Divulsum
Author: Philiater
Category: Skinner/Scully, Skinner/Other? X-file. Angst.
Spoilers: Everything up to season 9 (yes I finally got out of the nineties.) but no William and now CC agrees with me too.
Rating: PG-13 and relatively smut free. I tried but it just wouldn’t work.
Danka to Keleka for beta services so sorely needed.
Feedback, if you can. I appreciate it all. philiater1@yahoo.com
Divulsum--to pluck apart, tear asunder, break up,
destroy, interrupt; to distract, pull away, remove; separate.
I sat on the green marble floor of Mr. Skinner’s bathroom, and watched with fascination as my blood pooled and separated beside me. The swirling contrast of red and green next to my white skin was like a twisted parody of a Christmas card.
I expected there to be more pain than this. More pain than the initial stinging sharpness of the knife slicing my flesh. The lack of pain is a blessing. It will make this easier to do.
I reasoned it would take about ten to fifteen minutes and that was more time than I had hoped for anyway. They never let me out their sight for long.
I was escorted each day from the basement office by the man
Doggett up to Skinner’s office at
They ran an endless battery of medical tests on me, and discussed the results as a group. I would sit mutely by, pretending to be disinterested. No one seemed to know what I was or what to do about me. They dressed me in HER clothes, gave me a badge, and paraded me around. Even though I’d been dumped unconscious in Skinner’s office over a month ago, I still couldn’t believe I saw a different face in the mirror each day. Neither could they.
I frightened them and I knew that once they were satisfied that all tests were completed, they’d leave me at the hospital and never come back. When someone showed up each morning my relief was enormous, but I started planning early.
All my subtle efforts at escape were quickly thwarted. If I wandered even a few feet away, I was firmly but gently maneuvered back. I never got very far, not even out of the room until yesterday. Skinner’s apprehension of me was most memorable.
He was on the phone discussing something that obviously made him angry. I noticed that he never raised his voice much, but infused a kind of contemptible rage into the words designed to cow the intended target. Veins stood out on his forehead and he worked the tight muscles in his jaw
Eventually he swiveled his chair around to face the picture window effectively placing his broad back to me. I’d been waiting patiently for a moment such as this. I’d been so docile and compliant; I don’t think this kind of overt attempt by me was expected. I was becoming a part of their routine; a pet. He was so absorbed in the conversation he did not take notice of me slipping quietly by the large conference table toward the door. Or so I thought.
The second my hand touched the door knob, he was up and after me. I managed to get the door open and sprinted into the hall before he was around the desk. The flash of his enraged face filled me with black fear just before I closed the door on him.
I ran full tilt down a long hallway and into a back stairwell. I cursed the shortness of my new legs and the tiny shoes with large heels I had to wear. They made me slow and clumsy. There was a time when I could run the 100 yard dash in 15 seconds flat, but not anymore.
I was hoping to make the door of an emergency exit I spied while accompanying Doggett once. It opened to a fenced in area where employees could eat outdoors. In the corner was a piece of chained length pulled back. It was just large enough for me to squeeze through, but much too small for the big man. If I made it to the other side I thought I could sneak out with a tour group. Delusions of grandeur.
He managed to get me in the stairwell. I could hear his harsh breathing echoing off the walls above in the confined space as he thundered down behind me. The steps were slippery as I attempted to traverse them too quickly. The door was within sight when I felt an enormous hand grab my shoulder painfully.
My forward momentum was halted and my legs buckled beneath me by the force of his hand. Screaming in frustration and pain I attempted to dislodge Skinner’s vice-like grip.
For a split second he loosened the pressure at hearing me make a sound for the first time. My muteness had been accepted as a by-product of the process I was subjected to. I don’t think it occurred to any of them I was simply holding back.
Twisting violently I managed to dislodge his hold and fell the remaining 3 steps to a landing. I felt a surge of triumph, but the moment was fleeting as my head struck the hard cement. Blackness and pain threatened to swallow me up and I fought against it.
