Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998

TITLE: ...In My Life
AUTHOR: SummerQ
EMAIL ADDRESS: peace56@hotmail.com
DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT: Gossamer
yes, anyplace else please ask first.
SPOILER WARNING: The Duane Barry
trilogy. Tiny ones for Chinga. There are vague U.S. Season 5
spoilers, and unless you are
familiar with the events in 'The End',
the story might be a bit confusing.
RATING: PG-13 (fairly mild profanity, and
discussion of a serious, though not sexual, topic).
CONTENT WARNING: None.
CLASSIFICATION: V, A, UST but not overt MSR.
Safe for non-squeamish NoRoMos.
SUMMARY: Mulder reflects on the women in
his life, and how they've changed it.
Assumptions are made about his early childhood.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Mulder, Scully, the
X-Files, or any entity related thereof. This is not
for profit. Any elements recognized as being from
the X-Files belong to the Fox Network, Chris Carter,
and 1013.

My greatest thanks go to Shell for being a
*wonderful* editor <g>.

I would love, cosset, and generally cuddle feedback.
peace56@hotmail.com

*********************
....In My Life
by SummerQ

I never liked the abuse of alcohol or drugs.
Never liked that feeling of losing control.
Control is an important thing when you're
living with someone who's depressed. You learn
to not say anything -- sometimes not even feel
anything -- that would upset them because if they
go over the edge, if they turn on that oven,
pick up that knife or gun, it will be your
fault. Only now am I tempted to just stop the
first dealer I see on the street and buy
whatever he's got. Work was my mind-altering
substance of choice -- my alcohol, my
tranquilizer. It helped me not to care about
people. What do you do when even your work is
gone?

They are all taken and I never get them back,
not really. My sister through simple
kidnapping and my mother through the drugs they
gave her to help her with her depression.
Depression caused by raging against an
immutable barrier -- the implacable
self-righteousness of a group who were not, could
never have been, parents. Long after her hope
of finding Samantha was gone, the guilt of
failing to safeguard her lingered. By the time
she had regained aspects of herself, I too was
gone. I was playing basketball. I was
studying psychology. I was applying to Oxford.
I had been fixing my own meals for years. I
had been putting the pen into her tranquilized
fingers to sign my straight A report cards for
years. I wasn't doing it all for her any
longer. I was doing it for me, and maybe for
one or two of my memories.

I think that for what's happened in my life,
I'm pretty damn sane. But as I watch my world
collapsing around me I think that it's pretty
natural to want to go insane.

And then I remember my mother. I remember her
lying in bed, the darkness of her room blurred
by bright spring sunshine that had leaked past
the edges of shades and heavy curtains meant
to keep out all light. The wrinkles
permanently creased in the nightgown she had
worn for days. The eventual sickening smell of
untouched cereal. I had been away for almost a
week at the state basketball competitions, and
she didn't care if the room smelled like sour
milk. I don't want that type of madness. I
don't want to spend years of my life staring
into space remembering.

No, I really just want to begin a descent into
sweet oblivion. To believe that Samantha is
back, to regress to a twelve year old again, to
not watch my partnership slowly deteriorate.

To leave the saving of the world up to someone
else.

But right now, I am tired. I am tired of
watching those around me dead or dying. I am
exhausted by constantly fighting and not even
knowing what it is that I'm trying to defeat.
Weary of watching every event with suspicion.
Worn down by straining to discern pieces and
details that might show that it was intricately
planned to maneuver me towards some elusive
goal.

Hell, I'm even tired of my own egocentrism.

And so I turn to the one escape that's left to
me -- running. Now I know all the obvious
metaphors: running from relationships, running
from problems, running from loss. Running from
myself.

That last is not strictly accurate. Running
*after* myself maybe? Shit. Listen to me.
'Not strictly accurate'? What the hell kind of
PC, technical sentence is that?

I can't even bring myself to say the word
'truth' anymore.

