FIC: The Keeping of Secrets
Title: The Keeping of Secrets
Author: Amal Nahurriyeh
Summary: The thing about Dana is she knows how to keep a secret.
Pairing: Scully & Ellen, BFFs.
Rating: PG-13 for language
Timeline/Spoilers: This is one scene per season, and one for I Want to Believe. Contains vague spoilers for the whole damn thing, but more in the sense that it helps to know canon to make sense of this. Specific timeline: Season One: during The Jersey Devil. Two: Between 3 and One Breath. Three: After Wetwired, before Talitha Cumi. Four: After Memento Mori, before Demons. Five: Shortly after Emily. Six: post-ep, How The Ghosts Stole Christmas. Seven: I'll be canon-compliant and say after all things. Eight: immediately before DeadAlive. Nine: During The Truth. IWTB: A few weeks after the main action, probably before the credits sequence
Disclaimer: Intellectual property is a capitalist fiction designed to oppress the working fic-writer. That said, I don't own them either.
Written for galpalficathon , from wendelah1 's prompt: Scully and Ellen, Season One: "What about that guy you work with?"
Season One:
"What about that guy you work with?" It had been a stupid question, she admitted to herself that evening, in the quiet of her house. Dana was smarter than that. She'd done the workplace romance once, been bitten like crazy, decided never again. Just because this new guy was cute--and he was, she could see it in Dana's blush--didn't mean he wasn't off limits.
She turned off the hall light as she walked away from her Justin's bedroom. And maybe Dana had the right idea in general. There were days when she wishes she could take it back. She loved Michael, she loved the boys, but Dana carried a gun, Dana stayed out late on weeknights, Dana had four commendations in her file after only two and a half years. Ellen has laundry to do, a garden to keep up, a volunteer position on the library board. Dana might not have a family, but she had a life, despite her protests to the contrary. Ellen missed having that sort of life.
Not that she wanted a gun.
Season Two:
In high school, Mama Scully had been everyone's favorite mom. There were always homemade cookies in her kitchen, and everyone knew where they were. When hungover kids crashed on her floor on weekends, she called parents to let them know "everyone was safe," made eggs for breakfast and delivered patient lectures on overindulgence and not driving "in that condition." She remembered everyone's name, and had a manner that led itself to confessions of parental drama, lost loves, struggles to find oneself, muttered out across the kitchen table, while Mama Scully nodded compassionately and spoke soothing words of comfort. This same kitchen table where Ellen was sitting now, watching how Mama Scully's hands trembled on her coffee cup. They had sat here before, but now the empty chair all but had a sign on it: Dana Should Be Here. It had been six weeks.
"They say not to give up," Mama Scully said.
"It's very true." Ellen still couldn't believe it herself, hadn't told the boys anything. Aunt Dana can't come over for a while. She's very busy with her important job. You know she loves both of you.
"It's not worth spending all my time worrying over. Worry never solved anything." She shifts the cup back and forth between her hands, looks like she wants to start unraveling her sweater. Mama Scully always knew how to hold still. Ellen thinks possibly she is meeting Maggie for the first time. "How are the boys doing? And Michael?"
So Ellen tells family stories--a role in the third grade play, a soccer victory, Michael's promotion--until the phone rings. Mama Scully startles, gets up to answer as if either disaster or blessing awaits and she's not sure which. "Hello?" She tenses momentarily, then relaxes. "Oh, Fox, it's good to hear from you." She nods and mmm-hmms through the conversation. It's Mama, not Maggie, who's on the phone, projecting out her air of calm and compassion across the wires. Ellen wonders if this is comfort for her too. Maybe she needs someone to take care of, so she doesn't have to acknowledge how seriously wrong everything is.
Mama hangs up. "That was Fox. Dana's partner." She sighs, pours herself another cup of coffee before she sits down. "He's doing everything he can. More, really. I worry about him sometimes."
Worry about your daughter, Ellen thinks. "That's good to hear," she says instead.
Season Three:
"That motherfucker."
Ellen tries not to laugh, but it's always funny when Dana starts cursing. Honestly, she's such a little, innocent-looking thing, that when she gets really angry she looks like a leprechaun. Just a little. And she's only told her that once. "No, no, he's a secretary-fucker."
"That's worse." Dana pours Ellen another glass of wine. "If he were fucking his mother, at least you'd never wonder if it was because of your thighs, right?"
Ellen gives up the battle and laughs. "You haven't seen his secretary."
"You want me to arrest him? I could probably make it happen."
She leans her head back against the couch and closes her eyes. "I love him. Or loved. I haven't decided yet."
"I know."
"He's the father of my children."
"I know." Dana reaches across the couch and takes her hand.
"I just can't believe he'd do this to me. I trusted him with everything. And he just took that away from me."
