From: "Luperkal" Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 00:15:24 -0400 Subject: The Window (1/1) Luperkal Title- The Window (1/1) Author- Luperkal E-mail address- luperkal@home.com Rating- G Category- S Spoilers- none Keywords- pre-XF Summary - An 8 year old Dana Scully has a rather odd experience late one night. Disclaimer - I don't own the name and character of Dana Scully. Sorry. Author's Note - this is my first XF fanfic, and only my second fanfic total. I'm trying my best on formatting and following guidelines. If I messed something up, please tell me and tell me how I can fix it. I'd appreciate any and all feedback, but no hasty flames please. The window seemed to be alive. Something was definitely happening behind it, waiting for her. She sat quite still in her bed. The darkness surrounding her seemed solid, as if she could grab a piece of it and hug it close to her. It was so dark. Was it always this dark? She didn't recollect it being so. She slowly lifted her hands before her face, but she could not see them. She suddenly wondered if her bed wasn't really upright, and if she mightn't fall off. She slammed her hands down at her sides quickly. It was stupid, idiotic really. A girl of eight years old afraid of falling into the black void of her own bedroom in the night. And she was supposed to be the rational one; the one who was far too smart and serious to be afraid of the dark. Although, on a night like this, where the very silence of it seemed brooding and elemental instead of incidental, and you couldn't even tell for certain that your hands were before your face when you knew they had to be there (for where else would they be), maybe it was a good idea to keep your hands at your sides. It couldn't really do any harm anyway. Still, she didn't feel quite secure. If only her sister were here in the room with her. She wasn't used to having a room all to herself. The vagueness and unreality the darkness created plagued her; fought slowly at her fingertips till they twitched. Her hands lifted slowly up again, almost of their own will. Could they do that? Surely the darkness couldn't make her hands rise on their own. Where were they? She knew logically that they were before her, but it wasn't enough. She lowered them onto her face. The touch took the place of her sight, and calmness flowed threw her once again. She traced with her fingers from her forehead to her jawbone; pressing at her flesh and her bones. Slowly her hands traveled upward, lightly touching her lips, nose, and eyes. Her fingers delicately traced over her eyelids. Once again her hands fell to her sides. The window, with its opaque curtains drawn tightly, was only a few paces away. "I could go over to it," she thought. "I could get up out of bed, walk over, and open the curtains. There's no reason not to," she reasoned carefully. She pictured the events in her mind. Nothing to it. No problem. After all, she was eight years old. She held her breath for a moment, then sprung rather violently out of the bed to the floor, leaving the blankets in a state of shocked disarray. The floorboards were cool under her bare feet. She reached out a hand, which she was pretty sure was wavering slightly, but she couldn't be certain of that. She stretched her arm farther, farther, not wanting to have to move her entire body any farther from the bed. Her fingers connected with the shade. She moved over just a little farther, it was easier now with the shade connecting her to the sturdiness of the window behind it. She reached and pulled open the shade, wishing as she did so that she had done it more slowly, for the effect was startling and would have been more comforting if gradual. Light streaked in, shattering the illusion of denseness in the air. She sucked in her breath slightly, staring outside with such intensity that she forgot about looking at her hands. Huge flakes of white snow whirled before her eyes. Some streaked down like beams of light, others passed slowly before her, twirling as if to display to her their full beauty. She pressed up close against the window, the beauty of it sucked her in. The glass vanished from her vision. She thought that if she pressed in just a bit closer she would surely be outside in the night air, spinning with the snowflakes. Slowly, she leaned back from the window, feeling horribly let down after the initial thrill. It must be so beautiful to be out among it, her heart cried. The idea struck her suddenly, and she knew at once that if she thought about it she would never do it. She didn't hesitate for fear her mind would think without her wanting it to, like her hands rising up by themselves. She reached the door to her room and opened it quickly, heedless of the noise she was creating. She walked more quietly to the steps, and pressed herself against the side of the wall as she crept down them. When she reached the floor again she sped up, and fairly flung herself at the front door. It opened at her will, and she was out in it, among the twirling flakes. They rained down on her, as she closed her eyes and spread her arms to fly with them. She spun slowly, tilting her head back to feel them pressing against her face. The flakes did not press on her skin as her fingers had done, but lay there gently and slowly sank into her flesh. She began to walk. She took slow deliberate steps in an entirely undeliberate path. She was heedless of which direction she was walking in, and only scarcely aware that she was moving at all. She knew somehow that she was cold without feeling it, just as she knew that the ground must surely be below her even though she felt like she was in midair. She fell to her knees in the patch of grass she had ambled into, breathing heavily and deliberately. She curled herself tightly into a ball and let the world slip away from her as the beams of light pressed themselves inside of her softly. When she awakened some time later the sun was rising over the trees in front of her. The snow wasn't falling anymore, only a layer of slush remained on the ground to make the night before tangible. She rolled over and gazed at the sky above her, fighting her mind, which was telling her to get up and go inside the house. Just a few more moments, just a little more peace. Can't you feel the peace, she asked herself, mumbling softly aloud. She propped herself up on her elbows, feeling for the first time the chill in the air and the dampness of her nightgown. Its over, she thought, its over. Slowly, she raised herself up off the ground, she thought that she could almost feel the earth rotating beneath her feet. She blinked her eyes, stamped her feet, and walked resolutely into the house. I must be totally insane, she decided. Really, an eight year old girl walking outside into the snow and falling asleep on the ground! That's just ridiculous. Still, she couldn't swear that if it happened again that night she wouldn't do the same thing. The magic of the window had an all consuming power, she could still feel its grasp hours later. She felt drawn to it, oddly and powerfully drawn to it. She walked up to the front door, entering the house noiselessly. How strange, she thought. How different it all seems now, and how silly. She wondered, feeling suddenly alarmed, if the window would be different now too. Would the window be changed now that the thick darkness and brooding silence of the previous night were gone? She felt rather frightened of her own mind and the power the window had held on it the night before. She walked resolutely up the center of the staircase and entered her room. The curtain was as she had left it, partially open. The light admitted through the glass didn't shine as it had before, it seemed diffused and limp in contrast to the thin, shining beams that had so enraptured her. She moved quickly across the room and pressed herself against the glass. In her mind she willed it to disappear and let her mind flow freely to the other side once again. A hand on her shoulder jolted her from her prayers. "Dana, what on earth are you doing? You're soaking wet!" The hands pulled her from the window and their smooth fingertips gently stroked her face. "What are you doing, Starbuck?" "I don't know, Ahab." She lied to her father for the first time in her life.