SMALL-TOWN MAN
By: Char Chaffin
Category: MSR,
Vignette, light angst
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer:
Originals by CC, Clones up for grabs
Spoilers: Season
Nine
Dedication: Happy
Birthday, Dearest Toniann - this one's for you!!
NOTE: This is a
sequel to my story "The Hitcher" - although you do not have to first
read that story to follow this one, here is the link:
http://char.chaffin.com/hitcher.htm
Thanks to: My
Tessie, who always knows what I need before I ask her - To Artemis, for
lettting me in on the secrets of red hair, and to my Babies at IWTB, who keep
having these dang birthdays!
Summary:
"Small-town life. Who would have thought he'd ever be this relaxed... this
happy?"
"Small-Town
Man"
The day is humid
and hot. Bees drone nearby a primrose bush; when she shudders and moves away,
he smiles and chuckles, a little.
There's a moist
haze in the distance, settling over the lake; above the sounds of firecrackers
going off and the happy shrieks of children he can hear motorboats revving up.
He can hear birds twittering in the trees; can smell the bite of smoky barbeque
still hanging heavy in the summer air.
When he looks at
her he can see his future, and it looks damn good...
On an old quilt
that's seen better days, something she found at the last rummage sale she
visited - eating a large slice of watermelon and spitting the seeds up in the
air - he watches them fall, hides a grin at her childish yet endearing actions
- laughs out loud when their son claps his hands and cheers her on in his
little-boy fashion.
Her hair is long
and wavy and wild around her face, as the breeze tosses it gently about. Her
sundress has a broken strap; she safety-pinned it in a hurry because they
didn't want to miss the barbequed spareribs. She doesn't care that anyone who
wants to look can see the pin - which has the head of a yellow duckie hiding
the sharp point. A baby's diaper pin, scratched and worn a little with age -
and he thinks it's so very sweet, that she is proud of being a mommy, proud to
showcase something that downright normal.
Her eyes shine blue
and bright in the summer sun. She doesn't have a lick of makeup on, no mascara,
blush or eye pencil. No lipstick. No perfume. She's not thin, but she's not
fat. He supposes he could call her well-rounded. She has the body of a mother.
Soft in a lot of places, cuddly and perhaps a bit plump for another man's
taste, but her beauty staggers him, as always.
He leans back on
the edge of the blanket and raises his face to the sun, smiling again when out
of the corner of one slitted eye he catches his son doing the same thing;
imitating his daddy. A sigh of contentment as he reaches out a hand to scratch
at the head of the panting golden retriever snuggled up against his hip -
Small-town life. Who
would have thought he'd ever be this relaxed... this happy?
They have lived
here for almost a year. Neither of them wanted to move. They did it because
once again they needed to lose themselves and the best way to accomplish it was
to vanish, so to speak. The place they'd called home since their son's second
birthday was too well-known, too well-populated. They had enemies. They will
always have enemies... dangers that the average small-town folk cannot begin to
fathom. They are not the only ones who had to 'get lost' - others before them
did the same thing. Others after them will no doubt follow. And perhaps someday
the adversaries in the world won't give a shit, but for now...
******************
He has already
begun to think of himself as a small-town man.
His name is Frank.
A very plain, average name for a man pushing past middle age who has found a
sort of quiet joy in nothing more difficult than planning a vegetable garden
and learning how to repair a barn.
Her name is June.
Another average yet sweet name, innocuous and somehow small-town, too. She
rather resembles a June, he always thinks - summery and softly warm with the
fire of a rising sun in her blonde hair. She's so pretty, even if she is a
little heavy. He adores her body, he's told her so many times. It makes her
blush pink and mauve, when he tells her...
His hair is
prematurely gray, but that's to be expected, for his mother's hair went silver
at a young age. When he looks at himself in a mirror he doesn't see any trace
of the brown it used to be. When his hair decided to gray, it sure went that
way very quickly... June tells him his hazel eyes look twice as sexy against
his tan and his silvery hair. Usually her words make his ears turn red - which
makes her giggle.
He loves it when
she giggles...
They have a good
life, here in this very small place. On a lake in the mountains in a part of
He has learned how
to live.
Their life together
as man and wife started out so rocky. Both of them thinking all they needed was
love; he imagines now that perhaps they both listened to one too many Beatles'
songs. Certainly love helped to get them going before they married, and love
produced their wonderful little boy, Kevin. Sadly, love broke them apart and
luckily, love brought them back together. However, love isn't the only
ingredient in the stew of their lives - love is perhaps the starch but the meat
is their deep commitment, not only to each other but to their child. It's the
reason they gave up their careers, buried themselves away in a remote little
*******************
He still remembers
that wet and awful trek on foot, five years ago when all he wanted to do was
get back to his family. He'd never been so cold, so alone and so despairing of
ever seeing her and his child again. He walked for miles in the biting spring
wind and rain, catching only one ride from a kind young woman who unknowingly
saved his life when she lent him enough money for a bus ride to Plattsburgh,
New York.
His family waited
for him there, well hidden away - and when he reached them he promptly
developed pneumonia and was sick for several weeks. But he was safe, and so
were they - he would have endured anything to be with them again.
