#that you have to discover that you can poke and prod and keep pushing bill's sore spot and keep doing it until he finally breaks down

[nenoname]

still love how the book starts out with stan beating up the statue and taking ford's discarded one dollar bills and then ends with stan completely destroying bill and ripping up money just to spite him

[flatstarcarcosa]

our love grows flowers in the winter

Summary: Three months ago, Slade died. Four days ago, be barged back into the house like a whirlwind, and for a moment all was right with the world. Reese has discovered strangers can wear familiar faces, and to top it off: There is another Slade greeting them over morning coffee and acting as if nothing is wrong.

How can there be two Slades, and what do either of them want?

(part one) (part two) (part three) (fin)

Ship: wilson&wilson Warnings: violence, swearing, slight depictions of gore? there’s a big fight is all im sayin. slade kicks his own ass, finally, his life long dream.  sidenote: i decided to structure this piece similar to the comic. there’s titles between switches scenes, and the timeline isn’t entirely linear. i think it’s still simple enough to follow, but it was a neat exercise.

------------------------

'Penitence' Bellevue Hospital, NYC Several Days Later

Slade’s arms are out at his sides in a show of defenselessness, shoulders slumped and head down. The gun sits on the side of the bed between them as Adeline regards him with hard eyes.

“If you still want to kill me, now’s the time,” he says. He’s said it before, of course. Over and over amidst their many fights. She knows he’s meant it every time, but this time it’s different. It’s not the adamant way he normally says it, it doesn’t carry the meaning of ‘I still love you, I’m sorry’, it doesn’t have the same undertones that show he’s only saying it to keep her attention for a bit longer. This time, he is all but begging her to go through with it.   This is not the man she married.  This is not even the man she divorced.

 The man in front of her is a broken shell, a cracking husk at risk of getting blown away by the next winter breeze. The man in front of her is hardly a man at all. She takes the gun, holding onto the feeling of the weight in her hand, and considers it for a long moment.

“No,” she finally says, dropping the weapon. “There’s no point. You’re no more Slade Wilson than the man that murdered my husband. You’re not the Slade Wilson I’ve loved, and hated for so long. You’re nothing now.”  He doesn’t respond. He lowers his arms and still doesn’t look at her, and it fills her with equal parts anger and pity. Anger, that he dares to ask one final favor from her, to give him one more thing after all she’s given.

Pity that he’s been reduced to this. He used to be strong, he used to be kind, he used to be a good man. Flawed, yes, but good nonetheless. What stands before her is none of those things but it is taking the form of something vaguely familiar, yet alien all the same.  “You want me to get closure?” she asks. “There is no closure, not with you, Slade. Not with any of us, and not for any of us. If I have to live with it, if Joey does, then so do you. So that’s what you can do for me. You can fucking live with it and let it eat you alive. It’s time for you feel the consequences of your own actions for once. Get out.”  Slade turns, padding across the room and pausing with his hand on the door.  “I really did love you,” he says softly.  “I know,” she whispers. “That’s the problem, you poison everything you love. Then it withers, and it dies.”  The door is silent when it swings shut behind him.  If Rose thought she was angry when this whole mess began, it is nothing compared to the feeling she is currently experiencing. Her footsteps echo throughout the stairwell as she takes them two at a time. The door to the parking garage bounces against the wall as she barrels through it. She finds Slade loading a duffel bag into the trunk of a sedan. When he turns, looking at her in surprise, she hauls off and punches him in the throat.  “You're not even trying,” she yells. Slade hacks out a cough and massages his neck. “You let me do that.”  “Why are you here?” he asks, hoarsely.  “To ask you what the fuck you think you're doing,” she snaps.  “What does it look like?”  “It looks like you're being a limp dicked coward and running away, again,” she snarls. Slade makes eye contact with her, and the blank look in his eye is almost enough to put out the fire in her chest.  “Why would I stay after this?” he asks. His voice is low, soft, and heavy with grief. “There's nothing here now, I made sure of that, didn't I?”  “So you're just going to wallow in your own fucking bullshit?” she asks, clenching her fists by her side. “I thought the whole point of you going back to Vermont was to stop running! To...to plant roots, or whatever bullshit you kept telling us!”  Slade slams the trunk shut and slams his fists again the metal.  “Those roots just got ripped up and burnt to the ground,” he yells. “I may not have started the fire but I still caused it! Hosun is dead, Barry is dead, Adeline is going to have a crippled arm the rest of her life, and Reese--!”  He stops mid sentence and makes no show to stem the tears.   “I'm not doing this for me,” he says softly.  “...dad,” says Rose. Her anger has finally died, and although she is still trying to process everything that has happened, she sets aside the urge to blame him. She gives into the other, stronger and perhaps more basic urge of being a teenage girl that wants her father, and clings to his chest. Slade won't hug you, repeats Bill in her head, but you can hug him.  For a moment, he does nothing but stand there as she cries into his shirt.  Finally, he returns the gesture, squeezing her like she is a buoy in a storm.  “I'm so sorry,” he whispers into her hair. Before she can respond, the moment is interrupted by the sound of a voice over the intercom.  “Wilson family, please report to the ICU,” says the disembodied voice. “Repeat, Wilson family to the ICU.”

