Title: Dear Charlie :-- uh, Dear Dana, Charlie's response (part 3 of 4)
Author: abbeydore
e-mail: abbeydore@aol.com
Spoilers: Through The UnNatural
Rating: PG
Category: MSR, H
Disclaimers etc.  in Part1.

Dana, Dana, Dana,

My favorite little Agent 99.

I've been getting quite the eyeful with letters from home.

Mom's always been good for gossip about family and friends (Can you believe
your unfortunate prom date Marcus had such an affinity for farm animals?
Animal husbandry, my ass.. . or theirs, I guess.  Hehe).

But, as I was saying, if I ever need an update on the goings-on, I can always
count on Mom.  Some of the stuff she's said about you over the years, frankly,
I found hard to believe, but since your friend (Byers, is it?) sent me a
complimentary subscription to that 'newspaper' of his I have to confess I don't
envy your job -- much.  And the opinions page. . . Hoo-boy, Dana, I think
you've got more than your share of admirers at that newspaper.

So, Mom sending letters -- and the occasional newspaper clipping (Wouldn't be a
care package from Mom without one or two) -- about you and your partner is no
surprise (Now, is it Fox or Mulder?  There seems to be some discrepancies in
all the letters I've been getting).  But when Bill starts getting in on the
act, I've just got to ask.

Are you and he/Mulder/Fox/your partner/whatever . . . involved?

Bill is under the - mistaken (thank you very much for keeping me in the dark
too, but I'll get to that later) - impression that I was well aware of this
development.  And since my loyalties are decidedly with you, unlike some
siblings I know, I will tell you that Bill was sort of spying on you and - oh,
hell, I'll just call him what you do - Mulder when you all got together at
Mom's.

Were you ever going to tell me?  Or did you just figure that *saying* that you
told me might make it true somehow?  I'm not one of your so called X-Files.  We
may be close - though, regrettably not like we used to be - but even I can't
read your mind, especially from so far away.

From what I've gathered from Mom and Bill, you and your Mulder have been
enjoying a mutual passion for . . . I'll be nice and call it . . . recreational
sports.  I believe Bill's exact words were "tonsil *hockey.*"  Mom's references
ran the gamut and were more or less quotes from you (You really should check
behind the doorways in Mom's house.  You never know who is getting an earful or
an eyeful.  Dana, reality -- you're an FBI agent -- check for these things.).
And this all started over baseball. *Baseball?!*  Why develop a love for the
sport now?  I used to *beg* you to play with me when we were kids.  Had to fork
over a large percentage of my allowance just so you'd pitch the ball to me, if
I recall.

And you get one call from your Mulder and you're positively giddy over the
prospect of 'hitting a horse hide with a stick'.  Isn't that how you so
lovingly referred to America's favorite past time?  I just want the story to be
clear.

Let me know if I'm getting warm.

Alright, you were assigned to work with him what was it . . . '92, '93?  And,
by your own admission, he was cute but a little on the weird side.  You did
later write to say that my suggestion of 'spooky' was wholly inaccurate and
cruel.  Did I touch a nerve?  He didn't trust you at first.  He, and I have to
laugh at this, I really do, he thought you were sent to spy on him.  You?!  A
*spy*?  Too funny, Dana.  As Dad used to say, "That's rich."

After that first case, I knew,  I don't know what you felt at the time, but I
had one of those Missy-like feelings that you two were stuck with each other.
Just reading your letters I could tell that you'd met your match.  And since I
know you so well, I also knew that he'd met his.  And he never saw it coming.
You blind-sided him, Dana, you really did.  Missy told me that.

Yeah, if it wasn't Mom it was Missy, telling me about you and your Mulder.
After your disappearance, Mom was full of these absolutely gut-wrenching
descriptions of how he was taking it all.  Wearing your cross.  I tell you,
Dana, that was a huge sign for me.  He loved you, of that I was certain, and I
hadn't even met the guy to figure that one out.  Even the way Mom, and later
Missy, wrote about him - how he looked, how he behaved, how he fought them
about your living will.  Good God, Dana, did you even have a clue?   I mean,
before you disappeared?  Did either of you?

Okay, don't want to be a total downer, so I won't start turning into Bill on
you.

