Land of the Living II
By Jessica Harris

Warning - !!Character Death!! Eep!

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We keep telling ourselves that he was ready. And it's probably the 
truth; the lymphoma was at an early stage still, and though he was 
thin and tired and used a cane when the neuropathy got too bad, 
there was no reason for it to happen so suddenly.

He even seemed to get a little better that last little while. 
It might have been his going off the drugs - sometimes their 
side-effects are worse than the actual disease - but all of a 
sudden he was *there* again, present in a way we all realised he 
hadn't been in a long time...

Maybe it was because he was always a quiet man, and didn't like to 
complain, but it was too easy to forget sometimes, to joke about 
him growing old with the guys, to say something like "Five years 
from now, we'll all laugh at this." And then something would shut 
down in his eyes, and suddenly he'd be looking right through you, 
looking out at something no one else could see. And you'd remember, 
remember that he never would grow old, that in five years he might 
not be around to laugh or do anything else...I know, none of us have 
any guarantees, any one of us could be hit by a bus tomorrow. But 
somehow it's different to *know*. And so I think he started to keep 
a lot inside himself, growing quieter and quieter...

So it was a bigger shock than I liked to admit to look up that day 
and see him in the doorway of my office. "Come on, Mulder," he said. 
"There's something you have to see," and the urgency in his voice 
made me drop everything and follow him. All he would say in answer 
to my questions was "I can't talk here," and I was starting to panic 
a little as I followed his limping progress down the hallway. I 
didn't know what to expect, but it certainly wasn't Langly waiting 
in a red convertible with rental plates in the parking garage. A red 
convertible with an enormous picnic basket in the back seat.

"What the hell!?" I said, but he just jumped out of the car and 
helped Byers hustle me into the back..

"Wait and see, Mulder," he said with a wicked grin.

It was warm out, one of those gorgeous spring days when the leaves 
are all still new and fresh and the sun is just warm enough to give 
you a first taste of summer. It had been years since I rode in a 
convertible, and I had forgotten what it felt like, that steady rush 
of wind in your face, how much faster everything seemed to fly by 
somehow. Finally we pulled in at a small park I had never been to 
before, and Byers led me to a picnic table near the pond while 
Langly followed after with the ridiculous picnic basket.

"What's going on?" I asked, but neither one of them would answer my 
question, just unpacked sandwiches and beer and started to eat.

So I gave in, and we sat there for a couple of hours, eating and 
drinking and talking about old cases and new theories. And it was 
really nice - I realised it had been a long time since I had done 
anything like this, just sitting around, talking...

Eventually Langly got up and wandered down by the pond, peering 
suspiciously at the ducks who swam there, and Byers moved to sit 
beside me. "Hey, Mulder?" he said, and when I turned to him he 
grabbed my tie and kissed me soundly. I think my jaw dropped when 
he pulled away - Byers would never have kissed me in public when we 
dated, let alone now, with his boyfriend standing by.

"What was *that* for?" I asked when I recovered.

"When was the last time someone kissed you?" he said gently. "For 
that matter, when was the last time you had dinner with someone, or 
talked about anything but work?"

I shrugged uncomfortably. Things hadn't been quite the same with 
Scully since Diana Fowley and the trouble she had brought. Skinner 
seemed to be doing his best to distance himself completely, and 
things with Alex had gotten... well, OK, they had never been 
anything *but* complicated. But this last year it had all gotten 
to be too much, and I hadn't seen him in months. Didn't know when 
I would see him again, *if* I would see him again. And I wasn't sure 
how I felt about that. Or felt about anything anymore, to tell you 
the truth.

As if he could read my thoughts Byers shook his head and said, "I 
know, I know, your boyfriend poisoned your boss, and your girlfriend 
had a piece of your brain surgically removed, and I'm sure you have 
every right to have some trust issues, Mulder. But - you're not 
getting any younger, you know. *This* is what I wanted you to see - 
" he waved his arm at the park around us, "Look! This park is full 
of beautiful men, it's a gorgeous day outside, this is going to be 
a beautiful summer, and if we hadn't come along and dragged you away 
you'd have wasted it all down in the basement. We hacked into the 
personnel files, and you haven't taken a holiday in two years. Don't 
make me resent you *too* much, Mulder - it's not fair to *have* a 
life, and then to waste it."

That's when I suddenly realised that an all-too-familiar ritual had 
been missing from the lunch. "Your pills!" I said. "You didn't take 
them! John, please, what's happening?"

He looked away, back down at Langly by the pond. "They found 
lymphoma at my last check-up. Not much use in staying on the 
cocktail now."

"Oh," I said awkwardly, "Oh, John. I'm sorry."

By then Langly was walking back towards us, and Byers called out 
"Ringo? Can we go somewhere Italian for dinner? And then how about 
a drive-in? *Are* there still drive-ins? I haven't been to one since 
I was a kid."

***

He ended up falling asleep 20 minutes into the movie, curled in the 
back seat under the blanket from the picnic basket. Langly leaned 
over the seat and made sure his feet were covered, then turned back 
to the screen, taking his glasses off and polishing them furiously. 
When I looked over, there were tears on his cheeks.

"This movie *sucks*," he said tightly, and when I put a hand on his 
shoulder, he dropped his head on the wheel and cried for a long 
time. Then we drove home. Neither one of us felt much like staying 
for the rest of the show.

Three weeks later Byers was dead. Nothing huge and dramatic - one 
morning he just didn't wake up.

So we tell ourselves --  *I* tell *myself* -- that he was ready, 
that he simply...let go. But we can't really know, can we?

And he might have been ready, but the rest of us sure weren't. It's 
a beautiful summer, just like he said it would be, but it seems like 
none of us can tear ourselves away from the empty space where he 
used to be. Scully keeps downloading information from the treatment 
pipeline, stacks of paper that gather dust on her desk until 
eventually she drops them in the recycling bin. Langly haunts the 
apartment like a ghost - I dropped by there the other day and he 
was sitting at the desk, staring at the computer screens, which for 
the first time I can remember were all switched off.  Frohike looks 
frail and suddenly old. Scully kissed his cheek at the funeral, and 
he didn't say anything, just stood there tugging at the lapel of his 
scruffy suit.

And me? Well, I know what I feel about this. I *hate* it. It seems 
to me sometimes that I've spent my whole life doing this, haunting 
the small empty spaces where people used to be. Byers was right, 
it's not much of a life, and it's not fair to the people who still 
*are* here. At my worst moments I feel like I would have traded 
my life for his - haven't I endangered mine in stupid ways often 
enough? But I know that's not what he was asking me for, not really.

But I feel like I do owe him something, owe it to him to at least 
try and be *there*, be present in my own life. I haven't tried to 
contact Alex yet, but Scully and I have talked a little, and it's 
getting better, slowly. And in front of me on my desk right now is 
a request for two weeks vacation. I hope I can still catch a little 
of the summer before it ends.

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