#fox mulder's guide to building a pool

[frangipanidownunder]

Fox Mulder’s Guide to Building a Pool: part 2

Read Part 1

A/N This is in answer to an anon prompt: Mulder builds a pool in the yard. It ran away from me so I’ll post it in two parts.

This is set post IWTB and assumes Season 10 didn’t happen. Because it shouldn’t have, am I right? Angsty to start with.

Winter

November rushed headlong into house and yard with blizzards and ice storms and squealing winds under the doors. The pool project remained as frozen as the ground but his brain was always planning. Winter was the end of things, yet, even as he scraped freezing condensation from the inside of the windows, he felt a kind of resurgence. Like his bare, unadorned spirit had rested enough to begin anew. It helped that he spoke to Scully often, random phone calls, text messages with links to articles she’d found on cryptid sightings or arcane deaths. Her emoji use was spot on. Aliens and foxes and ghosts and a solitary blue heart.

Christmas Eve and she sent him a message about a sighting of a ‘gargantuan, hirsute humanoid’ in a Florida forest and after reading it with a sense of comforting familiarity and relieved distance, he googled the meaning of the blue heart. Trust, harmony, peace and loyalty. Reading into emojis had to rank right up there on the Fox Mulder Chart of Weirdness but the idea of it, that she had carefully researched this colour and chosen it as the one to close off her messages to him, took root in his own heart and he felt a burst of that same restless energy that had plagued him for months.

He walked to the back door, chancing a look out. A smirry rain fell, leaving the bare branches oily in the low light. Further around, the pool, sunk below the hard, cold earth was a gaping dark mouth, the concrete bearing the marks of months of bad weather. In one corner, debris from the yard had collected, twigs and small stones, plastic wrapping floating in the grimy pool of melted snow that covered the base.

The sound of her voice as she picked up the call pulled a smile to his lips. She sounded pleased to hear from him. Excited almost.

“Hey.” It was an extended version of her usual greeting. A stretching of the word into something more. His heart skipped. “I know you don’t celebrate, but Happy Christmas, Mulder.”

It would have been typical for him to make some flippant remark about stockings or mistletoe but instead, he raked up the trash in the pool as he wished her season’s greetings and listened to her stories of wrapping gifts for the kids at work and the terribly formal staff dinner where the turkey was overcooked and the hasselbacks were rubbery and she left early so she could pull on her pyjamas and robe and watch It’s a Wonderful Life and then, after a breathy pause, added, that it wasn’t the same on her own.

“What’s that noise?” she asked.

He could have said it was the sound of his heart breaking free of his ribcage but he shook his head at himself and took a deep breath. “Would you believe me if I said I was cleaning the pool?” She laughed and he burst right through her green light. “Did you want to come over, Scully?”

She would very much love to, she said, and he held the phone to his chest while he scraped out the detritus against the side wall one-handed. The first flake of snow landed and he looked up to the silver heavens and whispered a thank-you.

Guilt crept in when he saw a parcel in her hand. “I didn’t get you anything, Scully.” He took her coat, the bag of groceries and the gift and she said she’d forgive him and he grinned at her as he rattled the box until she tutted and snatched it back from him.

“I’ll put it under the tree,” she said but the living room was empty of seasonal decor and she looked down at the gift and her feet and he wondered if he could pull out all the boxes in the attic to retrieve the decorations but she shook her head and laughed through her nose. “Don’t worry about it.” She could still read him like a book.

The intensity of the storm took them by surprise, heaping snow against the window sills and the door and Scully’s car until everything was silent-white and glistening. He poured brandy over ice and she sank into the couch next to him wrapped in a blanket and wearing a resigned smile.

“It’s fine,” she said. “I’m not due at mom’s until New Year. I was going to be working but that changed, so I have no plans.” She squeezed his knee and there was a glint in her eye that had him almost believing that she’d engineered the weather, just like that Holman guy from years before, but Dana Scully MD was no lovelorn meteorologist. She was the sender of blue heart emojis, the bringer of turkey steaks and farmer’s market vegetables, she was the best present ever, the three wise men and more.

