Speak to Me by MystPhile
Website: http://members.xoom.com/MystPhile/
AND http://galias.webprovider.com/mystphile.htm
Rating: MSR, PG-13
Summary: Post-all things, Scully is introspective. "My eyes popped
open, my own heart pounding at the exhilaration of my experience, in which
I had faced---finally---and accepted the elements of my past and present.
Faced, accepted, welcomed, embraced."
Comments: An amazingly touching story about Scully, and about her perceptions
and relationships with her world. Lovely insight into all that happened throughout
the episode, not just after TCOTC :-) Although, MystPhile does touch on that
bit very well indeed... Another excellent Scully POV!
Speak to Me by MystPhile, MSR, post-all
things
TITLE: Speak to Me
AUTHOR: MystPhile@aol.com
Distribution: Gossamer, Ephemeral,
Spooky, Xemplary, yes.
Others, please inform.
SUMMARY: Post-all things, Scully is
introspective.
Category: V, Post-ep, MSR
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Through all things
Disclaimer: Property of 1013
Feedback: Welcome at MystPhile@aol.com
WEBPAGE: Thanks to Beaker: http://members.xoom.com/MystPhile/
And at Galia's http://galias.webprovider.com/mystphile.htm
And at Xemplary
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
My fork flashed as I shoveled salad
into my mouth, not tasting
the food. I wasn't really paying attention to anything. I might
have been a car parked beside a gas pump, except that
my hand and jaws were moving so fast. At least a car has to
stop to refuel. But not Scully, real-life Roadrunner.
"I'm not wearing any pants right now."
I paused long enough to look up and
focus briefly on Mulder,
babbling endlessly about crop circles in a country outside our
jurisdiction. My fork continued to dart as I told him I
wasn't going, that I was still busy with the autopsy he had me
do.
"The autopsy you had me do."
Why did I phrase it that way?
The fact is, I was doing my job, and Mulder is not my
supervisor. How have I managed to lay off responsibility for
my own actions on others, so often, without ever realizing it,
so very, very often?
My delusions continued. Mulder was
disappointed at my abrupt
refusal. As he left, I asked him why he was always running,
chasing the next big thing, why he couldn't stay still. Oh,
God, what a case of projection. I am the one who has spent
years running, refusing to stay still long enough to ponder
the reasons and consequences for my actions. I have spent
much of my life walking, or running, away. Missy told me
that, years ago. And she was right. She knew about Daniel.
Mulder turned before slamming the
door. "I don't know what
I'd be missing," he told me.
Yeah, that's me, too. If I do take
the time to think, it's
about what I might be missing: the life I'd dreamed of, the
"normal" that doesn't really exist. Why have I been so afraid
to stop and see what *is* in my life? I am guilty of all
that I accused Mulder of, living my life like a hamster
circling an endless wheel. I have been acting like Daniel,
convinced that some much-needed element is missing from my
life, but doing nothing to reach out and take it.
Ten years, he said, he has been near
me without acting. Why
should I find that so surprising, I who have so often refused
to act but sat back and blamed my own choices on others. "The
autopsy you had me do." Bullshit. "I do it all for you,
Mulder." Double bullshit.
Grow up, Dana. You're nearing forty, for Christ's sake.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
I kept running, running both in the
sense of avoidance and in
maintaining constant motion. I rushed to the hospital, found
that Daniel was there, and I *hid* from Maggie. How often
have I hidden? How much have I hidden through the years? I
left, refusing to wait until Daniel was awake---"Tick, tick,
Scully."
How old he looked, sleeping. Time
had not been kind to him,
he with his injured heart. My own ached as I looked down on
the man who had been such a powerful force in my life, whom I
saw as partly responsible for the path I had trod. I was
still laying off the responsibility, still on the run.
Even when Maggie called me, I said
I didn't know if I had the
time to visit Daniel. Then Mulder called, and I was
surprised, having lost track of time. What do I have, really,
but time? Time that I am wasting, have wasted.
"Speak to me, Scully," Mulder
intoned into the silence on the
line. Those words came back to me, much later, in my dream,
when I was talking to myself. I really need to talk to myself
more often. I sometimes think I lost that self at twenty-
five, while retaining her youthful dreams about what a life is
supposed to be. Now I know: I can stop feeling guilty about
not achieving what I wanted at twenty-five; I have moved past
youth into middle age, and I get to choose what *I* want.
