Things Outside

by Tabula Rasa
tabulaxrasa@yahoo.com
 

FEEDBACK: Enshrined at tabulaxrasa@yahoo.com
DISTRIBUTION: Yes
RATING: PG-13
CATEGORY: S, AU
KEYWORDS: MSR
SPOILERS: Up through Season 7, I suppose
DISCLAIMER: In the event CC shouldn't want them
anymore, I'd be happy to take them.  But I don't think
think Satan (Rupert) will let them go.

SUMMARY: Mulder and Scully and their house.

NOTES: AU high weirdness.  Breaks off from canon in
season 7 (before All Things, anyway).  This mostly
goes in order, the tense changes depending on what
kind of scene it is.  You'll see, insh'allah.

..............

Things Outside
by Tabula Rasa
 

The first night in the new house, they laid side by
side on the bed in the only furnished bedroom.  After
a few moments, Mulder turned on his side and laid his
arm over her stomach.  The second night, she crawled
into bed and immediately laid her head on his
shoulder.  The third night, their legs merged.  The
fourth night, he held her tightly and pressed his face
into her neck and hair.  The fifth night, she kissed
him goodnight.  That was how they seduced each other.

Before moving into the house, in the First Place, they
had lain in bed next to each other without touching.

......

Scully was reading _The Divine Comedy_; one of those
things she'd always meant to get around to reading and
could now that she had the time.  She read *Inferno*
quickly, but now she found herself stuck in
*Pergatorio*.  She lifted her head to negotiate a bite
of ice cream and squinted out the large window.  It
must've been 90 degrees out.

She could hear Mulder moving around in the room behind
her.  She moved the carton of Ben and Jerry's directly
in front of her.  If he saw it, he'd come and steal
half of it, and then tease her for eating it.

She read:
"O power of fantasy that steals our minds
    from things outside, to leave us unaware,
    although a thousand trumpets may blow loud--"

Scully shivered from a combination of the A/C and the
ice cream, and hoped Mulder came to steal some soon.

......

The house was two storeys but the upstairs was
completely empty.  Mulder went up there sometimes to
look around.  He peered out the large sloping windows
in the strange long room but there was nothing in that
direction but the grass and the sky, forever, merging
eventually in a dark, flat line when his vision
couldn't reach any further.  He crossed to the other
side.  In this direction, from one of the empty
bedrooms, he could see the dark blob that might be a
third house.  He could just see the dark shape of the
second house from the other bathroom.  The first could
only be seen from outside, or the kitchen downstairs.
It looked like their house but bigger, with a large
glass front.  They didn't know if anyone lived there.

.......

They usually cooked dinner together, if they cooked.
This had resulted in a few foodfights, but nothing
serious.  Tossed lettuce leaves, lemon rinds, and once
a slice of bread.  Hed paid for that one.

Keeping his wet hands well away from himself, Mulder
snuck up behind Scully and wrapped his arms around her
waist and squeezed.  She gave a little huff.
"Mulder!"

He nuzzled into her neck and snuck in a kiss.  Scully
struggled to get away, but not in a way that put any
sort of distance between them.  Mulder groaned and
tried to pull her away from the counter.  "We could
just get delivery later" he mumbled.  He nipped her
neck and rubbed it better with his tongue.

"Mul-derrrrr" she groaned in a way that didn't
discourage him at all.  But then she bumped him back
and pulled forward.  "I've spent an hour on this
already!"

Mulder grinned and delivered a final kiss to her neck
before backing off.  They were getting pretty good at
this married stuff.

........

Scully was glowing in the candle light, and Mulder was
sure he was glowing back at her across the table.  He
loved the way she looked in the flickering flames; the
way the gold flickered on her alabaster skin, the
hundred shades it brought out in her hair, the new
shapes created on her face by the shadows.

He smiled at her and raised his wine glass.  They
toasted to nothing, the musical clink just the right
sound in the quiet room.

