Subject: Christmas Story - pt.1

From: [email-masked] (Deborah Davis)
Date: 9 Dec 1994 00:37:30 -0700

There is no X-file case in this tale; it's strictly a
relationship story, and it's also bound to disappoint anyone
who's looking for a Mulder-Scully romance.  I just got to
thinking about what can happen to friendships (especially
male-female ones?) as friends' lives change over time.  This
was the result.  I wrote it in one long sitting, which has
NEVER happened for me before, and which serves as my excuse
for any lapses in grammer or spelling.

This is my first posting to this group, and my first fanfic
ever.  I'd love to hear from anyone who has an opinion on
it.  Please let me know if I bungle any of the technical
aspects of posting.
Address comments and flames to:  [email-masked]

The characters are, of course, the property of Chris Carter
and Ten-Thirteen Productions, and no copyright infringement
is intended.

                                                           A
CHRISTMAS STORY -- Part 1

     She found him in a bar, which wasn't entirely unusual.
It *was* unusual that he wasn't alone.  Fox Mulder didn't
ususally go in for office celebrations, but this evening he
and two dozen other agents were celebrating the retirement
of his latest partner, and Mulder thought it only polite to
put in an appearance.  Even if he was the one who'd driven
Agent Salter into an early retirement.
     "Well, it's only three months early, and it's not like
I did anything to him personally," Mulder thought.  It was
just that the X Files -- and maybe Mulder -- were more than
Salter wanted to cope with at this stage of his career.
Salter hadn't been so bad to work with, Mulder reflected.
He was certainly an improvement over the previous partner
Skinner had assigned him, a ladder-climbing rookie who
resented being assigned to the Bureau's "spooky" backwater.
Even with Skinner's support, the X files were clearly not
the place for an ambitious newbie to launch a career, and
Mulder had not been sorry to see the rookie transfer.  He
wished he could convince Skinner to just let him work alone,
but the book said agents work in pairs, and Skinner was
strictly by-the-book.
      Mulder sighed.  He'd worked, on a temporary basis,
with several competent agents, but he doubted any of them
wanted the assignment on a permanently.  Working the X files
required a special person, someone flexible but not
gullible, open -- at least a little -- to extreme
possibilities, and able to cope with having the rational
world turned on its head from time to time.  Plus, Mulder
had his own standards for intelligence, professionalism,
loyalty . . . There had been such a person, not all that
long ago, but these days she worked on the other end of the
continent.  Mulder was thinking of her when he spied hair of
a familiar coppery shade moving through the crowd.
     He couldn't see anything but the top of her head behind
the burly shoulders of the crowd of agents, but the color
was right, and the height. He even thought there was
something familiar about the pace of her movement throught
the crowd.  He had just got to his feet for a better look,
when the crowd parted, leaving them momentarily looking
straight at each other.
     "Close but no cigar," he thought, as he took in the
sharp little features, the lithe figure, the fringed dress
and granny boots Scully would never have worn.   When he saw
that she recognized him and headed straight for his table,
he didn't know whether to be pleased or apprehensive.
     "Hello, Fox."
     "Hello, Melissa," he greeted Scully's sister.
     She looked pointedly at the emptychairs the other
agents had left when they moved to surround the pool table
at the other end of the room.  "Drinking alone?"
     "No, the celebration just moved on without me."  She
kept looking at the chairs until he invited her to sit in
one.  There was something slightly combatative about the way
she was looking at him, he thought, something disapproving.
If Dana looked at him that way, he'd be expecting a lecture
for sure.
     "What can I get you," he asked, signalling the waiter.
     "White wine."
     He smiled.  "Won't it mess up your aura?"  She was
wearing a crystal around her neck, so he figured she was
still into all that New Age junk.
     For the first time, she smiled at him.  "Same old Fox.
I think my aura can handle it."
     While they waited for the drinks, he cast about for
something to say.  He couldn't imagine that they had
anything in common.  "What are you doing these days?"
     "Still running my bookstore."  Mulder pictured one of
those New Age places, with plenty of incense and books on
improving your karma.  "You should come in sometime," she
added, "We have a great science fiction section."  OK, maybe
he'd jumped to conclusions, no incense after all.
     "How's the family?" he asked casually
     "How's the family," she mimicked.  "Oh, Fox, you are
too much!"
     Now, he was puzzled.  "I don't understand. How's Dana?"
     "Fox," and by now he was sure she was using the name
deliberately to annoy him, "Dana is hurt.  You don't call;
you don't return her calls --"
     "That's not true!"  But it wasn't entirely false
either, he thought uncomfortably. "Did she say that?"
     "She didn't have to; she was just evasive when I asked
how you were.  And I could tell she was hurt."
     "Because you're psychic."  He was sarcastic.
     "Because I'm perceptive -- which may be the same thing
a lot of the time."
     For a moment, they glared at each other.
     "Melissa, I've just been --"
     "Busy, yes I'm sure."
     "Look, Dana has a new life in California, a husband, a
career that's finally going somewhere -- believe me, the
last thing she needs is to hear from me."
     "Fine, stay angry."  Abruptly, the fire seemed to go
out of her, and she rose.  "But I wasn't thinking of her
career; I just thought she could use a friend."
     She was three steps away from the table when he caught
up to her and turned her around.
     "What do you mean?  Is something wrong with Dana?"
