From: MystPhile Date: 16 Apr 2000 13:54:10 GMT Subject: NEW: Maggie's Tale by MystPhile (post-all things) Title: Maggie's Tale Author: MystPhile@aol.com Distribution: Gossamer, Ephemeral, Spooky, Xemplary, yes. Others, please inform. SUMMARY: Maggie (Daniel's daughter in all things) reveals what young Dana Scully was like. Also includes the missing Maggie/Scully conversation. Category: V, Post-ep Rating: PG-13 Spoilers: all things Disclaimer: Property of 1013 Feedback: Welcome at MystPhile@aol.com NOTE: This is an unusual story for me. If you read it, I'd like to know what you think. WEBPAGE: Thanks to Beaker: http://members.xoom.com/MystPhile/ And many thanks to Galia: http://galias.webprovider.com/mystphile.htm And at Xemplary <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Most sixteen year olds are oblivious to anything not directly in front of their noses. Our hormones blind us at that age, them and our natural selfishness as we take center stage in our version of the universe. But I think I must have been a particularly dense case. Before "it" happened, I loved being sixteen. It was all so totally absorbing---wondering if Joe Wentworth was going to ask me out again, considering how far we would go, thinking that if I married him, some fine day, I wouldn't even have to change my initials. Chattering with my friends, being a part of the right crowd, in my case, the artistes, the ones who wore scruffy clothes, uncombed hair, and boots, always boots. I don't think I even owned a skirt that year. I was president of the film club, my big love in life (after Joe Wentworth). I thought Bogie was the coolest guy who'd ever walked this earth. I even sneaked unfiltered cigarettes and let them hang from my lower lip, frantically chewing gum before entering the house, where I knew my dad would kill me if he caught a whiff. No, that's wishful thinking, one of the ideas I'm finally letting go. Let's face it. I could have walked into that house nude, with Joe Wentworth attached to my left tit, and Dad would have said, "How's it going, Mag," as he trotted out of the house to his latest emergency. I doubt he knew that I was president of the film club or that I was practicing a whole hell of a lot that year to perform Mozart's clarinet concerto with the orchestra. He wouldn't have known that I had three poems published in the literary magazine, or that in an effort to appear well-rounded for the college admissions process, I had taken up both track and field hockey. I'd even joined the fucking chess club and fed the hungry in my four spare minutes a week. I was, of course, also involved in keeping my grades up and scheduling a sufficient number of AP courses to impress the college admissions officers. No wonder, in retrospect, my life fell apart before I realized it was in danger. I was blind and Dad was treacherous. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Dana looked like an angel then. Oddly, she was one of the few of Dad's protges who took an interest in me. No. It is not odd. I must get realistic about this, take off the blinders and face facts. And the fact is that most of the students he brought home could read him damned well---well enough to know that they would succeed by adoring and impressing him, kissing his ass with sufficient fervor, not by faking an interest in his ill-groomed, surly daughter. But Dana was different. She still looks good, I have to admit. But then----her face was smooth and freshly pressed, her skin so smooth and satiny, you wanted to reach out and touch it to see if it were silk. Her eyes were the brightest blue I have ever seen. No sky could rival the warmth of the genuine interest that shone there. Her hair was long and flaming, cascading over her shoulders like an unruly waterfall. I think when she had time, she straightened it, but med students don't have much time, so she went natural. Like me, she didn't pay much attention to her clothes, either. Just made sure she was wearing good, comfortable shoes. Nothing would have dimmed her beauty anyway---without makeup or elaborate grooming, even in scrubs, she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. And the nicest, of the older women I knew. Dad's other med students treated me like wallpaper. Mom, of course, took a keen interest in me, all too keen and judgmental, I thought, in those days. Same thing with my relatives. But Dana actually noticed me and appeared to have a genuine interest. Instead of fawning over Dad when she came to dinner at our house, she asked if she could see my room. She asked about the posters on my wall, noticed all the shots from old films. I opened up to her, told her how I really wanted to become a film maker, despite everyone's expectation that I would automatically go on to med school. She nodded when I explained. "My family really wanted this for me," she said. "I know exactly what you're saying." "And you're happy that you went ahead with this career?" She thought for a moment, her beautiful face serene. "So far," she said, but her voice seemed to lack conviction. I took away the impression (if I could spare enough attention to anyone else in those days) that she was not as ecstatic as the others, gathered downstairs at Dad's feet, licking away. Her face reminded me of Ingrid Bergman's at the end of Casablanca---so sober, so beautiful, so to-die-for. I remember thinking that if I were so inclined, I would fall for her right then and there. I don't know why I thought (if I was thinking at all) that my Dad would be any different. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< I was very slow on the uptake. Dana showed up more and more frequently at our dinner table, even after graduation. She was invariably beautiful and charming and often I was content just to watch the play of expression across her face. I had a crush. One night, as she came back into the room after taking a phone call, I was astounded to see Dad leap up and rush over to seat her. I shot a glance at Mom. She looked pale and shaken. Later, I asked Mom if she was okay. This, I now understand, was a major move on my part since I'm convinced that it would have taken an earthquake to draw my attention away from myself in those days. Poor Mom could have staggered around the house with an arrow sticking out of her boob without my noticing. So, she must have looked really, really bad. She didn't answer my question. I guess she wasn't okay at all. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Dana appeared no more. I did not lay eyes on her for over ten years. That meal was the last time I remember dining with my family in the normal way, when I could shovel in my food and push back my greasy hair with no thought of tensions eddying around our table. The atmosphere in our house grew so tense that even I noticed it. Mom grew thin and somber. Dad was absent virtually all the time. Sometimes I wondered if he was living with us at all. Then, he wasn't. By the time I was seventeen, he had moved out, and I felt abandoned. I don't know why, really, when he'd never been there anyway, in the conventional sense. Hell, I doubt he could tell you my birthday without prompting. But at least, before, he was always rushing out of the house to go save someone's life, a man with a noble calling. The house had been so full of adoring students and colleagues that I had bought into that image---he was the Healer. If he didn't know what instrument I played or that I'd scored a goal or written a poem, at least it was because someone else's life depended on it. Now came the dark time. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Why did he leave, I asked my skeletal mother, involved in selling the house and pinning a grotesque smile on her face for her friends, who'd always expected Dad to move on, it seems. Important medical men did not make it a habit to keep their tired old wives; they tended to trade up. No one had told me or, apparently, Mom. She busied herself putting china away, her face averted. "Through the years," she said, "he's become infatuated with his students from time to time. They're young and they treat him like a god. Usually," she sighed, "it blows over. This time he's decided that. . . that he really wants to be free." "Which one is it?" I held my breath. I felt like hiding under the table. She turned to face me. "You know." Of course I knew. She's the one that I would have left my family for as well. I would have followed her anywhere. She was, as they used to say about fairy princesses, as beautiful as she was good. Her goodness, now, was in question. In my mind, she became the quintessential Homewrecker, the thief who had stolen my (already absent) father from his household. The woman who had shrunk my mother to Concentration Camp-victim weight, who had etched dark circles beneath her eyes, which often swam with involuntary tears. The princess had stolen Mom's confidence and buoyancy along with her husband. And she stole my youth, my innocence. Never again would I fully trust. I have not been able to be close to anyone for ten years now. I was robbed. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Drab years passed, my bitterness never glowing less brightly. It was like an angry furnace I kept stoked as I made my way through life. It kept me going, kept me tough, kept me impervious to more pain. It was my protective shield. I was somewhat surprised that the Great Romance did not develop. The times I saw Dad through those years, after he relocated to the Northern Virginia-DC area, he gave no sign of being in contact with Dana. Often, he had an even younger girl on his arm, the adoring eyes focused on him rather than on his bitter daughter. I realized I was not attractive in either looks or personality, but I also had no desire to make myself attractive. That might, well, *attract* someone, and I didn't want to be drawn in and take a chance on being hurt. It was as though I'd already filled my pain quota for life. His leaving did relieve me of the necessity of arguing my way out of med school applications. Instead, I did what I wanted, which was to attend film school at NYU and become a maker of obscure independent films. I may not be a household name, but at least, I get to be in control---I call the shots, give the orders, and tell people when to come and when to go. Suits me fine. Mom moved to New York along with me but was smart enough to have me to dinner once a week and make a life for herself. Within four years she remarried, a stockbroker who is also out of the house at all hours. Once again, she gives the most splendid dinner parties. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< I don't know why I hopped a plane when Dad got the chest pains. Guess somewhere deep down I was flattered to be listed as next of kin. I didn't feel any actual kinship until I arrived and saw him lying there, old and tired, the charisma and authority leeched away. And then I heard her name. Nemesis. Dana Scully. Shit. I behaved badly, of course, reverting to my sixteen-year-old self. She was the one who stole my daddy. But little things kept coming out, adding up, shifting the picture. She said she'd left to keep from making my life hell. Did this mean that when he left home, he did *not* go to her? He walked out at the mere prospect, or hope? She had changed too. As I said, he looked old and powerless, even a bit pathetic, demanding that I call a woman he hadn't seen for ten years. Still, he was puffed up at the prospect of having an interesting medical condition and being able to lord it over the other doctors and run his own treatment. His arrogance had never truly deserted him. But Dana was really, really different. When she was young, no one had ever looked as glowing as she had. Now she looked tired, and her manner had hardened. Even her voice had lost its lively hum; she sounded exhausted. I accused her of being too rational, of always thinking she knew the answers, but I don't think that was accurate. Rather, she looked as if she would willingly *pay* for some answers out of her desperate need to know. Know what? The important things in her life, I guess. I made a lot of accusations during those days. I'd been caught in the past for ten long years and it certainly seemed a lot easier to yell at the woman who'd attracted Dad than to yell at the Great Man himself. If I yelled at him, he might never love me! Always, I wanted his love. Always, I felt I could never be good enough, pretty enough, smart enough, anything enough, to deserve his attention, let alone his love. He had snowed me as he had snowed the world, always cold and safe behind his medical barrier. Until his heart betrayed him. Why not? His heart had certainly betrayed me. Dana turned out to be more open than I thought. Imagine, one of Dad's students importing a healer. Cool. I decided she was worth talking to, at that point. I had taken her to my room, back in the old days, and opened my heart to her. My heart had now been locked for so long that the key was rusty, but her gesture---bringing a healer who Dad, if he'd been awake, would have struck down in his tracks--- intrigued me. I invited her back to my room. