DISCLAIMER: Mulder, Scully and the X-Files belong to Chris
Carter, 1013 Productions and the Fox Network.  I mean no
infringement.

This is a Scully first-person vignette, set in my "Shooting 
Star" series of vignettes dealing with the discovery and death 
of Scully's daughter Emily.

Thanks to my beta-reading crew--Jenn, Lorna, Mara and Missy.

Category: V, A, MS UST with MSR overtones
Rating: PG-13 for language
Spoilers: US Season 5
Archive: Gossamer only.  Other archivists ask first, please.
All other information withheld at author's request.


SHOOTING STAR:  "Passion Play"
by Anne Haynes
 


May 10, 1998


I'm not allowed the luxury of letting this day slide past me. 
I'm not allowed to cocoon myself against the implications.  Not
while my mother lives or my sisters-in-law cuddle babies to their
breasts.

Bill and Tara sent Mom a whole photo album of Matthew, a
chronicle of the life of the heir apparent from squinchy-faced
newborn to cross-eyed creeper.  Tara says he's been trying to
pull up for almost a month now.  Going to be an early walker--no
doubt underfoot all the time.  Mom tells me Bill was like that.

Charlie and his wife Anne sent mom a sweater and a home video of 
Patrick's All-Star soccer tournament.  Mom watched it twice after 
Mass this morning.  I have to admit, Pat's a cutie--and he did
score two goals.  Not bad for a seven-year-old.  He looks just
like Charles, too--God love him.  I hope the freckles fade.

I have no photos or videos to give my mother.  I gave my mother a 
copy of the only picture I have of my daughter when we returned 
from San Diego after Christmas.  I have no videos to share, no
first-day-of-school photos, no silly fucking pictures of a
peanut-butter-and-jelly-slathered grin.  I have nothing but my
memories of one tragic week.  A few short days of joy and pain
etched on my heart with the acid of regret. 

Mom doesn't protest when I decide to leave soon after lunch. 
She knows my pain, better than almost anyone else.  She lost a 
daughter too.  Her arms circle me, strong and warm.  She smells 
of love and vanilla.  "Call me when you get home."

I am tempted to stay here, in the safe circle of her love,
regressing to a time far away and long ago when nothing on earth
could overcome my mother's fierce protection.  But that was a
time when threats were no more menacing than the bully down the
street or the wasp chasing me around the flower garden.  

Nothing is strong enough to protect me from the dangers I have 
come to know over the past few years.  Not my mother.  Not
Mulder.  

Not even myself.

My return to my apartment takes longer than it should, somehow.  
I don't know why; I'm not conscious of driving more slowly or
taking a more circuitous route.  Maybe it's perception.  Maybe
it's as simple as being caught by all the lights.  I know only
that the drive home seems interminable. And yet, not nearly long
enough.  

Because he's waiting for me.  And I'm not ready.

His eyes track my weary path from my car to where he stands at 
the curb, leaning against the trunk of his car.  His expression
is unreadable.  I don't even try.  I don't think I want to know
Mulder's thoughts today.  

I'm not surprised he's here instead of Connecticut; things with
his mother are worse now than ever.  I don't ask him why.  I
never do.  I can see for myself what drives him away from her.  I
also know why he loves her anyway.  He has a penchant for loving
all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons.  Today, I put
myself in that category, too.  Today, I am the wrong person for
Mulder to love.

He moves with unconscious grace, pushing himself upright.  His 
gaze is intense.  He wants something from me.  He always does.  
I don't resent this about him--it's how I prefer things, really. 
I'd prefer to be needed than to need.  And he isn't ashamed to
need me.  He doesn't feel weakened by it.  He doesn't feel he 
has to keep some kind of karmic score, returning favor for favor, 
loyalty for loyalty.  He takes what I give him and gives me what 
I'm willing to take from him.  

"I was about to leave."

"I was at my mother's," I tell him.

He almost seems surprised for a second, then a sheepish look 
skitters across his face, as if he'd forgotten that not everyone
in the world was estranged from his mother.  So self-focused, my 
Mulder.

But that's not fair, either.  He's been better of late.  More
selfless in ways.  More attuned to me and what I want--when I
allow him to be.  But I haven't always allowed him to be.  Not as
much as I sense he wants me to.

God, does he know how much I wish I could?  Does he know that I'm
drowning in fear and rage, too busy grasping for the shaky edge
of sanity to reach out for him?

