TITLE:  JOY
Author  by syn
synnerx@yahoo.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When Dana Scully returned home from the hospital, the first thing she
did was pull out all the paperwork that had been neglected in the wake
the tumultuous events of the past few weeks and lay it on her dining
room table.  She arranged it as she always did, with one pile of
neatly stacked folders to her left, three pens to her right and one
finely sharpened pencil directly in front of her.  With an efficient
gesture, she took down the first file, lay it before her and opened it
precisely.  Scully adjusted her glasses, took the pen in hand,
breathed deeply, and then, slowly...

Closed the file.

Scully sat back against the high-backed dining room chair and took off
her glasses.  There was the slight sting of tears in her eyes, and
while she wasn't clear about the reason for them, she gave into them
and enjoyed their warm, rolling wetness, and the sniffles that
accompanied them.  Occasionally, crying is a lovely thing, she thought
as she reached for a tissue and wiped her eyes.

I'll have to do it more often, she said to herself.

After the tears had ended, Scully got up and went into her kitchen, a
small, spotless room with cabinets filled with little soldier-like
lines of cans, perfectly stacked pots and a entire drawer of clean,
folded dishtowels.  She tapped her fingers against the counter and
opened the first cabinet.  Wheat spaghetti, tahini, health mix, light
tomato sauce, low-sodium soups and gravies and sugarless Jell-O all
greeted her with their usual dull expressions.  Scully shoved them
aside, searching, and then smiling, when she came to the large jar of
peanut butter that she stored there in preparation for her nephew's
occasional visits.

Upon examining the label, Scully shook her head.  Goodness, look at
all this fat, she thought.  The sugar content is outrageous, and the
cholesterol is a crime.  She opened the jar and tutted at the slight
sheen of peanut oil that covered the top and the deep, sugary scent
that filled her nostrils.  It's a heart attack in a jar, anyone with a
brain could see that, she thought as she pulled a tablespoon out of
the drawer, dug it in and pulled out a huge slab of the gooey butter.

She ate the entire spoonful.

With her eyes closed, she swirled it around, trying not to laugh as
her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth and even when her teeth felt
as though they'd been assaulted by a sugary, salty, delicious glue.
Scully swallowed, twisted the jar top back on and was about to return
it to the shelf, when she changed her mind.  Tearing the top off, she
stabbed the spoon into its center and took it back into the dining
room with her.  She plopped it onto the cover of the closed file and
picked up her portable phone, flipping it open and dialing.

Suddenly, she flipped it shut.

Thoughtfully, she took another spoonful of peanut butter, and stared
at the phone.  Why not, why not, echoed through her brain.  You only
live once.  She picked up the phone again, hit the speed dial button,
and smiled when she heard the familiar voice at the other end.

"Mulder."

"Hey," she said, through a mouth still struggling with the peanut
butter.

"Hello?" The voice on the other end sounded slightly confused, as
though he wasn't *quite* sure whom he was speaking with.

Scully swallowed and laughed.  "I'm sorry, Mulder, my mouth was full."

"Oh, hey, Scully.  How are you?  Is everything, ok?" he asked, still
sounding concerned, even in the wake of her recovery.

"Yeah," she said casually, playing with the spoon.  "I just...just..."

A sudden, outrageous thought from somewhere unknown hit her.  "I just
wanted to know if you were busy," she finished, not exactly sure it
was herself speaking.

"No, not really," replied Mulder curiously.  "Why?"

"Because," she began, biting her lip and wondering why she felt like
laughing.  "Because, I was hoping you'd be available for a little trip
I was taking this afternoon."

She could hear the curiosity grow on the other end. "A trip?  Where to?"

OK.  Where to, Scully, she thought with a smile.  Where to...where to,
where to.  "Oh, you'll find out when we get there.  I mean, I'm going
anyway, but I thought, I mean, I'd hoped you'd like to come, or at
least, I'd like you to come, I mean..."

Scully knew she was making little or no sense, but for some odd
reason, she didn't care.

And Mulder seemed to sense it also, but there was laughter in his
voice when he responded.  "I see.  OK.  I'm game, Scully.  Who's
driving?"

