The Provisional World by Buckingham

- x -

The world
was whole because
it shattered.  When it shattered,
then we knew what it was.
-- Louise Gluck, 'Formaggio'

- x -

Everything is different.  That is what she tells
herself, but will admit to no one else.

Now she lives life like a member of a twelve step
program, one blue day at a time, not looking forward,
not planning too far ahead.  She lives with few
expectations -- the sun will rise, William will look
more and more like his father, and the night will find
her alone in bed, dreaming of past lives.  These are
her only givens.

She can't bear crowds anymore, because of the crazed,
desperate hope they inspire -- that he might be hiding
behind a cluster of strangers, watching her and
William, and she'd foolishly pass him by, close enough
for them to breathe on one another but still missing
him.  She is weepy without warning, at television
commercials, black-and-white melodramas, stray dogs
barking on street corners, at William's achingly
familiar smile.  She hates calendars, for their
ability to tally up time so neatly and easily.  Nine
months, they tell her, and she has no choice but to
believe.  Nine months that feel like one endless,
dreary day, nine months that feel like a flimsy, gray
stretch of eternity.

It is certain: among other things, she has lost all
sense of time.

- x -

When the clock turns over to midnight in those first
few seconds of February 23rd, she is still at
Quantico, huddled in her office with Doggett and Reyes
and a box full of missing person reports.  The room is
dark as a cave and smells thick and greasy, like the
meatball hero Doggett wolfed down earlier for dinner.
Her stomach is queasy and her eyes are strained, but
there is work to be done, even if it is her birthday.

She takes her glasses off, and pinches the bridge of
her nose to ward off a headache.  She misses William,
misses her tub and bath salts, misses her bed. Misses
*him,* feeling the emptiness like the slow, dull throb
of a toothache.  Tomorrow morning (this morning
really) her mother leaves for San Diego, on a mission
to help Tara out while she goes through the last few
weeks of another difficult pregnancy, so she brought
over an icebox cake this morning (Scully's favorite),
just to make certain that Scully had the essentials
for a celebration.

She is thirty-eight years old and a single mother.
She has no real interest in her job any more, though
she goes through the motions, the only available
expert in all things X-Files related, because she
knows it's what Mulder would want.  There is no reason
for celebration beyond William, and she knows it.

Still the idea of a thick slice of her mother's cake,
a cold glass of milk, and story-time with her son seem
like heaven to her.  Small pleasures in an otherwise
joyless day.  She'll go through one more stack of
folders before she abandons Doggett and Reyes to the
search.  She isn't the Queen of the Basement or
Mulder's scientific conscience any longer.  She can't
burn the midnight oil like she used to.

She tries to read another police report, but the
letters make as much sense to her as hieroglyphics at
this point, and when her cell phone trills, sounding
like faraway wind chimes, she jumps for it.  With the
Gunmen's help, she has amassed a small collection of
different phone, and she randomly switched off between
them.  She may still be bugged, but she figures she'll
make it as difficult for the SOBs as possible.  There
is still some fight left in her.

She is almost certain that will be her mother,
wondering where she is, when she'll be home, reminding
her that the flight to San Diego is at nine a.m.

"Hello?" she says, turning her back to Doggett and
Reyes for some privacy.

Instead of her mother's polite, reprimanding voice,
all Scully can hear are the tinny sounds of a bar --
glasses sliding, chirpy conversations, pool balls
knocking around, faint guitar riffs.  "Hello?" she
says again, pressing a finger to her so she can hear
more clearly.

The rough sounds of barroom brawls and looming
one-night stands fall away and she can hear the coarse
voice of Tom Jones perfectly, as if someone is holding
the phone up to the speaker of a stereo or a juke box.

"Well, she's all you'd ever want, she's the kind I'd
like to flaunt and take to dinner," Tom purrs,
directly into her ear.  "Well, she always knows her
place, she's got style, she's got grace.  She's a
winner."

Her first impulse is to laugh, a weak huff that is
barely audible.  Right behind the humor, though, is
the real thing, hell and heartbreak, and she feels
herself losing it, even in her very professional black
suit, in a bland office with her very own nameplate on
the door, even with Doggett and Reyes breathing down
her neck.  Tears prick at her eyes, and her mouth
trembles around a single word, around his name, but
she doesn't allow herself to say it aloud.

