Call Me Starbuck.
"Agent Dana Scully?" the man on the other end of the line asked. His voice was unfamiliar, and she didn't know how he had gotten her private number.
"Speaking," she replied, wondering who would be calling her at this early hour after a glance at her watch. Late already, and the day hadn't even started yet. One day there might be time to actually sleep in on a weekend, if she could ever find the time.
She pulled up the window shade and noticed the heavy thunderclouds building in the distance. Two city workers with shears hacked away at a brick wall that had been overcome with ivy. Dana unlatched the lock and leaned in to raise the window. The weather had been unseasonably hot and humid for this time of year, and it promised to be a long, miserable summer.
"This is Agent Holder with the FBI Academy in Quantico. I oversee the Forensic Science Research and Training Center. If you have a moment, I'd like to speak with you about transferring in and taking an assignment to teach a series of Forensic Pathology classes here at the academy."
She paused, the window half open. "I'm sorry, could you repeat that?"
"AD Skinner has spoken very highly of you and your work, and frankly, so have others. I understand you are not actively seeking a transfer, but I'd like to extend an opportunity for you to take a promotion and come take on a full-time teaching assignment. Our former instructor retired recently, and when I asked around for the best to replace him, your name came up more than once."
Dana took a step back and stumbled down into her desk chair and began searching for a pad of paper to write all of this down. She yanked open a drawer and pulled out several files to get to the stash she kept in the bottom.
They spoke for fifteen minutes on the details, and when they hung up she had a promise from Agent Holder he'd give her at least a week to think it over. The offer was quite appealing - a promotion, raise, and a chance to not be traveling across the country every week chasing figments of Mulder's imagination. Maybe, perhaps, she'd even have time to have a real life...if she knew what that looked like.
She tapped her pencil against the paper, thinking. Mulder wouldn't like this at all. Dana felt a strange twinge of pain in her chest. Strained a rib muscle at that last workout, she thought absently. All of her muscles hurt lately, it seemed like. Too tight and constricted, like they didn't fit her anymore.
An ambulance went by outside with sirens blazing, and she looked up at the clock, realizing just how very late she was. Dana grabbed her purse, threw in the paper, and ran out the door.
After Mass and a full day of shopping, her mother went into the kitchen to start on dinner. The lasagna was in the oven and she sat on the couch rereading Agent Holder's offer once more when her mother came in the living room carrying a thick blue book.
"You should have this," her mother said, gently handing over her father's well-worn hardback copy of Moby Dick.
Dana's breath caught in her throat and she put the note away. How many years had it been since she'd seen this book? And how many more since she'd even thought about reading it? A variety of tattered scraps poked out from the deckle edges, marking her father's favorite passages. Some of the scraps held a few strokes of his crisp and sharp handwriting.
"I don't know why you didn't take it with you after the funeral, but I happened to notice it when I was dusting the other day, and decided you needed it more than I do. I always hated that book," she said with a wry smile. "It's too long-winded for me."
Another aching twinge clenched across her chest but Dana smiled and took the book, which felt heavier than she remembered, full of scraps of paper and unsaid words.
The day after tomorrow would mark eight years to the day her father had passed. The hole he left in their lives lingered over the two of them and he was never far from their minds, unspoken but very present.
Every Sunday she was able she met her mother for Mass. For several weeks around the date of her father's death, they both lit more candles and spent more time praying both for souls that were long gone, and the strength to endure another year of loneliness. It got them by, but just barely.
A few days after they had scattered her father's ashes, Dana went to check on her mother and let herself in the house. Before she could get her key in the lock, she heard the loud sobs coming from their old bedroom. She stayed silent but went in anyway.
Her mother sat with her back to the door on Dana's old bed, holding this copy of the book to her chest and heaving great cries between sobbing breaths. Dana had never once thought about taking the book after that even though she wanted it. No matter what her mother said, she knew that book meant more to her than the words printed on the page – it had been an important part of their life for so long.
The reading of Moby Dick had been a nightly ritual for them. When the chores were finished, pajamas on, teeth brushed, all in bed, and prayers said, then in he came with the big blue book. It was her favorite time of day. While Melissa often fell asleep within minutes, and Jim grumbled about the length of the story, Dana would listen as long as possible and be swept out to sea with the sound of her father's voice.
That place became home – the place between the world of waking and sleep where she walked the decks of a wooden ship as the sun set, her father was solid, warm and alive, where the demons were safely in their depths, the angels were above them, and all was right and safe.
But that home was gone forever, her father was dead and all of the demons of hell roamed free. She felt like a ship without a rudder - alive, but lost in the wide open sea. She missed him so much. During her endless rounds of chemo, her deepest prayer had been to make it a quick death so she could feel his arms hugging her tight once more, telling her it would be all right and to buck up, because First Mates don't cry.
Now, though, the rain dripped outside and she couldn't stay warm. "Mom...I can't take this. You should keep it," Dana whispered, not trusting her voice to stay steady for anything more. She held out the book with a trembling hand for her mother to take back.
Her mother shook her head and steeled her face. Dana knew that look well, the one that meant her mind had been made up and there would be no talking her out of anything. Her father had called it 'pure Irish pig-headedness', and it was a look that not even he could sway once set.
"No. You will keep it." She paused for a moment and then put her hands on Dana's shoulders, giving them a hard squeeze. "Darling, I loved your father more than anything in the world, but he's gone and I need to move on. Frankly, we both need to move on. You can't live your life like this either, you deserve so much more."
Dana's mind flashed to the job offer sitting in her purse and she felt it hard to breathe. "I've got my work, and I mean, we've got each other…and what else is there?" Dana replied. Her voiced echoed in her chest, hollow and tinny.
