Title: If Only For Tonight
Author: Elizabeth L. Iacono
Rating: PG
Category: Vignette
Keywords: Doggett POV
Spoilers: The Gift
Summary: "Tonight I looked through his eyes, and 
          I saw how he thinks."

Note: I haven't read any other post eps for 
'The Gift' yet, so if anyone else has something 
similar out, it wasn't intentional.

Thanks to Maeve for the beta! :-)

Disclaimer: None of the characters mentioned are mine.

Feedback: Brings light to my bleak college life.  
            RhiaRamsay@aol.com

Archiving: I'll send it to Gossamer and the Spookys.  
Xemplary, KTF, Legacy, and Ephemeral (if they're 
still doing it like this, I'm not sure of the 
posting policy any more) can have it automatically.  
Anyone else, please ask me first.


If Only For Tonight
Elizabeth L. Iacono


     As far as I can tell, Fox Mulder and I are 
nothing alike.  We come from totally different 
backgrounds, he an Oxford grad, me a Marine.  
We've got totally different views of the world 
around us, and if you asked me any thing about 
who he really was I would have just shrugged and 
pointed you in the direction of Agent Scully.

     But tonight...

     Tonight I looked through his eyes, and I 
saw how he thinks.

     It was almost frightening in a way, to be 
able to get myself into his head like that, 
amongst all the cobwebs and little green men.  
I wonder if it was like that for Mulder when he 
was doing profiles, getting so deep into the 
heads of the scum of the earth.  Did he start 
acting like them?  Thinking like them?

     I don't know.  I don't think I'll ever know, 
and I'm not sure I want to know.  I deal with 
facts, cold hard truths that I can wrap my fingers 
around and see with my eyes.  This...this is 
something totally out of my league.

     But for this one night I saw through his 
eyes, and I think I have a better understanding 
about the man behind the spooky myth.

     Fox Mulder went to Pennsylvania to find a 
soul eater, a legendary creature rumored to heal 
people by consuming and taking their illnesses 
into itself.  A short while later Mulder returns 
to put three bullets into the creature.  Why?  
What would possess him to murder a man in cold 
blood?

     When it's not a murder in cold blood at 
all.  When it's an attempt to spare a being any 
more pain in a long, painful life.  Mulder looked 
into the creature's eyes and saw pain, a pain 
that he wanted to try to alleviate.  Most men 
I know would take the other way out, to run the 
other way and never look back.  But not Mulder.  
He was the one to go and get rid of the creature's 
pain, irregardless of how everyone else would hate 
him for it.

     What does that say about his character?  That 
he's a nut?  That all those rumors about him being 
one card short of a full deck are true?  I don't 
know for sure, but I don't think so.  I think it 
was a very honorable move on his part.  Being in 
the Marines you learn all about honor, what it is 
and how to act it.  Mulder wasn't a Marine, not by 
far, but I get the feeling that this noble streak 
is just somehow a part of who he is.

     It also makes me wonder if he ever went 
through with the cure.  I get the feeling that 
he didn't.  Why would he add to another's pain 
so he could get rid of his own?  From what I can 
tell, it doesn't seem like something he'd do.  
Whatever the answer is, maybe I'll ask him about 
it when he gets back from wherever he is.

     So where does that leave me?  I guess still 
in the basement, looking for him and keeping an 
eye out for his partner (whom I suspect, but cannot 
confirm is his partner in more ways than one).  I'm 
not trying to become him, no way in hell, but, if 
only for tonight, I understood him.  I even had 
an experience that would qualify as a bona fide 
X-File.

     I get the feeling Mulder would be proud.



That's all folks!  Just a little shortie spurred 
on by the return of my favorite FBI agent...and 
it ain't Doggett I'm talking about. *veg*

Liz/Lizabelle/Lizzie
*************************************
The Pseudo1013 Gang:
Smurf- PseudoChris: Have you seen my board?
Brie - PseudoFrank: You gotta try some of this!
jeri - PseudoDuchovny: Solving the mystery of the heart, one story at a time.
Liz - PseudoVince: You cannot resist the Fluff......
Lola - PseudoMark: The X-Files is a show.....With music by Mark Snow.....
Mel - PseudoKim: What the *bleep* *bleep* *bleepidy*?
Katrinka - PseudoTom: Whoa whoa, simmer people, simmer.
Maeve - PseudoMorgan'n'Wong: We got the strength of our beliefs.
Rotem - PseudoShiban: Baaa. Meow.
Kate - PseudoRob: And I thought I was nuts.
Lara - PseudoJeffrie: The blind leading the blind... 
Alexa - PseudoDavidA: Mine mine mine, he's all mine!
Mike - PseudoLoriJo : It's like a little boys' nursery school I've come upon 
here.