Classification: Stand-alone vignette. Takes place after "One Breath."
Summary: There might be a bar in Heaven.
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters or their lives. This story came to me in a dream and I just took dictation, so if Fox, 1013, and CC want to sue they can call my subconscious' lawyer and they can do lunch.
*****
Out of the Deep
Name's Ike, as if it matters, which it doesn't, but that's what they call me. I've tended bar here for, oh, as long as I can remember.
What passes for a door here opens and I swear I can catch a whiff of sea air as he comes in, salt spray clinging to his dress whites. And why he chose them of all his clothes, I'll never know, unless it's the air of confidence they give him. Bill Scully comes here often, more to say hello than to actually partake of our ambrosia. A lot of my patrons are confused men. You could say that they were at sea, which is why "The Admiral" is such a comfort to them.
"Ike, how are you?" he bellows loudly enough for the whole bar to hear. Some heads come up out of their drinks long enough to smile at the man who led them away from a deep, confusing time and helped them find what the Admiral calls their "sea legs."
Even though we're far, far from any sea.
Maybe he means "time legs," but there's no time here, either.
The Admiral picks up his glass and looks around. "Looks like the usual crowd today," he says for no real reason--it's almost always the usual crowd.
Except for that one man, sitting in the corner. He has nothing in his hands and is staring absently into the center of the room as if it were unoccupied. His face is troubled, and he's as lost a soul as ever I did see. I incline my head toward him.
"Hmm." The Admiral gives him the once-over, checking out the baggy clothes. There are blood stains still on the shirt. "Gotta be new--no one would choose THAT outfit, would they, if they knew what was what?" He reconsiders as we watch the man together. "But he doesn't look too disoriented. Maybe he's had to spend a while thinking about what happened before he was allowed to come here."
I merely suggest and let him think it out for himself, the sign of a good bartender. "What do you suppose he'd drink, guy like that?"
A hundred-watt smile is better than thanks. "Give me another, Ike, and let me have a scotch, light on the soda, for our companion."
This isn't a new scene and there's no reason to watch, is there? But I do anyway. Odd, really.
"Mind if I sit down?" asks the Admiral.
Bleary eyes look up at him, so tired that it's hard to believe that they've been at rest. The man blinks and it's as if he hasn't been addressed in so long that he's forgotten the ritual. Finally some ancient training kicks in and the bones in his neck seem to creak as he nods. "Go ahead."
"I'm Admiral William Scully. You can call me Bill."
"I'm Bill, too. Bill Mulder."
"Then we're likely to get confused, aren't we?"
The new Bill coughs as he tries to laugh, unaccustomed to the feel of it. The Admiral hands him the scotch. A sip of it perplexes Bill, and he looks up at the Admiral in some confusion.
"Doesn't have quite the same kick as it did, I know. You'd think with this much time to distill...but never mind. Haven't been here long, have you?"
"Here? I'm not sure where I am, actually."
"Can't say as if it's an exact place--we don't have them. But that's Ike over there," and I wave my towel in his direction to acknowledge him, "and we come in here just about every day to sit and talk."
"Talk."
"We can't talk about the weather, since there really isn't any. Sports, once in a while, just to keep current." He pauses, kindness washing over the round face. "And sometimes, we talk about what brought us here."
Silence. When Bill Mulder finally speaks, his voice is a death knell. "My own stupidity. My duplicity. My wasted life, the lies..."
"Easy, man, easy." The Admiral puts a beefy hand on the other man's shaking shoulder. "Start at the beginning. When did it happen?"
"I'm not sure...a long time, three, four years. I've been...thinking..."
"That's a long time to think."
Bill takes a long sip of his drink and presses the cold glass against his forehead. "Today I found myself here. This was the first place that looked as if it made any sense."
"It does make sense here, after a while. But I see you haven't...changed."
The blood on his shirt seems to startle Bill. He fingers it, watching as the rusty flecks fall away like tainted snow and disappear. "I get a choice?"
"You do, yes. And about where you want to 'be' in your age."
Both men touch balding pates. Bill looks at the Admiral.
"I thought about my red-headed twenties, but I have a daughter here..."
A shadow passes over Bill's face and he nods. Compassion appears in his eyes for the first time. "I do, too, though I haven't seen her yet."
"Then you want to look as you did when she saw you last. It's easier for them that way, when they're new."
"But she's been here for a long, long time."
"I'm sorry, Bill."
"She was only eight years old. it was my fault. I thought she was still...with them, but now I know she has been here, alone, all this time."
The Admiral nods sagely. "She'll still recognize you. She's seen you with them and she'll know who you are." He leans forward and whispers absolution. "She loves you."