The line goes dead without warning, and then there's
nothing but silence, buzzing, dead air in her ear.
Someone taps a pen on the desk behind her, and papers
are shuffled.  She turns her chair very slowly, just
as Monica clears her throat.

"Did you say something, Dana?" she asks, absently.
She is playing with the silver chain around her neck,
using a neon green highlighter to mark the photocopy
in front of her.

Scully shakes her head, wipes quickly at her nose.
She puts takes a deep breath, and puts her glasses
back on.  There is work to be done.

- x -

She's found a trick that works for her: jamming her
days full, no time for thinking or counting, no time
for longing or remembering.

She tries to put William on a rigid schedule, as rigid
as an infant will allow anyway, and structures her day
around it.  It will be spring soon, and she plans to
make a habit of leaving work by five, so there's still

time to walk him through the park in evening before
the sky goes black.  She will take almost any consult
that Reyes and Doggett need her to, but she's giving
up the traveling -- too much time away from William,
too much time in planes and cars to reconsider her
mistakes and regrets.

She's following Spring Training, getting ready for
baseball season, without analyzing her sudden
interest.  William has a tiny blue baseball cap, and
she sings "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" to him when
he gets fussy.  She likes to imagine that Mulder is in
Florida, bumming around the camps and taking in
batting practice, watching the Yankees' exhibition
efforts.  He is tan and his hair is long again,
falling over his eyes like when he was younger.  He
wears shorts and faded t-shirts while he keeps track
of the action on score card, and always keeps his
sunglasses on, even under clouds, so no one can see
the look in his eyes.  In his back pocket, he carries
a creased photo of William, just hours old, that he
looks at every so often, so he can remember.

This is what she hopes for him, her best case
scenario.

- x -

Once, when they sat alone in a sedan and waited for
Harlan Rollins, possible rapist, to leave his shabby
row house, Mulder asked her if she preferred
Fitzgerald or Hemingway.  She squinted at him,
wondering at the
question's relevance, but he only popped a sunflower
seed in his mouth and watched the building.  They had
been partners for just over a year, and his random,
leapfrog thoughts were daunting, trouble to her
ordered, straight-line mind.

"Fitzgerald," she said finally, when it seemed he was
content to sit and wait forever.  "Why?"

He didn't answer, just mumbled "Good," while he
reached into the back seat. He tossed a paperback copy
of 'Tender is the Night' in her lap, and rested his
hands on the wheel again.  She flipped through the
pages, but
Mulder still wasn't talking.  When she upped the ante
and raised her eyebrow at him, he finally caved, and
looked in her direction.

"That's my favorite," he said.  He smiled, as if that
were explanation enough.  "Start at the beginning."

"You want me to read it to you?" she asked,
incredulous.

"We'll take turns.  You read, I watch for Rollins.  I
read, you watch for Rollins."

She shook her head, but opened the booked, held it
close to the window so the street light illuminated
the words with its pale glow, and started to read.
Mulder settled back in his seat, listening.

Years later, when he was recovering from his botched
lobotomy, Mulder asked her to read it to him again,
and over one long, bedridden weekend, they went
through it once more.  She read the whole thing that
time, her throat aching by Sunday evening.  All
weekend, she'd meant to ask why he liked it so much,
if it was Nicole or Dick that he identified with, but
she never got around to it, never remembered to ask
again later.

Still, she doesn't know.

In a used book store now, trailing behind Doggett and
Reyes in pursuit of an X-File, she notices a lovely
hardback edition of 'Tender is the Night' on the front
table, no jacket, just binding the color of crushed
cranberries and thin silver print like icy moonlight.

The pages in this copy are still crisp, sharp along
all the edge, ripe for paper cuts.  Mulder's, she
remembers, is well-read, beaten up.  When she packed
away his things last year, believing he was never
coming home again, she found it, crammed in the middle
of a thick pile on the bottom shelf of his bookcase.
It was in worse shape than the last time she'd seen
it, like it had traveled a great distance since then
and not very well.  The spine had been patched with
electrical tape, and the pages had grown soft and
yellowed, like old newsprint.  She cried all over it,
then ran to Mulder's bathroom to throw up.  It hadn't
been a good day.