She was also a little tipsy, he thought, eyeing her reddened cheeks and the way she shucked off her boots to tuck her ankles under her ass. He hadn’t seen her so loose for years. He’d spent too long ignoring her that by the time she left she was coiled like wire rope and just as cool to touch.

“If this storm keeps up maybe we can skate on your pool,” she said and giggled, pressing her fingers under her nose.

“You want to rush me to ER with multiple fractures on Christmas morning, Scully?” He swallowed the liquor.

Her face straightened and she cleared her throat. “It will be strange, won’t it, being here tomorrow? Waking up on Christmas morning together. It’s not something we’ve done for…”

“Three years,” he said and let that settle between them before adding, “but I’m looking forward to it.”

“Because it feels like we’ve moved past…all that?”

All that. All that rage and disappointment. All that bitterness and rancour. All that unsaid. Too much said. “Because it feels fated,” he said. And she pulled a face. “Preordained, inexorable.”

“Destined,” she said, leaning forward. “Portentous?”

He chuckled. “That has a negative connotation, like foreshadowed. It’s more ominous than auspicious.”

“I’m going to have to take back that Thesaurus and buy you something else, Mulder.” She nodded to the present on the table.

“I used to be poor,” he said and she quirked her eyebrow. “Then my partner bought me a thesaurus and now I’m impecunious.”

Her snort was half-laugh, half-surprise. “We’re not…”

“I know.”

The next morning dawned clear and Mulder was already awake. Had hardly slept. Like a child at Christmas, he thought wryly, impatient for his gift. Scully wasn’t for unwrapping though. At this stage, he was lucky she was here to decorate his living room. The brightest star. An angel.

She was dressed in his old anorak he’d used years before to clear the yard when they first moved in. It surrounded her like a canoe, pointed hood above her head and falling to almost her ankles. She was dragging something behind her, leaving a thick trail through the snow. Mulder opened the door and she huffed through, revealing her treasure – a small pine tree, dripping melting snow in grey piles on the floor.

He found a box of decorations behind a wall of old books, dusted them off and climbed back down the ladder. She’d made cocoa and found marshmallows from that Mary Poppins bag of hers. She added a dash of brandy with a hair of the dog wink and they made the tree pretty.

Flipping pancakes, he watched her as she sat in the chair near the window, wrapped now in one of his sweaters, pink-stockinged feet crossed. “If you squint through these blinds, Mulder, and use your imagination, of which you received a wild and overly large share, it looks like there’s a snow monster in the pool.”

“Are you still drunk, Scully?” He bent beside her, close enough to see the dark skin on the mole above her lip.

“I am not, look! There. See it? It’s got shifty eyes and a long nose.”

He rubbed at his own features and she jabbed his hand away.

“It’s there. I swear. Come on, I’ll show you.” She shot up and dragged him outside where the cold shrunk his skin around his bones. The sky threatened to unload again and she shivered despite her layers. He slunk an arm around her shoulders and she swayed into him. “There. Look. See?” Her finger pointed but he couldn’t have seen a thing beyond the fact that she was there, right next to him in the dead of winter, gesticulating to a lump of frozen water.

“At least when Frosty the Snowmonster dies, the pool will be quarter full,” he said, holding open the door for her. She dipped under his arm and it felt like old times.

Spring

Blossom hugged the ends of branches, pom-poms of pink dipping on the breeze. The sun was watery-warm and birdsong amplified the hope of the season. He’d tiled the pool himself, enjoying he exact nature of the work. The water delivery contractor was late but the from his vantage point on the front deck, Mulder couldn’t care less. Just for an hour or so, he could afford to do nothing. He told himself he deserved it. He let his eyes slip shut.

