X-Files -- Gravity Plays Favorites
Jul. 25th, 2008 01:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anythingbutgreythis is apparently what i do when i run out of work at work and 1.5 HOURS UNTIL MOVIE.
gravity plays favorites. the x-files, pre-series. dana scully (scully/daniel waterson, scully/other, scully/mulder).
The boyfriend goes quickly and the physics stays. That's what she likes the most.
title from dresden dolls' "gravity". spoilers through "all things"
Her senior year thesis keeps her up at night. It takes a certain ego to think you can re-do one of the greatest thinkers of all time. That's what her boyfriend says. Perhaps he says it with a bitter twist on the words, she can't tell. It takes a certain boredom with your life to think you can re-do the greatest thinkers of all time.
The boyfriend goes quickly and the physics stays. That's what she likes the most.
-
At the start of researching her thesis, she stumbled upon something Einstein said once:
"Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love."
Dana knows better -- everything about love can be categorized and studied with scientific data and methodical outcomes. It's all about biology; it's just that no one really wants to work at it. Love is more appealing when it feels like the one area science hasn't touched. But Dana knows better.
Okay, so maybe it was her ego that thrust her into the thesis. But that quote -- that's what made her frustrated, made her angry, made her stay to prove something.
-
Anger --
She likes that.
At her med school orientation, someone asks what their favorite emotions are. It's some idiotic get to know you activity with questions pulled from fishbowls like they're twelve.
She's glad she doesn't have to answer that question. Most people don't understand the push and pull of rage, the way it forces her to step forward and change things.
"Fear," says a man with sandy blonde hair and green eyes and the rest of the room shifts uncomfortably, but not Dana, no, her mouth slips open and the edge of her lips might shift into a grin. "It makes me react."
She grabs him by the elbow over free and terrible catered sandwiches.
"I liked your answer," she says, feeling as a fool with flushed cheeks. "Before."
He grins. She likes that too.
"I'm Dana," she says.
"Dan," he laughs.
She can already hear the jokes coming on.
-
Dan is tall and warm and so smart sometimes it makes her wonderfully dizzy. She has always been the type to appreciate the intelligence of others above all else. He catches her ankle under library tables and brings her coffee before midterms and must have a handbook on how to treat a girlfriend buried somewhere because he does everything right.
When registration comes by, she signs up for a class with Daniel Waterson for her spring semester.
Years later and cloaked in an FBI jacket, Dana will still wonder what would have happened if the person ahead of her had taken the last spot in that class.
-
Daniel is head spinningly brilliant, but there has to be a larger reason as to why she leaves class that first day unable to breathe.
It can't be the way his eyes caught hers in the second row and seemed to travel back again and again.
Or the way, when he wrote on the board, she imagined the texture of his palms.
Or the way, when he breathed in, she wondered about the smells of him.
So it has to be something else.
She doesn't tell Dan. This is when she decides there are too many Daniels in her life, and it might be time to grow up past the age of nicknames.
Dan stays around for a while longer, though. Those lectures with Daniel -- Professor Waterson she reminds herself, biting her lip so hard there might be blood -- don't change anything, Dan is still warm and kind and adorable and adoring and all the right words.
It's scary how fast it all dulls.
-
Two weeks into the semester, Professor Waterson says, "I'm looking for a research assistant."
And he says it under the pretence of a class announcement, but looks only at her.
Her hands shake when she hands in a resume the next class.
She breaks up with Dan that night, and won't look him in the eye when he asks, "Is there someone else?" and she responds, "No."
-
The next class, Professor Waterson leans too close to her and whispers, "Congratulations. You got the research position."
"Thank you, Professor," she warbles like a child, anything but surprised.
He laughs, and a warm puff of air glances her skin. "Call me Daniel," he says.
On his left hand, she can see the shadow of a freshly removed wedding band, but chooses to forget.
-
The first time he kisses her she knocks a petri dish to the ground. The shattered pieces distract her for a moment, and she pulls away from him to get the broom on cruise control.
He tugs her back, his hands on her hips or her thighs or her neck or everywhere, and her skin, her skin feels shattered and bruised too, as open as heart surgery, ripe for infection without proper care.
"Your wife," she gasps with his lips on her collarbone.
"You," he says.
The imprint of the word stays on her skin for days.
-
She spends the summer with him. Well, with their research. That's the official story that her mother buys easily. The research they've done isn't very scientific.
"I'm going to leave my wife," he swears over wine in her apartment. "You're the most singularly important thing in my life, Dana. There is nothing but you anymore."
