A day at the beach, sandcastle spaceships, and a sense that all is well again…
It was a dreary day to be at the beach, Scully decided. It had rained overnight and from the glowering impression of the skies overhead, it was a distinct possibility for today also. The humidity created a ghostly effect over the water, enveloping their immediate surroundings in a monochromatic blue-gray haze. But she was here with Mulder, and that was what mattered. That he was alive and well and able to be anywhere with her was what mattered. Once more, she had to breathe a huge sigh of relief for the fact that he did not seem to be suffering from any disastrous side effects as a result of his mysterious surgery, vivid dreams notwithstanding. The latest round of torture in Fox Mulder's life was apparently over.
She pulled her jacket in more tightly around her and began a slow amble from the car. She had been leaning against it while taking in the sights in front of her, with Mulder being her focal point. Immediately after she had put the vehicle into park, he had gotten out, making a beeline for a large rock about fifty feet in front of them, seemingly drawn to it by some irresistible force. There he had sat since, gazing out at the waters of the Atlantic.
The long ride out had been fairly quiet. He dozed off a couple of times, obviously lacking more sleep than he had thought. But as far as she could tell, he had slept soundly and uneventfully. She ventured to ask why he had left the bed in the middle of the night, but all he said was that he had awakened and couldn't get back to sleep. She suspected that he wasn't telling her the whole truth, but it wasn't really important. The only thing that was truly important was the fact that the big pieces of their lives seemed to have fallen back into place. And today, she was determined that they were going to do nothing but relax and get away from the past two weeks. Her problems were not going to be problems and whatever Mulder wanted to talk about would be fine with her.
She approached him slowly.
"Hey. You've been sitting here for almost five minutes. Wanna walk?" She paused in front of him, standing between him and the barest rays of sunlight that were attempting to peek out from under the low rain clouds.
As her shadow crossed over his line of sight, he looked up at her in surprise, almost as though he had forgotten that he hadn't come here alone. But his face slowly lit up as a wide smile made its way across his lips. He held out his right hand towards her, palm up, his intentions and invitation clear.
Scully returned the smile and reached out to take the proffered hand. She tugged on it lightly, prompting Mulder to raise himself up from the rock that he had adopted as his own. As he led them down an embankment to find a route closer to the water, it almost seemed to her like he was taller today, but she soon realized it was just because she was not in her usual workday heels. She gazed at their joined hands with interest, thinking how odd it was that each milestone reached between the two of them held such significance for her. While they had certainly initiated more contact over the past year, strangely enough, actually walking hand in hand had never presented itself.
"What are you thinking, Scully?"
"That this is nice."
"Tells you something about us, doesn't it?"
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, how our lives revolve around work. How much time we spend on work stuff. And how much we actually don't do when we're not working. Not to say that I should be able to walk around with you like this at the Hoover Building, but you realize, Scully, in the past year, we haven't been anywhere where we feel like we can do this."
"I think that's been intentional, Mulder."
"Really?"
"Well, it's not like we've been advocating any sort of standard dating behavior." She looked up at him, enjoying the quirky expression on his face that indicated that he didn't quite know what to make of her comment. "Doesn't make it any less nice, though," she added quickly, before he had any ideas to read more into it than she had intended.
He stopped and stared out at the haziness over the water.
"This is exactly like it was."
"Like what was?"
"My dream." He shifted his gaze to her face and smiled reassuringly. "Yeah, I know, Scully. You're thinking, when is he going to lay off about the dreams? Don't worry, I'm not reading your mind again, I just know you."
"Mulder, it's just that —"
"This was a good dream, Scully."
"Oh? Did Santa come early and leave you many gifts?"
"No, but now that you bring up the subject of gifts, the birthday fairy did remind me that you owe me a present." It was his turn to enjoy the befuddled expression on her face.
Mulder had historically eschewed birthday presents with almost as much vehemence as the events themselves. He had to be joking.
"I'm kidding," came the confirmation. Suddenly turning serious, he added, "I haven't changed any, have I, Scully? I mean, it would probably be impossible for me to know, but I don't seem to be different to you, do I?"
She turned and stepped in front of him, taking his other hand in hers. "No Mulder, you're not different. That's something that we're all profoundly grateful for. Whatever they did — whoever it was that performed the procedure — was very good. There's nothing that indicates that there's been any permanent damage."