"Even after..."
"That's what this place is about--love. Well, maybe not THIS place," he waves, indicating the bar, "but where you are in the larger scheme of things. You're here because of love."
"Do we all come here, then, after enough time has passed?"
The Admiral weighs the words carefully. "The lucky ones do."
Bill is silent, listening to voices from deep within himself. He doesn't have the face of a man who'd consider himself lucky, in or out of his lifetime. But his clothes change to something comfortable and clean, so that's a good sign.
A buzz in the atmosphere, susurrence. "Woman to starboard," I call out to the Admiral; it's our signal that his daughter is here.
She's a tall redhead, proud yet gentle, one of the few women who can come in here and not be put off by the ghostly remains of testosterone. And she has our Admiral wrapped around her little finger. She stands by the table, dressed in the flowing white she chose as soon as the option was made clear to her. An angel, aware. And good at it.
"Daddy," she says softly as the Admiral kisses her cheek. She's so proud of him, closer to him here than she ever was before.
"Melissa, honey, I want you to meet Bill."
The man rises. Politeness was ingrained somewhere during his life, coming to the fore even after death and scotch in that order. "Bill Mulder."
No flies on Melissa, if there were any, but you know what I mean. "You have a son named Fox."
"You know my son?" He's agitated, animated for the first time since he dragged his feet into my place.
The Admiral is not surprised at all. "We tend to meet people here who crossed our paths, or our family's paths, in life."
"We've met," Melissa adds. "He works with my sister."
Bill deflates, sinking to his chair. "Oh...Dana Scully..."
The Admiral and Melissa exchange some silent communication. Melissa takes her turn. "Don't blame yourself for what was done to her. It wasn't your choice."
"I was in on the start of the Project, I knew it was wrong." He rises again, but abruptly. "You don't want to be here with me...I'll go now."
"Wait." Melissa's fine-boned hand is stronger than it looks as it takes hold of Bill's sweater. "You don't understand. There's no blame, here. We're supposed to forgive each other, and we have. We do." Their eyes are level. "We do."
Bill lets Melissa touch his cheek, allowing that small gesture so awkwardly that it's clear he was almost never caressed in his life. The Admiral pats his shoulder. "Not just here, Bill, but there, with them. Someone there has forgiven you."
Even as long as Melissa has been here, this is still her favorite trick. She opens a space in the mist and we see a scene from life, a current one:
*****
The man is tall, a yarmulke perched precariously on wind-blown hair
the color of bitter ash. His lips form the Hebrew words slowly, as if they
are almost but not quite familiar, a distant but comforting memory. He
pauses once as his voice quavers and we see him look over his shoulder
at a woman dressed in black. She draws near and slips her fingers into
his as he finishes his prayer.
"This is weird, Scully," he whispers. "'All Souls' is your holiday, not mine."
"It's for *all* the dead. Mine, yours, everyone's." She begins to lay a white flower on Bill's marker but the man stops her and places a small stone there instead.
"If she's there with you, Dad, take care of her. And tell her...tell her..."
The dark head falls forward, taken between the woman's hands and drawn
to her shoulder. "He will, Mulder, he will." At last her face turns heavenward;
it's a smaller version of Melissa's with vivid blue eyes filled with tears.
"You see to it, Ahab," she whispers as drops of soft rain fall on her even
though the sun shines.
*****
"I'll do that," the Admiral promises.
Melissa dabs at her eyes with a handkerchief. "Don't want them to catch cold," she whispers as she blows a kiss to her sister. A faint breeze ruffles the scarlet tresses in the vision and the woman smiles.
Mist covers the portal and we are among our own again.
The three of them stare at one another for a moment. Bill is unsure of himself, moved but afraid, and he draws on the Admiral's strength and Melissa's kindness. "I have to go. I have to find her."
"She's already here."
They turn around and I see a child of such beauty that even my old, jaded eyes fill over. Or maybe it's the mist. Yeah, the mist.
She rushes up to Bill and throws her slender arms around his waist. "Daddy! Daddy!"
His strength returns to him through her touch, and he lifts her high into the air. Long, dark waves of hair caress his face as he kisses her cheek and gazes into sky-blue eyes that he thought were lost to him forever. "Samantha."
So much love in those three syllables.
Bill falls to his knees, the little girl held by the shoulders so that he can look at her perfect smile. "I've missed you so much."
"I missed you too, Daddy."
Melissa pulls at the Admiral's white sleeve, but he's not ready yet. "Just another minute, Missy."
But we don't have minutes here, and they stand and watch until the ice melts and it's time to close for the night.
*****
END
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