Second Grace Book 4 by Logan Second Grace Book Four Author: Logan Website: http://www.hegalplace.com/logan Genre: M/K slash, romance, adventure, angst Rating: NC-17 for language, sex, and drug use Archive: Please ask Author's Notes: Please see author's letter ///////////////////////////////////////// close your eyes and stop: wait for me and I swear I will come back to you //////////////////////////////////////// Sunday, April 26th Alcohol is an excellent fire accelerant. The ash and soot are everywhere. Thick, greasy, smelling of hops and coffee and defeat. It rises like mist, dances with the cloud of smoke to blot out the sky. The ashes fall like fat, lazy snowflakes to coat my hair, catch in my lashes and render the world in shades of black and gray. Ash and smoke. Fire and rubble. The scent of burning cinnamon and beer. They press against me until I am nothing. My eyes sting. I close them, and the grit under my lids scratches my corneas. I take a deep breath, inhaling ashes. They fill my nostrils and stick in my throat. I crouch down and scoop up a handful of ashes. I let them sift through my numb fingers, then scoop up more and hold them to my nose, press my fist to my mouth. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.... Someone yells behind me. "Crazy couillon! You don't belong in here! Get out now before I get the cops!" A fireman. I open my hand, let the ashes fall through my fingers, notice my blistered and bleeding palm. I don't belong here. I never did. "Shit!" The fireman exclaims, grabbing me by my left arm. He jerks and steps back when his hand closes on the hardware. He reaches again and his hand clasps my shoulder. "C'mon, man, let's get you out here to the paramedics. This your place?" "Yeah." My voice is thick and rusty, rasping like sandpaper in my throat. My tongue is coated with ashes. This was my place. The place that Joe entrusted to me, the place where I danced with Fox. Gone now, burned to cinders like the house on Evangeline. Memories assault me. Beer and cigarette smoke and music and laughter. Joe, smiling and laughing behind the bar. Fox, warm and vital in my arms as we dance. Joe is gone. Fox is gone. The Bayou is gone. I look up. The roof is gone. Smoke curls from the roof of Highland Coffee next door, carrying the reek of burnt coffee and bread heavenward. The evening breeze braids ribbons of smoke into the twilight, dressing the sky black and blue. A livid, living bruise. A gentle gust of wind carries a wave of heat from the burning ruins towards me. It scours my skin like steel wool. The fireman tugs at my arm. "I'm sorry about your bar, son, but there ain't nothing you can do. C'mere and let the medic look at your hand." I jerk when another hand closes on my shoulder. I turn. Vince is standing behind me, his eyes bloodshot, a long streak of soot down his left cheek. "Alex, c'mon, man. Burning the hell out of yourself won't do any good," he says softly. I let Vince lead me to the ambulance. I sit on the back bumper while the EMT pours saline over my hand to clean it, then coats it in thick white cream and wraps it in gauze. "--your other hand?" "Huh?" I ask, not really listening. All I can hear is Absinthe, the manager of Highland Coffee, crying softly off to my left. "Did you burn your other hand too?" I look down at the prosthesis, noting the flecks of ash melted into the plastic. I lift the arm. "Doesn't matter. It's fake." Recognition sparks in the young woman's eyes. "I remember you! You were with a guy having a seizure at Dairy Queen a few months ago. How's he doing?" "He died about a month ago." "Shit...I'm really sorry," she stammers. I pretend not to hear her. I watch people milling about on Chime Street -- the despairing shop owners and the curious college students. Vince, Miranda, Greg, and Jane stand about twenty feet to my right, talking to Tom Haskell from the Library. Lyrica Watson, who owns Highland Coffee, stands with Absinthe and Lin from the Tiger Lily; tears stain their faces. I scan the street, the shops. The 'L' is missing from the sign over Tiger Lily. Now it's the Tiger ily. What pissant little posers spray-painted those gang signs on the wall? They weren't there last week. I look across the street when the lights come on at The Varsity. The kids will have somewhere to drink tonight, at least. The marquee blinks to life, announcing a Ben Folds Five performance next week. Ben Folds. Ben. Ben. Ben Harper. Fox bought me tickets to the Ben Harper concert back in February. He gave them to me for Christmas. I forgot about it. I wonder if Fox likes Ben Folds. The disjointed snatches of conversations around me all sound very far away, like voices from the bottom of a well. "--call Althea? Do you think she'll be okay?" "No, give Alex time to calm down." "Calm down? He's like a frigging zombie--" "--so soon after Fox died. It's terrible." "Mr. Drake? Are you Alex Drake?" I look up. An older man stands in front of me. Late 50s, dirty white shirt and black pants, fire-department badge pinned to his shirt pocket. "Yes, I'm Alex Drake." Am I? "Russell Herbert," he says, extending his hand. He drops it when he notices my bandages. "East Baton Rouge Parish fire marshal." "Oh." He sits down beside me on the back of the ambulance. "I'm real sorry about your loss. Joe Morgan was a good man, member of our parish for 35 years. He worked real hard on this place. Althea's gonna be devastated." "Yes, she is." The words burn my throat, scrape across my tongue, scour my lips. "Son, best we can tell there's no foul play -- just an old building and old wires. No reason to suspect it's anything but an electrical fire. Place like this, all that alcohol, any fire's gonna get out of control. Looks like it started with that breaker box in the storage room. Your insurance should cover everything." I nod, then look up when I hear feet scraping on the pavement beside me. Miranda is standing there, long black hair loose and lanky, eyes red and swollen and so full of sadness. I should be with my employees. My friends. I should think of something comforting to say. I cannot. I flinch when she rests her hand on my head. "We'll get through this, Al. We can rebuild. Joe would have wanted you to. The Bayou can be completely yours now, whatever you want it to be. The spirit is still here," she says softly, her voice rough. "Stop trying to romanticize it!" I snap. "It's fucking ruined!" Fresh tears well in her eyes, spill down to leave clean streaks on her dirty cheeks. "I'm sorry," she whispers. "I was only trying to help. I hate seeing you hurt so much, Al." I groan. I'm such a bastard. Making Miranda cry is like kicking a puppy. "I know... but I'm fine. Don't worry about me." Russell Herbert clears his throat and stands. He pulls a business card from his pocket and hands it to me. "I'll be in touch, Mr. Drake. You take care." When he walks away Miranda takes his place beside me. "Alex, please don't do this. Don't shut us out. I know the last couple of months have been hard on you. I can't imagine how much you're hurting...but we all cared about Fox too. I miss him too. And now this...there's only so much you can hold inside before you explode." I blink back wetness. My eyes are so sore. The handbills stapled to the lightpoles are curled up from the heat of the fire. One of Tom's employees, I think his name is Jerry, comes out of the Library with pitchers of beer in each hand. Fucking crazy Cajuns. Look, the apocalypse is here! Time to bring out the beer and crawfish. I miss Fox. I want him. Too goddamn bad, huh? Wanting isn't going to get me jack shit. I can't think about him right now. Can't think about going back to our quiet, empty house. Now I don't even have the next night at work to look forward too. I miss him so much. It's beyond loneliness. Beyond need. It's an amputation of the soul. Tears well again. I press the heel of my burned hand into my eyes to hold them back. It hurts my hand and hurts my eyes and hurts my head even more. The pain gives me something to focus on. The guy I think is named Jerry approaches us, a plastic cup of beer in each hand. He hands one to me and the other to Miranda. She shakes her head. "We've gotta close up until the inspectors come give us the green light. Tom said to drain the kegs, and it seemed a damn shame to waste this stuff. Sweetwater microbrew from Atlanta. You sure you don't want one, Miranda?" he asks. "No thanks, Jared. I'm about to run to the hardware store with Lin and Lyrica, to get plywood to put up at Highland Coffee and get brooms and stuff," she replies. Ah. Jared. I was close. I bring the cup to my lips and take a sip. Bile rises in my throat and pushes the tastes of beer and the smell of burning hops out of my body along with the contents of my stomach. The vomit tastes better than the beer. All I can smell is sickly sweet burning beer mixed with ash and cinnamon and coffee and oh fuck I'm gonna puke... "Shit, Alex! Is that blood?!" I hear Miranda faintly over the roaring in my ears. I wipe my mouth on the back of my bandaged hand and look down disgustedly at the splattered vomit on my boots. After everything I've survived, it's a goddamn ulcer that's going to kill me. "It's just an ulcer. No big deal." I really should see a doctor about that sometime. Dana Scully will kick my ass for not going sooner. If I ever see her again. How ironic is that? Scully and I finally find our way into something resembling friendship, and now we must pretend we hate each other in order to hide our secret. Dana...she's been so strong through all of this. When we woke up that morning and found that Fox and Sean were gone, we sat out on the porch and held each other for a long time, both dreading what we had to do next. Finally we dressed and put our plans into motion. George Landry, that weird friend of the Lone Gunmen, showed up in an ambulance already outfitted with the body of 'Fox Mulder' -- who the fuck knows who the unlucky stiff really was. Dana rode in the ambulance to a mortuary in Slidell where 'Fox Mulder' was cremated that same day. Dana left from there to go back to DC, allegedly taking Sean with her. While she did all of this, I called my sisters and informed them that Fox had died, and that Dana had taken over all the arrangements and wanted me to have nothing to do with them. That she'd transported the body back to DC and taken Sean away. Of course, my sisters now want Dana Scully's head on a pike. I wish to God there had been some other way to handle this, but how the hell were we supposed to explain that one day Fox is dying and the next he's just vanished? "Alex? Earth to Alex?" Miranda says, pulling me back to the present. "I'm going to Home Depot with Lin and Lyrica. I'll be back in a while. Danny and Robin from The Factory are on their way over with food and stuff. Are you going to be okay while I'm gone? Do you want me to call Corinne?" I shake my head. The last thing I need right now is one more person to 'Poor Alex' me. "I'm fine, really. I'll see what we have to do to get started cleaning up." She looks at me with doubt in her eyes. "I'll bring you back some Rolaids for your stomach." She hesitates, kisses my cheek and walks away. I watch her go. I don't understand what makes this twenty-two-year-old girl feel she should take care of me. I haven't had a mother since I was eleven, and now every woman I know wants the job. Dee, Bron, Cori, Miranda...the phone calls and frozen meals and unexpected visits 'just to see what I'm up to.' And my money is worthless in this town. No one lets me pay for a damned thing anymore. I don't even go into Highland Coffee or Mr. Gatti's or Arzi's Cafe anymore. Mr. Arzi's wife sent me home with a month's supply of hummus and a plate full of baklava the last time I was there. It hurts to accept their generosity and love, knowing that I am lying to them. Lies of necessity are still lies. The hours pass in a blur of exhaustion. We sweep, haul debris and foodstuffs to the dumpster, and salvage what we can of the equipment. It is nearly dawn when I help Vince nail the last board up over the empty window frames at Highland Coffee. We do not go into the gaping, blackened shell of The Bayou. The ruin is too great for any broom or plywood to make a difference. There are no window frames left to board up. There is barely a front wall. As we work next door, I hear the last tenacious ceiling beams crash into the rubble. All that remains is a knee-deep drift of charred, sodden wreckage. Slowly the volunteers leave, in singles and pairs, to seek their showers and beds. By 4 AM only a handful of us remain, all shop owners and employees. We stand across the street from the strip of buildings, leaning against the wrought-iron fence that rings the LSU campus, and survey the damage in inky, predawn light. "This really fucking sucks," says Vince. "This sucks big nasty donkey dicks," Absinthe agrees. "That's really disgusting, Abs," I reply. "I'm talented that way," she says with a shrug. I sense movement out of the corner of my eye. I whip my head around and see a tall figure with gray hair cross the street and round the corner behind Highland Coffee. No. Surely not. It cannot be him. I've been here for ten hours, my vision is blurred with smoke and exhaustion; I'm stressed out and hallucinating. It simply cannot be Fox. I'm across the street before I realize I'm moving. I reach the alley and it's empty. I skid to a halt. My heart pounds, my nerves thrum, my eyes sting. "Fox?" The word hurts my throat. There is no response. It wasn't him. I knew it wasn't him. I needed it to be him so damned much. What was that sound? A high, whining whimper from the vicinity of the dumpster to my left...there it is again. An animal of some sort. A frightened animal. There: a small, moving shadow. Must be a raccoon. It moves again, keening sadly, and emerges in the pool of yellow light cast by the streetlamp. It's the smallest, most pathetic ball of fur that ever passed for a puppy. It's tiny, little more than a ball of rusty auburn fluff. Looks barely weaned. "Hi there, bebe," I call softly. I've been back in Louisiana too long, if I'm reverting to the hackneyed French that passes for Creole dialect. I crouch down and offer my filthy and bandaged hand, palm up, for the dog to sniff. The pup's fur is scorched and natty, and there's not much dog under all that hair. When it's clean and groomed, I'll bet that fur is really soft. The puppy sniffs me cautiously, yips; then licks my fingers and lies down at my feet. I hope Fox likes dogs. I scoop up the trembling animal and tuck it under my right arm. It's simply done, and I walk back across the street to say goodbye. I let everyone coo over the dog for a moment before I make my way down the block to where my truck's parked. Half an hour later, the dog, whom I have discovered is male, and I are in the shower together. He needed a bath, so did I...it seemed expedient at the time. The water running down the drain is still gray by the time I run out of hot water. I put the shivering pup on the bath mat and dry myself quickly. There are streaks of gray on the towel. I don't think I'll ever be clean again. What I really needed was Fox to wash my back, to massage shampoo into my scalp...to sweetly fuck my tension away against the shower wall. To hold me while I find my balance again. Instead, I have a dirty, wet whelp of a dog, and a big empty bed. I close my eyes and listen past the quiet. I can almost hear the technological lullaby of CNN coming from the living room as Fox moves around, preparing to start the day. I hear Sean snoring loudly down the hall, dreaming his little boy dreams while he sucks his thumb -- a habit we've pointedly ignored. Oral fixation, thy name is Mulder. I open my eyes and it's all gone, all quiet again, save for the steady drip of the bathroom sink and the dog's tired whimpers. /////////////////////////////////// When I wake there is soft hair brushing against my bare chest and hot breath against my skin. I reach to smooth the silvery hair on Fox's head, and laugh bitterly when I find the dog curled up against my right side. I roll over and look into large brown eyes. "You are not the man I wanted to wake up to this morning," I inform the puppy, ruffling the fur behind his ears. He makes a happy, catlike noise low in his throat and his tail thumps against the sheet. "If you're all I'm going to get as a bed warmer,...at least you're easy to please," I say, throwing back the covers and rolling out of bed. There is a large gray spot on the pillow where my head was. I take another shower -- this time the water finally runs clear -- then, into the kitchen for coffee. I open the container...the scent hits me like a bolt of lightning, frying my nerves. Coffee and smoke. Ash and soot. No more coffee for me, thank you very much. I drop the container in the trash and make tea instead. No more beer. No more coffee. The thought of smoking a cigarette makes me want to vomit. There will be no sex in my foreseeable future. Shit, what's left to live for? The dog circles my feet and whines, looking pathetic. "You hungry, bebe?" I ask. "I don't think I've got anything to feed you. You don't look like a tofu kind of man to me. How about a scrambled egg?" Dog yips excitedly while the egg cooks. I rake half the food onto a plate and set it on the floor, the other half onto a plate for myself. As I sit down to eat I hear a knock at the door, then a voice. "Wakey-wakey, Mr. Sunshine. The claim rep from the insurance company is down at The Bayou looking for you," Greg calls as he saunters into the kitchen. He takes a bottle of orange juice from the fridge and removes the cap, putting it to his lips. "That's been sitting there since Fox left," I say once he's taken a nice hefty swig. Then I realize my slip. Since Fox died. Must remember to lie. Fox did not leave; Fox died. It just hurts so goddamn much to say it. If the best lies contain a little truth, this one is far too close to the truth for my liking. Greg has balls of steel. He swallows the mouthful of fermented juice and places the container on the counter. "Is there a reason you couldn't mention that before I drank it?" I smile. There is still some pleasure left in life. I can still harass Greg Jones. "To teach you a valuable lesson about raiding other people's refrigerators." "You're a special kind of asshole, Alex. You really enjoy it. You're a connoisseur of assholeism. The Wolfgang Puck of assholes." I bat my eyelashes. I don't know why I enjoy yanking his chain so much. Probably because it's so damned short. I think there's some latent homophobia there, too, that makes him nervous when I'm too nice to him. "Thank you, Greg. You really know how to get into a boy's heart. Kinda like a heartworm. Now get out so I can get ready; I'll meet you at The Bayou in half an hour." Dog finishes his meal and yips at Greg's heels. "This the mutt you found in the dumpster? Does it have a name?" he asks, reaching down to scratch Dog's ears. Dog rolls over and whimpers in delight. Slut. "He's a dog. His name is Dog. He seems to like it just fine. Hey, which vet do you take that behemoth of yours to? I need to have him checked out." "Rage is not a behemoth. She's a wolfhound mix," he says indignantly. I snort. "You call that dog Rage? Is this the same dog that's the size of a pony and afraid of dragonflies?" He pulls a business card from his wallet and leaves it on the counter. "At least I didn't name her Dog. What the hell kind of name is that? Here's the phone number for the vet. I'll see you in half an hour." He pats Dog's exposed belly once more and turns to leave. When I arrive at The Bayou with Dog in my arms, the insurance rep is snapping photos of the damage. We sit in his car while I fill out reams of paperwork. Cori shows up around 3 PM to rescue me. We go to the pet store for necessities, get takeout from the Factory, and head back to my house. "What are your plans? I know you haven't had much time to think, but I saw Vince earlier and he said you weren't going to reopen the bar," Cori says between bites of muffaletta. I crumble bits of cornbread into my chili, stopping occasionally to feed morsels to the dog. "Something new wouldn't be the same. I loved The Bayou, but it's not like owning a bar was a lifelong dream of mine. Maybe it's time to move on." Her peridot eyes narrow. "Move on, as in leave town and not show up for another five years? I'd hoped you'd outgrown that. I've gotten used to you being stable and reliable." Stable and reliable? Surely she's not talking about me. But strangely enough, it hadn't even occurred to me to leave town. To leave my family and friends. My home. Fox expects me to be here when he comes back. This house is the only home Sean has ever known. I've stayed still long enough to set down some roots, plant my feet. Once, that would have terrified me. Now, I'm glad of it. Perhaps I have become stable. Any minute now the sky is going to fall. "No, that's not what I meant, oh ye of little faith. I meant that it might be time for me to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. I'm back to square one now. No better time for yet another fresh start," I try to keep my tone casual, and stifle the beginning of a long, pathetic diatribe by shoveling chili into my mouth. After long moments of quiet, I speak again. "Are you planning to stay here for the rest of your life?" I ask, gesturing towards her with my spoon. "All the little Gray birds staying close to the nest? What are you going to do with that Environmental Engineering degree when you're done? Stay here and build levees?" "I might," she replies. "Not everyone needs the bright lights of the big city. What's out there that's so important? My family, my church, my home, are right here. It was good enough for you to come back to, so don't rag my ass about it. You went out and had your adventures, and your ass still ended up right back here in Smalltown, USA." "True." What else can I say? What am I going to do now? The gunmen could get my name changed on my college records, but what the hell would I do with an undergraduate degree in Criminal Sociology -- go into law enforcement? Become a criminal? I seem to have used up all the obvious career choices. At least I'll have the insurance money from the bar to keep me afloat. I will not touch Fox's bank account. He wanted me to: he told me to pay off the house and replace the furnace and whatnot, but I'll do that on my own. I will not be a kept man. Not even by him. "You have that look on your face again," Cori says softly. "Which look?" "The look you get when you're missing Fox and Sean." Her expression is empathetic. Kind. Corinne has lost her son, and in a sense I have lost mine. She understands the level of my hurt more than anyone close to me. The difference is that I still have hope that I will see Sean again. ///////////////////////// I wake the next morning still wrapped in the cobweb of dreams. I lie on my back and let the dream unravel in my mind, lazily savoring the images. It was so real. I could almost feel the fine hair on Fox's arms brush against my skin, taste his coffee kisses on my lips. I don't know what we were discussing. But I remember him putting his arms around me and kissing me thoroughly, then pulling back and smiling. "Go ahead and go, you'll have a great time," he said in my dream. His eyes were so warm, like moss-covered stones under sunkissed water. I miss him so much. I miss those eyes, glittering with witch light and mystery and passion. I miss his voice, deep and smoky, resonating with emotion. I miss his warm, solid weight in the bed next to me. I miss the way he smiles at Sean, the way he looks in my green flannel shirt... Shit, this is getting me nowhere. I can't keep doing this every day. I act as if I were in mourning, as if they weren't coming back. Of course they are coming back. As soon as Fox is well, they will be home. And then our lives can really begin. The phone rings. I stumble out of bed to answer it. "Alex, it's Dana. I heard about the fire. How are you holding up?" Scully says. "I'm okay," I reply without considering if this is true or not. "How did you hear about it?" "Your local newspaper is online. I think the gunmen monitor it, they sent me the link. Now, let's try this again, with a truthful answer this time. How are you?" "Truthfully, I don't know. In shock, I guess. But honestly, with Fox's illness and everything that came after it, it's easier to put into perspective." What sweet relief, to talk to Scully, to affirm to another person that Fox is alive. It's amazing how dependent I am on her now. "The most important thing is that no one was hurt, but I know how much the place meant to you. I certainly understand falling back on your work when your life is out of control," she says and sighs. "I wish I could see you, Alex. Perhaps we could meet somewhere for a couple of days. It's difficult -- I miss them both so much, and Walter's been away on a case for almost two weeks...there's no one I can talk to about them. I've had to say so often that Fox and Sean are both dead, that sometimes I almost believe it." Her voice grows softer and cracks at the end. Yes, sometimes I believe it too. When you tell a lie often enough, it becomes its own truth. "I'd like to see you too, Dana, but it's too soon. If the bounty hunter was that close to finding Fox and Sean, we need some more breathing room first. And I can't leave just yet. I've got to deal with all the insurance stuff and get my employees taken care of. It's not easy being a responsible adult. There is a lot of paperwork involved." It really would be great to see her. Beyond great. Our relationship is equal parts respect, affection, and sheer need. She is my living link to Fox and Sean. As the sole witnesses to the events that took place in this house, we are a reality of two. A quantum universe unto ourselves. I need her. She chuckles softly. "You're doing a remarkable job as a responsible adult. I'm very proud of you. I'm proud to call you my friend." How long have I been longing to hear her say that? The words are a tall, cool drink of water after a walk in the desert. "You too, Dana. I miss you," I blurt out. I had intended to keep that to myself, but my mouth has a life of its own. "I miss you too," she says warmly. It's too much for both of us, this emotional exposition. If we let it out, the dam will burst and we'll drown. "I need to go, but I'll email you soon, okay? Take care of yourself," she says. "I will. Send Walter my best." After we hang up I make tea and feed the dog, then take my tea and go sit on the front porch. I need to write letters of recommendation for each of the employees, and sit down and figure out exactly how much severance pay I can afford to give each of them. I need to call the utility companies and have everything permanently shut off, call my vendors to settle and close my accounts, find out what I can do to help get the Library and Highland Coffee ready to reopen. After that, there is nothing. Absolutely nothing I have to do for the foreseeable future. No job, no responsibilities, no family to take care of. Just me and the dog. How very fucking depressing. I'll paint the house. I'll fence in the backyard and build the dog a doghouse. I'll change the oil in the truck. I'll fix the attic fan so it doesn't sound like a helicopter taking off any more. That should keep me busy for about a month. What the hell