"Lovers, if they knew how, might utter strange, marvelous
words in the night air."

~~Rainier Maria Rilke  -- Duino Elegies: The Second Elegy~~
______

THURSDAY, MAY 17, 2000
MEL SCARLETT'S PLACE, HARRISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA
LATE EVENING

FROHIKE:

The coffee is poured, over and over. Our breakfasts-for-dinner arrive, are eaten, and more coffee is drunk. We watch every table in the place turn over time after time before I pause for air.

I started at the beginning, you see. Back at the Baltimore Convention Center, eleven, almost twelve years ago now, where it all began. That in and of itself takes a long time to tell. I didn't whitewash the pertinent details, although I confess to having given her a slightly condensed version. But I still had to tell her all the other things we've managed to get ourselves into during all the rest of those years.

I kept talking, and she kept listening. Any time during the tale, she could have screamed and headed for the hills, but to my deep surprise, not to mention appreciation, she's still seated with me, drinking coffee, listening carefully. Her expression is thoughtful, intrigued. Some of my revelations bring deep concern, but she's still there. She has yet to speak, though.

"You've certainly seen some action," she understates, laughing quietly.

"I think you're one of the few women I've spoken to that didn't accuse me of making it up," I chuckle back. My tone is light, but the relief I feel is immense.

She shakes her long braid. I love her hair. I wonder how it looks when it's unwound, hanging loose around her... I wouldn't mind finding out. The lovely hair frames an intelligent, rounded, lively face, with dark, sparkling eyes that glint with mischief.

"Mel, you know I've been an ER nurse for thirty years. I've seen some pretty amazing things in that time."

"Yes, I've enjoyed the stories." Well, most of them. Some nursing humor is lost on me.

"Well, the ER is one of the most tragic, disgusting, hilarious places on earth. But it's not just work, Mel, it's my life." She motions the waitress over for a refill. They should just leave the pot on the table. "As you know, I'm divorced. Have been for a long time. I've never told you about it."

"You don't have to if you don't want to." I really have no desire to relate the details of my own divorce. Mel asked about my work, but thankfully left that aspect of my personal life alone.

She laughs. "It's old news now, but it might give you some insights as to why I'm fairly shock proof."

"So what happened?"

"Well, on the surface, it's the same old same old. He left me for another woman. The twist was, he was the other woman."

Well, no wonder I was having trouble locating him. Probably changed his name. None of us thought to look for a woman.

"Bill became Willow about two years after he left me. He hoarded the child support so he could go to U Wisconsin and go through the change. Personally, I thought he was nuts. Why would you want to change yourself to be able to wear pantyhose?" She sighs.

I can get behind that, I've worn the horrible garment. For Halloween, of course, and only because we lost a bet with Mulder, but I'll tell her that one another time, assuming she's sticking around; by giving me the details of her past life, I'm thinking it might be a possibility. I hope so.

"I take it he didn't see the children?" I think this is the case, and a particular thorn in her side, even more than the unpaid support.

"He felt that at the time the children would be too young to understand. Perhaps he was right. I've explained it to them, but how the hell do you tell your kids that their father doesn't want to be their father anymore?" That saddens her, and me.

What I wouldn't have done to be a father to my kids... If I'd had the chance, believe me, I would have. Unfortunately, when it came time to decide custody issues, I didn't have many cards to play. I was broke, trying to make a living selling pirate cable and keeping Langly from being too much competition. It was a year or so before we met Byers, actually.

"And to this day, that's how they see it. Their daddy didn't want to be their daddy. Of course it's much more complicated than that, but kids, they don't understand that."

"I could see why."

She smiles at me. "Enough of my troubles. It's old news, and I've made as much peace with it as I can -- in other words, a lot of it will always be unresolved, but I have a life to live." She winks at me. I feel my heart start to race, and my cheeks grow warm. Thank God I'm not pale like Byers and Langly, or I'd have a major blush attack going. "Tell me about what you've done since you left Harrisburg in January." We haven't gotten past that point yet. She smiles. "I really would like to know.

"Well, you know we bought a house." This seems a gentle enough way to ease into it.

"So you said. Tell me all about it."

"It's a money pit." It is; I have visions of that Victorian monstrosity draining far too much of our resources. "We're still rewiring and insulating the damn place. Langly hasn't set it on fire yet, but that's probably coming." God help us. "I suppose I should be grateful, now that we can actually afford the mortgage payments."

"So the job in California was profitable?"

"Ultimately." It's a long and winding road to how we got there, but there's still plenty of coffee left in the world. At least, I think so; Mel and I may have drunk up at least half the planetary supply tonight. "Langly did a hell of a lot of work on it."

"Oh, Deborah's young man, right. I swear, I'm having more fun watching her be head over heels gaga in love with that boy. I haven't seen Deborah this happy in all the three years I've worked with her. You can see the air under her feet." She chuckles. "And there is, of course, the fact that in another few weeks, she'll be out of Dismal, Pennsylvania."

