TITLE: Full Reward AUTHOR: Bonetree (Bonetree@aol.com) RATING: R/NC-17 KEYWORDS: Post-Col, Vignette, Angst, Implied CD SUMMARY: After the end of all things, how would you choose a beginning? TIMELINE: Set after season 9. Written for the Beat the Heat Secret Santa Fic Challenge on E- muse. Thanks to Emma Brightman for being such a great recipient! Thanks to Dani, Shari and Revely for the betas, as always. ****** And I heard a voice in the heavens above me saying, "Write this down: At last the time has come for his martyrs to enter into their full reward. Yes, says the Spirit, they are blest indeed, for now they shall rest from all their toils and trials; for their good deeds follow them to heaven..." Revelations 14:13 (Catholic translation) KELSO'S CHEVRON AND TRUCK STOP WHY?, ARIZONA DECEMBER 22, 2012 5:35 a.m. Outside, a rickety sign made of tin swung on a chain, the sign accepting credit and urging you to pay before you pump -- "Or Else." Country music, the seemingly one constant in the universe for the last two years of her life, drifted to Scully on the smoky white smell of overcooked bacon, the screen door separating the entrance to the truck stop letting the sound and the smell out to the parking area where she stood, her hands visoring her eyes against the morning light coming up over the mountains. The horizon, cut by the undulations of mountains covered with scrub brush and trees that bent at strange angles like women going down on their knees, was white. The sun was hidden behind the mountains. She leaned a bit more to one side to press against the person next to her, the now-familiar shape warm and close. The last stretch of driving had been thirty hours or more. They'd backtracked even though there was no need for evasion at this juncture, no need for anything except to stand outside and watch the morning come. She had much to be thankful for. She and Mulder able to stay out of harm's way -- or at least harm's...intentions...for all these years. Ten years of running, the running becoming so rote at this point they'd managed to cobble a life from it, the moments of their lives literally measured out on coffee spoons, in white mugs with chips on their lips, roadside diners, the ubiquitous signs of Route 66. The past six months they'd measured their time in the lengths of lovemaking, the days they'd stopped off exits they'd never seen, signed in sleepy motels in Desert Center, Hope, Laughlin, Laramie. A town in Montana she could not remember but where she did recall they'd stayed with their bodies joined for what felt like days, something urgent and deeply moving and desperate, the crease of Mulder's eyebrows as he'd pushed into her, again and again, the sweat that slicked them, the cry she'd held back, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. She'd come and come, feeling him warm and wet inside her, everything else, for a few days at least, falling away like leaves, leaves off an impossibly tall and dying tree. Under the false identities made for them years ago (Frohike had thought of everything, even his own death), covered with an untraceable and fraudulent credit capture program. Their card was designed to seek a number at random when it was run, grab it off the database of millions, the Paypal site paying for anything they needed and them gone before the breech could be discovered. The next use, the card would access a new account, and so on, and so on... Eden Bank, the card read in white letters. Byers had even put a tree in the corner of its blue, worn shape. The serpent around it winked. Ten years they'd gone just like this. A bit less than ten now. Since October, William had been with them, and things had not been the same as they'd been before. They could not be, given what their son had become. He'd left the farm in North Dakota on his own, his parents -- kind people with worn faces embracing the boy, who was nearly identical to this father in so many ways. There were suitcases by the door when Mulder and Scully had arrived, Mulder squeezing her hand as they'd climbed from the battered Explorer, come up the walk from the turnaround. The door had opened without a knock, an man about Mulder's age standing there. "We've been waiting for you," the man said. "He's been waiting." And he stepped aside to reveal a young man -- tall for his age, mussed black hair and eyes as blue as the sea. His hands were shaking. "Mother," he said to Scully, and her heart had turned in her chest as though it trapped a soft, white bird. The boy looked at Mulder, a quirk of a smile. "Father," he said, and Mulder, struck dumb by the word, said nothing for a beat. "William," Mulder began at last, stepping forward, but the boy shook his head, raised a hand, two fingers outstretched, said simply: "Time to go." *** The sun was getting brighter over the mountains now, but the music inside continued unabated. A waitress chastised a trucker for drinking too much coffee too early. Someone laughed. A pause and a new song started. "I've Got Friends in Low Places." "Look," William said from beside her, his hand touching her back, his hand closing down on the round of her shoulder. He pointed a long finger toward the sky, still wearing its crown of starlight, and she watched as within it two stars seemed to fall, streaking white. Just as they began to arc toward the ground at their impossible speed, they pulled up suddenly, rounded as if in some formation, heading toward them. Miles off, but heading toward them. "They are coming," William said. "Father." He said it with unearthly calm. "Get Father." Scully borrowed her son's calm, the evenness of his voice, flat and serene as a monk's. She reached out and took his hand -- large, knobs for knuckles as though he'd been working his whole life with wood. She squeezed, and turned away. A bell jingled as she swung open the screen door with a creak and it slammed shut behind her. Mulder was at the counter, shoveling in a dry patch of eggs, a cup of coffee before him. The time and the weight of things and the exposure -- years in the sun -- and his face was deeply lined, his hair shot with gray at the temples. He was lean and his arms rounded with muscles, his shirt-sleeves tight. He'd taken to wearing glasses the past few years, wire-rimmed and professorial, and they seemed to bring out his hazel eyes even more than before. His fork froze halfway to this mouth as he turned to look at her, taking her in. She could feel his eyes drinking her in as they'd done more and more often in the past few weeks, through November and the cool-down of the desert, time growing