“Can’t a girl get a fanfare any more?” Scully was standing at the foot of the steps, casual in blue jeans and a fitted mint-green tee, her hair was pulled back in a scruffy ponytail that usually signified she was about to get messy.

He made trumpet noises and she bowed when she reached the deck. From her tote she took out a bag of pastries. He liked this version of Scully. He liked her very much. This soft, coquettish variety gave him hope like the spring and made him feel lighter.

“I’ll make coffee,” he said and ushered her through with a theatrical wave.

The truck arrived two hours late but that was two hours passed with Scully who spent her time asking questions about the pump and the pool fence requirements and whether he was going to plant a garden and how much she loved the mosaic tile design on the bottom and whether he’d considered a shade sail. She wrinkled her nose and her freckles danced. He had a vision of her sunburnt and cranky.

“I’ll order one before the heat hits,” he said, solemnly.

“Don’t do it just for me,” she said, over the din of the hose being unravelled from the truck.

As though he would do anything for anyone else. He’d spent much of the time since the Father Joe case doing things only for himself. He couldn’t see it then, but his focus had narrowed beyond the scope of voiceless victims, beyond the purview of his domestic responsibilities and from his refreshed perspective, he could see now how Scully had been cut out of his orbit.

“Did you imagine this when we first moved in here?”

“You designing and constructing a pool, sundeck and safety fence? Mulder, when we first moved here you couldn’t have built a house of cards. Remember when the screen door fell off the hinges and you tried to fix it but ended up breaking the drill. You were so angry, a wounded animal fighting off any help. I thought…” she covered her eyes with her hand to watch the water running over the bottom of the pool, steadily rising, filling the void. “I should have left sooner. Maybe you would have rediscovered this…this spirit of yours earlier.”

“You think your leaving prompted me to do all this?”

“Didn’t it?”

“It took more than three years of you not…”

She sucked in a breath and it dawned on him that she was still hurting too. Would it ever stop? Or was the pain destined to be a constant companion to remind them of their failings? Was building a pool really just a diversion from the agony of Scully being gone? Was her position at the hospital just her version of a building project? She was building herself a better life and he was building a pool.

“I’m sorry,” she said, reaching for his hand and squeezing gently. “For not trying harder.”

The drone of the truck’s motor stuttered to a halt and he looked down at her. She was gazing at the water as it slapped at the sides, settling. “You have nothing to apologise for, Scully. I closed off, shut down, kept you out and then got mad at you when you made a new life.”

“We were both pretty closed off, Mulder. Talking for hours but never saying enough. Remember how we used to spend days on the road and never have to say a thing. We could go for miles in silence. It didn’t bother us then, so when did that change?”

“I think the truth of it is that we were both just talking at each other, trying to get our voices heard, but we didn’t care to listen for fear of actually hearing.”

She raised those brows of hers and smiled. “That’s very deep and heartfelt.”

The truck reversed and he looked down at the water and the moving outline of the blue love heart he’d tiled at the bottom of the pool. “Just like my pool.”

The first time she came over for a swim, she presented him with a new beach towel. It had a fox face on it and she was so proud of herself. She let him splash her and she bombed him and he didn’t want her to leave but he watched her drive away and sat on the verandah for hours after the sun went down.

She phoned to say she was coming over again and that gave him an idea. After all, he owed her two gifts now. So he went online and shopped.

Taking the parcel, she dipped her head in gratitude. “This better not be a beach towel with Big Blue on it, Mulder, or I swear to God…” She ripped the package open scattering paper everywhere. She held it up. It was a one-piece swimsuit the colour of those Caribbean island beaches, azure, the colour of her eyes. She pulled a face, whispering a wow and telling him he shouldn’t have because people might talk.

“Let them talk,” he called out, as she slipped into the house to change. “What else could they say about us that we haven’t heard already, Mrs Spooky.”

