WITH BETTER LIGHT by Rae Lynn (rae_lynn05ATyahoo.com) RATING: G CLASSIFICATION: V SPOILERS: "The Field Where I Died" KEYWORDS: Post-episode. Mulder/Scully UST. ARCHIVE: Please inquire within. SUMMARY: Mulder and Scully talk after "The Field Where I Died." DISCLAIMER: All characters contained within are the property of Chris Carter and Ten Thirteen Productions. No profit will result from this story and no copyright infringement is intended. _________________________________________ It is past dark by the time Scully is ready to leave. But before she can follow her instincts and flee the town of Apison, Tennessee without so much as a backwards glance, she thinks ruefully, she must find Mulder. Scully's suspicion is that if she does not make the trek out to the field at the Seven Stars compound to retrieve her partner from his reverie, he may in fact stand out there forever -- or at least long enough to let himself be invaded by another past life. Mulder, who stands immobile, may be playing his own private game of Statues, or he may have actually, physically turned to stone. Scully is perversely relieved to see goosebumps on Mulder's arms. It is her own game, one that she plays only after particularly harrowing cases, and the rules are simple: Points for any signs that Mulder is still alive. Bonuses for indications that his cognitive functions are intact. Conclusive proof that no further damage has been done to his psyche? That, the jackpot, is beyond Scully's reach of hope. Instinctively she touches his arm. "Mulder, you're cold," she says by way of greeting -- Mulder will expect this from her. Mulder shakes his head mechanically; sometimes it seems to her as though his penchant for disagreeing with her is an automated response in him, as natural as blinking or breathing. "I'm fine," he says. Mulder has been lying to her like this for years. Scully chooses, as always, to take it in stride. "Mulder," she begins, "it's natural to feel affected by what happened..." It is, she thinks as she trails off, possibly her most useless attempt at a consolation speech since her words at his mother's bedside months before. Truthfully, Scully has never felt entirely comfortable comforting others after a tragedy; it is why she became a pathologist, why Mulder seems to appreciate it when the two of them pretend their mutual catastrophes have never happened. It is Mulder who has always been the empathetic one; just weeks from now Scully will accuse him of wearing his heart on his sleeve, of exposing his private vulnerabilities for the world to see. Maybe, Scully thinks, it is Mulder's vulnerabilities, and his willingness to reveal them, that give him the strength at which she has always marveled. "Come on," Scully says quietly. "Let's go home." "To what home, Scully?" Mulder says idly. On the Mulder mood meter, Scully thinks, he is trying hard for "casual" but has already been badly betrayed by the croak in his voice. "To Hamilton County? To Warsaw?" Scully sighs, knowing even as her breath escapes her that it will be audible enough against the wind for Mulder to hear. "Mulder..." "I know you don't believe in it, Scully," Mulder says, turning his face into the breeze. "I was raised Catholic, Mulder," she responds patiently. "But even if I hadn't been..." Mulder turns back to her, looking vaguely interested. Clearly, Scully thinks, he has expected some kind of pseduo-scientific diatribe about the unlikelihood of the reincarnating cycle of souls, and her comment about religion has managed, for once, to surprise him. "Even if you hadn't been, what?" he says. "I believe that one lifetime is enough," Scully says with finality. Mulder forces a small smile. "Guess you were never big on do-overs as a kid then, huh?" Scully manages to smile back. "No," she agrees. "No, my siblings got no second chances." The words seem to knock Mulder right back into melancholy. "Is that what you think reincarnation is about, Scully? Second chances?" Scully considers her partner carefully. Difficult to read at even the simplest of times, on this case he has lapsed into complete inscrutability. Scully prides herself on her ability to stand toe to toe with Mulder even when she knows she will be telling him exactly what he doesn't want to hear. But in Tennessee, Scully finds herself unable to figure out what it is that Mulder does want. Every answer, she realizes, may be the wrong one. "It's my understanding," she says neutrally, "that those who do believe in reincarnation often view it as a way to atone for past mistakes in a new life." "In that case," Mulder replies, tilting his head back to look up at the few stars that are beginning to appear in the sky, "I have enough to atone for in this one." "Mulder," Scully says, wondering when the sound of his name became a private shorthand for a thousand other things, "you can't blame yourself for what happened to Melissa Riedel." He spreads his arms as if expecting Scully to recognize a target on his chest. "Can't I?" he says. "I played her the tapes. She told me she wanted to believe them." Scully feels herself trying and failing not to react to Mulder's words. Maybe she and Mulder really have been friends together in other lifetimes, always; Scully is certainly exhausted enough to feel as though she has been partnered with Mulder for several millennia. Scully