Disclaimers: None of them are mine, drat it, but no money's being made, either, so kindly don't sue me.  Set after season 7 of Buffy and after the Biogenesis/Amor Fati/Sixth Extinction arc in X-Files.  (Don't tell me that Mulder didn't get useful details when he was telepathic; that man's stubborn beyond all reason.)  Written for the Worst Case Survival Scenario Challenge, and because of a discussion in Stakebait's Livejournal.  Many thanks to both for the inspiration.
Rated: PG for language, maybe.  Many thanks to my betas: Alice in Stonyland, Alyss, Devo, and Eponin.  All screw-ups are my fault, of course.

Respite

Mulder pulled the jeep over onto the shoulder of the Blue Ridge Parkway and turned off the engine, ignoring the lack of guardrails.  After a moment he got out, automatically pocketing the keys although he didn't bother to lock the doors.  Without meaning to, he found himself taking a long, deep breath; the tension in his shoulders and back began to seep away as he exhaled again.

Careless of the drop-off a yard away, Mulder stretched, hard, fingers entwined and hands pushing over his head.  His sweater rode up, exposing the black t-shirt tucked into favorite, faded jeans.  He stayed there until his spine had returned to its usual length instead of the cramped compression of one too many secluded meetings with military, members of Congress, and managerial types who wanted nothing more than to find grounds to fire him--

Mulder threw off that memory, dropping to rest his palms on the gravel beside the road.  Burgundy and cream wool rode up off the back of his jeans as he did, and he waited his back out, letting the muscles finish protesting as he idly catalogued the road debris.  There wasn't much, actually.  A silver candy wrapper being eyed beadily by a crow; two cigarette butts; an oil stain on the shoulder of the road.  Beyond that was the road, a two-lane parkway with only an occasional wooden guardrail along the worst drops, and the long lines of trees along the ridges of the Smokies, and the fog slowly pouring up the mountain.

Technically, Mulder knew, it was a low-hanging cloud, but the wind was blowing it up the mountain as he watched.  A white-grey mass, it rolled up over the pines and rhododendrons, obscuring what lay below and slowly covering what lay above.  It crested the lower hill, obscuring his sightlines, and crossed the road as he watched.  Now it was grey, not white, and tatters of cloud were shredding against the trees on the upper slope and descending slowly towards the road.

He needed to get moving again soon, reserved campsite or not, but for the moment he stood there, trying to catch and drink the mist.  Traveling through fog was nothing he hadn't done before, after all.  Catching it was a more recent accomplishment.

-=-=-=-=-=-

There was a brook babbling in the background.  Somewhere nearby, water was chuckling and chattering over rock and it sounded remarkably like a conversation he couldn't quite make out.  Sunlight filtered down through the trees, unhindered by many leaves.  Pine needles, yes; leaves, no.  Not in early March.  It was early enough that the leaves were still budding, and the campsite mostly empty.  The timing was the reason Mulder had come camping.  After seventeen weeks of hearings to shut down chunks of the Consortium's conspiracy, Mulder needed some quiet.  What he hadn't admitted to his assistant director was how much of that need for quiet came from several days of uncontrolled telepathy.  'Room to hear himself think' wasn't a metaphor anymore.

Setting up a dome tent by himself wasn't impossible, but it took more patience and attention to detail than he wanted to use.  He'd spent the last four months using patience, precision and, God help him, diplomacy.  This vacation was supposed to be about nothing but spur-of-the-moment decisions.  Drive into Gatlinburg for dinner or cook up freeze-dried chili?  Hike up to see a waterfall or a spectacular view, or sleep late and spend a morning with a percolator full of coffee and The Odyssey, or The Golden Bough, or a pulp paperback?

"Here."

Mulder glanced up to see who had moved to hold the tent pole in place, decided one small blonde's help was probably safe, and took full advantage of the assistance, cursing steadily under his breath in language he hadn't used since Oxford as he forced the recalcitrant pole into its pocket.  'Thanks," he said, moving on to the next one.