------------------

'Your Return' At the Same Time Reese wakes up to the feeling of being choked. There is something blocking their airway, and they gag as they attempt to push whatever is in front of them away. Someone grabs their hands and pushes them back down as they make shushing noises in their ear. …Slade?  They want to open their eyes, but their body seems content to fight against the signals they send.  “Easy now, love,” says a soft, accented voice. “You weren't supposed to wake up until they got this tube out, it's almost over.”  “B...Bill?” they finally rattle once their mouth and throat are blessedly empty.  “The one and only, my dear,” he says. He brushes fingers through their hair. “Glad to see you back with the living.”  “Slade?” they ask. The word sears their raw throat, and it does not take much for Reese to figure out they have clearly been intubated. Their eyes begin to obey them once more, and they are pleased to find that Bill has already dimmed the lights above the bed. A team of nurses crowd the room, all of them talking among themselves as they poke and prod at Reese and the machines they're hooked up to.  “He's...” Bill trails off and closes his eyes. They do not need more of an answer. They know him too well.  Slade's probably already on a plane bound for Africa, where he'll hole up in his old ranch and proceed to annoy wildlife until an animal finally kills him and leaves him to bake in the desert sun.  Reese's eyes fill with tears that back up into their sinuses and begin dripping down their irritated throat. A nurse fetches a cup of water and a straw as they begin coughing.  “Can you breathe all right?” asks the nurse. Reese takes a small sip of water and manages to swallow half of it before their stomach protests violently against the intake of fluid.  Slade and Rose bust into the room just in time to watch them vomit into a basin. Long, silent seconds stretch out into minutes.  The nurses continue to do their jobs and one of them bothers to take Slade aside and fill him in on their condition. Reese notice the way Bill shifts, moving to sit more on the bed next to them and act as a barrier between them and Slade. They understand why is he angry and distrusting of his old friend, and they do not blame him for it.  Regardless, they want more than anything for him to move. “But are they going to be okay?” asks Rose. She is standing a step behind Slade, close enough to be part of the conversation and distanced enough to know she is not the intended target of it. The nurse takes a deep breath.  “The doctor will be here in the morning to do another evaluation,” she says. She speaks with a practiced, but no less believable ease that tells Slade this is not the first time she's had this discussion. “There was a lot of damage and a lot of blood loss. I don't know how the shrapnel from the bullet missed anything important, but it did. They're going to have an even more sensitive digestive system than they did before, and we had to take out a few things in their abdomen they shouldn't even miss, and recovery is not going to be quick or easy, but yes. I think physically they'll be all right, eventually. It's going to take time, and a lot of rest.”  “And therapy,” Rose adds. The words are barely out of her mouth when she realizes how inappropriate the comment it.  Slade says nothing in response.  His arms are flat by his sides, and he is clenching and clenching his fingers repeatedly.    “Yes,” says the nurse slowly. “Physical therapy will be important to their recovery. The fact that the shrapnel from being shot didn't hit anything vital is already lucky, but that the blade only nearly snipped their spinal cord is a kind of luck we don't often see.”  Still, Slade says nothing. Whether he doesn't know what to say, or simply can't say anything at all, Rose is unsure. She looks across the room, raising an eyebrow at Wintergreen. He blinks a couple of times before holding his hands up in a shrug. He has never seen Slade look as despondent and defeated as he does in this moment. He's just been told Reese will make a full recovery, and yet you'd think it was the opposite from his demeanor. It's only Reese grunting behind him that causes Bill to turn in time to see them trying to sit from their prone position.  “Hey,” he says, standing off the bed and placing a hand on their shoulder. “Easy. You're being held together with very expensive, medical grade duct tape right now.”  “Back hurts,” they say softly.  “I imagine it does,” says the nurse. She motions for the rest of her coworkers to file out of the room as she moves to raise the bed. “But don't try and sit up on your own right now. I'm going to put in an order for some meds for you. The rest of you need to figure out who's staying and who's going: we only allow one person at a time.”  “I'm gonna check on Joey,” Rose says immediately. She gives Slade a soft pat on the arm. “Okay?”  “...yeah,” he says distractedly.  “Perhaps you should both check on Joey,” says Bill. He crosses his arms over his chest and settles a stern gaze directly on Slade. “I'm sure he'd love to see his father.”  