From: Kudra Date: 20 Aug 2003 08:35:54 -0700 Subject: [all xf] Letting Go 1/1 Source: atxc Letting Go by Kudra Category: MSR, vignette Spoilers: Post-The Truth This story was written for the 500-word Haven PMS Challenge Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully don't belong to me. They belong to Chris Carter and 1013, but they sure are fun to play with. Feedback: Welcomed at kudra_x@yahoo.com When it begins she knows she has approximately two hours before the pressure builds in her lower back and settles into a deep ache that will remain for at least twenty-four hours. The first day is always the worst. Back in her first life she handled this situation with typical control. She calculated the dates in her small black planner, "...twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight." She allowed for variations in her cycle. She had Midol at the ready. Rarely was she caught unaware. These days it sneaks up on her more often than not. Her life is no longer planned to the minute. By necessity she has given herself over to the practice of letting go. Sudden cravings send them to a convenience store, and she eats a milk chocolate Hershey's bar with abandon, snapping at Mulder for grabbing the extra bar without asking. Then she stops as they exchange glances and realizes that it must be on its way. Mulder has become surprisingly understanding of these times. God knows it's not what it used to be. She can't mumble coolly through her day anymore, briefly glancing up from her computer to respond to his anecdotes, suppressing her irritation until 5:00 PM arrives and she's out like a shot to the safety of her private quarters. Now it's twenty-four hours a day of sharing the same space, little work to distract them, just the business of waiting and searching and hoping for a lead to send them elsewhere on an impossible quest. He withstands onslaughts of her menstrual rage or frustration, more patiently than she ever dreamed possible, as if he now realizes that for four to five days per month, his self-effacing humor and endless dialogue are useless. He has learned to let her be, understanding, as she always has, that all silences must not be filled. If he were a woman, they'd be sharing the same cycle by now. Mulder suggests ibuprofen, but she no longer believes in numbing herself. For so long she has masked her pain through work, routine, strength, and conquered her fears through categorization, analysis and disbelief. That life has passed away. Now there is nowhere to run from herself, only a succession of four motel walls in small towns off the beaten path throughout the land. And the dread of a future she cannot control. And Mulder. Now she lets the melancholy wash over her in shades of crimson and scarlet, waves of pain signifying all that she has had and all that she has lost. Ahab ... Melissa ... William. William. Her being vibrates with the loss of him. All that she sheds monthly cannot erase the memory of his absence. All she can hope is that he will not live the half-life his mother lived, a model of self-denial and duty. Instead of duty, she chooses life for her son, and hopes fervently that fate will grant him that. She tries to listen to what is speaking, but it's a new sensation for her to suspend her disbelief. In those times she turns to him. She has been his guru of control, to ground him when he begins to fly away. Over the years he has become her teacher, as well, inching her toward a larger world that frightens and excites her. He is her conduit to the unseen world. When the pain and the vulnerability threaten to overwhelm her, she seeks comfort in the sheer physicality of him. She has also denied herself this pleasure for far too long, forever running to the safety of solitude. Wrapped in a tangle of warm flesh, large hands caressing and massaging her broken places, she lets herself open inside, feeling it all, the pleasure and the pain to which it is inexplicably tied. There is no longer any reason to guard against it. There is no more running. There is only the two of them and together they can bear it all.