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Starlight February 14, 2001 Archiving: Gossamer, Ephemeral, Xemplary: Yes, please. All others, please do NOT archive without permission. (Will submit directly to Spooky, as per new policy.) Rating: PG Summary & Spoilers: I miss Mulder, and so, this was my muse’s Valentine’s Day gift to me, such as it is. She did not damage any season 8 spoilers in the making of this fic. Well, not permanently, anyway. Disclaimer: The characters and situations depicted herein belong to 10-13, CC, and Fox. No infringement is intended, no profit is being made, gratitude to the owners is expressed. Feedback: Yes please. Negative or positive, I would love to hear from anyone who takes the time to read this—it’s short! Really! Thank you. Thanks to BeckyD for beta beyond compare. And to wombat, for unsuspectingly letting me drive her nuts for a half hour. For: The Thursday Lama, for support and wisdom. Happy Birthday, and thanks. ******************************************** She has taken to seeing Mulder again. It upset her less than it should; less than it would Skinner, or Doggett, or even Frohike, if she chose to tell them. But no, for now, it is her secret. And hers alone. Only for her, that smile of his, the way his mouth crinkles when he is particularly pleased at her exaggerated reaction to one of his quips. Only for her, the light in his eyes when he sees her come round the corner of the basement halls of Hoover. Only for her, the smile in his voice, when he drawls her name, low and deep and sweet. Only hers. Oh, the others would be concerned, she knew. It is too early, they’d say. They would quibble, and argue, and make sly inquiries—Langly would look impassive, as if he’d known all along; Byers would look solemn and not quite paranoid enough for a man in his line of work; and Frohike would look … Quite possibly as if he pitied her. And that is why she keeps her silence. She envied, sometimes, the other women she knew. She had friends, good friends, once-close friends; friends with whom she had laughed, and cried, and taken road trips with, in another life. They had husbands, and babies, and white picket fences in suburbs with homes and trees and yards for dogs. They spent their weekends renovating and discussing antique stores. Mid-thirties, expectant mom, unwed female in a male-dominated profession. She does, sometimes, envy them. She knows that sometimes, they envy her. Or maybe they had. She looks at the documents in front of her. She knows they won’t understand, and she doesn’t need their pity. All she needs is Mulder. She thinks back to how he looked this morning, his hair slightly awry, his tie slightly askew, his smile slightly crooked, slightly. He was standing over with the other agents in the task force, standing and waiting for her, and then he was gone. She should have straightened his tie, she remembers thinking; she shouldn’t have let him leave like that. It was the blue tie. One of her favorites. The baby kicks, and she feels it. She speaks his name, in the still of the apartment; rubs her stomach, gently. Soon, baby, soon, she says, but not aloud. She can’t offer promises, only half-hearted hope. She can’t promise memories, when she can’t even remember the last thing she said to him. She remembers, on their last case, him playing that damned CD, as they drove that battered old Buick, courtesy of the local PD of the latest Hicksville he’d brought her to. Chipped red paint job, a former midlife crisis car of a former county sheriff. She hadn’t been in the best mood to begin with, and then …over and over and over, that damned crooning about falling in love, until she’d finally snapped. She remembers the hurt look in his eyes. “It’s the King, Scully, you don’t like the King?” She wonders, now, if he had been so hard to put up with. Wonders if maybe she had been harder. Wants the chance, now, again, to make him smile. To listen to him, instead. The time they lost, because of her. What if, what if, what if. Mulder was the only one who loved possibilities. There is rain, soft and gentle, beating a pattern, a bloodstain on the black glass of the window. That means something, too, she recalls from ages past, from a Dana she no longer knows and barely remembers, an innocent, hopeful version of herself, listening intently to an earnest young grad student in a still room with hard chairs and asbestos walls … pathetic fallacy? She can’t recall. Mulder is whispering silly things in her ear, and she laughs suddenly, jarring the quiet room. The phone rings, shrill and demanding, and she labours over to it, at seven months showing all too much. She catches it on the third ring, barely. “Agent Scully? Have I disturbed you?” “No.” Her voice is dry in acknowledgement, but unwittingly she is amused. Mulder would have been amused. Doggett’s voice, over the speaker. He had gone to see them, the Gunmen, about the case. When she told him she did not want to be involved, full-time. Lights in the sky and missing children. “Agent Scully? We think we may have a lead. I’m hoping to head out tomorrow morning. And HR was wondering if you signed those papers, Agent Scully?” Another lead. Another case. Another road to maybe. She’s been Dana for months now. She looks at the papers before her. The closing file sheet. The benefits documentation. Her name in the beneficiary line. The signature line blank. She puts the phone back in its cradle, against her just-for-now-partner’s insistent voice; places it back, gently, lovingly. This time, she won’t listen. She won’t hear. She’s done it for years, she’s practiced. Goes back to the window. Mulder used to say … had said, the souls of lost children became starlight. Samantha is starlight. She wonders if one day she, too, will become starlight. Wonders if she will be able to see him, there. The starlight is fading, but the soft, soft rain keeps falling. Note: This story is my belated response to an improvfic challenge by MaybeAmanda, and used to be called Blue Sky at Mourning—before I took out all the improv elements <g>. (Her improv is called Blue Patches, and will tell you all the elements that should’ve been here). *Then* I asked her for a happy fic, and she wrote me one even though she kept saying she doesn’t do happy—and so I looked at the challenge again and thought I’d at least try my hand at misery. The point is: this is all her fault <g>. Thanks for reading. If you have a second, drop me a line at euphrosy@netcom.ca: a quick note or a detailed critique, this fic is a departure for me, and I’d love to hear what you thought. :-) |