"You know I won't always be here. Maybe not for a long time, God willing. But it will happen one day. And you aren't sick anymore, and well," her mother said. "Well, I worry about you."
Dana shook her head. "Mom..."
"I know you are strong, Dana. And that's what scares me. I don't want to go to my grave knowing that you were so strong that you forgot what your own heart sounded like just to keep me company. Your father always struggled with that too, and he needed reminding now and again to laugh and have fun. And you are so very much like him. So, this weekend, I want you to go out and do something exciting and fun just for you. I'll be fine, and we can miss Mass for one week. Will you do that for me?"
Dana lowered her head. The tears rolled down her cheeks as she nodded. "Sure," she said.
There was only one thing she wanted to do this weekend and that was reread a long story about a white whale while taking a bath with water hot enough to almost scald her skin, and to light all the candles she had for the memories of when they had been happy and together.
On the way home, she came to a stop at a red light. Her eyes caught a glint of the foiled lettering on the cover of the book sitting in her passenger seat on top of old receipts, empty bags of Mulder's sunflower seeds and the coat jacket he'd forgotten last week.
She couldn't resist the pull any longer and reached over to flip open the pages. That familiar smell of paper and ink wafted up, mingled with the smell of her mom's house. And for the briefest of moments, Dana thought she caught the scent of her father's aftershave, Old Spice. She knew it had been far too long for any trace of that to remain, though.
The first line jumped out at her. "Call me Starbuck," it read. Another twinge rippled across her chest, this one much harder than any of the others and it almost took her breath away.
That wasn't the first line...that wasn't how the book began. Dana took a deep breath, hollow and tattered on the edges, and glanced down again. "Call me Ishmael." She squinted and leaned in closer, holding it up to catch the light from the streetlamps.
The car behind her honked once, short and impatient. The light had turned green without her noticing so she put the book down and continued driving. "It was dark and I didn't have my glasses on. I just misread," she told herself.
Yet, that false first line lodged in her brain and began to repeat like an annoying song that wouldn't leave, each echo bringing a wave of irrational foreboding. "Call me Starbuck. Call me Starbuck. Call me Starbuck."
Her father had called her Starbuck for years - she was his First Mate to his Captain Ahab. She'd always loved it, even taunting her brother by calling him Stubb the Grub, the Second Mate. What a badge of honor it had been to be called Starbuck...she distinctly remembered writing that name on her second grade papers, and asking Mrs. Brooks to call her that instead of Dana. Of course, Mrs. Brooks had refused, but Dana still wrote it on all of her papers. Dana Katherine Starbuck Scully, it had read. Her father had laughed and said she'd grow out of it eventually.
She really never grew out of it, though, it just evolved into something different. She'd always loved the character of Starbuck, a salty New Englander who stood straight and tall despite the rolling waves around him.
She wondered if part of the reason she'd fallen so hard for Daniel was that he was had been born in Nantucket, just like Starbuck. There were days when she imagined the sand and salt air was part of his blood and bones. Daniel would always be linked in her mind to that girlish crush on a fictional character, no matter how absurd and childish it sounded to her now.
Dana pulled in to her drive, set the car in park, and picked up the book again. She opened it to one of the last paper marks - a torn piece of her father's stationary, with only the words "Captain" still visible. It was the final chapter with the sinking of the Pequod, where nothing survived, not even bits of smashed boat or a smattering of dead whalers. She sat and read by the light of the streetlamp and when she reached the end, she snapped the book closed as a sudden surge of panic welled up in her chest.
How many years had she longed to be Starbuck, the stalwart sailor full of faith and reason who stood tall no matter what waves he faced? Too many to count.
How had it been that in all of those years, she'd never once considered the tragedy of his fate to be dragged down to a watery grave to the sound of a constant clack from Ahab's wooden leg on the deck boards. Starbuck's fate had been sealed the moment he stepped on the ship, a ghost before he perished, with the sea having claimed his soul long before his body.
She swallowed hard and took a deep breath, clawing for her logic while doing her best to ignore the gnawing ache that refused to dissipate. It spread through her, down to her stomach where her mother's lasagna rested like concrete, churning over and over, and refusing to budge. She would have to eat nothing but salad for at least a week if she were to have hope of fitting into any of her suits without popping all of the buttons.
"Call me Starbuck."
Inside, her footfalls echoed through her apartment, a huge echoing cavern full of dark nothing, of furniture and detritus that meant little to anyone except her. Dana went over to her desk and sat the book down, glancing upon an old file marked "Last Will and Testament." It must have been one of those she'd pulled out this morning while searching for something to write on.
When the cancer had been at its worst and no one spoke of surviving, only 'how long will it be,' she had dragged herself out of bed and made a list of which of her items should go to family and friends, and what else should be given away. Dana opened the file and saw there were only five people on her list. Her mother, of course, and her brother. Mulder was there too. She ran a finger across his name and wondered if he would be up if she called. She knew he would be. He was always up.
A glance at the clock told her it was almost midnight. She blinked and checked her watch, and sure enough, it read 11:48 p.m. She had apparently sat in the car reading for over an hour and had not realized it. Dana hurried through her nighttime rituals and then buried herself under the covers.
She had been awake for an hour when her alarm went off at 5:30 a.m. All night long, lasagna-fueled nightmares kept her awake; nightmares of a wooden ship covered in corpusant fire, St. Elmo's fire. The entire length and breadth of the ship was covered in a silent blue flame that did not burn as they pitched and rolled on heavy seas. A handsome young sailor stood at the helm. He said nothing, but watched her with otherworldly silver eyes.
