DISCLAIMER:  The characters herein are the property of Fox 
Broadcasting and 1013 Productions.  The situations into 
which I have placed them are of my own creation.

CATEGORIES:  SRA
RATING:  PG
ARCHIVAL:  My site only.  Please feel free to link to it at 
http://alanna.net/fanfic/foux.html 
SPOILERS:  Through TINH.  I'm using the real world 
timeline, so this is set in March, 2001.  If 1013 plays 
with timelines, so can I ;). 

This is a sequel to "Throwing Words Away", but you do not 
have to read it to understand this story.  

SUMMARY:  "This is who Mulder was.  This is who you will 
someday be."  

+++++

FOUX
by alanna


wisteria@smyrnacable.net

+++++

Mulder could always tell a good story.

Scully presses "play" on the remote, then settles back to 
listen.

"Ready?" Mulder's voice asks as her face fills the screen.

"Turn that off.  We're supposed to be using it for 
surveillance, not on each other."

"Nah."  Though the camera was on her, as she watches the 
videotape, Scully can almost hear his grin.  "I'd much 
rather film you."

She stares at her face on the video, eyes bright and the 
sun unforgiving to her complexion, and begins to see 
herself the way Mulder saw her.  Self-consciousness breaks 
through and she wonders what he saw in this woman whose age 
was beginning to show and whose face scrunched up 
unattractively with mock-irritation mixed with bemusement.  

But she knows Mulder thought she was beautiful, and this 
knowledge thrills her.  She still feels the same about him. 

Over the speakers, he says, "I'm going to tell you a 
story." 
 
"A story?  Why?"

"We have to pass the time somehow, and while I can think of 
much more interesting ways to do so, we are still on the 
clock, after all."

Scully watches the corners of her mouth twitch into a 
smile.  "Fine, Mulder.  Tell me a story."

"Once upon a time," he began, "there was a young rabbit, 
who lived in a very woodsy area.  Despite the admonitions 
of his friends and family, his favorite game was to kill 
the wild mice of the area, usually by blunt-force trauma to 
the cranium."

"So it's a murderous hare, then?"  She watches herself 
deliberately cock an eyebrow at him, and remembers how 
she'd nearly had to bite her lip to keep from laughing.

At that point, she'd taken the camera from him, gave a 
cursory turn toward the object of surveillance -- an 
apparently empty building -- then focused on him.

His face seems to leap and fly as he continues to tell his 
story.

"As I was saying, the rabbit became the first sylvilagus 
serial killer.  But, as is wont to happen," his voice 
became melodramatic, "his deeds could not go unpunished."

Scully interrupted, "Does the animal kingdom have capital 
punishment?"

"Only in Texas, Scully."  He wagged his eyebrows, then 
lowered them in a stern expression.  "Quit interrupting me.  
So, one day this rabbit was visited by a ghostly 
apparition, very much in the Germanic tradition, like the 
Brothers Grimm.  This spirit warned the rabbit that if he 
did not cease and desist his killing, she would transform 
him into an ogre.

"Now, any psychologist will tell you that the rabbit psyche 
lacks the ability to fully accept responsibility for its 
actions.  Therefore, he continued to kill mice, shocking 
the animal community, and creating a scandal the likes of 
which it had never seen.  The ghost visited him on two 
successive days, but the rabbit ignored her each time.  
Finally, the ghost's warning was fulfilled, and the rabbit 
became an ogre."

Mulder stared at her, a light in his eyes.  "Do you want to 
hear the moral of the story?"

Against her better judgment, she replied, "I'm afraid to 
ask."

"Hare today, goon tomorrow."  

Her groan echoes through the television speakers as Scully 
listens to her reaction.  

"Mulder?"

"Yes?"

"That's 'Little Bunny Foo Foo'."

"What?"

"You know, that song from back in nursery school."

He stared at her with a blank expression on his beautiful 
face.

Exasperated, she'd begun to sing the song:  "Little bunny 
Foo Foo, hoppin' through the forest, scooping up the field 
mice and bopping 'em on the head."

Still, the blank expression.