Are sports some sort of weird constant in your budding personal relationship
with your Mulder or what?  What was with the football video?  You come back
from brink, the line between  life and death, and all you got was some stupid
Super Bowl video (well, not so stupid.  I own it too.  But I actually watched
it.  Can you say the same?).  And I hear about wrestling in the woods (Mom said
it in her last letter, just so you know who to go after).  What's that about?
And then, the baseball.  I'm sure I'm missing something, but I haven't gotten a
letter from Tara or Matthew so I don't know what they might have to add.  But I
have to say, 99, your partner has sure got some whacked-out ideas about
romance.

Or, maybe not.

Since they seemed to have worked.

Sucker.

But getting back to my little synopsis of the ever-evolving relationship you
have with your partner.

I have to confess, though, that whole Mulder-wearing-your-cross thing is a
little hard to overlook in my attempt at an unbiased, objective, distant,
third-party summary/opinion/whatever.

Oh, screw it.

*He wore your cross, Dana.*  "Partners" just do *not* do that.  You see that
line in the sand?  That DANGER DANGER DON'T/CAN'T CROSS THAT LINE line?  He
pole-vaulted over that line the second the clasp was fastened around his neck.

There.  Got that out.

Moving on.

Dana, I know your eyes are blue, mostly, but sometimes I have to wonder.  Are
you even aware of how many times you've been bitten - and bitten hard - by the
green-eyed monster?  I've been going through some of your old letters to me,
trying to find the time you may have allegedly told me all about you and your
close encounter of the Mulder kind so I could live up to Bill's new honorary
title that he thought up just for me (and that would be: "sorry-assed son of a
bitch"), and to my complete shock and surprise I found no such reference.
Instead, I found some rather bitter words about a virtual bevy of Mulder babes.

I made a list:

        1.  Phoebe Green: a 'walking British toothpick who may have a more successful
career advertising the cons of STDs', if memory serves.  Or was it
'back-stabbing bitch'?  Can't remember.

        2.  Angela White: something about a dye job.  Uh, Dana.  Pot, kettle, black.
You may be a natural redhead, but not as red as you've been lately.

        3.  Dr. Bambi Birenbaum: Oh, Dana, you made that up.  A bug doctor named
Bambi,  fascinated with the sexual appendages of cockroaches?  Not likely.
"Her parents are naturalists."  And Mom feared working in the FBI would somehow
ruin your sense of humor.  I can't even take this too seriously as jealousy,
since I have my doubts about her existence.  Just exaggerating like you did
when you were a kid, huh?

        4.  Diana Fowley: Sis!  Such language!  Been having impure thoughts of the
murderous       kind?  Remind me to stay on your good side.  I don't want an
autopsy on *my* body till I'm good and dead.  Thank you very much.

Then came your cancer.  How is it possible to actually hate a six-letter word
(Never mind.  Bill hates M-U-L-D-E-R, doesn't he)?  From what I gathered -
courtesy of our very own intelligence officer, Mom - you and your guy weren't
getting along all that well.  I should have known it was you, doing what you
always do in situations like that: suspect a problem, deny it, distance
yourself from everyone who cares about you so you can deal with it all by
yourself.  Damn your "I'm fine's."  Thank God for your Mulder and the faith and
trust you have in him when your world is falling apart.  And don't even think
for one minute that I'm through being pissed with you about that.  How could
you make Mom keep something like the fact that your dying secret from the rest
of us?  Bill's still ticked about that.  Now, ordinarily, I'm just his usual
'yes man', letting him fume and vent till whatever it is gets out of his
system, but . . . sorry.  I have to side with Bill on this one.

All of this, soon followed by what I now refer to as: The Implant Controversy.
Since I wasn't there (first time I ever damned the Navy), I can't realistically
take sides because I didn't hear the arguments for and against.  Or was there
even a real discussion?  Bill's letters had 'bastard' every other sentence and
he kept ranting about how the cancer was eating away your common sense if you
were actually considering putting a piece of metal in the back of your neck
because *he* brought it to you.  Hey, don't y-incision the messenger.  I'm just
finking out our big brother like I always do.

Well, whatever that thing is in your neck, it seems to have done the job.  And
for that I'm grateful.

Was it then that you knew?

Or was it even earlier that you realized that you were head over heels?

