From: "beduini" Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2001 18:26:20 -0800 Subject: Collection of Moments Source: direct Collection of Moments by beduini Rating: G Category: MSR, Scully POV, Post-Je Souhaite. Or maybe it's both post-Je Souhaite AND post-Requiem. You decide. Archive: Ask me. Disclaimer: It's all free publicity, no money is changing hands. What do you care? I treat them well. Thanks, Deb, for sharing your moment. There are moments of perfect clarity that stand out amidst the usual day-to-day events that compose a life. I remember...my dad coming home from a tour of duty, kissing mom and all of us kids, all before dropping his duffel on the floor. I remember sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night to smoke cigarettes stolen from my mother's purse when I was thirteen. I remember all of the time we spent together as a family, whether it was holidays or special events, taken for granted until the day comes that renders it impossible to repeat. How much more would we enjoy a moment if we recognized it as momentous? If we could, would we weigh the value, savoring it like a fine Merlot, holding it dear from the first instant? Would we stop to mentally record a look or a phrase? Would we attempt to record every precious thought before they escaped, or simply choose the most significant impressions that came to mind, hidden in the subconscious until something triggered its release? I have kept a journal for years, but I starting carrying another journal with me to record the moments that I most wanted to remember. Moments that came unbidden, triggered by a sight or smell, or by a simple spoken phrase overheard in the middle of an ordinary discussion. I kept another journal when I was ill, recording even the most fleeting of my thoughts as cancer raged through my body, burning a path of destruction that was neither slow nor subtle. I had wanted him to know everything, to understand all that was and is me before it was too late. That time, the journal that I kept I wrote for him. And now, I write for the both of us. I remember... He had invited me over for a movie. Had I not known him so well, I'd have taken it at face value, in the spirit of nonchalance that he'd projected. I might have joked about the genre of the film, or the ulterior motive behind the invitation. By that time, we had been sleeping together for more than a month, but there had never been any specific social conventions on either part. Sex did not involve any added enticement or a hidden agenda. I know him better than that. We were in a place of rare mutual contentment, both of us relatively healthy and happy. We had shared more than a few significant moments in our time together, but the personal events stand out in my mind, such as the night he told me about his desire to find his sister. And later, the night he told me that he valued my contribution - that I made him a whole person. Our leap from friends to lovers came late in our friendship, but thankfully, not too late. Not too late. He had rented "Caddyshack" and made popcorn, and we sat in front of the television, on his sofa, with a couple of longneck beers to remind us that we were there for the sole purpose of enjoying ourselves and to spend quiet time together. He seemed upbeat...content. Content - more content than I had ever known or seen in him. When I asked him what occasion prompted him to extend a formal offer to share my company, as it was likely I would have come over, anyway, he told me it "seemed like the thing to do". I nodded, knowing there was much more to it than that, and letting him reveal his purpose me in his own time. His mind worked - *works* - like an elegant perpetual motion machine. One must merely hang on for the duration of the ride until eventually, his story unfolds. As he adjusted the volume on the television, I started peeling the edge of the label off of the beer bottle in my hand, working my thumbnail between the paper and the glass. The movie provided little distraction from my task - the goal was to get the label off in one piece, intact. His focus shifted back and forth, between the movie and my progress. "What do you do with it, once you've got if off the bottle?" he asked after a mouthful of beer, clearly more amused with my endeavor than that of Carl the gardener. That made two of us. It was a good question. This was something that was done but not considered, a habit that I had developed without a great deal of thought. And as I drew in a slow breath, giving the question my full consideration, the memory came back to me. From years before, long before I ever met a Fox Mulder or entertained the idea of choosing the F.B.I. as a career path. Before cancer and the atrocities of men had become my personal acquaintances. "One night, when I was in high school," I began quietly as I continued to work off the label, "I persuaded my sister to take me along with her to a party that she wanted to attend. There was a boy who she was very much interested in, and I think mom figured that Missy couldn't get into too much trouble with me as a chaperone..." I glanced up then, and he was watching me intently, settling into the sofa with a soft smile on his lips. This was a story I had never shared with him, one I'd forgotten myself until the memory was jogged by his simple question. We had shared many hours, but few stories, as his interest belied...and I gleaned more than a little enjoyment out of the role of storyteller. I relished it, and he was an attentive audience. I gave him a quick smile and returned to task on the bottle, having already removed nearly a quarter of the label. "Missy had just started college at the time, and the party was off- base, at a private residence. I remember it was up on Mount