Subj: more stories to archive Date: 9/29/00 11:43:05 PM Eastern Daylight Time From: PennySyc To: NeverAgain4X13 TITLE: The Power of Standing Still AUTHOR: Leslie Sholly E-MAIL: PennySyc@aol.com DISTRIBUTION: Automatic archives and Spookys, yes. Anywhere else, with my name and address attached. And please let me know so I can visit. SPOILER WARNING: Pilot, Dreamland, all things, Requiem RATING: PG-13 CLASSIFICATION: SRA KEYWORDS: MSR SUMMARY: Mulder learns to stay still. DISCLAIMER: Chris Carter, 1013, and Fox own the X-Files and the characters herein. I mean no infringement or disrespect. AUTHOR'S NOTES: Please be sure to read the poem at the end, since it inspired the story. Further notes at the end. FEEDBACK: I respond to and save every note, no matter how brief. Please write me at PennySyc@aol.com (Leslie) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Power of Standing Still by Leslie Sholly ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ****************************************************** "Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness concerning all acts of initiative and creation. The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too." - Goethe ****************************************************** What little boy doesn't imagine flying in a spaceship? I was fascinated by the astronauts and the moon landings; Star Trek wasn't entertainment to me, but a plausible vision of the future. I dreamed of space travel long before I took up the quest that has dominated my adult life. Like so many other things, the reality doesn't live up to my fantasies. Space travel isn't like Star Trek. It's not even as exciting as a plane ride or an ocean cruise. The blackness, the void of space, is, in a word, boring. There's nothing to see--no puffy clouds or majestic mountain ranges. There's no sound--no rushing wind or crashing waves. There's not even a sense of motion. Although I know intellectually that we must be moving at a speed that is incomprehensible, that flies in the face of what our current understanding of physics teaches is possible, as far as my perception goes, we might as well be standing still. I'm aware of the irony of this forced inaction--this standing still. Not too long ago, Scully asked me why I don't ever just stay still. I was annoyed by the question; I didn't pause to consider it seriously. When I answered that I wouldn't know what I'd be missing I was really just being flippant. But over the past few weeks, before I was taken, we had both been trying harder to slow down, to stay in the moment, to be *still* together now and then. And now I'm moving at close to the speed of light, albeit against my will. Now that my speed is beyond my control, I'd give anything to be able to stand still--for now it's by moving that I'm missing something. And that something--that someone--is Scully. I am imprisoned here but not because I'm in a small room that I suppose might be called a cell. After all, as the saying goes, four walls do not a prison make. Of course I am a captive and there's no escaping from a spaceship. But I've been well- treated. There's been no torture, no experiments. I have free run of the ship most of the time. The Bounty Hunter's loyalties and motivations are unclear to me, but for whatever reason he and his kind seem to consider me special. I've been told that we are traveling to his home world, that I will be given the opportunity to learn the answers to all my questions once we arrive there. The prospect should fill me with excitement and anticipation; instead, it leaves me cold. The torment within my own mind holds me captive. I'm a prisoner of my thoughts, of my anxieties, of my guilt. I shouldn't be here. I should never have left Scully, most especially not under false pretenses. Yes, I feared for her safety. But I knew that I was at risk as well. I was more than half hoping to end up where I am now. That quest for knowledge overcame my loyalty to Scully, led me to perform what truly was the ultimate ditch. Not that I haven't been punished for my desertion. When I looked up into the stream of radiant light that came from the space craft, when my eyes met the Bounty Hunter's, when I realized what was about to happen to me, I knew at last, when it was too late, that it wasn't what I wanted. For all my climbing, for all my questing, when I finally reached my goal, when I finally reached the stars, all I wanted was to come down again, to go home. Funny how one quest has led to another. I went into this to find Samantha. Somewhere along the way, I realized that Scully had become more important to me--that finding a cure for her cancer, learning who had hurt her and stolen her babies, getting that God-damned chip out of her neck, was more important. Then, somehow, with colonization looming darkly on the horizon, the fate of the entire world seemed