| Out of Sorrow Part One By Amanda Finch [email protected] CATEGORY:
VAR Inspired by a little too much wine, a little too much Frank Sinatra, some Nick Cave in there somewhere and my own holiday hostility. Thanks to Viridian for, as she listened to me whine about not being prolific, not being able to finish the opus on my hard drive, innocently suggested, "Don't you have a smaller project while the big ones are waiting?" Thanks go to L.A. for giving it a read and convincing,
well extorting, me to finish it. ------------------------------------------- Out of sorrow, entire worlds are built... -- Nick Cave, "The One I've Been Waiting For" ------------------------------------------- "Good morning," he said in a muttered growl better suited for swearing as he placed the envelope in front of me. But for once, Skinner's pissed for me, with me. Too little, too late. A year ago, I might've given a shit. I'm not sure what I expected. He wasn't our Assistant Director anymore. I didn't have to come when called. I looked at the envelope, but wouldn't touch it. "Kersh gave us our Honey-Baked Ham certificates, sir, however reluctantly." No reaction. I guess I wanted him to chew my ass out, just for old time's sake. "Agent Mulder, everything you ever wanted is in that envelope." My fingers itched to pick it up. I resisted. I thought it was pretty small to be that, to be everything I ever wanted. "How's Dana?" He asked. Of course, he had to ask, and had to ask just that way. Not Agent Scully, but Dana. In my mind, Agent Scully was fine. It was Dana I was worried about. "She's in good health, sir," I answered bitterly. "That's not what I meant, Mulder." I bit the inside of my jaw until I tasted blood. "I knew what you meant. Sir." He sat back in his chair, looking slightly colder than the D.C. skyline lost in the haze behind him in the big picture window. I'd answered his question without answering it at all. "So," he said. "Open it." I don't want to give him the satisfaction. I'd have liked to just walk out with it. I opened it, though. I pulled the single typewritten sheet out and shook the page flat. "What are your holiday plans, Mulder?" He tapped the desk, three short knocks. I knew the code. Someone could be listening. "I'm just going to have a nice Christmas at home, sir." I turned the page down in my lap, reeling a little. "I'm thinking of using my pile of official reprimands as gift-wrap." "What will you do with the rest of them?" I liked him better when he left the droll comments to me. I flipped the page over again. A numbered list. Eight addresses, and not to be appended to my Christmas card list, if I had one. No names. Neither of us wanted them to have names any more than they themselves did. I looked up. He just nodded at me. "Merry Christmas, Mulder. Give Agent Scully my regards." Standing up seemed out of the question suddenly. Eight addresses. Of course. Skinner turned around in his chair, pretending to examine the D.C. spread. "Sharon asked me to invite the two of you over for Christmas dinner. I promised her I'd ask." "You'll give her our thank-yous and excuses, sir." "Of course." His back was still turned as I replaced the page inside the envelope and shoved it in my pocket. I wanted to ask "Why?", even though I knew. Instead I said, "Thank you, sir." He said nothing. I'd said more than necessary. Just like old times. **** I stood in her hallway, snorted as I tried to use my apartment key to open her door. The shuttling back and forth had made our apartments fairly indistinguishable from one another. I finally had a bed and she never had food in her refrigerator anymore. Our escapes were interchangeable now. But I couldn't stand the sight of my own walls. I stepped through the door with my lone bag of groceries. Maggie was still sitting on the couch where she had been that morning as I left for the office. I took one step back. She read my mind. "Bill left, Fox. He got a hotel room." I smiled. I didn't know what was spookier, my transparency or her clairvoyance. It was a good thing, though. I'd been ready this morning to shove Scully's little artificial Christmas tree fully-lit up his cranky ass, fill him with the holiday spirit. I didn't care *whose* brother he was. I pulled the groceries out of the bag. Her package of salad, my pizza, her Diet Coke, my beer. Egg nog, my one concession to Christmas. æTis the season, and all that. "Hey, guy." Charlie padded into the kitchen, deposited his coffee cup into the sink. There was something else he wanted to say, the way he stood there. He didn't say it. He'd been there three days now, on furlough for three weeks, and his Navy-regulation haircut was getting a bit on the shaggy side. Scully's male alter-ego, all stoicism and logic. I liked him. I was good enough for his sister, and he didn't second-guess her. He missed his wife and kids terribly, and Christmas was two weeks away. He hadn't told me a word of this; he wore it on his sleeve. I offered a bottle. "Beer?" He laughed. "It's not even noon yet!" I shrugged, smiled. "Beer?" "Only if my mom says it's okay." He held the bottle down and whispered. "I'm going to ask her, and she's going to say `Eat a sandwich first, Charlie.' Watch." He held the bottle up again. "Mom, I'm going to drink a beer, okay?" Maggie furrowed her brow, mystified. "You're 31 years old! Why are you asking?" I