From: "E. Bird" 
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1998 20:34:18 PDT
Subject: NEW: Gypsy

********
Title: Gypsy 1/1
Author: Ebonbird (ebonbird@hotmail.com)
Archive: Gossamer only.  Otherwise, get the author's
permission via email.
Summary: A pre X-files story.  Dana skips school and her older
sister, Melissa, leaves home.
Rating:  PG-13 for controversial concepts
Disclaimer: Dana Scully, Melissa Scully, Maggie Scully belong
to Chris Carter, 1013 productions and some other big corporation.
They are used without permission.  Father Winslow and Mrs.
Haggerty belong to me. Quotes are used without permission and are
from Stevie Nicks' "Gypsy"
Author's Notes:  If you're looking for Fox Mulder, he no here.
Please send me feedback.

Thanks:  To BeckyD for the edit.  To 'Neeth for love and
grace in the midst of our clashing beliefs.

**********************************************************
**********************************************************

1.
        And it all comes down to you,
        Well, you know that it does,



9:30 in the A.M.
Tuesday,
during the last week of school.

Dana sneaked a pull at the bottom edge of her --- no, Missy's ---
tube top.  It did no good.  The exposed skin was just as hot and
sticky as that still covered by the elastic-gathered fabric.

Still, she felt pretty --- and exposed ---  as she walked down Main
Street, very much aware of the sweat-prickle of her scant thighs
in her on-Missy-tight denim jeans, the hard heat beating down
on her too orange hair and the tops of her sneakered feet,
and the bleached concrete burning through her rubber soles.

Missy always said if you acted like you belonged in a certain
place, then people treated you like you belonged in that certain
place.  But Missy looked like she belonged to the world, like
a regular gypsy.  Dana just hoped that philosophy also worked
if you were a fifteen-year old midget.

She brought a freckled arm to shield her eyes, and looked
around her, her feathered hair floating across her face.  The
tips brushed her slouching shoulders, doing a drag and stick.
Her reflection wavered past a glassed-in collection of television
screens.  If she squinted just right, she looked like Missy.

Dana stopped at the street-corner and waited for the light to
change.  It did.

She crossed the street, made her way to the bench at the bus stop.
She sat, folded her arms over her chest, squinted against the bright
afternoon sun.

And waited.

That was when Melissa Scully spotted her.  Only to her eyes,
the teenager at the bus-stop looked too grim to be Dana.  But
when the girl dropped her gaze from the bus, shifted her
feet, and settled her arms behind her, Melissa knew this was, in
fact, her sister.

The tall Scully girl briefly considered stepping back into the store.
Neither she nor Dana had any business downtown at this time of
day.  And if Dana, baby that she was, spotted her, she might go
running to dad and tell him that she'd *heard* Missy was out
downtown at noon.

Which didn't explain why Dana herself was downtown playing
dress-up in Melissa's clothes.

Dana never saw Missy waving at her from across the street.
Before stepping on the bus, she reached into her back-pocket
and pulled out her rainbow wallet.  The driver's license was still
in there.  Dana sighed.  If only she'd really been old enough to
drive, then she would not have had to skip school at all.

*	*	*	*	*

Confessionals always made her feel dizzy.  Something about
the closeness of the clean dark wood,  the strange smell-less
smell.  She did not like this glorified closet. It was too narrow,
too dark, and her knees slipped on the green covered kneeler
even as her elbows dug into the arm rest for purchase.  Part
of her couldn't help wondering, why was it necessary for her
to speak to God through a holy-man in box when God was
supposedly in her heart, anyway?

The girl bent her head to her closed fists.  Despite the discomfort
and the mystery, this was familiar and she was scared and hurting
and alone with her thoughts and now more than ever, she needed
some semblance of home.

