TITLE: A Picture
Worth
NAME: Mik
E-MAIL: ccmcdoc@hotmail.com
CATEGORY: M/Sk
RATING: NC-17. M/Sk. This story contains slash i.e. m/m sex. Not
suitable for children, Baptists or Republicans. SUMMARY: Hindsight is
20/20. Especially with photographs.
ARCHIVE: This story belongs to the godDESS Michele.
FEEDBACK: Feedback? Well, yes, if you insist.
TIMESPAN/SPOILER WARNING: none
KEYWORDS: story slash angst Mulder Skinner NC-17
DISCLAIMER: Fox Mulder, Walter Skinner, and all other X-Files
characters belong to Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen Productions and
20th Century Fox Broadcasting. No
copyright infringement is intended and no profit is being made from
their use. I personally think Chris Carter, et al, should just give
them to me, since they're not using them anymore, and anyway, I treat
them much, much better, but there you are.
Author's notes: This story was commissioned by the godDESS Michele, who made a donation to the Red Cross Katrina Disaster Relief Fund. Thank you.
A Picture Worth, by Mik
"Who is this?"
The old photo album was thrust at me. The memories that photo brought back were thrust through me like a knife. I glanced in the page's direction. "A friend of your dad's."
"They're kissing." There was a note of astonishment dancing with a note of disgust in Kenny's observation.
I nodded, not trusting my voice.
"Why?"
It was a bad idea coming up here. The kids had seemed so amused by the concept of actually keeping photos in books and not on computer disks that I had offered to show them some relics from the past. Unfortunately, it was my past. I pushed the photo album shut, slowly, but firmly. "It was a long time ago."
Those eyes, so familiar, so intense, stayed fixed on mine. I had the uncomfortable feeling that the sharp little mind behind those eyes had already assessed facts and phenomena and come to its own conclusion. "Before I was born?"
I tried to smile and stood to put the album up on a shelf too high to be rediscovered. "Not ancient history."
That made both of them laugh, but I knew the discussion wasn't over. It had just been put up on a shelf for the moment.
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That night, after they were in bed, I climbed the stairs to the attic, driven to look at a photograph I'd looked at a hundred times and never really let myself see.
It shouldn't matter now. They were both gone. I should be able to forgive them both. But I couldn't.
I pulled the album down again, and turned the stiff, black pages. With a shaky breath I turned one last page. And looked. Really looked. It was time to see what I'd refused to see for so long.
Twelve years ago. Kenny's christening. An impulsive kiss caught on film. It was a time of great celebration. We'd been through so much to have a child. There was a lot of emotion and spontaneous affection that day. The funny thing is, neither of them looked all that surprised. Looking at the photo all these years later, there was acceptance, comfort, maybe even hunger in their faces. That wasn't their first kiss.
And it wouldn't be their last. I managed not to see the signs for three years. First there were little mistakes I should have caught, then carelessness. Then boldness. Right in our home. Even letting the kids see them together.
I didn't want to know. Even when I could smell sex in our bed. Even when they came up with the most transparent excuses, the flimsiest pretenses to be together. I accused myself of being paranoid. I blamed myself for not being good enough. I believed I was the one who had failed. I worked harder. I thought I could impress him, bring him back to me, make him love me again.
It was never in my power to make it happen. They made the choice without me. They left me with the wreckage. They left me.
And when I came home and found all of his things gone, and the letter...oh, God, that letter...I had to accept what I'd known all along. We both loved him. We always had. And...we always would. I might have domesticated him, but mine was a Pyrrhic victory. The cost to us all was far greater, in retrospect. And in the ruins were two children.
I closed my eyes and their faces came to me without thought. They were both so like him. Dark eyed, strong hearted. Kenny was a bit more like him than Mike, but only because she'd lived with him for three years before he left. And I said what I always said when my thoughts came along this dark, sad road. As long as I had the kids, he could never really leave me.
I don't know when I cried more, that night coming home to find the detritus he'd left when he left, or the day I learned they had been killed in the line of duty, somewhere down in Arizona. No, I do know. It was the night they left, and I sat on the cold floor on the bathroom, his letter in my hand, and tried to contain the sounds of my grief and anger so I wouldn't wake Kenny and Mike. The day they died, I could only cry for the kids, for their loss. My loss had come years before.
I heard a step on the stair creaking under weight, and I slapped the album shut and dashed at tears that had dared spill.
"Whatcha' doin', baby?"
I smiled guiltily. "Nothing. Just putting things away." I shoved the album back up on the shelf. "The kids were up here earlier, looking at old pictures. Made a little bit of a mess."
He chuckled softly, moving up behind me. "Sounds like your kids, all right."
Yeah. Funny. All these years I'd thought of them as his kids. But they were mine as well. "Yeah, unfortunately, this is a case of nurture over nature." I bent and collected a small box that had been knocked over earlier, during their exploration, and put it back on a shelf as well.
He patted my bottom … not really a swat, just an affectionate, nearly possessive pat. "They're doing all right." His hand lingered. "Come down soon?"
I reached back and squeezed his hand, gratefully. "I'll be right down."
I watched him disappear down the steps and the anguish that had been welling inside me, threatening to choke me, evaporated. He was good to me. He wasn't devastatingly handsome. He wasn't terrifyingly clever. He wasn't overtly sexy. He wasn't dangerous. He wore wire rim glasses and had long ago given up on his hairline. He was solid, and stable and real. He cared about me. He seemed to like the kids. And … it was time I risked loving someone again. Might as well be him.
I opened the album and looked at the picture again. There he was, his eyes glowing like green glass marbles in sunlight, his good hand clenching her shoulder tightly, as her red hair slid forward to hide the triumph in her face.