Title: Déjà vu
Author: Patricia Emy
E-mail: patricia_emy@hotmail.com
Disclaimer: Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, etc. belong to CC, 1013 Productions e
20th Century Fox and there is no intention to break any copyright law - do not
sue me!
Category: this fan fiction was written as a response to a challenge. Hmmm.
Okay, Shipper, I guess.
Spoilers: Pilot, Squeeze/Tooms, Irresistible, Christmas Carol/Emily,
Biogenesis/The Sixth Extinction/Amor Fati, Hungry, Millennium, Orison, X-Cops
Summary: After years apart, Mulder and Scully meet each other.
--------
Déjà vu
--------
Patricia Emy
San Diego, CA
March 6th, 2002
5:35 p.m.
The circle is complete; I thought with myself, seated behind the steering
wheel while I stared sightlessly at the Pacific as sunset shed its reddish
colors upon its surface.
Ten years.
Ten years ago, at this same day, I hardly knew my life was about to change as
I entered the J. Edgar Hoover building, arriving from Quantico. I was
requested by Section Chief Scott Blevins, head of the division responsible for
the X-Files at that time. Our conversation was watched discreetly by an
unknown man, who seemed to have a great influence, even without saying a
single word during all the meeting. I soon would know why, but until then I
had no idea I'd be searching for clues on cases that defied any explanation or
unearthing the secrets related to a global conspiracy. I was only Dr. Dana
Katherine Scully, special agent and instructor at the FBI Academy.
I had been assigned as the partner of another agent, whose name was quite
fresh in my memory although I had never met him in person. His reputation
preceded him. Special agent Fox Mulder, one of Bill Patterson's pupils at the
Violent Crimes Division. The nickname 'Spooky' came as result of his ability
to enter the mind of the criminals, deducting what their next step would be. A
promising career, they said. Apparently, he had declined it to pursue a
personal project. The so-called X-Files. My mission as his new partner, not a
pleasant one for sure, was to present scientific proof opposed to his findings
in the field of the paranormal. In other words, they wanted me to discredit
his work and asked for me because they thought I'd be the right person to
execute this task.
They thought it wrong.
Seven years have passed. Seven years on an ongoing quest that ended up
becoming mine as well. And, despite all the losses we had endured, something
had always held us together. Like as if we were each other's safe harbor when
everything else seemed to be falling into pieces. We were closer than any
lovers could be yet we had never crossed that invisible barrier that insisted
on keeping us apart, except for some rare moments, but it has never gone
beyond a touch of hands, a hug, or an innocent kiss on the cheek or on the
forehead. It had always been that way until that night, two years ago, when we
were watching the countdown to the New Year on television. We had just solved
another case and we watched in silence all those people hugging and kissing
each other in celebration of the new 'millennium' - a wrong definition,
mathematically speaking. The memory of his reaction when I told him this
brought an involuntary smile to my lips - I soon noticed he was staring at me
and turned just in time to see him leaning in. It all seemed so right and I
just corresponded. An apparently harmless kiss that held a series of
implications. But I was too confused to think about it at that moment and I
just followed him as we walked away from there.
What was it?, I asked myself several times.
But he never mentioned that subject again.
At the end of the next year, orders from the higher ranks of the Bureau
determined the closing of the X-Files. But, contrary to what had occurred
before, it wasn't due to any sort of conspiracy. The Project no longer
existed, its members were mostly dead and their plans, destroyed. There wasn't
any reason to continue the search of the truth. We had found it already. We
were free to follow our own paths. It didn't occur to me that, at the end of
this journey, this feeling of freedom would become a sensation of emptiness.
Each one of us took a different direction. He was assigned back to the Violent
Crimes; I returned to the Academy. And several months had passed between
sporadic phone calls and e-mails. We've never met since then. Maybe because
neither of us wanted to face it. In a sense, being distant, each one trying to
live their own lives, was less painful than the certainty of not being
together as we always had been.
As if.
I missed the work on the field. I believed my career as an instructor in
Quantico did not hold any more challenges to me as a professional and I felt
trapped in there. I asked for a transfer to FBI Office in San Diego. I knew I
was running away, but I needed some time to think about my life, about my
career, about my future.
About Mulder.
I couldn't give him the news myself. But he would find it out one way or
another. I was leaving, letting my old life behind, with all those memories -
good and bad ones. But I knew I was leaving more than that. He didn't return
my phone calls. That was two years ago.
