From: macspooky@erols.com (Macspooky)
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: Generations:Macspooky, Reflections 2
Date: 27 Nov 1995 17:15:59 -0500


This is part 2 of the story.  It can stand by itself I guess, but it is
better if you read both.  All of the same disclaimers still apply. 
This was written on September 22, 1995.



                Reflections on a Rainy Afternoon in June
                                    
                                   by 
                                    
      Macspooky                                                   

     Dana sat curled up on the sofa with a book, the sound of the
heavy rain beating against her window pane.  It had stormed earlier, a
wild spring storm with heavy winds, thunder and lightening, water
pouring from the sky.  It had reminded her of the way her husband had
made love to her the night before, recklessly, with total abandon.
Now, however the rain was steady and calming.  Next to her sat a mug
of hot tea brewed just the way she liked it.  Fox had bought her the
book the previous week and made her the tea.  She was content. There
were few days like this, quiet days at home with nothing to do. He had
made love to her again that morning but in a different way, a more
tender way, reassuring her over and over of how much he loved her, as
if she didn't know.  That lovemaking had matched the day, the sound of
the rain, steady.  He had been in one of his tender moods. Dana slid
her glasses up her nose, thinking to herself that she really did have
to get around to tightening them and glanced at her husband in the
comfortable recliner that had once been her favorite place to sit.
Funny, Dana mused, how if there was a comfortable chair, a man would
find it. When they had first gotten married, he hadn't asked.  Fox had
just kind of appropriated it as though it were a part of his domain
and commenced to sit in it, just as her father had always done when he
had come to visit.  Maybe it was a male thing.  He was buried in the
Sunday sports section of the "Washington Post," the rest of the paper
scattered around him on the floor.  The carpet always seemed to be
stained with newsprint near that chair these days.  As usual, the end
table was cluttered with leftover coffee mugs and a bowl overflowing
with the husks of sunflower seeds.  Where Mulder went, chaos followed.
It was like some sort of natural law.  She smiled.  It had taken her
quite awhile to get used to the clutter he always seemed to create and
to look beyond it to the wonderful person he was to live with in so
many other more important ways.  The next carpet would be a dark
color.  The dustbuster had burned out, and she hadn't had time to
replace it. The seeds would have to remain where they were for now.

     Dana thought back to the first time she had met Fox Mulder.  She
hadn't wanted the assignment with the X-Files, but had been
intimidated by the brass that had given it to her. She hadn't known
how to refuse it, so she had dutifully made her way down to the
basement office.  The first thing that had nearly overwhelmed her was
the clutter.  Mulder had papers stacked everywhere.  The walls had
been covered with posters, UFO posters, Star Trek posters.  She had
instantly been appalled.  Then he had turned and looked at her, and
she had nearly gasped out loud.  In his white shirt and tie, and wire
rimmed glasses, he had been one of the most handsome men she had ever
seen.  If he hadn't been so sarcastic, hadn't made it so obvious that
he neither welcomed nor wanted her presence, she might have been
overwhelmed.  As it was, he had done everything in his power to
alienate her, and for a long time she had thought of him as a work
obsessed paranoid jerk, although she had sympathized with his feelings
for his missing sister. Perhaps it had been that kernel of sympathy
planted on a rainy night in a motel room in Oregon that had permitted
their relationship to continue at all.

