Subject: NEW: Four Seasons of Loneliness 1/1 From: maryilee@aol.com (Maryilee) Date: 2 Oct 1997 13:46:36 GMT Again, not mine, just posting for Fontaine. Send comments to her: Saitiau@aol.com ************************************************************************** ******************* CATEGORY: VA KEYWORDS: Mulder/Scully romance. Character dies. SPOILERS: Fourth season. RATING: PG DISCLAIMER: I've seen so many creative ways of saying this. Unfortunately, I can't come up with one now, so you'll have to live with a boring one. They don't belong to me, okay?? :) NOTES: This little something without much of a plot was inspired by the Boys II Men song "Four Seasons of Loneliness," CD gracefully supplied by Seetow. You got me hooked, man! Lyrics used without permission. QUESTION OF THE DAY: Why, you ask, am I writing this instead of my essay? I think we all know the answer. I tell ya if the formatting is screwy it is entirely my Crappy Mac's fault. Usually it's a Happy Mac but now it's crappy. :) Thanks as always goes to Meredith the Superwoman. (Did I mention she was an editor too?) Comments and criticism welcome at SaiTiau@aol.com Four Seasons of Loneliness by Fontaine L. (aka Orange Kat) ------------------------------------------------- When summer burns with heat I always get the hots for you Go skinny dippin' in the ocean where we used to do" ------------------------------------------------- This summer will be a long and sorrowful one, for it reminds me of past ones. It will invariably bring back memories of you rolling up your sleeves, complaining about the atmosphere in our stuffy office. Often you unbutton your shirt a little and loosen your tie, the ones with brash patterns. I will laugh gently and sometimes scold your unkempt attire, if only to get my mind off other things. Yesterday I declared your death, and today I shall bury you. There's a cliche that says you don't know what you've got till it's gone. I always knew what I had, but I never told you. How could I? It wasn't me. I had made a mistake--I will always think that I could have saved you if I had told you. You were such a tortured soul--was it wrong that I failed to make you feel cherished? Was it wrong for me to bury these feelings? I trudge along in the burning heat, watching the soles of the man before me intently. Rhythmic, constant. I pretend those are yours, and we are walking towards a car, a restaurant, a house. I did all these things with you. Now that your presence is ripped away from me, the pattern is disturbed. I feel alarmed, violated. Outside, I am as calm as ever. I have to preserve this facade, the one thing I have left with me. Inside I am hollow, empty. Unwhole. Do you know this? Do you know what you have done? Yes, it was simple. Its consequences earth shattering. Today I am dressed in black, the heat penetrating me, moistness underlining the cloth. I stand in this heat, listening to them retell your life, praise your soul, bid you well. It is ironic, for I always anticipated to leave this world first. The truth will save us both," you say. Has it? My name is called, and I step up in front of the meager crowd. I search the crowd for faces we knew--I see him and your mother, standing together. Uncharactaristically, I only crease my brow. My eyes meet with my mother's and suddenly the tears threaten to flow. I thought I had already exhasusted their source. My voice is shaky when I speak, when I remember you. The speech is preposterous, formal, cold. I do not like my tone, it betrays no emotion. Given the chance, I could have told them about your dreams, about your nobility, your naivete. I would have screamed until my voice evaded me for them to listen to you, to your cause. I want them to believe you like I do, to trust you like I have. It is only fair. Instead, I speak with a flat voice and I wear an expressionless mask. Only for them. Deep down my soul is bare and it withers in the hot summer heat. -------------------------------------------- When autumn sheds the leaves the trees are bare When you're not here it doesn't feel the same" -------------------------------------------- I hug my coat a little closer as a whisk of autumn breeze transcends me. I enter the building, and my colleagues greet my courtly. Did I tell you I no longer work in the basement? They promoted me to an upper echelon, as if to compensate. Do they really care, I think bitterly, when they know I am dying every day? Soon, I think. No longer than it takes for the leaves to turn green again, for the earth to awake. Then it will be my time. A peaceful, long awaited time. My office has a desk now, clean and organized. There are no piles of a variety of magazine clips you would give me when we are working on a particular pace. There are no remnants of sunflower seeds that you have chewed on occasionally when you sat in "my area." My computer password isn't "trustno1" anymore. It is "missingyou." I sit down and review my work for the day nonchalantly. I almost expect you to burst in with one of your weird ideas or wacky theories, persuading me to hop on a resented plane to somewhere, so I do not realize I am staring at the doorway. My new partner Agent Hawks surprises me by suddenly appearing--she asks me to do an autopsy. You must know that I'm tired of cutting up people. What reason is there to be found behind the death? What is our business to meddle with the dead? The death itself is irreversible, the damage is done. So, why? Our knives and needles will only cause disturbance. And since we cannot bring back life, why should we bother? They could not bring you back. Walking down to the autopsy bay, I see workmen carrying boxes. Out of one sticks a rolled-up poster. I glare at that unfortunate man and snatch the poster out--"I Want to Believe." The smile that curves my lips is wistful, devoid of true happiness. I tuck the poster under my arm and head downstairs, to the office that was once ours. I left it months ago, wanting to give it space, to leave it in its original state for a while. My anger builds up when I see your name plate is removed from the open door, and I tremble like a leaf in the wind. Much of your vestige had already been removed, the room now lonelier than ever. There aren't alien heads staring back at me anymore from your bulletin boards. Frantically, I pull open the filing cabinets--the X-Files are gone. I want to scream in terror, but I cannot find my voice. What I see are sheets of useless information, mundane cases. In a blinding rage, I pull out the papers and toss them about the room. That is when I see that single drunk-red petal I left behind when I went to Philadelphia. The tears blur my sight while white papers