Now that they devoted all their time to playing house,
Mulder found that it was just as he had always
suspected: if Scully was the only person he ever spoke
to again, it would be fine.  Better than fine.  More
than enough.

.........

Sometimes, after the sky has changed from rose and red
to indigo and then to black like an impressionist
painting, they stand out in the yard and look at the
stars.  The sky above is heavy and the wind warm.
They hardly notice the black sky because there are so
many stars.  Great swirls of them, dancing across the
whole top half of their world in clockwork patterns.
Familiar constellations are obscured by all the new
points of light.  Probably.  Staring up so long makes
them a little dizzy, as the sense of being firmly
planted on the ground recedes, and all that's left is
sky.

They don't do it often, or for long.  The weight of
all those stars gets too heavy after awhile, and even
after they go inside they can feel the weight of the
heavens pressing down on them.

There are no lights even from the other houses.

........

Tonight, Mulder and Scully curled up on the couch to
watch a movie.  'The Quiet Man' was on, and Mulder
teased Scully silently when a character made a joke
about Maureen O'Hara's red hair and temper.  Mulder
tugged on Scully's hair.  She proved him right with an
elbow to the ribs.

Mulder objected and they started to wrestle.  In a
matter of minutes, someone put their hand just the
right way in just the right place, and they gave up on
the movie.

.......

When it was dark in their bedroom, Scully felt like
there was no world beyond the borders of the mattress.
 There was no outside world, nothing they needed,
nothing of any concern out there.  Scully felt this
was the way it would have been anyway.  So this was
the best time, when they were happiest, in their bed
in the dark.

.......

In the First Place, the detention center, their room
looked like a hotel room.  But without windows.  The
room was small, mostly bed.  The bathroom saw a lot of
use, because it was the only door they had control
over.  They don't know how long they were there.  They
lost track of day and night.

The house is much better.  They have tv, which isn't
real tv but sort of like expanded Tivo, so that they
can watch (almost) whatever they want whenever they
want (no commercials ever).  They have a computer.
They don't have the internet but an intranet, they
think.  Some history sites, information pages, random
things like that.  No news sites, no blogs, not even
The Onion.  Nothing with a date.  They have tried
everything they can think of to independently verify
the date.  They have been unable to.  The computer
told them June 27, 2000 the day they arrived.  It
works as well as anything.  5 weeks in the detention
center, then.

There is the Catalogue, which at first was fun.
Anything they wanted, they ordered, and it would come.
 Within the hour, if it was food.  Anything else also
came quickly, more quickly than Amazon.  They can
order groceries or have hot pizza or even Chinese food
delivered.  Most of the house was unfurnished when
they arrived.  They were supposed to furnish it with
things from the Catalogue, but they haven't ordered
much yet.  Mostly things for the kitchen.  And the
books, of course.

The delivery men never spoke.  Often they left
whatever they were delivering on the front step,
knocked, and left.  Mulder and Scully took to watching
for them.  The delivery men drove a jeep.  They
refused to interact.  The issue wasn't forced--they
looked very similar to the Alien Bounty Hunter.
Mulder and Scully were unarmed, and weapons were not
for sale on the Catalogue.

.......

At first they just ordered new clothes, since they
came to the house only with what they had on.  But
eventually Scully ordered a washer and dryer.  Laundry
gave them something to do.

Their house was very clean for the same reason.

Mulder was bored-- he would love to do work, any kind,
even fertilizer investigations and background checks.
He ordered a basketball, but there weren't any hoops
for sale in the Catalogue.  Scully, being sweet, tried
to help him work on his passing game, but she never
really played basketball for obvious reasons.  There
was no good place to play, either, because of the
grass.  He could get away with dribbling the ball on
the floor upstairs for awhile, but Scully would
eventually have to put a stop to it.

