TITLE: Left Standing (2/2) AUTHOR: Maidenjedi RATING: R ARCHIVE: List archives, otherwise please ask. DISCLAIMER: Not mine, thank you very much. SUMMARY: continued from part 1. *X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X* They sat outside on a strip-mall bench. Mulder fetched food, water from the SUV. "Eat this." An apple, leftover Spaghetti-Os in a Tupperware bowl, bottle of water. Monica nodded, followed orders. She was starving anyway. "How?" Monica narrowed her eyes, motioned for more. "Sorry. How, um....how did you get here?" She swallowed. "Car. John and I," she winced, started again. "We drove west, starting about a month and a a half ago. We had a tip, so we went to New Mexico. We scavenged for fuel along the way." "John? You mean Doggett?" Tears sprang to her eyes and she nodded. "Where is he?" Mulder didn't want to know. She didn't want to tell him. "Dead." Silence. Then, "How? Why did you go to New Mexico?" She sighed. "You sure you want to know, Agent Mulder?" He laughed. "Agent? I've been out of the Bureau for what, eleven years? Call me Mulder. Drop the 'agent'." A smirk. "Oh yeah." "Time does fly." "When you're having fun, maybe. It hasn't been fun, Mulder." She thought of John in the shower, all soap and slippery limbs. His turn to nod. "No, it hasn't." He thought of Scully, warm in the morning and so easy to turn on. "William." Mulder froze. Scully, pregnant, pizza boy at the door. An old doll of Sam's and wrapping paper on the couch. Scully, in the bedroom, blue robe. Infant in swaddling clothes. And he shall be called William. "We had a tip, from an old college friend of John's who went CIA. Anyway, he'd been keeping an eye out, especially after John's retirement. He passed on information that William might have been with Gibson Praise in Roswell. This was, oh, two months after the attack. John sat on it, and as D.C. fell...." "D.C. fell?" News. "Uh-huh. Leaders dead, chaos everywhere. President couldn't keep it together. When that happened, John and I decided to find William. Find him, and try to find you if we could." A heavy pause. "And?" "And. We got there. Sure enough, we found William, and Mulder, he could read minds. He could *see* things. He'd never heard of Gibson Praise, but he knew you and Scully. He told us about Arizona, that something would be waiting for us here. And then...." "Yes?" She shook her head. Voice breaking, she whispered, "And I can't. Not yet." Mulder wondered who William had looked like. Did he have Scully's eyes, her lips, her stature? Or Mulder's nose, his hair, his big feet? William. Dead. He blocked the thought. He took the apple and bit off a huge chunk. He always hated warm apples, too much like applesauce, Mulder-house-applesauce, as a kid Sam used to spit it on the floor. Samantha. With her long dark hair twisted into braids, sticking her tongue out. Little Fox, Vulcan supreme, and his fairy princess sister. Monica was talking. "...so, I'm here. I didn't know where else to go. And lucky me -- " she smiled ruefully, "I found you." She squinted, looking up at a sky quickly turning gray with late summer rain. The sun still shone brightly, and she looked into it. Don't look at the sun, Mon. You might go blind. "We found each other." Mulder was making a face as he chewed another bite of apple. "There is a reason for everything, Monica." She could still smell the blood. "There is." "Scully...died." He was blunt and short and had to look away. He had to say it. Someone had to start the litany of pain and regret. Monica felt the air in her lungs turn stale. She was holding her breath. Waiting for what? "How?" "I'm not sure. She thought it was the flu, something she could shake. But she started coughing up blood before we hit Nevada, and she went so quickly after that." He had closed his eyes. The air was thick with the impending storm, and thicker with Mulder's silent sobs. Monica took his hands in hers. Coughing up blood. She thought of a Scully ten years before, sweating and screaming. William came out and screamed louder than them all. Thunder broke the silence, and Mulder jerked upright, pulling his hands from Monica's as though she burned him. Scully's voice in his ear, tinny on a cell phone. Mulder, it's me, and a silent accusation, how could you touch her in front of me? "We should find some place to stay." "For how long?" A shrug. "For now, anyway." Packing up supplies in the SUV, moving Monica's things into whatever spare space they could find. She wanted to be rid of the car, and if they were going to be together, they should stick together. Victims bearing scorch marks from alien weapons were scattered throughout the city. Monica's stricken face convinced Mulder to find a place to stay just outside city limits. Another abandoned motel, this one a plain jane Best Western. On the marquee, another ironic twist. "WELCOME TUCSON MUFON!" Mulder's face contorted in something resembling a grin. Monica's face stayed blank, a battle to not think of Roswell going on behind her eyes. Bodies dotted the parking lot. The heat and intermittant summer rains made this a dangerous place to set up camp. Disease, death. It was a neverending cycle. But it would do for one night, and they could clean up in the morning. They moved inside, just beating the rain as it came down in sheets after their third trip to empty the SUV. The place had been packed when the attack came; beds remained unmade, breakfast rotted on room service trays, a