"No problem."  Her voice was light and crisp, a California accent slowly being corrupted by the locals....

No.  She's exhausted.  Mulder didn't question the instincts that told him her drawled words had nothing to do with being in the South.  He slipped the third, and last, pole into place and picked up the tent to move it back into place.  The other side was lifted after a moment and between them, they moved the tent back onto the ground Mulder had cleared not twenty minutes before.

Mulder moved around to get the stakes and hammer and got a better view of his helper.  She reminded him, painfully, of how Scully had looked while she was fighting the cancer.  This woman's coloring was different -- blond hair and honey skin, dark brown eyes instead of blue -- but she wasn't tall, even in hiking boots; she was far too thin, despite the alert, erect posture; and her eyes, under siege by dark circles, held too much knowledge of death.

Rather than ask if she was all right and hear, 'I'm fine,' he asked, "Did the rangers hire you to welcome people to the campsite?  If they did, I need to tell them to give you a raise."

Her smile flickered to life at that, teeth white against a tan that had nothing to do with the early-spring sunshine here.  "The government can't afford me."

"Budget cuts everywhere," Mulder agreed, grinning as his vacation hopes were proven so thoroughly, unexpectedly correct.  This woman was definitely unexpected.

She handed him half the stakes and the hammer.  "This it?"

"Home for a couple weeks," Mulder agreed.  "Shouldn't I be the one taking the rock?"

"What rock?"

A soft 'thump' punctuated her question; it held none of the ring of steel on stone, Mulder had to admit.  Instead he hammered the first stake home in four sharp blows, obscurely proud that he remembered the right flex of elbow rather than wrist.  "Well, you kept half of them and gave me the hammer.  How else were you going to drive those stakes?"

"They're just stakes," she said casually, and he heard another thump.  "I'm wearing hiking boots."  A last thud made him wonder if she was stomping them into place.  If so, how?  The ground wasn't soft, and she didn't look strong enough to win a fight with a stiff breeze.

The blonde sauntered back into view, her hands emptied, while Mulder was still driving in the last stake.  "You're set over here.  Yell if you need a second set of hands again."

Mulder looked at her with a bit more interest.  Close-cut, new jeans; a bright purple t-shirt with brighter gold lettering that said "Great Smoky Mountains National Park;" and an old, obviously much-loved and much-washed flannel shirt that had, once upon a time, been dark blue and black rather than pale blue and grey.  Not hers, though; it was at least one size too big, and probably three.  None of the clothes, not even the well broken-in hiking boots made her look less than thin.  Not slender, not lean -- thin, and worn thin at that.

His study, relatively quick though it had been, changed her expression from open pleasure to a chilled mask that anticipated disapproval.

"Thanks, I'll do that.  'Hey, you,' huh?"

Her smile surfaced again, more guarded this time.  "Nah, that might bring everyone," and she gestured to the mostly empty campsite, irony lacing words and smile both.  "Anyway."  She held a hand out.  "Buffy."

He winced.  "And I thought 'Fox' was bad.  I'm Mulder."

She took the apology for what it was, too.  Maybe she wasn't good at them either.  "High school must have been hell.  See you around."

Mulder watched her walk back to her tent -- larger than his, he saw, and on one of the best sites he'd seen yet.  The brook wrapped around her tent, singing over its rocks only a few feet over and down on every side of the tent except the front.  Beyond the water, the road meandered towards the ranger station.  She'd already piled wood by her fire ring, too.

Somehow Mulder couldn't make himself believe that a ranger had helped her set up her site.

-=-=-=-=-=-

A familiar smell woke Buffy, but she lay there for a long time before she could identify it.  Her sleeping bag was much warmer than early March mornings in the Smokies, and the moon had set before she'd fallen asleep.  Two days past quarter moon and full's coming up, so moonset was... one o'clock, at the earliest, she calculated automatically.  Sunlight lay in a golden sheet across her sleeping bag, the axe and dagger on the right side of the bed, the stake and walking stick on the left, and the water bottle and the battered, second-(third? fifth?)hand copy of Prisoner's Base that Xander had pressed on her before she left.

