Title: The Impossible

Rating: PG - 13

Spoilers: "Closure", "Millennium"

Category: M/S Angst

Archive: Sure

Disclaimer: 1013 blah blah blah

Summary: "They are Bradbury's Mars colonists staring into a pool of water on the red planet and saying 'there are the Martians'"

Big "Onya Mate!" to Another Juxtaposition for a long, slow and sexy beta.

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"You make me hard, you make me cold" - The Whitlams

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She recalls that it was only thirty five years ago that scientists looked, disappointed, at pictures of the Mars surface taken by Mariner 4. What astronomers had guessed to be possible man-made canals were nothing more than the light and shadow of craters on a seemingly barren surface. And while it's ludicrous to think of Orson Welles' panic inducing broadcast of "War of the Worlds" in the scientific environment of the new millennium, it wasn't so long ago that it can be dismissed as antiquity.

What an age has bred her. Truth is stranger than fiction and everything that happens to them proves that the world is incredible enough to fuel the imaginings of the even the most wild fantasy writers. They are Bradbury's Mars colonists staring into a pool of water on the red planet and saying "there are the Martians". She had a teenage interest in science fiction and although it never progressed beyond Asimov and his ilk, it's not something she'd tell Mulder about. Who knows how many humiliating ways he might find to hold it against her.

Her and Mulder. Mulder claiming to have seen his sister in Starlight. She should be happy that he's resolved that part of himself but she's thinking instead there's something terribly wrong with his faith in the visions of strangers. She swears it will come back to hurt him and the thought is abhorrent.

She is thinking about science fiction as she stares across the empty desk in the basement. Mulder is late and he's eccentric and unpredictable but he's not usually late without a phone call.

She is thinking about Clark and the logistics of his tower to the moon. What factors would inhibit its construction? Air pressure, gravitational constraints, the millions and millions of dollars in materials for something that would no doubt be considered frivolous budget expenditure (she's thinking like a public servant now). It has to be impossible but she suspects Clarke knows better than she does being a scientist of some repute - a scientist waiting for the end of his days in Sri Lanka now and apparently enjoying the local custom. He thought he'd see aliens by the end of his days. How disappointed he must be.

It passes the time. And it stops her from thinking about the fact that the last time she saw Mulder he was fumbling around her bedroom in the dark looking for his pants and making up excuses to not wake up with her in the morning.

And then he is there, carrying two coffees and tossing a newspaper onto the desk in front of her.

"California here we come," he says.

The headline is a series of cult suicides in six different locations along the West Coast stretching from Portland to Santa Cruz, and on six consecutive days. She reads it quickly before looking up and saying, "You're late".

"Yeah," he says, "I wanted to talk to this guy before I came in. You know they're a little ahead of us over there."

She goes back to the newspaper. A specialist in cults and ritualistic practices from Berkeley calls the deaths "freakish" by his standards.

Mulder hovers just inside the doorway sipping his coffee and seeming too nervous to enter the office further. She finds a seed of irritability creeping into her already anxious manner. Six hours on a plane with Mulder could end in violence.

"I'm not going to California," she says.

"Ok," he shrugs, "I can go by myself, Scully. It's not like they need both of us."

His forced casualness causes her to press her fingernails press against the newspaper so hard she leaves indentations.

"They don't need either of us Mulder. This is not an X-File. It's a ritual cult suicide. It's a little macabre," she sneaks a quick glance at the front page. The newspaper has deemed the bodies too disturbing to display in pictures. "But it's not our area."

"I'm going," he says, tossing his paper coffee cup into the bin by the door as he walks out.

She's not used to seeing him so angry with her. He's not easily annoyed over personal matters.

Last night they were watching television on her couch. Her head was in his lap. She had given the memory of their New Year's kiss some thought and relegated it to the "too hard" pile. She'd have said he was teasing her if she hadn't noticed the tentativeness with which his lips touched hers. He was still unsure as to her reaction.

But he did it anyway. And of course they never spoke about it afterward. They spent some weeks avoiding each other's personal space, but it really wasn't long before they were back to comfortably resting hands on each other in absent moments.

He had his arm under hers across her chest. He shifted his position slightly and found himself brushing her breast. Her cheeks burned. When she checked his reaction he was looking straight at her.

She supposed it was inevitable. They were birds on Animal Kingdom instinctively moving their bodies to receive each other, only she'd been telling herself that intellect was the triumph over instinct and she really should be utilizing that evolutionary step to halt the inevitable.

There were no words as he cupped her breast, deliberately this time, and she sighed audibly and she found herself lifting her head slightly to meet him when he kissed her.

There were no words and she thought later that there should have been because there had to be words eventually. And late words never seem to countermand the damage.

He took her to bed like that. Wordlessly and inevitably. So inevitable even his naked body held no surprises. She knew the wounds and the scars and he knew hers. When he came he said her name only it wasn't her name, it was the name the FBI gave her. It couldn't help being absurd and she wondered if he'd noticed.

Later when he dozed in her arms she thought about telling him she loved him. She did, but she suspected he knew. Their relationship was this brevity of emotional expression. I'm fine, let's move on. Most words were superfluous.

He left while it was still dark outside, no doubt hoping for the cover of night to hide him from whatever monster it was that chased him out of her room.

And now she is following him out of the door of their office. She watches the hem of his long coat swishing against his calves, the belt dangling from mid back and causing him look more tall and imposing than he actually is.

"Mulder wait!"

He turns around. All six feet of him expecting her, waiting for her to come to him.

And she does.

"I'm coming with you," she says.

He drives them to the airport. She runs her hand through newly shampooed hair and frets about not having packed Aspirin or anti-nausea tablets. He drives too fast around corners and she remembers to scowl at him when he does so although his driving is the last thing she wants to think about.

Until she hears the tires squeal and feels the inertia pushing her hard against her door. They come to rest at right angles to the car in front, narrowly missing their bumper by less than an inch.

"Fuck! Fuck!" she screams. Mulder pushes back into his seat and lets out a breath.

"Close call," he says. His lack of reaction is instantly annoying.

"Fuck Mulder you drive like a maniac! You could've killed us!"

Mulder doesn't answer. Traffic veers around them and the driver in front moves on seeming to care little about the nearness of the accident.

"What are you trying to prove Mulder?"

Mulder slams a palm against the steering wheel.

"Jesus Scully, I missed the guy, all right? We're OK."

"I'm not OK!"

He looks at her with eyebrows arched slightly. He looks at her like that when she's telling him that there are scientific explanations for fish people and shape-shifters. He looks at her like that because he doesn't know what to say when she's speaking in ways he can't understand.

She watches a cyclist on the side of the road eyeing them curiously. A car slowly rolls by to inspect them. They are creating a spectacle.

Reality superceded science fiction, she remembers. In Kubrick's 2001 the astronauts wrote figures on pads of paper never foreseeing the advent of the impossibly small computer. Truth may be stranger than fiction but it's the mundane truth that is the real surprise. In the middle of War of the Worlds there's a love affair. As simple as it seems against the backdrop of the Martians landing it's the only element of the story that isn't likely to be resolved by a virus - or an antidote.

"I'm not OK."

End.