HALO (1/1)
By: Annie Sewell-Jennings (Auralissa@aol.com)

DISCLAIMER: The characters of Margaret Scully and Dana Scully do 
not belong to me, and neither does the character of Fox Mulder. 
They're the property of Ten Thirteen Productions.

SUMMARY: A mother and a daughter.

CATEGORY: VA.

RATING: PG.

KEYWORDS: Mulder/Scully UST.

SPOILERS: US6.

ARCHIVE: This piece will be put on my website, then on ATXC, and 
then XAPEN. If you would like to archive it, you can e-mail. Do 
not archive to Gossamer.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is dedicated to my mother, who has a spirit 
that I marvel at and dreams beyond imagination. Thank you, Mom, 
for making me look at the moon.

Thanks also to my editors, Kristin Pohaski and Heather Stone. 
I appreciate your helping hands. And a little thank-you 
goes out to Mom Shirley -- You're divine. :)

*****

HALO

*****

Scully wondered when her mother had regained her youth, and when 
her mother had become so beautiful. Was it only recently, or had 
it always been there, slumbering and waiting underneath the 
stars, until the moonlight and the beach brought it out of her in 
a flush of prettiness and loveliness? When had Margaret Scully 
started to twinkle, and how come Scully hadn't been there to 
notice her mother's beauty?
	
Sitting in the passenger seat, Scully folded her hands and 
watched her mother drive the red LeBaron convertible through 
Folly Beach. It was nice to take this little week off of her job 
to spend some time with her mother, and when her mom had 
suggested taking a little drive down to Charleston, it had been a 
welcomed trip. Scully was used to travel, but not to beautiful 
places and quaint hotels. She was used to long, bantering, quirky 
drives with her partner, not warm, companionable scenic routes 
and the Intracoastal Waterway. And she wasn't used to hearing her 
mother talk; really talk.
	
Because Margaret was a wonderful woman. She was quietly 
intelligent, with a wisdom that had been gained through a 
thousand different dreams and experiences. A carefully stitched 
quilt of heartache and discord, and locked inside of her heart 
were a million dreams that Dana was certain she would never be 
able to comprehend. A woman's heart was locked away with a 
million silent disappointments; she knew that now from personal 
experience. And no one suffered like a woman could. 
	
The top was down; it was warm enough and humid enough for the 
wind to blow and for it not to bite. It was tame, amiable, and 
contented. The radio was turned off, though throughout the trip 
down South it had played Debussy and Verdi lightly, just as a 
backdrop to the conversation. And along the way, Margaret had 
done most of the talking, and Scully had quietly listened. 
Listening to her mother had become the best conversation anyway; 
because her mother was a veritable fountain of advice.
	
It was late, rounding one o'clock in the morning, but Scully 
didn't mind. Not when the wind was cool and gentle 
instead of crisp and biting as it had been in Nebraska on the 
last case she'd worked. Everything was gentler in South Carolina, 
from the voices to the flight of birds. It was as though everyone 
had a wiser lifestyle, and as though there were a million 
heartaches perforating the air that Southerners breathed. 
Briefly, Scully wondered when she had become so old.
	
Leaning her arm on the side of the rented convertible, Scully 
perched her chin on it, and let her mother quietly drive. The 
headlights cast an eerie light on the palmetto trees that flashed 
by, and small, oddly designed beach houses with their widow's 
walks and stilts sat. "Do you know that I used to have picnic 
lunches with you and your brothers and sister when Bill was 
stationed down here for those three months?" Margaret asked, a 
faraway smile on her face. Scully turned her head a little, 
watching her mother's silver-lighted dark hair flutter and ruffle 
in the wind. In the nighttime, it was nothing more than a flicker 
and flash of raven, and her eyes were as black as the nighttime 
ocean.
	
"I remember them," Scully murmured, a soft smile crossing her 
face. "Dad would spread the picnic blanket on the sand, always 
too close to the shoreline, and we'd keep having to pick up 
everything and move it back closer to the dunes so that we 
wouldn't get hit by the incoming tide."
	
Margaret smiled. "Bill always wanted to challenge the tides," she 
fondly said, and then her voice softened to a lower level. "But 
you have to work with the tide, you have to cooperate with it. 
It's a relationship, you know... Bill always told me that."
	
"But it's not a contest," Scully agreed, picturing Mulder's 
frustrated eyes, as dark as golden sands at sunset and as 
infuriating as the constantly pushing and falling tide. "You have 
to give and take, and compromise in order to get what you want 
out of it. And sometimes, that means staying closer than the 
dunes to let the tide settle."
	
With a smile tugging at her lips, Margaret turned toward her 
daughter and nodded. "Exactly," she said, and Scully met her 
mother's eyes. Both them understood completely, and it was nice 
to have that kinship there. They both had to compromise, to give 
and take, but there were times when it was necessary to battle 
with the tide. Because there were times when the tide wanted to 
take everything.
	