So far, Buffy had decided that she wanted Nero Wolfe's brownstone, his working hours, and his cook.  She wanted to be able to come in from patrol and let someone else cook pancakes and ham, and make superb coffee.  Even more, though, Buffy wanted Archie Goodwin around the next time she had to argue with a cop about whether she owed him an explanation as to what she was doing in a dark alley late at night.  A reliable dance partner would be nice, too.

The wind shifted again, carrying a scent that Buffy identified, after a moment, as tea.  "Hot tea?"  The possibility of hot liquid and a fire she didn't have to start and nurse carried enough appeal that she wiggled out of the sleeping bag and jammed her feet into her hiking boots.  Vanity drove her to tidy her hair into a ponytail before she opened the tent flap and, aided by the certainty that it was colder outside her tent than inside it, she snagged her leather jacket as she went, refusing to let it remind her of Angel.  Her jacket led to Angel, and Angel and black leather jackets led to Spike and black leather trench coats, and dead Slayers, and Robin's mother... and really, tea was a much better idea.

She followed the smell of tea -- not Earl Grey, which was all she could say for sure -- and wood smoke across the campsite and wasn't surprised to find she'd arrived in front of the dome tent she'd helped set up the day before.  The guy -- Maxwell? No, Mulder, he'd said -- was sitting at the picnic table in thick jeans, hiking boots, and a thick sweater.  A leather bomber jacket lay across the table.

Mulder didn't shift his head to look up when she arrived, just let his eyes flick up from the pamphlets he was glancing through.  "Hey."  Those alert eyes looked her over in a flash evaluation that made Buffy wonder, again, what he did for a living.  "Naturally warm-blooded?"

Buffy dropped down next to the fire, warming her hands over it.  "No, I'm freezing," she said honestly.  "But you know.  Sleeping bag, trailing edges, fire... bad combination."

Mulder nodded and put his pamphlets down.  "Tea or hot chocolate?"

"You brought chocolate?"  Buffy stared at the percolator steaming slowly at the edge of the grill, then at Mulder's mug.  Nope, definitely tea.  "You wouldn't joke about that?"

"At this hour of the morning?"  Mulder shook his head, hair still on end here and there.  "I'm pretty sure joking about possession of chocolate is illegal on campouts, or at least immoral."  He stood up, stretched with a couple audible pops from his back that made Buffy wince in sympathy, and opened the back of the jeep.  A minute's digging produced first a red cooler and then an extra mug and spoon and some blue and white packets.  "Hold this."

He handed her the cup and tore open a packet of hot chocolate -- Swiss Miss, but it was chocolate and it even had mini-marshmallows, it claimed.  Buffy stomped down a memory of Spike talking her mother out of more marshmallows for his hot chocolate while they discussed soap operas, reminding herself, again, that they were both dead... and realized the tears were going to spill anyway.

She sniffed, hard, and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand, refusing to look at Mulder.  "Allergies."

"Wood smoke," he agreed in that soothing monotone.  "Here." He poured water over the chocolate powder.  "Stir that."  He sprawled onto the other side of the picnic table and went back to drinking tea out of a battered metal cup and reading his assortment of papers.

Buffy sipped her hot chocolate carefully and smiled a little when she heard herself thinking that Spike was right; it needed more marshmallows.  She burrowed into her coat, grateful that these days it only smelled like leather cleaner and pinesap.  "Thanks."

"Sure."  Mulder hadn't looked over; she couldn't feel him looking at her, anyway.  After another minute's reading, the silence broken only by a momentary shuffle of papers, he mentioned, "Two deer came through about an hour ago."

Buffy nodded and leaned back against a log.  "I saw three cross the road last night, about ten or so.  And some raccoons were out at midnight."

Mulder chuckled.  "All my food's locked in the jeep."

"Locks:  they're not just for bears.  Did you know to do that before you got here?"  Buffy sipped her chocolate again, starting to relax.

