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Posted 23/3/00. Wonderful pic courtesy of Perri. I watched Sein Und Zeit recently, and I wondered about the portrayal of Scully. Where is she coming from these days? In the mytharc episodes in particular, she seems so sad, and detached from Mulder. Their relationship seems to have changed such a lot from the early days, and I wondered what was going on for her in that episode, and the others where she seems very cold. This story is an attempt to get inside her head and provide one possible interpretation for her actions and reactions. It's not intended to be anti-Mulder in any way, just an attempt to see things from Scully's viewpoint. It's also a blatant excuse for some Scullyangst and oodles of Skinnercomfort <G> He can run me a bath any day :-) Many thanks to RAC for beta reading and encouragement. Spoilers: This story takes place immediately after Closure. AWARDS Nominated for a Spooky for Best Scully/Other story - 2000 Silvergirl She called him from the airport. "It's me," she said, wondering why she did this, wondering if this time, for the first time, he'd call her on it. There was silence on the other end of the line. In his silence, she found her respite. "I've just got back." She glanced around the bustling airport, saw Mulder shouldering his bag, looking…different. The vision of his sister that he said he had witnessed had changed him - she wasn't sure how yet, just that it had. Another silence on the other end of the line. "I'm tired." She bit on her lip, her blue eyes beyond tears. "I'll be about an hour," she said, hanging up. He hadn't spoken a word throughout the entire call. She didn't need his words. She was beyond words. "Scully - want to share a taxi?" Mulder asked as she strode up alongside him. His hazel eyes were faraway. Perhaps he was thinking about his sister. Perhaps he was thinking about the diary in his bag that she knew he'd stay up all night reading, although he already knew its contents by heart. "No. I…I'll get my own." Inexplicable - to him at least. An act of coldness because he couldn't know that she wasn't going home, and she could not explain. She couldn't break the silence, or breach the void between them any more and, most of all, she could not burden him with her needs, when his own life was so complex. This was for her. It was what she needed, and could not ask for from him. She placed a hand on his arm, squeezed, softly, then walked away. She didn't look back. She sat in the taxi, her pale face immobile, ignoring the driver's chatter. She couldn’t speak to those she loved most so she had no words to waste on people she barely knew. One knee rocked up and down, in an endlessly repeating motion, the only sign that something was going on beneath that cold exterior. She needed this. It was her drug. She willed the taxi to go faster, no longer even hating the need, accepting it, as she accepted everything else that had happened to her over the course of these seven crazy years. Outside, the world went by in a blur of silent color. She did not belong to it, nor it to her. Alone, distant, cocooned in her silence, she sat, one leg rocking, the rest of her body immobile, her blue eyes staring into nothing. She saw though. She saw a hundred images from the past, each forming a lattice of scar tissue over her heart. Starlight, children being experimented on, memories of men standing over her, men experimenting on her. Had Samantha screamed, or had even that comfort been denied her, as it had been denied Scully? Drugged, confused, blindly accepting the intrusions on her body. Hands on her belly, invasive procedures, none the less violent for being so cool, detached and clinical. Had that been where she had learned to scream so silently? Had that been where she had lost her voice? She got out of the taxi, paid the driver, grabbed her bag, and went inside. A cool nod to the doorman, into the elevator, up to the 17th floor, leaning against the wall, needing, craving… her drug. She remembered once being full of life. She remembered laughing. She had once had friends, boyfriends, a godson she never saw these days. A sister. A father. A loving brother. She would not, could not, burden her mother now, and her friends had been the first victim of the silence which had crept through her life like the cancer that had once eaten into her body. While she was there, silently, every day, for Mulder, holding him up to the best of her ability, who was there for her? Numbly, she walked along the corridor, and knocked on the door. A pause. Inside she was screaming at him to open it, but outwardly she was calm, silent, collected. Nobody would know what was going on within. She had perfected her mask over many painstaking years of practice. One, two, three…she waited. Four, five, six… Her silent screams reached an urgent crescendo. Immobile, she dug one fingernail into her thumb, hard, noiselessly, until it drew blood. Seven, eight, nine… The door