Seven
Washington DC – September 2005
Scully sat on the back porch of the house she had occupied with Shannon, Skinner and Sarah for the past month. There were no bodies in the home, which meant the creepiness factor of stepping around human remains did not factor into their daily lives. It had taken a good two weeks for her to be able to carry any sort of weight in her left hand thanks to the deep cut on her wrist, and Shannon had delayed their departure under the guise of wanting Scully to be stronger.
It was mostly true; Scully had needed to put on weight and be able to lift her backpack onto her back with either hand. She had needed the full month to get to that stage. She had also needed a month of peaceful existence to recover from her emotional 'episode', as she liked to call it. It was not something she had ever had to deal with before, and she had needed time to accept that moment of weakness for what it had been; an expression of the deep pain she still carried with her, an expression of unbearable loss and regret and shame that would never leave her. She just had to live with it. She had lived with it.
There was no reason for her to feel ashamed that it had happened. It did not make her a weaker person, or somebody less worthy of life. She remembered everything about that night. It was a rapid, detailed blur of tears and anguish. She had no memory of what the pain had felt like, but she had a good idea considering what she knew she had been driven to, and how she still felt. She felt as though she had a grapple hook stuck in her gut, and she believed that for the rest of her life she would carry it with her. She believed she needed to carry it with her. She had tried to let it go but she couldn't. She didn't want to.
She still needed the memory of that night close because, of what she did remember, her clearest memory was of Mulder's embrace.
Scully looked up as the screen door clattered behind her. She smiled at the sight of Skinner's tall, lean, young niece. Sarah was twenty-five, with wavy, blonde hair and brown eyes. Her skin was tanned, and she was dressed in sunglasses, jeans and a t-shirt.
"Dana, are you out here?" she called, her voice gentle and curious.
"I'm here," Scully assured her, reaching an arm out and towards Sarah's outstretched hand. "I'm sitting down on the steps. Careful."
"Ah," Sarah smirked, sitting down and shuffling forward as Scully took hold of an elbow and guided her. "That I can do. Walter and Shannon are inside arguing."
"Mm, I came out for some peace and quiet," Scully mumbled.
"I can go if-"
"No, no," she insisted more gently, holding onto Sarah's hand. "It's okay. Stay with me. I'd like the company. It's just been a...an unusual month."
"It's been an unusual three months more like. And I thought I had problems before this!"
"You're doing really well," Scully complimented. Another reason they had stayed so long was Sarah. Her blindness was absolute and it had been hard enough for her to get used to navigating her way around the house. She was nervous. She had needed to hone skills she had never previously had to rely on, and it would be very different wandering the desert. They would be there with her the whole time, but she herself wanted to be competent, and Scully could not blame her for that.
She was a quiet young woman, and had not been very talkative. Scully supposed it was hard to trust a stranger who was no more than a voice or a touch, but she had sensed Sarah warming to her gradually. The girl certainly knew of her history with Skinner and Shannon. Skinner had informed her early that he had told Sarah the long, complicated story while they had been underground. They'd had the time, after all.
Not that Scully had been much more forthcoming. She had barely had a personal conversation with Sarah, and she was aware that she was craving one. After taking the time to be alone with her thoughts and to heal, Scully needed to start reconnecting with the people she would have to trust, and with the people who would need to trust her.
"My uncle was more a father to me sometimes than my own dad," Sarah confessed. Scully nodded, savouring another piece of information she had only suspected but never known. "I know he won't leave me here. I'm adjusting, slowly. You've been great, Dana. I always say thank you but I don't think I ever told you...Walter never really talked about his job at the FBI but I remember him cursing a couple of his agents, giving him trouble over the phone and the like. Mulder and Scully. I only ever knew your names."
"That's us," Scully sighed, smiling sadly as she allowed herself to watch the young woman beside her. She looked relaxed, friendly. The only indication something was wrong was the way she gripped Scully's hand, still not comfortable with the fact her life had been reduced to darkness despite the three months that had elapsed.
