Concerto 
By RocketMan
lbontger@wmcstations.com

Date: about a week ago
Distribute: go ahead, make my day
Disclaimer: CC owns M&S and the story is inspired by "The Piano"
Rating: P
Content: mildly not me
Spoiler: nothing
Classification: I don't think this has a classification. maybe V, S?
Summary: Mulder meets his soul.

=====
Concerto


The sound was haunting, pulling him deeper into his dream to the place
where it ceased being a dream, but signs and portents of things to come.

The long hallway was stretched before him, doors on every space and a
maze of options to explore. The sound of the piano rose above his panic
and he stopped to focus on it once more, letting all other thoughts
slowly drift away until there was only the piano. Someone playing a
frenzied half finished song on the piano, then it would jolt and crash
and twist into a symphony of piano music, a one instrument orchestra and
he wondered if the woman playing was mad. All he knew was that he must
find her, had to give her another composition to play, one that was not
despairing and wild, but soft and caring and joy in its existence.

Her? Yes, it was a woman Mulder knew instinctively. In his mind he
could picture her, swaying silently as her fingers reached for the keys
and always, always, not speaking a word. Never a whisper; it was not her
way. It was her gift, the piano, and her pain transcended words to come
out through the crashing ocean of melodies upon the keys.

The music intensified, strengthened, urging him forward like a Siren's
call, to find its composer and he ran to a door and threw it open, only
to find more doors. He went back to the main hall, overcome with the
reciprocity the music held. His soul was engulfed in its rhthyms and the
player, whomever she was, had been caught up long ago in his soul's
music. It was what she played eeven now, the stormlike thundering that
petered out until another barrage of music sorrow caused the deep low
notes to be struck more often than the high sweet ones. It was his
soul's Old Music and she was dutifully playing until the day the notes
were changed and the measures redrawn. Only he couldn't find her to set
her free of the sorrow and grief and anger his soul still stubbornly
clung to.

And for some reason, if he didn't find her, the music would fade and
she would die. His soul.

Mirrors, now mirrors, everywhere reflecting the images of himself
trapped in hollowness and unable to escape. He cried out for it to stop
and the musci faltered and he held his breath, using all his will to
make it come back. The music played on, haltingly, the movements jerking
from note to note, the do's sounding a little to low, and the tempo a
little too slow. Almost as if the piano was out of tune from playing
such despairing octaves all its life. 

He crashed through the mirrors and saw her, sitting on the piano bench,
hair curling slightly around her face and barely grazing her shoulders.
She was hunched, picking out the music with nimble fingers and playing
by touch; her eyes were closed in either ecstasy or pain he couldn't
tell which. He reached for her, to still her beautifully pale hands and
knocked himself into a mirror.

The images were everywhere, he couldn't tell which was real and which
was just a reflection of his soul. She was weakening, the sorrow, guilt,
and other unhealthy emotions making her bones brittle and her body
slumped, as if in defeat. The tune on the piano was faint, the whispers
of the low octaves, deep bass that struck like thunder after lightening
and interspersed with the very high notes like wailings of mourners. He
fumbled through the mirrors, pushing them down, splintering their
illusions until only the reall thing remained.

And she was once beautiful. Her hair was now hanging limply curled with
a sheen of sickly sweat, her face grey and pallid. And her nimble, able
fingers were quivering in pain, the bitterness seeping into the joints
and cracking them, stripping away all comfort. Mulder let out a choked
sob and sat on the bench, stilling her hands, so sore and tired, and
taking in his hands her face, young but dying. She was dying. His soul.

And looking in her eyes, seeing the desolation and hopelessness there
he knew who his soul was.

"Dana," he breathed, his body trembling. Her music, his soul's old
cacaphony, had eroded away her life, become her own soul's jangling
discord and she could not live with it any longer. His soul, he was
killing her.


=====


He took her in his arms, lightly for her bones could break into a
million tiny pieces or her heart collapse around him were he not
careful. Her eyes were cold blue, hints of something more resigned
rather than unfeeling. He sobbed great tears of guilt onto her hair, but
drew back horrified when they sizzled and dulled her beautiful hair even
more. He was killing her, his sadness and mistrust and paranoia. Her's
was an innocence loss, by him no less, and only here, in the piano
player could he see the effects of his crude dismissal of her feelings
and of his own. The life sized picture of Dorian Gray sat beside him on
the piano bench, and he desperately wanted to unpaint the music of
sorrow left before her. 

