Rating: PG

Summary: Women's wear and a proposal that doesn't go quite like someone would have hoped. Martha, hope you like it!

Spoilers: None.
 

"Day after day
I will walk
And I will play
But the day after today
I will stop and I will start..."

"Add It Up" by the Violent Femmes (this is Ally's favorite song, by the way), copyright 1988 by the Violent Femmes and used without permission.
 

Ptaio
 

February 28, 2000

"And what are you planning to do for March?" Dana signed to me. We were finishing dinner-Dana and Mulder, Ellen and Dave, Frohike, Michael, Jo, the girls (Ellen and Dave had thankfully left their little monsters with Dave's mother), a young lady Michael had been seeing by the name of Andrea, Langly, me-and Juliet and Byers. Byers had only been released two  days ago, but not to come to Dana's birthday celebration was not a thinkable alternative for him, and besides, he needed to eat. The poor guy was horribly thin. I think he lost even more weight than Langly, and he had a smaller frame and could ill afford to lose it.

"March? Oh yeah. We get rid of these guys for a month." NCAA. Final Four. March Madness. We didn't actually get rid of them physically, but for all the presence they promised us in the next 31 days, we might as well have. "Well, I might consider having my wedding dress altered."

"I didn't know you got your dress. Show me," Dana demanded, and Ellen followed suit. I took them into the bedroom and pulled it from the back of the closet.

"Hey, that is nice!" Ellen said approvingly. "Different. Where'd you find it?"

"Vintage store on N Street. The kids dragged me in there. I got lucky."

"God, I remember trying to find a wedding dress that would look right," Ellen moaned. "I mean, I'm 5'10", it's not like a lot of stuff looks good on me."

"My mother tortured me and made me go shopping. I found one I liked and bought it, just to get her off my back," Dana told us.

"I was ready to go with a burlap bag if the kids would shut up by the time I found this."

"By the way, we're picking the girls up next Saturday to go dress shopping," Ellen informed me. First I'd heard of it, but fine. "What colors do you have in mind?"

"I don't happen to give a flying fuck if you come naked. Just come. Okay, no orange. I really hate orange. And yellow. Anything else is fair game."

"Miranda was thinking either teal or indigo," Dana said.

"I don't care. Buy something you all like, be on time, and that's all I care about."

"Miranda says you're still waiting to hear from one other person as to whether or not they'll be in the party."

"Yeah, I am." Efforts to contact Joan Langly Renshaw had so far proven unsuccessful. According to my mail server, the delivery had been made, but she had not responded. I was still hoping she would.

Langly had no idea I'd contacted her.

In order to get her e-mail address, I had to get into Langly's address book on the computer, which I did not know how to do. This involved heavily bribing Michael and also forcing him to swear to the death that he would not tell Langly.

If she said yes, it would be worth it. First, I had to get her to even acknowledge.

"Hey, am I missing the ladies' cocktail party in here?" Juliet came through the door, beer in hand.

"Where's your man?" Ellen asked her.

"Asleep on the sofa. Again. I think that's the longest he's been awake since he got home."

"He could have gone in our room," I suggested. "But then, we wouldn't be in here gawking at my dress."

"Oh, wow! That is NICE!" Juliet said admiringly. "Understated, but not so much you wouldn't think it's something you could wear to work."

"If I can't wear it with Docs, I don't wear it to work.   Except in the summer, I have to be able to wear it with Birkenstocks."

"You'd better not be wearing Docs with that dress," Juliet warned.

"Why not?"

"You have to get shoes," Dana insisted.

"They have to be comfortable shoes."

"Al, you can get comfortable shoes that aren't Doc Martens or Birkenstocks!" Ellen exclaimed.

"Yeah, my mother says Ferragamos are really comfortable. Unfortunately, they're not in my price range."

"Naturalizers work," Dana assured me. "You don't seriously think I'd work in bad shoes, do you?"

"No, but you and I don't dress quite the same way."

Ellen laughed. "I swear, girlfriend, you and Langly are a couple of aging hippies that got stuck spiritually in the 60s. At least in the wardrobe department."

"So are you having the guys do tuxes or suits?" Dana asked.

"I have no idea. That's Frohike's problem. I personally don't care if they show up in shorts or Elvis costumes."

"Please don't say that in front of Mulder," Dana begged. "He'll think he has license."