Soledad, in a beautiful home with gabled roofs and dormer windows that looked out over the Pacific Ocean. A far cry from the base housing where we spent most of our time." He nodded in encouragement, turning his body into the sofa slightly so that he could face me without turning his head. "Despite the size of the house, it was fairly full by the time we arrived. Missy and I found a place on the sofa in the living room. Everyone one was Missy's age - a college crowd, and, of course, somebody came in with a few six-packs, handing us each a bottle of beer." "Of course," he smiled. "The boy Missy was interested in - I don't remember his name anymore - sat down next to her and they started talking. I overheard him telling her that they were having a contest to see who could remove the label off of a beer bottle without tearing it. So, I decided that I was going to win the contest." I paused to make eye contact. "The only rule of the game was that you had to drink another beer if you tore the label." "What did you win if you removed the label intact?" "I don't know. No one ever told me that part." He nodded slightly and there was a warm gleam in his eye. "So, how many did you have?" he asked. "I had three and Missy had five - this was all before ten p.m. Mom told us to be home by eleven, but we were both too wasted to drive home." "If I'd known you were such an easy drunk, Scully, I'd have been plying you with beer all along." I gave him a recriminating look and the same amused smile that he wore before continued to curve on his lips. He took another sip of beer. "So what happened next?" "The house belonged to the parents of the boy Missy had gone to see, and, surprisingly enough, his parents were out of town for the weekend." "Imagine that." I couldn't help but grin at his tone of mock-surprise. "After a bathroom break, we ended up stumbling into one of the bedrooms upstairs. Missy laid down on the bed and I was on the floor." He shook his head slightly. "Why the floor?" "I don't know." I gave him a brief smile. "But the boy came in at some point and climbed into the bed with Missy." His head tilted back and he opened his mouth to exhale. "Of course, how else does a guy get into a girl's pants once he's loaded her up with beer..." he said with a fair amount of sarcasm. I placed my hand on his arm to reel him back in, knowing that he'd already jumped too far ahead. "Nothing happened. I had the presence of mind to rouse Missy out of the bed. But we couldn't leave the room, because the door was stuck." "What about Romeo?" "Passed out with his face buried in a pillow." Chuckling, he took another sip of beer, watching me under heavy eyelids. I imagined he knew something about that, or perhaps he was just picturing the scene in his head. "So how did you get out?" "We climbed out the window and sat on the roof to sober up. We knew we had to get home, but we started talking and lost track of the time." By this time, I had already loosened more than half of the label, and I took a sip of beer, watching him watch me with interest. "We forgot about everyone and everything, including our curfew. Just Missy and I talking..." I stopped, drawing a deep breath at the memory, seemingly forgotten minutes ago, but now so vivid. "It was one of those times I wish I'd enjoyed more in the moment, Mulder. It was something worth saving, worth holding on to." He nodded, a look of understanding passing across his face. I exhaled long and slow and took a sip of beer as he looked down, assessing the amount of beer left in the bottom of his own bottle. Pondering his response, I was certain. "I've been doing a lot of thinking, Scully, about what you said today. That maybe we aren't meant to be able to circumvent the process, wish or no wish." "What do you mean?" "What if the whole purpose of our lives here on earth is for the experience and knowledge we gain going from birth to death? What if that IS the point?" "That sounds a little like predetermination of fate, Mulder." I took another sip of beer, waiting for him to continue. I suspected that this was why he'd invited me over. To have this conversation. "Predetermination of fate would be us ending up here regardless of what we did along the way, Scully. We could have sat back and scratched our asses while the world passed us by and still made it to this sofa right here, right now." "So, you believe that you and I have traveled this journey not for the purpose of finding the answers to all of the questions that have been raised, but for the experiences we gained while searching for those answers?" He gave a slight shrug and took another long drink from his beer, taking his time. He stared at the floor and I knew he had more to contribute to the subject, so I returned my focus to the bottle in my hand, scratching at the smooth surface underneath the paper once again. The label was nearly three-quarters of the way removed. This subject was not new for us, nor was it a new conversation. We had been discussing our various theories on the meaning of life off and on for years. How it all relates to the two of us specifically had been a much newer conversation, but not brand new, and not something that either of us took lightly. If the reasons for our lives here on earth were about the things we learned along the way, it would mean that the outcome of all of our labor was irrelevant. I don't believe either of us could stand the reality of such a thought, if there were any truth in it. "There's gotta be more to it than that," he said, after a long pause. "The integrity of the journey is important. But there has to be a goal, otherwise, there would be no point in continuing. Everyone would just quit." I looked at him then. Studied him. He had spent the largest part of his adult life in search