In her mind, a little Einstein puppet giggles, This could be love.
She blames it on pheromones.
-
Melissa figures it out first. She would, of course.
"I can't believe you," she hisses over the phone line. "What are you doing to this family? To yourself?"
Dana chews on her lips that still taste of him. "I love him," she says, because she does, in a categorized way, the check marks on the list in her mind fulfilled: kind, caring, funny, adoring, intelligent, sustainable.
The heavy exhalation of Melissa's breath sounds like gravel over the telephone. "You can live life like this? What if he doesn't leave his wife?"
"He will." She knows.
"And if he doesn't?"
She doesn't blink. A scientist looks at all possibilities and prepares for all outcomes. "I'll still love him."
The phone clicks off. Dana has a drink.
-
The FBI recruiter is an accidental happenstance at a job fair for post-graduate employment.
Her mouth turns. "Isn't this a strange place to be looking for agents?"
The recruiter does not flinch. "The US government always has a need for scientists and medical doctors. They maintain calm in stressful situations and can look at cases with a logical eye. Further, doctors in particular lend a certain expertise to cases we deal with."
It all sounds very pamphlet to her.
The recruiter flashes a card. "I think you'd be perfect," he says, and she stops, because something about the promise hits her. Possibly that it's the only sincere thing he has said, and he does mean it, she can tell.
"I don't think so," she says.
The card slides into her pocket. She fiddles with it the entire walk back to her apartment. By the time she steps through the door, the edges have been worn down to something soft and malleable.
-
Here's the thing about gravity:
The further you get from an object, the less its pull. If an object breaks out of the gravitational pull, it will move toward a new body and re-enter a new orbit. Unlike planets, people get a choice in the matter.
In the end, this is why she leaves Daniel, leaves medicine, with the sounds of Melissa ringing in her ears. Sometimes she thinks she left for the simple reason that she still could.
-
Later, there is Oregon and missing time and this man, this man she feels transfixed by. Dana doesn't think about gravity. Maybe this is the first time her science slips away from her, but it doesn't feel like Daniel, it doesn't feel trapped. It feels like a rotation, like a dance, like slipping into the comfortable placement of the Earth around the sun. She could stand for that. She could carry that much life.
But she doesn't put a name to this until later. She doesn't even give it full sentences. At the beginning, she thinks only of the paperwork. She thinks about how she could — perhaps should — walk away. She doesn't.
*
feedback?
gravity plays favorites. the x-files, pre-series. dana scully (scully/daniel waterson, scully/other, scully/mulder).
The boyfriend goes quickly and the physics stays. That's what she likes the most.
title from dresden dolls' "gravity". spoilers through "all things"
Her senior year thesis keeps her up at night. It takes a certain ego to think you can re-do one of the greatest thinkers of all time. That's what her boyfriend says. Perhaps he says it with a bitter twist on the words, she can't tell. It takes a certain boredom with your life to think you can re-do the greatest thinkers of all time.
The boyfriend goes quickly and the physics stays. That's what she likes the most.
-
At the start of researching her thesis, she stumbled upon something Einstein said once:
"Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love."
Dana knows better -- everything about love can be categorized and studied with scientific data and methodical outcomes. It's all about biology; it's just that no one really wants to work at it. Love is more appealing when it feels like the one area science hasn't touched. But Dana knows better.
Okay, so maybe it was her ego that thrust her into the thesis. But that quote -- that's what made her frustrated, made her angry, made her stay to prove something.
-
Anger --
She likes that.
At her med school orientation, someone asks what their favorite emotions are. It's some idiotic get to know you activity with questions pulled from fishbowls like they're twelve.
She's glad she doesn't have to answer that question. Most people don't understand the push and pull of rage, the way it forces her to step forward and change things.
"Fear," says a man with sandy blonde hair and green eyes and the rest of the room shifts uncomfortably, but not Dana, no, her mouth slips open and the edge of her lips might shift into a grin. "It makes me react."
She grabs him by the elbow over free and terrible catered sandwiches.
"I liked your answer," she says, feeling as a fool with flushed cheeks. "Before."
He grins. She likes that too.
"I'm Dana," she says.
"Dan," he laughs.
She can already hear the jokes coming on.
-
Dan is tall and warm and so smart sometimes it makes her wonderfully dizzy. She has always been the type to appreciate the intelligence of others above all else. He catches her ankle under library tables and brings her coffee before midterms and must have a handbook on how to treat a girlfriend buried somewhere because he does everything right.
When registration comes by, she signs up for a class with Daniel Waterson for her spring semester.
