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Title: The Word of Stone
Rating: G 8/19/99 Although this is a sequel to Illumination, it's not neccessary to have read it in order to understand Darkness. The basic premise of both pieces is that Scully is having an adulterous affair with Mulder, and she can't understand why she doesn't feel guilty about it. In the first vignette, Mulder discovers that Scully broke her cross, and he gives her a replacement. Begetted in a rather convoluted way by an exchange with Kipler. *
'Sticks and stone will break my bones, * Eventually, Mulder tells me to call home. "Your children need to talk to their mother." He doesn't mention their father, my husband, and I wonder whether it's because the thought has simply slipped his mind or whether it's a deliberate omission or whether he refuses to bring the subject up. I wonder whether he's not mentioning it because he's doesn't want to deal with it or whether he doesn't want to upset me. It-- So, as much because Mulder asked me to as I wanted to talk to my husband and my children, I called home last night, and the conversation was predictable. The hospital was devilishly busy because a nasty strain of flu had been going around, and Tom had been working ten hour days without lunch breaks, and even though the kids had been hanging out in the staff lounge, neither of them had caught the flu, of which Tom was inordinately proud. The strong Irish blood, he informed me, never mind that he was actually Anglo and my peasant ancestors ran around burning down the barns of his Protestant forbears. Nicole had gotten a 100 on her spelling test and she missed me (in that order), and Jonathon had lost another tooth. The tooth fairy had left him enough to buy orange creamsicles for the whole family. "Yours is waiting in the freezer, Mommy," he chirped as best, and then Nicole started clobbering him for telling the secret, and it was a good long time before Tom got the phone back and informed me, rather ruefully, that it was bedtime, so the squirts had better be going. In the background, Nicole complained that she was too big to have the same bedtime as a *baby*. Jonathon replied that wasn't a baby, and Nicole said that he was too, and an idiot besides, and Jonathon was bursting into tears while Nicole chanted crybaby, crybaby when Tom hung up. Afterwards, I stared at the receiver, my eyes watery from longing for my sweetly pigheaded husband who didn't know any history and my two unbelievably incompatible children, but my ears and my head felt rather relieved to be quit and shut of all that noisiness. Mulder's room was blessedly silent, he was quiet, and even the late-night strategy session with the other agents was remarkably reasoned and adult. We made the arrest the next morning. After the press conference, we had a little spare time so Mulder drove me to the local Church, and I made confession. I confessed to wrathful thoughts, to lying, to greed, but I didn't tell the priest about the fornication and the adultering part. Somehow, it would have been wrong to confess something that my guts didn't quite acknowledge as a sin. I made the rest of my penance promptly and penetiently. So, it's late afternoon now. We're in the park, skipping stones across the lake. There's just enough of a wind to make it a challenge. It turns out that I'm better at skipping stones than he is, so I teach him the Super Secret Scully Method, which was discovered by my grandfather and passed down solely through the male line until Melissa twisted Bill's arm until he taught it to her and then she taught it to me. "The kids on our block begged, lied and bribed trying to learn that, but we refused on the grounds that they weren't of the Clan of Scully. One time, this guy tried to beat it out of Charlie, and Melissa broke his nose for it." I send a particularly nice chip of granite bouncing out across the waters and count five jumps before it sinks. He's in the middle of picking up a stone when he tilts his head and frowns at me. "I thought she was a pacifist." "Before or after she went to college?" I grin, watching him judge the balance of the stone in his hand. "For about three, four years, her ambition was to become the first female pro wrestler, and she practiced her technique whoever crossed her, especially people who ried to learn the Super Secret Scully Method." His eyebrows lift, and I smile again. "Mulder, you're the first non-Scully to learn it." "I'm honored." He pops the stone off with perfect method, and it does six before it drops into the water. "When does your plane leave? "Six tonight." It's four thirty now, and his mouth twitches before he can bring it properly under control, so he keeps staring out at the water. We'll meet again for the indictment, and we'll meet again for the trial, but that's an eternity away at this moment. My throat aches with the prospect of being away from Mulder, of not seeing him again for weeks, months. "Who knows? Maybe I'll come visit you out in Frisco after all." "San Jose," I correct him. There's a difference, a fine, technical difference, but it's a difference, nonetheless. "San Jose." he says, but San Jose might as well be on the dark side of the moon for all the difference because he knows and I know that he'll never visit. Or call, or send an e-mail, and neither will I, so the next time we'll hear from each is the next time that we meet. The next time we slide back into bed together. It's a forgone conclusion. Then, all of a sudden, his stone just takes off across the water, and while it's bouncing around out there, he turns around and looks at me, long and hard with just the faintest trace of bitterness in those extraordinary eyes that are all washed out from the sunlight, his mouth quirked too, his hand half raised, and I'm bracing myself for a caress or a kiss, but he just touches the gold cross dangling in the hollow of my throat. It's a light, gentle touch, just the tip of his fingers stroking the metal, pushing it lightly against the skin. When he starts talking, there's humor in his voice. "Don't step on this one, OK?" "I'll put it someplace safe." His mouth quirks at me again, and he's back to looking out at the lake. I can't quite find the words to answer him or explain it to him, so I reach over and take his hand in mine, and he sneaks his hand around mine, and both of us stand there, on the edge of the lake, never wanting this afternoon to end. * end * Joyce, MSR schmoop. MSR schmoop, Joyce. Now that we've reached a semi-mutual acquaintance, Ms. Schmoop, show your fangs to the audience. Feedback to anasile@aol.com
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