TITLE:  Nothing and No One
 
AUTHOR:  Kelly Keil
 
EMAIL:  kellylynn73@comcast.net
 
WEBSITE: http://www.geocities.com/kellychenault73
 
ARCHIVE:  You want it, it's yours.  Just keep my info 
attached.
 
FEEDBACK:  Of course - I'd love to hear from you.
 
SPOILERS:  This story takes place during Chimera, but I 
reveal no plot points in my story.  There are small spoilers
up through season 7.
 
RATING: PG
 
CLASSIFICATION:  V, A
 
DISCLAIMER:  Scully and Mulder aren't mine.  Never were, 
never will be.  More's the pity.
 
SUMMARY:  Scully's thoughts run along unruly paths when 
she's left all alone for too long.
 
AUTHOR NOTES:  I'd like to thank Virginia from the bottom 
of my heart.  You make me a better writer and a better 
reader.  For their kindly betas, much appreciation goes 
to Alicia K, M. Sebasky, and wen.  Also, wen, this one's 
for you.  Thanks for being my unintentional muse.  
______________________________
 
Nothing and No One
By Kelly Keil
 
children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more
 
when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy and cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone's any was all to her 
                        e. e. cummings
 
 
I hate stakeouts and I shouldn't be here.  This is the 
kind of work I thought I'd left behind years ago.  This 
is grunt work, pariah detail.  I thought I'd never sink 
lower than interrogating farmers about manure.  It seems 
I've been proven wrong again.
 
Looking though the binoculars reveals nothing.  This is 
apt.  My whole life revolves around nothing, yet I seem 
determined to bash my head against the wall of nothing 
to try and break it.  Surely there is something behind 
that wall.  Something.  Otherwise there's no point to 
any of it.
 
There is him, the sly portion of my mind whispers.  Even 
if you never reach your something, he's been there with 
you, and you with him.  Isn't that what you want, more 
than truth or justice or even your own parking space?  
Haven't you gloried in his obsessions, knowing that you 
were one of them?  All this time, you've seen his dragons 
slain and his passions resolved.  You've seen his once 
glorious ambition to learn all the secrets of the 
universe shrivel away into a mockery of itself, and 
while this worries you, there is also a secret part 
of you that is pleased.  Now that he's decamped from 
his war, you're all that's left.  You could be his 
something.
 
I've tried to convince myself that these are lies.  It's 
easier to go on if I don't need anyone.  It's only at 
times like these, with no distractions but the meaningless 
scrawl of obscenity on the walls and the bouquet of urine 
and old food in the air, that my mind runs along such 
unruly paths.  
 
Dana, my mind sneers, why don't you button your blouses 
as high as you used to?  It reminds me of all the ugly 
pant suits I have shoved in the back of my closet where 
I can't see them.   When I go shopping for daring bras 
no one will see, or suede pumps, or tight black pants I 
can fit into only if I skip both breakfast and lunch, it 
just laughs.  Had it eyes, it would wipe tears from 
them.  It doesn't matter, Dana, the voice says, nearly 
in hysterics.  It doesn't matter one goddamned bit.
 
Of all the truths I have discovered, this is the most 
unwelcome.  
 
He doesn't want me.  Not any more.  His obsessions aren't 
necessary to him anymore, and neither am I.  
 
I see him going through the motions now, pretending to 
care about ghosts and goblins and things that go bump in 
the night, but his heart just isn't in it.  He's found 
the answers he wanted to find and none of it matters 
anymore.  I wonder how long it'll be until he moves on, 
leaving all of this, me included, behind.
 
Was I foolish for not taking him when I could have?  
There are times when I think that all I would have had 
to do was lean just the slightest bit forward and he 
would've been mine.  The distance of an eyelash, perhaps.  
 
Each time I told myself the time wasn't right and I 
pulled away.  There was always another battle looming 
ahead of us.  I didn't want him to forget his quest in 
my arms.  How noble of me; how utterly pointless.  I've 
missed my chance, if I ever even had one.
 
I should become resigned.  My heart shouldn't leap into 
my throat every time my cell phone rings.  I shouldn't 
call him just to hear his voice.  It shouldn't hurt so 
much that I'm here and he's not.  Even though my head 
tells me that I have no future with this man and that 
I shouldn't expect anything from him, still my heart 
holds sway over my emotions.  I still have hope, although 
it bleeds from me in sluggish rivulets that will 
eventually leave nothing but a blessed husk of numbness. 
 
When he leaves, will I matter enough for him to stop and 
shake my hand, or will he leave me quickly, as he did 
last night, like a lover who has stayed too long, said 
too much, and regrets it all?  Will he kiss my cheek 
and promise to keep in touch, like the boys in my high 
school yearbook (Dana, have a great summer)?  I'm not 
sure I know him well enough to lay odds, and I thought 
I knew him better than I knew myself.
 
Maybe it's that I know him too well.  I know his 
strengths and weaknesses and virtues and faults.  I 
am acquainted with all of his nobility; I can lay 
fingers on each bit of pettiness.   I understand him 
as no one ever did or likely ever will.  Not that it 
matters:  I don't think he ever wanted to be understood.  
I've gone too far, gotten too close, seen things he 
wanted to keep buried.  
 
It won't be long before we make our farewells.  I'll 
be off hand and cheerful, assuring him it will only be 
au revoir.  He'll smile but not meet my eyes, and 
utter some ready platitude (Scully, stay sweet 4-ever) 
that will almost, but not quite, break my heart.
 
I look into the binoculars again and still see nothing.  
How unsurprising.  It's almost reassuring.  Nothing is 
fast becoming my very close friend.
 
If I see nothing and this is nowhere, then do I become 
no one?
 
Not long ago he told me that no one was left to love 
him.  That if he were to disappear, no one would miss 
him.  He said it as a joke, as if it didn't matter, but 
I knew it did, and so did he.  
 
I wish he knew that no one does love him, more than she 
will ever say.  When he's gone, no one will miss him, 
much more than anyone would guess.
 
End