Disclaimer: The X-Files is the property of
Chris Carter, Fox, et al. I'm writing this
simply to amuse myself - and a few others, I hope.

Summary: After En Ami, a conversation.  And payment
for services rendered.

Note: This little vignette could take place concurrently
with my other En Ami post-ep story, "Yo Creo" - but
not necessarily.  Another note at the end.

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The old woman sits heavily at the little dining
table, trembling a little with exhaustion.  The
room is dim, the light from the gray sky filtered
through a thick wall of trees.  She stares out the
window at the sodden garden.  After some time has
passed, she rises and opens the bottom door of the
china hutch.  She sits back down with a glass in
one hand and a bottle of sherry in the other.
Expressionless, she pours herself a generous
helping.  As she sits and drinks, her gaze returns
to the view of the garden from her dining room
window.  The hands that clutch the glass are rough
from years spent in that garden, in the dirt.

She ignores the footsteps on the porch and the
slight creak of the door.  And the smell of fresh
cigarette smoke.

Without looking up, she says, "I did what you
asked.  As always.  I did exactly what you asked
me to do."

He exhales thoughtfully, a stream of smoke curving
toward the ceiling.  "Thank you, Marjorie."

She snorts.  "Don't bother thanking me with words.
Your words aren't worth the paper they're written
on.  Not worth the air you breathe to speak them.
I just want what we agreed on."
The old woman looks up for the first time and
studies the man's tired and wrinkled face.  "You
look like hell.  You know that?"

He ignores her observation.  "Are you sure you
won't change your mind?  You know I can give you
something that would cure you.  Something that
would truly set you free."

"You think I want that thing in me?  Don't bother.
I've had enough. Give me what I want, then I'll be
free."  She swirls the sherry in the glass, thick
and brown like old blood.  "That young girl you
brought here.  That nice young girl.  You
didn't...you didn't give it to *her*, did you?"

The man shrugs, as if he knows nothing he says
will be believed.

"Does she know?"

Again, he shrugs.

"That poor girl.  That poor girl."  She takes a
sip.  "Do you think she believed it all?"

He pulls out a chair and sits across from her.  He
follows her unseeing gaze out the window. The
garden, a cheery place in the sunlight, is dreary
this wet  afternoon. "I really can't say. It's
never easy to understand what Dana Scully
believes. It seems to me that she believes in
whatever suits her own purposes at any given
time." He smiles slightly to himself. "She is a
pragmatic believer. Yes. That is how I would
describe her."

Momentary confusion clouds the woman's blue eyes.
"She's the one that works with Bill's boy, isn't
she?"

"Yes, Marjorie," he answers with great patience.
"We've gone over this before. And he's forty years
old now - hardly a 'boy' by any standard."

"Hard to believe."

"Indeed."

She tears her eyes from the garden and surveys the
dining room and the living room beyond, cluttered
with potted plants and a lifetime of knick-knacks.
"I remember seeing him, you know. When he was a
little boy. Sulking around the edges of his
parents' cocktail parties, that sort of thing. And
later on, after..." Another sip. "He always seemed
so fragile. Like his mother."

"And like his father."

Her eyes are suddenly bright. "Bill was a good
man," she says, her voice shaking with sudden
anger. "He never deserved any of this. I betrayed
him. I betrayed his family." She bows her head but
no tears can come. "He was a good man," she
whispers.

"Oh please, Marjorie," snaps the smoking man.
"You know perfectly well what Bill was. He was me.
The only essential difference is that Bill couldn't
handle the guilt. Not without a bottle of Johnny
Walker." Here he looks rather pointedly at the
bottle of inexpensive sherry. "A misty-eyed
tribute is the last thing he deserves. I would
have thought that you knew him better than that.
You were the man's secretary for most of your
adult life."

"You were the one I really worked for," she tells
him quietly, worn out by the small burst of
emotion. Dull despair now clouds her face. "She's
dead now too, isn't she? Teena, I mean. My memory
has become so poor."

"She took her own life. You know that." Idly he
watches the rising column of cigarette smoke.

"My God. That whole family destroyed."

"One of many, Marjorie. One of many. And at any
rate, Bill's son survives." His eyes narrow. "That
fragile boy developed a hard shell."

They sit for some time, smoking and drinking in
almost companionable silence. "You must admit it's
been good to see each other again, after all this
time," he says at last. "Surely there are a few
good times we can look back upon with fondness."

"Hmph."

He studies her from across the table with
curiosity and something like tenderness.
"Sometimes I forget what a handsome woman you
were," he tells her. "You still are."

"Silver tongued as always." She looks up at him,
and her face momentarily softens. Blue eyes soft
in an almost girlish face. Then the mask of
despair falls back into place. "That girl, that
young woman who came here. Is she..." She takes a
deep drink of sherry before she can continue. "Is
she the One?"

"What do you think?" he asks after a long pause.

"Oh God. So typical of you. Mysterious to the
end." She shakes her head, a bitter smile forming
on her lips. "That's it. I'm ready. It's time.
Just give me what you promised me and go."

He stubs his cigarette in a heavy glass ashtray.
"Very well." He fishes in a pocket and produces
two small white pills. "These should do it." He
places them on the table and she picks them up
with a shaky hand. She gazes at them as if
hypnotized.

He rises to leave, but stops and looks down at
her. "Would you rather I waited?"

"Please. Just go." She shuts her eyes. "I am
tired of you. I am so very tired of you."

He turns and leaves without another word. As he
opens the door he pauses and looks back at her one
more time, his face unreadable. Then he is gone
and the screen door slams shut behind him.

When the old woman opens her eyes, dusk is
approaching. She looks again at the pair of pills
resting in her hand. After studying them intently
for a moment, she swallows them with a mouthful of
sherry.

Then she sits and waits for the gathering
darkness.
 

End

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Notes: After En Ami, was anyone else as
curious about this Marjorie person as I was?
It struck me when I watched the episode again,
and it seemed to go nicely with another idea I'd
had for a while. Thanks for reading - let me
know what you think.

Elanor G (ElanorG@yahoo.com)
 

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