Reese's nurse quirks an eyebrow as she realizes she is clearly interrupting something, and wisely extricates herself from the room. Slade remains silent, standing in the shadows in the corner of the room, and Bill remains planted as the only barrier between him and Reese. Behind him, they let out an annoyed sigh and roll their eyes. It takes a bit of reaching, probably more than they should be doing, to get to the water cup on the table. They empty the contents into the basin they'd thrown up into and use their knee to slide the table away from the bed before chucking the empty plastic cup at the back of Bill's head.  “What the devil--!” he turns, blinking in surprise as he looks down at the cup clattering to the floor and back up to Reese.  “Thank you,” they say. It takes work not only to speak, but to keep their tone level. If there was a ever a time where they wanted nothing more than to be non-verbal, it is now. “Please go.”  “Reese, I don't think-” starts Bill. They cut him off by sharply yelling his name. He sighs and leans down to leave a quick kiss on the top of their head. As he passes Slade on the way out, he says, “I'll be down the hall.”  It is a promise, and a threat.  Although Adeline has always been clear with how much she wants Slade dead, Bill has always seen it differently: Slade is free to live his life and make his mistakes, but he does so knowing that should he ever become too far gone, or cross one too many lines, his oldest friend will not hesitate to remove him from the equation. Slade stays silent, and is admittedly having trouble parsing how an eviler version of himself getting zapped over from a different time-line and wreaking havoc is somehow his fault. He is no closer to making it make sense when the door clicks shut behind Bill and leaves him alone with Reese. His gaze is transfixed not on them, but on the area just towards the left of them, and they tilt their head a little as they take in the sight of him.  The last they'd seen him, he was bleeding out a few feet away from them and they know that even his healing factor can't reverse blood loss from nothing. The bandages peeking out from beneath his shirt tell them he's not bounced back entirely. They also know that many people have speculated over the years that Slade has some sort of subconscious control over his healing, that he can alter it's efficacy depending on how deeply he feels about something. Bill thinks it's why his eye never healed after Adeline shot him.  Reese thinks it's why there's still red spotting the bandages now.  “Hey,” they say. With what looks like a great effort, he turns his head to face them. They wonder if he's slept at all since he came home, even as they know he hasn't. They wonder if he's eaten, even as they know he hasn't. They wonder what kind of mental gymnastics he's doing to concoct a narrative that blames himself for what happened, even as they know he doesn't have to work all that hard for it.  In his mind, it is his fault for not being there to stop it. It is his fault for dying in the first place. It is his fault, and it will always be his fault and no amount of penance will ever absolve him of it.  The whole situation has shades of their kidnapping back in Florida. He'd been so upset and angry with himself about the situation, that for a while he refused to see reason and took it as a sign he needed to leave everything the two of them had built. Back then, it honestly wasn't much. It was a small, fragile thing with no roots to keep it in place and no new growth to push it forward and it was only Reese's indignant insistence that he didn't get to walk away from it that kept it from collapsing.  That was six years ago.  What the two of them have built is much more resilient these days, and Reese has already done the work of keeping it rooted while he was dead. It's time for him to do some of the work for once, and if that means he has to feel all of the sharp edges between them, then so be it.  Wordlessly, they hold out their arms.  Slade hesitates. The urge to turn and run is coursing through him as much as anything and getting stronger with every beat of his heart. He forces himself to take the first step towards Reese. By the time he collapses onto the edge of the bed and into their waiting embrace it is as effortless as breathing. They smell like iodine and rubbing alcohol and the most basic of hospital issued soap, but they smell like home.  “Hey, little one,” he says, voice thick with emotion and soft in their ear.  “Please don't leave,” says Reese. He squeezes them as tight as he dares without hurting them and rests his forehead in the crook of their neck.  “I'm not going anywhere,” he says, and for once in his life it is not only a promise, but a full one. The day will come when it won't be, of course. The day will come when he will unlock that familiar green army crate and he will be Deathstroke once more, but for now... For now he is alive and he is home, and he is not running away from any of it, no matter how many broken and jagged pieces are inside.

