From: ephemeral@ephemeralfic.org Date: 6 Jun 2005 00:28:31 -0000 Subject: Shiver by Havisham Source: direct Reply To: havisham@gmail.com TITLE: Shiver AUTHOR: Havisham EMAIL: havisham@gmail.com RATING: G CATEGORY: MSR, Mulder POV WORKS CITED: Coldplay's album Parachutes for their song Shiver and The X-Files timeline for background check [http://www.themareks.com/xf/] FEEDBACK: please DISCLAIMER: You know how it goes. --- Shiver by Havisham She's definitely pissed at me and she had every reason to be. I ditched her again, but that time I really thought that I was doing the right thing. I left her during a case so I could follow a lead alone that would have endangered her life had she gone with me. Of course I was wrong about that and it was my life that I put at risk. She's definitely pissed at me. She's also obviously not up for a light conversation. Had I said one word, I just knew that she'd snap back and berate me for leaving her in the motel and almost getting myself killed, again. I could almost hear her, "What if I hadn't shown up in time? You could have died. Whatever happened to watching each other's backs?" her unsaid words echoed in my head. The silence in the car was deafening and the slow rush hour traffic wasn't helping. I decided to turn the radio on to check what was going on with the afternoon commute as if I hadn't already known but instead of hearing the voice of a surly old man announcing the traffic news, a nice song came on. It started with upbeat tunes, familiar tunes, as though I'd heard the song before. "So I look in your direction, but you pay me no attention, do you," the crappy sound system of our rental chimed but I caught every word. "I know you don't listen to me, 'cause you say you see straight through me, don't you." The song continued and I turned to look at her for a second and saw her intently staring forward at something I could not see. "On and on from the moment I wake, to the moment I sleep, I'll be there by your side, just you try and stop me. I'll be waiting in line, just to see if you care." The song went on and for the briefest of moments, I thought I saw her staring at me through the corner of my eye. "Did you want me to change? Well I change for good and I want you to know that you'll always get your way." Neither of us spoke. I didn't have words to say. "I wanted to say, 'Don't you shiver?'" The chorus went on, over and over. Still, no one said a word. "I'll always be waiting for you. So you know how much I need you, but you never even see me, do you?" Cars in front and around us went slower or maybe it just seemed that they did. "And this is my final chance of getting you." The singer belted out and I turned to face her just as she was turning to face me. I would have stared at her forever but a damned car suddenly cut ahead of us and I slammed on the brakes. 'Idiot,' I wanted to scream on the top of my lungs. She said nothing. "I'll always be waiting for you. Yeah I'll always be waiting for you." Those were the words that next registered into my head. 'I'll always be waiting for you.' I drove a little faster again. The chorus went on as we passed the car, that cut us earlier, turned on its side on the bank of the highway. The driver somehow managed to crawl out unharmed and was kicking the roof of his car and loudly screaming obscenities to no one in particular. Traffic went to a complete stop due to rubber necks and good Samaritans. Everyone, it seemed, was gawking at the car wreck in a mixture of fascination and horror. The song went on and I looked at her and she looked back at me. "And you know how much I need you, but you've never even seen me." She saw me and I saw her. I held her hand in mine. We didn't need words. --- end --- AUTHOR'S NOTES: Coldplay's album, Parachutes, came out Nov. 7, 2000. According to The X-Files timeline and from watching the show, Mulder was already gone by the summer of 2000. Just ignore this bit and assume that the song came out way before Mulder's abduction. Metaphors anyone?