D.K. (Dana) Scully, You've Got Unsuspected Depth


***

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached our cruising altitude of thirty
thousand feet, and the captain has turned off the seat belt sign. You
are now free to move about the cabin."

So here I sit next to my best, my only friend, in splendid isolation
once again, musing at thirty thousand feet. That's a lot of feet.

OK, this has to stop. Snickering is definitely not part of my role in
this partnership: queen of the world's frostiest humor-free zone, while
laughing boy gets all the punch lines. Like all great partners, we're
just so damned complementary.

Time to work on the acetylcholine paper, I suppose. But I feel too
restless for that.

"You've been working on that report for an awfully long time, Mulder."

"Bored, Scully?" he says.

"Did you hurt your hand when that guy fell on you? You usually type a
lot faster."

"Just trying to get it right Scully, crossing the 'i's, dotting the
't's."

You're hilarious lately, Mulder. "Well, I know it was a strange case,
but no stranger than some others we've had to explain."

"Really, Scully?" he asks, in an innocent voice that makes me want to
smack him.

As if he doesn't know. What the hell is that all about? And why does he
seem... shorter, or something?

"Well, while you're being so meticulous, don't forget that there's no
'o' in Bureau. How many times do I have to tell you that? Just remember
to spell check that before you give it to Skinner. If it can't be
comprehensible, it should at least be readable."

"Skinner, right. Something on your mind, Scully? Anything you want to
talk about?"

"I was just... thinking about that question you asked me earlier."

He lifts his head sharply and gives me a strange look. "Which question
was that?"

"The one about who I would be if I could be anyone at all."

Is that panic? This is very strange. For one thing, I know very well
that Mulder in a panic means an expression even more blank than usual.

"Oh, uh... Why were you wondering about that, all of a sudden?" he says.

"I just..."

Oh. Panic. Panic at the possibility that he might get an actual answer.
An actual, honest, personal answer. "Never mind, Mulder."

"No, it's, it's OK, Scully. If there's something you want to talk about,
I think you should talk about it."

And have you asking the stewardess for a parachute so you can get away
from this discussion as fast as possible? I don't think so. "It's not
important."

"No, really. Tell me what's on your mind."

"Nothing, Mulder. Not a thing. I have to work on this paper."

Are you..." He gives me another worried look. "Are you sure everything's
OK, Scully?"

"I'm fine, Mulder."

What is going on here? Why the abrupt end to this case and the sudden
inability to produce a creative case file report on it?

And if you're so uninterested in anything personal I might have to say,
Mulder, why have you been watching me out of the corner of your eye for
the last three hours? It's just... You triggered something, with that
question, something I've been trying not to think about too deeply,
especially as I get sucked in and locked down into this lonely little
world we've created for ourselves.

Who would I be, if I could be anyone at all?

The funny thing is Mulder, I used to know how to be anyone at all. I had
a lot of practice, growing up. One day, you're a little girlie-girl in
Virginia Beach, playing with dolls. Then it's 'Sorry, honey, we have to
move again.', and after a few rounds of that, you realize that new
place, new school, new kids your age can mean a whole new you. Nobody
expects anything from you, and if you don't want to play with dolls
anymore, you don't have to. You can be the base tomboy, scrambling over
the jetty on Shelter Island with the boy next door, and no one will
think it's strange. You can even change your name. In Hawaii, during my
Little Women phase, I was Amy, the pretty one who got the boy. Oh, give
me a break, Mulder. I was twelve.

Growing up like that teaches you one very interesting lesson. You learn
how easy it is to put on a face that the world will buy. It's funny how
people really want to believe that you are who they think you are.
They're pretty easy to fool.

But even I'm getting tired of the Dana Scully I've become. I haven't
been anyone else for a long, long time. Well, there was that time when I
was still in medical school, the break in the Bahamas where I made a
last stab at being a character from Little Women. Only that time, I was
Laurie. But I don't think you or anyone else is ready to hear about
that, Mulder.

So who would I be now, if I could be anyone at all?

I'd be a dancer.

Even you have noticed how much I like to move. You ask: 'How come you
never turn an ankle running in those things, Scully?' My answering shrug
means: 'Because I'm good Mulder.' You should see me climb a tree, hop a
fence, skip a rope, hit a softball. Poetry in motion, if I do say so
myself. I wear suits fitted like a corset, to keep myself tall and
straight, and to arm myself against what you and the rest of the world
throw at me every day. But at night? You should see me dance -- the
tango with the dishcloth, the fox-trot with the vacuum cleaner.