"What do you look like?" Sarah asked suddenly. It was the first interest she had ever shown in Scully personally. "Are you pretty?"
"Used to be," Scully teased, laughing when Sarah scoffed.
"Spare me the 'I was young and attractive once too' lecture I got from mom. Tell me what you look like. You sound very sophisticated and uh, classy, that's the word."
"Okay," Scully sighed, happy for the distraction and the opportunity to cultivate somewhat of a friendship with her old boss' niece. After all, she had only been sitting outside staring at sand and trying not to think of Mulder. She did that every day. "I'm short. I come up to your shoulder. We can't all look like supermodels you know."
"I'm no model," Sarah assured her. "Easily the dorkiest girl in my history class."
"Archaeology, right?"
"Yep," she laughed. "My parents were so pissed off when I told them that was my major. I think mom had her heart set on me being some sort of beauty queen. So you changed the topic. You know what I look like and that's not too fair. So keep going, Doctor."
"I've got long hair," Scully continued, guiding Sarah's hand up to where her hair sat against her shoulder. "It was red when I was a girl but it's faded now. It's more orange."
"How old are you?" Sarah asked as she let her nervous fingers run the seemingly never-ending length of Scully's greasy, sandy hair before returning her hands to her lap.
"I'm forty. I've got blue eyes and fair skin and the only jewellery I've got is a small, gold crucifix around my neck that my mom bought me when I was little."
"You sound beautiful," Sarah assured her. "And Mulder, what did he look like?" Scully laughed.
"He looked...not at all like the man I pictured myself with," she conceded. "But he was very attractive. Tall, brown hair and eyes. He was a good runner. Why the questions?"
"I don't know. I've known you a long time now without ever seeing you. I thought it would be pertinent to actually ask so that I could picture you... How is your wrist?"
"It'll be fine," Scully sighed, glancing at the thin bandage still strapped tightly around the wrist for added support and safety. "It wasn't even really very deep, in the end."
"Yes it was. I was there when they brought you in, and I heard Walter and Shannon talking about it a few times afterwards. One of my friends killed herself while we were in high school by slitting her wrists," Sarah whispered. Scully stared at her in shock. "I suppose we weren't best friends, but we hung out in the same group. None of us saw it coming. I still don't know how she could have inflicted that sort of pain on herself."
"I don't really remember doing it," Scully mumbled, blushing at her white lie. "But the best way I can describe it is...I was in so much pain, on the inside, that it was like giving myself permission to release that. Sounds kind of stupid coming from a doctor huh," she whispered sadly. "But I suppose even doctors have the odd breakdown."
"Do you think about doing it again?" Sarah asked worriedly.
"Not like that," she promised. "I...have another means to end my life should something happen, but I'm feeling okay Sarah. I promise."
"I wanted to talk to you earlier but I...I know what we all went through at school after Kate died and I wanted to give you space. But we're both doing better now. So I, I just hope you're not too mad at me for not talking much to you. I got the impression you-"
"It's okay," Scully interrupted. "I know how it feels to need to be silent for a while. I did appreciate the space, but I'm glad we're having this conversation. Before I came here, I hadn't had a real conversation in a very long time."
"It's nice to have someone to talk to isn't it."
"Yeah," Scully mumbled. "I'd forgotten what that was like. So what are they arguing about inside now?"
"The usual. When to leave, which way to go. Can I ask you something?" Scully nodded even though Sarah couldn't see her.
"Sure," she added.
"Shannon. I, I mean I like her. She spent a lot of time with us down in the cellar, and she spent a lot of time with me here when I had nightmares or questions or when I needed help with things that embarrassed Uncle Walter. But I can tell from her voice, I mean I think she's very attractive, very persuasive, and I know Walter trusts her. I mean they have some sort of relationship, I suppose, but he hasn't told me what that is. She came to DC specifically to save him. She threw herself over him when it happened."
"I see," Scully whispered. She remembered Shannon's words. There was a history there.
"She told me she met you before. Do you trust her? I mean 'really' trust her? I know she's...she's not fully human. I know what those other types like her do."