Her father was there too, in full military dress, still mouthing those words she could never hear. Next to him stood Fox Mulder, with his hair long and unkempt and a grizzled beard covering skin as white as a corpse's. He balanced on one ivory peg leg. "First Mates don't cry," Mulder said to her. "Chin up, Starbuck."
Later that morning in the basement of the FBI, her heels clicked on the worn linoleum outside of their shared office. The smell of Mulder's lunch was making her nauseous. She was grumpy, tired, had a headache that aspirin couldn't shake, and despite two rounds of Alka-Seltzer, her stomach didn't feel any better.
And there wasn't any remedy for that stupid phrase that still bounced around in her brain.
"Call me Starbuck."
Music blared from their office, which set her already frayed nerves on edge. Mulder liked his music loud. He said it pushed out all of the other thoughts and helped him think clearer, but she hated it.
Underneath the music, however, was the noisy click of the slide projector. Dana stopped with her hand on the door as a cold trickle of panic went down her spine.
Ka-click. Ka-click. Ka-click. Just like a peg leg on a wooden deck.
If she opened this door right now and found a grizzled, one-legged Captain from the 1800's waking a ship's deck, she wouldn't have been the least bit surprised. But she wouldn't find that, no, not her - her Ahab wasn't her dad who was eight years gone. Her real Ahab wore a suit and tie and pulled her down one click of the projector at a time, all the while sporting a boyish smile.
Her chest ached again, and she wondered if she should just go home and forget even trying to get through this day. The book was waiting for her at home on her desk, waiting for her to draw a bath and settle in, and let herself go back to a time when everything was possible and made sense. All she needed was time to think...
She took a deep breath. No, she was here, and she would get through this. I am not a quitter. First Mates don't cry.
Ka-click. Ka-click. Ka-click...all the way down to the bottom of the ocean.
Mulder always wanted to make events into more than what they were.
Dana sat on the couch, fighting off a wave of exhaustion so heavy her eyes were closing without her consent. He made her so tired sometimes.
"I didn't say God spoke to me. I didn't say my whole life changed...I said I had a vision," she said, but she never heard his answer as the darkness slid up on her in the span of a breath, and she fell asleep.
Her dreaming mind wandered through the events of the last few days – the out-of-the-blue phone call from Agent Holder, her mother giving her the book, the strange woman with the ponytail who kept appearing at pivotal moments, Daniel, the Buddhist Temple...
Buddha's face flashed before her eyes and then it shimmered and dissolved into a large ripple, and Dana realized she was sinking beneath ocean waves, dragged down by something she could not see.
There is a hemp rope in her hands leading back up to the surface so she grabs on, but it slides thought with such speed it burns her hands but still she hung on. The water grew darker and the light from Buddha's face disappeared entirely, leaving nothing but a deep blue sea.
Her father emerged out of the deepest depths and swam next to her as she was dragged down. He appeared calm, almost smiling. He opened his mouth, and this time, she heard the words he'd been trying to tell her for so long.
"Pure Irish pig-headedness," he said, and this time he did break out into a smile. "It's all right to let go, Starbuck. This is where you're meant to be."
"Daddy," she tries to say, but water rushes into her lungs and she falls even faster. Sparks of light flash in her eyes.
This is it, she thinks. This is how it will end. Not a slow, agonizing death by cancer, not a hidden bullet fired from some shadow government bullet in the middle of the night...it's this, the weight of the entire ocean crashing down, a watery grave at the bottom of the sea. This is how it will end.
"Let go, Starbuck. It will be all right."
Dana closed her eyes and began to pray.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. The rope slid faster, tearing more skin from her hands.
Blessed art Thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of something large moving off to her right. It was a white whale, the largest thing she'd ever seen in her life. He swam silent and graceful. The sheer size filled the watery horizon with nothing but a curtain of white.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners. She struck bottom. Billows of silty sand drifted up around her like a shroud and she could see nothing. The pressure on her chest grew too much to bear and she didn't know how much longer she could hang on.
Now, and in the hour of our death.
Dana woke with a start to a ripping sensation in her chest. She tumbled off the futon and on to the floor, gasping for breath.
Her feet were tangled in a blanket. Rain pattered on the windows and the world was blue with storms. She scrambled to get herself loose, knocking her knees and elbows against the coffee table.
Nothing and everything was familiar all at once – the familiar closeness of this apartment with the ever-gurgling fish tank in the corner and endless papers and files tossed everywhere.
She couldn't remember her name, but she was certain she was dying. Shot, perhaps. Stabbed, maybe.
"My name is Starbuck," she thought as lightning flashed outside. Dana stumbled into the dark bedroom, pulled off her suit jacket, and fumbled for the bathroom light switch.
It flicked on and all that greeted her was a pale, tired looking woman in the mirror. She yanked off her sweater searching for the bloody wound she was certain she would find.
But there was nothing, just smooth skin and a golden cross gleaming in the yellow light. And then, she remembered everything. Falling asleep on Mulder's futon, the tea that had shared, Daniel, the hospital, the heart attack...and God speaking to her in the Temple.
"Call me Dana," her mind rambled.
She paced in the cramped space for what felt like hours, but may have only been minutes as the nightmare fell away from her in tatters. Everything she remembered felt as if it belonged to another person, not her, not this woman. That woman had been terrified of everything, wounded and scared.
Her heart ached, it had shattered into a million pieces while all the teeming life in this tiny, quiet room rushed into her lungs and through the newly formed cracks.
The thing that captured her attention the most was the strange sensation of blood pumping all the way through her arteries and veins. She'd never paid much attention to that kind of thing, like one never paid attention to their breathing of the feel of clothes against their skin.