laughed, using the edge of the counter top to wedge the top off the bottle, a practice that would've gotten me smacked if Scully was there to see it. "Geez," Charlie said in mock-astonishment. "You think you got your mom all figured out and, blam." He sank into one of Scully's living room chairs. "Me and you," he said. "Pick-up game, later. I bet my special collector's edition of _Planet of the Apes_." "Brave," I said, taking a drink. "Brave and foolish." I touched Maggie's shoulder. I didn't even have to ask the accompanying question. "She just took two pills, ten minutes ago," she answered. "She's laying down. She's not out yet." "Two of them?" I set the bottle down. So, she'd upped the dosage. She was a doctor, right? She knew what she was doing. At least one of us did. **** I stood in the doorway. She was partially up on one elbow, book half-heartedly open. It was a strain to do even this. Her face showed the pain behind the mask of perseverance she wore. I thought she wore this brave face just when I was watching. It broke my heart to see that she never allowed it to crumble, not even in a room alone. She'd spotted me. "Mulder." The book was pushed away. She put her hand out. She didn't need it held. But she knew I did. "You're lying on your bad side," I chided her. "It doesn't feel bad," she replied, and I sat down on the bed. Liar. Of course, after two of the strong painkillers, why would anything hurt? "Your mom said you took two this time." I tried to keep my voice neutral. It was impossible. I had come to hate this room. "Do you need a stronger prescription?" She sighed. "I told her not to tell you. I should've --" She held her head. "From the start, I needed two. I wanted to see if the pain would eventually only require one, but it's been...a week and a half, and...nothing's changed." I looked away, balling my hand into a fist so she couldn't see it shake. "Bill says I'm starting to form an addiction..." I lowered my face into hers. "Bill's a shithead." "Mulder..." "Bill's not the one in pain. Bill's not the doctor." I smoothed her hair back from her face. It doesn't need it, I just wanted to do it. "Whatever helps you, do it. But I don't want you to take those as a substitute to some further treatment just because you don't want to worry me. That's a losing battle anyway." I smiled into her face. Her eyes were starting to glaze over. "Ooh, this stuff's kicking in." "Want me to stay until you go to sleep?" "No, I -- just go tell mom I'm okay. I'll be fine." I can't let go of her. "Can't you *pretend* to need me? Just a little?" "I do, Mulder." Her voice was starting to slur, a little. I knew the signs by now. "But not...not like this. I just need to close my eyes." "I'm staying," I said firmly. The drugged gleam in her eyes couldn't quite hide the flash of anger. "I'm not moving," I said. "And you can't make me." Whether it was the drugs themselves or her wanting me there that kept her from arguing, I didn't know. "What did Skinner want?" I laid down beside her. "I'll tell you later, okay? When you wake up." I shouldn't have watched her fall asleep. The sound of her breathing against my chest made me drowsy. I heard the catch in her breath that meant the painkillers had done their job, had pushed her adequately away from all the ugliness, away from this room. I fell asleep too. Big mistake. I knew what I'd see when I closed my eyes. December 4th was when the world came down. We were busy. Busy with white-bread cases - fraud cases, smuggling rings, piracy and other yawn-worthy things I didn't even want to think about. We were actually investigating three cases at once. If we didn't keep the daily itinerary packed, I was going to go insane...well, not far to go, arguably, but insane nonetheless. Scully knew that. She packed it on. There were always three case files. One case was resolved and, from out of nowhere, there was another file. She was heckling other departments, shaking them down. Give us your inane, your hopeless, your seemingly insignificant cases. It sure as hell wasn't the X-Files, with me and my peeled eyes waiting for some sort of secret to be revealed to me. It wasn't my ISU work, certainly. No one was dying, no one was in danger. But people were being tricked and scammed everyday. More case files. Only certain parts of my brain went into the work, which is a good thing considering that the relationship I told myself I would never have with her, never put her through, was happening. It was the only reason I showed up to work, to be at her side, to have her at mine. It made it bearable. Hell, it was the only thing making it possible. Somewhere far away from us now, X-Files were being badly investigated, Spender was making faulty value judgements, Fowley was making bad decisions about things that went bump in the night. But I couldn't think about that. Not for too long. For the first time in my entire FBI career, I was adhering to something resembling protocol, because I had no reason to break protocol. Okay, sleeping with my partner's a serious violation of the Bureau etiquette. I meant besides that. That's why it was so much a surprise attack. Because we weren't *doing* anything. We weren't hunting down the truth. We weren't heeding the call of crashed spaceships. We'd been benched. Then I thought, what better time to make the attempt? Just when we