The Californian sun contrasted visibly with my state of mind. I started to ask
myself why I had decided to come here in the first place. The navy base was
only a few minutes away from where I lived but I had been there only a few
times, mostly because of Bill and Tara's insistence. Too much memories, I
guess. Ahab, my childhood, Missy and, at last, Emily.
It's strange to be back home. The end and the beginning, at the same time. It
all seems so distant now, like in another life. And, somehow, all seemed so
familiar. After two years without any sort of contact, he called, saying he
was coming to the West Coast to work on a case as a consultant. He had been
requested to build the profile of a suspect wanted by the LAPD Homicide
Division.
No cameras this time?, I asked.
He laughed on the phone. I guess he knew how much I had hated that case we had
worked on having to put up with a bunch of cameramen and that damned
microphone hovering over our heads all the time.
'It's just a case', he replied, not bothering to show how bored he was,
'Nothing out of the normality'
Normal. What would be normal to us?
Liver or brain-eating mutants? At least we knew what we were up against. I
knew how "normal" could be scary. Donnie Pfaster looked like a normal guy at
first sight. I tried to erase his image from my head. You know you can't,
Dana. I still ask myself why I didn't let Mulder to reach out for me, why I
had shut myself down, refusing his help. I remember when he hugged me at the
first time, while Pfaster was cuffed and led away, all the fear I had felt,
the rage, and the despair. I swore I would never feel that way again. I am
afraid to admit if that wasn't the reason that led me to do what I did. Was
that an act of insanity or an explosion of hate? Hard to tell. Maybe that's
why I had chosen the easiest way. I ran, even knowing I couldn't run from who
I am, from what I had done. Neither from the people who are important to me.
I missed my safe harbor.
The smooth noise of an engine made me glance up at the rear view mirror. A
vehicle approached slowly, the reflex of the sunlight on the windshield didn't
allow me to see the driver, but I already knew who was behind that wheel even
before he parked his car alongside mine.
Years had been gentle to him. Some wrinkles were more evident than before, but
his face hadn't changed much since the first day.
We didn't speak for a brief instant.
It's been only two years. Sounded much more.
"How was it in Los Angeles?", I asked.
"Everything was just fine", he responded, "And you, what have you been up to?"
"The usual stuff."
A new pause followed.
"Scully, I..."
"...lied?", I completed his sentence, staring into his eyes. "There wasn't any
case, Mulder. Am I right?"
He shook his head, a small smile enlightened his face.
"What brought you here?", I continued to stare at him, serious.
As if I didn't know the answer.
"Mid-life crisis?", he snapped.
Before I even notice, I was smiling. "You haven't changed."
"I missed you."
I broke the stare. "I missed you, too."
"When you had left...", he continued, "...I thought you no longer wanted to
see me. I thought you wanted to go someplace away from all that reminded you
of the things you had lost."
"Mulder... if I really wanted to escape from my past, don't you think this
would be the last place I'd ever go?"
"So, why did you leave?"
"I don't know."
"What are you so afraid of, Scully?"
"Of the same thing you are."
The answer seemed to have caught him off-guard.
"What happened on that New Year's Eve... what was that, Mulder?"
"Scully..."
"Could you at least not act as if nothing had happened?"
"I... thought I had rushed things out a bit."
"'The world didn't end?'", I arched an eyebrow.
He grimaced. "It was awful, I know."
"I didn't say that!"
"But you thought."
"Since when you can read minds again?"
"I don't need to read minds to know what you're thinking about, Scully"
I glared at him, but soon smiled. How many times we've had these kind of
discussions. It was a pleasant sensation of familiarity.
Déjà vu?
"If you could do everything again, would you do it differently?", I asked.
"I guess I'd not wait for seven years."
"For what?"
"You know what I'm talking about", he replied with a smile.
Mulder always had this habit of invading people's personal space - I think
it's an unconscious thing. I remember how much it disturbed me at the
beginning, but now it seemed so natural that I was hardly aware of it, unless
when I noticed people watching us.
"You're the mind-reader, not me", I teased him.
"As you wish, Agent Scully."
He leaned in and kissed me before I could say a word.
"So?", he smiled again, toying with the strands of hair that had fallen over
my face.
"It was worth waiting for."
"Dinner is still standing?"
"We have a date to celebrate, don't we?"
The last rays of light cut through the sky and it was getting dark when we
left.