Maybe, she wondered as an odd thought rambled through her mind, maybe someone who had been dead but was now alive would notice this, and might even find it thrilling to feel. Would someone newly reborn ever take for granted a solid heartbeat and racing blood?
Soon, her breathing slowed down, but the sensations did not. She looked down at her watch. 6:23 a.m. Sunday morning. Dana blinked and paced some more. What is the proper and logical procedure during a spiritual crisis?
She needed to think. She needed to be somewhere other than here. The Cathedral down the road, that odd voice in her head supplied. Dana agreed with it – time to pray, to think, to feel, to figure out what in the hell was wrong with her.
Dana opened the door quietly and stepped out into the bedroom. Everything was silent and still except for the rain and swaying trees outside. Time felt different here, slow and lazy, almost as if it were waiting on something.
Mulder was in the deepest sleep she'd seen in a long while. Suspended animation. Death. And she'd never seen anything more beautiful in her life.
She noticed everything in this slow current of time. The gentle rise and fall of his chest. The feel of carpet beneath the pantyhose on her feet. The scattered books and papers of his lifelong quest, searching for answers he could never find. The long, heavy shadow of tragedy that hung around his shoulders, driving him to madness.
Dana was stuck with a strange need to kiss him, to wipe away that darkness lodged in his heart and to make him forget about aliens and his sister, even if just for a short while.
She picked up her jacket, feeling the heavy tweed rough on her fingers. Without thinking, she leaned down and pressed a small kiss to his forehead.
He stirred in his sleep. "Scully, you ok?" He didn't open his eyes.
She didn't know how to answer that. "Go back to sleep, Mulder. I'll call you later."
"Mmmkay," he mumbled, rolling over and taking all of the covers with him.
A bright flash of lightning illuminated the entire room and the heavens opened up outside. Here, in this tiny apartment with everything tinted blue, deep and quiet, she had landed at the bottom of the ocean.
The tap in the bathroom dripped.
Plip. Plip. Plip.
The Cathedral sat empty and quiet, far too early for anyone coming to the 8 a.m. mass. Vague remnants of incense hung in the air. Only the red sanctuary candle flickered near the altar, a symbol that the consecrated blood and body of Christ resided in the tabernacle. Dana always looked for that red candle; the faint heart of hope and rebirth, and was always lit, even in the darkest of depths.
The storm continued to rage outside but all of her attention focused on that one small candle. Had she ever simply sat and watched a candle burn? If she had, she couldn't remember when.
In the wooden pew, Dana sat and simply let herself feel everything around her – the cavernous space, the coolness of the pre-dawn air, the reflection of the stained glass window with each flash of lightning, the feel of her clothes against her skin.
The world waited for something. Anything. Actually, it waited for her to make a decision, and the only two choices were to continue on with Mulder and the X Files, or peel away and start fresh with Agent Holder's offer.
The rustle of fabric behind her broke her reverie and when she turned, she found an elderly priest smiling at her. "You look like you have a lot on your mind. Care if I join you?" he asked.
"Not at all, Father," she replied.
He sat down in the pew behind her and leaned his arms on the back of her row. "You may not remember me, but I knew Captain Scully a long time ago," he said. "He was a good man."
She paused. It had been years since anyone had referred to him as Captain. "You knew my father?"
"Indeed. Three years together on the USS Enterprise – and I'll tell you there was never a dull moment on a ship like that," he said. "But then my assignment was complete and I was transferred back here. I was very sorry to hear of his passing. I understand it was quite sudden. My name is Father David," he said, and held out his hand for her to shake. She took notice of the naval ring on his right hand, and the traditional priest's ring on his left.
"I'm sorry, but how did you who I was, and that he was my father? I don't recall us meeting."
"Your mother comes by here when she's in the area, which is every few months or so. I used to spend quite a bit of time at your house when you were much younger, probably too young to remember an old man having a beer and telling war stories with your father. I've seen all the family pictures, all of Bill's kids, hear of your success in medical school and now the FBI. I've seen you here before, but you were always in and out so quickly I never had a chance to properly introduce myself."
Vague memories floated up from her childhood and she tried to place his face - a gentle, wrinkled set with kind blue eyes and blond hair going gray. She couldn't recall anything, yet he felt familiar.
She toyed with the hangnail on her left index finger, worrying it back and forth as little jolts of pain stabbed out in protest.
"So tell me what's on your mind, Dana. No one comes to church this early and in this kind of weather unless they've got something weighing them down."
There was so much to say but she didn't know where to start. "I feel like I'm drowning," she said, the words out of her mouth before she'd formulated the thought. She paused and felt the sharp sting of tears building up behind her eyes. She hated crying. First Mates don't cry.
Dana started to dig for a Kleenex in her disaster of a purse she'd never had the chance to clean out. She finally found one shoved down in a pocket and she wiped her nose, which was just beginning to run.
"I don't know what to do, Father. Everything is changing and shifting and I...I'm lost. I feel like there are signs, but I don't know what they mean."
He listened intently and put his finger on his chin. "Hmm," he said. "It sounds to me like your soul has gone on ahead of you and is waiting on the rest of you to catch up." Dana felt another twinge in her chest, but he continued on.
"I see a lot of this in my line of work," he said. "It's not official Church doctrine, mind you, but it's my belief that when God wants to make sure you're on the right path, he'll take a little part of your soul and put it on the right road ahead of you so that you can always find the way home. You end up finding pieces of yourself so that one day you can be whole again. Sometimes you find pieces in other people, yes, but also places and things." He gave a short, quick laugh. "I once found part of my soul elbow-deep in the engine of a 1956 Cadillac."