I heard a knock on the door. If it was Langly asking me to get him a beer, I'd kill him. Besides, he could have gotten himself one from the fridge faster than he could have come down to the bedroom and asked me.

"Am I interrupting anything?" It was Jo.

"Nah, we're just having fun drooling over Al's dress. C'mon in." Ellen waved her in.

"This is certainly unique." Jo examined the fabric, checking the seams and general handiwork. "Nicely made as well. Where did you find this?"

"Vintage shop on N Street. This dress saved me from another day of being dragged around the city by two teenagers."

"Well, it's very pretty. Do you have to have it altered?"

"Yeah, it's kind of big."

"Do you remember Cecilia?"

"Wasn't she Frohike's nurse in telemetry?"

"So you do remember. Yes. Her mother is in her 80s but she still does beautiful work. She was a seamstress for many years. She still does some work."

"Give me her phone number. It's either that or the Korean guy at the dry cleaner."

"Al, I thought you avoided dry cleaners." Ellen finished her beer. "Think I need another."

"I do. Miranda doesn't." We all laughed.

"That'll be one nice thing about being in the university again. I don't need as many clothes, and they don't have to be quite so formal," Dana signed, and I translated. "I'm perfectly comfortable wearing suits, but I'm looking forward to wearing more casual clothes. Particularly when I have a daughter who still spits up on everything. The dry cleaning alone could kill me. I can't believe how much laundry someone that small creates. And that's just Mulder's clothes."

"I don't mind the suit thing, but the nylons-that's another story," Ellen voiced the complaint of women everywhere.

"That's why I wear pants almost all the time," Jo concurred.

"I actually think there's a conspiracy out there, to keep us buying nylons all the time," Dana added, and we all looked at her. "We have the technology to make hose that's indestructible, but all that is available is stuff that runs after you wear it once. Now if that's not a conspiracy, I don't know what is."

"I think L'eggs is in collusion with the federal government," Ellen agreed. "I think the Bureau must give them kickbacks or something. Just what gets spent on nylons at J Edgar could singlehandedly make the company profitable."

"Tights last longer," I advised.

"Yeah, but Al, you've got a casual dress job," Ellen pointed out. "God, can you believe we're supposed to wear business attire even when we fly? I'm sorry, but coast to coast in a suit? And they make us fly coach!" Which had to be a painful experience for the very tall and statuesque Ellen.

"I try to look nice, but I only own one suit, and that's for interviews and appointments. I was actually voted best dressed in my department, but then again, my department is comp sci, and it's not hard to beat the average there." Juliet laughed, and we joined her. We were familiar with the fashion peculiarities of computer geeks.

"I try to be comfortable, that's my goal," Jo expressed. Jo had a rather nondescript wardrobe of pants, blazers and shells in neutral colors-she didn't make much of a statement, but if comfort was her goal, then she probably accomplished it easily that way.

"Gotten rid of your pregnancy clothes yet, Dana?" Ellen asked her.

"Not yet. I should. Send Mulder a message."

"Yeah, he seems hot to have another one. He's certainly having fun with little Becca," I commented.

"Mulder can have another one if he agrees to carry it," Dana remarked dryly. "Actually, I would enjoy another one. Just not right now."

"He shouldn't have a problem with that," I signed to her.

"A normal man wouldn't have problems with it. This is Mulder we're talking about," Ellen quipped.

"You don't know the half of it," Dana rolled her eyes.

"Where're you getting your flowers?" Jo asked.

"Not my problem. Check with my consultants." I suspected that Frohike had already hacked the FTD database for the best price and selection.

"You're far more trusting than I ever would be," Ellen remarked, shaking her head. "My mother wanted to do the whole thing. Thank God I didn't let her. It would have been a disaster."

"My mother arranged a lot of mine, but I had veto power," Dana stated. "Left to her own devices, I would have had attendants wearing some horrible pastel color in a style more suited to a hoedown than a wedding in a major metropolitan area."

"Jo, you ever married?" Ellen inquired, not in a malicious way, but just in a typical friendly-Ellen-nosy way.

"No. Almost once." She looked wistful.

"You break it off?" Sometimes Ellen didn't know when to shut her mouth, but Jo didn't seem to mind answering.

"Not of my own choice. My fiance was killed in Vietnam." She spoke very softly.

