Author:     Sue (susieqla@yahoo.com)
Title :     Crossroads Within A Bedroom (1/1)
Rating:     PG
Category:   Vignette, MSR/TLG
Spoiler :   Season 8 finale, Existence
Summary :   Some speculations warrant immediate
confirmation.
Disclaimer: Have never owned any of them;
never will.


Crossroads Within A Bedroom



"Hey, Byers, hold up.  Think I dropped it."
Langly finished patting himself down all
over.  Hesitating for a moment, he popped
the lock of the passenger door and hopped
out.  "In there."  He jerked his thumb at
the well-manicured building they had just
emerged from.

Two labored sighs filtered from his
companions.  "What did you forget?" Byers
asked impatiently.

"I didn't forget it.  It must have dropped
out."

"_What_ did?" Byers repeated, sounding a
shade more irritated.

"My wallet," Langly said, finally supplying
a direct answer.

Byers killed the engine, and the 'blue
bomb' chiggered and ground out into
silence.  Its two remaining occupants
hurled sheepish looks of quantification at
their confederate.

"Check again," Frohike gruffly stipulated.
Within the next few moments, his whole
manner suggested that he was trying to
remember something; a jogging of memory
during a game of 'Concentration.'

"That's why I'm goin' back in," Langly
retorted hotly.  "It's in her place."

"No.  I mean beneath the seat and on
the..."  He waved Langly off, performing
the rushed spot check himself.  "Nope.
Okay, maybe you did."  Frohike wore that
tentative look again, as though he should
should say something, but he couldn't be
sure that if he did, it would have any
merit.  He searched Langly's face
frustratedly, and it wasn't long before
he said, "Man, you sure are careless."

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"Am _not_!"

"Knock it off, both of you," Byers
interrupted, sighing, after this
imposition, and gripped the steering
wheel as though doing so would even his
keel.  "Langly, just go back in there.
Find it, and we'll be on our way.
Locating the source of our local
interference isn't going to be easy."

Frohike nodded, agreeing with everything
his cohort had said.

"Okay," Langly complied.  "It probably
fell out when I dug the card up from my
back pocket.  If her door's still open,
I'll bop in, retrace my steps.  Locate it,
pluck it up and be back in a flash."  Then,
almost as an afterthought, he said, "Don't
leave me, guys."

"Wouldya get goin' already," Frohike urged,
"or there'll be no spicy refried beans and
'H' 'rancheros' for you tonight."

As the tall blond streaked for the entrance
of Scully's building, Byers looked at
Frohike, and vice versa.  Neither spoke for
several seconds.

"I'm for buying him a watch fob.  Attach
it to that ugly old wallet of his so this
sort of thing never happens again," Byers
dryly suggested.

"What we should do is confiscate that relic.
Buy him a brand new wallet with the device
you have in mind."  Frohike observed
Langly's rapid disappearance behind the
entrance door before offering any further
comment.  He swiveled around to his
friend, and replied in kind, "Methinks
Lan-gri-la is pulling one of his ruses,
man."  The older man's speculative posture
hung in the air.

"Oh?  Why's that?" Byers differed, but did
so with his usual deference.

Frohike facially wiseackered.  "'Cos I
could have sworn I saw his lime Velcro
horror lying on his monitor as we were
leaving.  I started to remind him about it,
but I got distracted when the phone rang,
and it was Jimmy saying he'd catch up with
us later, back at our place."

"But you're not sure."

"Hey, ya ask me, I say he wants back in
there to do his version of motion
detection, if you catch my drift."  It
seemed as though Langly had beaten him to
the punch.

"He wouldn't," Byers objected, astounded
by the gall.

"Why wouldn't he?"  Frohike already had
the passenger door cracked, and was sliding
out.  "I'm dyin' to know what's goin' on
in there myself, buddy.  How Mulder's
gettin' on with the lil shaver.  Hell, with
Scully too for that matter.  Too bad we
never thought to 'seed' her place way ahead
of time.  It'd be worth having it on tape."

Byers squirmed as though he were on pins
and needles, wrestling with a conscience
that normally casted a decisive 'nay' in
the face of what didn't sit well.  But the
same thoughts had crossed his mind, and
ignoring his norm, he wanted to satisfy
his curiosity too.

He had his door open now.  "So what are
we waiting for?" he said, smiling impishly,
in conjunction with Frohike's eyebrow
raising.  "Let's get in there before we
miss something good..."


When his friends appeared, Langly
conjectured that they had probably been
on to him all along.  Sentimentality
seemed to stain the proceedings, and he
welcomed his compatriots' cementable
presence when they noiselessly joined
him at the jamb of Scully's bedroom door.
Can't fool these guys, he thought as he
shifted, making ample room.

They were just in time, and their
breathing shuddered as one man's as they
witnessed the tender union of their
friends' inevitable, blessed wedding of
lips and the sharing of one breath...

The moment of melding was ethereal, yet
felt everlasting and transcendent at
the same time.  World-weary, news-
gathering eyes grew very moist.  The
Gunmen never imagining they would live
long enough to literally see the
tenderness of this day unfold before
their very eyes.