"Oh, I am," Scully replied immediately.  "I definitely am.  I'll pick
you up in a few."

"Scully, are you sure everything is..."

But Scully had flipped the phone shut, grabbed her jacket and was out
the door, even before Mulder had finished his question.

~~~~~~~~~~~

"I thought you hated the forest after our last little trip, Scully."

"Hate's too strong a word, Mulder. Try wary," replied Scully tromping
toward a clearing and motioning Mulder to follow.

She'd picked up Mulder about forty-five minutes previously and drove
straight to the nearby national park in Virginia, without even telling
him where they were going.  He sat good-naturedly in the passenger
seat, making joking comments about kidnaping and elopements, acting
surprised when Scully let him pick the radio station, even more
surprised when she turned up the volume and tapped her fingers in time
to the music.

"I think I'm going to check your wrist band again," he'd said, as her
foot hit the pedal, just a little harder.  "I think we got the wrong
Scully back."

Scully shook her head with a smile as they'd entered the gates.
"Nope.  You got the one and only."

And now, as they both stood in a large clearing, Mulder finally turned
to her.  "Well.  We're here, I think.  Now, are you going to surprise
me with a six foot hero and a case of Schlitz?  Because that's what I
was sort of hoping for here, Scully."

"Nope, our trip's not done yet," she said, and pointed above them,
past large, green-covered rocks to a jagged outcrop in the hills that
surrounded them.  "That looks like a good spot, doesn't it?"

Mulder looked up at the outcrop with a curious expression.  "That's
Kingdom Point, Scully.  Great view, but are you sure you want to go
all the way up there?  It's not an easy climb."

"Yes.  Yes, I do," she said firmly, walking to the trail marker.

"Scully," he replied slowly.  "Are you absolutely sure?"

She turned to him with a brilliant smile.  "Yes. I've never been more
sure about anything."

He smiled back and a wonderful, silent warmth flowed between them.
"Ok, I'm game if you are," he said. He put a friendly arm around her
shoulder and together they started up the path.

~~~~~~~~~~~

By the end of the first hour, Mulder was staring up at the huge, steep
rocks, shaking his head.  "This is harder than I remember it to be."

"You've been here before?"

"Yeah," he replied.  "My dad used to take us hiking here occasionally.
 That's how I knew the name of the lookout."

He jumped across one rock to another and held out his hand to Scully.
She took it and jumped up behind him.  They continued to jump rocks
and soon they reached the first climb.  Scully went first, digging a
foot into a hold and propelling herself forward, taking huge leaps
upward, trying to use speed to overcome the pull of gravity.  Mulder
kept up with her leaps, holding his hands out in front of him, to make
sure that if she stumbled back, he'd catch her.

But she reached the top of the first hill with incident and turned
around, puffing.  "That wasn't so hard," she said grinning.  "Right?"

"It ain't over yet," Mulder replied, pointing at an even steeper, more
slippery looking hill that lie before them.  "We can still turn back,
Scully," he said carefully.  "Any time you want."

Scully shook her head and walked on with determination.  "Absolutely
not."

And together they tackled the next climb.

This climb was much harder and Mulder went first, grasping branches,
making sure of his footholds and pointing them out to Scully as he
found them.  She followed exactly in his footsteps, not deviating in
the slightest from the path he chose and slowly they made their way
up.  Mulder kept turning back to check on her, but Scully waved him
forward, her gestures telling him not to worry, she was fine, and that
she was right behind him.

They reached the top, breathless, but satisfied.  There was a short
walk to the final climb and after sitting a moment, they both rose and
continued on.  And they spoke as they walked.

"So," asked Scully as they walked.  "Have you heard back from Samantha
yet?"

"No," said Mulder with a small shrug.  "Not yet."

His expression fell, and suddenly Scully felt sorry she brought it up.
 But he turned to her with a smile.  "But I haven't been exactly
looking either."

"Do you believe that she's the real Samantha?" asked Scully,
encouraged by his reaction.

"I don't know.  So much has happened in the last couple of weeks, I
can only handle debating one situation at a time right now," he replied.

