Rating: PG

Summary: It's the dress...

Spoilers: None.
 

"Are you given vision
Are you second sight
Are you older than your life
Endless more in sight
Still you child burn bright..."

"Begin" by Todd Nichols and Toad the Wet Sprocket, Copyright 1994 Sony Tunes and used without permission.
 

Chabash
 

February 15, 2000

I had to have been out of my mind when I agreed to this, I thought as I tried on what had to be the 50th wedding dress of the day.

Needless to say, things were not going well.

The dresses I considered to be appropriate, Miranda balked at. And the ones she wanted me to wear, I found them either too youthful, too elaborate, too expensive...too whatever. I was having a hard enough time just finding things I liked.

God, I balked, you've already given me kidnapping, illness, kids I don't own, my mother, death, and sunburn. Why are you adding a wedding dress to this?

I managed somehow to survive all of the above. The dress, however-now that was real pressure. After five hours of shopping, I began to envision my demise, and it was in a bridal salon. Or at least my daughter's demise.

Langly, I thought ruefully, we should've gone for the Elvis impersonator walking me down the aisle. But no! I had to be stubborn. And paybacks are such a bitch.

"I'm ready to go home." I announced to Miranda and Shelby, who were both playing fashion critics.

"When?" Shelby asked eagerly. I think she was getting tired of all this.

"Three hours ago."

"Mother, you're not leaving until you find a dress." Miranda was firm on that score.

"Look, it's not like I have to get it today."

"Yes, you do. It's three months from today. How's it going to be ready if you don't make a decision?"

"Miranda, I've been to six stores, tried on I don't know how many dresses, and hated every one of them, except for the ones I liked, which you hated. And I need to get home."

"Fine." Miranda sulked. "Can we just stop at the vintage store on N Street? It's the coolest place." She'd gotten many of her clothes there, and I was forced to admit that she had done well in terms of selection and price. "But Saturday morning, first thing, we're hitting the pavement, and you HAVE to choose one."

Oh, God, not another day of this.

"Fine. We can stop at the vintage store. But not for very long. I'm shopped out."
 

"Make it quick, girls. I'm tired and I have a ton of stuff to do at home."

"Fifteen minutes."

"Uh-huh." I know how fifteen minutes works with them. I aimlessly browsed the racks.

Had I not been so burnt out on shopping, I'd probably have tried on some of the things I saw. There were some good finds in there; I just didn't have the energy to deal with them...

There it was.

A plain chemise in candlelight, low neck, low back, with a lace overlay, dropped skirt, flounced sleeves, chapel train. It was simple...and elegant.

"Guys, c'mere."

"In a minute."

"No, NOW."

"Jesus, Mom," Miranda swore as she stalked over. "It's not like-try it on, Mom. Right now."

"How about I just take it home and get it altered if I need to?" Which I was probably going to have to do; it said size 10, and I was an 8.

"Try it on, Mommy, or I'll have to hurt you," Miranda hissed. "You can't return that kind of dress here, you know."

"No, I didn't." Okay, let's see if it even had possibilities.

It was a bit large, but it could easily be taken in by a good seamstress.

And it was $250.00, which was the cheapest thing I'd tried on all day. Even I could afford that. It would probably cost me $50.00 to $75.00 to have it altered...still a bargain.

"So whaddya think, guys?"

Miranda and Shelby concurred for about 30 seconds.

"Buy it."

Success.
 

I must have looked like death warmed over when I got home. I went out to the offices to see what kind of illicit activities Langly was up to, and his initial query was, "What happened to you?"

"I shopped for a wedding dress."

"How hard could that be?" The idea that this had been a struggle was utterly baffling to him. Guys. They're clueless.

"When Miranda is the fashion police, somewhere between getting your wisdom teeth extracted and buying real estate."

"So? Any luck?"

"Thank God, yes, or I'd be doing this again next Saturday, and given my choice, I'd do multiple root canals, thank you very much."

"So where is it?"

"It's in the closet. It doesn't fit yet."

Now he looked totally confused. "Let me get this straight. You spent all day combing the city for a dress, you finally found one, and it doesn't fit?"

"At least the price was right," I grumbled.

"How much?"

"$250.00, plus tax."

"Jesus fuck!"

"Langly, for a wedding dress, that is CHEAP!"

"Wouldn't know. I've never needed one myself."
 

It was late; we had kids in bed, and we'd returned to the offices. We'd finally finished combing through the old e-mails. Nothing to suggest anything unusual, save for a few people who seemed to have dropped off the planet-but in the world of conspiracy theorists, this is not all that unusual.

"Julie culled a list the other night. Of everyone who went to Black Hat. It's on Byers's system."

"You know what directory she put it in?"

"Not a clue." No way would she have told me.

"It's all right, I'll do a search." Ten minutes of concentrated effort finally yielded results.

"God, that woman is paranoid! She's got this multiple password protected and a really bizarre encryption algorithm!" I found this to be quite amusing. Another half hour of tweaking her file, and he was finally able to produce a readable script.