Daniel muddied the issue, however.
He treated me as if not a
day had passed, as if time had frozen. He even called me in
to perform as his student, proud of my answer as if I had been
a well-trained parrot. He loosed his mind games, again. The
very ones I had spent so many years trying to shake: that I
wasn't practicing *real* medicine, that the FBI had nothing
positive to offer me---"It wasn't a reason, it was an excuse."
Inexcusable, really, that he should foist his opinions on me,
both then and now. He needed a young, bright girl who would
agree with him and admire his brilliance, be the satellite to
his sun.
How different from Mulder, who goes
through ritualistic
complaints but truly does want---and need--- a counterforce.
He has never wanted anything but the truth from me and would
never want me to do or say anything I didn't truly believe.
So unlike Daniel, who told me what to think---the FBI could
not possibly be a passion like medicine; that *he* is what I
secretly hope for; that I was all he lived for, although he
failed to approach me in those ten years, even though his
marriage had ended.
Was he lying? Had he had a string
of bright-eyed, gullible
young conquests through the intervening years? I know that
Mulder would not hang back waiting for fate to drop anyone he
really valued into his lap. He would leap to the chase with a
passion that outshines all Daniel's medical fervor. (Even if
Mulder's version of the chase involved bogus English crop
circles).
Daniel called the healing ceremony
a voodoo ritual, just what
I would have thought, being his protégé. "Of course, it
didn't work; don't be absurd," he sneered. Still mired in
delusion, he seemed to think that we could pick up where we'd
left off. Didn't he know that I was not that innocent young
girl and he was not the all-powerful authority? His feet of
clay were fully exposed by now. I had spoken to Maggie.
How cruel Daniel had been to two young
women, his daughter and
his lover, not to mention his wife. The moment I knew of his
marriage and his 16 year-old daughter, I ended the
relationship, tearing my heart, riddled with guilt. Now, I
see his role in that ugly minuet all too clearly. I was
twenty-five; he was fifty and in a position of authority. It
was his obligation to do what was best for all, not make me
feel ashamed for refusing to put his family through hell.
I thought I would save his family
by walking away. Who
affects whom? It's all a mysterious circle. No matter what I
did, he was going to leave his family, and they were going to
suffer. My leaving did nothing to change that, yet the guilt
stayed with me for years, coloring all my relationships, all
my decisions. I was more affected than he. His family was
more affected than he. He had the comfort of being famous,
authoritative, and brilliant, and having that image reflected
constantly back at him from the eyes of generations of med
students. He didn't need people, just their adulation.
Who affects whom? I have thought for
so many years that
Mulder affected me, changed and challenged so many of my
beliefs, cost me so much of the normal life I still dreamed
of. Yet, I have affected him, in a major way. I have been
his lifeline, his touchstone. He would be perhaps dead
without me, or living a far different life. We can't collide
with others without leaving an imprint. I am part of everyone
I have met and/or loved. And they are part of me.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
"Maybe you know less than you think," Maggie told me.
Yes, Maggie. We were both taken in
by the Great Man, and even
ten years later, I was still caught in his web, briefly. How
does he do it?
I walked away, he said, causing him
to shut down from his
family. What bullshit, blaming me for his actions, all the
while giving me that soulful stare. I could still see him as
he was ten years ago, vigorous and charming. When he walked
into a room, everyone stood and saluted, on some psychic
level. He was so powerful, a font of wisdom, the strong,
benevolent healer. The truth is so different from that image,
the truth as seen from the betrayed eyes of a sixteen year
old, abandoned by her father.
But he still exerted a pull. He kept
touching my hands,
clinging. All the feelings came pouring back. He must have
been the first man I truly loved---mindlessly adored, I
suppose. I have never been able to turn love off like a
faucet, and I had always carried an unmended rip in my heart
from when I wrenched myself away from him, thinking that doing
so would save his family. And the guilt, of course. That I
would fall for a married man and still have so much regret and
reluctance when it came time to do the right thing.
But he could still make me cry. "You
have a life," he told me
disingenuously. "I don't know what I have," I confessed.