Caught up in the moment, she'd finished the next two verses 
before a huge, wicked grin spread over Mulder's face.  
She'd been had.

"Mulder?"

"Yes?"

As Scully sits on the sofa, her baby tapping the wall of 
her uterus, she watches Mulder's shoulders shaking with 
laughter at her expense, and hears the sounds of her own 
laughter.  

"I'm going to kill you!"  she'd growled with mock outrage.

But a year later, someone else has done that.

+++++

Someday she'll be able to appreciate the sight of a 
shirtless Skinner, but probably not for years.

It's a picture-perfect late March Saturday on the National 
Lawn, crowded with tourists and bureaucrats getting their 
first lungful of spring.  Down the way, past the disposable 
cameras, drooping backpacks, and trinket vendors, the early 
buds of the cherry blossoms are visible.

She is now someone that others "check up on."  Have you 
seen Dana lately?  How's she holding up?   
 
Skinner called her last night and invited her to a rugby 
game some men from his church had planned.

Since Mulder's death, they have become less formal with one 
another.  He calls her during their off-hours; at first the 
calls would be about aspects of the post-Montana 
investigation.  Soon he began to call her just to see how 
she was doing.  Could he do anything to help?  Did she need 
someone to talk to?  

So she began to talk to him.  Shifting her tie to him from 
supervisor to friend had been awkward at first, but nobody 
else had such an intimate knowledge of the vagaries and 
complications of her life.  He probably knew Mulder better 
than anyone else but her.  She could talk to him about the 
depth of her relationship with Mulder, instead of keeping 
things professional for protocol's sake.  They have begun 
to share secrets, not testimony.  

But they still have decorum.  Scully suspects he is 
attracted to her, but she knows he will never do anything 
about it.  She likes him and values his friendship too much 
for a romance, and besides, she knows she will never see in 
another man everything that she loved in Mulder.

Right now, she needs a friend, even with a side of decorum.

"I didn't know you attend church, Walter," she asked him, 
with surprise, when he called last night.

"I didn't go for quite a while," he replied, "but the past 
year brought me back.  After all of this, I need to believe 
in something good out there, that God is watching over this 
chaos on Earth."  She didn't know how to reply, and he 
continued, "Anyway, we'll probably need a scorekeeper 
tomorrow, if you're interested."

Scully knows what he was trying to do -- he wants to check 
up on her without being overt about it.  As she'd 
considered his offer, she glanced over at the television, 
which was showing a blue screen after Mulder's tape had run 
out an hour earlier.  Scully hadn't even noticed.  Perhaps 
being around other people would shake off this bone-deep 
loneliness, but she is skeptical.   And she owes it to 
Skinner to come.  If he wants to make sure she's okay, let 
him.  An afternoon of fresh air is a small price to pay for 
loyalty and friendship.

That fresh Saturday air is lifting her spirits somewhat, 
though not by much.  Some women and kids sit a few yards 
away, cheering on the men and women whose rugby game has 
progressed to Frisbee football.  Skinner told her that the 
youth minister and her husband had staked out the swath of 
grass between the Washington Monument and the Reflecting 
Pool at seven this morning, and six hours later the games 
are going at full-tilt.  Shirts vs. skins, technically, 
though most of the men are skins and the women are shirts.

Happy families everywhere, and she is alone.  One-third of 
the small family she has created is inside her, living from 
her air and nourishment.  Another third is six feet under 
the bright green grass of a North Carolina springtime.  A 
stray cherry blossom drifts toward her, landing on the 
notepad she's using to keep score.  Three hundred miles 
away, azaleas are beginning to bloom near Mulder's grave. 

Scully smoothes her beige smock over her now-significant 
belly.  It's not really her style at all, but her mother 
had given it to her last week, along with some similar 
shirts and a pair of jeans with a lycra panel over the 
abdomen.  She feels ridiculous, but her old clothes ceased 
to fit weeks ago, and her dark-colored maternity wardrobe 
doesn't quite suit a picnic atmosphere.

