Title: I Spy With My Little Eye ... Author: dlynn Feedback: dlynn1550@my-deja.com Category: vignette, Scully angst Distribution: Xemplary, yes. Please, don't forward to Gossamer; I'll take care of that. Spoilers: Within Rating: G Summary: Truth is a matter of perspective. Disclaimers: I wish they were mine ... sigh. My other stories can be found at http://home.mpinet.net/laster "I spy with my little eye ... something red," Bill shouted from the back of the station wagon where he scrambled around on all fours in the cargo area like some horse on locoweed. "Come on, Missy, I know you can't get it." "Hold your horses, Billy; it's the red shirt that lady has on ... the fat lady, walking into the store, carrying the blue purse," Missy smirked, pointing out the window. Bill stopped his twirling in a circle and shook his head from side to side with a satisfied smile. "Nuh uh, Missy. Told you ... you can't get it." "I get more than one guess, William Scully. You have to give me more than one guess." Missy turned and began searching the Stop-N-Go's small parking lot. "It's the red stop sign ... you see it, Bill, the one right there on the corner of Merkle and Sweetwater." Missy wasn't nearly as confident this time. Seemed as though that would be too easy ... an old stop sign. "Nope." "Uh .... " Missy changed tactics and began searching vainly through the car. There really wasn't anything red in it. Finally, her eyes paused at Dana who was quietly coloring in a coloring book. Little sister had been very focussed, crouched down in the floorwell, right underneath the dashboard. Dana didn't want to play and had her coloring book spread open on the passenger seat as she sat on her knees on the floor. She splashed yellow, orange, green, and red across the page, coloring small packages that sprinkled around a Christmas tree. Her small fingers scribbled as carefully as they could, doing their best to stay within the lines. Daddy liked it when she stayed within the lines. And this drawing was for him. Mommy promised Daddy would be home soon. Home for 'Chrithmasth' Dana always slurred, her lisp frustratingly apparent to everyone no matter how hard she tried to speak clearly. Sister Teresa always scolded, "Enunciate, Dana; you must enunciate your words so people will understand you." Dana wasn't sure what enunciate meant, but she did know that she should try and speak carefully and slowly, trying to speak her alphabet and words as Mommy and her had practiced. "Thhhnake," Dana parroted. "No, watch my lips, Dana. Sssssnake. You can do it, honey," Mommy coaxed. Screwing up her face, then spreading her lips into a thin, false smile, Dana poked her tongue slightly between her teeth and hissed, "Ssssssnake." "That's it, baby! Good." Dana smiled and Mommy circled her arms around her, pulling her daughter into a huge, squishy hug. Dana was tired of kids running around singing, "Dana Thcccccculy talkths stho funny." Missy scrambled across the front seat, her legs poking at the ceiling as she slid awkwardly across on her belly. With her sloppy hop into the driver's side of the car, she smacked her elbow on the steering wheel. "OWWWW!" she wailed, clutching at her funny bone, trying to hold the tears that threatened to spill from her eyes, but it was no use. Large crocodile tears spattered her face as she clutched at her sore arm. Billy laughed and began to spin in a circle again. "Sisters ... You might as well forget it, Missy; you're never gonna get it." "Wanna bet, Bill Scully." Missy angrily wiped at her face with the corner of her sweatshirt. With hiccuping gulps of air, she calmed herself and stopped crying, frustrated that she'd been such a baby in front of her older brother. Finally, after taking great satisfaction by swiping at her nose with Billy's knit scarf that she'd found on the dashboard, Missy remembered why she'd jumped the seat in the first place. She reached for Dana's coloring book and grabbed the pages from the small, startled girl. Shaking the book triumphantly in front of Bill, she smirked. "It's the Santa hat, Bill. The red is the Santa hat in Dana's picture." "I don't see any red," Bill laughed, watching Dana scramble up from the floorboards and launch herself at Missy who was still flinging the coloring book through the air, the pages ruffling back and forth so that none were visible for inspection. "Gimme that back, Misthy!" Dana howled. "That'ths for Daddy." "Billy, you know darn well it's the Santa hat. You aren't playing fair. You're changing your answers." Missy huffed as she pushed and slapped at her sister who was trying to snatch the book out of her hands. "Fess up, Billy, you're changing answers, and that's cheating!" "I'm not cheating, Missy. Really. I don't see anything red in that book and besides ... that's just not it anyway." "Misthy, give me my book. NOW!" Frustrated that she couldn't get Bill's puzzle, Missy shoved her little sister one more time. "Get off me, Dana. I'll give you the book. Thhhtop your thtupid