From: cofax7@gmail.com   
      
   Ash   
   by cofax   
   Rating: all ages   
   Category: MSR (of sorts), AU/apocafic   
   Summary: She came back.   
   Notes: Many thanks to Nestra's Back to Your Roots challenge for the   
   inspiration.   
      
      
      
      
   Scully returned on a day when the sun rose in fire and set in smoke.   
      
   Mulder didn't see her approach. He was splitting wood behind the cabin   
   and the sound of the sledgehammer hid the soft thump of the mule's   
   hooves as it came up the overgrown lane. He didn't even know she was   
   there until she came around the corner of the cabin, towing the ugly   
   creature like a toddler with an oversized red wagon. "Mulder?"   
      
   He was lifting the sledge up for another swing when he saw her:   
   instead of swinging, he shifted his weight over his right foot and   
   lowered the sledge carefully to the ground. Two years ago, in the   
   spring, he'd gashed his leg with the hatchet and Scully had to stitch   
   him up. He'd come away with a lumpy scar and much more respect for the   
   tools of his new trade.   
      
   "Scully," he said, and stopped.   
      
   The fires had been burning for weeks: it was September, after all, and   
   the air always smelled of smoke this time of year. But Mulder   
   suspected the Big Chief fire had jumped the river--there was ash in   
   the air now, settling down like snowflakes over Scully's baseball cap   
   and cracked leather jacket.   
      
   He looked at her: sunburnt and weary-eyed, her hands empty but for the   
   faded neon of the mule's reins. There was a bundle tied to the back of   
   the saddle, a net bag full of empty Dasani bottles hanging from the   
   horn.   
      
   She wasn't looking at him; she stared around the yard, laboriously   
   cleared down to the bare earth, the scrub cut back to a fifty-yard   
   radius around the cabin. The squash was doing well, so long as Mulder   
   remembered to water it; Scully raised an eyebrow at the way the vines   
   trailed out of the raised bed and around the legs of the empty chicken   
   coop.   
      
   "Pumpkins?" she asked after a moment.   
      
   Mulder leaned the sledgehammer against the chopping block and took a   
   step closer to her. When she didn't move, he took another one.   
      
   "Spaghetti squash," he said. He was less than ten feet away and she   
   hadn't moved yet. Something drifted across her face, a hint of a   
   smile. The mule dug a foot in the ground and made a grumbling kind of   
   noise. Mulder raised an eyebrow at it, the skin on his face feeling   
   stiff, the facial muscles rusty. "New friend?"   
      
   She shook her head, moving her hand up the mule's reins to keep him in   
   place. Mulder noticed some grey in the ponytail tucked neatly through   
   the opening in the back of her cap. But he was hardly one to speak,   
   now; apparently he'd inherited his grandfather's hair, which meant a   
   swift transition from genteel grey temples to salt-and-pepper.   
   Somewhere along the line, between late nights in the basement of the   
   Hoover building and this penumbral existence, they'd gotten old.   
      
   "Couple of months," Scully said, and Mulder realized she meant the   
   mule. "Traded a breach-birth for him," she added, and let her lips   
   curl upward.   
      
   It hurt suddenly: a stabbing pain finally erupting, after nine months   
   of solitude. He raised a hand, opening his mouth, fumbling for   
   something to say, anything. "Scully--"   
      
   She dropped the reins and took both his hands, raising them to her   
   face before walking forward into his arms. Her cap fell off as he   
   kissed her, chapped lips against hers, tasting the dust and ash on her   
   skin. Her arms tightened around him and he couldn't ask if this time   
   she would stay.   
      
   The mule whuffled and wandered off, heading for the squash patch.   
      
   END   
      
   Feedback makes me do the wacky: please send it to cofax7@gmail.com.   
      
      
   --   
   Alchemy, mouldiwarps and coprophagy: cofax's fanfiction.   
   http://mouldiwarps.shriftweb.org/   
      
      
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