From: claypotato@netscape.net   
      
   	   
   IN THE CLEARING (4/4)   
      
   by Rae Lynn (claypotato_AT_netscape.net)   
      
   ______________________   
   FIVE YEARS LATER   
      
   It had been twenty-six degrees and snowing when I left D.C., and the   
   Arizona sunshine was shockingly warm on my shoulders.  It seemed   
   incongruous, I mused idly as I squinted inside, that Fox Mulder could   
   survive in a place so...bright.   
      
   Maybe, I reflected, that was the point.   
      
   "...also reflects the desires of our unconscious minds?" a voice was   
   asking as I attempted to slip unobtrusively into the large lecture hall.   
      
   "Some might call that a radical interpretation of the text."  The room   
   fell silent.  My eyes went immediately to the front of the room, where   
   the lecturer was lounging by a large whiteboard, his hands loose and   
   relaxed as his students waited expectantly.   
      
   "Which is exactly why I'm pleased to hear you bringing it up."  I   
   glanced at the girl who'd asked the question.  Her face had broken into   
   a relieved smile.   
      
   I couldn't help my own small smile.  Mulder's voice.  For the first time   
   I was hearing it with no edge in it, no hardness sharpened from years of   
   experience.  It had taken five years and a move clear across the   
   country, but Fox Mulder had finally shed some of his oldest demons.  In   
   Arizona, it seemed, he had forged a new path, and it looked for all the   
   world as though it agreed with him.  His skin was tanned, no doubt from   
   spending actual time outside in the Arizona sun, and he had fortunately   
   put back on the weight he had lost in Oregon.  He looked strong and fit,   
   I thought -- healthy.  No longer just returned, but reborn nevertheless.   
      
   I might have expected that I would stand out in a room full of men and   
   women in their twenties.  Hell, Mulder's keen ears had probably picked   
   up the sound of my dress shoes tapping down the hall.  In any case, I   
   watched as his face lifted up to the top tiers of the auditorium, his   
   eyes searching the rows of students with their laptops and notebooks   
   until they landed on me.  His nod in my direction was almost   
   imperceptible, but I felt a small buzz run through me all the same.   
   Mulder, awakened.   
      
   "All right, that's it for the day," Mulder announced easily.  "We'll   
   pick this up next week.  And Shirley?" he called over the din of   
   notebooks being hastily shoved into backpacks and pens being capped.   
   "Don't let go of those extremist views on Greenblatt," he said with a   
   wry smile.   
      
   I waited until most of the sea of students swarmed past me before making   
   my way down the stairs to the front of the room.   
      
   "Dr. Mulder?" a student was saying.  "I was just wondering if you're   
   going to give us any advance notice before our next quiz, or..."   
      
   Mulder smiled.  "If we fail to anticipate the unexpected," he said   
   breezily, "may we not also fail to confront our anxiety of it?  That is,   
   isn't it a natural facet of human nature to attempt to foresee every   
   possibility, no matter how remote, and plan for it accordingly?"   
      
   In response, Mulder's student merely stared at him; he had clearly heard   
   this speech from his professor many times before.  "Uh...yeah," he said,   
   sounding disappointed.  "Thanks, Dr. Mulder.  See you next week."   
      
   Mulder dismissed him with a nod and then turned to face me; I was   
   relieved to see that the warmth in his eyes hadn't disappeared upon   
   sight of me.  "Sir," he said, reaching out to shake my hand.  His grip   
   was firm, self-assured.  "This is unexpected."   
      
   Sir.  And he hadn't worked for the Bureau in almost seven years.  "It's   
   been a long time, Mulder," I replied.  "But I think you've earned the   
   right to call me Walter."   
      
   Mulder shook his head, but he was still smiling.  "Old habits," he said   
   mildly.  "It'd be like calling Frohike 'Your Highness.'"   
      
   "You look good," I said.  He looked down at himself and then around at   
   the empty lecture hall, suddenly uncomfortable.  "Why don't you follow   
   me back to my office?" he said.   
      
   The hallway was typical of any major university: fluorescent lighting   
   overhead, crowded bulletin boards on the walls, students clustered in   
   groups who occasionally nodded in Mulder's direction with a greeting of   
   "Hi, Dr. Mulder."  It was, I noted, utterly unremarkable.  "Did you ever   
   think," I said aloud as we threaded through the building's maze of   
   narrow hallways, "that you'd succumb to normality?"   
      
   Mulder's response, I was reassured to hear, was a short bark of   
   laughter.  "You mean, did I ever think I'd one day spend my evenings   
   grading papers and reading Harry Potter out loud for the twentieth   
   time?" he called over his shoulder.  "I think back then I would have   
   eaten my gun."   
      
   "And now?" I asked pointedly as Mulder pulled out the keys to his office.   
   "And now I'm just grateful J.K. Rowling stopped after seven," he said   
   ruefully.  "Poor kid won't even look at another book until he's done   
   with Harry.  He thinks Hogwarts might implode if he leaves it alone too   
   long."   
      
   I was too busy studying the walls of Mulder's office to respond.  They   
   looked very much as they had in the basement of the Hoover building,   
   plastered with reports of paranormal phenomena and cluttered with   
   newspaper clippings.  I recognized a few as being from respectable   
   publications -- "The Use of Hypnosis as an Investigative Tool in   
   Regaining Subconscious Memories," by Fox Mulder, Ph.D., from Psychology   
   Today caught my eye -- but many of them seemed like garden-variety   
   X-Files, the kind Mulder had so enjoyed coaxing his partner to   
   investigate.  "CORONER SAYS HEIRESS DEATH 'UNEXPLAINED'," read one in   
   bold letters.  "THEY'RE HERE!" screamed another.   
      
   Mulder caught my survey and his eyes narrowed.  "It's a hobby," he said   
   shortly.  "Nothing more."  His face softened, the tenseness replaced by   
   a calm expression I was unaccustomed to seeing on the face of Fox   
   Mulder.  "Anyway, Liam thinks it's a riot."   
      
   "He's a skeptic?" I asked carefully, knowing full well what memories the   
   word dredged up for Mulder.  His mouth quirked.   
      
   "You have no idea.  You should hear him disprove Einstein."  He paused   
   and let a small sigh escape.  "He takes after his mother."   
      
   His mother.  Scully.  I waited for Mulder's inevitable flash of anger,   
   but it never came.  His face was as impassive and as difficult to read   
   as it had ever been.   
      
   "How much does he know?" I asked quietly, taking a seat in a chair   
   opposite a miniature statue on Mulder's desk that looked like a cross   
   between Gumby and a Reticulan.   
      
   "About Scully," he responded evenly, "or about the international global   
   conspiracy that plagued my life until he was two?"  Our eyes met, but in   
   Mulder's, to my surprise, I saw no trace of bitterness.   
      
   "About either," I said, trying to regain my equilibrium.  If the first   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)