Requiescat Postponed

Premise:  So, Mulder's dead...  What does that bode for
the Lone Gunmen?

Title:   Requiescat Postponed 1/1
Author:  Sue
susieqla@yahoo.com
Rating: PG-13 (blue words alert)
Category: V/Gunfic
Spoilers: DeadAlive, snippets from TLG -
the series.
Summary:  Restorations take many forms.
Disclaimer: All X-Files characters and
references are property of C. Carter,
Morgan & Wong, 10-13 Productions and
FOX.
Timeframe:  In this universe, TLG's
affairs and Scully's and Mulder's world
coexist in basically the same temporal
context.  Until I know better, well...



Requiescat Postponed


Takoma Park, MD
Spring, 2001, 6:47 P.M.



This was a side of the Gunmen Jimmy
had never seen before.  It was even
more disquieting than the time he'd
tipped over their vintage van, for
which he'd covered all of the repair
bills, but they'd barred him from
coming within twenty feet of the
vehicle for a good two weeks anyway.
Since this dour presentiment of the
mismatched three, he'd endeavored to
make polite conversation every chance
he seized upon, but he'd been roundly
ignored by the broody, introspective
trio, and his patience, as good-natured
as he was, was wearing thin.

Somehow, this felt different from those
other times his screwing up had been
the cause of their taciturnity.  They'd
been ignoring him for over a week now,
barring anything he'd done.  What
accounted for the change?

Byers had told him the day he'd shown
up; the day after their friend's
funeral, which had been a bleak dreary
day, in a voice mired in abysmal sorrow
that Mulder, who had been presumed dead
following an interminable disappearance,
was indeed dead.

"Mulder?" Jimmy had said, filled with an
air of contagious reverence.  "Wasn't he
that contact of yours in the FBI?"
Another respectful pause.  "The guy
searching for the truth, or whatever?"

Byers glazed eyes had filled, and he'd
been too overcome to reply.  He'd rushed
away, retreating to the solace of his
quarters, and hadn't emerged till late
that evening to see if Frohike had fixed
anything, which he hadn't.  Frohike had
disappeared also, but unlike Byers, had
chosen to stay that way.

Jimmy had gone out for pizza, but when
he'd gotten back, none of his new
associates were in the mood for
stomaching anything, much less a doughy
pizza from Domino's to be washed down
with Cherry Coke, which was grossly out
of synch for Langly whom he'd seen scarf
cardboardy cheese down on more than one
occasion.

The Gunmen were giving no indications
that getting back to normal, whatever
that was for them, was high on their
priorities list.  Nor would it be
anytime soon.

Jimmy crinkled his nose at the
malodorous.  "I still haven't figured
out what's with them," he said to Yves
as they watched Langly sniff under one
armpit, then the other.  He repeated the
action, with his nose doing pretty much
what Jimmy's had done, but unlike Jimmy,
his ripeness didn't matter.  For having
gone without a shower for, in his
estimation, only a few days since the
funeral, he didn't reek so bad.

"I dare say you'd know better than I,"
the dark-haired beauty replied,
wondering why her pint-sized enigma
was at the paper shredder destroying
sheet upon sheet of plain white bond
as though they were digressive WHO
field reports from the most recent
medically-compromised hotspot; Oran,
Algeria.  "I've been out of the country.
Remember?"  She wandered over with that
slink designed to fan the flames of even
a dead man, to the methodical paper
executioner.  "Having fun, Frohike?"

She stood directly in front of him and
waited for recognition.  She'd returned,
as promised.  She hadn't gone away for
the mere pleasure of tormenting him,
the crabby dear that he was.  "I'm
baa-ack..."  Her attempts at semaphore
signaling did not dissuade him from his
unblinking, unthinking task.  "I can see
you're not overcome with joy to see me,"
Yves dickered with the pout manufactured
to drive lesser men dippy.  If it were a
tangible commodity, she would have had
it patented long before this date.

"It's like they've withdrawn into their
own private worlds..."

"Own private hells, more like," Yves
said, eyeing them all.  "How long have
they been like this?"

