Stars In the Rear View Mirror - Dustjacket Version

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Title: Stars In The Rear View Mirror
Author: Shawne
E-Mail: shawne@shawnex.freeservers.com
URL: http://www.shawnex.freeservers.com
Rating: PG
Category: VRA
Keywords: MSR
Summary: "Life has been a fantasy novel."
Archive: Yes, but please tell me where.
Disclaimers: Sure, fine, whatever.

Author's Notes: At the end. :)

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

This car needs to be washed. Those spots on the windshield are just
disgusting. White splotches, ugh. Maybe I'll get to that this weekend.

Weekend... do I have any days free? I've got to go to Mom's; it's
baby Matthew's birthday. Aunt Dana to the rescue. I'll give him
something cool, not something practical. Like a toy gun, or Slime
maybe. The kind of stuff I wanted as a kid, but never got because I
was a girl.

Will Matt mind if I misappropriate some of it? Well, he probably
won't know the difference, but his parents will. Mental note: buy two
cans of Slime. One for nephew, the other for purely... um, scientific
reasons.

The highway is surprisingly empty. I guess people are with their
families at this time of the night, this time of the year. Like
always, I'm on the road, watching the clock with one eye (it just
changed to read 1:37), idly observing the passing world with the
other.

I like the way the steering wheel feels, gripped in my hands.
Control, that's what it's all about -- I am moving this big hunk of
metal, it is moving through my express will.

Power. I need it, don't get it enough, and I'm not embarrassed to
admit that. Someone else is always driving the car, it seems. Mulder,
Bill, Dad -- I don't drive *that* badly.

The car swerves haphazardly, tires screech in protest, coaxing forth
a sleep-muffled grunt of shock--

Well, it isn't my fault. I'm a good driver. Which means I *should* be
allowed to cut across three lanes to make my exit.

Is it my imagination? I can see stars in the rear view mirror. I
must be seeing things. Stars are up, these are down, crowding around
in the darkness as my car speeds through minutes and seconds, leaving
moments far behind.

It's late, though. Maybe I'm hallucinating. As usual, so much, *too*
much has happened today. Running, dirt, horror... moments of fear and
uncertainty, heart-breaking tension and worry and peace...

Peace so intense it almost broke my heart. Interesting concept.

I almost want to open my mouth, expound that concept to anyone who
will listen, but I change my mind. Instead, I decide that the music
should be turned down a notch. It's loud enough to wake the dead, let
alone a light sleeper. I marvel that I have the presence of mind and
coordination to steer and turn the music down at the same time.
Obviously, I am a good driver.

Can't believe it's Matt's birthday already. It seems he was born only
yesterday, maybe the day before; now he's all of two years old. Oh
god, and *I'm* fast approaching thirty-six. That's a gap of
thirty-four years. Will Matt think I'm too old to be interesting one
day? Some rickety ancient woman with no story to tell, no interesting
life? A deluded old hag who spouts stories of aliens and bugs and a
very, very brilliant man... all of which touched her life at some
point?

It's sad to think that all these stories, chapters of lives, the
story of my life, will die with me.

Well, with me and someone else, of course. He wrote just as much of
that story as I did, fervently covering sheet after sheet of blank
paper with his scribblings. Our novels are hopelessly interwoven, I
think, fading in and out of each other, sharing the same index, trying
to be on the same page... so seldom succeeding.

I can list the number of times Mulder and I have been on the same
page. Can count them, actually, which isn't the most heartening of
thoughts. Almost never, in terms of work and X-files. In fact, take
that 'almost' away, and you'll have it, really.

But there *have* been times of accord, of agreement, of shared
belief... and I like those times.

Like? Like's not a very strong word. It's not the one I'm looking
for. Adore? No, too strong. Love? Maybe.

But let's go with 'appreciate' for the moment. I appreciate those
moments. Appreciation gets you everywhere. It means respect. And I
*do* respect those moments, because they promise so much in being
about so little. Life is about very little. It's about knowing,
caring, wanting. Very simple, very difficult things.

So little, and yet so much.

The headlights of the car far in front swerve crazily, blink into
stars, fade away. Whirring engine, singing radio, maybe this is life.
This is a moment, Dana Scully. You're alive. Capture it, hold it,
remember it the next time you feel like death.

A moment.

The rhythmic sound of breathing in the car shifts, hitches, and I
feel energy jolt through my veins. Almost home, to familiarity, back
to safety.

Really?

Familiarity breeds contempt. Don't they say that? Contempt isn't
good. It tends to blow up in your face, familiarity. You cling to a
routine, finding comfort, safety... but is it *really* safe when all
you're doing is reliving a story you don't have to tell anew every...?

There's the turn-off!

I jerk the wheel, the car reacts automatically, and I feel my heart
sputtering at the sudden intensification in speed, in mood, in time.
I've driven down this highway countless times, usually without
passengers, and it's a new experience each time. It's all about
change -- change, I welcome it, it moves my life along for me, makes
it interesting, important.

Change is a universal invariant, just like the bloom of a flower,
mere seconds before it collapses into maturity... the healing power of
a child's laughter... the colour of *his* eyes. Shifting, moving,
alive... but universal, real, power.

How will Matthew have changed in the few weeks I haven't seen him? A
child changes everyday... and yet some part of him always stays the
same. I've noticed this -- everyday, the child grows, experiments,
learns the good and the bad, changing and moving and vital. But
there's some part of that child, a part I believe doesn't change. I
want to believe it doesn't change.