"I don't know if that's so great, if you're headed for DC."

"She's thrilled about it. I think having her boyfriend there is only making this more exciting for her." Mel smiles and sips some more coffee.

"I just hope she gets to see him once in a while."

"Touche." She clinks her mug with mine. "So what happened in California?"

It was beyond total weirdness, actually. How do I tell her? "It was... very, very strange."

LONE GUNMEN HQ
LATE NIGHT

BYERS:

Everyone's been gone for a while, and it's just me and Langly again. We actually got a lot of work done today, despite our diversion. I'm still feeling a mild buzz, but only enough to be relaxed and at ease. It was nice to be able to just let go for a while, be a little giggly and unfocused.

Ringo and I have been talking since everyone left, about a lot of things. Somehow we've landed on poetry, and I've been complaining for about the last half hour about bad poetry. We've been looking up examples on the net, so that I can illustrate the difference to Langly, who's never been much into literature, much less any kind of poetry.

"Now here's one," I'm pointing to a particularly bad example in an online poetry journal, "that I wouldn't use for fertilizer." I swear, it's almost worthy of Bulwer-Lytton.

"Well, yeah, John, but you haven't really talked much about good poetry yet. Like, how do most people tell the difference? I mean, I think Sari writes really good poetry. Especially that stuff she was reading at the Bean for me and Deb. Oh, man, that poem I sent her, I've seen it everywhere on the net lately."

I groan. In all the confusion, I never got around to telling Sari what Langly had done. "She's probably going to have your ass on a plate, Ringo. You do know that she makes part of her living from this, don't you? I don't imagine that she's going to be very happy that you've published one of her poems before she was ready to release it."

He looks sheepish. "I never thought of that," he says. "I... um... guess you're gonna tell her, aren't you?"

"What would you suggest instead?"

"Well, if nobody tells her, she won't know, right?" I shake my head.

"I suspect that even if we don't tell her, she'll find out eventually, and then you'll have to tell her it was you who let it out on the net."

"But it's a totally hot poem. She writes really awesome poetry, Byers. I just wanted to share some of it with Deb. I mean, wouldn't you wanna share something with Sari if you thought it was really awesome?" He's got a bit of a pleading look in his eyes.

I have to sympathize. He's right; if I found something I liked that I thought she would, I might do the same thing, but I'm not going to encourage him to do it again.

"I would have asked first."

He looks at me. "That's the problem with you, Byers." He shakes his head and sighs. "My eyes are like totally gone. Time for a break."

Mine are too; they still get tired far too easily. He heads over to the red couch, and we both plant ourselves there and lean back into the thinning upholstery.

"Things have really been a lot different around here this year," he says quietly. I nod. They certainly have. Here isn't even the same 'here' we started in. "I mean, we've been through hell and back, we've been shot at and beat up and almost killed and..." he slows into silence.

"But you did meet Deborah. That wasn't a bad thing." Meeting her and having her out to see him really has brought about a change in him. He's showed some real signs of taking more responsibility for himself and his life since then. He smiles.

"Yeah, that was a real good thing, dude. It was almost worth what I went through to end up in her ER." He chuckles but then his face sobers. "Not like I'd wanna do it again, though. Rough price to pay to meet somebody to love." Langly looks at me, cradles his hands behind his head. "It was sorta like what we went through when you met Susanne, but with a happier ending."

I can't help but twitch at the comment. It doesn't hurt quite as much as I thought, but the memories are still very painful. "

You know, John, I haven't heard you talk about her in quite a while. I mean,  not like you used to. It's like... it's kind of a relief, really. Are you doin' okay about it?"

Doing okay? I have to think about that one for a while, and I close my eyes to focus a little better. It takes a few minutes, but Langly waits, saying nothing. His capacity for patience seems to have increased this year as well.

"I don't really know," I finally admit with a sigh. "I guess so. Thinking about her doesn't hurt so much anymore. I guess that's progress."

Langly nods. I don't think we'd be talking about any of this under normal circumstances. Most of the time, when I talk about these things at all, it's with Frohike, or lately, with Sari. I have to wonder how much of this is the weed talking, and how much of it's me, finally willing to discuss it with Langly. He's always been pretty cavalier about it, except when one of us has been having nightmares, but this feels okay, at least for the moment, so I continue.

"Talking about it has helped a lot more than I thought."

"That what you and Sari talk about? Susanne?" He's curious, cautious. "I mean, I don't know the names of Deb's old boyfriends, and I really don't want to, either."

"Sometimes. We talk about a lot of other things too, though. Sometimes she talks to me about Barry. It amazes me that she survived that marriage." Some of the things he did to her just turn my stomach. If he wasn't already in prison, I'd put him there again; a dozen times wouldn't be enough. The anger I feel toward him almost overwhelms me sometimes. How could that bastard hurt her like that?