"Names and addresses."

"Yeah, she got corporate or government affiliations if they were designated, too. This thing's huge."

"Got e-mail addresses?"

"Of course it's got e-mail addresses!" He looked at me as if I'd gone insane.

"There ARE people who don't have e-mail."

"Not in this universe." He began to peruse the list, doing an alphabetical by last name sort first. "This has some weird stuff on it, too. Got some alphanumeric codes after the e-mail address line...then it's got room numbers where everybody was staying, if they stayed at Caesar's."

"Why in the hell would they care about that?"

"Beats me. Maybe they're trying to get a room count if they have it next year?"

"They could do that from the hotel records. This is weird."

"Langly, your paranoia is showing," I laughed.

"My paranoia is always showing. No, really, Ally, take a look. First line under the e-mail. It's got this 17-character string. All the headings do. Then underneath, another string, 14 characters. First string is all numeric, second is alphanumeric."

"Could you sort it by those? Create a hierarchy?"

"Sure, why not?" Stupid question, but then, I'm not a computer expert. And I don't try to be. He resorted the list with a few commands.

"Gonna take us a while to get through this. It's got 3,512 people on it."

"So give me a section."

"Okay, go through the first 100 names here. I'll take the second block of a hundred."

I began to study the list, which was sorted with the first string under the e-mail as the primary sort command, the second string the secondary sort. I looked at the names, addresses, affiliations on the list. It was a mix of everything. People from all different companies, parts of the country, even parts of the world, different genders...

"Langly, why would they care about the sex of the attendee?"

"Because we need more girls to attend?"

"Besides that."

"What am I looking for, anyway?"

"Patterns."

"Of what?"

"Seeing if these strings match up to any particular variable."

"Let's do a count of how many of each number string are of what gender."

"You think that'll prove anything?"

"Not in and of itself. But it's a jumping off point. I'm overwhelmed by all this data, and I need somewhere to start."

"Here, let me do the counts." He typed in a few command lines. In a few minutes, I had a breakdown by gender by number on the first line. In the first block of 100, there were seven first string combinations, 11 second string combinations to complicate that, and 7 women to 93 men.

"Great place to shop for a husband, by the looks of it," I commented.

"That depends on your level of desperation."

"Wouldn't have worked for me, I don't have any tattoos." I finished with the list. I found that the majority of the participants were either self-employed on this list, or refused to give an employer. There was no geographical consistency.

"Langly baby, I don't know about you, but it's almost midnight, I have to be up at six, and I had a very long day."

"Yeah, guess it's getting to be about that time. We gotta work on this, though, when we get home tomorrow. Maybe we can get Frohike and Michael to do some of this."

"And Julie."

"And Julie. If we can pry her away from Byers long enough. I think he could use the break."

"What's going on with them?"

"Well, it's sorta weird. Byers, like, he is really hot for this chick, that much is obvious. And she is foxy-don't shoot me, she is pretty, even you'd admit that."

"Only if I wasn't so jealous."

"You got nothing to be jealous of. I mean, she's gorgeous, but you're totally cute."

"Langly, I'm 44 years old! Don't you think I'm a bit old for cute?"

"Never," he grinned. "Anyway, Byers really does love her. I mean, it's all over him, for Christ's sake! But he's Byers, and he's gotta feel guilty about things."

"Meaning Susanne."

"Meaning Susanne. God, he is still SO hung up about her! Like he's betraying her or something just 'cause he fell in love with another woman!"

"I think I would have felt that way the first few months after Eric died."

"Ally, Susanne died ten years ago!" He looked at me, a troubled expression crossing his face. "Are you like still hung up on Eric?"

"Langly." I looked down. "I will always love Eric. I will never not love him. He will always be my first husband, he will always be Miranda's daddy. But that was then. And you are now. And now is what matters to me, babe. You're my life now. I can't wipe out Eric's presence, and I don't want to. But you're here, and so am I. If I got anything from losing him, it was
that life is short, don't fuck around."

"You oughta pound some sense into Byers."

"John's going to feel the way he feels regardless of what I tell him. We're very different people, very different sets of experiences, different temperaments."

"Yeah, but he listens to reasonable people most of the time. What was it Garth said in 'Wayne's World'?"

"'Live in the now!'" I giggled. "Y'know, before you got new glasses, you looked sort of like Garth."

"Did not."

"You did, too. Only way cuter."

"Ally, I do NOT look anything like Garth!"

"You do, too!"

"Anybody ever tell you you look like Jan in the Brady Bunch?"

"The Brady girls were all blondes!"

"So? You got her face!"

"I DO NOT!"

"Yes, you do." He grinned. "And I had the biggest crush on her when I was in elementary school." I giggled. And blushed a little.

"So you're trying to relive your lost youth?"

"What, with a woman eight years older than me? Not!" He was laughing now, too. We'd laughed a lot this weekend. It felt wonderful.

