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Title: Patina Spoilers: US fourth season
Category: VRA Disclaimer: Not mine. And written in chronic purple phase. Ugh. * Not so much a plaza, not so much a square with a fountain, where Triton frowns and merwomen frolic, throwing forth jets of diamond water, while humanity flows and ebbs about the smooth marble base. There is the withered woman who sells pirated American tapes from a handcart that she scootches off at the first sign of law enforcement. Pigeons, the ubiquitous urban denizens, utterly suave in grey and black, with their soft wings and their soothing coos that are lost underneath the clatter of everyday London. This is not so much a plaza, not so much a place, not so much a concrete thing, as it is a moment in time. It is captured whole, in flashes, stored in the cerebral cortexes of passerbys, in the cameras of tourists, inexorably stamped in the mind of the lovers who stand locked in the middle of the square. Never mind that they have never kissed that they swear that they are friends, that she has not seen him for over a year. Never mind that his eyes sweep the populace for the eyes of an assassin, never mind that she cannot stay, that they are bound apart by strictures tighter than any convent or religion. Never mind that. Never mind that. For they are a religion, a faith unto each other, a blazing trust that crowds out all other considerations. For them, for this moment, there is only the strength of each other, the hard warmth of his body, and the way she smells of airplanes and dust and bitter living, the undefinable essence of her, solid, there, her hair like a beacon from his past, wonderfully alive. Her sharp little face snuggled into the curl of his shoulder, enfolded into the cloak of his trench coat, the way she leans into him, her arms around him, his arms around her as if this was where God fitted them, that this was where He measured this man's arms out and decreed that they would fit like this on Her, the way she falls into the crooks and the dips, the way she leans just right, standing on her tiptoes, face laid against his starched shirtfront. This moment, it is her hand stroking his jaw, and the way his eyes are a curious flow of green, gold, sepia, honey, cobalt, colors that there are no name for, pulsing with emotions there can be no names for. To the passerbys, they are romantic; they are beautiful. The man, crisp dark hair, broad shoulders and the well-made clothes, the long runner's torso, face cannot seen through the waving mass of her hair, as he seems to burrow into the crimson flag, hands hungry and tight across her delicately precious back, stroking, caressing the tiny little thing that he holds as if she were fine porcelain sculpted out of titanium. And his entire body swept into the slim woman who he cradles, the unearthly creature who appears to have melded into his brooding presence, wisps of hair very red against his black coat, as she is completely folded into his presence, floating in a pool of her lover, and her face a model of utter contentment as she breathes the smell of the man she has loved for so long. Slowly, he tilts her chin up. Her eyes blink. Her mouth opens, and he kisses her, looking for reluctance, a sense of holding back, and finds none for she has come precisely as she is, with no desires other than him. Softly, her hands come up around his hair, holding him to her, and softly, she lets a pair of plane tickets out of Heathrow drop to the ground. But that sound is lost amidst the breathy rush of pigeons, a fluttering chorus of hearts lifting nto the slate sky. . . . . A fan beats lazily in the humid air, swinging through the damp particles with a laconic manner, filling the room with a deep soft humming that is the background for the hiccuping heater that labors against the perennial chill. Flies buzz disinterestedly around the room, daring not to settle upon the cluttered surfaces for fearing they would never find their way out of the labyrinthine mess that is the man's new home. She laughs, pulling his shirt around her naked shoulders as she scoots off the bed: it is just like him to have absolutely no furniture, no cookware, no coat rack, yet there are books, boxes and boxes and stacks and stacks of books on all the subjects of the universe, and no shelves for them. Swept into corners, strewn across the floor, piled upon any flat area, in English, in Italian, in the German he is learning from tapes, even a thin volume of Cicero's speeches in Latin, conjugations scrawled in the margins in red ink. There are scientific abstracts, college textbooks, philosophical tracts, Smith and Marx sharing space with the Bible, which, heavy and black, is embossed in gold, surprisingly well worn. She runs her fingertips across the bumpy fake leather surface, wondering what stock this man would have with a monotheistic religion, understanding when it falls open to the Revelations, to the prediction of Armageddon. She slides into the kitchen and watches the light play on his bare shoulders as he makes something on the old gas range. There is the good, warm smell of frying food, the quickness of his hand upon the eggs is a sweet thing to her eyes. The sliding of the muscles is intoxicating, so she steps forward and cups her hands over the hardened muscles. "Mulder," she whispers softly into his side. "Mulder." He continues to whisk the eggs. "Mulder," she says again, poking him in the hip. He says, whisking the eggs to a cogenial light froth, "Fox Mulder's dead, you know. He died in a car crash on the thirteenth of December. "Thirty seven at time of death. No family in attendence. Not particularly mourned. Big bastard, you know.." She walks up behind him and leans against his back, pressing his vertebrae to her cheekbones, as if that would somehow change the sounds, but he says, "His partner, then diagnosed with a terminal cancer, entered remission upon the fourteenth of December of that year. Coincidentally Jack Garroway was born on the thirteenth of December." he announces, pouring the liquefied egg into the heated saucepan. The pan hisses and crackles, and he curses a little when some of the oil hits him on the forearm. "A professor of psychology at Westbury Community College, Jack Garroway lives at 2B Harrison Street, two miles from the campus. " Those are not tears, because Scully does not cry, and she does not cry tears, ever, because that would be unprofessional and undignified. "He does not own an automobile and chooses to walk to his place of work each morning." They look like tears though, dripping down his back. "Although it is known that Jack Garroway is an American, he is extremely reclusive about his past. It is believed he was born in Chicago, but spent the majority of his childhood in New England." They sound like tears, those little smothered noises. But they're not tears. Tears come from Mulder, and he is dead, so long live Jack Garroway. . . . . . The hot Virginia sun is benediction upon her shoulders: it chills cold marrow, it tickles her frozen skin, it sings within her body, setting a match to her hair, warming the empty places as she tilts her head up, mouth open, actively imbibing the radiation. It is a hot, welcome change after London, the first sign of homecoming amidst this bustling airport of strangers. Familiar, heavy as a blanket and blessed after the chilled anonymity of air conditioning. Smoothing the front of her skirt, she gets a whiff of her suit-stale cigarettes, gin, recycled airplane aroma, and ever so faintly him-and she wrinkles her nose. She has been wearing the same suit for three days, ever since she last left this airport, for she did not bring a change of clothes. Conscious hands smooth down her sleep-rumpled hair, even as she shakes herself like a dog emerging from the water, tossing off the patina of London even as the humidity sticks to her skin. Smiling, she tosses off the patina of London. 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