From: juliettt@aol.com (Juliettt) Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW: "The Broken Heart" (1/2) by Juliettt Date: 15 Feb 1996 04:50:04 -0500 "The Broken Heart" (1?) by Juliettt@aol.com (Completed December 14, 1995) Here's one of those "when they were kids" stories. It's about Scully and so there's no Mulder in it. There might be more, depending on reader reaction and my Muse's sendings. As always, the Scullys belong to Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen Productions, FOX Broadcasting, and Gillian Anderson and the other actors that bring them to life on Friday nights. I mean absolutely no offense; to the contrary, I've endowed the Scullys with some of the qualities I admire in a family (including some of my own). This story, however, as well as all the other characters who appear, are mine. If, for some odd reason, you feel compelled to borrow any of them, please ask first. I'll be easier to contact than Mr. Carter and probably a whole lot more accommodating. A quick note: I named the younger Scully brother "Brian" in an earlier story. Recently the official X-Files guide gave his name as "Charles," but I'm remaining consistent with my own canon. ******************************* "The Broken Heart" (1/2) by Juliettt@aol.com ******************************* Dana Scully was ten years old the first time a man broke her heart. Well, it wasn't a man, actually -- it was a boy. Bobby Fenstermaker. Five feet, four inches of the meanest fourteen-year-old she had ever seen. And she didn't like him. In fact, she *hated* Bobby Fenstermaker of the sandy blond hair and brown eyes. Because Bobby's house was where the Clubhouse was. The neighborhood Clubhouse. The all-*boys* Clubhouse. It was just an old shed that Bobby's father hadn't bothered to tear down and, when Bobby approached him, had approved for his son's and his friends' use. It was made of wood and had a door with a real padlock. Bobby kept the key -- she had seen it hanging around his neck on a chain. And inside that Clubhouse were wonders of which she could only dream. She knew because Bill and Brian had told her. Bill was one of the older kids in the neighborhood, fifteen and very proud of his years. He wasn't as tall as Daniel or even Mike, but he was stocky, muscular. And his head of glossy brown hair with the reddish highlights and his mother's gray-blue eyes already had the girls staring. He was just beginning to think that that wasn't such a bad thing. The Scully men had always been precocious where girls were concerned. Brian, at nine, was one of the youngest boys allowed in the Club. He was short and much more wiry than Bill and he would probably never be as big. It looked like he might take after his petite mother. But he was already tough although, like Bill, he was what the neighborhood oldladies called "a nice boy." By this they meant that, while he might egg a garage on Hallowe'en, he would never break windows by throwing stones. The Scully kids weren't angels, but they weren't precisely demons, either. They were -- well, they were "pretty good kids." Dana, however, was another matter. The neighborhood oldladies had a much harder time with her. There had been that stunt two years ago when she had cut her hair off -- short, like a boy's. And it was such pretty hair, too -- a shade deeper red than her sister's and younger brother's auburn locks, with gold highlights and a natural tendency to curl. The hair had grown back, but she was still as much of a tomboy as ever -- wearing jeans and overalls and going barefoot all summer, fishing and climbing trees. Her sister Melissa was quite the young lady at thirteen -- quiet and demure and feminine. Dana was feminine, too, as to her inherent looks, if not her behavior. Her femininity, though, had a wild streak at its heart. At ten years old she revelled in physical activity. Why, as one oldlady had told her shocked friend, she had even seen Dana out having target practice with her brothers and father late one afternoon a few months ago! It was only a BB-gun, to be sure, but Dana had proudly told her that she was already a better shot than either of her brothers and her father had promised her that he would teach her how to use his rifle when she got big enough to handle the kick. And this summer Dana had decided that she wanted to join the neighborhood Club. To be sure, no other girl ever had before, but then no other girl had ever *wanted* to, either. "You can't, Dana," Bill told her, almost patiently. "Why not?" she asked stubbornly. "You told me you guys all go hiking and fishing and swimming and stuff. I *like* all that stuff." "I know, Dane," he sighed. "But -- it's just not the *same*." "Yeah, 'cause you're a *girl*," Brian said scornfully. "So what? Girls are just as good as boys," she retorted, her arms crossed over her chest. And they were, too -- her parents had told her so. "Oh, forget about them," Melissa soothed. She didn't particularly relish the thought of having her little sister tag along after her all the time, but then Dana *didn't*. And Melissa was beginning to worry. Her best friend Sharon was always complaining about *her* younger sister's bugging *her* -- constantly barging into her room, playing with her