to lie in my reluctant hands. I had to come full circle to find the truth, the truth about the aliens and the truth about myself. Back to Oregon, back to where Scully and I first worked together, when I introduced her to my crazy theories and she gave them--and me--a chance. Better for her, perhaps, had I convinced her then that I was nuts, so that she would have run for her life after that first case. I couldn't help but notice how the world had kept moving since our first visit to Oregon. Billy Miles had married and divorced. Theresa Nemman was a mother. They were just kids in their early twenties when we first met them. Despite the trauma of multiple abductions, they had gone on with their lives. Whereas for all our running Scully and I might as well have been standing still--at least until recently. How ironic that just when we decided to make a change and take a chance on a new kind of relationship, fate stepped in once more to throw us right back to the beginning. Seven years ago, Scully lay on my bed as I sat on the floor and told her about my quest. "Nothing else matters to me," I told her. Seven years later, I joined her in the bed, cuddled her close in my arms, and told her that there had to be an end, that there was so much more to life. And I meant it. Once I told Diana that "At some point, you just have to accept that the only way those you love are going to survive is if you give up." I was close to that point. I wanted only the best for Scully. Her happiness--and, let's be honest, my own happiness, which could only be found with her--was becoming my quest now. "Don't you ever just want to stop? Get out of the damn car? Settle down and live something approaching a normal life?" In my mind I can hear her voice so clearly. She wanted me to stop moving so we could *both* stop moving. I swear to God, this is my last ditch. If I ever get away from here, I *will* slow down. I will. I'll turn my back on all of this if Scully wants me to. I'll protect her, and I'll protect myself. I clutch Scully's cross in my fist. This is a symbol of her faith, not just in God and in His power to protect me, but in us and that we will be together again. If someone asked her, she might claim she gave it to me as protection, as a way of sending God with me; or she might say she sent it along so I would carry part of her with me. But there's more to it than that. I'm sure she wouldn't admit to any superstition, but I think she gave it to me because it always comes back to her. Does she think it will drag me back with it, even against my will, like a magical talisman from some ancient legend? I may not be able to stop the ship, but I can stop time in my mind and slow my own self down--calm my racing heart and my furious thoughts. I can focus on one moment at a time--the perfect moments that seem to transcend time--that make up the most beautiful memories of a life. They flash through my mind like a slide show--moments of perception, of clarity. When I took Scully in my arms in the hallway of a hospital and realized that her life was mine, that in saving her I would be saving myself. Or in another hallway, years later, when our lips came within a millimeter of touching. On a baseball field in Arlington, my arms wrapped around her softness, the smell of her freshly washed hair in my nostrils. The painful quick beat of my heart, unacknowledged at the time, when she said, "Mulder, I wouldn't put myself on the line for anyone but you." Scully on my couch, saying, "I'm reasonably happy," implying--I was sure--that her happiness was somehow due to me. Scully's body silhouetted in the moonlight by my bed as she prepared to join me there for the first time. But images, even the perfect images of a photographic memory, are not enough. I ache to hold Scully in my arms, to hear her voice, to smell her skin. No amount of knowledge and no quest can ever fulfill me as she does. If only I could slide back down that stream of light that brought me here. If only there was a little cord to pull along the wall of the ship, like on a city bus. I imagine myself yelling, "Stop the spaceship, I want to get off." How crazy is that? Crazy or not, it's the only idea I have. And so I go to the Bounty Hunter. I don't have to speak aloud for him to hear me, but somehow it's important to me to give voice to this request. I haven't heard my own voice in days and it's startling in the utter stillness. "Stop the ship," I say, fully realizing how ridiculous the words are even as I say them. He looks at me, a measuring look. I feel him probing my mind, the contact unwelcome but unavoidable, and quickly becoming familiar. He raises one eyebrow quizzically in an incongruously human gesture. "Stop the ship, " I repeat. "I want to get off. I want to go home." "You puzzle me, Mulder," he says. Yes, I'm on a first--well, last--name basis with him at