She wants to go home, to bury herself in the few remnants 
of Mulder she has collected, but she will be polite and 
stay another half-hour.  It will give Skinner something to 
report to others when they ask how she's holding up.

He looks carefree, and she envies him that.  Perhaps she 
should have worn her black shirt.  Dark colors absorb heat, 
and she begins to feel the chill of Mulder's grave.

+++++

Mulder is spread across her coffee table, all smiles and 
furrowed brows and glossy brown hair.  Eyes glittering 
green or gold or brown, fingers splayed and reaching toward 
hers.  Barely touching.

"Did you see this, Scully?  It proves Caroline Bell isn't 
who she says she is.  I'll head to the police station and 
interrogate her while you do the victim's autopsy."

"We are pleased to announce to the citizens of Santa Fe 
that the so-called Pueblo Strangler was apprehended at 1:43 
P.M. this afternoon."

"You look beautiful today, Scully, but you'd look even more 
beautiful in my bed tonight.  Naked.  Let's ditch the 
investigation and head back home."

The last was not a direct quote, of course, but he'd had 
that look in his eyes, his smile, so many times over the 
years.  How had she not noticed it?

She leans over and picks up a newspaper clipping, drinking 
in the gleam of his eyes and the quirk of his lips.  
Captured on flimsy Chicago newsprint, they are in the 
background of a news conference after the Henry Weems case.  
She'd just finished explaining to the press how the mobster 
-- she can't remember his name -- had been killed, and the 
two of them had stepped to the side while the chief of 
police answered questions.  

Mulder's face is tilted down toward her, looking like he'd 
want nothing more than to kiss every inch of her body.  Had 
she been looking back at him instead of at the reporters, 
she might have seen the desire in his eyes, and they 
wouldn't have had to wait another five months to finally 
make love.

She smoothes the creases out of the clipping, then sets it 
aside and picks up another photograph.  This one is of the 
two of them, crouched low as they examined some evidence at 
a crime scene.  A quick check of the back says that the 
photo is nearly six years old, a fact verified by their 
simpler, less-stylish clothes and hair.  

They looked so much younger then.  Happier.  He had not yet 
died for the first time, or looked up at starlight and seen 
the specter of his sister.  She had not yet experienced 
cancer or beacon-microchips or the loss of a daughter and 
Melissa.  They'd still believed that life could be good and 
pure.  They did not yet know they were in love.

When she learned of Scully's pregnancy via Maggie, her aunt 
sent her a fabric-covered baby book, full of magnetic photo 
pages and charts for the baby's growth and development, 
first words, birth announcement.  It sits on her coffee 
table, under the collection of photos of Mulder.  

Scully wonders if she could find an album exquisite enough 
to hold Mulder.  One with pages trimmed in gold leaf, or 
perhaps multiple colors for each of the shades of his soul.  
The spine would have to expand, to contain everything he 
was, and a brass clasp would keep the mementoes safe.  

She could show it to her son or daughter and say, "This is 
your Daddy.  This is who he was, and who you will someday 
be."  She would spin tales of his accomplishments through 
newspaper clippings.  She'd rub their child's back until he 
or she giggled, then point at a photo of Mulder grinning 
and whisper, "See?  Daddy has the same smile as you."  
Their child would try to reach out and play with the 
wildflower he'd once picked for her, now pressed between 
onionskin pages.  She would pull the tiny fingers away, 
kissing them and telling the child that they will plant a 
garden instead.  

Thirty-nine years of a glorious life, illustrated in 
photos.

She owes Agent Doggett more gratitude than she ever 
expected to feel.  He came by this afternoon, her ninth 
Sunday after Mulder's funeral, bearing an accordion file 
stuffed full of these clippings and photographs.  "After 
you left work on Friday, I started going through all those 
filing cabinets in the office, and pulled every photo of 
Mulder that I could find," he told her.  "I doubt it'll 
make much difference to the Bureau, but I re-filed a 
photocopy of each one, just in case."

Too amazed to reply, she stared at him, blinking back tears 
and shifting on her feet.  As she clutched the file to her 
stomach, the baby kicked, reaching out to its father.  