It's not that he minded reading; on the contrary,
Mulder enjoyed the same catching-up that Scully was
doing.  But he had energy to burn, and needed to work
out somehow.  He kept hoping "Swimming Pool" would
appear on the Catalogue.  He's tried jogging around
the house, but it had to be done in the early morning.
 Scully was not much of a morning person, and although
she wouldn't say it, Mulder knew she didn't like it
when he was out there alone.  He understood-- he felt
the same way.  When it got cooler, they could go
jogging together.  For now, she let him run up and
down the long room on the second floor.  They did
push-ups, sit-ups, and engaged in other aerobic
activities.

.......

"Are you sure?" Mulder asked.  He was sitting on the
edge of their bed and turned to look at Scully.  She
was laying on her side, her back to him.  Scully
wasn't feeling well.

"Yes, I'm sure, Mulder." She sounded annoyed.

He stretched out his arm, not hesitating, exactly, but
close to it, and alighted his hand on her shoulder.
Very lightly at first, then with increasing pressure
when she didn't shrug it away.  After a moment of
resistance, she turned onto her back and let her head
loll to face him.

"Is--is there a, a test you can order off the
Catalogue?" He didn't know that she liked it that he
stuttered when it was personal.

Scully rolled her head again, this time so she was
looking at the ceiling.  "I don't know" she said
flatly.  She closed her eyes and he watched her throat
as she swallowed, her breasts as she took a deep
breath.  "I'm not going to check.  They'll certainly
suspect if I order one.  I don't want them to know."

He could hear the fear in her voice and felt himself
catch it.  It was creeping cold through him, too, no
doubt making his vocal cords tremble, his heart pound,
his hands sweat.

"It'll be okay, Scully" he whispered.  He touched her
face.  Mulder swung his legs back onto the bed and
stretched out next to her.  He wrapped his arms around
her and squeezed tightly.  She immediately shifted and
wrapped her arms and legs around him.  Mulder held her
tightly for a moment, then began sliding his hand down
her body, fitting it between them.  He found her
abdomen and cupped his hand around it.  Just a small
swell now, nothing that hadn't always been there.  But
not for long.

It had been bothering him, when he let it: how was he
going to protect her here, like this?  He would kill
anyone who tried to hurt her, and now he would kill
anyone who tried to hurt their child, but right now he
didn't know how.
.......

Sometimes, Mulder would go outside and look around.
There was so much room, so much space.  Just the
ground with the grass and the sky, which was almost
always empty.  The four houses.  Mulder could feel the
land stretching away on either side of him, the space,
the room, feel the air echoing across the vastness of
the land.  He stood very still and could feel the
world turning beneath him.  There was no question that
they might be on an island-- Mulder could feel
continent beneath him, feel it far-flung.

Then Mulder will think that this might be what hes
going to see for the rest of his life.  It becomes so
claustrophobic he has difficulty breathing.  He goes
inside, looking for Scully.

........

"My soul," Scully read, "that could not see her
perfectly,
    still felt, succumbing to her mystery
    and power, the strength of its enduring love."

The sun was setting, and the sky was a wide swath of
indigo out the kitchen window.  Sometimes it was very
beautiful here.  Summer here was like springtime in
DC, maybe.  How you were always conscious of it, of
the rightness of the season, the perfect fit of area
and temperature and color and the smell of the air.

They couldn't find out about the baby.

She looked across the grass to the other house, the
nearest one.  She thought someone lived there, but she
didn't know why she thought that.  They never saw any
lights.

She felt Mulder come in and stand behind her.  "It's
hard to tell how far away it is" he said, his voice
low, not meant to carry.  It didn't have to, of
course, but there was something else.  They were
sharing secrets.

"Do you think someone lives there?" Scully asked.

"I don't know.  If they do, they're purposely keeping
us apart."

"Why?"

"Maybe it's dangerous."

Scully shivered, looking at the blank walls of windows
on the other house.  She couldn't really see them at
this point, but she knew they were there, floating on
the grass, staring blindly at them.

"Dangerous for *Them*" Mulder corrected.  "Dangerous
for us to meet and talk, maybe."

Just like that, Scully wanted to go for a walk.  She
scolded herself for being so easily swayed, even if it
was by Mulder.