She couldn't help but smile at him. "I wasn't always a priest," he added.
But then what he said registered and quickly washed away the lightness of the moment. The urge to cry grew stronger. "What if you can't remember what your soul looks like?" she asked.
"You follow the peace," he replied. "Find the peace within your heart, and that is the right path. That is the sense of Christ and the divine in your life." He fell silent for several minutes, the silence and space filling the air between them.
"Have you ever heard of the Latin phrase "Amor Fati?" Father David asked.
Her Latin was quite rusty and she tried to remember. "Love of fate?" she asked.
He nodded. "Exactly. God gave us free will to make choices in our lives and hopefully, find his grace on the journey. But we must love the journey itself, both the good and bad parts, for they are all pathways leading back to our whole selves and to God's love."
"Every day you make choices, both large and small, and each one changes the future ahead. If you are open to the peace and love of God's voice in your soul as your search for the missing pieces, then you can make adjustments with little consequence. But if you are not listening, then the journey is often painful, and sometimes it takes illness or an accident to open up your ears."
Cold sweat gathered on her brow and in her hairline. Father David's words echoed the woman from the Daoist Institute. They were all saying the same thing. Listen.
"God saved your life for a reason, Dana. Perhaps, although you may not know it yet, but perhaps you hold a piece of someone else's soul in you, and they are seeking you as much as you are seeking them."
The sanctuary doors creaked open and an elderly couple shuffled inside. Dana glanced back and watched them holding hands as they walked down the side aisle on the opposite side of the church.
"All you need to do is take a break and let things go. Embrace the things that bring you peace and release the ones that do not. You will find your way, for God does not give up on those who trust in him." Father David leaned forward and reached out to make the sign of the cross on her forehead. "Peace be with you, Dana Scully."
She closed her eyes as a cooling wave rushed in through her forehead and down into her veins, pulsing and beating in her ears all the way down to her toes. In the steeple the bells began to peal in rhythm, that same rhythm that had haunted for the last several days.
When she opened her eyes to say thank you, Father David was gone. The tears were too much to hold back now, and her vision blurred. She hurried out into the heavy rain and headed for home.
The tears began to fall before she got the car unlocked, and once they fell, they didn't stop.
She cried in the shower.
She cried in bed.
She cried in the kitchen over a bowl of oatmeal.
She cried at stupid cell phone commercials.
She cried heavy, cathartic tears. One particular commercial with a group of children playing sent her into wracking sobs that she was fairly certain might have cracked a rib. Or two.
Sunday evening the rain still came down in sheets and so did her tears. She sent Mulder an email and told him she was going to take a few days off. She couldn't stop crying long enough to make a simple phone call, and he would have known something was wrong.
Dana cleaned. And cried. She reorganized the kitchen at 2 a.m., she cleaned the bathroom at 4. She mopped the floors and her tears mingled with the soapy water. She carried Moby Dick around the house. She ordered Chinese food and then tossed it all because the smell made her nauseous.
She avoided cleaning out her purse, however. The job offer rested in there, burning a hole in her mind even though she could not see it.
No one called. Mulder didn't respond to her email. No one missed her. His absence gnawed at her, so she cleaned some more. Reorganized the closet. Put all of her files back in order. Dusted the nooks and crannies no one saw.
Dana paced circles around her living room, noticing everything, all the things she thought she'd once needed. She would pick items up and then set them back down again. She carried Moby Dick around for an hour and wondered if she should see a psychiatrist.
In between cleaning sprees, she slept in a heavy, dreamless sleep that lingered well after waking. A few times she watched television – Casablanca on the Classic Movie channel, and several episodes of the Twilight Zone. The Twilight Zone brought on another crying jag, so she turned it off.
Three days she'd been gone and there was still no word from Mulder. She lay on the couch crying at a stupid phone commercial that used a cartoon alien as a mascot.
Is this what her life would be like outside of the FBI? Endless nights of sitcoms and cold leftovers alone on the couch, with the dead smell of formaldehyde clinging to her skin, day after day? Maybe she would become a crazy cat lady that everyone both pitied and avoided.
She awoke in the depths of the night and found herself sitting on the deck of an old wooden whaler out in the middle of the ocean. Nothing but open sea surrounded her. A few gulls circled around the masts and salty air blew against her face.
Her father sat beside her, decked out in full military dress and staring out at the blue water.
It was a dream, of course. There was no other explanation for it. But, maybe, just for a while, she would pretend to believe in other possibilities. She would dare to believe so she could have this moment.
"Daddy?" she whispered. A flicker of fear and hope streaked across her heart. "Please God," she thought. "Just this once. I need to hear him so very much."
Her father turned to her and smiled. "Starbuck," he said. Her breath stopped. She could hear him. She could hear him. Just that one word in a voice she had missed for so long brought all of her emotions up to the surface.
"I can hear you," she whispered. He looked relieved, and her tears started to fall in earnest. "I've missed you so much." She longed to reach out and touch him, yet she feared he would disappear.
"And I you, my girl," he replied. He shifted and turned to face her. His eyes that were once a soft blue were now an odd silvery gray that peered right into the depths of her soul. "I'm sorry I had to leave without saying goodbye. I never intended for that to happen. Sometimes things don't unfold as we would like them to."
Her hand shook, all of her muscles trembled as she wiped away tears. There was so much she wanted to say to him, so many things that had happened over the last eight years she needed to tell him. But only one thing came out. "Daddy I'm so sorry," she said, the words coming out in a rush.
Her father tilted his head slightly. "What do you have to be sorry for, Dana?"
