AUTHOR: Jillian (Jill) Bassavo

TITLE: Clinging to Threads With Shakespeare II: 'Our Minutes Hasten to Their End'

FEEDBACK: It's no lie...I reply!

AUTHOR'S E-MAIL: Xfile482@aol.com

ARCHIVAL: Case-by-case basis...please let me know.

CATEGORY:

RATING: PG-13 for language that I wouldn't use around my niece.

SUMMARY: Scully's thoughts on Mulder quoting "Sonnet 60" in the first part of what could end up being a series *gasp!*.

DISCLAIMER: I believe that if they WERE mine, I would have to admonish Duchovny for suing me. I would admonish him by giving him a good spanking and... *Ahem* Anyway, they're not mine.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: I've been the grateful recipient of twenty-four (I counted them) e-mails asking me to write a sequel to "Clinging to Threads With Shakespeare", and thirteen (counted again) *telling* me to get my ass to a computer and start typing (paraphrased). I was reluctant to do so, since it is the '90s and everyone knows that sequels in the '90s suck.

My good sense left me, however, as soon as my roommates and I got drunk. I told them about what I was being asked to do, and being wonderful friends, they gave me the 'go for it!' look before passing out on the couch.

The next morning, I had a really bad hangover. But the morning after THAT, I started coming up with ideas for this. I researched Shakespeare's "Sonnets" sequence, and I found some really good passages that seem to have Moose and Squirrel impaled on a pen (sorry for the analogy).

So here is the sequel I agreed to when I was drunk, and wrote when I was sober. Although if you don't like it you may not know the difference.

Let me know either way!

Jill

Oh yeah...one more. Poems used are "Sonnet 60" and "Sonnet 64" by William Shakespeare (in case you didn't know).

_______________

"Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,

So do our minutes hasten to their end;

Each changing place with that which goes before,

In sequent toil all forwards do contend.

Nativity, once in the main of life,

Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crowned,

Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,

And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.

Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth

And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,

Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,

And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow

And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,

Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand."

_________

'Despite his cruel hand....'

I wonder at these verses as I pore over them, reading them over and over again as the minutes stretch by. I feel as if Mulder has said something to me in another language, and all I can do is translate it to the best of my ability.

As soon as I left the office today, I headed for the Georgetown Library and checked out a volume of Shakespeare's complete works. When I got home, I flipped to the sonnets and started reading.

It took me almost an hour to find it, but there it is on the page, staring me in the face, daring me to uncover the not-so-hidden meaning that was given to me at work that afternoon.

We're getting old. *I'm* getting old.

I suppose I should have thought of it sooner. After all, we're not invincible. We won't be Ghostbusters forever, chasing down homicidal mutant psychos until the sun grows dim world spontaneously combusts. Someday we'll end up as mere memories in the basement and epitaphs on grave markers. Maybe a few references in another Jose Chung book, if we're lucky.

I must force myself to face the inevitable, the fact that we won't be here forever. And, even harder to accept, the fact that we're -- the fact that *I'm* -- getting older.

My fear of age has always been a source of speculation for me. Perhaps it stems from my great-grandmother complaining of how everyone assumed you were useless if you couldn't walk as fast, talk as fast, or live life in the rough alley as often. Being useless scared me, therefore being old scared me. Maybe I associated one with the other, until there was no boundary between getting older and growing useless.

Good God, I sound like Mulder on a psychology kick.

Or maybe, just maybe, I don't want to grow old alone. Ouch. That hurt. But isn't that the way the truth is?

I fear for my heart. I fear that one day love will become a distant memory for it, something that it is no longer capable of, just like I will no longer be capable of living my everyday routine. I fear that I'll forget how to love someone, how to love a man, and if a man comes by who decides that he wants to love me, will I be able to return the feeling the right way?

Of course, there's always Mulder.

Wait a damn second, Dana Katherine. How the hell is it possible for you to love a man you still call by his last name? Mulder. I snort derisively. 'I make my parents call me Mulder'. Well you can just shove that one up your ass. Your mother calls you Fox and you know I know it.

I turn my emotional dissection onto you, Mulder. It's a hell of a lot easier than doing it on myself.

Your moods are amazing and confusing. How you can switch back and forth from antagonist to protagonist is beyond me. One minute the government is out to get you, the next you're unwittingly assisting them in whatever nefarious plots against the world they've come up with next.

I can tell you've assembled in your mind a list, planning and plotting revenge to anyone who has even slightly helped with this shadowy conspiracy. You're bent on uncovering the truth about them, to expose these figures in the largest charade of all time. You've probably already mapped out the scenario: You're led to their headquarters by a source of yours. The place where everything is planned, discussed, agreed upon. Maybe the place is in New York City. Maybe it's right here in D.C. Maybe you follow the source, maybe they take you. The point is that you get there. And when you do, you wait quietly outside for a man with a penchant for Morley's to come out. Once he's outside, you seize him, shove him against the wall in an alley. Bitch-slap him a few times to shake him up. Then you demand answers. What happened to your sister? Why did I have cancer? Why did they kill your father? The list goes on and on.

In your scenario, he gives these answers to you. Freely, almost willingly. Telling you everything, and not excluding one gory detail. You listen, rapt attention focused on him. The picture is nauseous. A sick, gut-clenching parody of a father telling his son 'back in my day...' stories by the fireplace.

