Past Melting

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Title : Past Melting
Author : Shawne
E-Mail : shawne@shawnex.freeservers.com
Rating : PG-13
Category: VA
Spoilers : "One Son"; references to "Sixth Extinction" that shouldn't
matter, since I haven't even seen the episode myself. <g>
Keywords : MSR
Summary : "And that was all she needed to do what she had to do. To forget
the past, to forget the feelings. To ignore the past, to ignore the
feelings. It was simple -- after a while, it became a matter of habit."
Archive : Spookys, Gossamer, Ephemeral, yes. And it'd be really nice to be
told about the other places this fic ends up in.
Disclaimers : I'm not claiming responsibility for *this* baby. ;)

Author's Notes : First of all, for the people to whom this fic is dedicated.
Happy Belated, Dasha, and Happy Birthday, Shari! I haven't been on Scullyfic
long, but you guys are great list-moms, great writers, and great virtual
cookie bakers. :)

And there is no one I should thank more at this point than Dreamshaper. She
encouraged me to write this, to re-write it, to make it better; she went
through it more times than any sane person should have to... and she held my
hand (or more accurately, she *forced* my hand) in the posting of this story
to the list in general. <eg> She made me work for what you'll see here, and
everything that's good as a result of that, must all be attributed to her.
All other mistakes are my very own.

Further notes at the end, if you can stand more of my sleep-deprived
rambling.

======================================================

In sunlight the trees were crystal and glitter, as if they'd sprouted from
a fairy tale. Now, in the moonlight, the branches were painted a luminescent
blue. Laurel Springs would have been the most beautiful place she'd ever
seen, if not for all the dead people.

Too many dead people, she thought. There were always too many.

And as always, she was here to clean up after. To hide the truth, to paint
the lies on as thick as they would go, to make the ugliness dissolve, and
hopefully, disappear. These people died for a reason today. They died to
serve a purpose, a larger purpose in the greater scheme of things. Their
insignificant lives had become immeasurably greater, but only through the
loss of them. Only through Death would their lives ever mean anything.

There would be no more experiments in Laurel Springs. The population of
this small town had been closer to horror than they would ever know, than
they could ever suspect... but for the moment, they all believed that
illness had ravaged their community, and if it had no name yet, they were
certain it would soon. And so the true horror was hidden from them. Their
sacrifice, though largely unbeknownst to them, had already been made.

She pulled her coat tighter around her, and waited for the call she knew
would eventually come. Her job here was finished; she had collected the
information, the test results she needed, and now she was waiting for her
next assignment. It often annoyed her to have to stay still, to remain idle
for any longer than necessary, because doing nothing meant thinking, and
thinking often meant guilt, and guilt didn't fit into the life she had
chosen for herself.

There was no room for thinking, or sympathy, or feeling anything other than
the most shallow and immediate of emotions. As always, she was working
towards a goal, and she had no room to maneuver, no place to fit anything
else in. Method, and efficiency, were all that mattered right now. She hated
sitting as she was, doing nothing. Thinking everything.

The quiet, dead beauty around her didn't help. She remembered a place like
this, years ago, when she had allowed herself what she had no patience for
these days. The memories came, slowly as they were wont to do, reluctant and
rusty from years of burial and disuse.

There was a tree, very much like the one she was waiting under, whispering
in the wind, spreading its branches far and wide. There was the lilting song
of birds, and there was laughter, soft, happy. Smiles, promises,
celebrating, touching, caring. And perhaps best yet, there was him, and the
feeling of never being able to love anyone more than she did him. She
watched the dream-like images warily, distancing herself from them, feeling
only the occasional pang of regret, which she had learnt to ignore, to
suppress, so many years ago.

It was his birthday, she recalled with startling clarity, and they had
driven far out of the city together... into the countryside, for a picnic.
He had been wearing blue, and she remembered murmuring dreamily into his
mouth, in between slow deep kisses, "You match the sky." And she shuddered,
involuntarily, as his response floated through the years, melting into her
ear. "You match me." She had almost cried at that, and he had gently held
her, understanding and feeling the love she knew was something that only
happened once in a lifetime. Then he was kissing her, her hand tangled
itself in his brown hair, and they moved together in a rhythm she would
never forget.

