From: P. Lacuesta (lacuesta@mnl.sequel.net)
Subject: NEW: "Front Porch"
Title: "Front Porch"
Author: P. Lacuesta
Classification: S
Rating: G
Spoilers: "Pilot"
Keywords: Slightly alternate-universe.
Summary: What if Scully and Mulder have met before -- a long, long time
ago -- and they just don't remember?
DISCLAIMER: Here I am again with new fanfic (my second piece so far)
with characters that aren't mine. Instead, they belong to Chris
Carter, "The X-Files"' executive producer, 20th-Century Fox
Television, Ten-Thirteen Productions, and whoever happens to own
them that I didn't incude here. No negative intent in using these
characters - I just want to have fun with `em. Heck, I'm not so
sure
they're not enjoying themselves in this, either. I'm not making any
money off this, so that means I'm still relatively broke, so that
means I don't want anybody to sue me or anything. Long Live Free
Speech!!!
Anyone with comments, suggestions, or marriage proposals (don't worry,
I can't legally accept them until the year 2002 anyway) can e-mail
me at lacuesta@mnl.sequel.net. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE GIVE ME
FEEDBACK!!! Everybody here at home is getting lots of juicy e-mail but
me (and, well, my mom). I appreciate all sorts of helpful comments,
suggestions, and criticism, but no rude messages please!
Thanks again to Windows '95, Windows Word Version 7.0, to our computer
which has been on for the entire day, to my dad up there for
everything, to my brothers who taught me how to use Word and the
computer itself, my mom for paying for all of this, Natasha at the
Gossamer Archives for posting this for me and for putting up with my
pathetic e-mailing attempts, all of you "X-Files" fanfic-writers in
the Net who have inspired me, and especially to God and to everybody
else up there, thanks a whole lot you amazing bunch of guys!!!! You
don't have to be Catholic to appreciate Him, you know.
Once again, I am begging you to e-mail me!!!!!
Okay, I think that's the last of that, so let's roll!!!....
x x x
FRONT PORCH
by P. Lacuesta
June 5, 1973
Martha's Vineyard
Chilmark, Massachusetts
4:15 pm
She had never been short of either spirit or courage in her whole
short life, but just this one time, as she looked at that perfectly
innocent-looking white door on that perfectly innocent-looking front
porch, Dana Katherine O'Brien Scully couldn't help feeling a tiny
twinge of trepidation deep down inside.
Still. She'd rather die than be humiliated in front of these idiot
bullies. Oh, normally she wouldn't care about them. With her experience
and all the things her brothers had taught her over the years, she could
beat up a bully and make him cry "uncle" in a matter of seconds, big and
beefy as he might be. But he wasn't alone -- six other boys were grouped
around him, and even Dana thought she wouldn't be able to beat these odds.
"Well, go on!" shouted the lead bully, grinning. The others sniggered.
"Chicken?"
"I'll show you!" Her reedy little nine-year-old voice was made a little
stronger with all the spirit she could muster. "You all think I'm chicken
-- but I'll show you! You're the only chickens around here!" And with
that, she lifted her small chin proudly, clenched her hands into fists to
keep them from shaking, marched straight up to that innocent-looking white
door and pressed the doorbell button.
The intrusive *bzzzzzzzzt* filled the house.
Fox William Mulder glanced up in annoyance, letting the basketball bounce
away. He shook his head and ran after it, pretending not to have heard the
doorbell. Unfortunately, his mother and little sister both had. As Mrs.
Mulder
came out of the kitchen, enveloped in an apron and looking harried,
Samantha
Anne bounced up from the living room couch where she had been reading a new
book.
"Foss!" Thanks to her eight-year-old lisp, she couldn't yet pronounce his
name
properly -- a name he already detested. It was so absurd, so weird, so
unusual.
Why not give him a real name, Fox grumbled to himself as he dribbled and
passed
the ball to an imaginary teammate, like Peter or Matthew or Alex? "Fox" was
just
too silly. And everybody in the neighborhood sure seemed to have no problem
pointing that out every time they met.
