Title: Never Seek...
Author: Serafine 
Spoilers: Triangle
Classification: Vignette, MSR
Rating: G
Setting: Sometime within season six.  Mulder's racking up
 more hospital bills, as usual.
Feedback: food for the soul and good for your karma.  Send
 all comments, praise or complaints to amneris@excite.com.
Archiving: Anywhere would be fabulous - just please let me
 know so I can visit.
Disclaimer: I just finished with grad school - no profit,
 no foul, no money, no sue.
Also - I know virtually nothing about the way things are
 done in hospitals.  If this is wrong, I'm sorry.  
Date: 7/29/00

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Never Seek...

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Scully was keeping watch at Mulder's bedside.

It was a vigil that had become more than familiar to her 
over the years of their partnership.  It was never one she 
cherished, but always a duty she fulfilled.  Looking at her 
watch, she groaned at the time - 10:30 in the evening.  She 
had not made it home the night before, and had spent a good 
portion of the day at the office readying reports, and tying 
up the loose ends of the case.

Yawning, she stretched and realized how dry her mouth was -
oh, how she wanted some coffee.  Reaching down, Scully 
pulled her wallet out of her purse, and found it empty.  No 
cash, only credit cards and I.D.  <sigh>

Scully reached back down to her purse and got Mulder's 
wallet out of it.  They had given it to her that morning, 
along with his watch.
 
Flipping it open, she pulled out a dollar bill.  An old 
piece of folded paper came with it.  Unfolding it, she 
quirked an eyebrow.  It was a poem, scrawled in Mulder's 
handwriting, labeled as being by William Blake, but it was 
one she hadn't read.

 "Never seek to tell thy love 
  Love that never told can be;
  For the gentle wind does move
  Silently, invisibly.

  I told my love, I told my love,
  I told her all my heart,
  Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears--
  Ah, she doth depart.

  Soon as she was gone from me
  A traveller came by
  Silently, invisibly--
  O, was no deny." 

It looked like it had been in his wallet for a while.
The corners were worn, and the creases had almost turned 
into cuts, as if he would often pull it out and read it.
Scully looked at Mulder, almost as if seeing him for the 
first time.  

She remembered with shame her response to him in the 
hospital after his little trip into the Triangle.  She had 
blown him off and never taken his words seriously.  
Apparently it had been a little more than the drugs talking 
that night, and she hadn't wanted to consider it.
Could it be true?  Had she managed to blindly ignore him all 
these years?  

Scully cared deeply for him - no doubting that. And he was a 
rather attractive man, his occasional awful haircuts 
notwithstanding.  

Did she have the guts to ask him about it when he woke up?  
Nope. He was unconscious now, but she knew he would be able 
to hear her.

Leaning over, she whispered in his ear, "I'm sorry, Mulder. 
I should have listened to you in Florida.  Try it again.  I 
think this time you'll find a much better reception."
Pulling a pen out of her purse, she wrote on the back of the 
poem, *I'm no longer afraid*

Smiling to herself, she put the paper back in his wallet, 
and dropped it down into her purse.

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the end

thanks for reading 

serafine

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Author's Notes:

"Never Seek to Tell Thy Love" by William Blake (1757-1827)
Taken from the collection edited by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 
first published in 1863.

I first saw this poem last year in a song in choir - a 
beautiful, melodramatic SATB arrangement with piano - and 
it's been playing through my mind ever since.  It just 
seemed to fit Mulder's insecure heart so well.  Hope you 
enjoyed it. =)