"So I guess this proves that I've got a hard head, right?"
"Believe me, I didn't want this kind of proof. Speaking of your birthday, though —" She stopped when she caught the face that he made at her. "What? You were the one who brought it up." He shook off the hold she had on his one hand and swung her gently back to his side, resuming their walk. They trudged along slowly, their shoes not offering the best grip on the wet sand.
"You've always wondered why I hate my birthdays, Scully... look at all the nasty things that keep happening in the same general time frame. I must be cursed."
"Well, that aside... I had a killer present for you, but since it was time sensitive, it's all for naught now."
"Time sensitive? A cake that went bad or something?"
It was her turn to make a face at him.
"It took some major finagling, Mulder, but I actually had World Series tickets for you... well, for us."
"Really?" He definitely seemed impressed.
"You missed out big-time."
"So have I turned you into a baseball fan, Scully?"
"Well, Mulder, it wasn't like I ever hated baseball or anything like that."
She didn't really answer his question, but he was feeling quite content in the moment and didn't need to pursue it. He inhaled a deep breath, slowly savoring the unique essence of the ocean air around him. There was always something freeing about being amid the sand, surf, and cool moist breeze of the beach. Being here with Scully, being able to feel her hand in his, knowing that he was alive to enjoy one more day with her, was enough to push aside all of the horrors of the past couple of weeks.
He squeezed her hand, feeling his heart swell when she returned the gesture immediately. They walked in silence for several minutes.
"Mulder?"
"Yeah?"
"You were going to tell me how this scene looks exactly like a dream that you had..." "I still can't get over how much this looks like it."
"Does this have anything to do with that story that you mentioned this morning?"
"The little boy and his sandcastle spaceship? Yeah...." His couldn't help but smile even at his own description.
"I must admit, that doesn't quite sound like the kind of dream that you'd be having...unless at some point some girl pops out of said sandcastle."
He gave her a look of "ha, ha" and squeezed her hand again, harder this time.
"It came to me last night, which was surprising because it's not one of the dreams that I keep having... but it was something significant to that alternate reality that I described. But there was more to it than that. It was like a bridge — a connection — between who I am and who I was in that other life. A dream within a dream, simple and yet so complex at the same time. I had several versions of this same dream, and I could never totally figure out what it meant."
He paused to stare at her, as if searching in her eyes for clues.
"So tell me about it."
"The earliest I can remember, it was just a boy playing on the beach. I'm sitting on a rock, at a distance, watching him. There's no one else around; it's all ours. It's strange, because I don't get much of a chance to get out to the beach, but I had this overwhelming feeling of belonging there. Hours would pass and I'd just sit there and watch him play. It was peaceful. Sometimes he would acknowledge me, sometimes not. He always seemed to be aware of my presence though. One time he walked up and spoke to me, but I don't remember what he said."
"What did he look like?"
"Your average six year old boy — sorta cute, I guess."
"What I'm asking is, did he remind you of yourself as a kid?"
"Ooh, Scully — pushing the envelope to find some deep meaning in 'just a dream'?"
She ignored his teasing tone and replied dryly, "Well, it only seems to me like the most obvious connection if you're looking for a meaning. Doesn't imply that I'm prepared to say that this has any meaning beyond perhaps you wanting to go to the beach and build sandcastles, Mulder."
He glanced over at her, silently grateful for the chance to hear that signature Scully skepticism again, despite what he knew was going on in her own head.
"Oh well. In any case, I don't think he was meant to be representative of the 'physical' me." "Now who's pushing the envelope? Next thing I know you're going to get religious on me."
"Don't mock what you don't know, Scully. That whole sequence of dreams that I had while they operated on me might end up being very spiritual to me... whenever I figure them out." "Okay, okay. Back to the boy. Not representative of the 'physical' you, but...?"
"Well, maybe I should describe the whole thing to you first." He bent down and retrieved a broken shell from the sand. "By the way, Scully, we can't walk along a beach without playing 'find the perfect seashell', so here's a start. Each one we pick up has to be better than the last."
He examined the pitiful looking fragment for several seconds before handing it to her with a flourish and a smile. Dana Scully suddenly felt twenty years younger, like a teenager on a first date. "Thank you."
