"The Eighth Side of the Triangle"(19/?) by Susan Jameson
(DrBarnBarn@aol.com)
See part 1 for headers, archive info, etc.




~~~~~

As Scully Saw It

~~~~~

I suppose I should have ceased long ago to be surprised at the way
things turn out.

I had every intention of going home alone after I got out of the
hospital, or at least, without anyone but Jill to look after me, but
circumstances dictated otherwise. 

On the day that Daniel visited me, Jill also came to my room for a
brief visit, but she seemed so distant and so upset that I didn't
venture to ask her what had happened between her and Daniel. Under
the circumstances, I certainly didn't feel it was appropriate to ask
her to give up her vacation time to stay with me, so, in the end, I
went home to my mother's house in Baltimore.

Mulder continued working, in the District and out in the field, so I
saw much less of him than I would have liked. I e-mailed Daniel
twice, and he replied promptly, but neither of us dared broach the
subject of Jill. I wasn't even sure he knew that Mulder had told me
about it, although I suppose Daniel is aware that Mulder keeps very
little of importance from me when it comes to his relationship with
Daniel.

So it was a quiet two weeks from the time Daniel left until the day
Mulder came to Baltimore to await Daniel's arrival with me. 

Daniel was expected in from San Diego early Sunday morning, and Mom
had invited Mulder to stay the night at her house so he could be there
when she brought him home. I still didn't feel up to the drive to
Newport News, and Mulder, of course, didn't dare be the one to greet
Daniel, so Mom had volunteered.

Mulder arrived on Friday night, the same night that Daniel and Jill
were attending the reception aboard USNS Mercy. He seemed edgy,
despite his constant reassurances to me that he and Daniel were
working things out.

I didn't blame him. Daniel wasn't just going out on a date with
Jill, he was staying with her at her apartment. It seemed eminently
sensible to me, although I could easily understand that Mulder might
have felt threatened by it, but if he did, he kept it to himself.

"It's not like I've got room to object, is it, Scully?" he'd said
when he told me about it. "I haven't been 100-percent faithful
myself, have I?"

"Mulder, Daniel is not going to be unfaithful to you and you haven't
been unfaithful to him," I'd told him, holding his hand as he sat on
the edge of my bed in Baltimore. 

"I'm not sure he'd see it that way," Mulder said, glumly.

"Tell him, then, and see," I suggested, but Mulder shook his head
firmly.

"No," he said. "I can't take that risk. I won't. I just want to put
it behind me and forget it happened."

"Well, thank you," I said, feeling very hurt. "It's nice to know how
much it meant to you."

"Come on, Scully, you know what I mean," Mulder said, squeezing my
hand. "I don't mean I want to forget about you and me; I just want to
forget that it had anything to do with Daniel."

"It didn't," I reassured him, but I knew I was a liar. It had
everything to do with Daniel -- or, rather, with Daniel's absence.

And now, Daniel was coming home ... but first, he was spending the
night with his beloved Jill, the one person on earth who could ever
be considered Mulder's rival for Daniel's affections.

She wasn't my rival. For me to think that would have been to flatter
myself entirely too much. Ever since Jill had returned to Daniel's
life, her presence, little as it was, had relegated me to a distant
third in Daniel's affections, and it hurt more than I'd ever admit to
anyone.

I'd always told myself I was just a little in love with Daniel, but
now, I was having to face the fact: I was much more in love with him
than he was with me. Mulder loved me almost to distraction -- and
nearly drove me to distraction at times -- but I was the only woman
in his life, and whatever he needed of feminine love and
companionship, he got from me. That was how he wanted it.

Daniel wanted Jill. 

For him, I had never been more than a dear friend ... and, perhaps,
a substitute for Jill, a substitute he no longer needed, because now,
he had the real thing.

When bedtime arrived on Friday, there was no discussion about who
would sleep where: Mulder dressed for bed and came to my room, and he
held me in his arms as he told me, gently and lovingly, the horrible
truth he had learned from Kurt Crawford.

And then he held me as I cried all through that long, sleepless night.

