***DISCLAIMER***: All "X-Files" elements and references
in this story belong to Fox Broadcasting, Chris Carter,
and 1013 Productions, and I am making no money from it.

ARCHIVING: Link only, please!

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Remembering
by shannono
shannono@iname.com


Vignette, First person

Rated PG

Spoilers through "Travelers"

Summary: A woman thinks back on her first husband.

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Remembering
by shannono


I still love him, you know

Oh, I'm not "in love" with him. I don't think I ever really was.
That honor is reserved for my husband

The one I'm married to now, I mean.

I did *love* him, though. I mean, who wouldn't? He simply cried
out for it. Every fiber of his being was begging for someone,
anyone, to love him. Unconditionally.

And I still love him, in a way.

I was definitely infatuated with him, too, and I wasn't alone in
that. When we were teenagers on the Vineyard, all the girls (and
probably a few of the guys) had the hots for him. He was the
stereotypical kind-of-guy-your-mother-warned-you-about. A loner.
Occasional smoker. Wore a lot of black. Leather jacket. Tall,
dark, and handsome didn't hurt, either.

Emphasis on the dark.

He was moody, quick to crack a joke or flash a wry grin, but just
as quick to anger or, more likely, withdraw when a nerve was struck.

He seemed to have lots of nerves to strike, but one stood out
above the rest. Many a person learned the hard way not to say a
*word* about his sister. Said accidentally, comments would yield
a brooding silence. Said intentionally, barbs most often received
a fist in response.

He was a mystery to us then. We knew he was smart, very smart; he
seemed bored by school but almost always made high grades. He sat
in the back of every class, rarely speaking and never volunteering
answers. But when he was asked, he always knew.

Or so I was told, since I never actually had a class with him. I
was too young for him then. Five years was a big difference when I
was 12 and he was 17.

But he was nice to me whenever we spoke. Heck, he was nice to
everybody, unless they gave him a good reason not to be. Or unless
he was in one of his brooding moods, and then he seemed to just
avoid contact with anyone.

I lost touch with him when he went away to school, but I never
forgot him. I heard some secondhand news occasionally -- college
at Oxford, psychology major, recruited by the FBI. Finally, when
I finished college in 1988, I was offered a job as an assistant
editor with a book publisher in D.C.

It took me all of a week to track him down.

He was surprised when I called him at the Bureau, but he seemed
happy enough to hear from me. We talked a bit, then met for lunch
a few days later at the cafe across the street from my office. He
was still tall, dark, and handsome, still quick-witted, still prone
to the occasionally brooding moments. Still brilliant.

He told me a bit about his job, profiling criminals. He didn't
give details, which I understood; serial killers aren't exactly
lunchtime conversation. He asked about my job, and I told him all
about the filing and the typing and the little bit of actual *work*
they were allowing me to do. We reminisced a bit, talked about a
few people we both remembered.

It was nice.

He promised to keep in touch, and we hugged before heading back to
our jobs. But even then, I was surprised when he called a week and
a half later and invited me to a Bureau dinner. Some kind of awards
banquet, he said, and I agreed to go.

After that, the dinners came closer and closer together. Before
long, we were seeing each other nearly every day. We weren't
sleeping together, though. I confessed a month into our renewed
relationship that I was a "technical virgin" -- meaning I had never
actually had sex, although I'd come close. He smiled softly and
said that was okay, that he didn't want to rush or pressure me into
anything.

Like I said, he was always nice.

Anyway, one thing led to another, and by the end of the year, we
were talking marriage. Neither of us wanted anything big, so we
settled on a garden wedding, in a park gazebo on the Vineyard. He
was a bit apprehensive about having the wedding there, but my
mother had been ill and wasn't able to travel, and so he agreed.

It was a beautiful April day, sunny and bright, when we were
married. It was relatively casual; I wore an ivory, tea-length
dress, and he wore a suit. Like I said, we didn't want anything
big. If it hadn't been for my family, in fact, we probably would
have gone to the courthouse.

Oh, and we did end up waiting until our wedding night to have sex,
although we took care of a lot of other things before then. I had
decided months before that I wanted to go ahead and sleep with
him, but he told me he wanted it to be more special for me. That
would make it even more special to him, he said.

It *was* special, and sweet, and wonderful. Just like him.

We moved into an apartment in Alexandria and started settling
into married life. He had to travel for cases pretty often,
although it was usually just for a day or two, and the
homecomings were wonderful. And I started traveling a bit on
business myself, as I earned promotions and more responsiblity
at work.

But a few months into our marriage, something about him
started to change. Or, actually, I think it was a part of him
he'd hidden or tried to push aside during our courtship. Oh,
he was never violent or even very angry. He just started
closing himself off more and more.

Finally, in the fall, he told me he was going to see someone.
I thought -- hoped -- that he was going to get help, that he'd
realized he was different. But it turned out he was going to
a hypnotherapist. Apparently, he'd started to remember bits
and pieces about his sister's disappearance, and he wanted
to remember it all.

He was very, very quiet after the hypnosis sessions, and he
never told me exactly what happened. But he kept getting more
and more distant, spending more and more time at work.

It was in the spring of 1990 that I first heard the words
"X-files." He started mentioning some old, unsolved cases
he'd been looking into, and he started bringing home new
books on stranger and stranger subjects. UFOs, astral projection,
the occult, things like that.

Oh, I knew he'd had an interest in some unusual areas. I knew
all about the Monty Props monograph, the one that'd really made
his name at the FBI. But that had always been a side interest,
a sort of hobby. Not the obsession it was gradually becoming.

Now, he'd found a new interest. He started spending more and
more time on these X-files, taking longer and more frequent
trips, and never talking about any of it with me.

We started to fight, first over bigger things, like his
increasing absence, physically and emotionally, from our
marriage. But the arguments gradually degenerated into nit-
picking and name-calling, and before I knew what was really
happening, he'd moved out.

He got a little box of an apartment a few miles away, and he
took very little with him when he left. He bought a cheap couch
and a few other pieces of furniture, and he packed up his clothes,
his books, and a handful of other personal items.

I tried to patch things up for a while. We met for lunches, like
we had at the beginning, but things were so different. He didn't
laugh or even talk much, and his "jokes" were more cynical than
witty.

Finally, I gave up. In the spring of 1991, I served him with
divorce papers, and he didn't contest a thing. It was final in
June. Just after our second anniversary.

I still don't know exactly what happened. I kept working with
the book publisher for another few months after the divorce,
before receiving an offer with a bigger company in Boston. It
was near home and a great opportunity, and I had no real ties
in D.C. any more. So I took it.

I met Daniel just a few months after I moved. He was also bright
and funny, but he didn't have the air of darkness hanging around
him. We fell in love quickly, but I told him about my failed
first marriage, ane he understood why I wanted to wait a bit
longer before marrying again.

And, no, this time we didn't wait until our wedding night, if
you know what I mean.

We were married in April of 1994, about two and a half years
after we met and a full two years after we started dating
seriously. And we've been very happy. We have a beautiful
daughter who just turned two.

But sometimes, I still think of my first husband, especially on
days like today. It's clear and bright, and I'm driving through
the Vineyard, on my way to visit my mom. I pass the park, and
there's a wedding in the gazebo. The couple and their guests
are all smiles. Such high hopes for love and life and happiness.

And I send up a quick prayer for him, wherever he is. May he
find that kind of happiness someday. May someone learn to love
him for all that he is. The unconditional love he craves, and
the kind he deserves.

And may he love her back.

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