Chapter Text
Epilogue
JUNE 1865
WEST CHESTER, PENNSYLVANIA
As they near Philadelphia, the countryside through which Mulder and Scully are riding becomes slowly more and more populous, empty countryside gradually giving way to farmland, then a series of small towns, growing ever closer together.
"How long now?" asks Mulder, and Scully smiles at the slight edge of nervousness in his voice, though his face betrays nothing.
"Less than an hour," she tells him. He nods shortly. "You know, Mulder," she ventures, smiling playfully, "if anyone has a reason to be scared, it's me."
"Who said anything about being scared?" he asks, giving her a smile that's probably meant to be carefree, but ends up just looking like a grimace. She shakes her head.
"I'm the one coming home after defying my entire family and exposing them all to potential shame and ridicule," she says.
"Oh, and I didn't do the same for my own family?" he asks.
"You?" Scully laughs. "All you did was to do exactly what every able-bodied young man is expected to do when war breaks out: you signed up to fight."
"For the wrong side," argues Mulder. "At least, according to my parents."
"Well, they forgave you in the end, didn't they?" she asks. "I honestly have no idea how my parents are going to react when I walk through the front door."
"At least you're not walking through the front door empty-handed," teases Mulder. "You might have run away to join the army, and you might have spent three years' worth of nights bedding down with hundreds of strange men, but at least you managed to snag one of them to be your husband." He puffs out his chest and grins teasingly at her. "And one of the wealthiest, at that." Scully laughs.
"You make it sound as though the only reason I went to war was to find a husband," she says, shaking her head. "Though, really, that may well end up being the best light in which to preset the whole thing to my mother."
"Especially given how well it worked," Mulder says. He shifts in his saddle, standing up in his stirrups to stretch his legs. "It's almost suppertime," he observes. "You sure you don't want to find another inn? Put off our arrival until after breakfast tomorrow morning?"
"Are you really so afraid of my father that you're willing to wait another day? Pay for another room?"
"I'm just saying, Scully, this is probably going to be the last time we have the opportunity to spend the night together for a very long time," he tells her, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. "Nobody thinks twice about giving a room to a couple of soldiers on their way home from the war. A soldier and a woman who's not yet his wife, on the other hand...." He shakes his head mournfully. "The only places that would agree to that, Scully, rent their rooms by the hour, and they come already furnished with a woman. Or two." Scully whips her cap off of her head, swats Mulder's arm with it, and replaces it with a sigh.
He's right, of course: the moment she walks into her parents' house, she will, in a sense, become a completely different person. Instead of Lieutenant Daniel Scully, decorated soldier, crack shot, aide-de-camp to Colonel Fox Mulder, she'll be Dana Scully, the spirited youngest child of Captain William Scully, one of two daughters who had had the audacity to leave home without being married first. She can almost feel the stiff and suffocating boning of the corset her mother is likely to thrust at her the moment she walks through the door.
"What's the matter?" Mulder asks, concerned, and Scully realizes that some part of her sense of dread must show on her face.
"I'm just thinking," she sighs, "about how different it's going to be. For me, I mean, once I'm a woman again."
"Scully, you've never stopped being a woman," Mulder says. "I think I know that better than almost anyone."
"You know what I'm talking about, Mulder," she says, rolling her eyes. "I suppose I've gotten used to being taken seriously when I speak. To having some weight given to my opinion, to not being dismissed out of hand every time I open my mouth."
"You don't think I do that, do you, Scully?" he asks her, his voice soft.
"No, of course you don't, Mulder," she says. "And I don't for one moment imagine you would ever put up with anyone treating me that way in your presence. I just... I'm going to miss the freedom, is all."
"Well," he cautions her, "I think that, at least for a while, you and I are going to be far too busy to spend much time going out and paying calls on anyone." He's right, of course: there are endless things to be done on the plantation, now that the war is over. And after they're married (which, Mulder has insisted, will be as soon as possible, if only because he claims he's gotten so used to sleeping next to her that he'll never again be able to sleep alone), Scully will be helping him with everything.
Two months ago, a letter had arrived for Mulder from James, who is currently in Boston, having located his mother and sister, whom he hadn't seen since childhood, and it doesn't seem likely that he will want to return to Virginia. Nor would Mulder ever dream of asking him to. Bill Mulder, under strict doctor's orders not to exert himself, has officially ceded the running of the plantation to his son, and in James's absence, Scully has volunteered to help Mulder oversee the day-to-day operations.