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< "I don't know what we have to say to each other, Maggie," she said. "I never meant to hurt you. I tried my damnedest to avoid it. Yet, here you are and I'm responsible. I accept that responsibility. I'm sorry for . . . for all of it." She waved her hand vaguely. "But there's no way I can undo it at this point." Her face was calm as she leaned back in the armchair in my room and sipped a diet Coke. The healing seemed to have done *her* some good, at least. She was much more serene now than in the past day or two. Or maybe it was because Hurricane Maggie had subsided. "My life stopped at sixteen," I told her. "I was never able to forgive, forget. . . go on." I paused. "I adored you, back then." "And you thought I betrayed you," she finished. "Yet, it wasn't till I talked to your dad in the hospital that I even knew that he'd left you and Barbara. I walked away to prevent that happening, but as it turns out, it didn't save you any pain at all." "It was ghastly." It felt very strange to tell the truth after so many years. She bowed her head. The silence was not tense. It stretched. She truly did seem healed. All the pain and restlessness and doubt I'd seen in her face earlier were gone. I think she could have sat in that chair forever, her eyes focused upon eternity like an Eastern statue. "Dana?" She looked up. "Did you have an affair with him?" I rushed on before she could rebuff me. "I know it's none of my business, but it's something I need to know. About him, really. Not you." She studied her hands. Her voice was soft, like melting chocolate. "I thought I was in love with him," she murmured. "A lot of the girls did. He was remarkable, so magnetic and attractive. A hero." She sighed. "I also knew he was married and I tried to keep a personal relationship from developing. But he was warm. And so . . . interested. He'd ask about my family, my dreams, my aspirations. It was so flattering that he seemed to care about me, young, insignificant me, as a person." I was pissed as I contemplated Dad mining Dana's life for intimate detail while "forgetting" to attend the musical I directed. Fucking bastard, I thought. But she was continuing. "He asked me out for meals. Offered me rides. Asked to come up for coffee when he dropped me at the apartment." She paused. "I knew it was wrong. I knew about you and Barbara and I knew that these gestures were crossing the line into . . . courtship, or wooing. I couldn't rebuff someone that powerful in my life. I could not bring myself to tell him this was all wrong." She paused to sip, still staring into the distance. "I just . . . admired him so damned much, and he told me how brilliant I was, what a grand career I could have, how many lives I could save." She met my eyes. "Then, he shifted to the 'my wife doesn't understand me' line, how he'd been meaning for years to get a divorce and find someone more congenial. He said I was that woman, the perfect woman for him. We'd practice medicine together, save lives, talk every spare minute. He said he loved me, that he would follow me to the ends of the earth. Our lives would be full of healing and passion and excitement. He said he wanted to be with me for all eternity. I considered his offer very, very seriously." She looked up. "I wanted to believe," she confessed. "But I wasn't comfortable with breaking up a marriage. And of course I thought of you. So, I decided, after a lot of agonizing thought, that the best thing for me was to change fields. Which I did. Which pissed him off inutterably, especially when I decided to go to work for the FBI. He threw a tantrum fit for a four year old. But I left anyway, despite his anger and ridicule." I glared at her. "You didn't answer my question." She thought. "Affair? It depends on your definition. Stolen kisses, frantic gropings in hallways, stuff like that. One time in bed. It . . . it brought me to my senses. That. . . it wasn't me. I had to remove myself before I got lost." "That's the truth?" She nodded. "Maybe I can put it to rest," I said. "I'd like it if he would live---now. I'd like to get to know him as he really is, at this moment, not the man I thought he was, either the saint or the sinner." I sighed. "Do you think he can recover---or even wake up?" She gave a slight shrug. "It's really not in our hands." "Are . . . are you," I paused, "happy now? Did you put it all behind you? Do you have someone?" She met my eyes. Suddenly, the blue of her youthful eyes shone out at me and years fell away from her face. Her smile flashed, and once again, she was fairy-princess beautiful. "I'm happier than I knew," she said, leaning toward me. "Now it's behind. Finally. I thought it wasn't, but it is. And, yes, I have someone." She set down her Coke and stopped to hug me on her way out. "I hope he comes back, Maggie," she said softly. "You want to talk to him, this time. Open your heart. Life is short." The door closed behind her and I wished with all my heart that I would have a chance to know my dad as an adult. With my eyes open. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< The next day, my wish came true. As Dana passed me on her way out, I knew she was now gone from my life, in all her forms. As Homewrecker, as fairy princess, as my own adolescent crush, as the honest, healing woman she had become. It was now time to make an honest woman out of me. End Feedback most welcome at MystPhile@aol.com. Thanks for reading.