Disclaimer: All characters seen or mentioned on the X-FILES belong to Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen Production, FOX networks, DD, GA, etc...I have no permission to use them (although give me a few minutes with Mulder or Skinner and...) The characters of Lydia Chamberlain, Travis Danton and Preston Powell Jr. belong to me, and if I had as much money as Preston does, somebody might want to sue me for this...but since I don't...IN MEMORIUM by Alfred, Lord Tennyson is also used without permission. If he can come back from the grave after me, then maybe I'll get my own X-File number and get to meet Mulder after all...HEAD OVER FEET by Alanis Morissette is also used without permission but with great admiration. (Please don't hurt me, angry girl!). GONNA GET A LIFE is sung by Mark Chesnutt, but I don't know who wrote it, and I hope whoever it is will forgive me for using it without permission as well. This is part 2 of a 12 part series, a sequel to TWELVE RITES OF PASSAGE. If you haven't read that story, you may want to read it first. TWELVE DEGREES OF SEPARATION No. 2: October Gonna Get a Life by AHaynes33 The little e-mail icon in the upper left corner of his computer screen blinked. Fox Mulder wheeled his mouse pointer in that direction and clicked. A smile darted across his mouth when he saw her name. The note was brief but full of information. His smile faded rapidly as his eyes scanned the screen. M, Getting a life like you suggested. Travis Danton, 38, brown and blue, 5'10", teaches English Lit. at Georgetown U. Bkgrnd check clean. Met him at a G'Town/U of Md basketball game. Dinner and a movie, tonite. Don't wait up. Your move? S Mulder stared at the screen, absently squeezing his lower lip between his thumb and middle finger. Your move? What was that supposed to mean? Your move, Mulder, sweep into D.C.and stop me from falling into bed with the good professor? Your move, Mulder, say those three little words that'll get YOU a one-way ticket into my bed? He shook his head. No, that was just wishful thinking. No game-player, his Scully. She meant it was his move to get a life of his own. He punched the mouse button, scrolling down for the next message. Samantha's i.d.--SAM-I-AM. Tension in his shoulders eased a bit. He double-clicked to bring up her message. All caps--he kept telling her that all caps was the computer equivalent of shouting, but Samantha had returned to his life with a stubborn streak wider than his own. FOX, UP FOR PIZZA AT BOTTICELLI'S? A PSYCH PROF FRIEND OF MINE IS DYING TO MEET YOU. LYDIA CHAMBERLAIN. SINGLE, NOT MUCH PERSONALITY, BUT A REAL DISH, OR SO THE GUYS SAY. PRESTON AND I WILL BE GLAD TO CHAPERONE. DANA'S GOT A DATE, DID SHE TELL YOU? SAM-I-AM ;-) So, Samantha was taking pity on him. Dana Scully's got a date, so we have to take poor Fox's mind off the matter by setting him up with a dishy psych professor. He ought to go. Scully would go if the situation was reversed. Hell, she WAS going--with the English Lit. professor. Why shouldn't he go? Why not meet the dishy Professor Chamberlain, see if he still had what it took to get in her pants? Sauce for the goose.... One more piece of e-mail. Mulder's eyebrows rose as he read the tag. DR-LUV. What did Frohike want? Mulder, Bad vibes happening. The lovely Dr. Scully has a date. I checked the guy out. Total sleaze-- Coming from Frohike, that said something, Mulder thought. --drives a Volvo, votes Republican, subscribes to the Wall Street Journal, GQ, and the Disney Channel and collects British memorabilia. Date from hell. We have to save her. I need your help. DR-LUV Mulder didn't want to know how Frohike knew all that. He clicked on the e-mail export system, pulled up Frohike's e-mail address and jotted a note. DR-LUV, Some folks' nightmares are other folks' dreams come true. Scully deserves a life. It may not be the one you or I would choose for her, but.... Don't peep through her window if she invites him in. She'll shoot you dead. Mulder He clicked on the send button and opened the next reply window to jot a quick note to Scully. Then he shut off the computer and picked up the phone to tell his sister he'd meet her and the dishy professor at Botticelli's. * * * * * Dana Scully applied a quick coat of lipstick as she booted her computer. She'd showered and dressed as soon as she got home after her last class at the academy. Now was the worst part-- waiting for the dreaded knock on the door. She'd been out of the dating game for too long. Her stomach was in knots. The e-mail icon flashed in the corner of her monitor screen. She checked her mail. One message, from DR-LUV. She suspected Mulder had given Frohike her e-mail address. Blackmail or bribery of some sort must've been involved for her partner to sell her out to the little troll. But at least Frohike posted notes sparingly and was usually on his best behavior. Beloved, Statistically speaking, English Literature professors are more likely to be homicidal maniacs than postal workers--and not nearly as interesting. Have a lovely evening. Don't do anything I wouldn't do--or most of what I would. DR-LUV Scully deleted the message from her database, smiling