Jimmy focused his attention on Byers
who was glued in front of the
traditional T.V. the Gunmen watched
when they preferred a single screen.
The old set belonged to Langly,
although now it was 'community
property,' who had removed it from his
apartment ages ago.  Their beefy backer
pointed, and sounding baffled said,
"Aw, man, he hates that kinda stuff."
As though on cue, Byers began chuckling.
"That's more Langly's speed."

"And what accounts for this, uhmm?"
Yves inquired like an emboldened mouse
playing hide and seek with a lazy fat
cat.  The next sheet of paper wound up
in her hand, which Frohike surrendered,
uttering nary a word in protest.  Yves
frowned, and thought, 'where's my little
toughie gone?'  He took up another sheet
from the dwindling stack off to his left
and kept going.

Jimmy tip-tapped his way over to the
'snorking' Byers, who was giving a Coke
commercial his concentrated attention.
Then, when one of Langly's favorite
commercials aired...the one in which
they'd met the ranter personally,
preventing his unseemly marriage, the
unkempt, rumpled-suited Byers
punctuated his viewing 'pleasure' with
more throaty 'snorks' and deep-throated
guffaws.

"Hey, Byers, what gives?" Jimmy
wheedled.  Byers went right on in
heedless mirth.

Yves had moved off from Frohike and was
presently casting surly eyes down at
Langly who was trying his hardest to be
crowned.  She shook her head, seeing how
hopelessly miserably he was going about
it.  She'd seen him shine too many times
to count in days past.  Today wasn't one
of his shining moments.  It was obvious
his mind wasn't on this.  "You're
walking into a trap," she gently
advised, her eyes softening, divided
between the screen and the distant man.
"Where's that dramatic flair of yours
for the flamboyant?"  There was
something bordering on the maniacal
governing his executions.  "Langly."

The computerphile wearing his CiTR tee
never blinked.  Instead, he kept on
with his maddened clicking.

Yves tapped his moist forehead with
her right index.  "At least trade one
insult with me.  Let me know the
digestive juices haven't dried up in
there entirely..."  Not even so much
as a weak sneer out of him.

Jimmy toyed with the idea of depriving
Byers of the masking tape taped remote.
"Maybe they're still not over their
friend Mulder's death."  He cocked
ingenuous eyes at her.  "Ya think?"

Yves took rapier stock;...'Mulder is
it?'  "It's _Mulder_ who's died?"

"Yeah," Jimmy corroborated, still
sounding bemused.  The remote was
dangling in Byer's left hand.  The
well-meaning man wondered if he snagged
it away, would the absorbed one notice.

"Well," Yves said, looking away from
the blond's hapless exploits, sounding
as though she were uncoiling a skein,
"there i'tiz then."

"There what is?" Jimmy rejoined, his
lacking a clue intact.

"Pity; I warned you..."  Yves deserted
Langly, who'd disregarded her timely
caveat, and had succumbed to the
labyrinthine trap like a fly to the
Venus plant variety.  She came to stand
beside Jimmy again, and weighted his
shoulder with her right hand.  "The
explanation for their summary
withdrawal from the here and now."
Rolling her dark, smoldering eyes,
which flashed a certain depth of
knowledge, she continued, "Mulder was
no mere friend, Jimmy."  Her eyes shot
over to Frohike from whom she thought
she'd heard what sounded like a, 'damn
straight.'

"Mulder was their visionary.  They
worshipped the man."  'Still do,' she
thought she heard Langly whimper.
"They hallowed the very ethereal
ground he tread."

"I didn't know," Jimmy intoned, feeling
their arbitrary, strange behavior was
making sense now, and he feeling about
as perceptive as a lumberjack's burly
hands.  "What I mean is, I didn't know
it ran that deep with the guy.  They
always played him off as just their
contact."

Frohike, Langly and Byers were visited
by Yves' sympathetic eyes.  Pitying
them may have been stretching it, but
she wasn't above a sanguine dose of
empathy.  "Quite the loss," she murmured
to herself.  She'd had occasion to meet
the hazel-eyed man with the lazy, cocky
smile a few times, in the course of her
unannounced visits here, and she'd been
impressed, which was no mean feat,
though she'd never let on.  Mulder had
never treated her as though she were
wanted by his employer, unlike the
Gunmen.  She patted Jimmy's shoulder,
then moved out to claim 'center stage.'