has a sudden image of the poster in Mulder's basement office replicated on a cave wall while a female Neanderthal with red hair laboriously scratches in the word DON'T between the I and the WANT. "She told me she'd want to start over," Mulder continues in a low voice. "To end this pointless life." "Mulder, if it were true," Scully says slowly, trying to shake her head of the cave image, "if you were destined to spend your life with certain people, certain...moments...then no life would be pointless." For a moment, Mulder looks at her strangely, with the scrutinizing gaze Scully has always found unnerving, and she senses there is more to Mulder's conversation with Melissa than he has revealed to her. "If it is true," he finally muses, "it means our souls can never be at rest. That we're destined to keep searching, suffering near misses in all these various lifetimes until some cosmic coincidence finally makes things right." Scully has no idea whether Mulder is referring to himself and her or to himself and Melissa, and she thinks it wiser not to ask. Instead she reaches for his arm again, relieved when he doesn't flinch or pull away. "Is that all you think your lifetime will amount to, Mulder?" she says softly. "A near miss, an attempt at some cosmic coincidence?" "I think it's the other way around, Scully," Mulder answers. "I think it's about the idea that there's more to our lives than we know, that there's a deeper fate beyond what we're aware of." He glances down at her. "And that whether you believe in it or not, your soul has ties that bind it to others, to the people who are most essential to you, in more than one lifetime." The poetry in Mulder's words is so earnest that Scully can't help but smile. Mulder looks at her. "You think I'm full of shit," he says mildly. Scully reaches over and takes his hand. "If you're full of anything, Mulder," she says, "it's hope." "And that's a place to start?" he asks, startling her. When she had said those words to Mulder in his mother's hospital room, he had been in shock, barely coherent -- certainly not listening, Scully had thought, to her empty platitudes. Sometimes, Scully thinks, she is surprised at the depth to which her partner is actually soaking in her words. She nods at him, this time with conviction. "That's a place to start," she repeats. He moves in closer to her, his legs buckling slightly as he shifts position. Unthinkingly Scully reaches out as if to catch him, and she stiffens as their eyes meet. Mulder's are full with the imploring look he has been giving her ever since they reached Tennessee. "You never had some guy claim to be your soulmate, Scully?" he says softly, his lips moving close to her ear. "You're the first, Mulder," Scully answers without thinking. Mulder's only response is the sound of his breath in what may be a sigh or, just as easily, a short laugh. "What if you did believe in it?" he says hesitantly. "Destined to hunt Flukemen through an endless procession of lifetimes." Scully attempts to consider this for a moment -- a ceaseless parade of man-eating monsters -- but what flashes before her eyes instead is a conveyer belt of reincarnated Mulders, some of them wearing futuristic space suits and riding in flying cars. "I could think of worse ways to spend my next life," she replies honestly. "After all, I could come back as the Stupendous Yappi's bodyguard." This time Mulder's smile is genuine. Then abruptly he pulls away from her, his eyes scanning the field for something Scully felt certain she would never be able to see. "Thank you," he says in a low voice, not looking at her. "Scully, I...I know that we...disagree on certain issues. But I need you to know that I have always been appreciative of our partnership." Momentarily silenced by the deep formality of Mulder's statement, Scully finds herself wondering from what past lifetime Mulder's method of apologizing after a harrowing case is inherited. She has no way of knowing whether Mulder expects an answer, or even whether his mind is still present on this earthly plain, but she realizes that, under the circumstances, "You're welcome" would sound trite. "I feel the same way," she says instead, trying to match her tone to his rich ones. After a long pause, she adds, "Mulder, it's getting late." Mulder nods without turning around. "Go ahead," he says, his voice muffled as it bounces back against the breeze. "I'll be in in a minute." She hesitates. "Mulder..." Even in the dark, Scully can read the lines in Mulder's shoulders as he straightens up, can picture the face he is putting on as he turns toward her. "You're right," he says. "Let's go home." To his credit, Mulder resists even a parting glance behind him as they stride toward the car, but Scully cannot help what she vowed she would not do: one final glimpse of the skyline across the tall grass, the field where her partner had died. ______________ END. AUTHOR'S NOTES: When "The Field Where I Died" first aired in 1996, I wrote a post-episode fic for it. I have no idea what happened to it or even what it was about, but hey, nine years later, I'm back at it. This story is in a different style for me, perhaps because I'm still not sure how I feel about "TFWID" as an episode and I think it shows. Nevertheless, I am still grateful for feedback at rae_lynn05ATyahoo.com.