"You're welcome. By the way, you realize that proper dating protocol demands that you keep that as a memento forever?"
"Of course, I'll start up a memory box as soon as I get home, Mulder. I'll be counting on you to fill it."
She wished that she could read his mind as he suddenly appeared thoughtful, nodding slowly at her suggestion. Just as quickly, however, he turned his attention back to the subject at hand.
"Anyway.... this kid, he'd be building this rectangular object and repeatedly the surf would come in and take out a portion of what he'd constructed. This goes on and on. Sometimes I'd go and tell him that it's okay, he can start over. And sometimes he'd just automatically begin again on his own."
"And this turns into a spaceship?"
"Yeah, all of a sudden, or so it seemed. Like I said, Scully, I don't recall having this dream at any time other than when I was out — I've remembered it, but not all of it is a vivid memory, unlike those other dreams that I keep having. What I remember seems to jump from the boy not getting very far beyond making a big cube, to him standing on top of this structure that looks like a real honest-to-God spaceship. Big, huge. But you know, it was strange because he called it a UFO."
"Strange because...?"
Scully had the vague notion that what Mulder was describing sounded exactly like what she saw in the sand and surf of the Ivory Coast. Except that her spaceship had been real. In the end result, however, it was just about as fleeting as Mulder's sandcastle.
"Because he actually used the words. Most little kids wouldn't say 'unidentified flying object', would they? That's quite a mouthful."
"No, I guess you're right. 'Spaceship' would be my first choice of a word if that's what it looked like."
"Exactly. Anyway, when I walk up to admire his work, he starts kicking at it, destroying it. I ask him why he's doing this, and he — he tells me it's my spaceship and that I'm the one destroying it... because I was supposed to help him and I didn't. In my next clear memory of this dream, we're working together, finishing it off. It becomes this giant, triangular ship. The sun's coming out, it's warm, the kid's happy and smiling, and I'm feeling content like I've never felt before in my life."
Scully reached up to brush her hair out of her eyes, holding it back as the ocean breeze suddenly whipped her red tresses around her face. She marveled at Mulder's expression as he gazed back at her — it was that same peaceful look of reconnection that he had surprised her with this morning — and wished that she could grab hold of this moment for him and capture it for all eternity.
"You're seriously wondering what this means, Mulder?"
"Humor me, Scully."
"I'm not making fun, it's just that if you're looking for a meaning, isn't it —" She gestured with her hand.
"Obvious?"
"Well, the part that has you feeling content while building a spaceship can't be any more obvious, can it? It's symbolic of your life's work, everything that you've stood for, for the past however many years."
"I got that part of it. But the boy —"
"My guess is that you were right about him the first time — he's not your physical self. I think the fact that you saw a boy implies youth... he's the energy and innocence of your quest, that defining piece of your life that'll never grow old. This life, as you say, as opposed to that other life that you were living in your dreams. Perhaps he embodies your spirit, the part of you who'll get up and go on no matter what they do to you, the part of you who'll always keep believing. That's very childlike, hence the image of the boy..."
"But do you think it means that only I can continue the work? That's a lot to hang on me, isn't it?"
"I don't know; maybe it doesn't have to be. You said that he basically constructed the whole thing without you, but that he became happy and content when you finally came to help him finish it. Maybe it just means that the work requires your unique touch or involvement to succeed the way you want it to... it might be the idea that if you don't have a hand in creating your own dreams, by your inaction, you're destroying it, or at best, allowing someone else to shape it for you."
Scully decided that the look on Mulder's face must be his imitation of her expression whenever he laid out a wild theory on her.
"Come on, Mulder. You lure me out to the beach on a chilly gray day on the pretense of telling me a story and you end up making me play amateur psychologist... What am I getting out of this?" "You, Dr. Scully, are getting tremendous insights into your partner. I don't tell my dreams to just anyone."
"Yes, but why do I get the feeling that your devious Freudian brain is taking everything that I'm saying and performing some sort of twisted psychological surgery on it?"
"Me?" She had to admit, Mulder did the innocent routine very well. Not to the point of making her believe him, but to the point of making her want to do other unspeakable things to him. "Yes, you. Tell me, Mr. Oxford Degree, what do you think this dream means? And don't tell me you don't know."
