Title: The Observer (1/1)
Author: Cara Taylor (redciel@hotmail.com)
Classification: SR
Keywords: MSR implied
Rating: PG
Spoilers: None
Timeline: Huh? What's that? (In other words, no)      
Summary: "Watching the FBI agents at the bench has become a 
sort of sacred element of my day that I cherish and look 
forwards to."  
Disclaimer: The X-Files, Dana Scully and Fox Mulder all 
belong to the amazing Chris Carter and 1013 Productions. 
The other people are mine, mine, mine. I'm not making any 
money off of this.
Feedback: Yes please. If you want to say anything, I'm 
always ready and willing to head you out! As I already 
wrote, you can reach me at redciel@hotmail.com       
My own little personal input: I don't know much about 
psychologists, but it sure was fun to write about someone 
needing one!

--------      


"What's really bothering you?"  

I shrug. My psychologist keeps looking at me, waiting 
patiently for an answer. How does she manage to keep such a 
straight face? If I were in her position, I would laugh my 
ass in my face. I'm a complete wreck.  I mean my problems 
are so insignificant compared to the problems of others. 
There are people in this world starving of hunger, looking 
for shelter, looking for a way to support their family, yet 
I keep paying my psychologist in the hopes of finding 
answers and comfort. It's like I'm paying money for a 
friend. I'm just waving the green stuff in her face so I 
can have one person in this damn world to talk to.

My psychologist picks up a folder and looks inside. "Your 
birthday is coming up soon. You'll be turning..." 

"40," I answer before she does the math in her head. "I 
can't believe it." I shift uncomfortably in my chair. 

"Are you doing anything special for your birthday?" She 
asks. 

I laugh in response. I want to grab her by the neck and ask 
her if she's been listening to anything I've been telling 
her for the past two months! Is there anyone for me to even 
celebrate with? Why don't I pay her to share the birthday 
cake with me? 

"Your laughter is a sign of nervousness," she states. "You 
don't have to be nervous around me. Now, why is it hard to 
believe that you'll be turning 40?"

I'm suddenly taken by her intelligence and I stop 
pretending that she's dense. I can tell that she knows. She 
can see right through me. Tears start to swell in my eyes 
as the unspoken truth hangs in the air. Screw world hunger, 
right now speaking about my problems now seems like the 
most important thing in the world. 

"It's not the number that's making me cry," I explain. 
"It's what the number represents which is the first year 
that I won't be celebrating my birthday with my husband." 
My psychologist hands me a Kleenex box. Silence falls over 
us as I conservatively dab my wet eyes.

"Grace, you've got to let it all out. Are you crying 
because you miss your ex-husband, or because you feel 
alone? Or, is there something else that we have yet to 
touch on?"

"Everything," I answer and try to compose myself. The last 
thing I've ever wanted to do was cry in front of her. 

"I try not to miss him and I usually do a good job of not 
missing the bastard. I was on a roll when it came to not 
thinking about how much I hate and how much I hate how he 
got a new life. But, he destroyed it when he called 
yesterday, to wish me an early happy birthday because..." 
Fresh tears choke my voice and I use the Kleenex again. A 
slow minute passes as I fight to regain my composure. "Mark 
said he would miss the chance since he would be in Costa 
Rica with his fiance.

I swallow hard as my stomach twists and turns with regret 
and repulsion. "I actually thought we were going to stay in 
love forever.  And now, I don't even know if we were in 
love in the first place."
 
"What makes you think that?"  

I should have known that my psychologist would have asked 
that. I push the Kleenex box away from me, promising myself 
that I won't be every using it again, and sit up straight 
in the chair. I've been hiding something from her. In the 
midst of all the things I've admitted to her so far, I've 
managed to keep one secret. One pathetic secret that might 
even be against the law. Well, probably not against the 
law. Then again, there are all these crazy laws out there 
and people just naively roam the streets breaking them 
without knowing.

My psychologist senses that I'm in my own world and 
strategically loudly drops her pen on the table between us. 
"Grace? Is there something you would like to say?"