"I know," Dana says, and there's something darker in her voice now. Ellen turns to look at her. Dana is staring at her glass, lost somewhere. "Sometimes that betrayal of confidence is the worst thing you can imagine." She snaps back, and turns back to Ellen. "I could shoot him. It's worked before for me, in a pinch."
Season Four:
Dana is picking at her soup. It's not like her to pick, Ellen thinks. Dana is the one woman she knows who is totally uninterested in pretending not to like food. Food is good in Dana's book. She is full of bones today, skin stretched like paper, and the list of cliches could continue but Ellen's too worried.
"No, work is good," Dana says quietly. "Busy. It keeps me moving." She smiles. "The nice thing is, most days, I feel like I've done some good. Like I've made a difference in the world." She pushes a carrot through the soup with her spoon. The cracker packet has been reduced to crumbs. "What about you? How is it, working again?"
Ellen huffs. "Not bad, I suppose. It's good having something to do. Keeps me from planning elaborate revenge against Michael."
"Yeah, revenge can get tiring after a while." Dana laughs, and it is only a little hollow.
"And the good thing about working for the school district is that I have the same schedule as Justin and Mikey. It's not like it's fulfilling or something, but so many divorced women end up with such terrible jobs." All that's left on her plate is the pickle, and she wants to eat it, but the comparison between her empty plate and Dana's half-full bowl makes her too sad. "Seriously, Dana, is everything OK? You know, if you need anything--"
"I know." She looked away. A Dana who doesn't make eye contact is a Dana who is lying. "I'll admit, things have been a little...stressful lately. But I'll be fine again soon, I'm sure." She eats a spoonful of soup, looks up, smiles, and for just that second her face is alive again. "So, is Justin still taking ballet lessons?"
"Oh my God." Ellen rested her head in her hands. "I don't even know where to start with that one." She looks up, prepared to tell the endless ballet class saga, and Dana's nose is bleeding. Just a little, just the tiniest bit. "Um. Dana. Your nose."
Dana blushes immediately. "Oh, dammit." She rustles in her pocket, pulls out a men's linen handkerchief. "Sorry. All the time on airplanes. I've been getting them a lot lately."
The handkerchief has rusty stains on it. Something is wrong, and Dana won't tell her.
Season Five:
Ellen checks her watch again. The curtain goes up on the dance recital in ten minutes, and she is standing outside on the steps to the auditorium in the late-January cold. "Michael, I swear, if you say again that ballet is 'gay' in front of your brother, you're grounded for a week."
"Whatever. He's the one wearing tights." Mikey keeps fiddling with the game boy his father bought him. Standard divorced father bribery. Ellen grits her teeth.
A Taurus pulls up going much faster than it should and skids to a stop on the snow. The door pops open, and Dana jumps out. She turns, says something quickly to the driver, who hands her a bouquet of flowers. She takes it, and her long black trench coat, and slams the door behind her. "Hey! I made it!" She bounds up the steps, nearly slipping on the parts that are insufficiently de-iced. "Are the flowers too girly? I didn't have much choice at the airport flower kiosk." She leaned over, kissed Ellen on the cheek. "Hey, Mikey."
"Hey, Aunt Dana," Mikey said, working hard at being sullen. Ellen rolls her eyes, and Dana nods sagely back.
They find their seats. The first performance is the little-kids ballet class, all three and four year old girls. Ellen chuckles to herself. She would have liked a daughter. At least Justin dances, she thinks, and then mentally kicks herself.
Each little girl comes forward to do a plié, supported by the teacher. A particularly cute one comes forward, all strawberry-blond hair and shy pleasure at being applauded. She skitters away to the edge of the stage. Ellen turns to Dana, to whisper something about the costumes, and finds that she has crushed her program in her hands. Her eyes are fixed on the little girl, who is twirling her flower-prop in her hand and looking into the distance. Ellen remembers Dana mentioning something, recently, about bad news from her gynecologist, and puts two and two together. She reaches out, takes her hand. Dana is startled, moves to pull away, but Ellen hangs on. Dana closes her eyes, takes a deep breath. "I'm fine," she whispers.
"Whatever you say," Ellen says, and keeps holding her hand.
Season Six:
Michael has just pulled away with the boys for their second Christmas of the day. They're at the point where they can speak in complete sentences without her wanting to punch him, which is good, for the boys at least. She sighs and turns back to her empty house. Time to make the holiday calls.
Her mother is solicitous but occupied with Melody's six kids, who appear to be trying to set the tree on fire. Her other sister, Rebecca, had gone to Jamaica with her newest boy toy, and is inaccessible. Finally, she called Mama Scully's house. It was after noon, Dana should be there by now.
