Title: Dandelions on the Wind: Part 2: To be Repaired
Author: Jaime Lyn
Email: leiaj@bellsouth.netXxX All disclaimers and summaries and junk listed in part one. You guys know the drill. Read on and enjoy:
XxX
Years rolled slowly past
And I found myself alone.
Surrounded by strangers I thought were my friends,
Further and further from my home.
Guess I lost my way.
There were oh so many roads.
I was living to run,
Running to live,
I began to find myself searching,
For shelter again and again,
Against the wind.
----------- Against the Wind, Bob Seager and the Silver Bullet BandXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX
Dandelions in the Wind, part 2: To be Repaired
By Jaime LynXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX
---------- 6 -----------
***
Anonymous Journal Entry:
Cook County Hospital:
***Even as I write this, my hands shake. My head swims and creeps with the lazy fog of powerful drugs. And not only that, my dreams have gotten stronger. With every passing second, every time I close my eyes, they have gotten stronger. I still don’t know what they mean, but they have gotten stronger and more insistent. I hear the echoing of the man’s tears in my heart, the lapping of the water and the sound of the word ’Scully’ piercing through my subconscious.
Just yesterday, I heard it over and over in my head when I went in to get another of those horrendous shots. I heard it just as strongly as if I had been dreaming it, and it was almost as if the sound of the voice, the uttering of the word were whispering secrets to me. I felt even more passionately at that moment than I ever had before that I knew him. I knew his voice and I knew his soul. I just did. I knew it and I felt it, and I closed my eyes to think it over and over, repeating it. I let the thought wash over me and dissolve my allaying fears.
And that’s when it happened. The most important breakthrough I’ve had yet.
I remember so clearly, opening my eyes and looking at the shelves surrounding the table next to the high rise. I remember reading off the names of the chemicals---the different meds that graced the counter, like a mad scientist’s vanity dresser. I remember recognizing the names, being able to access in my head what each one did, how each one worked, and what each one was for, and for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how I knew what I did. It just came to me, suddenly, as if a wall had collapsed behind me.
I didn’t understand what it meant, but I knew it meant something.
So I tried to tell the nurse—I tried to make her see that I remembered, that my brain had recalled something of strange importance, and that I needed to see the doctor right away, but she wouldn’t let me. A nervous look came over her face then, as if I had broken a rule, and she gruffly ushered me out of the lab, dragging me back to my room. It puzzled me, that she got so terrified, and I couldn’t understand just what I had done to make her so upset. All I understand is that the next thing I know, she’s jabbed another dose of narcotic into my arm and I felt myself drifting, her eyes watching me like an eagle would watch its prey.
And when I closed my eyes, I dreamed my dream. It was more powerful that time than other any time I had dreamed it, and I cried out and screamed, searching desperately for the man who called ‘Scully’ over and over again, just as I had before. This time, however, his fingers finally touched mine---his hand clutched to me and he gasped as if our souls had finally met and brushed past.
When I woke up, I was sweaty and I was confused. My head felt heavy and jumbled with too much scattered information, but somehow, during the night, it had opened up and spilled its contents to me, revealing the many textbooks I seemed to have contained . There were medical terms and technical, scientific jargon that filled me without my even knowing why. It was like opening a door that had been long slammed shut.
And that was when I realized that I was being lied to; that I was being deceived and cheated out of my life.
I was not sick at all.
And so I write this now, setting the words to paper just as surely as I am sitting here, vowing this to myself and to those I am going to find. I am writing this as a promise to myself, a promise to the man from my dreams.
I am going to find him and fill his heart, the way he has filled my dreams. I swear I am going to remember everything. Somehow, in some way. I am going to discover why the fog comes every night to take me away to a place where I hear crying and sobbing. I am going to lift the curtain from my mind and my heart, and I am going to find a place where laughter claims me.
I am going to get the hell out of here, and I am going to do it even if it kills me.
***
Back to the present,
Mulder’s apartment,
He tells the story,
May 12th***
I raise an eyebrow and blink once, then twice, trying desperately to rationalize this information to the practical part of my analytic subconscious. The scientific part of me is screaming in rebuttal, telling me that ‘no, no, it’s not possible,’ while the woman in me is trying to fathom the horrible violation that he has just described.Somehow, I swallow and manage, “what you’ve just… Fox, what you’re telling me, it’s not---“
“Not possible?” he asks, laughing bitterly, as if he’s choking on his own sour truth. “You think I didn’t try to convince myself of that? You think I didn’t want to believe that? I DID… but the truth is that it happened.”