Once he was on his
feet and mobile, they moved again - this time to northern Maine. On the trip
north they passed through this mountainous area and it seemed so safe, so
perfect for them. When they found their time had come, to move, they remembered
these mountains and made the decision to find them again, and settle there.
Free of their past, as much as new identities can produce such a free past -
free of major worry, that they would be found.
Some dear friends
of theirs helped them with the identities, and performed their tasking very
well. No one from their old life will ever find them. This makes June very sad,
and she tries not to dwell on the fact of her lost family, for lost they are
and lost they will remain. She takes comfort in the knowledge that they have
saved their son and kept themselves a family. It's really the most important
thing. They need to remain thankful for what they have and for life, itself -
and they are. So thankful -
***************
In the dusk of this
Fourth of July celebration, after the last spoonful of potato salad is consumed
and the final game of horseshoe tossed, they pack up their cooler and grab a
few beers; lie back on the quilt and watch the fireworks display over the lake.
It's a clear night with many stars and a light breeze wafting in from the
water. Somewhere a radio plays a country song; he thinks it may be "Faded
Love."
He's had a
wonderful day; played four games of horseshoe and only lost one; got the pants
beaten off him by Old Man Hopkins at checkers; played catch with Kevin and a
few of his little friends; watched June gossip and laugh with some of their
neighbors. Their dog, Briggs, plunged into the lake in a mad attempt to chase
ducks and came out smelling truly nasty. Three boys from the local Demolay
chapter offered to give him a bath, and hauled him off to the nearest hose and
bar of soap. Frank made a donation to their chapter as a thank-you gesture and
the boys eagerly promised to bathe Briggs any old time...
The sky is lit up
with green and blue fizzles and golden sparklets, and as he reclines on his
back with his son snuggled into an arm and his wife resting her head on his
chest, he thinks about how good life can be when it's done up right. He sifts gentle
fingers through her soft blonde hair, and only for a second does he mourn the
loss of the glorious red it used to be. If it meant her safety he'd have gladly
seen her shave her head bald.
Everything that
ever counted in his life can be summed up in this very moment, here on this
faded old quilt in the dark summer night with fireflies vying for attention
amidst the bursting show in the heavens above their heads. All he cared about
in his past life, the truths and lies he tried to unravel and the years-long
search for something that would give him answers to a reality he now
understands and fears - the losses they have both suffered and the wounds that
go deeper than skin and still twinge in him when it's very cold and damp. All
of it was reduced to dust the first time he arrived at the door of that tiny
little cabin up in the hills past Plattsburgh, and held his gurgling baby boy
in his damp arms and kissed his woman senseless, until he started coughing and
she stopped crying and ordered him into bed.
He marvels at the
changes love and commitment have wrought in his life. He sees many of them in
the mirror, of course, the superficial ones - his arms are more muscled and his
legs sturdier and stronger. He has a red-neck tan for part of the year, his hair
always seems to need cutting and sometimes he forgets to shave. He wears
flannel in the winter and white undershirts in the summer - and looks
remarkably like about forty of his fellow small-town neighbors. Outwardly he
has undergone quite the metamorphosis...
But inside, those
changes are more profound and lasting. He has a family and responsibilities and
a farm and a dog and some horses, a few ducks on a pond and mice in the feed
barn. He has a roof that needs to be patched and lousy TV reception in the family
room. But his garden flourishes in the summer and his house is warm in the
winter... and his wife loves the skin right off his bones, late at night when
they come together under the wedding ring quilt she made for their bed.
Late in the night,
when he tangles his fingers in her silky blonde curls and thrusts himself deep,
deep into her soft and rounded body. When his mouth takes hers, tongues mating
and dancing to their own melody; hands holding on, so tightly. When she winds
her arms and legs all around him and bites his ear and immediately soothes it
with a healing kiss and a whisper of, "Love you, Mulder... so
much..."
When in his strong
and shuddering release into her soul he echoes her loving cry with his own
hoarse groan of, "Oh, baby... Scully, baby..."
*************
The fireworks fill
up the July night and he holds his family close in a small town high in the
hidden mountains of Vermont, and he thinks that tomorrow morning they should
have maple syrup on their pancakes and apple juice from the batch they canned
last fall. He thinks about the little celebration he and June will have in
their bedroom, much later tonight after Kevin and Briggs are settled in and
asleep, lollygagging all over each other as they do every night.
He thinks about the
loving and he anticipates the night without fear and maybe just a tinge of
worry, because he wouldn't be the man he is today without those characteristics
that helped to form him when he was a young agent in the nation's capital,
daring to dream about saving the world. Now he lives to love and protect and
nurture and garden and patch roofs and watch fireworks - and life is very, very
good.
His name is Frank
and hers is June. They have a sweet son named Kevin and a dog named Briggs...
and their small town life is exactly what they never thought they would ever
want - and everything they'll ever need.
End
Small New England
towns enchant me, almost as much as the beloved places in my home state of New
York - places I mentioned in "The Hitcher".
Hope you enjoyed
the rest of the tale! Toniann, Happiest of Birthdays, my Love - and to everyone
else: thanks for reading!
I love hearing from
you! Email me, at
Please visit my web
site, at http://char.chaffin.com