"And, um," Doggett sputtered, close to babbling, "Agent 
Reyes and I went out for drinks when she was here last 
week.  She says she thinks she has a videotape of Agent 
Mulder from when he gave a deposition in a case in New 
Orleans.  On Monday she's going to ask the agent who 
handled the case, and if it's true she'll get a copy made 
and send it to you."

"Thank you," she had whispered, feeling small and 
vulnerable in bare feet and the t-shirt and sweatpants that 
stretched over her belly.  He nodded and said nothing, then 
left.

She now wears a huge smile as she soaks in the glory of 
Mulder, here before her.  

+++++

Byers phoned tonight, just after she returned from her 
first exploratory session of shopping for baby things.  He 
told her that they'd noticed some intriguing activity over 
the southeastern skies, near the coast of the Carolinas.  
"We don't think it'll add up to anything important, but we 
thought you should know."

"Thanks for keeping me up to date," she had replied, 
wondering whether she could be excited about 'unusual 
activities' in the skies of a world without Mulder.  

But Mulder would have been excited, and perhaps the second-
best legacy she could give him -- besides the baby -- is 
keeping alive the quest that destroyed him.  She can almost 
hear him whispering in her ear: "The truth is still out 
there, Scully."  

Three months after his death, the pain and hopelessness are 
still raw, but she is slowly learning the language of 
moving on, and finding ways to celebrate his life instead 
of mourning his loss.

A few days ago Frohike dropped off two copies of that tape 
of her and Mulder on stakeout, "just in case you wear out 
your copy, Agent Scully."  She'd murmured her thanks while 
he gaped at her stomach, astonished by how the baby is 
suddenly growing by leaps and bounds.

Most of those leaps and bounds make themselves felt on an 
hourly basis, as her acrobatic offspring practices for 
future athletics championships.  Another kick jabs her hand 
where it rests at the bottom of her belly.  She winces, but 
it makes her feel that Mulder is still alive.

+++++

Structurally, Doggett's hands are very similar to Mulder's.  
Of course, all hands are constructed alike, but both men 
have -- well, Mulder had -- long fingers and large palms.  
But whereas Mulder's were fleshy and soft, Doggett's are an 
architectural frame, each carpal bone and knuckle in sharp 
relief against tight skin. 

In his hand is an orange and blue FedEx box, his fingers 
clasped around it like talons.  She watches him carefully 
as he shifts on his feet then walks over and places the box 
on her desk.

Answering her raised brows, he says, "This just arrived 
from Agent Reyes.  I think it's that videotape I told you 
about."

Scully stares at it, then lifts a finger to trace the 
dulled edges of the box.  One corner is dented, as if it 
had been dropped.  Even the box carrying the tape is 
fragile.  

"Um..."  His voice trails away, and he gives a significant 
glance toward the TV cart in the office.  "I'm going to run 
upstairs and pick up some files from the archives."

As he briskly walks away, Scully calls out, "Agent 
Doggett?"

"Yeah?"  The word carries over his shoulder before he turns 
to look at her.

"Thank you." 

He nods, looking almost embarrassed.  "It was the least I 
can do."

She replies, "You've already done so much.  The photos...."  
But he is already gone.

To an empty room, she whispers, "And all this for a man you 
never even knew."

Scully stares at the box for almost five minutes, her eyes 
tracing Reyes' looping script on the address label.  She 
dots her I's with a half-circle, perhaps a remnant of 
teenage years spent making little stars or hearts in 
similar fashion.  The last two T's of Doggett's name are 
crossed in one straight line, her handwriting both 
structured and fanciful.  From what little Scully has seen 
of Reyes, she can see more of the latter in the other 
woman.

The need to watch the tape *now* rises in her gut, but she 
pushes the box a few inches away and picks up the phone, 
the pen in her other hand annotating the listing of voice 
mail messages she has to return.  Keep busy, Dana, she 
chides herself.  It can wait until you get home.

