From: ephemeral@ephemeralfic.org
Date: 26 Apr 2005 03:21:17 -0000
Subject: Dollhouse by pdb
Source: direct

Reply To: PixieDustBunny@hotmail.com


Dollhouse

Author: pdb
Category: M/S friendship hint MSR, V, A
Timeline: post Truth
Disclaimer: Mulder: not mine.  Scully: not mine. Emily: well, 
you get the picture.
Summary: She just wants to keep them safe.

Dollhouse:

Scully wondered whether she had ever actually wished for the 
American Dream.  Two kids, a dog, a house.  These constants in 
the daily life of the average American seemed so incredibly 
foreign.  With a bitter laugh she realized she was more familiar 
with alien beings and space crafts than white picket fences.  
Mulder looked over at her from the driver's seat, but she 
refused to break her reverie, instead staring out her own 
window.

In a way, she supposed, she did want the house full of loved 
ones.  Just not the way that was ever seen or even practical in 
the American lifestyle.  It certainly couldn't fit in hers.

Life was just too damn difficult.  Scully wondered at what point 
she had become so cynical.  She supposed she was a product of 
her environment, jaded by the pain that environment inflicted 
upon her.  Even so, she had this incredible longing for the 
ideal life.


She thought about all of the people she had lost in the past 
decade.  Those who drifted in and out of her life, their 
presence fleeting, their memory lingering.  

Gibson Praise, that poor man child who never had the chance to 
live, instead his existence became justified only by the 
experiments inflicted upon him.   Cassandra Spender, whose life 
followed a similar path, though at some point she embraced it, 
chose it.  She had the faith in others that Scully was lacking.  
Cassandra suffered for it, though.  Maybe it was her childlike 
naivete that made Scully so fond of her.  Scully wanted to 
protect both of them.

Then there were those who did not even have time to establish 
themselves as any kind of fixture in her life: her own children.  
Emily Sims and William Scully-Mulder: both played such important 
roles in the development of their mother, giving her, if only 
momentarily, faith in the human race.

Her family, always there, if not always positive.  She knew as 
well as they did that her best interests were all she had in 
mind, but it was so hard relating to these people.  Scully 
wasn't even sure if they knew who she was anymore.

Then Mulder. He was her lifeline, her means of existence.  Even 
as they drifted farther apart and closer together during the 
most difficult parts of the journey, he was always there for 
her.  To know that this man willingly accepted the role of the 
unconditional lover, in whatever terms, gave her such an immense 
feeling of warmth.

As she sat beside him in the car, driving down a nameless 
highway, she thought of those that impacted her life.  How much 
some, like Emily and Gibson, had suffered.  How much she had 
hurt others, like her mother.

Even with the impending threat of alien invasion and 
consequential colonization, she couldn't shake the need to 
protect all of them.  Gather them up like her own charges, keep 
them safe in a house.  A dollhouse.

When she was a young girl, she used to play with her dolls for 
hours on end.  At one point, when she was around eight years 
old, her brothers had poked fun at her dolls, saying that she 
was too much of a girl to handle a bee-bee gun.  After that, she 
only took out her dolls behind closed doors.

Young Dana Scully was an optimist, giving her Barbie dolls the 
picture-perfect life.  After coping with moving and all its 
trials, she had given her Barbies the life her father's career 
did not allow her to have.  Her dolls were surrounded by all of 
their loved ones, never saying good-bye to move to another base.  

Her dolls all lived in one dollhouse.  After all, Dana only had 
one.  She would cram mothers, fathers, children, friends--almost 
twenty dolls total--in her cardboard doll house.  Their, as 
supreme matriarch, her favorite Barbie would protect and care 
for them.

There own little microcosm.

Scully wished fervently for that microcosm.  All of her loved 
ones would be there.  After all, with Barbie dolls, the 
resurrection of a passed doll was performed merely by pulling 
the doll from behind her back and setting it in one of the 
dollhouse rooms.

Running away from her loved ones, into the abyss of anonymity, 
made Scully feel like a coward.  It could not be avoided, she 
supposed, and she could not protect them anyway.  She was not 
able to save her own son.

Mulder reached across the median console and grabbed her hand, 
pulling her out of her reverie.  He smiled, empathetic, wanting 
to take away her pain, but just as willing to share it when it 
would not go away.

Maybe running away wasn't so bad after all.  After all, there'd 
always be at least one doll in her life.

a/n: okay, so this might be crap.  i just had to stop studying 
for a bit.  Comments, please at pixiedustbunny@hotmail.com