"My dad took me camping a couple times when I was a kid," Mulder answered with a shrug.  "And I read everything when I'm bored."

Buffy raised a suspicious eyebrow.  "Even rules and regulations, huh?"

"I have to be pretty bored," Mulder admitted.  "Or not awake enough for my current book.  A lot of these are pretty obvious -- unless you didn't know there was a problem, that is."  He shrugged before intoning, " 'To avoid Lyme disease, tuck your pants into your socks, stay out of tall grass, and know the ticks' active seasons.' "  He grinned briefly.  "Technically, that's already started but I think it's still too cold here for them.  Maybe later in the day when it warms up."

"Ticks."   Buffy shook her head.  "Amateur blood-suckers."

The silence from the other side of the table almost made her wince.  Buffy looked up, expecting yet another variant on the 'How crazy is she?' look.  Instead Mulder just looked interested.

"Which blood-suckers were you thinking?" he finally asked, hands wrapped loosely around his own mug.  "Are we talking genus frat boy here, genus loan shark, or genus lawyerus estatus?  Well, or vampires, but again, which genus?  The obsessive-compulsive ones or your standard cross-flinchers?  And did you want a refill?"

Buffy stared at him for a second.  "Obsessive-compulsive?  Really?"

"Yeah, you know, the ones who have to stop and sort -- and count -- seeds.  Or socks-- actually, I can see throwing your dirty laundry at them.  One of the East European variants.  They'd go nuts at Laundromats."  Mulder leaned over, nodded at the level of hot chocolate in her mug, and sat back to study her.  "Now that's interesting."

"What is?"  Buffy was staring at him.  "Am I awake yet?  Do you have coffee?"

Mulder studied her.  "Isn't it too early to go into shock?"

"Who's in shock?"  She eyed him narrowly.  "Don't tell me you know how to treat that, too.  There's no way I'm believing you're a doctor."

Mulder shrugged.  "Technicalities are the soul of the law.  And no problem.  You've already had one mug of hot chocolate.  Did you want another?"

His mug was empty now, and he wasn't trying to refill it.  "You're not a lawyer, either."  Buffy examined the haircut again, and shook her head.  Not with that voice, no.  "And nah, one cup of chocolate in the morning is kind of my limit.  Seriously, though.  Two kinds of vampires?"  He was perfectly calm, but he didn't look like he was used to carrying stakes around.  Of course, neither had Robin....

"Nah, more like three, minimum, maybe five or six."  Mulder shrugged and started counting them off.  "Cross-flinchers, seed-counters, shape-changers--"

"Those go in with cross-flinchers," Buffy said, unwillingly amused.  She was supposed to be on vacation, damn it, that was why Giles had sent her to a largely-vacant national park.  Well, he'd been right about the population.  And this was more like... trading stories than shop talk.  It was kind of fun, actually.  Mulder wasn't demented, but he wasn't 'life or death in the next five minutes' serious, either.

Mulder grinned at her.  "What shape do you mean?  I'm talking the 'drifts of fog, wolf howls in the night' ones."

Definitely fun, and not serious, but not entirely joking either.  "Oh, those.  All right.  Three.  Next?"

"Energy-drainers, as opposed to blood-suckers.  Emotion-drinkers.  I'm missing one, too.  Let me think about it. Hmm, the melanin-drinkers, and I'm still missing another...."

Buffy studied him.  No, still in mundane clothes, no whiff of sulfur or glints of Ethan's malevolent mischief in his eyes; interested in the topic and friendly, but it was a human kind of friendly.  Well, she wasn't interested in dating him, so the odds were good, anyway.  "You don't look crazy.  Does Elvis talk to you?"

"Not if I can help it," Mulder said dryly.  "And you're the one who mentioned amateur blood-suckers."

"Good point."  She shook her head, hard, to clear it.  "I need breakfast."

That got an amused grin.  "Sorry, I brought drinks and some sandwich makings, but that's it.  I need to hit a grocery store sometime today, after I ask the rangers where to find one."