Her resolve only lasts through call number three, to the 
personnel office, telling them that she needs to change her 
official next-of-kin notification back to her mother.  Then 
her eyes begin to burn as the woman informs her Scully had 
been named the beneficiary.  Once the paperwork is 
processed, she will receive $50,000 in blood money.

She keeps her composure until the call is over, then allows 
herself a few minutes to dissolve.  Once the shivering 
abates, the yearning to see Mulder again gets the better of 
her, and she opens the box.  

A note in the same loopy script is attached to the top of 
the tape.  

"Agent Scully -- I remembered this deposition from a few 
years ago, and thought you would like to have it.  Please 
let me know if you have any questions, and I'm very sorry 
for your loss.  -- Monica R." 

Scully runs her fingertip over the label on the spine of 
the tape:  "Agent F. Mulder; Deposition:  United States vs. 
Quinn; 3/23/97."

Almost four years old, to the day.  She remembers the case 
now.  Mulder had been called down to New Orleans to give 
expert testimony in a murder trial.  The Bureau keeps 
copies of such videotaped depositions for its own records, 
and Scully surmises this is a copy of that.  

A deep breath filling her lungs, she slips the tape into 
the VCR and presses "play".

Mulder, in living color.

Shoulders strong, eyes focused and bright, tie in the 
perfect Windsor knot she'd tried to replicate when they 
dressed together in later years.  "You'll never get it 
right, Scully," he'd chuckled, "but that's okay.  I'd much 
rather you take off the tie than put it on."

Three months ago, she'd stood in Mulder's closet, choosing 
a burial suit and tie.  She wrapped the silk around her 
hand and pulled it as tightly as possible until her mother 
grabbed her and yanked the tie free.  But it had let her 
finally feel something in the midst of numbness.

"Think of the baby," Margaret had whispered, offering cheap 
platitudes, but also deep sympathy and support.

It took her another month for her to be able to enter his 
apartment and see his things again.  A message on her voice 
mail from his condo management company had told her that 
resident fees were a week overdue, and she found herself at 
his place again, writing a check she couldn't afford, but 
unable to let it go and contact a realtor just yet.  

She walked around the dark apartment, noticing the careful 
touch of the cleaning crew she'd hired.  She began to 
collect a few personal mementoes, like the blanket that 
he'd covered her with after they made love for the first 
time, and a white dress shirt that now began to stretch 
over her belly, but which he'd once said "looks incredibly 
sexy on you, Scully." 

There she had found the videotape from their surveillance.  
The label simply said, "Scully: Happy," in Mulder's scrawl.  
She didn't show him her happiness nearly enough until they 
became lovers.  She knows now why he wanted to mark the 
occasion.

And now she has another video memento of him.

In later years she will watch this tape with their child, 
explaining the complexities of the investigation in terms a 
young mind can understand.  Today, however, she leans as 
far forward in her chair as her belly will allow, and 
watches him, chin on hands and eyes slowly beginning to 
water.

I'm re-learning him, she thinks.  Too many months have 
passed and she has forgotten his professional side, having 
only his clever story and charming face on that one 
videotape.  Though his eyes are focused slightly off-screen 
as he talks to the attorney, Scully rolls the chair around 
until she is barely a foot away from the television, so 
that his face nearly fills her peripheral vision.  

For the next few minutes, he speaks only to her.

Footfalls and the opening door break the spell.  She turns 
around and catches Doggett's eye as he takes a step back 
and moves to leave again.  "I'll, uh, be back later, Agent 
Scully," he stammers.

"That's okay, Agent Doggett.  You can come in," she replies 
as if he hasn't shared this office with her for the past 
five months.  

He remains in the doorway for a long moment, then enters 
and takes a seat at his desk.  She presses the pause 
button, Mulder's face caught mid-speech, his lips slightly 
curled the same way they would after a long kiss.

"You never met Mulder, did you?"

"Not really," Doggett says, in an uncharacteristically 
hesitant voice.

"Not really?"

He sits back in his chair.  "Well, we never had a 
conversation or anything, I mean.  I saw him at a couple of 
VCU seminars nearly ten years ago, when I was with the NYPD 
and thinking about applying for a job here.  A friend of a 
friend introduced us at a reception afterward."

