Title: Interstice: Thursday (1/2)
Author: Christy (attalanta@aol.com)
Category: MSR
Rating: PG-13
Additional Headers in Saturday: Part 1

* * * * *

EPILOGUE


Thursday, December 27, 2001


"This is love, to fly towards a distant sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall 
every minute, finally, to take a step without feet." - Rumi

"Little things console us because little things afflict us." - Pascal


* * * * *

MULDER


Mulder slipped a clean pair of flannel pajama pants out of the dresser drawer 
and stepped into them, letting the drawstring hang loose. First he stepped 
quietly into Liam's room, smiling when he leaned over the crib to see his son 
sleeping soundly. Liam had fallen asleep on the drive home the previous night 
and hadn't even stirred as Scully lifted him from his carseat, changed his 
diaper, and slipped on his pajamas.

Then, quietly, Mulder returned to their bedroom. Like their son, Scully was 
still asleep, her hair shining in the early morning light. Mulder stood for a 
moment in the doorway, surveying the scene with a satisfied smile. The 
previous day's clothing was scattered around the room, Mulder's shirt hanging 
drunkenly from a chair, anchored by one arm. Scully's pants were draped 
across the foot of the bed, one cuff resting on the floor.

Mulder stooped to pick up the pieces of clothing that had been so casually, 
so impatiently discarded the night before. He snagged his shirt and Scully's 
pants, then located his own jeans in a soft heap near the door.

A few months ago, Mulder thought as he swept his cottony boxer briefs and 
Scully's silky bra off the floor on either side of the bed, he would have 
left the clothes on the floor, even if he was inclined to pick them up. He 
would've stayed in bed, waiting for Scully to wake first, and not just 
because watching her sleep was one of the most intimate things he'd ever done.

No, he would've waited until she got out of bed because he wanted to see how 
long it took her to pick the clothes up, how long she could stand to see them 
lying so sexily, yet decidedly disorderly, on the floor.

He would watch the light bathe her pale skin in sunny tones before she 
slipped on her robe -- or, if he was lucky and she decided it wasn't too 
dirty, his discarded shirt. Then she would pick up their mess. But even as he 
would squint, watching yet trying to pretend he was still asleep, the guilt 
would pick at him.

I shouldn't be doing this, he thought each time. She loves you; you know she 
loves you. She said it often enough, knowing he needed to hear it.

Intellectually, he knew her love. He could see it every day, as they tried to 
coax another bite of puréed peas past Liam's stubborn lips; as they poured 
through old files in Doggett's cold basement office; as they sat together on 
the couch at night, each armed with a red pen, wading through stacks of 
papers and quizzes.

Mulder left the bedroom, his gaze darting around the family room in search of 
Scully's shirt. Finally he found it, a puddle of light blue silk on the floor 
beside the couch, and draped it across his shoulder, still smelling her 
perfume.

He lifted their coats from where they hung over the back of the couch, then 
hung them in the closet. After snatching his boots up by the laces, he found 
Scully's shoes, one near the door, the other kicked halfway under the couch. 
Gathering everything into his arms, Mulder went back into the bedroom.

He eased the bedroom door closed behind him, smiling when Scully did not 
stir. Yes, Mulder thought, he had been certain of her love for him in the way 
that he was certain of his badge number and address, of his birthdate and his 
mother's maiden name. Facts but not feelings.

His ears heard the "I love you"s and his brain reaffirmed them, filed them 
deep down and inside, if -- *when,* he thought -- he needed to replay them 
later. But still, the reality of her love got stuck somewhere on its way to 
his heart, stuck there like a lump in his throat.

Mulder couldn't say for sure when it had happened, when his understanding of 
her love had changed, when he had started to rely on it instead of wonder 
when it would, of course, disappear. Maybe it was a process, a slow 
realization, moving at a glacial pace... just like the rest of their 
relationship. Rationally, his slow acceptance of her love made sense.

He understood why, both as a psychologist and as a man, that his feelings -- 
and his acceptance of her feelings -- had been so slow in coming. He had had 
just a few weeks to process everything when he finally returned to her. They 
had been lovers for so short a time when he had disappeared, and it had all 
been so overwhelming upon his homecoming. 

When he awoke in the hospital to see her there, after luxuriating in her 
reassuring smile, he had been struck with the changes in her, first in her 
face, then in the rest of her body. He was almost afraid to look at her 
swollen abdomen; it so scared him how much everything had changed in what, to 
him, felt like a single day.

But her face frightened him the most. The expression on her face was infused 
with hope and love, with expectation. With need. He had never before seen 
Scully so needy, so vulnerable.

