Silent Clutch 1/2 By Raine rain@isomedia.com Category: SA Rating: PG Disclaimer: Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and/or FOX own the characters of Mulder and Scully. I am borrowing them without permission but mean no copyright infringement. Also, in case you wondered, (doubt it) I'm not making any money at all. That applies in general, not just to this story, so don't sue me unless you want two cranky cats and a beat-up Toyota. Gray pigeons peck at crumbs lying on the cobblestones. I watch as the white-flecked birds scuttle around the bench I sit on. They are unthinking and unfeeling, focusing only on the present struggle to grab the nearest morsel. When that is accomplished, they're mindlessly content. One dark, larger pigeon battles with a paler, smaller one for space around a particularly choice crumb. The larger victor seizes and swallows the dried bread in the space of less than a heartbeat. It moves on to search for another, its head bobbing back and forth. There are no more, so the pigeons drift closer to mill around my tennis shoes, closer to their food source. Obligingly I reach into the plastic bag of crumbs I brought and repeat the ritual. I watch as the crumbs arc into the air, scattering out in a large semi-circle. I lean back on the wooden slats of the bench, crossing my legs. It's all too easy to draw parallels between my career and the actions of these peanut-brained birds. A derisive snort escapes me. My partner and I chased elusive bits of information. We forever rushed in one direction and then another in search of the big score. The only difference between the scurrying creatures and us is that the pigeons get a free meal for their trouble. I rise and start walking the blocks toward the J. Edgar Hoover building. I watch the people as the blocks pass and enjoy imagining their lives. The man with a cane passing me lives with his elderly sister and likes to collect miniatures. The little girl with long hair and glasses sits in the front of her grade school class, and has a brother. A woman in a white cotton dress and baseball cap cradling a ferret is a student. These are harmless fantasies, which are probably miles away from reality, but they still satisfy me. I crave the normalcy that I imagine these people possess. A memory from my residency haunts me often these days. I'd been making rounds guided by a senior doctor, just one of a herd of serious young people. He casually read the chart of an elderly woman. She had been admitted for complications related to late-stage breast cancer. While he was standing with his back partially turned, her eyes flew open and stared straight through me. They were angry, like somehow I, a junior resident, had the power to make the detached, white-coated man stop reading. I never really understood that look. One of the people behind me afterwards muttered that at least the old woman had a full life. There was general agreement. No one gave it much thought otherwise, though, since there were much worse cases all around. If you wanted to look for life's injustice, you wouldn't have to search vary far. I think that looking at me from the outside, the same thing could easily be said. I've had a good life. Yes, I could still be considered young, but thirty-two isn't all that bad of a run. On the outside. If the minutes, hours, days and months of my life became officially finite I always thought that I would handle things differently. It's something you think about, especially in medical school. I used to wonder what people with a terminal illness did. Did they go skydiving, finish that book they'd always meant to write, or call up old enemies for resolution? Now I realize that it is the simple things that nag at you, that demand all of the attention and energy. I have a strange compulsion to get inconsequential things right, to experience them fully. The interaction with the clerk at the grocery store, eating a peach, listening to music, these are all things that have been given new meaning. It's bitterly ironic that the time I have the greatest desire to appreciate these things my body is least able to supply the energy. I have a lot of free time to think of things like this since Skinner put me on an enforced leave of absence. Too much, in fact. Some days, I'm so sick from treatments that I can't think, and in a way I'm almost grateful when that happens. On my better days, when my body isn't turning in on itself, my mind steps in to take its place. If I'm not interested in thinking about dying, well, my brain is incredibly adaptable. It happily provides crippling guilt as an alternative to suffocating fear. Being alone never scared me before. Now it reminds me that my passing will be marked with so little. My mother is willing to step in, to live with me if need be, but her restrained panic and mothering aren't what I need. I love her, but I need to talk to someone about what I'm thinking. If I try to express these things to her, I can see in her eyes that she can only think of me in six months, five, or three. She can't stop thinking of how long I have left. I seek to shield her from pain, knowing it is impossible. I've never felt the lack of friendship more keenly in my life. I had a friend once, though. He and I didn't really express our feelings to each other, but if something were bothering me he would usually figure it out. I miss him. I think Mulder would have understood how strangely liberating this whole experience is. From the nice, disciplined Catholic upbringing to my drive to get into medical school and later, the Bureau, I've always played by the rules set before me. In fairness, obedience has gotten me where I wanted to go. I become a M.D. and a Special Agent. It isn't until now that I'm dying that I realized how much more is out there. How different I could possibly have been, all the times that I held my tongue when I could have spoken up. I placed a lot of faith in people with authority that I shouldn't have. I swear to myself that if I had another chance I wouldn't hold back, that I would take more chances and worry less about the consequences. I laugh out loud, causing a passing couple to eye me strangely. In other words, I would be more like Mulder. That's not likely to happen if I die three times. Of course, not even he is likeÖI can't do this. Images appear of the many times I wanted to tell my partner he was full of shit and stopped myself, rephrasing the words in a nicer, more diplomatic manner. Conversely, the times I could have expressed how much Mulder's support meant and chose not to out of fear. I know that fear now, the why and how of it, but it doesn't matter. It can only add to my guilt, and do no good anymore. I reach the building where I've spent so much time working. I pause at the entrance, looking at the official trappings, before walking inside. "How are you