by Marie Endres
joemimi@prodigy.net
 

Classification: MSR; Post-ep

Rating: PG

Spoilers: "Empedocles"

Summary: We take a little bit of home with us.

Disclaimer: Mulder, Scully, and the doll are
not mine. They belong to Chris Carter, 1013
Productions and Fox Broadcasting.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

"A Home"

    Full, determined sunlight floods the
confines of my home. A soft honey glow lights
the room reminding me of one my favorite times
of the day. A sunset is soon to be upon my
corner of the world, but for now, daylight is
having its last say.

My home surrounds me as a peaceful blanket of
wholeness covers and soothes me. I am home,
away from the busy stress of yet another
hospital stay.

~ * ~

 She sits in my lap. Soft, quiet, unknowing,
yet holding so many days within  her cloth
self.  Her eyes, small and unyielding in their
stare, remind me of my own at times. Her dress,
perfunctory and functional, are not the things
of little girl dreams, but of their mothers'
realities. Her hair, uncomplicated and full, is
close to her and not the cascading triumph of
princesses. She is simple; she is strong. She
is one of only a few material gifts he has ever
given to me. Yet, he has given me so much more.

My fingers skim over the well-worn fabric. How
many small hands have glided across this
visage? How many tiny mothers have dressed this
miniature child? Who were these children?

 A knock interrupts my reverie. I pick up the
doll and bring her with me as I walk to the
door.

I look to see whom it might be. His smile is
small, that of someone who knows he's being
evaluated. My hand turns the doorknob and
allows Mulder to enter before closing the door
behind him.

"Hey," I say with characteristic eloquence.

He looks at me intently, more so than he had
intended, I think.

"Scully, is everything OK?" he asks without
giving me the reason for his visit.

I realize that he's no longer looking right at
me, but a little off to the side in the
direction of my hand that still holds the doll.

"Oh, " I say, acknowledging her presence. "I
was just looking at her when you knocked."

"That's good. I think. Right?" he says with a
little bit of a chuckle.

"Yes, it is good. I was just. . ." My voice
trails off because I want to know more, but I'm
afraid, afraid of asking the wrong questions,
ones with answers too painful for a son.

"You're wondering about her? You're wondering
about me? You're wondering why in this world of
car seat toys that are supposed to raise your
baby's IQ, and diaper genies that do not grant
wishes, I would choose a worn and ancient doll
as a gift for your child?"  he asks with a
small smile playing across his lips.

He's giving me an in. Do I take it?

"C'mon. Let's go sit down," he offers before I
can make up my mind. Perhaps this is a good
thing.

He gently reaches over and takes the doll from
my hands as we sit next to each other on the
couch. His gaze fall upon her as does mine and
he begins: " This doll belonged to my mother's
cousin Sarah, who gave it to my mother when
Samantha was born. Sarah lived in Holland right
about the time that Hitler decided that Jews
were not some of his favorite people. She was
almost six when things grew dark. Luckily, her
father who taught at the university, had begun
to hear rumors of round-ups and made plans to
move the family here to the US, to stay with my
mother's family.

"Sarah and her grandmother were always close.
Matter of fact, this doll belonged to her
grandmother and then was passed on to Sarah. As
the family was making some very secretive plans
to leave, Sarah's grandmother worried about her
only grandchild. She wondered about how living
in the unfamiliar and very un-Jewish  land of
The United States would effect Sarah. She knew
that Sarah would feel displaced, an outsider
looking in on a foreign world, a visitor, not
sure of where or how she fit in."

I cannot help but look up him as he pauses
slightly. Though separated by almost six
decades, Mulder and this little refugee cousin
are not so dissimilar. I reach out to touch his
hand, to remind him of a security that will
never be far away. He takes my hand in his,
lacing our fingers together for brief moment
until he notices me squeezing my eyes shut in
response to some lower back pain.

"Scully are you alright? I didn't think my
storytelling abilities were that bad," he says
in response.

"No, not tonight, anyway," I reply, a smile in
my tone. "It's just that my back hurts a
little."

"Here," he says while turning slightly toward
me and gently shifting me until my back faces
him. He gives me the doll to hold, while his
hands go to work kneading and applying pressure
to just where the pain is. I really do believe
in the man's psychic abilities at times.

As he leans closer to me, he continues in a
perfect, soothing rhythm, words and caresses
melding into a delicious feast for my soul: "
Sarah's grandmother knew that there would be
anti-Semitic forces at just about every turn in
her granddaughter's journey to the US, yet she
longed to send her off with something to remind
her of the faith of her family. She wanted to
send her with some sort of remembrance of what
would surely be destroyed sooner than anyone
could imagine. And so it was with this in mind
that Sarah's grandmother took her needle and
thread and sent her off with a message."

He stops his kind attentions for a moment while
his arms reach around me, to take hold of the
doll. "Now, I'm not getting fresh," he says
with a hint of mischief in his voice as he
lifts the apron of the doll. "If you look
inside the hem of the apron, where it can't be
seen from the outside, you'll see the Hebrew
letter 'Shin'. "

There, just as he said, was a small Hebrew
character that looked like a "u" with a small
branch coming from the top left and into the
center. He took my finger and ran it over the
almost sixty-year old thread. "The letter shin
begins the Shema which is the passage in
Deuteronomy that reminds Jews of all that they
believe. It's the passage that is contained in
the small scrolls that are inside of every
Mezuzah that is affixed to the doorways of
Jewish homes. Sarah couldn't bring with her
such an outright expression of Judaism as a
Mezuzah to remind her of home and all that she
believed. Her grandmother, however, made sure
that Sarah would bring a little bit of that
home wherever she went, wherever this doll
went."

He is quiet for just a moment before releasing
my fingers. His arms encircle me, his hands
coming to rest on my swelled abdomen, while his
lips form his words close to my ear. "That's
why I gave the doll to you, Scully. When I was
gone, I  thought about so many things, like
what was important and what wasn't . It really
changed my perspective on so much.  I realized
that home was not as important as I thought it
was."

I stiffen at what this could mean.

He must sense my uneasiness, for he continues:
"What was important was * you *, wherever you
were, that's where I needed to be. The physical
place for me, just as for Sarah, wasn't what
held my security, my memories, my future. It
was you, and now it is this baby, this miracle
that you never gave up on. Wherever we are
together, that place is home and nothing could
ever change that."
 

~ * ~

Moonlight bathes in quiet peace this room that
has seen so much of my life. Promises,
disappointments and silent prayers have
decorated the hours and days that have passed
through these four walls. And while I reside
here, I am convinced now that I truly live in
another timeless place, a place created not
from brick and mortar. As he cradled me
tonight, holding a reminder of the past and
encircling our future with his arms, Mulder
once again gave me the gift of believing, a
gift like the lovingly hidden message that will
go on and on.

END

Feedback: Send a little message home to
joemimi@prodigy.net

Thank you's once again to Georgia who not only
opens her beta heart again and again to me, but
who also opened her home to me. And I didn't
even need an owl keychain to enter!