Character: Dana Scully
Fandom: The X-files
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: Lucas: I do not regret the things I have done, but those I did not do. Vol 2. Week 5
Setting: Season Three Episode "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose"
AN: Some borrowed dialogue. Also, sorry for the lateness, I have started grad school, and this might mean I will be late a day or so in my regular posting. Other notes: the St. Olaf's reference comes straight from A Prairie Home Companion, a show on NPR, based in Minnesota.
______________________________________________________
"You know, chocolate cake was always my favorite. Say what you will about banana cream or coconut cream pie, but there's something sinful in eating chocolate mixed with whipped cream." Clyde Bruckman balding head bent over the tray cake slices, examining each one as if considering how best to man his attack. Scully raised an idyll eyebrow, but chose to ignore any further comment as she primly sat on the edge of the bed at the Le Dampino Hotel, pulling her pencil skirt primly around her knees.
"When I was a kid, there was this diner downtown, handmade the best chocolate cakes. Course, it got knocked down in the seventies to make some high-rise office building. People have no appreciation of the past," he clucked and shook his shiny head, ringed by gray hair, before picking up a plate and fork. He settled in one of the hotel's winged back chairs, and began eating, pausing as his eyes fluttered close in appreciation. "This is real cream. Not the phony stuff. I know the difference. And the chocolate, very rich….look at these cute little doilies they put everything on. You sure you don't want to join me?"
Scully gathered her paperwork and politely shook her head in the negative. Though, to be honest, a slice of decadent cake would be ideal now, she doubted she'd be able to swallow it. The tension she felt, knowing Mulder was down below; looking for the murder, while she played babysitting duty for one grumpy, old man was less than pleasing. Still, Clyde was proving to be much less gruff and surly with her alone than with Mulder present. Perhaps it was Mulder's insistence on using him as a guinea pig that brought out the worst in Bruckman.
"So what are you doing," he asked with bored interest, waving his fork at the paperwork he was studying. She glanced down at the lists of names and personal records "Studying background checks. This is what detective work is really like." She couldn't help but get one small dig in to him about his so-called psychic abilities. "We can't come up with suspects by having visions."
"Jealous," he smirked, swallowing a forkful of chocolate cake.
"Not particularly," she replied as she leaned back against the headboard of one of the two beds in the room. "I can't imagine seeing everyone's deaths is a lot of fun."
Bruckman paused in his inhalation of the pastries, as if surprised she had come to that conclusion. "And I thought you believed I was full of crap."
"I'm not saying your not, but I am saying that if I could, I don't think I would want your power."
"You are obviously the brains in the outfit," Bruckman chortled, leaning back in his seat as he pushed back the tray of cakes. "What's with your partner anyway? What sort of FBI agent believes in psychics?"
"Mulder has a very open mind regarding a great many things," Scully replied diplomatically, if a trifle defensive. "He's worked a lot in the area of paranormal phenomenon."
"Don't tell me he chases after alien spaceships too," Bruckman stared at her aghast. Scully met his disbelief with an even stare but refused to answer one-way or the other.
"And his names really Fox," he asked, as if disbelieving that anyone would have that sort of name in real life.
"It's a family name," she replied, knowing only that it was what he told her when they first met. She had no idea how it even got to be a family name.
"Phew, what a piece of work," Bruckman shrugged, rising from the chair and moving to the opposite bed. "Seriously, if he keeps this up, it will be the end of him someday."
That wasn't precisely the sort of thing Scully wanted to hear, not after coming so close to losing him just months before. "Is that what you see for him?"
Bruckman was cagey. He grinned as he settled onto the bed, toeing off each shoe as he swung his feet up onto the mattress. "I thought you said you didn't believe in those type of things."
"I thought you said you saw how people died," she challenged.
"I see a lot of things. For your partner, he's got a lot of ways to go. He's a man of adventure, Fox Mulder. He's just damn lucky to have you around."