In the morning, Mom made breakfast for us without saying one word
about the still-made bed in the spare room. She was calm and
cheerful, chattering on about Tara's latest visit to the fertility
clinic and how she and Bill had real hopes that this time, they would
succeed.

She was trying to be helpful. She didn't know the truth about me,
the terrible truth that Mulder had revealed.

I was sterile. Infertile. Barren. Call it what you will, it amounted
to the same thing.

There would be no children for me. It was hopeless.

Mulder kept his eyes steadily down on his plate as he ate, not
daring to look at me or my mother as she went on and on about how
she'd hoped for more grandchildren for a long time now, and how nice
it would be to have another baby in the family now that Charlie's
children were getting so big.

But he reached for my hand under the table, and he held it.

We finished our breakfast in silence. 

After breakfast, Mom went to do the grocery shopping, Mulder went to
the gym --in Mount Vernon, which is the gay district of Baltimore.
Under other circumstances, I'd have teased him about going there to
pick up guys, but that didn't seem terribly funny right now.

Nothing did.

I showered and changed into a clean gown, and then went upstairs to
lie down. The effort of eating breakfast and dressing myself, coupled
with the strain of the previous night, had exhausted me, and I needed
a nap badly.

When I got there, though, I couldn't fall asleep. I tossed around
restlessly for a while, and then remembered the book I'd been reading
in the hospital. I hadn't seen it since I left there, and I thought
maybe if I read for a while, I might become sleepy again.

I pulled my overnight bag out from under the bed and rummaged around
in the outside pockets until I came across the book. When I pulled it
out, though, an envelope fell out of the pocket and landed on the
floor. I picked it up. It was unopened. I turned it over to see what
it was, and breathed in sharply when I saw the return address.

USS Annapolis.

It was postmarked more than four weeks ago.

I sat down on the edge of the bed and, with trembling fingers, tore
open the envelope and pulled out the single sheet of paper inside,
and I began to read:

"Dear Dana," it said in Jim's scrawling handwriting, "I guess
there's no tactful way to say this -- I mean, there probably is, but
I'm not Daniel so I can't think of it. Daniel told me that you're
sick ..."

I kept reading, although my hands were still trembling and my eyes
were beginning to fill with tears. I read it all the way to the end,
and then I started over and read it again, carefully.

One paragraph kept leaping out at me. I read it again and again,
until I had committed it to memory without even trying to, and still,
I kept reading.

"I have a feeling you and I will meet again," Jim had written, "and
I want us to meet with our eyes open. You decide what you want to do
with me, but do it knowing the truth."

The truth. What truth? The truth about Daniel, and his love for
Jill, the truth about Mulder, and his deep, desperate commitment to
Daniel ... the truth about my childless future ... the truth about
me, and about Jim Reilly?

The truth, the Scripture says, will set you free.

Free ... to love. To be loved. To love a man who asked for next to
nothing from me.

And perfect love casts out fear.

I could hear the song from long ago in my mind, as my sister-in-law
Mary sat singing it to her babies while Charlie was at sea ...

"Weep no more, my fair young maid," she sang to them. "... I am your
long-lost John Reilly ..."

John Reilly. Gone for seven years, returned at last to the woman who
waited for him so long, she could no longer remember his face.

John Reilly, who Daniel and Jim had said, jokingly, must be their
ancestor ...

"And he's been gone ... for seven years ... still my love will
faithful be."

John Reilly was faithful, too. She no longer knew him, yet he came to
her, and he took her in his arms and kissed her, and named himself
"your John Reilly."

The Reilly clan hadn't changed at all in the centuries since that
song was written. Faithful, loving, forgiving ... steadfast.

