STOPPING BY WOODS

Date sent: Tue, 19 Aug 1997
Subject: NF> Stopping By Woods (1/1)

Walk right in, set right down, give me back...my "Forrest Gump"
soundtrack...(You know who you are.)

Welcome to another first-person angsty vignette. I was pleasantly surprised
at the positive response to "As When I Wake," so don't disappoint me, people!
(Surprise, surprise--more moon analogies.) I know I'm going to get flamed
to hell and back for this, but frankly, I'm sick of Scully's cancer. This is
not in any way to offend anyone or belittle cancer. But for my own reasons,
I'm tired of writing about it and speculating about it, 'cause let's face
it--I'm too dumb to figure it out! I'm reverting back to old wounds and
previous angst. And what better angst is there than "One Breath"?

To disclaim or not to disclaim...the part of me that despised "Gethsemane"
says no, but the part of me that doesn't want its butt kicked by Ten Thirteen
Productions urges on ahead. Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are Chris Carter's
and all the "One Breath" dialogue is courtesy of Glen Morgan and James Wong.
A little bit o' T.S. Eliot, some E.E. Cummings, and wee mentions of "Les
Miserables" (thanks ever so much, all you Fanfic Junkies #3 frequenters, for
fueling my "Les Mis"/Jelly Belly obsession!) also make appearances. All the
torturous Mulder-thought is mine. <G> The title, "Stopping By Woods," is,
of course, from the Robert Frost poem, "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy
Evening." (Hmm. Are we seeing a bit of a recurring poetry theme here
tonight? Could that stem from my obsessive proudness at knowing who wrote
"Ode on a Grecian Urn," even though I know I just got that title wrong? Let
me revel here before I discover that's common knowledge.)

LIST JUNK: Uh, sure, forward it to XFF Fanfic, archive it wherever...
_______________________
8/4/97
CLASSIFICATION: VA
SPOILERS: "One Breath"
SUMMARY: Mulder-thought during "One Breath."
_______________________
STOPPING BY WOODS (1/1)
by Rachel Nobel
(SkyFish785@aol.com)
_______________________
I remember the day man walked on the moon.

I remember Walter Cronkite pulling his glasses off and rubbing his hands
together with glee as the fuzzy picture crackled in, staticky with triumph,
as we listened to the triumphant cheers in the streets at Neil Armstrong's
immortal words.

But most of all I remember the silence.

There was shouting, and questioning, and the faint whisper of the second
sentence man ever spoke on the moon--"Beautiful, beautiful. Magnificent
desolation." And my sister giggled when the two men leapt around like
children, pointing out moon rocks and craters and gravity-free formations.

And the static we heard was not like any lost cellular transmission or
long-distance phone call. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Collins were in a vacuum
of deep space--a lonely chasm that built up through faded dialogue back to us
earthly mortals.

There is silence like that here.

It is deep and fathomless. What little noise there is is spoken in hushed
whispers, as not to disturb the sleep of the damned. Of the condemned. They
are ugly words and they are harsh and true. Despite the bright cleanliness
it is dirty here, and there are fluorescent lights and it is a mourning
period. A grieving time.

Such deathly stillness. Even the gifts of flowers seem posed. There is a
radio playing at the nurses' station, the soundtrack to "Les Miserables," I
think. Not a good choice. The fighting at the barricades is enough to alert
even the sleepers of death. And the ones who keep vigil over them.

I remember scoffing at John Lennon, the cynist turned peacekeeper who really
did believe that love would save us all.

I remember T.S. Eliot, who wrote that we all choose to be consumed by either
fire or fire.

When I look up again she is still there, unblinking. An orderly who speaks
in soft tones.

"She's beautiful," the woman says.

I would laugh if I had the energy, harsh and loud. Beautiful? No. Not
beautiful. Just my partner. Strong. Someone to depend on. To use and
trample on in my race for the 'truth.' My holy grail. Duane Barry used you
to go free before I killed him for his sins. Beauty means nothing to
faceless men. Samantha was beautiful. Would have been. Should have been.