He took the sheet music and crumpled it in his hands, surprised when
she swayed and grew faint. She knew the music by heart and although it
was softly killing her, she needed its meager substance to live on. He
pulled out an old, faded, and brittle single sheet of new music,
unfolding it on the little stand in front of the keys. It was years old,
from long before the pain had come to understand him, it was the only
piece he had left of those days. He had composed it, drawn it from his
one beautiful, inspiring memory that held no doubt or fear or
loneliness. He and Samantha walking in a meadow close to their house,
inspecting insects, cacthing butterflies on their fingertips, and
picking wild flowers.

He stared at the piano keys, unsure of where to start or how to palce
his fingers. It had been so long since he had attempted to control the
Music of his soul. Dana took his hands and set them gently on the right
notes, the piano issuing a soft sigh like a summer breeze across a
field of flowers. Mulder then remembered how the music went and his
fingers danced joyfully, loud crescendos followed by light, laughing
notes. Slowly, Dana took up Samantha's part and as soon as the first
wave of the duet hit, she was sucked into the vortex of spinning
happiness, just as he was.

But when it was over, he saw that although the pleasant memory was
revitalizing her, she could not play Samantha's part forever. He needed,
they needed completely new music. Beautiful, joyful, peace-filling music
that they would write together. Music to comfort her when he was not
there, and music to soothe him when she was out of reach. Music to laugh
in time with, new music. The old was suffocating her, his soul, killing
them both.

But he had a hard time knowing how to compose beautiful music when all
hislife it had been slow and haunting. And he could tell it was just as
hard for her, being so used to playing the music of his she knew by
heart. His music had been assimilated with her own until the joyful
parts were always tempered with the whispering trails of their sorrowful
journey. Neither could remember how to make new music.

He looked to her, seeing the still pale face but eyes that held a bit
of hope, eyes that begged him to understand that she could no longer
play in sorrow and guilt. And he understood. She was wilting under the
hot glare of anger and stagnating in the dirty water of guilt and
sadness.

So, in desperation, he took her hands in his and placed them on the
keys, toward the higher octaves then placed his own fingers on the lower
ocatves. She began to play, softly and without confidence, and he began
his own so that it was a strange disharmony that sounded like it was
meant to be together. After a few measures of stumbling around, his
melody found hers and they were in tandem, geeting a feel for the
other's music. His included long dips of ddepressing sombernes but her
firm march along the keys brought him back until their hands almost
touched and the music came close to being a full piano orchestra. The
intensity increased and he saw her greyness fade into vibrancy, her eyes
held blue, oceans of strength and trust and she played like a prodigy.
They reached a dizzying height until the music was harmonized and
ranging up and down the keys, black and white, and they were drawn in as
if it were a hurricane.

They played on, together, in synch, as if each knew what the other
would play and anticipated it before any reached a conscious decision.
Sometimes his music would become wild and erratic and she'd hang on for
the ride, but always playing her own piece with his, coaxing him back to
their ensemble. Sometimes her music would retreat to the familiar sorrow
and he'd pull her away with sunshine and brightness and her fingers
would dance to meet his. Finally their music entwined, their fingers
touched and the melody was the same but in varying octaves and shades,
resisting mundanity adn mediocrity for the joy of unity and
unpredictability. 

He followed her fingers to the ends tagging along with his own charms
and she followed him into his oen epilogue, matching his melody with her
distinctive harmony. 

And when it was finished, he looked to her and felt his heart finally
release the last of the old music. She was beautiful, gorgeous. Her hair
was almost to her shoulders and curling around her ear some, and a
bright blond red, with brown sneaking in, just as he had seen her at the
start of their partnership, her innocence still intact.

And it was beauty embodied, joy personified.

And it was his soul.

She placed a chaste kiss on his cheek, her lips the touch of moonbeams
and silver starstreams.

Hands warmed and relaxed, fingers resting on the keys, they looked in
each other for a long time.

Then, simultaneously, they began the piece again, melody and harmony
and measure and music coalescing to form the joy in existence that they
would fall apart and collapse without.

End.
Adios
RocketMan