     He ruffled the paper and dropped it carelessly on the rug.  Time
to change sections.  He picked up the Outlook section and started to
read again after taking a sip of his coffee.  She smiled and looked
down at her book, but didn't read again.  When had she stopped
thinking of him as a jerk?  Was it that time when her father had died
and he had reached out so gently and touched her cheek?  "I'm sorry
about your father, Dana."  He never called her Dana, always Scully,
but during that time, he had been different, softer, more
understanding.  Had she started loving him during the Tooms episode
when Tom Colton had been such a bastard, ridiculing Mulder, putting
him down in front of others.  It was then that she had found out that
they were already calling her Mrs. Spooky.  At first she had been
angry and upset.  That was not what she had wanted from a career with
the FBI, but by the time Colton was finished, she had found herself
being proud of the title.  She had almost told Mulder about it, almost
revealed herself to him shortly thereafter as she had sat in the
reeking car with him on an illegal surveillance of Tooms.  He hadn't
slept or showered in days.
     "Fox, I wouldn't put myself on the line for anyone else but you."
     If he had given her one word of encouragement, she probably would
have continued.  How his rebuff had hurt, but she had never again
stepped over the bounds of their professional relationship until the
day he had rescued her from Donny Pfaster, and she had broken down and
cried. Things had been very different by then.  She had survived her
abduction and had known that it was only him, his words, the touch of
his hand on that last night in the hospital that had pulled her
through, given her the will to live.
     She thought briefly that she might have come to love him that day
on the stakeout, that day when a woman's "worst" nightmare happened to
her.  Dana Scully, female FBI agent in a bastion of maledom, had
gotten her period early and bled through her suit.  He had seen it as
they had gotten out of the car to chase the perp.  He had stopped her
and placed his jacket over her and had quietly driven her home
radioing the other team that she was ill.  She had wanted to die of
embarrassment as he had made her tea and brought her aspirin. It
couldn't happen to a woman in her field.  It was one of the reasons
men gave for not wanting women in law enforcement, and it had happened
to her.  She had been angry and miserable.
     "Mulder, what am I going to put in my report?" she had wailed.
     "I'll take care of the paperwork, Scully."  That from Mulder who
detested paperwork...said ever so gently.
     "But the perp got away and it's all because......."
     "Not to worry.  The other team picked him up."  He had looked
down at her then and ever so softly touched her chin.  "No on the rag
jokes with the boy's club, Scully," he had promised quietly, "It's
just part of life.  Don't worry about it."  She had smiled at him
then, at his sensitivity.  Maybe it was at that moment that she had
started loving him.
     No, she realized, although she had "loved" him at that moment, it
hadn't been until he disappeared in Alaska that she had given any real
thought to wanting more with him than just being a partner, not
seriously anyway.  She had truly thought he was going to die that
time.  Dana had been very grateful for her medical training as she had
tried to restart his heart there in that cold emergency room. It was
as though all the years of study, of hard work, of struggle, of
sleepless nights, had been for that one instant when the EKG had
registered his heartbeat once again.  When he had finally awakened,
after days of her having sat at his bedside helplessly, a weight had
been lifted from her heart, and she had enjoyed the time she had spent
caring for him afterwards although she had been careful even then not
to overstep the bounds she felt he had set up.  When he had come to
her house after the death of his father, sick and feverish, she had
put him to bed. She had undressed him and covered him, wiping his warm
brow.  He hadn't known, would never know, that before she had taken
his gun to the FBI lab to have the ballistics checked, she had laid
down beside him and pressed herself against him and slept for an
hour. Lying beside him had been a form of bliss, however short
lived. When he had awakened the next morning and called her and told
her he would never trust her, his words had cut like a knife, slashing
to the bone.  Dana had allowed herself to hug him briefly when he had
returned from New Mexico, briefly in the elevator, but had been
embarrassed at her slip.  She had wanted to hold him forever.
     When Mr. Bruckman had died, she had worried about Mulder, worried
about what the older man had said to him in the car, hinting at how he
might die.  She knew Mulder had a wild past. She was aware of his
tastes in videos, his interest in pornography, how he would pick up
women sometimes in bars to relieve the tensions he was under.  She had
seen his dark side.  Reluctantly, she had approached the subject of
what she had hoped was Bruckman's teasing, telling herself that she
was, after all, a physician, and Mulder had been her patient, and that
they were good friends.  She had begged him never to try anything so
dangerous again.  He hadn't had to confess. She knew he had.  She had
sat with the little dog in her lap petting it, not quite knowing what
to do with her hands.  How she had wanted to keep that little dog, a
poor substitute for what she had really yearned for, but something to
love none-the-less.  Finally, he had started dating Justine.  He
hadn't told her, of course.  They had kept a lot from each other in
the past. Dana had found out only by accident when the woman had come
to the office looking for him one afternoon when he had been out.
Justine had been beautiful, but had reminded Dana of Phoebe. She
realized that she should have known that he had found someone.  He had
seemed happier, less depressed, less dark. A part of her hoped that it
would work out for him, but another part had been afraid.  There had
been something dangerous about Justine, something wild, something too
like Phoebe. She had wanted to be happy for him, but she had been
jealous.  Dana thought she had lost him forever, a burden she could
have born had she felt that Mulder had met a good woman, a person who
would love him always and be faithful to him, would understand his
obsessions and the dark side of his nature. But it hadn't been that
way.  She had feared that this woman too would hurt him.
     "Marry me, Scully, and I'll show you how afraid I am of bodily
fluids."  Words whispered in jest in her ear on a pretty June day at
Wolf Trap.
     "Okay."  Hazel eyes widening in shocked surprise.  The stuttered
repetition of what she had just said, and then that one stupid
wonderful word of response, "Cool."  It had sealed the bargain between
them, sealed their love.  Nothing, no one, else mattered.  He hadn't
wanted Justine; he had loved her.
     When she had first said, "I love you." sitting at her kitchen
table, she had expected to be rebuffed once again, told that he had
been joking.  Instead, he had merely said, "I love you," and the world
had suddenly become a happier brighter place.  Fox Mulder had led her
to the depths of hell and elevated her to the prospect of heaven.
     That kiss....that first kiss....had been unlike anything.  She
thought she had been in love with Jack, thought his touch had sent
shivers down her spine.  She hadn't known the meaning of the word
until Fox Mulder had kissed her, touched her.