"Honestly, Scully?" The teasing was suddenly gone, replaced by a soft, reflective air. "I just think it's filled with some of the most memorable images and feelings that I've ever had in my life. And I wanted to share them with you. That's why I called it a story. I mean, I don't doubt that it's some sort of subconscious reminder that I'm meant to be here, doing my thing, chasing UFOs... whatever that really means. But for once, that idea didn't get depicted to me as something to ridicule. Or worse yet, as something useless that I've wasted half my life on. For once, it was raised up as something beautiful and exhilarating. Maybe even rewarding. That's kind of like someone coming up to me and validating my existence after thirty-eight years." This time it was Scully who initiated the light hand squeeze. He turne d to her and smiled, bringing them to a halt.
"When I had this dream again last night, it felt like a rebirth, a sign of some sort. Confirmation that I'm doing the right thing. That I've made the right choices.... So tell me, Scully, am I experiencing some weird form of post-traumatic stress?"
"If that's the case, Mulder, and it makes you feel this good, I wouldn't mind some of it myself."
Their eyes met in one of those rare, open moments where neither of them bothered to hide anything. Scully noted that they hadn't shared a direct lip-to-lip kiss of any sort since their 'experiment' in Kroner. Was he waiting for her to make the next move? Did the one from a few days ago make the grade or did it not count?
Mulder was seriously thinking about kissing her when he became distracted by shadows moving above them.
"Hey look, Scully. Up there... the sun's coming out."
Sure enough, within minutes, a break in the clouds permitted the midday sun's rays to shine down on them as they continued their walk, hand in hand.
* * * * *
After about an hour of exploring the shoreline, their conversation had reduced itself to just a few words now and again, a smile here and there. They had settled into the mode of simply enjoying one another's company, basking in the comfort of being away from their responsibilities. It was just a day at the beach, a touch of normality in a couple of otherwise unconventional lives.
They were lying back against an incline in the sand, taking a break, mesmerized by the waves rolling in and retreating. An assortment of seashells were arranged on top of a rock beside them. He had just made a move to stretch his arms over his head when he noticed her trying to stifle a yawn.
"Tired, Scully?"
"Yeah, sort of. Sorry about that..."
He laughed.
"Why should you be sorry?"
"Well, I'm not exactly being the life of the party."
"Can you manage just being the life of the picnic?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I figure we can make our way back to the car — yes, I know it's a long way, and on my better days, I'd carry you, but you're going to have to make it on your own this time. I figured we can take a power nap, take twenty minutes or so to recharge the ol' batteries, and then I can make us lunch."
"You brought food?" He had managed to impress her, he could tell.
"Yes. There's everything you need for a picnic packed in the trunk."
"So that's why you wanted me to take your car.... When did you have time to do this?"
"Didn't require much time. Mom did some shopping for me before she left so I had a stocked fridge filled with stuff that I could actually make things with — you know, unlike my usual 'prepared' bachelor food. I've got everything I need to make us some fancy sandwiches, there's some fruit, and even a tiny bottle of fake bubbly from a gift basket that the boys sent over. I threw everything into a cooler while you were getting ready this morning."
"The boys sent you a gift basket?"
"A 'get well' thing. Do you think it's a weird choice, too, or is that just me?"
"It's borderline weird. That's definitely not within their normal gift-giving patterns." "What do you think it means?"
"Do they know about us?"
"Only everything that I've told them... kidding, Scully. I haven't said a word."
"But how stupid are they?"
"I think we've had this conversation before: not very."
"So you're thinking what? That this basket was meant as something for us to use?"
"Well, let me assure you that I've never received the 'crackers, cheese, and fancy spreads' treatment from the Gunmen before, Scully." Upon seeing her furrowed brow, he added, "What do you expect, anyway? They've probably got our places bugged."
"They wouldn't dare!"
"Actually, you're right. For all his bravado, Frohike would crap his pants if he so much as thought about the idea of invading your privacy like that."
They both fell silent for a moment as they pondered the peculiar images conjured up by his last statement.
"I have a question, Mulder." There was just the slightest hint of flirtatiousness in her voice to make him sit up and take notice.
"What's that?"