Love of a lifetime. The four words turned themselves over in her mind, and
they meant too little now. She didn't want to go back to a time when she
believed in that, to a time when she believed in him, and herself, and
believed that their lives would be held together by a love neither of them
could deny. A love that could never be rivalled by anything else.

After all, what good had that done? Her love had not been strong enough to
keep her by his side. She couldn't even remember why she had managed to
leave him so easily, to end it all without a word of explanation, to ask for
the divorce he never expected. When it came to the choice she'd been asked
to make, she had known right away which path to take. She would leave him,
and she would leave him without telling him why. They had offered her what
she couldn't refuse, a chance at living beyond the darkness which would
inevitably come.

And she had taken it. Their love must have been a farce, after all.

She had left, done the work she had promised to do, and he had gone on
without her. Gone on well, in fact. So well she wondered if all her memories
were false, a product of the tests and experiments she knew about, but which
she could never really know if she had been subjected to. They said she was
safe. But they had told Marita that as well. And Marita's life, she knew,
had been entirely fabricated.

She shifted her weight uneasily, and her left hand slipped into her jacket
pocket, fingers closing around her cell phone. The call had not yet come,
and she was becoming restless. There was no reason to stay here any longer
than she had to, but she couldn't leave either, not until her progress had
been confirmed, her loyalty found to be unquestionable. It was taking Them a
much longer time than usual to contact her.

Feelings were the easiest things to ignore, she suddenly thought, as the
moon above disappeared behind a purple cloud. It still amazed her, how she
could watch him as she did everyday, and hardly feel anything like remorse,
or sadness for what had happened almost a decade ago. How she could talk to
him as if nothing had gone wrong, as if she hadn't left him so suddenly, as
if she wasn't part of a plan that he was working against, a plan that he was
integral to.

For some reason, he still trusted her. She knew that she had hurt him
beyond measure, and she knew that he now recognised her for who she worked
for, and had marked her as a traitor. And yet, he had said nothing, after
she told him she loved him, after he recovered -- he had only quietly picked
up the pieces and moved on. Maybe because he still believed that they had
once shared something too real to be doubted. Maybe because he really had
loved her, once.

She pushed the thought away, knowing it to be largely untrue. If he had
loved her as much as she thought he had, he would not have found someone
new. He would not have given his life to another woman, a beautiful woman
with a courage no one could destroy, with an integrity that would eventually
prove to be his downfall, as well as her own.

It didn't bother her, though, that he loved someone else now. How could
it, when she had been the one to leave? And how would this matter, in the
larger scheme of things, that she once believed that they had been in love?
If he refused to co-operate, he would be exterminated, and so would his
partner. And their love, their relationship, built so carefully with paper
and glass, would disintegrate with them. She, on the other hand, would live.
That much had been guaranteed.

And that was all she needed to do what she had to do. To forget the past,
to forget the feelings. To ignore the past, to ignore the feelings. It was
simple -- after a while, it became a matter of habit. Living in the present,
working for a future, spurning the history of a life too easily manufactured
to be trusted. The too-many-to-count dead bodies became commonplace, the
relentless instructions were simply efficiently followed.

There was no room for anything else, in a world that would soon lose the
light she had once believed to be omnipotent. That light would soon be
swallowed, lost in a darkness from another realm. And she intended to be
safe from it, to keep herself whole, unfeeling, uncaring, until then.

Finally, her phone called loudly to her, and she brought it obediently to
her ear. "92403?" was the rough question thrown immediately at her, and she
automatically replied, "38265". There was a brief silence, as they confirmed
the identity check, and a voice she recognised all too well burst rudely
into her ear.

"Return to base."

There was a detached click, a disconnection, and the echo of the deep voice
trailed away into the silence. She looked up, just as she had done earlier
this evening, and saw the moon again. Laurel Springs would have been the
most beautiful place she'd ever seen. If not for the dead people, and if not
for the fact that these things just didn't matter anymore.