I sigh and try to come up with something that could effectively refute that. Something that would help to prove my point beyond a shadow of the smallest inkling of a doubt. I know that there are millions upon millions of things----countless medical theories and scientific ramblings that could serve as spring boards for an argument over the semantics of reality but… Unfortunately, the fact still stands that I wasn’t there when all this happened. I had never lived through this with him, and I am not his beloved Dana Scully. I could argue till I’m blue, but it still wouldn’t change the fact that I have no right telling him that what he believes in so staunchly is wrong. It’s not something that I can even begin to debate with him, and it’s not something that I’d care to, either. It is his story and his life----his memories that he has vulnerably thrust upon me, and I have no right to refute the recollections he seems to cling to like a flower to a vine.
The woman in me knows this with certainty.
“It happened,” Fox insists, vehemently, watching the emotions splay across my face. “My daughter wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t.”
I close my eyes and silence the scientist within me. She has no place within this conversation, in this corner of reality where science and reason seem to become as nonsensical and as nonexistent as Unicorns and sprites in wonderland.
“Ok,” I conceed, softly, watching Fox as he watches me. “I believe you.”
Astonishment paints delicate lines across his tired face.
“You… believe me? Just like that?” he asks.
I sigh at him and nod. He nods back and smiles, as if my response is welcome but ultimately unexpected, and he clears his throat. I know that he’s thinking about her---musing about what she would say, how she would argue her point, how her ivory face would change, how her words would differ from mine… And I hate it—I hate that I am second best, that I am not what he wants… I hate that I am not her and I hate that sometimes my heart wishes I was…
But it’s not like I can help it any more than I can stop the sun from setting or the grass from growing… so I let him crash into me. I swallow hard and let him study me—let him compare me to her in a way I’ve never thought to let him before. I let his heart scan mine, and when he finishes, his eyes close for a moment, as if processing the information. I feel dissected and probed, pulled apart and scattered, but I know that it is not my soul or my heart he is looking for inside me.
It’s hers.
And when his eyes open, I can tell that he has not found what he seeks. He knows that I am not her. He knows… but he needed to look anyway. He needed to, just as he needs to look every day, everywhere he goes, even though he has not found her yet. He has not found the part of him that belongs to her, but he will keep looking as long as he will keep breathing.
Our gazes lock and he finally breaks the uncomfortable silence, starting, “Kylee got Scully’s fever to go down some, but it didn’t break until morning. And that’s when I told her. I told her everything. I told her how long we needed to stay underground, where we needed to go, my theory…”
I nod, then ask, “What did she say?”
Fox stares off at the wall. “What did she say…what did she say…” he murmurs, as if it’s almost funny but not in a ‘ha ha’ sort of way. “First, she told me that the chances of what I had suggested were slim and nil. She insisted that the entire idea was impossible even in its most rudimentary form—that there was little proof to go on, little reason to jump to hasty conclusions…”
I nod softly, then cock my head to the side, guessing that there’s more here that he’s not saying. “But?” I ask, gently.
He raises an eyebrow and acknowledges the question, pursing his lips into a thin line, before answering, “But…” He pauses and closes his eyes to remember fully. “But then she said to me, ‘Mulder, do you believe in God?’ and I just looked at her and held her hand. There wasn’t any right answer that I could give her, and I didn’t know what she wanted to hear. So she just sort of stared at me in a funny way and told me that it was getting harder and harder for her to understand---to rationalize the why’s and the how’s of a science she was so firmly rooted in, but had started to distrust. She said that it was hard to believe in divinity for the same reason, even though her mother had always told her that God was supposed to have a plan. She wanted so hard to trust her faith---in science, in God, in something, but she was losing the strength to try. Then she looked at me with these… these sad, worried eyes that I don’t think I’ll ever forget and she said, ‘I need to believe. Help me believe again, Mulder.’ But I didn’t know what to say to that, and so I didn’t say anything…”
When he pauses again, I suck in a breath and bite my lip. To understand him and follow this story is to become part of it, to live every moment with him, and I think I have just grown five years in one hour, playing this in my head like a demented video player.
“But then she got better,” I say, willing it to be true, feeling as if I’ve met her through his eyes. “She got better and the two of you got out, right?”
