Skeptics
With every migration of believers, there was also a migration of skeptics. Those who believed with their whole hearts were faced with those who sought to prove such belief wrong.
Of course, there were few who listened, Believers were always stubborn to remove the veil from their eyes, even when proof faced them from all directions.
Federal had its fair share of scientists and geniuses aiming to convince someone, anyone they could get their hands on. Just as the believers wouldn’t budge, the skeptics and scientists made no move to admit when they were wrong.
So Federal found itself with a Capulet and Montague scenario. Everyone either believed in the extraterrestrial or they didn’t, and neither party refused to give up their values. It became such a core value that the town was divided, almost rivals.
But of course, every family went to the same churches and restaurants and shops and schools. Eventually, they mingled together because of the small town. The so-called feud existed during the work day, but when they went home they were neighbours and friends, grandparents and grandchildren.
In short, for every Mulder family in Federal, here was a Scully family. Margaret Scully, a biochemist, came to study the environmental phenomenons and stayed for the crackpots. She brought her two daughters and two sons with her after her husband had died. She fell in love with the displaced little town and for always knowing she was right, and she raised her children there.
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The question Dana Scully kept asking herself was if she was betraying her mother’s devotion by falling in love with a so-called UFO nut. She also kept asking herself if she cared, especially when Monica wore that leather jacket and put her hair up in that messy ponytail, ugh -
And it was the first day of summer, and she was doing just that. It was ninety degrees outside but at least she was wearing shorts instead of jeans with the jacket, and damn, she looked good.
The two girls were sitting in a booth at the teenage hotspot Little Alien Diner, and it was one of the few days that they weren’t working. They both worked at the observatory, embarrassingly, in the gift shop. But it was better than cleaning the bathrooms and the kid-interactive displays. Barely.
Smiling over her milkshake, Monica said, “you’re staring.”
Scully blushed. “Sorry.” She had fashioned staring at Monica into a bad habit, sometimes looking at her without really even thinking about it, drifting away into deep thought while staring. It was getting to be embarrassing.
She grabbed her hand under the table. “You don’t have to apologize.”
Scully’s freshman year, Monica had called her on a Saturday afternoon and asked her if she could see her at the diner. Scully went along to meet her, unsure of what her best friend was doing, Two hours later, Monica’s mouth was against hers in Scully’s twin bed. Glow in the dark stars on the ceiling, telescope in the corner, and Dana Scully was pretty sure she was in love.
Now it was the tail end of junior year, and everything still felt as electric as it did the first day. Even if Monica was moving to Virginia. Scully didn’t want to think about it.
“You look amazingly beautiful.” Scully said, looking down at her lap. She bit her lip.
“I’m in love with you, Dana Katherine.”
“You keep calling me that, why?”
“I thought it was cute. Do you not like it?”
Scully laughed. “No. I love it. It’s just different.”
To everyone but Monica, she was Scully. Nothing else, “Dana” was reserved for her family and for Monica, and the way the words graced her lips made the name sound so sweet and secret.
When boys called her Scully, it made her tough. Most of them knew she had a good right hook, and she wasn’t afraid to use it when she had to. Her dad had taught her how to protect herself among some other things, but she had retained that most of all.
“Dana, we should talk about July.”
“You mean, what happens?” Scully wanted to say that she knew what would happen. Monica would either break it off early or meet a girl or a boy there and break it off then: either way, their ship was heading for an iceberg.
Monica was quiet. “Yeah.”
“Listen,” she took a breath, feeling a sour twist in her stomach. “It’s not my decision to make. It’s yours.”
“I care about what you want, too.”
Tears pricked at the corners of Scully’s eyes. “What I want is for you to stay. You know that.”
Monica squeezed her hand tighter under the table. “I know. But I just can’t have you and the FBI at the same time.”
It was true. Monica wanted to work for the FBI and she was determined as all hell. She’d worked all four years of high school, and on top of that was taking student loans. It was her dream. Nothing was going to stop her. Not even home, not even Scully.
Scully nodded. “I just wish things were different.”
“But that doesn’t mean that these two months we’ve got left are going to be a drag.”
“It’s not that long of a time, Mon.”
“I know, but we’ll make the best of it.”
Scully slid her milkshake to the other side of the dirty table and sat next to her. She rested her head on Monica’s shoulder and sighed. “I’ll miss you.”
Monica smiled. It seemed weak, burdened. She felt like she was throwing the world away, wasting one dream for another. “I’ll still call.”
“That’s what all the other couples say, and then they get all caught up and forget to.”
“Well, we aren’t a straight couple, are we?”
That made Scully laugh. She was right-- usually when the boys went off to college or to someplace far from Federal, they always promised to call. But they got caught up in parties and other girls and the heat of things. And the little UFO town with it’s little alien people back home was suddenly a distant dusty memory in the back of their minds.
Scully didn’t think Monica was like that.
“We’ll make it work. We’ll figure something out.” Said Scully, and she wasn’t sure if she was assuring herself or promising Monica. Long-distance never seemed to work. But it was a new millennium, and she was trying hard to believe that things could work.
“Change is okay.”
And maybe Monica already knew that Scully had more in store for her than she knew.