From: ephemeral@ephemeralfic.org Date: 20 Feb 2002 14:22:03 -0000 Subject: New: The Provisional World by Buckingham by Buckingham Source: direct Reply To: buckingham15@yahoo.com TITLE: The Provisional World AUTHOR: Buckingham E-MAIL: buckingham15@yahoo.com CLASSIFICATION: M/S, A SPOILERS: Season 9 SUMMARY: Staying connected DISCLAIMER: Mulder and Scully, etc. belong to CC, 1013, and FOX. The Provisional World by Buckingham - x - The world was whole because it shattered. When it shattered, then we knew what it was. -- Louise Gluck, 'Formaggio' - x - Everything is different. That is what she tells herself, but will admit to no one else. Now she lives life like a member of a twelve step program, one blue day at a time, not looking forward, not planning too far ahead. She lives with few expectations -- the sun will rise, William will look more and more like his father, and the night will find her alone in bed, dreaming of past lives. These are her only givens. She can't bear crowds anymore, because of the crazed, desperate hope they inspire -- that he might be hiding behind a cluster of strangers, watching her and William, and she'd foolishly pass him by, close enough for them to breathe on one another but still missing him. She is weepy without warning, at television commercials, black-and-white melodramas, stray dogs barking on street corners, at William's achingly familiar smile. She hates calendars, for their ability to tally up time so neatly and easily. Nine months, they tell her, and she has no choice but to believe. Nine months that feel like one endless, dreary day, nine months that feel like a flimsy, gray stretch of eternity. It is certain: among other things, she has lost all sense of time. - x - When the clock turns over to midnight in those first few seconds of February 23rd, she is still at Quantico, huddled in her office with Doggett and Reyes and a box full of missing person reports. The room is dark as a cave and smells thick and greasy, like the meatball hero Doggett wolfed down earlier for dinner. Her stomach is queasy and her eyes are strained, but there is work to be done, even if it is her birthday. She takes her glasses off, and pinches the bridge of her nose to ward off a headache. She misses William, misses her tub and bath salts, misses her bed. Misses *him,* feeling the emptiness like the slow, dull throb of a toothache. Tomorrow morning (this morning really) her mother leaves for San Diego, on a mission to help Tara out while she goes through the last few weeks of another difficult pregnancy, so she brought over an icebox cake this morning, her daughter's favorite, just to make certain that Scully had the essentials for a celebration. She is thirty-eight years old and a single mother. She has no real interest in her job any more, though she goes through the motions, the only available expert in all things X-Files related, because she knows it's what Mulder would want. There is no reason for celebration beyond William, and she knows it. Still the idea of a thick slice of her mother's cake, a cold glass of milk, and story-time with her son seem like heaven to her. Small pleasures in an otherwise joyless day. She'll go through one more stack of folders before she abandons Doggett and Reyes to the search. She isn't the Queen of the Basement or Mulder's scientific conscience any longer. She can't burn the midnight oil like she used to. She tries to read another police report, but the letters make as much sense to her as hieroglyphics at this point, and when her cell phone trills, sounding like faraway wind chimes, she jumps for it. With the Gunmen's help, she has amassed a small collection of different phones, and she randomly switches off between them. She may still be bugged, but she figures she'll make it as difficult for the SOBs as possible. There is still some fight left in her. She is almost certain that will be her mother, wondering where she is, when she'll be home, reminding her that the flight to San Diego is at nine a.m. "Hello?" she says, turning her back to Doggett and Reyes for some privacy. Instead of her mother's polite, reprimanding voice, all Scully can hear are the tinny sounds of a bar -- glasses sliding, chirpy conversations, pool balls knocking around, faint guitar riffs. "Hello?" she says again, pressing a finger to her ear so she can hear more clearly. The rough sounds of barroom brawls and looming one-night stands fall away and she can hear the coarse voice of Tom Jones perfectly, as if someone is holding the phone up to the speaker of a stereo or a juke box. "Well, she's all you'd ever want, she's the kind I'd like to flaunt and take to dinner," Tom purrs, directly