bucket of milk and orange juice cartons floating in water stood in the dining room. They'd been awakened by screams, maybe, and made a run for it. Maybe a person, likely rats had eaten the donuts and bagels set out for free continental breakfast. Mulder scoured the guest registry. On paper, as luck would have it, because some industrious employee had printed out a copy. "Only one empty room." "Let me guess." "Yup." "A honeymoon suite?" "No. A non-smoking room on the ground floor." "Double?" "Nope. A single." No breaks. None whatsoever. Monica asked for the key, and Mulder shook his head. "Key cards. We'll have to bust down the door." "Okay then. Room number." "Seventeen." She slept on the bed that night, and called out John's name only once or twice. Mulder lay awake on the floor, listening to Monica and seeing Scully. Red hair, pink lips, blue eyes. Color in the darkness, begging him to touch her in return. Her breath on his face, his neck, and another sleepless night for Mulder. --------------------- The rain had lasted most of the night, but the morning was cheerfully sunny and blue. Monica wished it had kept raining. They split the chore of cleaning out the dining room and makeshift kitchen. Monica took it upon herself to clean another room, in addition to the one they had slept in. There were clean sheets and blankets in the supply closet. She claimed seventeen for herself, and put Mulder's things in the adjoining room eighteen. She grabbed clean ashtrays from the supply closet and stashed them in her room. Mulder was eating lunch (cold beans and bread with the moldy parts ripped off), so she lit a cigarette and took a break. This time yesterday she had been in the car, coasting into Flagstaff and still wondering what was waiting for her. This time a week ago, she and John had been tangled in the sheets of a similar motel bed. This time four days ago.... Blood. And death. And she was tired of thinking about it. She missed John. She ached for him. But this was the world they had been living in. They'd known this day would come, and that either or both of them could be six feet under. Six feet under. He hadn't counted on sand and alien firepower. She found things to do. She cleaned out Mulder's SUV, went to a nearby grocery store. The glass doors had been shattered, and dried mud footprints traced a path inside. A piece of paper fluttered on a checkout lane light. "End of the world. I'm the only one left." And a dead body slumped on the floor. Pistol in hand, dried blood and brains splattered. Textbook suicide. Monica couldn't deal. Call me chicken, she thought as she did a one-eighty. She ran out, back to the motel. Found Mulder. "Monica, good. I forgot to tell you before you left, if you're hitting a store we really need batteries...." "Dead." She was panting. It had been a full-out run. "Dead?" Mulder squinted at her in the bright afternoon sun. "At the store. A man, a suicide, dead on the floor." She shivered. Mulder sighed, bowed his head. He knew why she was out of breath. "How?" "Shot. In the head." Blood everywhere. "Do you want me to go?" She nodded. "There isn't another one close. We don't want to waste gasoline." "No." Mulder started walking. Monica went inside to her room, smoked three cigarettes. Splurge to purge. John's voice in her head. Ya gotta do better than this, Monica. I know. ------------------------- Mulder moved the very ripe and bloated body out of the store, taking his time in hiding it. Another day and it would be crawling with maggots. The thought made him shake. Just like Scully. He got supplies. More food (there was a wider selection, maybe the note had been accurate) and plenty of batteries, flashlights, first aid supplies. He went down the last aisle, as far from the rotting produce as he could get, and found booze. Why not? Whiskey, vodka, and some cheap beer. Grocery cart full, he left the store. Dusk was settling over the deserted town. The sun sat low in the western sky, surrounded by orange and pink streaks, red at the center. Red sky at night, sailor's delight. He almost wished it would rain again. Rain seemed to fit the world better. But the sun was appropriate, too. Surreal in a world that was nothing but. Monica helped him pack everything away. It was a mutual and silent agreement to stay here. Indefinitely. Maybe for the winter. It was mid-September. Mulder slept in one room, Monica in another. By the fifth or sixth night, Monica propped open the door between their adjoining rooms. She claimed to be having nightmares, she wanted to know someone was nearby. They went back to the army/navy store for tarps and gloves, and buried the bodies left at their hotel. It was all they could do. After a month, storms began to pound Flagstaff and surrounding areas. Mulder had rigged a small generator, and they were running lights off it. But tonight the lightning had made him nervous, and he was reading by candlelight. Maybe he shouldn't have been reading "The Shining". It was late, probably after two in the morning. Thunder crashed. Loud and unrealistic. Maybe it was *them*. Monica came running into the room, startling Mulder. White camisole and flannel pants. The pants weren't hers, they had the requisite opening for males. Doggett's. "Mulder." A note of panic. "It's not them, Monica. Just lightning and thunder. A regular electrical storm." She nodded. "You picked up vodka, right?" He smiled. "Yeah. Over there, in the closet." She dug out the bottle. "Wanna