I read the letter one more time, and then, calm and sure of myself,
I went to my mother's room, took out her writing paper and pen, and
began to write an answer to my faraway love.

~~~~~

LT James S. Reilly 
USS ANNAPOLIS (SSN 760) 
FPO AE 09564-2416

Dear Jim,

Forgive me for not having written sooner. Someone put your letter in
my overnight bag, and I only found it today.

I don't know what you've heard, from Daniel or from anyone else, but
my cancer is in remission. Miraculous as it seems, I am going to live.

So many things have happened since I saw you last ... so many things
that have hurt and harmed everyone, here and at sea ... and I
scarcely know how to say to you what I want to say. Openness has
never been my strong suit.

I want to talk to you, to tell you or at least to show you what is
in my heart, yet I cannot bring myself to commit it to paper. I hope
you will understand. It has nothing to do with you or my feelings
toward you, it's simply the way I am.

Come home to me, and I will tell you what I can.

I can't say anything more now. Please -- come home to me, Jim. 

I will be here, and I will be waiting for you. 

Love, 

Dana

~~~~~

As Jill Saw It

~~~~~

Oh ... my ... God.

My poor feet.

Even wearing the flat shoes required on shipboard -- the flat shoes
that were the only kind I'd dare wear around Mr. Orthopedist anyway --
my feet had become tender and sore by the end of the reception.

I'm used to nurse's shoes, you know? And believe me -- I never wear
anything but flats with wide toe boxes. You marry an orthopedist and
see what you wind up wearing. Over breakfast, at dinner, even in bed
sometimes, I heard more stories about hammertoes and bunions than any
woman with the slightest sense of fashion should ever have to put up
with.

I wonder if he's ever said anything to Dana about those shoes of
hers? 

Anyway -- as soon as I got home, I shucked off my shoes, hose and
dress and got into the bathtub. I thought for a few minutes that
Daniel might join me, but I guess the events of a few weeks ago had
left him a little wary.

I couldn't blame him, I guess. I acted badly, asking him why he
couldn't make love to me. I knew better. He considers himself married
to Mulder, and he thought I did, too.

I need to. That's the way things are now. Just because they can't
marry legally is no reason for me to ... come on to Daniel that way.

It gave me some insight, let me tell you. All those years, I
wondered why Daniel's boyfriends didn't say, "wait, stop, you're
married, we can't do this." 

I knew, now. They wanted him. You can forget all kinds of things
when your body's urging you to merge.

Yet another lesson learned, I suppose.

After my bath, I dried off and wrapped myself in my terrycloth robe.
I was headed toward my bedroom, tiptoeing in case Daniel was asleep,
when I heard a sound and I peeked into the guest bedroom.

Daniel was awake, wearing jeans and a sweater, sitting up on the bed
and reading a medical journal. 

"Danny?" I said, peeking in the bedroom door. "Did you call me? Do
you need something?"

He put down his magazine and I saw, for the first time, that he was
wearing reading glasses. It gave me a pang, realizing that in the
time we'd been apart, he'd reached 40, that his eyesight was not what
it used to be, and that the gray hair at his temples was only the
beginning.

I'd always thought we'd grow old together, and here he was, growing
old without me.

I had the strongest urge to go throw my arms around him and hold him
fiercely, as if somehow I could squeeze those years out of him and
make him again the beautiful young man I had married.

He was still beautiful; he just wasn't quite so young anymore, and
he wasn't mine. But he was here with me, sitting at the head of the
bed, smiling that Daniel Reilly smile that had kept me at his side
through so much heartache.

"I've got everything I need," he said, but he moved over on the bed
a little. "Or I will have, if you'll come talk to me for a minute."

"Well ...," I said, hesitantly. "I could ... but just for a minute.
I'm really tired. Too much dancing and drinking, I think."

"Ah, you're the same party animal you always were," Daniel said, the
smile growing into something too gentle to be teasing, but almost ...
as close as he ever came to it, anyway. 

"Party animal," I said, softly, shaking my head. I laughed. "You've
been saying that for years, and it hasn't come true. When are you
going to give up?"

"Not until I see you swinging from the chandeliers," Daniel said,
and patted the mattress beside him. "Come on, we haven't had one
