From: RhiaRamsay@aol.com
Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2003 19:42:36 EDT
Subject: New: Persistence of Change 
Source: xff


Title: Persistence of Change
Author: Lola Ravenhill
Rating: PG
Category: Vignette, Angst
Keywords: Mulder introspection
Spoilers: DeadAlive, Three Words, Per Manum, tiny one 
          for Terma (And a vague one for The Princess 
          Bride-does that count?)
Summary: "I discovered...life moved on and left me 
          behind, leaving me to wonder where I fit."

Feedback: Is always appreciated, even though I may 
not reply to it on time.  Send it to either 
LolaRavenhill@yahoo.com or RhiaRamsay@aol.com

Archive: I'll send to Gossamer and Ephemeral.  
Anyone else: you want it, you got it (just send 
me a mail to let me know where it goes).

Disclaimer: They're not mine.


Persistence of Change
Lola Ravenhill


When I was eighteen, I went away to Oxford.  I stayed 
there for six years, learning what I could, experiencing 
everything possible, and seeing the changes all around 
me.  Music, fashion, politics...life.  Life always 
changes.  She is not a static creature, but one that 
moves and adapts according to (or sometimes against) 
the whims of the creatures she inhabits.

My family seemed not to be affected by life's movements, 
however.  I visited my mother and my father when I 
returned, in the short time I had before heading into 
the FBI academy, and I saw that life had seemed to keep 
moving and leave the both of them behind.  They were 
so close to the people I had left six years ago, 
statues trapped in their nightmares.  The small 
changes I did notice were on the surface-Mom had a 
new house, Dad had more wrinkles on his face.  But 
they were exactly the same.

Mom wandered around, slightly spacey, always distantly 
affectionate, perpetually holding herself back from me.  
Dad was still slowly replacing plasma and blood with 
alcohol, and forever demanding things of me that I 
could not give him.  Same as six years before.  Nothing 
ever changes.

Fourteen years later, I was abducted and left for dead.  
I was dead, actually, dead enough for Scully to forgo 
the autopsy and place me six feet below ground as fast 
as possible.  But in that experience I discovered 
something interesting, that death is not as certain 
as people formerly thought it was.  That the degrees 
of mostly dead and all dead are applicable in the real 
world as well as faery tales.  That the persistence of 
life really is a funny thing.

And that this time, life moved on and left me behind, 
leaving me to wonder where I fit.

Scully's pregnant.  Before I was abducted we had tried 
to have a child, and failed at it.  Six months later, 
when I was awake enough to comprehend things, I 
discovered that she was pregnant. Very pregnant.  
Along with an impending baby there was a new person 
in the X-Files office, new believers and disbelievers, 
new presidents, a new World Series champion.  
Everything new.

I have learned that changes are inevitable, and that 
I don't have to like them.  I've been longing for days 
before I was abducted, when it was just Scully and I.  
It was the two of us against the world and finally being 
able to share how we felt about each other freely.  
But fate steps in, and six months later the world I 
knew was gone.  Maybe it was because this time, unlike 
when I went to Oxford, I actually left something behind 
that I would miss.

I know Scully's baby is mine.  I won't kid myself; I 
know that it's something that we created.  The how is 
lost on me, last I knew conception was near impossible, 
but it did happen.  And a baby means more changes.  Yet 
another change I'm not sure I'm capable of dealing 
with.  Maybe it would have been better if I were left 
in the ground, if I had stayed mostly dead.  That way 
everyone else could go on with their lives without 
dealing with the one struggling to keep up.

That's awfully damned cowardly of you to say, Mulder, 
isn't it?

Maybe so.  Maybe I'm sick of being forced into the 
typical model of a literary hero.  Maybe I just want 
to be an ordinary man.  It is the coward's way out, 
but I don't know what else to do.

Life has granted me a second chance, a potential new 
start in this world.  Yet I still feel as lost as a 
three year old in a department store.  

And no matter how hard I try, I just don't know where 
I fit anymore.


End.

Thanks for indulging my attempt to translate personal 
demons into fanfic.