From: "cecile.laumonier" Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2000 20:03:45 +0100 Subject: NEW : Just an eclipse of the heart Title: Just an eclipse of the heart Author: Ccile Laumonier. Originally Written in French in august 1999, the 12th. Translated in English in august 1999. Warnings: G Category: V Spoilers: none Keywords: Eclipse, MSR. Summary: Mulder and Scully watch a total eclipse of the sun and Mulder has a secret project. Disclaimer: The characters and the story developed in The X-Files are the exclusive property of Chris Carter and Ten Thirteen Productions. Copyright: This story is my exclusive property. So is the eclipse of the 11th of august! Well, at least, let me think that way! ;-) Archive: wherever you want if you tell me! :-) _________________________________________ It was not very warm. There was nobody. The wind began to increase, lifting some sand and Dana Scully continued to wonder why she was there. Certainly, she had known less advisable places, and by far, but it was certainly not how she thought she would one day discover Europe. Sighing, she bent to get rid of brambles which were catching the foot of her trousers then raised and went to Mulder who was walking in a field of beets, eyes turned to the sky. Stopping some centimeters of him, she asked, on an annoyed tone: " Admit it, Mulder, this history of apocalyptic sect that we had to survey was only an excuse! We've been here for two hours and we did not see the shadow of a black dress. Moreover, we did not even see an animal being since this... how did you say? Oh yes, " charming small mole . " She approached her partner and watched him: " Mulder . Why are we here? " Agent Mulder did not let intimidate by the penetrating glance that scrutinized him unceremoniously. He repeated what he had not stopped saying to his colleague for three days: " We are there to try to prevent a large-scale collective suicide which could destabilize Europe and, consequently, all the Occidental Forces. " Scully sighed, tilted again to remove a new bramble and, raising, said: " Sure . That's right . I warn you, Mulder, the next time you do that, driving me in the open countryside, you'll better really watch the car because you'll probably stay a while with your charming small mole! " Mulder suppressed a laughter and turned his glance to the slightly veiled sky . Scully, more and more irritated, was not able to refrain from asking: "What are you doing now? Waiting for a flying saucer? " Mulder smiled, took two special cardboard darken glasses out of his pockets, and stretched out a pair at his colleague: " Don't tell me that, you, the great scientist, have no haste to attend the last total eclipse of the sun! Come on! " Scully seizes the pair that he stretched out at her, put it on her and grumbled while scrutinizing the celestial body that a light crescent moon began to eat: " I knew that there was an explanation in all this sad rural comedy . Mulder, an eclipse has nothing of exceptional. The Moon which comes to intervene between the Sun and the Earth, there's nothing more natural and I hope that you do not wait for anything of paranormal from this moment because you will be very disappointed. " Mulder, pretending to be profoundly wounded by Scully's remark, answered: " Scully, Scully, Scully ... couldn't you, just for once, forget your knowledge to appreciate the magic of the moment? " Scully, sighing, leaned on the rented car which had driven them in this isolated place and said: " All right, since we're here, let's watch this eclipse. But you will complete all my files waiting in Washington . " Minutes passed. Mulder was absorbed by the pondering of this sun which disappeared bit by bit, leaving place to this impressive shadow of the moon, so small really, but almighty for some hours. Scully began to be seriously bored. She eventually left her more or less comfortable position to join Mulder, perched on a small hillock of ground overhanging fields surrounding. She complained: " It's realy cold now. We should have taken a jacket. You see, if you had said to me why we came here, I would have taken my precautions. " Mulder abandoned his pondering of the two celestial objects to turn to his colleague: she did not joke, she was really cold. During the last years, he had learnt how to decode the behavior of his friend and, this time, the tint that her cheek had taken wasn't good. He curses one moment : he should have thought of taking warm clothes to look at the eclipse comfortably. He apologized while removing the jacket of the suit and put it slowly around her shoulders: " You are right. I did not think that temperature would decrease so much. " Scully accepted the garment without a word but, hiding a shudder which went through her spinal column, she finally added : "We must have lost at least five degrees. I admit that it is a surprising experience to shiver with cold at midday, in August. " Mulder smiles: " You're about to appreciate! " Scully tried hard not to agree and, squeezing Mulder's jacket on her, she said: "We'll talk about it when I shall be cured of the magnificent cold I'll have, Mulder. " Mulder, smiling, resumed the observation of the eclipse. Daydreaming, he asked Scully who had put back her glasses on: " Scully? " " Yes " "Did you know how some ancients interpreted the total eclipses of sun? " Scully looked for a moment in her memory but had to admit she knew more about perihelies or annular eclipses than on faiths about the eclipses. On this subject, anyway, she knew her partner was unbeatable. " No, tell me. " Mulder took a profound breath before answering and Scully thought once more that he exaggerated. "Some civilizations thought that the eclipse was a