minute alone to talk, and I have to fly back east tomorrow. Sit down
just a minute."

"Just for a minute," I said, sitting down. "I'm worn out. Did you
have a good time tonight?"

"I had a wonderful time," Daniel said, softly, then he laughed.
"Well -- I would have had if I hadn't been dodging Judy all night.
That woman is hard to discourage."

"You didn't look as though you minded it too much," I said, then
flinched. "Sorry. I guess you don't, do you?"

"No," Daniel said, more seriously. "I don't. I mean, I don't really
pay much attention to women, period, you know?"

"I know," I said, and then I smiled. "I'm sorry, Danny. I'm still
getting used to all this. We haven't spent much time together since
.. you know, since ..."

"Since the day I walked out on you," Daniel said, very softly. "No,
we haven't. I didn't think you wanted to."

"Daniel, I want you to be straight," I said, with a helpless shrug.
"I can't have that. I don't know what else would help."

Daniel was silent for a moment. I knew the look on his face: He had
something on his mind, but he wasn't sure I wanted to hear it.

"Spill it, D. Anthony," I said, and he laughed. That was a nickname
I'd rarely used, and only when I was teasing him. It was my way of
trying to let him know it was all right, whatever it was -- I wasn't
about to cry or anything.

"I was just thinking," Daniel said, holding my hand a little
tighter. "Would it have been better -- for you, I mean -- if I hadn't
left?"

"You mean, if you'd come out of the closet and stayed with me?" I
said, surprised. "Why would you even consider it?"

Daniel shrugged. "I've met some men in the past few years who are
out to their wives and are still married," he said, slowly. "It seems
kind of strange to me, but they seem to be able to work it out."

"Are we talking open marriage here?" I said, skeptically. "No way,
Daniel. It was bad enough when I didn't have to be confronted with
it. I can't imagine waiting up for you to come home from a date with
your boyfriend -- I mean, knowing that's what I was doing," I added.
"I know I must have done it without knowing it a time or two."

"Yeah, once or twice," Daniel said, and I could see the pain in his
eyes. "I wasn't suggesting that you would, Jill. I just ... I never
really gave you the option."

"No, you didn't," I acknowledged. "But what's done is done, Daniel.
I can't see the point in a lot of 'what if' right now. Anyway, what
would you want with a wife if you were trying to live as a gay man?"

Daniel smiled at me, gently. "Someone to talk to," he said, quietly.
"Someone who loves me and understands me and just happens to be the
prettiest woman alive."

"Oh, stop it," I said, but I was smiling. "You can talk to Fox, and
what do you care if I'm pretty? You don't like girls."

"I like you," Daniel said. "And I like talking to you. And I can't
always talk to Fox, either. He's a pretty closed book sometimes. He
still shares a lot with Dana that he doesn't share with me."

"I don't know why you expected anything else," I said, quietly. "He
loves you, Danny, but he can't always relate to you the way you want
him to. He's a man. Even if he wants to, he can't talk to you the way
he talks to Dana; and even though she cares for you a great deal, she
can't be to you what she is to him."

"I know that," he said, not looking at me. "I've known that since
the beginning. I just never thought ..."

He broke off there. I waited, but he didn't seem inclined to finish
what he'd been saying. 

That was one thing about him that hadn't changed, I guess.

"You never thought what, Danny?" I said. 

He shrugged. "Never thought I'd need that so much," he said, turning
his head away from me again. "I guess I just want it all, and I don't
understand it, I don't know why. Fox and I have a good relationship,
Jill, and yet I'm finding that something is still missing. And that's
exactly what I said when I was married to you. I think I must just be
poison for whoever I'm with."

"That is not true," I said, firmly. "You have a lot to give in a
relationship. You did to me and you do to Fox. You have some
conflicts, Danny. That's all."

"They're more than just conflicts, Jill," he said, quietly.
"Whatever I've got, I seem to want something else. That's not fair,
not to anyone. And I need a woman in my life. Not the way most men
do, but I still do."

"I'm not sure I'm following you," I said. "Are you and Fox having
problems because of Dana?"

"No," he said, firmly, and at last, he looked me in the eye. "It's
got nothing to do with Dana, Jill. I'm talking about you."

His words hit me like a bucket of ice water. I froze. I really did.