"Oh, she's still on the way," Mama Scully says. "Got called in to work, last night of all nights. Can you believe it? She really loves her work, which is a good thing, I suppose. Give her a call on her cell phone, I'm sure she'd love to hear from you."
Dana picks up the cell phone on the third ring. "Ellen! Hi! Merry Christmas!"
"You're chipper for someone who's six hours late to Mama Scully's Christmas Extravaganza." Ellen peels the plastic wrap off her tub of cookies from the block party cookie exchange. Mmm, cherries.
"Oh, I don't know. Somehow, having missed being mobbed by the under-seven set at six o'clock, being nagged by both my brothers for whatever they can come up with by nine, and having my mother give a maudlin speech about the blessings of the season when I just know she's going to burst into tears about my dad in the kitchen later has its appeal."
"Mmn," Ellen says around a mouthful of cookie. "I can understand that."
"I don't know, El. Sometimes, don't you just want it to be about what you want? Not what other people drag you into, not what you're required to do by custom or tradition, but, seriously, just have some fun?"
"Wait, your mom said you were working." Ellen picks through the box. "Dana Katherine Scully. Are you lying to your mother about where you were last night?"
"God, I sound fifteen when you put it that way." Dana laughs, a bright sound like sun on snow. "No, I was working, in a sense. It's just...look, this is my life. I should get to enjoy it the way I want to. I don't have to be shackled to my family like the maiden aunt in a Victorian novel. You know?"
Ellen thinks about the empty day in front of her, in an empty house. "Go you. I'll just sit here, feeling inadequately independent."
"No, that's not it. It's not like I don't have ties to people. My family. Other people. It's just that we should get to make decisions about how to sort those commitments out."
"That sounds right." It really does.
"Anyway. What are you doing today? I bet Mom's got extra pork roast, if you're up for it."
Ellen laughed, and tried not to hear how it echoed. "Let me see if I've got any deep-seated need to enjoy myself on the schedule, and I'll get back to you."
Season Seven:
Dana finishes her diet coke and dumps the cup in the trash can as they leave the theater. "I forgot how much I hate watching movies with subtitles. I want to like them, but I just end up with a headache."
"You know what I love about you, Danes? That you're secretly such an anti-intellectual." Ellen throws out the popcorn bag and wipes her hands on her pants.
"Just make sure it stays a secret. I've got a super genius ice queen reputation to maintain at work." She pulls out her cell phone and turns it on. "If they find out I like Farrelly Brothers comedies and eat Cheetos I'm going to have to shoot someone or cure AIDS to get the universe back in balance."
Ellen checks her watch. "I've got another half an hour before I have to head home. There's that cupcake place around the corner."
"Excellent. I haven't gained enough weight this evening yet." Dana's phone beeps. She pulls it out, dials her voicemail. "Let me just check this."
Ellen goes to the water fountain. As she turns around, Dana is looking down and smiling. Her cheeks are pink. She pulls the phone away, hits a button, puts it back to her ear. Her smile widens this time, and she actually chuckles at the end. Then she hangs up.
"OK, who is he?" Ellen asks when she comes back over.
"What? There's no he." Dana's cheeks are still pink, and she won't make eye contact, which means she's seriously lying.
Still, there is nothing worse than trying to pry a secret from Dana Scully. "Fine. Don't tell me. Whatever you say."
"I say cupcakes," Dana says. They go, and Ellen pretends not to notice when Dana buys an extra, a Snickers one, 'to take home.'
Season Eight:
Ellen is sitting on the tile floor of the bathroom of the funeral home, holding Dana's hands as she is perched on the closed toilet. They are both dry-eyed, though Dana gives the impression of someone who can't cry any more. She is wearing black, and it hangs on her. "I can't do it. I can't go back out there."
"It's OK. You don't have to." Ellen strokes her hands.
"I know I should. I know...but the way they're looking at me." She is bloodless and drained, but still sharp and capable of causing pain.
"I know."
"They don't know anything. They can't even begin to understand." She hisses the words out as if being angry is all she has left.
"No, they can't." Ellen has no idea what Dana is talking about, but it doesn't matter. She walked into the funeral home and knew something was deeply, deeply wrong. Dana had been sitting in the front row, by the flag-draped coffin, staring at it with dead eyes. People kept coming up to her, saying soft things, and she had just stared back at them, sharp and silent, accusatory, almost. Sometimes she nodded. Ellen had stolen her away, locked her in the bathroom. Something was wrong.
"I can't be his fucking widow." Dana's hands began to shake. She closes her eyes.
"It's OK, Dana. It's OK."