"You're her...partner?" I nod.

"You are afraid for her."

I think of manmade hell and eternal damnation for what I've done to Dana
Scully, condemned to die sometime tonight in the harsh light of the hospital.
Shadowed by the would-be astronaut who remembers, of all things, silence on
the moon.

You would have been four years old, Scully. The same age as my sister.

<she's not dead yet!>

"I'm...There's no chance that she'll...?"

My voice is bleak, hoarse from non-use. The orderly would like to shoo me
away and keep the after-visiting-hours shift to herself. We wait together,
still, with the dying.

She keeps her voice soft and gentle. "There's always a chance...but..."

I nod. Frozen. Death. Scully's face, memorized. A goddamn answering
machine message that came minutes too late. Shattered glass. Scully's
blood, on my hands.

He told me to grieve for Scully, and never look back. Knowing that broken
innocence makes us ruthless and heartless and vengeful. Perhaps I am a
player, but my role is of a pawn.

My passionate devotion in life has always been to the truth. A singular
word, all-encompassing, all-knowing. I have spoken of *truth,* but not of
*justice*. My partner, dying, dignity stripped away, even after a
mock-funeral and the loss of hope. That is fact and truth, and where is the
justice in the peace of knowing?

Whoever did this to her goes free. All except one. Bound by guilt and
devotion to a dying woman's bedside, long after the living have turned to
faith for answers.

"You should talk to her," the orderly encourages, compassion in her eyes.
"She can hear you. And feel you. In places that have nothing to do with
human senses, she knows you're here."

"You believe that?" Dull eyes. Stare forward. Memorize. Golden copper-red
hair, thick and longer than I remember. Pale china face and delicate
fingers. Someone has cut her fingernails. Someone has taken care of her.
Blue eyes, the color of sea.

<i'm afraid>

"I know it." She smiles encouragingly, and walks off. Her shoes squeak on
the waxed, shiny floor.

"Scully..." Quiet voice. I will own this of her forever--my partner, bound
to this earth, waiting. I wonder if after twenty years of vowed revenge I
will see her dying form as I close my eyes at night. In places that have
nothing to do with human senses.

"Scully, I need to tell you that I'm sorry." Can I possibly memorize this
moment and breathe at the same time? Her eyelids will not flutter
miraculously at my apology. Her lips will not part and rage at me for doing
this to her.

I do not regret my apology.

"I..." The cruelest of jokes. Put in a good word for me, Scully. Do you
believe in after-death experiences now?

She cannot offer me forgiveness.

Is that what I ask of her? Forgiveness? Can I tell her I apologize for her
life but don't regret it? That sitting here is losing everything except the
bloodthirsty hunger for revenge?

Eyelashes, soft and resistant. A bed that swallows up her small frame.

I should have been home, hours ago. I have failed to do the dirty grunt work
of justice. My informant will not be pleased.

I have mourned these losses every day of my life, in places that have nothing
to do with human senses.

I study her face. No movement. Captured in time, in death. This is the
death of water and fire.

Silent in dying and I offer you an apology.

I wonder if I will remember this moment, in twenty, thirty, forty years.
Your face and the fires of hell. Disgust and self-loathing. I wonder if I
will own my grief then, brimming over the truth I have always sought. If I
will keep any part of you inside me.

I should talk to her. So she will know I'm here. In places that have
nothing to do with human senses. I wonder if Scully believes in an
afterlife. I wonder if she prays to a god that's hers alone at night. I
wonder if...

I swallow, heavy and tight. What do you say do a dying woman? Been nice
knowing ya? I'll sure miss having you around to save my ass, to jolt me
awake after a nightmare, to provide 'proper scientific analysis' that lends
credence and respect to my work, to...

To die for a quest that's been mine since I was twelve years old.

To die for a selfishness I've possessed since they told me I was Spooky
Mulder, brilliant, intuitive, all-around bright young man.

To die for a coward who would give his life to regain yours.