He could tell she wanted him to embrace this new life they had created, to 
embrace her; to substantiate the insecure devotion she had used to fuel her 
search for him.

And he did love her. He had loved her before he left, and that hadn't changed 
with his abduction or return. And of course he loved their child; how could 
he not love a part of her?

You love her, he had reminded himself; it'll be okay, it'll work out. She's 
wanted this for so long; don't dampen her happiness. But he had been so 
confused, caught up in a fog of changes, both professional and personal.

The days in the hospital had been almost unbearable for him, trying to catch 
up on the months he had lost, wondering if he still had an apartment, if he 
still had a job... if he still had a place in Scully's life. And wondering 
what, exactly, that place was, and whether he could fill it.

True to form, he had watched a lot of television during those days in the 
hospital, filling the quiet hours when Scully and Skinner, his only visitors, 
weren't there, and sometimes, shamefully, filling the silence when they were.

Late one night he had watched a Discovery Channel documentary about polar 
bears, which had come on after "Lost in the Bermuda Triangle: Secrets 
Revealed," when he couldn't summon up the strength to hunt out the remote and 
change the channel.

Mulder had watched a polar bear emerge from its seasonal hibernation. The 
Arctic winter had been snowy and cold, and the bear's icy den had long ago 
been buried in heavy whiteness. Six feet under.

But the determined bear had burrowed up out of its den, poking its fury 
yellowish head through the pristine white snow. But it did not push out 
further; instead, it rested its furry chin on the snow, watching, figuring. 
Trying to see what had changed in the months of its hibernation.

Mulder wanted to explain this to Scully, to reassure what he had said to her, 
that he just needed time to process everything. He wasn't trying to hurt her 
or worry her or add to his distance from her, either geographically or 
emotionally; he had just needed time to catch up.

But Mulder knew he couldn't explain it, not even to her. Despite Scully's 
abduction, it was difficult for him to put into words his feelings of 
disconnection, his overwhelming fear and the tenacious niggling of guilt over 
having gone to Oregon, having stepped into that energy field after seeing 
what it did to his hand. He knew he should have turned around and called 
Skinner over. But instead he had stepped into the energy field. 

Scully might have been taken, but he had gone willingly.

Of course, he wouldn't have gone willingly, perhaps wouldn't have gone back 
to Oregon at all, if he knew that Scully's dizziness and chills were symptoms 
not of the flu but of early pregnancy. I wouldn't have gone, he reassured 
himself. Of course I wouldn't. I wouldn't have left her like that.

Sometimes he could almost convince himself that were true.

It was guilt, he realized now, that had kept him testing Scully. Was she with 
him just because of their child? Or had she so built him up during the months 
he was missing, making him into a loving father and a devoted partner, into a 
good man? Now that he was back, was she afraid to admit that she had been 
wrong about him? Maybe he couldn't fulfill the dreams she had had while he 
was missing, dreams of a normal life with a man who was anything but.

After his return Mulder had learned, while reading the Post in an attempt to 
catch up with current events, that polar bears are cannibals. It was not 
uncommon, scientists had recently discovered, for male polar bears to eat 
young, helpless cubs.

Mulder could not remember whether these males killed the young cubs 
themselves, or whether they waited, patiently, for an accident or an illness 
to claim the cubs before cannibalizing them. 

He wondered whether they ate the cubs they themselves had sired before 
remembering that the males didn't even know which cubs were theirs. They were 
not involved in raising their own offspring; male polar bears were loners, 
hunting and fishing in desperate solitude while their mates and cubs fended 
for themselves.

Nature was cruel, Mulder thought, shivering in the warmth of the apartment, 
not only for the female polar bears and their cubs, but for the males, who 
spent their lives wandering alone in the snowy arctic, without the comfort of 
their families, the only contact with other members of their species a 
teeth-baring, testosterone-fueled death match. Or cannibalism. Or intercourse.

Scully stirred in bed, and Mulder stood and watched her for a moment, her red 
hair, longer now than she had worn it in the years he'd known her, splayed 
across the white pillowcase. One bare arm was tossed over her head, framing 
her hair.

Mulder smiled, then got to the floor on his hands and knees, and pulled his 
socks and hers from beneath the bed. He ran his arm through the darkness, 
searching for her underwear, the only article of their clothing he hadn't yet 
unearthed.

But he found nothing, unless he counted the dust bunny that had skimmed 
across the floor when he pulled his socks from under the bed.