opened. He was standing there. Blue jeans, timberlands, gray USMC sweater. He looked at her, dark eyes fixed on her face. She didn't speak, waited, frozen, for him to allow her in to the warmth. Don't change the rules now. Don't want anything from me now. Not explanations, or conversation. Please don't ask me for that. Please, please. Finally he relented, stood aside, gestured with his head and she stepped inside, dropped her bag, and stood there, numbly. "Mulder thinks his sister is dead," she said. "Ah." He closed the door, leaned back against it. The sleeves of his sweatshirt were rolled up to his elbows, and the edges were faintly damp. "And/or possibly turned into starlight," she murmured in a distant voice. "I got lost at that point." "Mmm." His eyes never left her face. "He seemed sure though. That's good. I think." Lost, absent tones. She stared listlessly into space, giving up, letting him take over, the last of her strength gone, poured into the black hole that was Mulder. Mulder's life, Mulder's quest, Mulder's mother, father, sister. His enemies, his sadness. His great, essential tragedy, so consuming - consuming her. All that she was, all that she could ever be, she gave to him, 'til death… "Yes." Skinner moved slowly, like a panther, prowling. His fingers descended on the collar of her long black jacket, and he smoothed it quickly, easily, away from her shoulders. "You're cold." His warm hands found her cold ones, and he massaged them for a moment. "Cold. Yes." "Bath's ready." He nodded his head in the direction of the bathroom. How had he known that she'd feel cold, and somehow dirty, tainted by what she had discovered? How had he known what she'd want when she didn't know herself? The lure of warm water beckoned her like a siren song but she didn't move, just stood, waiting. He took her jacket, and threw it over the couch, kicked her bag against the wall, out of the way, then took her hand, and led her up the stairs to the bathroom. Why did she do this, she wondered. Why? The warmth of the bathroom enveloped her, wrapped her in a cloud of steam. There were two big towels ready and waiting. One for her body, one for her hair. She undressed, removed each item of clothing, one by one. Blouse, pants, bra, panties, socks, shoes, and handed them to him. He took each garment, folded them neatly, piled them up on the toilet seat. She was frozen - beyond embarrassment. He'd seen her naked before. He demanded nothing. She gave him nothing. She got in the bath, lay there, watched him walk around the room, lighting the candles. Then he turned out the light, picked up her clothes, and left. She lay back, looked at the ceiling. What did he think of her? Did he despise her for using him like this? They never spoke about it. He never once raised the subject. He asked no questions, and she told no lies. If he had ever once said anything, she knew the silence would have fallen around her like a blanket of snow, taking away her last refuge and shrouding her forever within cold black ice. His silence was her drug. Her own silence was her safety. She moved a hand, fascinated, watched as it came into focus, recognized it as her own. It had been a year since she had first felt compelled to come here. Strange really, after knowing him for so long that it took a hallucination to fuel her footsteps. Scully took a deep breath, sank beneath the water, her red hair spiraling out from her head like a burnt halo, and immersed herself in the booming silence. She had been trapped underground, buried alive by a substance that fed her hallucinations to keep her quiet and still in order to kill her. She almost laughed at that. If she just kept quiet for long enough, she could do the job herself. The pressure built up in her lungs until it hurt. She stayed under the water, floating listlessly. In her hallucination, Mulder was dead. Her fingers tightened, involuntarily. Dead. In her dream, Mulder had been dead. A cold warmth settled in the pit of her stomach. Panic-stricken, she surfaced, took a deep breath, gasped for air. In her dream, Mulder had been dead, and the truth was, the truth was…too terrible to give voice to. For the truth was that sometimes she wished it had been real. Scully coughed, swallowed back that knowledge. How was it possible to love someone and hate them at the same time? There were times when she could hardly bear to be in the same room as Mulder. Once they had been equal partners. There had been times when the X Files had consumed her almost as much as they consumed him. Intellectually, it had been such a challenge. Being out in the field with Mulder had always been so exciting. He made her question her science, and she made him question his intuition. Between them, they sparked off each other in a way she had never experienced before. She had loved being with him, had loved surprising him with her own theories, and insights. She still remembered the way she'd solved that murder case involving those circus people