After you have your answers -- and you believe him, either out of desperation or stupidity -- you take him to a newspaper, a magazine, whatever. Maybe even "The Lone Gunman". He's exposed, he blows the whistle on his cohorts, the conspirators fall, and the government is back to normal.

Mulder, what you don't understand is that this *is* normal. These men are demi- gods, playing their part from a Greek tragedy to perfection. They plot and plan and ultimately control almost every aspect of international life. You want this to fall? This dynasty of lies and deceit? I do, too. But you can't yank off the hemmed tablecloth without breaking the dishes.

What makes you think the government can operate on its own? After decades of being jerked this way and that, being manipulated in a manner no better than comical puppets, what leads you to believe that it will function the way it was built to function? Is it blind hope? The faith in our elected authorities? Or is it just another classic example of how extreme cynicism and utter naivete can exist together in the same man?

You're a walking paradox Mulder. You believe, but you despise your beliefs. You strive for the goal, but you're also the only one really holding you back. You love me, you hate me.

Yes, Mulder. I do see that look in your eyes occasionally. The bitter look of a man who's been pulled down from his mountain peak by a mere woman. Someone who's been proven wrong by a short, narrow-minded redhead, who still entertains the possibility of a God she cannot see, but cannot believe in extraterrestrial phenomena she sees almost constantly.

A small, infinitesimal part of you still believes that my only thrill in life is seeing the look on your face when you're wrong. But in that aspect, you ARE wrong, Mulder. I know I can be a tight-assed scientest, a rational old maid who can take all of your theories and attempt to attribute them to the natural, the explainable, the only things I can reach out and touch with my hands and a dissection knife.

But I'm also your cheerleader, Mulder. I'm the one who watches your back when you can't watch your own, when your eyes are fixed on the goal. I'm the only one who knows you like I know myself, yet I barely know you at all. And that's the part of you that loves me.

I've seen that look in your eyes, too. When I'm telling you to be careful before you go on a mission that we both know is half-assed, and when I'm giving you proof that you just *might* be right...even sometimes when I volunteer to do the expense reports so that you can go home and get to bed, even though you and I both know that it's a futile attempt at sleep. When I'm doing these things, I'll look up in the middle of my sentence and lose my train of thought. Because there, in your eyes -- Fox William Mulder's eyes -- there's devotion. The look of a love so intense that it almost embarrasses me to be the recipient of it, and I turn red and start to stammer over what I was saying. That's when I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you love me.

Even though we know that loving each other is useless. We might as well hate each other and still get our jobs done.

In spite of this, in spite of all the things I do or say or prove or disprove, I'll always be Scully.

And you'll always be Mulder.

Why do you make me call you Mulder? Is it to keep me in my place? An attempt to reinforce boundaries that have fallen long ago? Or is it simply an utter abhorration for your first name?

I try to visualize how our partnership would have been different if I called you Fox and you called me Dana. Would we be closer? Doubtful. Althought it's amazing how you reel me in while still keeping me so far away. Would our relationship have more professional overtones? Possibly. Even though professionalism is something you never had on your 'Top Ten Values' list. Would our partnership be different at *all*?

It's then that I realize something: I wouldn't have our partnership any other way. True, sometimes I feel like screaming at you until one or both of my lungs collapse. And yes, it occasionally gets unbearably tense when we're on a case and you or I happen to see a man and a woman kissing, or hugging, or just holding each other. Then one of us strives for that; we use unnecessary touches and comments to attempt to move us towards that place, that place where that particular couple is. And of course, I feel like pumping you full of lead when we start to get to that place and suddenly one of your ex-girlfriends show up.

But excluding all that, there's so much that I couldn't give up. To repeat what my father told me on my eighth birthday, "Well, I was trying to get rid of you at first...but I got sort of attached." You're a drug, Mulder. And I'm a junkie.

I look at my watch. It's almost ten o' clock. I've been sitting here, staring at this page and composing a mental letter to myself from almost three hours. I shift in my chair. I'm stiff and sore from sitting here for that long. I wanted to finish my report to Skinner, but I've been poring over this poem, wasting time....

Time....

I think of Mulder, probably sitting in his apartment right now, chewing on sunflower seeds and reading a casefile, or watching one of his videos. Then I think of myself. Wasting away, returning to the earth as I die more each passing day. No, I'm not sick, and yes, the cancer is in remission. But my body's getting older. I can't run everywhere in five-inch heels like I used to. I can't go, go, go on three hours sleep and maybe a five-minute doze on a red-eye across the country.

I picture myself, thirty years from now, my body sagging in places that for now are firm and supple, growing wrinkled and grey. Alone. So horribly alone.

I imagine Mulder, thirty years from now, the same way. Lost muscle tone, deep trenches in the skin of his forehead, right where those little wrinkle-lines are now. Will he be alone?

The first line of a passage four paragraphs down from the one I was studying catches my eye, and I settle in to read it.

"When I have see by Time's fell hand defac'd

The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age;

When sometime lofty towers I see downras'd

And brass eternal, slave to mortal rage;

When I have seen the hungry ocean gain

Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,

And the firm soil win of the wat'ry main,

Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;

When I have seen such interchange of state,

Or state intself confounded to decay;

Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate--

That Time will come and take my love away.

This thought is as death, which cannot choose

But weep to have that which it fears to lose."

After a moment, I shut the book, grab my keys, pull on my jacket, and slip my shoes on. Will he be alone?

Not if I'm there.