This is just a little holiday-themed meandering on my part. No
morals, no plot. As always, these characters are the products of Chris
Carter and Ten Thirteen Productions. No infringement intended.





One Holiday At A Time

by Rhoda Miel/ZeusStorag


December 1995





     Dana Scully once believed she was lucky.

     At the Navy bases, seeing the memorials to the men who'd served and
died, she believed her family lucky that Dad still was with them.

     In medical school and through residency, she'd see the men and women
who'd died in car crashes, on the operating tables and through their own
violent lives and thanked the God she was raised to believe in that her
own family was not among them.

     In the FBI, she'd read the cases and performed the autopsies and
still gone home every Christmas to a family gathering that was whole and
complete -- missing no component.

     She'd involuntarily count up the odds stacked against them -- the
chances that a drunk driver could hit one of them, the one-in-fifteen
chance that cancer would strike, the opportunities for fate to go up
against her father or brother in combat, or herself on the job.

     Each time, she drew a breath. Sighed in relief. Luck. Just plain
luck. The Scullys seemed apart from the odds.

     When had that changed?

     Scully stared at the television screen, noticed CNN had gone to a
commercial, Bernard Shaw's  face replaced with the image of a family
sitting before a fireplace and a voice encouraging her to order Elvis'
Christmas music -- cassette or CD. She pointed the remote at the set,
flicked it off.

     When had it gotten dark? She hadn't noticed. A light in the kitchen
provided a dim glow through the living room. The glass in the window
panels reflected it back toward her yet still allowed in the blinking
Christmas lights from the building across the street. Red. Green. Yellow.
White. They flashed on and off. The speed increasing until the separate
colors barely registered.

     9:15. Too early for bed. Sometimes Scully had to remind herself of
the time changes as she and her partner, Fox Mulder, jumped from one time
zone to another. New Orleans one week, Baltimore the next then out to
Seattle. There was no rhythm. No way to anticipate where they'd go next.
So she reminded herself of the time. Of the season.

     Now it was the holidays.

     A few years ago, Scully already would have had the tree up -- a real
one. Nothing could replace the smell of the wood, the surprising pinch of
the needles beneath her bare feet early in the morning. She'd cover the
surface with clear lights, place the hand-made and collectible ornaments
on the  branches. A ceramic Santa belonged on the counter and candles lit
only during the Christmas season went onto the shelves.

     When she was growing up, the family moved with her father from one
Naval posting to another. Dana had cried in Pensacola when Ahab declared
the real trees too expensive for a family on military pay living in
Florida. She'd hated his  practicality, his insistence that they could
make do just as well with lights on some other plant. Something more
sensible. Something less likely to drop its needles all over base housing.
Dana had closed the door tight on the cramped bedroom she and her sister
Melissa shared. She didn't want her father to hear her. Didn't want him to
think she wasn't as tough as her brothers. The next morning, a small
Christmas tree sat waiting in the living room for its decorations.

     Two years ago, Scully had returned to an empty apartment in
mid-January. The tree had dropped half its needles in the two and a half
weeks since Ahab had died. Since Mulder had nearly died. Since she'd
relied on her own instincts to know what she had meant to her father and
what he had meant to her.

     Scully pushed those thoughts out of her mind. Not the time to think
about that, she reminded herself. She couldn't force herself to second
guess herself again and again about what had happened -- the visions, the
voices. Either it happened or it didn't and Scully was certain about what
she'd seen.

     Last year, she'd put the decorations up again, thought about Ahab as
she hung the ornaments on the tree.
     Last year, she knew. Her family was not invulnerable. The odds had a
way of changing. Death could and would touch them.

     This year.

     This year there was one less.

     A heart attack Scully could understand. It was normal. It happened in
normal families. You lived with its consequences. You put them behind you.
Mourned the dead. Celebrated the living. This year was different.
Melissa's death was different.

     Scully reached out to the mug sitting in front of her on the coffee
table. Took a sip and wrinkled her nose at the cool tea. She stared out at
the lights again. Blinking on and off. Red. Yellow. Green. White. An angel
outlined in the window. She forced herself up off the couch and walked
into the dim light from the kitchen. She stared for a moment at the spot
where her tree typically stood. Glanced at the closet where the boxes of
decorations waited.

     This year.

     This year, she just didn't know.




     Fox Mulder was in the dark.

     Outside.

     Alone.

     Apart from the others who hurried past, their armed loaded down with
boxes and bags.

     He'd left his regular route behind, losing himself in the rhythm of
his feet hitting pavement, his breath showing white in the cool air. He'd
swerved past the cars at one corner, turned onto another street and loped
past the dark backside of a commercial district -- the tall, wide delivery
doors staring blankly out at him.

