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Perpetual Motion 1/1

I planned on writing this anyway but decided to kill two birds with one stone. Written for a fanfic challenge on Facebook for @wildwingsuz and her group in response to a photo prompt (A swing by a pond/lake) but also included is conversation prompt #19 for the anon who said the prompt “I’m okay”……..”You don’t look okay”……..”Well stop fucking looking then” sounds ‘totally Scully-esque’.

I agree wholeheartedly and this is the result.

Set during Revival and also recounts events pre IWTB

PERPETUAL MOTION

We had first discovered this place when we had already been living in the farmhouse for several months, happening upon it one fine Spring day when we finally began to properly explore the land that surrounded us on all four sides; the warmth of the weak sunshine tempting us to walk farther than we had during the frigid winter months where really, we had been far too preoccupied in trying to find a way to heal the wounds we had inflicted upon each other amid the confusion and uncertainty of our time on the run, than in venturing outside to map out our domain.

We knew there was a lake somewhere on the property – the real estate deeds had spoken of just such a thing – rather grandly called ‘Pioneer’s lake’- I’m guessing it was a man made relic of times gone by.

I’m not sure I would have called it a lake though because although large enough to house a small wooden dock which creaked ominously even under Scully’s slight weight, to me it was nothing more than an over-sized pond complete with a family of fat brown ducks who squawked an indignant warning amidst much ruffling of feathers at the pair of interlopers who had disturbed their quiet sanctuary. And sanctuary, as it turned out, was a pretty good description for this cool green oasis because from the minute she set eyes on it, Scully fell instantly in love.

To see her truly happy for the first time in months twisted and pulled at something deeply primitive that lay slumbering inside me and which I had thought had been quieted forever; namely my need to protect her, to give her whatever it might take to quiet the demons which plagued her so mercilessly and which had forced me to make the decision to finally stop running before I lost her forever.

We had found ourselves in a small town in Nevada in those final few weeks; sparsely populated, it had enough amenities to make life a little easier. No longer moving constantly as we had right at the very beginning we had, for the previous year or so, settled – if you could call it that – in similar non-descript places for just long enough to find some paid employment to boost our rapidly declining finances; a few weeks at a time where we found something cheap to rent and stopped to catch our breath.

Scully was usually the one who managed to find work – mostly waitressing, cleaning or bar work - menial labour that reduced her faith in herself just a little more each time. My beautiful brilliant partner with her quick mind and singular ability to rationalise the unimaginable was reduced to mopping piss from toilet floors or forcing herself to not react when the latest smarmy middle-aged yokel made eyes at her tits with barely concealed hunger as if she herself were a special on the menu.

And even though I tried to make things better for her, it became painfully obvious that somewhere along the way, the woman I had known for over a decade was steadily losing sight of herself piece by painful piece; becoming just a little quieter, just a little more insular as each nightmarish day melded seamlessly in to another.

The only position even remotely available to us where no awkward questions would be asked of us and which, more crucially paid in cash, in that shabby desert town had been a waitressing gig at the local ‘adult entertainment’ joint.

And whilst I had initially baulked at her willingness to take the job, the fact that we were literally down to our last few dollars pretty much removed any obstacle I might have laid down in her path and actually, as it happened, Scully seemed to enjoy that particular job more than she usually did, finding herself strangely comforted by the camaraderie shared by the girls who worked there and who immediately accepted her as one of their own.

She never found herself in trouble there either despite my fears to the contrary because the heavyset bouncers who patrolled the patrons did their jobs well, making it abundantly clear as to what was acceptable behaviour and what wasn’t.

Scully was floor staff and therefore strictly off limits and as the weeks passed by, I began to breathe more easily.

Until one night when she arrived back at the shabby one bedroom apartment we called home, hours earlier than she should have been, the paleness of her skin contrasting sharply with the blue black hair that hung past her shoulders and which, out of all the colours she had adopted since we became fugitives, I knew she hated the most.

She was shaking when she slammed the door shut behind her, leaning heavily on it as though she were being persued by the devil himself, blue eyes huge and darting wildly around the small room, skimming over me as though I weren’t even there. Her breath came in huge ragged gasps, each one hard fought and obviously painful for her as she just stood there, one small step from hyper ventilating in response to her panic and rendering me almost paralyzed with fear because of course, selfish bastard that I was, my first assumption was that they had found us, had found me.

I had called her name; a question that hung suspended in the air between us, the atmosphere suddenly so highly charged that I could literally feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

She had shaken her head from side to side, misinterpreting me and assuming I was concerned for her rather than for myself, repeating over and over again in a high pitched mantra that was so unlike her that I knew then that this was something different and that whatever this was, it was about her not about me.

“I’m okay….I’m okay….I’m okay….”

Over and over again she said those words while all the time twisting her fingers together as though she was unable to still, that this one connection to herself was the only thing keeping her from falling apart in front of me.

And I think I was more frightened for her then than I have ever been before or since, because it was clear that whatever had driven her to come home in such a state of extreme agitation had sent her headlong to the edge of the praecipe and only the barest thread was keeping her from toppling right the hell over it.

I had gone to her of course, covering her hands with my own in an attempt to still her movement and to some extent it had worked, her eyes finally meeting mine with a measure of surprise that I was even there with her at all.

“I’m okay.” She had repeated and if I had been thinking on any rational level I would have given her some space, backed right off until she had calmed down and the blankness of her expression had lifted again. But I was so fucking afraid for her at that point that the words were out of my mouth before I could prevent them.

“You don’t look okay.”

