DISCLAIMER:  These characters belong to Chris Carter, Ten-
Thirteen Productions and the Fox Network.  I mean no
infringement.

This is a post-Leonard Betts Sonnet story and contains
MAJOR, COPIOUS SPOILERS.  If you do not want to know what
happened in Leonard Betts---or want to have hints as to what
I believe may happen in future episodes, GO NO FURTHER.


Rated PG-13 for disturbing content and language.  And
warning---this does NOT have a happy ending.  Yet.


SONNET:  "So Short a Lease"
by Anne Haynes
AHaynes33@aol.com


Poor soul, the center of my sinful earth,
....these rebel powers that thee array,
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
Eat up thy charge?  Is this thy body's end?
Then, soul, live upon thy servant's loss,
And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
Within be fed, without be rich no more.
So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,
And Death once dead, there's no more dying then.
                     
                      --  William Shakespeare


*  *  *  *  *


Washington, DC
Late January, 1997


The tests, though thorough, had been surprisingly quick. 
Dana Scully was re-dressed and on her way back to the office
within three hours of arriving at the doctor's office.  She
had even begun to laugh at her fears; Dr. Pritchard hadn't
seemed overly concerned by anything Scully had told her.  A
nosebleed wasn't a particularly rare phenomenon, especially
during the winter.  And her general feeling of fatigue could
be just that--fatigue.  She and Mulder had been on a run of
tough, stressful cases recently, the Leonard Betts case only
the latest.

*...I'm sorry, but you've got something I need....*

She shook off the memory.  Leonard Betts may have been--
okay, most definitely had been--a bizarre example of human
evolution gone awry, but it was ludicrous to assume that he
had possessed some supernatural ability to diagnose cancer,
no matter what Mulder thought.  If highly trained
oncologists couldn't diagnose internal cancer at a glance,
there was no way an EMT--even one who could re-grow his own
head (and possibly a whole other body)--could do it.

Was there?

She pulled into the parking deck at FBI headquarters and
pushed aside the thought.  Mulder was waiting for her, and
she could tell by his voice on her cellphone earlier that he
had a new case.  She needed to be focused on the job at
hand.

But when she got to Mulder's basement office, he was nowhere
to be found.  She looked on his desk for a note to her, but
there was nothing.  Not that she could be entirely sure,
considering the stack of papers and files scattered across
his desk.  

She dropped into his chair to wait for him, welcoming the
chance to sit and finally relax for the first time all day. 
Something about being here, in this office, surrounded by
the essence of Mulder, calmed her in a way that all her
rational mental lectures hadn't been able to.  Mulder would
laugh if she told him so, but he was her rock.  Sure, he
was certifiably nuts, and he was just as likely to go
running off after a light in the sky as he was to actually
sit still long enough to listen to her perfectly plausible
explanation for said light, but in the end, he was her
touchstone.  Mulder was one of the few "givens" left in her
life.  It was a given that if she needed him, he'd be there
for her, no matter how unreliable he might seem to others.

That knowledge had gotten her through the tests this
morning, and it would get her through the waiting period
between now and when the doctors finally called and told her
that her fears had been silly and unfounded.

Resolutely, she pulled a piece of paper from Mulder's
note pad and started jotting a to-do list.  They hadn't
finished filing all the paper work from the Betts case, but
if Mulder had gotten a whiff of a bizarre new case, he'd
drop the paper work without another thought.  So it was up
to her to keep them on track.

She had already come up with seven pressing tasks when the
door to the office burst open and Mulder slammed inside, his
jaw set like stone.  His expression softened slightly when
he caught sight of her in his chair, a sheepish look erasing
part of the tension in his anger-darkened face.  

"Been to see Skinner?" she asked, deadpan.

He managed a grimace that she supposed he meant to be a
smile.  "Apparently the suspension last month wasn't
enough."

She arched her eyebrows.

He sighed. "He turned down the 302 on the case in 
Tampa."

No big surprise, Scully thought.  She'd told Mulder that
three half-tanked teenagers swearing they saw a Swamp Beast 
wasn't going to sway Skinner.  But he always had to figure 
those things out the hard way.

He dropped into the chair in front of his desk, his long, lanky 
legs stretched out for miles in front of him.  "Maybe the 
explanation of the Betts case isn't going over well with the 
powers that be, and Skinner thinks more punishment is in 
order."  He sounded utterly morose.  "And Skinner actually
started hinting that I hadn't taken vacation days in a while."

Only Mulder, Scully thought, would mope about a paid
vacation.  "You think he's going to make you take time off?"

"I think he might."  Mulder sighed.  "So I guess I'd better
start getting stuff in order here so you can carry on without me 
for however long I'm subjected to this vacation."

She bit back a smile.  Subjected to a vacation--yep, that
was her Mulder.  "Things are pretty slow around here...."

"Not anymore."  He reached across the desk and picked out a
manila folder from the jumble of papers and folders on his
desk blotter.  He handed it to her.  

She opened the folder and glanced at the contents.  Arched
her eyebrows a half inch.  She read it more carefully, then
cocked her head slightly and looked up at him.  "You've
gotta be kidding."

He flashed her a familiar, slightly sheepish smile.  "It IS
intriguing, isn't it?"

That was one word for it.  But intriguing or not, it wasn't 
anything that wouldn't wait until he got back from vacation.

She swallowed a sigh of longing.  How long had it been 
since SHE'D had a real vacation?  

Too damned long.

