Title: Intersecting Parallels
Author: Trixie
E-mail: scullymulder1121@hotmail.com
Rating: PG
Classification: V, A, MSR
Spoilers: Orison
Archive: Please
Summary: I'm not even ON Scullyfic. Why oh why should their challenges
infest my brain and force me into action? Post ep for Orison.
Notes: Blame Brandon. It's what I do. :) It's his fault for those damned
spirited conversations about episodes after they air . . .
Thanks: To Brandon, for the beta, to Shannon for coming up with the title
and the lovely verse below, and Brynna for taking the decision out of my
hands. Sheesh it's a lotta work for a vignette.
Feedback: Please
~
"As lines so loves oblique may well
Themselves in every angle greet
But ours so truly parallel,
Though infinite can never meet." -- Andrew Marvell
~
For years now, I have taken comfort in writing to you in a journal. I cloak
the deeply personal things I tell you in science and a sense of purpose, all
the while assuring myself that you will never read these words that
illustrate so clearly who I am.
I have always felt you close to me, even when our physical bodies were
continents apart. That sense of closeness has always sustained me, given me
an inner strength to draw from in times of need. Now, though, it is nearly
overwhelming in its oppression. You are always there, every time I turn
around, when I roll over in bed, when I go to your kitchen for a snack, you
are there.
I am suffocated by your concern, your confusion, and the silent questions
you ask with those penetrating eyes. I cannot hide from you, or from myself,
not even for the time it would take me to gather my shredded preconceptions
of the woman I thought I was.
You know I have been unable to return to my apartment. What you do not know
is why. You have passed over the obvious answer, as you always do. In this
case, though, the obvious answer is the right one.
I cannot bear to be in the same space that man once occupied.
Your mind has already dismissed that possibility as implausible. My sister
was murdered in that apartment. Tooms tried to rip my liver out in that
apartment. So many horrible memories, and still, not a single one has ever
forced me from my home.
Until now.
Mulder, you have a right to your questions. I am living in your home, eating
your food, sleeping in your bed, and thus far, beyond the conversation we
had in my bedroom, and the official reports we've both submitted, you have
asked me for so little. Your touch in the night calms me and gives me the
strength I need to see my way through this latest in a series of dark and
twisted tunnels. For that, and so much more, I will try to explain to you in
this journal what I cannot find the words for in the flesh.
It's almost like rape, Mulder. The invasion into my home was nothing
compared to the invasion into my mind. Donnie Pfaster perpetuated evil over
the course of his life, and I saw it, in my dreams, in my faith, in my work,
in everything. You saw the result five years ago, but you didn't fully
understand it then. You held me, yes, and told me everything was okay, but
your eyes held such confusion.
Physically, he never did more than tie me up and cause a few bruises and
cuts to appear over my body. He tried to kill me, but we have both faced
worse before. Emotionally - mentally - he caused me to doubt myself. In one
way or another, he has wheedled away at my self-esteem until it crumbled
like dust. The things he did to those women . . .
I have never been more afraid for my own soul than I was in the moments that
led up to Donnie Pfaster's death. Because I knew I was going to kill him. I
wasn't conflicted, I didn't hesitate, I =knew=. As I told you, for a long
while, I was more afraid that God wasn't at work. I still don't know what is
true, what actually happened. But more and more, I am becoming surer of me.
Human beings are not perfect. We are flawed and I believe that God knows
this, and forgives us for it. I don't know if I was right to kill Donnie
Pfaster. I don't think I'm in any position to make that judgment. I do know
that I could not have made any other choice. He twisted my psyche and I was
angry. That anger caused me to act rather than think, to react rather than
weigh my decision.
It is a surety in my mind that Donnie Pfaster was evil and that he deserved
to die. Who am I to play executioner? That question has plagued me since
that night. It has roused me from sleep, taken me from your bed and forced
me to examine things I'd rather not in the dead of night.
