the Great Wall (sequel to Bonsai) by: Lydia Harkness email: xpositions@yahoo.com distribution: Gossamer, Spookys. Anywhere else please email me. spoilers/references: Field Trip, Milagro, Redux II, The Unnatural, Dreamland II, and a reference to Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew. rating: PG (some cussing) classification: S summary: Mulder makes good on his promised birthday gift to Scully. The result is remarkably mundane, but the night is unforgettable. _______ It stretches along undulating mountains and hollow valleys, rising and falling from the Jiayu Pass to the Yalu River in sudden gasps and exhalations of land. Formidable, strong, and eternal, it has crumbled and been restored on countless occasions. Sometimes I think if it ever fell from the pain of time and history, they could clone a couple million Scullys' and just line them up along the path. That'd keep out any invaders the Chinese could incite. It isn't simply because she's made of stone: which she isn't. She is strong. She is timeless. And I know she will always be there. There are times she shuts down and maintains her status quo of emotions with a heartless "I'm fine, Mulder." , but that's not what makes her stone. Because I've also held her as she cried, and though those moments are far too rare, they are also far too real. She may be the Great Wall, but only for reasons I appreciate. Scully has been my protection one too many times, saving me from a fate worse than my own stupidity and single-mindedness. So I can call her the Great Wall, if only to myself. Anyone else who dares utter a nick-name including Ice Queen, Stone Princess, or any number of such epithets I've heard whispered in the administrative assistants lounge will find themselves staring down the end of my Smith and Wesson. And it will be a losing battle. She's my wall. My protection. And inviting her here tonight was completely selfish. If wrapping it up in the excuse of a cheap birthday gift is acceptable to her notion of a platonic friendship, fine by me. I just don't want another night alone. For her or for me. And this is the major problem: if three's a crowd, then five must be a mob. And that's three more people here than I want hanging around when she shows up at six, prompt as always. So I'll call and stall her a bit until the firemen can leave, and the super can storm down the hall, ranting about my too frequent visitors: paramedics, police officers, homicide detectives, bio-hazard crews. It's tough being an FBI agent. It's even harder being the FBI agent no one wants around. I listen into the phone, counting off the rings and praying she hasn't left already. Please, Scully. Just this once be a few seconds late. Ring once, twice, three times. Four times. "Hi this is Dana Scully. I'm not here right now so leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as I can." The paradigm of modern society: wait for the beep. "Hey Scully, it's me. I was hoping I'd catch you before you left but it looks like..." Then miracle of miracles, I hear a double-click, and her voice tumbles back at me across the phone lines. She sounds rushed. "Mulder, what's up?" "Oh. You're home. Well, I was just gonna, uh...I mean...I thought you had left already." "I was just on my way over. Is something wrong?" Too emphatically, "No! I mean yes. I...well...sorta." "What did you do Mulder?" "Nothing...but it's just that pasta doesn't sound so great anymore. "You wanna grab some take out on your way over?" The hesitancy is a bit too apparent, and suddenly I realize what I just did. I made Scully buy her own birthday dinner. Shit. "No problem. Are you sure everything's okay, Mulder?" "Yea, fine. Fine." And dandy. "I'll see you in a while." Click. Fine and fuckin' dandy. _______ "Alright, so just remember, next time..." Jesus, he thinks there'll be a next time? "...try to put out an oil fire with something like baking soda. Water's just gonna feed it, okay?" Okay? No, not okay. A fourth-grader just told me how not to burn down the building. The kid can't be more than twenty-three, and the smile smeared across his face is vomit-inducing. I wish they'd just leave already before Scully got here. But where do you hide a dining room table? Probably in the bedroom you pretend not to have. Once a nice almond colored cheap piece of Ikea crap, my dining room table is singed across the top with black odorous streaks. It's not like I used it anyway. Well, not for anything remotely useful. Like dinner. Or sex. Or dinner and sex. It's vocation was fulfilled through displaying crime scene photos mostly. That and the almost constant presence of the fascinating case files that make up the majority of my reading habits. Mostly. So I burned my dining room table. It could happen to anyone. It