Buffy grinned a little ruefully.  "I just brought a tent and sleeping bag, really."  She pointed at her motorcycle.  "Limited cargo space."

"I'm headed into town for breakfast as soon as I put this fire out and ask the ranger on duty for suggestions on where the good food is."  Mulder was stirring the coals with a branch as he spoke, pulling the fire apart.  "You're welcome to a ride if you'd like."

He didn't look at her as he offered; somehow Buffy was very sure he was leaving her room to say no.  Instead, she shrugged and said, "Sure."

-=-=-=-=-=-

Half the trees didn't have leaves, although the ones that did were pines and some tree with wide, thick glossy green leaves that shone with drops of water from the morning's mists.  Water ran down streams, jumped off cliffs, trickled slowly over the upper curves of the road... it was a lovely ride into town, and Buffy had enjoyed letting Mulder drive while she looked around.  She'd insisted on paying the fee for the parking, though.  It benefited a local school -- why not?  She'd also enjoyed looking in the windows they passed; Mulder hadn't been in that much of a hurry either, despite having been up longer.

The little enclosure of shops was designed to look Old World European, with the exposed beam and stucco fronts Buffy'd always referred to as 'mock Tudor', and narrow, cobblestone alleyways and a pretty fountain with a flame in it.  The Scandinavian shop looked a little overpriced -- really, all of them except the Donut Friar did -- but the sweaters in the Irish and Scottish shop were calling her name.  It was cold last night, and even if she didn't have any more room in her packs, she could wear the sweater on the trip back, right?

Even at 9:30 on a Monday morning, there was a short line at the Pancake Pantry.  What surprised Buffy more was that it was so obviously normal.  A rolling stand near the door held a cooler full of water and cups that looked like they could have come from one of Xander's construction sites.  The stand also held a coffee urn, Styrofoam cups, cream, and sugar.  The menu was posted outside, a full page of pancake variations, French toast, and crepes.  A separate page listed this week's special:  cherry cheesecake pancakes, made by rolling crepes around ricotta cheese, graham crumbles, and cherry compote, then piling whipped cream on top.

Once they were in and seated, Buffy ordered those, and coffee, and sausage.  Mulder just grinned and ordered something called 'Marvelous Blintzes,' and coffee and eggs.

Buffy leaned back in her chair, coffee cup in hand, and sighed happily.  "Cheesecake crepes for breakfast?  I'm so going to have to go hiking today."

Mulder leaned back, sipping at his coffee.  "I may have to come in for breakfast a few more times, just to try some of the other types of pancakes."  Buffy looked up in time to see the curiosity shift off his face again.  "Do you usually have vampires on the mind?"

Buffy shook her head.  "Nah, sometimes it's clothes and shoes."

That got a quick grin.  "Uh-huh.  And when it's not clothes, shoes, and mountains?"

"Hey, I'm on vacation," Buffy protested.

"Vacation?"  Mulder asked, setting his cup down without a clink.  He leaned back, though, to let the waitress set large plates in front of them.  "So much for needing lunch makings...."

Buffy stared at her own plate.  "So much for fitting into my jeans."  She swallowed the first bite and realized she was purring.  "Oh my God.  I haven't anything this good since those poached pears....  Right.  A long hike."

Mulder grinned and, completely unrepentant, stole a bite off her plate.  "I see your point."

"Hey!"  Buffy indignantly counter-attacked, got a bite of the blintz, and sat there for a moment, eyes closed to enjoy the taste.  "People manage to choose between the pancakes here?"

"Sure," Mulder deadpanned.  "They probably choose to come back.  I just did."

"Good point.  So?  What are you doing here?  I mean, early and cold for vacation," Buffy pointed out, keeping her voice carefully neutral.  Mulder wasn't flirting and she really, really liked it that way right now.  New boyfriend so not on the 'to do' list.

Mulder shrugged and washed down another bite with coffee.  "Recovering from the aftereffects of acute, malignant telepathy?"