will I do then? I wake early Sunday morning. It's strange to be awake at dawn -- normally I would just have gotten home from work. I take Dog for a long walk, getting him accustomed to the leash, then return home and cook breakfast. Wash and dry the dishes. Sweep and mop the kitchen. It's only 9 AM. Is the rest of my life going to be this boring? I take a shower and go to my closet to pull out some clothes. I don't know why, and I really don't want to know, but I pull out dress pants and jacket and tie, and thirty minutes later I am in the truck on the way to meet my family at church. No one comments on my sudden appearance. They smile warmly and slide over in the pew, giving me room to sit. The church is quiet and familiar, crowded with warm bodies and warm memories. I remember sitting in this pew when my feet didn't even reach the floor, pulling Bronwyn's hair with impunity because she dared not yell at me in the middle of the service. Matushka's funeral, Corinne's baptism, Delia's and Bronwyn's weddings. Audrina's and Mason's baptisms. I missed Bryce and Wyatt's baptism, though -- I was in DC playing FBI Agent Krycek. Good memories, for the most part. Times when I felt normal and accepted. Happy times. Why have I avoided this place? The Royal Gate opens. The men and a few of the women stand, the other women and the children kneel. The elderly stay in their seats in the pews. Father Benedict comes forward with the censer, and the service begins. The cadence of Father Benedict's voice is soothing, the familiar words comforting. The liturgy, the thick, pungent incense, the memories of snuggling in Matushka's lap as a boy, they lull me like a boat on the slow, lazy Mississippi River, tapping into a well of peace inside me that only Fox has found. He was my liturgy, my Eucharist, my religion. Now he is gone, and the sacred space he created in me longs to be filled. When communion begins I am afraid. Afraid because it hurts to watch others receive the sacrament when I know I cannot. That joy, that relationship with the Spirit, is forever lost to me. A tradition hundreds of years old in my family, and I will never again be a part of it. Is Scully on her knees in DC taking communion at this moment? How does she reconcile a God of peace and light with all the darkness she's seen? The moment Fox opened his eyes and rose from our bed, instead of dying on that April night, I believed in God again. A merciful God. A God of second chances. But no matter how I am judged, by human courts or at the pearly gates or weighing my heart on a scale against a feather, I am removed from Grace. I do not want to believe, if belief means accepting my own damnation. We have lunch at Delia and Paul's house afterwards. Father Benedict joins us, and after the initial awkwardness of accepting everyone's sympathy over the fire, I have a really good time. Paul, Trevor, Cori, and I end up in an impromptu softball game with half the children in the neighborhood. I had stopped on the way over and picked up Dog, and he is delighted to chase the ball and chase the children and the butterflies and everything else that moves. The day is hot -- the kind of hot that makes the word hot sound like a sick joke. The heat and the humidity boil my brains in my skull like a coddled egg. My shirt clings to me, a sweat-soaked second skin. Eventually I discard the shirt, along with my fake arm, and let the shrieking children spray me with the garden hose. My only regret is that Sean's voice is not part of the merry chorus of childish laughter, that Fox is not here for me to spray with the garden hose and kiss senseless under the blistering May sun. The sun begins to set, and the fireflies emerge, to blink like little green stars in the back yard. The children are called home, one by one, to dinner. Father Benedict leaves to return home -- he no longer drives in the dark. From the deck, sipping iced tea from slick, cold glasses, the rest of the adults watch the day fade. This is life, happening all around me, inviting me in. Offering me a place at its table. If I were smart, not so stupid and scared, I'd think about what that means. //////////////////////////////// Monday morning I call the Scooby gang and invite them to lunch at the Factory. I write out the checks for their severance pay and make a list of supplies I need to get started on painting the house. "Hey, Fox, what color should we paint the house?" Silence is my answer. Lonely is just a word. Empty. Lost. Just words. Language is a cosmic fucking joke. I check my email. There is a message from Scully, concerned because she called yesterday and got no answer. Another from the gunmen, offering to make sure there are no nefarious reasons behind the fire at The Bayou. Offering the only assistance they can. Support from all sides, unexpected but so very welcome. At noon I meet Miranda, Jane, Vince, and Greg at The Factory. I hand them their final paychecks and sit. Miranda opens the envelope and her eyes widen. "Alex, this is more than I usually make in a month. Can you afford this?" "We had good insurance, thanks to Joe," I reply. The waitress comes over and we order our lunch. After she leaves, Greg speaks. "Vince and I had an idea. We're thinking about going camping at Bogue Chitto for a few days. You guys up for an adventure? Maybe we'll find the Blair Witch or something." Fox tried to talk Scully into going to Maryland to look for the Blair Witch a few years ago. She refused to go, smart woman that she is. I wonder if they ever found those kids that went missing... I'm convinced now. Everything really is about Fox Mulder. I could play six degrees of Fox Mulder all day. I usually do. "Al, what do you say? Are you in?" Vince interrupts my thoughts. "It'll be a blast. A little hooch, a little smoke, we'll roast some marshmallows. A good time will be had by all." //Go ahead and go, you'll have a good time.// Stop haunting me, Fox. You aren't dead. "Sure, I'm game. Miranda, you coming along?" I ask. Her cheeks turn a pretty shade of pink, and a small, secret smile lights up her face. She looks down, intent on the tablecloth. "I can't go, guys, I have a lot going on right now." Jane pokes her in the ribs. "Jeez, Miranda, go ahead and spill it. Everybody's going to know soon enough." Miranda looks up, her big blue eyes sparkling. She glows. The sudden aversion to alcohol, the slight roundness in her heart-shaped face...oh man.... It all makes sense now. "I'm pregnant!" She exclaims. "I'm about eight weeks along. I was going to tell you all last week, but with the fire it didn't seem like a good time. Tim and I are going to get married in September, after graduation. Tim's been offered a job in Seattle at his uncle's company. I'm going to stay home with the baby for a year and then start grad school." A baby. It's not even my baby -- God forbid -- but I want to crow and preen. A baby! Our Miranda, a mother. Sean, my niece and nephews...all those kids and I've still never even changed a diaper. This ought to be kind of fun. Then it hits me. Graduation. Seattle. They'll be gone before the baby is even born. It was a nice fantasy. "Miranda, that's wonderful. You'll be a fantastic mother. Tim's a lucky son of a bitch," I finally say. Lunch conversation sways dizzily from Miranda's pregnancy and wedding plans to camping and graduation and baseball. No one mentions the fire. We don't have to. It's a living presence at our table, breaking bread with us. Too much is changing, just as I started to find my balance again. I cannot blame the fire for any of it. June would still come, and Vince and Miranda would still graduate from college and leave town. Cori graduates in June also, and though I teased her for staying I'm so goddamn relieved. Is this what life is? Learning to love something or someone just so you can hurt when it's gone? Did I go through all of this just so I could fucking hurt all the time? No. The smile on Miranda's face doesn't hurt at all. ///////////////////////////////// I meet Vince and Greg the next day to buy camping equipment. I've never been much the woodsy type. As a kid, other than the scouts, most of my time outside was spent on a baseball diamond. We camped in scouts, but mostly at places that had cabins and running water. The last time I really roughed it was in Tunguska, and that certainly didn't end well. Greg spends an obscene amount of money on everything from a camp stove to lanterns to an inflatable mattress. What the hell is the point in camping if he's gonna outfit the tent better than his apartment? It's partly the desire to make Greg look like an idiot that leads me to choose for myself only a small tent, a good quality sleeping bag, and a standard military hot-climate survival pack. "I'm not sharing my food with you when you end up starving," Greg informs me as he dumps a case of PowerBars on the counter. "Don't be stupid, Greg. We're only going to be gone four days, and Vince wouldn't let you leave me in the woods to die," I reply, putting a copy of Edible Native Plant Life of Louisiana in the basket. "I can live off of sugar cane and water for four days. At least I'll have had the satisfaction of actually camping. If you're going to buy all this shit, why don't you just spend the weekend in a hotel?" "Children, children," Vince chides, "How are we gonna survive four days alone together if the two of you can't get through one lousy shopping trip? Don't make me take off my belt, now." "Aw, Pa, we'll behave. We're just having some fun." I turn to the clerk at the counter. "I need a copy of 21st Century U.S. Military Survival Manuals and Related Army Field Guides. Do you have it?" The clerk places the book on the counter and Vince looks at me. "Al, he kinda has a point. This is supposed to be fun, not a re-enactment of Apocalypse Now. We'll get some steaks, or whatever the hell you eat, some beer, bring a deck of cards..." "Look for the Blair Witch?" I grin. He smiles in return. "On the Pearl River? More likely the ghost of some Voodoo priest. But you get the idea. This doesn't have to be work, just a way to relax." Pieces fall into place, patterns become clear. I don't like the picture it presents. I don't know how to relax and have fun. My pleasure comes from achievement, not existing in the moment. I'm one humorless, boring son of a bitch. Later in the evening, I torture Dog by bathing him and shaving his fur. He'll stay cleaner out in the woods that way. Afterwards I take him for a walk to make it up to him. I walk slowly, meandering up and down the streets. Dalrymple. Highland. Lee. The heat drains the tension from my body and clears my head. I cannot go on this camping trip. I can't leave town at all. What if Fox were to come home, or try to contact me? I can't be in the middle of the woods with no way to communicate. Perhaps the gunmen can find out if there is a satellite near enough that I can get a signal for a phone. I'll call them when I get home and find out. I'm pretty sure the gunmen can do damn near anything they put their minds to. If there is no feasible means of communication, though, I simply won't go. Fortunately, the gunmen have an easy solution: a global positioning system. I can send them my coordinates every day, so they can easily track me through the forest. They even volunteer to monitor my phone and email in case the impossible happens and Fox tries to contact me. Not likely, but I can always hope. Hope. It wars constantly with the ache in my chest. Some days, it wins. ////////////////////// Friday morning, I wake an hour before dawn to shower and dress, then double-check my camping gear. The GPS is in the front pocket of my backpack. I make a final sweep of the house. Nothing perishable in the fridge; the trash has been taken to the curb; call-forwarding set to the gunmen's place. Note on the kitchen table stating where I am and when I'll be back, just in case Fox should come home. I pause, staring at the front door, willing it to open. I give up and carry my gear out to the truck. After stopping by Vince's and Greg's respective apartments to stow their gear in the truck, Dog and I hit the road, with Vince and Greg behind us in Greg's car. The temperature is already in the mid-80s when the sun rises. I speed down the interstate with the windows down and the stereo blaring, though even that doesn't drown out the sound of the tires whining against the weathered roadway. The wind whips my hair into my face and makes Dog look like a little rusty-orange cottonball. Dog howls as I sing along with the oldies station, after we lose the signal for KLSU. I feel good. The sun, the wind, and Otis Redding on the radio -- who the hell wouldn't? I-59 stretches into infinity in front of me. Part of me wants to just keep driving until I don't want to anymore, and find out what might be waiting for me. But it would really piss the guys off if I took off with their camping equipment, so I exit at Pearl River, and dig out my map to search for the unpaved access road into the wildlife preserve. I pull into the parking area and kill the engine to the truck. This is as far as motorized vehicles are allowed into the preserve. We have several hours of hiking ahead of us to reach the area we chose on the map to set up camp. I let Dog out of the truck so he can sniff around and piss, then open the bed of the truck and sit on the tailgate. The only human-world sound out here is the soft ticking of the truck engine cooling. A barrel owl calls softly in the distance, a low 'hoo-hoo...hoo-hoo,' and a wild turkey gobbles somewhere nearby, whipping Dog into a frenzy. I can see the access road winding into the brush and getting narrower. The black-and-yellow crossbar to block traffic looks utilitarian and out of place among all the deep greens of summer. Here and there are the bulging barrels of tupelo gum trees, and not twenty-five feet from the parking area is the buttressed trunk of a bald cypress, swelling up from a dark pool of water. It rises majestically, a column soaring into the sky. A thicket of bamboo stands off to the left of the trail. The ground is patterned like an oriental rug, by beams of sunlight that filter through the lacy leaves that canopy the sky. I am standing in sacred space: a koan written by the earth. I didn't realize how badly I needed this quiet and solitude. It irks the shit out of me that Greg and Vince will be here any moment to intrude upon it with their grousing and joking. I am tempted to take my backpack and Dog and walk off into the woods alone. Perhaps I won't come back. Male bonding. Beer-drinking and fishing. That's why I came here. Even if I disappeared into the forest and never returned, I would still have to live with the one person I really want to escape. Vince and Greg arrive half an hour later, brandishing bags from McDonalds. I eat the questionable-looking biscuits they brought for me and we unload the truck, strap on our packs, and set off down the path. We reach our campsite in the midafternoon and are relieved to find it dry. We shuck off our backpacks and sit down to rest for a while. "Greg, don't touch that! It's poisonous!" I call out to Greg when he starts picking berries off a bush. I can't count how many times I've said that to him in the past few hours. He's like a big stupid five-year-old. How the hell did he get to be twenty-five without killing himself? Vince passes me a sports bottle of Gatorade and I take a long gulp. The stuff tastes vile, but at least it eases the dryness in my throat. It's amazing that any part of me could be dry, since the rest of me is drenched in sweat. I must have lost five pounds since we set out this morning. Not that this is a bad thing; I've done some comfort eating since Fox left and it's really showing around my waist. I don't think I'm overly vain, but I'm too cheap to buy new pants. The rest of the afternoon is spent setting up camp. We pitch the tents and agree that all three of us will sleep in the large tent Greg bought, and use my smaller one to store supplies. I unpack it all and stow things away; I'm still laughing about the contents of Greg's and Vince's packs when Greg returns with the firewood. "What's so funny?" He asks. "Exactly how much time did you spend filling those water skins with beer, Greg?" I can't help it; I laugh again. His pack must have weighed 100 lbs. "I just wanted to be prepared. Some of us came out here to have a good time," he replies archly, grabbing one of the skins and taking a long drink. It rains for half an hour around dusk. It's a gentle, misty rain, diffused by the lattice of tree branches high above us. Vince and I doze in the tent, Dog curled against my side, while Greg sets up the hammock he brought. "Hey...Al, can I ask you something?" Vince asks. "Sure, guy. What's up?" I open my eyes, look up at the green nylon ceiling, and close them again. "Why do you give Greg such a hard time?" I have to think on that a moment, and I don't like the answer I come up with. I don't know why Greg presses all of my buttons; he just does. He's cocky, antagonistic, defensive. Perhaps a little too much like me for comfort. Vince speaks again. "All he wants is for you to respect him, Alex. If you're pissed off about the money, you should say something to him. He's too embarrassed to bring it up himself, but he has been paying Althea back ever since Joe died." I roll over to look at him. "Money? I don't know what the hell you're talking about." Vince's face colors. "I assumed you knew. Greg owed Joe money. Right before you started working at The Bayou, Greg got in some trouble. Got arrested for DUI, lost his scholarship. Joe bailed him out. Greg had been paying him back out of his check...but when Joe died, he wasn't sure what to do. He didn't want to bother Althea, and he didn't know if you knew or not. You quit deducting the money from his pay, and he was too embarrassed to say anything. He thinks that's why you don't like him." I think back over the past few months with this new information in mind. A lot of things make sense now. Some of the looks and comments from Greg, his behavior towards me. He was waiting for me to say something and get it over with. "Vince, I had no idea. Joe wouldn't have told me something like that. He kept our personal business to himself. If Greg owed Joe money, that's between him and Althea now. You said he's paying it back, so what's the problem? He's been an ass to me since day one." Vince is quiet for a long moment before he looks up and meets my eyes again. "When you first started at the Bayou, there were some rumors about you. The way you just showed up out of the blue, and you were a local boy but you'd been gone so long. Some people said you'd been in jail. Greg was worried you were gonna take Joe for a ride. And then he kinda had a thing for Miranda, and she was really friendly towards you. We all knew she was with Tim and only liked you as a friend, and then you and Fox...but Greg kinda hung onto being pissed at you all the time." I try to laugh, but the sound that comes from my chest is a bitter snort. Jail. I fucking wish. American prison would have been Disneyland compared to Tunisia. The heat and the rotted food, the bugs and the rape, the stink and dehydration and bone-melting exhaustion. I still can't wrap my brain around those months. They happened to someone else. "I'll talk to him," I finally reply, then roll over and turn my back to Vince, pretending to sleep again. Our evening is spent lazing around. We build a small fire that it's entirely too hot for, and cook vegetable kebobs and steaks. The guys get stoned while I sip white wine from a tin cup. Dog chases after dragonflies. It's all quite pleasant. If only I could stop wishing that Fox were here. When he comes home we will go camping, and hike in the Smoky Mountains. We'll go up north and teach Sean how to sail. No more hiding in our little house, waiting for the other shoe to drop. We're going to have a life together. I startle awake the next morning, disoriented by green nylon above me and the sound of Vince's snoring. So many of my instincts have been dulled. It used to be second nature to come immediately awake, lie still and take inventory of my surroundings, then pretend to wake up. Now, I bolt awake when I reach for Fox and find his side of the bed empty. I climb over Greg and out of the tent, Dog right behind me. We both relieve ourselves against a tree, then I pour some water to wash my face and brush my teeth. I restart the fire, make tea, start a pot of grits, and sit back in one of Greg's fancy camp chairs. The air is sweet and fresh, the light still pink and orange with dawn. In the pond about thirty feet away, bullfrogs croak and splash. In the tree just to my left, a spider has spent the night building a beautifully intricate web at least two feet across. It is festooned with diamond-bright points of dew. At the base of the tree grow three huge pink-and-white lilies. Swallows call across the clearing, interrupted occasionally by the faint coo of doves. It would be too easy to hear none of this. City-tuned ears hear only silence. You must be very still and quiet to hear the heartbeat of the silence. It is alive. Listen carefully. I have not spent a night outdoors for leisure since I was in high school. In scouts we attended those damned Jamboree camping events each year. My father always went along, until my junior year of high school; by then, he was traveling for 'business' most weekends. Guest lecturing, my ass. Slithering his way up the consortium ladder, more likely. I remember the last camping trip we went on together. Papa sitting before the campfire, his black hair shot through with white, the fire throwing up shadows to accent the lines etched in his face. The smoke from his pipe wreathed his head, making him look knowing and wise in my eyes. In those times, my father could do no wrong. I admired him so much. He was raising four children alone and still made time for Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, 4-H, and all my baseball games. Now, my father is a hopeless tangle of contradictions: a consortium operative, who drove a Volvo laden with athletic equipment and the detritus of four kids. I wonder what he told old man Spender about his life. 'Sorry, I can't do your dirty work this weekend, my son's team is in the state playoffs'? How could he have been so good to us, yet become the man who handed me over to the consortium and tried to sell his baby girl into a loveless marriage? I'll never know. If there are explanations for my father's actions, he took them to the grave with him. I am left with jagged shards of conflicting memories. The look on his face when he handed me the car keys, kissed my cheek, and sent me off to the senior prom. How gentle his hands were a year later when he helped me ease my swollen leg out of the car for our first meeting with Corwin Spender. Why, Papa? Why? I stand and pour out my now-cool tea. I did not come here to be depressed. I am going to have a good time if it kills me. Greg and Vince wake. After breakfast and some time cleaning up around the campsite, we gather together our fishing poles and consult the map, then head off towards an area with a rock outcropping that is supposed to be a good spot for fishing. If the water levels were up to normal, it would be accessible only by canoe, but it's been so dry this year that we'll be lucky if the stream is deep enough to fish. We make our leisurely way down the trail towards the stream. We stop at a stand of sugar cane and cut a stalk, splitting it to share, chewing the stalks like they were candy. We stop to pick and eat muscadines; the fruit is warm and sweet and ripe. The purple juice runs down my chin and ends up on my shirt. Vince and Greg stop to split a joint. A few times I have to chase down Dog, who follows a chipmunk into the underbrush and sticks his head in an armadillo hole. Further down the trail, we spot fig and persimmon trees. We fill one of the buckets we brought for catching crawfish and continue on. Hog Slough is much prettier than its name. The water is clear enough to see almost to the bottom. The soft music of the water washing over the rocks is a lullaby, dulling our movements. We are hot and lazy, and spend the morning trying not very hard to fish. We strip to our swim trunks and douse ourselves in insect repellent. Vince and Greg spread a blanket and bring out a waterskin of beer. I stretch out on a rock and bask in the sun until my bones are melting. Later on, we put on our new wading boots and clamber into the waist-deep water. Vince collects a bucket of mussels and crawfish, and Greg catches an arm-length bass. It only takes me a couple hours to find that fishing is boring and that my sunburned thighs really don't like these rubber boots. My contribution to dinner is collecting onions and herbs that I identify in my field guide. Then I decide to have some fun with Greg. He nearly pisses himself when I yell at him to watch out for the nonexistent water moccasin right behind him. He falls for it not once but twice, then flips me off, mutters about little boys and wolves, and ignores me. We head back towards our campsite a few hours before dusk; we have much to do before night falls. By the time it is dark I have dug a fire pit and lined it with rocks. Greg has the fish gutted and the crawfish and mussels wrapped in foil to roast in the fire. Vince shakes out our bedding to get rid of anything that might have taken up residence during our absence, and bags up our non-biodegradable waste. Dog spends his time torturing a helpless crawdad until the poor thing finally dies. "Hey boy, you're not supposed to play with your food," I say, crouching down to scratch his ears. "Are you daddy's vicious crawdad slayer? What a big bad dog you are," I croon at him. "Alex, where's that plant book of yours?" Vince asks. "There are some mushrooms growing over here. If they're edible, we might as well cook them." I give Dog another pat and retrieve the book and my flashlight from the tent. I pick one of the mushrooms so we can examine the underside. I find a picture of it in the book and shake my head. "No can do, chief. These aren't just mushrooms; these are 'shrooms. As in 'the doors of perception are open, break on through to the other side' 'shrooms. I wouldn't eat these unless you were planning to find God this weekend." Vince grins. This does not bode well for the rest of the evening. He picks the mushrooms and carries them back to the fire in the tail of his shirt. "Hey, Greg, wanna broaden your horizons tonight? Al says these are hallucinogenic." "Oh yeah, baby, count me in. Do we just eat them like this, or do we boil them? I think we're supposed to boil them and drink the water." "If you've still got some of that wine," I reply, "they'll taste a hell of a lot better boiled in that. Hell, if you're stupid enough to eat those mushrooms you might as well throw in some of the wormwood growing over there, by that cypress tree." I point to the wormwood plants I noticed earlier in the day. "Are you sure you know what the hell you're talking about, Drake?" Greg asks. "You aren't trying to poison us?" "I don't know, Greg. Are you stupid enough to find out the hard way?" I smile sweetly. Let him think on that a moment. "Yes, I do know what I'm talking about. I was young. Once. And what the hell else was there to do on scouting trips? I may have done this once or twice before," I