Open to skeptical_mind

[callmeparanoid]

The Middle of Nowhere is used, largely, as a pejorative term. The Sticks. The Boonies. The Ass-End of the World. In fact, Nowhere is a township in southwestern Ohio, and it will have you know that it has its own post office -- and two Wal-Marts.

Special Agents Mulder and Scully, FBI, cross the county line just after sundown, the headlights of their rental car chasing the deciduous trees on either side of the Caesar Creek Gorge State Nature Preserve. This is an old growth forest. Most of the trees here can claim to be around when the Iroquois decimated the Erie people, almost four hundred years ago. There is age and majesty in these trees.

-- There is a little less majesty in the sound warbling out of the driver's side window of the FBI agents' Ford Taurus: Mulder had playlisted almost six hours of Journey on his iPod and, at hour five, the many and varied renditions of "Don't Stop Believin" were clearly starting to fray his partner's nerves. (Mulder was glad that their bureau-issued side arms were riding in the trunk for this trip.) He is halfway through the chorus of "Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin'" when a look from the passenger side of the car successfully reminds him that, unless he wants to ride out the remainder of their case in a hospital bed, maybe switching to NPR is a good idea.

The Camp Rite campground is a couple of miles into the deep forest. Mulder passes two ranger stations and a sentry post, all three unoccupied and dark. He has to get out of the car to lift the vehicle barrier gate, the red glow of their retreating tail lights throwing tall shadows into the treetops. Once encamped, Mulder and Scully set up a tent and build a small but durable fire in an open clearing. It's mid-October and the temperatures are starting to dip at night. Mulder is wearing a gunmetal gray Patagonia fleece and jacket, but the tips of his ears are turning red from the cold anyway. He's brought a telescope, a pair of infrared binoculars, and ingredients for S'Mores.

This is perfect UFO spotting weather. He just hopes his partner can get into the spirit of the season.

Comments

[skeptical_mind]

It is cold.

The kind of cold that Dana Scully prefers to endure indoors, maybe in some fleece pajamas with a movie humming softly in the background while she buries her nose in a favorite book for the eighteenth or nineteenth time. Not quite Christmas cold, but definitely signaling a change in the seasons. Her nose is already a bit on the numb side, but that's a minor discomfort. Mulder breaking out into Any Way You Want It one more time would be a far greater issue.

The major setup is done, and now there's nothing left to do but wait and watch. Watch for lights that dance across the sky without explanation and wait for Mulder to catch sight of them, to jump up and call her name in triumphant and exhilarated tones. It's happened before, more than once in their years together as partners (and more, at that). Scully is less skeptical (slightly so) than when they first met, but a clear and cold night in the woods doesn't strike her as quite the place for unidentified flying lights. Or maybe it's just too cold.

"Was there a time these lights usually showed up?" There's only a slight hitch to her voice at the very beginning of her question, from the cold, of course. She hasn't quite warmed up enough, either due to the weather or the hours long concert in the car.

[callmeparanoid]

Mulder produces a small, five-by-five cube from the depths of his backpack and, after a few clever manipulations, unfolds it into a camping chair. He deposits it in front of his partner with a voila! flourish. "The report didn't say," he admits. 'Knows that an answer of noncommittal isn't going to please Scully. "We can play cards to pass the time." This is probably less of a palliative solution that she is expecting.

He reaches into his magical, bottomless backpack and tosses her a couple of HotHands hand warmers to put inside of her gloves. See? He's thought of everything.

[skeptical_mind]

The little heated packs do make a big difference in her comfort, and Scully curls her stiff fingers around the little canvas pack. Warmth pools in her palm and shifts to her fingers bit at a time.

"You're only suggesting cards because you like trying to break my poker face." A smile turns up the corner of her mouth, even though she's trying to hold the stern look in her eyes.