makeup, reading her diary. Clara, however, was nearly a year older than Dana. Dana did none of those things. She tagged along after Bill instead. Sometimes Melissa was tempted to introduce her to her friends as "my third brother, Dana." Dana probably would have liked it, too. And so, when she saw that this time Bill was not encouraging his little sister's antics, she tried to step in. "You can come with me to the mall. Sharon's going." "I don't *care*," Dana said forcefully. "And I *don't* like Sharon. She's all -- prissy and stuff. All she thinks about are boys -- she even thinks Bill's cute. Ick." "*Dana*," Melissa said, then sighed. Sharon *was* boycrazy. Already, at barely fourteen. And she *did* like Bill, although Melissa had no idea how Dana knew that. She certainly never spent enough time with the girls to know what they talked about; the minute the fingernail polish came out she was out the door. And the one time when she had been interested in playing with them, six months ago, they had been playing nurse. Dana had insisted that *she* was a doctor and had, quite seriously and without rancor, proceeded to point out everything that Sharon did wrong. Sharon didn't like that one bit and Dana had never been invited again. Melissa had gone along with it since Sharon was her best friend, but secretly she had wondered how in the world Dana had known some of the things she had seemed to know. She and Sharon, for the most part, made everything up, using words and phrases they had picked up watching "Emergency One," which they both watched because they thought the dark-haired EMT, Johnny Gage, was cute. Dana watched it, too, although she was too young to be interested in boys, and now Melissa was beginning to wonder whether she had picked up on more than they thought. Of course, she had been insisting for years that she wanted to be a doctor, especially since she had killed that snake on her birthday on her first outing with the BB-gun earlier that winter. But that was probably just a phase like everything else. But Margaret just watched her children and sighed. Melissa had never been anything like Dana, and Dana was the one of their children she had the hardest time figuring out. You would say something to her and she wouldn't even seem to hear, but then later, when asked, she could cite chapter and verse. She would stand stock-still, staring, and then come out with the oddest questions. If she were unhappy with the answers she was given she would find her own or, barring that, make something up. She was very good at making things up -- a very good liar, except that she didn't have the moral constitution for lying. She would try to lie but would then burst out laughing. Bill had been conceived with little difficulty, as had Melissa. But then Margaret and Bill had wanted a third child, and they had tried for nearly two years before they had gotten Dana. And she was such a wonder-child; happy, intelligent, infinitely capable of occupying herself. Even in her infancy she would seldom cry except when she was sick, and on more than one occasion Margaret had climbed out of bed after a full night's sleep and wandered into the girls' bedroom to find Melissa still asleep and Dana awake, playing with her own fingers or toes. When she got old enough she sometimes sang to herself in the mornings. A child of joy. But today she was anything *but* joyful. She begged and wheedled until finally Bill caved in. "All right, Dane. You can come with us and *if* -- *IF* the guys agree you can come into the Club, you can. I won't even vote. But if they say 'no,' then the answer is 'no,' okay?" "Okay," she agreed happily, seeing no bar to her admittance. After all, she could bait her own hooks, right? She never had to be "boosted" to get up into a tree. She knew where the best and the biggest blackberries grew and had even learned how to clean a fish. No problem. So she ran along behind her brothers through the thick weeds toward the Fenstermaker place, ignoring Brian, who teased her the whole way. Bill was uncharacteristically quiet. It was when they arrived in Bobby's backyard that the trouble started. "What is *she* doing here?" Bobby asked. "Yeah -- she's a *girl*," a smaller boy named Sam Thomas added. He typically followed Bobby's lead and echoed practically everything he said. Dana glared at him until he looked away, and then she smiled. Sam would be no trouble. "She wanted to join the Club," Bill explained apologetically. "Oh yeah -- *right*" Bobby sneered. "A girl? You've got to be kidding, man." Bill shot his sister an apologetic look but said nothing. Dana tilted her chin and put her hands on her hips. "And just *why* does it matter that I'm a girl?" she asked. "Well, you're -- you're just -- a *girl*," Bobby responded, almost bewilderedly. The argument that a girl was a *girl* had always seemed clear to him, just as the fact that his father was the smartest man in the neighborhood had. Dana, however, was unconvinced. Had she known Bobby's opinion of his father she would have scorned that as well. "So what?" "So -- you can't do everything we can do," he said hastily, falling back on his best logic. "Oh? Prove it." Bobby was stunned. He had never met anyone like this flamehaired