From phuwv@csv.warwick.ac.uk Mon Apr 21 04:07:41 1997 Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW: Memories 1/1 by Ian Horsewell From: Ian -------- disclaimer: The characters aren't mine you see In fact they're owned by Fox TV Chris Carter and Ten-Thirteen too I'm doing what I shouldn't do I've just borrowed them for a while To write my very own X-File Archive: sure Spoilers: none Rating: G Warning: nothing special - but an indirect MSR Summary: Melissa Mulder looking through a scrapbook With thanks to Elaine for being my beta-reader for this. And for being a great friend. Memories by Ian Horsewell A short woman in jeans and a denim shirt, sitting on a garden swing. Smiling, and although her strawberry-blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail, wisps had escaped to frame her face. A tall, dark-haired man, seen from the chest upwards. He was wearing a shirt with a colourful tie, and looked serious. His piercing eyes seemed to be staring right through her. The man with his arms around the woman, looking into her face, wearing a smile so at odds with his expression in the previous photo. Both were wearing casual clothes, and the many tones of the leaves at their feet set the time of year as fall. The couple again, the man in a tuxedo, the woman in a green dress that reached to her ankles. A gold cross was visible at the woman's throat, and she cradled a trophy of some sort with one arm. The other was looped around the man's. There seemed to be a crowd of people behind them, all in formal wear. "Melissa, have you found..." The voice trailed to an end as the speaker realised what the young girl was holding. She looked up at the adult, who moved to sit beside her on the bed. "I see you have." "Aunt Sam, are those Mom and Dad?" The girl seemed curious, looking up only briefly at her aunt, fingers resting on the open pages of the folder. She nodded, looking at the girl next to her and seeing, as if for the first time, the resemblance. The red hair, shining in the bright daylight, tied back in a ponytail so as not to get in the way, so similar to the mother's. The new slenderness, as she grew upwards in the first of many growth spurts, so much like her father. Sam smiled. There was no doubting whose child this was. "When were these photos taken, Aunt Sam?" She shrugged in reply, taking the folder from unresisting fingers and turning back to the start. She lifted the first photo from the book, turning it briefly to peer at the back before passing it to the girl. "This one's from before your Mom met your Dad. That's her family." She paused briefly to calculate the dates. "Probably just after she graduated from medical school. See, Missy?" As she named each member, she pointed to them in the photo. "There's Granny Margaret, and your grandfather - you never met him. There are your uncles. Your Mom's there, in the corner, And there's your aunt, who died before you were born." The girl looked up at her to ask the question. "That's the one I was named after?" Sam nodded without speaking. Melissa touched a gentle finger to the face of her namesake, so like her mother and, at the same time, so different to her. She replaced the photo in the frame, turning the page to the next picture. "That's my family, taken just before I went away. My Dad, and my Mom - Granny Mulder." Melissa nodded absent-mindedly; she barely remembered her grandmother. "That's you?" Sam nodded. "I look a bit like you, don't I Aunt Sam?" She turned back to the previous picture, studying her aunt and mother more carefully. "I look a bit like you and Mom at the same time." "Yeah, I guess so. But before you started growing, you looked just like photos of your Mom or your aunt when they were younger." She smiled. "I never actually knew Missy - that's what your Mom called Melissa, the same as she does you sometimes. But it's hard to tell photos of you apart." But Melissa had lost interest in family resemblances, and had turned the page once more, flipping through photos she had already seen, only pausing at the one where her mother was holding the trophy. "Is that the one downstairs, with Dad's medal?" "Yes, I guess so. Your Mom was awarded it for some paper she wrote - I don't know what for. Probably something completely disgusting." Melissa grinned; to an eleven-year-old, her aunt's distaste for all things medical was funny. "What's that?" Sam smiled, actually knowing the details this time. She lifted the two slips of card from the plastic bag that protected them. "These are the tickets from the show where your Dad proposed to your Mom. Of course, she wasn't actually your Mom then. She was his partner." She stopped talking - Melissa was fingering the tickets with reverence, lost in a world of her own. At last she slipped the tickets back into the bag, reading aloud from the type on them. "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." Sam laughed. "Only your Dad could propose after that." Melissa looked up at her curiously. "What do you mean, Aunt Sam?" Her aunt only smiled. "I'll tell you when you're older. If you ever see it, then maybe you'll understand. You'd probably see nothing wrong with it; you've got the same sense of humour as your Dad." But Melissa was already turning the page. "Is this the wedding?" Sam nodded. "What was it like?" "I don't know, Missy. I wasn't there. But from what I've heard, it was really beautiful. Even if your Mom complained all the time that she didn't feel right without her gun." Melissa was staring at the two pictures. The