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Chapter 4 – Purity
The rest of the week passed with surprising speed. Hard work, work that requires one to think and apply oneself fully, always causes the minutes and hours to slip through one's fingers. Time is a funny thing.
The morning of the knighting dawned bright and clear. Mulder yawned and stretched. He was becoming more and more accustomed to medieval life by the day, and at this point he was not even fazed to find himself staring up at a rickety wooden ceiling. Blinking the sleep from his eyes, he looked over to his partner.
Luckily (or unluckily, perhaps), she had managed to wrangle a room with two twin beds. The room was cramped and tight. There was barely enough room for the essentials - two beds, a chest for clothes, and a dressing screen. Had he been sharing it with anyone other than Scully, he would have killed them by now. Instead, he treasured the closeness. It felt familiar and comforting, the one thing he could hold onto in this crazy time.
It was more than odd for him to have to pretend that she was a man for a majority of the day. He knew it had to be even worse for her. That was why he loved moments like these, when he could just watch her sleeping. He looked at her peaceful face and softly curling hair, then let his gaze begin to travel down where the sheets rested over her curves. She was beautiful now, like this. He could barely comprehend how anyone could ever mistake her for a man.
Her eyes blinked open and she smiled up sleepily at him. "Hey."
"Good morning. Today's the day, you know?"
"Which day?"
"Our official induction into the world of fifteenth-century knighthood."
"A.k.a. my official induction into the world of being a man. God help me."
"Hey, it's not that bad. I mean, you might not like it, but half the population manages to get by…"
"Shut up, Mulder."
"I had the feeling you'd say that."
He grinned at her; she sighed and rolled her eyes. "I need to go start getting ready."
"Have fun!"
"Sure. Fine. Whatever."
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Mulder and Scully arrived on the main tournament field an hour later. They stood at attention, along with what had been narrowed down by this point to eight other men.
Sir Galleigh, the knight in charge of training, swaggered out onto the field. He smiled, and began his announcements. "Well, here we are. I must say, men, I have never before trained such a successful group at this accelerated speed. Congratulations are in order. Or, will be in order once you have completed today's ceremonies. This very afternoon, you shall be bestowed with the highest honor that this kingdom affords – knighthood.
As you are aware, the king himself shall knight you. Beforehand, you shall claim before all your allegiance to his majesty and to the church. You shall spend the morning purifying yourself for the rituals."
It was all Mulder could do not to groan out loud. He knew his history well, and he was not looking forward to the lengthy purification rituals required in this time of joint church and state. Ugh, he thought. The vows, the long prayers, the confession, the purification bath…Damn it! The bath, I had forgotten about that…
Scully did not fail to notice the panicked look that flashed across her partner's face. She gave him a questioning look, then tuned back into what Sir Galleigh was saying.
"After confession, each of you, assisted by your partner, shall take a purifying bath in the sacred St.Gangulphus River. Then we will head to the throne room…"
The rest of what he said faded into irrelevance as Scully suddenly understood what was disturbing Mulder. We have to take a bath together? That will be just a little awkward. That decontamination shower was bad enough…
"Okay, everyone. You shall now be heading off to confession."
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It's funny how time also seems to pass by at warp speed towards an inevitable that one wishes to avoid.
Somehow Mulder and Scully managed to get through the morning despite their minds being far away.
Confession entailed a series of elaborate, fictional accounts of misdeeds, such as stealing a cow-pail or overeating. Scully felt guilty about lying to a priest, but she really didn't have a choice in the matter. If she were to tell him what she was really thinking, it would be more than a little problematic.
She could see it now: Well, you see, Father, I have quite a few things to confess. Firstly, I have been lying to pretty much everyone by pretending to be a man. Yes, I am in fact a woman. But no one needs to know that, right? Anyway, I have another problem: my partner. He and I go back a ways – see, we're here from the twenty-first century, and there we've worked together for seven years and we're best friends. Only thing is, I feel a lot more for him that just friendship. I want… Well, I'm not sure exactly what I want, actually. But I do know that this "purity bath" thing is not going to help whatever weird tension is between us…Or not.
"Fox and Daniel. As our leading pair, you shall have the honor of going to the river first."
"Great," Mulder muttered.
Silently, they walked out of the chapel and towards the river. When they arrived at the preordained clearing, which was thankfully blocked from others' view by dense clumping of trees, they were met by an attendant bearing white robes.
"Thou shalt not remove fromest thou the sacred drops of blessed water before donning these spotless robes."
With that, he placed the robes on a rock, bowed, and walked away.
Scully looked at Mulder, confused. "Basically," he explained. "We're not allowed to dry off before putting the robes on."
"Meaning that I actually have to go into the water? I can't fake it?"
"I don't think so. Did you bring extra… um… I'm really not sure what the correct term is. But you know what I mean."
"I can reuse the bindings. They just can't get wet…:
"Ah. So…" Mulder awkwardly ran a hand through his hair. "How do you want to do this?"
Scully took a deep breath and tried to act confident and unaffected. "I'll go first. Go over there and turn around."
"Okay, but I don't know that we have enough time. The next guys will be coming here relatively shortly…"
"Fine, then."
Steeling herself and raising her head high, she turned around and pulled her shirt over her head. She began to unwrap the bindings, turning her head over her shoulder to meet Mulder's gaze, defying him to look.
Getting the message, he turned around as well and removed his own shirt. Scully forced herself not to think about the well-defined muscles in his back and how they would look glistening wet.
When all the clothes were gone, she closed her eyes, took another deep breath, and dove into the water. She heard a splash behind her as he followed suit. Her body fully hidden by the blue-green water and white foam, she finally turned to face him.
He was grinning. "Isn't it interesting that this isn't the first time that you and I are soaking wet and naked together?"
She groaned at his raised eyebrows. At least he was still filled with half-joking innuendos, even here, hundreds of years in the past. It was vaguely comforting to her. "Only you, Mulder."
"That's right."
She finally broke down and smiled. Shaking her head, she dipped her hair back in the water and allowed the gentle current to toy with the floating strands. "That feels nice," she sighed.
Mulder bit back the whole range of comments he could have made on that statement. Instead, he allowed his own body to relax into the water next to her.
The wind whispered softly over them as the water lapped at the surfaces of their bodies, creating a sense of being separated from the world. For now, they were just floating in their own moment, completely out of the grasp of time.
Her eyes snapped open in surprise as his hand found hers in the water. His eyes met hers, and she read her own thoughts reflected back in them. Wherever we are, whenever we are, at least we're together.
Here, open, suspended in the water, joined with Mulder, Scully glimpsed a sense of the calm and purity that this ritual was supposed to bring.
To both of their displeasures, the moment was soon shattered. Far off but persistently approaching shouts of, "Time's up, come on out now, men" were heard loud and clear.
Both immediately scrambled to the bank and pulled on the robes, too panicked to be embarrassed at their respective states of undress.
They had managed to make themselves presentable by the time the next two men approached with the attendant.
Nodding a greeting, they walked back through the forest as silently as when they had come. But any trace of awkwardness between them was gone now. Now, the silence was companionable, existing only because words were not able to express this new layer discovered in the bond between them.
They were knighted, later, side by side.
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Next Chapter: Mulder and Scully embark on a different type of X-File as winter comes to England.
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