Now Mulder's copy is in a packing box, stuck in the
back of some storage space in Silver Spring, the pages
slowly disintegrating.

Her hands fumble as she flips through the bookstore
edition, while she searches the text and her memory.
She finds what's she looking for, and her fingertip
traces over the words, like messages written across
the sky.

"Later she remembered all the hours of that afternoon
as happy," Scully reads aloud, without realizing she's
doing it.  "One of those uneventful times that seem at
the moment only a link between past and future
pleasure but turn out to have been the pleasure
itself."

And there it is, her wish.  One more basement
afternoon, one more car trip, one more conversation in
the dark, with her head over his heart, one more
morning nursing William, Mulder watching from the foot
of the bed, smiling.  Nothing astonishing, no miracles
or magic, no alien or divine intervention necessary.

She breathes in deeply, the air rich with dust and
glue.  Her hands are still shaking.  She turns, and
finds that Doggett is behind her, looking over her
shoulder.

"Find something?" he asks.

"No," she tells him.  "Nothing."

His brow furrows as he watches her caress the smooth
surface of the book, and she knows that he is trying
to decide whether or not he should be concerned,
whether she's about to break down in a secondhand book
store in Richmond.  He looks around quickly, probably
searching for Monica.

"It's nothing," she says, self-conscious.  "I just
like this book."

With a sigh, she ignores Doggett's sad, pitying eyes.
He has no idea what it is he feels sorry about, but
that doesn't seem to stop him.  She doesn't think that
he's ever really understood, and that makes his
sympathy seem clumsy and misplaced.  Monica emerges
from the dark stacks, and stands beside him.  She
doesn't say a word.

Scully carries her book to the register, leaving
Doggett to explain as he sees fit.

- x -

She could live with being asked to give things up,
Scully thinks, if she weren't asked over and over
again.  Mulder's abducted, and she has to live without
him.  Mulder dies, and she has to build a life without
him.  Mulder goes into hiding, and she has to pretend
an entire life without him.  Maybe she should be used
to it by now, a Mulder-less existence, but it seems
that each time that she is expected to endure it
again, she is less and less composed, less and less
able.

For years, she thought that opening herself up to him
and confronting that final frontier of their
relationship would make her weak.  She refused to give
into her need.  Now, alone, she counts their time
together -- only nine nights; eight years together and
she only made love to him on nine separate occasions
-- and wonders what she was thinking.   If anything,
more time like that with Mulder would have made her
stronger, given her greater resolve.

What a fool she's been.

- x -

In a dream, Mulder stands center stage in some dark
karaoke club, belting out 'American Girl' in the same
droning, rumbly voice he speaks in.  His t-shirt is
orange, his pants are black, and he makes her think of
Halloween.  (William dressed in a silly pumpkin
costume, half-asleep while Grandma snapped an entire
roll of film) He doesn't seem to have an ounce of
self-consciousness, rocking out better and more
attractively than Tom Petty ever could hope.

Surrounded by shadows, her dream self stands at the
back of the club, holding some watered-down drink.
Her other hand holds a gun.  Mulder jumps down off the
stage, and charges for her, grinning, moving his hips
like he did on stage.

"I was in the wrong key, wasn't I, Scully?" he asks,
peering down at her.  His face is damp with sweat, and
his eyes glitter dangerously.  He isn't wearing any
shoes, and she wants to rub his bare foot against her
cheek, kiss his toes.

"You were fine," she tells him.  She squeezes his
bicep, reassuring herself as much as him.  "You were
good."

"Where's William?"

She shakes her head, confused, and blinks into the
darkness.

"Scul-lee," Mulder whines.  "You promised.  You
promised me you would take care of him."  He stomps
his foot petulantly, and throws his arms up in the
air.

"Mulder, I --"

He's turned his back on her, and she realizes that
he's walking away.  She calls after him, but he
doesn't even flinch.

In bed, she wakes alone and nauseous.  She brings
William to her room, and watches him sleep.

