TITLE: Flight 912, Row 19 AUTHOR: JB < JessLB@aol.com > RATING: PG KEYWORDS: UST, Scully/Other (previous) CATEGORY: S SPOILERS: Deep Throat, Beyond the Sea ARCHIVE: Sure, fine, whatever. Let me know, though. SUMMARY: A chance meeting in an airport reunites Scully with a friend from the past, as told from his POV. DISCLAIMER: Well, the last time I checked, I didn't own them. If you're really intent on suing me, though, could I have an autograph? AUTHOR'S NOTES: Ethan - the nonexistent ex of Scully's, written but never seen in the Pilot. So what of him? Is the guy real or not? And what the hell happened between he and Dana, if he is? I ask far too many questions, and this 'fic is the result of that. From the lack of Ethan fics out there, I kind of got the feeling that most people: a) don't know about him; b) don't care about him; or c) have decided to ignore him. Poor guy. At any rate, this is my version of what might happen. PS: If you like this, might you please let me know? My editor (thanks, Jan!) would like to see two more POVs in this story, one from each of our heroes. So if you'd like that too, why not tell me so? Well, now that I'm done groveling for feedback, on with the show.... ----------------------------- I'm standing near the postcards when I see her. It's one of those moments where, if it was TV, the music would get soft and the camera would pan from my face to hers in this slow circle meant to provide some sense of romance to the scene. Her hand would lift up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ears - which she does - and maybe she'd laugh softly - which she doesn't - and then our eyes would meet across the room. They don't, which is why this isn't television. I can't help but stare at her. It's been years since I've seen her, six actually, and I want to say that she looks the same but I can't. I remember a seductively sweet young woman, dead set on conquering the world, a girl who used to cuddle up with me on the couch on weekends and watch those cheeky NBC teenager sitcoms. I can see, even from my distance, that the woman I'm looking at now is not the same woman who I bought that engagement ring for. Putting all those James Bond movies to good use, I move stealthily across the gift shop, maneuvering behind a display of t-shirts so that I can see her better. She's browsing a rack of touristy-type shirts, barely looking at one before moving on to the next. In thirty seconds time, she's made her way through half the shirts and has glanced at her watch a total of fifteen times. I grin. Sometimes its nice to know that while feelings may change, those little nuances that make us who we are never do. Patience never was Dana Scully's virtue. All right, time to make my move. I run a quick hand through my hair, trying to smooth it down as best I can, and start over to her. And neatly trip over stray boxes sitting in the middle of the floor. God damn mother fu... "Ethan?" She would look now. God's laughing. I know he is. This is payback for getting piss drunk last week and not making it home till after three. As though Rachel's slamming the bedroom door in my face and sleeping on the couch without even a pillow for comfort wasn't punishment enough. I pull myself together, give the boxes on last withering glare, and turn to smile at her. "Dana?" Quiet. She's obviously as surprised as I was to see each other here. Of all the places for a reunion six years in the making, an airport in the middle of America doesn't seem the most...likely...of places. "I - how are you?" she asks, fighting to keep a cool exterior. "I'm good, I'm good," I answer. "How are you doing?" "I'm - fine," she says, and I sense there's an inside joke behind her words from the way she says them, but I don't get it. "Scully," someone bellows from across the store. I turn quickly, and she leans past me to see. Some tall guy - I'd use lanky, but from the looks of it, he gets called that far too often - is striding towards us. Yes, striding. Trenchcoat trailing behind him, shoulders back, grin on face. He reaches us, neatly cutting in front of me and holds up a shirt to Dana. "Look." She looks. I look. Two sets of eyebrows raise. "'Take me to your leader,'" she muses, suppressing a smile. "I'm sure Skinner would love seeing that." Tall Guy seems to notice me at last. He interrupts my internal confusion on why he's calling her by her last name, glancing over at me with the briefest of looks. Dana catches the glance- over and hastens to make introductions. "Ethan Minette, Fox Mulder." Short, honest, and to the point. One of the things I loved about - Excuse me? Mulder? Mulder-Mulder? Fox Mulder, as in, "I have to go to Idaho with Mulder" Mulder? I can't help it, my eyebrows raise, and I tense a little, sizing him up. "*The* Mulder?" I ask her, enjoying the slight blush on her cheeks. I think he notices it, too. "Ethan," she murmurs, fingering the t-shirt he so-eagerly brought over for her. I turn back to him, sticking out my hand. We shake. "Nice to meet you, Mulder. I've heard so much about you." I may be facing him, but my words are purely for