns pela sua história
Beijos
Edna - Rio de Janeiro - Brasil
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Date: 2008-01-22 01:47 am (UTC)You know, I did think about having a confrontation with Diana, but ultimately decided not to go with it. I find that I quite like the idea of her being a hunted criminal, however.
Thank you again for all of your kind words,
Beijos,
Anjou