Mulder jumped when the phone rang, almost banging his head against the sturdy 
wooden bed frame. He scrambled to his feet, nabbing the cordless phone from 
the bedstand and stepping quickly into the hallway. He pressed the talk 
button, but said nothing until he had closed the bedroom door behind him.

"Hello?"

"Mulder?" a male voice answered. Familiar, Mulder thought, but he couldn't 
place it. In the background he could hear the bustle of a crowd and the 
disembodied voice of a loudspeaker announcer.

"Yes?"

"Hey, Mulder, it's Charlie," the voice said.

"Charlie," he said, wandering down the short hallway. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah, I'm sorry for calling so early," he said. "I hope I didn't wake the 
baby."

Mulder stepped into Liam's room and crept over to the crib, smiling gently 
when he saw the baby's arm bent awkwardly above his head, just like Scully's. 
"Nah, he's still asleep."

"That's good," Charles said. "Can I talk to Dana?"

"She's sleeping," Mulder said. "Do you want me to wake her?"

Charles paused, then said, "Uh, yeah. Could you?"

"Mmm hmm," he said, cracking open the bedroom door. He held the phone against 
his chest and sat beside her on the bed. "Scully?"

"Mmmm," she said, turning away from him and pulling the blankets up over her 
shoulders.

"Scully." He smoothed her hair away from her face and she turned back to face 
him, her eyes squinting open.

"Wuzzit?" she asked.

"Phone," he said, offering her the receiver.

She sat up, holding the sheet against her chest, and took the phone. "Who is 
it?" she asked, now almost completely awake. "What's wrong?"

He just shook his head. "It's Charlie."

"Charles?" she said frantically into the receiver. "What is it? What 
happened?"

Mulder scooted over to sit beside her. She leaned her head against his 
shoulder and balanced the phone in the valley between them. Charles was 
shouting into the phone, trying to hear himself over the buzz of the crowded 
airport.

"Nothing's wrong, Dana," he assured her. "I'm fine."

"You're fine," she said softly, sighing as she looked over her shoulder at 
Mulder. "What is it then?"

"I'm sorry I woke you."

"It's okay, Charlie," she said. "What is it?"

"It's... It's just, Dana, I know I told you that night that it was a mistake 
and I shouldn't have come."

"Yes," she urged.

"But I'm glad I came. I'm sorry I haven't kept in touch, Dana, I'm so, so 
sorry about that, and I'll be better about it now, I promise."

"Okay," she said, turning away from the receiver to stifle a yawn.

"Really," he assured her. "I'm gonna use that ticket you gave me. I don't 
know when, not yet, but I'll let you know, I promise."

"I'm glad, Charlie," she said. "I hope--" But her voice was drowned out by 
the crackle of the loudspeaker and the boarding announcement for a United 
flight to Seattle.

"That's me, Dane," Charles told her. "I gotta go."

"Have a safe flight, Charlie."

"Thanks," he said. "Love you, Dane." Then he hung up the phone.

As the dial tone buzzed in their ears, Mulder lifted the phone from its 
balance on their shoulders and pressed the disconnect button, then dropped 
the receiver onto the bedstand.

"Wow," Scully said, running her hand through her hair and unconsciously 
letting the sheet slip a few inches down her chest, revealing the soft curve 
of her breasts. Wow, indeed, Mulder thought.

"What?" he asked.

"Did you hear what he said?" she asked, turning her face against the pillow 
to face him. "He said he loved me. He hadn't... I can't remember the last 
time I heard that from him or Bill," she admitted.

"You know they love you," he said, thinking of what Tara had told him the 
previous day. He found her left hand under the sheet and interlaced his 
fingers with hers, feeling the warm gold of her ring between his fingers.

"I know," she said, squeezing his hand, "but sometimes you just need to hear 
it."

* * * * *

MAGGIE


Maggie tried to get back to sleep after the rest of her family left that 
morning, but she found it next to impossible. She lay in bed for another 
thirty minutes, tossing and turning, slightly uncomfortable in the sudden 
return of quiet to the house.

Finally she gave in to her wakefulness and got out of bed, showered, and 
dressed before heading downstairs. She popped an English muffin into the 
toaster and set the coffee pot brewing. As she waited for her breakfast to 
cook, she wandered through the house, checking to make sure no one had 
forgotten anything. Just when she was about to rejoice in the miracle of her 
children's memories, she found a teething toy of Liam's in the refrigerator 
when she got out the margarine to spread on her English muffin.

Oh, well, she thought, fingering the cold gel-filled ring. She would be 
seeing Dana again next week, for New Year's, if not sooner. At least she 
needn't pack anything up and ship it to Seattle or San Diego.

