By  KatyBlue
katy2blue@aol.com
 

CLASSIFICATION: SA, MSR
SPOILERS: none
RATING: PG-13
DISCLAIMER: Well...I would like to claim credit for
character development beyond and above what CC is brave
enough for but that might get me in trouble.  All rights
belong to CC and 1013 productions.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: To Meredith and Laine especially,
and to those who read my wanderings.  You know who you
are and thanks.  Here's my stunted version of mind candy.
SUMMARY: An unexpected moment in time...
E-MAIL: e-mail me at katy2blue@aol.com or visit my website
at http://www.xoom.com/KatyBlue

***********************************************************************
 

I have not always felt as if I've chosen this path.  But
I'm on it, nonetheless.

Long ago, something set me on it, herding me hard in one
direction.  Nipping painfully at my heels.  And though
I've, for the most part, been given the opportunity to make
my own choices when I came to each crossroad, I have not
always chosen the direction.

Some of the road has been smooth and paved before me.
And some of it has felt as if I'm walking barefoot on sharp
gravel...
 

********************************************************************

I was sitting in a car with Mulder, and I didn't know that
this was the end of the road diverged for us.  That we were
about to go down a completely different path.  It was only
a meaningless stakeout, after all, and didn't play much of
a role in the inevitable steps we would take.  It was
merely a space in time.  An unimportant setting for the
final scene.

There was an incredible fit and start rainstorm outside the
car.  It gave our position away because the day was muggy
and the windows were fogged with evidence of the vehicle's
occupation.  Mulder rolled his window down a crack and
looked at me expectantly, as if I was supposed to ape his
actions.  Do as he did.  Mimicry is the highest form of
flattery they say.  Stubbornly, I left mine up.

"Scully..." he prompted.

After heaving a sigh, I cracked my window open also.
"I don't read minds, Mulder," I snapped.

"You just did," he observed rudely.

Why did I snap at him?  Why did he reply in kind?  The
reason, no more meaningful than a long, boring day.  But
engaged in the challenge of a debate, no matter how
insignificant, was how we would end this rite of passage.
It was one of the things that we did best.

I didn't know, as I was rolling my window down with
grievous intent, that everything was about to change in the
space of a few minutes.  That when I was next aware of
what was happening, things would be different.
 

************************************************************************

We'd never made love.  We'd never discussed art or poetry.
We'd never talked about watching children grow up or even
thought about growing old together.  Mulder and I would
have both sworn on the bible that we were not the marrying
kind.  If anyone is the marrying kind these days.

It was so much easier in my mother's generation.  Career
wise, you were pretty much out of luck.  Here's your
minimum wage, darling.  Welcome to the secretarial pool.
You were expecting fulfillment?  But marriage...that was
one big, fat, happy fairy tale back then.

Unfortunately, no one told our mothers that when we finally
reached the age to act out all those stories we grew up on,
when we attempted to mesh the possibilities of a successful
career with the dream of a nuclear family in this brave new
world, it might not work.

Someone forgot to note as well that all the institutions
which uphold the bond between one man and one woman as
sacred and immutable would be crumbling to so much dust.

And that the men we fell in love with might be like Mulder.

Tragedy can come hard on the heels of any success. A
successful career is a lonely thing to come home to at
night. It doesn't make dinner for you, or rub your tired,
aching feet.  It doesn't give you a homey nest with picture
windows and someone else's comfort to cluck over.  I
remember my mother's excitement the day we moved to the
Navy base where my dad had commandeered her a house
with a picture window.  Her delight was reinforcing to me.
Someday, I'd want that.  That house with the picture
window.  The comfortable nest.  A little girl with red
curls or even, forgive the audacity, a little boy with
Mulder's soulful eyes.

A dedication to a cause doesn't necessarily give you the
fantasy or even the reality of family life. It may even
preclude it.

I had never failed at anything.  I had always succeeded
in whatever I attempted.  I didn't take to failure.

I stared through the fog of the window.

And all this was merely a momentary thought aside.  It
barely distracted me from our meaningless debate.

*******************************************************************

"Mulder, we're sitting in a totally fogged up parked car.
Big deal.  He'll just think we're two horny kids out here
humping."