"He didn't know." It's a bare whisper. Dana bows her head, clutches her hands to her belly. "I didn't know, I never told him, and he can't, he doesn't, I can't--" Ellen is suddenly, violently nauseous. Dana just keeps moving her hands, circularly, as if drawing something in to her abdomen. "I can't, I can't--
Ellen swallows her surprise, and grabs Dana's hands. "It's OK. You can. I promise. You can."
Dana puts her head down on Ellen's shoulder, and manages to cry again.
Season Nine:
She nearly dropped the groceries coming in the door. "Mikey!" she yelled. "Why is your skateboard in the middle of the front hall?"
"Sorry, Mom," came a quiet voice from the living room.
She stumbled into the kitchen and dropped the bags on the counter. The machine was blinking, one message.
Dana's voice came through, quiet and slightly metallic. "Ellen. Hi." She took a deep breath, exhaled raggedly. "I'm glad I got the machine, actually. There's so much...listen, I don't blame you if you're confused. And I'm sorry--I'm sorry that things have happened the way they have. But you need to know..." The pause was long enough that Ellen was worried it had cut her off. "You just need to know that I never regretted any of it. No matter how bad it got. No one made me, and people are going to tell you he did, and he never did. That matters to me. And you should know--" her voice broke slightly-- "how much I have valued your friendship. How much I love the boys. And how proud I am to have known you, all these years." The tears hovered at the edge of her voice, but there was that toughness again, the one that undercut everything Dana had every felt. "I don't know how soon I'll be able to talk. But, I promise you, as soon as I can, I'll write, or call or...I don't know. I love you. I'll see you soon, I hope." And there was a click.
Something was wrong, Ellen thought. Really wrong. She would call her tomorrow.
I Want To Believe:
The directions are hard to follow, at least in part because she doesn't want to follow them. No, that's not it. She does want to see Dana. It had been years, and then a quick email in 2005--I'm sorry it's been so long. Things have changed a lot. I don't think I'll be able to get up to DC to see you, but I wanted to say hello, and see how the boys are. Then the occasional phone call, notes, Christmas presents for the boys. Dana was different: more guarded, less willing to open up. Ellen only got her work number out of her, and all the packages were sent with her office return address. Then, finally, just a few months ago, something seemed to relax in her, and she finally said she wanted to see them. "I'm in the middle of this clinical trial now," she had said on the phone, "and I don't think I can get away, but you could bring the boys down. It's only like an hour and a half. We even have a guest room, and we're near the climbing rocks in the state park if they'd be into that."
So here they were, headed for an overnight trip to visit Aunt Dana, whose life was a mystery clouded in an enigma obscured by giant flashing lights saying don't look over here. They were going rock climbing in the morning. Ellen just hoped, desperately, that they would have something to talk about between now and then. Justin had homework, and Mikey his SAT study books, so at least they could hole up. She had nothing but a twenty-year friendship, with a six year hiatus.
She finally found the turn off. The road was dirt when they got to the gate. It was more frightening than Ellen had expected, that gate: it looked like the entryway to a compound, like there were survivalists with machine guns behind it. Next to the frighteningly sophisticated electric lockbox, a hand-painted sign read:
FBI*, CIA, GLOBAL CONSPIRATORS, SUPERSOLDIERS, ALIEN CLONES, JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES, AND MORMON MISSIONARIES BY APPOINTMENT ONLY.
ALL OTHERS, RING BELL.
*EXCEPT WALTER SKINNER. MAYBE.
"Wow," Justin said from the back seat. "Aunt Dana's boyfriend's crazy, isn't he."
"We don't know that," Ellen said, and hoped to God that Dana hadn't written the sign. She pulled out her cell phone and called Dana's.
Dana picked up on the third ring. "Hey! How close are you?"
"We're here, actually." Ellen could see someone moving in the early evening light, off by the house. Please don't shoot us, she thought.
"Oh, no." A horn honked. "I'm running late from work. I'm still, um, about twenty minutes away? Sorry, I just got this NIH grant and the paperwork, ugh, you would not believe--"
The figure is getting closer, looks like a man in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, heading purposefully towards them. "Um, hold on, it looks like someone's coming out of the house?"
"Oh, great. Yeah, Mulder will let you in." Dana chucked softly. "Be nice to him. He's got the social skills of a bat. Emits lots of earsplitting noises until he figures out where you are."
"Um. Will do." Ellen finds herself smiling. This, at least, sounds like Dana.
"See you soon. Can't wait."
"Yup, soon," Ellen says, and hangs up. The man is at the gate now, opening it with some sort of elaborate code, his hand wrapped in some sort of cast. Ellen pulls the car through. He locks it behind her and comes up to the driver's window. She rolls it down.
"Hey," he says, leaning down. "You must be Ellen. I'm Fox Mulder." He holds out his hand. "I've heard a lot about you."