She wondered, suddenly, if maybe Skinner would give her
matching vacation time.  Mulder wouldn't really want her to
work this new case without him, anyway--not that she
couldn't investigate on her own, but she had long ago come
to the conclusion, and even Mulder was beginning to figure
out, that when she and Mulder worked apart, trouble
generally followed. 

Besides, she could use a vacation.  Somewhere hot and sunny,
where she could relax and just enjoy being alive.  Stretched
out on a beach somewhere, Mulder by her side, his lean body
offered up to the sun like a sacrifice....

Why not? she thought suddenly.

Why the hell not?

The more she thought about it, the better an idea it seemed.
She and Mulder had been dancing around the edge of a big
step forward in their relationship, and if her recent brush
with mortality had taught her nothing else, she had learned
that life was too damned short to spend waiting for the
perfect time for anything.  This could be exactly what both
of them needed.  A chance to move ahead with their lives.

She nibbled her lower lip for a second before she blurted
out the words.  "Maybe I should ask Skinner for vacation,
too."  She ventured a little smile.  "Maybe that trip for
two to Tahiti we're always joking about."

She wanted him to agree more than she wanted to take her
next breath.  Say yes, Mulder.  For God's sake, just say
yes.  Don't think about the consequences.  Just say yes.

"I was kinda hoping you'd hang around here, Scully, maybe
get a head start on this thing."  Mulder nodded at the
folder in her hands.

Her eyebrows rose.   Get a head start?  Mulder was going to
trust her with one of HIS cases, on her own?  She stared up
at him, surprised and a bit more pleased than she liked to 
admit.  She cocked her head.  "So while you're sipping
Margaritas on the coast somewhere, I'm slaving away on your
case?  Thanks a LOT, Mulder."

He glanced at her, his brow wrinkling slightly.  "No, 
Scully--I wouldn't expect you to handle this case on your 
own--I just need you to be here so I don't lose access to 
the Bureau resources."

Her stomach coiled and sank.  "And what?  I feed you 
information on this case while you're on official leave?  
If they wanted you working on a case, they'd never have 
ordered you to take vacation."

"What the Bureau doesn't know won't hurt it."  

Scully pressed her lips together.  Who did he think she was,
Hastings to his Poirot?

Bastard.

"Tahiti will just have to wait."  He reached for the folder
and took it from her suddenly nerveless hands.  "Definitely
this summer," he added with a boyish grin.  "Don't forget to
pack the thong bikini."

Son of a bitch.

She stood, stiffly, and crossed to the small area she called
her own when she was working down here with him.  Not really
her office, of course.  This was--and probably always would
be--Fox Mulder's lair.  She was a visitor, an outsider.

No doubt always would be....

Trapping her lower lip between her teeth to still its
traitorous quivering, she unfolded the to-do list she'd
slipped into her jacket pocket and started methodically
working through the list.  She was almost finished with the
expense report on the Betts case when her cellphone trilled.

"Scully," she answered, her voice tight as a rubber band.

"Dana, this is Lisa Pritchard.  I've gotten the preliminary
results of a couple of your tests, and I want to discuss
them with you.  Do you think you could drop by my office in
an hour or so?"

Scully's fingers tightened on the cell phone.  "What is it?"

"Just some irregularities.  It may be nothing, but since
you're a doctor, I thought I'd like to go over the results
with you as soon as possible.  I'd rather not try to do it
over the phone.  Can you be here in an hour?"

"I'll be there."  She shut off her phone and sat stone-
still, staring at the expense report in front of her. 
Leonard Bett's face danced in her mind, grotesque and
taunting.  *...you've got something I need....*

Oh, God.

"Mulder, I have to go--call me on my cell phone if Skinner
gives you the details about your vacation time."  She rose
and headed for the door.

"What's up, Scully?"

She paused in the doorway, turning to meet his quizzical
expression.  She carefully schooled her own features,
donning a placid mask.  "Nothing for you to worry about. 
Just a consultation.  I'll be in touch."

He nodded and returned his attention to the file in front of
him.  He didn't say good-bye.  Neither did she.

She made her way slowly to the parking garage, trying to
shut down her mind.  She unlocked her car and slid behind
the wheel, her body on auto-pilot while her mind continued
to spin wildly.

Irregularities, Dr. Pritchard had said.  That could be
anything.  Anything at all.  It could be a glitch in the
diagnostic machinery.  A miscalculation on the part of the
technician.  

Anything.

*Glioma.  Carcinoma.  Sarcoma.  Lymphoma.  Osteoma.*

She knew.  Gut deep, she knew what she would see when she
got to the doctor's office.

She lowered her head to the steering wheel, tears burning
her eyes.  Damn it, Mulder, why didn't you just say yes? 
Why didn't you say, yes, Scully, let's go to Tahiti and make
memories that'll last us however long you have left to live?

Involuntarily, her hand rose to her throat.  Her fingers
closed over the cool metal of her gold cross pendant.  Oh,
God, how much longer would she have?  How much life could
she live in the time she had left?

She had been so patient.  Biding her time.  Waiting, waiting
for the time when she and Mulder could finally deal with
everything they'd left unsaid and undone between them for
all these years now.  She had felt the time coming, nearing.
Only a matter of time before they were both ready....

But time had run out faster than either of them had
expected.  And it was becoming blatantly obvious that Mulder
wouldn't be ready soon enough for her.  Might never be
ready, even if they both lived a thousand years.

*Do I even have a thousand days?*

With a searing rush of pain, she realized it was over.  She
couldn't put her future on hold anymore.  Life was short--
shorter than she'd ever imagined.  And she couldn't spend
what was left of hers waiting for Mulder.

Biting back a soft sob, she started the car and headed for
the doctor's office.



The End