TITLE: Precision

NAME: Mik

E-MAIL: mikdok@hotmail.com

CATEGORY: SRA

RATING: PG-13

SUMMARY: The straight line...

FEEDBACK: Feedback? Well, yes, if you insist...Flames? Send 'em to my brother, he's having a barbecue.

TIMESPAN/SPOILER WARNING: No thanks, against my religion.

KEYWORDS: story angst Skinner Mulder Scully

DISCLAIMER: Fox Mulder, Walter Skinner, Dana Scully, 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'd rather say that they really are mine, but I've been advised to deny everything. But, when I become king …

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Precision: The quality or state of being precise

For a moment, that's all I see. For a moment, I forget why I'm here - the first time in a week that I could forget. The precision is admirable, something he would appreciate. He lived his entire life precisely; his beliefs, his job, his home, his clothing, even his manner of speech was precise - he was always choosing his words with care. I think he would like this. Everywhere I look - no matter the direction, no matter the angle, precise rows of markers...rows of them, undulating toward me over the rolling landscape like a great wave of my own grief, rushing forward, hitting me with such force that I am knocked to my knees in the muddy grass and sparse snow.

See Meticulous.

They are swift and equally precise in all matters here at Arlington National Cemetery. The cortege was in perfect step, the flag folded so sharply it could have cut my hands, the seven rifles fired his salute in unison. And now the grass has been replaced over the grave so meticulously that no one would guess that only two days ago, we stood before the raw, wounded earth, preparing to leave him behind and go on with our lives.

See Exactitude.

But, I have no life. My life is beneath this seamless grass, below a marker in a long, precise row of markers. The marker. Identical to all the other markers here, testaments to fallen heroes. Plain, solid. Him. Walter S. Skinner. Born June 2, 1952. Died November 10, 1999. A short life for a giant of a man. A short time together. Six months. Only six months. I was robbed. Damn it, I want a recount. Six months ago we stumbled into one another's arms. He, chased by his demons, me wrestling with mine. And they joined in a dance; a macabre swirl of pain and loneliness and despair while we stood in the middle, clinging to each other.

See Accuracy.

We never made love. It was a boundary we couldn't cross. We both knew it was the wrong thing to do but I never denied my desire for him. It was his sense of honor, his precise understanding of right and wrong that kept us chaste, reduced our passion to an embrace, a single desperately heated kiss and six brief months of longing glances and secret or accidental caresses. Even as I watched him die, helpless to stop the events marching past us, his eyes came to mine one last time. The tears there were not for the pain that wracked his body but for the pain of regret.

See Symmetry.

So damned unfair. I spent my entire life searching, seeking something solid and strong and righteous. This was his body, his heart and his soul. I held him once, touched him, and was touched by him and I am forever changed. I'm adrift now, pushed to sea to the accompaniment of a mournful bugle and the ratcheting sound of a coffin settling into the ground. If I could, I would destroy this perfect symmetry of green and tear through the cold earth to be with him. My loss is this acute. But I do not, I can not. I can only kneel, numbly plucking at blades of frozen grass, remembering such precious details as the definition of his features, the length of his fingers, the breadth of his compassion, the purity of his intent.

See Balance.

"Scully." I feel Mulder's fingers on my shoulder. He helps me to my feet, he keeps his eyes from the grief I can no longer shield. He chooses not to see for his grief is as great as mine. He, too, lost a profound love just a week ago. I know that. I saw it in his eyes when he turned to me and knew. I will never have Walter and Mulder will never have me. Grief draws a straight line to despair. It is the most precise of all emotions.

-THE END-