"Me too," she says, and shakes it. Goddamn. He really is cute.
Author: Amal Nahurriyeh
Summary: The thing about Dana is she knows how to keep a secret.
Pairing: Scully & Ellen, BFFs.
Rating: PG-13 for language
Timeline/Spoilers: This is one scene per season, and one for I Want to Believe. Contains vague spoilers for the whole damn thing, but more in the sense that it helps to know canon to make sense of this. Specific timeline: Season One: during The Jersey Devil. Two: Between 3 and One Breath. Three: After Wetwired, before Talitha Cumi. Four: After Memento Mori, before Demons. Five: Shortly after Emily. Six: post-ep, How The Ghosts Stole Christmas. Seven: I'll be canon-compliant and say after all things. Eight: immediately before DeadAlive. Nine: During The Truth. IWTB: A few weeks after the main action, probably before the credits sequence
Disclaimer: Intellectual property is a capitalist fiction designed to oppress the working fic-writer. That said, I don't own them either.
Written for galpalficathon , from wendelah1 's prompt: Scully and Ellen, Season One: "What about that guy you work with?"
Season One:
"What about that guy you work with?" It had been a stupid question, she admitted to herself that evening, in the quiet of her house. Dana was smarter than that. She'd done the workplace romance once, been bitten like crazy, decided never again. Just because this new guy was cute--and he was, she could see it in Dana's blush--didn't mean he wasn't off limits.
She turned off the hall light as she walked away from her Justin's bedroom. And maybe Dana had the right idea in general. There were days when she wishes she could take it back. She loved Michael, she loved the boys, but Dana carried a gun, Dana stayed out late on weeknights, Dana had four commendations in her file after only two and a half years. Ellen has laundry to do, a garden to keep up, a volunteer position on the library board. Dana might not have a family, but she had a life, despite her protests to the contrary. Ellen missed having that sort of life.
Not that she wanted a gun.
Season Two:
In high school, Mama Scully had been everyone's favorite mom. There were always homemade cookies in her kitchen, and everyone knew where they were. When hungover kids crashed on her floor on weekends, she called parents to let them know "everyone was safe," made eggs for breakfast and delivered patient lectures on overindulgence and not driving "in that condition." She remembered everyone's name, and had a manner that led itself to confessions of parental drama, lost loves, struggles to find oneself, muttered out across the kitchen table, while Mama Scully nodded compassionately and spoke soothing words of comfort. This same kitchen table where Ellen was sitting now, watching how Mama Scully's hands trembled on her coffee cup. They had sat here before, but now the empty chair all but had a sign on it: Dana Should Be Here. It had been six weeks.
"They say not to give up," Mama Scully said.
"It's very true." Ellen still couldn't believe it herself, hadn't told the boys anything. Aunt Dana can't come over for a while. She's very busy with her important job. You know she loves both of you.
"It's not worth spending all my time worrying over. Worry never solved anything." She shifts the cup back and forth between her hands, looks like she wants to start unraveling her sweater. Mama Scully always knew how to hold still. Ellen thinks possibly she is meeting Maggie for the first time. "How are the boys doing? And Michael?"
So Ellen tells family stories--a role in the third grade play, a soccer victory, Michael's promotion--until the phone rings. Mama Scully startles, gets up to answer as if either disaster or blessing awaits and she's not sure which. "Hello?" She tenses momentarily, then relaxes. "Oh, Fox, it's good to hear from you." She nods and mmm-hmms through the conversation. It's Mama, not Maggie, who's on the phone, projecting out her air of calm and compassion across the wires. Ellen wonders if this is comfort for her too. Maybe she needs someone to take care of, so she doesn't have to acknowledge how seriously wrong everything is.
Mama hangs up. "That was Fox. Dana's partner." She sighs, pours herself another cup of coffee before she sits down. "He's doing everything he can. More, really. I worry about him sometimes."
Worry about your daughter, Ellen thinks. "That's good to hear," she says instead.
Season Three:
"That motherfucker."
Ellen tries not to laugh, but it's always funny when Dana starts cursing. Honestly, she's such a little, innocent-looking thing, that when she gets really angry she looks like a leprechaun. Just a little. And she's only told her that once. "No, no, he's a secretary-fucker."
"That's worse." Dana pours Ellen another glass of wine. "If he were fucking his mother, at least you'd never wonder if it was because of your thighs, right?"
Ellen gives up the battle and laughs. "You haven't seen his secretary."
"You want me to arrest him? I could probably make it happen."
She leans her head back against the couch and closes her eyes. "I love him. Or loved. I haven't decided yet."
"I know."
"He's the father of my children."
"I know." Dana reaches across the couch and takes her hand.
"I just can't believe he'd do this to me. I trusted him with everything. And he just took that away from me."
