"Touch"
by Marie Endres joemimi@prodigy.net

Classification: Prose Vignette; Scully Angst

Rating: PG

Spoilers: "Within"

Disclaimer: Mulder, Scully and Skinner are not 
mine. They belong to Chris Carter, 1013 
Productions and Fox Broadcasting.

Notes/Summary: For Georgia, who simply had to 
know why Scully kept touching Skinner.


"Touch"


A touch. A hand reaches out to touch another. 
It can be soothing, gentle, meant to convey a 
peace in the heart of stormy turmoil.

A touch can be a means to an end, a beginning 
of a journey. It can be a crossing from here to 
there, a jump across space to bring an intimacy 
long denied.

A touch from a lover can inflame, can promise. 
It can linger and it can move, providing a 
springboard of pleasure for the soul and body.
A lover's touch can be insistent, demanding a 
return on an investment made. The investment? 
It is a risk to touch, more risky than any IPO. 
It takes us beyond ourselves and puts us in a 
dangerous spot, another's place. When fingers 
connect with skin, it is not our own softness 
that we feel, but another's. We are on foreign 
ground, yet we long to bow and kiss it in 
gratitude for our return home to ourselves.

I am not that fortunate. There is no home for 
me now, except for the spot within that I 
protect from what the facts tell me. I can 
reach out and touch the facts, they are more 
present than what I know to be real. I want to 
keep my touch to myself if I cannot touch that 
which I know to be truth. I will not betray the 
touch of the one I love by believing the lies, 
the maelstrom of theories surrounding our 
present. While I know very little to be sure, 
there is one promise to which I hold fast: life 
began with a touch and the life within me is no 
different.

My touch can rest on so few, there are not many 
who have accompanied us on this journey. It has 
been a dark path, where beasties and bumps in 
the night have become constant companions, not  
an environment conducive to the touch of 
friends or family. We have walked alone so 
often, but never without the watchful eye of 
one worrying and wondering of our well-being. 
He has touched me, searching for a sign to 
reassure him that I was not harmed by the alive 
dead. Death would come near me, but not touch 
me.

I touch him. My fingers brush the fold of 
fabric that make up his jacket. The fibers are 
woven together, thread over thread in an 
unbroken pattern that makes a smooth finish. 
Oh, what a tangled web we weave.

         My hand does not shirk back in the 
face of interrogation. I will hold onto what I 
can, an anchor while on an evil sea. I attempt 
to stop him without words, with a mere gesture. 
I know that his perceived integrity is our only 
free ride, our only "in." I must maintain his 
place.

         And so I let my hand rest upon him, to 
still him, to touch another, to remind him of 
me and all that I carry within.

END



Feedback: Touch an angsty writer with your kind 
words: joemimi@prodigy.net

Thanks as always to Georgia, for answering the 
call yet again.