"You think kids are the only ones that do it in cars?"
Mulder asked, entirely too interested in my answer.

I snorted.  "Please, Mulder.  No details.  Your perversions
are something I'd rather you keep to yourself."

It was his turn to laugh.  A big one.  At my expense.  "And
that, folks, is the morality lesson for the day from our own
resident goody two shoes, little Miss Dana Scully, the
apple of Sister Mary Margaret's eye."

In my somewhat churlish mood, this struck me as more of
a mean-spirited attack than just a little fun at my expense.
My retort was quick and savage, in keeping with this
oversensitive viewpoint.  I turned to face him.  Angry all
out of proportion.  It was undoubtedly only one of his many
sarcastic comments, after all.  They rolled off his tongue
like a waterfall.  All day, every day.

"Fuck you, Mulder," I said vehemently.

The vulgarity came from my mouth as if a stranger were
speaking.  He hadn't expected that one.  In fact, *I*
hadn't really expected it.  I'd shocked myself.  Mulder
looked surprised, vacillating between defensiveness and
apology.  And possibly a twinge of delight.  At my
expression, however, he quickly chose repentance.  I
was holding my own on the defensive end.

"I'm sorry, Scully..."

"Forget it," I snapped.

"I mean it, I'm sorry," he repeated stubbornly.

"I don't need your damn apology, Mulder," I shot back.  "In
fact, maybe we could try not to converse at all.  I think
that would work for me right now."

He let that one ride for about two seconds.

"Sheesh, Scully," he muttered, half under his breath.
"You're certainly in a bad mood today."  I swear I heard
the words 'that time of the month' in the undertone.

Okay.  Mulder was really asking for it here, so I gave it
to him.

"What the hell is it about men that they feel the need to
turn every woman's attempt to express herself into
something attributable to no more than a mood or a
hormone?" I demanded.  "As if any strong opinion we,
as a gender, might have is some bizarre, irrational
manifestation of our menstrual cycle."

I said the 'M' word because I thought, like all men, Mulder
would grow alarmed and uneasy at the mere mention of this
monthly event, never mind an attempt to open a debate on
the issue.  He'd no doubt squirm uncomfortably and shut
the hell up.

"And who ever said I had to be in a good mood for your
benefit?" I added as a safeguard, making my stand as both
a woman, in the global sense, and as an individual, minus
the gender issue.

He was unmoved by my diversionary tactics.  I saw the
dangerous little spark in his eye that said he was growing
a little defensive himself at my uncharacteristic attack.
We were closed in a very small space, after all.

"Pardon moi, Scully," he overemphasized his conversational
French, and he had that little unhappy twist in his mouth
that he gets when he's particularly displeased with me.  "I
somehow didn't realize that 'fuck you' was an opinion.  It
sounds more like a proposition to me," he said smugly.

Two could play this game.  "Please do me the courtesy of
qualifying that statement, Mulder," I encouraged.  "What
you mean is that it would be a proposition from the type of
women that you might associate with."

He looked a little hurt for a second but then shook his
head in disbelief.  And then, at whatever look he saw on my
face, he finally threw his head back against the headrest
and had a good hard laugh at my expense.

I didn't find this at all amusing.  In fact, I wanted to
punch him. For a second, I felt trapped back in that
wonderful net of childhood, with my brothers lazily
taunting me about some long forgotten issue while I grew
more and more angry.  Until I finally clenched my tiny
fists and let fly at their childish taunts.  Punching for
all I was worth, and still receiving no more dignified
response than increased laughter as they let me have at
them unchecked.  My small and ineffectual blows apparently
did not bruise or even hurt them, never mind get my point
across.

That was my first taste of rage.  Of impotence, through the
innocent lens of childhood.

I was tasting it again right now.

"Seeing as how you're the woman that I associate with
the most, that's a rather odd comment, Scully," he finally
remarked.

I was no longer a child and my self-defense skills had
matured, so to speak.  I now used words instead of my
fists.  Usually.  But our comments were starting to hurt.
I also knew I couldn't stop it on my end, even if I tried.
I'd had years of practice for these types of battles and I
wouldn't desert my camp.  In fact, in some perverse way,
we both seemed to get off on it.  Of course, verbal sparring
with someone that I was attracted to was a tad different
than trying to punch the lights out on my annoying
brothers.