He looks at me and nods, slowly. “Yeah,” he answers, voice trailing. “Scully recovered, with Kylee’s help, and as soon as her temperature registered near normal, we left to travel out west. Kylee and Josh left to go north into Canada, but Scully, the gunmen and I went west, spending weeks travelling… Above ground at night, and underground during the day.” He stops and shrugs, then continues, “We didn’t know what was going on up there or who was looking for us, so we spent weeks travelling...” He manages a slight chuckle and says, “Scully called it ‘incognito,’ insisting that she was going to write a book on the four paranoid musketeers… She missed the sun on her face, I could tell…”
I smile at that, wondering at the memory, then finally manage to ask the question I’d been meaning to ask him since he started his story.
“You fell in love with her then, didn’t you?”
But I can tell that it’s the wrong question as soon as his back stiffens and his face hardens. It’s almost as if I’ve trespassed onto sacred ground for even insinuating such an idea.
I study him and he swallows.
“She was my partner,” is all he says, and the room falls uncomfortably silent…
***
Approxmately two weeks later
Undisclosed location
Five and a half years ago***
“Come on, Scully… just one time---you’ll like it. It’ll change your life, I pinky swear it…”
Scully let out a barely concealed giggle that seemed to lighten the oppresive darkness of their hideaway.
“Read my….” She paused to shake her head, finishing, “my palm?”
Her voice lingered almost imperceptibly on that last word, and she nearly lost her train of thought in a fit of hitched laughter that welled up from inside of her.
Mulder’s right arm fell tight and secure around her shoulders, and she could feel the gentle fierceness of his heart beating beneath the head she rested softly upon his chest. Her fingers traced idle patterns on his arms and up the crook of his elbow, and his left hand curled underneath the back of his head lazily. Often now, they would lie like this---together---staring up at the roof of some dank and murky underground cavern, or if they were supremely lucky, at the stars sparkling above them like a field of sequins on a curtain of velvet.
Tonight, they happened to be crashing in some nameless barn in some nameless town.
“Yes,” Mulder answered, mock defensiveness creeping into his voice. “What? You don’t trust the psychic abilities of Spooky Fox Mulder? Psychic extrordinaire?”
When Scully laughed again, her voice vibrated against the hollow of his collarbone and chest. “Psychic or psychotic?” she deadpanned. “Because I can vouch for the existence of one, Mulder, but not the---“ Her voice stuttered on the last word and then shot up a notch, managing, “HEY!” as she started to giggle.
Without warning, his left hand had snuck around to wage war against the side of her right rib cage—causing contagious laughter to echo into his ears and flow into his brain. He had every sound she made—every inflection of her voice catalogued, from the ‘doctor voice,’ to the ‘FBI mode’ voice, to the ‘Dana’ voice, but laughter was a new one to him---and all he wanted was to breathe it in until the sound filled him.
“Say Supercalafragalisticexpialidocious and maybe I’ll stop,” Mulder teased her, laughing as quietly as he could to ensure that they wouldn’t disturb the gunmen asleep around them.
Scully struggled valiantly, but Mulder held her steadfast, tickling and pinning her arms, his brain getting drunk off the sound of her giggling like a young girl. “Say it, and I’ll stop,” he insisted, as she feebly tried to get him back by lunging for his sides. “Come on, you can do it----“ She gasped and tears fell from her eyes, but he refused to relent.
She opened her mouth and managed, “Sup… Sup…Supercal….God… Mul…. Stop….” She laughed again and again, and when finally he was sure that she had had enough, he pulled his hands from her ribcage long enough to peek over at her----at her fingers trailing to her eyes to wipe away salty tears. She sat up for a moment and blinked, rapidly opening and closing her eyes to regain her focus and equalibruim, and Mulder tugged on her arm and pulled her back down to him. Her breathing was thick and heavy, her heart racing, and she lay down into him, chasing away the last traces of lighthearted laughter.
“Mulder,” she admonished, in that soft, ‘Dana’ voice she rarely used, “that was NOT fair. That was cheating.”
He laughed at her and let his hand trail down her side, languidly. “How do you figure?” he asked, amused.
She grinned and pulled away—just far enough to lean onto her side facing him---propping an elbow on the ground with her head on her palm. Her other hand continued its endless roam of his arm, drawing nonsense designs on his wrist and forearm. “You had tactical advantage,” she said, smiling. “Not to mention a serious size factor working in your favor, Mulder. Admit it, you cheated.”
