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"This is a Normal Life." . . . It was a long, lonely stretch of road and theirs was the only car on it. As they passed a Military Installation sign, Mulder pointed to it, a tinge of excitement in his voice, "outpost 134," he turned and looked at Scully, a slight smile on his face, "two miles to go."
"I'm all a-tingle," was her reply, sarcasm and boredom warring for supremacy. Mulder glanced over at her again. Feeling his gaze on her, she turned to him with a smile in her eyes and then looked away. "So, Mulder, this supposed clandestine source, who's contacted you -- how do we know that he's not just another crackpot? Whose encyclopaedia knowledge of extraterrestrial life isn't derived exclusively from Star Trek reruns?"
Mulder smiled, "because of where this particular crackpot works ... Room Lake, Area 51 where the military has conducted --"
"-- for the past fifty years classified experiments involving extraterrestrial technology," Scully interrupted him with. Mulder looked over at her, surprise on his face and the familiar fire was in his voice as he continued, "it's all our questions. The proof that we've suspected, but never been able to hold in our hands. That, that proof is here."
Scully's immediate response was charged with skeptical debate in her voice that she used so often to counter his boundless enthusiasm. "Mulder, it's the dim hope of finding that proof that's kept us in this car -- or one very much like it -- for more nights that I care to remember."
He glanced over at her as she went on, "driving hundreds, if not thousands, of miles through neighborhoods and cities and towns where people are raising families and buying homes and playing with their kids and dogs and . . ." Taking his eyes off the road, he sent her a look clearly asking, 'are you serious!?,' but she continued, her voice growing more plaintive with each word, ". . . in short, living their lives while we . . . we . . . we just keep on driving."
"What's your point?"
A note of exasperation entered her voice, "don't you just ever want to stop? Get out of the damn car? Settle down and live something approaching something of a normal life?"
"This is a normal life," was his reply, and she smiled, for this was Fox Mulder she was talking to.
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