*****

She was tired, after a long drive back to Washington, and she wrestled
clumsily with the door to her apartment. This was the worst part of the
work, when her body protested and demanded rest, and refused to do as They
told her mind to do. Fortunately, she was spared tonight, and had been given
a reprieve. Tonight, she would busy herself with sleep. She would rest,
forget, and tomorrow, it could all begin again.

The door swung open at last, and she stepped through it, instinctively
checking for signs of intrusion into what she still hoped was her one
private domain. She remembered one night so many months ago, when she had
touched the doorknob, and immediately felt that something inside was
different. She had felt him, even before she knew he was there, and the
surprise she had displayed before him was genuine - but it was more a
surprise brought about by the connection she still felt to him, rather than
actually finding him in her living room.

She had kept in contact with him, intermittently, not because she
particularly wanted to, but because They had told her to. Her relations with
him had had to be maintained, for she was, at the time, the one link They
had to him. When she had been reassigned to him, and later to the X-files,
she'd kept believing that was the very reason she'd kept in touch. Not that
there was any residual love for him, only that she was a link They could not
afford to break.

He had been looking for evidence that night, evidence that she had lied to
him, that she had loyalties other than to him, to the X-Files. That night,
he had been too distracted with thoughts of smoke and rejection and
paranoia, and she had managed to lie without him realising it. Now he knew,
beyond the shadow of a doubt, that she had loyalties other than him, that
she was working for someone he despised. Maybe he knew her reasons, because
he had looked entirely inside her in his brief moment of clarity. Maybe he
knew them better than she did.

Hopefully, he had seen what she kept hidden from the rest of the world. The
fact that, deep down, she still believed in his work. She was forced to
discount it, and ignore it, and hide it and ruin it, but she still believed
in it. So she hadn't lied, not really. Not by choice.

And that night, his eyes had blurred, their intensity faded, the drive and
energy they always spoke of muted. He had almost lost faith, and she still
remembered how sad he looked, how broken, when he told her that the only way
those he loved would survive was if he gave up. She knew, even then, and
more so now, that he wasn't thinking of her. He was thinking of his partner,
and she didn't blame him for that. But she had wanted to comfort him, to
remind him that she had survived, even if their love hadn't. And she had
reached forward, and kissed him, just a little, and they matched. Like they
did so many hazy years ago.

The memory melted away again, and she sighed. He had found nothing here, or
so he had thought, and she was glad that he had not been as thorough as he
usually was. Somewhere in the back of his mind, she was sure, he had never
really believed she might be working with people who were working against
him. No matter what his partner tried to tell him, no matter what
circumstantial evidence he had that proved her alliance with his enemies. He
hadn't wanted to believe it, but now he had to. He had to, because he had
looked inside her, and he had seen why she had made the choice she did. She
couldn't remember why herself. But now he knew.

But at the time, he hadn't found the system, the one she was supposed to
monitor every time she was instructed to return to base.

Moving into her room, she shrugged out of her jacket, allowing it to fall
into a silken heap on the ground. She picked up the remote control on her
bed, as she always did, and turned the TV on. There was no regular
programming here, though. Her set was wired to receive transmissions from
carefully-hidden bugs located throughout his world, and she typically spent
at least an hour a day watching his live his life.

She had seen what had happened, in the past few weeks, and she had watched
it with some kind of uncharacteristic peace. There was usually no peace
inside her, just a forced emptiness, and watching him as he gained some kind
of happiness... it made her feel better than she ever imagined. Even though
it also made her feel worse than she had ever dreamed possible. Still, she
had kept his secret, was keeping his secret, and would continue to keep it
for as long as she dared. For now, she was the only one privy to these
transmissions, and for the sake of a past she usually scorned, she would be
disobedient. Just this once.

They were not in his office, or in his partner's, so she flipped quickly
through the channels. Her apartment was empty, as was her car, and his.
Finally, the screen filled with an image of his bedroom, shaded lightly with
night, and she sank down on her bed. Neither of them knew she was watching,
that she often did watch, that she enjoyed it. It was voyeuristic, perhaps,
but she felt it was something she was entitled to do. After all, she was
keeping it a secret for them.