Langly shakes his head. "Man, that had to suck, getting beat up by her old man and all. I don't understand why she didn't pack up and leave him earlier."

"It wasn't for lack of trying, Ringo, you know that. He was stalking her constantly."

"I know, but really, dude, it was a good thing you two met each other. You've been real different since you met her. I mean, not like in a bad way, but..."

"Langly, don't go there," I snap. I'm angry that he'd bring up Sari in that context.

He holds up his hands in front of him to stop me. "Whoa man, whoa, I wasn't going anywhere near that. I know you guys are just friends, okay? Peace out. I'm just saying that she's been good for you. And you've been good for her too, from what Devi says. I mean, I don't think you've ever been happy since I met you, not really. Not like you weren't okay to be around or in a good mood, or didn't laugh or smile sometimes, but like, just happy. You know, feeling like it's good to be alive. But that started to change after you met her. It's like you were never quite... I dunno, maybe like there was something missing, something that would let you be happy, and when Sari came along, she kinda helped you find it."

"I... she..." He's right. I remember how, for years, I felt that my life was empty. There's still a hole there, but I'm feeling it less these days. Maybe it's gotten smaller. Sari opened my eyes, showed me that I have more than I ever knew. "You're right, Ringo. I guess for a long time, I always felt like part of me was missing, and that part was Susanne, but Sari helped me see it wasn't her, it was... maybe it was just being able to talk to someone who would listen without trying to judge me, without trying to tell me how to run my life. I mean, sometimes I can talk to Mel, but you know how he is."

He snorts. "Oh yeah. Thinks he's our mother. Always trying to tell us what we're doing wrong and how to do it his way."

I nod. We've both lived with the man long enough. We know he cares about us, loves us even, but he usually shows it by treating us like we're his kids. I think we both understand it better now, after Mel told us about his brother, but it still grates sometimes. He's easier on me than my dad ever was, though.

I tried so hard to be the man my dad wanted me to be, but I've never managed to measure up. When I entered this life, started doing what I had to do to warn people about the conspiracies, the hidden dangers, he turned his back on me, and we haven't spoken since. I wish it was different. I wish he was willing to see the truth. I wish he'd leave our politics out of it and just acknowledge me, treat me like I'm still his son. I never wanted to fight with him, alienate him. All I really want is for the two of us to get along, to be a family again.

"Sari's never been like that with me, never tried to tell me what to do with my life. She just... she just listens. When I talk to her, I don't feel like she's going to laugh at me -- except about the aliens -- or pretend to be my mom, or hold my mistakes against me. She doesn't tell me I'm a failure or a disappointment. I don't know, I guess she's made so many mistakes of her own, she really doesn't feel it's her place to rub anyone's nose in theirs. It's like she holds up a mirror, and I can see myself in it more clearly than I could before. She asks me questions, makes me think about things in new ways. And she would do that for anyone. I've never thought she had some hidden agenda with me, like most people do. She doesn't try to use me; she's honest with me. That's something that... something that Susanne never gave me." I stomp hard on my reaction to that thought. God, it hurts.

Langly leans forward, resting his arms on his lap.

"Never gave any of us," he observes, his voice much more gentle than usual. "With her, it's like she was always hiding something. There was always a sucker punch right around the corner. And me and Mel, man, we could never talk to you about it. You'd never even give us a chance. We'd say something about her and it's like, you'd just freak. We did our best, tried to help her out, for your sake, but it was always for you, Byers, not for her. And when I first met Sari, I was like really sure she was gonna be the same way. And you were in the hospital all messed up, hurt bad, and I was totally prepared to hate her guts for getting you hurt, but I was so wrong about her. She really cares about you, like I don't think Susanne ever really did. She cares about you a lot, like we do, or maybe kinda like the way Deb cares about me." He pauses, knotting his long fingers together, and then looks down at the floor.

"I'm kinda gettin' freaked about Deb coming, you know. It's like, what if this changes things? What if it doesn't work out? What if... what if we find out that we're okay long distance, but when we're in the same city we're a disaster?" He looks up at me, his blue eyes clouded and nervous.

I put an arm around his shoulders. "I don't think you really need to worry about that. Deborah may not have the life experience that Sari does, but I think she's got a good head on her shoulders. She handled what happened very well, better than we had any right to expect. And the fact that she stayed after getting shot at really says a lot about how she feels about you. She really does want to be with you."

I sigh. Susanne didn't. I still haven't quite been able to let go of her. What Langly's said about her is painful to hear, but I know it's true. If she had just asked for my help, instead of... she walked into my life with lies, and walked out with a lie, and I've loved her despite all of it, no matter how much it's hurt, or what it's cost.