concede. "Not that I'm doing it now. Someone has to be able to give the police an honest account of the night's activities." Dinner is wonderful. Bass and crawfish and mussels, flavored with salt and lemon and onions and fresh ripe tomatoes from Father Benedict's garden. For dessert, we have figs and persimmons soaked in red wine. I feel fat and lazy and utterly sated after eating. I sit back with a mug of tea made with some mint I picked earlier in the day, to watch the idiot brothers poison themselves. Greg brings out the wineskin containing the rest of the Shiraz we used on the fruit, and pours it into a pan. He dumps in the mushrooms and Vince returns with a handful of wormwood leaves from the plant I'd pointed out. Within minutes, the foulest concoction I have ever smelled in my life is brewing. After it cools Vince pours some in a cup and raises it in a toast. "See you in Valhalla, guys!" and swallows a mouthful. He gulps in a pained breath, his face screws up in disgust, and he gags and coughs until I get up and bring him a cup of water. "Holy fuck, that shit is nasty!" he gasps, pounding on his chest. "You went to all the trouble to swallow it, don't puke it up now," I reply, slapping him on the back. Greg looks at the cup with great trepidation, but manages to swallow a mouthful without puking. He washes it down with a long swallow of beer and manages to take another small drink before passing the cup back to Vince. Vince takes another sip and turns pale. He swallows painfully then pushes the cup into my hand and leans his head between his knees. "No more," he croaks. The smell wafting from the cup in my hand could curl the hair in my nose. It's turned the color of old blood, with an oily sheen on top. Greg reaches over and pokes me in the ribs. "C'mon, Al. Be a man. Have some. What the fuck has clean living ever gotten you?" I look at the cup again. I just want to hang out and have fun. I don't want to be responsible, or practical, or think about how much I miss Fox. Just tonight. This shit can't be worse than the crap they fed us in Tunisia. I put the cup to my mouth and the noxious, bitter fluid burns in my mouth, down my throat. The fumes snake up my sinuses and through my nose, making my eyes water. I swallow again until I feel vomit meeting the drink somewhere midway up my esophagus, then pass the cup to Greg and take a deep breath. Greg fetches a skin of his grandfather's homemade blackberry liqueur and we drink that to kill the taste. I sit back and relax, watching the flames in the fire turn purple and green, listening to the bullfrogs croak until they start in on the chorus of Bizarre Love Triangle. Those frogs really cannot sing. I'm happy as a pig in shit, minding my own business, watching the stars pulse and undulate and change color in the sky, when a ball of fire whizzes past my shoulder. I try to jump from my chair and somehow instead find myself on my ass on the ground. "What the fuck?" I shout as another of the orbs zings by me. Holy motherfucking Christ, there really is a Blair Witch! And that bitch of a witch is attacking me with fireballs! There is laughter behind me. I scramble to my feet, my heart pounding and my skin crawling. I spin around. Bad, bad idea; the trees think it's fun and keep spinning when I'm done. I see Greg standing behind me, a stick in one hand and a bag of marshmallows in the other. He takes a marshmallow, spears it with the stick, and plunges it into the fire. It comes out a beautiful iridescent ball of flame. "Batter up!" Greg yells, flinging the flaming marshmallow at me. It catches my shoulder and hits the ground, leaving a hot trail of stickiness on my shirt. "Holy flaming 'mallows, Batman!" Vince screeches. "I've heard of flaming queens, but never flaming marshmallows." Hey, now, that's just not goddamn fair! I'm the only faggot in these woods, so they must be talking about me! "You're just all jealous 'cause I'm the best-looking son of a bitch out here!" "Fuck, Alex, I didn't mean anything by it, calm down!" Vince replies. "You're right, you're sooo hot. You stud -- I bet you've had more ass than a toilet seat." He laughs wildly at his own joke. "I'd fuck him," Greg says, with an offhanded earnestness that suddenly makes me worried that I'm sharing a tent with him. Then he reaches for the marshmallows again and my only thought is not to get pelted with flaming sugar balls. Later, after the marshmallows are all gone, I'm lying by the fire, watching the stars sway in the sky, when I hear screams and splashing from the pond behind the campsite. I stumble down the narrow path and nearly have a goddamn heart attack when a huge spiderweb reaches out to grab me. I rip it off and keep going. Something terrible has happened; I just know it. I must save my friends, despite the giant spider that wants to eat me. Greg and Vince are naked as the day they were born, splashing and laughing in the pond. They shimmer like albino mermen in the moonlight. The iridescent ripples in the pond keep undulating, past the bank, onto the grass, under my feet. I nearly lose my balance, but manage to stay upright. A faerie flies past me, on wings velvety and green like fig leaves. She stops, winks at me, and soars off. "Holy shit, there are fairies in these woods!" I call out to the guys. Fox would be very amused. Fairies. Well, I guess if there are fucking aliens on this planet, there must be fairies, too. "That was a dragonfly, idiot! Now get your ass out here in the water," Vince replies. "Dragonflies don't have tits, Vince. That was a faerie-- " I scream as a hand comes out of the water and grabs my ankle. I saw this in Friday the 13th, and that poor fucker ended up fish food. I crash into a body in the water and find that it is only Greg. Vince is mean. He won't let me drown the son of a bitch. The night twists and contorts. Time expands and contracts. There is singing, and it might be me; more fruit and wine; sounds crashing through the forest that might be the Blair Witch or maybe just Vince getting lost after he goes to take a leak. Sometime before dawn we are back in the tent, naked as naked can be, splitting a joint and another skin of wine. I think I should tell Greg that I appreciate how well-prepared he was for this trip, but then the world goes black. //////////////////////// I wake when I feel hands on my body -- many hands, pressing me into the cold, wet earth. I open my eyes and a boy hovers over me, a glowing-red knife held in his remaining hand. I'm sorry, he says to me in Russian. NO! Oh, Christ, it burns. The knife cooks my flesh as it cuts through the muscle and the burn is a hot burn, coals shoved down my throat; and then a cold burn, stars in my eyes, ice in my gut, wet, sickening crunch as the bones are broken. And then the knife again, sawing and wrenching tearing pulling tugging -- I want to scream but my mouth is full of vomit. Fox! Fox! I scream in my mind. He wouldn't leave me out here. He wouldn't. He'll find me and help me. He'll know how to fix my arm. I am running through the woods, my belt wrapped around my arm as a tourniquet. I stumble and fall, and the pain shatters my mind. Must get away. I am Hansel, and the old witch wants to cut off my arms and bake them into a pie. I must get away, warn Fox before she finds him too. She mustn't find Fox. He steps out from behind a tree, opens his arms in invitation. Oh thank God, thank God you're safe, I cry. Fox, help me, the Blair Witch stole my arm and she's going to bake it into a pie. No, Alex, I won't let her, he assures me. He kisses me softly, sweetly, and I feel so warm. Safe. Safe at last. Then the black oil seeps from his eyes, his nose, his mouth. It pours into me, choking me, swelling and surging down my throat. His fingers grip like iron, holding me in place. I cannot scream, cannot fight, can only feel the death pounding in my veins. "Alex, goddammit, wake up!! Fuck, Vince, should I slap him?" "No, look, he's opening his eyes. Alex, man, wake up!" There are hands on me and I scream and scream, the sounds clawing out of my throat. I struggle to escape the hands clutching at me but there are too many, too many, and something slams into my jaw... "Shit, Greg, you were supposed to slap him, not punch his lights out," Vince's voice says. I blink. Greg is holding me by the shoulders, fear in his eyes. "Alex, dude, I'm sorry I had to hit you, but you were fucking gone. Are you all right?" Vince holds a cup of water to my lips. The water is cool and sweet running down my throat, until bile rises and gushes into my mouth. I shake my head frantically and push his hand away. "Gonna puke," I grit out, and he grabs me under the arms and hauls me out of the tent, setting me on the ground. What the fuck happened to my clothes and my other arm? I heave and heave, my stomach expelling its contents; I think my spleen and kidneys come up too. There is almost as much blood as there is yellow-green bile, and the coppery taste of it makes me gag. My arm hurts. It aches and throbs, all the way down to my nonexistent fingertips. Each imagined joint is on fire, the skin stretched too tight, threatening to split and crack open. The pain steals my breath, forcing it from my body in harsh grunts. I collapse onto the ground, trying to cradle an arm that is no longer there. "Alex, it's okay, don't cry, man, don't cry," Vince says softly, rubbing my back and awkwardly petting my hair. Greg wraps a blanket around me and washes my face with a cold cloth. He dribbles Gatorade into my mouth from a sports bottle, and feeds me Rolaids and a Vicodin. Eventually -- hours or days, who knows -- I am moved back into the tent. I lie there, dripping sweat but frozen from the inside out. I ache. Something deep inside of me is bruised and bleeding; some part of me that was left in Tunguska, cold and dead in another forest, thousands of miles away. "Alex," Vince says as he sits in front of me. "Greg and I talked, and we agreed it's time to go back. Can you make the hike? If not, Greg is going to hike back to the ranger station and get them to come drive you out. I think you might have gotten poisoned last night, and you need to see a doctor." I shake my head. The last thing I can face right now is more people. I don't want to go back to my empty house. I like it here, under the stars and the sun knowing that, somewhere, Fox and Sean are under them too. I don't have to pretend to be okay, to smile and nod and fake my way through being part of the human race. Vince sighs, his mouth tight. "Alex, what happened to your arm? You were screaming about your arm, yelling in Russian, and shouting 'Mulder, don't leave me out here.' Joe told me a few times that he used to have flashbacks to Vietnam, post-traumatic shit or something. This seems kinda like what used to happen to him." "My arm. It was bad. It was really fucking bad." "You weren't in a skydiving accident." "No." He sighs again. "You're not in any shape to make it back to the truck. I'll send Greg to get the park ranger." "No! I don't want to go back! I'm fine. Just let me sleep." "Al--" "I am not going back. I'm not, so fucking drop it. I think I could eat some oatmeal, if it's not too much trouble." He shakes his head. "If I hadn't promised Cori I would keep an eye on you, I would kick your stupid ass all the way home. I can't figure you out sometimes, Alex. I mean, dude, I care about you. Like a brother. But sometimes you're hard to just like." He ducks out of the tent before I am forced to respond. I manage to keep down the watery oatmeal Vince brings me. At least what of it I don't spill on my shirt trying to bring the spoon to my mouth. I'm shaking all over, alternately hot and cold. Dog lies at the opening of the tent like a sentinel. At least Dog loves me, even if I am an insufferable bastard. Not long after I finish eating, things begin coming out the other end of my body. It's almost funny how you can live to be my age and still find the word 'diarrhea' distasteful. I spend most of the afternoon wracked by stomach cramps I would not have wished on my worst enemy. One day, years from now when I look back on this and can laugh, I'll indulge in the thought of watching Spender die from shitting his brains out. But not today. I'm too concerned that I'm about to do so myself. I have poisoned myself -- that much is blatantly fucking obvious. If I had half of a brain I would let Vince and Greg take me to a hospital with clean sheets, air conditioning, and lots of lovely Compazine to make the cramping stop. But I have come to a decision. I won't live this way anymore. Every forest will not be the Tunguska woods. Every bad dream will not be about my father or my arm or the oil. I have fought hard for this life. I paid my forty pieces of silver to purchase it. Now I must decide how to live it. I'm not going back until I do. It ends here. No matter what, the past stays in this forest. I'll not carry it on my back anymore. I sleep fitfully through the evening and late into the night. When I wake it's still pitch black outside. Vince is asleep a foot away from me, but Greg's sleeping bag is empty. I haul myself up and out of the tent, my stomach growling and my throat dry. Greg is sitting by the fire. He hands me a waterskin and I hesitate. "It's just water," he says, answering my unasked question. I drink greedily, letting the cool, clean water run down my parched throat, soothing it. Greg gets up and goes to the storage tent, then returns with a couple of slices of bread and a banana. "The BRAT diet," he says, handing me the plate. "Huh?" "BRAT. My grandmother's remedy for the stomach flu. Bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast. Supposed to be easy on your stomach." "Oh. Thanks." I sit down and peel the banana with my teeth, then eat it. Greg says nothing, just sits and stares at the low-burning fire. When I'm done, I throw the peel on the fire. It sizzles and curls into black ribbons, then burns away to nothing. "I didn't know anything about you owing money to Joe," I finally say, not looking at Greg. "Even if I had, that's between you and Althea. None of my business." "Then why are you always such a fucking prick to me?" He asks. "Because you were a prick to me first, I guess. But it's stupid for us to fight when we don't even know why we never liked each other in the first place. The Bayou is gone, and we won't be working together anymore. I'd rather part on good terms with you, Greg." I look over at him, but his eyes are still fixed on the ground. "I want to reopen the Bayou, Alex," he says softly. "I want to rebuild in the same location. I've done construction work for my uncle every summer since I was ten; I think I can do a lot of it myself to keep the costs down, and reopen by fall. If you're willing to sell the name." "Done. It's yours." He looks up at me, his eyes glowing with reflected fire. "No shit?" "No shit. I can't do it...I loved the place for what it was, not because I wanted to own a bar. I loved it because it was Joe's. But it wasn't just mine. The Bayou belonged to everyone. Chime Street wouldn't be the same without it. If you want to reopen, it's all yours. Just don't fuck it up or I'll kill you." He chuckles. "Yeah, I think you probably would. I won't fuck up." I could never reopen the Bayou. I loved every scuffmark on the floor, every pit and gouge in the old oak bar. Something new would mean nothing to me. But it would be far more painful to walk down Chime Street and see the empty hull of memories than something reinvented and clean and bright. Better a new bar named the Bayou than a Starbucks or some other crappy corporate chain store. We sit in silence a while longer, me nibbling my bread and sipping water. Greg continues to ruminate over the fire. Finally, he gets up and stretches, then comes over and reaches out his hand. "Thank you, Alex." I take his hand and shake it firmly. "You're welcome." Greg goes to the tent and I stay in my camp chair, listening to the night songs, waiting to welcome the sunrise. ///////////////////////////////////// I wake to Dog licking my face. I lie there for a while, staring up at my green nylon ceiling, stretching to work the kinks from my body. I'm hungry and thirsty and need to take a leak, but I'm not ready to get up yet. I scratch at the mosquito bites on my stomach and the week-old beard on my face, sorting out the dream images in my mind. I dreamt of Papa and Matushka. How they used to smile and laugh together. How Papa lavished praise on her cooking, pinched her bottom when he thought we weren't looking. The way he came up behind her while she washed dishes or cooked and wrapped his arms around her waist, kissing the back of her neck. "My beautiful, beautiful Annette. You take such good care of me," he would say to her. As a boy I paid little notice. As a grown man who has had the privilege of being in love, I now recognize the adoration in his voice and the affection on his face. He loved her. Despite all that he was, he loved her deeply. I don't want to believe that. I want to believe he was a heartless bastard and the cause of all the evil in my life. But now, as I have so often lately, I turn my questions about my father onto myself. Despite everything I have done, doesn't the fact that I am capable of love make me human? I can condemn my father and myself, or I can accept the truth. My father was just like me. Another flawed man, who made horrible decisions and hurt people in the process. But still human, and not beyond redemption. I didn't know, until now, how good it would feel not to hate him anymore. I emerge from the tent to another dawn. Greg and Vince left several days ago to return home, after an entire day of arguing that I could not be left alone in the middle of the woods. I wrote a note to my sister, absolving Vince of all responsibility for my behavior, and instructions to Vince so he could contact the gunmen and let them know of my change of plans. The rhythm of my days is simple, complete. In the mornings I take long walks with Dog, gathering herbs and fruit and nuts. It's not necessary -- Greg packed so much food I could easily live off of oatmeal and PowerBars for a month, but the food is fresh and abundant. I have figs and persimmons and sarsaparilla or anise tea for breakfast, then wander the trails with Dog, letting him break his fast on chipmunks and squirrels and whatever else he catches. I bathe in the pond, then go fishing or laze around in the hammock Vince forced Greg to leave behind. I've been reading my field guides and am considering setting some snares to catch a rabbit or squirrel. I'm getting tired of fruit and fish and oatmeal already. It rains without fail every afternoon, almost. I nap in the tent, or sometimes sit out in the rain, then collect my water buckets and go through the routine of boiling and cooling and pouring it into waterskins. I am at home here. The forest is alive, awake, aware. I am only another heartbeat; of no consequence. Not Alex Drake; just another part of the ecosystem. I tread lightly, do not interrupt its songs, and it feeds me and shelters me. This is God's grace. Found not in a church of man's hands, but in His most sacred temple. //////////////////////////////// I pray in the mornings now. On my knees, as the sun rises, I thank God for Fox and Sean and my family, for his forgiveness, for Scully and Dog and my friends. I pray the Our Father and the Jesus Prayer and sit for many hours with the peace and stillness inside me, savoring it. I dream of the morning Fox left, of the sweet, warm wings I felt soothing my heart as I cried for him not to leave. Mama, please! Matushka's loving presence fills my heart, and this time there is no panic. I see only the love in Fox's eyes; feel the touch of his lips on mine. Alex, my Alex, I will come home to you, he says with his tears. Yes, Fox. I believe. My pants don't fit anymore. They slide down my hips, despite the two additional notches I have made in my belt. I finally succeed in snaring a rabbit, and spend half the day cleaning it and most of the evening overcooking it. I don't eat commercially produced meat. It's not a philosophical issue of eating God's cute little fuzzy creations -- I just don't eat Franken-food. Yuck. This, however, is too hot, tough, greasy, gamy, and absolutely perfect. One night, when phantom pains from my arm keep me awake, I get drunk on a skin of wine that Greg left behind, and decide to have a funeral for my arm. I find a stick and name it Alex's Arm. I bury it, and sing Nearer My God to Thee, then give it a tearful eulogy. It was a good arm. It served me well. I spend an afternoon lying in a glade a mile or so from my campsite. I am insignificant, lying on the ground, basking in leaf-dappled sunshine. I see the veins in the leaves overhead. I am cradled in the green glow of gentle light, the color of Fox's eyes. I understand nothing. The day my father took me to meet his associate, Corwin Spender, I thought I understood it all. As the years passed, my ignorance waxed and waned. I had moments of great understanding, profound knowledge, poisoned wisdom. But then, the page would turn and I would see the contrived nature of my intelligence. I would start anew, scrambling for understanding, information, power. It was a crock of shit. There is nothing to know or understand. Why has God forgiven me? Why have I lived this life? Why me? I don't know. I am small and stupid. Yet God's mercy moves through me, pulses inside of me, pumps through my veins. It does not wait for me to understand. It never will. No more questions. Only gratitude. For the childhood I had, for the friends and family, lover and son and home. Resist or serve. Fight or die. Get up and live. It's time to get up and live. It's time to go home. ////////////////////////////////// It's early morning when I hear the sounds of breaking twigs, of human feet trampling the underbrush. Dog goes nuts, barking and running in circles around my camp chair. I sit, still and quiet, my hand on the hilt of my Bowie knife, waiting for my intruders to present themselves. "Yo, Nature Boy, don't you think it's time to come back to civilization?" Melvin Frohike says as he emerges into my campsite. "Morning, Frohike. Want a cup of tea?" I ask as I stand up and snap my fingers to bring Dog to heel. His mouth hangs open for a moment. He snaps it shut, adjusts his glasses, and drops his pack to the forest floor. "I flew here from DC, hiked for hours to find you, all because you decided to pull this Man called Horse routine and all you have to say for yourself is 'want a cup of tea?' You--" He shakes his head. "Me? What did I do?" He gives me a thorough once-over. I haven't shaved since the morning I left Baton Rouge, and am dressed only in a pair of denim cut-offs that I've been wearing for a few days. "Man, do you have any idea how worried your family and Scully have been? You go missing in the middle of the woods to 'find yourself' and don't come back for weeks! Everyone thought you lost your mind. Again. Scully finally got concerned enough to send me to find you. She had something she promised Mulder she would give you on your birthday." I frown. There is no way I have been gone that long. "She must have her dates mixed up. My birthday is the third week of June." He rolls his eyes and holds his digital watch up to my face. "You see this? June 22nd. Happy Birthday, Alex. You've been out here almost a month." Damn. The time just flew by. It seems like it's only been a week or two. I think back over the last few weeks, but am interrupted when Frohike holds up two small boxes. "These are from Scully." I take the boxes and sit down. The first box is about the size of a tie box. I don't think Scully would buy me a tie. I peel back the wrapping paper and lift the lid. Oh man...I can't believe her. Damn Dana Scully for making me feel all sappy on my birthday. I take out the black wool chotkis and grin, ignoring the tight feeling in my chest. "What is that?" "It's an Orthodox rosary. I can't believe she got this for me..." It's beautiful. It feels just right in my hand. I look at it for another moment and place it back in the box. "Never took you for the religious type, man," Frohike observes, sitting down on a log. I smile at him. "I never saw myself that way either, until I had so much to be grateful for. Thanks for coming out here. You're a good man, Charlie Brown." He scowls at me, and I laugh, then turn my attention to the second, smaller box. "Wait, there's a card with that one," he digs in his pack and pulls out a blue envelope with my name on the front. I pluck the card from his hand and open it. In Scully's neat, crisp handwriting it reads: "Dear Alex, Before Mulder and Sean left, Mulder gave me detailed instructions about your birthday gift. I have followed them to the letter. So while I did the legwork, the gift is from Mulder. Happy Birthday, Dana" Tears sting my eyes. I blink them away and carefully open the box. It contains a black velvet jeweler's box. I lift the lid and trace my fingers over the gold Saint Nicholas medallion contained within. I pick it up by its sturdy gold chain and let it spin in the morning light. Something on the back catches my attention, and I turn it over to examine it. I read the inscription, and chuckle for a moment before bursting into tears. In Cyrillic characters are the words 'Made in China.' That asshole. That wonderful, beautiful man I miss so much that it aches and throbs in the deepest parts of my heart. Made in China, indeed. "You okay?" Frohike asks softly. I run my thumb over the inscription before putting the chain over my head. The medallion rests warm and solid against my chest, right below the base of my neck. I wipe away my tears and look over at him. "I'm great. Why don't you rest while I pack? Then we can get the hell out of Dodge. It's time to go home." "Too bad you didn't decide this before I had to traipse my ass all the way out here." I grin at him and scoop up my packages and wrapping paper. "Oh, c'mon, it'll be fun. We'll bond, we'll get eaten by mosquitoes. You can help me carry all this shit back to my truck." He grumbles noncommittally and reaches over to pet Dog, who rolls on his back in ecstasy. Ultimately, I decide to leave behind most of my own equipment, so that I can return Greg's. Frohike and I are so weighed down that I'm tempted to start strapping things to Dog's back and hope for the best. Frohike at one point suggests I make a travois of my own tent, but I don't want to add the time to our hike. It will take about four hours to make it back to the parking area, and I am suddenly anxious to be home. Frohike is not in good shape. The four-hour hike turns into seven hours, the last two-and-a-half in the dark. When we finally reach the parking area...I have never been so happy to see my truck, though it is covered in birdshit and the bed is full of spiderwebs. It is nearly midnight by the time I reach my house. I am so relieved to see it. I want to rush inside, but hesitate; I am chagrined to realize someone has mowed the lawn and trimmed back the hedges that line the sidewalk. Inside, I find more evidence that, while I've been in the woods 'finding myself,' others have been taking care of business for me. My mail is stacked neatly in two piles on the kitchen table. One is unopened mail; the other pile is bills that have been opened. On each one, in Cori's handwriting, are the word 'paid' and a date. My checkbook