by Josan
Mass was the only one getting out of the car, looking around him like a
child.
"Mass, come meet everyone." Walter grinned at Dana who was staring, mouth
partially open, at this version of Alex. "Sebastian and Alex are following
in the Explorer. There was too much baggage to take just one vehicle."
Mass was wearing those thigh-high boots of his, jeans under them and a
thick, beautifully knitted, colourfully patterned sweater that some cousin
had made just for him. His hair was down. Grinning delightedly at all the
females watching him, he strolled up to the steps, sexuality turned up to
full.
It was, thought Walter, not as though Mass were doing it on purpose; that
sensuousness was as natural to him as breathing. He doubted that Mass would
be able to turn it off even if he wanted to.
Walter sighed.
"Dana Scully. Massimiliano de Gama."
With old world courtesy, Mass bowed, took Dana's hand in his, brought it to
his lips. "No one told me what a beautiful woman you are, Donna Scully.
Intelligent. Determined. Resourceful. But they forgot to mention your
beauty." And he turned her hand so that he could place a kiss in her palm.
Walter had never really seen Dana Scully speechless before.
"And these are the equally beautiful Scully sisters?"
Walter settled against the front stoop railing and watched as Mass wrapped
three little girls around his finger as he had so smoothly done with their
mother: bowing to each of them, calling them "Signorina", kissing the backs
of their hands, all the while the girls giggled.
The only one who didn't look impressed was Lissa, who, as usual, watched
from the sideline.
When Mass moved towards her, Dana finally unfroze. "No. It's okay," said
Walter, holding her back. "He's learning."
About four feet from Lissa, Mass stopped, crouched so that they were eye to
eye. He made no move to touch her, to take her hand and kiss it as he had
done her mother and sisters. Instead, he allowed her to look him over
carefully. "La signorina Melissa. Alex has spoken to me about you. But he
never mentioned that your eyes are so bright that I would need sunglasses to
look into them."
Lissa stood very still. Then she looked from Mass to her mother. A very
female smile slowly made an appearance. Two members of the female species
exchanged one of those silent communications that men would never be able to
decipher.
Walter suddenly realized that Mass had been right. They were no longer just
children, but girls on their way to becoming women.
Lissa turned her face back to Mass, hesitantly offered him her hand. Moving
very carefully, knowing that he was being honoured by such a gesture, he
placed his hand under hers, allowing her the opportunity to pull away at any
time, leaned over and brought both up to his mouth.
Lissa barely allowed his lips to touch before she pulled her hand back, but
her eyes were bright.
The Explorer pulled in and, almost shyly, Lissa made her way around Mass to
run for Alex who was getting out of the driver's seat. They all watched as
Lissa was caught, hugged and, hanging on to Alex's shoulders, was carried
back.
Walter finished the introductions, grinned at the enthusiastic reaction of
the girls to the three men who looked alike. Mass began unloading the car,
ordering Sebastian to stop flirting and to bring the cases into the house.
Sebastian pushed his glasses up his nose, demanding to know who had made him
boss.
"I am the eldest. It goes with the territory. Am I not correct, Signorina
Domina?"
Domina, who recognized a fellow dictator, agreed, ordering her sisters to
grab the smaller packages.
Alex refused to help: "I've been ill, remember. I'm not supposed to do
anything strenuous."
Zanna rushed up to Mass, took his paints case from him with awed respect.
"Uncle Walter says you draw all the time. Will you be drawing here too?
Could I watch?"
Maggie had already brought one small suitcase in, rushed around her mother
to accept what was obviously a bag of presents. "Are any of these for us?"
Another vehicle pulled up, a battered van carrying three more surrogate
uncles. There were more squeals, greetings, introductions, all at the same
time as Mass continued snapping out orders to the delight of Domina.
Walter looked at Dana Scully and shook his head. "My circus meets yours."
"Oh, well," Dana shrugged. "Barnum and Bailey did merge with Ringling."
She started down the steps to help Zanna with Mass's portfolio. "They
survived. We will too."
That Christmas was an accumulation of snapshot memories for Dana Scully.
Episodes that seemed to come out of nowhere.