short. When he looked at her he appeared to be memorizing her. She pushed her long hair, its red faded to an ashy blonde tinged with the color she'd had before, behind her ears self- consciously, a shy smile. Her eyes were sad and somehow resigned. "It's time," she said softly, just loud enough to be heard above the music, the laughter of the waitress clanking down the glass dome over an immense pie. "Time." *** "William," she said once the three of them were outside, and she felt her son's eyes, their blue, turn to her. "You wish to know how this will happen," William replied, standing between them. "You wish to know what you will need to do." "Yes," Mulder said from his other side. The streaks of white were coming closer, like shreds of cloud, like fingers. Behind them, way off toward the East, they could see a glow like fire. William was silent. His eyes turned back to the horizon. There was a small smile on his face. Scully took a step forward, giving her a view of Mulder's face. His jaw was working, muscles taut. A rumbling had started far away, seeming to come up beneath the ground. From inside, the music stopped and people began to slowly file out, their faces blank. As though they had only eyes and no mouth. Finally Mulder moved to stand before William. He took William's shoulders and dropped himself down to a knee, bringing his son with him. "You know what's going to happen," he said, looking up into his son's face. "You know everything, don't you?" William's eyes moved almost reluctantly from the orange and white trails, down into his father's face. "Yes," he said. "They have visited me in my dreams for as long as I can remember. They've spoken to me in a thousand languages." He smiled softly. "When I was a child they sung to me, told me...everything." "What's going to happen to us?" Mulder said urgently, looking around at the people wreathed out behind him, all murmuring, pointing. "Them? Us?" William remained silent, looking down at him. "Don't be afraid, Father," he said. "You and Mother will be safe." "But HOW, William?" Mulder snapped, shaking his son's shoulders. The sound was growing closer. The ground began to shake. Several people behind them began to flee toward the trucks and cars, calling "earthquake," calling "fire." William smiled, his face a puzzle. "You have your memories," he said softly. The wind kicked around them, dust from the desert and the dry sound of brush against brush. "Both of your memories will save you." "Us?" Mulder said incredulously. "What about you, William?" He shook his son's shoulder a bit harder. "What about YOU?!" The sound grew to a roar, as if the head of a lion was coming upon them. They could see behind the white now, behind the dots at the front of the stream, a tail of black smoke, of fire. The others had fled. Scully held her ground, her hand in William's. "I will be with you," William said. "Then and again. Mother understands." Mulder's eyes shot up, the heat coming. "Scully, what's going on??" he said. "How--?" Scully looked at William, at him. "They won't kill us, Mulder," she said, forcing calm. "They're taking William, but they won't kill us." "Where the fuck are we supposed to go?" Mulder shouted over the sound. His shirt flapped around his middle like a flag. "There's nowhere, Scully! Nowhere! Look at this! We've got no future here! NOTHING!" "No future," Scully said, nodding. "Time's gone, Mulder. Gone as we know it." "WHAT?" "We've got no future, but we have our past." "Scully, what are you talking about?" He rose now and stood before her. "It's me," she said, pushing her hair back against the wind, the heat. "What I've been through, what you've been through...by giving them him," she gestured to William, "We've been spared. We're getting our reward...our full reward." "I won't lose him again," Mulder said, choked. The heat made it hard to breathe. Small trees were falling. Scully smiled sadly. "He was never ours to lose, Mulder." Mulder balled his fists, felt William's hand on his arm, the boy's hand trailing down his father's arm to his hand, which he gripped. "I will see you again, Father. What they're giving you...it's meant as a consolation. But it can be another chance..." And then, in a flash of light, impossibly bright, William vanished. Scully could still feel William's hand on her shoulder, knew Mulder could feel his hand against his palm. Behind them, the Chevron burst into flame. A wall of fire was moving over the mountains, rushing them. The wind was hot, hot as hell. Scully grabbed Mulder, dragged him down to his knees. They pressed into each other, her face beneath his chin. "I've got to concentrate..." she told herself. "Concentrate...the right time...the right place..." "Concentrate on what?" Mulder called to her, the wind whipping around them, sand pelting their skin. "Scully, tell me! Where are we going? How do we know?" Scully smiled slightly against his throat. "It's my choice," she said. "Mine..." The fire climbed the rise to the lot, flying toward them. Mulder looked at it, gripped her close. "Hold on," he said, calm in the face of the Inevitable, as he'd always been. "Here it comes." She leaned her face up, the fire behind him, and found his lips. A kiss, her eyes on his. "I choose," she whispered, a second before. And the fire took them. **** Heels on a linoleum floor. Corridor after corridor after corridor. Down an elevator, down a hallway into the dark. A door. She pushed through it. He was there, his back to her, bent over slides. She listened to it all, every nuance. "...so highly regarded..." "...sent to spy on me..." Then it changed. Mulder turned, looked at her, blinked behind his glasses. "Agent Scully?" he said softly. He sounded puzzled. "Yes, Agent Mulder?" she replied. "We've..." Mulder struggled for words, pushed back from the table, looked her up and down and settled on her face, her eyes. "We've met before." Something clenched in her chest. (He knew...) "Yes," she said softly. "Yes, we have." He looked confused, but nodded. "I can't remember when," he said softly. "I'm sorry." She gave him a small smile. "I remember," she said. He nodded. "Let's...go get a cup of coffee," he said. "And you can tell me all about it. How's that?" That smile. William's. It would be William's again. "That would be nice," she said, and now he smiled, as well. Shy and cautiously pleased. He shouldered into his jacket, grabbed his keys, then led her to the elevator. They got inside, standing a few inches apart, Mulder glancing at her, Scully glancing back. She reached out, touched his hand, and they rose. **** END