     When Mulder circled wide around the edge of the block, he'd just
missed a young woman hurrying through the darkness toward the safety of a
street light. He apologized, slowed his pace when he found himself in the
middle of a line of shoppers. Mulder finally broke free, heading for the
opposite corner. He picked up speed as the light turned green and the cars
slowed and stopped. He'd continued for another two blocks, back toward an
alley, back into the dark.

     He could see the stores' lights  at the end of the alley, the plastic
candy canes hanging from the utility poles, blinking lights strung along
the awnings that hung over the street. Mulder turned right, down a
residential street, away from the stores, away from the lights.

     When he was young, Christmas was special. His sister Samantha would
begin making her wish list before Thanksgiving, ponder it every night,
make changes every day or two -- adding a toy here, crossing off a book
there, angrily erasing the items Fox scribbled onto the bottom: socks,
underwear, pajamas.

     "You get those anyway Fox," she'd chastised, holding the thick pencil
between her fingers. "You don't *ask* for them." 

     After she'd disappeared that November night, Fox found her list
tucked into a corner of his desk. He picked up the paper, traced her
uneven, cursive letters across the page.
 
     Mulder turned left, picked up his pace to make it across the street
during a break in the traffic and turned for home.

     Last year, Scully had invited him to join her family for the day.
He'd made an excuse and was grateful she didn't push.

     Mulder knew this wasn't an easy time for Scully. He'd noticed the
long, quiet pauses some days -- the way she took another path to avoid the
small Christmas tree someone had erected in the bullpen. She hadn't said
anything. He didn't know if she would.

     He was lost in thoughts, lost in the rhythm, taken by surprise when
his apartment building suddenly loomed in front of him. He slowed to a
walk and finally stopped.



     

     They worked silently.

     Over the years, through case after case, town after town, one
makeshift office after another, Scully and Mulder had learned each others'
movements.

     This was the routine. The mind-numbing, caffeine-induced pattern that
had emerged as they grew closer professionally and personally. They learned
to rely on the silences even as they relied on the conversations that kept
them sane.

     Mulder didn't need to hear Scully's voice to know she was there, but
he'd shift sometimes in his chair, see her out of the corner of his eye.
Or occasionally, he'd close his eyes, listen for the rustle of paper, the
squeak of her chair.

     They were his lifelines -- she was his anchor. When Scully had
disappeared for nearly three months the year before, Mulder had come to
hate the silence. He'd find himself stalled, waiting for the phone to
ring, listening for her knock at his office door.  He'd look up into
passing eyes and see no light behind them.

     When Melissa died, Mulder watched Scully carefully, waiting to see
how she'd react to each new obstacle. Each harsh reminder. He'd seen
strong people fall apart at less. But Scully pushed on. She'd take what
they dished out and pushed it back at them. It was a new resolve. A new
fire. Pushing her forward.

     There'd been tears. Mulder knew that. He'd sat with her as she
allowed the tears to flow unheeded. He'd stood behind her at the memorial
service, felt the shaking of her shoulders beneath his arm when he'd
guided her toward the car. Sometimes, he'd see Scully's eyes glaze over,
lost in a memory only she saw. It was gone in a moment and she was back.

     Mulder heard the creak of the old chair as Scully turned at the desk
she kept in his office. He gathered the papers in front of him into a
file, turned and walked to the filing cabinet.

     "Mulder," Scully's voice was quiet, drifting across the cluttered
room.
     "Hmm?"

     "How did..." she started, then halted. "What was it..." She faltered.
Looked away. "Never mind."

     "What is it, Scully?"

     "It's nothing. Forget about it." Scully picked up her pen, made one
note, then got up, walked to the other side of her desk, walked back,
grabbed her mug. "Want a refill?"

     "Sure." Mulder waited, not wanting to push, knowing Scully would
speak her mind when she was ready. He turned his back to the room, heard
her set a mug down on his desk, settle back into her own seat.

     Mulder closed the drawer, crossed back to his desk.

     Scully scolded herself.

     It's ridiculous, she reminded herself. You're just letting your
imagination take control. Calm down. You can handle this. Open your mouth
now, Dana Katherine Scully, and Mulder will be all over your case. You're
strong enough to handle this on your own.

     But Mulder wasn't the type to pass judgment, she argued within her
mind. Sometimes, Scully felt ready to burst. The questions, the grief, the
doubts would build from deep within her chest. She'd give in to it
sometimes. Caught unprepared, the tears would come as she watched
television, or read a magazine. A mention of loss, a hokey moment of
maudlin excess and she'd lose control.

