Constant
by Danielle Leigh
Oldviolin7@aol.com


The great Anna sayeth: Please note that this is not the ending to The 
Second Ones. It is just... an alternate universe incident.

This goes for this too.  Follows directly from Anna's lovely 
Obligation.  Read that first.

Thanks: For Rachel for letting me play with her toy, and Anna for 
encouragement and love.

Author's notes: None of this is possible.  Scully is technically in 
a cab at the end of Obligation.  So I changed an alternate universe 
incident.  Anna said I could.


Let us toast love.
What love?
Fickle Love.
Blind Love.
Tender Love.
No.
Let us only worship constant love.
Let us only toast faith.
 

 

Even though she travels almost incessantly for a living, her escape 
from his arms is not perfect.  He loves that quality about her -- how 
she lacks the art of subterfuge.  Only thirty feet behind her, her 
head bobbing in the gray streets of Paris, he loves her even more than 
when she had visited his bed. 

He can't believe he would win her.  Yet he follows her.  To watch 
her maneuver the streets of Paris is like a drink of water for his 
dry, dusty soul.  Forget pain, forget heartache.  This is living. 
 
His mouth goes dry at the sight of her long elegant arm, hitching her 
suitcase higher and his arms ache to take it from her.  He wants to 
walk by her side.  To play with her like a child and hear her laugh as 
one.  He wants to memorize her, he wants to mesmerize her.  To learn 
her breath, her rhythm, her nature. 

He wants.

He steals a flower from a street vendor and places it in the pocket of 
his linen jacket.  Snatched in fear, waking alone to find her gone, it 
now shields him on the street.  He is an elegant man.  Elegant men 
do not need.  They do not want.

He considers -- for the first time -- begging.  He wants so much -- 
so much.  To beg or to take.  Either is feasible.   

And he knows he could not afford the taking of her.  She is too costly 
a jewel.  Too beautiful for everyday wear, too expensive to steal.  She 
must be -- not won.  She can't be won.  She must be loved.  Simply and 
finally, but not fatally, loved.

He must then live with the wanting of her.  Only time would tell if 
this was any way to live. 

Her quick, small body trots at a fast gait.  If she notices the weight 
on her arm, she doesn't let on. Dodging and running to keep up with her, 
his mind won't let him rest.  Again and again he sees her -- lazy with 
wanting, tender with his kiss.  He plays the images over and over 
again.

Oh love, he thinks.

Can I love her this much and let her go?

It isn't trivial or stupid.  Can he let go or can he find refuge in 
it?  In the utter goodness of such sacrifice.   

To be nothing more than a possibility in her life.  And not even the 
most plausible one.  Or even the most dangerous.  He is a simple 
solution.  Not a final one.

He follows her like a stalker then and the truth of the comparison 
doesn't shame him.  His love is beyond shame now, beyond reproach.  
His dignity was stripped the second he awoke alone and followed her.  
How he dreams of passing through the gates of hell just to show her.  
How he dreams. 

He follows her, blindly, through the entrance to the airport.  But he 
is not blind to what he is doing.  He is not blind to her.  

He remembers the way she looked up at him, his fingers deftly removing 
the metal chip.  The trust was not a lie.  The blood on his hands was 
not a lie and the utter irony of *that* -- a ghoulish smile passes 
over his face.

Her blood has touched his hands.  Her face has touched his mind.  Her 
hands have touched his body.  Let it not be a lie.  
	 
Let it be true. 

Once she enters the airport, her feet fly on the ground.  She walks 
like a woman with a promise to keep and he follows her.  Her promises 
are solid oaths that cannot be broken by him.  Nor by God, or Law.

The cool air hurts him, he needs the warm sun -- he misses the way the 
sun reflects off her hair.  Let that not be a memory.  Let that not be 
a solitary moment in time.   

He must make new moments in time.  They are all he has...he watches 
the way she walks, the way she holds herself.  So straight, so tall for 
such a small woman.  And then finally he recognizes the mechanism 
behind her posture -- Grief.  

Oh my darling girl.
 
He knows then she wants to cry.

And he knows just as strongly she will never allow herself that guilty 
pleasure.  One day maybe.  One day, in the FBI bathroom, faucets turned 
on full force, she will slide to floor and sob.  She will slide down to 
the ground and huddle near the earth for comfort.  And no one will 
hear her cry. 

He follows her to her gate at a safe distance.

Except there are no more safe distances.  She has entangled herself 
thoroughly in his heart.  In his mind.  What is worse, an ache in the 
heart or an emptiness in the head?  His imagination, which can not be 
curbed, will be the worst.  A million dinners, a million mornings, and 
good-nights, and kisses, and laughs and loves and touches. God was 
cruel when he bestowed upon him this imagination. And he watches her.  
Gathering fuel for the future they can never have.

His gaze is powerful.

So powerful that he knows that she knows he is there.  She doesn't 
need to look or feel him there.  He simply is there.  Her courage 
fails her only once.  Before she steps through the gate she turns 
toward him.  Even from a distance of thirty feet he can see her 
swallow.  Oh my love.  What would make a tough little girl like you 
sad?
  
He saluts her then.  It is an exercise in military precision.  The 
tenderness behind it is unfathomable.  She gives one hard nod... 

...and turns away.

Walk on, my love.  

I'll be here.

Walk on, my darling girl.

Time will tell.

So walk on.

The end.