"Can I come up?"

I'm surprised he asks.  Mulder doesn't ask.  He usually just
acts.

I give a little nod of assent, and we walk upstairs to my
apartment in silence.  A strange, palpable tension tethers us
together as we climb.  He hovers while I unlock the door, close
enough that his heat blankets my back.  

Inside, he remains close.  His heat burns me.  I feel my breath 
slow and thicken.  I am overwhelmed by the urge to run.

Instead, I enter the kitchen and put on a kettle of water to
boil.  To my relief, he remains in the living room.  He stands in
front of my sofa, as if afraid to consign himself to its soft
embrace.  He likes things to be hard.  Sometimes, I think he even
likes things to hurt.  It's how he knows he's still alive.

For a moment, I am crushed by the weight of Mulder's bleak
history.  His life is a lie.  One huge mindfuck.  What must that
be like?  As painful as my own life is now, I don't wonder about
my own family.  I don't wonder about my mother's love or my
father's honor.  I even have the wretched luxury of knowing the
truth about my sister's death. How she died.  Why she died.  Who
killed her.

Mulder knows only that a woman he thought might be his sister met
him in a diner one night and told him she was very happy without
him, thank you very much.  No follow-up phone call.  No letters. 
No assurances that she was who she said.  Only more questions. 
More lies.  He knows his father was somehow involved in heinous
crimes against humanity--but not to what extent or for what
reason.  He knows his mother lies to him every time she says she
can't remember the past.  

He knows everything--and nothing.

"I called my mother."

I turn to look at him.  He is still standing, unmoved from his 
position in front of the sofa.  "How is she?"

"Okay.  Her therapy has brought her a long way."  His lips curl
somewhere between a grin and a grimace.  "Still says she can't
remember shit about the past--but she didn't need a stroke for
that."

I hate her at this moment.  I hate her for hurting him.  I hate
her because he loves her anyway.  I hate her because I think---I 
KNOW---she has the answers he seeks. But even if she told him 
everything tomorrow, it could never erase the scars he'll bear 
forever because of her lies.  And I hate her most for that.

Or maybe I just...hate.  

"Can I help you with that?"  He moves toward me, in that loose-
limbed way of his.  I am struck by the terrible beauty of him. 
He is my dark side come to life, scaring me as surely as he
seduces me.  He is dangerous--in so many ways.

My hand shakes as I lift the whistling kettle from the eye of the 
stove.  He covers my hand with his, steadying the trembling pot. 
I feel his chest press against my back and my heart squeezes.  I
want to turn and bury myself in him.  Or bury him in me.  Both
options have their appeal.

Instead, I ease myself from the curve of his body and let him 
pour the steaming water into teacups for us.  Unlike Mulder, I 
don't like things hard.  I sink into the soft cushions of my sofa
and let him steep the teabags.  I close my eyes and let him do 
for me.  Might as well give him what he wants, for once. 

"How's your mom?"

I open my eyes.  He has set the cups of tea on the low table in
front of me.  He stands next to the table, still and unsure. 
Waiting for my direction.  "She's fine.  Bill and Tara sent a big
photo album of Matthew's baby pictures.  Mom was still looking 
through them when I left."

"Please tell me he looks like your sister-in-law."

I cut my eyes at him.  His expression is deadpan, but I see the
hint of laughter in his eyes.  I want to laugh.  I know he wants
me to.  But I can't.

His expression doesn't change, but my silence extinguishes the
light of mirth in his eyes.  He looks down at the steaming cups 
of tea.  I realize, before he makes a move, that he is going to 
leave without telling me why he's here.

I want to let him go.  He's invading my space.  Infringing on my 
God-given right of self-pity and self-isolation.  I want him the
hell out of my face.

And yet, when he begins to turn, my hand snakes out to grab his. 
My fingers close over his fingers, and I stare at my rebellious
hand as it if is alien to me.

He sags toward me for a moment.  I feel the fullness of his gaze 
like sunlight on my face.  He needs so much. Even in this moment
of kindness on his part, his need is palpable. 

And it hits me like an epiphany that his need for me is the
greatest gift he has to give me.  It's his most precious
offering.  

