From starbright1@juno.com Thu Jan 30 22:25:31 1997 Pygmalion III: Apollo and Daphne (1/1) by Starbright Rating: mild PG Classifications: MSR Keywords: Valentines Day story, Mulder/Scully Romance Summary: Mulder. Scully. Valentines Day. by now, it should be painfully obvious that i don't own these characters. they belong to he whose name shall never pass my lips again unless 'never again' is *a lot* better than i think it's going to be. okay, okay, for those of you who actually bother with my stories and who are currently freaking out 'cause it's pygmalion III, i *finally* came up with a name for the series and that's it. :-D the parts so far are: 1. pygmalion I: the twelve days of x-mas 2. pygmalion II: past tense 3. pygmalion III: apollo and daphne for those of you who are *at all* curious about the title, pygmalion was some roman sculptor who'd sworn off women until he fell madly in love with a sculpture of a beautiful woman that he'd carved. he prayed to venus to make him stone so he could be with the woman forever, but she gave the statue life instead and *yes*, my fair lady is based on this same concept. ;) and a bit of greek trivia. apollo was the god of light. daphne was the river nymph that he fell in love with. :D and remember, i love comments (how else could i tell if this series is sucking??) send lots to starbright1@juno.com ================================================================== 57 Monroe Street 6:35 am February 14, 1997 Fox Mulder pulled himself off of the couch relying on sheer will alone. His will was stronger than he remembered. When he was a mediocre breaststroker on the Oxford swim team, he had consistently relied on his will to get him to the other end of a 200-meter breaststroke. It didn't always work. But in this particular instance, his will didn't let him down. Once standing, he reeled in the direction of the bathroom. Cold water, liberally applied, revived him somewhat. He squinted at his reflection in distaste, wondering for the zillionth time why he lived in Rockville. Boxers, shirt, pants, socks, tie, jacket made their way to his frame, assembling in what he only assumed was a passable arrangement. He shrugged into his trenchcoat, patting the pocket and feeling the familiar weight bang against his midthigh. He smiled sleepily. It was beautiful. She deserved it. His smile vanished. Scully had barely been to work since the disastrous incident with Chiron. She had insisted on taking only three weeks of the six week leave Mulder had advised and Skinner had endorsed. When pressed, she admitted that she didn't want to be home too long. She didn't want her mother to be able to reach her. Mulder shook his head. Margaret Scully had made a bad, bad decision, one that would probably haunt her for months or years to come. He shook his head again. This was Valentine's Day and Scully was coming back. And even if he didn't believe in the first, the second was reason enough to celebrate. The object in his pocket struck against his leg again. * * * * 921 Philadelphia Avenue 7:45 am She no longer had a bathrobe. There was absolutely no way she could've kept the one she was wearing when *he* showed up. Chiron Cat's Eye in Draco. The man from 2487. The man who didn't look a day over 35 but was instead closer to 65. The man who fascinated her. The man she could've fallen in love with. The man who was, in actuality, her biological father. The story her mother told would've made a wild science fiction tale except for the fact that it was true. In 1967, her mother had run away from home, she'd been 17, which made her now only 47. Another lie! She ran away to the Haight-Ashbury and there she'd met and fallen in love with Chiron Cat's Eye in Draco. ~Like mother, like daughter,~ thought Scully bitterly. He had fathered a child before returning to 2487. Scully. And now it seemed that Chiron and her mother had taken up where they'd left off. Of course, they both felt terrible about the lies they'd told, especially her mother. The reality of her situation hit her again and she sat down. Hard. The man she'd thought was her father was not. The men she'd thought were her brothers were not. The dead woman she'd mourned as her sister was not. A conspiracy, right in my own family. No wonder Mulder likes me so much. A wry smile crept across her face. It metamorphisized into a real smile. It was time to stop wallowing in self-pity. She carefully dabbed at her mascara. Now how did that get smudged? * * * * X-Files Division 8:34 am He had considered poetry. Most of the snatches he knew by heart were either lewd or romantic and totally inappropriate. Phoebe had liked Shakespeare and he had memorized Shakespeare, just to please her. But it was like work, and not very pleasant work at that. Like in high school, when the teachers assigned Dickens and he'd go and read Fitzgerald just because it wasn't assigned. Sometimes, on the side, he'd memorize a little Ginsberg or O'Hara, just to keep from going crazy with all the 'thee's and 'thou's. He placed the package on Scully's desk and fiddled with it. It was so small and square. The paper was glossy white and the ribbon was a translucent red. The package was naked somehow. "Oh what the hell," he half-thought, half-muttered. Grabbing a small piece of paper, he copied a poem from his memory as legibly as possible. When he was finished, he sat at his desk and futilely tried to concentrate on the expense report he was working on. * * * * 9:04 am There was something alien on her desk. It was very obvious, sitting forlornly (how could a package be forlorn?) in the middle of the almost forced neatness of the desktop. She ventured a sideways glance. Mulder was concentrating a little *too* hard on his computer screen. Of course the gift was from him. She allowed herself a small, secret smile. "How are you, Scully?" asked Mulder, rising to help her out of her coat, but barely touching her shoulders to do it. "I'm feeling better and I'm not going to break, Mulder." "Sorry." He retreated back to his desk and tried very hard not to look at the package. Mulder's anxiousness was catching. She sat at her desk and picked up the gift, a small piece of paper fluttered out from under the ribbon. Picking it up, she read it, murmuring the words to herself. To the Harbormaster. Unexpected moistness sprang to her eyes as a fleeting thought of her fath...no...of William Scully passed through her mind. Unobtrusively wiping her eyes, she continued reading. I wanted to be sure to reach you; though my ship was on the way it got caught in some moorings. I am always tying up and then deciding to depart. In storms and at sunset, with the metallic coils of the tide around my fathomless arms, I am unable to understand the forms of my vanity or I am hard alee with my Polish rudder in my hand and the sun sinking. To you I offer my hull and the tattered cordage of my will. The terrible channels where the wind drives me against the brown lips of the reeds are not all behind me. Yet I trust the sanity of my vessel; and if it sinks, it may well be in answer to the reasoning of the eternal voices, the waves which have kept me from reaching you. She was surprised. She'd expected something traditional, like Shakespeare. This seemed more appropriate. True friendship was in this poem, with a whiff of something else. Mulder spoke, his voice rusty from the long silence. "Frank O'Hara. Little known poet of the beat generation," he explained, almost timidly. She nodded but said nothing, turning her attention to the mysterious box. Inserting a finger under the paper, she tore the wrapping. Underneath cardboard and a mound of tissue paper, she found a heavy object. Drawing it out into the light, she was able to examine it fully. It was a glass orb. Obviously hand blown. Obviously very old. The glass was wavy in the weak florescent lights of the office, but the distortion did not conceal the object encased within. A rosebud, partially opened. So red it was almost maroon. It seemed to move and wave in an invisible breeze, even inside the glass, which bubbled around it. The complete effect was that of a rose enveloped in a single dewdrop. Scully looked up, startled. A million thoughts crowded into her brain at once. Red roses were for passion, for consummated love. What did Mulder mean? Why did he give her this? Why now? "Thank you," was all she said. THE END.