The sky is a brilliant blue, the few clouds are sterling in their
whiteness. The light breeze blows a scattering of orange, red and
yellow leaves across the waters of the Potomac. The sun gives just
enough warmth to make a light raincoat suffice to ward off the low
50's temperature.

I would much rather be anywhere but Arlington Cemetery,
attending a funeral.

But it's expected of me.

I stand here and nod to Skinner. He's recovered from another bout
of that mysterious illness he keeps fighting. Apparently he was in
the hospital just a floor below me. They let him out earlier than me,
he's been allowed back to work already. Amazing little
micro machines, they just click on and then click off. Poor bastard.

Scully keeps staring at me when I'm not looking. I wish she'd quit
that. Not that I'm trying to hide anything from her, it's just that
it's damned annoying. I want to turn to her and tell her that I'm
fine with this, this whole funeral thing, but I don't expect her to
believe me.

She doesn't understand, I attended Diana's funeral over 9 years
ago. This is just the final closing of a coffin that has enshrouded
her all that time.

For once in her life, I think Diana was trying to be honest with me
in the hospital. I do believe that she still had feelings for me. But
at the same time, those feelings came second to her 'other
interests'. Something she accused me of a long time ago.

I've never done commitment well. I know that sounds ridiculous,
given my life long obsession with finding my sister. But there is a
difference, as any good psychologist will tell you. An obsession is
something that can't be helped. It's controlling, it's consuming, it
leaves the person hapless in its wake. A commitment is a choice.

And I just never could make that kind of choice. Not with Phoebe,
although I had plenty of reasons not to commit to her besides her
penchant for bringing home strange men to our bed. And I never
could commit to Diana.

She never forgave me that. It's the last thing she flung at me as she
slammed shut her suitcase and called the taxi to take her to the
international gate at Dulles. "You just can't commit to anything,
can you Fox? Not me, not a normal life, not anything important.
And you'll never grow up."

It hurt at the time. I truly thought I was grown up. I was letting
her go. She came to me, giving me a choice. It was her choice to
make, but she was handing the decision over to me. She would
stay with me, but I had to set aside the work, try to build a life for
the two of us. Or she would leave me to my pursuits and not get in
my way anymore.

What the hell was I to say to that? I'd just been given the X files,
she knew how important they were to me. She'd been there,
supporting me, encouraging me. Then, suddenly, she was walking
around talking split level houses in Falls Church and whether
private school or public school would be the best education for our
children.

I wasn't ready for that. I'm not certain I would ever be ready for
that big a leap, even now.

So, after much silence, I told her honestly how I felt. That I wasn't
ready for fatherhood, that I never considered a minivan and PTA
meetings to be a substitute for the truth about my
sister's abduction. That I loved her, enough to let her go.

She hated me at that moment. I could tell it in her eyes. I was
choosing my quest over her. It was worse than if she'd caught me
sleeping with another woman. At least then, she could compare
herself to the other person, find her lacking where Diana was
superior. But how do you fight against a quest?

I know I shouldn't be thinking these thoughts, but I'm having a
hard time remembering the 'good old days'. I know we had some.
Days where we laughed in the office till our sides hurt. Days when
she sneezed ten times in a row from the dust we'd kicked up
opening up ancient file cabinets and reading every file in them.
Other days when we never made it out of bed for longer than it
took to grab the take out chinese from the wide eyed delivery boy.

Right now, it feels like those days were movies I saw. Stories I
heard in another person's voice. Those days never happened to me.

Scully is crying, but I'm probably the only one who knows that.
She's letting her hair fall forward to frame her face, but I can see
the drops as they fall from her chin and land on her coat and I really
wish she wouldn't. She feels this incredible . . . guilt, I guess.
She's convinced that Diana gave her the tools she needed to find
me, to save me. But, I just keep coming back to the same point.
Diana was there, looking down at me. Why didn't she save me?
Why did she have to go through Scully to save me?

Because she didn't want to lose her 'other interests'.

She wanted it both ways. I shouldn't really fault her that, but I do.
When I could have begged and pleaded for her to stay, could have
tried to balance her demands with the needs of the work, I let her
go. I didn't want to short her. I didn't want to hang on to her
when it wasn't what she wanted or needed. I was thinking of her.

Like she never really thought of me.

I guess some could say that she gave her life to help me, but that
would be a gross overstatement. She played the game well. So
does he. There were no guards around me when Scully arrived. I
was unattended and no one followed us out of the building. We
were allowed to leave.

I wonder what would have happened if Scully hadn't come? Would
I have ended up in the ER of Northeast Georgetown Medical
Center, in a coma, just barely alive?

When I could still read her thoughts, I knew the plan was to keep
me alive at all costs. I was never afraid for my life around her. But
there are always mistakes.

So why did he kill her? Was that just another part of the game? He
used me to test her loyalty and by helping Scully, she lost his
favor? Or maybe he was planning to dispose of her all the time.

That saddens me. I never wanted her to become a pawn in this
game. I had really hoped that when she left me, she was going to a
better life, a life that would make her happy.

I can see now, that was never meant to be.

As I stand here, at her grave side, I look out across the rows of
white markers. Perfect in their symmetry, bleached markers in the
wintering grass. For a moment, I see a girl on one of the rolling
hills. A dark haired girl, no more than her teens. She's running,
laughing, twirling with her hair swinging out around her head.

She is beautiful.

I hope she's at peace.

Once, she was my friend.

the end.
Vickie

Come visit my web page, brought to you by the fabulous Shirley Smiley!

http://vickiemoseley.freeservers.com

"When you start, you make certain choices, and those choices accumulate and
create a number of [other] choices. The story starts to tell itself, and
that's been very exciting in a way. There's so much that has come and been
told that you are, in a way, a slave to the facts you've created, and it's a
really fun way to tell stories. That's not to say it's simplified. In fact,
it becomes complicated, but it all starts to make sense, and that's been a
really wonderful thing."

Quote from Chris Carter on development of The X Files