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November 1994
Hanukkah falls early this year, beginning the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Mulder hasn’t mentioned anything about going to visit his mom so Scully isn’t surprised to see him in the office on Monday morning.
“How was your Thanksgiving?” he asks as she turns to hang her coat up.
“Fine,” she says, not wanting to elaborate.
In truth, it had been an awkward affair. She hadn’t realized how much her family’s congenial rapport depended on everyone being on their best behavior for her father. Without the captain to steer them, tensions flared. Thinking he’d be free of Bill Scully Sr.’s judgment, Charlie made his first appearance at his mother’s table in years with his long-term boyfriend Harry, only to face Bill Jr.’s wrath. This led to a very drunk Melissa “accidentally” knocking a full glass of red wine onto Bill’s shirt as she gestured wildly in her little brother’s defense. Once Charlie stormed off with Harry trailing behind him (apologizing to Maggie and thanking her for the food as quickly and quietly as he could) Bill turned his anger on Dana. He argued that by staying with the FBI even after her abduction she was only asking to get killed.
It all ended with Maggie retreating to her bedroom to cry, Melissa vomiting in the bathroom, Bill cursing into his whiskey at the table, and Dana silently washing dishes in the kitchen.
“Did you spend the holiday with your family?” she asks, coming to sit across from him at his desk.
Mulder shakes his head. “Nope. Frohike made his famous chicken wings, which is close enough to turkey for me.”
“What about Hanukkah? You celebrated with your mother last year,” she says, hesitating as she eases into new territory.
Two years into their partnership and they still do this awkward dance around each other when it comes to anything remotely personal. She’s more than partly to blame herself since she doesn’t willingly share much about her own life.
“‘Celebrate’ is a generous word,” Mulder says. “We didn’t exactly light the menorah and spin a dreidel around. My mom started taking her sleeping pills earlier and earlier each day until she was basically conking out after lunch. I don’t think she really likes having me around.”
“That can’t be true.”
Mulder shrugs. “I think I just remind her of Samantha. Or rather Samantha’s absence.”
“What about your father?” Scully says, trying to change the subject.
“It’s funny,” he says. “My dad’s family was Jewish and my mother only converted before they got married, but as long as I can remember he never wanted anything to do with religion. Besides, Hanukkah isn’t even a very significant holiday. It just happens to fall around Christmas so it’s gotten swept up in that all-American, gift-giving, capitalist fervor.”
“What’s the story again?” She’s familiar with the basics of the holiday but she knows Mulder likes weaving a tale for her, and she likes to listen as he does.
“Well, it all started with the rise of the Greek king Antiochus the fourth in the second century BCE. The Greeks had a mostly live-and-let-live attitude toward the Jews until then, but Antiochus wasn’t a big fan. He forbade Jews from practicing their religion and demanded they worship Greek gods instead. This all came to a head when Antiochus invaded Jerusalem, killing thousands of Jews and turning the Holy Temple into a shrine to Zeus. He also forced Jewish people to eat pork, which was strictly forbidden by the Torah, but now that I mention it, oddly puts me in the mood for bacon.”
Scully smiles but shakes her head at him.
“Anyway, a small group of Jews known as the Maccabees formed an army and managed to overpower the much larger Greek forces. They retook the temple and got rid of all the Greek idols but ran into a little problem when they went to rededicate it by lighting the menorah with pure olive oil. Because the Maccabees were soldiers returning from the battlefield, they themselves couldn’t produce pure oil until waiting seven days after having handled dead bodies. All the oil in the temple had been defiled by the Greeks except for one jug that supposedly only had enough to last for one night. But of course, as the legend goes, it ended up keeping the menorah lit for eight days, just in time for the Maccabees to start churning out their own oil. Since this all went down after the Torah was written, the only biblical allusion to the Hanukkah is actually in the New Testament when Jesus visits Jerusalem to observe the holiday—”
“—in the book of John,” Scully finishes his sentence.
“Someone paid attention in Sunday school,” he says, and she fights the feeling of a blush rising to her cheeks.
“Are you surprised?” she asks with a smile.
“Not at all,” he says, returning her grin. “Of course, some scholars consider the Maccabees to be religious fundamentalists who even killed fellow Jews they didn’t consider to be hardcore enough. And some versions of the story don’t include any reference to the so-called ‘miracle of oil,’ so who’s to say what really happened?”
“Mulder, you are willing to believe in claims of parasitic alien life forms, shape-shifting mutants, and widespread government conspiracies, but miracles don’t pass muster?” Scully asks, the corners of her lips creeping up into a smile.
He shifts in his chair, leaning forward, closer to her. “I recently witnessed one miracle that I believe in.”
“Which was?”
“Watching you go from the brink of death in that hospital bed a few months ago to sitting here and debating Talmudic wisdom with me right now. If that isn’t a miracle I don’t know what is.”
She instinctively pulls back, bracing her hands on the armrests of her chair. He doesn’t budge, keeping his eyes locked on her.
“Mulder, I can’t clarify what happened to me, why I was returned or why I recovered,” she says quietly, “but when I was unconscious in the hospital, I saw things that I believe can only be explained by the existence of a higher power.”
She hadn’t confessed this to Mulder before and she isn’t sure why. This is a man who believes in werewolves and time-traveling killers. Why is she scared to tell him about her own visions?
“What did you see?” He asks, softly, leaning in towards her.
“I saw my father. I saw my sister—and I saw you,” she says quietly. “But it wasn’t just seeing. I felt your presence.”
Mulder pauses for a beat, opening his lips to speak but not saying anything.
“Scully, I’ve heard about near-death experiences, people believing their seeing through a portal into the afterlife. But in nearly every case they can be explained by low-oxygen levels or misfiring neurons in the brain.”
“No, Mulder,” she says, looking down at her hands now. “I read my medical report. I never suffered from hypoxia or unusual neurological activity. There’s no scientific explanation for what happened.”
“So you think it was God?”
“I don’t know, Mulder,” her voice quavers. “But I can’t say for sure that it wasn’t.”
“Whatever it was, I’m glad you made it through.”
“Thank you,” she says, feeling the heat rising in her chest.
She doesn’t tell him that along with sensing his presence she felt something more—a fierce devotion bordering on love. Maybe he’s right and it was a miracle that brought her back to him. Or perhaps the miracle is whatever brought them together in the first place.