"I know," Dana says, and there's something darker in her voice now. Ellen turns to look at her. Dana is staring at her glass, lost somewhere. "Sometimes that betrayal of confidence is the worst thing you can imagine." She snaps back, and turns back to Ellen. "I could shoot him. It's worked before for me, in a pinch."
Season Four:
Dana is picking at her soup. It's not like her to pick, Ellen thinks. Dana is the one woman she knows who is totally uninterested in pretending not to like food. Food is good in Dana's book. She is full of bones today, skin stretched like paper, and the list of cliches could continue but Ellen's too worried.
"No, work is good," Dana says quietly. "Busy. It keeps me moving." She smiles. "The nice thing is, most days, I feel like I've done some good. Like I've made a difference in the world." She pushes a carrot through the soup with her spoon. The cracker packet has been reduced to crumbs. "What about you? How is it, working again?"
Ellen huffs. "Not bad, I suppose. It's good having something to do. Keeps me from planning elaborate revenge against Michael."
"Yeah, revenge can get tiring after a while." Dana laughs, and it is only a little hollow.
"And the good thing about working for the school district is that I have the same schedule as Justin and Mikey. It's not like it's fulfilling or something, but so many divorced women end up with such terrible jobs." All that's left on her plate is the pickle, and she wants to eat it, but the comparison between her empty plate and Dana's half-full bowl makes her too sad. "Seriously, Dana, is everything OK? You know, if you need anything--"
"I know." She looked away. A Dana who doesn't make eye contact is a Dana who is lying. "I'll admit, things have been a little...stressful lately. But I'll be fine again soon, I'm sure." She eats a spoonful of soup, looks up, smiles, and for just that second her face is alive again. "So, is Justin still taking ballet lessons?"
"Oh my God." Ellen rested her head in her hands. "I don't even know where to start with that one." She looks up, prepared to tell the endless ballet class saga, and Dana's nose is bleeding. Just a little, just the tiniest bit. "Um. Dana. Your nose."
Dana blushes immediately. "Oh, dammit." She rustles in her pocket, pulls out a men's linen handkerchief. "Sorry. All the time on airplanes. I've been getting them a lot lately."
The handkerchief has rusty stains on it. Something is wrong, and Dana won't tell her.
Season Five:
Ellen checks her watch again. The curtain goes up on the dance recital in ten minutes, and she is standing outside on the steps to the auditorium in the late-January cold. "Michael, I swear, if you say again that ballet is 'gay' in front of your brother, you're grounded for a week."
"Whatever. He's the one wearing tights." Mikey keeps fiddling with the game boy his father bought him. Standard divorced father bribery. Ellen grits her teeth.
A Taurus pulls up going much faster than it should and skids to a stop on the snow. The door pops open, and Dana jumps out. She turns, says something quickly to the driver, who hands her a bouquet of flowers. She takes it, and her long black trench coat, and slams the door behind her. "Hey! I made it!" She bounds up the steps, nearly slipping on the parts that are insufficiently de-iced. "Are the flowers too girly? I didn't have much choice at the airport flower kiosk." She leaned over, kissed Ellen on the cheek. "Hey, Mikey."
"Hey, Aunt Dana," Mikey said, working hard at being sullen. Ellen rolls her eyes, and Dana nods sagely back.
They find their seats. The first performance is the little-kids ballet class, all three and four year old girls. Ellen chuckles to herself. She would have liked a daughter. At least Justin dances, she thinks, and then mentally kicks herself.
Each little girl comes forward to do a plié, supported by the teacher. A particularly cute one comes forward, all strawberry-blond hair and shy pleasure at being applauded. She skitters away to the edge of the stage. Ellen turns to Dana, to whisper something about the costumes, and finds that she has crushed her program in her hands. Her eyes are fixed on the little girl, who is twirling her flower-prop in her hand and looking into the distance. Ellen remembers Dana mentioning something, recently, about bad news from her gynecologist, and puts two and two together. She reaches out, takes her hand. Dana is startled, moves to pull away, but Ellen hangs on. Dana closes her eyes, takes a deep breath. "I'm fine," she whispers.
"Whatever you say," Ellen says, and keeps holding her hand.
Season Six:
Michael has just pulled away with the boys for their second Christmas of the day. They're at the point where they can speak in complete sentences without her wanting to punch him, which is good, for the boys at least. She sighs and turns back to her empty house. Time to make the holiday calls.
Her mother is solicitous but occupied with Melody's six kids, who appear to be trying to set the tree on fire. Her other sister, Rebecca, had gone to Jamaica with her newest boy toy, and is inaccessible. Finally, she called Mama Scully's house. It was after noon, Dana should be there by now.