"Shit, I'm sorry," Ellen recognized her faux pas.

"No need to be," Jo said levelly. "It was a long time ago."

I was willing to bet that Frohike knew about that, and had, well before the rest of us did.

"Dave says you're doing Jewish lite," Ellen switched back to my wedding.

"Yeah. All the fun, half the ceremony," I laughed. "We're skipping the chuppah and the walking seven times around and having the parents escort us-my mother said she already gave me away once, she wasn't doing it again. And we're pretty short on parents between the two of us."

"I hear Langly went for the glass breaking thing though," Ellen said.

"Yeah, for some reason, that appealed to him," I giggled. "Hey, Mulder did it in one shot."

"And it was crystal," Dana reminded us.

"Shit, there is no way I'm letting Langly do crystal. Maybe one of our Chablis glasses from the 99 Cent Store. Speaking of which, you ought to see the glasses John and Julie gave us for Christmas and Hanukkah. They're awesome. We're using two of 'em for the toast."

"Remind your boy that he needs to have his head covered," Ellen stated.

"I didn't even think of that. Langly? In a yarmulke? I'm sorry, guys, I'm having a hard time with that one!" I was giggling, and apparently the image was pretty amusing to everyone else present; even Jo found humor in that.

"Mulder might have a spare," Dana offered. "I'll ask him. He'll need one for the ceremony, but if he's got an extra, I'm sure he won't mind lending it out."

"How does this work?" Jo asked. "All the male attendees have to have one?"

"Nah, just Langly, and whoever's Jewish. The only Jewish boys I know of in the wedding party are Mulder and your brother, Al." Ellen was twiddling with her beer bottle. "Ladies, I really need a refill. Whaddya say we head for the kitchen and replenish our strength?"

Nobody argued with that one.
 

Everyone had left save for Byers and Juliet. Byers was sound asleep on the sofa. He looked so terribly young-and small. He'd lost a tremendous amount of weight, and he didn't have any to lose in the first place. Langly had overdone it on the beer and had fallen asleep-at least he'd made it to our bed.

Juliet and I sat up in the living room. "I should probably try and wake him up. Get him home to bed." She yawned. "I'm still tired from getting over this. I can't imagine how he feels, he was so much sicker than I was."

"I take it you guys spend a lot of your time sleeping."

"That's about all we've done for the past two days since he got home. He wakes up for a little while, and then he's totally exhausted again. And he thinks he's going back to work in two weeks. We'll see." She sounded skeptical. I was as well, actually.

"You're LOA for the rest of the semester?"

"Yep. Ally...I really don't plan to go back. At all."

"So you're thinking of staying here."

"I am. I have to get my stuff here, of course, but I'm not going back to Michigan. I'm going to tender my resignation next week."

"Are you planning to live together?"

"Well, the thing is...we haven't discussed it."

"Ah-ha."

"So for now, I'm going to find a place of my own. I've sent out my resume to everywhere in the area I could find a job."

"When'd you do this?"

"Yesterday."

"With your background, you'll probably have an offer by Monday."

"Well, it takes more time than that, but I shouldn't have a problem."

"You really love him, don't you?"

Juliet sighed. "Ally, I don't act this way around men. I never have. I've never fallen this hard in my life. He's the one."

"I take it you'd like him to propose to you."

"Yes, I would, and I'd say yes in half a heartbeat." She yawned again. "I'm going to try and get him home. This may take a few minutes."

"I'm going to start cleaning up. It's too depressing to face this mess in the morning." And you never know, I might have a hangover. I doubted it, though-I was only mildly buzzed. I began to gather empties and took them to the kitchen to put in recycling, and then started to pack the dishwasher. As I was wrapping the leftover cake to put in the fridge, I could hear
Juliet's voice from the living room.

"You ready to go home?" I didn't hear the response, but I assumed she'd received something in the affirmative, as I heard something move off the sofa. Then the conversation became muted.

My evil curiosity got the better of me, and I turned off the lights in the kitchen, which was by now marginally presentable to the general public and the department of health, and I tried to hear what was being said. I'm not sure why. I only had a mild beer buzz on...

"...haven't ever felt this way about anyone. I love you, John. Marry me."

I listened carefully for a response. I peered around the corner furtively, to see Byers blushing furiously and stammering.

"I...uh...I...have to think about this...I need...time." He could barely choke out the words.