After ten years of confusion, I was presented with the
opportunity for closure, and I was still floundering and
tearful. "What do you want?" he asked me. "I want everything
I should want at this time of my life," I answered.
Now what the hell did that mean? Who
was I channeling?
Confucius? I was ripe for a mystic experience, and I got one.
Thank god, whichever one is in charge.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
"You may want to slow down,"
Colleen told me upon our first,
awkward meeting. A surprisingly perceptive remark. How did
she know that I'd been running for years?
Well, I had done better than slow
down. I had come to a stop
so abrupt it almost hurled me through the windshield. Seemed
I had a guardian angel who forced me to stop and pay
attention, in the process preventing me from being pancaked by
a huge truck. Who *was* this figure, I wondered.
After the blind panic of Daniel's
cardiac arrest, I was drawn
back to Colleen, to her knowledge and serenity. Entering her
house, I was enthralled by the harmony, the balance, the
stillness. No hamsters here, just people who can take some
time out to check into their feelings. Look into their
hearts.
Daniel's heart was injured; he was
a man who had acted without
heart, so to speak, and he was now paying the price. Mulder
always acts from the heart. Right or wrong, his actions come
from the heart. His arteries are probably crystal clear.
Colleen's words entered my own hardened,
half-dead heart.
When we hold on to shame and guilt and fear----it makes us
forget who we are. Amen, sister. It was time to locate the
essential me again, the one I had left behind, at least some
parts of her, the parts that feel the most intensely. The
parts that were too delicate, that bruised too easily, that
might become too emotionally involved and entangled. My heart
needed a transfusion---of feeling. Colleen spoke of her
previous life, cut off from the world and her self. I bowed
my head, filled with envy. *Her* cancer had taught her
something. Everything happens for a reason.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Daniel was in a coma, I was told,
driving me into the street
and back to my guardian angel, spirit guide, or whatever the
hell Missy would have called that figure. Another near
accident---there are no accidents, everything happens for a
reason, intoned Colleen's voice---and I entered the temple.
There my life altered. Time stopped.
At last. Silence
descended. Peace permeated every cell of my body. I saw and
accepted my life. The losses: my father, Missy, Emily, a
time when I had unfortunately sealed my heart instead of
taking on the healing pain, embracing it. The threats: the
cigarette man and the shadow figures who stole the future I
had once dreamed of, pocketing it as casually as a pack of
cigarettes. The experiences, the people: My mom, Mulder,
Mulder and me, several images of Mulder and me. He is
primary. He held me when I had cancer, after Penny died, a
time when my heart actually did open and face the impending
losses. He is intertwined with me; we will never part.
But this is my life. Even when I have
opened up, as in my
talks with Karen, I have focused on Mulder. When I wrote my
journal in the hospital, it was to Mulder, almost apologizing
for dying and not continuing the quest. He is there, he is
important, and I need to face that importance, stop running
from it, stop vilifying him in subtle ways, playing the martyr
to the boundless enthusiasm which will always be a part of
him. But *I* need to choose the next steps in *my* own
life, take responsibility for my acts, as Daniel clearly needs
to take responsibility for what he's done. The buck stops
here.
My vision came to an abrupt halt with
Daniel's heart pumping,
his eyes popping open. My eyes popped open, my own heart
pounding at the exhilaration of my experience, in which I had
faced---finally---and accepted the elements of my past and
present. Faced, accepted, welcomed, embraced. These people
and events made me who I am, and they will determine who I am
in the future. The peace, the silence, the blessing that
cushioned me in that isolated moment in time---indescribable.
Time stands still. All is perfect, just as it should be. We
accept what is.
I looked up. Buddha's eyes, previously
closed, in my
recollection, were now open. So were my eyes.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
"I'm not the same person, Daniel.
I wouldn't have known that
if I hadn't seen you again."
I almost ran from the encounter that
took ten years of my past
and set it all straight---who did what to whom and how little
difference it makes at this moment.
Magically, I chased down the figure
who had made me stop and
who had saved my life. Of course, it was Mulder. I was
having a mystical day, and because of that, I did not hesitate
to tell him about it. Over tea, we talked for hours, about
real things that really mattered. About us and our own lives.
My heart was now open.
"What if there were only one
choice," I mused. "Signs along
the way to pay attention to."
