The idea came to me late one night, and is therefore somewhat jumbled and possibly nonsensical. I've just always kind of wondered who the hell Charlie Scully was, and why he never makes an appearance. So here it is, folks, Charlie Scully's debut. Please read and enjoy! And review.
Disclaimer: fill in the blank. You know the drill.
I stand about four feet from the door in front of me and study it for any sign of whether or not it is safe to enter. The door, being completely inanimate, made of wood, and therefore incapable of any sort of speech or communication, does not offer any hints. I cough self-consciously. Charlie, I think to myself, you've put this off for far too long.
I figure that I've been standing here for about seven minutes trying to muster up the courage to make a simple enough motion—I'm trying to work up the nerve to knock on the door. For an inanimate object, it certainly is imposing. The blank wood seems to glare at me, saying "who do you think you are, barging in here after all these years? And no warning of your visit? You're a terrible visitor, and the worst brother in the history of the world!"
I try to push the door's voice to the back of my mind, telling myself that it is absolutely crazy to be considering what a door thinks of me as part of my own personal reality. Dad would tell me that I'm losing it, I think to myself, allowing a slight smile to cross my face. Hell, Bill would try to throw me out of the house the moment I mentioned it! I give my head a shake to try to clear it, and finally knock on the door.
There are only a few seconds between the time when my knock rings out and when the sound of footsteps hurrying to answer it comes echoing out to me. Those few seconds, though, are enough to send a world of possibilities whirling through my skull. She may not be home. She might be asleep. What if she has a friend over? What she's got a boyfriend living with her? What if she's got a girlfriend living with her? I'm not sure I have the courage to face her, let alone a possible significant other!
But my worries are (partially) assuaged when the door swings open to reveal the startled face of my dear, darling sister. Her blue eyes are wide as she takes me in, and I realize that I must look completely crazy. My conversation with the door has left me feeling (and probably looking) unsettled, my hat is a twisted mess in my hands because I've been crumpling it the whole time that I've been standing out here, and because of the red-eye plane flight, I haven't caught a bit of sleep the night before.
In short, I look like hell.
"Charlie!" she says finally. "What are you doing here?"
I clear my throat and give her a shaky grin. "I've come to visit my sister," I say with a nervous laugh. "It's really been too long since I've last seen her."
"I'll agree with that," Dana replies, nodding slowly. The look on her face is reminiscent of that of a stunned sheep. I can only think that I must look much the same.
Dana blinks and seems to come back to Earth. "Um…come in! Please, come in!"
I obediently follow her into her apartment, my eyes drinking in everything that I see, eager for some insight as to who my sister has turned into since I last seriously talked to her. Wow, I think, as I try to remember the last time I had an actual conversation with my sister. That would have to be at Missy's funeral. Almost four or five years ago.
It has been too long.
"Would you like some tea?" Dana's voice jolts me back to the present, and I look up to find my sister poking her head out the door of what must be the kitchen.
"Oh…yeah, sure," I reply, sitting down on one of the sofas in her living room. It's pleasantly soft and bouncy and a wave of fatigue sweeps through me, reminding me that I haven't slept in 31 hours. I feel my eyes begin to slide closed, but I fight the tiredness back. After traveling all this way, I'm not about to give in just yet.
Dana emerges from the kitchen carrying two mugs. Placing one down on the coffee table before me, she regards me over the rim of her own. "So…" she says calmly. "What brings you out here?"
"Like I said," I reply, taking a sip of the deliciously warm liquid. "I haven't seen you in such a long time. A man has the right to visit with his sister, doesn't he?"
"Bill didn't send you, did she?" Dana asks suddenly. I meet her eyes with total bewilderment.
"Why the hell would he do that?"
"He's a bit…resentful of the time I spend away from the family," she replies, fixing her eyes on the coffee table. Her fingers trace an invisible pattern on the fabric of the couch as she considers her next words. "My work…my partner…requires a great deal of devotion. I think that Bill considers me a traitor. He thinks that I'm deserting our family for the X-files."
The X-files? I scramble through memories, trying to find a definition to fit the rather peculiar word. Finally, I recall a conversation that I had with my sister a couple months before Missy's death when she mentioned something called the X-files…and a man called Mulder.
"The X-files…that's what you work on, right?" I ask. She nods in affirmation and I continue. "And your partner—that's that wack-job named Mulder, yeah?"
She stiffens at my words. "You have been talking to Bill!" she exclaims. I nod reluctantly.
"Only a bit," I reply. "He seems to really hate this Mulder guy. Why's that?"