Mulder’s eyes opened wide in overexaggerated shock, and Scully shook her head, warily. “I resent that, Doc,” he teased, using the nickname he had only recently christened her with. It had been borne out of a nasty splinter that had attacked his finger----one that she had needed to coax him into removing. And once she did, she had shaken her head at him, amused, and he had insisted on a bandaid for his ‘wound.’ She had called him a baby and he had called her ‘doc.’ The name just seemed to stick.
“Cheat,” Scully insisted, affectionately.
She sighed and laid back down, letting her head rest inside the pillow of his shoulder—a frequent spot for her when she was tired and ready to snooze for the night. She cleared her throat then, holding out her right hand in front of their closely settled faces----fingers spread apart----and she snuggled further into Mulder’s shoulder.
“Ahem, your royal psychoticness----My palm reading?” she said pointedly, jabbing playfully at his side with her opposite hand. She wiggled her outstretched fingers to urge him forward.
From below her copper stained head, she heard his chest rumbling, his deep, rich voice answer, lightly, “I thought you didn’t believe in such things, Agent Scully.”
She snorted. “I don’t.” Then her head lifted just enough for her to capture his gaze, the corners of her light pink lips turning up. “But I seem to have a weakness for tall, lanky, paranoid men who like to make crazy suggestions about the signifigance of genetically predetermined marks on my hands.”
Mulder shook his head and laughed. “And that would be your roundabout way of making an exception?”
Her eyebrow raised enigmatically.
“Tell me my future, Spooky,” she joked, still holding out her flattened palm. Her head came down to rest idly next to his, and he took her hand gently ----caressing the tips of her fingers.
Her eyes wide open and sparkling, Scully contentedly stared up at her hand entwined with her partner’s----at the index finger that slowly curled around his thumb---at his forefinger stroking the back of her hand.
He took in a deep breath, shoving down his racing pulse, and started, “well, this looks promising…”
Scully raised another eyebrow and chuckled, querying, “And what would that be?”
Mulder cleared his throat and traced the inside of her palm, running the balls of his fingers over a crease in that ran the length of her hand. Touching her felt like silk to his skin, and yet it was fire and ice at the same time, setting him ablaze and putting him out continually.
“You seem to have a long lifeline,” he told her, murmuring, his finger spanning up and down the crease. “See how it goes to the edge of your hand and then almost all the way down to your wrist?”
Scully mumbled an affirmative and he shivered as he touched her skin again. “That means you’re going to live a long… long life… Dana Katherine Scully…”
She sighed, leaning in closer to the inside of his neck, then slowly let her palm curl around all four of his fingers, caressing up and down, languidly. In response, she could feel him swallow next to her, and her opposite hand measured the way his heart beat quickened every time they touched a little more—a little longer… Her face felt flush and every spot on her being seemed to tingle—to shiver and tremble as if he were all around her. Somehow, he was inside her and next to her…It was insanely erotic and yet there was nothing sensual about it at all.
“And here,” Mulder murmured softly, running a thumb down the outside of her index finger, “here it says that you’re going to accomplish great things----that you’re a healer of the sick, that you’re kind… forgiving…”
Their hands twined and untwined together, caressing and touching, as if the art of him reading her palm was more a sensual dance than a casual time passer. She let out a contented, “Hmm…” and wrapped her hand around the back of his knuckles, lightly tracing the texture of his skin.
Then Mulder shifted their exploring digits so that his index finger rested on her palm again, and he ran a course down yet another line that ran from her thumb to her pinky. “And here’s something interesting,” he breathed, softly.
“What’s that?” Scully asked, her voice low and throaty, her skin feeling all at once too tight and too hot for her body.
“There’s someone,” he whispered, gently, letting his index finger trail up her palm again. “Someone you love that shares your lifeline; someone who shares the other part of you. Kinda tall… lanky…”
Their hands curled together again, interweaving carefully, and this time he lowered them so that they hovered just slightly above and between their faces.
“Really?” Scully managed, her heart thudding out symphonies in her chest, her breathing long and deep. “Anything else you can see about this… ‘mystery’ person?”
His thumb traced the contours of her index finger and her pulse quickened.
“Yeah,” Mulder answered, his voice low and husky. His head turned so that his mouth murmured gently into the downy softness of her russet hair. “He seems to know your hands pretty well…”
Scully swallowed, hard, and then turned so that her nose rested into Mulder’s neck. She closed her eyes, trying to shove back her roiling emotions, and she managed, “Oh…” with barely hooded desire painting the edges of her voice…
***************