"Oh, she's still on the way," Mama Scully says. "Got called in to work, last night of all nights. Can you believe it? She really loves her work, which is a good thing, I suppose. Give her a call on her cell phone, I'm sure she'd love to hear from you."
Dana picks up the cell phone on the third ring. "Ellen! Hi! Merry Christmas!"
"You're chipper for someone who's six hours late to Mama Scully's Christmas Extravaganza." Ellen peels the plastic wrap off her tub of cookies from the block party cookie exchange. Mmm, cherries.
"Oh, I don't know. Somehow, having missed being mobbed by the under-seven set at six o'clock, being nagged by both my brothers for whatever they can come up with by nine, and having my mother give a maudlin speech about the blessings of the season when I just know she's going to burst into tears about my dad in the kitchen later has its appeal."
"Mmn," Ellen says around a mouthful of cookie. "I can understand that."
"I don't know, El. Sometimes, don't you just want it to be about what you want? Not what other people drag you into, not what you're required to do by custom or tradition, but, seriously, just have some fun?"
"Wait, your mom said you were working." Ellen picks through the box. "Dana Katherine Scully. Are you lying to your mother about where you were last night?"
"God, I sound fifteen when you put it that way." Dana laughs, a bright sound like sun on snow. "No, I was working, in a sense. It's just...look, this is my life. I should get to enjoy it the way I want to. I don't have to be shackled to my family like the maiden aunt in a Victorian novel. You know?"
Ellen thinks about the empty day in front of her, in an empty house. "Go you. I'll just sit here, feeling inadequately independent."
"No, that's not it. It's not like I don't have ties to people. My family. Other people. It's just that we should get to make decisions about how to sort those commitments out."
"That sounds right." It really does.
"Anyway. What are you doing today? I bet Mom's got extra pork roast, if you're up for it."
Ellen laughed, and tried not to hear how it echoed. "Let me see if I've got any deep-seated need to enjoy myself on the schedule, and I'll get back to you."
Season Seven:
Dana finishes her diet coke and dumps the cup in the trash can as they leave the theater. "I forgot how much I hate watching movies with subtitles. I want to like them, but I just end up with a headache."
"You know what I love about you, Danes? That you're secretly such an anti-intellectual." Ellen throws out the popcorn bag and wipes her hands on her pants.
"Just make sure it stays a secret. I've got a super genius ice queen reputation to maintain at work." She pulls out her cell phone and turns it on. "If they find out I like Farrelly Brothers comedies and eat Cheetos I'm going to have to shoot someone or cure AIDS to get the universe back in balance."
Ellen checks her watch. "I've got another half an hour before I have to head home. There's that cupcake place around the corner."
"Excellent. I haven't gained enough weight this evening yet." Dana's phone beeps. She pulls it out, dials her voicemail. "Let me just check this."
Ellen goes to the water fountain. As she turns around, Dana is looking down and smiling. Her cheeks are pink. She pulls the phone away, hits a button, puts it back to her ear. Her smile widens this time, and she actually chuckles at the end. Then she hangs up.
"OK, who is he?" Ellen asks when she comes back over.
"What? There's no he." Dana's cheeks are still pink, and she won't make eye contact, which means she's seriously lying.
Still, there is nothing worse than trying to pry a secret from Dana Scully. "Fine. Don't tell me. Whatever you say."
"I say cupcakes," Dana says. They go, and Ellen pretends not to notice when Dana buys an extra, a Snickers one, 'to take home.'
Season Eight:
Ellen is sitting on the tile floor of the bathroom of the funeral home, holding Dana's hands as she is perched on the closed toilet. They are both dry-eyed, though Dana gives the impression of someone who can't cry any more. She is wearing black, and it hangs on her. "I can't do it. I can't go back out there."
"It's OK. You don't have to." Ellen strokes her hands.
"I know I should. I know...but the way they're looking at me." She is bloodless and drained, but still sharp and capable of causing pain.
"I know."
"They don't know anything. They can't even begin to understand." She hisses the words out as if being angry is all she has left.
"No, they can't." Ellen has no idea what Dana is talking about, but it doesn't matter. She walked into the funeral home and knew something was deeply, deeply wrong. Dana had been sitting in the front row, by the flag-draped coffin, staring at it with dead eyes. People kept coming up to her, saying soft things, and she had just stared back at them, sharp and silent, accusatory, almost. Sometimes she nodded. Ellen had stolen her away, locked her in the bathroom. Something was wrong.
"I can't be his fucking widow." Dana's hands began to shake. She closes her eyes.
"It's OK, Dana. It's OK."