He was lying on his bed, arms wrapped tightly around his partner's sleeping
form, never wanting to let her go. Her smooth, naked back was against him,
her head tucked under his chin, and they were breathing quietly, in unison.

She watched them, her fingers tightening around the remote control, and she
felt the heart she usually managed to ignore constrict painfully, for just a
second. He used to hold her this way too. He would make love to her, slowly,
reverently, and then he would kiss her for hours, whispering the secrets of
his world to her, increasing the intimacy just that much more. Then he would
fit himself around her, pulling her back against his stomach, and cradle
them both to sleep.

Such a long time ago.

And she remembered the tears coming one night, the night she was going to
leave him, and she remembered how he wiped them away. "What's wrong?" he had
asked, so sweetly, and she had remained silent. Shaking her head when he'd
probed, and unable to tell him the simplest of truths. She was leaving, not
because she had stopped loving him, but because she could never stop.

That was the truth she had hidden for so long, she realised. She had tried,
pretended, to forget what drove her to leave him, even though she loved him.
Still. But watching him now, face buried happily in his sleeping partner's
hair, arm possessively clinging to her waist... she knew she had left
because she could not stay. She had told him that much, in essence, and he
had had no reason to doubt it. And she had been unable to stay because she
had been approached by Them, and They had asked her to destroy him, and she
had side-stepped the issue, she could only side-step the issue, by agreeing
to work for them.

And so she had lost him, because she couldn't keep him safe. He would
survive the holocaust no matter what, she had been told, in some form or
other, and she would not. The prospect of working for them, if only to
guarantee herself a life in the aftermath, became increasingly attractive.
Because she knew he would be there too, that he would live through it, and
that maybe, just maybe, if she lived through it too, they could be together
again.

But that would never happen. She knew that now. There was no way it could
happen, because he would always be with the woman he was holding now. If
this woman died, he would die with her. He would not be with the woman he'd
held ten years ago, much in the same loving way. If *that* woman died, he
would still live.

She kept watching them, and almost began to hate again. Feelings were
extraneous, she knew that... but once recognised, feelings were also
difficult to suppress. It had only been in the last few weeks that he had
finally reached out to his partner, and she had reached right back for him.
Usually, Agent Scully was wary, afraid, overwhelmed by practicalities and
fears and anxieties. But something must have changed, because they were
together now, in a way they had never been, in a way they would always be
now, whatever happened.

If she concentrated hard enough, she could almost imagine that the couple
onscreen wasn't them, but him and her, the way they once had been. The way
they could never be again.

"Hungry?" The word jumped out at her from the TV set, and she realised that
he was getting up, disentangling himself from the sheets. He was wearing a
pair of track pants, and her heart almost stopped beating when she
recognised them from a long long time ago. From when she used to wash his
clothes for him, iron them and put them in the closet. From when they still
shared a life.

"Mmmm... Mulder, what?" his partner mumbled sleepily as his warmth
dissipated from around her body, and she reached out one hand for him, like
a lost little girl, beckoning him back to bed.

She noticed that it was only in sleep that Agent Scully lost some of her
defenses.

"Some food, Scully," he insisted, and tucked the blanket around her again.
"You sleep, I'll whip something up for the both of us."

And she suddenly remembered how she used to cook for him, even though his
culinary skills were no worse than hers, simply better-kept secrets.
Quickly, she pressed the 'forward' button on the remote control, following
his lanky form as it moved through his apartment, and finally ended up in
the kitchen. There was a distinct feminine touch to it now, she realised.
Agent Scully had left her mark, even in the short space of a few weeks.

That kitchen used to belong to her.

He moved around it quickly and easily, finding what he needed even in the
dark. She knew, without having to guess, what he would make now -- she used
to prepare the same thing for him all the time, especially after sex. She
recalled, with hardly any difficulty, how quickly he had come to associate
onion omelettes with post-coital bliss... the sweet smile on his face as he
begged her for one, and how he would take the plate with a childish
delight... but never eat any of it himself. He would feed it to her, bite by
delicious bite, and would only eat if she insisted he did.

