The X-Files and all its characters belong to Chris Carter, Fox, Ten Thirteen, etc. I am just borrowing again for fun and as usual not making a doggon penny. I guess they could sue, but they sure won't get anything. One can't get blood from a stone, except of course, in the X-Files. This is a post "Elegy" story although it isn't really necessary to have seen it. It is a friendship story so that non-shippers don't have to run and hide. A thoughtful Mulder buys Scully a gift and makes a gesture that proves what a wonderful person he can really be in a pinch. Definitely PG. Any comments can be e-mailed to me as Macspooky@aol.com. Visit my "not without problems" website http://members.aol.com/Macspooky/index.html if you aren't sick of me already. This is for my cyberbuddy Pat, the non-shipper. "The Cameo" by Macspooky Fox Mulder got off the Metro bus glad to be almost home. He hoped to hell that his car would be ready tomorrow morning. He didn't want to do the old bus and train business again. He supposed it was time to trade the old clunker in for a new one, but he never seemed to get around to it, and a lot of times he had the government car anyway, so it wasn't much of an issue until he didn't have it that day and the old wreck he called his own died. He could have asked Scully for a ride, of course, but she had left earlier than he had wanted to. He suspected she had been very tired. His partner had had a difficult time dealing with their last case, dealing with the apparition she had seen. He had inadvertently made it worse by telling her that usually only dying people had such visitations by the dead, but of course, he hadn't known she'd seen one or he would have kept his mouth shut. How could he know? She hadn't bothered to tell him. That hurt just a little bit, but that was Scully. Nothing would change her, and he wouldn't want to in anycase. He didn't know quite why he stopped in front of the jewelry store. Perhaps it was the blue in the window that caught his eye, or perhaps he was just dawdling...enjoying the pleasant weather...and not all that eager to go home to an empty apartment for another lonely Friday night. He realized what had caused him to stop was a display of cameos. Most were the usual beige color, but the velvet lined case was interspersed with others that were a beautiful shade of blue, not unlike, he realized, Scully's eyes. He had never seen a blue cameo before. He remembered his mom having one and hating it....old ladies jewelry...but of course he had been young then. There was nothing old about these. They were exquisite. They were also unusual in that they were carved not with the faces of lovely women, although there were some of those, but with animals....one a beautiful Persian cat, the other a Siamese....a horse's head.....and then....he burst out laughing....a beautifully carved Pomeranian. Mulder thought it must be fate....that he should gaze into a jewelry store window and see Queegqueg. God, how he had hated that dog! It seemed as though everytime he had gone near it, it had tried to snap his hand off. It snarled if he got too close to his partner, and one time it had lifted its furry little leg against the suit jacket that he had hung across the back of one of Scully's dining room chairs. He stopped laughing though when he thought about what a prick he'd been when the dog had been eaten by an alligator. Scully had loved the damn thing, a fact that he had not been able to really see at the time. He had been too busy chasing after a monster and had had no time for her grief, particularly since he had firmly believed that Queegqueg the Cannibal had gotten his just desserts. The alligator incident had definitely been one of the more self absorbed episodes of his life. He stepped into the jewelry store and made some inquiries about prices. In the end, he purchased the cameo and a simple but elegant gold chain. The saleswoman placed it in a blue velvet box and gift wrapped it for him. "You've made a fine choice," she smiled. "This is going to make some lucky lady very happy." "I certainly hope so," he sighed. He wondered at this point if anything could really make Dana happy. He knew she was very frightened, and he wished there were a way he could convince her that she didn't always have to be strong, that is was okay to talk about it, okay to lean on him now and then. He trudged the rest of the way home and thought about his partner. Perhaps he needed to find a way to take her mind off of things. Dana was up and about early. She had cried herself to sleep the night before, cried as she had not permitted herself to do since she had seen that horrible vision. She had said she wasn't afraid to die, but she had come to realize that that wasn't