doing today, Dana?" My therapist, Karen Kosseff, sits slightly forward in her chair, her hands holding what I presume is my file underneath a small yellow legal pad. "All right, I guess." I play absently the zipper on my jacket. It feels incredibly strange to be wearing something other than a suit in the Hoover building. I almost wore one anyway and stopped myself. It would have been a masquerade, a lie. I am Dana Scully today, not Special Agent. The woman across from me nods slightly in response. She smiles, a warm but concerned look that somehow manages to seem sincere, then glances down at the pad in front of her. She looks back up to make eye contact. "I think last time we discussed the dreams you'd been having. Has there been any change since our last session?" She holds my eyes until I look away. I stare slightly above eye-level to her right for a moment in thought, then answer. My voice emerges subdued. "Not really, I guess. I still dream about either him or about my cancer. It seems like every night, but I don't know for sure." Donna places her index finger on the side of her left cheek with her thumb simultaneously propping up her chin and holding her pen in place, gazing across. "Are the dreams still disturbing?" I cross my legs, running my palm across the fabric of my slacks. I stare at the wide wrinkle my hand makes as it runs down toward my knee. With difficulty, I nod. "Yes. Some of them have gotten worse. I can handle dreams about my illness, those are bad, butÖ" I stop to control the panicked note entering my voice. "But you can handle them?" She helpfully supplies. "Are you sleeping after the dreams you have about your condition?" 'My condition', what a tactful way to phrase it. So much more tasteful than 'Your tumor', or 'Your cancer'. Again I nod. "Most of the time." "But Mulder." Her voice is gentle. There is no point in lying. "Those have gotten worse. Before, he just sort off stood there. Sometimes, I would dream he was talking to me, but I wouldn't remember what specifically he was saying. Now, they're different. I nearly always remember." Karen moves her hand and sits further forward in her chair. "Dana, how much sleep have you been getting? On average." "Umm.." I let out a soft gust of air. "Probably about five hours." Under her intense, unwavering gaze, I amend slightly, "Maybe a little less." She nods. Karen knows I'm exaggerating, but she lets it go. "Do you think the lack of sleep is one of the reasons these dreams are lingering into your waking hours?" I shrug defeatedly. "Maybe. I don't know." "Well, keep in mind that what you're experiencing is a normal part of the grieving process." She pauses, taps her pen on the pad twice, and then continues, looking at me. Her eyes are warm, sympathetic. "What concerns me is the combination of sleep deprivation and your weakened health." My lips twist in a slight parody of a smile. "Yes. I have a prescription." "But you don't want to use it." It wasn't a question, but I answer anyway. "IÖNo, I guess not. I feel fine; I'm doing well generally. I just haven't thought they were necessary." I look fixedly over Karen's shoulder, my head stiff. The woman in front of me sighs slightly. "Dana, you're a doctor. This hesitance to use an occasional sleeping pill, although certainly your choice to make, seems strange to me, especially given your circumstances." She chooses her next words carefully. "What do you feel is the main reason?" "IÖI" I stammer for a second before collecting myself. There is a long silence. "I miss him." My chin shakes slightly, and I drop my head again, examining my folded hands. I note that I should use a moisturizer, small lines are appearing in the juncture of my fingers. The older woman opposite me only nods encouragingly, listening. "Even though the dreams are painful, it's the only way I can see him. When he was gone before, I thoughtÖ" I stop, raising and tilting my head. My lips are pressed hard together to help me maintain control. I refuse to cry. "I thought he was dead. I had these dreams about him then, and he came back." A tissue appears under my nose attached to my therapist's hand. I take it and carefully dab at my nose and tear ducts, catching most of the saline that had been preparing to fall. Only a little escapes. I continue. "I know he's dead, of course. I just can't let go. It's too hard to now, and I feel responsible. We've gone over all of this before." There is a slow answering nod. "That doesn't make it any less true, Dana. It's okay to feel that way. It's okay to be angry with him, too." I don't respond to this, so she tries a different tack. "What do you talk about when Mulder appears in your dreams?" I'm beginning to feel very drained. This is worse than useless. "It depends. Sometimes he tells me he's not dead. Last night Mulder was talking about his family and he said that he missed me. He put his arms around me, and said he knew how to treat my cancer. I felt this incredible sense of peace, of safety." In spite of myself, self-mocking creeps into the last words. "All day today, when I close my eyes, I could feel him touch me." I shake my head wryly as I finish, knowing how ironic it is. A dead man giving me peace. Karen looks at her watch, signaling our time is almost up. "Dana, there's nothing wrong with anything I'm hearing. You and Agent Mulder were very close. You trusted him with your life. Having dreams that express those feelings is normal." She meets my eyes levelly. "It's all part of letting go. Sometimes it takes a long time." She pauses for a beat. "Are you going to be all right with this until our next session?" I suddenly, irrationally feel anger that she can forget all this when she goes home tonight. Easy for her to beat this hornet's nest and step away. I am holding the hive, watching the circling insects. I am sent on my way after promising to consider using the sleeping pills if I don't feel I will be able to stay asleep. That night I sit on my couch, thoughtfully examining the small brown bottle in my hand. I read the white label for the tenth time. My hands, which once I so carefully manicured, now are ringed with ragged nails and overgrown cuticles. I've had other things on my mind lately. Too much to dwell on, too little time to sleep. It's enough to drive me insane, if I were of a mind to let it. It would be enough even without the dreams. Seeing Mulder there, approaching me, telling meÖWithout thinking, I watch my fingers open the white plastic child-proof safety cap, pushing down then twisting clockwise. The rogue digits shake small white miracles into my waiting palm. The pills rise from palm to mouth. My free hand scoops the water glass from the coffee table and provides liquid delivery to my stomach. Done. Within a half-hour I feel myself becoming drowsy. I curl up on the couch to stare into space until oblivion comes. continued