"I don't know," she said through her tears and letting her hands fall into her lap. She played with that stubborn hangnail again. "For everything. For leaving medicine, for Missy's death, for not being able to hear you, for disappointing you, for-"
Strong arms, his arms, solid and warm, stopped her as they wrapped and pulled her in tight. Her heart ached and tore along its broken fault lines, and more shadows and darkness she didn't know she possessed came pouring out in great heaving sobs.
"Starbuck, you have nothing to be sorry for," he said in his gruff matter-of-fact voice, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. He smoothed her hair like he had always done. "I am so very proud of you. I always have been." He hugged her harder and she held tight. "I have something to tell you."
Dana slowly pulled back to face him, but she held on to his hands. She wouldn't let go until the very end, she promised herself. Not until someone forced her to let go. "What is it?" she asked.
"Do you remember when you were eight years old, there was one day I asked you what you wanted to do when you grew up. Do you remember what you said to me?"
She shook her head.
"You said you wanted to have grand adventures." He tilted her chin up with his finger and she looked into his eyes. The gulls cried overhead. "You wanted to travel the world, win a Nobel Prize, be a pirate and sail the Seven Seas."
Memories long forgotten flooded back into her mind and she remembered. Bill had wanted to be a pilot and Indiana Jones, Missy wanted to be a dancer, but Dana...Dana Katherine Starbuck Scully had wanted to be a pirate and go on endless adventures.
It's funny, she thought, how the dreams you had when you were too young to know any different find their way to life in the oddest ways after you've long forgotten them. Right now she had more adventure than she could handle – death by divine abundance. Mulder would be pleased, she thought.
"What I came to tell you is that death is also an adventure," he said, meeting her eyes. Everything fell silent, and all she could hear was her own breathing and the sound of the waves lapping against the wooden sides of the boat.
Splish. Splish. Splish.
His large and familiar hands gripped hers. The scent of his aftershave that she loved so much even lingered in the air. "Everyone fears losing themselves when they die, but you should know that there are some things death cannot touch – some things are yet sacred and immune, like the destiny we have chosen for ourselves. It travels with us across the veil."
Her brow furrowed and she glanced out at the sea. Something...something was moving under the water but she couldn't tell what it was. "I don't understand," she said.
He pulled her forward and hugged her again. "I know you don't. Maybe you aren't ready to understand yet. Dana, do you know why I always called you Starbuck?" he asked.
"No," she said, her voice muffled against his uniform. How she had missed him. Her rock, her constant.
"I called you Starbuck because I wanted you to have a reminder that you always have a choice, no matter the situation," he said. "Do you remember in Moby Dick when Starbuck had the chance to kill Captain Ahab and save the boat and crew, but he put the musket away instead and let Ahab drive them to their deaths?"
Her heart lurched. She turned her face slightly and caught a dark shape moving under the surface of the ocean off their port side and she suddenly felt afraid.
"Starbuck sealed his fate and the fate of the crew with that one action, but his choice was to not betray his faith and his upbringing, no matter what it cost him." Her father pulled back and looked at her. "Never forget that you always have a choice, Dana. The road may never be easy or kind, but it is the road you have chosen, the road you have crafted for yourself."
Her chest clenched again and more tears fell. Old tears, tears that had been building for years, if not more. Tears for Missy, her father, and all the things she had damaged along the way.
"I don't know what to choose, Daddy."
He squeezed her once more. "Choose the things that make you happy, no matter the price, my girl. Turn off that brilliant but overworked mind of yours and listen to your heart for once. God is guiding your path. Trust in Him."
She buried her face in his lapels and listened to the faint sound of his heart.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Dana awoke the next afternoon wrapped around a soaked pillow that smelled vaguely of Old Spice. Her chest did not hurt as it had before and she felt freer, lighter than she had in days. Years, maybe.
She got up and took a scalding shower that washed away the salty remnants of her tears. Throwing on a t-shirt and sweatpants, she went to the kitchen and set a kettle on the stove to boil.
Her purse still sat on her desk, mocking her. With a huff of irritation she opened it and pulled out Agent Holder's offer, read it once more and then quickly shoved it back in again.
The kettle whistled, so she fixed her tea and sipped at the chamomile, taking a moment to appreciate the sweetness it held. Her raw nerves took notice of every tiny sensation, but she didn't mind so much anymore. Silence blanketed the house, and the clock ticked.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Her thoughts drifted to Mulder as they often did, maybe more than she'd ever realized. What would her life look like without him in it? There would be no one to argue with her, to call her out when she was being pig-headed or just plain wrong, no one to challenge her without being afraid of her.
She stood and walked over to her living room window and for the first time noticed that the city workers had hacked and cleared all of the ivy away from her favorite wall circling the park. A gasp rushed out of her at the jarring nakedness of the brick, which now buckled and crumbled where the ivy roots had dug in deep. The city had killed the ivy and the wall in one fail swoop. Daniel had tried to rid his shed of ivy in the same manner and ended up having to tear the entire building down. "Damn ivy," she had heard him mutter. "If it takes root, you'll never get rid of it. Might as well tear everything down."
She had never thought to ask him why he didn't just leave the ivy where it was. What harm was it doing so long as you left it in place?
The sun was setting and long shadows from the slatted blinds fell across her floor. She had not felt so free and light in a very long time and everything seemed different. Possible, she thought.
At that moment, the woman in the tan jacket and blonde ponytail walked down the sidewalk. Dana froze and watched her as she strode right past a car she knew very well – Mulder's car.
She squinted and tried to see through the drizzle of rain, but it was too dark to see inside the car.