Dana. He quirks a brow. "I haven't heard a thing about you," he says blandly, moving a little closer to Dana so that he was just a tad behind her with a better view of me. Oh, now that's interesting. You can't be a man and not notice the trademark 'back off' moves. Move 1: A gentle hand on a shoulder or back, all the while maintaining firm eye contact with the 'other.' Move 2: Any sudden, irrelevant information about their relationship - children, house, marriage, etc. And finally, what he's doing right now. Message received, but that doesn't mean I'm backing down. "Well, I'm not surprised. How long's it been, Dane, five years?" I question, immensely enjoying this little tableau. "Six, I think," she says, not rising to the bait. I nod understandingly. "So, how's work?" Dana glances Mulder's way. "Work is fine." "Don't tell me you're still on the X-Files." "We just finished up a case, actually," she tells me mildly. "Catch the bad guy?" "Like always," she throws back. "So, Dane," I say lazily, crossing my arms, "how did that Idaho case go? You know, I always wondered." Mulder catches on immediately. "We were tricked by a man pretending to be a reporter, found dead ends on every lead, I had my memory tampered with at Ellens Air Force Base, and Scully bailed me out. Normal stuff." Sc - Dana - looks almost embarrassed. No doubt she can smell the testosterone by now. I nod at him briefly, then focus on my ex. "How's Ahab?" Her eyes harden. "Dad died in '94," she says shortly. "Right after New Years." Shit, I didn't know. I tell her as much. Dammit, that man should have outlived us all. "Jesus, Dana, I'm sorry," I tell her quietly, honestly, reaching out a hand to rub her shoulder. She smiles shortly, sadly, and my hand falls away as Mulder's hand gravitates towards the small of her back. Strike two. "You're married," she says after an awkward pause, gesturing at my ring. "Mm? Wh - yeah. Yeah, two years this month." She looks ready to answer, but the intercom calls for flight 912. "That's me," I say, just as Mulder announces, "That's us." Silence. "Well, um," She searches for the right word. "I - guess I'll see you on the plane, then." "It was nice to see you again, Dana," I tell her. She nods, and, with Mulder's hand on her back, starts to walk out of the gift shop. I have a sudden flashback - March, 1993. She had just climbed under the covers and I spooned up against her, seductively caressing her arm. She simply leaned over and turned off the light, fluffed her pillow, and prepared to sleep. 'Hey,' I'd whispered in her ear, 'how about a little one on one?' 'Ethan,' she'd said reproachfully. 'I have to go to Idaho tomorrow, and I need a good night's sleep.' 'What?' I'd sat up in bed, switching on the light. 'Dana, this is - this is beyond ridiculous. First Oregon, now fucking Idaho? What's next week, Russia?' 'Ethan, I don't want to go through this now,' she said angrily. 'This is my job. We investigate where we need to. I can't control where I need to be!' 'You need to be with me!' I retorted. 'I need to be with Mulder, he's my partner.' Her voice lowered and she spoke in a carefully controlled voice. 'Look. I'm sorry. But this is my job. Now, I am going to Idaho tomorrow with Mulder. I will be back as soon as I can, and then we can discuss this. Okay?' 'I won't be here when you get back from Idaho, Dana. I'm not going to sit at home and wait while you're off with some other guy, chasing aliens across the country.' She had fallen quiet for a moment. 'Then I'm sorry you feel that way.' And she left, of course, the next day. We had been on the rocks for a few months, neither of us willing to admit there was a problem. In retrospect, I guess Mulder and the X-Files were just a part of our break-up, but at the time, I wanted to pummel the guy's face in. I met up with a beautiful brunette named Rachel while moving into my new apartment the next day, and after two years of pretending we were 'just friends,' we finally got our acts together and decided it was love. We got married two years later. I was wrong to have made her choose between her job and me - which now would seem to instead be between Mulder and I. I don't think they were sleeping together then; Dana loved me, I know that much. And if I wasn't already happily married to Rach, I might just catch up to her and ask if I could look her up sometime. If I wasn't married, and if I wasn't one hundred percent certain her little partner, boyfriend, bodyguard whatever would strike me dead, I would catch up to them. Seems, through some twist of fate, that our seats are across the aisle from each other. I catch Mulder's eye about an hour into the flight and smile at him. No competition, I tell him mentally. I think he gets it, because he nods, the glare on his face fading a little. We both look at Dana, dead to the world on his shoulder. He brushes the hair off of her face with the gentlest of gestures before closing his own eyes. I close mine, too, suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to get back to my Rachel. Yeah, I think. Some things were just meant to be. the end.