"Gentlemen," she generated, sounding as
if her next words should be, 'start your
engines.'  She cleared her tickly throat
a bit more, but did not sense the Gunmen
were giving her their full attention.
"Is this what Mulder would expect from
the lot of you?"  She brought her fist
down forcefully upon the slides
reviewing table.  "Retreat?"  She shook
her head, her thick hair flouncing.  "I
think not."

Way beneath his breath, Langly muttered,
"'Cause you don't think..."

Frohike paused his shredding long enough
to consider where his next supply of
paper was.

Byers laughed at something 'The Nanny'
had just said.

Yves scrutinized them with exacting
eyes, despite their aloof registry.
"He'd expect you blokes to 'stay the
course,' 'forge ahead;' 'soldier on...'"
Why did she sound as though she was
running out of steam?

"Never say damn die," Langly said
gruffly, targeting her with bloodshot
eyes swaddled in contemning loss.

For once she felt no pressing need to
repay him scorn for scorn.  She met his
hard, light cobalt eyes with her softer
ebony ones.  "In a word, 'yes,'" she
deferentially replied.  "Most assuredly
he would."

"We pass the torch on to you,
sweetcakes,"  Frohike pitched into
the pitch, then underscored, "we're
done here.  They're not screwing us
like they screwed Mulder."  Uttering
the name made something inside him
glitch.

"You can't be serious about throwing in
the towel, fellows."

"Yeah, guys, it's like she said.  Ya
can't give up fightin' for truth,
justice--"

"And the 'American Way?'" Byers wedged
in, sounding uncharacteristically jaded.
Jimmy was such a throwback to Jimmy
Olsen.  "Just watch us."  Restlessly,
he got up from the easy chair.  "In all
these years what's one concrete thing
we've accomplished that's made any
difference in the lives of our fellow
citizens?"  The other two Gunmen nodded
along with each other.

"Yeah," Frohike challenged.

"Yeah," Langly championed.

Jimmy was all too eager to take their
negativity on.  "C'mon, guys, sure
you've made a difference."

"I'm waiting for a specific," Byers
upended.

"Okay, maybe I haven't known you guys
all that long," Jimmy defended, "and I
don't know all the ins-and-outs, but
you sure helped that nice old lady who
wasn't the one poisoning folks."

"How?" Byers pinned.

"You helped her to see she's not all
alone in the world, Frohike.  She's
got you.  Us now.  I think that's
something."  Jimmy looked to Yves for
backup.  "I know it is."

"I agree," she said readily, sounding
unequivocally committed for a change.
She tried catching Frohike's dodgy eye.

"And what about Adam Burgess?"

"Who?" Frohike hooted.

"You know.  The guy you saved from
virtual mind control."  Jimmy couldn't
believe they'd forgotten the pathos of
that strange chain of events this soon.
"Helped him win back the woman of his
dreams."

What about him?" Langly demanded
sullenly, clearly unimpressed.

"Helping him the way you did is no
big deal to you now?" Jimmy pricked in
a high, callow voice.  Incredulously,
his eyebrows inched up high on his
wrinkling brow.  "Sheesh -- c'mon, you
made all the difference in the world in
that guy's life.  You turned it around.
He had the same look on his face at the
ring that most of my football players
had after catching their first passes,
and making first touchdowns."

The Gunmen's silence had a restless
quality about it, and then Langly,
while switching off his computer said,
"Small potatoes."  Jimmy and Yves
exchanged daunted glances, silently
hoping one or the either would come up
with the 'clincher,' to turn the three
around.

"Dammit!  Not the same anymore without
Mulder," Byers grumbled, sadly, looking
even sadder.  The pupils of his eyes
pooling to a deeper depth of despair.
"Can't believe he's really gone..."

