Lives Lived by 19 E-MAIL: xff19@yahoo.com LIVEJOURNAL: x-19.livejournal.com DISTRIBUTION: Archive freely, just let me know where please and thank you. RATING: PG for one semi-bad word CATEGORIES: V, R KEYWORDS: MSR, post-IWTB SUMMARY: What was she thinking? Disclaimer: X-Files characters belong to FOX Corporation and 1013 and that Chris Carter fellow. I suspect I will never make any money doing such ridiculous things as writing stories about old tv shows. Author's Notes: There seemed to be a lot of peeps that didn't so much like IWTB Scully because she wasn't into just jumping right back into the game with Mulder. I, on the other hand, thought they did a pretty good job at her characterization so I thought I would write one about what she was thinking. **** Lives Lived by 19 **** It hits her at the oddest, most inopportune times - in the middle of a consult, halfway through a conversation, while at the natural food store shopping for bee pollen - the remembrance of things past, of adventures had, of lives lived. Two weeks ago she had been walking out to her car in a snowstorm, discussing a case with a colleague when a particularly frigid updraft blew across her face and, for a minute, she was no longer in Virginia. Instead, she could almost feel the ooze on her skin, the Mulder-warmed jacket against her bare body, the exhausted and frozen man in her arms. Her colleague had probably repeated his last comment a few times before taking a wary step away from her, armed with yet another example of Dr. Scully's enigmatic eccentricities for the water-cooler crowd. She is now known for these idiosyncratic moments of lost revery and it amuses her that they think of her as the weird one. This time it comes as an elderly man stops to ask for directions - she opens her mouth to reply but she is suddenly stuck in a moment both long ago and far away. Dead in the water on a ghost ship, growing old together before the concept of growing old with Mulder had necessarily entered her mind. Other couples had memories of romantic dinners and sun-filled getaways. They had clandestine meetings in car parks and life-threatening snowbound adventures. And she wouldn't have it any other way. She ends up mumbling a vague semblance of directions to the old man and continues down the street, lost in alternating scenes of wrinkled hands and spilt lemon sardine snowglobe juice. It is partially these memories that bind them together, that lash them to each other so tightly. There would be too many stories to tell or not tell, to explain or not explain. Why passing train cars result in shivers down her spine. Why bee stings can evoke unbounded panic tinged with ironic amusement. Why a glance at the occasional giant flukeman photo on the World Weekly News initiates both a shudder and a muted, nostalgic grin. There are so many of these situations that she cannot even fathom having to explain that she is often suddenly struck with the notion that any attempt at telling her life story would likely result in a trip to the loony bin. And now, she realizes, he thinks that she regrets the stories, the adventures, the far-fetched occurrences of their lives. That her reluctance to join him on the case stems from a desire to forget things past. That her attempt to avoid the darkness is tantamount to rejecting their history together. **** She opens the door to his office and feels an air of resentment drift into the space around them. He doesn't turn when he greets her rather unenthusiastically and is surprised when he feels her arms snake over his shoulders from behind. Tens of thousands of miles together yet her touch continues to evoke a quick pitter patter in his arteries, even on this day when disappointment continues to seep from his heart. He expects her to admonish him for his choices, to pretend nothing happened, to ignore his open wound. Instead, she speaks softly in his ear. "You think I want to forget the past," she says, their old habit of avoiding personal issues having now somewhat escaped them. He answers by not answering yet dares to snatch a glimpse of her mood. She looks pensive. It's the way she looked on another day, drinking tea and sussing out their destinies together on his couch. Therefore, in his books, pensive is good. "I told you once before that I wouldn't change a day. I still wouldn't. Except there certainly wouldn't have been a third trip to Bellefleur for you..." she says quietly. He knows she isn't finished and, for once, resists the impulse to interject with a glib comment. "But that doesn't mean I want to go back to all that. It was exciting. It was intense. It was the experience of a lifetime. But we've left it behind and I don't want it back. The constant fear that this time I'll be too late or that you're getting beaten in a gulag or that they went with poison instead of LSD for your water. I loved the work, Mulder. I loved saving lives that no one else could ever hope to save and solving cases that no one else could ever hope to solve and knowing things that no one else could ever hope to know. It was incredibly special and I would never want to forget any of it. But as much as I take pride in having done all those things, I am I willing to trade it all to know that you're going to be here to tell me about the latest UFO sighting in Tallahasee when I get home from work. That I'm not going to have to contact shady informants and buy an emergency ticket to Alaska because you've disappeared and been infected by some unknown virus. That I'm not going to find you bloody and nearly headless in a crazy scientist's lair. I don't regret any of those moments that we've had but I'm just not ready for any more of them right now." She pauses for a moment to shake off the memories and he resists the compulsion to stand up and wrap her up in his arms. Finally, after a slow, thoughtful silence, she continues. "And if it's all true, if you're right and the shit hits the fan and we're overrun by Reticulans in a few years time then I will be right there with you, Mulder. I have no doubt that we will be together on the front lines, leading the charge, demanding to know the truth and fighting injustice until the end. But until then, I just want a little bit more of this. Of coming home at night to argue the validity of vampires while you make that terrible 'buck-teeth' face at me. It's intellectually stimulating, it's frustrating, it's somewhat silly... it's everything we always had without the chance of one of us being exsanguinated. And for now, it's all that I need." She finishes in a near whisper, her arms still tightly grasping his chest, her head resting comfortably against his. She can feel the slow smile grow across his face as his shoulders loosen and he tilts his head back to look at her upside-down. That she knows him this well is no longer surprising - he is, however, surprised at himself for misinterpreting her actions in the first place. He had let the initial hurt at her refusal to join him on the case tilt his thoughts towards self-doubt and resentment. And he knows his annoyance with her would have eventually faded, especially when she too is struggling with her choices, because no amount of petty resentment would ever prevent him from being there for her in a time of need. But to hear her explain the reasoning behind her reluctance to join him, to return to their past - it set things straight. And, in the calm after his latest near-death experience, he can see that she is right. They have had too many close calls in their lives even if none have occurred in the past few years. And even if he is sometimes bored to tears spending his days sifting through government documents and reading articles on Sasquatch mating habits, he knows that she is right. That it is enough to argue about rips in the space-time continuum without being kicked by Nazis and punched by pseudo-Scullys and drowned in supernatural waters. Because if it had been her on that chopping block and they never got to continue their tradition of telling ghost stories into the wee hours on Christmas Eve... "Then it's all that I need too, Scully," he says decisively. She can tell he means it but gives him her well-honed skeptical expression anyways. He counters with his best goofy innocent look and snatches a playful, sloppy upside-down kiss as she reminisces about liverwurst sandwiches and tofutti rice dreamsicles. She could never explain it to anyone else. It's a good thing she will never have to. End **** Any comments or concerns? Feedback lovingly accepted at xff19@yahoo.com