Rain Man

by Frohike

Mulder, as seen through the eyes of outside observer.

Title: Rain Man
Author: Frohike
Email: frohike51@aol.com
Rating: G
Category: Character observation? You tell me how to
classify this one.
Distribution: Anywhere you want. Just keep my name and
email addy attached. Let me know where you put it, so I can
come and visit sometime.
Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully don't belong to me. Big
surprise. The third person POV however, is mine.
Spoilers: A small one for Requiem, but honestly, if you
haven't heard this much about the episode, you must have
been hiding under a rock for the last few months.

A quick word of thanks. Mim, you're always there. That's
what touchstones are for, isn't it? Jeri, thanks for putting
down your own binoculars and taking the time to read this for
me. *g*
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm not a voyeur. My kicks are not derived by staring through
binoculars into the windows and lives of other people. In fact,
until I moved to Arlington, I'd never even thought of intruding
on the privacy of another. It happened by accident, really.

You'll have to excuse me if I'm not terribly specific with dates,
time never meant a whole lot to me; still doesn't. I do know
that I first saw him in late August of 1994. That's when I
moved into the apartment building across the street from his.
I'd spent the entire day unpacking, attempting to make this
place look like home. It was hotter than Hell outside, but I
had the windows open and a fan blowing to try and air-out the
place. The apartment had gone unrented for a number of
months and, while the landlord swore it had been cleaned, you
couldn't prove it by me. Anyway, the musty smell was more
than my nose could handle, so I put up with the heat while I
cleaned and unpacked.

I was in the bedroom late that night, when I caught a whiff of
ozone signaling the coming of rain. When the first few drops
began to fall, I closed the bedroom window and walked out to
shut the ones in the living room. The rain picked up faster
than I'd anticipated, so by the time I reached the last window,
the ledge and the floor underneath were soaked.
Grabbing a towel, I mopped up the water, thankful that I'd
decided not to put one of my small bookshelves there after all.
I tossed the towel on the kitchen counter and turned off the
lights. It was probably around midnight or so.

Walking past the window, I paused to watch the rain. That's
when I saw him. He was standing in front of his window,
staring out into the night. I'm not sure what made me stay and
watch him or what made me go to the closet a short time later
to pull out my binoculars. Maybe it was the way he was
standing, so still, like he was afraid to move or he might miss
something. For over an hour he stood there, staring out
through the rain. His hand crept up to his neck and he seemed
to be fingering something. A necklace? I don't know; my
binoculars are pretty good, but they're not quite that strong, so
I had to rely on an educated guess. He looked so sad. No, sad
isn't quite right. Lost, is a better word. The rain slowed, then
stopped completely. As soon as no more water fell from the
sky, he moved away from the window and out of my sight. I
put my binocs down and, after waiting a little while longer to
see if he would reappear, decided to go to bed. I remember
wondering who it was that had hurt him so deeply, just before
I fell asleep.

In the next couple of months, I only saw him a few more
times. Never on a clear night, only when the rain was falling.
His face always looked the same, sad and lost. Oh, I looked
for him from time to time when the moon was full or the night
especially clear, but he never appeared. Not knowing who he
was, I began to think of him as the Rain Man. OK, I know
what you're thinking, but no, I'd never even seen that movie,
and this man was certainly no idiot savant. Two, maybe three
months after the first time I saw him, he appeared at the
window, just before the rain started to fall. I expected to see
the usual face, the usual hand touching the chain around his
neck. He surprised me. Both hands reached out and pressed
against the glass, his forehead resting on the pane between
them. Then the most amazing thing happened. Well, it was
amazing to me because I'd never seen him do it. He smiled.
Not a big ear-to-ear smile, mind you, a simple turning up of
the corners of his mouth. He stared for a little while, then
closed his eyes, seemingly content to stand there and listen to
sound of the rain gently beating against his window. He left
before it stopped completely that night; one of the few times
didn't wait for the sky to finish the job.

The first time I saw him in daylight was probably close to a
year after I moved in. I told you, I'm not big on invading other
people's privacy, so I never made the effort to find out
anything about the guy. He was the Rain Man and that was
enough. I was on my way to work, when I saw them getting
out of a car in front of his building. Yeah, that's right, them.
He was with a small, redheaded woman. He had bandages on
his face and she was helping him up the steps. They'd gone
halfway when he stopped and said something to her. He
pulled from her grasp and started back down the stairs.
"Mulder." I heard her say. Mulder? What kind of name was
that? "I just need to get the file, Scully," he answered. OK,
Mulder and Scully? I went out on a limb and decided that
these must be last names; I mean, what were the chances of
two people with such awful first names meeting and hanging
out with one another, right? So, now the Rain Man had a
name. Mulder. I stored that away as I watched the door close
behind them.