wedding between two divinities, of the Moon and of the Sun. The sacred union marked by the seal of the sun ring during the totality. Who knows? Maybe did the ring of our marriages arised from this faith? " Scully could'nt help from thinking the demonstration was rather convincing, but, as usual, she answered: " Yes, it is possible, but I do not see really what was able to give birth to this faith. After all, the ring symbol of the marriage is very short-lived in the phenomenon of eclipses. " She added by laughing: " That could explain all the divorces . " Curiously, she realized that Mulder did not laugh. She found him very serious, suddenly. Raising her glance towards the sky, she saw the Moon which was beginning the last quarter of its route towards the total darkness, then considered her partner again. It seemed incredibly serious and at the same time bathed of sweetness. She did not understand what was happening to him and it was a little hurt. Mulder got a little closer to her and, without removing his glasses, in the most complete black for him, he put his arm around her shoulders to guide her glance towards the sky: " Think about it Scully! Look how the sun gives way without fighting the darkness. It could be considered so strong, so imperturbable and what happened to it? It fades in front of a quite small thing, a small ball of earth launched in space. A scrap of our planet which comes to darken it shamelessly. That it is beautiful, Scully! Could it not be as friendship? It's so important! So vital, essential to us, so much that we could think it will light us for ever. And then comes a small thing, a grain of sand and friendship fades. " Scully didn't find anything to say, she listened, watching the sun dying in front of her eyes. Mulder, wrapping her a little more, continued: " Think about it, Scully, this sun which disappears, it's like losing a friend. " They stayed both silent while the moon was still darkening the brilliant celestial object. The sun was nothing more than a small grain of light now, tiny and so brilliant still. Mulder was a little breathless, beacause of the spectacle which was offering itself to them. He could'nt help shivering and feeling some fear, as if the sun was really dying, as if he wouldn't be able to see it anymore, never its light in the sky. The moment was terrible, magnificent, oppressive and incredible. Scully held her breath. Her hands were frozen but she had no time to realize since Mulder's long fingers had came to rub them slowly, in order to warm them. He continued, his voice only a respectful rustle: " Look, the sun is only a grain now. It is the friendship that dies, Scully, and there's nothing to do. It's considered so powerful but now, it's nothing anymore and it is the end. " Scully was not able to hold her delight: " Mulder! That it is so beautiful!" The tiny grain of Bailly had just spread around the Moon, forming a ring of weak light and nevertheless so powerful. The spectacle was magnificent. Mulder and Scully stood still, under the charm of this pregnant moment, a spectacle they knew they would never see again, and both thought that they were very happy to see it together. The totality lasted two minutes but it was as if this magnificent moment fills only some seconds of their life, but how wonderful were these seconds! They were cold, very cold, but they forgot about it suddenly. Around them, nature was still, fields seemed motionless, the wind which had raised with the beginning of the eclipse had gone out, as by magic. It was as the end of the world and Mulder and Scully felt it that way. Light was supernatural, not a simple twilight or dawn. Not even similar to that, already so beautiful, of the thunderstorm which ends. No, it was an intense, dark and yet bright light. On the horizon, it was unbelievable: clouds had dressed with golden dresses and parts of the country still lit by the day star were guessed. Behind, as far, the lands which, already, found the heat of the burning beams. And this blue of the sky, neither really blue, nor pink, but an incredible mixture of mallow dark and of azure! Mulder commented: " But the sun does not die, it becomes this magnificent ring, this halo of fire. It is the sacred union of the Sun and of the Moon, great marriage! " Saying it, he slid a golden ring in Scully's hands, helping her to close her fingers around the jewel. " A great marriage . " Hardly the time to seize all the miracles of this spectacle that, already, the sun was born again, another tiny hardly visible grain then soon this other lash of the space which swelled and swelled againl , heavenly weapon again, as just before, but steered towards somewhere else, an ally now. Mulder, smiling, embraced Scully tenderly: " But as great moment as it is, the union by the alliance, is only one moment, unique but short-lived. Already, the sun is reborn. It is our star, the only one and the unique, as before. Nothing changed and nevertheless it changed. Is it the friendship that is reborn? No, nothing will be as before. Something else was born, something strong, sweet, different . " While the croissant of sun increased, that temperature was warming, that birds resumed to sing, celebrating the return of the sun, Scully removed her glasses but did not try to break their embrace. She turned her face to Mulder, who was so silent now. More moved than she would say, she looked at him silently for a minute then, playing with the golden ring which was sliding between her fingers, she asked: " Mulder? " Her partner removed his glasses and winked, as if he was dazzled looking at her. " Yes, sunshine? " Smiling, Scully continued: " Would you try to tell me something? " And it is a smile that answered her.