into her ear. "Well, she always knows her place, she's got style, she's got grace. She's a winner." Her first impulse is to laugh, a weak huff that is barely audible. Right behind the humor, though, is the real thing, hell and heartbreak, and she feels herself losing it, even in her very professional black suit, in a bland office with her very own nameplate on the door, even with Doggett and Reyes breathing down her neck. Tears prick at her eyes, and her mouth trembles around a single word, around his name, but she doesn't allow herself to say it aloud. The line goes dead without warning, and then there's nothing but silence, buzzing, dead air in her ear. Someone taps a pen on the desk behind her, and papers are shuffled. She turns her chair very slowly, just as Monica clears her throat. "Did you say something, Dana?" she asks, absently. She is playing with the silver chain around her neck, using a neon green highlighter to mark the photocopy in front of her. Scully shakes her head, wipes quickly at her nose. She takes a deep breath, and puts her glasses back on. There is work to be done. - x - She's found a trick that works for her: jamming her days full, no time for thinking or counting, no time for longing or remembering. She tries to put William on a rigid schedule, as rigid as an infant will allow anyway, and structures her day around it. It will be spring soon, and she plans to make a habit of leaving work by five, so there's still time to walk him through the park in evening before the sky goes black. She will take almost any consult that Reyes and Doggett need her to, but she's giving up the traveling -- too much time away from William, too much time in planes and cars to reconsider her mistakes and regrets. She's following Spring Training, getting ready for baseball season, without analyzing her sudden interest. William has a tiny blue baseball cap, and she sings "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" to him when he gets fussy. She likes to imagine that Mulder is in Florida, bumming around the camps and taking in batting practice, watching the Yankees' exhibition efforts. He is tan and his hair is long again, falling over his eyes like when he was younger. He wears shorts and faded t-shirts while he keeps track of the action on score card, and always keeps his sunglasses on, even under clouds, so no one can see the look in his eyes. In his back pocket, he carries a creased photo of William, just hours old, that he looks at every so often, so he can remember. This is what she hopes for him, her best case scenario. - x - Once, when they sat alone in a sedan and waited for Harlan Rollins, possible rapist, to leave his shabby row house, Mulder asked if she preferred Fitzgerald or Hemingway. She squinted at him, wondering at the question's relevance, but he only popped a sunflower seed in his mouth and watched the building. They had been partners for just over a year, and his random, leapfrog thoughts were daunting, trouble to her ordered, straight-line mind. "Fitzgerald," she said finally, when it seemed he was content to sit and wait forever. "Why?" He didn't answer, just mumbled "Good," while he reached into the back seat. He tossed a paperback copy of 'Tender is the Night' in her lap, and rested his hands on the wheel again. She flipped through the pages, but Mulder still wasn't talking. When she upped the ante and raised her eyebrow, he finally caved, and looked in her direction. "That's my favorite," he said. He smiled, as if that were explanation enough. "Start at the beginning." "You want me to read it to you?" she asked, incredulous. "We'll take turns. You read, I watch for Rollins. I read, you watch for Rollins." She shook her head, but opened the book, held it close to the window so the street light illuminated the words with its pale glow, and started to read. Mulder settled back in his seat, listening. Years later, when he was recovering from his botched lobotomy, Mulder asked her to read it to him again, and over one long, bedridden weekend, they went through it once more. She read the whole thing that time, her throat aching by Sunday evening. All weekend, she'd meant to ask why he liked it so much, if it was Nicole or Dick that he identified with, but she never got around to it, never remembered to ask later. Still, she doesn't know. In a used book store now, trailing behind Doggett and Reyes in pursuit of an X-File, she notices a lovely hardback edition of 'Tender is the Night' on the front table, no jacket, just binding the color of crushed cranberries and thin silver print like icy moonlight. The pages in this copy are still crisp, sharp along all the edge, ripe for paper