From: MystPhile Date: 19 Jun 2000 05:39:53 GMT Subject: REP: An Expansion, Like Gold 1/2 by MystPhile TITLE: An Expansion, Like Gold 1/2 AUTHOR: MystPhile@aol.com aka Fortunesfool10@aol.com Distribution: Gossamer, Xemplary, Spooky. Others, yes, but please notify. A RATHER CUMBERSOME INTRODUCTION: Several days ago, there was a vigorous discussion on a fanfic list I subscribe to about whether it is hard for a newbie writer to attract attention. Many opinions were expressed, leading me to try an experiment: Write a story and send it out under a different name. I thought this might enlighten me about how newbies fare in this crowded world of fanfic. Now, many had said that a terrific story would be sure to attract attention. I, however, am presently suffering from what may be Lyme Disease and have an incredible malaise and exhaustion, so I could only manage a mid-range story. I also was not able to post it to lists, since the lists I belong to insist on identifying me as MystPhile, no matter what screen name I'm using. Given those conditions, that I could post only to atxc and Ephemeral, here are the results. If I'd posted as MystPhile, I am sure this story would have received a certain amount of feedback. As with all established writers, there are a number of friends and readers who always comment when a new story is posted. I know that within a day, I would have received a healthy number of comments. Written by Fortunesfool10, however, the story received NOT ONE piece of feedback. It did receive a very high number of reads and recs on Ephemeral, but not one of those readers took the time to write to an unknown writer. (This is contrary to what a number of listmembers said, about the wish to encourage new writers-- no one encouraged poor Fortunesfool, showing, apparently, that she had chosen an appropriate pseudonym---or that she was too hopeless to merit any words of encouragement!). Is there a moral? Perhaps not, but I did find it fascinating how much difference a name attached to a story makes. And I urge newbies who wish to be "discovered" to write a better story than the one below! Classification: Post-EP Requiem, MSR, SA Rating: NC-17 SUMMARY: We all know that eventually Mulder will return. After four months of his absence, poor Scully is not nearly so sure. Spoilers: Requiem DISCLAIMER: Property of 1013 FEEDBACK: Please "Our two souls therefore, which are one, Though I must go, endure not yet A breach, but an expansion, Like gold to airy thinness beat." ------from John Donne, "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" Scully's eyes flew open. Her heart drummed in a deafening fury, as though it were ready to tear through her ribs and sail off into the black night air. What had awakened her? A sag in her mattress. A movement behind her in bed. Yes, that was it. Her senses went onto red alert, panic flaring as she realized she must save not only herself but the child she sheltered within. He was all she had left. How had she become so helpless, she who had spent so many years waking at the slightest sound? Her years in med school had taught her to catch naps whenever possible, to wake immediately, spring to her feet, clear her head, think rationally and act coolly. Her years as an intern had further honed these abilities. Later, her years with the X-Files had called upon these skills constantly, as "things" inevitably went bump in the night or Mulder conceived of either a brilliant idea or a foolish scheme at some wildly inconvenient hour. But now, these hard-won abilities had vanished. These past few months had wrought their changes, both physically and emotionally. Scully was drained from the effort of seeking out every clue, every lead, that might recover her partner. She was discouraged, and she was drooping with fatigue. She would begin each day with fresh determination, but at the end, she would crawl into bed, her will shrunken and withered. As her stomach expanded, her spirit dwindled. And physically, the changes were enormous. A twelve-hour day, once routine, sapped all her strength. Now, when she collapsed into her bed, at an ever earlier hour, she was not alert. Rather, she had become inert. Her hormones had conquered her will, and she could feel herself melting into her sheets, her bones disappearing as her flesh spread and . . .and, she thought to herself, puddled upon the mattress. It was as if she was sinking into the Martha Stewart flowers that adorned her bed. She was as tired, as inert, as unable to move as a set of sheets, a mattress, a bed. Sleep held her in its grip, these days. It not only gripped her; it cradled her, nourished her, offered her a sanctuary. Only in sleep could she escape the truth, that she might have lost her partner forever. That all her alleged skills were getting her nowhere. That she, Dana Scully, was ineffectual and caught up in an inexorable slide toward despair. That sleep, that entity that had formerly refreshed her and from whose arms she could tear herself in four seconds, had become her escape from all that blighted her life. That she clung to it like an infant to its mother's breast. That right now, she was trapped, for SOMETHING was in her bed and she was unable to wake up fast enough to fight. She had failed. At everything. Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx The fear lasted only an instant. Then her mind began to work, her senses to assess the facts. Her heart's pounding quieted, and she heard only a slight movement behind her, like hips sliding downward. Her sense of smell returned. She allowed herself to hope. She was convinced that she recognized that scent. A hand touched her shoulder, and her heartbeat returned to normal; her breathing slowed. Her eyes closed, the better to experience the warm palm, familiar as her own and much loved, that moved from her shoulder to the nape of her neck. Soft lips followed the touch on her neck, lingered there. She heard a sniff behind her, as if he were smelling her hair. Was it a dream? It all felt so real. But then, dreams could. "Mulder?" "Yeah, it's me." He chuckled. "Who else you expecting?" His head came to rest on hers, his hand remaining lightly on her neck. Damn, he felt real. She reached up to touch him. His cheeks were stubbly, his hair felt long. "Is it really you?" He snorted in her ear and followed it with a kiss. It acted like him. But then, of course, if she were dreaming him, she would be likely to dream him in character, she thought. Wouldn't she? Maybe if they talked. Maybe then she could decide just how sick she was. "Where've you been?" There was a long pause and his head came to rest on hers again. "You know, I really can't answer that," he said, sounding puzzled and a bit surprised. She kept her voice soft, desperate not to wake up. Perhaps the dream Mulder would serve as some kind of substitute. A fantasy Mulder was better than none. "Why?" "I don't have a really good memory," he murmured. "And the oddest thing. . ." "What?" "I just realized how much I don't remember. It just . . . didn't occur to me before." His head lifted from hers and fell onto the pillow behind her, close enough for his breath to move her hair. His hand continued to rub her shoulder, but she thought it continued its movements automatically while his mind raced, filed, and catalogued. She'd always been able to feel him thinking. The air behind her held a certain energy. "The place was bright," he mused, "and I was tested a lot." "By whom?" "I . . .don't know. They were. . . forms, entities, not anything I can actually remember. More spirit than flesh, I think." She felt him shift onto his back, so she turned over to face him, trying to see him in the darkness. She couldn't, though. His voice continued, and she could feel the warmth of his body several inches away. She reached out to touch him. Ah. That certainly felt like his arm. "The tests," he was saying. "They weren't . . . physical tests. None of this shit we've always talked about like alien probes." She touched his chest. Rubbed her fingers across the soft hair. God, it felt like Mulder. "What kind of tests, then, if not physical?" He paused, touched her hand, held it. "They turned me inside out. . . without ever really touching me. They accessed every thought. They studied my brain, my thought processes. They probed me to . . . understand the way I think, the way I feel. They took me apart, every atom of me. All without touching me. I have no secrets. I have been totally explored on every conceivable level." She thought for a moment. "Do you feel . . . violated? Invaded?" He sighed. "I didn't feel anything. That's the strange part. No resistance was possible. I couldn't shut them out or even summon up a desire to try. It's like I was tranquilized or hypnotized or something. Their will was done. My will was gone. I had no desires." He paused. "It's like I didn't exist. Me, I mean. Someone was there, but it belonged to them. It was totally in their power. It had no volition." "That's creepy." She paused, trying to articulate. "Like they made YOU cease to exist. At the same time they were trying to find out all about you. How could they study you if you faded away before their power? It seems so contradictory." He squeezed her hand. "I'm just realizing this now," he said. "It's as though I had no thoughts at all at the time. No sense of self, or violation, or anything." He paused. "I didn't like them or fear them or feel anything. I was like an ant under a microscope, little more than an insect to them. I ceased to be, I guess. I was gone." You sure were, she thought. God, I hope this is you and not my wishful dream. "How did you get here?" There was a long silence as he continued to clasp her hand which rested on his chest. "I have no idea," he confessed. "Shit," she said. "This is like the mushroom dream when you thought the aliens delivered you to the door of your apartment. Only this time, it's my dream. You're not even here. Shit," she repeated. Just when she'd been letting