She smiles, still staring at the freeze-frame of Mulder.  
"I'm glad you got a chance to meet him, even if it was 
years ago."

"I am too."  Her face must register surprise as she turns 
to glance at him, because he continues, "I don't have the 
greatest memory for things that happened that far in the 
past, but he stood out to me.  He was really excited about 
profiling.  That was pretty rare."

Scully is touched by his words; Doggett's attitude in the 
past had made her believe he didn't hold much respect for 
Mulder.  But even before they found Mulder, the change in 
Doggett's investigation from tracking down the suspect to 
seeking him as much as the truth Mulder represented has 
been fascinating and welcome.  

She likes to believe that by searching for Mulder, Doggett 
opened up part of his own soul.  Once Mulder became real to 
him through her memories and descriptions, her new partner 
began to realize that truth isn't simply about the facts; 
it is about finding something in which you can believe.

She has made the same journey, though hers took seven years 
and became equal parts truth and love.  Mulder was a rare 
soul who could inspire that in people.

As if reading her mind, Doggett says, "He must have been a 
good man."

"He was," she murmurs.  "The world is a better place for 
having him in it."

Speaking of Mulder in the past tense is still a shock, but 
the pain is beginning to abate.  These videos and the photo 
album she assembled are slowly taking away the sting.

The VCR, having exhausted its pause, stops playing the tape 
and the screen turns blue again.  She hastily presses 
"play" again, but turns down the volume until Mulder speaks 
without sound.  Years of practice have taught her the 
language of his lips, reading them both by sight and with 
the touch of hers on his.

"You know," Doggett murmurs behind her, "I realized a few 
weeks ago that I was beginning to forget my son."

Scully swivels around to face him, noticing for the first 
time the humanity of his face -- furrowed brows and lines 
of experience mixing with an unfamiliar softness.  Though 
he has told her the story of his son's abduction and death, 
she has never seen him as a father before.  

"After the divorce," he continues, "Carolyn kept most of 
our photos and home videos of Luke.  I still have a few, 
but it took me months to be able to look at them or to keep 
that fifth grade school picture in my wallet.  I showed it 
to you, right?"

She nods.  

"Yeah."  He purses his lips, and she thinks that she should 
say something, but cannot.  

Finally, he says, "Do you remember what you said to me 
after we found Mulder?"

She opens her mouth to say no, but stops herself before she 
lets on that the only thing she remembers about that night 
is a piercing pain in every cell of her body. 

Doggett's concentration fades into a look of deep concern.  
"You told me that your kid would never know her daddy."

Oh.  Yes.

Oh, God.  Yes.

She closes her eyes. 

The man's voice drops to a near-whisper.  "I don't have 
much left of Luke, except memories I'm trying my damnedest 
not to forget."  He pauses.  "I didn't want the same thing 
to happen to you.  That's why I pulled all those photos out 
of the files and asked Monica for that videotape.  You 
should have something to remember him by.  Well," he 
hastily adds, "besides that baby."

Her child chooses that moment to kick, and the jolt 
vibrates through her body, stinging raw nerves. 

She wants to say a thousand eloquent words of gratitude.  
All she can whisper is, "Thank you."

Doggett awkwardly nods his reply, then begins to examine 
his clasped hands.  

Scully turns back to the television.  Mulder is looking 
down at something on the table, his face and hands animated 
as he spins his testimony. 
 
A few minutes later, she hears, "Agent Scully?"  

"Hmm?" she murmurs, her gaze never leaving the television.  

"Tell me about Mulder."

She looks over her shoulder and gives him a soft smile. 

Where on earth could she begin?  With how the stranger an 
investigation became, the greater his childlike 
fascination?  With how his voice seemed a monotone to naive 
ears, but carried a million shades of meaning?  With the 
way he could make her feel like the center of his universe 
with just the lightest of touches of his fingertips?

After a moment's consideration, she decides to start at the 
beginning.

"The first time I saw him, he was sitting near where you 
are now, studying some slides...."

+++++


END (1/1)