[tatooedlaura-blog]

Sixteenth Christmas

the series is as follows so far:

First … Second … Third … Fourth … Fifth … Fifth Christmas, Part 2 … Sixth … Seventh … Eighth … Ninth … Tenth … Eleventh … Twelfth … Thirteenth … Fourteenth … Fifteenth … Sixteenth … Seventeenth … Eighteenth … Nineteenth … Twentieth … Twenty-first … Twenty-second … Twenty-third

———————–

“Mulder, it’ll be fine.”

“Can’t we just drive? I mean, we’ll leave early and take in some sights and get there and have Christmas and then drive home. It’ll be like old times.”

Scully looked at him over her spoon, oatmeal piled high, “you want us to drive through both the Smokey and the Rocky Mountains in December? Really?”

“We did a Christmas in northern Minnesota. I think we can handle a nice drive through the mountains.”

Watching him stir his tea, butter his bagel, dart his eyes from her spoon to her face to his plate in repetition, she saw the man she used to sit across from at a Formica diner table at 2am, in the middle of Nashton, Delaware or Tarkington, Colorado, eating greasy hashbrowns slowly while he tried to convince her that the footprint wasn’t human, the lights weren’t a wayward swarm of fireflies, the evidence he has was just slightly more extraterrestrial than he had imagined when they first arrived. He wore a smile that only she would recognize as such, the small muscle on the left side of his upper lip nudging just slightly upwards, fractions of millimeters, twitching more than moving, spasming so minutely that anyone else in the world would think he was sitting stone still.

She felt her muscles give way, her face soften without regret as she simply shook her head, once again, as so many countless times in the past, she gave in to him, knowing they may not get to their destination in a straight line or with relevant speed but eventually, with stories to tell and laughter to share.

“Okay.”

And, as things progressed in the fashion normal from the first day they’d met to this very moment, he grinned in her direction, taking a bite of his bagel and talking around it as he chewed, “when do we leave?”