"Time to stand on your own six feet,"
Yves chirped blithely.  "You and Mulder
have had your day.  Did you really think
he'd always be there for you?  Giving
you direction and impetus?  Now it's
time to fly solo."

"Bitch," Langly spat, knocking the
mouse away with a heavy swat, feeling
raw and ultra-defensive.

"Remind me to return the favor sometime
when you're not this emotional," she
said and folded her arms over her chest.
"You're no challenge a'tall like this."

"Just leave us alone," Frohike
retaliated.

"Leave you alone to what?" Yves
badgered.  "To wallow in self-pity for
the rest of your unimaginative lives?"

"The hell you know.  We're not wallowing
in self-pity," Byers verbally pounced
and strode within two inches of their
competitor's quixotic face.  "We have
enough damn sense to know when to call
it quits."

"Rubbish," Yves spat as vehemently as
Langly had.  "Is this what you call
making sense?  Festering here in the
dark like malignant open wounds?"  The
three looked at one another, but
deigned to answer her.  To their
'collective mind' there wasn't much
point.

Yves gift wrapped each one his own
separate look of frustration.  "Fine,"
she said in a tone which left little
doubt that she had every intention of
blowing them off in no uncertain terms.
She hooked Jimmy's eyes with her
turbulent ones, and trumped, "C'mon.
Let's get out of here.  Leave the poor
lost boys to their maudlin little pity
party.  It's obvious they're not the
intrepid men I'd mistaken them for."

Frohike, looking as if he was prepared
to say something was interrupted by the
phone.  Since nobody made a move to
answer it, he shrugged, threw Yves a,
'hold off a sec' look, and hustled to
take the call.  "Yeah?"  The customary
greeting had also become a casualty.

It was as though the voice on the
other end had just coldcocked him.

"Sc-Scully?"  He'd convinced himself
that he was never going to hear from
her again.

("Yeah, Frohike, it's me, and you'll
never believe what I'm about to tell
you.  I'm having a hell of a time
believing it myself.  You might need to
sit down.")

"What've ya got?"  Frohike's heart
fluttered, gladdened suddenly by the
sound of the Agent's heady-sounding
voice.

("M-Mulder's a...  Damn it's so
fantastic!")

"Say it all at once, if it's hard.
It'll be easier, maybe."

("Mulder's _alive_!  Oh, God!")

Of course he'd heard wrong.  "What did
you say?" he said, deliberate and
pointed.

("Listen carefully, Frohike.  Mulder-is-
alive.  I swear.  He is.  I'm in
Annapolis, at the U.S. Naval Hospital
with him right now.  He's cracking
jokes, and best of all he's breathing on
his own.  He's _not_dead.  He's alive.
So very alive!  Fro-Frohike, are you
there?")

"Well I'll be damned," the stunned
listener qualified in a hushed voice,
hearing the mix of consternation and
jubulation rippling through his words.
This was Scully; of course what she
was saying was true.  "Damn.  Mulder...
alive."

Langly was wearing a headset now,
wanting Scully to repeat herself.
Byers' ear was lobe to lobe with
Langly's opposite.

"We're coming down 'pronto,'" Frohike
hastened to add, and had gone speaker
with the phone.  "Keep him the way you
say he is now, and kickin' till we get
there."

("Hurry, 'Hike, as I said, I still
can't believe he's among us living
again.  He's all but drained, but
seeing you, Byers and Langly will
likewise lift his spirits tremendously,
and will help me get a firmer grip on
reality with all of us being together
again.  He truly loves you guys, and I
love you too.  I could never've made it
through all this without your timely,
selfless help, and being there for us
when we needed you most.  You're true
friends, and we're blessed to have you.
Hurry.  He's waking again, and rather
than have you say something over the
phone, it'll be so much better saying
the things you will to him, in
person...")

"We're there, Scully," Frohike vowed,
gaining control of his wobbly voice.
Without further fanfare, he ended the
call.

The transfixed Gunmen traded surreal
looks with each other.  "Alive," the
trio chimed as though they were
pronouncing some mystical incantation
that would work only if repeated in
triplicate.  Its having the ability to
ward off any misunderstanding, its aim.