true. She didn't want to go yet. She wanted to stay where she was and finish her work. She tried to stay brave, but it was becoming more and more difficult with each passing day, especially days like this when she didn't have to work. There was a knock on her door and she went to it. Mulder was standing there. "Hi, Mulder. What's wrong?" she asked. "Nothing is wrong," he said brightly. He thought it rather sad that when she saw him she should immediately assume that there had to be something bad happening. "I woke up this morning. It was a beautiful sunny day....Let's go somewhere? Just you and me...like normal people." "Where?" Dana was stunned. This wasn't the Fox Mulder she knew. All he wanted to do was to work. "I don't know....somewhere...outdoors....a picnic maybe....." "Okay...." she heard herself say. "I'm glad you agreed because I have food in the car and I even remembered a blanket." "Fox Mulder....a picnic....organized.....I'm not sure I'm ready for this," she said. "Let me get dressed and we can leave. There's coffee in the pot if you'd like some while you're waiting." "You are truly an angel. Actually, if you tell me where your thermos is, maybe I'll pack it up to go." "Okay...third cabinet to the right." They drove out to Western Maryland to a park that Dana knew and placed their blanket on the grass near a lake. Then they spent the rest of the morning people watching. "This is just a little too normal for us, Mulder," she chuckled. Kids swimming in the lake laughed and shouted. Nearby a woman nursed an infant. "Well, it is different," he replied. The sun played on her hair. She looked so pretty. "When daddy was stationed at Annapolis, we used to come out to this lake sometimes. Mom would pack a basket of food and we would swim for hours. Bill would always try to dump me off that floating platform out there." "I bet he succeeded too." Fox smiled at her. She didn't talk about her childhood much, but then he never asked either. It was always another file...another medical opinion...another case. She rarely mentioned Bill. He knew things had not been right between the two of them since Melissa had died and that it hurt her deeply. "Oh, I had my ways of getting back at him," she replied ominously. A softball headed in his direction and he reached out and caught it easily from where he sat. "Good catch, Mr." said a boy around 10. Mulder handed him the ball and watched him trot away. "Oh, to be 10 years old again, huh Scully," he sighed. "I don't know about you, but I'm getting hungry." He had changed the subject quickly because he didn't want it to turn to 12. He hated twelve. Twelve had ruined his whole life. "Okay, let's see what kind of poison you brought along." She thought idly as she munched on the what was probably the best chicken salad sandwich on a croissant that she had ever had, that he certainly hadn't spared any expense. She was enjoying herself, and she really was very hungry all of a sudden. She finished the whole thing. "Want another?" he asked. To her surprise, she did. Her appetite had been very poor lately, a real cause for concern, but she even managed to finish the second sandwich. "Thirsty?" he asked her. "If there is an iced tea in that cooler, Mulder, it could be love," she chuckled. He reached in and rummaged around. "Must be fate, Scully.....iced tea....besides, there was never any doubt about it. Well...on the other hand, there was that first case." Her lips quirked up in a smile and she took it from him gratefully. When she had satisfied her thirst, she lay back on the blanket and looked up at the blue sky through her sunglasses. She felt suddenly tranquil and her eyelids grew heavy. Fox Mulder sat quietly and watched her sleep. It wasn't, of course, the first time he had seen her sleep. She had spent hours sleeping in the car with him on stake out....able to fall asleep anywhere at any time , or so it seemed, a trick she had told he she learned in med school. In the beginning she had leaned against the car window and slept. After awhile, she had started leaning against his shoulder and sleeping. No, he thought, there hadn't been any doubt about what they shared for a long time. He wondered when he had decided that she was pretty....no more than pretty, quite beautiful actually. No Hollywood style bimbo was she. She didn't have the nose for it. She was short...not tall and leggy the way he liked them, usually, and yet this small person who he had found quite unattractive when she had walked into his office that first time, had become the one ray of sunshine in his dismal life. In his time, he had probably screwed more women than he could remember even with his photographic memory. He had had some pretty intense relationships, but none