Date sent:        Sun, 22 Jun 1997 17:17:11 +0000
From:             Lyle Bontrager <lbontger@wmcstations.com>
Subject:          Dana Scully: Peace (1/1)

Title: Dana Scully: Peace (1/1)
Author: RocketMan >lbontger@wmcstations.com<
Disclaimer: These people belong to someone other than me, and although
coveting you neighbor's possessions is against one of the Ten
Commandments, I am coveting. For shame.
Author Notes: This is number three for the Dana Scully series of the
series. I have sent two of Fox Mulder already. So it is number five in
the actually scheme of things. It might be a good idea to read one and
two in order.  
Also, this is my first try at first person and I'm sorry if you don't
like it. It was the only way I could write this one, since it is so very
personal to me. I know it kind of throws off the whole thing, since it
changes person, but it can't be helped. And I'll do a Mulder one in
first as soon as I'm comfortable with his character.

Dana Scully: Peace (1/1)

I went outside to wait for my mother, knowing she would want to talk to
me after she'd spoken to Bill. I took a shaky breath of heavy, humid,
night air and stared up at the almost full moon. For the first time in a
long time, I wasn't looking to the sky for my answers, but to God.
Hoping that in the dark, near to nature, He would accpet me, take me
back again. 
The moon's face was cold, the eyes and mouth were dark spots where I
could imagine that life died, choked in darkness.
The stars were hard to see, with the pinkish glow of civilization
dulling their light. As with everything in this world, I could not count
on them to always shine, to always be there when I needed them.
But God was there. I hoped. I needed Him to get through the turbulence
in my life. I didn't need prayers of the priest, I didn't need the
ceremonies or pompousness of the Catholic religion.
I just needed God in simple quietness. I knew my mother did not
understand and that saddened me. Mom could always understand; it was a
kind of death for me that she didn't now.
And Bill.
I was already sick of my family's spectacular timing. Bill angry with me
and angry with Mulder for the work I do, the search, wondering bitterly
why Mulder wasn't there when I'd gotten shoved down the stairs. That was
rich coming from Bill. He too, was dedicated to his work, his country,
protecting the innocent, and yet he wanted to begrudge me of that? He
didn't understand that work was all I had left. So Mulder wasn't there
with me. That's Mulder and I'm comfortable with it. I'm independent; I
don't need a male to help me get beat up. And I definitely don't need
*Bill's* protection. 
<Can't they all just realize that I'm going to die? Can't they let me do
what I want with the few months I have left? If I want to work, if I
believe that is my savior, they need to accept it.>
I felt like crying. I wasn't going to right now, not with Mom coming out
to have one of her discussions.
She came out then, spotting me in my white T-shirt immediately and
walking down the path to me.
"Dana?"
"Yeah?" <I have control, I have control>
She began talking as she sat beside me on the curb, explaining that my
behavior wasn't something she would put up with, that I needed to
understand the family's concern and stop being so indifferent to
everyone's pain.
I dug my fingernails into my skin, twisting it to keep my tears from
falling, not sure if it was the talk that would make me cry or the fact
that she really didn't understand me. No one did.
<Go away. Go away and let me cry.>
She said she'd talked to Bill about his callousness in the hospital and
other times. She kept trying to reassure me she had treated Bill with
the same amount of impunity. I understood, right? she asked.
I must have made all the right noises because soon, but not soon enough,
she left and walked back up the path to the front door.
I sat very still, even as hot tears spilled down my face, trying not to
let her see them. I heard the door open, the storm door slam shut, then
the door close again. I even heard the lock turn.
And for a few moments I sat still, just to make sure.
Then I began to let my shoulders shake and my eyes overflow. I blinked
and tears dripped down and into the lines around my nose and mouth. They
were hot and salty and tears of profound emptiness inside. I tired to
muffle my sobs, so the neighbors wouldn't hear, nor my family, and let
myself sob. They were not tears of pity, or tears of sorrow, but of
disappointment, bitterness and shame. I was ashamed of what I had become
while in the X-Files. I was ashamed that my mother thought of me as lost
and terribly cold, that even Mulder thought of me as indifferent and
unchanging. In the beginning I'd been naive and innocent, but with time,
I had made a mask of self reliance that had cracked and molded into
chilly unfeeling. I had caused more pain in carving myself out of ice
than in denying the existence of extraterrestrials. I had masked my true
self, making it eat me from within and turn my emotions into swords of
fire.
And now I would die without ever taking it off. 
And I didn't even know how to take it off. I didn't know how to stop
being the professional, cold scientist that couldn't show herself. I was
lost in the dark and I couldn't find my way out alone. 
All I wanted was the simpleness I'd had before all this. Even if I was
still dying, I wanted simplicity. Something to go easy and allow me to
be myself.
I was actually closest to that with Mulder. 
But things got in the way and I couldn't say what I want because he
wouldn't understand. It's not who I am to say such things. 
I sighed and the tears grew less and slackened until I had a strange
sense of peace. Not that everything would be magically okay, but that I
was being myself and it was good. This was me. I could change things, or
I could leave them alone, but this was me. I needed to stop wasting my
numbered days and start living again. Living as me. Feeling alive in
myself was the only was to beat it.
A car passed on the street and stopped, then reversed and came back.
It was Mulder, I guess looking for me.
"You okay?" he asked.
I was a little surprised, seeing as how I had just decided to start
living my life as me. Was this a test? If I couldn't live as me with
Mulder, then who?
"No, not really." I said, waiting for the big explosion.
It was anticlimactic.
"Do you want to talk?" he said, his face never changing.
Did I? The real me?
"Not really, Mulder. I just need some silent support, I guess."
He backed the car up and parked it, coming close to my feet. Mulder got
out and came over to me, then sat down beside me.
"Okay, then." he said and pulled me into his arms for a hug.
It was nothing more than that. A simple hug. I remembered what he had
done for me the time at the motel, when I had slept in. It was only
Mulder, why did I put on an act all the time? 
"Scully?"
"Yeah?" I almost cringed, waiting to see what he would say.
"I'm glad you're you again. I'd been wondering where you had gone."
It was almost as though he could read my mind.
"Thanks, Mulder. I am too. It hurts too much to try and pretend. After
all, it's only you, right?" I threw his words back at him.
"Yes, only me. Someone who cares about you very much."
I don't know if he could feel my heart beat faster, but I know I could.
His chin came to settle on my head and I was safe, finally. I took a
deep breath, getting rid of all my tears. This was simple, nice.
Something for people who didn't have to play guessing games with each
other. I knew what I meant to him, and he knew what he meant to me. 
Not everything had to be complicated.
Not every hug had sexual overtones.
Some things were just what they were.
Peaceful.

End,
We'll see if Scully is still thinking simple when it comes to Mulder in
the next one, huh?
(I really must be an MSR at heart!) But not for TV.
Adios
RocketMan
==========
I went to the coast, where Superman's ghost lay shot on the bedroom
floor. He said "Watch out for TV. It crucified me, but it can't crucify
me no more."
--Don McLean, Superman's Ghost