could happen to anyone while they waited for company to arrive by making erratic runs from the bathroom to the kitchen, simultaneously boiling water, shaving, and coming up with something caustically witty to say to the prettiest redhead they'd ever seen. Something casually flirtatious. Something she'd catch, but flippantly ignore. That's so Scully. Hell, this is so me. I can live through damn near anything, but boiling water reaches the far edge of my many talents. With a razor in one hand and a bottle of Wesson oil in the other, I was about to toss one into the boiling water. The doorbell rang. I threw one down on the dining room table to grab the door. Ms. Nelson in 43 said something about welcoming a new neighbor into 41. Then her eyes went wide, and I heard a huge 'whoosh.' An Oxford graduate should be more careful when tossing an opened bottle of oil onto a candle-lighted table. Operative word: should. As long as they leave by the time she gets here, I will count myself blessed. And if there is a god.... "Mulder, what's going on?" Never mind. "Hey...Scully." All four heads turn towards my front door, and weighted down by plastic bags and a bonsai tree is that redhead I mentioned earlier. Her hair is slightly damp from the drizzle that began just after she left work this morning. I never got around to finding something witty to say, so instead I smirk and usher the firemen out in to the hallway with a far too casual 'thanks again, guys'. Their job was finished long ago; they just liked gawking at the pathetic evidence of bachelor-hood gone to waste. As they head out the door, the fourth-grader gives Scully the once-over, and she and I exchange smirks. Hers is blatantly promoting the thought that I should light fires more often. "What was that all about?" "Oh, you know...just doing a safety check." "Was that before or after they put out the fire?" She asks, nodding towards my table. "After." "I see. And this would be the result of..." "Faulty wiring." "Mmmhmmm." She doesn't believe me for a moment, but I guess there's too much tact in our relationship for the need to state the obvious. The potent smell of Chinese food ushers us into the kitchen where she begins to unpack the bags. With small, graceful movements she makes herself at home, and I almost feel in the way. I don't think she's ever even been in my kitchen before, but the way she reaches confidently for the dishes...well, second nature wouldn't even be a satisfactory explanation. "So what happened to making dinner Mulder?" "The cook decided to take the night off." "I see. Apparently so did the maid." She finds a half-smile and shows it off as she looks around. I swear I meant to clean up more before she got here. From the last bag she pulls a dark, tall bottle and the sense of sanity I felt slipping earlier returns this time in the form of bemused satisfaction. "Would you like to do the honors?" I nod as she hands me the bottle of wine; her search of my cupboards continues. "Wine glasses, Mulder?" From the top shelf I take down two coffee mugs, and her look says it all. Some perfect night, huh? Sometimes you try too hard, and the result is nothing more than your own good intentions falling to pieces. If I pick them up now, maybe I can make tonight work after all. I excuse myself, intent on making up for our loss of a dining room table, and halfway between the living room and kitchen I stop to turn to see something new. Kitchen Scully. I never realized how comfortable she is here until now. Even at the office, she isn't like this. As she putters about, dishing out food, finding silverware, her movements become gentler and with a grace of someone rested at last. Someone coming home after too long an absence. I've been telling myself the same thing all day, and softly I repeat it to myself: sometimes you invite your partner over for dinner just because that's what partners do. Bullshit. So if I had to choose a favorite Scully alter ego, I think it'd be Kitchen Scully. Make that My Kitchen Scully. From the closet I pull an aged blanket, suffering from too many years in storage. I'd use the blanket resting on my couch, but that's what I'm sleeping in tonight. So picnic style I lay it out on the living room floor; far enough from the entry way to see the obvious mistakes I've already made, but not too far away to smell the evidence of it. Hanging in the air is an invisible and invincible charcoal ash soon replaced by Kung Pao chicken and sweet and sour pork, as Scully ushers our dinner into the living room. She stops short, eyes wide at our makeshift dining arrangements. "You can't be serious." "Come on, Scully. Where's your sense of adventure?" "I was saving it for work tomorrow. I have to keep it on retainer for this job, you know." Sitting