cuts. Mulder's, she remembers, is well-read, beaten up. When she packed away his things last year, believing he was never coming home again, she found it, crammed in the middle of a thick pile on the bottom shelf of his bookcase. It was in worse shape than the last time she'd seen it, like it had traveled a great distance since then and not very well. The spine had been patched with electrical tape, and the pages had grown soft and yellowed, like old newsprint. She cried all over it, then ran to Mulder's bathroom to throw up. It hadn't been a good day. Now Mulder's copy is in a packing box, stuck in the back of some storage space in Silver Spring, the pages slowly disintegrating. Her hands fumble as she flips through the bookstore edition, while she searches the text and her memory. She finds what's she looking for, and her fingertip traces over the words, like messages written across the sky. "Later she remembered all the hours of that afternoon as happy," Scully reads aloud, without realizing she's doing it. "One of those uneventful times that seem at the moment only a link between past and future pleasure but turn out to have been the pleasure itself." And there it is, her wish. One more basement afternoon, one more car trip, one more conversation in the dark with her head over his heart, one more morning nursing William, Mulder watching from the foot of the bed, smiling. Nothing astonishing, no miracles or magic, no alien or divine intervention necessary. She breathes in deeply, the air rich with dust and glue. Her hands are still shaking. She turns, and finds that Doggett is behind her, looking over her shoulder. "Find something?" he asks. "No," she tells him. "Nothing." His brow furrows as he watches her caress the smooth surface of the book, and she knows that he is trying to decide whether or not he should be concerned, whether she's about to break down in a secondhand book store in Richmond. He looks around quickly, probably searching for Monica. "It's nothing," she says, self-conscious. "I just like this book." With a sigh, she ignores Doggett's sad, pitying eyes. He has no idea what it is he feels sorry about, but that doesn't seem to stop him. She doesn't think that he's ever really understood, and that makes his sympathy seem clumsy and misplaced. Monica emerges from the dark stacks, and stands beside him. She doesn't say a word. Scully carries her book to the register, leaving Doggett to explain as he sees fit. - x - She could live with being asked to give things up, Scully thinks, if she weren't asked over and over again. Mulder's abducted, and she has to live without him. Mulder dies, and she has to build a life without him. Mulder goes into hiding, and she has to pretend an entire life without him. Maybe she should be used to it by now, a Mulder-less existence, but it seems that each time that she is expected to endure it again, she is less and less composed, less and less able. For years, she thought that opening herself up to him and confronting that final frontier of their relationship would make her weak. She refused to give into her need. Now, alone, she counts their time together -- only nine nights; eight years together and she only made love to him on nine separate occasions -- and wonders what she was thinking. If anything, more time like that with Mulder would have made her stronger, given her greater resolve. What a fool she's been. - x - In a dream, Mulder stands center stage in some dark karaoke club, belting out 'American Girl' in the same droning, rumbly voice he speaks in. His t-shirt is orange, his pants are black, and he makes her think of Halloween. (William dressed in a silly pumpkin costume, half-asleep while Grandma snapped an entire roll of film) He doesn't seem to have an ounce of self-consciousness, rocking out better and more attractively than Tom Petty ever could hope. Surrounded by shadows, her dream self stands at the back of the club, holding some watered-down drink. Her other hand holds a gun. Mulder jumps down off the stage, and charges for her, grinning, moving his hips like he did on stage. "I was in the wrong key, wasn't I, Scully?" he asks, peering down at her. His face is damp with sweat, and his eyes glitter dangerously. He isn't wearing any shoes, and she wants to rub his bare foot against her cheek, kiss his toes. "You were fine," she tells him. She squeezes his bicep, reassuring herself as much as him. "You were good." "Where's William?" She shakes her head, confused, and blinks into the darkness. "Scul-lee," Mulder whines. "You promised. You promised me you would take care of him." He stomps his foot petulantly, and throws his arms up in the air. "Mulder, I --" He's turned his back on her, and she realizes that he's walking away. She calls after him, but he doesn't even flinch. In bed, she wakes alone and nauseous. She brings William to her room, and watches him sleep. - x - For a while, she didn't know how to explain him to William. She didn't even know what to call him. The real problem was that she didn't know what to call him herself, what he was to her. 