Mulder has arranged to sell the townhouse in Washington, and with the proceeds from the sale, they plan to tear down the slave cabins and replace them with sound and sturdy houses for their hired help to live in. The former slaves have been given the option to stay on, for fair wages, if they want. Mulder has also sold a parcel of land north of Culpeper, once slated to be farmed, and will divide the money amongst all of the former slaves, whether they decide to stay or go ("Back wages," he'd told his father shortly, when Bill had questioned his son's decision).
"Come on, what else is worrying you, Scully?" Mulder asks, jerking her out of her reverie.
Scully looks down at her hands, gripping the reins. "I know I've been joking about it, Mulder, but I really am nervous about going home again. I don't have any idea what my parents' reactions are going to be."
"At least it won't be a surprise to them," Mulder says bracingly. "You showing up in a uniform with your hair cut short." Scully had received a letter from Melissa right after Samantha's departure for West Chester- Sam and the letter must have passed one another on the road- to say that Daniel Waterston had paid a visit to Margaret Scully, during which he had spilled the beans on where, exactly, her youngest daughter was hiding, and explaining his reasons for no longer being interested in marrying her. Maggie Scully, Melissa had reported, had not taken the news well.
Much to their relief, however, Maggie had not turned Samantha away when the girl had arrived; on the contrary, both she and Melissa had taken to her at once, as Scully had known they would. When Melissa had eventually returned to her apartment in New York, Samantha had taken over her correspondence with Scully.
Today, though, Melissa should be at the house in West Chester, along with the rest of the family. Scully had written her from Washington, a week after the official Confederate surrender at Appomattox, and had asked her sister to come down and meet her, to be present when Mulder is introduced to the family as her fiance.
They're mostly quiet, each lost inside of their own heads, for most of the hour's ride to West Chester. Mulder gazes around, taking in the sights of the unfamiliar town, but Scully focuses only on what's directly in front of her, terrified of meeting someone she knows before she arrives at home. But her street, when they turn down it, is completely, blessedly empty.
Well... almost empty, at any rate.
For a moment, for Scully, it's almost a repeat of a scene nearly two years ago, when she and Mulder had ridden into Fredericksburg to stay with his family. This house, however, is decidedly less grand than Charles Spender's, and the girl waiting by the front gate is markedly taller- closer to a young woman, now, than a girl. But the delighted squeal she lets out at the sight of her brother is the same, and so is the way that Mulder leaps down from his horse to meet her. He lifts her off of her feet and swings her around in the air, both laughing joyously.
Climbing down from her own horse, Scully spies another figure standing on the front porch, watching them with tears in her eyes, her hands clasped over her mouth. With her heart in her throat and her stomach in knots, Scully approaches her mother, bracing herself to be screamed at, to be seized by the shoulders and shaken... but Maggie Scully does none of these things. Before Scully can speak a word, her mother has wrapped her arms around her, squeezing her so tightly that she can barely breathe.
The first thing Maggie does after releasing her daughter is to whip the uniform cap off of her head and run her fingers through Scully's unevenly-shorn red hair, smiling ruefully.
"It will grow back, Mother," Scully says, ducking her head, still too nervous to meet Maggie's eyes, afraid that she'll find nothing but disapproval there. Her mother takes her chin, forcing her to look up, and to her immeasurable relief, there is nothing in Maggie's face but love.
Love tinged with exasperation, certainly, but in truth, that's the way it's been for years.
"I don't care about your hair, Dana," Maggie tells her. "I care that you're here. I care that you're safe." She hugs Scully again. "That's not to say that I'm not absolutely furious with you, but I'm willing to let that go for today." Scully nods, understanding perfectly. There will be a reckoning, and she will have no choice but to sit through it... but that will not happen today.
Breathing out in relief, Scully turns, holding her hand out to Mulder, who steps up to her side, Samantha behind him.
"Mother, I'd like you to meet Colonel Fox Mulder," she says. "I'm sure Samantha has told you all about him." Maggie smiles and offers a hand to Mulder, who bends and kisses the backs of her fingers.
"She has indeed," Maggie confirms. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Mr. Mulder."