If she stayed too long in confession she'd sprain her back.
Discomfort mixed in with your religion, anyone?  A bit of
remembered conversation around the dinner table wafted
back to her:  There's got to be something a little bit wrong
with a religion that says discomfort equals holiness.  She
wriggled some more, acknowledging, yet again, that yoga
definitely had some points over what her sister called the
oldest of tax-exempt faiths.

She felt, rather than heard, the barrier slide open.  Though
she did not want to, she tried her hardest to see which
priest was behind the screen.

So busy was she making out borders of purple draped
on black over little bits of white she missed the priest's
first words.

"Bless me, Father," she blurted, in her haste she forgot to
disguise her voice as planned.  "For I have sinned, it has
been, it has been...."

She could not remember the words.  What was she supposed
to say next?  She breathed in and out rapidly.  She should leave.
She did not belong here anymore...

"What is it, child?  Take your time."

Not likely, she thought as her knee slid off the kneeler.  She
braced her toe against the slick linoleum, catching the rubber
sole firm on the ground.  A dull pulse of pain throbbed through
her insides.  She really was supposed to be resting.

"I-I have a friend."  It's only a little lie, please, God.  "She,
she was doing---" She stopped, out of breath.  Why was this
so hard?  It probably wasn't anything he hadn't heard before.
She tried again, "she was having..."  Why was this so hard?
"Carnal relations with her boyfriend."

There.  Done.  Rip out the screen and tell me I'm damned
to hell forever, but wait, Father, it gets worse!

There was a rustle as the father shifted in his seat.  The priest
sighed.  His voice was soft and warm, and wise.  "My child,
what does this friend have to do with you?"

Hot tears stained the arm rest.  She rubbed at them with her
arms, "I helped her.  I helped her...I helped her go to the
clinic..."

"What clinic?" he asked.

She told him everything she'd already decided to, and added
five Hail Mary's and two Acts of Contrition for the first lie
when it came time to say her penance, hoping that in the long
run, it would be enough.


*	*	*	*	*

"Dana," Melissa's voice was low and smooth, calm even, as
she spoke through the green painted slats beneath the porch.
"Dana, I know you're in there."

Dana clenched her arm across her stomach harder.  Her face
crumpled with the effort not to cry.

"Day-na," Missy coaxed, hooking her slim, perfectly groomed
fingers between the slats of the porch.  A slight frown wrinkled
her brow.  She'd thought Dana had given up hiding places.

"Just go away," Dana said in a rush, just before throwing a
clod of dirt hard against the barrier between them. Missy let
go immediately, biting back a squeal of rage as punctuations
of dirt showered her.

"Leave me the hell alone!"  Dana cried, and threw something
else at the planks separating her from her sister.

Dana cursing? "Oh, Mother," Missy breathed, not knowing
what to imagine.  "What happened today?"

"None of your business."

"Did you skip school?"

Silence from Dana and just the slow ticking of some bug-thing
in the clump of tall grasses by the road.  "I saw you by the bus-
stop today..."

"So why'd you ask me if I skipped school?"

Patience fraying, Melissa tapped at a board, "You better tell
me.  Whatever it is, looks like I'm gonna be in trouble for it."

"What?"

"Bill says Mrs. Haggerty called mom this afternoon.  About
me.  Says she saw me taking the number 28 off of Main Street
today.  You know, the number twenty-eight that lets off three
blocks from the Planned Parenthood Clinic in Norlight?"

In the darkness Dana went violently pale.  "You wanna come
inside?" she asked softly.

"Underneath the porch?!"  Melissa said, running her hand down
her eyelet skirt.

"I'm not coming out. And it's clean.  Mostly."

Melissa Scully thought about it for a moment. "Sure.  Hold
on."

A few seconds later Missy was pushing aside the loose slat
and began to make her way into the cool, dark space.

She came in on her haunches, her right hand fisted into
the ground for balance as she waddled over.  Dana's large
blue gaze watching coldly as all her sister's gypsy grace
disappeared.  Missy wasn't one for crawling around in
secret places.  She was at her best in the wide open; running,
swimming, and especially when whirling around in a field,
peasant skirts unfurling wide across her Barbie legs, long
hair gleaming in slow drifts around her ecstatic face.  On
all fours, she looked like a retard.