down, I pat the spot next to me. My ass already hurts, but I smile anyway. And that's how we celebrate her birthday...cross-legged, eating Chinese and drinking Merlot from mismatched coffee mugs. Outside the once light drizzle sounds more like heavy drops that pelt my window, and slide down in a lazy death. Rain becoming a storm, and thus the setting for our evening. Conversation is periodically punctuated by the sudden rush of heavier rain and a wind that rattles my window with gentle hands. "So how's this birthday been so far?" "Mmmm...not completely intolerable...yet. You saw mom's gift this morning. I think she was expecting me for dinner tonight, but I just wasn't ready to handle her gentle looks of concern." "Concern for what?" "Take a wild guess. I can only stand so many updates on the 'old friends from high school' routine. So-and-so just married. So-and-so just had another baby." Oh god, she's on her period. "I hope this isn't just another thing your mother will be able to hold against me." "Are you kidding? Mom likes you, you know that." "Oh so it's Bill who wants to kick my ass. I keep getting the two confused." Scully smiles and takes another bite of sweet and sour pork and then shoves the food on her plate around a bit. "Even my accountant says I should just get married already." "Why's that?" "Lower tax bracket." "Scully, are you saying the thought that keeps you up late nights isn't the fear of extraterrestrial diseases, government conspiracies, or colonization... you're worried about taxes?" "How's that overdue triple X bill of yours?" "Point well taken. So what about Bill's gift?" She leans forward and turns her head to the side. In all honesty, she looks like she wants a big kiss on the cheek, and it takes me a moment to register the god-awful earring she's wearing. They're not hideous, just not your typical Scully-fare. A size or two too large. A bit too gaudy. Some cubic-zirconia pieces of crap it looks like he picked up in K-Mart at the last minute. Of course, it's easy to hide this, so I nod my head and smile as I take another bite. As she leans back, she looks at me a moment and sighs. "You're right, Mulder. They're pretty bad, aren't they?" As she finishes the last on her plate and sets it aside, she begins to remove the earrings. I like the way her head tilts to the side gently. I like the way her hair hangs when she does that. Okay, so Earring Scully just won out over My Kitchen Scully. Earring Scully holds the sparking pieces in her hand a moment, studying with a gentle smile her brother's humble offering. Actually it looks like he won out over me in the gift department. At least he didn't make her drive through rain to buy her own Chinese dinner to eat on a hardwood floor. With no lights. At first it's just a flicker. A gentle dimming barely recognizable, but then... Fuck. There they go. The apartment goes black. I really should have expected something like this. The only thing I can think is, "Perfect." "The power's out..." She says softly, to herself. Thanks, I didn't notice. "Do you have any candles, Mulder?" I get up and cross over to the window. The only lights visible is from a car heading down the street. "The entire neighborhood is out." How much longer should I wait for another curveball from fate? The only candles I have are a pair of white pillar candles I found in the apartment a few months ago. And no matter how prepared I am for the inevitable, I swear I don't remember ever buying them. As I light the two, a vanilla scent raises it's pungent head and mixes badly with the smell of Chinese food. But it doesn't do too bad for Scully, I must say. Illuminated by the orange glow of candle light, she looks like she belongs in a really classy restaurant. A little black dress. And maybe even gaudy earrings. The fortune cookies never make it out of the bag. Instead we push away our plates, and let the night be. Somehow, for four restless hours, she waits with me. For some remarkable reason, she waits with me: for the lights to come back on or for me to mention something work related. But I swore that off when I invited her here, and tomorrow will be here soon enough. The conversation turns in relaxed circles, never resting but evolving. And somewhat dizzying to it's participants. The bottle was drained long ago, along with any effort on either of us to maintain normalcy. I think we threw that out the window when she got here. A give and take of conversation and silence has dominated the evening, until now. I find myself laying on my side propped up with an elbow, and she mimics my position, facing me. "Mulder, be honest...faulty wiring?" Fine, fine. "A bottle of Wesson oil and a candle...you happy?" "No, now I'm out twenty bucks." "I guess that means I still owe