of the elusive brass ring, and the years had taken their toll on him. He wasn't any less attractive or beloved to me, but his face was a roadmap of where we've been and what we've seen. I'm sure he could see the same events etched into my face as well. Perhaps he was the only person who would ever be able to read my face in that way. The only person who would ever truly know me. "I think they go hand in hand, Mulder. Both are equally important. The value of the goal is in direct correlation to the integrity of the journey. That doesn't mean that the outcome is predetermined." I studied him a moment longer. "It's like you said before...one wrong turn and we wouldn't be sitting here together." A slow grin spread across his face as he tipped the bottle to his lips, looking back at the television. "Yeah, well, I was just trying to get into your pants." "Liar." His eyes crinkled around the corners and he smiled as he took another long drink of beer, finishing off the rest of bottle. When he turned back to face me, I was scraping away the last spot of paper stuck to the nearly empty bottle in my hand. I lifted the label carefully, and raised it, intact, for him to see. He took it from my fingers and held it carefully. "I want more than just this, Scully," he said, his expression turning thoughtful as his fingers slid to the edge of the frail paper so that he could see all of the label. "That's it, Mulder. You've got the whole thing in your hand." He turned and looked at me intently, his eyes turbulent with emotion. "Do I?" I held his gaze steadily, reading him. It was a moment within a moment, another personal milestone for us. I understood what he was asking of me. "You know the answer to that question." He continued to look at me, then nodded, the soft smile returning to his lips. We understood each other perfectly. Leaning over, he placed the label on the bookshelf next to the sofa. "You want another one?" he asked, pointing at my beer bottle and raising himself from the sofa cushions. "Sure." When he returned to the sofa, he wrapped his arm around my shoulders and offered me the cold beer he held in his hand, bottom first. Twisting off the cap, I leaned back into his heat, feeling his arm tighten around me as his hand came to rest at my waist. Then he tilted his unopened beer bottle in front of me so I could twist the cap off for him. We were efficient, if nothing else. "How did you get off the roof?" he asked, after a few sips of cold beer and several moments of satisfied silence that passed while he focused on the movie once again. "Mom sent Bill after us and he made us scoot to the edge of the roof and jump down." He was silent and I tilted my face up to look at him, waiting for a response. He just glanced down and offered a sheepish grin. "What?" He shrugged. "I'm just glad you've got people who look out for you." "I could have broken my leg." I watched as his expression changed from amused to reflective. "Mulder?" He shook his head slightly. "Nothing. Thinking too much." He took another sip of beer and asked, "Are you staying tonight?" I pretended to think about it. "How much beer did you buy?" "How much will it take? I can always get more." "Seriously..." I leaned forward and placed my nearly full bottle on the coffee table as my stomach performed calisthenics on behalf of the popcorn and beer. "This is it for me." "Is something wrong?" he asked, the tone of his voice somber as I settled back against him, feeling his hand press me in closer. "Probably just something I ate. No big deal." He leaned over and kissed the top of my head, and I closed my eyes, focusing on the - "Miss Scully?" Scully looked up from her journal and answered, "Yes?" as Frohike echoed her response. The nurse glanced from Scully to Frohike and back to Scully. "Come on back." Closing the journal, Scully twisted her Cross pen closed and clipped it to the cover of the book. Frohike helped her up out of the preformed plastic seat, shifting nervously from foot to foot. "Hey, shouldn't she have a wheelchair or something?" he asked. "What if she faints again?" "I'm fine, Frohike," Scully answered, somewhat sharply, telling him the subject was not open for further discussion. "People who are fine don't faint dead away in the middle of a sentence," Frohike mumbled as sat down in the seat just recently vacated. He picked up the journal she had been writing in and she gave him a look that was both stern and patient. "Don't read that." "What do I look like, a voyeur?" She raised her eyebrows at him and he added, "Don't answer that." Scully held her hand out for the journal, and he handed it to her. "You don't have to stay," she told him as he folded his arms across his chest. "I'm staying." "I can get a cab home." "I said, I'm staying." She let out a huff of air as she stared at him a moment, then turned toward the nurse who was waiting patiently for her to follow. Frohike looked down, spotting a slip of paper lying on the bare linoleum. "Hey, Scully?" he called after her. He reached down to pick it up, and turning it over in his hands, realized that it was a label peeled from a beer bottle. Scully turned, and he held the slip of paper up for her to see. "Is this yours?" Her expression changed from slightly irritated to unreadable. She walked back toward him, and gently took the label from his fingers. She looked at it a moment, then carefully tucked it in between the pages of the journal. "Thank you," she said, softly. It was then that he could see the vulnerability written across her face. "No problem," he replied, his voice matching hers in tone. They shared a brief look, then she turned, squared her shoulders and walked back down the hallway to where the nurse stood waiting. Fin beduini2@yahoo.com http://www.justduckies.org/beduini