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Author: ML
Email: msnsc21[at]yahoo.com
Feedback: always loved, always responded to
Episode Reference: The Truth
Rating: All
Classification: Vignette.
Summary: A rainy night in Roswell
Disclaimer: These characters are not mine; they belong to
Chris Carter, TenThirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. I mean
no infringement, and I'm making no money.
Further disclaimer: I've used some of the lyrics of Paul Simon's
Kathy's Song without permission but with love and respect.
I mean no infringement and I'm making no money from their use.
For Nancy. There's always hope.
x-x-x-x
Always Hope
by ML
I hear the drizzle of the rain
Like a memory it falls
Soft and warm continuing
Tapping on my roof and walls.
Mulder watches the silhouette of the rain against the wall
without really seeing it. He thinks of another motel room,
miles and years away, sitting just like this.
He'd poured his soul out that night; to someone he hardly
knew and barely trusted. Had he known then what he knew
now, would he have done it?
When asked that question some years ago, Scully had replied,
"I wouldn't change a day." He's a little afraid to ask her
that same question now.
She'd always respected the journey, even when she didn't agree
with him. On that first trip, she'd laughed with him in a
rain-soaked graveyard. He'd warmed to her in that moment,
though it was many years before he let on to her that he had.
The bathroom door opens and Scully emerges, wrapped in a
bathrobe, rubbing her hair with a towel. "Your turn," she says
softly, brushing her hand along his shoulders as she passes.
He stands a long time in the shower, the water finally turning
cold and stinging before he turns it off.
And from the shelter of my mind
Through the window of my eyes
I gaze beyond the rain-drenched streets...
He dresses in the
clean jeans and shirt Scully has left for him on
the edge of the sink. They are worn, though not by him. A quick
stop at a local thrift store has supplied them with at least some
basic necessities. They'd literally left everything behind, the
explosion wiping everything out: their vehicle, their luggage, any
traces of them. He hopes it has bought them some time. For what,
he's not sure.
Scully is standing
by the window. Her hair is now dry but she's
still in her bathrobe. He goes to her and stands behind her,
hands on her shoulders and cheek resting against her temple.
"What are you
thinking about?" He asks softly, the words barely
audible over the rain.
"How many places
like this we've stayed in over the years," she
says. "This could be the place we stayed in Bellefleur, or
Sioux City, or Townsend."
"Yeah,"
he agrees. He leads her over to the bed and she reclines,
leaving more than enough room for him to join her, but he sits on
the floor instead, leaning back against the mattress. "It seems
so unreal," he says.
"More unreal
that the other unreal things we've experienced?"
She asks.
How far she's come,
he muses. "We've experienced," she says,
not "You've experienced."
"You have a point," he says merely.
My mind's distracted and diffused
My thoughts are many miles away...
Silence again, except
for the rain on the window. He thinks
of other times, other places, most of them with Scully, and a
handful of bleak times without her.
The first time he
lost her, to Duane Berry. Then the unutterable
joy of getting her back, only to almost lose her again to Donny
Pfaster.
And the final blow,
that she had been given a disease in order to
make him believe. She had been willing to sacrifice her reputation,
even her honesty, for him. How could he ever match that?
The more he pushed
her away, the stronger her footing became. The
more he urged her to leave, the more stubbornly she insisted upon
staying. Until that last fateful night in Bellefleur, when he
left her.
He feels her hand
brushing against his scalp now, and he shakes
his head slightly to clear the dark thoughts thronging there.
"What?" she asks softly, in response to his gesture.
"Nothing," he replies. "Really, nothing."
She reaches over to turn on the bedside lamp.
"Don't," he asks quickly. Her hand draws back.
And so you see I have come to doubt
All that I once held as true
I stand alone without beliefs
The only truth I know is you.
"What are you thinking?" She persists.
"I am a guilty
man," he says haltingly. "I have failed in every
respect. I deserve the harshest punishment."
"You don't believe that," she insists.
He argues with her,
and she refutes him at every turn, refusing
to let him take the blame, push her away, give up.
And then she says,
"Even if it
were true, I wouldn't change a day." And she smiles, a
tiny smile, maybe remembering too when she first said that.
It doesn't matter
what else she believes. She believes in him,
even after everything that's happened.
She believes in him.
...and so it ends,
he thinks. The rain again, but no laughter.
He crawls up onto the bed to lie beside her, accepting her comfort
in a way he'd never allowed himself to do. She nuzzles his cheek.
How he's missed her touch. He holds her closer.
"Maybe there's still hope," he whispers.
And as I watch the drops of rain
Weave their weary paths and die
I know that I am like the rain
There but for the grace of you go I.
Maybe there's still hope.
x-x-x-x
End.
February 17, 2008
email: msnsc21@yahoo.com