"Foss!" Samantha yelled again in her thin, shrill voice. "Someone's at the
door!"
"Fox, I'm busy in the kitchen," added his mother with an exasperated look,
"could
you get the door, please?"
"Call me Mulder, Mom," Fox said tersely. As Mrs. Mulder shook her head,
vanished
back into the steam-filled kitchen, he bounced the ball angrily against the
drive-
way cement. Why did he have to open it? he thought grumpily. He was playing
such
a great game..... While Samantha watched him with big gray eyes full of
little-
sisterly admiration, he went to the door and, lifting the window curtain,
saw a
girl with fiery red hair tied back in a long ponytail standing on the
porch.
She wasn't facing him; she was looking off to the left, hands on her waist,
rubber
shoes planted defiantly apart as she stood with her back to him. A loud,
angry
voice, muffled through the door.
Frowning, Fox looked further up the road, in the direction where the kid
was
looking.
He should've known. The bullies were at it again.
Well, those pesky ten-year-old knowitalls were nuthin' against tall, stone-
faced, almost-twelve-year-old Fox Mulder.
Tossing a "You expecting any friends, Sam?" over his shoulder at his
sister,
he yanked open the door. He ignored the girl's startled glance up at him
and stepped out onto the porch. Getting ready for battle.
The bullies were looking mighty scared all of a sudden. They knew just how
frightening the Mulder kid could be when in one of his moods -- they had
tangled with him on more than one occasion, much to their regret -- and
suddenly they decided they could push the new kid around some other day.
They began edging backward.
Fox never noticed. The moment he had stepped onto the porch, he stopped
dead. The loud, angry, muffled voice he'd heard -- he'd thought it belonged
to the bullies. In fact, it apparently belonged to the kid standing behind
him.
She had some spunk, for someone who was Samantha's friend.
Oh, well. He could think about that later; right now, he had more pressing
matters to attend to.
"Hey, you! What do you think you're doing?" he yelled, starting across
the street.
The lead bully stepped back nervously. "Nuthin'," he mumbled.
"Well then back off! Go away! Go play somewhere else!"
The boys took a last, guilty look and bolted. Fox turned back,
satisfied, to find himself up against a furious red-haired girl
who barely came up to his chest.
"I could've handled them fine," she said petulantly, thin arms
across her chest, "all by myself."
He rolled his eyes. "Are you a friend of Samantha's?"
"No."
He blinked. "Selling Girl Scout cookies?"
She looked up at him, unaffected by his rather hostile tones,
with large eyes blue as the sky. "No."
"Then why'd you ring the bell?" he demanded in exasperation.
For some strange, inexplicable reason he wanted to scare her.
To see her back down before him, acknowledge that he was
older, bigger, smarter than her. To see her break that calm,
fearless, infuriating facade.
She did none of that. Instead she met his keen-eyed gaze head
on, never blinking, never faltering. "They dared me to." Her
young voice was clear and even and it never wavered for an in-
stant. "I'm not a chicken. I showed `em." She shrugged, broke
his gaze to stare off into the distace and started off, moving
around him and down the street. "Sorry if I bothered you."
He watched her wordlessly as she began to walk away. He hated
to say it, but he admired her. She hadn't wimped out on him or
the bullies; she'd stood it out, faced all of them down, calm,
defiant, fearless. Although he could see now that she hadn't
come away entirely unscathed.
"You're hurt," he said suddenly.
She stopped, almost in surprise, and glanced down at the cut on
her knee, oozing dark blood. "Oh, yeah. I'd forgotten about that."
She shrugged. "I'll live," she said carelessly, and resumed walk-
ing.
"Wait!" he blurted out, speaking before he thought. She stopped
again, looked back at him, squinting into the summer afternoon
sun behind him.
"There are Band-Aids in the house," he said.