'Partner' didn't seem adequate any more. 'Boyfriend' felt ridiculous, and 'Lover' made her uncomfortable, tinged too much with melodrama. In her mind, he was always just 'Mulder,' as if that said it all, as if he couldn't be pinned down by any label out there. So she told William stories and just said "Mulder did this" and "Mulder thought that." She put a picture of him on William's dresser and said, "You have his eyes, sweetie. And his nose, his smile," tracing the baby's face as she held up the photo. Then it was October 13th, and she felt raw inside all day. There was no way to ignore it. She held William tight to her chest, her eyes red and wet, and cooed in his ear. "It's Daddy's birthday today, baby," she whispered, broken. "It's Daddy's birthday." Now he's always Daddy, no matter who's around, no matter who might be listening. - x - In her mail, between her credit card bill and pizza coupons, there is a crumpled white envelope, with no return address, post marked San Antonio, Texas. She watches it shake in her hand, and tries to fight off expectation. The handwriting is a mess, like a right-handed person using his left or a kindergartner copying ABCs off a black board, and though she tries to see familiar loops or slants in it, it is absolutely foreign to her. When she tears it open with care, the envelope contains nothing but a postcard of the Statue of Liberty. Scratched on the back, in handwriting that *is* so familiar it brings tears to her eyes, are meaningless baseball statistics. 'Keith Hernandez,' it reads. '1B, 1974-1990, .296 BA, 2182 H, 162 HRs, 1071 RBIs, 98 SB, MVP 1979, 11 Gold Gloves.' She already has a dozen or so post cards like it, with flat, shiny pictures of landmarks and the stats of Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Hank Greenberg, Gil Hodges, Willie McCovey, Steve Garvey, Eddie Murray jotted carefully on the back. She's caught on enough to realize they're all first baseman, all rather good, but beyond that she doesn't know what he's telling her. She reads the numbers to William, shows him the Liberty Bell, Alamo, or whatever else might be depicted on the front, then tucks them away in drawer, like love letters. William is half-asleep when she brings the Statue of Liberty card to his room. He punches his fists through the air but stares at it unseeingly. While she reads the stats, he makes gurgling sounds, almost like laughter, and tries to grab a fistful of her hair. "Hey sweetie, pay attention," she laughs. "I think Keith Hernandez was on the Mets, but that's all I know." She refuses to cry. Not over something as silly as baseball. "Oh! And he was on an episode of 'Seinfeld.' I remember that." William is unimpressed, and gets drowsy again in her arms. She lays him down in his crib, and strokes his cheek as he drifts off. In her bedroom, she reads the postcard again. And again and again. She tries to will the words to transform, to tell her something she needs to hear. Leave it to Mulder to teach baseball appreciation in absentia. Leave it to her to be angry with him in absentia. - x - He kissed her at the front door when he left, and held her against him, like he might be reconsidering the whole thing. When he looked down at her, with his glassy, dim eyes, she started to cry, and he patted her back. "It'll be all right," he told her. "It's not forever." She nodded, lips trembling. "You have to promise me something. I won't leave until you do, Scully." She wiped roughly at her eyes, and her throat tightened, but she said, "Anything. Anything, Mulder." He nodded to the bedroom, where William slept, red and wrinkled. "You enjoy every minute with him. You remember it all, so when I come back, you can tell me everything. Don't let this --" He gestured between them, the space that was starting to grow. "Don't let it make William seem like something sad." She promised, with salty tears on her lips, and Mulder was gone. On a sunny Friday afternoon, when she's left work early, William giggles in her ear, rolls over on his stomach, then crawls across the living room rug. He isn't fussy, doesn't cry, and his smile is easy, constant. It is a good day. It has to be. - x - Thank you for reading. Please feel free to share your comments and thoughts at buckingham15@yahoo.com