<...an equal horror coming to them...>

You were--you are--the only one I trust. And now, as I sit here in the dim
half-light, holding your limp hand and listening to Enjolras die for his own
causes on the radio, trust makes me angry. Trust. What the hell did we know
about trust? A word so deep and binding that I trust you with an alien
implant, with government conspiracies, with truth-related secrets that all
led to your death. Trust. To call you in the middle of the night for some
inane reason and hear you laugh gently at me. To be able to fall asleep at
the wheel and have you shake me awake. To lay dying in an observatory in
Puerto Rico--on a dock in North Carolina--in a forest in New Jersey--in a
building in Wisconsin--in a house in Massachusetts--under an escalator in
D.C. Dying a thousand different deaths.

Trust, and the truth, and justice. Maybe just a game for rich young boys to
play, sings Enjolras. Ever seen a Broadway play, Scully? Childhood pleas.
If you wake up I'll buy you tickets to one, to a thousand. I'll be your
best friend, Scully.

The hint of leftover summer freckles spattered across your nose. Lips,
bloodless and quiet. If you were here you'd tell me I need to eat something,
to get some sleep.

You will die, they tell me, sometime tonight. You are Catholic and Mrs.
Scully will call for a priest to administer last rites. It is wrong and
strange to know that you already have a gravestone.

Cheeks usually flushed with light makeup. I wish I could remember the sound
of your voice.

<mulder! i need your help!>

Three months later, shrouded in the silence of death, your cry unanswered.

I know the sound of a thousand deaths, of heart monitors flatlining, of
gunshots in the darkness, of stolen children in the floodwash of light that
so terrifies your precise science.

You will die sometime tonight. This loss is heavy and damp and empty of
devotion. My loss, or death's gain? Do I lose you in this bargain, or only
myself?

Revenge, and truth and justice and vindication. Nothing. The missing sound
of your voice crumbles at my feet.

I can be strong for others, Scully, but not for you. And I won't watch you
die tonight.

I can't.

An hour from now I will find my apartment wrecked, damages that will take me
months to repair and replace. Baby pictures of my sister, trashed, a mad
hunt for information on you and your life and your death.

I think of your face as I sink to my knees, a death I own.

<don't give up>

A grieving I bear. I sit with you until morning, your face before my eyes.
The remnants of an answering machine tape, seconds before dawn.

<mulder! i need your help...mulder!>

Your dead lips scream my name, a life slipping through my fingers. The sound
of your voice, one last time.

In places that have nothing to do with human senses.
_________________
LA FIN
Now, we all know what happens after this--the phone call, the amazingly
spreadable Mulder-smile (like butta!), the "Not Fox--*Mulder*"...but, hey,
I'm gonna be a freshman, I'm allowed to be fatalistic.

And now, just to add to that angsty fanfic air (*was* it angsty? You tell
me: SkyFish785@aol.com), picture, if you will, a despondant Mulder returning
home to a wrecked apartment...his slump against the door frame...his slide
doooowwwwn the wall onto the floor...a sob...claw-like hands spread as if
watching Scully's life, and his own, literally slipping through his
fingers...Got the urge to re-watch "One Breath" yet? C'mon, it's fruitless
to resist.

Thanks for reading!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Em (lilxphile@aol.com)
The Fourth Person
XAngst Anonymous Guru-For-A-While
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Studies show that one out of four people
are insane. If three of your friends are
okay, then you're it.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
If you don't like your job, you don't
strike! You just go in every day and do it
really half-assed. That's the American way!
-Homer Simpson
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Scully, should we be picking out china
patterns or what?
-Mulder

If I ever need advice about mating
behavior, Commander, I'll know where to go.
-Janeway

Sex under the Liberty Bell beats anything
you can do atop Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's
tombstone.
-Me (I am a slave to UST... ;D)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Cafe UST * Window Table * B.I.M.B.O. * EMXC
eXtreme Possibilities * OBSSE * IRC Wench
LGW #67 * M&S * Rat'nik * XPRA * XF-BAJFSG
Loser At The Helm * Melissketeer Queen
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