Dana returned from the Mulders' bathroom, her face washed, wound
cleaned and bandaged, to find the older boy who'd earlier yelled at
the bullies setting a glass of juice and a sandwich on the dinner
table. He looked up as she walked in. For a moment she simply stood
still, taking in the scene before her.
"Thanks," she said finally, shyly. "Um... for the food and the
Band-Aid and everything."
He shrugged, stepping back and watching her with soft green eyes.
"I'm Fox Mulder," he said awkwardly after a moment, "but call me
Mulder."
She looked up at him curiously. "Don't you like your name?"
"I like Mulder better," he answered simply.
She shrugged, picked up the sandwich, and took a bite. "I'm Dana
Scully," she said with her mouth full, "but call me Dana." She
swallowed the bite and offered him a nine-year-old's bright, toothy
smile. Without thinking, he smiled back. It was a small, shy,
reluctant smile, but it was enough to make her eyes that brilliant
blue color again.
She took another bite of the sandwich. "Tuna," she said appreciative-
ly, still chewing. Her words were garbled through the mouthful of
sandwich. "My favorite. Thanks."
At that moment, Samantha came bouncing in, long dark braids flapping
behind her. "Foss, can I ask you something?" she chirped, then stopped
dead on sight of Dana sitting and eating the sandwich. Her eyes widened
a little, and she shrank back shyly. "Oh."
"Hi," Dana said, smiling. "You must be Mulder's sister. I'm Dana."
"I'm Samantha," she said shyly.
"Nice to meet you, Samantha."
"What is it, Sam?" Fox said abruptly. "What did you want to ask me about?"
Her gray eyes flickered back to him, as if she'd forgotten his presence.
"Oh. Um. I forgot." She shrugged. "Well, see you later, Dana."
"Sorry if she bothered you," Fox muttered to Dana as Samantha disappeared
from the room.
Dana grinned. "It's okay. I didn't mind. I have a little brother myself.
His name is Charlie."
"You're new in the neighborhood, aren't you?" Fox asked curiously, sitting
down at the table. "I mean, I've never seen you before around here."
Dana nodded. "My dad's a Navy seaman," she said proudly. "'Cause of his
job, my family and I move around a lot. When he got assigned here a month
ago, we rented a house a couple blocks from here. We moved in just yes-
terday." She paused. "I haven't thanked you yet for making those boys go
away."
"It's okay." He shifted awkwardly in his seat. "I don't think you needed
much help, anyway."
"With them?"
He nodded. "You're the only one I know who fought back when they picked
on you. Everybody else I know just cries or runs away."
She shrugged dismissively, but there was a telltale pink in her cheeks,
making her freckles just seem that much more obvious. "My dad always
told me never to back down. Always to meet problems head on, solve `em
before they get worse. Besides, my brothers taught me a lot so I can
lick just about anybody in a minute." She hesitated shyly. "But I
don't think I could've handled all seven of them. So, like I said --
thanks."
"Like I said." He grinned at her -- a real, broad, friendly grin this
time. "It's okay."
It was strange. Fox never ever was very good in dealing with people
younger than him -- little-sister loyalty aside, Samantha could attest
to that -- but for some reason he had no problem talking with Dana
Katherine Scully. He'd always disliked younger people -- perhaps an
inborn prejudice of some kind, a carryover from being an older brother
to someone, being responsible for her; he hated how they were so cutesy
and shrill-voiced and bratty. But now Dana was kind of like an equal
-- somebody just as smart, just as brave, just as "mature" as he was;
somebody he could relate to, who could talk to him like any other twelve-
year-old, talk to him about the same stuff he liked: sports, books, school.
Maybe even someone who could deck anybody any day like him, if she cared
to.
That first meeting ended a little too soon for Fox's liking. As they fell
to chatting together, Mrs. Mulder walked in, said hi and welcome to Mas-
sachusetts and wouldn't you like to have dinner with us? And then Dana was
saying sorry, maybe some other time and how she ought to be home before it
got too dark outside. And suddenly, to his own astonishment, Fox found
himself volunteering to accompany her home. His mother had been proud of
her "little gentleman."
