Daring to get Thoughtful
I usually leave posts such as these to Dana, who keeps her journal on a daily basis and whose style of writing is far more lyrical. But, today, for some reason, I am awash in memories of a time when we were on the road, looking over our shoulders, solving our problems with sex, and never letting the other out of our sight for fear we would never see them again. I blame Dana. She has friends who are posting about their recent trials in life, and they feel so eerily familiar ...
For us, it went to hell in this tiny little border town in Texas - I still can't remember the name. We'd been hiding for months, moving every few weeks, finding a new little shack to rent, but we'd finally started letting our guard down. We were talking about taking a risk, moving on to Galveston, but it turned out to not matter. Dana got sick. The water was contaminated and she didn't boil it long enough or something and I will never, in my life, shake the horror of watching her body collapse under the weight of her own heaving. She begged me to not take her to the hospital, that a paper trail would lead Them to us, but I couldn't wait. She was dying. And, of course, the tiny town we were in didn't support a hospital so I flew along back roads until I came to El Paso. And of course, the doctors still asked too many questions. But we got Dana what she needed and we got the hell out of there and flew back to New Mexico before heading up to Northern California. That flight is another story all together.
I don't know why, but the events being played out on another blog remind me of that time. We never had the same obstacles as these friends of Dana's, from not being on the run in Mexico to Dana never being pregnant since William - but there were arguments and blaming. That moment when I accused her of willingly handing off William still echoes in my ears all these years later. How could I have done that, said that? But I know some of the things she said to me still linger and though our relationship is better now than it ever has been, we still are haunted by her almost leaving me this last time - and she would have even though we both now know that we cannot hide from the darkness forever. We are stronger together than apart, but together, we often chip and chew at each other until it is a bloody, unforgiving mess.
We're legal now, living comfortably in a house we can now dare to fix up. Dana's given me a job for the spring - to "paint the damn thing" and we're talking about opening up the bedrooms upstairs and turning them into offices and guest rooms and leaving just one room crammed full of The X Files materials we've managed to salvage and collect over the past few years. Life is finally normal. I'm taking her advice, I'm writing. Not a memoir of our lives or of the X Files, but articles detailing (as scientifically as possible) what is still going on. I write under an assumed name, but those in the community who know me are happy to have me back. But there is a shadow on the horizon. Dana and I can no longer ignore how often her migraines put her to bed. The date we were promised by that smoking son of a bitch looms over us. I hope he was wrong, I hope he was bluffing. I just don't know ...
But until then, I'm going to keep reading what is going on in that other journal and spend time with the woman I love. Together, we saw her family on Thanksgiving for the first time since all this happened and I took my lumps from Bill and finally met Charlie, and cried when Maggie took me in her arms and held me. I'm sorry Mrs. Scully, for doing this to your daughter. But I love her, and I hope that in the end, that is enough.
-Mulder-