One eyebrow arched and Buffy studied him, then, "Malignant, huh?  Receiving only and a really wide range?"

Mulder froze, then swallowed his coffee with an air of great deliberation.  He returned the cup to the saucer with careful precision before asking, "How did you know that?"

"Well, the projecting kind?  Not so bad.  Tends to be more controllable, too, Will said."  Buffy eyed him, and then admitted, "And, well, wide-range, uncontrolled reception?  Totally of the bad.  You, too, huh?  So was yours from a demon?"

"I'm glad I left my coffee on the table," Mulder said, deadpan, then grinned at her, a wide, charming smile.  "And here I was only wondering why talking about vampires would mean you were back on the job....  Want some company on that hike?  I'd love to discuss this where we don't have to worry about scaring the mundanes."

His reply didn't quite match what she'd said, and then Buffy realized, "Yours wasn't from a demon?  Oh, we have got to trade notes."  She added, cheerfully, "But I'm not writing down any of it.  I am on vacation.  Comprende?"

"So am I.  So, no notes here, either.  Just the really strange stories."  Mulder grinned at her.  "And I've got some beauties.  I reserve the right to offer to trade phone numbers later.  I've got one that's untraceable...."

Buffy started laughing.  "So do I, now that you mention it."  She raised her coffee cup, suddenly more cheerful than she'd been in weeks.  "To breakfast."

Mulder's grin didn't fade, although he clearly didn't quite see her point.  "To breakfast."   He clanked cups carefully rather than spill coffee on their crepes.  "Why are we toasting breakfast?"

"Because it's too good to miss," Buffy said cheerfully.  "We'll trade horror stories on the trail.  Just... what did you bring to read?"

"Mythology, psychology, and a Shadow novel.  Why?"

"Right.  Dibs on the Shadow novel once I finish my Nero Wolfe books."

"Trade," Mulder said firmly.  "And we'll buy more hot chocolate on the way back."

"Sure."   Buffy relaxed into her chair and took another bite of the crepes.  Okay.  Sometimes -- just sometimes -- Giles was right.  This was a great idea for a vacation.

~ - ~ - ~ finis ~ - ~ - ~

Notes, Comments, Commentary:

Written for Slodwick's Worst Case Scenario Survival Challenge.  I got 'how do you avoid Lyme Disease' and, after toying with mutant, giant ticks (Scully was going to get to do the shooting this time), I distinctly heard Buffy's voice calling ticks amateur bloodsuckers.  About the same time, a discussion in Stakebait's Livejournal mentioned how tired Buffy was looking by the end of Season 7 and pointing out, quite reasonably, that she hadn't had a rest in ages.  Somehow, this is the result.

After that, well, synchronicity took over.  Both Buffy and Mulder have had the 'pleasure' of uncontrollable telepathy ("Earshot" for Buffy; "Biogenesis," "Amor Fati" and "Sixth Extinction," for Mulder).  Both have met at least two kinds of vampire (Dracula wasn't much like Spike or Angel, I must say; "3" and "Bad Blood" for Mulder).  And both needed a vacation someplace quiet.

The Pancake Pantry is real, lies in the group of Gatlinburg shops described, and mere words cannot describe the blissful oralgasm known only as 'Marvelous Blintzes.'  Yes, they always have a line; always have coffee out; and have weekly specials.  Yes, tourists come in once and then keep coming back all vacation to try something new each morning.  They're still cash only, although they now have a small ATM in house.  Enjoy.

The 'you're not a doctor'/'technicalities are the soul of the law' conversation comes from Mulder having a Ph.D. in psychology (for which the FBI paid the tab).  He's not, however, a practicing psychologist.  The comments about Buffy not being interested in dating Mulder meaning he must be human came out of jokes I remember here and there about did Xander ever date anyone human?

I hope I haven't screwed up any Buffy canon; my Buffy betas did their best to keep me from using the wrong coat, for example.  And I hope you enjoyed.

Comment on this in my LJ here.

Lovely graphics courtesy of