Visitation #5 & sort of #6

4.45 pm

J. Edgar Hoover building

basement

It's been a dry spell. Nothing X-files worthy, not even Y-files worthy has come our way in over a week. First it was nice to get a break. But then after all long over-due paperwork had been dealt with, it got boring. This is not how we imagined this work to be. Skinner told us to play it cool. My words. To use this as a moment to fall under the radar, a time during which we don't count as trouble, and instead earn some trust upstairs, or at least acceptance, that might later become useful. When we go on our next supernatural goose chase. John Doggett paraphrased this moment as a quiet before a storm that is sure to come in this line of work. And that might really be what it is. Or it might just be a dry spell after all.

Looking through old X-files and files considered too meaningless for these basement cabinets even by Agent Mulder has reminded me of what crazy phenomena might lie in wait for us as the second generation of X-files agents. Except for some cases the older ones are just boring and non-sense. Who knew. Quite frankly, I consider tem to be false reporting, stories about stories, or stories as cover-up stories for other stories, that could never be understood in the context of all the other reports, accounts, articles and whatever evidence we have filed here. Meaningless really. However, John and I have come up with an additional filing system, an attempt to place them and preserve them. A key word filing system that allows us to make connections or find old cases more easily when necessary. Exciting, right?. However, it is a way to gain some insights into the knowledge that others, mostly Mulder and Dana, have gained though experience, through working in this basement for years. But mostly it is a way to keep quiet down here. Filing as a way to occupy the mind, so that it doesn't go wandering.

It's been a dry spell in a totally different way too. In the last two weeks Dana has only shown up at my place once. Briefly. The definition of a quickie really. It was… nice, more than nice certainly, but over too soon. Almost surreal.

On the phone she told me about mid-term examinations that she had to supervise and about how this takes her mind off things, things she doesn't want to think about at the moment. My first thought was that now she doesn't need me anymore, the specific physical comfort that our encounters have given her before. and of course, naturally, I was happy that she was feeling better, even though mostly through distraction, but, maybe just maybe, somewhat sad too. But she was here, here on the phone with me and she did come by later. Around midnight. She only said "Hi" and "I should be working but I couldn't concentrate anymore," or soemthing along those lines. I was sleepy, had just woken up really, but excited to see her, more excited when she took off her jacket and then blouse. She was passionate that night, but accommodated to my slow mid-night mood. We had quick sex in the dark in my bedroom. Locked eyes with dark centers, quiet and slow movements despite the time frame. Immediately afterwards she left, but not without kissing me tenderly once more and saying "good night" and I fell asleep. Retrospectively the visit has gained a dream-like quality. Dana coming to me in the dark of my sleep, Dana coming in the dark of my dream.

On the phone she also told me she is frustrated, though a different kind of frustrated than me. She is frustrated with the students' papers she is correcting this week. Frustrated that they are always looking for the easiest answer. No creative thinking, no critical thinking whatsoever, no ideas, just go-by-the book no-problem problem-solving, she sees in their work. She said that looking back she considers herself to have been somewhat closed-minded during her Academy times, but that there is no way, no way, that here early papers were as boring and as characterless as all of these she has to read right now. Though she'd rather not go back to them now anyhow. I had to chuckle. She is being very frank and open and I enjoy that. Though I'm pretty sure it was meant as a joke. Despite its truth. And I like that too.

The nicest thing she said on the phone was that noticing, that there is really no reason to be especially hopeful about the so-called future of the FBI, she realized that she is so glad about the team now working on the X-files, she is glad that I am. She is thankful for Doggett's loyalty and rationality, but she really is glad I am there, with an open mind. I swallowed audibly. She said, that over time she really came to value an open and intuitive mind like mine. That sometimes this is exactly what one needs. This was as close to compliment or more like a compliment than anything I have ever heard her say. I was positively struck by it, muted even. I blushed through the phone, I'm sure. All I thought I could add at that moment were some stupid sentences about how quote boring unquote the work had become recently, about the potential quiet before the stupid storm, that might or might not come. Thankfully I did not say dry spell.

All I wanted to say, however, was how I missed her, how I hadn't seen her in too long a while, how she hadn't come by. And ask why. But I didn't. I couldn't, obviously. I think maybe she heard this anyways, because she came midnight soon after that.