Scully nodded.  "I know what you mean."  She turned to him with a
hopeful expression.  "But I truly hope she *is* your sister and that
you both will make your peace one day.  I pray for that, Mulder, I
really do."

They reached the final climb, a nearly sheer slab of rock, twenty feet
high.  He turned back to her with a grateful expression.  "Thanks
Scully, that helps me more than you know."

Mulder jumped up and found a foothold in the rock.  "Now, here Scully,
we'll have to climb separately, to find our own niches, but we can
stay side by side," he said, pulling himself up with a groan.  "OK?"

Scully found her own foothold.  "Got it."

And side by side they did climb, sometimes slipping, but as one would
slide, the other would stop and wait until the other partner had
regained their balance and was caught up.  Sometimes it was Mulder who
fell, sometimes it was Scully, but eventually, and together, they
reached the top and both scrambled joyously onto the flat plateau when
they did, breathing hard and laughing as one.

Finally, after resting for a moment, Mulder stood and held his hand
down to Scully.  He hauled her up to her feet and together, they
stared out...

Over Kingdom's Point.

And the beauty of air, the earth and the sky lie brilliantly and
endlessly before them, in greens, golds and blues.  It was stunning
and seemed to go on forever.  Birds flew past them, and clouds were
perfectly white and looked as though you could leap from one to the
other and dance your way across the sky upon their soft folds.

Scully took a deep breath of fresh air and felt two strong arms
encircle her from behind.  "Well, Scully, was it worth the trip?"
asked Mulder, squeezing her tightly.

"Yes," she replied, grasping his arms and pulling them even tighter
about her.  "It certainly was."

And together, they stood there for a very long time, doing nothing at
all but staring out over the point and the never-ending view.
Finally, Scully looked down, and leaving Mulder's embrace, she noted
with curiosity some carvings into the rock they stood on.

"Oh, look, Mulder," she said, kneeling and tracing the hand-carved
words with her fingers.  "Lucille Markus, 1856.  And here, John
Randell, 1927.  Look at all of them."

Mulder knelt down beside her.  "Here's a good one, George Washington
Smalls, 1799."

"Look at those," said Scully, pointing at the very edge of the
outcrop, overhanging a sheer drop.  "Those were brave people, you'd
have to crawl on your hands and knees to get there to carve something."

Mulder raised an eyebrow at her and pulled out a pocket knife with a
flourish.  "Sounds like a challenge to me."

"Mulder," said Scully, with a warning in her voice.  "No.  You can get
hurt."

But Mulder was already crawling forward, on his hands and knees.
"Don't worry.  I took Cliff Carving 101 in Oxford."

Scully rolled her eyes.  "All right.  But when you tumble off of the
cliff, don't say I didn't tell you so," she said sardonically.

"I don't think that's what I'll say, Scully," he replied, reaching the
edge and scraping into the soft stone with his knife.  He took a few
moments, carving diligently, blowing away dust as he worked and then
he took a final look at his handiwork before crawling back. He then
stood and held out his hand to Scully.

She took it, and then stared at him curiously.  "What did you write?"

"You can go look if you like," he said, pulling her away with him.

Scully turned back toward the outcrop and then to Mulder.  She smiled.
 "You know, I think I'll let that stay a mystery to be solved by
someone else."

"Good idea," he replied and together, they made their way down the
mountain, back to the land.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

A few months later an older couple made their way up to Kingdom's
Point, and as so many before them, they stood, embracing and wondering
at the view.

Finally the woman looked down and became curious at the scrawled
carvings, the endless array of names, dates, hopes and dreams.  She
stare out over to the edge of the outcrop and saw the carvings that
hung nearly off into space, the courageous ones.  She motioned for her
husband to follow her, and both having a good head for heights, they
crept to the very edge to read what was written there.

"Hmmm," said the man, as he read.  "Look at this one," he said
pointing to a fresh looking one, the one that was furthermost out.

"How curious," replied the woman as she stared at the two words that
stood out from all the others, carved deeply and boldly into the rock.

Two simple words.

//SHE LIVES//

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The End.

All comments are very much appreciated.
synnerx@yahoo.com
 
 
 

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