When she returned, she was wearing the bathing suit and a knee-length cream sarong. She pulled a wide-brimmed hat out of her bag and went to put it on but he stopped her.

“Just one more thing,” he said, finding the smaller parcel. “This is a very late birthday or really early Christmas present. Take your pick.”

“Another gift? You already got me this suit and I’m wondering if I should really spend the afternoon with a man who buys lingerie for a single woman…”

“It’s lingerie?” His voice was high-pitched because he was genuinely curious and a little sorry about her use of the word single which seemed unnecessary but she grinned wickedly and he breathed out in relief. “Damn. If I’d have known that I would have bought that red lace number…”

“Don’t push your luck, Mulder.”

The small gift was wrapped in silver frosted paper decorated with a gold bow. She opened this one with much more care and when she lifted the lid and saw the silver chain with the blue topaz heart pendant, her eyes filled with tears. “It’s beautiful, Mulder. You shouldn’t have. It’s too much.”

“Trust, harmony, peace and loyalty. Blue hearts. That’s what they mean.”

“Uh-huh.” She turned and he clipped the necklace under the hair. “You’re reading a lot into an emoji.” Was he? Maybe. Did he care? Not much. She turned to face him, stood on tiptoe and kissed him, softly, gently, with love. “But you’ve always looked beyond the obvious. And that’s why I love you.”

Love. Not loved. He took her hand and walked her to the edge. “Ready?”

She didn’t answer but tugged at his wrist and pulled him forward so they both plunged into the deep blue, going down and down.

[spookyscullies]

how to begin an ending

rating: NC-17 (for language)

plot: Mulder is trapped in a downward spiral of grief after Scully is shot in her apartment instead of Melissa.

tagging: @today-in-fic

Stacks upon stacks of files. Everywhere. Covering the floors, lining the walls, upon every surface in apartment number 42. Files interspersed between piles of dirty dishes. Some hadn't been touched in ages, with dust that created a film on them. Others had been left open, papers spilling out. The rooms were left dark, always. Never a light turned on. It was a hopeless place, and just like it was devoid of any light, it was also devoid of any real life.

The lock clicked and the door pushed open. He stumbled in the doorway and slammed the door behind him. He slumped against it, falling slowly to the floor as his back pressed against the door for some stability. He buried his face in his hands, his head pounding in excruciating pain. It always felt like this. Even without the hangovers. Sure, he went out every few days to get hammered, but the headaches were a preexisting condition. It was a wonder his still had his job, although he was damn near close to getting fired. Skinner wouldn't fire him, though. Mulder knew he just felt sorry for him. One sorry son of a bitch. That's what Scully's brother had said to him that day.

Characteristically, that day had been dark. He had found it hilariously fitting. Of course it was stormy. Of course it was raining. Of course the sky was overcast and angry. It was only suitable, and it only made sense. It was a grim day, overflowing with sorrow and despair. A lot of hatred for himself and a lot of hatred towards him from others. How could he be forgiven? He was to blame. It was his fault she was dead.

Mulder eased himself up from his position and walked over files to reach his couch. His coffee table was littered with the current leads he was following. All of them were dead ends, and he knew it. There was nothing that could be traced to anyone. They covered it up too well. They took what was most precious to him. They did it again. His eyes wearily glossed over the M.E. report. Single gunshot to the temporal fossa. Cause of death: fatal injury to the brain and blood loss. Absolutely nothing left at the scene. No finger prints. The bullet had proved to be untraceable. No sign of a break in. The perfect set up for a case to go cold. He squeezed his eye shut tightly.

It had been the first place he'd gone to after returning from New Mexico, Scully's apartment. He had to get back home eventually, but he'd wanted to see her first. Upon reaching her apartment complex, however, he was greeted from a few blocks away by flashing lights and dozens of personnel flocking outside the building. He had immediately pulled over on the side of the road. He ran the rest of the way, pushing past law enforcement officials and residents of the building, flashing his badge along the way.