Scully girl. She was tough. Had she been a boy she would have been all right -- a welcome addition to the Club. But she wasn't, and so, she wasn't. "Can you fish?" "Yes." "Bait your own *hooks*?" he added knowingly. She shrugged. "Of course. I dig for my own worms, too. Nightcrawlers -- they're best in Crowley's Field." Bobby scowled but filed that information away for further use. She *could* bait her own hooks, too -- he could see it in her eyes. "Climb trees?" "All the time. Even the one over at McAllister's place." "Carve your initials in it?" "At the end of the Rock Bough," she said proudly. This was a limb as thick as a man's waist that curved up over the top of the McAllister shed. It was not only high, it was crooked, making it all the more difficult to climb, and so the neighborhood boys had taken to carving their initials in it to prove they had made it that far, before dropping onto the roof of the shed and shinnying down the drainpipe. The Rock Bough was difficult enough to climb out onto, but it was impossible to climb back down. Dana's own foray had taken place a scant few weeks before. Her parents, of course, had not known about it. Margaret in particular would have blown a gasket had she known. Bill turned and looked at her in some awe. He hadn't known, either -- but then that was typical of Dana. For her the achievement was the main thing, not the recognition she could garner from it. But he believed her. The truth was there, shining in her deep blue eyes. And suddenly he remembered her running into the house and up the stairs and shutting herself into the bathroom for a long time. When she had come out she had worn a large bandage on her hand and a serene look in her eyes. At dinner her father had asked what she had done to her hand and she had confessed that she had cut herself with the Swiss Army knife he had given her for her birthday when the boys had given her the BB-gun. Margaret had given her _The Chronicles of Narnia_ and Melissa had given her a bracelet. The BB-gun had seen much use and the knife was in her pocket. The _Chronicles_ had had the covers quite literally read off of them, but the bracelet sat in the bottom of her jewelry box, never worn since her birthday dinner. "I don't believe you!" Bobby cried. *No* girl had ever climbed out to the end of the Rock Bough. It simply wasn't done. It had gone by that name for so long opinion was divided as to how it had come to be so called. Some said that when the tree had been much, much younger the limb had been low enough to serve as a sort of horse on which to ride. That would, of course, have been back in their grandfathers' time if the story were true. The Rocking-Horse Bough. Others said it was because it was such a good target at which to throw rocks, and the broken and peeling bark along the limb suggested that that might be true. Other said it was because the peculiar vantage point of the limb allowed a climber to see the odd rock formation on the river that looked like an Indian brave's face. It was the only angle from which the formation looked that way; from every other place it was just a pile of rocks. "Check it for yourself," she shrugged. Bobby backed off. No-one else would have carved her initials there; it was the height of dishonor to do so. And he himself had never made it that far; every single time he had chickened out. And this made him angry. To be shown up by this -- this *girl*. . . . He played his trump card. "Can you shoot?" he asked with a knowing smile on his face. Bill closed his eyes and shook his head. Big mistake -- *big*. Dana had *not* been boasting when she said she was a better shot than he was. In fact, their father had once said that, given enough practice, his younger daughter might be able to beat *him* at target practice. It was an achievement of which Dana was very proud. She would beat Bobby with no trouble. But in doing so she might just make things worse. He tried to catch her eye but she was ignoring him, angry, no doubt, that he would not jump in and back her up. He groaned silently. This did not look good. "Can I shoot?" she asked, then smiled. "Unfortunately, I didn't bring my gun. . . ." "Oh, that's no problem at all," Bobby smirked, thinking she was bluffing. "You just wait right here." He stepped up to the Clubhouse and pulled the key from around his neck. Dana waited, almost holding her breath. Perhaps now she could get a glimpse of what was inside that mysterious building. She was certain it must be something wonderful. But to her disappointment Bobby went in and quickly closed the door behind him. Within seconds he was back outside, a Red Ryder in each hand and his front left pocket bulging with a tube of BB's. She noticed immediately that he was carrying the guns wrong. From where she stood she couldn't see whether the safeties were on, but even if they were, and if the guns were uncocked and unloaded, that was the first thing the Captain had taught her. She made the mistake of pointing this out to Bobby. "Bobby, you should point the barrels at the *ground*, not in front of you like that," she said automatically. It was just something she and her brothers said constantly to remind one another. Had one of them done it and Ahab seen