When she kissed me (so sweetly) before I drifted, off my thought was: how I'd love to talk to her after, before and if it rocks her boat even during sex. How I'd like the Dana who is visiting me to be both the incredible beautiful woman I have sex with, and the Dana, my friend, who has just begun to open up to me. And now that I think about it, I really want her to be all, to be the Dana who is my colleague the brilliant MD, the no nonsense Special Agent, that everybody respects, and the many things I haven't really seen. The grieving mother, whose child I helped bring into the world, or better yet just Dana as a mother, and maybe someday the daughter and sister to those she loves, the frustrated teacher who worries about the future of federal investigation, and creative thinking generally, whom surely all the student's crush on, and Mulder's partner, who willingly went on this quest with him, gave up so much to fight the future, fearlessly, even though they might never be able to win this fight, find the truth that they seek so selflessly.

I guess filing does not really help my mind from wandering, as I have apparently been reading this file about what appears to be about bacterial infection in a Mexican-American border town for the eleventh time. Focus Monica! No more thinking about her. I shake my head.

John has not noticed or found my behavior particularly inappropriate, and I do know why: He finds it even harder than me to find keywords for these files. Very often he just stares at the reports for a very long time, not turning a single page. I imagine he wonders how to extract a couple of key terms from what he calls "mumbo jumbo", and "shared myth", that he is reading. He is struggling to wrap his mind around the supernatural aspects in the stories, around the fact that two intelligent and talented agents such as Mulder and Scully spent all this time on these cases. He told me so, in less words. I find it inspiring, or Romantic even, heroic, is I think what I said, and wonder who I envy more, him or her. Him! For sure.

I think John also struggles with putting down the key words, physically, once he has extracted them for himself,found what he thinks might fit, it is hard for him to put them down, because to him it must seem like he verifies them by spelling them out, as if he believed in what these stand for, as if it meant giving them his stamp of approval, even though we both know he can't. It was his idea to do this really. But a couple of times I actually had to walk over take the pen from him and write them down myself. "Bacteria with hallucinogenic properties you said?" "Shared dellusions and underground organisms?" He just nodded, but seemed grateful. We don't talk about this. We both understand.

As I look up from the Mexican American immigrant town file about two brothers and one woman, I say " This reads like a real soap opera, John! It's unbelievable." This earns me smile. "Why, Agent Reyes! Don't they all?" We both laugh. It is our shared secret. More seriously he says: "Monica, really, I don't think I can take this any longer. I have read much of this before, but somehow today it get's more frustrating every minute!". Frustrating, John? Hah, you have no idea! "Yeah? why?" "I don't know – I guess… I don't really see how they kept going." I wait for him to go on. I'm not sure where this is going, or maybe I am. "I know you find it romantic, and I do admire their work ethic, but to me this is more like a tragedy. They follow every case, every lunatic's sleepless dream, every folk tale that happens to fall on their desk!" That is new. "And where does it lead them? Here. Back here. And to all kinds of personal tragedies." I nod my understanding. William, "It seems like a Sisyphus job to me. Or some other Greek tragedy."

"It seems to me like you are having a mid-filing crisis, or end-of the week melt-down, John." This lightens the mood; he smiles and shakes his head. "John, maybe you should go home, call it a day!" "Call it a week," is all he says. I guess he agrees. He is looking around the heaps of files for his jacket. "I really can't see it as all in vain. Despite all, they have helped people, and that's what it's about. And I think that somehow it amounts to more. Just look around this office," I actually somewhat spread my arms to emphasize the sheer uncountability of these collected disorganized files, "all the information, the stories, the hints and clues, that they have collected…" Am I believing myself? Hints, Clues?! "It might in some unforeseeable way all come together one day. I really do believe that." We smirk and the the accidnetal turn ofphrase. "Maybe not by filing, but more intellectually or spiritually. Or something" I smile. "Or it might not, who knows. But it is really interesting. And it has formed the two of them. Mulder, Dana. See it as a journey, an odyssey maybe, rather than a job". I think about Dana, her giving birth, her grief, her talk about the necessity of an open mind. He shrugs. "And go!" He smiles while putting on his jacket. "See you Monday, Monica" "Yes. I'll stay just a little bit longer." "Okay but don't stay too long and into the "W" section for Werewolf, or you won't be able to sleep," is what he says when he exits the basement. I have to smile. And look around for the next heap to look through. I guess I have planned my Friday evening just now.

