Title: Imperfect Author: CGB Email: luberluber@hotmail.com Web: http://Appelsini.tripod.com/Christine/ Rating: [MA] Spoilers: 'All Things', 'Requiem' (or as Sally would say, 'Requeeeem'.) Category: V MSR (sorta) Disclaimer: If I were making money out of this I wouldn't be putting it up on the Internet for all to pilfer now would I? Archive: Go ahead - make my day. Look ma! I got out of the fourth season! Thanks to Cookie for the original beta and the crystalship gang for speaking up when they should. --------------------------- Imperfect by CGB "I will not do them wrong; I rather choose to wrong the dead, to wrong myself" - W. Shakespeare "Julius Caesar". ---------------------------- "You were always such a good girl,Dana" The words spoken in a mahogany monument that is the Headmistress's office of St Theresa's, a small but reputed Catholic Girls' School not far from the inauspicious Naval Base that houses the Scully family The young Dana Scully is confused. In her own reckoning she is still a good girl. It was not she who saw fit to rain a barrage of insults on poor Celia Kent because her mother had left her father for another woman. On the contrary, Dana had been defending Celia's right to be educated without harassment in spite of her mother's sexual preferences. Sister Carmel Agnes was probably in need of a re-examination of what constitutes a good girl. The description ill fits the nuns' favourite student Mary Bairstow whose choice of words in taunting Celia only an hour earlier would have made the Sister light headed. And Dana is a good girl. She works hard at school, reads voraciously, and relishes the challenges handed down by her teachers. She doesn't keep her nails meticulously clean and manicured like Mary Bairstow but she ties her hair up out of her eyes and presses her own uniform. She did, however, punch Mary square in the face. This incident has resulted in her current predicament of having to explain her actions to the deeply perturbed Sister whilst the nun tries to fathom the metamorphose of the normally passive Dana into a fist swinging hooligan. Dana really can't explain. She stares at her imperfect nails. She doesn't know why she struck Mary. She barely understands what a lesbian is let alone why she chose to defend the taunted daughter of one. She's not close to Celia and she doubts she will be in the future. She doesn't like bullies. She knows that. She's just never been provoked enough to engage one in an exchange of blows, particularly over a matter seemingly unrelated personally. Maybe it was just because Celia looked so lost, so hopelessly alone. If Dana hadn't stood up for her, who would? --------------------- It's funny, she's never noticed before, but Assistant Director Skinner is vaguely reminiscent of Sister Carmel Agnes at times. Particularly when he's wearing that expression. That one of surprise and a little disappointment thrown in, making the measure exact. She's become familiar with that look on the faces of those around her. Mulder wore it too. Mulder wore it too and then it was all unstoppable, the momentum carrying them forward, an electric train, brakes sabotaged and acceleration increasing. "But I thought......?" Skinner again. Still wide eyed (you were always such a good Agent, Dana Scully). "I thought so too", she says and he seems to accept that because he's seen a lot he can't explain lately. "And the father?" She holds the edge of her bed clothes and savors the feeling of starched cotton so peculiar to hospitals. And convents, an additional reminder of the nuns. ------------------------ Mulder had that look. The one where he tries to reconcile his image of good Agent Scully, devoted partner, friend and diligent worker with Scully who screwed her married college professor, wrecked his homelife, and didn't even stick around to see if her efforts garnered an 'A'. An image of Scully looking coldly on as Waterston turns his wife's photo away before they embrace, assaults him. Added to this is the knowledge that Scully didn't need to fuck her lecturers to get good grades. Her motivation is entirely elusive. "Why?" he asks. She stares at him unabashedly. Defiant. Unflappable. She doesn't answer but crosses her arms. A conversation she would rather not have because it was all too long ago to rouse passion for a debate. "Did you love him?" Ahh. That takes her by surprise. Maybe she did. At the time, the affirmation would have been implicit. Retrospectively there are many meanings that could be understood from the event, and each a potential 'reason of the week' for her choices. Pick a feeling, any feeling. Shit. She's not sure she knows what love is because she's never been able to qualify something she has not experienced