     Dana looked up at him again briefly.  He was up to the Metro
section.  The house was beginning to smell from the Marinara sauce
that was cooking in the crock pot. It felt like a real home, not just
an apartment. The only thing missing, the only thing that would have
made it better, was a baby growing inside of her, his baby.  She
wondered briefly what it must be like to be a man.  There were so many
advantages, and yet....he could put something inside of her for a few
minutes, he could leave part of himself in her, but he could never
know what it was like to have a part of her in him.  It was not
something she would have wanted to give up.  Dana finished her tea and
got to her feet, going to the kitchen and fetching him another cup of
coffee.
     "Thanks, Shorts," he smiled looking up at her briefly.  He had
wanted more coffee but had been too lazy to get it.  He wondered
sometimes how she seemed to read his mind.
     She returned to her seat on the couch and read a chapter.  The
rain was slowing down.  How wonderful that first night with him had
been, she remembered, lapsing once again into rainy day reflections.
He had made love to her only once that first night.  It had been a
slow, gentle process.  How patient he had been searching for places
she liked to be touched, showing her where he liked to be caressed.
How very much he must have loved her to show such forbearance, a man
with his past and experience, soaking with her in a hot tub instead of
rushing her into bed, whispering beautiful things to her, showering
her body slowly with gentle kisses, teasing her about counting her
freckles until she had laughingly begged him to stop and get on with
it!  When it was over and she had lain contently in his arms, she had
realized how truly lucky she was to have found him, to have done this
act with only him.  She remembered that she had nearly burst with
happiness, an emotion not to be duplicated again until she had
awakened in that hospital bed with him in Massachusetts and realized
that he was not going to die, and finding that he didn't want to
divorce her after all, that it had all been a horrible
misunderstanding.
     Dana closed the book and thought for a moment about her mom and
Skinner on their honeymoon in Ireland, hoping that they were happy.
She uncurled her legs and got up and quietly.  She walked to the chair
and slipped the paper out of his hand.
     "Hey," he said with indignation, but she settled herself into his
lap her legs dangling over the arm of the recliner and snuggled up
against him.
     "Hold me, Fox," she said softly.  His arms went around her.  He
could always read the paper.  She felt so tiny next to him, vulnerable
somehow.
     "What's wrong, pretty girl?" he asked.
     "Nothing....nothing is wrong.  For the moment, everything is
right.  I was just remembering when....well, all those times when we
couldn't hold each other....and feeling happy that now we can."
     They sat in silence for a long time listening to the echo of the
now diminishing rain against glass.
     Suddenly there was the sound of fluttering wings, followed by the
crack of a sunflower seed.
     "Up and at 'er, Mulder.  Up and at 'er, Mulder....".followed by
Krycek's latest.  "That's an order.  That's an order.  Open wide,
Dana.  That's an order.  That's an order."
     Fox picked up the newspaper and threw it at the bird cage.
     "Oh, shut up," he said as Krycek grew suddenly quiet in the
face of the paper  onslaught. "Who died and left you boss?"
     "Oh, I don't know, Mulder," said Dana with a gentle smile, "I
think we've gotten worse orders in our time."
     "Maybe, Scully, but I'm happy just the way I am right now."  He
tightened his hold on her a little, and she relaxed in his arms once
again, delighted to sit and listen to the sound of the rain falling,
content just to be with her husband on a rare quiet rainy afternoon in
June.

The End

Coming in the future - another "Generations" story by Juliettt
and Macspooky