The door behind Maggie opens, and Scully catches her breath as her father, every inch as imposing as she remembers, in spite of being out of uniform, steps out onto the porch, Melissa behind him. His face, at first, is unreadable, but moments later, the tears in his blue eyes give him away. Scully runs to him and flings her arms around his neck as he swings her around, exactly as Mulder had done to Samantha moments earlier.
Captain Scully steps back and examines his daughter's uniform, running his fingers over the insignia on her shoulders.
"Lieutenant?" he asks. "Not lieutenant colonel? Or colonel, even?" He shakes his head in mock disapproval. "I would have expected more from you, Sprout."
"I'm afraid that's my fault, Sir," says Mulder, stepping up beside her. Captain Scully looks up at Mulder, raising his eyebrows.
"Oh?" he asks, and Mulder nods.
"I'm sorry to say that I've selfishly kept Lieutenant Scully by my side for the past two years," he says. Scully swallows hard as she lays her hand along Mulder's arm. When she speaks, she tries her best to keep her voice even, to not give away how terrified she is. What if her father disapproves? What if he has it in his head that she can still somehow marry Daniel? She's not, of course, going to simply send Mulder on his way if her father is unhappy with her plans... but all things considered, she would much rather her father be happy for her and not angry.
"Father," she says, "this is Colonel Fox Mulder." Captain Scully raises his eyebrows in interest as he shakes Mulder's hand.
"Ah!" he says. "Miss Samantha's long-lost brother?" Mulder nods.
"I can't thank you enough for allowing her to stay with you," he tells both of Scully's parents. "It's been an enormous weight off of my mind, knowing that she's been safe up here." Maggie waves her hand dismissively.
"I've appreciated the company, Mr. Mulder," she tells him.
"I understand the two of you were in the same regiment?" asks Captain Scully, and Mulder nods.
"I was Scully's captain at first, then colonel...." He swallows hard, and Scully suddenly knows exactly what her chivalrous fool is about to do. "And with your permission, Sir, I would very much like to be her husband."
Maggie gasps and covers her mouth, and Captain Scully's blue eyes pop wide, and behind them, Melissa grins brashly at her little sister.
"You see? I can keep a secret when I want to," she says proudly, as Scully narrows her eyes at her. Their parents pay her no mind.
Scully's mother and father look at one another, and in that glance, Scully sees all that she needs to know. Maggie will have learned all about Mulder from both Melissa and Samantha. She and Captain Scully will know, by now, that aside from being wealthy, he's a good man, a kind man, fiercely protective of the people he loves.
They're not going to disapprove. The knot in Scully's chest loosens.
"Why don't we talk about this inside?" suggests Maggie. "The two of you must be tired and hungry. Come in and have some lunch." Scully nods.
"Just let us see to the horses, and we'll be right in," she tells her parents. They turn and enter the house, along with Samantha and Melissa, and Mulder and Scully unhitch their horses from the front gate. When the front door closes, Mulder grins down at Scully.
"I think that went all right," he remarks. "They didn't throw me out immediately."
"What were you going to do if they did, Mulder?" Scully asks, as they lead their horses up the drive. "You never told me you were planning on asking my father's permission. What would you have done if he'd said no?"
"I would have snuck into your bedroom later tonight and carried you off," he says with a shrug. "Sam would have helped. Your sister, too, probably." Scully shakes her head, but she's laughing. They lead the horses into the barn, unsaddle them, and wipe them down, making sure there's water in the trough and oats and straw enough for them to eat.
Just before they leave the barn, Mulder reaches out and grabs Scully by the arm. She looks up at him questioningly.
"Before we go in to your family, and I have to be the perfect gentleman, before I have to keep my hands to myself...." He smiles down at her, cupping her cheek in his hand. "Do you suppose I could have one more kiss to tide me over?" Scully smiles, her heart fluttering in her chest as he leans down. I hope he never stops making me feel that way, she thinks, as their lips meet and she presses herself against him, her fingertips digging into his hair below the brim of his hat.
She ends the kiss long before she wants to, knowing that if they're out here too long, someone is likely to come looking for them.
"Come on," Scully says, taking Mulder's hand. "We'll have all the time in the world for that, soon enough." Together, they walk out into the bright sunshine, hand in hand, for all the world to see.