her hopes rise. "I'm real," he insisted. "I am." She wrested her hand away and folded her arms as if to shield herself from the disappointment, from the reality that would again enfold her as she awoke. She didn't want to return to life without Mulder. She preferred her fantasy, idiotic as it was. And it was idiotic, she thought. Imagine, a Mulder who passively let himself be violated and came back with no information whatever. The real Mulder should have turned THEM inside out with his curiosity. The figure beside her in the bed turned, lowered his head to hers, and thrust his tongue into her mouth, pushing, caressing, probing, tasting. God, it felt like Mulder, tasted like him, excited her as he did. His hands tangled in her hair and pulled her body sideways, moving to stroke her cheeks as his tongue continued its regular strokes against hers. Their breaths became audible and rapid. She pushed him back. She'd had a wild thought. "Did you have clothes?" she asked him quickly, gulping for breath. "Are you saying they dropped you off here, nude?" "My clothes are on the floor," he said, pulling her head closer to his. "I dropped them before I got into bed. It's me, Scully. I don't understand why you can't accept that. Don't I feel like me?" His tongue resumed pushing against hers as his hand moved down to cup her breast. It stopped. It weighed the flesh. Tried to gather it into his palm. Failed. "Jesus, Scully, what is this?" Thoroughly confused by now, seeing as how this guy was acting EXACTLY like Mulder, Scully rolled over onto her back and said, "Keep moving the hand downward, Mulder. Tell me what you feel." His hand left her breast and encountered a slope. Back and forth it slid, over the slope. "Jesus Christ, Scully. Am I still there? Wherever the hell it was? Is this a mind game they're playing?" His voice broke. "I can't take much more of this. What more can they do to me? Giving you back to me. Like this. I just don't understand. Fuck," he exclaimed in frustration. She grabbed his hand, held it to her swollen stomach. "Mulder," she said softly. She squeezed his hand, rubbed it gently. "Tell me something. How long do you think you were gone?" He was silent. "I didn't think about that either," he confessed. "I didn't think about anything, you know? I remember being taken by a bright light." He paused, groping for words. "This stuff happened, but I wasn't feeling too involved in whatever the hell they were doing to me. And that's really weird, isn't it, that I wouldn't give a fuck about all that. And then, after they finished with whatever it was, I was standing in front of your door. Wearing the same clothes I had on when they took me in Oregon. I guess they DO give door-to-door service," he mused. "How long do you think you were gone?" she repeated, in a more urgent voice. "Don't know," he said. "I didn't think about anything. I don't know anything. Jesus! Gone. Two or three days? A week?" "Try 18 weeks." "Oh, shit." He fell back onto his pillow and let out a loud groan. Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Some minutes passed during which everyone tried to come to terms with the impossible. They lay there thinking, each trying to deal with the sense of unreality brought on by the night's events. Finally, Mulder turned onto his side, laid his hand on the slope of Scully's stomach, and spoke. "It's mine, right?" She sighed. "No, Mulder. I was just waiting for you to be snatched by aliens so I could finally get it on with Skinner. You asshole." It was his turn to sigh. "Apparently, you've had a hell of a time while I was gone." He leaned over to kiss her lightly. "I remember how tough it was for me when you were taken. And I wasn't pregnant." A thought struck him. "Speaking of which, how could you be pregnant?" He felt her shrug. "Choose your theory. All the ova weren't taken? Something cured me along the way, like the chip cured the cancer? Contact with the spaceship in Africa which had the power to raise the dead? Whatever. I've been too busy dealing with the fact that I am pregnant and searching for you to get to het up about the means." He nodded. "And is this a Mr. or Ms. Scully-Mulder lurking in there? Do you know?" "Mister." They were once again silent. "Mulder?" Her voice sounded like that of a forlorn little girl. "Um?" "How do you feel about it? Him." He turned over and pulled her into his arms. "I'm sorry, Scully. Everything's been such a shock tonight. You've had all this time to get used to the situation, but . . ." He broke off as he felt her tears running onto his thumb. "What's wrong?" She sniffed. "Hormones, I guess. I've been looking for you every day for 18 weeks. I'm so afraid that whoever THEY are, they're going to try to do something to the baby. When I felt you get into bed, I was sure they were coming to abort me. I don't feel a hell of a lot safer now, since you've described the kind of power those, those, those THINGS have over us. If they can drop you off here, they can stop back