My prone body refused to move and I whimpered angry, wounded noises. Shiny patent leather shoes topped by expensive dress slacks crossed into my field of vision. An overwhelming sense of defeat closed my eyes against the sight.
I braced myself to be jerked up and hauled back to the confines of Skinner’s austere office. Instead I felt him kneel down and gingerly touch my face. With something close to tenderness he ran his hands over me probing for injury. Satisfied I was not grievously injured he picked me up and set me on my feet.
“Can you walk?”
“Yes.” His look of shock was amazing to me. Did they really think I was incapable of language as well? Maybe they didn’t want to believe it. It would humanize me and they couldn’t afford to feel guilty when they eventually ‘let’ me go.
Supporting me with his arm around my shoulders, and my arm around his waist, we exited the staircase door. Over my shoulder I glimpsed the emergency exit. I was so close.
I knew then they would never let me go
Back in the office Skinner produced a first aid kit and set about cleaning and bandaging the scrapes on my face. I expected him to be rough, yell at me, or treat me like a criminal. Instead he was quiet, gentle, and considerate. I found it unnerving.
Maybe he was doing this because of HER. He would be kind to HER. I’d seen it in their brief exchanges. By taking care of me, touching me, he was doing to same for HER.
“How long?” I asked.
He stopped his ministrations and looked at me. None of them liked looking me in the eye. It was too personal. Doggett and Reyes in particular had never made eye contact at all that I could remember. They picked a spot over my shoulder and spoke to that. Not Skinner. He avoided it, but occasionally acquiesced. I supposed it was from an ingrained politeness, or from a managerial training seminar. SHE could barely stand to be in the same room with me
“How long for what?”
“How long have you been in love with her?”
He recoiled in surprise and looked away from me. I was a stranger to him, but I’d hit the target dead center. He let silence be his answer and finished quickly.
I suppose he thought I wouldn’t pick up on subtle feelings like sadness, or loneliness. I never met such a group of people so surrounded by emotional quicksand. A step toward them in any direction, and you would become mired down with their intensity. In the beginning Skinner was like a caldron of simmering emotions. He tried to hide them beneath a hard exterior, but I saw through it.
I saw through Doggett, Reyes and even HER as well. Was it woman’s intuition? No, I didn’t believe in it for one thing. And even though I had always hung out with an ‘artsy’ crowd who believed in anything from reincarnation to channeling, I was a born skeptic. Such abilities always come at a price. I didn’t know what mine would be just yet.
The moment I realized what that ability meant, I’d made the decision to do what I was doing now; allowing my blood to flow freely from my wrists and stain the white grout of Skinner’s spotless bathroom. The longer I stayed near him, all of them, the stronger my connection to them would become until the woman I defined as ‘me’ disappeared altogether.
I was starting to feel sleepy and cold. The sound of wood splintering shattered my silent thoughts. No, they couldn’t know I was here. I’d planned so well, so well. Another bang echoed off the walls and the door was thrust inward.
Light and sharp voices filled the tiny room. I felt him kneel next to me, touching my face
and battered wrists. When I opened my
eyes I looked into pain filled brown ones.
Why? his
eyes asked. Why did you do this? I closed myself against his agony. Maybe
I was wrong when I thought they didn’t care. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, so sorry…
He lifted me up against him, heedless of the bloody mess I’d become. There was a jumble of terse orders, and movement. I was carried into the office and gently placed on the black leather couch.
Amidst the background of confusion, I opened my eyes and met
the dull continence of Monica Reyes. Her
look said they should have let me die. I was shocked by the amount of anger and
contempt radiating from her; I felt it across the room.
Well, well Monica, welcome to the club. She was jealous. I fixed her with a look that said I didn’t
care what she thought of me.
I closed my eyes again. That’ll show her, I thought sarcastically. Like the field mouse shaking its fist at the giant eagle just before it tears his head off.