"Why's that?"
"He'd have been dead already if you weren't there to pull his butt out of the frying pan and the fryer," he shrugged, as he plumped up a pillow. "Man's damn lucky to find someone like that in his life….damn lucky." He looked sadly regretfully as he sank into the pillow, lying on his back as he stared up at the ceiling above. He looked very sorrowful and very lonely as he lay across from her on the other double-sized bed in the room.
"Why didn't you ever settle down, Mr. Bruckman?"
"Clyde," Bruckman corrected her gently.
"Clyde," she repeated with a warm smile. "You could have found a lovely lady, settled down…."
"With this sort of gift," he shook his head slowly, sounding horrified at the idea. "Imagine finding the girl of your dreams and falling madly in love, but knowing almost from sight how it was she was going to die. Perhaps it was in your arms, as you grow old together, maybe it's in a horrible accident or unexpected illness. What if she leaves you in the future, and she dies with someone else….no, this type of thing tends to take the romance out of everything."
He had a point, she supposed, though an incredibly depressing point. "So you had no romance in your life…not even when you were young?"
"Oh, I had a girlfriend once," Bruckman affirmed, grinning in reminiscence. "Her name was Peggy…prettiest girl in the Twin Cities. Dark hair, blue eyes…it took me six months to get around to asking he out. She used to love rock and roll too. Drove her parents crazy with it."
Scully tried to imagine a much younger Clyde Bruckman courting a pretty young girl in a classic 50's sweater set, with a bow in her hair, the sort of cute, romantic picture that one would see in a Doris Day film. "Whatever happened to her?"
"She dumped me for my best friend," he replied matter-of-factly. "The night before the concert as a matter of fact. I spent two weeks pay on tickets for that night, and she dumped me for my lousy best buddy who had the IQ of concrete brick."
Not exactly what she had envisioned when she had asked him about romance. "Err…I'm sorry?"
"Well it worked out in the end, she didn't age well. Last time I saw her playing bingo at St. Olaf's; she was 230 pounds and had a mustache. Just goes to show you that not even I can see everything about the future." He grunted in self-satisfaction, snuggling further into his pillows, oblivious to the puzzled, amused look from Scully on the other bed.
"Well, I suppose one has to thank God for small blessings then," she murmured, turning back to her notes. She kicked off her own shoes and swung her feet up to the bed with as much ladylike grace as she could manage given. She settled her back against the headboard, curling her stocking clad toes into the blanket as she propped the paperwork against her knee, glancing over it carefully. So far nothing stood out about any of the characters she had found in files they had pulled, nothing strange or unusual. Not that she was even particularly sure what she was even looking for.
"You know you won't find your killer staring at a stack of papers," Bruckman called from across the beds a she fiddled with the television remote, but neglected to turn the device on. Resisting the urge to snap at him, Scully at least rewarded him with a cool, disapproving glance.
"Did your visions tell you that?"
"No," Bruckman shook his head. "But it just stands to reason, don't you think. After all, if you all, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with all of your skills and tools at your disposal, couldn't pinpoint this guy without me around, what makes you think that looking through every Joe Schmoe who fits your criteria will help you any more?" He set down the television remote restlessly, before lazing his fingers across his broad, barrel chest. "I mean, think about it, part of the reason this guy is doing this is his anonymity, his feeling that he's nothing more than some puppet in someone else's play. If he fit some sort of profile or rang anyone's bells, you think you would have picked him up sooner than this."
He had a point, and Scully wasn't going to deny that, but he hit her irritation buttons, and she found herself biting her lip briefly before replying. "Well perhaps it would help if in one of your visions you saw the murderer in a mirror so we knew what he looked like."
"I'll remember to tell him that next one I have," Bruckman retorted mildly, glancing sideways at her. "How come you don't ask me?"
"Ask you what," she deliberately feigned ignorance as she continued with her work.
"About how you die," he continued calmly, as if this was a common question for him to receive. "Your partner didn't seem to have any hesitation."
