From: "Nancy V" <ourhouse@toad.net>
Subject: Thoughts, as the Tape Turns (1/1) by Nancy V

Thanks for posting and archiving; take this where you will,
just leave my name etc. attached to it.

Disclaimer: Ugh!  There must be a better way.  I don't 
own these characters, they are the property of Chris Carter, 
FOX, and 1013 Productions.  No money will be exchanged 
for the writing of this piece of fiction.

Classification: VA

Spoiler Warning: Um, the pilot?  Does that even count?  
And "Little Green Men".

Summary: Mulderthought/Mulderangst after the last scene in 
"Little Green Men" (but really, they're grey).

Author Notes: First, many thanks for the feedback 
I've gotten so far. It's good to know that words are 
not being posted out into a void.  I've received a 
couple of comments on my lack of quotation marks . . . 
never fear, they will appear in the near future.

Second, the title has nothing to do with a certain
soap opera.

Finally, Little Green Men is one of my favorite episodes,
and I've never seen anything written about it, so...

Thoughts, as the Tape Turns (1/1)
by Nancy V
ourhouse@toad.net
-----------------------------

She left me here, doing my stupid white-bread surveillance.  

I watched her face after I turned on the tape.  We listened to 
my suspects talk about the difference between lap dancing 
and table dancing.  She got that Mona Lisa look I see 
sometimes, as if she wants to say something really raunchy
or in bad taste but knows it's not part of her act. 

What would Scully think if she knew I didn't need to listen to the 
explanation to know the difference? Would I get that look in response?

Probably.

(As an aside, does Skinner realize the irony in asking 
someone with an eidetic memory to be in charge of
taping conversations?)

Now I sit here in this basement room, another basement 
room, how symbolic.  Maybe I should move to a basement
apartment.  They're cheaper, I hear.

I'm back in a suit with headphones clamped to my ears 
and a tie around my neck and the whole trip to Puerto Rico, 
finding Jorge Concepcion, Scully finding me, those bright 
lights and the wind, those unearthly noises that were never
picked up by the recorder...it all seems like a dream now.  Even 
meeting Scully in the parking garage seems of another reality --
the warmth of her hand in my hair, hesitant, then firm, 
then gone.  Willing to be vulnerable, but only for a moment.  

The cool pressure of her hand on mine from a minute before 
seems distant now.

I should have held on, done something when she took 
my hand.  That's not like her, to be so touchy.  She has 
tried so hard since the X-files were closed down, done 
so much to let me know she is still here, doesn't 
give a damn if it's in an official capacity or not.

She said I passed her in the hallway and didn't even see her.

She's right.

Where was I?

Off in my head, again.  Trying to figure out what to do.  
About the X-files.  About my search.

About Scully.

No, it's not a mistake that I think of those things in that 
order.  I don't like it, but I can't stop it.

Before she first walked in the door to my office, I didn't 
want to like her.  I didn't, truly didn't think she'd like me.  
I tried, in fact, to engineer that end.

Of course by the end of our first case she was in my 
arms, trembling with fear, and then I told her about 
Samantha, the first person I'd told in probably five
years.  I think about that night sometimes, when 
I'm alone on the couch and it's raining.  It's one of the 
few memories I am happy to replay in all its detail.  

The look in her eyes when I opened the door to her.  
The way the robe slid off, not sensuously but efficiently, 
as if she were at a doctor's appointment. The toss of her 
head over her shoulder as she asked me to look at her 
back.  The way her skin looked in the candlelight, the
shadows dancing over her. 

Touching the welts, running my fingers over them, 
realizing what they were but a greater realization freezing
me to that spot for a moment longer than necessary:

She was trusting me.

Not just trusting me to see her in her underwear and not 
tease her about it for the next century. 

Not just trusting me -- as a doctor, trusting me -- to diagnose 
whatever marks on her back she might have found.  

She actually believed my theory about those marks
and what they represented, about the missing time 
we experienced and what that might mean.

She *believed*.

When she turned and threw herself into my arms I felt 
something in the center of me that I don't think I've ever 
felt.  If it's the something that makes people read romances 
and daydream . . . well, I understand why people would 
go to such lengths.  

To have someone believe in me, look to *me* for help, 
aid, comfort ... I had never had that.

I'm not sure I've had it since.

That night was the most intimate I have ever experienced.  
Sounds stupid, maybe, for a guy who frequents phone sex 
lines and watches videotapes with titles like "The Buns of 
Navarrone" and "Shameless in Seattle".  Of course that's 
not intimacy, anymore than lap dancing is.

I was careful, after that, not to open up too much.  
Just in case the whole thing was a fluke.  But she's 
never wavered. She was willing to meet me in the 
parking garage of the Watergate, for God's sake.  
That's quite a drive from Annapolis, and the potholes
are terrible.

Not to mention that it's four dollars for the first hour.

She's been trying all this time to tell me something, 
something I'm not sure she even can bring words to.  
Something about how she feels.

And I tried, tonight, too.  I told her that all I had left 
was her.  And myself.  And my work.

But I put the work first.

I do that.  Does that make me a bad person?  To have 
a quest from which I cannot waver, a passion that seems
to come before everything else in my life, including my 
own safety?

Would she understand how I could feel the way I do 
about her, and still talk about work first?

It's not just me ... maybe that's a pathetic excuse for 
an excuse, but it's true.  Oh, she tries more than I do 
to let me know she's there for me... but I never get to 
hear about her, her life, her quests, if she has any.  
Scully must have fears and wants and loves and desires
just like any other woman -- this "Ice Queen" shit is just 
that -- ... maybe it's just that she doesn't feel as if she can 
show those to me, because they're not part of work, and 
in the boys' club of work, no one talks about their gardens 
or their kids or what play they went to see over the 
weekend, or the fight they had with their spouse.  Are 
you kidding? This is a job, not psychoanalysis.

That night in Oregon might have been the only time she 
truly allowed herself to turn to me.  When she barely 
knew me, and I didn't know her.  

I just love irony.

Why has she turned away, I wonder.  She seeks me out, 
she rescues me, stands up for me, but she gives nothing 
of herself, asks nothing from me anymore.  She hasn't 
wavered in her belief in me since our first case . . . but 
she's never dropped her robe again.

Does she want ... proof?  Physical proof that I won't 
hurt her, laugh at her, tease her about her underwear?  

Oh Scully.  You must know that's not possible.  I can't 
show you charts or photographs or audiotapes to 
convince you to confide in me.  Unfortunately you get 
what you see -- a possessed guy who always seems to 
see strange things when no one else is around, hear 
things no one else hears, tends to run off to different 
corners of the globe looking for evidence of extra-
terrestrial life . . .

I suppose I don't make a compelling argument to be 
someone's confidante.

What can I do?  If anything.

I sit, listening to men talk about kinky sex 
practices and how much money they spent on 
their last prostitute, but I'm not really hearing it.  
Instead I'm wishing that she were back here, sitting
beside me, reaching over to hold my hand because 
she doesn't know what else to do, and instead of 
sitting there like a simp, letting her feel sorry for me, 
I squeeze her fingers with mine, turn to her, and tell 
her that as long as I still have her, I know that everything 
will turn out all right.

But no matter how detailed my memory is, it won't 
allow me to disillusion myself into believing this
would actually happen if she showed up now, that
I would say anything besides Hey Scully, want to
borrow a couple of videos for Friday night?

And the tape keeps turning.

------------------
END
comments etc. to
ourhouse@toad.net