this point. "You have been well-treated here. And soon we will reach our destination. The knowledge you seek--as well as other things as yet unimaginable to you--awaits you there." "I don't care," I say, and am amazed at how true my words are. "I don't care," I repeat, more strongly. "I don't care about that. This used to be my life, but it's not anymore. I want to go home to Scully. That's *all* I want." And then the control room begins to spin and lights are flashing everywhere and I think I see a look of amazement and surprise on the Bounty Hunter's normally implacable countenance . . . And I am lying in a bed, clad only in boxers, covered by a fluffy comforter, with Scully's head pillowed on my shoulder. I hardly dare to breathe. If this is a dream, it's a vivid one. I feel the warmth and softness of her skin, the rising and falling of her chest as she breathes. Full moonlight illuminates her face so clearly that I can even see the tracks left on her cheeks by tears she must have shed before she fell asleep. The distant sounds of partiers and the ever-present sirens drift through the half-opened window, providing aural evidence that I am indeed in Georgetown. Then Scully's eyes flutter open and close again. "Mulder," she mumbles sleepily. Suddenly her eyes fly open once more and shock registers on her face. "I'm dreaming," she says. "I thought *I* was." "Oh, my God. Oh, my God," she repeats, and then clutches me with a desperation that is both touching and gratifying. I stroke her hair and wrap my arms more tightly around her. She's real; it's not a dream. I can't explain it and for once I'm experiencing a paranormal phenomenon I have no interest in investigating. I'm here, and I believe, and that's enough for me. Presently, Scully relaxes in my arms, wipes fresh tears from her eyes, and asks, "How?" "I told the Bounty Hunter to stop the spaceship. I told him I wanted to come home." "And then what?" "And then . . . I was here." "Just like that?" My little skeptic. "Just like that," I confirm. "I missed you, Scully, so much. I didn't care about the spaceship--the quest--any of that. All I wanted once I was there was to come home to you. You were all I wanted--all I needed." Scully smiles at me then bites her lip uncertainly. Suddenly she seems to reach a decision, and takes my hand and places it on her abdomen. "Is there room in your life for one more?" she asks shyly. Struggling to a sitting position, I pull down the comforter and lift her nightshirt so I can see better. I place my hand again on the stretched skin covering the roundness of her stomach. "Mine?" I almost squeak, hardly daring to believe. "Ours," she amends, placing her hand over mine. "How?" It is my turn to ask. "I don't know," she replies. "A miracle, maybe. Like the one that brought you here." I lie down next to her again and gather her into my arms. "I think--I think--I think we're here, now, because we both decided to slow down," I tell her. "We both had to want to stop enough for us to reach this point, and when we wanted it badly enough, it happened. Both of us had to admit what was most important to us. You reached that point before I did, Scully. And I'm sorry it took me this long to join you." "You're here now," she whispers sleepily. "God, this is so surreal, Mulder. We really should be headed for the hospital to get you checked out; we should call Skinner, the Gunmen, my mom--they'll all be so happy--" "Tomorrow," I promise her. "Tomorrow. No need to wake them." "'Kay," she agrees. She reaches out one slender finger to touch her cross, still dangling from its chain around my neck. "You still have it. God brought you back to me," she says. "God?" I smile at her. "Maybe. Or maybe it was alien technology. Or some sort of extreme wish fulfillment. Some might suggest karma, or fate, or a strong psychic bond that manifested itself physically--" "God," she interrupts, with certainty. And as we sink into slumber, together at last, I decide she is probably right. ************************************************** The Master Speed No speed of wind or water rushing by But you have speed far greater. You can climb Back up a stream of radiance to the sky, And back through history up the stream of time. And you were given this swiftness, not for haste Nor chiefly that you may go where you will, But in the rush of everything to waste, That you may have the power of standing still Off any still or moving thing you say. Two such as you with such a master speed Cannot be parted nor be swept away From one another once you are agreed That life is only life forevermore Together wing to wing and oar to oar. --Robert Frost ************************************************** THE END AUTHOR'S NOTES: Thanks to my friends at XScenes for betaing, emotional support, and sharing. Thanks for reading! Feedback, please, to PennySyc@aol.com (Leslie).