Had he told Agent Scully any of this? He might well have.

As he cracked eggs into a bowl, she watched, like she used to do so many
years ago, and for the first time in a long long time, she ached for him.
She wanted him to hold her, and to care for her, and to love her like she
remembered. Like she had hoped he would again, someday. And like she knew he
never would.

"Mulder..." His sleep-tousled partner shuffled onscreen, yawning.
"Omelettes?"

Agent Scully was lucky. Did she know how lucky she was?

"Hey, you." He turned from the counter, a welcoming grin on his face, and
her stomach twisted. He used to smile at her in just that way, a smile that
meant he would always be ready to listen to her, to talk to her, or just to
hold her. A smile that said he was happy she was awake, happy she was alive.
Happy she was his.

And now it was directed at someone else.

She didn't want to watch, knew she would never be able to stand watching
him feed his partner, bite by excruciating bite. But somehow, she couldn't
stop. Her eyes lingered on the screen, refusing to let go... not even to
preserve her own sanity. She watched them, feeling a shiver chase itself
down her spine as they kissed.

"Not omelettes, Scully," he answered as they broke apart, gathering her
quickly back into his arms and pressing a kiss to the top of her head. She
looked up at him questioningly. "How does French toast sound to you?"

"French toast?" Agent Scully pulled back from him, returning his smile with
a rare one of her own. "It sounds perfect."

It did. Unfortunately, it really did.

How could she have allowed herself to fall into this trap of remembering...
after so many years? What made her think he would still crave the taste of
an omelette, would still equate that food--that *time*-- with her, and with
love?

Years. Years had melted past, in seconds, and she had spent them hiding
from herself, from what she'd forced herself to do. Tonight, all her
self-deception had fallen to pieces. And she didn't have the strength to
pull the myriad pieces back together into a collective whole.

It would all start again tomorrow. More dead people, more ugliness to hide
in the beautiful sleepy towns. More lies, more emptiness, more nothing, as
she worked towards an end she no longer had any need for.

Her eyes pulled themselves back to the screen, and she watched, lost, as
they kissed and laughed and cooked together. As they were happier in one
night than she could ever be in the rest of her life.

Reaching over, she switched the TV off with a trembling hand, and sat alone
in the dark.

She couldn't bear to watch. She could barely even see.

Because she had suddenly remembered how to cry.

======================================================

The challenge was for a story incorporating all of the following elements:

1. "Melting" must either be the title or the story or the word must appear
as part of the title.
2. The story must mention a birthday celebration.
3. Mulder and/or Scully preparing the author's favorite food with the
recipe included in the author's notes at the end.
4. Spooning!
and 5. The great first paragraph written by Jill Selby.

Tell me if I succeeded <g>.

And while I'm still awake, I apologise for any problems that might arise
from the POV in which I chose to write this story. I reiterate that I have
not watched "Sixth Extinction", and while I tried to fit this with that
particular episode, I had to keep it obscure, for obvious reasons. And if
Diana Fowley chooses to be unco-operative, and dies in "Amor Fati", I am
calling upon my creative license as a fanfic author. <g> Also, in light of
some of the... discussions I've read about Fowley recently, I must emphasise
that I am as much a shipper as I ever was. From what I've seen so far,
Fowley is extraneous, and should die... but only because of the way CC &
1013 have portrayed her. Personally, I'd like to see her in a more
three-dimensional light, and I hope this went some way in doing that.

Are you still reading in hopes of getting a recipe out of me? <eg>

Um, OK. I don't cook at all, though I eat... but I've heard that French
toast involves dipping bread in batter (which supposedly has eggs, sugar,
cinnamon, and assorted other things in it). Oh yes... then you fry it, I
think. It should turn out vaguely edible. Dreamshaper, this one was for you.
:) Thanks again.

And thanks, everyone, for reading this far.

Added November 14, 1999