He followed the corridors, ignoring the looks of pity or confusion that came from the local police . The door was wide open, and there she was. Skinner stood above her, his eyes filled with grief. Her auburn hair was splayed against the floor, stained a darker shade of red by the pool of blood that leaked from the wound. Her eyes. The sight of her eyes wide open, staring into nothingness was an image he could never get rid of, no matter how much he tried to drink it away.

Mulder sunk to his knees, his breath stolen from him. His fingers gently brushed her cheek. She was still warm. Her lips were slightly pulled apart, as if in shock.

"Mulder, you can't." Skinner said quietly.

He didn't listen. He tenderly closed her eyes.

"Agent Mulder."

Mulder felt tears slip from his eyes, his hands squeezing her shoulders and drawing her close to his body, holding her lifeless form in his arms. He shook violently as his sobs overtook him. Her blood-soaked hair was pressed against his face, her head fitting perfectly in the crook of his neck.

"Scully." He whispered softly, rocking back on his knees. Her tiny frame remained motionless in response to his whispers. His hot tears trailed down his face, landing on the top of her head.

It might as well have been if he held the gun to her himself. He killed her. He did this. He did this to her. His life's mission destroyed her, an innocent. It wasn't even her quest and here she was because of him. He knew why she stayed, but God, he should've told her to leave long ago. He should have told her to stay the hell away from him. She would have fought him, told him that she wouldn't leave her side, but he should've done something. If he had done anything, she wouldn't be lying here dead.

Mulder slammed his fist down on his coffee table, his sorrow pulsing through him, coursing alongside his rage. His fingers gripped the underside of the table, and through a fit of fury, he overturned it and threw it hard to the floor. The wood splintered and groaned and he kicked at it in indignation.

He sunk onto the couch, clutching a pillow against his chest. His heart clenched excruciatingly, remembering all the hurt Scully had suffered for him. How she had bravely undergone it, never asking for pity, never looking for sympathy. Why did she do it? It baffled him to this very day, why she so stoically remained by his side, never backing down. Even after her abduction, even after her coma, she came back and aided him.

It wasn't fucking fair. Why her and not him?

Everyone was clad in black. A long procession of people trailed around the coffin, draped in the colors of the country Scully had served so faithfully. Mulder stood staring for what seemed like hours. It hadn't been an open-casket ceremony, and he thanked whatever god that was out there for that. He wouldn't have been able to handle it. Hell, he wasn't handling it now. One by one, each member of the congregation placed a rose upon the coffin. Finally, he had reached the front of the line. His hand shaking, he lowered the flower onto the small pile that had already been laid there. He had attached something to his rose. It was something he had been saving until her birthday. It was an Apollo 11 keychain, just something that he thought she would appreciate.

He watched as the coffin descended into the cold ground, turning away when members of her family began to pour dirt into the darkness she had been entombed in.

"Fox?" Melissa tapped him on the shoulder.

"I can't do it. I'm sorry." Mulder muttered, forcing his voice not to shatter.

Melissa was silent for a few seconds, as others around began to do their share in the work.

"You know Fox, I think she loved you." She said solemnly.

He glanced up at her, his eyes red, tears threatening to break free.

Mulder leaned against the arms of the couch, fighting to stay awake. For what, he sincerely didn't know.

_______________________________________________________________________

His eyes jerked open. Sunlight was peaking through his windows. His head felt heavy, and his brow was beaded in sweat. He looked around, inspecting his surroundings. There were no files on the ground, none on the table. In fact, the table was still in one complete piece.

He heard rustling in the kitchen. Alarmed, he stood to his feet. He swayed back and forth a little, shaky on his feet. He staggered toward the kitchen.

He saw a flash of red hair.

"Scully?" He mumbled, his eyebrows knitting together in confusion.

She turned to face him, her eyes filled with concern.