years ago. Mulder's look of surprise when she ate that cockroach, his expression of disbelief at her theory - subsequently proved true. She had been young, amused, alive, and delighted to find someone with such a remarkable mind, somebody to spar with, someone who sparked off her best work. They had shared theories like co-conspirators. Sometimes they had brought each other the fruits of their research with smug cat-got-the-cream smiles wreathing their faces, knowing how much the other would enjoy the gift. Now…now she didn't know what she was any more or what he was, what either of them were to each other. There had been the confusion of half-formed kisses in hallways, interspersed with cold, frozen distrustful silences most of the rest of the time. Then there had been the hallucination…Mulder was dead, and Skinner…Skinner had sat and talked to her as she presented her report into her partner's murder - just talked, his voice soft and low with compassion, and she had wanted to stay there forever, the focus of all that kind concern. Then, later in the same hallucination, he had came over to her at the wake, and he had been such a solid source of comfort. His dark eyes, his big hands, that deep-voiced, solemn expression of sympathy. "I'm sorry," he said, in a heartfelt whisper, and she couldn't get those words out of her mind. He cared, and he understood - about her, about Dana, not just about Agent Scully. Just a hallucination, not even real, but it had planted the seed and she hadn't been able to forget. She had wanted to taste that comfort again, wanted to feel herself at the center of that dark-eyed gaze, wanted…a safe haven, respite, somewhere to go to escape. Someone who'd hold her, and not ask for anything in return. Someone who understood because he'd read her reports, seen her work, knew some of the horrors she had witnessed, had even seen them himself. She had no friends left. Nobody she could sit with, in silence. Nobody who wouldn't expect mindless conversation, gossip, and shared experiences. All she had was here. She had been here several times now. Each time unannounced. Each time arriving, saying little, and he saying even less. The first time she hadn't even known what she wanted. Luckily, he had. He took control, treated her like someone in shock. Sat her down, gave her a hot, sweet drink, then wrapped her in a blanket, and held her through the night. In the morning, she left, without saying a word, and he never asked. So she had come back. Kept coming back. Wordlessly reaching for a comfort she needed but could not ask for out loud. The third time, after Africa, she had come here to shout. Furious, angry yelling, making no sense, incoherent with need, a rage that went back years. Not with him, or at least only in some small part, but with everything. A rage that left her spent. A rage that he couldn't possibly have made sense of, and which he hadn't even tried to. Afterwards, she had crawled into his arms, and placed his hands around her body, and made him hold her. All night, he held her, and she clung on desperately, as if she were clinging to a rock in a stormy sea. If she let go, she'd drown. She knew it, and he knew it, so he had held her through that long, dark night, and in the morning, she had gone. As she always went. Silently. Having taken what she needed, sure that it was enough, that she wouldn't have to return. Until the next time. She didn't know what would happen tonight. Just that here, she could step away from the rollercoaster for a moment, step outside time, step away from herself, and find respite from the storm. Here she wasn't Doctor Scully of the FBI, here she was Dana, who had nightmares about what she had seen, and what had been done to her over years chasing down monsters, real or metaphorical, and untangling a conspiracy that sickened her to her core. Here, she found some measure of sanity in a solid presence, and someone who didn't ask anything of her. She wasn't sure that she had anything left to give. She washed herself, scrubbed her body hard, wanting to be rid of this case, this evil, bittersweet file of death and betrayed innocence that made her want to retch. She found a nailbrush, dug it hard into her skin, hissing with pleasure to finally be cleansed, to wash away the feelings. Long, sweeping strokes of the brush down one arm, then the other, over her breasts, and belly, along her thighs…hard. Harder, making her blood zing, making her flesh glow, making her remember she was alive, that she could feel something, anything. Harder still, making the tears flow hot down her cheeks, making the bath water go red… "Enough." The nail brush was removed from her hand, and he dipped a washcloth in the water, and washed the blood from her arms. Then he lifted her bodily from the bath, wrapped her up tight in the towel, like swaddling, so that she couldn't move. Finally, he swung her up into his big arms and carried her into the bedroom. He laid her on the bed, and got in