Night Ride Across the Caucasus
by Politic X

Part 5
See part 0 for header information.


"Stephanie."

"I swear I'd sleep with her in a heartbeat."

She smiled and rolled her eyes.  "No you
wouldn't."

"Hell, yeah I would.  I'm thinking about
hopping on a plane right now just to bring
her flowers.  God damn.  I love that woman."

Stephanie wouldn't - couldn't - catch a
flight to D. C., she was terrified of flying.
Still, it was quite a thought.

"I can't believe your mouth," Monica said.

"What?"

"You're at school," she admonished.

"I didn't start swearing until I started
working with kids. And you know that's the
truth."  She sighed heavily. "Monica, you
need to take a long, hard look at yourself,
babe. I don't want to take you to the mirror,
but I don't think you're ever going to go
there by yourself."

She rubbed her head. "I haven't slept in a
long time, Stephanie. Say what you mean."

"Honey, remember how you loved me in college?
Remember?"

Of course, she remembered.

"I was so afraid of hurting you.  You were so
sweet," Stephanie whispered.  "You loved me
like no one else.  I wanted to wrap you up
and put you in my pocket and carry you with
me everywhere."

"It was a crush," Monica said slowly.  "We
were experimenting."

"No, baby, you weren't experimenting, I was."

"Stephanie, don't.  We were kids."

"Yeah, we were kids, but we weren't children
in bed, sweetheart."

She blushed furiously.

"You can't tell me that it's been the same
with men."

"Steph-"

"You can't.  I know all about everyone you've
dated, and nothing you've told me comes close
to what you and I shared - not the sex, not
the love.  I don't know why you sleep with
guys, I've never understood.  Maybe you don't
think you deserve to be happy.  Maybe you're
scared to death to love somebody like you
loved me. Do you know how that makes me
feel?"  Stephanie swallowed.  "How I hate
myself for hurting you like that?  You won't
give anybody else a chance. I watched you
fall in love with Thea Ellison-"

"What are you talking about?  I was with Gary
back then!"  She was embarrassed, and stared
out the window at the traffic, wanting to
escape this conversation. Tears burned her
eyes.  Damn Stephanie and Scully both for
forcing memories on her.

"Yeah, you were with him, but you were in
love with her."

"No-"

"Chris Wade."

"No!"  She was crying now.

"Linda.  What was her name?  Linda Something.
She was a lawyer.  And that other lawyer,
Brynn."

"No," she sobbed.  "Stop.  Stop."

"I always liked the ones you fell for.  They
were always the same: smart, quiet, strong.
Not like me.  Not like me at all.  I was-"
Her voice broke, but she gathered herself. "I
was so glad they weren't like me.  I didn't
want them to hurt you like I did.  But you
never even gave them a chance, Monica."

They were quiet for a few moments, Monica
crying softly, Stephanie sighing a lot.  Then
Stephanie continued.  "Baby, you've been in
love with Dana Scully for fifteen years.
Sometimes she was a blonde, sometimes a red
head, sometimes short, sometimes - " She
paused. "Always short. And sometimes she was
even beautiful like me."  She waited a beat.
"You were supposed to laugh at that."

Monica swallowed hard.  She could keep on
crying if she let herself, she was so tired.
This wasn't the time or place to have this
conversation - she had work to do.  But, oh
God, she wanted to go home and crawl under
the covers and cry until she was empty.

"I don't blame you.  I wouldn't have laughed,
either."  Stephanie was quiet for a moment.
"But you can take heart in this, babe -
you've got good taste.  In women, anyway.
Horrid taste in men."

"I'm not bisexual," Monica finally said.

"Oh, no, no you're not.  You're a dyke, babe.
And a hell of a gorgeous one, too."

She shook her head angrily.  "Where do you
get off-"

"Hey, hey.  Easy there, easy."

"I don't believe I'm listening to all of
this."

"You can be mad at me, but I'll tell you
something, every single woman you fell for -
every crush you had, sweetheart - they all
loved you right back.  And so I'm not
surprised that Dana Scully is in love with
you.  You just don't understand.  You have a
way of showing people that you love them.
You treat your friends like we're the most
special people in the world."

She lit a cigarette with shaky fingers. "If
you think I'm gay, why did you wait so long
to say something to me?"

"Because you needed to find your own way. I
shouldn't have said anything now, but I guess
I just feel bad for Dana. After all she's
been through, she needs you to be there for
her." She paused. "Why don't you see things
through her eyes for a minute? She's
paralyzed and she tells you she loves you,
and you run away to - where are you?"

She sniffed.  "Starbucks."

"You run away to Starbucks and call me to
complain that this beautiful person that you
admire so much has fallen in love with you."

"Stephanie - "

"Cripes!"  She covered the phone and spoke to
someone else for a moment.  "Look, sweetie,
the monsters have found me.  I'll call you
tomorrow."

Monica sniffed again.

"Don't worry about things too much, okay?
Feel how you feel.  Be sweet to this chick.
Let everything else blow right through you,
babe.  Dana probably shared her feelings
because she came close to dying.  She may
have thought that she'd better tell you
before it's too late.  Sometimes it takes
that kind of situation to tell somebody how
you really feel, you know?  So don't be
scared, baby, but don't have regrets, either.
Just bend with the wind."

"Go with the flow," she muttered.

"Ride the slide.  And damn you and your
Starbucks, anyway," she grumbled. She lived
in a fairly rural area, compared to D.C.
"Love you, babe."

"I love you, too."   She clicked the phone
off, but it rang before she could put it
away.  "Monica Reyes."  She wiped her face.
She'd done enough crying for a lifetime.

"Monica, this is Margaret Scully."

A pain shot through her stomach. "Is she
okay?"