And that was enough to send her fleeing from me, snatching her hands from mine before pushing me roughly away, her expression so wretched, so hopeless that I don’t know how I managed to even stay standing, the pain radiating from her almost tangible and only equalling the venom which laced her response to my slightly clumsy assertion.

“Well then stop fucking looking.”

I winced at the sound of the bathroom door slamming shut behind her as she sought to distance herself from me, and winced all the more when the sound of her desperate weeping filtered through the flimsy barrier she had put between us, ignoring my every effort to get through to her until finally, I had simply kicked the door inwards, the force of my concern literally ripping it from its hinges and sending me headlong into the small room. The sight of Scully, naked and shivering, curled into a protective ball on the cold linoleum floor had literally stopped me in my tracks for a moment, until finally, she lifted her tear streaked face and held out her arms to me as though she were a small child in need of comfort.

It had taken hours to get the full story out of her but finally, finally, I had understood the events that had led to her arriving home in a state of such extreme distress.

A baby, brought to work by one of the girls when her sitter let her down. A request that Scully watch him for a while, stay with him, hold him. A baby boy, around nine months old and his name…his name was William.

I had almost thrown up as she explained, in between anguished cries and hitching breaths, how she had simply walked out of the club with him cradled in her arms, the feel of his solid warmth evoking such painful memories within her that she didn’t stop even once to think about what she was doing, because right then, at that moment he was William….her William and she just wanted to take him home where he belonged.

The rest of her account disappeared beneath the force of her distress, lost in a haze of tears and snot and desperate clawing of her hooked fingers against my skin and I had rocked her in my arms, whispering nonsense to her as my own tears scalded me like acid and the shame I felt for every wrong I had ever wrought upon her bubbled up inside me and blocked everything else out.

It was right at that moment I knew that this had to stop.

So the next morning while Scully still slept exhausted and heartsick, I placed the call to Skinner that I probably should have placed months before, giving him permission to access bank accounts that had been dormant for almost two years and to set the ball in motion that would eventually lead us to a simple farmhouse in rural Virginia where we could at least start to try to heal ourselves.

We never spoke of that night in Nevada again although for a while I hoped Scully might talk more about what had prompted her to walk out of that club holding someone else’s baby; but she never had and frankly I was just too afraid of what I might reveal if I scratched at her wounds too fiercely.

So with a disavowal so typical of us both we simply pretended it had never happened at all.

But that first Spring, the Spring we discovered the pond, was the start of a few years of simple pleasure that began to make us both believe that maybe, just maybe, we could actually play the game and win this time.

I had built her a swing in response to her assertion that the old oak tree that stood tall and proud at the edge of the lake was just crying out for one, that she had always wanted a swing when she was a child but had never lived anywhere where there was a tree big enough to support one. Plastic playground swings for Scully just didn’t cut it. She wanted a swing made of rope and wood, one which would weather the seasons and with care, would last for a lifetime; something constant and reassuringly solid in a life that, thus far for her had been anything but.

And of course I had obliged her, risking life and limb to knot the thick rope around the ancient bough, not quite ever managing to get both sides completely level no matter how many times I tried. But that was okay because it seemed slightly fitting somehow that it wasn’t quite perfect because God knows, we weren’t perfect either.

She had loved it of course just as I knew she would and that first summer she had spent hours just swaying back and forth as the sun warmed her skin and the soft fragrant breeze lifted her hair off her shoulders, hair that was now back to its natural colour and which seemed to lighten with each day that passed. And somehow, as she spent so much time in a state of perpetual motion, her feet barely grazing the grass beneath, propelling herself gently back and forth she began to heal,allowing both of us to enjoy a few blissful years before the darkness came once again – not for her this time but for me; consuming me from within and reducing everything we shared to a paranoid mishmash of hurt and pain and recrimination.

The swing became her safe place I think; a place to escape from me for even a short time as she tried desperately to reach me even as I blocked her out and refused her access.

Inevitably, eventually, she could stand it no longer and she left.

Dark days in my life where I shut myself away and allowed the paranoia to take full reign of me once more. I don’t know how I survived without her; I don’t know how I even allowed myself to and truthfully, I had almost forgotten about this beautiful little glade with its shimmering body of water where the wind whispered secrets of days past and which had become such a part of her that I think I had simply hidden it in the dark recesses of my mind, buried deep inside with the rest of the hurt I refused to face. It had taken me months to realise that there was no one left to help me and that my only remaining option was to finally help myself; to fight for her in a way I never had before.

Thus began a painful journey for me where I finally accepted outside help, laying myself bare to various health professionals as I fought with myself to admit I needed help; that the only way to get well was to acknowledge just how sick I had become.

I discovered something I thought maybe I had lost forever - namely a sense of pride in myself and even more than that, I knew deep down that she was proud of me too.

My Scully. Always my Scully even when we were unable be together.

And when she quietly told me that she wanted to come home, tears streaking her beautiful face that was still as exquisite to me as it had always been, the first thing I actually thought of was the swing; waiting until she had left to go back to the city and her soulless apartment before I took a trip into town, buying new rope to replace that which had aged and frayed over the years I had neglected to take care of it, laughing that same afternoon at the small scruffy terrier who sat below me, evaluating the work I was doing before taking off after a butterfly that danced across the lake and out of his reach.

It took a lot longer to fix the swing than I had expected, but time has mellowed me somewhat and I was content to take my time, to get it right.

And when I finally led Scully along the flattened trail that led to that beautiful, timeless woodland glade, twining my fingers with hers and rejoicing at the feel of her beside me, giving her a first look at the swing that, despite my best efforts was just as crooked and inexact as it has ever been, I felt more content than I think I ever have before.

Because I knew she wouldn’t care.

That to her at least, it would be perfect.

End

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