She closed her book and stood up.  Dante had found his
Beatrice, after all.  "Do you want Chinese?" she
asked.

........

They can go outside; at least, they know they can go
in their yard.  Except they aren't sure where their
yard ends.  There is no fence or line of any kind in
the grass.

They call it grass but it isn't, really.  It is wild
and something like wheat.  There are no insects in the
grass that they have ever seen or heard.  It comes up
to Scully's knees, and it is brown.  Possibly it will
get green in the winter, but there is so much of it
and it is all one color, so it doesn't seem like the
grass can ever be anything but brown.  The world
outside their house is the brown grass until the blue
sky. Then there are the two houses and the dark spot
that might be the third house.  The two houses are in
the west, the dark spot in the south.  In the North
and the East, there is nothing at all.

They don't know where they are.  Possibly the US, more
likely Canada, but maybe Russia, maybe somewhere in
Africa--Kenya, Tanzania.  Maybe Argentina, and it's
really February.

......

They figured they had a grace period of some months.
Even if Scully started to show, they could keep her
away from the delivery men, who preferred not to come
in, anyway; it wouldn't be hard.

They had spent their first few days searching
obsessively for bugs and other monitoring devices;
they had found nothing.  They continued to check
often, but had never found anything.

Still, Mulder and Scully had difficulty letting go of
the idea that they were under surveillance.  They had
had a long time to get used to the idea.  And it was
almost more alarming to contemplate why surveillance
was no longer necessary.

......

They purposely started spending time outside.  They
ordered lawn chairs and did their reading in the sun.
In the morning and evening only, of course.  They
would get heatstroke in midday.  So they still had
plenty of time to get used to being outside, in this
outside, with just the grass and the sky and houses in
the distance.  They both recognized, privately, that
they had developed a superstitious awe of the grass,
and that was not like them.  So they made sure to
spend time with it, every day, to prove that it was
just grass.

According to the computer clock they have been here
three months.  That meant it was late September, and
still very hot.  If they wanted to take a walk, an all
day sort of walk, they would have to wait until it was
cooler.

But Mulder decided a test run wouldn't be out of
place.  At eight am, they started off in the direction
of the first house.   The grass was not hard to walk
in.  At ten am, they stopped and looked around.

Scully looked at their house, the furthest she had
ever been away from it.  It was still much closer than
the other house.  Scully found that reassuring.  Their
house looked more friendly than the other.  Their
house was long and narrowish.  She was struck again by
the oddness of the second story, with the long room
taking up half the floorspace and its huge sloping
windows.  She never cleaned those windows; she didn't
go up there.  But that was where the baby's room would
be.

Scully looked at Mulder, who was squinting at the
other house.  "I'd say it's another four hours, at
least, to that place" he frowned.  "We better go back
now."

They got back a little before noon--it was easier
coming that way.  They took showers and stayed inside
the rest of the day.  Nothing happened after all.

That night, Scully dreamed they were walking in the
grass.  The farther out they went, the higher the
grass got.  Mulder got ahead of her, and suddenly she
couldn't see him anymore.  She called for him, but the
grass grew higher and higher around her.  It was
towering above her, blocking out the sun.  She
screamed for Mulder, but the grass was so thick he
couldn't hear her.

When Mulder woke her up, she gasped and sat up, then
clutched at him as he rocked her and told her it was
okay.  Over his shoulder she glimpsed the stars out
the window.  Scully squeezed her eyes shut and pressed
her face into Mulder's neck.  This place was not
beautiful.

......

The next morning, Scully cleared her throat and asked
"Mulder?"

"Hmm?"

"What if we're--what if we're not where we think we
are?"

"Scully, we don't know--"

"I know but...I mean, what if, what if we're dead?"
The last part was whispered, and Scully stared into
her breakfast.

"Scully" Mulder waited until she looked up and flashed
her a brief smile.  "I think you've been reading too
much Dante.  Where do you think we are?"

Scully shrugged.  "Hell? Purgatory?"

