Title: Contemplation Author: Ariel E-mail: AndiBeth82@aol.com Rating: PG and huge references to MSR Category: Vignette Spoilers: No major spoilers, but general references to "Duane Barry, "Emily," cancer arc, "Irresistible," "Fight The Future," "Pusher," "Redux II," "Millennium." Small dialogue references to "Fight The Future," "Detour," and "Tooms." Disclaimer: Don't own Œem, never will. I just like to take them out and play with them once and a while, you know, give them the fun 1013 never lets them have :) No infringement is intended. Archive: Please do. I only ask you e-mail me so I know where it's going. Summary: "Often time, she'll pull off the road, and wonder." *Feedback:* Do I even have to ask? I will worship the ground you walk on forever... General Note: I wrote this after "Requiem" aired as a testament to my feelings on how CC handled the Œship this year, but this is NOT a post-Requiem story by any means. Some people have said that Mulder and Scully are already lovers, some people were annoyed that the ship had taken some serious deterioration. This is my take on Scully's thoughts about the Œship in general. Enjoy! Additional authors notes at end. Contemplation By Ariel --------------------------------------- She drives for almost three hours before she finally comes to the realization that she has absolutely no idea where she's going. And, for a moment, she feels herself startle as she realizes that the comprehension comes only as a minor shock to her calm, compressed, self. She then dutifully dismisses it with a mental wave of her hand. It's almost as if her mind has become used to this anyway; not knowing where she's going, where she's headed, what she's going to do. She pulls the car off the near empty highway and stops by the sideroads, cutting the engine skillfully before turning her mind to more important things. The sky turns a garish blue-green outside her car window, and the highway is a deathly silent dome on this new morning, a seemingly subtle reminder of how most people except her do not usually go driving before five AM. Often times she'll pull off the road, sometimes nearer from here, sometimes farther, and wonder if this is maybe where Duane Barry stopped to talk to that police officer while she was being held hostage in his trunk. Other times, she'll stare endlessly at the road, wondering if this is the same image Emily had seen before those cruel sons-of-a-bitches made her the child of a fatal test subject. She never really knows where she goes or what she does after she stops here. She did once know where she was going, what she was doing, where she was headed. She once had a life, a fixed setting of a life, an itinerary of how to act, what to do and what to wear, a suitable plan for her character. A fixed life, just like her fixed personality. In her childhood, and even now, Bill had been strict, Bill had been controlled. He liked to go about life ordering people around. Melissa hated a life of confinement and closure, and hated the idea of a fixed plan for everything. But her, Dana, she was less rigid than Bill yet more controlled than Melissa. She had a fixed plan for her life. She knew what she was going to do, how she should act. Dana was special. Dana was her own person. Even after she began her job, her plan was still there. A fixed way of how to act and what to do. But now she realizes she doesn't have that anymore. In the early dawn of morning, with no viewers and little distractions, she likes to count her wounds, though it brings her no great memories. Right arm, there's a chicken pox scar, and look, down there, she still has the quarter sized remains of the stitching that had to be done to her right knee when Bill had kicked her with his size 8 army boots so long ago. Absently, her arms often travel down to her legs, where she feels the bumps of too many bruises from too many cases gone wrong, and then to her stomach, where she gingerly rubs what's left of the surgical scar of a gunshot wound that nearly took her life. But try not to think about that, no...and then, of course, there's her neck. And what type of bastard would put a disease in her body, an incurable disease, for that matter, only to be temporarily healed by a single microchip of limited reassurance, she wonders, rubbing it absently. She finds herself contemplating the thought, realizing she's thinking more and more these days of how little time she has left in her life. She sometimes wonders about her fixed life, the life she could have had, the life that was more strict than Missy's and less strict than Bill's. She had it once, when she lived in a cream colored house, with a perfectly manicured lawn and a white picket fence. She had neighbors up and down the streets, she had children. She had friends to talk to, spaces of time when she could curl up on the couch and watch a horror movie or sleep a restful night without having to be woken up at 3 AM with the feeling of trepidation. It was a world where her body didn't know cancer, her mind didn't know fear, and nobody knew about little green men, zombies and serial killers. The life she could have had. Her cream colored house is gone now, in its place stands a dark, dingy basement where she realizes she doesn't even have a desk, a place to call her own. The perfectly manicured lawn has overgrown with the unfinished things her life has not allowed her to do, the white picket fence is now a circle of people who gossip behind her back and call her things such as "the ice queen." She has no friends to talk to, her own life has become a horror movie, and nights are now fitful, as she frequently answers each chirp of her cell phone as though her life was ending. No house, no fence, no fixed life for her fixed personality. It's a world where nobody believes her, where she has to shoot zombies in the head, where she learns that time can not be controlled. The life she has now. And sometimes she thinks about Mulder. Fox Mulder, Spooky Mulder, whatever the hell his name really was, even after seven years she doesn't know for sure. Might as well have been named "Elusive," or "Dull." She thought he loved her once, maybe he loved her, now she's not so sure. Platonic, yes they're relationship had always been platonic, but she had always felt something more, thought they could have a relationship beyond the intimate touches and hand holdings, thought he felt the same way. Oh, it wasn't like he had been blatantly avoiding it, she reasoned, her hand coming up to smooth the strands of short auburn that danced in the wind. There had been flirtation, there had been definite hinting. There had even been a kiss. She sucked in a breath, feeling the cool wind slide past her throat and wondered what Mulder's breath would feel like on her neck. "Happy New Year, Scully." "Happy New Year, Mulder." Happy New Year indeed. She still remembers the tone of his voice, so comparable to that of a shy high schooler who just had his first kiss in the back of a 1973 Mustang at a drive-in movie. Shy, hinting, and sure there was more to come. Or so she had thought. Nothing else has come. She remembers a student teacher in high school, one who used to say if you found true love, you would know it and that love and relationships only got better after some years. She remembers this, and smiles a wry smile, and how wrong is this thought in her life. Granted, it was the past years when their passion had been so strong. Hand holding while looking at the hospital bed that held a serial killer. A passionate hug in a hospital hallway after losing her only friend to incurable cancer. A kiss on the check as she lay dying of the same disease, unable to cry, unable to fight, only able to think. A physical breakdown, sobbing in his arms after nearly being killed. //If there's iced tea in that bag, it could be love.// //Scully....sing...anything// //I don't want to do this alone. I don't even know if I can. And if I quit now, they win.// But they had quit long ago. So long ago. The little intimate hand holdings, the flirtations and the caring glances meant nothing now. And as she sits here in the dawn of a new morning, she wonders if this will be the day. So many days she has woken up, gotten and her car, and drove. So many days, she has pulled over her car, and wondered. So many days, she has prayed, hoped that maybe--maybe---this is the day. But it never is. But maybe this is. And in the space of a heartbeat, a tiny smile plays onto her face. She knows what she's doing, what she has to do, what she's going to do. No waiting anymore, not for her. For the first time, she knows where she's going. She guns the engine, pulls the car back onto the road, and turns right onto the street that leads to Alexandria. FINIS. Countless thanks to Jamie M. (My fellow chica), for beta. FEEDBACK: constructive and criticism (with the exception of flames): AndiBeth82@aol.com