"Mulder, what are you doing up and walking around? Go lie back down, you still have a fever." She pressed the back of her hand to his forehead and guided him back to the living room.

"Scully, you're... you're alive?" Mulder stopped in his tracks, his hands gripping her arms.

"Of course I'm alive." Scully laughed, but her smile faded as Mulder leaned in toward her, their faces nearly touching. "What are you doing?"

"I thought I lost you." He whispered. He pulled her into a tight embrace, resting his chin on the top of her head.

"Lost me?" She questioned softly against his chest. She pushed back to look into his eyes. "Mulder, I think you're a little delirious."

"I think I am too, Scully. I can't believe how deliriously stupid I've been all these years." He held her face in his hands, his thumb tenderly stroking her cheek.

"What do you mean?" Her deep blue eyes searched his, looking for something to tell her what this all meant.

"I had a fever dream. You were dead, Scully, you died. You were shot... instead of your sister. I saw what my life turned out to be. How miserable, how lost I was without you. It was a nightmare. You were gone and the pain was stifling, like all the air in the world had been taken away. I couldn't breathe. Every day was a day filled with enduring agony. And out of all of the horror I've felt in my life, all of the pain I've experienced, I don't think a single thing can compare to that feeling of having you gone. It was unbearable. What I mean is that I don't know how I ever went through life without you. I don't think I can go through life without you."

Scully stared at him in stunned silence, her fingers interlacing with his.

"You know you don't have to. And you know that was just a dream, Mulder. I'm here." Scully kissed his forehead delicately, remaining there for a few moments.

"Scully."

She met his eyes; they shone at her with such intensity. He tilted his head forward. There was an instant that seemed to last for thousands of years. The second before their lips met, their noses touching, so close they could feel the breath from the other bouncing off their skin. His lips captured hers, tender but with zeal, like a desire fulfilled after years of longing. They moved with each other, feeding off of the other's passion, tongues wandering. Hands roaming.

They broke apart at last, eyes shining with joy.

"You're it, Scully. You're all I need." Mulder tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear.

She nestled her head against his chest, wrapping her arms around him. She deliberated for a moment

“I love you too, Mulder.”

[frangipanidownunder]

Fox Mulder’s Guide to Building a Pool: part 1

A/N This is in answer to an anon prompt: Mulder builds a pool in the yard. It ran away from me so I’ll post it in two parts. 

This is set post IWTB and assumes Season 10 didn’t happen. Because it shouldn’t have, am I right? Angsty to start with.

Summer He started one night, when the moon hung low and the stars were pegged out haphazardly in the midnight sky. His mind and his heart hadn’t stopped racing for hours, as though he were filled with cosmic energy. Outside, in flannel and old jeans, scuffed and muddied boots, he picked up the old shovel propped against the side of the rickety shed and dug until his fingers froze around the splintered handle, until the blisters on his palms burst, until the disquiet in his gut diffused. 

It was supposed to be a vegetable patch but by the time the dawn broke through, he realised it was in the wrong spot – shaded by the house and in the area of the land where the ground was rubbly and dry. The fertile patch was on the other side of the property, where the trees shed their leaves and mulched the earth naturally.

If there was anything Mulder was known for, it was his tenacity. Scully once told him he’d use a backhoe to dig for the truth. Well now he’d dug a ditch with a shovel and he was going to make something of it. As he massaged the pain from each knuckle he surveyed his night’s work. The sun’s rays hit the turned earth like laser beams, and he had an epiphany. A swimming pool. He was building a swimming pool. A white whale, the truth or a swimming pool. What did it matter as long as it was something he believed in? And just for a moment, in that warm spotlight, the dried out flower of hope bloomed in his chest.