I have searched my soul and now offer you its contents as a token of my
faith in =you=. As I have heard you whisper in my ear when you believe me to
be sleeping, I am not a bad person. Why do you do that? Is it a theory?
Perhaps you will be able to cleanse me of the guilt I feel through my
subconscious? Whatever your reasons, be sure of what guilt you're attempting
to assuage.
I do not regret that Donnie Pfaster is dead. I do not regret that you
smoothed over the truth for me in your report, or that I allowed you to do
it, to take the lead when I made my own report. I do not regret that I was
so lost the night you brought me back to your apartment that I asked you to
take me to your bed. I do not regret what happened between us then, and I am
sorry if that is another of the questions that you haven't asked.
I do not regret the exploration of our new bond, wrapped inside the safety
and comfort of the old. As I have said before, I take great comfort in you,
Mulder, and I truly do not believe I would be able to see my way through
this without you.
What I do regret is that a monster pushed me this far, past the imaginary
moral line in the sand. I hate him for that, almost more than I hate him for
what he did to those women. He raped me of my rationalism, obliterated my
ability to feel mercy. His death should not have come so easily to me. It
should have been harder for me to pull that trigger, harder for me to lie,
harder for me to go on with my life than it has been.
The guilt I feel, Mulder, lies in my inability to feel guilty. My inability
to feel what I did was wrong.
My religion says what I did was wrong. And because I don't repent what I
did, I am not allowed the absolution of confession. I find myself drowning
in a sea of tears I have been unable to cry, grasping at the only solid
thing I have. Will you save me, Mulder, as you always have? Or will I only
succeed in pulling you down with me?
And do any of those questions even matter? Because we both know, as surely
as we always have, that if one of us goes down, we would both die rather
than let go. I will see my way through this, Mulder. As ever, you will be at
my side. When we have completed this latest trial by fire, we will emerge
together, scorched but capable of healing, stronger than we were at the
beginning.
I am sure of this. My conflicts in faith, your doubts, the questions we both
have are things that will never completely go away. Our lives will always be
complex, filled with things we sometimes wish weren't there. But there is
also a simple certainty I live and breathe by.
We stay the same. Not as individuals, not even in the sense that we are
unable to grow or change as people. But who we are to each other, no matter
how our personal or professional relationship shifts, remains blessedly
stable. You said it once yourself.
Mulder, you are my friend and you tell me the truth. You act as a balm to my
soul. You are the only constant in my life, a living touchstone I am
grounded by, and whom I ground in return. I never forget what we are to each
other, even when I ignore it. I don't want to ignore it any longer. I don't
even think I can.
I want you to know I understand now how you felt with Modell. That, too, was
almost like rape. And if I ever have a hope of helping you to understand how
I feel, it is to put you back in that moment where you kept pulling the
trigger, even though there were no rounds left. I didn't fully comprehend
then what drove you to do that. I do now. I wish I could have then. I might
have been more of a comfort to you.
What I want more than anything now is to move on. To put Donnie Pfaster
behind us, to let him be dead and buried. I don't know how to do it, Mulder.
Confessing that is almost harder than anything else I've written down, but
it's the truth, and we always tell each other the truth. I feel lost and
you're the only thing I can begin to recognize.
I'm leaving this open on the coffee table in hopes that you will see it.
After you read it, please come to bed. I will be waiting.
~
Barely twenty minutes had passed since she pulled the sheet loosely over her
naked body. The sound of his footsteps alerted her to his presence. Clothes
fell to the floor and a moment later his body pressed against her back; his
arms encircling her in an embrace poets have composed entire sonnets in the
hopes of describing.
His lips pressed to her ear in a silent endearment and the constricting pain
around her heart eased in the smallest degree: "I say we don't let him take
up another minute of our time."
Fini
"The letting go . . . has taken place." -- Melissa Etheridge
If you've made it this far . . . you might as well feed me, Seymour, feed me...
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