in spite of herself. She was about to shut down the computer when the e-mail icon blinked again, alerting her to a new piece of e-mail. She clicked on the icon and went immediately tense when she saw Mulder's i.d. She never should've posted her note to him. What had she been expecting him to do--tell her not to go? She opened the note. S, Ask the good professor what this comes from..."by faith, and faith alone, embrace, Believing where we cannot prove." Words to live by, I'd say. I'm taking your challenge. My own prof-- Lydia Chamberlain. No personality, just a dish. Write back if you want to compare notes. M Damn! She jabbed at the mouse button, closing down the e-mail program. She shut off the computer and leaned back in the chair, temper rising like flames to heat her cheeks. Lydia Chamberlain. No personality, just a dish. Sounds suspiciously like a Bambi Berenbaum moment to me. Damn it, Mulder! Okay, fine. Isn't that what she'd wanted him to do, go out and have a good time? Finally have that life they'd been talking about all these years? Isn't that why she had agreed to her own date with Travis? The knock on the door kept her from having to answer her own question. * * * * * Samantha had been half-right, Mulder thought. Lydia Chamberlain WAS a dish. But she also had a good personality. Smart, funny, relaxed. She was his age, maybe a year or two older, but good bone structure and lucky genes gave her ageless beauty. Her eyes were brown, her shiny hair the pale brown color of pecan shells. She wore her hair straight and shoulder-length, framing fine cheekbones and delicate features. Her skin was creamy olive, hinting at Mediterranean ancestry. In the little black book he kept in his eidetic memory, he gave her nine sunflower seeds out of a possible ten for looks alone. So far she had also avoided the major pitfall of most psychologists--she hadn't made a single attempt to analyze him. Nevertheless, she kept steering the conversation toward him. They remained in the corner booth, talking softly, while Samantha and Preston left to join the noisy dance crowd at the far end of the pizza place. A jukebox in the corner was playing a country song, something loud and rollicking. "I'm gonna get a life. That's what I'm gonna do, And startin' now, You can find one, too Gonna get a life Like I shoulda done A long time ago Before you wrecked this one." Mulder sighed and picked at a mushroom that had fallen from his pizza to his plate. "You're one of the few people I've ever met that have actually heard of the X-Files project, Lydia." "The psychology department won a private grant a few years ago--cutting edge of scholarly paranormal psychology research--a ten year study into the benefits of regression hypnotherapy in cases of alleged Satanic Ritual Abuse and repressed Alien Abduction memories." A bell went off in Mulder's head. "You're the one--" "Samantha was one of the first patients I met." "You helped her remember she had been abducted." Those memories had eventually led her to a dangerous showdown in Baltimore, where she'd finally remembered that she was Samantha Mulder. Lydia smiled. "She was more than ready, Fox. I was just in the right place at the right time." He felt a little niggle of discomfort at her use of his first name. He thought about Scully, who'd tried calling him that once--and only once. He'd made sure of that, and Scully had done what she'd always done, respected his wishes. What if he'd let her call him Fox? What if he called her Dana more often? He tried to remember the way his name had sounded on her tongue. Hesitant, like a little girl trying to scrape up the courage to ask for her heart's desire. Danger warnings had gone off in his head. So he'd laughed. Shook his head. Fed her some line about how he didn't even let his parents call him Fox. She'd hesitated then, for a split second, trembling on the edge of retreat. Then her pointed little chin had jutted forward, and she'd bowed only slightly to his wishes. "Mulder, I wouldn't put myself on the line for anybody but you." Oh, Scully, back then you had no idea just what kind of trouble I could get you into, did you? * * * * * Travis took Scully to the movie first, then dinner afterwards. Her stomach was rumbling wildly when they finally got a table at a trendy Arlington pub. She grabbed the basket of crackers and ripped open a little packet of melba toast, uncaring about what her date might think of her. Mulder wouldn't have cared. In fact, he might have tussled with her for the toast. To his credit, Travis didn't seem to notice her frantic struggles with the cellophane wrapper. He was too busy looking around the crowded pub. "Did you know that Hemingway once ate at this pub?" She lifted one brow. "Earnest?" He frowned, not getting the joke. She stifled a disappointed sigh, trying to ignore the sarcastic little whisper in her head. Loo-hoo-ser. Mulder's voice. Mulder was her conscience now? The thought almost made her laugh. "Legend has it he was on a fishing trip in Virginia and stopped in. This bar was pretty new then. He drank whiskey sours and penned the first four paragraphs of a new novel on a cocktail napkin. He got plastered, tossed