Finally her English muffin popped up, and Maggie snatched it out of the 
toaster, buttering it thinly. As she ate she spotted the remote control to 
the stereo on the counter, and flicked it on. The radio was set to an 
all-talk AM station, and she flipped idly through the channels, unable to 
find anything to her tastes.

She clicked on the CD player, trying to remember what discs she had left 
inside. Ah, yes, she thought as the first familiar strains of "Yesterday" 
filled the empty house. She had been on a Beatles kick for the past few 
weeks, perhaps seeking some comfort, perhaps preparing herself for the 
arrival of her children.

The Beatles had always reminded her of the time her family had spent in 
Japan, when she had sometimes turned on the radio just to hear the familiar 
sounds of the English language. The songs from those years were ripe with 
memories for her, Eleanor Rigby's lonely people and Penny Lane in her ears 
and in her eyes.

Maggie set the remaining half of her muffin on her napkin and went into the 
living room, where she surveyed the Christmas decorations. I should take them 
down today, she supposed. Bill had always insisted on dismantling everything 
immediately after Christmas, eager to restore order to the house. Old habits 
die hard, Maggie thought.

She snatched candy canes off the drooping branches of the tree, collecting 
them in a small pewter jar on the mantel. Then she slipped each of the 
stockings from where the children had rehung them, empty and loose, on 
Christmas morning. She stacked the stockings on the couch, thinking that, at 
this time next year, they would need another stocking. Maggie smiled as she 
ran her fingers over the new felt of Liam's stocking.

She finished her breakfast and headed into the attic to retrieve the plastic 
snap-lid boxes she used to store the holiday decorations. She set the 
stockings in their box, then detoured into the kitchen to pour herself a cup 
of coffee before plucking ornament after ornament off the tree and wrapping 
it carefully in tissue paper.

The familiar piano chords of "Let it Be" filled the living room, and Maggie 
smiled. This was one of her favorites, having consoled her through so many 
long, lonely nights in impersonal base housing while the children slept 
soundly upstairs.

"For though they may be parted,
There is still a chance that they will see.
There will be an answer.
Let it be."

Maggie snagged a familiar ornament off the tree, hanging its faded yarn tie 
on her index finger, letting it dangle around her wrist. It was an ornament 
all four children had helped to make, a plastic globe covered in shiny 
metallic threads most likely bought at one of those Secret Santa shops the 
elementary schools used to run. Maggie wondered whether they still had those, 
or whether they had been disposed of in the interest of political correctness 
and failing school levies.

She fingered the single word on the ornament, "MOM!" that her children had 
painted on using their own tiny thumbprints. It was a clever idea, she 
thought, though it would have worked better if there had only been three of 
them, the exclamation point necessary for Charles to have something to 
contribute. Sequins, now half lost, decorated the vertices of the "M"s and 
formed the dot of the exclamation point.

Maggie gazed over at the numerous photographs that decorated the east wall of 
the room. She and Bill stood together on their wedding day, Bill in his dress 
uniform, her in a satiny white gown, her veil billowing behind them in the 
wind. In the frame next to their wedding photo was another picture from that 
day, Maggie with her three sisters, her bridesmaids, huddled together on her 
parents' porch swing. 

Another photo showed a newborn Billy, a photo taken just after his birth, his 
pink face swaddled in a blue blanket, less than an hour after Maggie had 
bestowed upon him his father's name. Next to the picture of her firstborn 
were her other children, taken as newborns in the hospital, taken to send to 
a father at sea.

To the uninitiated, the babies in these pictures might look identical, their 
red faces wrinkly and bothered, their fingers scrunched into fists, their 
nails impossibly tiny and sharp. But to Maggie they were so distinct: Billy's 
dark hair peaking out from beneath his cap; Melissa's eyes, wide and bright 
blue, looking almost stunned; the tiny scratch on Dana's face, which was 
already dotted with freckles; the perfect roundness of Charles's head, her 
one baby who had been born by caesarean.

Another picture showed Bill, Tara, and Matthew, taken on Matthew's first 
birthday. A large cake sat in front of him and his tiny, clenched fist was 
poised to enter the cake. Indeed, the next photo on the roll had showed 
Matthew's frosting-covered fist jammed pleasantly into his mouth. Maggie 
smiled.

"I know you, you know me.
One thing I can tell you
Is you got to be free.
Come together
Right now
Over me."