"Let's just say that fifteen years down the road, we're sitting here —"
"Still?"
"Again, Mulder.... Would you continue to have surprises like this for me?"
"Well, that depends, Scully."
"Depends on what?"
"Whether I'll have had any luck in getting you between the sheets in all that time."
She rolled her eyes but managed to smile in spite of herself. She turned and started climbing up the sand bank, murmuring as she went, "Always a price to pay with you guys..."
"Hey — don't forget your shells."
* * * * *
It had started to rain heavily by the time they could see his car in the distance. After determining that he felt well enough to do so, they ran the rest of the way. The sound of rain coming down on the roof of the car was comforting once they were in the relative dryness of the vehicle.
"So, Mulder, do you have a towel among your picnic supplies?"
Seeing her with the rain-drenched hair and clothes brought back strong memories of Oregon. She no longer looked as innocent nor as young, of course, and her fate had been forever changed by her association with him all these years, but the essence of what made her "Scully" remained uncompromised.
"Mulder?"
"Oh — towel, yeah. I have a couple that I was going to use to spread out our picnic on, but I suppose drying ourselves is probably more the order of the day at the moment. I think you're volunteered to climb back there and get into the trunk. Thank goodness for the pass-through backseat..."
"Why me?"
"I'm too big to climb over the seat —"
"What's to stop you from getting out of the car and accessing the trunk in the usual way?"
"Listen to this downpour, Scully. We can barely talk in a normal voice over this rain. Just opening the trunk is going to soak everything."
She had to admit that he was mostly right about the volume of rain that was coming down. Resigned to taking the leap over the front seat, she removed her shoes and then shrugged out of her wet jacket, tossing it into the back. She noticed Mulder eyeing her appreciatively and decided for perhaps the fifth time today that there was really nothing wrong with him.
"Okay, Mulder, have it your way."
As she went over the seat, she could hear him murmuring under his breath, "Promises, promises." She responded shortly by throwing a towel over his head.
"Here, you can go first. I don't think we need to get both of them out; these are huge."
She sat back and watched him this time as he eased out of his windbreaker and tossed it over the seat towards her. Ever mindful of his recent surgery, he carefully ruffled the towel over his hair, leaving him with a very spiky 'do'. The shorter styles that he had been favoring lately didn't require much attention at least, Scully thought to herself absently. In no time at all, he was handing the towel back to her.
At the last second, he withdrew it and asked, hesitantly, "May I?"
"You want to dry my hair for me, Mulder?"
"If you don't mind."
She didn't answer with words, but acquiesced by turning around and facing the rear of the vehicle. He reached over and covered her head with the towel. She closed her eyes, listening to the pounding rain, feeling the vibrations it sent through the car. Mulder applied a gentle rubbing motion to dry her off just enough so that water was no longer dripping. He pulled the towel from her head and draped it around her neck, patting it down around her shoulders to absorb the dampness that had soaked through her jacket. He then took one end of the towel and wrapped it around a section of her hair, rubbing it between his hands. He repeated this action slowly and precisely until he had worked his way from one side to the other. When he finished, she felt him run his fingers through her hair in a combing action, starting from the back of her neck all the way up over her scalp. Unexpectedly, it gave her the shivers.
"There. Done."
"Thank you," she replied quietly, wondering if he noticed her trembling. If he did, he was ignoring it.
"Feeling dry enough to come back up here and steal forty winks?"
"In a second. Why don't you start up the car and turn on the heat... let it warm up a bit? I'm going to grab the other towel so that we can use it as a blanket."
"You want heat out of this baby? That could take some coaxing, Scully..."
"Work on it, Mulder."
As Mulder busied himself with the car, Scully reached back into the trunk and retrieved the dry towel. She was in the process of hanging up their jackets when she remembered something. Reaching into her pocket, she rescued two almost perfect seashells. They were enti rely different from one another, one a large scallop and the other a smaller spiral — what were they called again — whelks? She wiped the remaining grains of sand from them carefully and placed them both on the back dash. She sat back and considered how — at the time that they found each of them — they had challenged themselves to find a matching pair.
She understood now how totally appropriate it was that they hadn't been able to do so.
When she turned around, she saw Mulder smiling at her in the rearview mirror. Something about his expression told her that he understood too.