and pick up all three of us, never to be seen again." She sniffed again, noisily. Her voice broke. "And I've told you I'm carrying your son, and I have yet to see any meaningful reaction. Do you want this kid? Are you sorry?" Her control, held rigidly in place for so many months, finally crumbled. She shrieked, "I have no idea how you feel!" He nestled her into his shoulder, wrapping his arms and legs around her, rubbing her back steadily. "I'm sorry. Nothing could make me happier." "Really," she sobbed. Damned hormones, she thought. Who'd ever thought I'd be like this. Shit. "Before I left," he said softly, pushing her hair back and continuing to rub her back, "I was so sad thinking you'd never have kids. Apparently, you were already pregnant at the time. And I want kids too. Your kids. I was such an unhappy kid myself . . . " "You want to do a better job with your own kid," she finished for him. "It's a miracle," he whispered, kissing her teary eyelids and licking the salt from her cheeks. "I'm sorry I didn't say so right away. I think . . . I'm in shock." "You are not alone," she said, pulling herself from his arms and groping for tissues. She sat up and blew her nose. Kneeling on the bed, she reached for the lamp switch. "Time for some light, I think." Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx PART II Both blinked, then gasped. Mulder was skinny, almost scrawny, his hair long and unkempt. Scully's hair too was longer, but other than that, her body weight had gone in the opposite direction, expanding as he contracted. "Jack Spratt," she muttered. "You're concave and I'm convex." "You're beautiful," he said, sitting up to face her as she knelt before him. He unbuttoned her night shirt and pushed it from her shoulders, letting it waft to the floor. Now they were both nude. He felt her hair. "It's grown a lot." "It's really different," she said. "Kind of coarse and unmanageable. Its texture changed. I don't know what to do with it, but I haven't had time to think about it." She touched his hair. "Have you looked at your own 'do?" He shook his head. "It's almost to your shoulders," she said, examining the ends. "And it looks as if they whacked it off somewhere along the way." "The alien haircut. All the rage." He scrutinized her face. "Your face is . . . wider, somehow. It changed shape. You're a shapeshifter." "I'm a chipmunk," she corrected him. "I hate my chubby cheeks." "I love the way you look. I just wish you didn't look so tired." "Well, it's been rough," she confessed. "I've been beside myself worrying about you and whether they'd come for the baby." "Has anyone tried?" "Not that I know of." She gave a faint smile. "But you taught me to be paranoid, Mulder. I learned my lesson well." She touched his collar bone, his ribs. "You are so skinny. Didn't they ever feed you?" "I have no recollection of being nourished. I have a piss poor recollection of everything." He looked off into the distance. "Hypnosis? Think it's worth a try?" "Can't hurt." His hands brushed her breasts. Lifted them again. "Bazooms," he muttered. He caressed her stomach. "You in there, Junior?" he asked it. He kissed her belly button. "Your old man's come back." Scully clasped her hands around his neck and held him to her stomach. She finally believed that this was really happening. She didn't have a rationale for her faith at this point. There was every reason to think that her subconscious was engaging in an extended and detailed bout of wishful thinking. But . . . she wanted to believe. Tears stung her eyes. This was what she'd waited for all these months. It was a wish come true. She still didn't feel safe, but she felt . . . safe. Mulder, in the meantime, was deeply engaged with her enlarged abdomen. He was going over every inch, with fingertips and lips, more thoroughly than he had ever inspected a crime scene. He seemed mesmerized by her impending motherhood. But there was another part of Scully's dream that was still missing. It had been partially addressed when the lights were still out, before Mulder had felt the significant mound of her stomach. Then, his lips had been insistent, his tongue probing, and her libido soaring. Four and a half months without her lover. Another reason to rejoice in Mulder's return. Mulder, however, seemed besotted by her stomach. She wondered if he had a Madonna complex. "Mulder?" "Umm?" "Aren't you, uh, glad to see me? After all this time?" He kissed her stomach. "Scully, I didn't realize how much time had passed, but I am ecstatic to see you, believe me. You and Junior." "There's more to me than that lump, you know. Do you, um, think I'm unattractive now that I'm heavy? Or see me as the maternal type?" She shrugged, growing tired of all the euphemisms and the futzing around. "Don't you want to make love, for Christ's sake?" Mulder sat up, bewildered. "This is all happening really fast for me, Scully. I find out I'm going to be a father. I find out I've been gone for months and months. I discover that I