sits next to them. I have my baby sister to thank for making sure I still had electricity when I returned home. I walk the house slowly, pausing for long moments in various places. Fox's Game Boy still sits in its place on top of the bookshelf. Next to it is Stuart Little, the book Sean had been reading when they left -- he'd forgotten to take it with him. I pick it up and go to his bedroom, opening the door for the first time since he left. Sean, the son I had never thought to have, who had appeared on my doorstep and stolen my heart.... I flip the lightswitch and give myself up to the longing that washes over me. His toys sit neatly on their shelves, gaps between some of them, the empty spaces for things he took away with him. The little doll in the baseball uniform Fox bought when he was first born, a jelly-jar full of marbles, a handful of lead fantasy figures, and his binder of Pokemon cards are all missing from their usual places. There are more gaps on the bookshelf. The Tolkien books, C.S. Lewis, and the Black Beauty books are gone. I put the book I am holding on the shelf and whisper "Goodnight," before I turn off the light and close the door again. My own room is silent and still. Fox's junk basket sits alone on the dresser, empty for three months now. The only decor in the room is a small, framed photo of Fox, Sean, and me that sits on my nightstand. Fox's nightstand is empty of everything but his alarm clock. I remember the night he broke the lamp that used to sit there, when he had felt Sean's terror so keenly that it nearly broke him. I remember the night it seemed certain he would die in this bed. The house is too quiet. Empty. But it reverberates with memories. Laughter and lovemaking, the smells of carefully prepared dinners and takeout pizza. The house is not dead. It is only asleep; waiting. It will be alive again one day. I fondle the medallion at my neck for a moment before getting out clean clothes and going to shower before Frohike arrives. ////////////////////////////////////// That guy has a really nice ass. I really shouldn't be looking at the guy's ass. I sigh and turn, subtly adjusting myself. I stare at the wallpaper samples on the wall until Mr. Nice Ass walks away. It is November. Fox has been gone seven months, and my dick has chosen today to realize it is still attached to my body. I am standing in Home Depot sporting a hard-on when I am supposed to be searching through wallpaper patterns for the right one to complete my niece's Christmas gift. Why does this shit happen to me? Another frustrated sigh, and I concentrate on the wallpaper samples again. It had been ugly wallpaper. Goldenrod yellow, with olive-green vines snaking across it. As a kid I used to imagine that if I didn't run through the foyer as quickly as possible the green vines would grow and grow and wrap around me, pulling me into the wall. I can still hear Matushka's voice. "Alexander, slow down! The house is not on fire." I started the model a month after I returned from my sojourn in the forest. The model is an exact replica of the house on Evangeline Street, the house we grew up in. The house I burned down. I've been to the courthouse and found blueprints of the house, studied photographs, and quizzed Dee and Bron until they are sick of the sight of me. I had taken the house away from my sisters. I want to give it back to their children. The only thing missing is the wallpaper in the foyer. I turn from the wall of samples and go to the counter. "It's not here. Do you have any more samples?" The woman behind the counter is used to me now. She wishes she weren't. "Sir, you've been through every sample in our inventory. I called all the other stores and no one has this wallpaper. There's nothing else I can do to help you. I'm really sorry." "Can you give me a list of your wallpaper distributors? I'll call them myself." She looks me over carefully and her frown softens. "Look, my son is studying graphic art at LSU. Why don't you go over to the paint section and pick out the colors, then look through the samples again and find something that resembles it? I'll see if he can cook you up something on the computer and you can come pick it up Wednesday." I smile and bat my eyelashes. "You'd really do that for me?" She does not look impressed. "I'd do anything for you at this point. You're harassing my employees. Get out and come back on Wednesday." I duck my head. Alex Drake, the terror of Home Depot. "Yes, ma'am. And thank you." Leaving Home Depot, I drive through the heavy afternoon traffic on Coursey Boulevard, making my way towards the ballfield. A bus rolls past me in the left lane, and I notice an advertisement on the side, for the newest Star Trek series on TV. I wonder absently if Fox is watching it where he is. Does he enjoy it? Does he think Scott Bakula is hot? I did, back when he was on that body-jumping show... Shit. Another round of Six Degrees of Fox Mulder. There has been no word from Fox and Sean. We don't know if they are safe. I don't know if Fox is even alive. I have no idea when they are coming home. As the days stretch on, I grow anxious. Surely Fox must be improving. They must be coming home soon. Traffic moves at a snail's pace, and I arrive at the park only fifteen minutes late for Mason's soccer game. After the St. John Panthers lose to the Sacred Heart Challengers, Dee, Paul, and I escort twelve dejected little boys to Mr. Gatti's for pizza. Afterwards, I head home to change clothes, and out to go play pool with Cori. When I turn the corner onto July Street, I see a car parked in my driveway. My heart races as I pull in behind it, then drops to my stomach when I see the figure on the porch. I get out of the truck and approach him casually. "Walter, what can I do for you? Surely you weren't just passing through." Skinner shakes my hand. "How are you, Alex? Dana misses hearing from you." "This a social visit, Walter? Seems like a long drive just to ask me how I'm doing." He shakes his head. "We've found Strughold." My heart thumps hard in my chest. "Did you find him alive? Did he give you any information?" "Could we go inside? I could really use a drink," he replies. Suddenly I need one, too. I unlock the door and he follows me to the kitchen. I get out a bottle of bourbon and two glasses, put them on the table and sit down. Walter belts back his first drink before speaking. "He's alive. He's also willing to testify in exchange for protection from the US against other governments that would execute him for his crimes. But we need you to testify in order to corroborate his story, Alex. We can't seek out Marita, as you know. That would risk exposing the location of the telepaths. Which leaves you as the only other available witness." My hand shakes when I reach for my glass. "Can I cut the same deal, or will I be extradited to Russia so the KGB can have me?" "You'll be granted complete immunity in exchange for your testimony. That was the first question I asked. You and I will never be fishing buddies, Alex, but I would not hang you out to dry. Mulder is my friend and you are his...he trusts you. That means something to me." He pours himself another drink. I sip my own drink, lost for a moment in my tangled thoughts. Here is my chance, finally, to do something for Fox and Sean. I can help make it safe for them to come home, to destroy the conspiracy that has ruled our lives for so long. The price will be exposing my father and risking public exposure to my family. My sisters will find out everything I have done, and I will finally be held accountable for my crimes. It is time. If I have to be tried, let the people who love me be my judge and jury. I have always been my own executioner. Losing their trust will be worth making it safe for Fox and Sean to come home. I am the only one with anything to lose here. There isn't really a choice to make. Anything is worth ending this, once and for all. "Skinner..." I begin, sipping my drink again, then putting the empty glass on the table, "I'll do it. But I need a few days. There are things my family needs to know, and they need to hear it from me." "Not if you don't want to tell them, Alex. These proceedings will be completely closed to the public. Top Secret. The President is taking this seriously; this is Nuremberg, done right. We've been given the resources to truly end this -- every department in the alphabet soup of government is at my disposal. I'm answering directly to president Bush and can hand-pick my taskforce. I know about your father, Alex. Strughold is already talking. I can see why you want to protect your family. I can promise you that fewer that twenty people will ever know what has gone on." He stops, takes a deep breath, and looks at me intently. "Sean is my son too, you know. And Dana is my family. I won't let the public find out what was done to them. They will walk away from this with a chance for a normal life. I will stop anyone who thinks to make it otherwise." I know in this instant I can trust Skinner. Of all the things we will never agree on, he understands me in this moment. That is all I need. I nod. "Okay. Whatever I can provide is yours." I call Corinne and cancel our plans, and Skinner and I go out to dinner. Our conversation, at first stilted, flows more easily as the alcohol does, and Skinner outlines for me what they have learned already from Strughold. The events at El Rico in 1999 slowed the colonists down, but also served to strengthen their resolve. Since then, they had shifted their research focus from military to scientific, concentrating primarily on hybridization and genetics. The program that created Sean had been meant to create spies with unrestricted access to the human mind. As with so many of the consortium's machinations, they had been impatient, and lost control of the telepathy when they aged the subjects. There were at least ten other children who had been rapidly aged as Sean had been. Most of them were of mixed descent, created with the genetic material of men from the oil experiments in Tunguska and female abductees with the branched DNA sequences that caused the cancer. Despite all the liquor in my system, or perhaps because of it, I manage to say to Skinner, "I was exposed to the oil. What are the chances that my genetic material was used in these experiments? Does Strughold have access to documentation of who the subjects were in this project?" He shakes his head. "No. He had it destroyed when they cleared out the lab in North Carolina. He says that, other than Dana and Mulder, he had no part in choosing the subjects. That was left to the scientists." He goes on to explain that Strughold had known all along that Marita was working with Jeremiah Smith. Strughold had feigned ignorance, hoping to draw Smith out of hiding. He'd assumed the alien telepaths would be able to retrieve the few human subjects Marita had slipped out from under his nose. After Marita aided in Sean's escape, he had decided to eliminate her, as soon as the alien telepaths arrived. I had been the monkeywrench in his plans, and the extra time required to destroy the evidence in the lab bought Marita the diversion she needed to disappear. Smith had shielded the telepaths well, but the alien bounty hunter had caught their scent and been on their trail until early April, when the telepathic impulses disappeared. Strughold had feared the colonists would blame him for the loss, and had gone into hiding. The stupid fuck had been caught by the authorities when he tried to buy a blowjob from an undercover cop in Los Angeles. "So we can extrapolate from this timeline that Smith finding Fox and Sean had something to do with the alien losing track of the telepaths," I speculate, as we sip brandy after dinner. "It makes sense," Skinner agrees. "Strughold says they and Gibson are the strongest of the telepaths. Perhaps having all of them in the same physical location made it easier for Smith to block the signals." We theorize and share ideas until the restaurant closes, then part company in the parking lot. Skinner is returning to DC the next morning; I am to appear on Monday. I spend a restless night in bed. Even Dog abandons his place on the floor at the foot of the bed, apparently put off by my tossing and turning. I will have to sit in front of a special judiciary panel and admit my culpability in hurting almost everyone I have ever loved. I will have to look Scully in the eye and admit that I recommended her abduction solely to prove to my father what a bad-ass I was, that I stood by and watched her sister die and did nothing. Nothing would have saved Melissa Scully after Cardinale had shot her in the head, but I could have given her the violent mercy of a killing shot. Worst of all, I will have to admit that I shot my lover's father, and left Fox, sick and delirious, to cradle the man in his arms as he died. It hurts. It makes my stomach churn. But it is also a relief. I have repented my actions. Now I can finally atone for them. ////////////////////////////// I am up at dawn the next morning, finally having given up on sleep. I take Dog for a long walk and stop at Highland Coffee for breakfast, remember that I shouldn't eat, and return home to shower and dress with my stomach growling and peace filling my heart. I am at Father Benedict's by 8 AM. I knock on the door and wait, listening to the shuffling footsteps' approach. Father is getting old. His arthritis makes him stiff and sore in the mornings, and his eyesight is failing. I hate to disturb him before Vespers, but I need to talk to him. Finally the door opens and Father appears, clad in a sweatsuit, his hair and beard damp. "Alexander, what a nice surprise. Please, come in. I'm fasting so I cannot offer you anything but a glass of water, but you are welcome to it." I smile and shake my head. "Thank you, Father, but this isn't a social call. I know it's early, but..." I hesitate, take a deep breath, and let the rest of the words rush out, "I was hoping you would allow me to make confession so I could receive Holy Communion this morning." He remains impassive, but the crepe-paper skin around his eyes tightens into deep creases. "I suppose you'd better come inside, son. Let's sit down and talk." I follow him into the parlor and sit on the pristine Queen Anne sofa. The room is immaculate, from the starched lace doilies on the tables to the perfectly spaced photographs on the walls. He stands in front of me and laughs. "Don't sit on the furniture, Alexander. Matushka Beatrice would have thrown a fit. You don't actually sit in a parlor. I want you to move the hi-fi cabinet and lift up the carpet underneath it." This is not going as I had planned, but I have long been trained not to question Father Benedict; one simply does as he says. So I get up and go to the 'hi-fi,' one of those cumbersome old cabinets with an 8-track and a turntable that had probably been top of the line when it was brought home from Montgomery Ward in 1965. I move the console and peel the carpet and padding back from the wall. Underneath is a section of missing floorboard, replaced with a piece of plywood. I look up at Father Benedict and he nods. I get out my pocketknife and lever the board up with it. Under the board is a metal briefcase. I take it out and set it aside, replace the board and carpet, and then stand and move the cabinet back into place. "Thank you. Now bring that and let's go sit in the study," Father instructs. The briefcase is heavy. I wonder if Father has gold bullion stashed in it. I follow him to his study and remain standing until he is seated in one of the caramel-colored leather armchairs, then sit down in the other. "Now, tell me why it is you wish to make confession." "I...I want to come back to the Church, Father. I want to take part in the Holy Sacrament. I want to repent and atone for my sins." I pause, collecting steam as I go on. "I've done some terrible things, Father Benedict, and I've been put in a position where I must ask for the forgiveness and mercy of men. I want God's forgiveness and mercy first." "Atonement is a good thing, son," he begins. "God teaches us that it is the path to Heaven. But you must understand that God forgives us and grants us mercy in every moment we exist, not only when we are in the confessional. Have you asked for forgiveness in your heart? Do you believe that God has heard your prayers?" "Yes, Father, I do." "Then what else do you want, child, a burning bush? A carved tablet? God gave you that man and that child to love, what other signs of his mercy and grace do you need?" He chuckles, the warmth in his watery blue eyes softening his words. "I don't understand, Father. What do you want me to say? The church teaches that confession is our duty, and that Sacrament is our reward: the flesh and blood of Christ. I need to share in that again. I need to worship in love and gratitude." He stands up and walks over to me, putting his hand on my cheek. His skin is cool and thin and dry, like old parchment. His eyes are sad and warm, but his smile is soft and approving. "I want you to tell me that you know in your heart that God loves you, Alexander Mikhail Gray, and has forgiven you. That you know that confession is only a ritual, and that God had already counted the hairs on your head and taken your full measure. That in doing so he did not find you lacking, but granted you his divine mercy and a second chance." I feel made of glass, transparent to the man who stands before me and looks at me with such affection and kindness. I am mute, my heart so full that it swells into my throat and silences anything I might say. I look down at my shoes, but Father Benedict catches my chin and tilts my face up to look at him. "Alex, I will hear your confession, and will consider it a gift from God to give you the sacrament at my hands. But I want you to pray the Pilgrim's Confession to me. I heard your father's last confession, only hours before his death. That is all I need to know of what you have done. God loved Philip, despite his crimes, as he loves you. Let your father give you his final gift, Alexander, and accept the confession he made in your place." I am crying when I kiss Father Benedict's ring and slide from the chair to my knees. At his feet, I pray the Pilgrim's Confession. As the words flow from my memory, I speak them softly, savoring them with my heart; until the words are gone and all that's left is the golden peace that pulses inside me. Father Benedict prays, but the only words that penetrate my mind are the three I have longed to hear since the beginning of time. "I absolve thee," he finishes, then offers me his hand. I take it and stand, beaming in the light of his radiant smile. He kisses both of my cheeks and ruffles my hair. "Welcome home, Alexander." I can do nothing but laugh, feeling all of five years old as he thumbs the tears from my face. It is good to be home. "Now open the case, Alex. If you wait until after Vespers you'll be so anxious with curiosity that you won't be able to concentrate," Father instructs. I sit and pull the case into my lap, flicking open the latches and lifting the lid. It is full of papers, some in file folders and some held together in binders. I lift out the top folder and open it. It is a dossier on me. It contains photographs, college transcripts, my SAT scores, and a record of every job I have ever done for the consortium. It lists the times I failed to follow orders and the 'corrective actions' that were taken. There are field reports from operatives who searched for me in Hong Kong, all the way up to my assignment to infect Skinner with the nanomachines. My father died of a heart attack less than four months later. I paid for an independent autopsy with my own money. There was no foul play; just arterial blockage and untreated high blood pressure, like many men his age who ate too much and smoked unfiltered Lucky Strikes for God knows how long. I didn't attend the funeral. There are many other records, detailing consortium operations my father participated in, chronicling his steps up the ladder from an occasional hitman to forger, courier, and teacher of Russian language and culture to new operatives. Seems he got out of the assassin business right after Matushka died. Corinne's police records are included, from the two arrests, and the court hearing where her record was expunged. There are medical documents from her pregnancy and a copy of the baby boy's birth certificate, as well as an NSA-level security check on the adoptive parents. "Father Benedict, do you know what these are?" I ask, closing the case. He shakes his head. "I only know that your father called them your life insurance policy, and asked that I give them to you if you ever came to me in need." I swallow hard. He'd left me blackmail material, documents that incriminated him, as insurance to save myself? But...he'd let Spender nearly kill me with that car bomb...hadn't he? I've never had any evidence he'd been involved, but by then he'd been too involved. He'd have to have known, right? Father Benedict's hand is warm on my shoulder. "Put it away, son, and let's go celebrate. Today is a time for joy." I lock the case in the truck while Father dresses, then meet him next-door at the church. The morning sun gleams through the stained-glass windows, throwing asymmetrical patterns of light everywhere, like gemstones scattered on the floor and walls. I go to the altar and light candles for Fox and Sean, then kneel at the feet of the Blessed Mother and pray for their continued safety. It aches that Fox isn't here. He has no religious leanings whatsoever, but he would be proud of me nonetheless. He understands the joy of a quest fulfilled, of finding your own answers. I reach for the medallion at my neck. He understands. He always has. The deacons arrive, and then the other parishioners start to trickle in. Bron, Trevor, and the twins are the first of my family to arrive. Bron hugs and kisses me. "You're here awfully early. Everything okay?" she asks. I smile at her, hug her back and tuck her head under my chin, careful not to push the veil from her head. "Everything is great. I just needed to talk to Father Benedict for a while." She pulls away and looks at me suspiciously. "You're up to something." I laugh. "Wouldn't you like to know?" I am last in line to receive communion that day. If it were not a serious no-no, my family would be applauding. Their smiles are a warm embrace, and I am lighter and yet more full than at any other time in my life. //////////////////////////// I roll over and grope for the phone, disoriented for a moment. It rings again before I get it off the nightstand and bring it to my ear. "Hullo?" I glance around and get my bearings. Darkness; stale, dry, too-warm air; stiff sheets and a hard mattress; no dog at my feet. Another DC hotel room. I've seen too many of these lately. Skinner has been generous about putting me up in nice accommodations, but they've all started to look alike. "Alex, hello, it's Dana. Did I wake you?" Scully sounds entirely too awake. I glance at the clock and realize it is nearly nine in the morning. "Yeah, good thing you did, too. I've got to be in the Senate chamber in an hour." I swing my legs over the bed and sit up. "What are your plans afterwards? I want to have you over for dinner if you're not busy." "I'm flying home this evening. I've hardly been home since Thanksgiving. If I don't bust my tail I'm not going to finish my niece's Christmas gift in time. I should have worked on it last weekend, but I went to Seattle to see my friend Miranda and her new baby." "Oh, you're still working on the dollhouse? How is it coming along?" "It's not a dollhouse. It's a model. And I'm almost done. But with Christmas two weeks away, I'd feel better knowing it's finished. And I still have shopping to do for the rest of my family. Poor Dog probably thinks I'm never coming back. He's been at Bronwyn and Trevor's place for weeks. My family still thinks I'm working on a computer-consulting job." "Okay," she sighs. "I miss you, you know. We spent so much time together over a conference table the last few weeks, and never had time to really talk." "Yeah, I miss you too. But Walter said that they've got the special committee chosen now, so after the first of the year we should be able to give our full testimony and be done with this." "I can't wait. Reliving all of this has not been the most pleasant experience. I know it hasn't been for you either," she replies. "All right, I'll let you go get ready. Would you like a ride to the airport this afternoon?" "Yeah, that would be great. See you later, Dana. Bye." I hang up the phone and shower quickly. My hair is still damp and my tie in my coat pocket when my Secret Service handlers arrive to fetch me. Breakfast is a granola bar and a styrofoam cup of lukewarm tea in the limo on the way to the Capitol. Walter Skinner, the Vice President, the Chief Justice, and four Secret Service agents are waiting for me when I arrive. "Sorry I'm late," I say as I sit down. "I overslept." "It's quite all right, Mr. Drake," the Chief Justice replies. "We were just going over your testimony from yesterday. I'd like to ask you some more questions today about your," he pauses, "dealings with Agent Mulder." I've been dreading this moment for weeks now. I take a deep breath and nod. "Okay." "We are all aware that you and Agent Mulder had been residing together before his disappearance in April of this year. At what point did your relationship with Fox Mulder become...personal?" Shit. He's going right for the throat. "February of 1997," I reply, then carefully chronicle my relationship with Fox. I relay only facts: dates and places. Dry and detached. I do not explain how we had slowly, over years, progressed from him throwing me out before our sweat had cooled in those first months to him sobbing in my arms after his mother died. I do not tell them that my heart had started beating again the night I found him on my doorstep. I don't explain that I found my soul by looking in his eyes, as he waited for his flight to DC on Christmas day so he could meet his newborn son. As I tell the story, I omit the particulars of our violence and masochism in the early years. What I do tell is terrible enough. I am horrified at how awful it really was. At the time, it made me feel human to give Fox someone to loathe so that he wouldn't hate himself. I remember his faked suicide, and the bone-deep sickness of knowing that, even in that, I hadn't been enough. At the time, I thought he should have killed me instead. These events are so far removed from the people we have become that it is as though they happened to someone else. But they did happen to us. We made them happen. We had done those things to each other, and still became the men who, a few short months ago, had laughed and parented and made love together. It is nothing short of a miracle. My chest grows tight and my head throbs as the questioning goes on. Yes, Mr. Chief Justice, I left my lover seizing and in agony in a stairwell while I stole the documentation of the artifact that could have saved his life. Yes again, I stood by and let Spender kill Diana Fowley when in actuality it was I who had slipped her keycard to Dana Scully. Jeffrey Spender? I'm afraid I was there for that, too. I dumped the body of my lover's brother in a shallow grave in New Jersey, after their father had put a bullet