Time passed. I watched him at night, standing at his rain-
soaked window. Sometimes I caught him leaving for work in
the morning now as well. Scully showed up at his place on a
regular basis, but in spite of the closeness they seemed to
share, I didn't get the feeling that there was anything going on
between them. Can't put my finger on why, since he
constantly had his hand glued to the small of her back and she
was never more than a few inches away from his side, but
something told me that the bond was one of trust and
friendship, not one borne of the male/female thing. I could be
wrong. Maybe they'd been boffing each other silly all that
time, but I don't think so. I know they got around to it
eventually, but I'll get to that later on.

We went through a real dry period, much to my
disappointment. No rain, meant no Rain Man...I mean,
Mulder. One night, I looked out, hoping to see some trace of
clouds in the sky. Sirens wailed, but nothing else. The noise
grew louder, so, out of morbid curiosity, I waited to see if the
emergency vehicles were coming down our street. An
ambulance and a couple of police cruisers screeched to a halt
in front of Mulder's building. My heart leapt into my throat
and I glanced over at his window. The lights were on, but the
shades were drawn, so I couldn't see inside. I watched, unable
to move, praying that he wasn't the reason for the commotion.
A stretcher was brought out of the building. The white sheet
mounded high above the bed, telling me that the person
underneath had been of considerable girth. I breathed a sigh
of relief, not my Rain Man.

A few nights later, still no rain in the forecast. I couldn't
sleep, so I wandered the apartment, finally ending up in front
of the window again. The nights had been cool, so I'd taken to
leaving the windows open to help cut down on the electric bill.
I leaned out and breathed in the night air. A popping sound
startled me, then I saw a tall dark figure running between the
buildings. At first, I thought it might have been him, but then
I saw Scully half-carrying Mulder to her car. She put him in
the back seat and drove off. I didn't see either of them again
for a few weeks.

Seems like I hardly saw him at all for the next year. Every so
often, I'd look out and see him taping an x on his window.
OK, so he's a little strange. I'm sure there must have been a
purpose in this, but I never did figure it out. Maybe he had a
superhero thing going on. I did notice that on the few times it
did rain after he'd taped the window, he didn't show up, so I
guess that x must have meant something. Seems like it
showed up an awful lot. I began to find myself resenting the
letter as a whole, to the point of frowning whenever I had need
to write it down. OK, so maybe I'm a little strange.

One night, during a particularly nasty storm, he came to the
window. The rain was coming down so hard that I almost
missed him standing there. If it hadn't been for a well-timed
bolt of lightning, I might have gone to bed. There was
something about the way he was standing there that night.
Something about the single arm resting against the pane,
supporting his head, that worried me. I stood and watched,
waiting for the lightning to illuminate him. As the storm gave
way to simple rainfall, I broke out my new, high-powered
binocs and trained them on him. Yeah, I'd broken down and
bought myself an expensive birthday present a few days
earlier, finally admitting my obsession with Rain Man. As he
came into focus, I could see that he'd been crying. What now,
I wondered. For all the times I'd seen him staring out the
window, this was the hardest to watch. He always seemed so
strong to me, even through the sadness. Maybe he'd cried at
the window before. Maybe this was just the first time I'd been
able to look closely enough to see the tracks of his tears. I
almost called the local oldies station to ask them to dedicate
that Smokey Robinson song to him that night, but never made
the call. I doubt he had the radio on anyway and he didn't
strike me as the oldies type. Besides, if all the stars aligned
and he was listening to the station at precisely the time the
dedication was read...well, he probably wouldn't have
appreciated the intent and I might have lost my rainy night
trysts.

Scully came over a little more often after that night. She
didn't stay, I'm not implying that there was anything going on,
but she did seem to be a more regular fixture around the place.
I didn't know her, but it seemed to me that she'd lost a lot of
weight, weight she didn't need to lose in the first place.
Mulder seemed more protective of her as well. I can't explain
it really. I don't mean that he overtly hovered over her or
carried her up and down the stairs or anything like that. He
just seemed to watch her more closely, usually when she
wasn't paying attention.

I can hear you now...you're saying wait a minute; this chick's
not just watching him in the rain anymore. Guilty as charged.
At this point I'd become a regular fixture around Rain Man's
place myself. I had no designs on the man, don't get me
wrong. No, really. I was just drawn to him like the proverbial
moth to a flame, or is that lightning to a lightning rod, given
the way we 'met'. He intrigued me; he gave me a reason to
believe. Believe in what, I'm not entirely sure, that's just the
feeling he gave me.

In late September, my company sent me out of state to open a
new branch. It was a big opportunity and one I would have
welcomed, had it not meant three months away from home. I
went, of course, but missed him terribly the whole time I was
gone.