"Walter told me he told you those things," Scully assured her. "You said you like her?"
"I do, she's very nice. But I was told these people didn't have human emotions and that they could be used as killing machines in war, and neither of them ever denied that about Shannon. So...Is she faking her emotions with us? Is Walter just blinded by attraction?"
"I don't think their relationship is romantic," Scully replied. "Not that I've observed. There is, however, a lot of respect between them. Shannon does have emotions. When I met her she told us it was what set her apart from the rest. She did not like what they had made her into, and for the brief time in which I knew her... She did help us. I trust her-"
"Ladies," Shannon announced, interrupting the conversation and opening the screen door to join them on the veranda. "My ears were burning. I thought I should come and see if I could add to your discussion."
"Sorry Shannon," Sarah apologised quickly, sensing the tall, curvaceous brunette behind her. "I'm still confused about all this. Dana was just-"
"Helping fill in some blanks," Scully finished quickly, reaching out to squeeze Sarah's hand in support, silently assuring her not to worry. They weren't in any danger. Sarah had not been outside much, and from their position on the steps Shannon towered above them, her presence imposing and always strong. Scully knew Sarah could sense that.
Shannon shrugged casually, walking around them and leaning against the bottom of the steps' railing, changing the dynamics of the setting and offering Scully a knowing smile.
"It's getting a bit dark for sitting out here," she mentioned. "We're going to leave tomorrow if that's okay with you both."
"I'm ready," Sarah assured her confidently.
"Me too," Scully sighed. "A part of me hates to leave but I'll be glad to get away. Have you decided on a route then?"
"Inland," Shannon replied. "Hopefully it will be quieter."
"Quieter than all this?" Sarah asked with a laugh, spreading her arms to demonstrate their surroundings. Shannon chuckled but did not reply. They all knew what Shannon had meant. She had meant safer. Scully had no arguments if that was the case.
"Sarah and I are packed," she stated. "Is the raft ready?"
"Yeah," Shannon replied with a smirk. They had nicknamed the cart 'the raft' because it would hopefully glide along the sand in much the same way as a raft glided downstream, though Shannon would be the current. It was heavy and made from wood taken from the floorboards and sheds of homes. It was more narrow than wide, and came up to Scully's shoulders. It was filled with more food and water and tools than Scully knew what to do with. If she had not witnessed Shannon test-towing it over the past few days with what appeared to be no effort at all she would have believed it was impossible to move.
Scully and Skinner had their own packs to carry, though in Skinner's pack they had made space for some of Sarah's things. All she was responsible for was a smaller daypack and her cane, which Scully had stolen from the hospital on one of their day trips.
"What time are we leaving tomorrow?" Sarah asked.
"I'll come and wake you up," Shannon promised gently. There were three bedrooms in the house and they each had their own. Shannon did not really need sleep, but Scully had seen her come in and out of Skinner's room in the past month. "We should leave at first light, so I'd recommend an early night."
"Come on," Scully urged, gently taking Sarah's elbow and guiding her to her feet on the step. "I'll help you get ready."
xxx
Mulder groaned as he felt the toe of John's boot prod his backside.
"Ten more minutes, mom," he teased in a sleepy voice. John laughed loudly, watching Mulder roll over in his sleeping bag only to be faced with never-ending, hard, white sand. "Oh crap," he groaned, sitting up quickly and scrubbing it from his beard and from around his eyes and nose. "We're not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy."
John smirked but said nothing. After more than three months worth of mornings with the man, he knew Mulder woke up with his funny pants on. But since they were alone, he allowed himself to ask the question he had been dying to ask since Day One.
"Were you always this funny with Dana or is it just me bringin' out the stand-up in you?"
"John, you bring out a lot of things in me," Mulder conceded with a smirk. "But stand-up comedy you do not."
"Glad to hear it," John huffed impatiently, rubbing his own, stubbled jaw. He had not shaved since leaving Virginia. "Come on then, we're here, or did you forget that? I thought you'd be raring to go. Sun's up. Let's get some food and get moving."