"Mom thinks I went to Planned Parenthood."  Melissa said
when she could make out her sister in the gloom.

Dana nodded.

"How come?"

"I needed to talk to them."

"You did, hunh?"  Melissa wished for a smoke.  "You wanna
tell me why?"

"I took your driver's license so they'd think I was old enough,"
Dana blurted.

"Old enough for what?"

Dana was stubbornly silent.  The sprinkler went on with a hiss.
Melissa imagined the golden object click whizzing a languid
jet of water in sweeping arcs across the lawn.

"Old enough for what, Dana?"  Missy asked again, kneeling before
her sister her eyes searching desperately for signs of anything in
Dana's dark-and-light striped face.

"Can you hold me?"

The last time Melissa had tried to hug Dana, on her last
birthday, she'd endured the touch for only a few seconds
before pushing her older sister away.

"Sure,"  Melissa said reaching forward to pull Dana
close to her.  "Sure."



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2.
       She is dancing away from me now,


Grounded.  At Eighteen.  If she wasn't supposed to be
lolling on her bed like a limp lily she would have raised
hell.  As it was, mom had stuffed her full of soup and sent
her up to bed and now she was looking after Dana.

"Mom asked for you."  Missy said kneeling by Dana's bed.

"What'd you tell her?" Dana said through chapped lips, more
than a little fearfully.

"That you were tired, and angry and weren't ready to talk
right now."

"And?"

"She bought it," Missy pushed back a length of copper curl
from Dana's moist face.  She was pale, white white white,
and her eyelids were tinged a perfect shade of violet.  Too bad
about the cobalt crescents beneath her eyes... "D'you have any
medicine you're supposed to take? "

"Um, yeah.  The antibiotics and muscle relaxants are in my
sock drawer."

Missy rolled her eyes at the familiarity with which the words
rolled off Dana's tongue.  With a sudden motion, Dana started
to sit up stopped part-way and winced.  "Ow."

"Oh, Mother," Missy reached out to steady her.  "I'm sorry,
Day, I shoulda told you, you don't wanna move around too
much."

Dana let Missy push her back down against the sheet.  "How
do you know?"

The older girl gave a noncommittal half shrug, "I know some people
who've gone through this before.  I'll get the pills.  Case mom asks,
the story is we're *both* feeling a little sick, okay?"

Dana nodded.  Then closed her eyes.  With her arms folded
across her stomach, and her penny-pretty hair curling around
her face, she looked like a little baby-doll.  So pretty, Melissa
thought, only this baby-doll punched you if you tried to dress
her up.

Baby-doll, Melissa thought, and her eyes glimmered with
unshed tears.  Baby.  She swallowed the glob of phlegm that
rose up in her throat and spoke again,  "But you caught it from
helping out at Sunday school, and I'm not okay because...Dana,
are you listening?"

Dana's violent tinged eyelids fluttered open, "...sure..."

"Don't say a word, okay?"

"Easy as pie, bye-the-bye," she murmured. "Can I go to sleep now?"

"In a minute.  I gotta get your pills."   Missy rose from her
kneeling position.  "And I'm thinking."  And I'm not as smart as
you, not by a long-shot so,  "Gimme a minute", gonna-be-a-doctor
Day-na Kate Scully, outta-my-way-jerk Day-na Kate Scully,
kick-the-boys-and-make-em cry Day-na Kate Scully.

Missy couldn't help smiling around the ache in her chest.  In
her heart of hearts Dana had so many names, all of them true,
and she was Missy's favorite, though Missy tried to hide it.

Dana was smart, the smartest of them all.  That was good.  Smart
enough how to figure out how to . . . handle this without anyone
being the wiser.  And if Mrs. Haggerty, Mother-bless-her-anyway,
hadn't got a bug up her butt over PP Dana would'a pulled it off,
too.  Cow.