beside her, still fully clothed, his sleeves still damp from the bath-water, took hold of her, pulled her close, and wrapped his body around her own. His arms, his flesh, the solid weight of him, anchoring her to the world, keeping her from disappearing into the night like the wraith she had become. She lay in the dark, dozed, woke, felt his chin heavy on her shoulder, blinked, closed her eyes…opened them. His head moved, in acknowledgement. He didn't sleep. He watched over her like a lion guarding his pride. Outside, night had fallen. She didn't know what time it was. She was lost in the darkness. She slept again, until a scream sliced through the air, freezing on her lips. There was a man in her apartment, and she was fighting, fighting for her life, but he overpowered her, tied her, and she knew that he was going to kill her for his own perverted pleasure. She could hear the bath running, feel Donnie Pfaster's creepy fingers caressing her hair, preparing to murder her…She cried out, twisted, turned, screamed, over and over again, then woke - to find warm, strong arms around her. "It's all right. You're safe," he told her and she surrendered to the comfort of his hard, muscled body against her own, and laid her head against his shoulder. She didn't even hate her weakness any more. This was her pay-off for her strength, and self-control, for getting up and going to work each day as if she hadn't seen what she had, or endured what she had. "After Vietnam…" his voice was soft, and soothing, sliding stealthily into the silence around her, weakening it. "I had nightmares for weeks…I still do sometimes, but less now. I went and saw someone. I talked it through." She opened her mouth to tell him she had no words to express all that she had seen, and known, and suffered, but found herself voiceless, as she had known she would be. The silence stretched on but he seemed to require nothing from her, and she began to relax again. "There was a boy," he said, his voice as low and gentle as a lullaby, "he was 10 years old, strapped with grenades, and when he walked into our camp I blew him apart. My gunshots triggered some of the grenades, and they exploded his body - arms and legs, pieces of brain, blood…" he spoke of horrors as easily as if he was telling a fairy story, his arms never ceasing their strong, certain embrace around her body. "It was a long time before I could talk about it. I found my strength in silence, but it's seductive. Silence can steal your soul." She nodded, buried her face in his shoulder. Her own soul had been destroyed, piece by small piece, over too many long years. Maybe it had started with her abduction, when she had learned in silence that her body was not her own - that faceless men could take it, and touch her, and hurt her, and she couldn't stop it. "I couldn't even scream," she whispered. Her words sounded so strange, and alien, and she stopped, her throat suddenly dry. His lips touched her hair, silently encouraging her to speak, and after a long time, she tried again. "It was some kind of drug that they gave me. I couldn't even scream." "When you were abducted?" He asked softly. She nodded, then opened her mouth again, and this time, faltering, the words came out, slicing through the silence like a knife cutting through soft butter."Is that what they did to Samantha?" she whispered. "She was 8 years old…Hearing about those experiments, in her own words, in that diary Mulder found…I'm selfish. All I could think about was me, undergoing those same tests…" She choked and broke off, unable to continue, then looked at him for the first time in the darkness. She could just about make out brown eyes, and familiar features - unfamiliar this close, this intimate. He wasn't wearing his glasses, and he was still in his USMC sweater. He looked so different. "Go on." His fingers gently stroked her arms. "I've never done an autopsy on someone I know before," she whispered. "I covered her face with a cloth. I didn't want her to watch." "She was dead." His chin was stubbled and rough as it rested against her cheek. "She was Mulder's mother. I cut into her flesh, and looked into her body. I've eaten meals with her, made conversation with her, and now I've seen inside her stomach." She laughed out loud, the sound becoming a sob in her throat. His arms tightened around her body. She took a deep breath and started again. Disjointed, remembered horror after remembered horror, all of them merging in her mind, a jumble of images and fears. "All those children's graves…I've buried a daughter - I know how it feels. You know what he asks me sometimes? He says, 'After all you've seen, why can't you believe?' And do you know the answer?" She raised her eyes to Skinner's, met his gaze, unflinching. "To spite him," she said, then she laughed, a bitter, ironic sound. "I won't believe because he wants me to, and I've given him everything else. I'm not giving him that." Skinner moved one hand, wordlessly stroked her