in his head. They are all so careful to keep their voices neutral when they speak to me, but I see the disgust in their eyes. I am more concerned about what they think of Fox for loving the man who did these things than I am about their opinions of me. I am all talked out by the time Dana comes to pick me up at five. I slouch tiredly in the passenger seat and sip the hot jasmine tea she brought me from Bread and Chocolate. "Rough day?" she asks gently. "It's not easy to remember some of this. I look back on it and can't believe I was ever that person. That I did those things." She raises an eyebrow and smiles softly. "I can't believe it either. It feels like it all happened to other people." I chuckle grimly. "Welcome to the Twilight Zone: Dana Scully, This is Your Life." She groans. "You're mixing your television shows, Alex." She smiles again, and reaches to pat my knee. "It's good to have some time with you, even if we are stuck in traffic." We talk incessantly on the slow crawl to the airport, and still arrive in time to have a drink in the lounge before my flight leaves. It is so good to see her. We talk about Fox and Sean, sharing our mutual dread of the upcoming holidays without them, of missing Sean's first birthday. When we are together, able to discuss the secrets we have so carefully concealed, it is as if a dam has burst inside us both. Our conversations are often a torrent of words. She walks me to the concourse. We stop at the security checkpoint, and I put my arm around her and squeeze her tight. "Dana...I'm sorry for all of it. So very sorry I hurt you and your family. You know that, don't you?" She smiles gently, her eyes warm and kind. She smooths her hand over my cheek, running her thumb along my jaw as I have seen her do to Sean many times. I lean into her touch, comforted. "Alex, I forgive you. For all of it," she says softly, offering me an absolution I had never hoped to attain. I kiss her forehead and hold her for a long moment before letting her go. I am tired and moody on the flight. I was anxious to go home but now, an empty house, two weeks before Christmas, doesn't sound very appealing. I will just have to find some way to keep busy. I'll finish Drina's house, maybe volunteer to sell Christmas trees at the scouts' sale. Anything will be better than sitting at home, missing Fox and Sean. I ache to feel Fox in my arms, the warmth of his body pressed against mine in sleep, his nose sniffing my hair. God, I miss the way he cups my face in his hands when he kisses me, the way he grouses that I suffocate him after we make love. I close my eyes and luxuriate in a fantasy: that I will get off the plane, walk through the front door, and find him asleep in our bed, a book on his chest and his glasses slipping down his nose. When I arrive home my fantasy bursts like a soap bubble, pricked by the sharp silence of the empty house. ////////////////////////////////////// On Christmas Eve, Paul helps me leverage the model house out of the back of my truck and place it under their Christmas tree. I am extremely proud of how well it has turned out. It stands three feet high and has working electric lights, as well as doors and windows that open and shut. I spent more hours than I can count cutting and sanding and painting the wood into the shape of my memories. Slowly, I am reclaiming my life in that house; no longer is my childhood stained by black hatred for my father. I recall the loud, loving household we had been at one time and the hollow places in my heart slowly fill with something comforting and bright. I have by no means forgiven my father. I don't know if I ever will. But I know with certainty that he loved my mother and us children. That will have to be enough. I sleep on Dee and Paul's sofa Christmas Eve -- I couldn't tolerate the idea of waking up alone on Christmas morning. I lie there for hours on the narrow couch, watching the lights blink on the Christmas tree, trying to fall asleep. When I eventually do sleep, I dream of Fox. I am home in my bed and Fox comes into the room, slips into bed and reaches for my hand. "C'mere, baby, I've missed you so damned much," he murmurs, pulling me close. "Merry Christmas, Alex," he breathes against my lips as he claims my mouth. I wake before dawn with a heavy heart and an aching hard-on. I pull on my clothes and take Dog for a long walk. It certainly doesn't feel like Christmas. Technically it isn't, at least on the Orthodox calendar. But it is December 25th, and it is 57 degrees according to the thermometer outside Dee's house. The grass is mostly green, and there are begonias and peonies still struggling for life in many front yards. There are even fresh-picked camellias decorating Christmas wreaths on some of the front doors -- hardly a winter wonderland. It is Sean's birthday. Kids grow so damn fast. I wonder how tall he is now, if his speech has become less awkward over time. Has he learned how to sink a basket yet? Will he still call me Papa when he comes back? Are Fox and Sean celebrating Christmas where they are? It is Sean's first Christmas, his first birthday, and God only knows where he is. I would give anything to talk to him for five minutes, so I could tell him how much I love him. That I pray every day he'll be home soon. I walk until the sun rises, until the unshed tears clogging my throat dissipate. When I open the door to Dee's house I am choked by smells of frying bacon and brewing coffee. Dee comes and puts her arms around me, kissing my cheek. "Al, the house is amazing. I can't believe how much it affected me to see it. I have to admit, I cried a little. It's exactly as I remember it. Thank you." She pauses, searching my eyes. "You're missing Fox pretty badly, aren't you, sweetheart? You're positively green. Why don't you call Dana Scully and see if she'll let you speak with Sean? It's Christmas, surely she can give you five minutes to talk to him." Bile crawls up my throat, suffocating me. Goddamn fucking inconvenient, pain-in-the-ass ulcer. I pull away from Dee and rush to the bathroom, barely noticing how much it hurts when my knees slam into the tile as I fall to the floor. I heave up blood-tinged apple juice until my sides hurt, then rummage in the medicine cabinet until I find some Maalox. I drink half the bottle, then wash my face and return to the living room. Drina and Mason have toys scattered everywhere. Dee and Paul have gotten Drina furniture and a dollhouse family to go in the house, and she looks like a little girl again, instead of one on the cusp of young womanhood. Mason has gotten numerous Lego expansion packs and has promptly dumped them out to sort the pieces. I close my eyes for a moment and see Sean there, pawing excitedly through the blocks with Mason, and catch myself reaching over to take Fox's hand. "Dyadya Alex, come play! I've got enough Legos now to build the whole castle and the wizard's tower!" Mason exclaims. I open my eyes and smile. I think my face will break. I can do nothing for my absent son, but I can pay attention to the family I have here. I sit down and dig into the blocks with Mason, my heart aching. By the time Corinne, Bron, Trevor, and the twins arrive, Mason and I have constructed a third of Hogwarts Castle. Bryce and Wyatt join us, and by the time Dee calls us to lunch Hogwarts stands nearly as tall as Drina's house, complete with two turrets and an assortment of Harry Potter figures. "C'mon, Al, come play with the grown-ups for a while," Cori says as she offers me her hand. I let her haul me off the floor and pull her close, kissing her cheek. "It's good to see you, sis. Your new job is keeping you too damned busy. I miss you." She grins. "I miss you too. And you can hardly blame my new job -- you're the one flying off to all corners of the country on your fancy new computer-consulting job. You stay gone so much we were starting to think you'd found yourself a beau off in the big city." Her tone is light, teasing, but she is serious. This isn't the first not-so-subtle hint about my love life, or lack thereof. My family loves me; they don't like seeing me lonely. I have to admit, I am a healthy 35-year-old man and my vision is pretty good. My eyes have wandered occasionally, but never with any intent. There are two kinds of men: Fox and Not-Fox. The latter is simply unacceptable. I smile at her, my face still feeling like a mask. "I've decided to raise celibacy to an art form. When I'm gone, I work, I sleep, and then I come home. If I need human companionship, I call you. What about you, Miss Corinne Elise? When's the last time you went on a date?" That 'computer-consulting job' that is my alibi for being in DC so much the past couple of months is laughable, seeing as I barely know how to check my email, much less repair computer networks. She raises a perfectly arched brow, reminding me of Dana Scully, and smiles. "Wouldn't you like to know? Come on, let's go nosh." We sit down to eat and Paul leads us in prayer. He thanks God for our meal, for our health, and for watching over the souls of family members who are no longer with us. It comforts me to be reminded that no matter where Fox and Sean are today, God is sheltering them. Lunch is fantastic. Dee cooked fresh collard greens and vegetarian corn bread. Bronwyn brought acorn squash stuffed with apples and raisins and dried apricots. I brought a pumpkin tofu pie with me the night before, and even the kids agree that it tastes as good as the 'real thing.' I eat until I have to unbutton my jeans, then still make room for eggnog laced with whiskey. "Alex, that dollhouse is a work of art," Trevor says as he pushes his plate away. "The detail is incredible. You have a real talent for woodworking." "I know, it's fantastic," Bron agrees. "I swear I could almost hear little baby Cori screaming her head off from the nursery. All you need is a little doll with a red face and its mouth open in a howl." Cori laughs. "You guys always exaggerate. I wasn't so awful. I had colic; I was just cranky." Dee bursts out laughing. "Cori, you were horrid! You screamed from the day you were born until you learned to walk. You hated being a baby. You wanted to get up and climb trees the day you were born. And poor Al, he was the only one you would calm down for. Bron and I tried so hard to make you happy, but we'd wait until Al fell asleep and stick you in the bed with him just to shut you up." Bron pipes up. "Al was the only boy in the neighborhood who had a baby sling. Dee made him one from camouflage material and one to match his scout uniform! He used to walk around the house with cloth diapers over his shoulders because you spit up on him so much." I remember those damn cloth baby carriers, and how much I hated hauling Cori around everywhere I went. I remember the creaking of the hall floorboards as Papa paced for hours with her on his shoulder, trying to keep her quiet so we could sleep. I remember my fingertips feeling like pincushions after dozens of attempts to pin a diaper on her writhing, agitated little body. I wanted nothing to do with this wailing little banshee that had stolen my mother's life, and everyone pushed her into my arms every time I turned around. Five minutes, Alex, just long enough for me to cook dinner. I've got a date, Alex; just a few hours, please. She was a toddler before I stopped resenting her and grew to really love her. For the first time in my life, I find solace in those memories. They feel warm; like home. Like life. "Yes, but eventually that worked to my advantage," I reply. "I made as much money babysitting as I did mowing lawns and delivering newspapers. The day I turned sixteen I had enough money to buy that car from Mrs. Tindal. That was a great old car." Bron whoops with laughter. "The silver bullet? Oh God, Alex, it wasn't a 'great car,' it was a '71 Pontiac Ventura!" "So? Your first car was a Gremlin! At least mine spent more time on the road than it did in the repair shop." "The Gremlin was Matushka's car, Al. She hardly ever drove it, and after she died I wouldn't even get in it, remember?" Dee replies, her tone wistful. "Papa kept it in the garage for Bron. Papa was so proud of that car. They'd bought it brand-new off the lot. He said it was the first brand-new American thing they'd owned." There is a moment of quiet, and then Bron speaks. "Well, I tried to slip this in while we were discussing babies, but you blabbermouths talk a mile a minute. I found out a few days ago that I'm pregnant again," she says. Everyone stands to go around the table to hug Bron and shake Trevor's hand. I kiss her soundly and ask, "Are you having twins again?" She punches me in the arm. "At my age? Bite your tongue, brother o' mine." I laugh and kiss her again. "Stranger things have been known to happen, sis." It is a balmy 65 degrees after lunch. The street and sidewalks are full of children riding new bicycles, Rollerblades, and Razor scooters. Bryce and Wyatt take off on their scooters while Trevor, Cori, Dog, and I play Frisbee in the front yard. It grows dark and cool outside, and we all pile in front of the television with bowls of popcorn to watch A Christmas Story and A Charlie Brown Christmas. We are a picture-perfect scene. Only two elements are missing. I miss them both so much. I go home that night full of mixed emotions. I feel healed in some ways. It might have taken a dollhouse to accomplish it, but for the first time in so long I have found solace in my memories. I laughed with my sisters over things I'd been bitter and resentful of, not so long ago. I am truly part of my family again. It smooths down the jagged edges of my less-pleasant memories, assuages my guilt for burning down the house on Evangeline. Large parts of me are aching and hollow. I need Fox to come home; I need him, to be complete. As time wears on, I am losing hope that he will ever come home. What if Smith hasn't been able to heal him? Was he so damaged that he is lost to me, or worse yet hasn't survived? That can't be the case. Smith would have let us know. Christ, what if Fox has died and Sean is still there with no family at all? I stay awake with that thought until dawn. ////////////////////////////////////// On New Year's Eve I let Cori talk me into bar-hopping with her. We go to Xanthe's, where I drink enough that I even dance with Cori and Lyrica Watson from Highland Coffee. We stay until we we're so drunk we can barely stand up, then take a cab back to Chime Street. We eat dinner at Louie's Cafe, then walk to The Bayou. I have been inside only twice since Greg reopened in September. On September 11th, I spent nearly twenty-four hours here, along with most of the shop-owners on the block, watching in horror as the events in New York unfolded. And on Fox's birthday, I drowned my sorrows in a bottle of Stoli with Cori; then we walked to the grove and got stoned while the sun came up. Greg has done a fantastic job with the place. Everything is still too shiny and new: the wooden floor, the bar, the brass-and-chrome fixtures. But it is all good quality, crafted and installed with care. Greg has foregone the booths along the back wall and put in a pool table and a small, raised stage. He left the beams above exposed, giving the place an open air. It doesn't look much at all like the bar Joe Morgan owned, but there is a picture of Joe and Althea behind the bar, taken on their twentieth wedding anniversary, as well as a picture taken at Joe's funeral, of me and Fox, Miranda and her now-husband Tim, Vince, and Greg. It will never be THE Bayou, but it is a pleasant place to spend an evening. Greg has good reason to be proud of it. Cori can put away her liquor. She matches me shot for shot, and is still dancing when I am so fucked up that I am clutching at the table to keep the room from spinning. But I'm not so drunk that I don't notice the cute, petite blonde who comes in the front door and makes a beeline for my sister, kissing her right on the mouth. Well, shit. Am I the last person to know Cori is playing for the home team? They come to the table, holding hands. "Al, this is Bethany. She and I have been dating for a couple of months. Bethany Taylor, this is my brother, Alex," Cori beams as she speaks, and the girl's arm wraps around her slim waist possessively. I stand and take Bethany's hand, nodding in her direction. The room whirls dizzyingly around me. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Bethany. Please, sit and let me buy you a drink." "Al, you can barely stand up. Put your ass back in that chair and I'll go get you a glass of water," Cori replies, steering her companion towards the bar. I am almost nodding off when something tingles at the base of my neck. Someone is watching me. I look up, and see the man leaning against the wooden pillar by the pool table. He is young, probably too young. A lithe, muscled Asian man with coal black hair and hematite eyes. He is fucking beautiful. Our gazes lock for an instant, and the jolt of pure molten lust than runs through my body is instantly sobering. I'm a married man, I'm a married man, I chant inwardly as he smiles and nods, then pushes away from the pillar and walks towards the front door. He pauses to look back at me before pushing the door open and exiting. For a split second I wonder if he has gone out to the alley to wait for me to join him. Shit. I have to get out of here. I need to jerk off, and pray, and then maybe jerk off again. I need Fox so badly I think my heart will break. I look up when Cori places a bottle of water in front of me. I read the concern in her face and the desire to be elsewhere becomes a biological imperative to flee. I push my chair back and stand, tugging my sweater down to hide the evidence of my enslavement to my hormones. "Cori, I have to go. I'll call you tomorrow." She frowns. "Al, you're not upset about me and Beth, are you? I'm sorry I didn't tell you before, but you of all people should understand." I pat her shoulder. No way am I kissing my sister while I have a hard-on. "No, baby. I'm just a stupid old man who's had too much to drink. It's time for me to go home and make do-do." She laughs. "Do-do? Christ have mercy, you are drunk. I haven't heard that since I was five. Can you walk that far, or do you need a lift?" "It's only six blocks. I think I can make it that far. See ya later, sis." At the door I check my impulse to scan the street for the black-haired man with the amazing eyes, and look down at my feet as I trudge towards my house. It is dark and quiet inside the house. Empty, save for Dog asleep in the kitchen. It is lonely. I am so fucking lonely. /////////////////////////////////////// I look at myself in the full-length mirror, seeing Delia and Audrina smiling at me over my shoulder as the salesman fusses with the French cuffs on the shirt I am wearing. "Tell me again why I need a seventeen-hundred dollar suit?" I turn to look at Dee and Drina. Cori wanders back towards us with a stack of shoeboxes under one arm and two purses looped on the other. "Because you look totally hot in it, it brings out your eyes, and you look like a Mormon in that other suit. How long have you had that thing?" Cori says, sitting down next to Dee to rifle through her finds. "You do look really handsome, Dyadya Alex. I'm sure you'll get the job in that suit," Drina says. I tagged along on this shopping trip to New Orleans because I really do need a new suit. The old one has a rip in the lining of the coat, and the trousers are baggy now after the weight I lost last year. However, I had not expected to be dragged to Saks Fifth Avenue and bundled into a Dolce and Gabbana suit that costs more than the sum total of the rest of my wardrobe. But I do need a nice suit. I want to look respectable when I give my testimony before the International War Crimes Tribunal in Washington. After multiple delays I will finally begin testifying, on February 18th, a week from today. Of course I cannot tell my sisters that. I told them I have a job interview in Texas. I am running out of excuses for my absences. I do look pretty damned good in this suit. It is lightweight dark-brown wool with a slight olive undertone. It makes my skin look warm and my eyes bright. I frown at the gray hair at my temples. My age is definitely showing. I turn around and look over my shoulder, checking the view from behind. Dee snickers. "Al, don't you dare ask if those pants make your butt look big. You really look quite fetching. Just buy the blasted thing." I squint at my butt, give it a wiggle. "Well, does it?" Dee laughs, and smacks one expensive shoulder. "Quit it. That fitting clerk already thinks you're cute -- you're going to give him a heart attack." "Yeah, I thought he spent too long measuring your inseam," Cori interjects. "Is that why he was feeling Dyadya Alex's leg?" Drina asks. Heat creeps up my face and neck. "Jesus!" I exclaim, glancing around to make certain the sales clerk can't hear. "What are you two teaching her? He was not feeling my leg!" I shake my head at my niece, and glare at my incorrigible sisters. "Drina, he was measuring me." "Oh, I see," Drina nods. Cori snorts. "Yeah, he was making sure that tape measure was nice and straight. Pun intended." I give Cori a 'die, you brat, die' look and smile at Drina. "What do you think, Drina? Do you like this one, or the gray one I tried on first?" I ask, smoothing down the expensive material over my prosthesis. She cocks her dark head to the side and eyes me for a moment. "This one. You look glamorous, like a movie star." "Drina has excellent taste," Cori replies, dangling an elegant black pump from one of her manicured feet. I grin at them. It is a great suit. I turn to the mirror again and gave myself a final once-over. "I'll take this one," I say to the salesman as he approaches. When I go to pay for my purchases I pull out my wallet and look at my new driver's license for the hundredth time. Alexander Mikhail Drake. My name, fully and legally. No more aliases or falsified documents. I have a valid driver's license, am registered to vote, and have a spotless police record. The President signed the paperwork for my pardon last week. No more hiding. No more living in the shadows. For the first time in my adult life, I am free. I am so close to having the life I've dreamed of. I'm trying so hard to be patient and have faith that, one day soon, it will be complete. Fox and Sean will come home, and everything will be perfect. They have to come home. They have to. ///////////////////////////////////// "I'd like to say it's all ended well," I say into the microphone, my voice echoing in the nearly empty courtroom. "But it hasn't. They haven't been seen or heard from since. I don't even know if they are alive or dead." I pause and sip my water. I look down at Dana Scully from the witness stand, and she graces me with a warm, reassuring smile, despite the glaze of tears in her eyes. My hand steadies and my nerves calm. I've grown so reliant on that smile and her steadfast strength over the past few months. I know that it has been ripping her apart to hear me recount the night Jeremiah Smith came and saved Fox's life. We'd been so close to losing him. The wound is still raw. It is May. Fox has been gone 13 months, one week, and four days. Today is my final day of testimony in the special investigation into the alien conspiracy. There are four remaining members of the consortium on trial, the only ones left who have not committed suicide or been murdered. With my testimony and that of Dana, Skinner, and Strughold, every last storage facility, laboratory, and piece of evidence has been ferreted out. Finally, the whole puzzle is complete, creating a nightmarish picture of an alien colonization that came very close to being reality. "Thank you, Mr. Drake," the chairman of the tribunal says, "you may step down." I nod and thank him before sliding out of the chair. My legs are rubbery as I close the short distance to my seat, but I hold my head high, looking each member of the tribunal in the eye. I have atoned for my crimes. I have nothing to be ashamed of. I sit down at the table next to Scully. Under the table she reaches for my hand, her strong fingers gripping mine tightly. I give her a small smile and squeeze her fingers gently. My mind is reeling and I don't hear a damn thing the chairman says. I remained detached while on the witness stand, but now images and sensations wrap me in memory. Candlelight reflected in Fox's eyes, the feeling of his body seizing as I held him against me. His hands on my skin, loving and reverent. The sweet weight of Sean in my lap. Waking up in the morning and knowing that I am a spouse and a father and am needed and loved. Scully tugs on my wrist to get my attention and we all stand as the tribunal files out of the room. When they are gone our Secret Service handlers move in to escort us to the private lounge where we've been taking breaks during the long sessions. Skinner goes to the small fridge and hands Dana and me bottles of water. I sit back in the plush leather chair and take a long swig, sighing. "I don't know about you two, but I could use something a bit stronger than water. Would you like to go have a drink with Dana and me, Alex?" Skinner asks. I shake my head. "Not right now. I'm beat. I just want to go back to the hotel and sleep. I need to leave in the morning and head back home." "How is Bronwyn doing? Any more preterm labor?" Dana asks. I shake my head, grinning stupidly. "Everything's going fine. Can you believe she's having another set of twins? What are the odds of that, Dr. Scully?" "Actually, they're much higher if you've already given birth to fraternal twins. About one in twelve, if I recall correctly. I'm glad she's doing well. When is she due?" "About ten weeks, I think." Skinner polishes off his water and tosses the empty bottle in the trash. "Come on, Alex, we'll give you a lift to your hotel. Can we at least take you out to dinner tonight before you leave?" "That sounds great. Just give me a few hours to rest and grab a shower." I stand and offer Dana my hand. "Let's blow this joint." Back at the hotel I take a long, hot shower and lie down on the bed. Despite my exhaustion I can't relax enough to sleep. In five weeks, I will be thirty-six years old. At this age I should be enjoying the fruits of hard work: a family, a career. Instead, my accomplishments can be measured more accurately by what I have lost than what I still have. I have lost power, wealth, a business I loved, and the family I never dreamed I would have. Now, even the government doesn't need me. They have all my secrets, all my knowledge, including the documents my father left me. I have no more commodities to trade. I have no aim, no direction; no life. There had been many nights this past winter when I dreamt of Fox and woke up certain that would be the day he would come home. But as those days wore on and faded into night, I'd become despondent. I would wander the streets with Dog, or play chess with Father Benedict or cards with Greg Jones and Tom Haskell and Mr. Arzi. The dreams of Fox came further and further apart as winter turned to spring, and the hope they bring is no longer urgent and visceral. It is tentative, wistful, like waking up from a dream and wishing it had been real. While I am home during trial breaks, I fill my days and nights the best I can. I go to movies with Cori and Bethany, mow Father Benedict's lawn and landscape