I thought back to the dream I'd had
as the phone woke me, me
standing over my dying body, which was mouthing, "Speak to
me." I was speaking, at last. To Mulder and to me. It felt
so goddamned good. I couldn't believe it. To feel that good
is truly relaxing. It felt as if all the tension of the years
had drained away and I melted bonelessly into the couch. The
hamster sleeps.
Mulder was wonderful, listening, questioning,
so delighted,
obviously, to be taken into my confidence at last. We had
hoarded away so many little nuggets, never willing to risk
full exposure. As my eyes closed, he was deep into the
wonders of fate, "one wrong turn and we wouldn't be sitting
here together at this very moment. Says a lot, a lot, a lot.
.. . ."
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
I think I must have drifted off at
about 9, exhausted by my
discoveries, lack of sleep, and constant running around in a
state of emotional crisis. But Mulder's couch is hard, and by
11, my achy neck asked me to rub it, which I woke up to do. I
stretched, noting that Mulder had covered me and disappeared,
and rose, reaching toward the ceiling to chase the cricks from
my back. I headed for his room to tell him, if he was awake,
that I was leaving.
It was dark. I remembered his whirlwind
trip to England and
assumed that his jetlag had felled him. I stood in the
shadows by his bed, ready to leave but feeling no inclination
to rush away. It struck me that I was finished with running
away. Or maybe I was just dazed from napping at such a strange time.
"Scully?"
I squinted, but could see nothing
but a vague outline. "I
didn't think you were awake. I assumed the jetlag caught
you."
"No," he murmured in a scratchy
voice. "I've been thinking of
all you told me. How many decisions it takes, or even non-
decisions. A lot of the time, we don't even realize we're
deciding. We just act, without thinking, and the path
changes."
I perched on the side of his bed and
thought about what he'd
said. "At first," I said slowly, "I thought that would apply
more to you. Acting without thinking, I mean. But the more
I've thought about the last few days, I see that I . . . I
tend to attribute feelings or actions to you that are really
mine."
He hoisted himself up on his pillow,
his feet brushing my
thigh. "If you really did that. . ." His voice trailed off.
"What?"
There was a long silence. "I
don't think you're ready to go
there." He sounded sad.
What a jolt the last few days had
been. I felt like a
different person, someone who was not being dragged along by
life but was ready to take charge and act. If this moment was
what my whole life was leading to, then why not seize the
moment. God knows, much time had passed since our initial
meeting, so much hesitation, misunderstanding, and fumbling, as
we took turns running from our deepest feelings. I had
decided to stop running. My dream had commanded me to speak.
I did.
I reached out and squeezed his foot.
"Care to define
'there'?" My voice was low and throaty, and my hand moved up
to his ankle.
There was a rustle as he rose from
the pillow and a hand
clamped to mine. He turned my hand over and kissed my palm.
I thought my skin would ignite. I could feel every atom of
his lips as his flesh made contact with mine. Time stopped as
I savored the warmth. Eventually, my other hand moved to the
nape of his neck, playing among the soft, downy hairs. He
felt perfect.
His lips lifted. I felt abandoned.
His voice was very near
now, soft and low. "'There' means 'here,'" he rumbled. "In
my bed. But not if you're not ready," he added. "We have
time."
Time. Yes, we had time. Time to spend
a wondrous night
exploring each other, opening our hearts and minds and
spirits. I knew now that everything, including all the losses
and the horrors, had led to this moment, and I was ready to
embrace it, and him. I stood up and started throwing my
clothes to the floor, and soon, I lay within the cradle of his
warm body.
It was a beautiful night, full of
reverence mixed with passion
and discovery. We also talked a lot, as is our wont. I
discovered that we've managed to accept each other, warts and
all, hanging onto just enough illusion to avoid being
disillusioned. It was really, really right, these magic moments when
for once we were both paying attention.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Time passed, though. Too fast. And
eventually I told Mulder
I had to leave and get ready for work. His jetlag, abetted by
our hours of activity and conversation, at last took its toll,
and in the short time it took me to wash up and get dressed,
he fell into a deep sleep. He looked beautiful. Even though I
hadn't realized it, this was exactly what I wanted: Everything
I should want at this time of my life.
END
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