Monica wasn’t going to let me off that easily. I felt her presence next to me, but refused to give her the eye contact she wanted. How does it feel to be the recipient this time Monica?
Very softly so Skinner wouldn’t hear she said “You’re not Scully.”
“Neither are you.”
Tired of the game I tuned her out. It was difficult, but I could do that. I didn’t know whether she was jealous because of Skinner or Doggett. I could have told her Doggett didn’t want to fall in love with Scully, he just wanted to screw her. Big difference Mon. Get over it.
She was wrong about another thing too. I was Scully, and I became her more and more each day whether I wanted to or not. Whether Scully wanted me to or not.
*********
“…DNA matches exactly. She’s a 100% every time we run it.”
“Yet she insists her name is Dina Jackson. She said she was ‘trapped’ in this body and wanted to go home.”
I heard voices in discussion when I came out of sleep. Doggett and Skinner were somewhere nearby, their deep voices soothing in the semi dark. I perked up when I heard my real name. When had I told him all of that? Pain killers must have made me blabber like an idiot.
My mind searched for Monica’s voice, but she was not there. I didn’t have the strength to fight her, and I knew she would want to. She’s a confronter; someone who wants to meet a problem head on. She forgets that her confrontation is another’s torture.
“Dina??” I was drawn back to the conversation. The similarities of Scully’s and my first name were not lost on Doggett.
So far I hadn’t been able to connect with Doggett. He was such a pragmatic person that convincing him with proof of what my existence meant was impossible. He rejected my presence like a bad kidney transplant.
“What did you find out about who she is?”
“There is a Deanna Jackson age 32 missing for 2 months in
Skinner made a noise like he understood why the green stuff had been lost. I could tell him how it got in my car. I was on my way to get cigarettes and I stabbed the jerk who attacked me and he bled green blood. Green blood. It distracted me enough to get knocked out.
“Does she have any family?” Skinner asked.
“No, no family the police could find. Her coworkers said she was a loner. Kind of a Bohemian.” Thanks Doggett. You might as well have said friendless.
“I have a picture if you’d like to see it.”
“Yes.”
No! Don’t show him any pictures Doggett. He’d hate me.
He’d really hate me……
“Oh.” I heard the soft exclamation. He hadn’t been expecting me to actually look like HER too. I saw the resemblance, but I was a pale imitator. No one could ever look like the Dana Scully these people saw. She was on a pedestal so high not even she could live up to their expectations. Live up to his.
“Did they take her because she looked like Scully?”
“Maybe. Her driver’s license says she’s 5’7”.”
That’s five seven and
a half Agent Doggett. Your Scully may be
perfect, but she’s a little vertically challenged too.
“I still don’t buy that she’s a clone with someone else’s brain inside. I know Scully believes it, but there’s got to be a more rational explanation.”
Ata-boy
Doggett. You keep denying the
truth, just like me. You’re going to
wind up going slowly bonkers with me.
Come on inside my mind and see what’s there. You’ll love it.
Pain medicine is
great.
“Such as what?” Skinner’s flat tone belied the challenge in his question. He was sure of it if Scully was and expected Doggett to be too. I’d overheard their theories about cloning. They’d seen others like me but they bled green blood like my abductor. Mine was red, the first they’d ever seen. My DNA was human, and they hadn’t been able to find any alien DNA intertwined with the double helix of mine. Scully’s DNA actually. I don’t know who ‘I’ is anymore. Does this body have my brain, or just my memories? What is it that makes someone a separate entity; defines them as person? Twins had the exact same DNA, but separate personalities. Was I like a long lost twin?
Doggett’s voice sounded frustrated. “Maybe she was coached with details of this Dina’s life to trick us into believing the cloning business. Somebody has to……” his voice faded off.
I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I know, I
was back in
When I looked back, the thing wore the face of Walter
Skinner. I screamed so loud I thought my
head would split into. NOOOO…………………..