7.17 pm

J. Edgar Hoover building

basement

It's getting late, too late to be here on a Friday evening, I think, sucking on a mars-bar I got out of a vending machine thirty minutes ago. I have kind of stopped looking for filing words and just got lost in the stories. Many of them are older then Dana's and also Mulder's time at the X-files, they read like folk tales and myth, Doggettis right about that, and documents from another time another world-view. But what I have really become interested in is their quest, their time in this office and their field work. I have been getting lost in the many files that involve Mulder and Scully. First, I was obviously interested in their first case together, potential abductions in Oregon, all evidence of it, obviously lost, but more of it to found in the bond that has formed between the two of them as very young very different agents forced together by something like chance, trusting each other immediately, despite the fact that Dana has been sent here in order to check on him. Obviously. Why she accepted this job comes to me intuitively, the excitement, Mulder's reputation, her scientific interest in everything on the border between the known und unknown natural world. Why she stayed, I will have to puzzle from all the other files, if there is anything more to be found than whatI already know. Am I looking for an answer to John's question, or am I looking for something else?

After these early indications of her investment, obviously I wanted to know more about Agent Mulder's motivation. I have been told and shown a lot when we were looking for him, what now seems like a very long time ago, and everybody who knew him and John have somewhat painted a clear picture. But re-reading the files on his sister, on other life-altering events, such as the death of his father, his own walk's on the edge between life and death, is a moving experience. Agent Mulder, so it seems has struggled, all this time, not only to find the truth, and ideally to prove it, but he hast struggled with finding someone to trust, Dana being the only one always by his side. I wonder if he was glad to have her or worried about the times that they disagreed. I wonder if she was frustrated when their trust was tested, or he didn't have faith in her. I am only through about a quarter of their files and I am already humbled by the complexity of their relationship.

I must admit, that if I didn't have huge crush on her before, I certainly would have one know. Sometimes it is in the short sentences, in which Mulder documents what she had been doing or lived through – many, many attacks!, for one - how she obviously held her ground, also, all the time, and never wavered. Kept going. Loyally. And then there is ne sharpness of her mind, that comesthrough in what she writes. I even read some autopsies. But her astutue observations are really everywhere. How can one not fall in love with her? Mulder must have! Was, for sure. Is probably. At least, the evening has made me certain of that. And I am, I think .Crushing hard. Sometimes it's in her reports in the peculiarity of her point of view, in the way she sees the world, in her faith in science and order, in her willingness to go well beyond what we are required to do, in her determinism, and mostly in her belief in right and wrong. It's at its best when she is describing this or that crime in simple but differentiated words. Somehow it makes me admire her more. Once or twice I immediately thought about her comment on the phone, and whether or not she would like to read what she wrote when she was younger, less open-minded, maybe but strong-minded, intelligent and full of character.

Sometimes I side with Mulder on their different accounts. I believe so to say the insanity of the story/of the witness account. And the truth is somewhere between the lines or hidden in the print. This evening has become so interesting. Mulder somehow trusts what he sees and hears, what others believe, and in everything imaginable, every monster, every myth. I wonder if he is insane. And: I see where he is coming from. Sometimes when I read her reports, I wonder what she left out. The wonder at the world, her fear, her feeling of loss and grief ,and maybe love for that lunatic. I've been smiling for a while. It's past 8.

Sometimes it feels a little bit like spying, having these limited but yet profound insights into their former lives. But it's research. I do need to know these things. For more than one reason. I need to be able to make the necessary connections, either me or John, when both of them are not here, and I need to know what may lie ahead of us, what kind of journey. What will keeps us here. Except for her.

As I sit on the floor and ponder my own motivations in addition to Mulder's and Dana's. I hear someone clearing their throat. It's Dana. Her head is nudged through the crack of the half open basement door and she is smiling, and looking around. "You know John told me you are still working, but I had no idea that it has become your job to turn a completely fine office into a total mess!" I grin. It's playful Dana, who found me here. "Dana! What are you doing here!" "I believe, I just asked you the same thing. Or at least I was attempting to." She smiles again. I stand up the mars bar wrapper falls to the floor. Busted. "Well, Dana can't you see? I am organizing".