I sat there staring at Daniel, trying to comprehend what it was he
was asking of me -- and he was asking something, believe me. I've
known him too long not to know that.

"Danny," I said, finally, my words sounding strained in my ears,
"Danny, what do you want from me?"

"There's no word for what I want from you," Daniel said, and I felt
his thumb stroking the back of my hand. "I just want you in my life.
I always have."

"That can't be," I said, firmly, withdrawing my hand. "You know,
I've done some reading into marriages that break up the way ours did,
when one spouse comes out of the closet. Some people seem to be able
to make adjustments and hold the marriage together, for the sake of
their children or for other reasons -- one big one being that they
don't want to separate."

"I didn't," Daniel said, simply.

"I believe you," I said, as earnestly as I possibly could. "I really
do. But I've tried to imagine what would have happened if you hadn't,
to imagine myself negotiating with you about how and when and under
what circumstances you could go out and have sex with men and then
come home to me, and I can't. I can't see myself being able to live
that way. And you know that, too. No, Daniel -- it hurt me when you
left, but you did the right thing, all things considered."

"Are we ever going to be able to get beyond that?" he said, in a
slightly strangled voice. He was upset -- very.

I reached over and took his hand again.

"We're already beyond it, Danny," I said, quietly. "I still love
you, and I'll always be your friend. I don't know what more you want
from me."

"I want you to come back to Baltimore," Daniel said, and then he
smiled, a little sheepishly. "I know -- I'm still selfish as hell.
It's all about me, once again. But I don't want to live apart from
you like this anymore, Jill Marie. I wish you were closer to me, so
we could meet sometimes and talk, and be friends."

"You want me to uproot my entire life so we can meet at the City
Cafe for a sandwich once a week?" I said, cocking one eyebrow at him.

"Well -- maybe not the City Cafe," Daniel said, laughing. "Not a
real hangout for straight women. But somewhere."

"Somewhere ... in Baltimore," I said, enunciating carefully for
emphasis. "Daniel, you do take the cake. You left me, and now you
want me to give up my job and move across the country to be with you -
- only I won't really be with you, because you still have a
boyfriend. What do I have, Daniel?"

"You have a job waiting for you at Johns Hopkins, for one thing," he
said, quietly. "You know they'd give anything to have you back. And
you have a lot of friends in the Baltimore area, and I know they
still miss you, because they ask me about you when I run into them."

"You know what I mean, Daniel," I said, a little more sharply than I
meant. "I'm not talking about friends or jobs. I'm talking about you.
What is it you think we can have if I come back there?"

"Jill, in all honesty, I don't know," Daniel said, simply. "As I
said, I don't know the word for what you and I are or could be
together. I just know I want you to be in my life, and I'm selfish
enough to tell you that."

"I'll give you that one," I said, shaking my head. I let go of his
hand and stood up. 

"What?" Daniel said, looking up at me.

"I can't answer you right now," I said. "It's late, and I'm tired,
and this is not something I'd even considered before."

"But you will consider it?" he said, sounding hopeful.

Damn it, Daniel, I thought, looking at those deep blue eyes, so
tired now and so sad ...how the hell can you still do this to me,
make me feel like I'd lay down my life to make you happy?

"I'll consider it," I said, at last. "But I'm not promising
anything. I need to get some sleep, and so do you. We'll talk about
it tomorrow on the way to your flight."

"All right," Daniel said, but I saw the gleam of hope returning to
his eyes. He knew me too well -- he knew I'd do just about anything
for him, and I couldn't help suspecting that he was trading on that
now.

Not that he was aware of it ... he never really was. He never had to
question my willingness to sacrifice everything for him, because I'd
always just done it without a word.

But maybe not this time ...

"Go to sleep, Danny," I said, and I kissed him gently. "We'll talk,
all right?"

"All right," he said, soberly. "I love you, Jill."

"I love you, too, Danny," I said, as I turned and walked toward the
door. 

But God, it would all be so much easier if I didn't.




END "The Eighth Side of the Triangle"(19/?) by Susan Jameson
(DrBarnBarn@aol.com)