Skinner’s bedroom swam into my vision. Breathing like a marathon runner, I frantically scrambled to a sitting position and surveyed the room. He was beside me in a shot, sitting on the bed and shaking my shoulders as the last of the nightmare drained away. I felt tears on my face. I’m crying? I never cry. I haven’t cried since high school when my parents died. Is this a Scully thing?
Inexplicably he put his arms around me, held me tight against his chest. Even more surprising I wrapped my arms around him and cried harder. HER personality tended to dominate me in my vulnerable moments. When I was fully awake I could tamp it down, and assume my usual ‘screw you’ mentality. Now I felt the need for comfort and didn’t try to fight it. It didn’t occur to me that maybe all this behavior could be hers. Or that my personality was bleeding into hers. I was becoming a ‘we’.
I let him stroke my back, my hair, and murmur in my ear. My bandaged wrists prevent me from reciprocating much. He didn’t seem to mind. I settled into his chest and closed my eyes.
“Just stay until I fall to sleep again.”
Ever since the day he bandaged my face I never tried to speak to him again directly; afraid he would find it intrusive or just plain strange. He didn’t react the way I thought he would.
“All right.”
A little cough emitted from the door. Monica must have been listening in.
“You’re not needed Agent Reyes.” That wasn’t my voice. Skinner is full of surprises.
“Sorry.”
She disappeared again and I returned to the business of snuggling into Skinner.
My voice trembled when I spoke. “I know I’m not Scully. I don’t want to be. You all act like I asked for this, that I want her life. But I don’t. I want to go home to mine.” I struggled to keep the pain out of my voice. I want to go home.
The impossibility of that request settled in my chest like lead, and I finally realized it was never going to happen.
I pulled back putting my face in direct line with his. He didn’t flinch or look away. He was silent, his face neutral, deliberately shielding his mind from mine. But his eyes were dark, haunted, and searching. His stroking became more intimate and I allowed it. His touch was so gentle, so soft I ached inside. When he kissed me I knew I was lost.
Much later when I lay curled next to him I refused to feel guilt or shame about making love. I can’t say the same for Skinner. I knew that no matter how much he told himself he was sleeping with Dina Jackson he was still seeing Dana Scully. He was going to allow himself to sink a little further in the quicksand, and there was nothing I could do or say to prevent it.
But I felt at peace for the first time within my memory. It was a sense of completion, and wholeness. Of doing something that should have been done long ago. This body, this person belongs to Skinner and he to her. Why don’t they know it?
Within a few minutes I was asleep again, listening to his heartbeat. This time the oozing monster stayed away.
*********
Someone was touching my chest when I woke again. SHE was there listening with a stethoscope. Her red hair shone in the morning sun, a contrast to her dour black suit. She was pretty, beautiful even. No wonder they’re all in love with her.
As she moved the stethoscope over me I wondered how much I
did look like her. I passed without
difficulty at the
“I’m not dead yet.”
“Yes, I know.” Her hands never stopped their cool efficient probing.
“You’re so stupid.”
“What?” She shot me a look.
“He loves you. He’s worth ten of the guy you’re waiting for. I should know. I am you.”
“No you’re not.” The feeling she shot me was one of ice cold contempt. She would not entertain the idea that I could be remotely like her.
“If you won’t have him maybe I will.”
“Even if he pretends you’re me?”
That one hurt. But I don’t have much to lose and returning home was now out of the question. If I have to stay here, being with him is a possibility I ached for. Last night only solidified that feeling.
“Yes, even if he pretends I’m you. I have your memories. Don’t you know? Remember your biology classes? Cellular memory. I remember everything he’s done for you. I can give him the love you won’t. The love he deserves. I know what he wants.”
I was holding the memories part back, thinking none of them would understand. I hate it when I’m right.
She turned on her heel and exited the bedroom before I even finished what I wanted to say.
