Title: Parole
Classification: S, MSR
Keywords: Maggie POV
Rating: a G or PG
Spoilers: not a one, in fact, pretend "Requiem"
never happened.
Distribution: Xemplary, Ephemeral, Spookys okay,
anywhere else, just ask, I always say yes, but I
like to come visit ;)
Summary: An outsider's perspective.
Disclaimer: They're not mine...yet.
Feedback: makes my day at soitgoes@witty.com,
especially since I'm missing season 8 due to
circumstances beyond my control
Website: www.chickpages.com/fanland/wendydarling1

***thanks to: Lenore, Kelly, Michelle and of
course, my wonderful beta, Maria. All mistakes in
this piece are flagrently in spite of her
top-notch editing. Muchas smoochas as Hobbes the
tiger would say***

Parole

Fractal curves of trees spread against the sky as
startling as the season.  Winter always comes as a
surprise to Maggie Scully. Each year at springtime
she lets herself forget sharp-fingered wind,
chapped face, perpetual darkness.

Loses the feel of winter as subtly as she'd lost
the feeling of Bill's hair through her fingers
when they lay in bed at night. Curled around each
other when the rest of the house was sleeping.
Shared breath like secrets.

Sometimes his hair had been soft, like tips of
bird feathers. Sometimes his hair had been gritty
and cold, like the slender bars in a birdcage.

She can't remember either.

"Mom? Were you listening?"

She turns, falls back through time: redheaded
child, wavy hair
scalloped like meringue, bow lips pursed. The
mouth moves.

"Mom? Watch this! Mommommommom."

A flock of stray raindrops spatter against
Maggie's face. The girl runs, leaving her daughter
behind. Maggie's lips spread into a gentle smile.

"I'm sorry, dear. Christmas shopping always takes
it out of me."

Dana smiles in return. Her face is a tired echo of
Maggie's memory.

"I'll go get the car."

Without waiting for an answer, Dana turns and
heads across the
parking lot. She is upright in the darkness,
nearly military. The rolls of bright wrapping
paper stand up like enemy flags.

Maggie feels a hollowness seep through her.

The beautiful girl has left, burned away by fire.
Tempered as all beautiful girls must be tempered.
Leftover woman, slender as a steel blade. Fine
Spanish steel.

Maggie feels cage bars brush her palms, strange.

The car pulls up to the curb, headlights bright
splashes. Dana is on the phone and Maggie watches
her lips move for a moment, trying to make out the
words: love? leave? live?

She opens the car door on the end of the
conversation.

"No, not right now. Right now I'm taking my mom
home and then I have some things to do.... Like
wrap presents!... What makes you think I got you
one?" Softer. "I don't know. I still remember two
years ago.... Do you really promise? No ghosts."
Smile. "Eggnog is okay, just no ghosts." She hangs
up. Residual smile.

"Who was that?" Maggie asks, knowing perfectly
well who it was. They are a cosmic
impossibility--two people in orbit around each
other.

"Mulder. He says, 'Merry Christmas.'"

Maggie looks at her watch, needlessly, thinking
about the date. "Too early for that. Am I going to
see him before the holidays?"

Dana shrugs, puts the car into drive and pulls
away from the curb. "Mulder does what he wants,
Mom."

It's raining harder now. Ghosts of water make bars
down the windows.

Maggie traces them with her fingertip on the
inside. Cold wiggles into her skin.

She can't remember how Missy's hands were always
that cold, as if she'd soaked them all day in a
bucket of ice water. Almost burning cold.

"Tell me what you've been doing at work, Dana.
Have you and Fox been busy?"

"Mulder." No matter how many times she says it,
Dana always corrects her.  "Last week was pretty
busy. We were in Phoenix and then Houston. Serial
killer."

Dana's voice blends with the whip-thump of the
wipers. "Did you catch him?"

"Her, actually. Unusual."

"Not supernatural then."

Dana shakes her head, with barely concealed
satisfaction. Glint of beautiful metal in her
eyes. "Shake things up sometimes. Mulder gets full
of himself if he's right all the time."

"Oh. No use falling into a pattern." The rain
stops too suddenly and the wipers scrape across
the windshield, leaving smeary lines.  Dana
laughs, uncomfortable. "Mom, are you okay?"

Nod. "Of course."

"You seem a little..."

"I was just remembering something."

"What is it?"

"I don't know." Vague. Thoughts slip like guppies
through water: flashes of color, silver.

"What are you doing for Christmas?" Guilty.

"A friend of mine is having a dinner. I might go.
What are you and Fox doing?"

Shrug. "Just dinner probably."

Maggie laughs silently at "just dinner." Her humor
flows inside,
thick and sweet as molasses. Nothing is ever
"just." She doesn't believe in "just." "Just"
doesn't exist.

Her daughter, with steel in her eyes, watches the
road, guides the car self-consciously through
traffic. Maggie tries to imagine how the metal
melts when she looks at Fox. Love becomes
quicksilver.

The car pulls around a corner and flies into the
driveway. Dana stamps a kiss on Maggie's cheek.
"Bye, Mom. I'll call you soon."

"Bye, sweetie." Maggie gathers her packages,
climbs out of the car. The grass is wet, clinging
like needy fingers. Her house waits, blankfaced,
long-suffering. She will go inside, turn on the
lights, send slanted shadows of windowpanes out
across the evening.

THE END

"Shakespeare's comedies: lighthearted,
heartwarming, and simply hilarious!"

"I thought we decided that
Shakespeare's comedies were the least
funny plays ever written."

"That was called sarcasm, Adam.  It's
very popular in Britain."