From: ephemeral@ephemeralfic.org Date: 12 Apr 2001 15:38:37 -0000 Subject: MEA CULPA, MEA MAXIMA CULPA by Ewa Source: direct Reply To: ewa@whatewa.com TITLE: MEA CULPA, MEA MAXIMA CULPA AUTHOR: Ewa E-mail: ewa@whatewa.com RATING: G CATEGORY: V SPOILER: Events around Three words KEYWORDS: M/S Sk POV THANKS : All the other authors who's work provided the inspiration SUMMARY: It's about- no just read it for yourself. DISCLAIMER: Any characters you recognize belong to Mr. Carter & Co. Rule of thumb, if you recognize them, there's a good chance they aren't mine. Doesn't stop me messing with them though, purely for the fun of it, monetary gain has never been an issue here. ARCHIVES: You mean, I don't have to pay? Let me know where it's gone please! Please keep declaimer etc with it. AUTHOR@S NOTE'S: At the end 04.12.01 Feedback please! ewa@whatewa.com Visit me and read my other x-phile stories at http://www.whatewa.com MEA CULPA, MEA MAXIMA CULPA I try to concentrate on the road ahead of me as I drive home through the gathering gloom. I've already gone through one red light, and got the finger for it from one of my fellow commuters. It's not that I was going too fast, I simply didn't see it. I'll kill myself if I'm not more careful. Would that really be such a lose to mankind? The road to Crystal City has never been so long. I just want to get into my apartment and hide. Finally a achieve my goal and walk through my door. It may seem cold and bare to others, but this pristine place is the nearest to home I'll ever have. I sink down onto my couch, too weary to either remove my coat or switch on a light. The surrounding dusk complements my mood of helplessness, the grayness and bewilderment that is swirling around inside of me. The feeling that this is all my fault. I should have done more. I should have been stronger. I don't know my place in the hierarchy any more. Me, Assistant Director Walter Skinner, tall, strong, showing no weakness, accepting no BS from anyone. Yet now I slink around them, not being able to look then in the eye; nervously polishing my glasses, pulling at my tie. Sometimes I wish that I was a Catholic. How good it would feel to unburden my weaknesses and failings to someone, to share my feelings of guilt, to have someone absolve m of that guilt, so that I could at last feel some measure of peace. Where is that commanding figure of a man, that agents used to quake before? He is drowning, drowning in the sea of guilt and regret, in the quicksand of what might have been, the heavy stones of ifs and ands dragging him down and down. At moments like now, I feel like pulling out my standard issue weapon and seeking oblivion. The only snag with that one is, I've already been down that path, I gave up once in 'Nam, and later, it was these two that helped me back when there was only darkness surrounding me, no light at the end of my tunnel. After all Scully's been through these last months, I don't think she'll be able to handle what has happened since his return much longer. I see it her eyes, I see it in his, glancing at me when they think I'm not looking. As if I can sort it out. I don't know what to do. Shit, how did I ever get myself into this god dammed situation? All I ever wanted to do was to help, to help her, to help *them*. She asked me to go with him, I lost him. She told me she was pregnant, yet exactly how well did I protect her? How many times has she come *that* close to losing the child. But all that came with a hefty price tag. She didn't and we found her partner. We? Surely I mean she? He's changed, but so has she, so have we all. I cannot even begin to imagine what he's been through. I don't think Mulder remembers, which is probably a good thing. But he seems to have lost touch with what was before all this happened. I can identify a little with the alienation he is feeling. I remember how I felt when I came home from 'Nam. Everything was the same nevertheless, everything was differed. The people back home had all moved on, and so had I, but in different directions. My experiances had totally changed me. I looked the same, spoke the same, But the person inside had changed. The young innocent Walter had gone, never to return. Some issues, even now I've not been able to come to terms with, even after all these years. I allow my thoughts to recapture Mulder and Scully, earlier today. She is so soft now, large with his child, so vulnerable. He so closed off, with such attitude. I am so afraid of what can happen. God, Mulder, I've tried so hard to look after her for you, to keep her and your child safe. Please God, you'll never know how much that may have cost me. She cries at the drop of a hat, she won't leave your side. She is so afraid, that's why she hasn't told you anything, not about the work, not about her new partner, especially not about your child. She sees the fear in your eyes, as do we all. Why do you think we're all pussyfooting around you? It's like treading on eggshells, each step, each word, fraught with awful consequences. How will she take it if you deny your fatherhood, if you deny her? I don't think she can take much more and still keep her sanity. How many times has she been close to losing it, especially after recent events. Credibility only goes so far. The tension is intolerable. I see it in her whole body, each time you turn away from her. I don't mean physically; inside you curl yourself up into a tighter and tighter ball, like a porcupine. You know just what I mean, you know why you are doing it, I've got some inkling too, but has she Mulder? She doesn't understand and you can't explain. I want to take you by the lapels of your jacket and shake you until I shake all this shit out of you. I want to yell at you that this is *not* the time to go into denial. Yes, it's been bad, like so bad you wanted to die, but you've been given a second chance and you're in danger or letting that go to hell in a wheelbarrow as well. But I know I won't, can't do anything except stand there, totally emasculated, watching the people who have come to mean so much to me quietly destroy each other. I don't know if I'm strong enough to bear the guilt of that as well. In the bleak darkness that surrounds me, I remove my eyeglasses and let my weary head rest on my hands. I feel the wetness seep through my fingers. FIN Am I that much out? I'd love to know. Drop me a line and tell me. ewa@whatewa.com AUTHOR'S NOTES: I hasten to add that I've not seen anything of Season 8 yet. This piece is pure conjecture, from one or two spoilers and from what I've read of other authors. Maybe, given a chance they will work it out. 'I have spread my dreams under your feet; tread softly for you tread on my dreams.'