Dana looked much better than she had beneath the porch, until she
opened her eyes again.  Their blue had nothing to do with color, and
it scared Missy.  "One question.  You're the one who wants to be a
doctor, what were you doing hiding out under the porch?"

Dana shrugged.  "I wasn't thinking."

Melissa's eyebrow rose stratospherically.  Dana not thinking?
"Or maybe you wanted to get sick and die?"  Missy looked
down at her, brushed her fingers down her face.  "It's cold down
there, and wet, and you've. . ."

"I killed my baby, Missy."

"Don't say that."

"But I did.  If the Pope found out, he'd, he'd excommunicate me."
If possible, Dana crumpled further upon herself, diminishing right
before Missy's eyes.

"Dana, stop it."

"I'm a murderer, Missy.  Maybe I deserve to die."

Melissa bit her lip

"You think I did wrong, don't you?  You think I'm selfish?"

"Will you be quiet?  You're supposed to be sleeping!"  then in
a much softer tone of voice, "Do you want everyone to know what's
going on?"

"No," she muttered.  "But you do think I'm selfish?"

Melissa sat down on the corner of the bed, wrapped her fingers
around one of Dana's blanket covered ankles. "Do you really
want to know what I think?" she began carefully.  Even, she
added silently, if I am an air-head?

"...yes."

"I believe, I think, that souls come and go, like on a wheel,
and that your baby's soul, will come again, into another
life."

Dana considered the idea.  It was very reassuring, but that
didn't mean it was true.  And it didn't fit all the facts, such
as Dana believed they fit together.  "What's your proof?"
she asked.

Melissa hugged Dana tight around the shoulders, careful
not to jar the younger girl, "What's proof?  I know it, I know
it inside."  She placed her hand against her own stomach. "And
I see it in your face.  You're not selfish.  And you're not
a murderer.   I just know."

"It sounds like make-believe."

"And the turning of bread and wine into human flesh and blood
doesn't?"

Dana squirmed, "Mom wouldn't like to hear this."

"No, she wouldn't it.  Like to hear it," neither do you, "But
how're you feeling?"

"I'm okay."

"Good."  Melissa said, wafting a kiss past Dana's brow-line
and rose to her feet.

Dana watched as Melissa went to their closet and began pulling
out clothes and draping them on the bed.

"But I'm never going to church again," Dana said after a
while.

"I don't think that's going to go over too well with the folks.
It's bad enough I don't know where the cross mom gave
is anymore."

"I don't belong there," Dana mouthed into the darkness.  Her
words were lost in the sounds of clothes rustling and of
hangers clicking against each other.

"What are you doing?"  Dana asked, eyes droopy.

"Packing."

After a while Dana spoke again, "Why?"

"You can't expect Maggie Scully to have a pagan and an
infanticide ---"

Missy closed her eyes in agony, crumpling the pants she
held to her chest.  "Dana, I --- I --"

"You don't believe we only get one life to live?"

"Dana, does it matter?"

"Mrs. Haggerty thinks so."

"Mrs. Haggerty would like it if everyone had the same lousy
options to pick from in life that she had."

"Father Winslow believes it."

"Father Winslow doesn't believe a lot of things,"  Missy said
darkly.

"But I lied in there, Melissa.  And now he thinks I was
covering for you."

"It's not important."

"Isn't the truth always important?"

"Dana, listen to me.  It's over.  The baby, if it was a baby,
is gone, and mom's going to think what she wants to think, and
dad's going to think what he wants to think, and Mrs. Haggerty
gets more support to close down the clinic..."

"But it's murder just the same."

"The church is wrong, Dana.  I know it.  I believe it."

"'Wishing don't make it so.'"

"You're wrong, Day-na.  You're wrong.  Faith moves mountains.
It raises the dead.  Faith can make the rain fall over the
driest dessert.  I'll just ... gonna have to wish strong
enough for the both us."

