TITLE:Pride, Hope, Desire
AUTHOR: Imogen
EMAIL: _"mailto:imogen@angelfire.com"_
DISTRIBUTION: please :) - just tell me where
SPOILERS: nope
RATING: PG-13
CLASSIFICATION: VAR
KEYWORDS: MSR
DISCLAIMER: not mine
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Thanks first to Tara for
beta-ing. I decided that it was time for me to
post again, so I brought together and completed
this, which has been floating around since
August. The title is from 'Portrait of the Artist'
and I stole and paraphrased one line from Eliot.
Just so you know

For I.

Pride, hope, desire

He has been staring at me all day. I can feel his
eyes on me. He is always staring at me.

Sometimes it is concern, sometimes anger,
often disappointment and hurt. Sometimes his
eyes cling to me as to an anchor and then I can feel
the weight upon me: a weight that comforts and
terrifies me. And sometimes it is something I do
not wish to name to myself as it sends the blood
rushing into my cheeks.

And I have looked at him with desire, of course. I
have imagined his lips on my cheek and in my hair,
on my eyelids, the back of my neck and across my
shoulder. I have imagined his mouth pressing
against mine and I have imagined the taste of him.
Coffee and sunflower seeds. It leaves my body
aching for him.

And so we allow each other this gratification in
lingering glances, all the time pretending that we do
not notice the other. At first it disturbed me to know
that, in his mind, I was a canvas for his desire. Now I
would let nothing take this intimacy from us.

But he has been staring at me all day. His eyes are
wide; his cheeks are slightly flushed. He is not hiding
the fact that he is staring at me. And I am staring at
him.

I want to burn. I want to lie back and feel the heat
like hands upon me. I want to sweat beads of
moisture, not through exertion but through being still
in the heat. I want to squeeze my eyes shut against
the brightness.

I want to prophesy. I want to lose it all. Not to lose
control into pain or ecstasy but into drifting with the
words as the sunlight through the trees, now. I want
to prophesy. To tell you my name and have you
name me. To tell you how it will feel and how it will
be.

He laughs. His hand is in my hair: he is holding me.

'Six years! You've wanted me for six years, and all
those nights you didn't come to me?'

His eyes shine as he moves his hand from my
breast down the curve of my side. I breathe because
I can breathe because I'm alive everywhere and the
air is warm and dark.

*~*~*~*~*~*

My mind is sleepy and unfocused but it runs in
search of you.

'Where have you been?'

'Lying in the sun.'

He gives me a radiant smile.

'Was I there?'

'No. It was just me in the sunlight.'

Everything is soft and warm and I'm sinking into the
air as it settles.

*~*~*~*~*~*

The walk through the park I know he has been
waiting for me but he still jumps in his seat as I walk
through the door. He is clumsily beautiful, I reflect,
as I stare down at him. My head begins to spin and
burn.

I have to sit down.

The expression on his face makes me stomach
churn. I have to sit down.

'I'm sorry, Scully'

The girl across the road can't get her pushchair on
the pavement. She's getting more and more anxious
but no one is stopping to help. I wonder why that is.
Pretending to be asleep when my mother walked
into the room, when I wanted to talk to her. Why did
I do that? The waitress brings coffee.

'I'm sorry. This was a mistake; it shouldn't have
happened. I was wrong.'

I don't think it was anything right or wrong. My head
is aching. I'm splintering.

'Are you alright, Scully?

'I thought we needed to talk, to address this. I'm
sorry. I thought we needed to get it out in the open.'

'Stop apologising.'

He sits quietly for a while and I can concentrate
again.

'I need to explain: It's my fault. I didn't mean to hurt
you. I wanted you and I love you but I never wanted
this. I don't want a relationship. I never wanted
normality. I never wanted a wife, a house and
children to fill it. I never wanted that to make me
complete. So it was wrong of me to do what I did.'

The coffee is cold now and stale. My mouth rebels
against the taste but I force myself to drink. I clutch
at the cup, trying to find some lingering warmth in the

ceramic. His hands close around mine and hope
flares in my stomach for just a second, before I
realise that they are there to steady mine.
I'm weak and I'm shaking.
His eyes are earnest and he is staring at me.
In pity, I think.

'I'm sorry.'

'I'm sorry too.' And with that I get up and leave
before he notices.

*~*~*~*~*~*

My life has been measured in coffee spoons. The
years have merged into each other and I never
became the woman I thought I would. Her life is
settled, and maybe she lives in a house with a
husband, children and maybe a dog padding around
the furniture. She is content and I have a knot of ice
in my stomach.

As I throw the window open, the smell of fading
summer rises in the air; a smell of wounded pride,
fallen hope and baffled desire. The sun is
shapelessly pale and yet I can still feel its heat as a
memory on my arms. Our summer was hazy-white
heat, making way now for a sky that cries with me.

The world is fading into a tired warmth as I curl up
by the window. We're waiting for the leaves to turn.
We're falling asleep, the world and I. We're falling
through autumn straight into winter and the numb
intensity of feeling that it brings.

I won't ask for a transfer and I won't punish him for
what has happened. I cannot; these things pass
between two people. Hurt we do to others and to
ourselves. The inevitable pain of any human
relationship.

Instead I find myself shrinking. I searched today to
find myself and saw that I was huddled in the corner
and so much smaller. So when he thinks I am cold
towards him, it is only because there is so much
distance between us, and when he gets no reply
from me it is because I'm fascinated by the echo of
his voice within me. This will not last for ever, I think.
I will grow again and be warm and strong but for
now it is enough to cry into pillows.
It is enough.

finis.