Contrary to Bill's mistaken belief, you've never told me your deepest, darkest,
most intense (dare I say, erotic) feelings - especially about your partner.

Wait!  Hold up.  I've got it!

Practically from the beginning, right?  You've loved him almost from the start.
 Liked him right away (I have the letters that prove that much).  But it's only
been recently that you have admitted these feelings to yourself - and to him.

Am I warm?

What's my prize?

I mean, Dana, come on, you've always been good at denial.  Need a couple of
examples?  Okay, here goes: "I don't have an Electra complex.  Ooh, I think
I'll date Jack."  Or: "I can be a morning person if I set my mind to it."

Dana, thy name is denial.

And it's so cute the way you wear it.

Okay, I can't hold back any more.  Am gonna have to rehash.

Baseball, Dana.  Tell me.  Gimme the details - in a PG kinda way.  Did he wrap
his arms around you under the pretext of teaching you the proper way to swing
the bat?  Did he lean in close, whispering in your ear his methods on how to
hit the ball?  Let me guess: 'hips before hands', right?  And you fell for
that?  Ha (Okay, okay: I got that last bit from Mom's letter.  Did I have ya
goin' there for a little bit?).  Or was it more Rocky Horror?  Was there a
pelvic thrust involved in the lesson?

Come on, Dana, spill.  Give details to your little brother.  You so owe me, you
know, since I haven't written to Bill to let him know how I was as clueless as
he was about the recent undercover shift in your partnership with the sly fox.
The only reason I'm not ratting you out is because I'd like Big Bro to believe
that he really was the last to know (why should he know *that* dubious honor
went to me?).  Serves him right after the way he's treated you over these last
few years.

Hmm.  Just thinking.  You want that I should make another list?  Let's call
this one: Things That Revealed Dana's Deep, Deep Feelings for a Certain
Self-Confessed Brilliant, Alien-Obsessed, Oddly Named Special Agent/aka Her
Partner.

        1.  Items 1-4 of my first list should fit in quite nicely here, don't you
think?

        2.  Your constant Arctic vigil at his bedside after his 'bad case of freezer
burn'(by all accounts, he does seem to have a way with words).

        3.  Uh, Congress, you, jail?  Ringin' any bells here?

        4.  You're still with him after *everything.*

Hoo-boy, and, Dana, that man has got it bad for you.  Even Bill sees that.  And
that's saying something.  I'd offer you a list to prove his love for you, but I
think by now you've pretty much got them all figured out.  Just goes to show
you, 99, you two have got to be (and I know you don't go in for this sort of
thing, but humor me -- and Missy) soulmates.  I mean, I've never met the guy
and I already know that I have to like him because . . . whatever it is about
him - and apologies in advance here for the sap and, no, Sis, I am not drunk --
he completes you.  Ever since you met him, I've read your letters, enjoyed the
rare visit, and you just have this glow that envelops your words and you.

You ready for me to totally pull a Missy on you?  Here goes: you + him = One
Person.

Alright already, my sucrose new age moment is *done.*  I'm just trying to tell
you: Go for it.  Be happy.  Little brother approves.  Only wish you'd been the
one to tell me.  I will have to get you back for that.  It's what siblings do,
isn't it?  So now you've got two Scullys wholly in favor and one - surprisingly
because it's Bill - straddling the fence.

Love
Affectionately,

Charlie

P.S.  Didn't mean for your last image to be of Bill wrapping his legs around a
plank of wood.  Oh, and Mom's leaning towards a fall wedding.  Would you mind -
if it's not too much trouble - letting me know in advance of any nuptials so I
can make plans?   Hate to get another one of Mom's damn - though quite
informative - newspaper clippings announcing the service two months after the
fact.  And what's this I hear from Bill about a ring that's been resting right
along side the cross around your neck?

tellmetellmetellmetellmetellmetellmetellmetellmetellmetellmetellmetellmetellme

Or I'm tellin' Mom.

 Respond to (abbeydore@aol.com)          Recommend Dear Charlie: uh, Dana,
 ------------------------------------          Charlie's response (3 of 4)
 Previous: Dear Charlie: Love, Dana   ------------------------------------
 (part 4 of 4)                          Next: Touched By Darkness (1/1) by
                                                                    Shawne