From: larchiba@unixg.ubc.ca (Jess Archibald)
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: NEW: REMINISCENCE 1/1 (short)
Date: 26 Oct 1995 04:44:57 GMT


Here's a short little piece that I couldn't get out of my mind.  
WARNING!  This is *not* a funny story like my other short one...
BTW if you see this message can you let me know it got out?  My server 
seems to be losing my posts these days...*sigh*
Characters copyrighted 1993 by CC and 10-13 productions.  Story 
copyrighted 1995 by the author.  Go ahead and sue...all you'll do is 
inherit my term papers and you're more than welcome to them ;->!

REMINISCENCE by Jessica Archibald

	He found her in the graveyard.
	Approaching her grom behind, he took a moment to watch as the 
setting sun backlighted her so that her now gray hair looked, for the 
briefest of moments, the vibrant red that it had once been.  A smile 
touched his face briefly and then faded as he squared his shoulders and 
slowly covered the rest of the distance separating them.
	She was sitting on the grass between and in front of two 
headstones.  He didn't have to look to see what they said; both were 
forever etched in his memory.
	"Hello, Mulder," she said quietly without looking at him.
	"Hi," he replied, hunkering down beside her, feeling the twinge 
in his bones as he did so.  "I stopped by the office looking for the 
assistant director.  Tried telling the staff he was a tall ex-marine, 
bald with glasses.  They said *she* was a woman named Scully."
	She looked over at him and her gaze wasn't amused.
	"Sorry," he said, then settled into silence.
	"I thought you'd be with your father today," she said finally.
	"I went to his grave earlier and caught a plane down to Washington."
	She smiled slightly.  "I'm glad you're here."
	"I promised her that I would come every year," he said quietly.  
"I owe her that much."
	Scully nodded.  "I still miss her."
	"I know.  So do I."
	"I keep thinking that it could have turned out differently.  That 
it could have been me instead.  If I'd asked her to meet me somewhere 
else, she wouldn't have been there for Krycek to kill..."
	"Scully, if it's one thing I know, it's that you couldn't keep 
your sister from doing what she wanted."
	"I wasn't even there when she died, Mulder."
	He felt his eyes burn.  "I know."
	The sun had set and clouds were beginning to move in to cover the 
night sky, casting the place into dark shadow, hiding their faces from 
each other.
	"I wonder -- I wonder if she'd be proud of what I've done," 
Scully said after a long silence.
	Mulder reached over and patted her shoulder.  "She would have been."
	He thought back twenty years.

   <<"I want to help you, Mulder," she said, eyes flashing.  "I need to 
know why my sister had to die."
	"You know why," he had said helplessly, grief of his own welling up.
	"I know the *reason*.  I want to know the *truth*."
	He had nodded.  Extended his hand.  "Welcome to the FBI...Agent 
Scully."
	There were tears on both of their faces.>>

	<We found the truth, Scully,> he thought now, squeezing his eyes 
closed.  <But I don't think it healed either of us...>
	"C'mon, Scully," he said, standing and drawing her up with him.  
"Let's go."
	She turned back to the headstones one more time.  "Goodbye, Dad.  
'Bye, Dana..."
	Fox Mulder and Melissa Scully made their way out of the cemetery.

**********

This story is based on the idea that it was Dana not Melissa who died in 
Paperclip, and what the surving sister would have done with her life 
after that, and that Melissa would have accompanied Mulder on his quest 
to find the truth behind the MJ documents.  Let me know what you think.
	Jess (larchiba@unixg.ubc.ca)