of them had ever meant as much to him as the friendship of the woman who slept so peacefully now. He was, he decided, glad that he had spent the day with her. Although he never would have said it to her, he was coming to feel that there wouldn't be much time left for them to be together. The thought frightened him. He would once again be all alone against the world. Don Quixote without his Sancho Panza...always chasing rainbows....some elusive truth.....his sister..... Lying on his side with his head propped on an elbow he idly counted the smattering of freckles she had across her cheeks. They were visible now as she wore no makeup. Once he had thought freckles ugly. Now they had grown precious. The breeze blew a strand of hair across her face and with one long slender finger, he gently brushed it away. Her hair was soft, like silk. She used, he knew, some sort of herbal scented shampoo. Sometimes smell was quite strong when he would appear at her motel room door shortly after she'd taken a shower. Funny the little things he knew about her, the intimate things. He wondered if she would be appalled to know that he even knew what sort of tampon she used. In some ways, he knew her better than the women he had slept with...even Phoebe who he had just about lived with. In some ways their relationship was more intimate than if they were married. They probably spent more time together than most husbands and wives. Such a deep friendship with anyone was a gift, but with a woman, a member of the opposite sex, it was even more rare and precious. Her eyes opened and she looked up at him. "Deep in thought, Mulder?" she asked. "I was just thinking....no, actually, I was just wondering why," he said, "in the four years that I've known you, I've never told you that you were beautiful." "Maybe," she laughed sitting up, "it's because I only wear a size 32B bra." "That big huh?" he grinned. She mock punched him and reached for the rest of her ice tea. "I'm sorry I fell asleep on you. I guess I ate too much." "Oh, I rather enjoyed watching you and you didn't even snore." He reached into the cooler and pulled out the box with his gift in it. He realized that he had goofed rather badly. The wrapping was totally sodden. He had organized everything else so well but he had forgotten to put that in plastic. He should have kept it in his pocket. "I...um....kind of saw this and liked it and thought you might too." Feeling suddenly stupid and awkward, he handed her the wet box. "Is something going to pop out of this and bite me, Mulder?" she asked him good humoredly. "An alien insect maybe or a mutant scorpion..." "Madam, you insult me." "That will be the day...." Dana began peeling away wet ribbon and the sodden mass of paper. It looked as though it might have been pretty once. This entire day confused her a little bit. Mulder was acting more like Eddy Van Brunht. No, that wasn't true. Mulder was acting like Mulder, just showing a side of himself that he didn't let anyone see very often. He was showing the side of himself that her mother saw and loved so much. The gift was typical....sweet, kind....and sodden. Finally she got it open. There floating in a puddle of water was a necklace, a cameo hanging on a beautiful gold chain. My God, how had he known that she had always wanted one and this one could be worn as either a pin or a necklace. She poured out the water and looked at it closely. The color was beautiful, and she realized that it was a carving of a dog....a Pomeranian. She took it from the box and dangled it from her hand, and finally tore her eyes from it and looked at Mulder. He was feeling a little silly handing her a wet box. It didn't last long, however. He knew immediately that he had made the right choice. in the gift he had gotten her. She said nothing. She didn't have to. Her smile said it all. Only once since he had known her had he seen her smile like that, the time he had awakened in Alaska and caught her looking at him that way from the corner of his eye. Her whole face lit with delight. For a moment his heart stopped that it should be for him. She handed him the necklace and he dried it off and undid the clasp. As she held her hair up, he fastened it around her neck. "It's perfect," he whispered in her ear softly. "It doesn't need to be fed or walked. It isn't a cannibal. It doesn't bite, and most of all, it doesn't pee on my suit jacket." He very gently placed a kiss on her shoulder. She laughed outloud. This surprised him since she made it a point not to laugh at his jokes....viewed it as a challenge....or something. "What?" he asked. "I was just thinking," she replied a little coyly. "And what were you just thinking my lovely little skeptical one?" "I was just thinking