"All right all right," Mulder sighed, staring at his purple pack beside him. "Look maybe I'm a bit reluctant about all this."
"I am too," John agreed, softening. "But we gotta do this now we're here. Where to?"
"Work," Mulder replied. He was entitled to still refer to the FBI as work. After all, he had not known another place of work since his youth. In reality it was the only 'grownup' job he'd ever had. It was the only life he had ever known.
And it would kill him if he got to his old office only to find Scully's body. It would not be like the other bodies, he realised. She would have a face. Her body would be in a natural state of decay, a human state of decomposition.
He and John put on their sunglasses and ate and drank in silence, putting away their rubbish to deposit into the next bin they passed. The temptation to litter in the desert was great, but as a group they had always been cautious about leaving traces of their existence. None of them had particularly wanted to be tracked by unknown persons or things. So the rubbish came with them until they could dispose of it more subtly.
The days were not as hot as they had been, but they were still warm, and Mulder was sweating within ten minutes of their walk towards the boundary of what had once been considered Washington DC.
"Do you ever wonder what winter will be like?" he asked to pass the time; pondering the issue himself as a hot wind struck him in the face. "I can't imagine it not being like this."
"Well I think we can kiss a white Christmas goodbye," John answered, happy to share the conversation. He was surprised with how well he and Mulder had actually gotten along since they had left, less than a week previously. They had made good time and still slept. They had walked faster and farther each day than they would have had Monica and Gibson been with them. They were both grateful for that. Sometimes it was nice to be able to set the pace and not worry about stragglers, and they were two men very much used to setting their own pace.
They walked on in silence, not needing to fill every moment with small talk. They both had things on their mind. Mulder was both thinking about and trying not to think about Scully, and John was thinking about Monica. He and Mulder had agreed that if they did not find Scully straight away they would search for one week and then return. That meant John would not be away from his wife for more than a few weeks, a month tops if they ran into delays. He wanted to be with her. He had never imagined after the death of his first son and the end of his first marriage that he would get the opportunity to do it all again.
And so what if life hadn't turned out exactly as he had planned? They were all healthy and relatively happy considering the circumstances. Every moment was precious, and John did not want to miss any more than he absolutely had to.
He knew Monica understood, and he knew she appreciated his attitude, but John also knew space was a welcome relief to them both. And the more he thought about it, the more he realised just how much Gibson had probably craved to get them out of his hair.
John was glad he could not hear Mulder's thoughts. He had a feeling Mulder had a hard enough time living with all his demons, but to be exposed to those burdens without firsthand experience had to be tough, and Gibson probably felt Mulder's sadness keenly because he cared so much for both Mulder and Scully. It was sort of how John thought Monica sometimes felt when he spoke of Luke and his murder. She had been on the outside and shared his pain, but if she had really known his thoughts, perhaps that would have been too much pain to bear and she could not have come back to him.
"Uh, John?" Mulder asked, interrupting John's thoughts. "I think it's this way." He was pointing into the distance, where what appeared to be the remnants of the city still stood out above the horizon. "What the hell happened?" Mulder continued. He sounded as shocked as John felt when he looked at what was left of their nation's capital.
"Looks like a bomb went off," John described aloud. "But not a bomb, cos otherwise more would've fallen over. All the houses we passed on the way in were fine, it's just this central area that looks...I dunno, destroyed somehow."
"You think that light did it?" Mulder posed. "Like a huge electro-magnetic pulse?"
"Maybe," John agreed cautiously. "Let's uh, let's head into it then. Gee, I'm not sure I know where I'm going now that I'm back here. You lived in this place much longer than I did Mulder. You lead the way, okay?" Mulder nodded calmly. He knew the way.
As they got closer, John again stopped Mulder with a tap on the elbow. He pointed to a street sign that was only as high as his waist.
"Notice anything odd?" he asked. "We just walked up that slope. All these places are buried, Mulder. Each day more sand gets pushed up over it all."