you, huh?" She nods and leans back, finishing the last of her wine. "Big time." "Okay, Scully...while we're being perfectly honest with each other, truth or dare?" "What?!" Incredulity was never her best face, and she looks almost petrified. "You're kidding!" "Come on, come on. Samantha played this with her friends...it's a girl-thing, I know. Truth or dare?" "This is ridiculous." "Truth or dare?" "I haven't played this game in ages..." "Don't make me ask again." "Truth." "Tell me one thing I don't know about you." "Isn't that a dare?" Her evasiveness is almost charming. "I mean, c'mon Mulder...what can we possibly not know about each other?" Rather than trying to explain the motivation, I ask again. Scully may fight my logic, but not my stubbornness. She carries it with her too, and it's a mutual characteristic we've each grown to tolerate. "Tell me one thing I don't know about you." She sighs as her eyes graze the ceiling. Going back in time always requires an upwards glance, I don't know why. Just another mystery of human nature. "Jesus, Mulder. I don't know." "Fine then, I'll go first." She starts a bit, then sets her eyes on mine, with a challenging glare. Daring me to question her knowledge of my heart. I lower my voice, and lean forward for full dramatic effect. "I'm actually only right 74.9% of the time. I did the math." The fear on her face I swear I saw playing there is chased off by a girlish smile. Scully must have been a cute kid. "Mulder, I already knew that." "Too late. Your turn." She takes a deep breath, and in the darkness I still see her eyes dancing. Making Scully laugh is an art. The only sane talent I can still claim, with pride. I make her look like a kid again. After countless pains, horrific losses, terrible encounters with disease, I can make her smile. It's quite a feat, to erase six years of pain in her mind, and for a moment make her naïve again. Smiling Scully. Earring Scully just got booted down a level on my list of favorite alter-egos. At last, after waiting an eternity for her presumably ridiculous response, she speaks. "My middle name is Katherine." Well no shit. "Oh come on, Scully. I thought you had more confidence in my intelligence than that." "You didn't let me finish." With renewed emphasis, she starts again. "My middle name is Katherine. I was named after Katherine Baptista of Padua." I'm still completely lost, and I wonder if she isn't as well. What was in that wine she brought? "My mother was the romantic in the family, and wanted to name one of us for a heroine, but dad wouldn't hear of it. So she settled for a heroine with more...modern attributes." Suddenly it dawns on me. "So they named you after Shakespeare's..." "Taming of the Shrew." "And how'd they know?" "Know what? How shrewish I'd be?" "Scully if there's one thing you're not, it's a shrew. I meant headstrong, independent, stubborn...." "Sounds like someone else I know." "Surprisingly my parents were just as prophetic in their choice of a name." The same winter blue eyes that sought my ceiling for a sign earlier rise once more in incredulity. "Don't say it, Mulder." Quit while you're ahead, right? The silence seems to stiffen under the miniscule revelations only best friends can truly appreciate. And then, despite the rain streaking my window, I feel the weight of the air. It seems more humid. The presence of heat is stiff and unforgiving. With a downward smile, I suddenly realize how close we are. Facing each other like this has left me with a numbness in my left arm, and the fact that I must be getting older only worsens the feeling. I wonder if Scully feels this old. With a sigh I lean back onto the blanket, careful to avoid the dirty dishes and inappropriate mugs stained at the bottom with a red flavor that still lingers on our lips. Her turn. "Truth or dare?" Always a man after the truth, I choose the first. "Why did you invite me here tonight?" She's still facing me, leaning on an elbow but with her eyes far away. This time they memorize the stitches in the blanket. If her voice had been any softer, I might have let her question throw me. But there's something playful in the inflection of her voice that sets me at ease. My earlier stance flings itself back at me: Sometimes you invite your partner over for dinner just because that's what partners do. I wonder if she'd buy that. "After seven years together, never knowing who to trust or which lies to believe....I guess after seeing everything we've seen and facing all that we have...I guess I just needed a night to feel normal. I don't know why Scully, but maybe I just needed to convince myself that in spite of it all, we're still human. Alive." For a moment the lights flicker on and then off again, terminating what would have been horrible