back. "When I was a child, my father told me to be strong, to always believe in myself. He never told me how lonely that is. People will always let you be strong, you know, but they never allow you to be weak. It's not what they want from you, not what they want from me, not what I want from myself." She closed her eyes, rested her face against his shoulder. "I can't go to anyone else. Nobody else would understand. The things I've seen…the things I've learned. Sometimes I don't know how to keep going knowing such evil exists in the world. All those graves, all those dead children, and Mulder wanted me to take part in a séance... I don't think he cared, or maybe he didn't think I'd care, about what…no, who I might see." She fought for air, pressed her lips against his neck, wanted to taste him. "No, I don't believe in seances, I told myself that…but it wasn't true. I was scared of who I might see. He didn't know - how could he? I never tell him. I hide you see. I hide so well - even from myself." She curled into his body, making herself as small as possible against his large, muscled frame. Silence stretched around them again, like an ocean of calm in a noisy, chaotic world. "I once had dreams, hopes, fears," she whispered into his solid flesh, scrunching up even smaller. "They took them from me when they took me away. They stole a part of my body, kept it, created a child, or children from it. Are there other Emilys out there? Mulder knew," she whispered, incoherently. "He found what they'd stolen and he kept it. He never told me…for so long, he kept a part of me and didn't say. I trust him. I care about him, but why…?" She shrugged, then laughed out loud and he didn't move, just held her. "My mother was always telling us, the nuns were always telling us, the church was always telling us - be good girls, don't let a boy touch you, don't go all the way…all those fears of unwanted pregnancy, and now it's too fucking late. I was so good. You know, I was always so fucking good." She was angry now, snarling. "A good Catholic girl, filled up to the brim with guilt because I damn well wanted to be touched, but I wouldn't let it happen. I was always Dana Scully, the damn stupid idiot who played by the rules, and wanted everybody else to do the same…My mother told me to wait until I was married, and you know I believed her? Nobody ever asks what happens if you never damn well get married. I kept myself to myself, I was such a good girl. Such a good Catholic…and then, by the time I started questioning my faith, it was too late. I was with Mulder. There was no room for anything else. Not friends - how could I share my day at work with them? We had no common frame of reference. My family hated Mulder, and I was always protecting him - it became easier not to see them than to always fight them. I'm the ultimate good girl - the nuns would be so proud of me. A 34 year-old fucking virgin." She wasn't sure why, but of all the admissions she'd made, that one hurt the most. "I tried once - tried to go out, be wild, get myself laid, like other people do without any problems, but I made the wrong fucking choice there, like everywhere else." She was full of a desperate kind of energy now, ashamed of her admission, wondering what the hell he thought of her coming here, sharing all this crap with him. She sat up, got out of the bed, wrapping the sheet around her, and stalked over to the window to look out at the silent street below. She regretted telling him too much, in this long, dark night of the soul. "Sometimes I used to wonder about you," he said behind her. "You sat in meetings, so cool, and collected, so self-possessed. I used to read your reports, that told me about creatures and situations I could hardly get my head around but which you'd faced, and dealt with, done battle with, fought over and over again, and I was full of awe and admiration for you. For you both, but it was you who fascinated me. Sitting in your work suit, demure, and self-contained. I longed to find out what was underneath - who Dana Scully really was. I've wanted to be your friend for such a long time, but you never let me." "I never let anybody." She traced a finger down some condensation on the inside of the window. Outside it had begun to rain, mirroring her action. "I did the same thing once. I shut everyone out, but the world has a way of breaking back in. Sooner, or later." "Sooner or later," she repeated. "I used to wonder what you thought of me turning up here, taking this from you they way I do, stealing this comfort, and then the next day and in the weeks after, acting as if nothing had happened. What did you think?" "That you needed a friend. That's all." Those words broke her. They slid like the rain down the window pane, seeped into her heart, and made the tears well up in her eyes. "I don't cry," she told him. "No. I know." He held out his arms, and she found herself back in them, rocking against his shoulder and crying her heart out into his