despite a propensity to posit hypotheses. She loves Mulder. It goes without saying. But she loves her mother, Bill, Charlie, her nieces, on what grounds can she call a distinction? She would like the arguments tabled, charted and graphed. Scientific data proving the tangible existence of romantic love. She shrugs. "Maybe". "Maybe?" He's angry now because she won't talk, won't challenge him. Emotionally her current mood registers negligible on the Scully anger scale. "I certainly wanted him". And that makes sense. Mulder is still bewildered, hands on hips, staring at the floor. Occasionally he runs his hand through his hair and goes to say something before stopping himself short. Mulder has met many good women in his life, but his sexual interest deviates towards bad ones. Scully had slotted neatly into the former category. Hence the innuendo. There is something altogether stimulating and challenging about riling a good girl. He likes the way she scowls at him, his harshness. Oh so beautiful and compartmentalised Scully. She imagines that he would have expected this Scully, the one presented to him now, to have flirted back. "I've wanted you too" she says. An unsolicited statement and entirely unexpected. Maybe she wants to reassure him. She does want him. Has done for years. She wants him in the strangest places at the strangest times. Driving to the bureau in her car, sipping coffee at Starbucks, working late writing her reports. "...from time to time" she finishes. Mulder doesn't move. Rooted to the spot, he is transfixed by this new incarnation of his partner. For a moment she expects him to ask for a blood sample so her can cross check her DNA. She moves toward him. Now? Why not now? What else are they waiting for? For a couple who have sufficient cause to expect the end of the world, the prolonged anticipation of consummation is entirely mystifying. It's true she imagined a planned, discussed and well considered advent to diminish the possibility of negative repercussions all round. Impudently, she wants him now. "Haven't you wanted me?" "No..... Yes... not now!" he backs away. It's too much. She thinks she may have underestimated him. She hadn't expected him to attribute such weight to the act. Stupid really. She had always known and appreciated his depth. Again she moves to bridge the jump between them. A leap of faith. She pauses just in front of him and begins to unbutton her blouse. His eyes bulge. "Scully what are you doing?" "Making you an offer you can't refuse" she says. She shucks her blouse from her shoulders and reaches behind her back for the clasp of her bra. Mulder is incredulous. "No. Scully. Stop." And she does, mid-reach. She feels her body slump slightly, dejected. Not now? Not ever? He resigns himself to her, letting his eyes meet hers comfortably and raising his hands to her back, feeling for the clasp. "Let me do that" he whispers. He breathes against her ear and she notes his breath quickens suddenly as he makes contact with her flesh. His hands edge her bra straps down her arms and the garment falls to the floor, the gauntlet between them. He rests his forehead against her bare chest and groans. "Oh god Scully". She knows he mourns the loss of his Scully despite being unable to resist this one. Tomorrow she will remind him that they are one and the same when she rises early to finish their expense accounts. But tonight she lets him think she has disappeared indefinitely because she desires this Mulder that surrenders himself against his Oxford educated wisdom and his superior judgment, who cannot struggle free of her magnetism even after she has shattered his illusions. It's oh, so much more exciting this way. --------------------- She wakes early. She always wakes early, never sleeps in anymore. It only takes a minute for her brain to switch to overdrive and she is somersaulting her way through the day's challenges. She can see Mulder's naked body sprawled out next to hers. It would be so easy to wake up with Mulder. They had been so long consumed in soul with one another that they have done everything together. Nearly everything. And now they've done that. Case closed. When she leaves she checks to the mirror for marks in places where they might be seen. --------------------- "And the father, Scully?" Skinner is still there despite her unwillingness to answer. She doesn't have to. He takes into account the look that passes over her face every time she hears the word "father" and he knows. He has always known, because Dana Scully is a good person and the mask she wears to hide her fear reminds him she has always been a good person and that only a good person would suffer so much, try so hard, for someone so in need. Fini