timing. Somewhere in the building the power was trying to come back on, and through sheer will of mind, I was keeping it from returning. The darkness had never been so comfortable. "Thank you, Mulder. It's a wonderful birthday gift." A gift? I feel like the kid who buys his friend a toy just because he wants to play with it. I could have done nothing more selfish than invite her here tonight. Then again...maybe I can. "Stay." "What?" "Stay here Scully." "It's already late enough Mulder." She sits up and reaches for her shoes. "It's almost midnight and we have to work tomorrow. I should go." There's no way I can force her, and insisting will only stiffen her reserve. So I sit up too and lay a hand on her shoulder, which sags at my touch. Fear or reluctance? Probably both. With the childish eyes she reserves for only the most difficult situations, she looks at me. "I had a really nice time tonight. I did. But I think it's already too late. Please Mulder, don't drag this out." "Just stay five more minutes." "Why?" Without a word I lay back down on the blanket. She sighs and slaps her shoes back down on the floor. Manipulating Scully wouldn't be so much fun if I didn't think she liked being manipulated. Then, leaning back, she lays down next to me, her hair tracing magical curves along my arm. We lay there in the darkness, a figurative setting for the darkness of the past seven years spent together. I wonder when the light will return. Passivity will become our livelihood, and reluctance to seek will become our past-time. Then the light of lies, suddenly being flicked on, will blind us with it's intensity. It will welcome us back to reality; back to the average life. Flukemen and liver-eating 100 year olds a dim recollection in the passage of time. I think I'll stay in the dark as long as I can. As long as she stays with me. The sound of her breath massages itself into my brain, and mixes there with the sound of falling rain. I close my eyes for a moment, and before I can find the sleep that normally evades me every night, I hear a sharp cry from Scully. Her tickling wisps of hair brush against my arm and are gone. "Mulder...look." With an arm outstretched, she's pointing towards my singed table. Against the black charcoal remains of pasta gone horribly wrong... amidst the common absence of light that plagues us, and now a perfect moment interrupted, her bonsai tree bloomed. The shockingly brazen pink bloom no larger than a quarter sits on the very tip of a branch. Sitting delicately, showing off it's elusive blush. It's a silent giggle. It's a raucous flirtation with color. The proof that even beautiful things bloom in the strangest places. A pink Japanese bloom contrasted with the sickly, twisted branches seem a perfect parallel for an eternal trust and friendship contrasted with the dreary fluorescent lighted basement. Neither of us go to it, but let it sit in peace. We watch in reverence, and I wonder if Scully's thinking the same thing. No, probably not. She's probably wondering what's wrong with her mother, giving her such a strange gift. She's probably wondering what's wrong with her partner, begging her to stay past midnight. Poor Scully. Poor Dana, actually. She's the one who never had her chance at a normal life, and this is my gift to her. Hey Scully. Let me make up seven years of UFO chasing, conspiracy hunting and life-deprivation with a pasta dinner. Which I screw up royally. Happy freakin' birthday. Here's some take-out Chinese food. "Why that, Mulder?" she asks. "Why did your mom have a bonsai tree?" Sitting up, I see Martha's Vineyard again, and it isn't until the lump in my throat subsides that I dare answer. "It was after Samantha was taken, and I think mom just needed something to throw herself into." That claw- like plant synonymous with so many emotions and too few memories winks at us as already a petal falls to the table. "I hated it." "Why?" "I don't know...I didn't understand what had happened. It seemed too inconsequential. Meaningless in the face of Samantha's..." I'd finish the sentence, but don't quite know how. From the corner of my eye her head bounces, knowingly. "And then they bloom." My turn to nod. She stifles a yawn as I lay back down again. 11:45. This night moves too quickly, and I regret I only made her promise to stay until midnight. I expect her shoes to be slipped back on, her thankful smile to shine back at me and then leave me alone in the darkness. I wait for her kind and friendly 'thank-you.', and a 'see you tomorrow'. I think the fact that she lays back down next to me changes everything about that moment. Her head on my shoulder and a hand lightly placed on my stomach. On a moment of impulse, my words break the silence with a simplicity that surprises even me. "Kiss me Kate." Spoken into the top of her head, the words move my breath across her forehead and ruffle the few errant strands of hair that have fallen across my arm. The silence scares me, and I worry that she didn't hear me. Then I worry that she did. 