From: "Siobhan O'Neil" Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 19:15:58 +0100 Subject: xfc: NEW: Loves of a Lifetime (1/1) By Shiv Source: xfc From: "Siobhan O'Neil" Title: Loves of a Lifetime Author: Shiv Rating: PG Keywords: VRA Third Person POV Feedback: Its all I live for!!(well that and The X-Files of course!) Siobhan@oneil192.freeserve.co.uk Website: Courtesy of Merlin www.shiv.tvheaven.com Authors Notes: Thank-you to Karen, who has been a wonderful friend, and encouraged me to post this. Her comments are the reason this is here! Also thanks to Michelle who as ever, was great. To all my friends who don't condemn my craziness! Everyone's comments (good and bad!) are especially important to me, as I would love to know what everyone got out of it, and if it worked the way I intended it to. ********************************* I hear him leaving the room as the door creaks and his almost-silent footsteps make contact with the floor. Wearily I roll over and glance at the alarm clock. The bright red digits announce to me that it is only 3:07 a.m. I throw back the sheets of the bed and stand up, toying with the idea of whether or not to put on my dressing gown. I decide that his-over- sized T-shirt is enough to keep me warm and quickly check on Eleanor. Eleanor is our one year-old girl. She is sleeping soundly on her cot in the next room. Satisfied, I brush back her blonde curls, slightly damp from that sleep-sweat that is wonderfully unique to babies, and I kiss her forehead. I rub the sleep out of my tired eyes and progress to the kitchen. He is standing there against the counter, staring out at the silent winter night. He is wearing only boxer shorts--he doesn't like to wear pajamas to bed. I touch his lean body gently, and he turns to face me. I don't bother to ask if he is okay, for I know him well enough to know that he is not. "Did you have another bad dream?" I ask. He nods wordlessly. "Samantha?" I ask, referring to his sister, much of the cause of his heartache. "Not this time." He replies hoarsely. Immediately I know. He only has to look at me and our silent communication says it all. I nod and look at him questioningly, waiting for him to tell me more. "You died, Julie. Just like..." his voice crackes, he is unable to finish. I know who she is. I think many people would be surprised by my knowledge on this matter, but we have no secrets. And I am no fool; I would not stay in a relationship where I felt I had competition, because I don't have any. There is nobody to compete with. I know her name, Dana Katherine Scully. It has been burned into my memory, but not out of spite or resentment. Merely out of pity and sympathy. I kiss his forehead gently. "I'm right here." I understand about his dreams, and I am thankful that he is able to share them with me, for I do not like secrets. He smiles weakly and gently envelops me in his arms. "Just one of those nights," he whispers. I met Fox in a motel three years ago. I was staying there on business, and he was on some FBI case, the details of which I have never known. They never seemed important. It wasn't love at first sight, nothing like that, but there was a mutual attraction. Our paths continued to cross for the rest of the week, and gradually, my curiosity about this handsome man grew and got the better of me. Tentatively, I asked him out to dinner, something that was so unlike me that I succeeded in horrifying myself. So before I gave him a chance to answer, I apologized hastily and rushed back to my room. Around half an hour later, there was a knock at my door, and he stood there, asking me if I liked pizza. We shared a late night pizza and talked. I believe I fell in love with him then, although I know his love for me did not come until later. Our relationship progressed, though it was mainly due to me at the beginning and to the magnetic attraction I felt towards him. Gradually, though, he would drop by at my house for no reason, and then one day, almost nine months after we met and six months after we had first made love, he said the words. Those three words that had been on the tip of my tongue for what seemed like an eternity--"I love you." At some point, I can't recall when specifically, he told me his history, or a synopsis of it, at least. He described his sister and his futile search for her, which had only ended in more heartbreak. He also told me of his former FBI partner, the afore- mentioned Dana Scully. He spoke of her with a fondness and wistfulness that I recognized as love, and yet oddly, I did not feel threatened, for I knew that he loved me. He told me how she had died of cancer shortly after they had both been permanently transferred from their usual investigative department. I never asked him any questions about her, just let him talk about her on the very rare occasions when he needed to. We are not married. He proposed--shortly before I fell pregnant with Ellie, but I politely declined. I think he was offended at first, but I simply explained to him that