&&&&&&&&&&&

Maggie, being Maggie and loving her daughter and what she now referred to as her ‘one of these days, eventual son-in-law’, graciously patted Scully’s hand when she told her they’d be driving to San Francisco instead of flying, “he gave you that look, didn’t he?”

Her mother knew them too damn well sometimes and with an eyeroll of someone happily resigned to caving to her Mulder, she then nodded, smiling, “it’ll be a nice trip through the mountains.”

&&&&&&&&&&&

Jeep packed, house locked, food and blankets stowed, flashlights, shovels, emergency flares, tire chains, assorted rescue equipment stashed in a box in the back, they headed off into the early morning light, sky rosy, temperatures below freezing, Mulder smirking, poking Scully in the ribs as she attempted to continue her night’s rest in the passenger seat, pillow jammed up against the window, “I will cut off the tip of your finger if you keep doing that.”

“My God, you are still cranky after all this time knowing I’m going to be poking you. Why aren’t you used to it yet?”

“Why the hell haven’t I cut off your finger yet?”

Feeling his inner sass kick in, “you like what I do with my fingers, Scully. You’d be very sad if one of them disappeared.”

Her chuckle was involuntary and for it, she received another seven pokes, the last one culminating where she liked his fingers best and pushing his hand away in amusement, “would you just drive already? Christmas is in five days and knowing you and your tourist-trap stops, we’ll get there by New Year’s if we’re lucky.”

Removing fingers, he returned to the steering wheel, “you’re bossy in the morning.”

Scully settled into her pillow further, “you’ve never complained before.”

“Usually you’re naked at the time though.”

Her hand shot out, pointing through the windshield, “Go!”

“Yes, ma’am.”

&&&&&&&&&&&&

First day, nothing.

Second day, she began noticing things but argued with herself that she was wrong.

Third day, in the middle of the Rocky Mountains outside Denver, she politely brought up the subject, “Mulder?”

He was sitting in the corner of the room, tugging off his shoes and absently pulling the curtain tighter over the window every few seconds, “yeah?”

“Are you okay?”

Genuine confusion met her gaze, “I think so. Why?”

Biting her lip, she wondering if prodding would bring about an argument she didn’t want to have, “you … you keep checking the curtains. Do you see something outside?”

The barest hint of anger chased its way across his face before settling back into Mulder, “I just want to make sure no one can see in. Not a fan of getting naked with an audience, especially on the first floor.”

Not wanting to ruin their trip, she let go of the fact that he checked several more times, then covered the peep hole in the door with a bandaid, moved the phones to charge in the bathroom covered with a towel, Scully assumed to block the cameras and their conversations from anyone possibly listening. He unplugged the room phone, pushed a doorstop from home under the room door, then came to bed, settling in to read his book while she did her nightly routine.

How had she not noticed his habits? Had she really been spending that much time at the hospital that she neglected signs so obvious to her that she felt utter stupid in having missed them?

When had he taken his paranoia to this next level?

Fourth day, she woke to find him spooned behind her, hand under her shirt, a little something pressing insistently against her pajama bottoms. Seeing the curtains opened to the third story morning glory that was the Rocky Mountains, she decided to let things go until they got home, choosing to keep an observant eye on him for now. Instead, she relished in his fingers, playfully grumbled something about sleeping in before she pressed back into him, his hands moving to slide her flannel down before pushing himself up inside her.

&&&&&&&&&&

Only getting lost once, which was impressive for the pair to say the least, they pulled up to the house Christmas Eve morning. Once to the front door and inside, they found the holidays were in full swing at Bill’s house, Matt and Graham running to them, hugging, making general 12 and 8 year old boy noise. Maggie squeezed them both tight once the boys cleared out and then Tara made her way over, completing the greeting, Bill still at work until the late afternoon.

Festivities happened, dinner occurred, games commenced, sweets consumed, goodnights given, the pair ended up, at midnight, lying cozily on an air mattress in the back room, curtains open to the full moon pouring in the room. “Merry Christmas, Scully.”