And so I run, and my feet slam against the
asphalt sending twinges up my leg. My lungs
gulp in the thick summer air as if it was hot
milk, flavored with exhaust instead of vanilla,
meant to soothe away bad feelings and get me
ready for bedtime. The smoky aftertaste of
twilight barbecue lingers on the back of my
tongue long after I pass the occasional balcony
or apartment patio that it comes from. I feel
the sweat trickle down my sides, and my back
until it seems that I'm running through water.
And as always happens, my mind clears.

I can feel each muscle in my foot push off from
the ground as soon as it hits it. I can feel
my chest expanding to take in oxygen. My mouth
is thick and dry, my skin slick. It is
concentrating on the physical that lets my mind
work on the worries that I'm avoiding most
without interference from my brain -- or my heart.

And so I contemplate Scully.

My sister, my mother, my work and now her. My
partner, my confidante, my best friend,
my...something.

Duane Barry didn't hurt as much as this does.
Then there was someone else blame, to hurt, to
beat up in my mind. Dragging him back from the
grave, shaking him until his screwed up brain
rattled, breaking his nose so that his blood
spattered all over me. Blood on my face, on my
hands, covering my shirt. Except the cross.
The cross was always untouched.

That was my biggest mistake.

In my mind, I want to see Scully as pure. Ours
is a Romantic Relationship. Not one of those
supermarket types where the women on the cover
are in uncomfortable positions, with eye shadow
up to their eyebrows, but something out of the
Days of Yore; unsullied by anything but my hand
on her back. Of course, this *is* from a guy
who regularly watches "Alien Probe". Hey
Mulder, Dr. Oxford trained psychologist, can we
say "Madonna/Whore" syndrome? I knew we could.
So we have a Romantic Relationship. I wore her
colors into the battle to save her. None of
the stories ever said what to do when the war
is finally lost and she wants those colors
back.

And I want to go on saving her. I want it so
badly that I ache with it. I know that she is
my equal. And in so many ways my better. Yet
there has to be some way I can protect her.
Maybe I couldn't save Samantha from whoever
took her. Maybe I couldn't make myself more
important to my mother than her drugs, but by
God I am *not* going to screw up again. Scully
will be safe. The five years she spent working
on the X-Files will *not* be wasted. And
because she is all I have left, I wrap her in
cotton wool and tissue paper. And because she
does not want cotton wool and tissue paper, she
fights it. It and me.

The damnedest thing is that I'm doing it to
myself. I watch Scully. I watch her when she
doesn't know I'm there, and I watch us when
we're together. I stand back outside myself
and watch us talking to each other. I know
what I'm going to say and I know how she's
going to react. And I can't stop myself from
saying it.

I am going back to my apartment, eyes on
the street in front of me. I automatically
move aside to let someone going the other way
pass.

"Mulder?"

I know that voice, though it's impossible to
remember if it has been featured more prominently
in my dreams or my nightmares. It can be a wire
thin whip or sound as if it was wet satin.

I stop, and the rhythm of my breathing is broken.
I take in air through shredded gasps and brace my
palms on my knees. My legs tremble and I do not
acknowledge her until I can be certain I will not
straighten only to fall.

"Scully."

She looks at me. "I was going to wait at your
apartment, but I saw that your car was still there
so I decided to take a walk."

As my gaze trails upwards, our eyes meet with a
click that is almost audible -- like that of marbles
hitting. And I know.

"Walk with me Scully?"

She comes to me and we walk, side by side. I
start to reach towards the small of her back, to
guide her, but I do not. Our arms brush almost
casually, and there is an awkward fumbling of
fingers. We end palm to palm, our hands intertwined.
Her warm dry fingers lightly rub the beads of sweat on
the back of my hand into the skin. And I know.

I will not lose this.

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

Thoughts? Questions? Anything? peace56@hotmail.com
http://www.geocties.com/Area51/Chamber/7976