"See?" Mulder teased gently.  "Now, we both know I
wouldn't make it to Purgatory--" Scully opened her
mouth to interrupt but Mulder held up his hand and
continued talking.  "And I don't think this is Hell.
If the whole point of Hell is eternal suffering, why
would we be together?  And besides--Hell is other
people, and we're alone." He shot her an old smartass
grin.

She smiled back, feeling somewhat relieved.  "Thank
you, Jean-Paul.  I guess you're right.  I don't think
either of us deserves to go to Hell."

"I'm glad to hear it.  I don't think we're dead,
Scully.  I think your...condition... proves that."

"But this place--there's something *wrong* about it."
Scully wasn't meeting his eye again.

He reached out and covered her hand with his.  "We're
in prison, Scully.  We're in some sort of prison camp.
 It's pretty cushy, what with our own house and all
this free crap, but it's still prison."

Scully nodded thoughtfully, and turned her hand over
to return his squeeze.

......

Scully ordered a sewing machine off the Catalogue.
She sewed two comforters together to make a sleeping
bag they would fit both in.  For hotter weather (they
didn't know what to expect), they planned to just take
a duvet instead of sewing sheets together.

The tent was harder to make, but they worked on it
slowly.  Tarp on the bottom.  On one side of that they
put a thin layer of stuffing and sewed a sheet on top.
 "Most comfortable tent ever" Mulder joked.  "Even if
there turn out not to be any rocks." They had tried a
rug but decided it would be too heavy, so they cut up
a couple of pillows.  For the other sides they did the
same thing, but without padding.  All the tarps made
them nervous, though.  In order to have a good excuse
for the tarps, they ordered a lot of paint and some
brushes and rollers.

They couldn't order backpacks.  Luggage was offered on
the Catalogue, but Mulder and Scully couldn't figure
out why when they weren't supposed to go anywhere.
Scully was becoming quite proficient with the sewing
machine (Mulder was forbidden to use it), and made
backpacks out of blue jeans.

It was good to have something to do, something to plan
for again.

.......

They had brought nothing with them, so it wasn't hard
to figure out what to take.  They had been ordering
bottled water but drinking tap, so all the water they
could carry, they took.  Food would be cans mostly,
although they took a few days rations of fresher
stuff.  Mulder would carry the tent and the duvet;
Scully would carry the comforters.

The morning before they left, Scully woke up at 4 am.
She had a brief panic attack at the thought of leaving
the house.  Rather than waking Mulder, she got out of
bed, put on a robe, and wandered around the house.
She even went upstairs.  She looked in the two empty
rooms and the bare bathroom, then went to stand at the
large sloping windows of the strange long room.

It was very dark out there.  Down below, she could see
the waving, seething mass of the grass, indistinct but
lighter-than-black.  Except for that, the only thing
she could see were the stars.  No moon, at least not
on this side of the house.  All those stars, the only
light.  One of them must be Polaris, but she couldn't
find it.

This did not help the panic.

She went downstairs and sat in the kitchen, pulling
the curtains and turning on the lights.

She tried to read: "From those holiest waters I
returned
  to her reborn, a tree renewed, in bloom
  with newborn foliage, immaculate...."

How could she go out there?  How could they face
Nothing for who-knows-how long?  Maybe they'd reach
the first house and find someone there.  Maybe they'd
decide to keep in touch, and then maybe they'd just
come back to the house.

Not home, Scully noticed.  The house.  Never home.
The baby was running out of time when it could be safe
and hidden, and their poor impossible child deserved
more than a house.

At 5 am, Scully went back to bed, eager to rise, and
now ready.

.......

7 am.  Mulder made one last paranoid check throughout
the house.  Scully waited calmly on the couch.  When
he came back, they shouldered their packs.  Mulder
kissed her.

And they went out to face the empty blue sky, the
endless brown grass, and the weight of the stars.
......

NOTES: All quotations from *Purgatory* are from Mark
Musa's translation.  This is a dream I had-- well, the
setting is, anyway--which accounts for the weirdness.
I wrote this in July, 2003.

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