"Mulder would believe the moon was made of cheese if you told him so, and would ask you to pass the crackers." This conversation was quickly starting to annoy her.
"You align yourself with a man you obviously believe is whack job, and then presume to preach to me about whether or not I have psychic abilities?"
"I never said Mulder was a 'whack job'," she glared at Bruckman who cheerfully shrugged at her outrage over his choice of words. "I think Mulder's brilliant, quite frankly, amazingly insightful and grossly underappreciated."
"But you don't buy a single word of his ideas about psychics," Bruckman pointed out airily.
"Well…no…." She did admit that, a trifle uncomfortably. "The truth is, Mulder has his beliefs, and I have mine. He has always kept his mind open to those things that most conventional investigation would write off as being too improbable to consider. I have always relied on my science, the skills I learned in college and medical school, the logical progression of facts that reach a particular conclusion."
"And your reasonable, logical conclusions lead you to believe that I'm full of crap, and your partner, who is the one pushing the whole psychic murders angle, is a sane, logical fellow." He tisked softly, clearly unimpressed. "Man's damn lucky to have you around…very damn lucky."
Why in the hell did he keep saying that, she grumbled in irritation. "Did you really see Mulder dying by...autoerotic asphyxiation?" She blushed slightly thinking about the implications again.
"What, you don't want to think of your partner like that?"
"Mulder can do whatever Mulder wants, but I know for a fact he's…not into that."
"So you asked him?" Bruckman was delighted.
"Did you really see him die that way or not," Scully barked lightly, becoming more flustered with this conversation by the minute.
"The truth," Bruckman paused, as if considering the whole thing for a long moment. "I was pulling his chain to see how he would react."
For whatever reason, that admission relieved Scully in ways even she couldn't understand, and perhaps didn't want to. "You said you saw lots of ways for Mulder to die though."
"Well, not lots, but possible ways."
"Does everyone have a number of possible way to die?" She thought of her own experiences in the last year, her abductions, her run-ins on cases, nearly being infected with strange diseases, almost being shot in Mulder's apartment.
"Most don't, but most aren't FBI agents either. Most people live quiet, boring, normal lives. They have marriages, houses, mortgages, kids, and jobs. Their lives are sedentary and dull. And death sort of comes up on them as an afterthought. They've lived their lives; they've done everything else there is to do in life, except this. And so it happens. They die in their beds, or of a disease, and their loved ones accept that death is just another part of living, a natural part of the cycle."
It was something so much like what her sister Melissa would say, that Scully felt the now familiar ache deep in her soul twinge ever so slightly. "And Mulder? Why is he different?"
"Well, best as I can figure, you and your partner lead such dangerous lives doing what you do, death just sort of hangs out waiting for something to happen. Some people are like that you know. And they get lucky….sometimes they can get out of it."
Just like she got out of that coma she was in, and Mulder got out of his boxcar. The two of them seemed to have a veritable habit of cheating death whenever it was most convenient. She wondered if there was anything particularly supernatural about that, or just pure luck and determination at play. Perhaps all of her mother's prayers at church on Sundays actually worked.
"How about your end?" She asked aloud after a long moment of silence, setting down her files and curling up on the bed comfortably, turning to study the older man on the other bed.
"What about it," he yawned.
"It's something you haven't explained. Can you see your own end? "
"I see our end," he quantified, frowning at her a little shyly as she cocked her head curiously by way of response. "We end up in bet together."
Scully's curiosity gave way to disbelief as her eyebrows rose and she smirked disparagingly at him. He flushed slightly as he rushed to explain.
"I'm, I'm, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that," he stuttered, looking now completely mortified by how his words came out. "I don't mean to offend you or scare you, but not here, not this bed. I just mean I see us quite clearly in bed together. You're holding my hand... very tenderly and then... you're looking at me with such compassion and I feel... tears are streaming down my face. I feel so grateful. It's just a... very special moment neither of us will ever forget."