It was that much harder to win now.

The crux of our problem was simple.  Black and white.  Yin
and Yang.  Oh yes, opposites certainly attract.  But they
sure as hell have a hard time understanding one another or
letting a subject drop.  Give me my mirror image any day.
There's something to be said for thinking the same way.

He beat me to the punch line.  "How the hell would you
know what type of woman I'd choose anyway, Scully?" he
muttered peevishly.

Oh Mulder.  That one was almost too easy.  I was even
able to ignore the sick ball of something like fear and
disappointment that settled in my gut at his implication
that I knew nothing about his personal tastes.  "Oh, I
don't know as you have a type, Mulder.  You're probably
pretty flexible once you've got the remote in hand."

It took him a few minutes to recover.  Mostly because my
statement was probably true.  And he was probably shocked
at how low the comment had actually gone.  Taunts about
his lack of a love life were a cruel hand to use with Mulder.
I should know.  It was just as cruel for him to use them on
me.  My absence of such an outlet was no doubt driving my
defensiveness right now.  And it was what had propelled me
to run my point into the ground in the first place.

Mulder got behind the wheel of our discontent.

"As a matter of fact, Scully..." he started to say...
 

********************************************************************

We were interrupted from our meaningless little quarrel by
a sequence of events which, even in retrospect, I can
neither piece together nor describe succinctly.  It's not
all there, but I recall those fragments of it that became
stamped into freeze frames in my mind.  The moving
connections which should piece them together distorted
by an incomplete grasp on comprehension, a view
representative of some strange slowing of the mental
capacity.  Or possibly, it was the rapidity of the events
unfolding in such a way that they could not be caught by
the lassitude of human perception.

There was an incredible explosion.  Like a powerful gust of
wind.  Or a deafening crack of thunder.

The next piece isn't there.  There's just nothing...

And in the next, my ears were ringing.  And I couldn't seem
to catch a breath in the acrid aftershock.  My nostrils
burned as I tried to draw air into my lungs.

Later, I could tell you that I remember the bizarre image
of the glass in Mulder's window unexplainably forming an
expanding network of cracks before imploding inward in
that first, stupefied moment of awareness.  I saw Mulder's
instinctive flinch, his shoulders coming up, his eyes
squeezing shut as the air hit us like a wall.  And all of
this in slow motion.  I saw his body suddenly hurtling
toward me before it landed heavily against mine.

He never had a chance.

I never had a chance.
 

*****************************************************************

I didn't scream.  I don't think I made a sound during that
first horrible impact.
 
I have never believed in destiny.

To some extent, I do now.  I've been driven down this path
in life with purpose.  And something has been behind me,
maybe the same lurking presence that haunts my nightmares,
worrying my back for whole nights at a time.  I can never
run.  Though I try, my feet go nowhere.  They stay on the
rough surface of the road and I am frozen, like a deer in
the headlights.  Immobilized.

Waiting for the final impact.

I move forward only when forced.  And I don't know if this
stems from a desire to double-back to some point behind
me or just a fear of what's up ahead.
 

********************************************************************

I clutched at Mulder, holding on.  Feeling his hands
gripping me in the aftershock.  Both of us trying to figure
out what the hell had just happened.  I was saying his
name but I couldn't hear myself speaking it or feel my lips
moving.  I thought I tasted blood.

It seemed that our world had abruptly just altered and,
slow-witted, I couldn't even figure out what my position
was.  Or even grasp what it had been before this moment.
Before this tangle with Mulder's body and the heavy weight
of it on me.

Everything seemed dark and smothering.  There was no
comprehension of whether or not I was injured, though there
was a vague realization that I shouldn't be lying there for
no reason.  I thought there was a warm trickle spilling
from somewhere above, wet against my hand.  I couldn't
see much at all.  There was a choking smoke that blotted out
the rest of the world.  That hid our bodies, even from
ourselves.

Mulder and I were cocooned within a thick, dark cloud.

And all I was aware of was his face...