"What do you mean?"

"I skipped school and took the bus to the free clinic.  You
tried to stop me from going and I made you come with me
because I didn't want you to go home and tell mom what I
was doing."

"Missy, no!"

"Are you crazy?!  Missy, yes.  You still need mom and dad.
In think this is just the excuse we all've been looking for."


 *	*	*	*	*	*


Melissa turned under the covers to face the door when she
heard a familiar tread outside her bedroom.  The door opened
a little bit: "Melissa, are you awake?"  The question held
no gentleness, no consideration for the possibility that the
person inquired after might need rest, succor, compassion.

"Yes, mom."

"Your father wants to speak to you now..."

"Can I have a minute, mom?" she said sleepily, already
slipping into her role.

Margaret Scully pulled the door shut with a soft bang.

Dana flinched.  The sisters looked at each other.  "It'll be
all right, Dana."  Missy rolled out of bed and onto the floor,
fully dressed.  She'd been mulling over what she would
say and why when her father finally called her down for
the interrogation/trial.

"MISSY," came their mother's voice from downstairs.

"What are you going to do?" Dana  asked.

"They think it was me.  Let them think it was me."  Melissa
smiled.  "It's time for me to leave anyway.  Whatever happens,
I don't blame you.  Do you understand?"

Dana nodded.  "Thank you, Missy."

"Okay, remember, you know nothing.  Here we go," she said
and she smiled.

Somehow, when she smiled the room brightened, her goldish hair
shedding light around her face and shoulders.  Missy had such
wise eyes, such strange sad lonely eyes, but beautiful, and
Dana couldn't begrudge her that beauty.

"Love ya', sport," said Melissa Scully as she grasped the door
knob.  Dana would always remember how perfect she looked,
in the white trimmed halter shirt they'd fought over that morning,
long arms banded with woven thread, turquoise butterfly earrings
studding her ears.  On her, even the freckles were perfect, sexy,
even, speckling up her arm and across her breastbone, climbing
over her shoulders and dotting the clean line of her collarbones.
Her pretty breasts swung braless beneath the bunched fabric of
her shirt as she moved with dancer's grace and pulled open the
white door.



End Gypsy 1/1


If you've made it this far, please let me know what you
think by sending email to ebonbird@hotmail.com




Author's Notes: Hey there.  First of all, I mean no offense.
I imagine I'm stepping on a lot of toes here and I want to
go on record (online alias that I am) and state that I wish
to cause no pain.  That said, this story was inspired in part
by Scully's absolute resistance to speak with a clergyman
when she was dying (US Season 4, Gethsemane).  I immediately
thought, what would inspire Scully, who has been known to
go to confession irregularly, get a little upset at having
a family priest show up at a little party at her house?

And suddenly, I saw Maggie Scully hissing at Missy for
corrupting Dana and dragging her down to a free-clinic,
and exposing her to all sorts of 'filthy' things.  And I
thought about Scully's walls, and her silence and the
strange tension and slight contempt that Maggie Scully
seemed to have for Melissa (US Season 1: One Breath).
But the actual writing on a day when for some strange
reason the Fleetwood Mac classic "Gypsy" floated into my
head, and all of a sudden it was a hot sticky day in 1978
(or the very early 80s), and Scully, then Dana, was skipping
school even though she was bound and determined to be a
doctor.  I could see Missy, spinning like a top, like Mike
Stipe's sister in the REM video for the song, "The One I
Love," only spinning alone and the melody for the song
"Gypsy," which to me was mindful of love and admiration,
and envy and yearning.

Another shameless plea for feedback:  Please, let me know what you think 
and
why.  Send all comments (no flames, please, at least not just rapidly 
dashed
off) to ebonbird@hotmail.com .

Visit my Fan-fic cache
http://www.oocities.com/Area51/Lair/2808




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