TITLE: Trust and Starlight
NAME: frogdoggie
E-MAIL: frogdoggie@hotmail.com
CATEGORY: VRA, MSR, M/SK/SC friendship. SK/SC UST
RATING: PG-13
SUMMARY: Skinner POV angst - post "This Is Not Happening" fic. Want to read more of my fic? Then surf here: https://www.squidge.org/3wstop
FEEDBACK - YES PLEASE, AND THANK YOU SIR, CAN I HAVE ANOTHER? Comments, suggestions and healthy debate are always welcome. Flames? They only serve to warm my body and mind.
ARCHIVE: Sure. Anywhere - as long as my name and e-mail addy stay on it.
TIMESPAN/SPOILER WARNING. Everything up until TINH.
KEYWORDS: vignette romance angst Scully Mulder Skinner PG-13
DISCLAIMER: Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, 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.
Thanks to Avalon of the IWTB list for beta help.
Trust and Starlight
by frogdoggie
She came to talk to me of starlight.
I wonder if she realizes how much that simple sign of trust meant to me? How much it meant to me that she acknowledged I believe? How much I appreciate that she understands I'm willing to go to the wall for her and Mulder now? What the gesture said about last doubts slipping away...how I wouldn't blame her if she still doubted...but how grateful I am that she doesn't doubt me still?
"What if he's dead?" she began, her breath a ghostly, white cloud between us. Her voice was tremulous from emotion and the cold night air.
"I'm sorry..." she demurred.
But did she have a moment’s hesitation even before she knocked on my door? I wonder if she hesitated over professional decorum before as well as after I answered her knock? I know I had some hesitation. I debated whether to ask her in or join her outside.
I sometimes ask myself if it *is* a bit pointless that we still perform that superior and subordinate dance of convention. It might even be rather sad and a trifle silly. But I invariably answer that it's a dance born out of necessity. We need it in order to cling to normalcy in some part of our lives. It's a formal dance to bond us in the chain of command...to tell us that we're Assistant Director Walter Skinner and Special Agent Dana Scully...and not two frightened, desperate and guilty people trying to stay afloat as the dark waters of circumstance rise to drown them.
And yes, I need that professional distance, that barrier between us, because I don't trust myself to not let it cost us both if I allow the barrier to drop completely. If I ask Scully inside instead of meeting her outside…outside the confines of my heart as well as a hotel room.
"...I had a bad dream," she added.
I wonder if she knows how many times I've speculated about her dreams...what she dreams in sleep...good and bad? What she hopes, wishes and desires when awake, too. I wonder about those kind of dreams most of all.
"Let me get some clothes on," I replied.
What did it do to her to see me standing there in my T-shirt and sweat pants and not have it be Mulder? I wonder how many times she's had a bad or even good dream to relate, or a lead to expound, or an interesting observation to make, or even a wry comment to pass on...and how many times Mulder got a knock on his door...and received whatever she had to contribute? I can't even imagine what it cost her to not have me be Mulder tonight. I know what it cost me to not have it be Mulder...to not be Mulder for her for even one night as well.
"Oldest thing in the universe. Stars that are long dead now, but whose light is still traveling through time. It won't die, that light. Maybe it's the only thing that never does," she said.
I wonder what it cost her to speak to me of death and souls residing in starlight? She spoke of the never-ending light from billions upon billions of suns. We discuss such portentous, intimate matters with lovers...not well-meaning people like me who are merely friends.
I know I once spoke of such things to Sharon when we were still young and in love. I had hope, like that never-ending, never-dying starlight, for so many things back then. I wonder if Scully and Mulder did, too, when they were together? Maybe they spoke of the hope that's like undying suns after joining in love...maybe during or maybe after that special moment of ultimate sharing.
"He said that's where souls reside. Maybe he was right," she whispered.
Does she really believe that Mulder is right about souls residing in the starlight? I'd like to think she does, and that he is, even though I've died twice and never seen anything resembling the light from billions of suns. Because if he is right, I can have hope that it'll be different for me next time. I can have faith my soul will reside somewhere wondrous, rather than the hell it's so often been in here on Earth.
"If you're trying to prepare yourself, I want you to stop," I answered.
But I wonder if she believed me when I told her not to prepare herself for him to be right? Not to think of him in the past tense...the 'was' that relegates him to death. I wonder if she knew how afraid I am that he was right, and that he knows the truth now so intimately? I wonder if she knows how much I haven't prepared myself for him to know that particular truth as well? How unprepared I am to think of him in the past tense...to relegate him to that space between the stars where the light from billions of suns helps to reveal all the answers?
And I wonder that she trusted me enough to talk of starlight...and that she trusted
me to touch her, to pull her close in support...to comfort her as she cried in anticipated loss and grief.
But one thing I'll never wonder...I'll never wonder how I'll never betray that trust and let her know I love her. How I'll never let her know I felt the warmth of arousal as she took refuge against me. How I'll never let her know the shame I feel when that warmth makes me want to be more than just a friend to her.
No...I'll never wonder because I'll be her friend, her anchor, her rock, her shelter from the storm...as long as she needs me to be...and simply nothing more.
-THE END-