the napkin in the trash by mistake, and got back to his lodge to find that he'd picked up a napkin with a woman's phone number on it instead. History isn't clear on whether he rang her up or not." Travis waved for the waiter. "I'll have a gin and tonic. Dana?" "Iced tea," she said, and suddenly remembered Mulder's e-mail. She'd forgotten to jot down the quote, but it had been pretty simple. Her memory wasn't eidetic like her former partner's, but it was pretty good. She leaned toward Travis. "A friend of mine wanted me to ask you about a quote he heard somewhere." Travis' eyebrows lifted slightly. "Shoot." Never say that to an armed woman, Scully thought, and had to stifle a chuckle. She searched her memory for the quote. "By faith, and faith alone, embrace, Believing where we cannot prove." Travis hesitated only a second. "'In Memorium.' By Alfred Lord Tennyson. From the prologue." "Oh." She felt curiously deflated. From Mulder she would have expected Edgar Allan Poe at the very least. Then she remembered. "In Memorium." Her mother had told her about the days right before she'd turned up in the hospital on life support. How her mother had already ordered the grave stone, despite Mulder's insistance that she was giving up too soon. Her mother had looked so guilty when she admitted that. Scully didn't know what to say to comfort her. Mulder had been angry. Frustrated. Too soon, he'd insisted, when her mother asked him if he'd speak at the memorial service. But she'd pressed him. And he'd agreed, finally. He'd told her mother he wanted to read from a poem. "In Memorium," by Tennyson. Then Scully had mysteriously appeared in the Northeast Georgetown Medical Center, and the memorial service was postponed, then called off. Scully realized she had to see the poem. Surely she could find it in one of her old college textbooks. If not, she'd head for the library. The investigator in her gnawed at her insides, insistent and impatient. She'd know what else lay in that poem before sunset tomorrow. * * * * * Mulder realized with a guilty jolt that Lydia was staring at him expectantly. Waiting for a reply to some question he hadn't even heard. He rubbed his finger down a red-stripe on the checkered tablecloth. "I'm sorry?" Lydia's eyes narrowed a bit. Suddenly he revised his earlier impression a bit. She WAS psychoanalyzing him now. "I asked if you missed the work." "Yeah, sometimes. Not the hassle, though." He didn't miss sniffing the air for cigarette smoke every time he walked in a room. He could certainly wait another lifetime or two to see Mr. X skulking in a shadowy parking garage. But he missed walking into that cold, dark basement and seeing Scully sitting at her impossibly neat desk, her wire-rimmed glasses making her look like a studious school girl as she looked through file after file of the Bureau's version of Ripley's Believe It or Not. He missed the heady challenge of coming up with one plausible excuse after another to touch her without getting decked. He missed her arguments and her soft chuckles, the way she sized up his choice of ties with one tiny little twitch of her eyebrow. This time, he heard Lydia's next comment. "Did you know I've actually met your former partner, Agent Scully?" He looked up, instantly interested. "Well, you couldn't really call it a meeting. I attended a lecture she gave last month at Georgetown University. Unexplained pathological phenomena. She profiled eight cases that I suspect were pulled straight from the X-Files. Very interesting talk." Mulder smiled. Eight, huh? Which ones, he wondered? Definitely Tooms. Maybe the retrovirus in that dead FBI agent from Syracuse--the one that had almost killed Mulder himself. Or how about the strange little corpse in the exhumed grave in Oregon--their first X-File investigation together? "She seemed rather--well--passionless about the whole thing, though. Not quite what I expected." Lydia leaned back, her brown eyes narrowing slightly. "I have a confession. When I was doing some preliminary research into the X-Files, I talked to some of your fellow agents at FBI Headquarters. There was an informal office pool about you and Agent Scully. About whether you two ever--" He shook his head. "We didn't." Her reply was smug. "I knew that as soon as I saw Agent Scully." He didn't frown, although it took freezing every muscle in his face to keep from it. When he didn't reply, she continued. "Classic repressed sexuality. Asexual dress, chilly demeanor, decided detachment." All that from one lecture? Dr. Chamberlain thought too highly of her psychoanalytic abilities, Mulder thought. He didn't like her so much after all. "She's Catholic, no doubt, and she was probably a daddy's girl. Maybe there was even something incestuous--" Mulder had overturned his mug of beer before he even realized he'd moved. He was on his feet, breathing hard. Lydia looked up, eyes wide. "What's the matter?" God, Scully would hate him if he stood here and reamed his date because she'd said something bad about her. She'd be so embarrassed and absolutely furious with him. Of course, if she'd just heard what Lydia said-- He took several deep breaths, fighting for