"B-But how?" Jimmy posed with an
incomprehensible look burned into his
face.

"Who the hell cares how?" Frohike
fired back, "Scully says he is.  That's
good enough for me."

"Me too," Langly buttressed, and Byers
nodded, placing a hand on his grinning
friend's shoulder.  "It's gotta be an
alien thing," Langly mumbled.

"A what?" Jimmy asked, still lost.
"Who did they bury then?"  He was on a
stubborn roll.  "A stand-in?"

"We're wasting time here."  Frohike was
already at the door, rendering the
contingency of locks useless.  "The
sooner we're at Mulder's bedside, the
sooner we get to grill him."

Byers and Jimmy plowed through the door
nearly simultaneously, after Frohike,
with Jimmy still volleying questions as
though they were shuttlecocks.  Byers
let them whiz.  His mind was with
Mulder, as he was sure Frohike and
Langly had theirs.

Yves was about to head out, but at the
last moment, as Langly brought up the
rear, he stopped her, hesitantly
touching her arm nearest to him.

"Uh, hey.  Like before...  When I called
you a bitch?"  Guilty eyes were scraping
her gleaming leather boots.

"I seem to recall..."  Her tone was
leading with just a hint of suspecting
what was coming.

Langly raised his head in halting
stages.  "I'm sorry I did."  Yves
erased the smug look from her face, and
toned down the 't'ai chi, chu'an' cast
in her eyes.  "I didn't mean it, y'know.
I, uh..."  He hadn't planned on saying
more, but something was forcing his hand.
"It was a bitchy thing to say.  Sorry."
Quickly, he turned away, and crossed over
the threshold.  Once she'd done so too,
he began locking up as if his life
depended on hearing each mechanism click
snugly into place.

Yves waited for him to finish so she
could get a good view of his face again.
"No one's getting through them," she
insisted with just that tug of 'bravada'
that tweezed his nerves.

"Unless they're you," Langly replied
snidely, watching her face which was
a study of surmise.  He thought it
wiser then to take egotistical
countermeasures in case she decided to
get her licks in anyway, for the hell
of it.

"Quite."  She hesitated, letting lazy
eyes float upon Langly's 'bobbing and
weaving' countenance.  'So young,' she
thought, 'to be his age.'  "And about
that 'bitch' thing.  Not to worry.  It
was the pain talking."  Not at all sure
about how to take her expansiveness,
Langly shrugged and tried to stop
feeling so awkward.  He plunged his
hands into the roomy pockets of his
sporty jacket.

"Truce, huh?"  His eyes had taken on
a 'waving the white flag' glint in
them.

"Armistice..."  Yves' eyes told him
they had their own flag, thank you very
much.  "Great news about Mulder."

"Yeah..."

Together, as the thoughts-filled couple
advanced on the van, with its impatient
occupants wondering what was taking so
long, Yves whispered, "Still think
the thrice of you haven't made a
difference?"

"You mean on account of what Scully
said?"

"It crossed my mind."

"Like the way you put it...  We were
thinkin' and speakin' outta pain."

Her next move caught him by surprise
like the capricious gust of warm breeze
of the early night's gathering darkness
fanned his warming face.  She'd linked
her arm with his, which didn't seem to
be doing anything significant at the
moment.  Langly looked as though he'd
shed his skin within minutes.
"Precisely, and relax."

Byers beeped the horn again.  Frohike,
along with him, was hunkered in the
front bench seat.  They glared in unison
at the pair to get the lead out, and get
a quicker move on.  Jimmy had had the
forethought to roll back the door, and
his wide grin indicated he had plenty
of room.  Langly, looking doubtful,
glanced at the van's revealed interior,
then at her.  "Don't think there'll be
enough room in there.  You could take
your ride, like ya usually do."

Yves shrugged, and said, sounding
objective, "I don't mind doing the
group thing now and again."  She smiled
at him.  "I'll manage.  If it's too snug
a fit, I'll sit in your lap."  Now that
was a newer look for him.  'So young?'
This time, she strung along the
additional thought, 'or terrified of a
woman's shadow?'  She strengthened the
hold she had on his stiff arm, hoping
he wasn't about to fall down and tamped
down the chuckle squeezing through her
throat to escape.  This was even more
fun than bedeviling Frohike; bewitching
Langly.

