Title:  What they Carried
Author:  Jaime Lyn
Email: Leiaj@bellsouth.net
Category: total vignette.  (Maybe some "R" in there somewhere) This one's really short
Summary:  No matter who you are, you carry what is in your heart
Archival notes: archive anywhere and everywhere. I'd love to see this little story in a good home
Disclaimer:  I don't own them.  This is just my opinion of their characters.  Please don't sue. All you'll get is a pillow and maybe some gum… What can I say?  I am poor    :o)

Authors note: Hopefully, you'll find this one short and sweet.  I had a lot of fun writing it because the words just seemed to flow from my fingers. I think it's the holiday season getting to me.  Who knows?  At any rate, if you like it, drop me a line to let me know.  Feedback is like a present for the heart of any writer.

For my friends and family.  I always carry you with me.
 
 

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What They Carried
By Jaime Lyn
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He searched for his life in the sky, while she held steadfast to the ground; a sturdy shore of science and methodology. And perhaps that made them different.

And though upon her reality she sometimes found broken hopes and unfulfilled promises, he too sought clouds that crashed around his ankles.

"Proof, Mulder," she would always tell him over coffee and a worn out number two pencil, "that is the substance of things."

Every day she carried with her a briefcase, an arsenal equipped with the tools of her trade; practical, sensible medical journals, endless pencils, lab results, expense reports from the day before.  She carried her two year old, gray laptop, now in need of a serious upgrade, her black, scratched roller-ink pens to scribble merciless facts taken from a well of infinite knowledge; be it her science or his sky.  She carried a small, worn coffee cup, chipped on the handle, stained with shimmering peach Revlon.
 

She carried a cross on her neck and an ache in her heart.  She carried the need to watch the sky, and the fear to keep it at bay.

She carried with her a picture of him; dog-eared on the left corner and worn in the places she most liked to touch.

"Faith, Scully," he once told her over a French fry and a messy counter top, "that is what keeps us whole."

Upon his desk, he often flopped his faded Armani shoes over expense reports and carefully filed papers, lab results from last month and the month before, and pencils that skittered away from his legs and flew out at all angles.  He positioned on his blotter a picture of his sister, captured forever in a wooden frame that was cracked near the center.  Upon the corkboard behind his head, he pinned his soul; pictures of crop circles, newspaper clippings of Elvis, and sightings of ghosts in supermarket freezer sections.  Old, faded postcards sporting UFOs, maps of Area 51, post-its from yesterday's case and tomorrow's headache, and a Knicks bumper sticker.

Everyday he carried with him his drivers license, his ID displaying his right to traverse the Hoover building as a steady employee.  He carried change for the soda machine, a Marvin the Martian sticker in his wallet, his gun in his holster, a five for lunch down the street.  And a desperate need to discover the truth of things.

He carried her picture with him, slightly dog-eared at the edges, worn in the places he most liked to touch.

"Mulder," she often said over a salad and a diet sprite, "We can't go blindly looking for things that may not even be there."

Sometimes he agreed with her and sometimes he looked toward the more chaotic end of things. The difference in them was his tendency to look at the sky, while her feet were planted firmly on the ground.  He needed the endless possibilities. She needed the organization.

In her apartment, she liked arranging things orderly; a place for everything and everything in its place. In her CD holder was an alphabetical listing of classical artists, ranging from Brahms to Mozart, Williams, Bach and so on.  But in the back drawer of her living room armoire she hid "Hotel California" by the Eagles, "Yellow Submarine," by the Beatles, and "Little Earthquakes," by Tori Amos.  Sometimes, she listened to the latter over a white wine and salty tears of silent longing.

In her purse she carried with her a drivers license, her picture ID that identified her as an agent of the law, a legal pad and a few of her chewed pencils for emergencies.  She carried with her a cell phone, change for any given moment she might need it, her leather wallet and a picture of her mother.  She carried a folded picture of a lost child that could have been hers.  She carried a sadness belayed by a quiet strength.

She carried with her his picture, dog eared and well worn around the edges and in the places she most liked to touch.

"Scully," he would sometimes say, often followed by the static of a cellular phone, "the truth is out there, I believe in it.   One day we will find it if we keep searching. You and I…Our faith will find it, you'll see."

She liked to tell him that she believed in their unity every now and then, but occasionally the cadence of her voice wasn't strong enough for him. Have I taken her life from her? He would often wonder.  The difference between them, he knew, was that he liked to look towards the sky,  while she liked to stand on the shore.

Disarray was the only word for the way he kept his apartment, which was dusty and settled in muted shades of light, chocolate brown.  Upon his shelves sat a lonely, clouded fish tank lacking in fish, a book called "Telekinetic Experiences," which was the second in a series of twelve books on paranormal occult phenomenon, and a picture of his sister in a small, wooden frame.   On the bottom shelf was a worn out baseball glove, and the second book in his series of twelve, called "Unexplained Apparitions."  Next to that was a pair of chattering red lips that had broken, a large volume called "Einstein's Theories," and under that an old, dusty business card that read, "Dana Scully, professor of forensic pathology; Quantico, 584-555-7867, ext. 385."

Everyday he carried with him a pair of grinning aliens on the dashboard of his car, his cell phone tucked away in the inside corner pocket of his dress jacket.  In his wallet he carried a black and white photo of his family from 1968, the number for the department of defense, scribbled on the back of a gas receipt, a broken off game piece from the old game "stratego," and spare dollars for a trip to the convenience store.  He carried his need to believe, his desire for simple faith and the hope that he would never lose it.

He carried with him a picture of her, slightly dog eared and worn around the edges and in the places he most liked to touch.

"You know something," they often said to one another, from the comforts of a lingering glance or the safety of intertwined fingers, "I don't think I will ever understand you."

But even still, they carried with them a bond that could not be broken, a faith that could not be matched, and a look of hope that said "we will do it together, no matter what," at the end of each grueling day.  They carried with them a truth in spirit, an affection that could never be matched, and a connection that despair could not rival. They carried their love for each other, wrapped up in a canyon of opposites that could never divide them.  Even though the difference was that he looked for his life in the sky, while she held steadfast to the ground.

And perhaps over an ocean of differences, that one thing made them whole.
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END
 

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