remember almost nothing and apparently, in the universe, there are these creatures with incredible power over us who now know my every thought and feeling. You've suggested we may all be in danger from them. Pardon me if my libido isn't exactly standing up to salute at this exact minute." Depressed and somewhat rejected, Scully flopped down onto the bed. The sex had been so fantastic in the few months before Mulder was taken. He'd made her feel like a goddess, the most desirable woman in the world. Now she felt like a slightly used pillow, thick and stuffed and good to rest one's head on. Maybe it's a dream, she told herself. Maybe when the real Mulder returns, he'll be horny as hell. On the other hand, if this is a dream, why wouldn't I make it hot and imaginative? Shit. "You're seeing me as a mother," she accused him. "You don't want to profane me. You don't want to be a motherfucker." "Jesus, Scully. That's beneath you," he snarled. "That sounds like something I'd say. What's come over you?" "Pregnant women are moody and hormonal," she explained. "If you'd been here earlier, you'd realize that." "I was busy having my being probed by aliens," he noted, sarcasm in full bloom. "Admit it, I don't turn you on," she persisted. It was one of those times when she knew she was digging a deep hole, but some stubborn part of her kept the machine running anyway. "The romance is over. You can't see past my big belly." Mulder flopped onto the bed and turned his back on her. "I can't see past your big attitude," he retorted. "Jesus, Scully, I come home. Even the aliens, having probed my every thought, know to bring me to you. Couldn't you simply welcome me back? When I came back to the earth, I came to you. You are home." Scully felt like a snail, trailing slime and dirt in her wake. She touched Mulder's back, ran her fingers down his bony spine. "You're right. I am so glad you're here. I don't know what's wrong with me. I apologize from the depths of my being. Why don't you get some sleep. You must be exhausted from whatever they were doing to you. Or food. You're wasting away. Let me get you some leftover pasta. I can have it heated in four minutes. Just tell me what you want, Mulder." He sighed. "It's okay. You've been going mad all this time, and I wasn't even aware of the passing of time. And you've been dealing with being pregnant and afraid, all the time. Just keep rubbing my back, please. It makes me feel good." Scully shifted to both hands, giving him a deep muscle rub. He murmured dreamily as she pressed and kneaded the tensions away. Eventually, he turned over. "Your turn," he said. "You're probably achy from carrying the extra weight around." Scully rolled to her side, letting him ease the tension in her back. "Are you really home?" she asked. "I kept thinking it was a dream. Is a dream." "Did you dream about my coming back?" "Sometimes," she said honestly. "But lately, I'm so tired, I can't even remember my dreams. I just collapse." His hands moved down to rub her ass and the tops and sides of her thighs. She made a little sound of pleasure. "Did you ever think of me while you were gone?" she asked. She dreaded the answer she knew was coming. It came. "I don't remember. I know what you want to hear, but we, we don't tell each other what we want to hear, when it's not the truth. We never have. I hope we never will. The truth is, I don't even recall thinking of ME. My mind is pretty much a blank. There were presences, they found out everything there is to know about every piece of me." He paused, tickling the back of her knees. "I suppose, by that token, they know everything I know and feel about you. You've been exposed to them, just as I have. I'm sorry about that." Scully turned onto her back, a feeling of peace stealing over her. "That can't be helped," she said simply. "I'm a part of you. You're a part of me." "I wish I could say I missed you," he said, leaning over her and kissing her lips gently. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held him close. "You didn't even know YOU were missing you," she smiled. "You were absent for a lot of your absence, apparently." "They got me; they got you," he mused. "A package deal." His lips moved down her chin, her neck, her collar bone, to her shoulder. Scully felt sweat break out everywhere, her body eager for the touch that had been missing for so long. But she couldn't forget what'd happened a few minutes ago. "You don't have to do that," she told him. "Let's just curl up and go to sleep. We'll have other times together." He captured her breast. "I lost time," he said simply. "I think I should give some of it back. Or get some of it back. Whatever." His lips closed over her nipple and she wrapped her arm around his head, guiding him, relishing the rhythmic pulse in his jaw. Her hand slid down and grasped him, and she felt him harden and thicken. He felt wonderful, after all this time. She had begun to forget exactly how he felt, the smoothness of his delicate skin, where