He was looking at me with something like surprise.
Intimately close and both of us struggling to recover, it
was strangely like making love, this attempt to breathe and
move in unison.  To discover where we were in respect to
the other, our bodies meeting and locking more tightly to
each other with the realization that maybe we shouldn't try
to move at all just yet.  That we might just be moving our
last.  And each breath became a heaving in and out of
one concentrated effort, helping each other with each
inhalation.  Careful with every exhalation.  Our bodies
slick with our sweat and whatever other body fluids might
be spilling out.

The event itself is unimportant.  Everything that happened
is not the important part, I think now.  There seemed
nothing at all significant about the instigators of this
horror or anything life-changing about that particular
moment in time.

Except for the look on his face.  That face I can't let go
of.  The face I have followed throughout the past seven
years of my dark and twisted version of a fairy tale.  And
the little bit of light that still allowed me to see it.

I didn't want to lose it...

I held onto him.

"Mulder," I said on an uneven exhalation.

"Scully," His was spoken on inhale.

We were both reading lips, I think.  Unable to hear
anything but a strange roaring noise.  Still, we could go
back and forth like this.  "Mulder...Scully..."  Our own
little debate team.  Our own little pity party.  Our own
little world of two.  Our one shared breath.  I think this
connection was all that kept us breathing.  I couldn't
seem to speak beyond his name.  And I don't know if
I wasn't able to find the right words or if I was just not
physically capable of speaking anymore.

"Lay down with me," he rasped.  "I need to lie down."

He was already lying down.  So was I.

There were so many things that I knew I should be doing
right then, as a doctor.  But I couldn't seem to remember
what they were.  We were lying there on a car seat, dying,
but the setting was not important.  I wrapped my arms
around him, my face close to his.  Mulder's lips were
warm.  "I'm cold," I said finally, shivering against him,
frightened of the ice creeping through me.

His eyes were fever bright.  "What the hell is going on?"
he murmured.
 

*******************************************************************

It became more confusing after that, this mix of real and
imaginary thoughts, as slippery as a fish I'd held once in
my hands, fighting to get back to the water...

I felt the path we had chosen as if we actually began to
walk it, though I know this part was not real but more
likely a fragment of that feverish dream.  The gravel
beneath our feet was sharp and cutting.  Slicing tender
skin to ribbons.  The monsters surrounded us, hurling us
away from the roads we were travelling on.  Pushing us
roughly down another.

Who were these creatures at the crossroads?  These
violent, forceful shepherds?

And I swear to god my greatest fear in life remained and
will remain...that someday, somewhere at the end of this
new road, my eyes will be filled with the pulsating eerie
glow of some damned alien spaceship.  Like a nightmarish
image, aflame and throbbing.  An invasion that is not
welcomed by me.

And on that day, my grip on Mulder might not be quite so
strong.

Dear Lord, let this cup pass me by.

But right now, I can't let go...
 

*********************************************************************

I became aware that the car was filling with an increasing
darkness.  It gathered like ominous clouds around us.
Our world was overcast.  A malevolent hurricane, sucking
the oxygen away in a slow rush, as if the very atmosphere
had stolen our lungs from our bodies and left us.

It hurt to continue breathing.  A fine mist showered in
from the shattered windows, like an acid drizzle.  The wail
of sirens in the distance was a pack of lonesome wolves,
sighting the moon.

I turned inward, to Mulder.  I gave up on figuring out what
had happened.  I couldn't grasp anymore where I was.  I
was losing all concept of who I was, and what, if anything,
was important about whatever it was that was still in the
process of occurring.

Or why any of these thoughts seemed meaningful at all.

I could feel Mulder.  This was all that kept me there.  His
skin was hot.  Wet.  He moved against me.  And I wondered
if I was feeling him at all, as I floated in some strange sea
of the soul.  Not on a road anymore, but immersed in an
ocean.  I held onto him, because I was drowning.  And I
could feel him, in turn, holding onto me...

Floating...

Just you and me, on this island...

I felt...

...hope.

The rest of it is gone.
 

*******************************************************************

I wake in what I recognize to be a hospital bed.  This
piece is very clear.  Consciousness is full and startling.

And present.

Mulder is beside me, cramped between the tubes and
lines.  Fetally curled against my chest, knees drawn up
and wedged into my pelvis.  His head is resting on my
shoulder.  It hurts.  He looks like a child.  I'm surprised
he isn't sucking his thumb.