     At work, she held it back without a second thought -- divided her
mind from her emotions and pushed ahead. With Mulder, she didn't need to
split her warring emotions.

     She took a deep breath, let it out.

     "Mulder," she started again. "How did your family handle the
holidays? After Samantha."

     There. The question was out now. Mulder had been expecting it, in one
way or another. He'd tried to prepare the speech, what he could say. None
of it was right. None of the rehearsed words mattered.

     "Forget it," Scully interrupted before the first words barely were
out of her mouth. "It's not important."

     "No. It's OK. It *is* important. We didn't -- handle it I mean. Not
really."  Mulder searched the memories he'd tried to bury in his past.

     "The first year, she'd been taken only about a month before
Christmas. Mom insisted Samantha would be home soon.She said she'd be
upset if we didn't have everything ready for her in time. Mom was so
positive about it. She convinced me. I think she even convinced Dad.

     "We bought the presents -- tons of them -- all for Samantha. I kept
thinking I'd wake up, and she'd be home, like some kind of a Christmas
miracle."

     Mulder's face was still, his eyes focused on a corner of the room.

     "When Christmas morning came and she still wasn't there," he paused,
shrugged. "Mom wouldn't come out of her room. Dad and I took the tree down
before noon. We put the presents in the attic.

     "After that, well, we went through the routines every year. Mom took
great care to do everything properly." He gave a small smile. "She's
always been one for following the accepted traditions. I went along with
them for her sake."

     Mulder's voice had softened, dropping in tone and volume as he spoke.
He was silent a moment before Scully registered the silence. When he opened
his mouth again, the words carried loud with a false laugh behind them.

     "Christmas blues, huh?"

     "The holidays are a very high-pressure season in the Judeo-Christian
world," Scully admitted.

     "I've noticed." They both smiled briefly.

     "Look, Scully, what happened in my family -- it doesn't matter,"
Mulder said, crossing the room to kneel beside her chair. "Whatever
happened in anyone's family shouldn't matter to you and your family. I
know this is tough."

     "I keep thinking about what Melissa would be doing, what she'd say,"
Scully admitted. "In the past few years, she kept pushing us to have a
Winter Solstice celebration rather than Christmas. Not that she'd ever say
that to Mom, or course. Just us kids. Mom's the only one who could get
Melissa into church any more, and only on Christmas Eve."

     Scully smiled at the memory. Leaned back in the chair and looked
briefly into Mulder's face, then down at her own hands.

     "Last year," she halted for a moment. "Last year."

     Mulder placed one hand on her two smaller hands, gave her a slight
nod.

     "Last year, I found Missy sitting in Dad's study. Mom had converted
it into her library, but Dad's stuff was still there. Missy was just
sitting in his old recliner, with this grin on her face. She said she
could sense him in the house.

     "Melissa believed in angels. She said Dad had been sent here to help
us all out and left when his job was done. But she insisted that he still
could check in on us -- that he was there then.

     "I can't say that I really believed her," Scully joked.

     "I would've been disappointed if you had," Mulder replied.

     "Still. I don't know. I just don't know."

     Mulder straightened out. Leaned again the edge of the desk to look
into his partner's face.

     "Scully, I can't tell you what to do. I can't tell you how to feel
when you hear Christmas carols about 'Peace on Earth.' I still haven't
figured that out myself," he admitted. "But I can tell you this. You're
not alone. You've got your Mom. You've got your family. You've got me.

     "All I can tell you, is that you *can* get through it."

     "One holiday at a time, right?" Scully said.

     Mulder nodded, let one hand drop to rest briefly on her shoulder
before walking back to his desk.



     It was already dark when Scully got home. Stars filled the clear
night sky she hurried through the brisk air to the warm and light inside
her building.

     She flicked on the hall light, slipped out of her shoes and leafed
through her mail as she walked into the kitchen.

     Her neighbors Christmas lights flickered through the unshaded windows
and the light on her answering machine blinked.

     "Hi Dana, it's Mom," the voice was distorted, a harsh, tinny sound
through the tiny speaker. "Just wanted to check in, see how you were doing
and I was wondering if you'd have time to pick up Bill and the family at
National when their flight gets in Friday. Just give me a call and let me
know, OK? OK. Love you. Bye."

     The message echoed in the empty apartment. Scully stood still,
looking at the spot where the tree belonged -- where the decorations
should go.

     She went to the closet, opened the door and reached for the first box
and smiled as she pulled out the ceramic tree Melissa had given her a dozen
years earlier.

     "One holiday at a time, Mulder. One at a time."

end