Loving comes all too easily for him.  Loving too easily is
perhaps his most damaging flaw.  But needing---needing is
something else altogether. Needing me presupposes trust.
Acceptance.  Vulnerability.  Mulder can love British bitches and
heartless, lying bastards.  Fucked-up diner waitresses and
belligerent blind women.  Salty seeds, sci-fi movies and skin
flicks.

But I'm the only thing on this God-forsaken planet that he needs. 

Oddly, the pressure of that realization isn't as crushing as I
had expected.  I've spent the past five years making myself as
indispensible to him as I know how--even if I never realized 
that was my intent.  Now I'm seeing the fruits of that labor.
They're only mildly bittersweet--and I've developed a taste for
them.

He sits on the coffee table, his hip nudging the tray of tea out
of his way.  His other hand comes up to cover our twined hands.
I lift my gaze to his face, watch his lips move soundlessly for a
moment, as if making a dry run through whatever it is he wants to
tell me.  This is why he came here today, I realize.  

To tell me something about Emily.  

My stomach coils.  I don't want to hear it.  And he knows it. 

I wanted to be angry with him all those months ago, when he
stunned me in front of the judge in San Diego with his story 
about what those bastards had done to me while I was missing.
On a cerebral level, I was appalled at his deception.  It would
seem an egregious act of paternalistic arrogance.  

But on a visceral level, I understood him all too well.  I knew
he harbored no condescension.  He didn't--he doesn't--keep things
from me out of some notion that "Mulder knows best."  Nothing
could be further from the truth.  

He didn't tell me because deep down, in the center of his soul 
where I dwell, he knew that I didn't want to know.  I didn't want 
to face this truth.  This travesty.  I didn't want to hear what
had been stolen from me.  I didn't want to hear who or why or
where.

Later,  I had asked him those very question.  Who?  And for 
what purpose?

He had no answers for me.  And if I'm brutally honest with
myself, I'll admit that I wouldn't have wanted them if he had.

I'm very good at denial.  A fucking prodigy.

His fingers tighten around mine.  I am reminded of the way I 
grip the armrests of airplane seats at the moment of take-off,
as if the clutch of my fingers can somehow defy the lift of the
engines and anchor me to the earth.   He is anchoring himself
now, preparing for that stomach-dropping surge when the world
falls from beneath his feet.

He licks his lips.  "I wanted to have more information before 
I told you about this.  But it's not fair to keep something like
this from you."

My stomach sinks.

"Yesterday, I found a link between Roush and Transgen."

I raise one eyebrow, curiosity battling dread.

"They're both linked somehow to Pinck Pharmaceuticals."

I shake my head.  "Pinck disappeared three years ago."

"The reports of its death were exaggerated."  He releases my hand
and reaches into the pocket of his jeans.  He pulls out a folded
computer print-out and unfolds it on his knee.

Despite the churning of my stomach, I bend forward to see what he
has found.  On the print-out is a list of corporations.  There
are at least five pages of 50 names per page.  

"These are business licenses applied for in 1995."  He points to
where he's highlighted a name.  "The Gunmen had a new computer
program they were dying to try out.  It uses some combination of
search engine and extrapolatory software to help pare down a
broad search list to entries fitting certain specific
parameters."  He gives an impatient shrug.  He's not a computer
whiz.  I understand what he's telling me better than he does. 
"It took weeks of going through millions of entries--but last
week, we hit on some real possibilities."

His fingertip moves to a company name in the middle of the first
page.  "Leonardo Pharmaceuticals.  Has warehouses on both coasts,
the Southeast and six states in the midwest, and a satellite
distribution center serving four Canadian provinces.  Came into
business less than a month after Pinck Pharmaceutical disappeared
from the map in 1995."

Visions of exploding boils haunt my mind.  I blink them away.

He flips the page, his finger skimming down to the same name.
"Went belly up in the fall of 1996.  Three months later---" he 
flips another page, "Roush Pharmaceutical comes into being. 
Covers the Eastern Seaboard."

I'm impatient.  "What about Transgen?"

He turns to the next page.  "Incorporated within three days of
Roush.  Covering the West Coast, the Pacific Northwest, Arizona,
New Mexico and the Rockies."

"When did Roush go under?"  My question is virtually redundant. 
I can cite the day.  Maybe even the hour.

"October 1997."

"And Transgen disappeared January of this year," I murmur.

I remember my daughter's soft, plaintive words.   Mommy said no 
more tests....

I can't draw a breath.