You know how they say Ginger Rogers was a better dancer than Fred
Astaire, because she could do everything he could do, only she could do
it backwards, while wearing high heels? I can reach the same conclusions
you can Mulder. Only I have to do it logically, while constrained by
scientific method. So I'd like to be Ginger Rogers.

I think I could be good.

Who else would I be, if I could be anyone at all?

I'd be a sculptor.

I know how it all works Mulder. How the bones articulate, how the sinews
attach and the muscles slide and bunch to produce perfect beauty. I've
been trained to cut it all down and pull it apart, but I'd like to try
creating for a change. Fashioning beauty, shaping it to my satisfaction.
I'm so tired of destruction, and picking up the pieces after tragedy.
And I want a chance to control my surroundings and my destiny. I'd start
by trying to control a lump of clay.

Have you ever heard of Camille Claudel, Mulder? Hardly anyone has. She
was Rodin's lover, the little chippie on the side. But she was also a
sculptor in her own right, and she was amazing. She made sculptures that
were just as heartbreakingly beautiful as his. But he was so flashy and
so powerful that she was barely noticed, and she went mad in the end.
Well, I never planned to bask or wilt in the heat of anyone's reflected
glory, Mulder. So I think I'd like to try being Camille Claudel.

I think I could do it better.

But really, who would I be, if I could be anyone at all?

I would be you.

From a purely practical standpoint, I'd like to have your height and
your plumbing. It would be great to be able to get the nice china down
from the top shelf without benefit of a step stool. And a relief to be
able to pee standing up, the next time I take a nice little trip to the
forest. If I could have only one thing, what would get me more respect,
I wonder? The height or the balls? Does a short man get more respect
than a tall woman? I'd like to find out.

And I'm astounded by the way your mind works, Mulder. Faster than
inspiration. Strong in your beliefs. Able to leap tall paradoxes in a
single bound.

I love your passion and compassion, your drive, and the scorching heat
of your mind at work, even as I hate your impulsiveness, your
single-mindedness, and your chilly dismissal of facts that don't fit
your theories.

That, and the way that you can always justify ditching me, dammit. But
I'm jealous of your fearlessness in the face of authority, and just for
once, I'd like to be the one with the humor and the downright wicked
charm..

Of course, I would never, ever admit it, but the best part of being you
would be finding out how you really see me. Do you ever wonder, Mulder,
if the somber FBI agent guarding your back could also be a dancer, or a
sculptor... or a lover?

There's a poem I always think of when I think of us. That you could be
my north, my south, my east, my west, my workday week and my Sunday
best. Except that hell, you're already that Mulder, just without the
fringe benefits. So I'd change that, along with one other small detail.

You know those images on your television screen, of the women who live
only to give blow jobs and the machine-like men who fuck them? If that
pallid parody of sex coming from your VCR is really your idea of making
love, then I'm sorry, it would have to go. But don't worry, Mulder, you
wouldn't be missing a thing. The ideas I've got in my head for you and
me -- they'd burn your apartment down.

I'd love to be you loving me, Mulder. I'd be great.

So who would I be, if I could be anyone at all?

When you asked me that question, it irritated me when I realized that I
couldn't tell you the truth. We've gotten so stuck in our assigned roles
lately, that I'm afraid I'll just have to go on being who you think I
am. Just ordinary, everyday Dana Scully, your plain-Jane partner,
helplessly, hopelessly grounded in a reality you abhor.

No lover, no dance partner, no height, no humor, no balls, no clay, no
clue.

Who would that Dana Scully be, if she could be anyone at all?

Eleanor Roosevelt.

Your back was turned when I said it, but I could see how your shoulders
slumped when I gave you the only answer that I thought wouldn't frighten
you. Dammit, Mulder. I've disappointed you again, by giving you the
version of myself that I think you want.

Would you really have me any other way?

****

Author's Note: Extra points for whoever gets the title. Poem snippet is
adapted from "Stop All the Clocks" by W.H. Auden.

Thanks: To Invisivellum, for a stellar job of beta-reading, to Sheare
Bliss, who said she liked a Scully who was careful, and to Plausible
Deniability, who got it on the first draft, but whose comments made me
want to make it better..

****

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