"Yeah," Mulder drawled, confused. John rolled his eyes.
"Well obviously if doors are blocked there's no way Scully coulda got into the basement in the first place. Hoover didn't have that many entrances, certainly not above the ground floor. If this has been like this the whole time, no way did she just walk in the front."
"Oh," he whispered. "Well this is the product of the winds and erosion. Maybe it wasn't like this the whole time. Let's keep moving." John reluctantly nodded. He did not point out to Mulder that even if what he had said was true there would be no way for them to get into the building themselves. They would effectively be locked out, and they may never know the truth. John knew he would have to convince Mulder of that if they got there and he insisted on trying. They could not try. They would just have to accept.
It turned out John had not needed to contemplate wrestling Mulder in the sand. He recognised his former workplace with the assistance of what remained of nearby landmarks he remembered, and the FBI building along with its neighbouring buildings had been demolished.
"Now it looks like a bomb went off," Mulder mumbled as they both stood on the hot, uneven ground under the unrelenting sun and stared. Half of the interior was exposed, and one whole corner of the building had been torn away. The foundations had crumpled and the building sagged, as though ready to collapse at any moment. Mulder adjusted his sunglasses and observed a computer dangling above the sand from several floors up. Remnants of the lives left behind were still in that building, but not Scully's. "She never went near here," he whispered, finishing his thought aloud. "She didn't kill herself here."
John checked his watch. It was still only mid-morning.
"Well where else should we go?" he asked. "I mean we gave ourselves a week and I intend to honour that Mulder, but it's up to you. Within the week, you can say stop at any time and we'll go back, but you knew Dana better than me. Where would she go?"
"She said she wanted to find her mom," Mulder mumbled, thinking about the letter tucked into the cover of the journal which was stored safely at the back of his pack. "I think it will only take a couple of hours to walk there."
"Do you remember the way?" John asked cautiously. How many times could Mulder really have gone to Scully's mother's house?
"Sort of," Mulder assured him with a positive nod and a grimace. "I know the address and the general direction. We might end up wandering for a bit though."
"We've got time," John promised, remembering to be patient. Mulder himself had been so calm about the whole expedition it was almost unsettling, considering what a mess he had been prior to leaving. It was as though he had decided that the trip would be his goodbye to her, as though she was 'around them' somehow, and he did not want her to see him broken. John suspected that on the inside Mulder was slowly imploding with grief. John knew that feeling. His son had been murdered at just seven. He knew.
Maybe that was really why Monica had chosen him to go, he realised suddenly. Gibson only knew what Mulder knew, he had no real life experience of his own, and Monica had not dealt with personal loss in her own life, at least not to the same extent of losing a loved one. John realised he offered something neither of them could: genuine empathy. He had known instinctively when to back off, he had learned when it was safe to crack a joke, and he knew above all to respect the journey of healing. He had been on his own journey once. He had gotten closure, and it had freed him to be happy again. Mulder needed that too. He deserved it.
xxx
They stopped for lunch but they had stopped close to where Mulder thought they should have been, and it took only another half an hour for him to start picking up his pace and adding a bounce to his step. John noticed.
"We close?" he asked, taking his sunglasses off long enough to scrub some sand off them with his shirt, before returning them to his nose.
"Yeah," Mulder replied with a barely restrained grin. "I think so. It's right around the block." John nodded curiously. They were in the middle of suburbia. The sand was not as high as it had been in the city, probably because the strips of housing acted like wind channels, pushing the sand along. It was still deep in the centre, but entry into any of the houses along the edge of the streets would not be a problem.
The area was very middle class, and John remembered making a brief appearance at a Christmas party Maggie Scully had thrown the year Mulder had been somewhat dead. Scully had been pregnant and Skinner had gone with her. As her partner, John had felt obliged to go as well, and for the hour that he had stayed he had enjoyed himself. Her mother had been very welcoming and Scully and Skinner had spent time socialising with him not as fellow agents but as friends.