scatter around me like autumn's fallen leaves. ------------------------------------------ In comes the winter breeze That chills the aire and drifts the snow And I imagine kissing you under the mistletoe" ------------------------------------------ Is that snow I see beginning to fall as I step out of my car? I stick out my tongue and taste it. The chilly wetness reminds me of you, your rage and terror during one case in the Arctic. It also brings back memories of a time of fear and waiting, when you came back, near death, after pursuing the truth of your sister. Resolutely, I wrap the scarf around my neck tighter, trying to block out the memories. I cannot continue like this. I try to look cheerful as I press my mother's doorbell. My mother greets me with that same expression of happiness and anxiety tossed into one. No doubt she still worries about me when I started to shut off and hide behind doors earlier this summer. I would have talked to her, but that would only result in two teary-eyed women. I hug her fiercely, saying in my own way that I love her. This seems to comfort her a little, for she does not eye me anymore. She steps out of my peripheral of vision for me to see my family. My brothers, their families--and the omnipresent shadows of Melissa and Ahab. Conversations are trite, forced. Even if I know they don't blame it on me, I cannot help but feel guilty. They miss you too, if only for what your absence means to me. Yes, even Bill Jr. Does. Mom is trying to cheer me up, and I comply as best as I can--but how can you pretend to be happy when you're not? She knows it, I know it. They all know I'm just a walking and talking shadow right now. Is this how you felt when I was gone? Only this is worse. You are gone forever. Oh, if only you'd known. Not long after we finish dinner, I excuse myself from a table of knowing glances. It is time. I arrive at your apartment -- I've decided to keep it for you. I wanted a place where I could remember you, now that your office is gone. The poster is there now, you know, along with all those crazy stuff you had. In the doorway I tack a small mistletoe, and I light up and christmas tree I bought for you. Aren't I pathetic? Here I am, hanging Christmas decorations for a dead man. Do you know in my heart you are far from dead? And then I sit alone in your apartment, thinking about nothing but you. The Christmas carols drift out of the stereo, reminding me of a happier time--when you were around. Chestnuts, stockings, snow, Santa. Childhood objects of fantasy. I never noticed before you left--somewhere inside me, I still believed in these things. But now I don't. Because I know no matter how many wishes I make, how many letters I write, Santa can't give you back to me. I won't be able to give you Christmas presents anymore. I won't be able to call you in the middle of the night and invite you to our reunions, knowing you are probably thinking about her. And I will never, ever get a chance to kiss you under the mistletoe. ------------------------------------------------ When springtime makes its way here Lilac blooms reminds me of the scent of your perfume" ------------------------------------------------ This year I celebrated my birthday alone. I'm 35 years old, and I feel like an old woman. An old widow, to be exact. Skinner has given me an indefinite time of leave because I could no longer function proficiently as an FBI agent." I agree with him--partly because of my failing health and the way I cannot get my mind off a certain someone when I'm on a case. You are in every shadow. In every autopsy I relive the last moments of your life as if I had witnessed them myself. In every tortured soul I see another one I used to know that I could have saved. And in every little girl, I see another one you never found. I'm sorry, I've let you down. I've lost interest in the truth. It's time to admit defeat. You will meet her there, I suppose, wherever you are. Oh, I'm genuinely happy for you--and happy for us, for I believe my time is coming soon even though the disease has not worsened since last December. I feel death in the air. But how can I live without you? Just last week I've written my last words and cleaned out my possessions. I've decided to take the keychain you gave me with me. My nephew has the Superstars of the Superbowls" now. I've gone over old casefiles that we've worked on together, just to remember. I remember the conversations we've had. In the car, in the much too often visited hospitals, on park benches, on a stranded rock. I remember the way you had held me when I broke down. I remember your kiss on my forehead, the way you welcomed me back. I remember your strength--and you *had* given me strength. Only I did not know that you were growing weaker by the moment. Oh yes, I relived each of those vivid moments. I drink in the memories of your touch, your gaze, your scent hungrily, for I know I cannot do so for long. I remember those nights you had stayed here, and we had been on the heels of the truth so relentlessly, with such fervor and naivete. All I have now is resolution and the serenity I feel with the knowledge of seeing you soon. I want to remember these last days of my life with you. I want you to never regret the time we've spent together, and I never feel sorry because we haven't found the truth. We've lost, but we had each other, for a brief, beautiful, heartwrenching five years. These are my thoughts about you as I sit by my window. These will be my thoughts I want to share when I see you again. When, how, why, I do not know. I only know that we shall meet again, with certainty. I open my window, and I let springtime embrace me. ------------------------------------------------- The loneliness has crushed my heart Please let me love again Cause I need your love to comfort me and ease my pain Or four seasons will bring the loneliness again" ------------------------------------------------- END (9/21/97) Mucho gracias for reading! Comments/criticism/flames to SaiTiau@aol.com please. "It is time to remember who we all are. Why we joined the Bureau in the first place. I will not compromise any longer." --Walter Skinner, "Missing Voices" Movie Reviews: http://members.aol.com/saitiau/cinema.html X-Files: http://www.geocities.com/area51/vault/3768 Early Edition: http://members.aol.com/orangekat7/ee.html Proud member of the MB/MDS (Thermal Shirt Divison), SAB (Keeper of Scully's Happy Latex Gloves), KCEB Sun-Times Band (Keeper of Gary's Black Leather Jacket), EEL, X-Phile-Shipper, KRFC, OTLSDC Want to join the AOL Early Edition Lovers? E-mail me (saitiau@aol.com) or Heather (heathersa@aol.com)- http://members.aol.com/eelovers/early.html