-------
F I N I
-------
Author: Patricia Emy
E-mail: patricia_emy@hotmail.com
Disclaimer: Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, etc. belong to CC, 1013 Productions e
20th Century Fox and there is no intention to break any copyright law - do not
sue me!
Category: this fan fiction was written as a response to a challenge. Hmmm.
Okay, Shipper, I guess.
Spoilers: Pilot, Squeeze/Tooms, Irresistible, Christmas Carol/Emily,
Biogenesis/The Sixth Extinction/Amor Fati, Hungry, Millennium, Orison, X-Cops
Summary: After years apart, Mulder and Scully meet each other.
--------
Déjà vu
--------
Patricia Emy
San Diego, CA
March 6th, 2002
5:35 p.m.
The circle is complete; I thought with myself, seated behind the steering
wheel while I stared sightlessly at the Pacific as sunset shed its reddish
colors upon its surface.
Ten years.
Ten years ago, at this same day, I hardly knew my life was about to change as
I entered the J. Edgar Hoover building, arriving from Quantico. I was
requested by Section Chief Scott Blevins, head of the division responsible for
the X-Files at that time. Our conversation was watched discreetly by an
unknown man, who seemed to have a great influence, even without saying a
single word during all the meeting. I soon would know why, but until then I
had no idea I'd be searching for clues on cases that defied any explanation or
unearthing the secrets related to a global conspiracy. I was only Dr. Dana
Katherine Scully, special agent and instructor at the FBI Academy.
I had been assigned as the partner of another agent, whose name was quite
fresh in my memory although I had never met him in person. His reputation
preceded him. Special agent Fox Mulder, one of Bill Patterson's pupils at the
Violent Crimes Division. The nickname 'Spooky' came as result of his ability
to enter the mind of the criminals, deducting what their next step would be. A
promising career, they said. Apparently, he had declined it to pursue a
personal project. The so-called X-Files. My mission as his new partner, not a
pleasant one for sure, was to present scientific proof opposed to his findings
in the field of the paranormal. In other words, they wanted me to discredit
his work and asked for me because they thought I'd be the right person to
execute this task.
They thought it wrong.
Seven years have passed. Seven years on an ongoing quest that ended up
becoming mine as well. And, despite all the losses we had endured, something
had always held us together. Like as if we were each other's safe harbor when
everything else seemed to be falling into pieces. We were closer than any
lovers could be yet we had never crossed that invisible barrier that insisted
on keeping us apart, except for some rare moments, but it has never gone
beyond a touch of hands, a hug, or an innocent kiss on the cheek or on the
forehead. It had always been that way until that night, two years ago, when we
were watching the countdown to the New Year on television. We had just solved
another case and we watched in silence all those people hugging and kissing
each other in celebration of the new 'millennium' - a wrong definition,
mathematically speaking. The memory of his reaction when I told him this
brought an involuntary smile to my lips - I soon noticed he was staring at me
and turned just in time to see him leaning in. It all seemed so right and I
just corresponded. An apparently harmless kiss that held a series of
implications. But I was too confused to think about it at that moment and I
just followed him as we walked away from there.
What was it?, I asked myself several times.
But he never mentioned that subject again.
At the end of the next year, orders from the higher ranks of the Bureau
determined the closing of the X-Files. But, contrary to what had occurred
before, it wasn't due to any sort of conspiracy. The Project no longer
existed, its members were mostly dead and their plans, destroyed. There wasn't
any reason to continue the search of the truth. We had found it already. We
were free to follow our own paths. It didn't occur to me that, at the end of
this journey, this feeling of freedom would become a sensation of emptiness.
Each one of us took a different direction. He was assigned back to the Violent
Crimes; I returned to the Academy. And several months had passed between
sporadic phone calls and e-mails. We've never met since then. Maybe because
neither of us wanted to face it. In a sense, being distant, each one trying to
live their own lives, was less painful than the certainty of not being
together as we always had been.
As if.
I missed the work on the field. I believed my career as an instructor in
Quantico did not hold any more challenges to me as a professional and I felt
trapped in there. I asked for a transfer to FBI Office in San Diego. I knew I
was running away, but I needed some time to think about my life, about my
career, about my future.
About Mulder.
I couldn't give him the news myself. But he would find it out one way or
another. I was leaving, letting my old life behind, with all those memories -
good and bad ones. But I knew I was leaving more than that. He didn't return
my phone calls. That was two years ago.
