Since when have I done what's good for me?
I saw a news report on a man who had a
memory like mine. He remembered everything: events, sights, smells,
sounds. Every day he would write down the memories he didn't want
to keep on a piece of paper, then burn it. His version of a delete
function. That supposedly worked for him.
Desperate, I tried it. It failed
with me. Maybe I've had my memories edited by others so many times
that my subconscious won't let me chop anything myself. Maybe I just
can't let go of my pain. There have been so many times in my life
when it was the only thing I had.
I should be elated. The X-Files are
open again. Scully is staying with me even after I begged her to
leave for her own good. The powers that be aren't going to separate
us after all. My faith in the existence of
extraterrestrial life has been restored,
in a big way. Most of the torments that had built up in my life have
been taken away, or at least lessened.
Now I only have one thing nagging me.
It's enough.
It's like being seriously ill for a very
long time, the kind of sickness where the pain is so constant that you
learn to be thankful for the periods of less agony. The kind that
makes you stop caring about anything, numb. And then, after you finally
fight off the sickness you realize that, sometime while you were ill, you
had cut your foot, and the wound had started to go bad. You never
noticed it, because it was only one pain among many others. Now gangrene
is traveling up your leg, causing a new kind of agony.
If you don't amputate soon, you may die.
I've seen Alex a lot lately after months
of sporadic appearances and long absences alleviated only somewhat by e-mail
messages and phone calls from out of the blue. Sometimes I would
hear, "Mulder, it's me," from my cell phone. Scully's words but his voice.
He was so good to me in the beginning,
so unexpectedly kind and patient during some of the roughest months of
my life, even if I did find it disquieting how much he liked that finger
splint I wore for a while. I've never known another person who could
be so witty, charming, and sexy. He even showed an
occasional streak of goofiness I found
endearing.
The sex is still great, but everything
else has gone to hell, and it's like the sun has gone away. He's
broken so many promises to me that I only half-listen to any new ones he
makes. I expect nothing from him. We don't talk at all anymore.
Not together. Not in a way that doesn't involve the two of us
trying to hurt one another. Me talking
in a conciliatory way and him pretending to listen doesn't count.
When he looks me straight in the eye I don't see anyone home in there.
His body is standing in front of me, but his mind and heart won't grace
me with their presence.
We don't throw one another around anymore,
but he uses words that hurt me more than anything else he could have done.
He never yells back. I wish he would; it would show me he cared.
Instead he just goes dark, sharp, and cold, so cold that I never even realize
how badly I'm hurt until the bleeding starts.
//"I'm not going to stop working to please
you. I don't approve of what you do for a living, but I never say
anything.// You just did.
//"When I'm in the middle of something
important, you can't interrupt me. I don't interrupt you."// Which,
from Alex, translated to: "Go away until I want you for something."
Something important. Maybe, but I'm
not lying and killing my way around the world. Who else are you lying
to, Alex?
Who else are you lying with?
I knew what he was when I started this
with him. He'd already betrayed me, helped the Consortium steal and
hurt Scully, killed my father, helped kill her sister. But he strikes
me like a madness, and I let myself drown in the pleasure, the danger,
the risk. For the first month I let myself bask in the warmth of
his attention, now withheld. Let myself stop thinking and start feeling.
He was the only one who noticed my deepening pain and thought to ask me
about it. No one touches me like he does...
I know he has others. I try not to
ask myself how many. Try not to let myself wonder if sex is a biological
imperative for him, like taking a shit. You don't get too attached to your
toilet.
//"You know how I feel about you, so why
do I have to keep saying it?"// Translation: "It's not my fault you're
a needy lunatic."
I thought I could change him. If
I made him happy, offered him a home, he wouldn't have to do the things
he did anymore. He would settle down with me, and we would be happy
together. I would never be alone again.
When did I become my mother?
//"People can only hurt you if you let
them."// Translation: "It's all your fault." And it's so hard
not to believe him...
He's been here a lot lately, and I can
tell by his body language that he did something I would hate him for if
I found out about it. Something that would hurt me, that may already
be hurting me. I know him well enough to know that, even if no one
else could tell.
//"Don't be such a martyr, Mulder.
No one asks you to."// That needs no translation.
Recently I smelled cigarette smoke on him.
Morleys. As far as anyone knows, Cancer Man is dead.
But so was Alex after his alien possession...
I hear someone at the door and the lock
turning, which make me reach for the gun I keep hidden under the pillow.
From the slow and careful way the person outside is picking the lock, I
know it's Alex. I never gave him an apartment key. Why bother?
I don't put the gun away. With infinite
patience I wait for him to open the door.
THE END
Alone In The Dark
by Viridian5
So here I am, sitting alone in the dark.
Again. I shouldn't do this; I know it's not good for me.