Why else do I laugh at stars? Love the sky, the moon, rain, grass,
earth? Embrace what joy I can find in this world, joy that I've
realised becomes more and more elusive as you grow older? There's a
part of me that still thrills to the music of my childhood, that feels
calm in a raging storm of differences and opinions, that lives on in a
world that's too often dead.

That's *me*, the living part of me that never dies, doesn't change,
accommodates change, but remains the same as it was when I was a small
child. Nursery rhymes, and fairy tales of 'happily ever after', of
kisses by moonlight and at the stroke of midnight, turning into a
pumpkin, illusions always stripping away to reveal truth, Cinderella's
glass slippers.

Child of change, child that never changes.

Maybe Matthew won't think of me as a decrepit old woman with no
stories to tell. How could he, when I have so many, *too* many tales
of white knights and eleventh-hour rescues, of dark shadowy
megalomaniacs, creatures of blood and non-blood, colours, cultures,
lives.

Life has been a fantasy novel. The protagonist charging through an
ever-changing world, learning secrets, facing dangers, finding
companions--fighting dragons and griffins, battling magic with
courage, and still finding beliefs that haven't changed. Touchstones,
inalienable parts of ourselves; life is a fantasy novel.

The moon is not round, the road not busy, I am turning off the
highway, making a decision. Every second of life, of a fantasy, is
about making decisions. Left... or right? Choices. Company or
loneliness? Beliefs or comfort? Life, love? Separable? Inseparable?

In the face of demanding, undying choice, I make my decision.

Tomorrow I will be myself again, just another grown-up giving
presents to Matthew, cuddling and cooing at a little baby boy. But
tonight, I will write my story the way I want it to be read.

Sometimes, I feel confused, lost, a ghost writer in a story that isn'
t mine to share or tell... one that I can never really experience, one
I will never understand. At times like these, I feel like I have been
written in perfunctorily, a peripheral character thrown into a hostile
universe, trying to fill a part that doesn't really fit me.

A mere plot device, to be used, exploited, toyed with, and then
conveniently phased out at the climax.

But then, at other times, I feel like an integral part of a grand,
incredible story, one crafted by a higher power. A story that never
ends, because each new character brought into the world only expands
its scope, its power, its Life. It's the simplest of plots, yet so
complex that no human can truly comprehend it until the hour of his or
her death.

When I stood with him, forehead barely kissing forehead, when we let
our breaths mingle and tangle inside-out... it was an impasse, a
moment. Another one of those life-changing, eternal seconds in time.

In those moments, I feel like one of the most important characters
ever brought to paper, to life.

I twist the key from the ignition, feel the motor shudder into
stillness. The wheels settle, and as the car fades into sleep, I feel
awake. I have made the choice, I am here, and so is he.

"Are we home?" His words are thick, sleep-coated, but audible. He
struggles up, pushing away from the window, wiping slumber from his
eyes with his free hand. "Scully, when did I fall asleep?"

"A while ago," I tell him, unsnapping my seat-belt, and helping him
with his. "You need rest, Mulder. And yeah, you're home."

He glances out his window, bleary but rapidly recovering
consciousness, memory... regaining his deadpan humour. "I half expect
us to still be at the hospital."

"That's your second home," I tell him gently, and get out of the car.
Simple as the complex steps of a dance we've practiced so often, I
move to his side, and pull the door open. He swings his legs out, but
doesn't stand up. So here I am, taller than him for once, queen in a
fairy tale, my subject, my prince so much farther down.

He looks up at me, looks beyond me, and finally seems to recognise
his building. "I'm home."

"Are we into stating the obvious today?" I ask, trying to keep the
sarcasm out of my playful words. "Come on, Mulder." I grab his hand,
inviting him to waltz with me, maybe, but he refuses to take the
necessary step. He stays stubbornly in his seat, unchanging eyes of
shifting colour looking up at me.

"I'm home, Scully," he whispers, and then I know he is poised on the
cliff of a choice, just as I was five minutes ago. He doesn't know
I've already taken the plunge, tethered only by the finest gossamer
thread, waiting for it to snap me back to reality--

He pauses, clears his throat and hesitates again. Then finally, there
is change. He speaks. "Are you?"

I watch him, unblinking, for seconds, for a lifetime, as we silently
write the final chapter of a novel I can now keep safely on my
shelves. One day far in the future, I will dust it off and read it to
the younger ones, to Matthew.

Now, we flip to a clean page, and start again, a new fairy tale as
fraught with dangers and darkness, adventure and change, as they
always are.

"Happy New Year, Mulder," I remind him, and bend down so my face is
on the same level as his. The kiss I give him seals the choices we've
made in the past, even as it opens up a whole new range of
possibilities for tomorrow.

Let's hope this story will have a happy ending.

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

Notes: Please please forgive my omission of a spoiler warning in the
story headings. <g> I thought including one would lessen the impact of
the final paragraphs, and I hope you agree. :) Whether you do or not,
the virtual mailbox is (extremely) ready for comments as usual -- send
them all by way of shawne@shawnex.freeservers.com.

Thanks to Dreamshaper and Kari for the betas... you guys made it so
much better than I could ever have done on my own. :) Piper, for the
read-through and positive comments in the throes of Finals Hell --
best of luck.

This version added November 12, 2000