Title: Momma V
Author: RocketMan >lbontger@wmcstations.com<
Disclaimer: Julia belongs to me, but Mulder and Scully belong to CC,
1013, and Fox. No infringement is intended.
Please read Momma I-IV in order to understand this. They can be found on
Gossamer under RocketMan.

Momma

"Jules?"
I run from my bedroom into the living room where the tree is and Dad
laughs at me and my nutty grin.
"Ready?" he asks.
I roll my eyes. I have only been waiting to open Christmas presents
since eight o'clock this morning. I know I'm not a child anymore, but I
love Christmas.
"I'm definitely ready. What took you so long?"
"Santa was talking my ear off."
"Ho ho." I say, sticking my tongue out at his lame joke, and following
it with my own.
He pulls me down on the floor next to him and holds my shoulders.
"Now, see all this?"
He motions at a huge pile of presents under the tree. I nod.
"They're not all for you, Jules, so be careful when you're opening
things, all right?"
"Hey! I didn't *mean* to open Uncle Charlie's present last year!" I say
and stick out my tongue at him again.
He smiles and nods. "Go at it kid."
I start passing out the presents, some to me, some to Dad, some to Uncle
Charlie and his wife who laugh at me as I do, and then some to Matt and
his parents. 
Momma's whole family is here. Everyone who is still alive anyway. I bet
Momma and Gramma are here too, watching us have fun.
I wish I could have Momma on Christmas, just once.
Tara is nice and Uncle Bill is kind of mean to Dad and I don't think he
likes me very much, but he gives me money every year, so it's not too
bad. And Matt is a great cousin. He does whatever I tell him to.
But my favorite is Uncle Charlie. He's always laughing and smiling and
trying to cheer me up. He reads the stories and poems I write and makes
comments about them and really talks to me about them. Dad just smiles
and says they're 'nice.'
Uncle Charlie says I'm too moody, too much like Mulder, but then he says
that I look more and more like Momma every day.
I love Charlie.
I finish giving out the presents, everyone making comments along the
lines of 'Santa's little helper' or 'Jules the Elf.'
It's the same every year.
I wonder what Momma would say. 
Dad hasn't said anything more about Momma since the letter and I wonder
why. I thought, or really, I hoped he would talk about her all the time.
But he doesn't like to be reminded of all that pain, I suppose.
Charlie won't even talk to me about Momma. He says that it is Dad's job.
"Okay, Jules. You go first hon." Dad says and waits for me to settle
back in my spot.
I open the one from Charlie first; I just can't wait this year.
The paper tears at the corners and the tape pulls away easily. It's a
red and green print of snowflakes that would look guady anywhere else,
but here is pretty. I come to a department store box and slit the tape
with a fingernail. The lid comes off easily and I pull away the
wrapping.
I see Dad at the corner of my eyes getting anxious. I'm a slow opener
adn he's fast.
I find a journal in the bottom, in black and green like my room, and I
start to open my mouth to say thank you, when I notice what's below it.
Another journal, but in a dark maroon.
I pick it up and open the front cover.
It's Momma's journal.
I didn't know she even had one.
I look up to find Charlie staring right through me. At my glance he
smiles softly and nods.
"Thank you so much, Uncle Charlie." I say, barely able to even speak.
Momma's journal.
"She sent it to me one day, out of the blue. She wrote in a letter that
she had a notebook of poems and stories and thoughts and she knew I'd
appreciate it. I never read it because I felt like I was intruding. When
she died, I just couldn't. But you're safely immune to that. I think
she'd like you to have it."
I nod and feel the tears and Dad pulls me into his chest to hug me back
to happiness. I cling to his sweatshirt for a moment and I can almost
feel the tears in him too.
I pull away finally and we open the rest of our Christmas.
I hardly even notice.
****
Because the whole family is in our tiny apartment, Dad sleeps on the
couch and I sleep in the extra bedroom, where I found all of Momma's
things. I almost think of it as her room.
So it is where I go to read her journal.
The very first page is addressed to Dad and it talks about the day she
found out she had cancer and what that meant.
My Momma is a good writer.
But then she just ends and doesn't finish and I wonder what happened to
make her stop writing it.
Maybe she decided she didn't need it.
The next page is a fairly odd drawing of a man raising his arms to the
sky and sort of giving himself over to the storm. It's not particularly
great, but it's odd. And it's a glimpse of my Momma.
The page after is a poem she had found in a book.
I read it once and felt her right there with me, reading aloud and
pressing her fingers to the page in rememberance.
This was the poem:
enter my mother
wearing a peaked hat.
her cape billows,
her broom sweeps the nurses away,
she is flying, the witch of the ward, my mother
pulls me up by the scruff of the spine
incanting Live Live Live!