"Yes, but she's asking for you."

She squeezed her eyes shut and forced herself
to be firm.  "I'll see her soon, but I'm on a
case right now."  She hung up rudely and
whispered an apology under her breath.

****
seVen

Doggett met her half an hour later.  Follmer
was there, too, and back-up.  They'd all had
dinner, she imagined.  It was past seven
o'clock, and she hadn't eaten since eleven
that morning.  She was starving and
exhausted.

It was Doggett that had stayed on Lukesh
while Monica was at the hospital, and it was
Doggett who found Mrs. Lukesh dead, her
tongue cut out.  It was Doggett who'd
arranged the stakeout, and Doggett who took
the lead.

But it was Monica who killed the bastard.

Of course, she didn't want to kill him.  But,
in an eerie series of events, he rushed at
Doggett - stabbed him, but not seriously -
took his gun and came after Monica.  She shot
him twice, her gun moving of its own
volition, angling toward his head instead of
his torso.  Both bullets found their target
and took him down in a slow motion display of
splintering skull and twisting legs.  She was
sick immediately afterwards.

Because of paperwork and procedure, it was
well into the next morning before she left
for home.  She stopped at an all-night joint
and grabbed dinner.  She had to force it
down, even though she'd been starving
earlier.

The loft was a landscape of boxes and it
smelled like paint and coffee.  She
remembered Scully, touching the painting,
wondering about Svetlana.

Nostalgia swept over her, but she threw it
off like her clothes, which made a trail from
her bedroom to the bathroom.  A hot shower
might cleanse her mind.

"You can't tell me it's been the same with
men," Stephanie had said.

It hadn't even come close.  Nothing compared
to her relationship with Stephanie, but it
was Monica's first real love, and nothing
ever compared to that, did it?  She thought
she'd just been unlucky with the
relationships that followed. Not that she'd
been very lucky with Stephanie. She hadn't
returned Monica's love as intensely as it had
been given; still, it was better than
anything with any guy.

But Monica wasn't attracted to women.  Not
many women, anyway.  Scully - she supposed on
some levels she was attracted to her.  But
who wouldn't be?  The woman was stunning,
strong, brilliant and brave.  She was someone
she admired.  She just wanted to know her
better, that's all.

She wanted to hear Scully's stories about the
X files, to know everything she'd seen and
experienced; Monica wanted to see life
through her eyes, just to know what it was
like to be her.  Mostly, she wanted to know
what it was that Scully seemed to have
bottled up inside her all of the time.

"What do you think?" Scully had whispered
about Irina and Svetlana.

Monica wondered if the Scully of her world
was gay, too.

She pretended it didn't matter, but it did,
of course.  If the Dana Scully that had been
in her home Saturday morning was gay, what
did that mean for her?  Probably nothing.
The Scully that was here now seemed to have
replaced her friend.

And she would die.  She was bound to the bed,
unable to care for herself in even the most
elementary of ways.  Her doctor warned them
that it wouldn't get better, and that it was
highly probable Scully would slip back into a
permanent coma. The damage may be more
serious than they realized.  Even though it
was the bullet to her spine that was
initially more harmful, it was the one that
had grazed the temporal lobe of her brain
that could come back and haunt them.

She needed to return Scully to her own world.
She didn't want to see her die like this,
paralyzed, unable even to speak.  She
deserved more dignity than that.

She let the water rush over her until it
turned cold, and she wrapped herself up in a
heavy robe.  She needed to sleep, God how she
needed it.  But she wanted to look at
something first.  She dug around in the boxes
labeled "BOOKS: COLLEGE" until she found a
slender volume of Russian folk tales.  She
sat on the box, flipping pages.

She found the story almost immediately. She
hadn't read it since college, but it had made
a huge impression on her then.  She read it
slowly.

Then re-read the last stanza.

'No man would love Irina again,
Though she remained ever so fair.
But, oh! How foolish she'd been
To seal the spell there.'

How foolish she'd been to seal the spell
there.  Svetlana was wrong to think she could
prevent Irina from being loved.  She'd
limited her spell so obviously, and yet she'd
been blind to her mistake until it was too
late.

Maybe Monica had been blind, too.

She pondered this while standing in the light
of her refrigerator, which was so bare it
contained only a bottle of tea.

Had she been as foolish as Svetlana?

She drifted to her bedroom.  Moonlight and
streetlight poured through her tall windows,
spilling across the thick duvet and fat
pillows on her bed. She'd made sure the bed
would be ready for her first night here,
which would have been last night. But last
night came and went.

Her closet had been a cloak room in another
time, when this building was still a school.
It was about the size of a standard walk-in
closet, but it seemed smaller. Maybe it was
because miscellaneous boxes were stacked
amongst her clothes.  She traded her robe for
a soft blue sweater and jeans. She had no
reason for dressing; she had nowhere to go.
Except to the hospital, but it was three in
the morning, very late or very early for
visiting hours.  Even if she slipped in,
Scully would be asleep.

Monica stared at her bedroom again. She'd
sleep on her sofa tonight. The empty bed made
her sad, not because it reminded her of her
empty life, but because it reminded her that
Scully was alone in this world.

Maybe Stephanie was right.  Maybe Monica had
missed out on a lot of love. She'd prided
herself on her open mind, but when it came
right down to things, she'd closed herself
off to what she didn't want to know.

She wondered if the Scully of her world -
wherever she was - was interested in her.
What if she was in love with her?  Monica
couldn't believe that to be possible.  She'd
have seen some signs.  She'd know.

Besides, she argued with herself, there was
nothing to be done about it at this point.
Maybe love was the lesson Monica was supposed
to learn, and maybe she learned it too late.

But was it too late for Scully?

(Continued in part 6)