"You just said I looked like Jan Brady!"

"Well, what Jan Brady would look like if she'd aged well."

"How do you know how's she aged?"

"I don't. But I did an aging composite of her one time, if she was well-preserved, and she came out looking sorta like you, only not with red hair, of course."

"I wonder if she lost all her freckles, too."

"You didn't lose all your freckles. You still got a ton of 'em on your back."

"Great, a sure sign I'm aging."

"Yeah, but aging well. How many grey hairs you got?"

"About ten. Why?"

"Because I had seventeen the last time I counted."

"Which was when?"

"This morning."

"Uh-huh. Are you doing this every day?"

"Fuck, no! I just noticed a few weeks ago, I had some grey hairs, and I counted 'em. I had six of 'em."

"And you've got 17 now."

"Hey, I didn't have any when I met you," he teased.

"You were younger when you met me."

"35. I'm only 36!"

"You'll be 37 in July."

"Please, don't remind me. I get closer to 40 every year."

"Don't look for sympathy here, babe. I've seen 40 and gone down the other side. In fact, come August, I'll be halfway to 50!" That fact seemed almost incomprehensible. "Face it, babe. We're knee deep in middle age."

"Yeah. Was it like weird turning 40?"

"Yes. No. It was great. It was terrible. My 40s have been...the best of times, the worst of times, to quote the only line I can remember from Dickens. Or care to remember."

"This is your second time around. Feel weird to be starting over?"

"I don't know if weird is the right word...I'm not sure it's strong enough." We both laughed. "It doesn't feel like starting over. It's like...it's all new. For all that went before, I surely don't feel like a veteran." I giggled some more. "So what's it like being a first timer in your late 30s?"

He smiled, a bit dreamily. "Pretty damn nice." He was sitting in his ergonomic chair, knees drawn up to his chin, arms wrapped around his legs. "Seriously, Ally...never thought I'd get this far. With anybody. Never could trust anybody enough."

"So why was I different?"

"I dunno. You just were. Are."

"Well, baby, different doesn't even begin to cover you!"

"Thanks. I think," he smiled ruefully.

"Langly, I have never felt so...alive. It's so bizarre, I can't even explain it."

"So you don't wanna be a hobbit anymore."

"No, I don't want to be a hobbit anymore. I've lost my taste for the quiet life. Not that a few more moments of it wouldn't be welcome at times."

"Yeah, life is pretty nonpeaceful, isn't it?"

"You like it like that?"

"Most of the time. Sometimes I get pretty worn out. I sure as hell don't feel like I did at 25. Thank God."

"Looks like the Mulders are starting to get into the quiet life."

"So they think. Won't happen, Ally. Not with them."

"They seem pretty caught up in parenting and trying to live semi-normally."

"Never happen. They've got the taste. You can see it with Scully."

"She left the Fibbies so she could have a more normal life."

"And what's she doing? She's out looking at weird viruses. And loving it. Normal life, my ass. Never happen at Camp Mulder."

"Mulder's making noises about leaving, you know."

"Mulder can leave, but he won't quit. I don't care what he's got in mind. He's never gonna give up doing what he thinks is important to him."

"Seems like his daughter is the most important thing to him right now."

"Didn't say she wasn't. But he's always gonna have to do what it is he does. Hopefully, he won't get shot at as often, particularly as he and Scully add more kids to the team."

"Dana had a pretty hard time with the first one. A second one might not be in the cards for her."

"I think Mulder has other ideas."

"Well, I have heard her refer to him as a 24-hour walking erection." We both cracked up.

"Hey, I gotta tell you, when Scully was in the hospital, poor guy was so desperate, he came over one night and begged Frohike to lend him back some of his videos."

"And?"

"Frohike told him to get the fuck out."

"Wonder if Jo knows about Frohike's collection of choice celluloid."

"So what if she does, or doesn't? Jo's a big girl. She can deal with it."

"So when do you think John's going to get a grip on the current reality?"

"You mean, like he has a gorgeous babe who worships the ground he walks on and he's still clinging to a ghost? Good question." He laughed. "Y'know, Byers, he's the smartest of the three of us, but for a smart dude, he can be so fucking stupid sometimes."

"I think he needs to make up his mind about how he feels about Julie. It would be really unfair if he was leading her on only to let her fall."

"Well, I think he's gotta get better first. Which I think he's doing. I actually got about five minutes of conversation outta him before he drifted back to dreamland. They took the bandage off his head today-y'know he's got a bald patch right now?"

"It'll grow back, which is more than we can say for Frohike."

"Yeah, mine can get as grey as it wants, so long as it doesn't fall out. I'll start looking like the guys at Benny's."

"You'll always be gorgeous to me."

"Even with crows' feet?"

"Langly, I've got news for you. You're already getting 'em. And yes, they look good on you. Gives you character."

"I have enough character already," he huffed.

"No argument there. So are you going to take me to bed or do I have to go without you?"

"Show me the way, woman."

END OF PART 68