whining." Missy lisped, angrily mocking her sister and shoving Dana harder, until the little girl fell back down into the foot well. Fed up, Missy threw the coloring book on top Dana. Dana sat there, her bottom lip trembling, tears pooling within her eyes. She had whacked her head on the dashboard as she'd tumbled off the seat and into the small floor area of the car. The pain shot up the back of her head just like the time she'd fallen off of Bill's bunk bed and she felt as though she was gonna throw up. She hated throwing up she thought, squelching the nausea that threatened to rise. Missy looked down at her little sister, seeing Dana hunched over her coloring book, the page she'd been so diligently coloring torn up the center of the Christmas tree. Dana raised her head and stared at Missy. Dana's eyes reflected pain. And even as her small sister rubbed at the back of her head, where she had obviously smacked when she fell, Missy knew Dana's pain was not from being conked on the head. Not really. Dana's anguish stemmed from hurtful words and her ordered world that had just been torn in two - supposedly by someone who loved her, someone she trusted, someone who should have known better. Setting her jaw, Dana stilled her trembling lip. Her gaze hardened as she determinedly fought the tears, refusing to give into the emotional or physical pain that wrenched through her. She stiffly got up from the floorboards, untangling her arms and legs from her mittens and scarf and the box of crayons that had spilled. With determination she began to place each and every Crayola back into its place in the box. She didn't look at Missy or Bill. She just worked, trying to right what was wrong. "Here, Dana, let me help you," Missy entreated, feeling like the lowest slug for the way she'd treated her sister. "That'ths, okay Misth ... hmm...mm..." Dana stopped her motions. Looking up at her sister who leaned worriedly over the seat, Dana slowly and carefully repeated her words. "That's okay, Missy. I've got it." Seeing the distress in Dana's eyes as she clearly enunciated her words, Missy refrained from commenting or apologizing for her earlier angry mocking. Dana's determined face gave Missy pause ... She knew Dana fought to keep from crying and didn't want to acknowledge Missy's unkind words, even if it were in the form of an apology. Missy honored her sister's silent request and directed the child's thoughts away from her lisp. "I'm sorry about your picture, Dana. Maybe I can help you tape it back together, good as new." Missy grabbed a green crayon off the floor and handed it to Dana. "Really, we can tape the back and no one will even notice that it's torn, Dana. I promise." "I'll know, Missy. It's not the same." Dana shoved the last crayon into the box and bent the crushed lid awkwardly over the top. She scrambled back into her seat, drawing up her legs underneath her, and she patted the seat beside her, encouraging Missy to sit. Missy's eyes sought Dana's and saw nothing but affection for her older sister, which made the whole thing so much worse as far as Missy was concerned. Dana trusted her, and she'd broken that trust ... in the worst possible way. She settled herself beside the little girl and gently reached across and took Dana's hand within her own, clasping their fingers together. "I love you, Dana," Missy whispered, only loud enough for Dana to hear. "I know, Missy. I love you too even though you hurt me." Dana looked out the window and saw her mom coming out of the Stop-N-Go. She had Charlie perched on one hip and a large grocery sack clutched in her other arm. Mrs. Scully precariously balanced both while gingerly stepping across an icy patch. "Oh, Missy ... Billy's red thing?" Missy stopped stroking her sister's hand. Dana turned around and glanced back at Bill, who was now settled on the back seat as though he'd been patiently waiting there the whole time his mom had been in the convenience store. Dana smiled broadly ... glancing back and forth between the two. "Bill's red thing is my hair, Misthy ... or it's yours, Missy. Right, Bill?" "Bingo, Squirt. It was Missy's red hair." "My hair's not red-" "-It's auburn," Dana and Bill finished for their disgusted sister, both of them squealing, "Jinx" just as their mother opened the car door............ "I thpy ... spy with my little eye..." Scully whispered. She stared at the headstone, trying to make sense of the evidence visible before her - Mulder's supposed secrecy sculpted into stone and parked in front of the conference table. ~~~~Fox Mulder, 2000~~~~ "What's the truth, Mulder? Is it red or auburn? What's your truth .... " xxxxxx The End xxxxxx ~~~~ dlynn, November 6, 2000 AUTHOR'S NOTES: I, personally, think all the medical evidence revealing Mulder's "death sentence" has been fabricated ... an attempt to cast doubt upon him. But as I watched Scully sit in that conference room, staring at the headstone, I couldn't help but believe she'd have 'caved' momentarily to her doubts.