The summer was long, dry and hot. So hot the tarmac melted on the roads, his tomato plants frizzled to brown and he lost his appetite for everything bar an ice-cold beer on the verandah after a day of digging. His routine was solid, despite the meteorological obstructions. He rose early, napped during the day, and worked through mosquito-filled twilights. In his downtime, he googled construction methods, materials, liners, water collection, filtration. On most days, he imagined himself ploughing through the water on warm evenings and chilly mornings, muscles burning, lungs protesting, body thrumming. On good days, he imagined Scully sitting under a shade umbrella sipping lemonade and reluctantly agreeing to take a dip with him, her lithe body pressed against his as they waltzed through the water together. On really good days, he imagined William paddling about in water wings, and squealing as daddy jumped in too close and made a big splish-splosh.

Scully arrived one afternoon, late. She hadn’t visited in a while, he hadn’t made his customary Sunday night call for…he couldn’t actually remember and when he saw the thunderous look on her face, he realised he hadn’t charged his phone for days.

“Didn’t you check your messages, Mulder? I lost count of how many I left. Your machine probably reached its limit.”

Rubbing the back of his neck with a towel, he looked over at the flashing red light and a pang of guilt twinged under his ribs. “I’ve been busy, Scully.” He thought she’d be pleased. That’s what she wanted, wasn’t it? To get him out of his office and back into the real world. Whatever that meant. They’d both seen the real world with its edges peeled back and its slimy, slithering insides exposed. He wasn’t sure he wanted to prod that beast anymore. She’d already turned away from that darkness and found her shining light under the fluorescent gaze of God in Our Lady of Sorrows. 

She looked him up and down with doctor’s eyes. The cold blue gaze causing a shiver to creep down his spine and he had to look away. Her ability to see right through him, past his calloused skin and into the sinewy mass of his body always unsteadied him. She was appraising his physical health and his mental wellbeing. He straightened his shoulders, brushed a clump of mud from his sleeve and offered her a drink.

“Chilled water will be fine,” she said. “I’m driving.”

Well, he knew that. How else would she get here? But more importantly, where else did she have to be. She was dressed sharply, not for the hospital. Something about the lower neckline and the softer palette made his brain wander places he didn’t want to go.

“I’m sorry if I’ve put you out,” he said, emptying ice into the glass and wondering where he put that lemon.

“It’s no bother, Mulder, to come here. You should know that. It’s just that I get…”

“You don’t need to worry about me,” he said, and not so long ago he would have laid a hand over her shoulder or collected her hand in his. Instead, he looked at her and smiled, trying to soften that cool scrutiny. “I’m doing okay.” He didn’t add despite you leaving.

She looked down at her shoes – shiny beige courts with a high heel. He could see her reflection in them. The mouth closing in relief, or maybe irritation. She chuffed. “If you’re going to tell me you’re a big boy, Mulder…”

Palms up in surrender, he shook his head, cracked open a soda. 

“Mulder, you shouldn’t drink…”

“I know about the dangers of too much sugar, Scully, I’m a big boy.”

He showed her his work. She trod carefully over the dry earth, held her cross as she surveyed. He had a sudden longing to see her in a white vest dampened with sweat, cuffed denim shorts, heavy work boots, digging alongside him. 

“And this is going to be a pool?”

“Can’t you see it? Long lazy evenings dipping our toes, sipping gin cocktails as we swat away bugs, brisk morning swims to shuck off those pains au chocolat?” He saw her then, zinc strips over her cheeks and shoulders, straw hat pulled over a lazy ponytail, sunglasses perched on her nose, lowering herself in.

“Mulder, I don’t…”

His chest burnt, like his lungs had crumpled in the storm of a wildfire. He took the handle of the shovel and chopped at the edge of the hole.

“It’s a nice spot,” she said, after a moment gazing out to the horizon. “It’ll be quite something.”

“When I finish,” he added.