"He didn't know." It's a bare whisper. Dana bows her head, clutches her hands to her belly. "I didn't know, I never told him, and he can't, he doesn't, I can't--" Ellen is suddenly, violently nauseous. Dana just keeps moving her hands, circularly, as if drawing something in to her abdomen. "I can't, I can't--
Ellen swallows her surprise, and grabs Dana's hands. "It's OK. You can. I promise. You can."
Dana puts her head down on Ellen's shoulder, and manages to cry again.
Season Nine:
She nearly dropped the groceries coming in the door. "Mikey!" she yelled. "Why is your skateboard in the middle of the front hall?"
"Sorry, Mom," came a quiet voice from the living room.
She stumbled into the kitchen and dropped the bags on the counter. The machine was blinking, one message.
Dana's voice came through, quiet and slightly metallic. "Ellen. Hi." She took a deep breath, exhaled raggedly. "I'm glad I got the machine, actually. There's so much...listen, I don't blame you if you're confused. And I'm sorry--I'm sorry that things have happened the way they have. But you need to know..." The pause was long enough that Ellen was worried it had cut her off. "You just need to know that I never regretted any of it. No matter how bad it got. No one made me, and people are going to tell you he did, and he never did. That matters to me. And you should know--" her voice broke slightly-- "how much I have valued your friendship. How much I love the boys. And how proud I am to have known you, all these years." The tears hovered at the edge of her voice, but there was that toughness again, the one that undercut everything Dana had every felt. "I don't know how soon I'll be able to talk. But, I promise you, as soon as I can, I'll write, or call or...I don't know. I love you. I'll see you soon, I hope." And there was a click.
Something was wrong, Ellen thought. Really wrong. She would call her tomorrow.
I Want To Believe:
The directions are hard to follow, at least in part because she doesn't want to follow them. No, that's not it. She does want to see Dana. It had been years, and then a quick email in 2005--I'm sorry it's been so long. Things have changed a lot. I don't think I'll be able to get up to DC to see you, but I wanted to say hello, and see how the boys are. Then the occasional phone call, notes, Christmas presents for the boys. Dana was different: more guarded, less willing to open up. Ellen only got her work number out of her, and all the packages were sent with her office return address. Then, finally, just a few months ago, something seemed to relax in her, and she finally said she wanted to see them. "I'm in the middle of this clinical trial now," she had said on the phone, "and I don't think I can get away, but you could bring the boys down. It's only like an hour and a half. We even have a guest room, and we're near the climbing rocks in the state park if they'd be into that."
So here they were, headed for an overnight trip to visit Aunt Dana, whose life was a mystery clouded in an enigma obscured by giant flashing lights saying don't look over here. They were going rock climbing in the morning. Ellen just hoped, desperately, that they would have something to talk about between now and then. Justin had homework, and Mikey his SAT study books, so at least they could hole up. She had nothing but a twenty-year friendship, with a six year hiatus.
She finally found the turn off. The road was dirt when they got to the gate. It was more frightening than Ellen had expected, that gate: it looked like the entryway to a compound, like there were survivalists with machine guns behind it. Next to the frighteningly sophisticated electric lockbox, a hand-painted sign read:
FBI*, CIA, GLOBAL CONSPIRATORS, SUPERSOLDIERS, ALIEN CLONES, JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES, AND MORMON MISSIONARIES BY APPOINTMENT ONLY.
ALL OTHERS, RING BELL.
*EXCEPT WALTER SKINNER. MAYBE.
"Wow," Justin said from the back seat. "Aunt Dana's boyfriend's crazy, isn't he."
"We don't know that," Ellen said, and hoped to God that Dana hadn't written the sign. She pulled out her cell phone and called Dana's.
Dana picked up on the third ring. "Hey! How close are you?"
"We're here, actually." Ellen could see someone moving in the early evening light, off by the house. Please don't shoot us, she thought.
"Oh, no." A horn honked. "I'm running late from work. I'm still, um, about twenty minutes away? Sorry, I just got this NIH grant and the paperwork, ugh, you would not believe--"
The figure is getting closer, looks like a man in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, heading purposefully towards them. "Um, hold on, it looks like someone's coming out of the house?"
"Oh, great. Yeah, Mulder will let you in." Dana chucked softly. "Be nice to him. He's got the social skills of a bat. Emits lots of earsplitting noises until he figures out where you are."
"Um. Will do." Ellen finds herself smiling. This, at least, sounds like Dana.
"See you soon. Can't wait."
"Yup, soon," Ellen says, and hangs up. The man is at the gate now, opening it with some sort of elaborate code, his hand wrapped in some sort of cast. Ellen pulls the car through. He locks it behind her and comes up to the driver's window. She rolls it down.
"Hey," he says, leaning down. "You must be Ellen. I'm Fox Mulder." He holds out his hand. "I've heard a lot about you."
"Me too," she says, and shakes it. Goddamn. He really is cute.