After I read that again I could see her in the hospital, feeling already
dead and Gramma coming in and trying to infuse life in her with her
presence. I wonder if Dad ever went to see her. I had my tonsils taken
out once and he couldn't come see me afterwards. He called and talked to
me all day, but he said he was sorry. Hospitals scared him too much.
Maybe that was because he had seen Momma in the hospital and this was
too soon afterwards. All I know was it hurt to not have my Daddy to hold
me while my throat hurt and the funny men came and talked to me but I
couldn't even answer.
Gramma was there and she held me, but Gramma wasn't Daddy.
I miss Gramma. I imagine Momma to be like her alot. Charlie said they
were almost exactly alike, except Momma tended to forgo church and
Gramma was a devout Catholic. I like church and Mass. Gramma took me and
I loved listening to the choir and the church sing. It made me feel like
Momma was with me.
I read some more of her journal, taking in each word like it is water
and absorbing her handwriting becasue it makes her real.
She talks about a ghost she saw of a dead girl that had been murdered
and how Dad said the ghost only visited the people who were going to
die.
Momma hadn't told him then about her cancer and she felt miserable.
I feel miserable reading this about her. She makes Dad into Mulder, and
not the Daddy I know.
Momma doesn't seem to believe in ghosts even though she is seeing them,
supposedly. I don't think I believe in ghosts because I'm pretty sure
that Momma would come visit me if there were. I've asked her to ever
since I was about five and knew what they were.
At one in the morning I make myself stop reading and I go into the
kitchen for some milk.
I find Dad sitting at the table, his head cradled in his hands.
"Daddy?"
He jerks up and rubs the bridge of his nose seeing me.
"Hey sweet."
"Are you okay Dad?"
He nods and then sighs. "Actually Jules, I need to tell you something."
I have a terrible feeling he is going to say I have a new Momma, jus
like in all the really bad movies.
"Yeah?"
I sit down at his inclination and feel my legs shaking so hard I can't
keep them from bouncing.
"Jules, I'm going back to work for the FBI. In the X-Files again."
Suddenly there are birds and rainbows and relief.
"That's all?"
He frowns. "Yeah . . . "
"Oh good! That's what you did with Momma right?"
He nods. "Will you let me see them?"
"See what?"
"The files she's in."
"What?!"
"Oh, I've been reading Momma's journal. She talks about you a lot and
the X-Files. Some of the stuff she wrote is a little . . . uhm . . . I
probably need to wait until I'm eighteen to read it."
His entire face grows bright red. "What's the date on her journal?"
I smile wickedly. I know it's before they got together.
"I'm not telling."
He blushes even more and I laugh, but softly so as to not wake the whole
house.
"Before. Around 1997."
It feels weird to say nineteen something. My whole life it's been two
thousand something. That feels like it happened a hundred years ago
instead of only sixteen or so years.
A slow smile spreads across Dad's face and I laugh. "Want me to get it
for you?" I say.
He gives me a glare and shakes his head.
"Anyway, I was hesitant to take the offer Jules."
"Why? Momma thought it was the only thing that would keep you going
besides me." I say and his eyebrows twitch.
"Because I'll be assigned a new partner."
I feel the heaviness of that and fall silent.
I don't want a new Momma.
But I do want Daddy happy. "You'll have to go away a lot right?"
He nods with a grimace. "I don't want to leave you-"
"I'll be fine. I could even go over to Charlie's. He lives close enough
for me to still me able to go to school. And during the summer maybe I
could go with you."
He frowns and I know he is definitely opposed to that idea right now.
Maybe later.
"Momma would want you to." I say softly.
His eyes flash to mine and a slow, sorrowful smile appears.
"Okay." he says quietly.
The X-Files.
Again. Just like Momma would want. 
I wonder if she'll help him out, if there are such things as ghosts
anyway.
Maybe there are.
Because I sure can feel something right now.
Maybe it's Momma.

end 
adios
RM