Will my psychologist think I'm crazy if I tell her about my 
new hobby? Well, she probably already does think I'm crazy 
with all my whining about my ex-husband. Perhaps I can get 
her to finally laugh in my face. 

"It's nothing," I smile weakly. 

My psychologist crosses her arms. "You don't come here for 
nothing. Nothing here never means nothing," she laughs at 
her own "joke". I let out a chuckle to show appreciation 
for her so-called sense of humor in light of my misery.

"It's just this silly thing I've gotten in the habit of 
doing. I hope it's legit because..." I look at my 
psychologist with dead seriousness. "Is observing of people 
against the law?"

"In other words, spying on people?" She inquires and I nod 
my head. "I don't think so. If it's all in good taste that 
is. Well, I'm not a lawyer so I'm not completely sure if it 
is. Well, if you were to be spying through the window of 
someone's house that may be illegal. Or maybe not. " My 
psychologist catches herself getting off topic and re-
focuses her attention on me. "So what kind of observing are 
we talking about here?" 

"Well, about five months after Mark left me, I decided to 
come home from work to eat lunch. As I waited for the red 
light to turn green, I noticed two people sitting on a 
bench by the FBI Headquarters. At first I only noticed the 
back of the man's head because it reminded me of my ex-
husband. Then I realized that he was talking to a woman. 
Well, soon enough the light turned green and I was on my 
way home. I don't know why, but I couldn't stop thinking 
about them afterwards."

"Were you captivated by the man because he reminded you of 
your ex-husband?" 

I tell her no. It was merely a connection that I made, but 
their resemblance had nothing to do with the situation. The 
man didn't captivate me; the couple did. I was so 
fascinated that the next day I went out on my lunch break 
again and ended up parking by the FBI Headquarters, hoping 
to see the two people.

"You purposely kept yourself hidden, correct?" My 
psychologist asks. 

"I didn't want them to see me, because I knew that I was 
going to be there again and I didn't want them to become 
suspicious of my actions. Besides, they're FBI agents, and 
until now I wasn't sure if spying on people was against the 
law." Truth be told, I still don't know if it is.  

"Okay, I understand. Go on."

I hesitate. Until now, this was my secret. Watching the FBI 
agents at the bench has become a sort of sacred element of 
my day that I cherish and look forwards to. Yet, another 
part of me wants to tell my psychologist my secret. It 
seems selfish of me to keep what appears to be the perfect 
image of true love. I decide to tell her the rest of my 
story.

"From then on, I would park by the building at lunchtime 
and watch them sit together, presumably on their lunch 
break as well, talking. They always sit so close together 
that they always touch." I close my eyes and envision them. 
"And they look in each other's eyes when they talk. He has 
gentle, mysterious hazel eyes that light up when he looks 
at her big blue ones. It's just..." I close my eyes again 
as I picture them. "It's just beautiful." 

"He tries to make her laugh. Even though I've never 
actually been close enough to hear them talking, I can tell 
by his face that he wants to make her laugh. And when she 
does laugh which, I must say, is the most infectious laugh, 
it takes his breath away. It's like he falls in love with 
her all over again." 

My psychologist smiles. "What about the woman?"

"She listens to him," I reply. "And she amazes him with her 
intelligence."

"You said that you couldn't hear their voices," my 
psychologist points out. She's right, I can't. However, the 
woman gives off an air of intelligence. Whenever I see her 
talking, she seems to be explaining something to him. And, 
he listens to her so attentively, as if there's nothing 
else in the world but her words. For the most part, he does 
most of the talking. He always seems to have so much to 
tell her. Maybe she's the only one who'll listen to him.

I can tell that my psychologist is just as moved by these 
people as I am. There are not enough words to describe the 
phenomenal energy that they give off when they're together. 
And when they're not... "I saw her once at the bench alone. 
The air tasted sour that day. I'm sure he was away, 
probably doing some investigation of his own because her 
face didn't glow as much as usual. I felt and understood 
her loneliness. In fact, I felt so bad for her that I 
almost walked out of my car to sit with her."