I returned on Christmas Eve. One of the ladies at the new
office had offered me a place to be for Christmas, but I lied
and said that I was expected at my mother's house. Yeah,
right. My mother hadn't spent a holiday, birthday, any day
with me in over ten years. No, I wanted to be home to spend
Christmas Eve with him. I prayed for rain the entire flight, but
landed in crisp, clear conditions. Just my luck. When I got
home, I could see the light of the television flickering in his
apartment. I turned on the radio and sat in front of the
window, waiting to see if he would join me. I must have
nodded off for a while, because it was sometime between five
and six when I realized the light was on in his apartment.
They moved into view, sitting down on his couch together. I
grabbed the binoculars and focused in on them as they opened
their presents to one another. He turned toward her after
opening his, so I never did see what he'd gotten; her either for
that matter, but I wasn't really paying attention. He was
smiling you see. When Rain Man smiles, everything else
disappears.

The next couple of years went on in pretty much the same
way. There were good times and sad times. Nights when the
rain lasted for hours and I found myself telling him my life
story. Nights when I started to believe he was actually
listening. God, I sound so pathetic. I dated, had a relationship
here and there, so I did have a life outside of my obsession.
When all was said and done though, I couldn't find anyone to
take me away from my Rain Man. I still didn't desire him, not
in the way you're thinking anyway. Never seriously
considered making myself known to him. I needed the
illusion, not the man himself. He was my constant, my reason
to believe. Sure, I've said that before, but that's really the way
it was and once you've figured it out, why bother to look for
other ways to describe what you feel?

Things took a dramatic change earlier this year. Remember
that thing I said I'd get to eventually? Well, this is it. Mulder
came home after being gone for a few days. I watched him
unpack his things, wondering what adventures he'd found on
his trip. Later that night, Scully showed up. Like I said, she'd
been regular around his place for a long time, so I didn't think
anything of it. He looked concerned and brought her a mug of
something to drink. They sat on the couch and talked for a
long time. She fell asleep. I don't think he realized it right
away, because he just kept right on talking. When he saw that
she'd drifted off, he got up, wrapped a blanket around her and
kissed her on the forehead, before going to bed himself. I
smiled. This was the first time I'd seen any real display of
affection, not counting the hand on the back thing he always
did. Now, I'm not saying that anything beyond a kiss
happened that night, but I know something definitely
happened not long after.

I got in, just ahead of the rain that night. We'd had to redo the
inventory when a huge screw up was found in the paperwork.
I was exhausted, but the boss had given me the next day off to
make up for having to put in all those extra hours. In spite of
the disgusting time of night, it was after two in case you're
interested, and in spite of the fact that my eyelids kept
slamming shut on me as I tried to unlock my front door, I
found myself drawn to the window to look for him. It was
raining after all, so I had to look. Sure enough, he was there.
I rubbed my eyes and willed them to stay open for a few more
minutes, as I reached for the binocs. When both the lenses
and my eyes focused, I saw that my Rain Man was shirtless
and wearing only a pair of black boxers. Now, I still had no
big desire to jump the guy, but I will admit that the sight of
him that night was more than a little arousing. I'm only
human. I watched him standing there, looking at peace with
the world, when two small arms slid around his waist. I knew
who it was before I even raised the binoculars to her face.
Hey, shut up! I said I was only human. Scully was there,
smiling up at him, wearing that blue dress shirt he was so fond
of. He pulled her even closer and they stood there, looking at
the rain, together.

Over the next few weeks, I rarely saw them apart. He would
disappear on the weekends, presumably to spend them at her
place, but they stayed at his place during the week. Maybe he
lives closer to their office? After all these years, I still don't
know what they do, but I do know that whatever it is, they're
in it together. I'm guessing it's government work. I mean, they
dress like Feds and if it walks like a duck and talks like a
duck...I could be wrong; wouldn't be the first time, but in this
case, I don't think so.

Two weeks ago, it rained for the first time in quite a while. I
sat by the window and waited. The light was on in the
apartment, but he didn't show up. A strange little man looked
out briefly, before shutting off the light. At first I thought that
maybe Rain Man had moved out without my knowing about it.
Then I saw the man leave the apartment. I recognized him
when a longhaired, blonde guy got out of the van to ask him a
question. These guys showed up every so often; must be
friends of his. I wondered where he was and why they were
there without him.

The rain lasted for days. Each night I sat and waited, each
night no Rain Man appeared in the window. I found myself
becoming a little more depressed with each no show.

Last night, the rain started again. Hoping against hope, I
rushed home and sat by the window, not bothering to change
out of my wet clothes. The desk light came on and I pressed
my head against the glass. Please, please, please, I chanted in
my head. I could see a figure coming toward the window
slowly. Scully came into view. I was disappointed at first, but
soon rationalized that if she was there, he'd be along shortly. I
waited, she waited, he didn't appear. Her head dropped to the
glass. I picked up the binoculars too get a better look. Her
shoulders were shaking and tears were streaming down her
cheeks. She looked like Mulder had looked on that first night,
sad and lost. Oh my God, no. Where is he? What's happened
to my Rain Man? Please don't tell me he's gone. He can't be
gone. She needs him. I need him. Oh God, Rain Man, please
come home to us.