Zanna hung over Mass's shoulder, eyes intent on the way he handled the
charcoal. Dana had known how much this child loved drawing, but until she
saw the absolute pleasure on her daughter's face as Mass instructed her, she
had never really realized how ingrained the desire to draw was in Zanna.
Domina and Sebastian were the next unexpected pairing. But then, they both
had the precise minds needed for tinkering with abstract puzzles. Of her
four daughters, Domina was the one with the greatest computer skills. Now
Sebastian linked her to a math site with puzzles of all kinds and together
they discussed logical progression in problem solving.
Dana wasn't all that surprised to find the two of them one afternoon
together at the dining room table when the others were all off doing last
minute shopping. Sebastian was calmly explaining what he called a simplified
version of the theorem of Chaos to a Domina who not only seemed to be
following the explanation, but was asking questions that delighted her
tutor.
Lissa, of course, disappeared with Alex. Probably up in her cocoon, the
both of them, needing time away from the noise, the "chaos" of the house.
Still, Lissa was always more open, less quiet when Alex was around. Dana
often thought that Alex was also less closed around her daughter. She took
pleasure in the fact that they strengthened each other, this child of hers
and the ex-assassin.
Maggie and her uncle Walter went to a movie. Some chase/cop/action thing
that normally Dana wouldn't permit. But the two of them enjoyed themselves
so much that she made an exception to this rule only for Walter. They came
back, eyes shining, clothes stained with popcorn "butter", happily tearing
the film apart for its inaccuracies.
And in and out were the Gunmen, who set up some extra computers for
everyone.
Byers delightedly argued with Sebastian over some theorem she had never
heard of.
She caught Langley discussing hacking with Alex, Lissa slouched over his
shoulder, head resting against Alex's, listening to every word.
Frohike and Walter took over the kitchen, chasing her out whenever she tried
to see what they were up to. Mass ordered the girls to set the table with
her best china, supervising like a general with his troops. She had to
admit the final product was worth all the noise.
At one point, Alex took her by the hand, led her to Lissa's cocoon and left
her there, lying on the floor, head propped on Lissa'a pillow, a glass of
wine in her hand. There was a lot to be said, she admitted to herself, for
Lissa's method for coping.
Especially when, at supper, she realized that what the girls had in their
wine glasses was wine, not grape juice.
"Watered," explained Mass. "But they need to know the taste of a good
vintage. An educated palate is an important part of a young woman's
upbringing. A man who will feed her an inferior wine is not a man worth
knowing."
So, with a variety of nods, some pleased, some uncertain expressions, Dana
Scully watched as her daughters took their first steps into womanhood under
someone else's tutelage.
They all went to midnight mass. Well, not the Gunmen who felt that religion
was solely her domain.
The church was within walking distance. The streets were empty as they
strolled back, the girls rushing on ahead to prepare the snacks that Walter
had orchestrated for their return and to select the one gift they were
allowed to open before going to bed.
At the door, Dana looked back to see the four men, walking side by side down
the middle of the street. There was a light dusting of snow falling, the
only illumination coming from neighbouring houses. She knew she would never
forget this image.
Mass was at one end, Walter at the other.
Mass was wearing those high boots that emphasised his legs, his sexuality.
He was wearing black pants under them, another of those sweaters but in
black this time. Instead of a coat, he wore a heavy black cape, a black
fedora dashingly angled on his head.
He was walking, arms linked with Sebastian who was also in black, a
conservative yet exquisite Saville row tailoring that suited his academic
life, but that he had accessorised with a long black collegial scarf tossed
over a shoulder.
Alex was laughing at something Mass was saying. Of all of them, he was the
one who still looked like a bad boy. He wore black slacks, the most formal
thing she had ever seen him wear, a black cashmere sweater with a high
collar that had been a gift from Mass when he been ill. And that battered
black leather jacket that only emphasized the edge of danger that the man
would probably bear until the day he died.
Walter was holding up his end with a Hugo Boss suit in a navy so dark as to
be black. He had topped that with a newer version of the FBI "batcoat",
also in black. He wore a black Stetson on his head.
Dana leaned against her front door, wondering just what the neighbours would
think if they caught sight of all this masculinity on parade.