"What stopped you?"

I think back to that day when my heart ached for someone 
that I didn't know yet understood so well. "What stopped me 
was the fact that I wasn't him," I answer. 

"Why do you think that you're so interested in this 
couple?" 

"Because they're in love. I've never even seen them kiss, 
but I can detect it. They both touch each other any chance 
they can get. Whenever she has a piece of red hair out 
place, he'll tuck the lock back in. Or sometimes she'll 
rest her hand on his. I'm still trying to figure if they do 
it because their conversation may call for it, because 
they're more than partners, or because they're just so 
amazed by each other that they just want to make sure that 
the other is really there," I explain. 
 
For the first time since I've started to talk about the FBI 
agents, I look at my psychologist in the eyes. After 
observing the couple, I've learned that you can tell what a 
person is thinking just by looking in their eyes. The eyes 
of my psychologist suggest that she feels sorry for me and 
that the story I told her is probably emphasized to show 
the things that they have that I never had with my ex-
husband.

"Are you jealous of the FBI agents?"

I was waiting for her to ask that question. "For a while, I 
was. They connect on a level that Mark and I could have 
never even thought existed. I was jealous at the beginning 
because I knew that what they have is true love, and that 
what I had with Mark was never true love."

"So what changed your mind?"

My heart flutters as I remember the moment that I knew I 
wasn't experiencing jealousy. It was almost a relief, like 
a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. "I saw him 
crying one day. And as he walked to the bench to meet her, 
he was hiding his tears from the world. Yet when he saw her 
face, his world now consisted of only her, and he allowed 
his tears to fall freely. He wouldn't look her in the eyes 
though. So, she placed one of her hands on his cheek, as if 
to show that everything was safe in her hands. He raised 
his head, and wrapped his arms around her."

"I find that the actions you've just described are gestures 
that people would regularly do in order to comfort 
someone," my psychologist notes. 

I brush off her comments, because she clearly can't 
understand this couple unless she's seen them. "I saw the 
need he has for her, and the need she has for him. The 
longing they have to be with the other, to know that the 
other is okay. When I saw him coming to her with tears, 
then her comforting him, I wasn't jealous anymore. Since 
then, I admire them for being true love brought to life."

My psychologist nods her head, as if she knows exactly what 
I'm talking about. "I can see why you're so fascinated by 
this couple. However, the state in which you've been in 
lately may suggest that you've allowed yourself to 
fabricate the idea of what true love really is by watching 
these two people. And, by observing what you think is true 
love, you may be trying to make up for what you and Mark 
didn't have by watching them. Perhaps it's even somehow an 
emotional cleansing for you." 
 
Once again, I brush off her comments for she doesn't know 
the nature of the love between the two agents. I'm tempted 
to tell her that if she passes by the FBI Headquarters at 
about 12:15pm she'll catch them talking on the bench. 
She'll be a witness like I have been for the past couple of 
months of two people indulging in their love for each 
other. She can be one of the few people in the world who 
allow time and consequences to stop in this ever robotic 
society of ours to find that something true and magical, 
yet undoubtedly real, can exist between two people.

Instead I say nothing. Maybe it's better for me to keep the 
image of them sitting together at the bench to myself. It 
was my secret after all. I scold myself for crying earlier 
in this session with my psychologist. It's because of Mark 
that I ended up coming to her in the first place. After 
watching the FBI agents, I should have realized that I 
shouldn't be so upset about something that was never really 
there. Watching the couple wasn't an emotional cleansing 
for the hard times I had faced. It was just a matter of 
being happy. 

I get up from the chair and stand in front of my 
psychologist. "Thank you for being such a great listener. 
You've been a valued friend these past two months." I shake 
her hand and proceed to show myself out of the office.  
   
As I walk to my car, it occurs to me that I shouldn't keep 
my secret visitations to the FBI agents to myself. Why keep 
something that so many people yearn for in their lives 
hidden? It's comforting to know that there really is such a 
thing as "true love". For the first time since I can 
remember, I feel that there's hope for me.    

Fin
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