sweater. She wept until the pale light of dawn crept through the window, and he held her, without speaking, and this time the silence was different - calm, with the empty fullness of shed tears and shared grief. She lay there, in his arms, being rocked, back and forth, and surrendered herself up to the catharsis. Afterwards, when the storm was over, she just lay against his chest, humming softly to herself. Her shoulder began to ache, and finally she sat up, and looked at him. "Your sweater is soaked," she said apologetically. "Your nose is red," he rejoined. "The side of your face is all squashed from where I was lying against you." She reached out a hand, and caressed his cheek, and he covered it with his own. On an impulse she leaned forward, and stole a kiss from his lips. She didn't know what she expected. Mulder had tasted…of excitement, and urgency, and the need for something to be resolved. Skinner…tasted of comfort, and contentment, and something harder, unmoving and solid. She liked that taste. She leaned in again, parted his lips with her own, and kissed him with more force, her blood heating in her frozen veins. "I think I might be surfacing," she whispered after. "Good." He gently caressed her hair with his fingertips. "Can I…is there…more?" Her hands found his sweater, and she traced the outline of his hard body beneath, circled the firm muscles, wanted to feel skin on skin, his flesh against her own. "Yes." He caught her hand, raised it to his lips, and kissed it. "But that's not why you came here tonight. You came looking for a friend." "I want more though." She kissed his neck, and he didn't move, but slowly continued caressing her hair, in a movement that was so sensuous it sent a wild heat through her body. "I wouldn't take advantage…you're vulnerable right now, Dana," he said firmly. "They took me away and did things to me, experimented on me, removed parts of me, gave me cancer - it was like rape in a way. Now, I control everything about my body. I'm never reckless with it," she whispered, still tracing gentle fingers over his broad chest. "I'd like to be though." "Come back tomorrow and convince me." He smiled, and kissed her lips. "Maybe I will," she murmured in reply, as they broke apart. "Maybe I will." She nestled down beside him again, and they lay on their backs, gazing at the ceiling. She reached out, and took his hand, moved her fingers over the skin, felt the fleshy swell of his palm, gently stroked each fingernail. "Tomorrow I'll call my friend, Ellen. I'm godmother to her son. It's been a long time. She might be able to remind me what my dreams were," she whispered. "You'll find them again," he said confidently. "How do you know that?" The self-doubt ate away inside her. "Because you're my silver girl." His hand closed around hers, and squeezed, lightly. "Your what?" She laughed. "My silver girl. You have a silver halo." He nodded his head in the direction of the window. The dim, early morning light had given both of them a shimmering, silvery aura. "Your time has come to shine, Dana." He moved his head, and kissed her cheek, chastely. "All your dreams are on their way…" he crooned the words of the old Simon and Garfunkel hit in a surprisingly mellow baritone, and she giggled. "I used to listen to that over and over again in 'Nam," he said. "It was so calm, like a lullaby. It soothed me to sleep." "You have a romantic streak," she accused. "I try to keep it hidden," he grinned. His teeth were white in his tanned face, and his eyes crinkled at the edges when he smiled. She reached out a hand and traced the line of his lips. "You look nice when you smile." "You too," he replied. "You too, silver girl." They slept again. When she woke up, he had gone. She got dressed, and walked down the stairs. There was toast and muffins on the table, and hot coffee waiting for her. "You look better," he commented. "I feel better." "'Bye." She smiled at him, shyly. "Goodbye, Dana." He put his hands on her shoulders, and looked down on her. "Thank you." She reached up, pulled his face down, and kissed him firmly on the lips. She didn't know what would happen between them in the future. She couldn't make any promises, but then he wasn't making any demands. "Goodbye," she whispered again, reluctant to tear herself away. "Goodbye, silver girl," he whispered, moving both hands up to cradle her head, stroking streaks of her red hair through his fingers. He kissed her forehead, and she rested for a moment against the solid warmth of his chest. "If you need a friend..." he began. "You're sailing right behind?" She asked, in a teasing voice. "Well, let's just say that you know where to find me." The End Friendly feedback to Xanthe@xanthe.org The song is Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon & Garfunkel. The full lyrics are as follows: Bridge Over Troubled
Water When you're weary, feeling small, When you're down and out, Sail on, Silver Girl,
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