get drunk with me?" Her eyes were tinged red, voice was scratchy. It hit Mulder that she had been crying. Vodka pouring into glass. Lightning outside, the silence punctuated by thunder. Angels bowling in the night sky. Mulder took his glass without a word. Monica sat in an armchair. She sipped at her drink, Mulder didn't touch his. "Why didn't they hit me, too?" Monica sounded defeated. Mulder ventured a question. "What do you mean?" She told him. How John and William had been standing nearby yet far away, and how William had gone first. As if they'd known what he was and wanted to destroy him. How John had shot at them, and gone down for it. How she'd been left standing. "Why didn't they hit me?" Mulder had heard the question often enough. After the initial strike, people had been left to bury their dead and beat themselves up for surviving. But there was nothing to survive. You were either a target, or you weren't. He and Scully had never figured it out. Those left standing ran, hid, and did what they could to feel safe again. Random hits weren't unheard of. All Mulder could figure was that this was the set-up. Those left standing were.... "Left for an unholy reason." She looked up at him and sighed. "So we're sitting ducks?" He nodded. Ten years of searching for a way to fight back, and it failed. Scully was crying. Scully was dead. Mulder downed his vodka and asked Monica for the bottle. "What did you do with the bodies?" She told him about the sand and the smell, leaving out her delirium. She told him about draping her sleeping bag and the tent over them, and driving west as fast as she could. Boiling blood on desert sand. Heat and sweat and the sun, she was blind and dying and couldn't fight off anything. She didn't tell him about John, following her and teasing her and trying to drive her mad. He didn't tell her about Scully. He'd already shared the bare bones. He was tired, and Scully was whispering to him. They didn't talk, but they drank. Monica found the empty bottle the next morning, head pounding and eyes swimming. ---------------------- Two nights passed. Monica lived in her room. Mulder began cataloging their winter supplies. The cold would come. The end would come. It was only a question of time. On the third night, he found Monica outside. Clutching herself and looking up at the night sky. "Stars. Didn't you find your sister this way, in the starlight?" "It wasn't real." Was it? He didn't know anymore. "Maybe if I try..." "No one's here, Monica. Come inside." Hot cocoa spiked with vodka. Made for a nasty concoction, but she drank it anyway and slept like a baby. At night, Scully came to him, young and brunette in a red robe. Do you see it? Monica slept on his bed. He was the insomniac again. He missed television. His room smelled like Scully. He closed his eyes and pictured her. She smiled at him and sang to him, Three Dog Night in the Florida wilderness. Maybe we could build that tower of furniture. Monica came out of her stupor, stopped drinking vodka and took to getting up early. She went running, walking, anything to get back in shape and avoid her demons. John, her demon. John, her dead lover. The wind blew cold as late October came and went. Restless, Mulder stocked up on food, fuel, whatever he could find that was useful in a dead world. ---------------------- Dark. It was so dark. The candles had burnt themselves out. Monica was used to that, but she wasn't used to the silence as well. No wind outside, no wolves or coyotes or whatever the hell they were. She listened closely. No John. Are you sleeping, my darling, or dead? It had to be past two in the morning. She found her robe, stood up and found her way to Mulder's room. The door had been opened the night after their lobby discussion, and while neither walked through it, it remained open. He was awake. She didn't have to see to know. She made her way to the bed and sat down. "It's quiet." He knew. It had shaken him awake like a persistent child. Silence. Scully's voice was stilled. "Yeah." She laid down. Leaned against him. He didn't move. Somewhere behind her lay a dead man and a dead boy. Somewhere behind him lay a dead woman. Ripped at the seams, the world in which they'd met had finally succumbed. And few were left standing. Monica didn't mean to kiss him. She missed her dog person. Her mind screamed at her for kissing a dead woman's love. He the quest, he the Holy Grail. The child was dead but his father was very much alive. So said the press of his hips against hers. Mulder didn't mean to kiss her. He was taken back to a place he'd once dreamed of. In the traitor's stead, this late friend who tasted faintly of cigarette smoke and who (he'd been told) made whale sounds to calm down. Dark hair. He used to love dark hair. Slow to heat. He pushed at her robe and her fingers got lost in his hair. Stubble scratched her face. A long night. No sand, but cotton sheets. No blood. Just grasping and proving they were alive. ---------------------- It was too dark and too cold to run in the evenings. Monica was in her room, enjoying the last of her very stale Morley lights. Mulder was in his room, reading a tattered copy of "Moby Dick". Cigarette gone, Monica wanted to talk. She wandered to Mulder's room. "Do you think he'll slay the big white whale this time?" Her voice was tinged with sarcastic amusement. Mulder jumped, as if goosed. Was it Monica's voice he heard, or Scully's? He shrugged it off. "The ending