first was of the happy couple, arms around each other, smiling. Her Dad was wearing a tux with a waistcoat of midnight blue and matching bowtie. Her Mom was wearing a white wedding dress, the bodice tight at the waist then flowing down to the floor. "She looks really pretty..." The next photo was a group shot, her parents - Melissa frowned as she realised that when this had been taken, they weren't her parents, but never mind - surrounded by other people. There were her uncles, and her aunts. There was Granny Margaret, and the one from an earlier photo, her Dad's Mom. There was Uncle Walter, who wasn't really an uncle. She pointed at him. "Why was he there, Aunt Sam? He wasn't my uncle then, because I wasn't born yet." Sam's brow wrinkled as she examined the photo for a second before recognizing the figure. "He was your Dad's best man. You know what that means, Missy?" The girl was nodding vigorously. "Yes, it was on TV. The man getting married has a best man, to make sure he doesn't forget his lines or anything. And the woman's Dad gives her away, and makes sure she gets there on time and stuff like that." "That's right." But Melissa still looked puzzled. "What's up?" "So who gave Mom away? Her Dad couldn't do it, because he died." Sam smiled. "Your Uncle Charlie, her oldest brother." The girl was nodding in understanding, and Sam blinked. For a moment, it could have been a younger, red-haired version of herself sitting on the bed there. The next few items weren't as interesting - a sample of the wedding stationery, a few telegrams. But the next photo, a few pages on, caught Melissa's attention for obvious reasons. "Is that *me* Aunt Sam?" She looked away from the photo to see her aunt nod, then stared at it once more. "But that baby's so small..." "Well, everyone was small once, Melissa." Sam had to smile at the girl's wonder. She'd seen other photos of herself as a baby before - there was one in the hall that, Sam suspected, Melissa would soon demand was taken down. But this one was taken when she was only an hour old. "Mom looks so tired." Sam laughed out loud, smiling when Melissa turned to her inquiringly. "Well, that's not surprising, sweetheart. I'm told that having a baby is hard work." Melissa raised an eyebrow, now looking just like her mother. "How come you never had children, Aunt Sam?" She tipped her head on one side and regarded her aunt curiously. Sam shrugged. "I really don't know. I've never met a man I really wanted to share my life with, I guess. And I don't think it would be fair to bring up a child alone." She was worried that Melissa would want more details, but she semed happy with that explanation. Fortunately. Explaining love, marriage, and commitment to a girl who had not quite hit puberty would be tricky. The next photo was one Melissa had seen before - a large copy was framed and hung on the wall downstairs. It showed her and her parents, and Melissa just about remembered this one being taken. It was the first of the Scully family get-togethers that she could recall, just before Mom and Dad had gone away. She remembered that vividly; she'd stayed with Granny Margaret. And then they'd come back, and she'd met Aunt Sam for the first time. The next photo confirmed her memories, showing a younger Aunt Sam holding her, with her Mom on one side and her Dad on the other. She smiled as she looked up at her aunt. "I remember this one, Aunt Sam! And I remember the..." Whatever she was about to say was interupted by a call from downstairs. "Missy? Sam? We're home!" It was her Mom's voice, and she was up and out of the door in seconds. Sam took a bit more time, closing the book gently and carrying it down with her. "Hi, Sam," said Dana, looking a little frazzled. No wonder, after a hard day at the office. Her brother greeted her over his daughter, who he held in his arms. "Hi, sis." "Hi Fox. How was work?" He shook his head dismissively. "No real problems. As usual, I did all the work and Dana took all the credit..." His wife only smiled at him. "Honey, you're talking about a woman with a gun." He looked from her face, to his sister's - where he got absolutely no support - to Melissa's. "I don't think that was very nice of your Mom - how about you?" She only giggled. "But, if you let me finish... which she no doubt deserves, for putting up with me." "That's better," commented Dana with a smile, kicking off her shoes and stretching her toes luxuriously. She saw the folder in Sam's hands and beamed. "You found it!" Melissa nodded and wriggled to be put down. "I found it, Mom. And we've been looking at the pictures. Aunt Sam's been telling me about all of them." Dana looked over from her daughter to her sister-in-law who was also a very close friend. "Thanks for babysitting, Sam." "I'm not a baby!" claimed Melissa loudly. Then, slight forgotten, she took her mother by the hand and led her into the lounge, her fading voice declaring that she wanted to show the pictures to her. "Thanks, Sam. We do appreciate it." She smiled up at her big brother who was, in fact, only four or five inches taller than she was. "No problem, Fox. But you do know that I'm staying to dinner? Three women to boss you about all evening." He grinned, once more looking like the eleven-year-old she remembered from before. "I wouldn't have it any other way." THE END Please - send me feedback... Ian Horsewell 8^) University Of Warwick i.j.horsewell@warwick.ac.uk - http://www.warwick.ac.uk/~phuwv The gods like an atheist; it gives them something to aim at.