it, they would have lost their BB-gun privileges for a week. He was very strict about gun safety. They were only small metal pellets, he had told them, but they could still blind someone. And someday they might have to handle a real gun, and real guns could kill. It was better to be safe than sorry. But Bobby didn't see things that way. He knew the rules of gun safety, of course -- his father had recited the same rules. But Dana's reminder only served to make him mad. Stupid know-it-all girl. She had probably overheard her father telling her brothers that while she was *eavesdropping* on them or something. Well, he would show her! "Don't tell me what to do," he hissed, thrusting the gun at her. "Here." He opened the slot in the side of the barrel and poured some BB's in, then shut it. "Do you even know how to handle this?" he sneered. Dana nodded mutely. She could smell the faint scent of the oil that had been used to grease the simple firing mechanism, and the worn wood was smooth in her palm, the metal cool against her fingers. Bobby had given her the older gun, the one with the split stock that had been glued, then taped, back together. His new BB-gun was his pride and joy; he simply kept the old one for the use of his less fortunate friends and out of pride of ownership. Two guns. And someday he would talk his daddy into buying him a shotgun as well and taking him hunting. But Dana knew that despite its looks this was the better gun. It was well broken-in and the action would be smoother. So long as the sights had not been knocked out of plumb she would shoot straighter with this gun. When Bobby walked in front of her to set up a row of cans on the fence they used for target practice she automatically lowered the barrel of her gun to the ground. He walked with his swinging in his palm against his hip, carelessly and cockily. She waited in silence for him to finish, then waited again as he rejoined her. "All right," he said. "Rules. You hit as many as you can, and when you miss it's the other person's turn. We'll all keep count. Oh, and," he grinned meanly, "*ladies* first." She bit her lip and took a deep breath. They really *should* get a practice shot, since she was unfamiliar with this gun. But she would do her best. She raised the gun, eased off the safety, sighted, and shot. And missed. Bobby sneered. "Aww, too bad!" He sighted quickly and shot, hitting the first two and then missing. "Your turn again," he said with mock gallantry. She was shaking slightly, afraid of being shown up in front of what she hoped would become her close friends. But she sighted anyway, then paused, remembering what Ahab had told her. She breathed evenly and imagined the groove, dropped the gun slightly, relaxed, and squeezed the trigger. *Ping!* The can flipped off the fence. She cocked the gun and sighted again. *Ping!* Another can sailed off into the grass. *Ping!* *Ping!* *Ping!* This time she had hit it so hard the can wobbled but remained upright. As she cocked the gun to continue Bobby's voice interrupted her. "Hey, you missed!" "No I didn't!" she said indignantly. "I hit it. I just hit it dead center so it didn't fall over." She was too young to understand about centers of gravity, but she was right. "I was watching and I say you *missed*," Bobby insisted. "Yeah!" Sam backed him up. "I didn't!" she protested. "Go check! The BB's probably still in the can!" "No way," he said. "You missed. My turn. Right, guys?" Sam opened his mouth to agree once more, but Bill's quiet voice stopped him. "She hit it, Bobby." The other boy spun to stare at him in shock. "She hit it." "Are you kidding me, Bill?" "No," he said calmly, "I'm serious. She hit it. And," he continued after a pause, "you *know* she did." "Are you calling me a liar?" "No," Bill said confidently, "not if you admit what you saw." "That's *it*!" the other boy screeched, throwing his gun to the ground and launching himself at Bill. "*Nobody* calls me a liar and gets away with it!" Bill dropped back and raised his fists. His mother had always warned him never to start a fight, and his father had concurred but later pulled him aside and tempered his warning. "If you ever *do* start a fight, Bill, you'd better make it good and it had better be worth it, because you'll get it even worse when you get home. But if the *other* guy starts it and won't back off, you give it to him. If you can't do anything about it, don't let him take you. You can refuse to *start* a fight, but sometimes you can't refuse to *participate* in one." He didn't think he had started this one, but even if he had, this was different. He didn't really understand why, but it was. This was, he would come to recognize, a matter of honor. And so he balled up his fists and waited, his quick, cold anger filling every sinew. Bobby was his friend, but -- this wasn't right. He believed in fair play. This wasn't it. "No." A soft voice, higher than those of the two boys squared off with their nostrils flaring, broke the tense silence. "No. He's right, Bill. I must have missed." There was a lump in her throat but her voice was steady. "I give in, Bobby. I'm going home now." And she carefully set the gun on the ground, facing away from the crowd of boys -- she had put