Scully didn't know if she should laugh at him or be completely appalled by what he suggested. In the end, she chose skepticism as a safe and happy medium. "Mister Bruckman... there are hits and there are misses. And then there are misses." She shot him a pointed, if humorous look.
"I just call them like I see them," he shrugged, smiling.
"Somehow I doubt I would find myself in that sort of situation"
"I don't know you're a medical doctor, who knows what's going on with me."
"You seem hale and hearty enough at the moment," she pointed out, "and with your FBI protection so thoughtfully set up for you by my partner, I don't think you have anything to fear regarding someone coming to kill you either."
"You say that now," he grumbled loudly.
Scully chose to ignore him. She glanced over her shoulder at the file on the bed beside her, but realized she couldn't concentrate on it anymore anyway. Bruckman was right, it wasn't helping her in the slightest figure out who their suspect was, and really she doubted scanning through the backgrounds of hundreds of potential Donnie Pfasters in the Minneapolis area was going to do her psyche any favors. Instead she rose, moving across the room to her briefcase, opening it up as she dug inside for several long moments.
"Off to the ladies room to do whatever it is women do in bathrooms," Bruckman inquired impudently from his bed.
"Nope," she grinned, pulling out a package of red, Bicycle playing cards. "How's your poker game?" She waved the packet in front of him.
"I thought FBI agents weren't allowed to gamble."
"Not for money," she admitted. "Just to pass the time so we don't sit here picking at each other anymore out of sheer boredom."
He liked the sound of that, apparently, as he rose and followed her to the small table in the hotel room. "What's a nice, Catholic girl like you doing playing poker?"
"My father taught me," she admitted happily as she sat opposite Bruckman, pulling out the plastic-covered cards and shuffling them quickly in her small hands. He watched her work, obviously pleased and fascinated as she expertly split, shuffled, and mixed the cards.
"What did your father do, work as a card shark for the mob," he glanced up from her small fingers to her mad grin.
"Nope, Dad was a captain with the US Navy. Made rear admiral eventually. He used to have his Navy buddies come over every Thursday night when he was in port, and they would sit in the garage drinking beer and smoking cigars. When Dad was home I'd cling to him practically, so to keep me occupied, he taught me how to play poker."
"And I'm sure your mother approved," Bruckman laughed.
"She frowned on it, but decided it was harmless enough. Of course she didn't know Ahab was letting me sip from his whiskey glass." She started dealing cards between the two of them with a deft hand. "Five Card Draw?"
"Works for me," he shrugged as he picked up his hand. He studied it for long moments, before tossing away two cards, and accepting to fresh ones from Scully's deck. "So why haven't you asked?"
"Asked what," she smiled mysteriously.
"About how you die," he returned.
"I'm not interested," she replied, nodding at him to lay down his hand.
"One pair," he sighed despondently as she laid down her own hand.
"Three of a kind," she said, laying down her hand, for him to see, before scooping up the lot and passing it to him. "You deal the next hand."
He did so, taking the cards and working them, though without the expertise she had shown earlier. "So how come you aren't interested?"
"What makes you think my fate is any different than Mulder's," she sought to sidestep the question by changing the discussion topic.
"I didn't say it wasn't, just that I was surprised you weren't curious."
Frankly, she was surprised as well. It wasn't that she wasn't curious, she realized, it was that she had seen what lay ahead. She recalled that moment speaking to her father, and his words to her that it wasn't her time. "I know now that death is nothing to fear…not really." She shrugged as she accepted her cards from Bruckman, and studied them briefly before plucking out the one she didn't like and passing it back to him. "I've faced that road before, and I came back smarter and wiser for it."
Whatever Bruckman had to say on the issue, he only nodded sagely by way of response. He passed her another card before picking up his own hand. "Wise words for someone as young as you."
"Well, like Mulder I've faced death a time or two," she admitted softly, laying down her hand, all high cards this time, beaten by his two pair.