the church grounds. I've taken Mason camping at Bogue Chitto a couple of times. I've gone hiking at Abita Springs with Lyrica and her partner Alice. I've spent long Sunday afternoons fishing with Paul. I still have too much time on my hands. Hand. Whatever. At the beginning of the hearings back in February I still believed -- wanted to believe -- that Fox's sense of the melodramatic would come forth and he would appear, smiling and jovial, in the courtroom with Sean at his side. But that never happened. I lost hope in April. On April 7th I was home in Baton Rouge, and I stayed at the house all day, sitting on the futon watching the door. It would have been so like him to reappear exactly one year after he left. Dana called at 12:01 AM on April 8th. "It's been a whole year, Alex," she said, tears quavering in her voice. "I know," I replied softly. "You thought today would be the day too, didn't you?" I sighed. "Yes." She sniffled. "Goodnight, Alex." "Goodnight, Dana." That had been a lonely, painful anniversary. I couldn't believe the year mark had really passed. I thought that I couldn't miss him more; but I've found that, as time passes, it only gets worse. Fox's love and belief in me have been such gifts, but my own faith is waning. I love Fox and Sean. I miss them. I long for them. I always will. But I no longer believe they are coming home. If my life is in limbo, Dana Scully's is no better. She and Skinner have shelved any wedding plans until Sean is home to escort his mother down the aisle. She has given up the X-Files division; it is closed until Skinner assigns new agents. She's taken a long leave from the Bureau, and will be teaching at Quantico on her return. Dana and I have grown comfortable turning to each other for support in recent months. Skinner has been burning the candle at both ends and the middle keeping the investigation on track, which has left the two of us with many late-night hours to struggle with our ghosts, over endless cups of tea and bottles of wine in her apartment. She cried in my arms after learning there had been five other Emily Sims, and that all had died in the same year. She held me while I shook with fear after learning that my DNA was logged in a database for potential cloning experiments. In late April we traveled together to West Virginia, when a cemetery located there was revealed to contain the Spender family plot, and the last person buried there was listed as Samantha Anne Spender. We went to mass and lit candles together after we had Samantha buried next to her mother in North Carolina. Last week, we planted rose bushes at the gravesite together, and Skinner tipped the caretaker a month's salary to make sure they would be maintained. My head throbs. I have spent the duration of this trial reliving the past. It is over now, and I am damned well not going to do it anymore. I get up to dress, determined not to spend any more time letting the ghosts of lost love and consortium horrors torment me. Skinner, Scully, and I dine at the Inn at Little Washington, and they refuse to let me pay my part of the check. I don't want to imagine what Skinner paid to get reservations on such short notice, much less what the bill was. I can only hope it pays very well to be the Assistant Director who felled the shadow government. After dinner, the sounds of jazz music spilling from the open door lure us into the club next door. Dana has consumed enough martinis to lose her usual reserve, and Skinner cajoles her onto the dance floor. I sit at a table and sip my drink, watching them move together. Dana looks incredible. She seems ten years younger tonight, as if the world has been lifted from her shoulders. Her eyes are bright and her laughter musical as Skinner holds her in his arms. He smiles down at her adoringly, and for the first time I see the spark between them catch and flame. They are going to be all right. At least someone will be. I sit alone and watch them dance, longing for Fox. Longing to touch and be touched in return. Longing not to be alone. I go to the bar for another drink. The bartender brings me another vodka and I stand there sipping it, preferring the view of the bottles lined up behind the bar to the view of the couples on the dance floor, laughing and dancing, seducing and being seduced. The last thing I seduced was ordered on the internet and required batteries. "You look like someone shot your dog." I look up from my glass to the man who spoke. He is as tall as me, lithe and slim, and has piercing blue eyes and spiky brown hair. He also has absolutely incredible lips. I wonder for a moment what it would feel like to kiss him before I remember that he has spoken. "Excuse me?" Smooth Alex, very smooth. I cringe inside. "That your lady friend out there dancing with the big guy in the glasses? You were looking at her like your heart was broken," he says, a hint of a southern drawl coloring his voice. I smile, and he smiles back. Damn, he has fine lips. And those eyes... Suddenly it is very hot in the room. "No, not at all. The lady is a friend of mine..." He raises an eyebrow. "But maybe not your type?" His gaydar is working just fine. I nod. "Yes, something like that." He puts out his left hand. "I'm Jon." I hate this part of social niceties. I lift my fake arm and nod again. "Nice to meet you Jon. I'm Alex. I'd shake your hand, but the only one I have is holding my drink." His smile gets wider. He has laugh lines around his eyes. Such blue eyes...as clear as topaz, but warm. Friendly. Inviting. Inviting what? "I'd guess by the accent you're not from this neck of the woods. New Orleans, maybe? In town on business?" I laugh. It sounds fake in my ears. I am standing in a bar, laughing at some really, really hot guy who hasn't even made a joke. Fuck. "Baton Rouge, actually. And I'm here visiting my friends. I don't really have an accent...do I?" He chuckles. "It takes a southern boy to know one. I'm from North Carolina. Your voice is about as coonass as they come. I like it. It's distinctive. Like your eyes. You have the greenest eyes." He gazes at me for a long moment. No, he doesn't gaze...people don't gaze at me. He just looks. Right in my eyes, daring me to look away. Heat crawls up my neck and fills my cheeks. Great, I am blushing like a goddamn schoolgirl. Double fuck. I sip my drink and pray that I will sink through the floor. An awkward moment passes. I raise my glass for another drink, and find it empty. I put it down and brush some imaginary lint from the lapel of my brown designer suit. I feel like a dumb horny kid at a school dance. I am horny. And this guy is incredibly good-looking, and I miss Fox so much. I miss kissing, I miss being held. I miss having sex. Fuck fuck fuck. "Thanks," I finally choke out. "Let me buy you another drink," Jon says, gesturing for the bartender. I stand silently while the bartender brings another round. Jon holds my drink out, and my fingers brush against his as I accept the glass from his hand. My dick is at half-mast already. I hope there is a fast-acting poison in my glass. Finally I strike upon something to say. "So what's a nice Carolina boy like you doing in a place like this?" What a goddamn idiot. Someone should sew my mouth shut before I can speak again. Kazakhstan. The peasant boy named Dmitri. Wiekamp. I remember the pain in Fox's eyes when I dropped my gun in his lap and he realized he couldn't kill me. God, but he wanted to, though... I shake my head to clear it, then realize Jon is speaking. "...guest lecturing at Georgetown University, presenting a paper on quantum mechanics." Somehow I muddle my way through the conversation and learn that Jon is 33, a recent doctorate from MIT, and studies something called "theoretical sciences" that sounds right up Fox's alley. He likes country music, is tired of academia, and is killing time waiting to hear about a fellowship at NASA. I dodge his questions about me. He learns only that I was born and raised in Louisiana, have three sisters, and am a vegetarian who likes baseball and camping. Several times I am tempted to insinuate Fox's name into the conversation, but somehow the subject changes and I lose the moment. Jon is intelligent, good looking, and I am having a really good time. I wonder what it would be like to kiss him, to run my fingers through his dark hair. I am cheating on Fox, and I hate myself. After more than an hour of laughing and talking Jon gestures behind me. "Looks like your friends are getting ready to leave." I turn around to see Skinner leaving money on the table, then putting on his jacket. Dana picks up her handbag, then looks up to catch my eye. My face flushes so hotly I feel tears prick my eyes. What the hell am I doing? I am practically out on a date right in front of Fox's best friend. She is going to hate me. But she doesn't. She smiles warmly then points at the door and raises her brow in a silent question. Am I leaving with them or not? I stand. Jon stands as well, coming to stand in front of me. "I guess I'd better go." I put my right hand out. "It was very nice to meet you, Jon." Jon takes my hand. My cock hardens and my heart races. He traces his finger over the inside of my wrist, then takes another step towards me. Oh shit, oh shit he's going to kiss me, oh FUCK what the hell am I doing, it's been so long since I've been kissed... His lips are warm and impossibly soft against mine, and his breath tastes of whiskey when his tongue traces the curve of my upper lip. I moan softly and shut my eyes. He tastes good. He feels good. I have an aching hard-on, and a deeper, more resonant ache in my chest. He is not Fox, and I am still alone. I open my eyes and step back. "Jon..." He smiles sadly. "It was nice to meet you too, Alex. Goodnight." My lips are still moist from his kiss when I meet Dana and Skinner at the door. Neither of them speaks as we get in the car and drive off. The trip is uncomfortably silent until Dana asks about my flight home tomorrow. Finally we reach my hotel. When I get out of the car Dana murmurs something to Skinner and gets out also. "What are you doing?" I ask. She loops her arm through mine. "I'm walking you to your room." At the door she takes my key from my hand and opens the door, then steps inside my room. "I'm sorry, Dana. I don't know what came over me. I apologize if I embarrassed or disappointed you," I say, looking down at my feet. She rubs my arm and looks at me with such affection. "Alex, the only thing that came over you was loneliness. Mulder has been gone a very long time. You're not a martyr or a saint; you're just a man who doesn't want to be alone. Do not flay yourself alive for this." "I still love him, Dana. I miss him so much. I...I let myself get used to being loved, to having someone to love. But it really doesn't make any difference. I've never loved anyone but him. Even if he never comes back, no one else will ever be him. He's all there is for me." Hot tears run down my face. When Dana's arms wraps around me I sob brokenly into her hair, babbling nonsensically about Fox's hair and Fox's eyes and how good his hands felt, his smile and his laughter and his voice. I cry in her arms until my nose is running and my head throbs. She gives me a tissue and pets my hair, then steers me into a chair and brings me aspirin and a glass of water. I obediently swallow the pills and drink the water. She takes the empty glass from me and crouches in front of me, her hands on my knees. "Isn't Skinner gonna wonder what the hell is going on in here?" I sniffle. She smiles. "I told him you needed to talk. He left the car parked outside and took a cab home." How did she come to know me so well? I don't really care; I am so grateful for it I nearly cry again. "Alex, it's time for us to accept that they probably aren't coming back. There's so much we don't know, so much that could have happened...but I know Mulder. If he could have come home, or sent Sean back to us safely, he would have. I'll always, always hope we see them again, but Mulder wouldn't want us to keep our lives on hold forever." "Does this mean you're finally going to marry Skinner?" She nods. "Not right away, but we're going to choose a date. Perhaps early fall. I'll hold Sean and Mulder in my heart forever, but I'm going to love the people still with me also. It's time for you to do the same. You've fought too hard to get where you are to while away your life hurting, Alex." She pauses, looking thoughtful. "Sometimes God gives us beautiful gifts, but they aren't ours to keep. They're to lead us somewhere else...to a part of ourselves we never would have found alone. I've always seen Mulder that way in my life...perhaps in a different way he was meant to do that for you as well. You have a great deal to give, Alex. Don't lose the lesson because you had to let go of the gift." I slide out of my chair and kneel beside her, wrapping my arm around her shoulders. We sit like that for a long time, praying together and saying goodbye. ///////////////////////////////// "Okay guys, this is how we're gonna do this thing," I say to the twelve faces in front of mine. "You're gonna go out there and you're gonna lose with dignity. We're fifteen points behind and you're never gonna catch up. Don't be sore losers. One day you're going to want to marry those girls on that other team and, trust me, they'll remember this." Mason and his teammates look at me dubiously, then lope back out onto the soccer field to resume the last quarter of the game. I sit down on the bench to watch the boys play, pleased that this is the first game they are going to lose under my temporary tutelage while the regular coach recovers from back surgery. It is September, but still incredibly hot and humid. There are hints of autumn here and there -- leaves turning red and gold on a few of the trees, sweetgum balls and pine cones on the sidewalks. But summer is holding on with all its might, broiling us with 90 degree temperatures on a daily basis. I lead the St. John Lions to a glorious 18-point loss to the Rosedale Lady Rangers. As I help put away all the equipment, Steve Palmer, the principal, approaches me. "Hey Mr. Palmer, it's good to see you," I greet him as I shove the cooler into the back of the truck. "It's just Steve, Alex. No need to be formal." He picks up the box of spare safety equipment and lifts it into the truck bed. "I just wanted to stop by and tell you that I think you're doing a great job with the boys. I can't thank Trevor enough for recommending you for the position. You graduated from St. John yourself, didn't you? I hear you were a bit of a legend in the baseball diamond." "Yes sir, I graduated in '84. I don't know anything about being a legend, but I liked to play." "Trevor mentioned you haven't really decided what your next move is, since you lost your bar last spring. Jake Hoffman -- he teaches government and coaches our baseball and girls' softball teams -- he's moving in the spring. Trevor said you've got a sociology degree? If you want the job, you've got time to get your teaching certificate before the spring semester next year." He speaks nonchalantly, leaning against the truck while he pets Lemur, the puppy that Dog begot with a chow that lives four doors down from us. "Seems like Trevor happened to mention a lot of things," I reply. "Did Trevor also happen to mention that I'm gay, Steve? Do you want a gay coach as a full-time employee at a Catholic school?" He looks at me intently. "It's a small community, Alex. People talk. I know your partner died a while back, and you lost custody of his boy to the mother. Your private life is your business; if you take good care of my students that's all that matters to me." I close the bed of the truck and open the door to let Dog and Lemur in the cab. "I'll give it some thought, Steve. Either way, I really appreciate the offer." "You do that. And win the next game, how 'bout it? Can't believe we lost to the only all-girls team in the parish." He shakes his head, smiling. I think about Steve Palmer's offer all the way home. I haven't had a job of any sort in almost 18 months. I am living as miserly as possible, but I have slowly started dipping into Fox's bank account. I don't feel as guilty about it as I once did. When the statement from his broker came at tax time, I nearly fell out of my chair. The interest on his savings account alone was more than what The Bayou had pulled in the year before. But I'm not at all sure I want to become a teacher. I'm pretty damned sure I don't want to be a gay male teacher in a Catholic school. It sounds like a scandal waiting to happen. I have to do something. The trial has been over for five months now, and still I am just spinning my wheels. For the first couple of months I half expected the story to be leaked to the press, or someone to take a contract out on me. Neither has happened, and by now I am pretty sure I am going to survive the fall of the consortium. It is time to face that I am going to spend my life as John Q. Public and need a source of income like everyone else. Whatever I decide to be when I grow up, I'm going to figure it out now. I pull into my driveway and usher the dogs into the newly-fenced backyard, then go inside to shower and change. I kick my dirty cleats off at the front door, leaving them next to the muddy hiking boots I forgot to clean up. I hang my sweaty cap up next to the dog leashes and my jacket, and drop the mail on top of the bookshelf. I walk into my bedroom and dump my wallet, keys, and change into the basket on the dresser, then pull off my clothes and dump them in the hamper. I kick a rawhide dog chew out of my way and go to the closet, grab clean jeans and a shirt and toss them on the bed. I stand in the shower for a long time, letting the hot water run down my back and neck to soothe my aching muscles. Once I am done I go to the kitchen and dig around for something to eat. Dinner is a salad and leftover miso soup. I really need to go to the market, but between coaching and helping Father Benedict out -- his eyesight is so bad now that he cannot drive and can barely read -- I have a full schedule most of the time. After I eat, I walk down to Chime Street, to The Bayou. Greg already has our table set up and is waiting for me. Tom Haskell and Mr. Arzi sit at the bar, smoking cigars and drinking cognac. Our Saturday night canasta game has become a ritual over the past several months. We cheat, we bullshit through half the game, and no one ever wins because we are playing to half a million points. But it is fun, and I am glad Greg and I have reached a point where we can sit down together for a few hours without wanting to cause one another bodily harm. Either owning the bar has matured Greg or I am mellowing out a little. Maybe both. "Steve Palmer, the principal over at St. John, offered me a full-time job today," I announce as we sit down to play. "You can't get a job," Mr. Arzi replies. "You get a job, who'll take care of Billy? He's half blind now. Who'll drive him to doctor or market or clean the house if you get a job? You the only son he got. Bea only had the one boy, and he died in Vietnam. You have to take care of Billy now. You need money, you come to me and wait the tables on the weekends." Pavlos Arzi is the only person I know who calls Father William Benedict 'Billy.' They'd grown up together in the garden district in the 'twenties. Both had married young and joined the army. Both had sent sons to Vietnam who'd never returned. Mr. Arzi and his wife had become fiercely protective of Father Benedict when his wife died a few years back. Mrs. Arzi cooks and cleans, while I run the errands and do the lawn and house maintenance. Over the last few months I have also taken over his finances and help him keep up his correspondences. "I appreciate that Mr. Arzi. I'll keep it in mind. I'd have been in financial trouble long ago if Mrs. Arzi didn't keep me so well fed." "She like you. You good boy. Your mama, she helped Ionna practice for her driving test so she could drive herself to class back when women got 'liberated.' My Ionna oldest woman to graduate from that university back then. Forty-six years old, mother of seven, and a university graduate. A wife any man would be proud of," he beams. We play cards for a few hours, then I walk home around 1 AM and go to bed. It takes me a long time to fall asleep. I lie there listening to the noises of the night: the dogs breathing, the whir of the ceiling fan, the woodpecker outside who can't tell day from night. Finally the familiar noises lull me to sleep. During the night, I dream that Fox climbs into bed next to me and takes me in his arms. I can feel the hard heat of his cock sliding home inside me, and as we move together he whispers between kisses, "I'll see you soon, Alex. I'll be home soon." I awake writhing on the bed, panting and hard and desperate. I come as soon as I wrap my hand around my dick. I take a cold shower and go back to sleep on the futon. The next morning, I get up early to deliver the robe I picked up for Father Benedict at the dry cleaners. I help him print out his notes on the computer in a large font and get them organized, then wash his dishes and sweep the porch and sidewalk. I'll need to rake the leaves some time in the next few days. I make him toast and tea, and after a great deal of protest, he eats. He's simply too old to keep his morning fast anymore. It leaves him dizzy and gives him a headache. It's disturbing to see Father aging so quickly. Of course I know he won't live forever; the man is 84 years old. But I can't stand the thought of losing another man that I call father. Father Benedict is too strong to die. I need him too much. Father and I walk over to the church together. He sits behind the Royal Gates to pray while I sweep the walkway outside. Bron and Trevor pull up just as I am finishing, so I go to help them get the children out of the car. "You've been talking me up to Steve Palmer," I say to Trevor as I carefully lift Tristan from his carseat. I kiss his downy little head and put him on my shoulder. "Look at you, big guy," I croon to the baby. "Not even three months old and you weigh a ton. Dyadya Alex won't be able to lift you before long." "I wouldn't have said anything to him if I didn't think you were right for the job, Al," Trevor replies, leaning into the car to retrieve Philip, the other twin. "Are you going to take the position?" Bron asks. "I don't know. It's been a long time since I sat in a classroom, and I don't know if teaching is something I could do. But I appreciate you going to bat for me, man. I'm okay for now. I'll find a job eventually." After the service I drive Father and myself to Delia and Paul's for lunch. I sit on the sofa feeding Philip while Cori feeds Tristan. I am besotted with these babies. I have been since the moment I saw them. Everything about them is so lush. Their soft skin, fuzzy little heads, their ripe mouths. They are gorgeous. The first time I held one of them I was flooded with love and sadness. I closed my eyes for a moment and imagined it was a tiny newborn Sean that I was holding, and gave myself a moment to mourn all the years of his life that have been lost. "You're very good at this," Cori says quietly. "They are my nephews. I'm fond of them." "Fond," she snorts. Her expression softens. "You would be a very good father, Al. Have you thought about dating a man who already has children? Maybe a widower or divorced man who joined the tribe a little late?" "I haven't thought about dating anyone, Corinne." My voice is tight. "Al, it's been a year and a half. You know, there's a gay men's singles group over at the Unitarian Church--" "Oh, for cryin' out loud, Cori! If I need companionship that badly, I'll go to Xanthe's and buy it by the hour. Besides, maybe I have no love life, but at least I'm not gunshy when I have someone in my life. How long you been seeing Bethany now, and you're still not living together?" She rolls her eyes. "This isn't about me, Alexander." "Maybe I'm making it about you." She props Tristan on her shoulder and stands. "You're so antagonistic. Stay at home by yourself with your dogs. See if I care when you're old and alone." "At least I'll be alone by choice. You'll still be holding out on Bethany. Separate rooms in the rest home and everything." She gives me a quelling look and leaves the room. "That'll teach her, won't it, Philip? Lucky for you that you don't have any sisters. They're a pain in the ass," I say to the baby. He gives me a wide, toothless grin and burps. ////////////////////////////////////////////// The next morning I wake to the sounds of Dog and Lemur barking frantically and pawing at the front door. I groan and roll out of bed. I blink sleep from my eyes and call out, "Goddammit, I'm coming!" I reach the living room and unlock the door. Dog rushes past me out the door. Lemur stands there looking at me, her head cocked to the side. I turn to get my robe and follow Dog when the phone rings. Christ on a crutch, doesn't anyone realize it is 7:30 in the morning? I stumble into the kitchen and yank the phone off the hook, mumbling something remotely resembling hello. "Alex, it's Absinthe. I know you're going to think I'm crazy, but I swear to God I just saw Fox. He was standing on the street in front of The Bayou. Did Fox have a brother?" My knees go weak and my heart beats hard enough to burst from my chest. My mouth is dry and a lump swells in my throat. Please let it be true. Oh Jesus, it's been so long, please, please... "Gotta go," I croak into the phone. "Bye." Dog is barking loud enough to wake the whole block. I draw in a breath and shake my head to clear it, then make my wobbly way out to the front porch. He is standing in the driveway. Dog circles around him twice, widdershins, and comes to heel next to him. His hair is the color of pewter and the scars are gone from his face. He is lean and tan and utterly beautiful. His eyes -- oh, those eyes -- they are like autumn: gold and green and brown and full of promise. "When did we get a dog?" he asks casually, petting Dog's head and smiling up at me. That smile is the secret at the center of the maze. It is my truth. Somehow I am in his arms. His hand strokes the back of my neck, and the delicate friction ignites inside me, aflame, alight, in flight, a warm steady golden glow, a banked hearth of mellow heat and light and sustenance and safety. His mouth against mine is homecoming. Welcome home, oh god, how I've missed you. So sweet. So good. All mine forever. He whispers my name between kisses, imprinting my skin with promises where his tears fall, claims me with big, warm, rough hands. My hand twists into the front of his shirt. He smells like hay and sunshine and clear rushing water. "Where is Sean?" I gasp out against his neck as he nuzzles my ear and sniffs my hair. "Flew to DC to see Scully. He'll be here in a couple of days. Wanted you to myself...need you...didn't want to share...." I don't know if I will ever be able to let go of him again. I want him to tell me everything that has happened and make love to me until he is all I know, until I am nothing but a part of him. I want him to keep kissing and holding me. I want Dog to stop licking my bare leg... He chuckles and pulls away a bit. I look over his shoulder and see a car stopped in front of the house. The driver is gaping. "We do look kinda funny," he concedes. "It's 7:30 in the morning