'More countermeasures, more damn
countermeasures,' his mind churned
feverishly.  "Y'uh?" was all he could
come up with.

"Only if we're cramped for space."
Unable to resist, she threw in, "Which
I hope is a distinct possibility."
When she saw his Adam's apple bob, the
playful chuckle won its freedom and rose
to the occasion; Yves slipped a hand
discreetly to her mouth.  "Age before
beauty..."

He hesitated before crawling in.  He
felt like asking her if she'd let him
take her car.

"All right," Yves sparked close to his
ear, having sidled up, raising his
hackles, "you can sit in _my_ lap."
Langly shook his head at full tilt, at
a loss for everything, so Yves took the
inititive, climbing aboard, then patting
the narrow space beside her.  "Plenty
of room I see, if you don't mind us
getting chummy."  After she winked, she
urged, "What are you waiting for?"

Jimmy grabbed Langly by the arm and
yanked him in so his butt landed
heavily on the 'muscles'' knees, and
the right cheek of the hacker's face
was now plastered against Yves' shapely
thigh.  "Okay, Byers, we're all in.
Take off," Jimmy ordered.

Yves winked at Langly again, and asked
suggestively, "Comfy?" and he grimaced,
twisting to shift to a less
compromising position, but to no avail.
There were too many dangerous curves to
contend with, and it had nothing to do
with any roadbed.

"What the hell are you waiting for?"
Frohike demanded.

"For them to get settled back there,"
Byers replied evenly.

"We're settled, we're settled," Langly
protested.  "Maybe if you moved a
litt--"

"How's this?  No, Jimmy, you stay put,"
Yves ordered, "your legs are fine where
they are."  She shifted some more, over
to the right, until Langly's head
rested offsides her hip.  "Whose idea
was it to put this microwave and the
extra gadget paneling in here?"

"Mine," Langly retorted sourly.  "Okay,
all set," he ruffled, not daring to
move his hands or else they'd be forced
to rest places embarrassing, he'd turn
all shades of the rainbow over.

"Can we get going?" Frohike barked a
second time.

"Hell yeah," Langly stewed, "let's
do it."

The van jiggled as it got underway, its
movement only serving to make the
journey an exercise in humiliation for
the pinkening blond.  How he got shoved
up against her breasts he never knew,
closing his eyes and praying the 'torture'
would end soon.  Although, he postulated
it was only beginning; Annapolis wasn't
a spin around the block.

Yves leaned into him and funneled into
his ear, "Perhaps you were right.  You
would have been better off if I'd taken
my car..."

Langly lied and said, "I'm cool," even
though he was far from it.  "Too many
bumps," and he couldn't smile when she
did.

Jimmy's snickers puntuated most of
the journey to the hospital with
Frohike looking over his shoulder
frequently, relishing seeing how much
his bud was squirming in so many ways
aside from the readily apparent.


\/\/\/

What went on in transit was forgotten
once the Gunmen, with their new
associates in tow, made it to the
bedside, and saw the very much alive
Mulder for themselves.  Owing to the
parade of people in and out of his
room, Mulder wondered whether he was
in a hospital or Grand Central Station.
Well after eleven-thirty, Yves and
Jimmy bid the parties involved
goodnight.

The Gunmen's visit transformed into a
three-day vigil of alternating shifts,
despite Scully's insistence that they
should clear out, after day one.
'Mulder needs his rest, and with you
three asking if he needs anything every
two minutes, he'll never get it.'

Reluctantly, they departed the day
before Mulder's discharge, once he'd
managed to renew their vision, imbue
them with a purpose revived, albeit he
could offer no clearer explanation
regarding the factors responsible for
his inexplicable 'resurrection.'

Having their dearest friend and fellow
traveler, as arcane as ever, and a far
cry from being stone cold, back, was
the Gunmen's reviving.  Shoving whatever
logic aside, having Mulder back was what
mattered most to them.


End...