Little William mewled and cooed in
Mulder's accommodative arms, and the
alien chaser's eyes glistened mightily
in response.

Byers' sniffles were lost in Langly's
tresses.  The Gunmen latched onto one
another's forearms and held on tight.

"So totally, totally awesome, dudes,"
Langly murmured reverently, over and
over like a litany.  Easy swallowing
proved to be an impossibility for him
from this point forward.

Frohike removed his glasses, giving
them a careless swipe against the
sleeve of his jacket the color of
green fatigues.  Resetting them on
his face quickly, the lump in his own
throat had become sizeable.

"Now that's what I call a good-looking
family," he inaudibly whispered, just
as the caught-up Agents (now, and
forever, no matter their current status
with the Bureau) discerning they had
unexpected company, disengaged, turning
slightly to acknowledge their peeping
through thick and thin friends, and loyal
confidants.

The kindred souls and 'brethren' smiled
smiles of a thousand suns to come, and
the little bedroom glowed with a radiance
that eclipsed all those dark, bad times,
which Scully had recently spoken of,
which had indeed, shadowed them all.

Little William hiccupped once or twice,
and light-hearted chuckles flowed
into sustained laughter of the deepest
delight.

Mirth was rife for a change.  "Oops,
they've caught us at last, Mulder."  She
gazed at the trio contentedly. "So now
you know."

The three smirked, wondering what their
friends' bemused faces were for.  "You
act as though we've never suspected,"
Byers countered seamlessly, placing his
hand on Langly's shoulder, with the
latter nodding.

Frohike marveled over Scully's weightless
smiling, which seemed to know no bounds.

"I say he looks like Mulder," the blond
zippy-mouther cranked, as though bringing
it up would make it true.

"Does not," Frohike insisted, "he looks
like Scully."

Mulder rained improbable looks upon them.
"Well, Scarecrow, look at it this way.
Scully's genetic material counts for half.
Any way that's considered, he's already
got a clear head start."  Relaxedly,
Mulder said, "I don't know.  Give me your
input, guys.  Wouldn't you say he bears a
striking resemblance to Skinner.  Don'tcha
think?"

"Don't even joke about something like
that," Frohike sternly cautioned, looking
as though he'd just eaten something rotten.
The paternity issue would have to be settled
to the Gunmen's satisfaction at a later
time.

Scully sucked her teeth at the lot of them.
Unpretentiously she stated, "For the record,
he looks like my dad, in my wholly unbiased
opinion."  She stopped herself, wondering
the same thing for as many times.  "How
would he have taken this if he were here,"
she voiced with a somewhat distant quality
in her shallow tone, no longer desirous of
tamping down the pall of meloncholy.  Mulder
sensed her mood almost at once, but was
hesitant about meeting it head on.  "Ahab..."
No, she admonished, she wouldn't allow
herself to stay where she was right now, but
it took some effort.  "Me, an unwed mother..."
Part of some twisted mind's, or as more
likely the case, minds', nefarious agenda.
Forcefully, she dragged herself away from
the spiking inner turmoil.  "Somehow, I think
he'd be proud," she said levelly.

Mulder sniffed ostensibly.  "When has your
opinion ever been even a smidgen unbiased?"
Sounding more grounded, he replied, "He's
here, Scully.  Don't worry.  In spirit, I'm
sure he is, and he's proud of you."  The
Gunmen nodded along with Mulder.  Then
solely for her hearing he muttered, "Being
unwed doesn't have to be a permanant
condition, y'know."

"I know," Scully returned evenly, putting
Mulder's heart through its paces, and
hers as well.  He held his tongue, even
surprising himself over what he'd just
said.  The new mother winked at her
miraculous baby, still not quite able to
believe she had given birth to anything
more perfect.  "He's definitely got the
'Scully' nose."

Mulder wriggled his at the child he would
come to love as he had never loved
anything so much before, save Scully.
"Now if he's been endowed with the 'Scully'
mettle for 'grace under pressure,' he's
got it made in the shade."  Mulder's
stated estimation touched off another
round of the Gunmen nodding their heads
in indisputable agreement.

"Here, here," Byers toasted, lacking an
appropriate libation to down.  Langly and
Frohike readily seconded Mulder's
pronouncement.

Mulder continued, sounding a bit more
cryptic, yet still sportive through it
all.  "Just pray that Billy boy's genetic
material in the mix doesn't exert too
great an influence, or I'll be in big
trouble, Scully."

"Mulder," she said reprovingly, with some
half-hearted jiggling of his elbow.

"Just a point of fact, Scully."  He kissed
her furrowed brow, grinning.  "A point
having its basis in well-known fact.
Your brother and I will always be at odds."

"Maybe, maybe not.  Only time will tell,"
Scully said simply, beaming at her
fragile-looking newborn, and then at the
four expectant men who were willing and
eager to give her all the support and
presence she would ever need.  "Miracles
do happen."  Her lips sought her son's
tender forehead.  She was careful regarding
how much pressure she applied.  "I recall
it was you who insisted that I shouldn't
give up on one in particular, Mulder.  I'm
inclined to believe that should hold true
for many things..."


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End...