In that moment, I decided to make myself scarce and went down into the dungeon until they were safely out of the house.
 

March 3, 2000

I wandered out to the offices after finishing work on Monday; Langly and I still had piles of data left to sort through.

Byers was there, typing slowly into the computer. He looked awful.

"You should be home resting," I chided.

He shook his head. "Not right now. I have work to do."

"How's Juliet?"

He shook his head miserably. "I don't know. She left Sunday."

"WHAT?!" I was shocked, particularly in view of our conversation on Saturday night.

"I woke up Sunday, and she'd cleared out her things and was nowhere to be found. She just left a note saying she was going back to Ann Arbor."

I was utterly mystified. But then, maybe not.

"Something happen? You want to talk about it?"

I'm not sure if he did or not, and I don't think he was sure. But it was pressing down hard on him. He took a deep breath and started in a very soft voice. I'd noticed he'd become even quieter since he'd been ill.

"Julie...asked me to marry her the other night. When we were leaving your house."

"I see." He obviously didn't know I'd been playing spy. Why enlighten him now?

"And?"

"I told her...I needed to think it over. I think she took it as a rejection. Which it wasn't. I'm just not...up to making that sort of
decision yet."

"You still feel lousy?"

"That. And...I don't know why, but I feel so...guilty."

"And you're not even Jewish. Is this about Susanne?" The look on his face said it all.

"Do you ever feel guilty about your first husband?"

"Truthfully, no. I loved him when he was mine. I would very much have liked him not to have been taken from me, but I love my life now. That's a dichotomy I always have to live with."

"So how do you live with it?"

"I don't know. I just do. I'm not very reflective. You are. That's a world of difference between us."

"Don't you ever get angry over the way he most likely died?"

"I do. And I will avenge him. Eventually. But I'm here now. I have to be here now. Eric would probably want it that way, too. Had it been me who passed on, I would want for him to be happy in his new life."

"You loved him very much."

"I will always love him very much. It doesn't mean I love Langly less. I think we were meant to be here. To be with each other. I don't like how I got here, I really don't. To this day, it's still very strange, and if I think about it too hard, I get sort of depressed. But it doesn't last. It's been wonderful and terrible and it's been worth every second of it. If somebody offered me my old life back, I wouldn't take it, John." And with some sadness, it struck me how true that statement was.

"She's not answering my e-mails."

"So go see her."

He looked sad. "I guess I might have to."

We were interrupted by Michael and Frohike wandering in. "Byers, you're working. You fool. By the way, I still have some of your things from the hospital when you were admitted, just in case you'd like them back." He went under his workstation and pulled out a large plastic bag.

Byers walked slowly over to Frohike's workstation. He examined the contents of the bag. He slipped the watch back on, but when he came to the ring, he just held the circlet of gold metal for a long while, not speaking.

"Are you going to put it back on?" Frohike asked quietly.

Byers stared at the ring for another long time. Michael came over, and I silently handed him a sheaf of data, which he was helping us pore through.

Finally, Byers looked at Frohike. He looked confused and frightened.

"Do me a favor, Frohike?"

"Of course." His tone was nonchalant.

"Could you hold it for now?"

Frohike held out his palm and Byers dropped the ring into it. "You know where it is if you ever want it back," Frohike reminded him gently.

"Juliet left." Byers looked down, not meeting Frohike's eyes.

"Did she say why?"

"She...she proposed to me."

"And you turned her down. You fool. She's such a babe." Then Frohike looked serious. "Did you?"

"No...but I didn't say yes, either."

"So what do you want to do?"

Byers continued to look upset. "I just...I'm not ready to make that decision. But I don't want to be without her, either."

"Have you called her?"

"She's not picking up."

"E-mail?"

"She's not responding."

"So what are you going to do, if anything?"

"Maybe I'll go see her."

"You up to flying? You still look pretty bad, Byers. And that hair would scare anybody." The shaved patch had not completely grown in yet.

"I am if I'm going to be able to talk to her."

"Well, that I suppose you need to do." Frohike admonished him.

"If he doesn't want her, I'll take her," Michael muttered.

"What about Andrea?" I hissed back, and Michael blushed.

Michael leaned over and whispered furtively, "D'ya know what? Andi knows more about Unix than I do!"

Ah, love.

END OF PART 69