I awake with the same violence that has put me down into
this sleep.  Frightened, thrashing flight at the horror of
death.  Mulder startles awake with me.  For a second we
are all movement.  Ripples on the water, going toward shore.
Creating waves which hurtle us ahead of ourselves.  And
then I calm.

I groan in dismay.  Not understanding what has happened,
but beginning to.  Alarmed for my safety, but realizing
with a slowly dawning awareness that I'm somewhere
tranquil and safe.  And that it hurts less to be still.

Mulder curls back beside me, becoming peaceful.  Laying
his head back down on his arm and settling it on the pillow
with me.  Watchful.  Waiting for me to come back.

I haven't really moved that much after all.

"What are you doing here?" I croak.

"I could ask you the same thing," he shoots back.  Then
he gives me a little smile and gestures carefully with a
bandaged thumb behind him.  "I'm in the next bed over.
Want to see how my ass looks hanging out of this hospital
gown?"  His eyes are twinkling.  "I'll give you a peep show
if you'd like."

This is too much Mulder for me all at once.

I close my eyes.

I open them again.  Mulder's face is nestled on my pillow,
going nowhere.  Quiet now.  Serious.

Silence settles like a pall in the room.  I can hear the
steady blip of a machine, monitoring my heartbeat as it
slows to the pace of the room.  I realize that Mulder is
matching his breathing to mine in the stillness.

He opens his mouth.

He speaks...

"Will you marry me, Scully?" he says.

For a second, I'm speechless.  I remember the concussive
level force that has put us here.  We float now in a sea of
bedcovers and hospital smells.  There is a needle sticking
painfully into a vein on the back of my hand.  Mulder
traces it carefully, as if sensing my attention to this
discomfort.  Or maybe it's he who drew my focus there.

"What?" is all that I finally manage to say weakly.

This man is insane.

"You heard me."

I have that twilight zone feeling.  That strange 'how the
hell did I get here?' sensation.  And the knowledge that
there is no going back from this point we've reached.  I
suddenly think, this is not the road I've chosen for
myself.  This path, this life has been forced upon me.
I have forced myself upon it.  It's a big festival of
reluctance all around.  But I know that I cannot let it go.

I cannot let him go.

This will change everything.

And maybe nothing.

His eyes, watching me, have a battle-scarred look.  The
smile is gone, as if it were never there, though I know it
was.  Those eyes look old and sad and weary of this life.
Wise beyond his years.  His road has been a hell of lot
harder than mine.  They fix on me, as if I fill them up and
don't allow him to see anything else.

I wonder if I shorten his vision or expand it.

"Yes," I whisper across the pillow.  It is a solemn
moment.  I am cold.

Mulder touches my face and he is just as cold.
"Thanks," he whispers.  And my hand creeps its
way upward to wrap around his and begin the warming
process.  We start down this new road quietly, without
fanfare.

One road.

Two hearts.

Two fiercely independent, opposed minds, venturing toward
that elusive connection known as love.

There is barely a breath between us and Mulder manages to
move closer.  He is gentle with the tubes and needles as he
cups his hands around all this and holds mine.  I'm not
surprised when he brings it up to his lips.  Breathing
warmth on me.  Sharing even the air in his lungs.  Taking
care to move slowly so as not to frighten either of our
solitary souls.

I may not have chosen this road.  But I'm on it.

And I'm not alone.
 

THE END
************************************************************

Please send feedback to katy2blue@aol.com

Did I mention that feedback gives me the boost
to create again? :)
 
 
 

AUTHOR'S NOTES:  This is not a song-fic...I swear.
However, I must thank Sarah McLachlan for inspiring
some of it with her painfully poignant lyrics.  They read
like a sad soul speaking.  I do not take credit for the few
phrases I might have borrowed from her songs within the
text and title of this story.  They are her words, not mine.
But their meaning is universal to the human connection...

****************************************************

We meet at the lights, I stare for a while
The world around us disappears
It's just you and me on this island of hope
A breath between us could be miles
Let me surround you, my sea to your shore
Let me be the calm you seek

~Sarah McLachlan~

***************************************************

Later, all ... KatyBlue :)