The Californian sun contrasted visibly with my state of mind. I started to ask
myself why I had decided to come here in the first place. The navy base was
only a few minutes away from where I lived but I had been there only a few
times, mostly because of Bill and Tara's insistence. Too much memories, I
guess. Ahab, my childhood, Missy and, at last, Emily.
It's strange to be back home. The end and the beginning, at the same time. It
all seems so distant now, like in another life. And, somehow, all seemed so
familiar. After two years without any sort of contact, he called, saying he
was coming to the West Coast to work on a case as a consultant. He had been
requested to build the profile of a suspect wanted by the LAPD Homicide
Division.
No cameras this time?, I asked.
He laughed on the phone. I guess he knew how much I had hated that case we had
worked on having to put up with a bunch of cameramen and that damned
microphone hovering over our heads all the time.
'It's just a case', he replied, not bothering to show how bored he was,
'Nothing out of the normality'
Normal. What would be normal to us?
Liver or brain-eating mutants? At least we knew what we were up against. I
knew how "normal" could be scary. Donnie Pfaster looked like a normal guy at
first sight. I tried to erase his image from my head. You know you can't,
Dana. I still ask myself why I didn't let Mulder to reach out for me, why I
had shut myself down, refusing his help. I remember when he hugged me at the
first time, while Pfaster was cuffed and led away, all the fear I had felt,
the rage, and the despair. I swore I would never feel that way again. I am
afraid to admit if that wasn't the reason that led me to do what I did. Was
that an act of insanity or an explosion of hate? Hard to tell. Maybe that's
why I had chosen the easiest way. I ran, even knowing I couldn't run from who
I am, from what I had done. Neither from the people who are important to me.
I missed my safe harbor.
The smooth noise of an engine made me glance up at the rear view mirror. A
vehicle approached slowly, the reflex of the sunlight on the windshield didn't
allow me to see the driver, but I already knew who was behind that wheel even
before he parked his car alongside mine.
Years had been gentle to him. Some wrinkles were more evident than before, but
his face hadn't changed much since the first day.
We didn't speak for a brief instant.
It's been only two years. Sounded much more.
"How was it in Los Angeles?", I asked.
"Everything was just fine", he responded, "And you, what have you been up to?"
"The usual stuff."
A new pause followed.
"Scully, I..."
"...lied?", I completed his sentence, staring into his eyes. "There wasn't any
case, Mulder. Am I right?"
He shook his head, a small smile enlightened his face.
"What brought you here?", I continued to stare at him, serious.
As if I didn't know the answer.
"Mid-life crisis?", he snapped.
Before I even notice, I was smiling. "You haven't changed."
"I missed you."
I broke the stare. "I missed you, too."
"When you had left...", he continued, "...I thought you no longer wanted to
see me. I thought you wanted to go someplace away from all that reminded you
of the things you had lost."
"Mulder... if I really wanted to escape from my past, don't you think this
would be the last place I'd ever go?"
"So, why did you leave?"
"I don't know."
"What are you so afraid of, Scully?"
"Of the same thing you are."
The answer seemed to have caught him off-guard.
"What happened on that New Year's Eve... what was that, Mulder?"
"Scully..."
"Could you at least not act as if nothing had happened?"
"I... thought I had rushed things out a bit."
"'The world didn't end?'", I arched an eyebrow.
He grimaced. "It was awful, I know."
"I didn't say that!"
"But you thought."
"Since when you can read minds again?"
"I don't need to read minds to know what you're thinking about, Scully"
I glared at him, but soon smiled. How many times we've had these kind of
discussions. It was a pleasant sensation of familiarity.
Déjà vu?
"If you could do everything again, would you do it differently?", I asked.
"I guess I'd not wait for seven years."
"For what?"
"You know what I'm talking about", he replied with a smile.
Mulder always had this habit of invading people's personal space - I think
it's an unconscious thing. I remember how much it disturbed me at the
beginning, but now it seemed so natural that I was hardly aware of it, unless
when I noticed people watching us.
"You're the mind-reader, not me", I teased him.
"As you wish, Agent Scully."
He leaned in and kissed me before I could say a word.
"So?", he smiled again, toying with the strands of hair that had fallen over
my face.
"It was worth waiting for."
"Dinner is still standing?"
"We have a date to celebrate, don't we?"
The last rays of light cut through the sky and it was getting dark when we
left.
-------
F I N I
-------