"Okay. It looks like you could need some help." She walks over to me, to my spot in the mess. She slowly bends her knees crouching down, arranging her clothes so they don't rise up. Than she sits on her legs. She is preparing to stay at least for a while so I grab a couple of files from the floor and hand them to her. She takes them at once and settles in more. I have to smile.

But then I get more serious. I feel I need toexplain myself here: "John and I have come up with an idea for an extended filing system." She looks at the file, scanning the key words attached to it and then at me. "Sewage, Insectoid, parasite, bite marks". "You know that the X-files have been arranged by year, and partly case number, listing names and places. And I guess that works very well as a system if you know what to look for, the case, the specifics, remember it even. But John and I, we need a little bit more to make the necessary connections. Compared to other files murder/ drug related crime/ arson /ritual abuse, the X-files are very varied in indicating factors such as form of injury or even form of attack, if attack…" She is already nodding: "I see". She takes off her tailored blazer, folds it and lets it fall onto the desk we are kneeling in front of. I watch her movements. "So we came up with the idea of a key word index for identifiable properties that might link with future cases." She lowers her gaze to the now open file. "We attach them to the front of the file and will later feed it into a database." "Sewage, insectoid, parasite, bite marks" she recounts from memory and nods. I smile: "Exactly"

She is actually staying to help, to talk to me about the files. She has had a couple of exhausting work days or weeks, examinations, papers, more than enough paper going through her hands, She told me so herself. And now she chooses to be here with me. In her former basement office. On a Friday night. Amazing. "I would add 'terrestrial' to parasite though" she ? "Hm?" Why? "For identification. You know we have seen many, many… too many parasites," she explains, "and not all of them have been from this world exactly, depending on definition of course!" There is some humor in her voice. I just stare at her. She goes on smiling, eyes glued to the page: "I myself have been infested with one. Extraterrestrial one, fortunately, I wouldn't want the sewage one, or the ice worm either, and not fully grown. Probably because being frozen slows its growth down." My eyes are big as saucers. "Really?" "Well, if you believe Mulder's account." We share a smile and she tells me the inconceivable story of being stung by a bee, picked up by what appearsed to be an ambulance that attempted to treat her for what appeared to be an anaphylactic shock, just to wake up naked and cold, literally freezing, potentially, in an icy underground structure in Antarctica. And as Mulder claims she only narrowly escaped becoming the surrogate mother to a fully-grown alien monster, and just missed a flying UFO, her former prison, as it rose from the ice. All she saw, she says, was a very big hole and lots and lots of white. She smiles through all of it, reminiscing. And I'm not sure if I should believe Mulder. Or her even. Reading about their supernatural adventures, missed chances and close calls, has been rather interesting, but hearing about it from her is way more entertaining. And insightful.

We spend the next hour or so orgnaizing files and talking, or rather she talks, tolls me about different cases, and I listen. To: a vampire town/ trailer park, other biting things, the time she had to stay in a trailer amongst circus folk as a a dead inbred Siamese twin attacked people, a raw fish eating suspect covered in tattoos, a liver-eating some-centuries old man. She even tells me she once had been very close to actually seeing death, the person not the philosophical entity, mind you, but when I ask her about it, about an explanation, and who or what that Mr. Death is, she tells me it is a story for another evening, another time.

She tells me that time is the operative word that time has often been the issue or timing, says that many of the monsters or mysteries have a way of living on a different calendar, she noticed, than we do, and this is part of the problem, they turn up once, then go into hiding for decades or millennia, myths have once been true and then forgotten, and then they show up again, just to be, or so it seems, almost found, almost recorded, almost explained, but will never really. And that that is mostly because of timing. Most of it is. She looks serious and holds my gaze. Then she switches gear and asks me if I have ever lost time, or knew one could. You do, she says when you run into extraterrestrial energy fields, literally, or drive into it, that she did on her first case in Oregon, with a young and rebellious Fox Mulder, who didn't know if he should trust her. She tells me it's common to most abductions. But also happens to other people, non-abductees. You find this everywhere really. Hundreds of files at least. She says she has been wondering about this eversince her first case. But then again she is so sure, that she is losing time too often, mostly, when she is running late. I smile. Or when time matters, and it nearly always does. She tells me, that on the other hand sometimes it feels like there is not a second that she's lost. That all lost time remains somewhere even when you forget.