Snuggling even further in, she nuzzled under his chin, “Merry Christmas, Mulder.”

“This is our 15th Christmas together, did you know that?”

“I remember.”

Voice soft in her ear, “what if I hadn’t come over that night? You would have put your tree away and never blown on my hot chocolate to cool it down and I never would had fell in love with you that very second and we wouldn’t be lying on an air mattress in your brother’s house on Christmas Eve thinking that we should sneak out of here and go check out the Golden Gate all lit up for the holidays.”

“I don’t like to think about the first part of that and the second part is more comfortable than I thought it would be for an air mattress and the third is a really good idea except for the fact that I’m already falling asleep right here.”

His hands roamed lightly over her back, “thank you for driving out here instead of flying.”

Nearly unconscious as this point, her words were slurred and soft, “if I were afraid of flying, you’d have driven out here without hesitation.”

Mulder’s voice grew hard, “I’m not afraid of flying. I just thought it would be nice to take a little vacation with you. You spend so much time at the damn hospital that I never see you.”

Pulling back immediately, brain slow to react to his sudden harshness, but realizing they were doing this now, “you’ve been covering up the windows and the cell phone cameras and avoiding using anything with your name on it. I’ve been signing everything and you cover the camera at the gas station with your hand even though you think you look casual and leaning when you do it but I notice. It’s okay.” She moved her hand up his chest, stroking his chin, watching his eyes still full of fire, “you would have had to give the airlines your name and then whoever you think is out there would have been able to track where you were going and when you’d be leaving and you were worried about what could happen with us in the air and what could happen to you trapped in a plane full of people you didn’t trust.” All this poured out, Scully herself discovering most of the information as it came to vocal fruition, without more than one breath and with complete calm. Stopping with her last revelation, she felt her heart twist when she realized, in his expression, that it was all true.

Then she watched him morph into Deniability Mulder, the man who could talk himself out of anything involving a head-on collision with his darkest fears and feelings.

She simply closed her eyes, feeling him roll off the mattress and begin pacing, pulling on sweatpants and shoes while she lay there, dreading the prospect of the impending fight, the inevitable closed-off interaction, the silent, polite, pretending Mulder she couldn’t stand. Opening them back up, she found him kneeling on the floor, sliding his arms into his thermal shirt and about to apologize, he held up his hand, then leaned over to kiss her forehead, “I need to get away from you for a little while. I don’t want to fight and I can’t … just …” shaking his head, he stood, “I love you.”

And he was gone, slipping into the dark hallway, moving quietly enough that only Scully could track his movements, given years of midnight bathroom breaks and 2am snack attacks.

She tried not to cry but the moment she heard the front door click shut, she fell apart.

&&&&&&&&&&&

Not sleeping well, she spent 20 minutes in the bathroom with a cool washcloth trying to reduce the size of her puffy eyes to levels that wouldn’t warrant drilling questions about why she looked like she’d been sobbing most of the night. Once she achieved what she thought was a look of polite exhaustion from an uncomfortable mattress in a strange place, she snuck to the makeshift bedroom once again, finding Mulder dressed and lying on the mattress.

Before she could ask where he’d been, he took in her face, knowing it better than his own, and stood, enveloping her in his long arms, “I hate making you cry.”

“I wasn’t crying.”

“I hate … making … you … cry.” Each word punctuated with a kiss to the part in her hair, “I didn’t want to fly because I wanted to be alone with you, trapped in a car like the old days, where the only thing we had was each other and we loved it. Everything else … I’m not thinking about right now … but I’m sorry I made you cry. You have no idea how much it kills me.”

Enjoying his warmth, she stayed there until she heard footsteps upstairs then pulled back, “will you go to mass with us?”

“Will your mother believe in my eternal damnation if I don’t?”

“Probably.”

“Then we’d better get out there.”