I did not feel that marriage would in anyway prove the incredible love that I felt for him. Besides that, I have never, ever wanted him to feel he has to be with me, or I with him, out of nothing but sheer obligation. I am 35 now, and he is 42. I love him more than I ever have, if that is possible. He is a wonderful father, though I never expected anything less of him, and we are still happy and in love. He and Ellie are the central poles of my life, and I know that we are his. Now, suddenly as I sit here, I feel the need to know more about Dana Scully. I want to know what she was like, for I feel that I would have liked her. "Who is she?" I ask, reaching for his hand. He looks at me, startled by my question. "You know who she is," he replies. "Yes, I know her name, and I know a little about her. I want to know who she is. "Okay," he says softly. "I'll tell you." We sit together at the table, comfortably close. "Scully would have been 39 if she were alive today. She was my partner, my friend and...the only person who ever gave a damn about me." I squeeze his hand gently, urging him to continue. "She was small; I sometimes teased her about how short she was. She had fire-red hair and the most beautiful blue eyes. In fact...I have a picture, if you want?" he asks. I nod my head, eager to know all I can about this woman who perhaps was the only one able to understand my lover, the way I can. I could not resent her--how can one resent someone who believed in the man that she loves? I am sorry I never got to meet her, and I do not worry about what would have happened had she not died. I do not know how Fox's life would have turned out, nor mine for that matter. He returns clutching a picture and tentatively hands it to me. I take it from him. Before me is the picture of a truly beautiful woman, yet not in any typical sense of the word. The picture looks to have been taken without her awareness, and she is sitting in a garden, wearing a white T-shirt, at the top of which I can see a small gold cross as it glints in the sun. "Her mother gave that to me," he whispers. "That is the only picture I have now. It is the only one I think is worth keeping. It doesn't show all the pain she went through." I remember her mother as the woman he sends flowers to once a year, on a day I know to be this young woman's anniversary. "The cancer..." I say. "Yes, but not just that. Scully's life from the moment she met me was far from easy. Her sister was murdered by one of our enemies. Then she, too, was abducted and experimented on. Experimented on to the extent that she was left barren-- unable to conceive a child. Until we learned that a child had been created from her ova--a child who Scully found, a beautiful little girl. Her daughter died less than a week later." I close my eyes in disbelief, reeling at this information. As a mother, I shudder to think about the torment this situation would cause. "G..." I whisper. Fox proceeds to tell more of Dana Scully. Of her background, her personality, her unrelenting professionalism, and, moreover, her unparalleled loyalty to him. I absorb these details carefully, trying to store every last one, for I know that after tonight, her name will never be mentioned by either of us again. He tells me of her illness, how it ravaged her body, making her weaker and delusional until it finally claimed her life in the most undignified of ways. Finally he stops talking--seemingly finished. "Did you love her?" I ask. The question hangs morbidly in the air between us, and I almost regret asking it. "Yes," he answers, "though I don't know, because I never held her. I just know that she was the biggest part of my life when she died. There was no one like her until her. And then until you." "Did you tell her that?" "I don't think so. I tried to, but I'm not sure she ever understood, though I hope she did. We always secretly prided ourselves on our ability to communicate in unspoken ways." I smile at this. I know the feeling. We hold each other for a long time and kiss tenderly. Eventually, he returns to bed though I stay up a while longer, promising him that I will join him soon. I finger the picture of this woman delicately, trying to imagine her from this picture and from Fox's description of her. It dawns on me that she was his past, and a most poignant and wonderful part of it. I have no doubt of the bond they shared or of the love that they both felt. Nor am I jealous. For I this woman whom I will never know, nor whom I could ever accurately imagine, is a great part of the man that I love--the man who loves me without question. Besides, I reckon that she got the rough end of the deal. It is our beautiful child and me who are here with Fox. Her life was extinguished before she ever got to experience pleasures such as these. And for this I offer up a silent prayer for Dana Scully. Fini If you read it PLEASE tell me what you thought!!!! Siobhan@oneil192.freeserve.co.uk Visit my website and sign the book, if you do!!! www.shiv.tvheaven.com