     She sighed and sat back down.  "If you kept in touch
you'd know.  Daniel's been sick.  They spent all summer
going to doctors.  It's MS."
     "Oh."  He couldn't think of a thing to say.  He thought
of Daniel Seton, the brilliant researcher and writer Dana
had married and moved to California for.  He could guess how
little that man would like becoming disabled or depending on
others.  "What can I do?"
     "You can call her."  Melissa stood up again.  "Better
yet, come for Christmas dinner; she'll be there."  She
headed back into the crowd before he could answer.  Over her
shoulder, she added, "If you get hungry before then, you can
always take me to dinner."
                             ***
     At five a.m., Mulder was sprawled in his desk chair,
staring at his computer screen.  When he slept especially
badly, it was easier to come in early than to sit in his
apartment.  His hands hovered just over the keyboard for the
last few minutes.
     "You are  not going to do this," he told himself.
"It's pathetic."
     But his fingers had a will of their own.  They typed
out the commands to access the Bureau's database
geographically, then entered the code for the Los Angeles
office.  The California offices were even more computerized
than the Washington headquarters.  A staggering amount of
information was available to an agent with his clearance:
statistics, case summaries, agents' field reports.  You
could even look up the reports of a particular agent.
     He pulled up Scully's latest report, impeccably written
and turned in on time as always, and began to read.  He
wasn't much interested in the case, he just liked the
intimate sensation of reading over her shoulder.  He
remembered her reports from their first cases together.
"There is no evidence to support or disprove Agent Mulder's
conclusions  . . .   This agent can neither substantiate nor
refute Agent Mulder's observations .  . . Evidence does not
support his theory . . ."  He skimmed the current report for
phrases that reminded him of her voice, the voice he hadn't
heard since the last message on his answering machine,
months ago.  He hadn't returned her call.
     He glanced at the clock.  He certainly couldn't call
her now; it was the middle of the night in California.
Scully was undoubtedly sleeping peacefully beside her
husband.
     Was he jealous of Daniel?  For the hundredth time, he
raised the charge and acquitted himself.  He wasn't jealous,
at least not as most people understood the word.  He'd never
considered Scully romantically; well, maybe a fantasy here
and there -- who wouldn't? -- but it was nothing serious,
nothing he woud die from.  He didn't begrudge her any
happiness.  He even admired Daniel, a brilliant chemist with
a wide-ranging intellect, who successfully wrote books both
within and outside his field.  Daniel Seton had a sardonic
wit, a keen imagination, and a strong devotion to his work.
He was, as Melissa had once observed, quite a bit like Fox
Mulder -- except that Daniel was not too obsessed with his
work to marry Dana and raise a daughter from his first
marriage.
     No, the only thing he held against Daniel was that he'd
taken Scully away from him.  It still hurt that she could
abandon their partnership and the work they'd done together.
Maybe Scully could be just as happy chasing bank robbers, or
serial skateboarders, or whatever they had out in L.A., but
the X files were Mulder's life.  He'd thought -- hoped --
they'd become just as important to her.  In some childish
part of his mind, he still cherished the dream that, with
Scully's help, he'd find his sister, or at least find out
what happened to her.  His search had become the most
important part of him.  He'd shared it with Scully, and
she'd just dropped it when it became inconvenient.
     He knew that wasn't fair.  In more honest moments, he
knew that she worried about him, worried that no one could
watch his back the way she did.  (She was probably right.)
He remembered her face the day she told him she was leaving.
He could tell she hadn't slept and that she dreaded what she
had to say.
     "Daniel's been building up this lab for twelve years,"
she'd told him.  "Assembling  the staff, gathering the
grants.  It's his vision.  I can't ask him to give that up
when there's a good opening for me in the Los Angelos
office.
     "I never expected this, Mulder.  I never thought anyone
could get between me and my work, but that's the  way it
is."
     She'd asked him to be happy for her, but he hadn't been
able to do it.  He'd tried to say all the appropriate
things, but she knew him too well to be fooled.  He wasn't
sincere; he was simmering with resentment, and that's how
he'd sent her away,  pretending he didn't give a damn where
she went.
     Well, he had a chance to see her again, if that could
make any difference.   If he went.
     He wished it were a different time of year.  For no
good reason, he thought suddenly of a night in the Oregon
wilderness, when they'd sat shoulder to shoulder waiting for
morning, hoping green glowing bugs didn't kill them before
it came.  Was it really easier for him to face death with
someone than Christmas dinner?
     If only Christmas didn't come with all those memories.
     ("Look at my red dress, Fox!  Aren't I beautiful?")
     ("Look at what Santa brought me, Fox!  Will you play
with me?")
     ("Look what I got you -- I made it myself!")
     Christmas brought back the past, and in the past
Samantha was always waiting.
     "Grow up, Mulder," he told himself.  "Think of someone
elses's problems for a change."
     Impatiently, he cleared the field report from his
screen.  He grabbed his jacket and decided to go out for
breakfast.
     *"I just thought she could use a friend."*  That remark
cut into him like a knife. *"If you get hungry before then,
you can always take me to dinner."*  What was that about?
He wondered if he'd find Melissa Scully so annoying if she
wasn't always playing his concience.
     If she wasn't always right.
                            ****