the little bumps were, how the ridge felt, the crisp wiry hedge of pubic hair. Yet she feared that she'd maneuvered him into sex when he was really too tired and disoriented to go through with it. It occurred to her that he was probably suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress and there she was, rubbing at his penis to assuage her own selfish needs. She could damned well wait a day or two or three. What was wrong with her. "Stop," she said. "You need to rest, and I'm being selfish. Let's do this another time." "Scully," he said, leaning over her, propped on his elbow, "do me the favor of believing I know what I want and what I'm capable of. I want to make love to you. Yes, one reason is that I know you want it. You need it. You made that quite clear. But I need it too. Your needs are my needs. Don't you know that by now?" He moved his hand down over the curve of her stomach and inserted his fingers. "Feels like the tropics," he told her with a broad smile. "You are steaming." He laughed. "It's a jungle in there." As she laughed, he lowered his head to join his fingers. The thrust of his tongue stopped her laughter as abruptly as if the needle had been jerked off a record. "Oh, God, God, God," she moaned, as he bent to his task, bringing her to a climax in what could not have been more than two minutes. He kissed her mouth, offering her a taste of herself. She wrapped her arms around him and accepted his tongue, exploring his mouth and losing herself in its heat. When he lifted his head, he said, "That was probably some Olympic record for a female orgasm, don't you think? Gold? Silver?" She just smiled and cupped his balls in one hand, wrapping the other around the base of his penis. "You may break a record yourself," she noted. "You may not realize it, but it's been a long time. Unless, that is, the aliens have some service you're not telling me about." He laughed and thrust into her hand. "Nah, you're the only one who knows what I like." He rolled them over to their sides. "Scully?" "Hmm?" She was stroking him steadily, stopping occasionally to rub moisture around the tip with her thumb. Her head was buried in his chest where she was licking and nipping at his tiny nipples. "Is there anything we shouldn't do? Now that you're pregnant, that is?" She stopped licking and looked up. She gave him a very sweet kiss on the mouth. And a big smile. "I'm sure there are things we shouldn't do, like whipping my belly with a cat 'o nine tails or some arcane thing like that. But we don't hurt each other, so whatever we do is safe." Mulder flung himself onto his back, helping her climb over to straddle his hips. She leaned over for a few minutes to take his cock in her mouth. It felt like there were too many dishes at the feast, all demanding to be tasted at once. Surely, she thought, they'd have time to catch up and take their time bestowing pleasure instead of trying to do it all at one sitting. Or lying, her sardonic self added. Mulder gently pulled her head away. "If you want me to spend more than three seconds inside you, the time is now," he informed her. He looked pensive. "What's wrong?" she asked, hovering over him. "What you said about our not hurting each other," he said. "Is that true? I've hurt you more times than I can count. Not least of which is your association with me that resulted in your being taken and experimented upon. And if that isn't enough, when I get taken, they also find out all about you. It's like you get taken, no matter what. I have hurt you, Scully. It's what I was saying back in Oregon. This has cost you so much. And that was before the last four months, another big item on the tab." Scully sighed. Couldn't they ever have some simple, mindless sex? Must it be mixed with angst? "Mulder," she said, lowering herself onto his penis and eliciting a groan from him, "it's too late to ask for separate bills." She rocked back and forth, tightening her hold. He grasped her hips and rotated her body over his. "My costs are your costs, and vice-versa. My benefits and yours are the same. There's. . ." she paused for a moment to catch her breath and concentrate on her movement and the sensations that were assailing her, . . . "there's just us at this point. Three of us now. There's no possibility. . . " she gasped, moving faster, . . . "of separation. We are. . . " She broke off, and he finished her thought in a joyful shout, eyes closed and face triumphant. "One." Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx "If they be two, they are two so As stiff twin compasses are two: Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if the other do; And through it in the center sit, Yet when the other far doth roam, It leans, and hearkens after it, And grows erect, as that comes home. Such wilt thou be to me, who must, Like the other foot, obliquely run; Thy firmness makes my circle just, And makes me end where I begun." ---from John Donne, "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" END