The two of them walked the entire way to Dana's new house in a silence
broken only occasionally by her asking him a question about life in Chil-
mark and his answer, or by his asking about all the places she had been to
so far, and her answer. But most of the fifteen-minute walk they shared a
comfortable, companionable, friendly silence, backgrounded by the chirping
of crickets. When Dana finally arrived home and said goodbye and thanks to
him, he walked home again alone, wondering about the strange, spunky Dana
Scully, hoping they would talk again the next day, and feeling a curious
rush of mingled emotions tumble about inside him.
The Scullys' stay in Chilmark turned out to be disappointingly short-lived.
Around one and a half months after that eventful meeting on the front porch
of Martha's Vineyard, Fox visited the Scullys one sunny afternoon -- only
one of the daily trips of theirs between the two houses -- and was told by
Dana, not without a sad, ominous tone and expression, that William Scully
had been reassigned again and that the Scullys were moving to somewhere in
California in three weeks. Fox accepted the news calmly, seemed relieved
that
it would still be some time before Dana moved out of his life, as far
as he could see, forever. He even offered to help them move their things
out.
They sat at the table in the kitchen eating sandwiches and drinking iced
tea,
and they sat and talked about lots of different, harmless things, like
video
games and basketball. Irrelevant things.
When Fox left and went home, he declined his mother's call to dinner,
saying
he had already eaten, and that he wasn't very hungry. Then he went up and
locked
himself in his room, ignoring Samantha's pleas to be let in. He spent the
late
summer evening lying on his bed in the semidarkness, staring up at the
ceiling,
thinking about all sorts of stuff, until he drifted slowly off to a fitful
sleep.
x x x
March 6, 1992
J. Edgar Hoover Building
FBI Headquarters, X-Files Division
Washington, D.C.
4:15 pm
She had almost never been short of either spirit or courage in her whole
life, but just this time, as she looked at that perfectly innocent-look-
ing door with that perfectly innocent-looking nameplate, FBI Special Agent
Dana Katherine O'Brien Scully, M.D., couldn't help feeling a tiny twinge
of trepidation, deep down inside.
The man she was moments away from meeting would be her partner -- her
first real work partner since joining the FBI a little over two years ago.
She hoped -- for his own sake, if anything else -- that he would be decent,
hardworking, respectful, relatively easy to work with, and not a
chauvinistic
pig like some of the people she had had the misfortune to work with before.
And that he would be smart. Not necessarily with an IQ of five hundred, but
hey, she hadn't busted her butt all these years to become a famously
skilled
forensic pathologist, medical doctor and pretty damn good FBI agent just to
be assigned to some doofus. Although, if all the rumors and stories she had
heard were true, "Spooky" Mulder wasn't an idiot at all. Not a single bit.
In his personal file, too, she had learned that he was an Oxford psychology
graduate, but still.... Well, she'd like to see for herself.
She couldn't help thinking, though, that the name Fox William Mulder seemed
oddly familiar.
She raised her fist, hesitated, and then knocked on the door.
"Sorry!" a dry voice answered. "Nobody down here but the FBI's most
unwanted."
She felt suddenly cold. Where the hell had she heard that voice
before????
Shrugging, taking a deep breath, she pushed the door open to find
a lanky, long-legged man holding a file folder sitting back in
his chair amidst an unbelievable mess of files, folders, news-
papers, and papers. A bulletin board on the wall was crammed with
tacked-on photos, news articles, letters, notes, and memos. Fox
William Mulder's glasses, perched on a rather generously sized,
straight nose, glinted in the light from his desk lamp as he looked
up at her lazily, his eyes a soft green with hazel flecks. Dark
hair tousled after the day's work fell into his face.
Shit.
The man was bleeping beautiful.
But.... just where had she seen that face before???
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