From out of the corner of her eye, Scully could see the white-
capped waves brushing against the shore with long, elegant 
strokes. They washed and crashed, soft at the fingertips with a 
soul as wild as the deep blue sea. A soft, knowing smile tugged 
at her lips, and she missed Mulder. 
	
Civilization began to flee from them, and Margaret pointed to a 
narrow, quiet strip of land. "Do you see how the houses shy away, 
and there's nothing but marshland and ocean surrounding the 
road?" she asked, and Scully nodded, looking at the bare outlines 
of the marsh in the pale lighting. "That's where I want to live 
one day." Margaret smiled and brushed a hand through her tousled 
chestnut mop. "I always wanted to live there, but we traveled 
so..." She cut herself off. "I could live there now, but I want 
to be close to my children." She wanted to look after Dana,
and Dana understood that. And though it hurt her to know that her 
mother was sacrificing, there was a shameful satisfaction in knowing 
that she would always have her mother close by. Close enough to call 
after a nightmare, or close enough to go over and hug when she 
needed a good cry.
	
Mothers were soft, understanding creatures, and they would always 
tell the truth. Scully had always been a daddy's girl, but 
recently, she was discovering that her mother had a heart that 
held so much more than she had ever believed possible. Like she 
used to play the guitar when she was young, and she wanted to 
live on the marsh in South Carolina. With a fond, kind hand, 
Scully reached out and petted her mother's hair. "You shouldn't 
worry about me," she murmured. "I can take care of myself... You 
should live where you want to."
	
Margaret turned a little toward her remaining daughter, and her 
older, callused hands threaded through Dana's silky red hair 
lovingly. "It's beautiful by the marsh," she admitted, "but it's 
not as beautiful as my children."
	
Scully smiled, kissed her mother's hand, and then wondered if 
that was just another sacrifice that mothers made. She had to 
live through her mother, had to experience those little things as 
she did, because Scully would never be able to sacrifice her 
dreams and her marsh for a daughter or a son. She couldn't even 
sacrifice her job or her life for her Emily.
	
So Scully watched her mother and hoped that she would have been 
as good as Margaret. She knew that Mulder would have been as dear 
as Bill.
	
"Why there?" Dana asked, and Margaret's smile broadened when 
thinking about it.
	
"Because you could watch the sunset on one side and the sunrise 
on the other."
	
Tilting her head on the headrest, Scully smiled wistfully at the 
spot that her mother had claimed out for her own when Scully had 
probably been no older than seven, and vowed that her mother 
would one day have her dream before she died. Her mother deserved 
that marsh. She deserved her dawns and dusks. Breathing in the 
clean, crisp, unique marsh scent, she felt her lungs inhale 
something more pure than work, than a quest, than the truth 
itself -- It was her mother's dream.
	
"That's beautiful, Mom."
	
They continued to drive, the sea on one side and the marshland 
and river on the other. Scully leaned her chin on her arm, a 
small smile on her lips, and thought about feeling dreamy. It was 
wonderful to let her heart set free, just aimlessly wander, and 
to let her hair wind and twine in the continuous wind. Her lids 
drooped a little, and it was soft and sweet enough to almost lull 
her into sleep. Instead, she just lay there, smiling in that 
place between dreams and consciousness, her mind fluttering past 
problems and logic into the territory of the heart.
	
She felt her mother's hand ruffle her hair, and Dana leaned into 
it just a little, always wanting to be the mother's child even 
when she had to be the adult in control. It was hard to be 
responsible all the time, especially in the world today. It was 
nice to be able to relinquish power and just be a daughter now 
and then, and to let her mother tell her stories of when she had 
been innocent, before conspiracies and murders and threats of 
colonization.
	
Finally, the car stopped in a small cul-de-sac, and Margaret 
passed her palm over Dana's forehead. "I never knew that Folly 
was so long," she murmured, and Scully lifted her head so that 
she could glance at her mother. "But this is the end... You can 
see the water from here, you know."
	
"Do you want to go walk on the beach, Mom?" Dana asked, and 
Margaret smiled, shaking her head. 

"No, I'd just like to sit here for a little while," she said, and 
Scully smiled obligingly.

Her hand covered Dana's, and Scully looked down at their hands. 
Similarly shaped, small and able, though there were lines and 
veins that weren't made visible yet on Dana's. But there were the 
roots of what she was, found in the genes and fingers of Margaret 
Scully. She often wondered about all the different things that 
made people unique, and wondered about the origins of each of 
those tiny little facets. Like her love for blueberries or how 
she liked the smell of cinnamon.
	
How many of these things were Margaret, too...
	
Sighing, Margaret leaned back in her seat, and lifted her eyes to 
the sky, where there were a thousand twinkling stars and a 
million unnamable constellations. "How many stars do you think 
there are, Dana?" Margaret asked, and a little ache settled in 
her chest at the sound of her mother calling her Dana. When she 
was with her mother, she was that little girl again asking for a 
cup of water before she went up to bed, or the young woman crying 
in her mother's arms because she just couldn't figure out the way 
the world worked. The rest of the time, she was Scully, the 
controlled and the capable. But Margaret made her Dana again, and 
it was relieving to have that part of herself all over again.
	