&&&&&&&&&&

Church didn’t burst Mulder into flames. The priest didn’t call out the atheist amongst them. The demons weren’t writhing in Mulder’s soul. He knelt, sat, stood, moved politely aside when the rest of the pew moved to take communion. During the Sign of the Peace, he shook Bill’s hand, kissed Maggie’s and Tara’s cheeks, quietly patted the boys on the shoulder, whispered his apologies once again against Scully’s hair while he hugged her.

She held his hand tightly the entire time.

Then Maggie slipped on an icy patch, swore in front of the priest who was outside shaking hands and any tension between the intrepid duo evaporated, nothing like a good swear on Christmas morning to push them back to normal.

Scully broke first, then Mulder, then the priest, followed by Maggie and the rest of the family, the boys laughing so hard they nearly fell over themselves. After that, Christmas spirit returned and they all moved back home, breakfast and Santa awaiting.

In the midst of present opening, Maggie handed Scully an oblong box, tag stating, “for Small from Tall.” Smiling down at her daughter sitting on the floor, Mulder molded behind her, “I can only assume you are ‘Small’?”

Mulder took the box, “yes, she is.”

The room had quieted given it was Scully’s turn and looking at Mulder over her shoulder, “I’m ‘Small’?”

Grinning, “you are very small, indeed.”

Nudging him with her elbow, she opened the box to find her latest Christmas ornament, a glassy, metallic, painted mug of hot chocolate, complete with sprinkles, whipped cream and Mulder’s boxy alphabet announcing across the front, ’15 Years’. Scooting around to face him, she held up her gift, “did you really fall in love with me when I blew on your hot chocolate to cool it down?”

By now, their audience was listening intently, even the boys, “of course. You took my drink right out of my hand and blew germs all over it? How could I not fall in love with you?”

“You’d think that would have been a turn-off in some respect.”

“You kidding? Hottest chick in the room giving two craps about me burning my tongue? I really should have kissed you right then.”

“I was the only chick in the room, Mulder.”

“Still are.” Giving her a grin, he leaned forward, kissing her full and long, not caring about anyone or anything watching them.

Scully, however, remembered they weren’t alone after about 10 seconds and pulled back, pink with embarrassment at her sudden and unusual public display of affection. Gliding her thumb over his chin briefly, she twisted to settle against his chest once again, holding her hot chocolate mug and grinning happily.

Maggie handed Mulder, a few minutes later, his own box, “to You from Me.” Shaking her head down at the pair, “we have to talk about your labeling system, daughter of mine.”

“Thank you, Maggie.” She ruffled his hair as she sat back down and watched as Mulder opened Scully’s gift, a collection of eight glass-blown tropical fish, brightly colored and finely detailed, hanging from thin wire and ready for hooks, prepped for tree trimming the moment they found their back home. Admiring each one in turn, “why eight?”

“There were eight different ones and I couldn’t decide so you got eight.”

“Makes perfect sense to me.”

&&&&&&&&&&

Much later in the day, after an obscene amount of food was inhaled, they were back on the air mattress, Scully on her side, Mulder on his belly, arms over the edge, examining his fish more carefully. Watching him with half-lidded eyes, she reached out, running her finger along the outer shell of his ear, staring peacefully as his lip curled upwards involuntarily, “enjoying your gift?”

“Of course.” Holding up a beautiful sunset colored one with fiery red fins and glittery blue eyes, “this one’s Scully,” then picking up a sword fish type with a long snout and long blue fins, “and this one’s Mulder.”

Scooting closer against him, “are you going to name them all or just those?”

“Just these for now. Maybe later, I’ll do the rest but these are the ones that matter.” Setting them down gently, he turned his head in her direction, resting his mouth on her forehead, whispering into her skin, “I don’t think fish mate for life but I like to think that ours will.”

“You get sappy when you’re sleepy.”

Moving in more, he found her lips, “but I think I can stay awake a few minutes longer.”