She muttered to herself, as she opened the door, "Get it under control,
woman. They don't need you drooling over the lot of them on top of everyone
else."
Christmas morning, as usual with Domina, came far too early. Dana handed
Walter a cup of coffee, sat beside him on the couch watching as all the
"children", including Alex and Lissa, sat on the floor, surrounded by scads
of colourful paper.
"Whatever happened to Barnum, Bailey and the Ringling brothers?" asked
Walter.
Dana sighed. "They ran away from the circus. Joined some home, I think."
Then, after ignoring his flirting for three days, Dana agreed to go out for
supper with Mass.
"After all," he said, "you are a beautiful woman. You deserve some time at
a quiet supper, with a man whose full attention will be concentrated on you.
Some good food. A little dancing. You like dancing, don't you?" He leaned
against the kitchen counter, watching her, his eyes exuding sincerity.
"When was the last time you went dancing? Just because you are a mother
does not mean that you should have no time to yourself. Come dancing with
me, Donna Katharina Dana."
Dana shook her head, laughing.
"Is it because I look like Alex?" Mass's voice was stripped of all
flirtatiousness. "I know that Walter has said that there was a time when
you would have killed him had you been of the kind to kill. That you had
cause. When you look at me, do you only see Alex?"
She turned to look at the man now watching her without any of his usual
playfulness. The face was more Alex than ever. But the man, she thought,
was not.
"Dancing?"
"Dancing." The smile grew on Mass's face. "You will make yourself more
beautiful than you are. Put on a dress that you haven't had need to wear.
We will go as a man and a woman who want a meal, some quiet conversation.
And then we will go dancing. Nothing else. I swear."
Strangely enough, Alex was the most upset about this evening out. The
others had raised their eyebrows, shrugged and told her not to worry about
the girls.
She was putting the final touches on herself when there was a knock on her
bedroom door.
"Yes?"
Alex slipped into the room, looking very uneasy. "Scully, are you sure you
want to do this?"
Dana glanced over her shoulder. It amused her to see Alex so discomforted
by the situation. "We're only going for a meal and then maybe some
dancing."
"Dana, he's... he's my brother and I care for him, but he's a lech."
Dana's eyebrows rose as they had in her days at the FBI.
"Well, he is. Look, be careful."
"Are you hinting that I may not be safe with him, Alex?" She sprayed the
air with some expensive perfume, walked into the mist. Alex frowned, as if
he had never seen anyone ever do something like that.
"You'd better be. No, it's just that..."
Dana took pity on Alex. "I know what he is, Alex. He's not you. He's not
Sebastian. He's a very experienced man and a very good-looking one. And I
do know how to take care of myself. Remember?"
Still, when Mass came out of the room he was using as his bedroom, dressed
in an Italian suit, hair loose, eyes very appreciative of what he saw, it
did cross her mind to wonder if she were completely certain of her control.
Alex glared at Mass who ignored him, helping Dana into her coat, swirling
his cape around his own shoulders.
Walter tossed Mass the keys to his car. "Just remember that you're not in
Italy."
The girls giggled. They'd seen her dress for special occasions before, one
or two dates, but Dana hoped that none of them would blurt out that they had
never seen her look this gussied up. Well, she rationalized, if one was
going out with a man as eye catching as Massimiliano de Gama, one did have
to dress a little finer than normal.
Her competitive spirit, she told herself.
The fact that she came home alone, around four a.m., in a taxi was not
really a surprise. The fact that Alex was waiting up for her was.
He took one look at her and whatever he was going to say never made it out
of his mouth. His shocked expression was the icing on her evening.
Without a word, she came up to him, kissed him on the cheek. Half way up
the stairs, she turned round. He was still standing there, staring up at
her.
"You know, Alex, I never really realized before tonight just how lucky a man
Walter is."
It took Alex a moment to get it.
From the top of the stairs, Dana Scully watched as Alex blushed, beet red.
The Circus Comes to Town
alter was greeted with a tight hug from Dana Scully as behind her the girls
squealed, called out "Hello, Uncle Walter!" and rushed out to meet the
others.