the safety on when Bobby had stopped her from firing again -- and turned away. She marched across the backyard, tears stinging her eyes. It wasn't fair -- it *wasn't*. She *had* made that shot, and they all knew it. It was just because she was a *girl* that they didn't want her -- and they didn't want her. She knew that now. She had thought, naively, that if she could prove her worth they would want her, but she had been wrong. Therein lay the sting. For the first time in her life she had come up against something she could not beat: prejudice. A big word she had heard before in other contexts, but now she really knew what it meant. It was an opinion you could not change no matter how wrong it was, no matter how hard you tried. It made people blind to the truth, and it divided them into friends and enemies -- it had made her Bobby's enemy, and had she allowed her brother to fight him it might have made all the boys there Bill's enemies as well. And right now she could do nothing about it. But someday, *someday*, she vowed, she would. She would find a way to show Bobby Fenstermaker and everybody else just how wrong they were. She would make him *beg* her to join the Club -- or its equivalent. And then she would turn him down. =========================================================================== From: juliettt@aol.com (Juliettt) Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW: "The Broken Heart" (2/2) by Juliettt Date: 15 Feb 1996 04:57:47 -0500 Please see Part One for disclaimers. Basically, everyone you recognize here from _The X-Files_ belongs to somebody else despite the fact that I'm borrowing them without permission. Anybody else is mine, and if, for some odd reason, you feel compelled to borrow any of them (particularly if you want to make Bobby Fenstermaker suffer), please ask first. I'll be easier to contact than Mr. Carter and probably a whole lot more accommodating. Onward and upward. . . . ******************************* "The Broken Heart" (2/2) by Juliettt@aol.com ******************************* Margaret was at the window in the kitchen washing her hands after mixing up a batch of Number Twelve chocolate chip cookies -- so called because, as Ahab said, her plain chocolate chip cookies were a perfect ten, so when she added coconut and walnuts that had to make them at least a twelve. Melissa was just pulling two full pans out of the oven. Margaret had overheard the discussion on the back porch earlier and now, with her tender mother-heart, read correctly her daughter's posture of defeat and defiance. By the time Dana had climbed the steps and opened the back door there was a tall glass of cold milk and a plate with three hot cookies awaiting her on the table. She walked into the kitchen, took one look at her mother's sympathetic face, and burst into tears. These weren't tears of sorrow or weakness; these were the tears of anger and impotence. She was furious and she was stung and hurt; she felt almost numb from the rush of feelings that flooded her mind and body, and she shook in her mother's arms. When she tried to tell what had happened she choked and couldn't speak, and finally she shook her head. After a few long moments she was silent and took her cookies and milk and went upstairs. She locked herself in the room she now shared with Melissa and didn't come down again until dinner. Melissa, for her part, wisely chose to remain in the kitchen and continued to make cookies. About a half hour later Bill and Brian came home. Brian's eyes were very big but he didn't say anything -- then. But it was Bill who got Margaret's attention. One of his cheeks was red and his knuckles were bruised. But he had a grim, satisfied look on his face. He, too, was silent, and she didn't press the issue, simply fed the boys cookies and milk until she thought surely their appetites would be spoiled for dinner. And then Bill disappeared into his room. By the time Bill, Sr., got home, his wife had coaxed the whole story out of Brian. It had not been until after Dana left that Bobby said the words that made Bill lose the legendary Scully temper. The fight had been quick and violent, leaving Bobby with a bloody nose and swollen eye and split lip. Bill, then, had come off rather well, considering. Margaret closeted herself with her husband in *their* room for a fifteen-minute conclave and then he came out and called the family to dinner. No-one mentioned Bill's rapidly swelling cheek or sore knuckles or Dana's red eyes, but supper was subdued that night. And afterwards Ahab took the whole family for a special treat: a movie in town. Answering machines were not a common commodity back then, but shortly after the children had all gone to bed that night there was a phone call, which Ahab took downstairs. It was brief, little more than five minutes, and afterwards he and Margaret went to bed as well. Late in the night Dana slipped out of bed and tiptoed across the room to the door that connected their bedroom to the bathroom. Once inside she closed the door, then went through the other door into the den, then out into the hallway and across to Bill's room. She knocked very gently. "Bill?" There was a shuffling and then the door opened. "Whaddya want, Squirt?" "I'm -- I'm