TITLE: Proof AUTHOR: Bonetree RATING: NC-17 (more likely R, but just to be safe.) CATEGORY: V, MSR, A DISCLAIMER: Mulder, Scully and William are all the property of 1013 Productions, Fox, and Chris Carter. No infringement is intended and no profit is being made. SUMMARY: Christmas Eve on Highway 50, New Mexico, 2007. AUTHOR'S NOTES: Thanks to my betas - Dani, Shari and Revely, and to dtg for web-hostessing and posting. For Dani for Christmas. Have a merry one, Chicken. **** HIGHWAY 50, NEW MEXICO OUTSIDE CHACO CANYON DECEMBER 24, 2007 10:46 p.m. "Here's where it all ended, Scully." She wasn't listening to him, though there was no volition in it really. The sky was wearing a cape of stars, the Milky Way completely visible out here in the middle of the vastness of the desert. The headlights of the newest car, this one an old Chevy something she couldn't recall, were the only stars out on earth. She glanced over from the passenger seat, Mulder's face washed in the bluish lights of the dash. His eyes were wide and bright, the dashboard lights revealing the lines around them, the crease around his stone-set mouth. "The end of what?" she asked, his words floating back to her from some other place, not the one where she'd been, the one where a boy stood before her in some house washed in sunlight, where she heard Mulder in another room, calling out the boy's name. "Chaco Canyon," he said, and he had a hint of the old excitement in his voice, tucked beneath the tiredness. "It's where the Anasazi culture vanished. Where their civilization ended." "You're going to tell me what happened to them, I know," she said, yawned. "So I won't ask you to." She said it fondly, with more than a hint of the old fond tone she'd used years ago, in other cars, other highways, a theory about to unwind like yarn. "Well, actually I can't." He smiled a smile the strength of smoke, the radio crackling from a conservative talk radio program to nothing, then to white noise, the sound of static and air. "How come?" "Because no one knows what happened to them," Mulder continued, shifting in the driver's seat, and she knew she was in for a story. He always settled in before he told one, like an old man telling stories from the war. "Some think it was a civil war, thousands of people in this area turning on each other until there wasn't anyone left. Some think it was a plague, something that killed so many of them so quickly that the ones left were forced to leave the city you can see the ruins of off that way -" He nodded towards the north. "Other people think there was a drought that destroyed all the crops and most of the people starved to death. The ones left turned nomadic and became the ancestors of the Navajo and Hopi." She'd stopped listening again, the boy's face behind her eyes. She didn't want to hear about endings anymore. She'd lost her taste for stories like that. Instead, she concentrated on the sound of the static coming through the radio, a white noise that contained, she knew, the sound of the birth of the universe. He was looking at her. She could feel his eyes moving over her, through her. She knew he could see behind her eyes. "You know, they say there's proof in there, too." His voice was warm, quiet. She met his gaze. "Proof of what?" "The story of the Magi. The star of Bethlehem. All that." She chuffed, leaned her head against the headrest, closed her eyes, lost in the white noise and his voice. A better story, though she already didn't believe a word. "You expect me to believe that there's proof of the story of the birth of Christ in an Indian ruin thousands of miles from the Middle East?" she asked. The old game. Familiar as a pair of shoes. "Sure," he said, slipping them on. He reached over and took her hand, his hand heavy and warm. "This one I've got to hear." He chuckled, the radio bursting static then quieting again to the sound of breath. "There's a petroglyph," he said. "Deep in the canyon in a place of prominence with no other drawings around it. It's three symbols. A pointed star, a moon, and a human hand." "Uh huh." She was tired. They'd been driving all night. They'd been driving their whole lives. "That same pointed star design has been found in paintings all over the world, Scully," he continued, and she could feel the car slowing down. "Chinese paintings, paintings in the Middle East. African Art. All dating back 2000 years. Right around the time of the birth of Christ." The car had stopped now, and Mulder clicked off the headlights to parking, and she opened her eyes. The world was a dark place around him. She heard his seatbelt unfasten, turned to look at him, the blue light on his face, his voice soft as the static. "So people all over the world saw the star of Bethlehem?" she asked, her eyes not leaving his face, a small sad smile on her face. "Well, not the Star of Bethlehem exactly," he said, and his fingers were smoothing her long hair behind her ear, touching the soft skin of her cheek. "I'm sure you've heard of the Crab Nebula, right?" She smiled. "Of course. It was formed in what is believed to be one of the most spectacular supernovas that ever occurred in our galaxy...about 2000 years ago." He nodded. "Yes," he said softly. "So spectacular the blast would have been visible on Earth, even during the daytime, for over three hundred years. And the pointed star shape on the petroglyph in Chaco is the right proportion, and in the right position, in its relation to the drawing of the moon to be that 'star.'" She considered as he leaned in, his face - stubbled with ten o'clock shadow - pressing in against the side of her face, his breath warm on her neck. She closed her eyes. "So if the Magi followed the star they saw-" she whispered. "-even during the day--" he rejoined, his hands wandering inside her thick coat, under her shirt, his palms closing around her breasts. "-that would be accurate for people coming from the directions they were to reach Israel, and at the right time, too. The time of the birth of Ch-" She lost the rest of it in his mouth as he kissed her. She tasted coffee with too much sugar in her mouth. He tasted rich and warm. They said nothing as they parted and climbed from the front seat into the back, nothing as they undressed, the car's heater pushing out warmth, the white noise of creation bathing them both as the blue dashlight illuminated his body for her - the expanse of his chest, the dark patch at the joining of his thighs. She could almost feel its light, cool, against the pale skin of her breasts. He covered it with his hands. Beneath him, he pushed inside her, his exhale mixing with the white sound in the cabin, the sound of homecoming. She held on, listening to him and to it into the night. After, they lay beneath a plaid blanket, her on top of him, her face against his throat. "Convinced?" he whispered at last. It was the first word they'd spoken for hours, the first word for Christmas Day. "Of what?" she said softly. "Your proof?" He nodded. "Proof's a strange thing," she whispered to him and the darkness. "People who go looking for it may find it, but they'll never really believe it." "Why not?" he asked, drawing crescents on her back. She smiled, her eyes closed. "Because if they needed to look for it at all, even finding it won't be enough to make them believe. And the people who believe don't need proof at all." He drew in a breath, let it out, his arms tightening around her beneath the blanket. He pressed a kiss against her forehead, her lips. She drifted off to sleep in the warmth, the radio on, white noise and blue light surrounding them both as the stars shone down, the light of all creation. END