"And yet you wouldn't like to at least have a heads up when the real deal comes down the pike at you," Bruckman queried curiously. Obviously it never occurred to him that someone might turn down his offer of prognostication completely.
"Nope," she shook her head, accepting back the deck of cards for her own deal. "Besides, literature is filled with all sorts of dire warnings about what happens to those who dare to attempt to learn of their own future fate, only to misinterpret what would happen with fateful consequences."
"Cautionary tales," Bruckman waggled an eyebrow. "Like what, may I ask?"
Of course he would ask, Scully thought, as she racked her brains for examples to give him spur of the moment. She thought of her father teaching her poker, of him reading Moby Dick to her. "Well, you know the story of Captain Ahab, right?"
"White whales, madmen chasing after revenge, I think I get the picture." Bruckman accepted the hand Scully pulled for him.
"Well in the book, he is told by the harpoonist, Fedallah the circumstances surrounding his own death. He tells Ahab that he can only die under these certain conditions, terms so unlikely that Ahab assumes that they couldn't possibly happen, so he couldn't possibly die as Fedallah suggested."
"Why do I sense you are making some uncomfortable parallel to me here?"
Scully smiled at the older man. "I'm not saying anything one way or the other about your abilities, Mr. Bruckman, rather what people do with the predictions you give them. For example, Ahab heard from Fedallah exactly how Fedallah saw Ahab's death. Ahab interpreted it literally. He thought that each of the scenarios set out by Fedallah must actually come true in order for his death to occur as each scenario described couldn't possibly happen in the circumstances he was fine."
Bruckman nodded as he listened, passing her back one card, and accepting another card in its place silently.
"So Ahab chases after the whale, and gets to the pivotal moment described by Fedallah. Except what he doesn't know was that Fedallah was calling his vision like he saw it," she grinned as she parroted back his own words to her from earlier. "Ahab didn't understand that Fedallah's vision was allegorical, and that all the conditions set forth were actually symbols for things that would actually happen. Caught unaware, Ahab does what he meant to do all along and kills the whale, but doesn't realize he is fulfilling the terms of his own death, and thus dies in the moment of his greatest triumph, taking himself and all hands save Ishmael down with him."
"That's a sad story," Bruckman clucked, shaking his head. "Really sad! They make you read this in high school?"
"My father and I used to read it together when I was younger. It's why I refer to him as Ahab." She smiled softly, thinking of the nights curled up with her father and his worn copy of the book. "So, Ahab mistakes the prophecy and as a result, dies. A similar fate happens to Macbeth."
"Still, you're not the least bit curious," Bruckman tried one last time. She grinned at him and shook her head as a knock at the door indicated that Mulder had at last returned to cover his shift watching over their acerbic charge.
"That must be Mulder. Time for the midnight shift." She set down her cards and rose smoothly to head to the door, but paused. Ahab, whales, and her father's words to her be damned. She really was curious about whether or not Clyde Bruckman could see how she died. She turned on her heels and walked back over to him, curious.
"All right. So how do I die?" She rushed the words out in one breath, almost embarrassed to even say them out loud.
Bruckman stared up at her, blinking, before a slow, pleased smile creased his face. "You don't."
What was that supposed to mean? She stared at him as he grinned at her, trying to decipher exactly what he meant by those words. Was he referring to the circumstances at hand? Perhaps to some unknown event in the future that threatened her life? Was he honestly suggesting to her that she was really immortal?
Mulder's knocking persisted. Slowly she turned to answer it, regretting seriously she had given in and asked the question at all. Still, she thought, as she shot a glance back at Bruckman before peeking though the peephole in the hotel room door, at least he seemed happy with the prospect that she wouldn't die. Maybe, despite all of Bruckman's attitude and grouchiness, he wasn't such a terrible bad person after all.
After all, he said she wasn't going to die, which was more than he said for Mulder.