'Kiss me Kate'. And she does. Her head upturns towards mine, and before we can scare each other away as we have so often in the past, her lips touch mine with a friendliness befitting the kiss of a sister, a mother. Her kiss is little more than a physical thank-you-note for honesty. For trust. For friendship. But it lingers one moment too long, and it evolves...into what I always expected a kiss from her to be. Fluttering and painfully soft, her lips permeate the moment with an irrevocable action. They part, intimately, before she breaks the kiss with a look of gentle surprise and detached embarrassment. I can see her eyes even in the darkness, and on my lips I taste the spiciness of her mouth. Kung Pao Chicken. We stare for a moment, acknowledging our mutual temporary insanity. I want to say something...but what do you say? Nothing fits that moment, and instead she returns to her place in the crook of my arm. I watch as her breasts rise and fall, and thank God for that proof: she's alive. It's an odd thing to think, I know it. But I can feel her breath and her heartbeat, and the fact that she breathes is a revelation. So she's not stone after all. The silence descends once more, despite our thoughts that scream at us internally. A minute passes, then two. We watch the lights pass outside as they dance upon my ceiling. We watch our hearts sink into the comfort of each other. We lay there, and I swear I'll never move again. Then something. A quickened movement from Scully catches my eye; a small burst of energy that rushed forth and then retreated once more. A catching in her throat, and a heave of her chest. A silent sob escaping her, contorted by her need to control it. Without words passing or even a look exchanged, I can close my eyes and know what she fears. It's tomorrow, looming horribly before us. The clock reads 11:57. Three minutes till midnight. Three minutes till tomorrow. I know, Scully. I know. I've been fearing it too. The time when our rut returns, and the drudgery of our denial overtakes us. Professionalism. Stoic glances. Purely platonic partners. Thursday. That's hell. That's what tomorrow will bring. Us, the same as we were yesterday and the day before. I look down at Scully, and from the heavy eyelashes, I can tell she's closed her eyes. The shiny trail skirting along her cheek is beginning to fade. Yes, even in the darkness I watch a tear, evaporating with tonight... A car passes outside and plays it's dance of light on my ceiling. A red and white ballet. 11:58. In defiance I close my eyes. I can't make tomorrow go away, but I can make tonight linger a bit. I think I can keep her here. In the humming silence of a fourth floor apartment, we sleep amidst the tension of seven years released into the air. It lingers and then sings us to sleep with it's familiar lullaby. The sound of her breathing synchronizes with mine: she breathes out so I can breathe her in. Sleep descends under the cover of a rain-drenched night. With an arm draped across my stomach and one tangled in her red mess, I grasp tonight. Eventually it slips, as the clock crosses to 12:01. _______ Absence wakes me. It nudges me with the reminder that something I once held has flown, seeking sleep somewhere else. 4:00 a.m. in the morning, and she's gone. I'm tempted to think of it as a dream. Just another one to list among the many I've had of her. Remembrance of last night is nothing more than a caress at the corner of my mind: a whisper of simplistic moments, bound in their importance. The left side of my body, once warmed and comforted by a presence feels cold and empty. Lifeless. Sitting up, I roll my head side to side and try to shake the prickling feeling from my left arm. Across the room on my singed dining room table a slip of pink laughs at me. It's a haughty color. A jubilant feeling emanating from it through my dank and darkened apartment is absurdly genuine. Eventually I gather the strength to cross the distance to it. A single petal sits lazily. Scully's things are gone: her shoes, her coat, and her tree. All that's left of last night is the bloom's petal. Reverence overtakes me, and I fear picking it up. It would only crumble in my clumsy grasp. Shatter at my harsh touch. So there it lays, pink amidst the charcoal black. Softness amidst the grainy texture of burnt wood. It's a petal. A slice of her soul A shred of last night. It's a chunk of her wall. Because last night someone broke down the Great Wall. I'm 74.9% sure it was me. _______ END The Great Wall