and you're standing in the yard in your boxer shorts." "Yeah, and you're supposed to be dead," I snicker, a touch of hysteria creeping into my voice. "Absinthe thought you were a ghost." "Luceeee, we got some 'splaining to do," he says, sounding nothing like Ricky Ricardo. We laugh helplessly for long moments, until our eyes met again and the current flows like a living thing between us. He cups my face in his palms. His wedding ring is warm against my skin. He kisses me softly, so softly, his tongue tracing the corners of my mouth before he sucks lightly on my bottom lip. "Just want to kiss you forever..." he sighs. "Sounds like a plan to me." I close my eyes, bathing in his touch, in the relief welling inside me. Warmth pools as the frozen places melt. He is home. He is safe. In a few days my son will be home, and nothing will ever take them away from me again. Somehow we make it into the house, Fox's shoes and clothes hitting the floor as we go. By the time we stumble, clutching at one another, to our bedroom, I am naked and Fox's jeans are sliding down his legs. He reaches into the nightstand drawer for the lube and I laugh. "Fox, that's been there since you left. I'm pretty sure it's expired by now." He laughs with me and tosses it in the trash. "We'll improvise," he says, taking my mouth in a long, sweet kiss that is so good it aches. We fall back onto the bed, all heat and need. Intoxicating, molten desire spreads from our kisses into my body. I breathe him in, exhale, breathe. He fills the reservoir of my heart and siphons out to pour sweet golden life through my veins, through my limbs. His voice in my ear, between my bones, pledging forever. We are gathered together, a cradle of arms and legs to rock and nurture the fire between us. My own voice, a thousand miles away, chanting, "Missed you, missed you..." The liturgy of the lost, found again. "I know," he murmurs, the words warm against my neck. "It's okay now. Let it go, Alex, let it go." Him inside of me, or me inside of him. It doesn't matter. It is marriage, union, communion, the Holy Mystery. God smiles and says, "Stupid mortal, do you get it now?" Life's fire. Alchemical fire that warms and gestates and creates. Fire that forges and bonds. Healing fire, knitting frayed and ragged pieces together into a whole. It has been so long, my heart clings to the sensations, crying for more, but the body knows what it wants. Every touch, each feathery brush of skin and wet rasp of tongue is an orgasm, a prayer. Too soon, too long, too much...I cry out as he rocks me, a ship on the warm waves, a babe in his mother's womb, earth and air, fire and water and spirit... "Yes..." he says so tenderly, so softly as I come. Yes. Yes. ////////////////////////////////// Hours later we are an exhausted, tear-streaked, sweaty tangle of limbs in the middle of the bed. Neither of us can possibly get it up again, and there is so much to say that we don't know where to begin. We lay there just breathing together, sticky with sweat and cum, stroking and touching, relearning one another's bodies. "Are you really well now?" I finally ask. "No more mindreading?" "I wish," he replies, sucking the pulse point in my neck. "I'm well, but the telepathy is still there. But I can control it now. I can tune into specific voices, but most of the time it's just static that I can push into my subconscious. It doesn't overwhelm me or give me seizures anymore. I haven't had a seizure in several months now." "Why did it take so long for Smith to make you well? I thought that wherever he was taking you was supposed to be safe." He looks down at me, stroking my face. "Alex, please don't freak out over this...I had some very bad times. When the Bayou burned down, I felt it all. It was like you were standing next to me screaming in my ear. Jeremiah had to induce a coma to protect my brain until you calmed down. When the World Trade Center was bombed, half the group was debilitated from the magnitude of the pain in the US. We lost two people that had already suffered some pretty extensive damage before Jeremiah got to them. There were times when Jeremiah was so exhausted that we were basically on our own. If something major had hit one of us, it would have fried all our brains." "Jesus," I breathe, taking in the enormity of what he has experienced. "But that can't happen now, right?" He smiles and kisses me. "No, it can't. Jeremiah literally helped my brain to grow new neural paths specifically to process the telepathy. I have a neural network that is basically a coprocessor, so that the rest of me doesn't short circuit. Just like the children who were born with it naturally." "What about the children? Is Sean okay? Did any of this impact him the way it did you?" Sadness shadows his eyes momentarily. "Sean and Gibson are not the only children. There were other labs beside the one in North Carolina. You know how the consortium liked to diversify. There are ten children who were aged as Sean was, some of them aged into early adulthood. But there was another group, Alex. Children who were not aged. The oldest was five and the youngest just a few days old when Sean and I arrived. They had them gestated naturally, working through fertility clinics, then had the mothers killed. Smith is trying to find homes for them now. Some of the other adults have been well enough to leave the facility, and most of them have taken one or two children with them." I smooth my hand down one well-developed, tanned bicep. "You're looking awfully buff and bronzed for someone who was hidden away from society. Where was this facility, Club Med?" He laughs. "I can't tell you exactly where, babe. But it was a farm. A self-sustaining farm, meaning that if we wanted milk on our cereal we fed and milked the cows ourselves." He flexes his arm, accentuating a nicely muscled chest. "I got like this the honest way; bailing hay and hauling feed. We had no contact with the outside world. We grew it, milked it, slaughtered it, or didn't eat it." He grins at me, then slowly the smile grows sultry. "I'm glad you like it, though. You're looking pretty damned good yourself." Heat rises in my face and I stifle the urge to giggle. Giggle? Christ, what is he doing to me? "I've been coaching Mason's soccer team. Those kids wear me out." "Coaching? Wow." He looks up at the crucifix on the wall, at the icon of the Blessed Mother underneath it. "Seems like you've made a lot of changes while I was gone." His tone is wistful. "None that doesn't include you and Sean as a permanent part of my life," I say softly. "Besides, can't you just look inside my head and dig it all up? It would save me a lot of time recounting the last eighteen months." "It doesn't work that way. I could, if I wanted to risk a headache, tell what you were thinking right now. Not what you were thinking last week or last month. You would have to go through each memory for me to see them, and I'd end up with a migraine. I'd rather hear you tell me." "That might take a while." He smiles again, gently, his fingertips skimming over my face. "That's fine. We have time, now. I'm not leaving, if you still want me here. The only thing that kept me going was hoping I would have you to come back to." He fingers the medallion at my neck, then splays his hand over my heart. "Mine?" he asks softly, his voice so full of hope that I think my heart will burst beneath his palm. "Forever," I assure him, my voice thick. He kisses my lips, my cheeks, my jaw, all the while whispering, "My husband," over and over again, then leans to press his lips to my chest and murmurs, "My heart." I cling to him, my fingers threading through his hair, tears welling in my eyes. He is home. He is safe in our bed. The world has been reborn. ///////////////////////////////// "...so Strughold is allegedly in custody in an undisclosed location for the rest of his life. Only a matter of time before someone kills him, I'm sure," I say later in the evening, finishing the story of the trial that had felled the consortium. I sit in the V of his spread legs, reclining against his chest as he leans against the headboard. His arms are around my waist, his lips on my neck and shoulders as I talk. As I speak from the safety of his arms, the memories become distant and hazy, like half-forgotten nightmares instead of events that shaped and dominated my life. "It's hard to believe there's finally an end to all of this," Fox says. "I don't know if I can get over looking over my shoulder every time I so much as get a paper cut, expecting to find a conspiracy behind it." "The President has set up a special organization whose sole task is to monitor for consortium activity. He took the threat seriously. The UN has been working with him, and Skinner believes they are sincere in their commitment to not let the work continue. If they all do what they say they will, we are honest-to-God free of the consortium. That doesn't mean the aliens won't come back one day, but at least we'll be prepared." He begins to massage my neck and shoulders. I let my head fall back and moan softly. The last eighteen months are just gone; they fell away the moment I touched him. We have come back together as naturally as a heart continuing to beat. He belongs with me. He fills the hole inside my soul, and I am complete.. He presses his erection against my ass and I laugh. "You take your Viagra before you got here this morning?" He rubs against me. "It's a turn-on to see you this happy, Alex," he whispers against my ear, his tongue flicking out to trace the path of his words. His warm breath sends a shiver down my spine, and my cock twitches in response. He continues massaging my shoulders and back, his erection throbbing against the small of my back, and before long I twist in his arms to claim his mouth with mine. I kiss him deeply, my tongue mating with his, chafing the palm of my hand over his evening beard shadow. He whimpers against my mouth and I drink in the sound. He is here with me. He is mine to touch and hold and love. He pulls me into his lap and latches his mouth to the pulse point in my neck. Warm golden pleasure flows through my body when he touches me. "Yes, Alex, yours. I am yours," he vows, his voice urgent as he suckles my skin. I reach for the bottle of hemp oil on the nightstand. It was the only thing we'd found to use for lubricant. I press it into his hand and kiss him again, pouring my need into him. "Fox, please," I say, trying not to whine. He slicks himself up and guides me down onto him. I moan when the head of his cock breaches me, and slowly lower myself onto his length. I'm sore, but glad for the reality of the minute of pain. It means he is real, that the thick fullness of his cock inside of me is real. I want to laugh, and cry, but instead the hardness inside me hits my prostate and I groan deep in my chest, twisting my fingers in his hair. We move together slowly, me rising and sinking down to take him inside me, him surging up to meet me, to accelerate our joining. His hands move over my body, one hand on my hip to balance me and the other toying with my nipples, skimming down my stomach, reaching to stroke my cock. His touch is reverent, his eyes golden with love and desire. He is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, and he is home. I had thought I was empty of both cum and tears, but when I come there are more of both. There is always more of me for him. The phone rings several times, but we ignore it. We doze for a while, then go to shower together. I leave Fox to shave after we are done, going to the kitchen to find something for us to eat. As I dig in the nearly empty refrigerator I hear a knock at the front door. It's Cori. I remember another day, a lifetime ago, when Cori had barged in and found me and Fox together. It is all I can do not to laugh. "I've been calling you all afternoon," she says, walking past me into the house. "Did you forget you were supposed to have dinner with me and Beth this evening? I know you're gonna be pissed, but she's got this guy from work she wants you to meet, and he's supposed to 'accidentally' run into us at Semolina at 7:30 and you aren't even dressed." Then she notices the size 16 sneakers on the floor. "Oh. Oh my. You're not alone." She grins. "Al, you old dog you! I'll just march my ass outta here and see you later..." her smile fades when Fox comes into the room, an old pair of his sweatpants falling from his hips and a towel draped over his shoulders. "Al...what the fuck..." "We didn't want to lie to all of you, Cori, but we had no choice. Fox and Sean's lives were in danger from the men Papa and I used to work for. Fox's father worked for them as well, and they were going to kill Fox to make sure he couldn't betray what Papa and his father had done. Fox was already so ill; it made it plausible to fake his death until the men involved were caught. I'm sorry we lied, but we did what we had to," I explain hastily, taking her elbow to steady her as all the color drains from her face. "All this time, you knew he was alive?" she whispers. "We mourned for him, our hearts broke for you, and you knew he was fine?" "No, Cori, it wasn't like that. Fox's illness was genuine. I've had no contact with him since the day he left here, and you know how sick he was. I had no idea if he was alive or dead. I didn't know if he was ever coming back." "Corinne, I'm sorry," Fox says. "I never wanted to hurt your family. This was truly the only way. With me incapacitated, Sean was in imminent danger. I only recovered a few months ago, and I came home as soon as it was safe." "Sean hasn't been in DC with Dana all this time?" she asks. "No, he's been with me at a safe house. Cori, my father did some truly awful things, and the men he worked for would have killed me and Sean rather than risk that we might be able to talk about what my father did," Fox replies, reaching his hand to her. She snatches her hand away. "Do the two of you think I'm stupid? I know what my father did, I know what your father and Jeffrey Spender's father did," she says, pointing to Fox. "They ran government projects that experimented on people without their consent. Jeffrey was an idiot, he took phone calls in front of me, left files sitting around, bragged about things," she turns to me, tears running down her face. "He told me he could have you killed, Alex, if I didn't marry him. That's why I got pregnant...it was the only way I could get him to let me go. I was so scared of what he would do to you, or Dee or Bron, but I couldn't marry him. I hated sex with men, it made me sick, but Papa said he'd already screwed up with you and he wasn't going to let me make the same mistakes." "Oh Jesus, Cori, I didn't know..." I feel sick, nausea roiling through me in waves. "Why didn't you tell me? I'd have killed the son of a bitch before I let him touch you." "I didn't want you to kill anyone for me, Al. You're my brother, and I know that you did bad things, but those things were not you. You are the same person who taught me to ride my bike and changed my diapers and rocked me for hours when I was a baby. I always believed in you, Alex, no matter what Jeffrey said to me. I wasn't going to let you do anything else wrong because of me." I hold her as she sobs. There is nothing else to do. So many lies, so many secrets, and so much of the burden has fallen on her slender shoulders. It is too late for regrets, but I will not let her cope with this alone anymore. Dee and Bron have been spared all of this. I have no idea why; I'm just grateful. But Cori deserves some truth. It is the least I can give her when Fox and I have to ask her to keep yet another secret. Fox goes to finish dressing, then comes out of the bedroom and sits on the futon beside her, holding her hand and massaging it between his own as I hold her against me. Eventually her tears cease and Fox hands her a tissue. She wipes smeared mascara from her face and blows her nose. Fox holds her face between his hands and kisses her forehead tenderly. "Cori, Scully will be here with Sean in a couple of days. Once she's here we'll all sit down and we'll tell you everything, if you want to know it," he says. Is he reading my mind, or are we were just that alike in our thinking? "I don't want to hear any more," she says, wiping her eyes again. "I've heard enough. Just don't ever lie to me again, either one of you," she draws in a deep breath and throws her arms around Fox. "I'm so glad you're alive, that you're safe. We missed you so much. You bastard, you broke my brother's heart..." she sobs some more. It is late in the evening when Cori leaves. Fox wraps his arms around my waist and buries his face against my neck after we close the door behind her. "What a fucking mess I've made of your life," he groans, licking my neck. I tilt my head to bare my throat to him and close my eyes. "They'll be angry that we lied, but they'll be happy that you're alive rather than dead, Fox. We'll deal with it. I'll call Delia in the morning and break the news." He pulls back and grins. "I know the perfect way to spread the news of my most recent return from the dead." He goes into the kitchen and I follow, watching while he picks up the phone and punches in a number. "Does Theresa Connick still work here?" he asks. "Oh, she's the manager now? Well good for her. Could I speak to her please?" He smiles at me again, bouncing on his heels. "Yes, I need to order a pizza, and it's just not the same if you don't make it, Theresa. Who is this? Oh, you don't recognize my voice? This is Fox Mulder, at 1527 July Street," he stifles a laugh. He is enjoying this way too much. "Yes, the reports of my death have been somewhat exaggerated, and I'm starving. I need a large barbeque chicken pizza with jalapenos. Thanks Theresa, I'll be waiting. Yes, I'll stop by and see you soon. I'm home for good. Bye now." He hangs up the phone, a satisfied grin lighting his face. "There, I don't have to eat tofu and salad for dinner, and by this time tomorrow everyone on Chime Street will know that I'm home. Never underestimate the power of the local grapevine." I drape my arm over his shoulders and kiss him. "You're home. I really, really like the sound of that." He leans forward until our foreheads were touching and strokes my hair. "Me too, Alex. Me too." He eats his pizza in bed. I let him get two slices down before I take it away from him and make love to him again. I lie awake the rest of the night, listening to the music of his heartbeat against my ear. //////////////////////////////// In the morning I'm on the phone with Delia for over an hour, explaining as best I can without really explaining anything. She vacillates between praising God and cursing me for emotionally manipulating them. I finally get her off the phone by promising that Fox and I will come over for dinner so we can talk to the entire family. When someone knocks on the door, Fox is in the bedroom, unpacking the two duffle bags he'd brought with him. I hurry to answer it. I open the door and suddenly cannot breathe. Marita Covarrubias is standing on our front porch with a tow-headed toddler in her arms. Marita is dressed casually in jeans and a sweater, her hair loose and grown down past her shoulders. The child in her arms is hardly more than a baby, curly-haired and blue-eyed, androgynous in a yellow t-shirt and denim overalls. Marita sets the child down and it barrels past me into the house, shouting "Uddle Foz!" "What the hell?" is all I can get out before Marita thrusts a diaper bag at me. "I can't stay. She's a gentle and well-behaved child, Alex. Find her a good home. She deserves it," she says, and turns quickly to get in her car. I am still standing in the doorway shouting her name when she speeds off. "Uddle Fox! Uddle Foz! Ewwie fine ewe!" I follow the sound of the child's happy squeals into the bedroom. Fox is hoisting the child into the air, laughing as she kicks and screeches. "That was one heck of a game of hide-and-seek, wasn't it, sweetheart?" Fox says, beaming up into the child's flushed face. "But you found Uncle Fox, my baby. What a big girl you are! Did Ms. Marita bring you here?" The child nods, spreading her arms and legs while Fox 'flies' her around, plane noises and all. "Reeda and Ewwie go on big pwane, fine ewe." Fox catches my gaze and sets the child on her feet. She looks at me with open speculation in her eyes. "Diss Zhean's pawpaw?" she asks, craning her neck to look up at Fox. "Yes, Ellie, this is Alex, Sean's papa," he confirms, scooping her back up into his arms. He walks towards me, a pleading look on his face. "Al, this is Ellie. Or Eleanor Elizabeth, as Sean named her. Ellie came to live with the group when she was three days old, about two weeks before Sean and I arrived. Remember I told you that most adults who left took some of the children with them? Well, I have to find Ellie an h-o-m-e," he spells out the last word. "I didn't know Marita would be bringing her so soon. I thought it would be next week at least, and we would have time to discuss it," he continues. "She only has to stay with us for a day or two. If someone from the church doesn't want to a-d-o-p-t her, then I'll take her to Children's Services." Oh, that bastard. He is so smooth. Such an innocent, guileless look on his handsome face, when he knows damned well I will not let him send the child away to a foster home, or worse yet an orphanage. Some tiny part of me thrills that he knows this is his home, his place, and that he can make decisions based on his surety of this fact. He knows he owns the place, knows he owns me. It leaves me free to own him right back. "So she can do that...thing?" I ask, gesturing at my head. He nods. "Yes, so watch your thoughts. Especially when you're angry. Visualize something soothing, like an ocean or a forest, or she'll be cursing up a blue streak, saying everything you bite your tongue and keep in. With Ellie around, there's no such thing as tact." Ellie gives a sunny grin. "I hungry." "C'mon, Ellie, I'll make you breakfast. Do you like oatmeal?" I ask. She reaches for my offered hand, then cocks her head to the side. "Where ewe udder ahm?" I do not speak toddlerese. It takes me a moment to decipher what she is saying. "Oh. Oh! My other arm?" I point to the dresser when she nods. "It's over there. I only wear that one for special occasions." She smiles as if that was the most reasonable explanation in the world and then cries out joyfully when Dog and Lemur came to investigate the small loud creature that has invaded their territory. Dog gives her a wet, sloppy kiss across her face and I relax. The alpha male of the family is okay with the new cub. Ellie can ride him like a mule and he'll let her, but he'll tear the face off of anyone he perceives as a threat to her. Lemur sniffs her shoes, nudges her shoulder gently, and jumps up onto the bed, burying her face under my pillow. "Lemur is jealous," I explain. "She thinks she's my only girlfriend. She'll be your friend soon enough. Come on now, let's go get you fed." I move to escort Ellie to the kitchen. Fox stops me with a hand on my shoulder. "Alex, are you really okay with this?" He asks in a low voice, pleading for understand with his eyes. I sigh, trying to act put out. "Yes, I'm okay with it. I'll call some of the deacons at the church this afternoon and put out some feelers for an adoptive family." The problem is that I am too okay with it. As in, 'do we build onto the house or buy a new one so she has her own bedroom?' okay with it. I think of all the children in my life, of sticky kisses and warm sleeping bodies in my lap, of flushed cheeks and pure, pealing laughter. Then I look down the hall at the denim-covered, diaper-encased bubble butt sticking out as Ellie tries to climb up into a chair. My heart clenches. I just got him back. I don't want to share him. She radiates joy. She's a telepath. I already have two of them to contend with. She's so small, so vulnerable. I am surly and set in my ways. A small child will disrupt everything. Fuck that. I love her already. I shake my head, then go to fix her breakfast. /////////////////////////////////////// I can't tell if Delia is more surprised to see with her own eyes that Fox truly is home, or to see the pink-flowered diaper bag over my shoulder and the small child propped against my hip. "Don't ask," I caution her, kissing her cheek. "This is only a temporary arrangement." "Awex an asshole!" Ellie crows merrily as I set her on her feet. Drina lures her to her room with promises of Barbies and a cookie, and Ellie scampers off after her. Dee blushes. I smile and kiss her again. She can think I'm an asshole all she likes; I am an asshole who has my man back. That's all that matters to me. I find Fox in the dining room hugging Bron, her shirt still raised and one of the babies latched to her breast. As long as there is hugging and no one is yelling, there is a chance we'll all make it out of here alive. Around ten o'clock, Dee is clearing away the coffee cups and the children are all drooping like wilted flowers. I can't decide whether to throttle Fox or kiss him. He'd turned on the charm and spun an ambiguous but heartfelt tale. He alluded to some of the dangerous enemies he had made over the years while serving truth, justice, and the American way, leaving them all to wonder what sort of miserable degenerate would prey on a dying man out of revenge. He dropped vague hints about the FBI putting him up in a fancy European clinic and the kind Dr. Smithe who had saved his life with his 'experimental treatments.' I almost blew the whole thing and laughed during that part. The slick son-of-a-bitch had them fawning over him like the prince of Persia by the time he was done. Part of me wants to smack that 'aw shucks, it was nothing' look off of his face, but at the same time I silently applaud him. If he can keep this song-and-dance up, no one will ever question his version of the events. Ellie he explains away as his last super-secret mission for the FBI. Dee and Bron assure him they would pull out the parish phone directory and find Ellie a safe and loving home as quickly as possible. Dee keeps looking over to the little blonde moppet snoozing in my lap, and I half think she is going to volunteer to keep her. I am very, very grateful that she does not. If Ellie is going to stay in this family, she is going to stay with me. These are haphazard, reckless thoughts. Fox and I don't need a child. This is our first chance to live a normal life together. I want her. She is mine. //////////////////////////////// It's midnight before we tuck Ellie into Sean's bed, surrounded by pillows to keep her from rolling off, Dog at her feet to guard her dreams. I bend to kiss her ripe round cheek before turning off the light. Fox tugs on my hand to pull me from the room. "Is this really what you want?" He asks me as he unbuttons my shirt. I look at him steadily. "Yes." He cups my face and kisses me deeply. "Okay," he says against my mouth, then kisses his way from my jaw to my neck, licking and sucking at my skin as my pants pool at my feet. I curl my fingers into his hair and bring his mouth back to mine, parting his lips and pushing in with my tongue. I caress every nook and cranny of his mouth as his hands run down my chest, pulling and teasing my nipples, dancing down my ribs and then lower, to cup and fondle my balls. His hands stroke runes of fire onto my skin; he