I can love him. He can love me.
I’ve become so pathetic.
**************
He was sitting alone in the living room when I emerged from the shower and dressed. The glass of scotch he held tinkled faintly with the sound of ice as he rolled it back and forth in his large hands. A look of despair covered his face before he hid it behind a mask of professional blandness at my arrival.
The guilt I felt at that expression evoked surprised in me. HER feelings within mine again. How could a woman who appeared so hard also be so soft on the inside? Unless I was wrong about her feelings for Skinner. Maybe that was part of this confusion I kept feeling in his presence. Maybe she was in love with him and the other man too. If true, I was in deep trouble.
He said nothing when I sat on the chair opposite him. There was a new sensation between us now: tension. This was something entirely new and exceedingly uncomfortable. Had SHE provoked this? What did it mean?
Very slowly he set the glass down on the table. Leaning forward with his forearms resting on his long legs he seemed to be coming to some kind of decision.
Without making eye contact he told me why I’d seen despair.
“Something came back from your tests that we overlooked initially.”
Something? What? Aids, hepatitis, TB? Was HER cancer back?
“You carry the gene for Huntington’s Chorea.”
So this body contained my brain after all. My father knew he carried it. It was a death sentence. 100% of those who had it were dead by age 35. It was a disease of the brain. A slow deterioration that eventually led to total brain dysfunction and death. My parents wouldn’t allow me to be tested until I was old enough to make the decision for myself. After they died I just didn’t care. I never married for that very reason. I would not put any child through that process.
Skinner was confirming something I had suspected for a long time.
“I’m sorry.” I said to him.
He snapped his head up in surprise. “What?”
“I’m sorry you had to find it out, and that it hurts you so much.” I stood up and crossed over to him. My arms went around him and he hugged me close. I was glad to return some of the comfort he so selflessly gave last night. Poor Skinner must have thought he finally had the woman of his dreams only to lose her yet again.
“There’s no cure.” He said needlessly.
“Yes, I know.”
I extricated my self and touched his face. “Don’t be sad. I wasn’t meant to be anyway, you know that. They probably chose me because I had a limited shelf life. Maybe they just wanted to see if they could do this, I don’t know. Besides there could never be two Dana Scullys in the world.”
I walked a few steps away from him and turned back. “You know she’s in love with you too, but she feels guilty about it. Don’t let her wait for that other guy for too long. You’ll really lose her if you do.”
With that I went to the balcony and jumped before he could stop me. My last thought before I struck the pavement was: I finally got away.
********
Epilogue
Skinner watched as the plain coffin was lowered into the ground and felt as if a chunk of himself was there too. He always knew intellectually that she wasn’t Scully, but his heart refused to believe it.
The real Scully had been uncommonly gentle with him since her death. He supposed she felt guilty about her feelings toward Dina. Hell, they all felt that way. She had been a catalyst for a whole host of unexpressed feelings that threaten to tear their group to shreds. And maybe that was the point. If the Consortium was behind this they almost succeeded.
“Sir.” Scully’s soft voice broke into his thoughts. “Why don’t we go now?”
He nodded silently and fell into step next to her.
Suddenly she broke their silence. “I’m sick of attending funerals. I’m sick of death, and most of all, I’m sick of saying goodbye.”
The force of her comment surprised him. She had suffered in silence for so long, he never suspected she felt like this.
“Sir…” He looked into her blue eyes. She was so beautiful his breathing hitched for a second. Dina was right. There could never be two of her. Not for him anyway.
“Sir, would you like to come over for coffee?”
He raised a shocked eyebrow at her. “Yes.”
She smiled then, and raised herself on tip toes to give him a sweet kiss on the mouth. The contact was brief, but it shook Skinner to his foundation.
Were Dina’s comments before she jumped the truth? She had been right about so many things. She had given him her body and her heart. And now she may have given him Scully.
He would miss her.
End