The next photograph in the row depicted Charles's high school graduation. 
Each of the children had been in attendance, and they stood next to their 
brother, Melissa smiling and tweaking the tassel on his crooked cap. But 
Charles was smiling formally, despite his bright yellow high-top sneakers and 
the clashing neon-green necklace he wore along with his honors cords.

"Got to be good-looking
Cause he's so hard to see,
Come together
Right now
Over me."

Maggie turned her attention back to the Christmas tree, and removed the 
remainder of the ornaments, setting the breakable ones in their own boxes and 
tossing the children's ornaments, her favorites, in a larger container. Then 
she removed the strings of popcorn and cranberries, her fingertips aching at 
the memory of stringing them, and set them aside to toss outside for the 
birds.

She decided to take a break before tackling the lights. The tree looked 
beautiful like this, half-naked and twinkling merrily. The sight was almost 
hopeful, and, if she squinted, Maggie imagined that she was putting the tree 
up, instead of taking it down, that she was anticipating her children's 
arrival instead of beginning to miss them again.

"Little darling,
It's been a long cold lonely winter.
Little darling,
It feels like years since it's been here.
Here comes the sun."

Cradling her coffee mug in one hand, Maggie peered out the window. Indeed, 
the sun was peeking out of the considerable cloud cover, though the snow had 
yet to begin to melt. They were forecast to receive another few inches before 
the weekend, she knew, but nothing as severe as the holiday ice storm.

Good, Maggie thought. They had planned for her to spend New Year's at Dana's 
apartment, and Maggie didn't relish the idea of driving into DC in a 
blizzard. Too, her daughter's apartment, though spacious for a woman living 
alone, was now crowded by the addition of Liam and Fox, and Maggie hoped not 
to have to spend a night on her daughter's sofa, even if Dana did claim that 
it was more comfortable than Maggie's pull-out.

"Little darling,
I feel that ice is slowly melting.
Little darling,
It seems like years since it's been clear.
Here comes the sun.
Here comes the sun.
And I say it's all right."

Maggie turned back to the wall of photographs, hunting out one of Dana. There 
were several, she saw, but none of Dana with Fox and the baby. Somewhere, she 
knew, she had the pictures she'd taken of Liam as a newborn, of his puffy 
pumpkin Halloween costume and of the Thanksgiving she had spent with her 
daughter's family. She would have to choose one with the three of them to 
frame and squeeze onto her ever-crowding wall of pictures. Plus the photo of 
Liam and Matthew on Santa's lap, Maggie remembered.

She hoped they would all be together next Christmas. Maggie knew it had been 
difficult, and the holiday hadn't exactly gone as she had planned. Yet they 
had all survived those five days, survived them and perhaps were the better 
for them. At least Maggie hoped so.

And she dared to hope that she would see all of them together before next 
Christmas. Maybe in the spring, when Bill, Tara, and Matthew moved back East, 
or in the summer, when Tara had the baby. Was she being greedy wanting Bill 
and Dana to find some peace, to accept each other's choices and each other's 
limitations?

Was she asking too much to hope that Charles might use the plane ticket Dana 
had given him to again come East to visit them? That he might have seen 
something in the family this week that he loved, that he needed?

Was it asking too much to hope that they had all seen it?


* * * * *


"Our parents are never people to us, never, they're always character traits, 
Achilles' heels, dim nightmares, vocal tics, hot tears, all handed down and 
us stuck with them. Our dilemma is utter: turn and look at this woman, 
understand and pity her, like and talk with her... There is only room in the 
lifeboat of your life for one, and you always choose yourself, and turn your 
parents into whatever it takes to keep you afloat." - Anna Quindlen

"I want to love you without clutching, appreciate you without judging, join 
you without invading, invite you without demanding, leave you without guilt, 
evaluate you without blaming, and help you without insulting. If I can have 
the same from you, then we can truly meet and enrich each other." - Virginia 
Satir


* * * * *

End Notes:
Big thanks to Holly and Carrie for beta reading for me (especially Holly, who 
isn't even much of an X-Files fan). Big thanks also to my mom for helping me 
out with details about seven month old babies and four year old boys, for 
letting me know when I let the characters get overly sentimental or overly 
cruel, and for helping me (hopefully) humanize Bill without going overboard.

I started writing this in October, intending to be finished in December, not 
realizing it would grow to epic proportions... well, I guess if Scully can be 
pregnant for a year on the show, then a Christmas story can be sent out in 
February and March. So I thank everyone who read this out-of-season tale, 
especially those who sent me feedback. This is only my second X-Files story 
and the encouragement was very much appreciated. It's reassuring to know, 
when you send out a story that's like a part of you, that it's going 
somewhere safe and loving.

THE END