[callmeparanoid]

"I'd suggest a game of strip poker, but I'm afraid the sub-zero temperatures would leave the wrong impression." He snaps open a chair of his own, angling it toward the fire and sitting down. The heat from the fire is like a blast furnace on his knees and calves. Everything north of that, however, is still bordering on chilly. He slides two more hot packs into his own gloves and gives his fingers an exploratory flex or two.

'Regards his partner.

"Besides," he says, "when was the last time we went camping together?"

[skeptical_mind]

Scully gives an incredulous look at the strip poker remark and shakes her head once, dropping her eyes to some point in the space between horizon and ground. It really has been a good while since Mulder has taken her out on a wild chase of some kind or other. She might have missed it. ( If she did, she won't admit it aloud just now. )

"We seemed to prefer curling up in the front seats of the car," she replies. "But floating lights -" a pause to raise an eyebrow in her partner's direction, "should they choose to appear, will definitely show up better in the open sky."

[callmeparanoid]

"That's the spirit." Come to think of it, that's usually not Scully's trademark spirit: usually by this point she would have debunked his wild roving-and-kidnapping lights theory with one of her own. Swamp emissions, for instance. (He'd heard that one a thousand times.) Ball lightning. (Same.) Scully could always be counted on for her quick riposte of any and all his ideas, but in this case she seemed, well, game.

Maybe the cold weather had frozen her out of her rational mind.

He hopes there are no long-term effects.

He glances up at the sky, at the scatter-plot stars above their heads. The thin outline of the Milky Way spills from north to south, occluded with millions of stars. No movement yet, though. At least not the kind he's come for.

"You, ah," after a pause, "see your brother this weekend?"

Scully had gone home over the weekend to see Bill Scully, Jr., his wife, and their new baby girl. After so many years of trying, Bill finally had the daughter he'd always wanted. Given Scully's history ("Emily" is a name never mentioned, but somehow always in the periphery of their conversations about children) Mulder imagines that seeing the little girl is bittersweet. He's trying to approach the situation as delicately as he can; feeling out her state of mind.

[skeptical_mind]

Scully did, in some part, expect Bill to be mentioned. Mulder would be looking out for her, especially after seeing part of her family. Bill had been happy to see her, but there would always be a wound between them. Maybe it would never fully heal, but she wasn't the type to give up.

"They're happy." It's a short answer that comes after a far longer moment of silence than should have happened. But it hasn't stopped being difficult for Scully, the distance between herself and her brother, or the way his wife looks at her now. It's different, and it may not ever change

"They're traveling for the holidays this year," she adds. To where, they didn't say.

[callmeparanoid]

Mulder makes a sound of acknowledgement -- better than the jab about Bill that automatically sprang to mind. Scully's brother was a lot like Scully's father: stoic and rule-abiding. A military mind. Scully had inherited just enough of that -- and her mother's softness -- to form a comfortable balance in personality; the kind of personality that interceded when Mulder was about to do something incredibly hazardous but that also, on occasion, joined him on a sub-zero camping trip.

"You still going to your mom's for Christmas, then?" Scully had gone home for Christmas every year that she and Mulder had been partners. The two of them would part ways a couple of days before Christmas Eve, the back seat of Scully's car stuffed with presents and wrapping paper tubes. Mulder would wish her well and deflect questions about his own holiday plans by commenting on the wide variety of sub-channels now available with a premium Skin-a-max cable subscription.

[skeptical_mind]

At the mention of Christmas, Scully tucks her lower lip against her teeth for a half second, then relaxes her expression again. Now that Bill and his family have other plans - of which he had extended to their mother - it's possible this could be the first year in...forever that Scully won't be with her mother for Christmas. And while Dana isn't at all the type to voice her displeasure at members of her family enjoying themselves ( in safe and legal ways, at that ), there's a little tug in her heart at the thought.

"I'm not sure."

Her mouth twitches into a half smile and then smooths out again, with her eyes darting to Mulder briefly. Their holiday plans have never lined up in their time as partners, but that never stopped Scully from giving Mulder a foil-wrapped gift each year.