really sorry. About today, I mean." "'Sokay." "No. It's *not* okay. You were right and I should have listened to you, I guess." He sighed. "Come in, Dane." She came in and sat on the bed, her eyes downcast. "I guess I was just as wrong as you were." She looked up at him quizzically, the moonlight streaming in through the window to cast a pale silver nimbus around her head. "I knew Bobby wouldn't want you in the Club, and I shouldn't have let you go." He shrugged. "It was silly, really -- the test they always used for guys to get in didn't really keep girls out but we never thought of it that way." He grinned suddenly. "'Course, no other girl before *you* has ever wanted in before." She smiled tentatively, then sighed. "What's wrong with me, Bill?" "Whaddya mean?" He came to sit on the bed next to her and she leaned against him. "I mean, I don't like Melissa's friends -- the stuff they do is so -- *boring*. And I *do* like *your* friends -- or I did. They just don't like me." He slid his arm around her. "They *do* like you -- well, most of them. Hey, you're the best pitcher we've got for baseball." She smiled at that. It was true. When the neighborhood kids gathered on the Scully side lot for baseball games they always wanted her to pitch. When they ran short of players, usually about mid-summer when many of the families took their annual vacation, they would use the big oak tree as a catcher. It always served as home plate, but Dana was so good that she could keep the pitch in the strike zone most of the time and the ball would rebound off the tree and roll back to her so no-one would have to fetch it. "So, you see, they *know* you can do a lot of stuff." She sighed again. "I know. I guess I just feel left out." He hugged her, knowing it was bound to get worse before it got better. The guys his age were all starting to notice girls -- well, the more mature of them, anyway. And Dana was too young to be of that sort of interest to them. And soon -- maybe very soon -- she would start taking an interest in boys as well, and then she wouldn't want to be with them anymore -- in that way. Growing up was complicated. But then he thought of Susan Carleson and grinned. Growing up was also very -- interesting. "You won't always feel left out. I promise." She nodded and then gave him an unexpected hug. "Thanks, Bill." "Anytime, Cat." And then she went to bed and slept soundly with a small smile on her lips that was still there when her mother came to wake her the next morning. Bill remained awake for a long time, thinking. He knew that on that day something had changed. He had had to make a decision, standing there in the tall sweet grass with the sun shining on his head, a choice between what was represented by the scowl on Bobby Fenstermaker's face and what shone in his sister's clear blue eyes that were so sad and angry and hurt at the same time. And for just a moment it had been the hardest thing he had ever had to do. But the instant he had done it he had known he was right -- *it* was right. And although he had his moments of immaturity, as everyone does from time to time, he never really looked back. The next day, instead of taking off to meet the guys at the Club, as he usually did, Bill casually invited Brian and Dana and Melissa to go fishing. After a long, half-surprised look at his face, Dana agreed, and so did Mel. And the four children went running across the sweet-smelling fields to Bill's own especial fishing spot and spent a morning of laughter there. That afternoon, however, Dana and Melissa went berrying together and came back with their mouths rosy and their hair strewn with daisies. Dana discovered that her sister was quite a satisfying companion in her own way. The previous night's talk marked the very last time Bill called his younger sister "Dane" and, if she missed it, she never said so. She and her father built the Nest a few weeks later and Bill was the very first guest to carve his initials in the trunk. She would continue to be a tomboy into her teens -- in many ways, throughout the rest of her life -- but as the summers waxed and waned her wildness was tempered by a softness that had always been a latent part of her personality. It seemed that now the gentleness that had previously been directed toward the unfortunate -- animals, smaller children, and the injured or ill of any age or gender -- was turned also onto herself and shone through her strength, giving it an even rarer quality. And many, many years later, when she was a senior in college and Robert Fenstermaker managed his father's car dealership, he asked her out for dinner and a movie. When she turned him down it was with grace and dignity, but she left absolutely no doubt in his mind that he had been rejected. And she smiled all the way home from the store where she had run into him and made a batch of chocolate chip cookies for Bill, who was also home for the holidays. Some wrongs, trivial as they may seem, can only be set right by time. *End* Dedicated to all the girls who ever played sideyard baseball with "the guys". . . . Juliettt@mail.aol.com Troupe Leader, Dragon Posse, Lone Gunwoman #7, Eden Agent, Clan McBride, Wolfpack, DDEB 3, Faultliner, WWtBJLSWWGU, SKKS co-founder, BBTG!