We have fallen in such a comfortable, sometimes casual sometimes serious, talk while filing that I tell her a little bit about cases in New Orleans, colleagues, partners, in the ritual abuse division especially, which has given me a bad reputation and an open mind. Except for this, mostly I listen.

8.35 pm

J. Edgar Hoover building

basement

Eventually we both took off our shoes and she rolled up her sleeves. She walks the office, goes through the motions of filing and reading, writing and sorting, building file towers, very naturally. As if she had done this a couple of times, as if this is her job not mine. I admire her for it. Once she turned to me and it was not for what she said that I was shocked ("I worked many of these cases, but somehow I never noticed just how many files they are"), but how she looked: Simple black pants, white button-up blouse with rolled up sleeves, bare-feet, tiny, arms above her head arranging her hair into a ponytail, make-up mostly gone and freckles shining through. She looks so beautiful, so at home and at ease, that all I could do was just stare at her. She noticed. And blushed.

"Are you hungry?". I answer awkwardly. I smile as a means of explanation."I know of a vending machine on the first floor." She nods understanding, "where?" "The visitor's lounge, between bathroom and public phone." "Oh," she smiles back. " My treat. And it has all the best brands too." Laughter. "That would be wonderful, Monica. And please check the machine for red wine." I put on my shoes, grab some money from my leather jacket and head up. I feel energetic, gleeful, almost giddy.

And this is the moment when I realize I am, or rather, have been falling in love with her. That I want to know everything about this amazing woman. This amazing woman that has chosen to spend her evening-off, not one of many, doing something rather boring and very paper-heavy with me. Exchanged a normal dinner, for a vending machine treat. Is helping me, instead of sitting in a bathtub, or some other way of relaxation she enjoys. Naked Scully in water, put a pin in that. I need to buy one of every kind, at least, all the sweets that I can find. And gum, and coca cola, and root beer for wine. I should bring her the whole machine.

When I return, I hear her sigh and see her scribble. "Killer cats" is all she says when she notices me, and lets the file drop on the finished done-with pile. I put down a huge pile of candy and other treasures, I retrieved for her. And start to rearrange several file towers so we can sit down on the floor together, picknick style. "Oh, root beer" is what she notices. "Yeah and everything else you can imagine," I say "from a vending machine, at least to survive." We sit down next to one another and she thanks me "for dinner". She grabs the the granola bar first, of course, and says she wants to start with something healthy. Fruits and veggies before dessert." She asks me what I eat on stake-outs, and except for a somewhat askew dinner table topic it feels like a first date. I enjoy this evening so much, the jokes, stories, and her closeness. We share chips and some laughs, and then we are back to reading. Though we keep on sitting next to each other. And I have started to seriously crave her touch. Then I come across a file that literally has her name on it. I touch her thigh and say "Oh Dana thisisabot you."

She stops in her tracks. "Which one is it?". Wild stare. "My abduction? Emily?" I look at the listing of places next and read aloud to her "Philadelphia". She immediately snaps it from me. "You don't have to read that". "I'd beg to differ. That is what we are here for. Reading and Filing, remember?"She is serious. I can see that. She actually stands up, and I do too. What is up? What did she do? I am still smiling, whatever it is, it can't be as bad as she makes it out to be. "Just let me do the key words, it's really not that interesting," she tries. I argue: "that's not what it appears like at all. My interest in it has just peaked." She is blushing, "really it's fine, let me." She looks ten years younger at least. And then I realize this is all over her face. And I'm not sure I should push her. So I sit down again. "Fine. I can just read it on Monday, that's what the organizing is for, after all. To make them more accessible." I am pushing her. Too much. She hesitates for a moment. And then she sits down next to me. "Okay. Then let me give you the keywords." I'm so curious.

"Let's see…" she breathes. "Philadelphia…Private Trip. Disagreement! A man…. A Date." My eyebrows shoot up. "Drinking". Of course. "Ouroboros. Tattooed." Her tattoo! "One-night stand." Oh-oh. She holds my gaze for a second. Still blushing. "Misogynist talking tattoo..." What? "Hallucinations. Chemically Induced!" I see. "Attack. Safed." Pause. "Regret." And then "A crisis of trust." She is waiting for me to say something. When I don't she hands me the file without another word.