breathes into my mouth and fills me with life, with joy. His soul wraps around my heart, threading through my bones and binding me into a cohesive whole. I know him so well, can read his expressions and his touch, know when the extra heartbeat of hesitation means he wants me to take the reins. I push him down to sit on the edge of the bed, and kneel between his open legs. I kiss the tops of his feet, his knees, lick and suck a trail up his inner thigh. He leans back and props himself on his elbows, groaning out my name. I take the head of his cock in my mouth and run my tongue around the velvety hot flesh, while my fingers circle his entrance. I draw him into my mouth inch by inch, and press my finger inside as I swallow to take the cockhead into my throat. He bucks up hard and then murmurs a breathy apology. Within a few minutes he is babbling nonsensically, holding me by the hair, rocking his hips into my face. I pull off of him and gesture for him to scoot up on the bed. I cover his body with mine and kiss him until we are both breathless. "Please please please," he pleads as I lube myself up. "Anything you want, Fox. Anything. Just be patient," I soothe, lining myself up with his entrance and pushing the head in. I move my hips in tight circles and gradually bury myself inside him. I make a triumphant noise when I am fully inside, and he brings his legs up and wraps them around my hips. "So good, Alex, oh god, always so good..." His eyes close and he clenches his ass around me, pulling a cry from deep in my chest. We move together, giving and receiving, urging one another on with touches and words, with eager mouths and questing fingers. He comes first, and swipes his fingers through the hot fluid on his abdomen, then brings them to my lips. I pour myself out inside him as I suck his fingers into my mouth and let the musky, earthy taste bloom along my palate. The next morning, I wake to feel something soft and heavy land on my chest, like a sack of feathers. I open my eyes to find Ellie sitting on my chest, smiling happily. "Juice! Juice!" she says, bouncing on my ribcage. I groan and nudge Fox in the ribs. He keeps snoring. Bastard. I wrestle Ellie off me and roll out of bed, she hot on my heels. I pour her a glass of juice and set the phone book on a kitchen chair, then sit Ellie on it. She looks up at me and smiles radiantly. "Pawpaw Awex," she says, batting her lashes. I melt. She has me hook, line, and sinker. I try to scowl, but it spreads across my face into a big goofy grin. "Don't look at me like that, you're a telepath. You know I'm gonna keep you." I don't know if she understands, but she giggles anyway. I ruffle her hair and turn to make her breakfast. Ellie has just finished eating and is playing with a set of measuring cups when the phone rings. I turn from washing the dishes, dry my hand on my boxers and grab the handset. "Alex, it's Dana. I wanted to let you know that Sean and I will be there later this afternoon. Oh god, Alex, he's grown so much. I can't wait for you to see him," she says, a smile in her voice. "I can't wait to see him either." "How is Mulder?" I grin. "He's fine. He's perfect. He's...everything I prayed for." "I know, Alex. He called me from the airport in Seattle late Sunday night so I would be here to pick Sean up, and it took everything in me not to call you. But he wanted to surprise you." "Well, he sure as hell surprised me." "All right, then, we'll see you around four this afternoon. I'll rent a car at the airport." "Okay Dana, be careful. Kiss Sean for me." She laughs. "I almost need a stepladder to kiss him. I wasn't exaggerating when I said he had grown. Bye, Alex." Fox gets up and showers. I bathe Ellie while he eats, then the three of us go grocery shopping. Watching him move through the grocery store is amazing. He smiles, he tickles Ellie, he touches me frequently even though we're in public. He buys tons of junk food. Chocolate milk, Oreos, Doritos, sweet tea, and diet Coke all go in the cart. This is real. He is home. The baby aisle is a new experience for both of us. It is surreal to stand there and debate the merits of cloth vs. disposable diapers with him. I win, and Ellie will stay in the cloth diapers they had no choice but to use in the past. We buy wipes and baby shampoo and plastic leakproof cups. We look like a family. //////////////////////////////////// When Dana and Skinner pull up in the driveway, Ellie stands between me and Fox on the porch, clapping and shouting, "Zhean, Zhean!" Like Ellie, I can barely stand still. When Skinner kills the engine to the car the back door opens, and out steps Sean, a huge grin on his face. "Papa!" He cries out, dashing across the driveway to bound up the stairs. The boy who throws himself into my embrace is not a boy anymore. He is at least 5'8", sturdily built and broad-shouldered. He easily appears to be fourteen or fifteen years old. I hold him against me and rain kisses on his face. He brushes tears off my face while I do the same for him. Oh God, he is so handsome. His eyes are the same fey, mercurial hazel as his father's, just as I remembered them, and he has a head full of thick, dark auburn hair. He has Fox's lush lips and Dana's more delicate bone structure. He is a heartbreaker. As I hug Sean two things happen. First, Fox takes Dana in his arms and spins her around, kissing her over and over again, both of them crying and laughing. Then, as he sets her down she gets a look at Ellie, and Ellie gets a look at her. Dana smiles at Ellie. Ellie smiles back. It is love at first sight. I know in that instant that Ellie is not to be mine. Sean crouches down and picks Ellie up. "Ellie-belly, I'm so happy to see you. I missed you," he says, kissing her round cheeks. Walter hangs back, not looking awkward, but for lack of room on the small porch to fit another adult. I lean over and stroke Ellie's hair. "Ellie, go give Dyadya Walter a hug and a big smile. I guarantee you'll be the most spoiled kid in DC before you know it." Sean sets her down and she clambers down the stairs to Skinner. "Dada Water?" she asks, gifting him with one of her glorious grins. He smiles down at her. It is the beginning of one of history's great love stories. Walter has Ellie in his arms when it is finally his turn to hug Fox. The afternoon passes quickly. We talk and laugh, hug and cry, and Ellie is cuddled and played with and generally worshipped all around. I almost have myself convinced myself my heart isn't broken when Fox corners me in the kitchen. He pins me to the counter with his hips against mine and his arms around my waist. "Al, are you really okay with this? I don't want to ask Scully and Walter unless you're certain, but they all look pretty mutually besotted with one another." I nod. "Yes, I'm certain. A more traditional two-parent home is the best place for her. I can let her go if I know she's going to be safe, and I can't imagine where she would be safer, or more loved." He kisses me softly. "I was pretty attached to the idea of keeping her myself. But we'll get to see her, and they'll be great parents." When we go back to the living room Dana has Ellie asleep in her lap. I sit down in the armchair and watch them for a moment. I let go of the idea of walking Ellie down the aisle one day, take a deep breath, and begin to speak. "Fox brought Ellie with him to find her an adoptive home. I take it she'll be going home with the two of you?" Dana's eyes light up. "I thought that the two of you were keeping her." Her voice trembles. I shake my head. "No. She belongs with you. That's obvious. I'm sure the gunmen can have all the legal documentation prepared tomorrow." Fox stands behind my chair and squeezes my shoulder. "Scully, did you have time to look into that school Sean wants to attend?" "What school?" I ask, looking at Sean. "It's a school for really smart kids, like Gibson, and I guess me. They only have about twenty students at a time. It's a boarding school. That way I don't have to decide where to live. It's quiet, and I can get college credit there," he replies. "But boarding school? Son, you just got home," I say, cringing when I hear the pleading tone in my voice. "I know, and I want to stay here for a while, and spend time with Mom and Dyadya Walter, but I can't decide which place to live. This way, I can stay at school all week and visit each of my homes on the weekends," his face colors and he smiles shyly. "And Gibson is there." I am not ready to deal with the implications of the look on his face when he says Gibson's name. We play musical beds a short while later. Scully, Skinner, and Ellie take our bed, Fox and I take Sean's, and Sean is on the futon. The house is alive again with the sounds and clutter of life, of family. It hums with energy. Fox falls asleep with his arms around me. Peace at last. Our home is full. My heart is full. /////////////////////////////////////// "Dang dog, get off me!" Sean protests from the living room. Dog barks, and I hear the scuttle of his nails on the hardwood floor. I slip out of bed and pull on my sweats. Lemur is still asleep at the foot of the bed. I snap my fingers and she wakes, walking beside me to the living room. Sean is sitting up rubbing his eyes, trying to fight off Dog's slobbery displays of affection. "Papa, there's no coffee in the kitchen," he pronounces like a death sentence. "Coffee? Your father lets you drink coffee?" "When I get up at 5 AM to do chores with the grown-ups, I need coffee." He stretches, flexing well-defined pecs and a stomach any grown man would envy. There is a light sprinkling of hair on his chest, and his biceps are two-toned with a farmer's tan, indicative of the time he spent outdoors. This half-grown man simply cannot be the boy who had left here not two years ago. I'm not ready for this. "Sean, I need to walk the dogs. I'll buy you a coffee if you want to come with me." He smiles. He looks so much like Fox. The smile is a dead ringer. "You don't have to bribe me, but I'll take you up on it," he replies, then looks at me oddly. "Umm, Papa...do you mind?" I notice then how he's clutching the pillow in his lap. I'm not ready to admit he is developed enough to worry about sporting early-morning wood, either. "Sure, no problem, I'll be in the kitchen," I say, retreating quickly. A few minutes later he is dressed and ready. We head towards Chime Street with the dogs, walking unhurriedly, saying little. "Tell me about this school," I finally say when we sit down outside Highland Coffee with our drinks. He sips his coffee, closes his eyes and sighs blissfully. "Dad said that real coffee was a million times better than instant. He was right." He opens his eyes and looks at me. "It's in Boston. It's just for kids gifted in math and sciences. Jeremiah had a lot of books, and one of the adults at the farm was a physicist. I learned a lot from her. I think I want to study theoretical computer science. Gib is studying organic chemistry. He's going to help Jeremiah perfect the vaccine against the black oil." "Gib, huh? He seems to have become a very important part of your life," I say, trying to keep my tone neutral. "His thoughts are calm. He's easy to be around. He's my friend." The telltale blush creeps up his cheeks again. He's too old for you! I want to shout. Instead I gulp my tea, scalding my tongue. "It's a big world out there, Sean, and neither you nor Gibson has seen much of it. I just don't want you to...limit your range of experience too soon." He looks at me. "Papa, it's not so big when only one other person your age knows the truth about who you really are." He has me there. Hadn't that been one of many things that had drawn me and Fox together at first? "I love you, son. I only want you to be happy." He smiles. "I know, Papa. I love you too." Back at home, I barely make it inside before Fox pries the bag of coffee from my fingers. Ellie sits at the table, banging her cup and having an animated conversation with Skinner while he tries to spoon oatmeal into her mouth. Fox sets the coffee to brew while Scully stands at the stove cooking eggs. "Morning, handsome," Fox says, putting his arms around me. He kisses me, long and slow and deep, his hands rubbing circles on my back. "Have a good talk with Sean?" "Yes, I did. We're good." He grins and pinches my ass. "Everything's good." Yes. ///////////////////////////////////////// There is something warm and wet on my cock. Oh God...feels nice. I move my hips, seeking the source of the warmth, and whine until I find it again. Oh yeah, that's it...so good...almost too good. My balls are tight already. I sigh, open my eyes a little, and see the shape undulating under the covers. The shape looks suspiciously like a 6-foot-tall man who is sucking my dick. "Fox, what are you doing?" I ask as I cup his head and thrust up into his mouth. He releases my dick and I whimper. "I'm giving you your pre-wedding blowjob." His voice is muffled by the blankets over his head. Oh merciful God, he is so good with his mouth. He swallows my length effortlessly. "But it's not even our wedding," I grit out, gasp again, and come. His head appears from under the covers. "Poor Alex, always a bridesmaid but never a bride. Do you want me to marry you, babe? You have to wear the dress." I raise my brow and wipe cum from his chin with my thumb. "You are a seriously disturbed man if you were down there sucking me off and picturing me in Dana Scully's wedding dress." He slithers up my body and kisses me. I taste cum and coffee on his breath. "You've been up for a while. Are you that nervous about giving the bride away?" I reach for his cock as I speak, stroking it leisurely, enjoying the weight and feel of it in my hand, like silk wrapped around molten steel. He thrusts against me and kisses me hard. "I think you had too much to drink at the rehearsal dinner last night. It's almost ten o'clock. We have three hours to get ready, and we still have to get Sean's and my monkey suits." He gestures to a white styrofoam cup and a bagel on the nightstand. "Your breakfast awaits, M'lord. Eat up and let's get going." I roll him onto his back and kiss my way down his body. "I already know what I want for breakfast, and it's not on the hotel's breakfast buffet." He laughs. "No, the stuffed breakfast burrito is an Alex Drake exclusive -- oh God, Al, oh Christ..." Ten minutes later I am in the shower and he lies in a sated heap on the bed. Eventually he gets up, and I shave while he showers, then dress while he shaves. I pull my brown suit from the closet. The color isn't appropriate for a wedding five days before Christmas, but I haven't had time to shop. It is kind of funny; I had wanted this suit pretty damned bad when I bought it. I had thought I would pull it out of the closet once or twice a year for special occasions. Since then, I have worn it so much that I'm sick of it. The last few months have been a whirlwind of activity. Sean spent six weeks with us, six weeks with Scully and Skinner, and was leaving for school as soon as the winter break was over. Father Benedict underwent knee surgery and needed constant care for several weeks. He and Sean renewed their closeness, and Sean had been content to spend long hours reading to him or playing chess. Fox and I spent a lot of time in bed. We could barely keep our hands off each other. We were like teenagers, and I reveled in every moment of it. No one had to wonder why I always had a smile on my face, or why Fox had trouble sitting in uncushioned chairs. Not that my ass wasn't sore on many occasions. I just hid it better than he did. He comes up behind me and kisses my shoulder. "What's that goofy grin on your face about?" "I just love you," I reply, taking his hand and kissing the ring on his finger. "Loving me makes you stare into space and grin like an idiot? I didn't mean to suck your brain out through your dick this morning; sorry. Come on, Alex, we've got to get going." He smiles and kisses the back of my neck. "I love you too." We make it to the church with an hour to spare. While Fox and Sean dress, I stand in the vestibule, attempting to make small talk with Bill and Charlie Scully. Fox comes out of the dressing room, and I am hard in an instant. He is stunning. I've never seen him in a tuxedo before, and the slate-gray color brings out the green in his eyes and complements the silver in his hair. Oh yeah, I'd put on a goddamn dress to walk down the aisle with him. I'd wear a dog collar if that's what it takes. He is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. The way I am panting and practically drooling, the dog collar is a pretty apt choice. Sean comes out right behind him, tugging at his tie. Gone is my little boy, the gangly child I'd held in my lap and read to. Before me stands a strikingly handsome young man. My son, my baby for Christ's sake, who is leaving us to go away to school. "Pop, you're gonna wrinkle my clothes," he protests when I embrace him. "I don't care," I reply, kissing his cheek. He is saved by the priest, who comes out and announces it is time for the wedding participants to take their places. Ellie comes down the aisle first, beribboned and ruffled and dressed head-to-toe in pink. She wears tiny white gloves and patent leather shoes, and clutches a basket of rose petals. "Dada, Zhean, I gots da flowers!" she announces to Walter and Sean as she walks down the aisle, dropping handfuls of crushed flowers here and there. She is halfway down the aisle when she spies Maggie Scully and squeals. "Nana!" she yells, running the length of the aisle and hopping into Maggie's lap. She overturns the basket of petals and dumps them at Maggie's feet. "Dere, all done!" she declares. The quiet laughter stops when the music swells, and Dana glides down the aisle on Fox's arm. My God, she is lovely. She's wearing a cream-colored, floor-length silk sheath dress and a lace shawl. I hear someone murmur that the shawl had been made by her great-grandmother. Her hair is piled in loose curls, held in place by ivory clasps. She and Fox beam at one another with joy and affection as they walk together. One could believe they are the bride and groom. But when she looks up and catches Skinner's gaze, she is transformed. Her smile widens and her eyes dance. She is the fairy-tale princess about to have her happily ever after. Neither Snow White nor Rose Red holds a candle to Dana Scully. Skinner seems awestruck, and I think I see tears in his eyes. He looks as if he might drop to the floor to kiss her feet. This is a man in love. I can commiserate. It seems a lifetime ago that I had given Fox a ring and we had joked about matching tuxedos and a Vermont wedding... I shake my head. No, that's not us. We don't need a piece of paper to know where we stand. But damn, he looks fine in that tux.... The ceremony goes just as rehearsed, save for Ellie deciding she wants me instead of her grandmother about two-thirds of the way through. She skips happily across the aisle while her parents are kneeling at the altar receiving communion but, thankfully, she sits quietly in my lap for the remainder of the ceremony. The reception is at a nearby hotel. Dana has good taste; it is not your usual pink-tulle affair. Everything is elegant and understated, the food is excellent, and the band does not play the Macarena even once. Every time I turn around, someone hands me a glass of champagne. After the fifth or sixth one I have to make a conscious effort not to bob my head and tap my foot in time with the music. And I don't even like I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow. My bones feel made of something warm and pliant. The next song is Chances Are by Johnny Mathis. Okay, I can get on board with this. It is time to shake my groove thing. I stand up and make my way through the clusters of dancing couples until I find Dana, dancing with one of Walter's nephews. "May I cut in?" I ask. Dana smiles. "Of course. I wondered if you were going to get off your butt today." I take her in my arms and we sway together as I softly sing along. Dana chuckles. "How much have you had to drink, Alex?" I grin at her. "Just enough to have a really good time, but not enough to make an ass of myself." After a moment she speaks again. "Can you believe we made it this far? Look at us, Alex. Look at them," she tilts her head towards where Sean and Fox sit together, Ellie in Sean's lap. "We lived through it, and now look what we have...." "I love him, Dana. I'll take care of him," I promise her. "I know you will." The song ends and I kiss Dana before Walter cuts in. I turn when I feel a hand on my shoulder. "My turn now?" Fox asks, his brow raised. I look around. Boy/girl, boy/girl, boy/girl. There is an obvious trend here. "Fox..." He smiles, puts his arm around my waist, and pulls me back onto the dance floor. I cock my head and listen to the music. It's Could I Have This Dance. I laugh. "Oh good Lord..." "What, you never saw Urban Cowboy?" "Oh, I saw it all right. I just think you're turning into a sap in your old age. I'm going to need insulin before much longer." He grins and kisses me softly. "You know you love it." I grin back, closing my eyes and brushing my lips over his. "Yeah, I do. Love you." He pulls me closer. He is so warm, smells so good, is a great dancer. I am a little drunk, and really happy, and sporting a hard-on. I kiss his temple and whisper in his ear. "Want you. Now." He chuckles softly and kisses my cheek. "You've had too much champagne, buddy." To hell with that. I'm not taking no for an answer. I rock my hips against him, leaving him no doubt that I am serious. "Want to make love to you, Fox. Please." He inhales sharply. His eyes glitter. "Oh Christ, Alex...where did you have in mind?" I smile triumphantly. "C'mon, we'll find a place." He kisses me slowly, thoroughly. It makes me dizzy. I pull my suit coat closed to hide my condition as we walk towards the exit. "Wait a minute. Forgot something," he says, and turns back towards our table. He reaches under it and pulls out Ellie's diaper bag, removes something that he slips into his pocket, then pushes the bag back under the table. We find an unlocked storage closet down the hall. I lock the door behind us and am upon him in a heartbeat, pressing him against the wall and claiming his mouth with mine. He moans into our kisses, rubs his body against mine. It takes me forever to get his pants undone. Finally I am rewarded with the sweet weight of his cock in my hand. He pulls something from his pocket and hands it to me. It's a bottle of baby lotion. "I can't believe I stole toiletries from a toddler to use as lube," he mutters, unbuttoning my pants. I sink my cock into him. Sink my heart into him. Fuck him against the wall and love him more than I ever thought was possible. We stay in the dark for a long time, making out and whispering quietly to one another, saying things that only drunk, sappy people say at weddings. We mean them all. /////////////////////////////////// I come around the side of the house to find Sean and Gibson kneeling by the fish pond we installed a few weeks ago. "I can't believe you're feeding them brine. They're fish, Sean; it's not like they're real pets," Gibson says as he dusts off his trousers and stands. Sean continues to gaze into the fish pond, watching the Koi we just bought. "You have your bacteria and viruses, I have my fish. I'll feed them whatever I like." "He's just fattening them up so the dogs will enjoy them more when they get around to snacking on them," Fox says as he fills the bird feeder with seeds. "If those dogs touch my fish they'll end up as the starring attraction on the dinner buffet at the Bamboo House," Sean says, eyeing the dogs in question. "Stop staring at those fish and let's vamoose," Gibson says, tugging affectionately on Sean's belt. I glare at the back of his head. I love the kid dearly, but I don't want him touching my son below the waist. Gibson approaches me. I hold out the truck keys. "Home by ten o'clock or both your lives are forfeit," I say. He takes the keys and nods, unfazed. I say that every time they leave. Sean comes up behind him. I get out my wallet and give him a twenty, then pause to squeeze his shoulder. "You did great today, son. You made Father Benedict very happy. He's said for months that the last thing he wanted to do before he stepped down was give you your first communion." Sean smiles. "Thanks, Pop. I'm just glad Mom and Dyadya Walt and Ellie were able to come. Having the whole family here was perfect." He hastily kisses my cheek. "And thanks for the check. I'm going to save up to buy a car in December when I legally turn sixteen." "Maybe Santa will be really good to you. Now you two get out of here," I reply. The boys depart and I ensconce myself in my hammock. It was a birthday gift from Fox and Sean, just a few weeks ago. Fox nudges the hammock and sets it to swaying. I open an eye and peer up at him. He holds out a glass of tea. I accept it and take a sip, then set it on the tree stump we use as a table. He swings a leg over the hammock and settles in behind me, wrapping his arms around my chest and kissing my neck. I sigh and relax against him. "I am so damned glad to be out of that suit. I'm ready to burn it." He chuckles. "It's definitely seen some action lately. How many times have you worn it in the last six months? Walter and Scully's wedding, Ellie's christening, Philip and Tristan's, Walter's retirement banquet, Father Benedict's 85th birthday, and now Sean's first communion." "I know. Why doesn't anyone we know ever throw 'shirt and shoes required' events?" He smiles against my neck. "Just think; this is only the beginning. Drina will eventually graduate from high school, then Mason; more first communions; then one day it'll be weddings instead of baptisms and graduations." I groan. "No, don't say that. I'll never be that old. These kids simply cannot grow up. I don't want to think about it." "You can't stop the world from turning because you don't want more gray hairs," he teases. We settle into companionable quiet. We rock in the hammock, watching the sky turn pink and orange, lilac and violet as the sun sets. A gentle breeze stirs the humid evening air and carries the sweet, sharp scent of magnolias and freshly mown grass with it. All around us are the sounds of life: the fountain in the fishpond gurgling, children laughing in their yards, faint music wafting towards us from down the street. We lounge in our hammock, our cocoon, and rock. I think of all that the past few years has brought, all that the future will bring. Babies are born, will grow up and have babies of their own. People move away, pass away, things change. People get second chances. No matter what, the world keeps turning. Through God's grace, life happens. Fox runs his hand under my shirt and skims his fingertips over my stomach. Big, warm hands, with fingertips calloused from farm work. His breath is hot against my skin, his tongue leaves trails of heat on my neck. When he speaks, his voice is like milk and honey -- warm and full of promise. "Come on, old man, let's go inside. The boys are gone and we have the place all to ourselves for a few hours..." I take his hand, and together we go inside. THE END ///////////////////////////////////// so it ends: and now there is nothing left but you and my love, and you //////////////////////////////////// If you enjoyed this story, please send feedback to Logan