Above her, a galaxy twinkled brightly, and Scully smiled. "I 
think that there are just enough stars in the sky," she murmured, 
and Margaret caressed her daughter's wrist with a thumb. 
	
"You always had such a way with words," she said, and Dana was a 
little surprised. "No matter what you saw, you always had the 
most beautiful way to describe it. So eloquent, even when you 
were nothing more than a baby." She tilted her head on the 
headrest. "You still are, Dana. I'm very proud of you."
	
Scully thought of the thousands of wrongs she'd done, of the 
multitude of mistakes she'd made of the years, and of her million 
secret shames, and wondered what made a mother see past them to 
find a gem of a woman. She wished that she knew herself as well 
as her mother knew her. "That means a lot, Mom," she whispered, 
and the stars were silver smiles in the sky.
	
Then her mother smiled and turned her face. "Now you have to look 
at the moon," she whispered. "It's what I brought you out here to 
see."
	
Scully turned her head to the moon and gasped, for there it was, 
full and glorious, rounded and radiant, glistening over the 
breaking waves of the Atlantic. Surrounding it was a halo, 
resplendent and hearty, a shade less marvelous than the silver 
color and glitter of the moon itself. It was crowned in a wreath 
of moonlight, and Scully sighed at the beauty of it. "Oh, Mom," 
she said, feeling no more than twelve in the old grace of the 
moon, "it's beautiful."
	
While Scully lay there, enraptured by the halo around the moon, 
Margaret spoke, her voice as wispy as the misty light that seemed 
to encase the moon. "I found it tonight, at the gas station, and 
as I was walking out, there it was. It was so beautiful, I had to 
share it with somebody. So, I saw another man who gassing up his 
car, and I smiled at him and said, 'Did you look at the moon 
tonight?'
	
"'Now that's a terribly romantic thing to say,' he said to me, 
but I didn't mind. I just smiled and asked again until he looked 
up and gasped. 'Oh, it's gorgeous,' he said, and I just looked at 
him.
	
"'I guess it wasn't romance after all, now was it?' I asked, and 
he just laughed and looked at the moon." Margaret's hand brushed 
over Dana's cheek, her fingers touching her daughter's face and 
finding the lips that were so similar to her own. "Some things 
are just so beautiful that you have to share them with somebody, 
even if it's a stranger. But it's so much nicer when it's a 
friend, or maybe a loved one."
	
Scully wondered where Mulder was that night, if he was sitting in 
his apartment gazing up at the crowned moon, and if he was 
thinking of her, too. For a moment, she could envision his 
profile chiseled in silvery moonlight, and her heart felt a 
little twinge for him. "I couldn't agree with you more, Mom," she 
whispered, and Margaret's fingers swept loose strands of red 
behind Dana's ear. Scully always did that, always brushed her 
hair behind her ear, and she smiled to think that she had 
inherited that from her mother.
	
"I think it's getting late," Margaret then said, and she started 
up the car again. But before she could start to drive away, 
Scully clasped her mother's hand.

"I love you," she said, and Margaret leaned over to kiss her 
cheek.

"I love you, too."

Margaret then drove back down the strip of land between marsh and 
beach, while Scully's eyes followed the moon all the way back 
home. All the while, Margaret's hand enclosed her younger 
daughter's, and Scully thought about how similar their hands 
were.
	
And maybe how similar their hearts were, too.

*****

The ringing of the telephone startled Mulder from his slumber, 
and he rolled over on the couch to find the cordless. "Hello," he 
mumbled into the receiver, and a dreamier version of Scully's 
contralto voice murmured in his ear.
	
"It's me," she said. "Did I wake you?"
	
He ran a hand over his hair, mussing it up even more than it 
certainly was, and exhaled. "Yeah, but I was barely asleep 
anyway," he said, and she chuckled. He never got late night phone 
calls from Scully, but the sound of her whiskey laughter was 
enough to assure him that she wasn't hurt or in trouble. "What's 
up?"
	
"Mulder..."
	
He frowned. "Yeah?"
	
"Did you look at the moon tonight?"
	
Confused, he bit his lip. "No," he replied, and her voice dropped 
a little.
	
"Go look at it."
	
A little disgruntled at having to get out of bed, Mulder stumbled 
to the window and opened up the blinds. Then, he gasped at the 
moon, at the perfect roundness and ripeness of it, and the veil 
of starry silver that enclosed it. "Wow," he whispered, his voice 
awed, and there, low in his ear, came a soft, wistful, but 
otherwise contented whisper that seemed to have a smile imbedded 
deeply in it.
	
"Maybe it was romance after all, Mulder."

*****

END

*****

Feedback can be sent to Auralisa@aol.com. While you're at it, 
tell your mom you love her.

*****

Thank you, Mom.

*****