"How long has he been sitting out there?" she wondered. A few days ago she would have been furious. Now, maybe not. He was always there somehow when she needed him, even when she never expected it. If she believed in mind reading, which she didn't because no one had conclusively proven it, but if she did, she knew Mulder would have some ability in that area. That is, if mind reading existed.
"You always have a choice, Starbuck." Remnants of her father's words from last night's dream floated up in her mind and echoed in the new open spaces of her heart. "You always have a choice."
Dana Katherine Starbuck Scully set her tea down and picked up the phone. With each number she dialed by heart, all oars and sails went overboard – and on the first ring, so did she – diving headlong into the endless dark fathoms.
He picked up on the second ring. "Scully! I'm so glad you called. Are you all right? I've been worried about you."
"I'm...doing okay now," she said, and knowing the truth. She was okay. She would be okay, no matter what. "Are you sitting outside of my apartment?" she asked.
She heard his pause and knew he was scrambling to think of a response. "Um...maybe," he finally answered.
"Come inside Mulder. We'll order some take out and watch a movie. That is, unless you'd like to spend the night in your car."
"Dinner sounds great, actually," he said. "Be there in a minute."
A weight of unsaid words lingered between them, heavy between the pauses. She had missed the sound of his voice, though it had only been a few days. But those days felt like lifetimes with all that had changed.
Mulder didn't bother to knock. He used the key she had given her and walked in, completely soaked with rain. He shook off his jacket, ran a hand through his wet hair and then smiled at her. He wore one of his regular work suits, fairly wrinkled from his time on stakeout duty. He looked tired, as if he lived wrapped in his own St. Elmo's fire – burning and being consumed by it, yet never being burnt.
"You know, next time you could just call me instead of holding a private stakeout," she said. "I'd hate to have to tell Skinner you couldn't come to work because my neighbors reported you for stalking."
Mulder looked sheepish as he hung his coat on the rack. "I was in the neighborhood," he replied with a little shrug. "I just stopped for a minute to make sure you were all right."
She eyed him and knew he was lying. He had always been such a terrible liar. "Uh huh. Right. So how long is this minute you were stopped for? Have you been out there for three days?"
He shrugged. "No, just after work...and before. Sometimes at lunch. Honestly, I kind of lost track of time. You do have very nice cops in this area, though. They only hassled me three times."
Dana rolled her eyes and stood up, heading to the kitchen.
Mulder continued to talk as she dug out two beers from the back of the fridge. "Scully, I just needed to make sure you were all right. I mean, you tell me you've had some kind of a vision, fall asleep on my couch mid-sentence, and sneak out before dawn. For all I know, you could have been hijacked by some mutant bee again, I don't know. We don't exactly have the best luck with those kind of things. Plus, I'm out of frequent flyer miles so making a last-minute trip to Antarctica might be off the table."
The bees. Of course he would think of the bees.
She dug out an opener from the drawer and watched him as he talked. He kicked off his shoes and made a subtle circuit of her living room, taking careful stock of her place, and her in particular. His gaze roamed all over, missing nothing. He ran his fingers along the edge of her desk and across the cover of Moby Dick.
Mulder moved carefully, instinctively, his eyes catching everything and missing nothing - but the past several days, neither did she. She knew he was tired not from a few missed nights of sleep, but a tired built from dozens of haunted years.
He took the beer she offered and plopped down on the couch. "What, no tea, Scully?" His eyes still searched for something, anything. He would always be searching, it seemed.
"I've had enough tea today," she replied as she sat down beside him.
"So. "Are you really all right? Why did you leave my place like that?"
"I had a nightmare," she finally replied and took a long drag of the beer. "And I just needed some time off to think."
"Look...Scully, I know it's always hard for you at this time of year, but you do know you can talk to me about anything, all right?" he said. "You really freaked me out."
"I know, I'm sorry," she replied. "I just needed some time to think." Time to drown and get my heart ripped open, is all, she mentally added.
"Think about what?"
She shrugged. "Everything. The meaning of life and fate. Our choices."
He half-turned to face her and look into her eyes, giving her the full weight of his built-in lie detector. "Choices?" She could read the subtle panic in his face and knew someone had likely clued him in to Agent Holder's offer.
"Yeah, choices."
He opened his mouth to speak, but stopped himself and didn't press her further, although she could tell he wanted to. He'd bring it up again in a day or so, long enough so that he thought she'd forgotten. But, he'd definitely ask again. He couldn't stand not knowing.
"Chinese, pizza, or Thai?" he asked after a long pause.
"Surprise me," she answered.
He gave her a wicked smile. "Sausage and extra anchovies it is, then. My favorite."
She wrinkled her nose and took another sip, tasting the bittersweetness on her tongue. All things in life, all choices held bitter and sweet, good and bad, ups and downs – every choice had both, and hopefully the good outweighed the bad. He ordered and then hung up the phone and sat back to take a drink.
"Why do you call me Scully?" she asked.
He stopped his drink short, one side of his mouth up in a half smile. "Because that's your name, silly. Dana Katherine Scully."
Dana Katherine Starbuck Scully, she silently corrected him. He had so many little mental boundaries that she'd never noticed until just now, so many things she had chalked up to his eccentricity or a valiant attempt at treating her as an equal.
No one got to call him Fox except for his mother, and even then he hated it. He rarely dated, and when the single women in the office expressed an interest in him he deflected with boyish jokes and a good round of flakiness to ward them away. All of those mental barriers to protect the ever-processing mind that refused to shut off.
He was scared, maybe more than she had ever been.