- x -

For a while, she didn't know how to explain him to
William.  She didn't even know what to call him.  The
real problem was that she didn't know what to call him
herself, what he was to her.  'Partner' didn't seem
adequate any more.  'Boyfriend' felt ridiculous, and
'Lover' made her uncomfortable, tinged too much with
melodrama.  In her mind, he was always just 'Mulder,'
as if that said it all, as if he couldn't be pinned
down by any label out there.

So she told William stories and just said "Mulder did
this" and "Mulder thought that."  She put a picture of
him on William's dresser and said, "You have his eyes,
sweetie.  And his nose, his smile," tracing the baby's
face as she held up the photo.

Then it was October 13th, and she felt raw inside all
day.  There was no way to ignore it.  She held William
tight to her chest, her eyes red and wet, and cooed in
his ear.

"It's Daddy's birthday today, baby," she whispered,
broken.  "It's Daddy's birthday."

Now he's always Daddy, no matter who's around, no
matter who might be listening.

- x -

In her mail, between her credit card bill and pizza
coupons, there is a crumpled white envelope, with no
return address, post marked San Antonio, Texas.  She
watches it shake in her hand, and tries to fight off
expectation. The handwriting is a mess, like a
right-handed person using his left or a kindergartner
copying ABCs off a black board, and though she tries
to see familiar loops or slants in it, it is
absolutely foreign to her.

When she tears it open with care, the envelope
contains nothing but a postcard of the Statue of
Liberty.  Scratched on the back, in handwriting that
*is* so familiar it brings tears to her eyes, are
meaningless baseball statistics.  'Keith Hernandez,'
it reads.  '1B, 1974-1990, .296 BA, 2182 H, 162 HRs,
1071 RBIs, 98 SB, MVP 1979, 11 Gold Gloves.'

She already has a dozen or so post cards like it, with
flat, shiny picture of landmarks and the stats of Lou
Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Hank Greenberg, Gil Hodges,
Willie McCovey, Steve Garvey, and Eddie Murray jotted
carefully on the back.  She's caught on enough to
realize they're all first baseman, all rather good,
but beyond that she doesn't know what he's telling
her.  She reads the numbers to William, shows him the
Liberty Bell, Alamo, or whatever else might be
depicted on the front, then tucks them away in drawer,
like love letters.

William is half-asleep when she brings the Statue of
Liberty card to his room.  He punches his fists
through the air but stares at it unseeingly.  While
she reads the stats, he makes gurgling sounds, almost
like laughter, and tries to grab a fistful of her
hair.

"Hey sweetie, pay attention," she laughs.  "I think
Keith Hernandez was on the Mets, but that's all I
know."  She refuses to cry.  Not over something as
silly as baseball.  "Oh!  And he was on an episode of
'Seinfeld.'  I remember that."

William is unimpressed, and gets drowsy again in her
arms.  She lays him down in his crib, and strokes his
cheek as he drifts off.

In her bedroom, she reads the postcard again.  And
again and again.  She tries to will the words to
transform, to tell her something she needs to hear.
Leave it to Mulder to teach baseball appreciation in
absentia.  Leave it to her to be angry with him in
absentia.

- x -

He kissed her at the front door when he left, and held
her against him, like he might be reconsidering the
whole thing.  When he looked down at her, with his
glassy, dim eyes, she started to cry, and he patted
her back.

"It'll be all right," he told her.  "It's not
forever."

She nodded, lips trembling.

"You have to promise me something.  I won't leave
until you do, Scully."

She wiped roughly at her eyes, and her throat
tightened, but she said, "Anything.  Anything,
Mulder."

He nodded to the bedroom, where William slept, red and
wrinkled.  "You enjoy every minute with him.  You
remember it all, so when I come back, you can tell me
everything.  Don't let this --" He gestured between
them, the space that was starting to grow.  "Don't let
it make William seem like something sad."

She promised, with salty tears on her lips, and Mulder
was gone.

On a sunny Friday afternoon, when she's left work
early, William giggles in her ear, rolls over on his
stomach, then crawls across the living room rug.  He
isn't fussy, doesn't cry, and his smile is easy,
constant.

It is a good day.  It has to be.

- x -
 

Thank you for reading.  Please feel free to share your
comments and thoughts at buckingham15@yahoo.com

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