is always the same. I keep reading it out of masochistic curiosity." "Why Moby Dick? Why not," she motioned to his stack of novels, "something lighter?" He looked away. She remembered a story Scully had told her, after Monica had found the file on Big Blue. About a Pomeranian named Queequeg, and Mulder's hankering for a peg leg. "You miss her." Yeah, well. "You miss him." "This isn't easy." "Survivor's guilt?" "Yeah. Well." She sat down next to him on the bed, propped herself up against a couple of pillows. The book lay open and forgotten on his leg. The wind howled outside. He knew how it felt. They fell asleep, and in the morning Monica woke up alone. ----------------------------- They avoided each other altogether. Left notes when needed. The door between their adjoining rooms remained closed, and Monica locked it on her side. *Out of water. Went to store.* *Heard a wolf last night. Was it a wolf or coyote? I can't keep them straight.* *I don't know either. Dead rabbits in the parking lot. Stay inside after dark.* *Went to another store, found large quantity of canned vegetables. Going back tomorrow for more.* And so on, a conversation on Post-It notes. Sooner or later, we're going to be in the same room at the same time. And I'll just have to keep my distance. She's not Scully. John. Scully. And so on. In the lobby, one gray day. Monica coming in from a run, Mulder bringing in wood for the communal fireplace. He hoped it wasn't merely decorative. Monica spoke first. Mulder blinked Scully out of his vision. "We can't keep doing this." "No." "Do you think we should go our own ways?" She was serious. He didn't want to be alone when the world ended for good. "No." She took off her coat. "I'm not Scully." He nodded. "No." "You're not John." "Are you sure?" "Yes." She sighed, sat down on the floor. "It's not easy, is it?" Silence. "I keep thinking I'll wake up and he'll be here. Or I'll wake up in D.C. and none of this will have happened." "I keep hearing her voice." Monica was taken aback. "She's everywhere. I feel her at night, I see her and hear her. I can't escape her and I don't know if I want to." "Mulder." Monica stood up, walked over to him. He watched her. "Want help with the wood?" He wanted to brush her off wittily, but couldn't. "Sure." December rushed at them, and their ghosts lingered. ---------------------- The winds from the night before had knocked over a tree across the street from the motel. Monica found her companion trying to clean it up on his own. She put on gloves and a coat and went to help him. It took most of the day, and they were starving when they finished. Mulder offered to make dinner while Monica cleaned up. A bath of lukewarm water and the strongest soap she had been able to find. Every time she did this, it was like she was trying to scrub off her skin. Skin that John had kissed, skin that didn't burn but that had prickled in fear. She told Mulder she was too tired to eat and curled up under the sheets on her bed. John, standing in the doorway. She'd been in a car accident, he hadn't known if she'd live. "Brought you some dinner." Mulder's voice. John's voice. What was the difference? One she heard, one she wanted to hear. "Potatoes and fried Spam. Not a great meal, but you need to eat something." She wanted vodka. There was none left. Mulder left the plate on the nightstand and turned to leave. She grabbed his arm. Mulder, John. What difference did it make? He inhaled sharply. Monica, not Scully. It made one hell of a difference. "Stay." She wasn't asking. "I can't." He left the room. --------------- John was gone. He had stopped following her around. The only voice she heard was her own. It hit her one morning when the sun was particularly bright. Whitewashed landscape, it reminded her of that settlement and the young woman who seemed so wise. Take comfort in those left standing. John was buried in the sand at a KOA, and Monica was alive and well in Arizona. Mulder was in the next room. She waited. She watched him. She stood in his doorway. And when he came to her, she kissed him like it was the very first time. ------- She was in his head at night, asking questions and challenging him. He didn't listen, and sometimes she was silent. Silent Scully. It scared him. He liked it better when he could hear her. She wasn't real. Monica was real. Mulder threw his pillow at the wall. He kicked off the sheets. He was restless. Scully at the door. She was weak, dizzy. Pulled her into his arms. Maybe the cost is too high. She kissed him. It wasn't the first time. Dark hair. Not Scully, Monica. One hell of a difference. Voices echoed. Was she watching, maybe? For the second time, Monica woke up alone, in Mulder's bed. The last one left standing. *X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X* A/N: A plot bunny born of a birthday challenge on the Harem. I never thought I'd write Mulder/Reyes, yet I did, and look where it went! Many thanks, hugs, and general groveling to Kristen K2 and Sarah Segretti. This story was a huge leap for me, and they made me stick to it. Thanks as well to the Wives, who push me in new directions and get me writing stranger things all the time. I love you all for it! For Michael, who inspires. That first shaky step into original fiction will be because of you. Feedback/Criticism always welcome at texgoddess@yahoo.com ===== "Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens" - Gimli ----- http://users.pdsys.org/~maidenjedi