Fall

Amber leaves danced on a shimmying breeze, some floating to the ground in theatrical zig-zags. On the other side of the house, the digging was complete. He’d hired an excavator in the end, his knees and back creaking for weeks to remind him of his advancing years and his inability to do everything alone. He’d hired a contractor to remove the dirt and ordered the steel bars for the frame. Scully came by more of

en, intrigued, as she put it, to see how the pool project was coming along. She called to say she was coming Sunday afternoon and would he mind if she stayed a bit longer? He spent all Friday in a mania of dusting and filing and wiping down surfaces. Nesting, they called it. He patted his belly and shook his head. He was becoming quite ridiculous; DIYing and getting giddy when his ex promised to drop by. 

In the cupboard next to the stove, he found a stack of old cookbooks, dogeared pages and horrific  images of antiquated dishes like jellied salads and ham and banana hollandaise that viewed more like one of Scully’s X-Files autopsies. Amongst them was a treasured find. Betty Crocker’s New Picture Cookbook – a book his mother had used religiously. Grease marks and flour crusted over the pages of cakes. He zipped out to the supermarket and picked up the ingredients he would need and set about baking. 

His cake was a simple vanilla sponge but he enjoyed the science of the task, the weights and measures, the timing, the temperature control – the very precision of it all. As he watched it rise, he recalled childhood birthdays, where his mother toiled away for hours icing, sculpting edges, piping, creating dreams. There were castles and race-cars and trains and poodles. Parties were ended with the ceremonial cutting and handing out of slices to guests. He had always felt special those days. But after Samantha’s abduction, she stopped the tradition. She bought shop-baked cakes, refused him parties, spent his birthday barely tolerating the day and Samantha’s sipping brandy. 

By the time Scully arrived, tea was steeping, the table was set with tea-cups and saucers, side plates, and the iced cake stood on an elegant glass platter that held it above the timber surface.

“What’s all this?” she asked, hanging her bag off the back of the chair. “Is the Queen coming over?”

He poured her tea. The colour of it in the white porcelain cup reminded him of her hair against the pillow slip of their bed. “I hope not. She only likes Black Forest Gateau and you didn’t leave any jars of maraschinos.” She laughed softly, just like she would laugh with him during cosy evenings on the couch, rolling her fingers over his bicep, planting sweet kisses along his jawline. Back when it was just them against the world. Not them against the world and then each other.

“The colour is like those Caribbean island beaches,” she said, dotting her finger into the icing on her slice. “Azure.”

Her tongue licked at the sweet blue paste and he wanted to say he chose it because it was like her eyes, that that was what he missed so hard, so deeply, he wanted to say that he was sorry. He couldn’t tear his gaze from her, this simple act of eating that had him enthralled. God, he loved having her over from him, setting her plate just right, pouring the exact amount of granola, spooning whatever yoghurt she was into over the cereal, slicing banana while reading the newspaper. He couldn’t say anything though. All the best words lumped in his throat, as though they were overbeaten and curdled.

Instead, he said, “When Samantha was six, mom made her this cake with blue jello on the top that was supposed to be a swimming pool. I don’t know, I just had this mad rush of nostalgia, finding all those cookbooks and remembering how good it used to be.” He looked up and she was staring at him. “Back then, back home.” 

“How’s it going?” she replied, changing the mood in three words. “The pool?”

It was windy again and leaves tumbled across the yard, collected in the gutter, in the drains, against the fences. 

“It’s protected from the wind on that side, so I won’t have to keep cleaning out the foliage. The pump should be in soon. Then I’ll organise for the concrete pour, before the weather really turns.”

Her hands were stuffed in her jacket pockets, and she’d hunched her shoulders against the chill. He should phone the concreters tomorrow. Get it done. The tip of her nose turned pink. 

“Let’s go back inside,” he said. 

“Why concrete, Mulder? Why not fibre glass or a vinyl liner?”

He shrugged as she walked past him and his eyes settled on her hair, falling down her back, unkempt from the wind. She smoothed it down, rubbed her hands together, sat back at her seat and took another slice of cake. 

“With a more solid foundation,” he said, “it should last longer.”