I read it carefully, knowing that every word has something to do with her, with what has happened to her, but also somehow with what she thinks of herself. Otherwise she wouldn't have made such a big deal out of it. I mean we have all gotten drunk once or twice, and done something we regret. We have all had a one-night stand in our life. Or at least I have. A couple. Just a few. I don't have a tattoo, but plenty of people do. Many drunk. Few talk to them… But still. Somehow there is more to it. She has stopped reading files and just watches me read. This is really serious. For some reason. There are some interesting details to it, the ink, the motif, but really I am not sure what she thinks she is showing me here. Does she think I'll see it as betrayal? and of whom? Of what? I can certainly understand that Mulder must have felt bad, even jealous, I do, and he must have been in love. But that is all I think about this. As I have already pondered the symbolism of the snake on her lower back from time to time. It make her seem more dangerous than her pantsuits do, but I have already seen her power, her anger, and her passion. Her wild side even, maybe. All of this is not that surprising to me. I do see how Mulder might be upset though, and I tell her so.

She is surprised. "Yes I guess you could call it that". "Jealous, maybe even," I add, as interpretation. It dawns on her. "Yes, maybe, somewhat." What I really want to ask her is if they had been a couple then, together, sleeping together, were they a thing. But of course I can't jut come right out and ask her that. "You were partners then," I try. "Yes, we were". This is not going to be easy. "More than partners" I add.

"Is this a question or a key word," she asks me, suddenly very serious. "It's a question," I say quietly, "I guess I should have asked before." She becomes less serious, there is some mildness showing up in her eyes. "We have been more than partners for a very long time." I swallow. This is not a question that I should ever ask. "Friends, of course…" – Of course! - "perfect opposites for sure, soulmates, maybe, in a very particular way." I shouldn't have asked. Not today. "Life partners, in almost all the senses of the world, but one, never romantic, never together and we never will." Thank God! "Why not?". "Good question," she says, "maybe because we are so much more." Okay "Mulder called me his touchstone once, and I now exactly what he means. I hold him in this world, while he looks for truth. And he clallenges me in ways I have never been challenges. And we have been through a lot. In a way we are, no used to, be each other's everything, each other's life. But it was, and still is, all about the work, that was, no is, more than just work, more significant than us, bigger than us. And this is why I guess." Wow! "Though we have crossed a line a couple of times. It was mostly for comfort, or because it was, it used to be just us." She is holding my gaze. I hold hers. She is telling me something."In this big thing, a quest. A conspiracy. And we needed to be there for each other. As friends. Anchoring each other. This it what it was and is about." It's all good to know, to understand, but somehow all of it stings. Jut a little bit. Too much. The corners of her mouth turn up. "And also, Mulder would drive me crazy, he does, all the time…" We laugh.

But the tension that we built does not leave the room. It stays between us, makes me pensive. I put the file on the done-with heap without labeling it. She watches me and furrows her brows confused. I say: "No need to label it. And I will remember anyway." She smiles thankfully.

9.19 pm

J. Edgar Hoover building

basement

"And what happened then?" I ask. In the middle of a super suspenseful Frankenstein-like story about a monster-not-monster named the Great Mutato, who apparently impregnated a lot of women in a rural town. While listening to Cher songs nonetheless. I am a child at a campfire listening to ghost stories. And she is the very attractive campcounselor trying to get a rise out of me. Then suddenly she says. "And then… Nessie showed up and swallowed us all a whole." "What?" She puts the file away. "Then: Nothing really. The man turned out to be a monster, and the monster a really nice man." She is putting on her shoes. "What do you mean.?" "Really just that, Monica!" She is done for today. "The mop calmed down, and no one was really all too mad. One of the few cases we solved, actually." "That's it?". I want to hear more. "That's it, Monica!" She hands me my jacket. "Are you sending me home?" She smiles slowly, languidly, shyly. "Actually I was hoping of bringing you home." I hurry to my boots. "It's about time", I say and she agrees. Leading me through the door, she switches the light off. "We took him to a Cher concert that night…"