The evening shadows fell across his face, throwing him into shadows. He smelled of a mix of faded cologne from the morning and dry cleaning. "You wanna watch a movie?" he asked. She could hear the uncertainty in his voice. She noticed so many things now...
"Sure," she replied.
He stood up and went to the cabinet where she kept the few DVD's she owned, and frowned at his choices. "Scully, don't you own anything other than chick flicks?"
After the pizza (not sausage and extra anchovies, but her favorite of pepperoni, mushroom and black olives, she noted) Mulder had complained for a good ten minutes on her selection before finally giving up to search for something on television. "We have got to work on your taste in movies," he grumbled. He flipped through the channels one by one.
Click. Click. Click.
He paused on a Twilight Zone marathon and she knew it would remain there for the rest of the night. The sun set and the room fell into dark blue shadows. He was sitting close to her, close enough she could feel the heat radiating off of him; he always ran too hot and often froze her out in the car with the AC on full blast.
This is nice, she thought. No work talk, no conspiracy theories, nothing but just the two of them and the television in the background that neither of them were really watching.
Dana slid down and put her head on his shoulder, and he leaned his on hers.
Her thoughts drifted to Daniel and the life she had once imagined having with him – once he divorced his wife, they would get married and move to the upper East Coast (Nantucket, she secretly hoped), have four kids (two boys and two girls), live in a historic clapboard house while they would do pioneering research in medicine and have a successful private practice.
That life would have been a good one, yes. Satisfying, certainly. But it hadn't worked out that way. She had stayed with Daniel for far longer than she should have, fearing the life that came without him in it.
Daniel had been surprisingly easy to forget for all the work she had put into their relationship, she mused. He slipped out of her thoughts and out of her life, becoming nothing more than a shadow of the past.
But Mulder...with him, she didn't have to put any effort in, it just happened. And she knew, as certainly as she knew E=mc2 that he would never be as easy to forget as Daniel. Somehow he grew into her heart and was lodged there permanently – if he left, then there would be nothing but dust and debris just like the wall outside her place.
Maybe she didn't want him to leave. Maybe she didn't want to be the one doing the leaving. Maybe she was tired of fighting fate.
Time felt like it came to a crawl; the weight of the shadows resting heavy over them. Dana picked up Mulder's hand and laced her fingers between his. She ran her thumb over the back of his hand, over the fine hairs and veins. She felt everything about him – the heat, the restless energy that drove him to extremes, and the shadows that swallowed his heart.
"We've been on quite a few adventures together," she said in a low voice.
Mulder made a nervous laugh. "I'm pretty sure I dragged you kicking and screaming on most of them," he replied. His thumb grazed over her own knuckles. "You're in a strange mood," he said and eyed her with wary caution. "Scully, are you sure you're all right?"
She felt the vibration of his voice all the way into her bones. She was sinking, and she knew it, but it would all be all right. "Call me Dana," she said. "Tonight, I want you to call me Dana."
He lifted his head and pulled back so he could look at her eyes. Mulder's built-in lie detector – all he had to do was see your eyes to know your secrets. He blinked and glanced down at their laced hands. "Scully..."
Before he could start talking again, Dana lifted his hand and pressed his hand to her lips. He froze and stopped breathing. The world around them faded away.
"Scully, Dana...if anyone finds out, they'll try and separate us, or turn us against each other. I won't, I can't let that happen." His breath was shallow, his hands gripping hers tight.
She knew all of this, had turned it over in the back of her mind for years, always teetering on the edge of falling. They had offered an easy excuse to keep things the same for too long. But she was feeling daring tonight. Adventurous.
"Then this is our secret and no one else will ever know," she said. "During the day, we'll still be Mulder and Scully as always. But when we're here, then we'll be something else." She kissed his hand again. Somewhere in the background Rod Sterling was welcoming everyone to the Twilight Zone, and ironically, maybe she had crossed over herself. She didn't care anymore, honestly. "Here, we'll be just Dana and Fox. A new covenant."
His eyebrows twitched and a furrow built between them. His jaw moved as if he meant to say something, but he did not. Dana reached out and ran her free hand down his cheek.
"I can't lose you," he whispered. "I don't want anything to wreck what we have."
"We have to choose to not let that happen," she said. "We always have a choice."
"Why now? I mean, not that I'm complaining or anything, but I never thought we'd be here like this."
She brushed her lips over his knuckles. "Never give up on a miracle, Fox," she replied. Dana Katherine Starbuck Scully closed her eyes and let go, drifting down to the bottom of the endless ocean.
Dana stood up and pulled him behind her by his tie. She reached in and took out his FBI badge and gun and sat them on the table next to hers, leaving Scully and Mulder behind and only the future before them.
That night, she dreamed of the ocean again. Dana drifted along, peaceful and free, hand in hand with Mulder. The world above went on but everything down here was quiet and calm. She couldn't remember why she had feared it so much in the first place. This was always where she was meant to be.
The young handsome sailor she'd dreamed of before floated up with his silver eyes shining through the darkness. He held her face in his hands and pressed a kiss to her forehead - a benediction.
He smiled at her and then drifted away, towards a massive ghostly ship floating by in silence followed by a large white shadow. The whale. A whale not like any other, not meant mere mortals as a hunting sport, but a whale for those who had made the long journey down and found peace in the depths.
They had always been destined to be in this place together, Ahab and the whale, Starbuck and Ahab, Mulder and Scully. It wasn't so bad down here after all. She had always been destined to drown with him, her fate, on this long and lonely road, watching the world from afar like revenants, staring back at the life they once knew.
Amor Fati, she thought. Part of her soul was here at the bottom of the world, and this she knew was the truth.
Amor Fati. This has always been my fate.