Years later and cloaked in an FBI jacket, Dana will still wonder what would have happened if the person ahead of her had taken the last spot in that class.
-
Daniel is head spinningly brilliant, but there has to be a larger reason as to why she leaves class that first day unable to breathe.
It can't be the way his eyes caught hers in the second row and seemed to travel back again and again.
Or the way, when he wrote on the board, she imagined the texture of his palms.
Or the way, when he breathed in, she wondered about the smells of him.
So it has to be something else.
She doesn't tell Dan. This is when she decides there are too many Daniels in her life, and it might be time to grow up past the age of nicknames.
Dan stays around for a while longer, though. Those lectures with Daniel -- Professor Waterson she reminds herself, biting her lip so hard there might be blood -- don't change anything, Dan is still warm and kind and adorable and adoring and all the right words.
It's scary how fast it all dulls.
-
Two weeks into the semester, Professor Waterson says, "I'm looking for a research assistant."
And he says it under the pretence of a class announcement, but looks only at her.
Her hands shake when she hands in a resume the next class.
She breaks up with Dan that night, and won't look him in the eye when he asks, "Is there someone else?" and she responds, "No."
-
The next class, Professor Waterson leans too close to her and whispers, "Congratulations. You got the research position."
"Thank you, Professor," she warbles like a child, anything but surprised.
He laughs, and a warm puff of air glances her skin. "Call me Daniel," he says.
On his left hand, she can see the shadow of a freshly removed wedding band, but chooses to forget.
-
The first time he kisses her she knocks a petri dish to the ground. The shattered pieces distract her for a moment, and she pulls away from him to get the broom on cruise control.
He tugs her back, his hands on her hips or her thighs or her neck or everywhere, and her skin, her skin feels shattered and bruised too, as open as heart surgery, ripe for infection without proper care.
"Your wife," she gasps with his lips on her collarbone.
"You," he says.
The imprint of the word stays on her skin for days.
-
She spends the summer with him. Well, with their research. That's the official story that her mother buys easily. The research they've done isn't very scientific.
"I'm going to leave my wife," he swears over wine in her apartment. "You're the most singularly important thing in my life, Dana. There is nothing but you anymore."
In her mind, a little Einstein puppet giggles, This could be love.
She blames it on pheromones.
-
Melissa figures it out first. She would, of course.
"I can't believe you," she hisses over the phone line. "What are you doing to this family? To yourself?"
Dana chews on her lips that still taste of him. "I love him," she says, because she does, in a categorized way, the check marks on the list in her mind fulfilled: kind, caring, funny, adoring, intelligent, sustainable.
The heavy exhalation of Melissa's breath sounds like gravel over the telephone. "You can live life like this? What if he doesn't leave his wife?"
"He will." She knows.
"And if he doesn't?"
She doesn't blink. A scientist looks at all possibilities and prepares for all outcomes. "I'll still love him."
The phone clicks off. Dana has a drink.
-
The FBI recruiter is an accidental happenstance at a job fair for post-graduate employment.
Her mouth turns. "Isn't this a strange place to be looking for agents?"
The recruiter does not flinch. "The US government always has a need for scientists and medical doctors. They maintain calm in stressful situations and can look at cases with a logical eye. Further, doctors in particular lend a certain expertise to cases we deal with."
It all sounds very pamphlet to her.
The recruiter flashes a card. "I think you'd be perfect," he says, and she stops, because something about the promise hits her. Possibly that it's the only sincere thing he has said, and he does mean it, she can tell.
"I don't think so," she says.
The card slides into her pocket. She fiddles with it the entire walk back to her apartment. By the time she steps through the door, the edges have been worn down to something soft and malleable.
-
Here's the thing about gravity:
The further you get from an object, the less its pull. If an object breaks out of the gravitational pull, it will move toward a new body and re-enter a new orbit. Unlike planets, people get a choice in the matter.
In the end, this is why she leaves Daniel, leaves medicine, with the sounds of Melissa ringing in her ears. Sometimes she thinks she left for the simple reason that she still could.
-
Later, there is Oregon and missing time and this man, this man she feels transfixed by. Dana doesn't think about gravity. Maybe this is the first time her science slips away from her, but it doesn't feel like Daniel, it doesn't feel trapped. It feels like a rotation, like a dance, like slipping into the comfortable placement of the Earth around the sun. She could stand for that. She could carry that much life.
But she doesn't put a name to this until later. She doesn't even give it full sentences. At the beginning, she thinks only of the paperwork. She thinks about how she could — perhaps should — walk away. She doesn't.
*
feedback?
