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

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WEBPAGE:  Thanks to Beaker:  http://members.xoom.com/MystPhile/

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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 protg.  "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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