"Mulder and Bill have never quite seen…eye-to-eye," Dana says, looking up at me. "Mulder's quest…his job—my job—has been the cause of a great deal of pain in both of our families over the years since I began working with him. Bill can't forgive him for that. I'm surprised that he forgives me for it, though many days, I'm not sure that he does."
It's my turn to stiffen as I hear the words "great deal of pain" issue forward from her lips. I have a pretty good idea about the things that she's talking about. "Missy?" I whisper.
She nods, and I can tell that she's fighting back tears. "And my cancer and Mulder's sister and his mother and his father. Some days it seems that everything I love will disappear as long as I keep fighting this fight."
I don't ask her what fight she's fighting. Some things I can just tell that she won't want to tell me—there are secrets that I don't want to be privy to. But I reach forward and touch my sister's cheek, brushing away the tears that are leaking down.
I kind of hate this Mulder guy for all he's done to our family, but I can't bring myself to work up the bright, fiery loathing that seems to rage through Bill whenever he speaks the man's name. I can't help but remember that, however much we've lost, he's lost a great deal as well, and that my own sister has had a hand in the misery that has come to our family. And I could never hate my sister, so what's the point in hating this guy?
A knock on the door sends me jerking back to reality. Dana starts, reaching for a gun that I hadn't previously noticed was lying on the sofa by her side. Picking it up, she approaches the door warily—and I'm stunned by how she looks like she knows how to use that weapon. I guess I hadn't really come to grips with the fact that my sister was in a dangerous job, a job where loss of life was occasionally part of the package. And the fact that she couldn't feel safe simply opening a door—that she felt she needed protection to approach the entryway to her own home—really hammered in the fact that Dana wasn't a little girl anymore.
She looks out the peephole and I see her visibly relax. Loosening her grip on the gun, she opens the door with her free hand.
A tall, dark-haired man steps in. "Hey, Scully," he says, smiling down at her. "I knew we both had the night off, so I figured I'd pop around with a couple of movies and some beer. You up for it?"
"Actually, Mulder," I hear my sister say, "I've kind of got company. But you're welcome to join us."
My curiosity at hearing that the man was the elusive and controversial Mulder does not come close to my astonishment at hearing the change in the tone of my sister's voice. All at once she sounds more professional, more intense than she normally does—yet at the same time, she sounds amused, nearly laughing at the man who stood before her. I had rarely hear my sister laugh at anything, and I crane my neck to try to get a better look at the man who has affected such a change in her.
The two of them walk back towards the living room, and I had the chance to be curious yet again as I see the way that the two act around one another. The man—Mulder—has his hand resting comfortably on the small of my sister's back—something that would have resulted in the loss of the offending appendage had anyone else tried it. They look totally at ease around one another, as though they could trust the other with anything. And they probably have, I think to myself.
I feel a brief pang of outrage at this thought. Dana is my sister! I should be the one that she trusts over everyone else in the entire world.
But you're also the one she hasn't seen in two years. Crap.
Mulder meets my eyes across the room, and I can tell that he sees me only as another man in the apartment. Something flashes in his eyes and he grimaces painfully, looking as though someone has just punched him in the stomach. The complexity of the expression is difficult to place—what is it? I flip through several possible emotions in my head, but finally settle on the one that fits perfectly.
Jealousy.
The man is in love with my sister. He's probably never done anything outrageous to make it known to her, but he sure as hell is in love with her. I very nearly laugh, but realize just in time that this would be a catastrophic mistake just in time.
"Mulder," Dana begins, "this is my brother, Charlie Scully. Charlie, this is my partner, Special Agent Fox Mulder."
A relieved grin spreads over Mulder's face, and he reaches out and offers me a hand. "Mr. Scully," he says cordially. "I am very pleased to meet you at last."
"As am I, Agent Mulder," I reply, shaking the proffered hand. We both seat ourselves, me back onto the sofa and him into a chair across the coffee table. I glance over at my sister and nearly laugh out loud. She's gazing fondly at the other man, her huge blue eyes soft and filled with an emotion that I've only seen in one other situation—sometimes when our mom looked at Dad.
There's such a fierce love between these two, and I really wonder why no one has said anything about it yet. It can't be that big of a secret—really, the entirety of the FBI must know about it. And it strikes me as odd that two grown people, government agents, will act like teenagers when emotions enter into the game.
That's the stuff they really need to teach us about in school, I think. Then I settle back to enjoy the show.
Hope you enjoyed it! Please don't egg my house! And above all—please review!