Just for that one hour they had not talked about work, but John had seen it in their faces; deep sadness for their loss, for Skinner had felt it almost as acutely as Scully. They had been quasi-buddies despite the rank that separated them. Skinner had been with Mulder when he had been taken. He had carried a lot of self-blame for a very long time, until Mulder had come back, until Skinner had unwittingly cured him. In giving Scully back her soul mate, Skinner had lifted the burden he had carried, but Mulder and Scully had wasted that gift, in John's mind at least. Mulder never should have left her and William.
Still, John reasoned, there was no point fretting over the past. Nothing could be changed, and he had a feeling that if Mulder had stayed, he or William might have been hurt worse than they had been.
William. There was a boy John had not thought much about in a long time. Scully and Mulder's son, the only child they would ever have, who Scully had given up for adoption suddenly and without much warning. John knew Monica had spent a lot of time with her, helping to pack up his things, helping to cleanse the house and lend Scully her support. John knew from Monica's stories that Scully had been beside herself. John could not imagine making that sort of decision. And without consulting the father, who had been far from a one night stand? Hell, in his mind even one night stands deserved to know.
He had lost one child against his will, but to voluntarily give one away? He envied no parent that decision.
John wondered whether Mulder thought much about the boy, who was surely dead along with the rest. He would have been four, about the same age Scully had been in the picture she had left. John wondered whether William had looked much like her in the end.
"Were you ever angry at her?" he asked before he could stop himself. Mulder stopped walking and turned to stare at John curiously, cocking his head to the side.
"Who?" he asked.
"At Dana, for giving William up." Mulder's lips parted in surprise at the unexpected question. Was that what John had been thinking about so silently? His son?
"Um, angry," he hummed, trying to put his answer into something intelligible. He wanted to answer the question properly because he knew John would not have asked something so personal unless he really wanted to know, unless the answer was important to him somehow. "Well," he continued cautiously. "I never blamed her for considering his safety above her happiness. She had always done that for me and I had known she would do the same for him. I never blamed her for being scared. But...When we argued about other things, sometimes I would find myself thinking about him, it would just pop into my head, and I realised there was some anger there. I was careful to keep it out of fights; that would not have been fair to her. Then one day about a year after we settled in Virginia, I approached her about it. I think she was surprised it had taken me so long."
"Approached her?" John asked.
"Yeah I... She always felt so bad. She apologised to me so much at the start it was all I could do to shut her up. She felt that she didn't deserve me anymore, that I couldn't still want to be with her. She found the fact that I did, and the fact we were running, hard to deal with. Just like I did. So that day she was in a good mood and we sat on our bed and I said I had something to tell her, and that I didn't want her to take it the wrong way. It was just something she needed to know. I said sometimes when I got angry about other things I got angry about how I had lost the opportunity to know my son. You know how it is."
"Yeah," John mumbled, aware Mulder knew about Luke's death. "Was she upset?"
"She asked me if I blamed her. She had never really 'asked' before. She had always just assumed. I discovered that when she asked me, I had to admit that sometimes I did get angry at her, but not in a hateful sense, only in the sense that she had convinced me to leave so I hadn't been there to experience life with them as a family, so I could never completely understand, and I wished that I could. It made sense to her somehow, which was good because I still don't really know what I meant. She cried, I sat there and didn't hug her, just watched her. Then she said the oddest thing. You know what it was?"
"What?" John asked, unable to help his smile when he saw Mulder break into his own.
"She looked up at me with tears all down her cheeks and said, 'Sometimes I blame you too'. Then she launched herself at me and we just sat there for ages. Why'd you ask?"
"I was just thinking about it," John replied casually. Mulder nodded.
"You know of all the memories that keep coming back to me about her, in all this time I'd never dragged that one up before," he stated. "I should have. I like it. Thanks."
"Uh, no worries," John assured him with a curious smirk. Mulder turned on his heel and bounced ahead as though he had not just shared a very intimate and private moment with a guy who woke him up every morning by kicking him in the bum. Sometimes Mulder was a real mystery, John reminded himself patiently. And he was bound to follow.