From: Audrey Roget Date: 22 Apr 1999 00:04:09 -0700 Subject: NEW: "Flyleaf" by Audrey Roget/Milagro post-ep TITLE: Flyleaf AUTHOR: Audrey Roget E-MAIL ADDRESS: audrey_roget@yahoo.com DISTRIBUTION: Please forward to ATXC; archive at Gossamer; others please flatter me by requesting permission first. SPOILERS: Milagro CLASSIFICATION: Post-ep vignette, Scully POV, MSR-ish SUMMARY: For about three seconds, I actually held out hope that they'd show Padgett rewriting the love scene, once he had realized why Scully couldn't "return the gesture." Consider that a starting point. Oh, and to those who dissed Chris over Padgett's pretentious wordsmithing - nobody said the MOTW was supposed to be a *good* writer. FEEDBACK: Oh, by all means, yes. DISCLAIMER: No infringement intended, no profit earned. No harm, no foul. Flyleaf By Audrey Roget "His sensual, courtly fingers sweep the length of her body, whispering over her bare feet and toned calves, tracing the contours of her thigh and hip through the barrier of her elegant but confining skirt. His ferine hazel eyes skim over the shiny fabric of her blouse. As he wordlessly maneuvers the first button, she drapes the back of one genteel hand across her forehead and gazes up at him languorously like a Renaissance nymph. Believing she is raising her hand to halt him, he pauses momentarily, his own hand hovering above her heart. Still venturing no comment, he continues his efforts, emboldened by the unmistakable desire rising from the depths of her aquamarine eyes. Exploding the silence into a thousand irretrievable shards, she utters a single word: `Fox.' The syllable pries itself from her throat and he savors the vibration beneath his tongue as it explores her clavicle, breastbone, and newly revealed territories further south. How many years has he waited to hear his given name fall from those lush lips? Has anyone ever called out to him so softly and in such profound hunger?" I know it's poor manners to think unkindly of the dead, but there is no mystery as to why Phillip Padgett's fifteen minutes of fame took the form of a three-inch story on page 37 of the Washington Post, rather than a spot on the New York Times bestseller list. I stand in the apartment next to Mulder's, reading from two sheets of neatly-typed manuscript, unable to fathom how or why they were left behind when Philip Padgett sacrificed his obsession - and his life, quite possibly in exchange for mine. Now that I've had a little time to think clearly, I marvel that Padgett's insights originally struck me as so damn astute. Anyone who knew my profession - FBI personnel aren't usually perceived as social butterflies, and pathology isn't considered one of the "fun" specialties - and my workaholic tendencies might have concluded my life to be a lonely one. I meant it when I told him it was anything but. After all, I spend the majority of my hours with the person I consider to be my one true companion. Furthermore, Hegal Place's own Bret Easton Ellis was almost laughably late with that jail-cell revelation. "Agent Scully is already in love." Diana Fowley had that figured out in a New York minute, though I'm fairly certain that despite having kept company with any number of psychos - psychics, whatever - she hasn't the power to "imagine" a serial killer into being. Nonetheless, Phillip Padgett, now deceased, did make one interesting observation. He seemed to comprehend how difficult it is for me to let even those who know and love me best into my heart. Crowded as it often is by fear, doubt and a lust for order, too often I forget that, by giving love entry, that supreme force causes disquietude to shrink from its burning light. As we lay crumpled on his floor last night, before the EMT's arrived and dug my fingernails out of his shoulders, Mulder reached beneath my blouse and lay his hand over my sternum, stroking calmly, as if to reassure us both that I was intact. And, at one point, I swore I could feel *him* gently reaching into my chest, not to rip my heart from it, but merely to hold it, to keep it warm. My sobbing ceased then, but I tightened my hold on Mulder. Having finally let him in, I wanted to make him welcome.