"But I think I've tracked them down."  He flips to the final
page.  "They split up in 1996, Roush covering the east and
Transgen the west.  But I figured they must have had some sort of
operation in the south and the midwest.  So the boys and I went
digging.  They called me yesterday and told me they'd found a
company in Missouri that expanded to the east coast in November
and the west coast in February.  When I saw the name--I knew."

My gaze tracks the movement of his finger down the paper.  His
fingertip comes to rest on a name midway down.  A soft bubble of
laughter swells in my throat and I give it utterance.

His gaze lifts to my face.  I meet his wary eyes.

I say the name aloud.  "Roswell Corporation."

His lips curl.

More laughter spills between my cold lips.  I hear the low, 
rumbling echo of his dark mirth.

We laugh with the frantic cadence of hysteria.  Harder and
harder.   Shaking with it.  The print-out pages slide from his 
knee, slip to the floor and scatter.  I clutch at him as I feel
my world tilt and spin.  His hands close around my arms.

A while later, when the hard convulsions of madness begin to
subside, his hands slide up my arms, his fingers tangle in my
hair.  "It's somewhere to look," he murmurs.  He cradles my head
like a lover, forcing my gaze to meet his.  I look into the murky
depths of his eyes, seeking something I can't name.

He has not told me everything.  Another secret flits through the
darkness in his eyes, flashing briefly into sight before
disappearing into the gloom.  His reluctance is tangible, hot 
and jittery and sly.

I don't want to know.  I'm afraid to know.  Mulder knows it.  So
I don't voice the question.  And he doesn't offer the rest of the
truth.  

His gaze drops and his hands fall away from my face. He bends to
gather the papers that had scattered around us while we
surrendered to madness.  

I remove the papers from his hand and lay them on the table by
the cooling tea.  I mimic his earlier movements, taking his face
between my palms and forcing him to look at me.  His gaze
deconstructs me.  I see his soul there, raw and bloody and
screaming.  

His voice, ragged and strangled, catches me by surprise.  "I
wanted you to have her."

I can only stare.  

"I know what I said at the time.  I was afraid for you, afraid of 
what she would do to you."  His words tumble over his lips and
tongue in a guilty rush.  "But when I held her that night at the
children's home--" He swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing wildly. 
He can't seem to find words.

He doesn't have to.

I know.

I've known all along.

I saw him that night in the living room of my brother's home, his
long fingers worrying the small figurines in Tara's creche.  It
was no coincidence that he found his attention focused on the
figure of Joseph.  The parallels between that most holy of
stories and our own wretched passion play are obscene but
undeniable.

Although I'm no blessed virgin.  Mulder is no simple carpenter.

And the child died thirty years too early.  

The only magnificat that I can offer spills from my eyes in salty
silence.  Mulder's fingers catch the tears, brush them over the
curves of my cheeks.  His lips are cool against my brow.  Against
my lips.  Cool and soft and healing.

I can't let go.  Not all the way.  I don't think I'd ever find my
way back if I did, and I don't think Mulder could bridge the
distance.  Not yet.

So I hold on one more time.  Gather the fraying ends of my sanity
and tuck them safely out of harm's way.  I return the pressure of
Mulder's lips briefly, until I feel a flare of heat invade the
serenity of the caress.  I pull back before we can ignite. 

When I look into his eyes, I'm not sure if I see regret or 
gratitude.  I'm not sure that I don't see both.

I release his face, my hands sliding over his shoulders and down
his arms.  Our fingers tangle briefly before we move apart in
tacit concert.

"We'll have to be discreet in our inquiries into Roswell
Corporation," he says, as if no time at all has passed since he
first showed me the print-outs.  "Anything blatant and they'll
crawl back into the woodwork."

I nod.  

For a moment, I see that secret something flicker behind his eyes 
again.  Furtive and edgy.  But he is already moving toward the 
door,  our tea forgotten.  He has accomplished what he came for.  
He knows that I need for him to leave now, and he will move
heaven and earth to give me what I need.  Even if he has to wait 
until I'm ready to accept it from him.

I have never loved him more than I do at this moment.

I follow him to the door, gracing him with a rare smile as he
turns to look at me one more time.   He seems ridiculously
pleased by the gesture.  My heart breaks.

"I'll see you in the morning."  

I nod.  

His fingers find mine one more time.  Just a brush of skin to 
skin and then he's gone.

Somehow, it's enough.


The End