Thanks to Chuck, Kristina, Sandie, Shael & BethLynn for very helpful comments and suggestions.

Title: Avshalom
By Drovar
A follow up to Recollection
(A Vignette from the AD Scully Universe)


She tracked the tiny fireball as it scorched through the night
sky above DC. It was gone in a fiery instant on its way to
splashdown in the vast Atlantic. A line of brightness, an echo of
portent, lingered in her vision. She closed her eyes against the
city lights when she heard a quiet presence at her office door.

She knew who it was before the door was fully open. Only one
person knew her well enough to know where she would be, and what
she would be doing. Only one person would move so softly and
surely through her dark office. She pictured him slowly closing
the door, letting his eyes adjust, finding her at the window as
expected, and then moving with a sure-footed step. He'd grown a
lot in the last few years, moving through his duties and
endeavors with an assurance and confidence she never would have
suspected existed.

And yet somewhere beneath that gruff exterior, beneath the harsh
Senior Agent shell, far past the officious FBI demeanor, the
lonely boy Jeff Spender remained, still vaguely naive and
innocent. Whatever darkness may have lurked in Spender's heart,
had long ago been banished, burned away in the firestorm of
retribution that had claimed his father and his father's
syndicate.  The world was a safer saner place, and yet standing
alone at the window with only her memories wrapped around her
like a shawl of pure regret, Dana Scully felt neither.

He moved to stand beside her in darkness. The last vestiges of
his drugstore cologne mingled with the stronger scent of coffee.
The drapes were spread wide revealing the D.C. skyline. The
skyline, a mosaic of  offices, high-rises and penthouses stood
out stark, luminous and brilliant against the night. She could
feel him, more than see him as she glanced over. Standing in his
familiar spot, staring out into the sparkling dark, two coffees
held carefully in his hands, one was offered to her, the other
already at his lips.

She accepted the cup with wordless thanks. They were at ease she
realized, like an old married couple, comfortable with things
unspoken and yet understood. The thought startled her. She fought
back a momentary vision of the two of them in some distant time.
The FBI a far off memory, fodder for stories of "Do you
remember?" told just to make her smile, and nothing more.

The coffee was sweet, heavy with chocolate and hot. She swallowed
more than she should, willing the burn to drive away her safe
impossible fantasy, and to remind her.

"How long has it been?" his voice asked from the darkness at her
side. His question anticipated her thoughts. She took another sip
before answering.  Had she really grown that transparent, had she
ever in her life been so easily read?

She looked over, catching his face in profile. She started,
nearly dropping her coffee from her suddenly weak hands.  They
were so much the same, and yet such different men. For a moment
she recalled standing before a different window, in a different
time and place. She had asked that same question, the answer had
been different, the meaning the same.

"Do you believe in signs Spender?" She asked aloud as she turned
back toward the city lights. She was ignoring his question, she
knew, which was in itself an answer.

"You mean like Domino's or Room for Rent?" he asked, a hint of
subtle laughter and gentle sarcasm in his voice.

She had to smile a little at that, a short flicker of brightness
piercing the gray overcast that shrouded her thoughts.  When had
they come to this, when his simple easy laugh could touch her?
When had she allowed herself become so weak and needy?

"You didn't answer my question," she said between slow sips of
coffee.  Her voice was sharper than she intended. It was an
affectation that came with her position and her past. A woman
high up in an old boy's world had to be twice as tough, twice as
strong. She'd already had her moment of joy, her one in five
billion. A desperate memory held tight in the dark, it was all
she had, it would have to be enough.

There was a long pause as if Spender were pondering the wisdom of
his reply. Just as Scully was about to ask him a second time he
spoke.

"There is no such thing as an omen. Destiny does not send us
heralds. She is too wise or too cruel for that." Spender's voice
a measured monotone as if he were reading from a carefully
prepared script.

Scully turned so she could see his face clearly, lit in the faint
glow of the city skyline he looked younger, almost innocent, more
the earnest young FBI agent that had accosted her in the hallway
so many years and trials ago. His eyes seemed to be fixed on some
distant horizon, as if he were looking at some approaching
calamity that only he could see. Scully closed her eyes for a
moment forcing back a vision of a dark rider on a pale horse,
conjured from her childhood fears and memories.

"Oscar Wilde," Scully said opening her eyes after a long pause "A
Picture of Dorian Grey'" A mix of surprise and a little wonder
passed over Spender's face at that moment.

"You've read it?" he asked with just a trace incredulity in his
voice.

She felt herself smile almost grimly at the question. She took a
sip of her now lukewarm coffee and looked back out into the night
sky.

"You're social life is about as dull as mine," she said
finally. "Spending your weekends home curled up with a book?"

He laughed aloud. His voice filled the large office. Scully
listened to the familiar cadence, as sadness suddenly swept up
from the depths of her spirit and overwhelmed her. It wasn't like
Mulder's laugh.  It was too light, too sharp. Somehow though, at
some nearly unconscious level, she could hear familiar strands of
depth and warmth that the two men shared. It made her ache anew
with loss, and need, as deep and harsh as it had been five years
ago.

"I know the depth of your heart by the echo of your voice," she
said softly.

Spender stopped laughing and stared at her, as is finally
catching sight of her in the darkness. "That's beautiful, what's it from?"

"Something from a friend, a long time, and a lot of stories ago."
Scully let out a slow deep breath and dropped her empty cup into
that trash before turning back to the window.

"Good night Jeffrey," she said.

He stood in the darkness looking at her, she could almost feel
his eyes boring into her, trying to divine her soul.

"You can't love a ghost," Spender said as he walked to the door.
He paused as he opened it. She could see him reflected faintly in
the window glass, a transparent shade of a man, shot through with
darkness and light from the city beyond. He lingered there for a
while his expression unreadable in his muted reflection. He spoke
at last, his voice somber, covering and masking his emotions as
best he could.

"To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the
truth." He stopped again, seeming to consider his next words
carefully. "You need to find your truth, Scully. Find it and bury
it. Mulder deserved better." Spender stepped through the door and
spoke once more.

"Goodnight Scully"

She listened to the door close behind her and let out the breath
she had been holding.  She was tired; weary beyond imagining --
her soul ached. Mulder had spent his life searching for the
truth, how could she deny it to him in death?  She stared out
into the dark sky and waited for the first faint glow of sunrise.

[end]