Langly's lucky; there's nothing duplicitous about Deborah. She's not a particularly subtle person, but then, neither is he. If she ever decides to leave him, they'll both see it coming, no questions. He'll never have to go through years of waiting and wondering, never knowing what she really felt, or if she really wants him. I'm even feeling jealous of him. That's a new one.

"I think you two will be fine, Ringo. I don't think she'll lie to you about what she feels, or what's going on between you. I think you're really lucky to have someone like Deborah. She says what she feels, and she acts on it. If there's ever any problem, she'll let you know, and you'll both be willing to work on it together. I wish Susanne had been like that. I know what she said to me, the things she told me, but I'll never really know if she ever loved me. I'll never know if she wanted me, if she ever honestly cared for me. You... you have that certainty. It's something I'll never have." I pull away again, feeling isolated.

He shakes his head. "Man, Johnny, you know I'm sorry about what happened with Susanne, what she did to you, but, like, give yourself a chance. You just need some more time. One of these days, you'll find the right lady." He looks at me meaningfully, and I can almost hear him thinking 'you already know her, you dufus' but thankfully he doesn't go there.

I really don't see what Sari could possibly want with me, even if she was looking for someone. We're friends; close, even intimate friends, yes, but nothing more. Sari's courageous and strong and attractive and intelligent, and with her personality, she honestly could have anyone she wants. There are a lot of men who would be delighted to give her a good life, to give her the love she deserves. After what she went through with Barry, she needs peace and stability in her life, and that's something I could never give her. I'm just grateful and happy that she's my friend. It's already far more than I could ever have asked.

"I hope you're right," I tell him. "Sari did threaten to introduce me to all her friends." We both smile. Maybe someday, if I'm lucky, I'll find someone who could tolerate living with me, who might be able to understand what I do, and cope with my life and the guys that are all I have of family anymore. And, if I'm really blessed, maybe it'll be someone who will love me despite myself, and accept my close friendship with Sari.

"Byers, you're a hell of a lot cooler than you ever give yourself credit for. Like, chicks dig you."

I laugh at the irony. "If chicks dig me, none of them has ever bothered to say so to me."

"Maybe not, dude, but they sure check out your ass." We both laugh at that one. He's lying through his teeth, of course. "Hey, no, really -- I've seen it. Besides, Sari thinks you're hot."

I choke. "She what?" I glare at him. "I thought you weren't going to mess with me about her."

"No, really Byers. She said so." He's got a Cheshire cat grin on his face.

"In your presence? I doubt that."

"It was when she and Devi were having that fight." I can't believe that. I don't remember her saying anything of the sort. "I thought you heard it."

I shake my head. He nearly splits a gut laughing.

"That was just before she ran out of the room. I can't believe you didn't hear that. Man, Johnny, you are so totally hopeless."

"I was a little busy at the time, as you may recall." I glare at him again. "You and Frohike were practically suffocating me to keep me from saying anything." He continues laughing.

"Really, Byers. Devi thinks you're a bodacious dude too. That's what they were saying before all the screaming started." He barely manages to gasp it out through his laughter.

I can feel myself turning scarlet. I can't believe Sari would say that about me; she's not attracted to me like that. Langly's trying to get my goat, and he's doing a pretty good job of it. I'm really angry now.

"I thought we were having a real conversation for once. I wondered where the real you went."

"Honest, Johnny, it's true. Ask her yourself when she gets back. Or ask Devi. She'll tell you the truth." He's still giggling, and shaking his head at me.

"This conversation is over. Good night." I get up and leave sharply, punctuating my displeasure as I head for the stairs. He can't leave it alone, and shouts after me.

"That's right, Byers -- stick your head in the sand. Hope you got a bunch of Q-tips to clean your ears out with. When Sari finally comes after you, you're never gonna know what hit you."

God, what a lying sack.

"I mean it, man. One of these days, bam  -- neither one of you's gonna see it coming, and I'm gonna be laughin' my ass off."

And here I thought we could have a conversation where he wasn't going to give me any shit about Sari. Well, that was too much to hope for.

"Shove it, Langly. Go amuse yourself with some of Frohike's old copies of Celebrity Skin." I don't give him a chance to reply as I hurry up the stairs to my room. I should have known better than to confide in Langly. He's made some headway, but he still has a long way to go.

I'm too confused right now to sort my thoughts out. Susanne and Sari are running through my head, and the feelings I'm having are so murky that I just don't know what to do. I wish I could just let go and never have to think about Susanne again. I wish that my emotions weren't so messed up around her, that she'd never left, that she really meant it when she said she loved me.

I wish Sari was here, because I know I could talk to her, and I'd feel less confused when we were done. God, I miss her. She'll be back Saturday, but right now, those two days feel like a lifetime. I need the peace of her presence right now. It's going to be a long, sleepless night.

End part 03