control. "Lydia, there's one thing that I learned a long time ago when I was training in psychology that really stuck with me. Something that apparently passed you by." Her eyes narrowed to slits, and he realized he'd just pushed her hot button--questioning her skill as a psychologist. Good, he thought. This is a lesson worth learning. "Arrogance is worse than ignorance, Dr. Chamberlain. It cuts deeper and it leaves a bigger scar. And I can assure you, based on years of experience rather than a single afternoon's lecture, that Dana Scully is a woman of great passion, great strength, and great mental health. She has seen and experienced things that no human being should ever have to know, and she's emerged stronger for it." Lydia's eyes were cold. "Maybe there are things you don't know about your former partner." "I'm sure there are." He bent forward, invading her personal face the way he often did with suspects he was interrogating. "And frankly, right now I'd rather be learning some of them than sitting here with you." He tossed a twenty on the beer-puddled table and walked away. He stopped long enough to let Samantha and her fiance know that he was leaving, then headed into the cool Boston night. * * * * * Scully put a quick end to the evening. She'd chafed through dinner, impatient to get back home to her closet and dig out her old English Lit textbooks. Surely with all the Tennyson she'd been forced to endure during the early years at Berkeley and U. of Maryland, she'd find the poem somewhere. Travis tried to kiss her goodnight. She forestalled him with a not-very-subtle hand against his chest. "I'll call you," he said. She'd deal with that bit of unpleasantness when the time came. She locked the door behind her and went straight to the closet. Two old British Lit books looked promising--NORTON'S ANTHOLOGY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE and ENGLISH WRITERS. She tried the latter, which was smaller, thumbing through the index quickly. Tennyson--and a daunting string of page numbers. She carried the book to her desk and started flipping through the listed pages, pausing only long enough to boot up her computer and check her e-mail. Nothing. The empty screen mocked her, and she sighed. She found the poem. "Strong son of God, immortal Love Whom we, that have not seen thy face, By faith, and faith alone, embrace, Believing where we cannot prove." Other phrases jumped out of her. "Our little systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be; they are but broken lights of thee..." She thought of Melissa, how their "little system" of government had failed her. Scully's heart clenched. "...For knowledge is of things we see..." They'd seen so much. So much she couldn't explain--yet. Then, a stanza that seemed to stand out, stark and rife with meaning she didn't want to think about. "Forgive my grief for one removed, Thy creature, whom I found so fair, I trust he lives in thee, and there I find him worthier to be loved." She closed the book and stared at the computer screen, remembering endless days and nights when she'd feared Mulder had died in a burning boxcar in New Mexico.... Her marquee-style screen saver had kicked in, displaying a scrolling quote from a song she'd heard and liked. Alanis Morissette, HEAD OVER FEET. "You are the bearer of unconditional things You held your breath and the door for me Thanks for your patience You're the best listener that I've ever met You're my best friend, best friend with benefits What took me so long?" She grabbed the mouse and clicked on the e-mail program. Grabbing Mulder's address from her on-line address book, she composed a message. M, Back from getting a life. Not all it's cracked up to be. BTW, re the quote: It's from "In Memorium" by Tennyson. Made me cry. So, was your dish tasty?" S She went to the bedroom to wash off her makeup and change into pajamas. * * * * * Mulder got back to his apartment just before midnight, after walking a couple of hours through the streets of Boston. He checked his e-mail, not really expecting anything but unable to deny his curiosity. He couldn't suppress a smile when he saw Scully's name and noted the time of the e-mail post. 11:21 p.m. So she'd gotten home at a reasonable time. Of course, he thought as his finger hovered over the mouse button, prepared to pull up the text of her message, it could also mean she and the professor were settled in for the night. His smile faded, turned upside down. He took a deep breath and clicked. Scanned her note quickly, bracing for the worst. Relaxed. Read it one more time. Grinned broadly. Reached for the keyboard. * * * * * Scully was turning off the lights when she realized she'd forgotten to turn off the computer. She crossed the room and was about to shut down the power when she saw the e-mail icon. DR-LUV already? He'd probably followed her with his night goggles or something. She sat down and opened the e-mail. Her heart quickened. Mulder. She quickly pulled up his note. S, Yeah, getting a life sucks. And no, the dish wasn't the least bit appetizing. Needed more spice. Boston's nice this time of year. Any vacation time saved up yet? M Scully smiled. End of #2