were getting confident, just when we were starting not to worry anymore. Just when we thought it was okay to breathe again, to relax. Part of me felt guilty for being happy. All that evil outside of us, all of that heavy-handed plotting against the American people, and there I was, happy. What right did I have? That's when it hit me that it might be my only chance, my only stab at happiness. The only things that disappeared and stayed gone were the very things I would lay down my life to have back. But enemies came back from the dead, cases long-solved and behind me waited in dreams, cancer returned. We were arrogant to believe that we weren't in danger, just because we weren't out searching. Scully was over at my apartment. We had case files spread out on my coffee table. I had a fork buried in moo shu something or other, staring at a list of locations, barking random orders at my brain: make a mental map! Sense a pattern! Give me a lead, now! Scully had kicked her high heels off on the floor, peeled off her pantyhose and sat with her legs folded under her in my Barcolounger, complaining that no one -- in their right mind, case in point -- would buy vinyl furniture. It was the easy end-of-the-day banter, flirtatious-but-working banter. ("Mulder, every time I move, I have to peel my skin off this chair!") ("My furniture has good taste in women.") ("Perhaps I need to get a forensics team in here to *examine* the furniture for traces of these women.") ("No, no, I'm saying the furniture has just now exhibited some good taste.") ("Well, that'll be a first in your apartment.") Moment by moment now, I run it in my head, as if I were watching a slide show, trying to peg the *exact* second when it all fucked up. Why is it, in retrospect, we seem to know at least 10 seconds in advance that *something* namelessly horrible is about to happen? Do we really know, and ignore it? In my head, there's the moment when she walks over to my desk to get the fax I'd received at work that day, concerning one of the cases. One of the bullshit, nothing cases. It doesn't run in my head that she might've moved a few seconds early. It runs in my head that I could've gone over there to get the damn fax myself. That I could've put the fax somewhere else. Maybe if my desk hadn't been by the window all these years. Maybe if we'd gone to her apartment instead. Maybe if... Maybe if I'd gotten to her fast enough after that first shot, the second one wouldn't have almost killed her. Fuck almost. Almost meant there had been a chance. The first shot, bringing all the shards of glass with it, lodged in her shoulder, too close to her heart. In fact, that's where I thought it hit. Square in the chest. The blood -- oh my god, there was so much blood, flowing out of her so red it was black -- obscured where the bullet had actually hit. I was to her, I was *almost* to her. If she had crumpled after that first shot, the second one wouldn't have hit her. And she would've crumpled, if she weren't Scully. The second bullet tore through her chest. I thought I'd seen a lot of blood. I hadn't seen *anything* yet. I'd held dying bodies before. I'd been with the dying. But I'd never tried holding someone together, not like this. The blood wouldn't stop. Where was the goddamn ambulance? I had convinced myself I could get her there faster in my car when they arrived. ("You're going to have to turn her loose, sir.") ("No. Fuck you. No. I'm not letting go.") ("Sir, you can --") ("How do I know who you are? You're taking her to Arlington Regional Med, you fuckers. That's where you're taking her!") ("What in the *hell* is he talking about?") I was looking around, for the *real* ambulance. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice... It wasn't until I was inside the ambulance, holding her hand to my face, so that her pulse point was just at my ear, that I believed them. The other noise in the world was lost. Then they took her away from me. Lost an awful lot of blood, they said. Punctured lung, they said. Delicate operation, they said. That meant some monstrous apparatus was breathing for her. She would've known what it was called. There'd been moments there, with no oxygen going to her brain. Brain damage, they said. I couldn't go in. I was left to my eyes tight closed blackness away from her. I was left to chant words at myself that turned into ambiguous sounds. Live, live, live, live, live...it just became a hum. Please, please, please, please, please...it just became a keening howl. You can lose her now, said the voices. No. You can think you're going to get her back, and lose her then. No. Shut up. NO! She can live, and not have the mental processes to recognize you, to be who she was, to know who you are. N -- But, if I said no...oh god... She can live, and you can forever fear losing her again. Forever. One day you might. What then? I was like a kid, standing there at the scene of the accident, at the scene of the betrayal. It'll never happen again, I said. I swear. I swear on anything and everything. I swear on my life. It won't happen again. Ever. It won't. The gods, the...shit, whatever's up there, out there, bargained with me on the basis of that promise. And they will hold me to my word. End 1/2 ----------------------------------------------- PART ONE === PART TWO ----------------------------------------------- |