Story 232: "Drive, He Said" by Jennifer-Oksana

[wendelah1]

This short story is post-col, so you know what that means. It's short, because I sense some readers need a break from long fanfic. It's a fic that got recced everywhere from The Other Side to crack_van. It's quite good, but I guess that goes without saying.

"Drive, He Said" by Jennifer-Oksana
Pairing: Mulder/Scully (but Wendelah does not classify this as MSR)
Rating: R (her rating not mine—I'd rank it Teen for language)
Summary: Where do you go when there’s nowhere left?

The link is to her Wordpress Blog. This fic is also found on her Author's Page at Gossamer. If you can, send feed back to the writer, then come back and tell us what you think. The nomination post is always open for your suggestions.

Read Drive, He Said.

Comments

[discordantwords.livejournal.com]

This gutted me. What a beautiful, haunting story.

I love post-col stories, and I love little short fics like this, because they can do such a great job at capturing a moment or a feeling without foundering under their own weight the way that longer epics can sometimes do.

The brief description of Mulder and Scully's last moments together was heart-wrenching and conveyed such a sense of deep regret and missed chances. Thanks for reccing this.

[badforthefish.livejournal.com]

I'm a sucker for post-col stories too and this was such a beautiful, heartwrenching piece. I loved this writer's streamlined writing style, which proves once again, in fanfic as in everything, less is more. She capture so well the emotional numbness of grief when the mind wanders and stops to consider the most irrelevant things - why bugs have yellow blood instead of red.

I’m tired and my head throbs to the bass of my heart. Such a lovely turn of phrase.

I'm definitely putting this one in my post-col favourite. Great pick Wen!

[mogster495.livejournal.com]

I wish it wasn't so depressing, but it was very good and very sad. I read through twice and I still wonder when Scully died. Was it on the road, or was it back with Mulder on the East Coast. Also, I thought her appearance was weird. She was dressed in a way that some might see as kinda attractive and a little strange for post apocalyptic. This makes me wonder if it was a mental image, and we were viewing her consciousness rather than actual events.

[tri-sbr.livejournal.com]

I liked it too, for many of the same reasons people already cited.

But, I'm not sure I have decided what I think happens in the end. Did Scully actually die? Or, is she hallucinating (because of heatstroke, or maybe because of going crazy from being the only one left)? I certainly like the dying interpretation better, since the misery would be over for her and she gets to be reunited with everyone (Mulder). Near the beginning, I thought she had survived because of the Scully-is-immortal possibility, and that probably made me think twice about her being dead at the end (even if the author was not going for the immortality angle at all).

I looked up the lyrics to Twilight Time, the song that plays in the biker bar when Scully arrives, and saw that it played in the s5 episode Kill Switch, where an artificial intelligence has gone rogue and where Esther and David (friends of the AI's creator) ended up transferring their consciousness into cyberspace so they could be together forever (the song was on the CD which turned out to be the kill switch for the AI - haven't watched the episode in a while, so thanks to the interwebs for remembering details). The song is appropriate both for the Esther/David scenario and for the sort-of parallel scenario with M&S in this story -- Scully following Mulder into the beyond and being reunited with him for forever, like Esther following David in the episode (their bodies were dead, but they believed their consciousness was together). (This does bolster the Scully is dead interpretation of the ending, despite my waffling above.) I thought the whole song was relevant, but the key line (repeated through the song) is probably "Together at last at twilight time." Maybe I am too stuck on the significance of the song in this story, but I can't imagine it was a coincidence that the author chose this song. (?)

On a different note, I found myself wondering why Mulder's dying instructions to Scully were to drive. The ending makes it seem like he knew how the reunion was going to happen. But again, something I'm still considering.

[estella-c.livejournal.com]

I'm late, I'm late, for this very important date. Not much to say, either, except that this story is a stunner. I read it long ago, didn't appreciate it sufficiently (I don't like sad), but it has developed over time a ringing resonance. Just got home from church, and, well, maybe believing in some form of heaven makes the ending so powerful for me.

IMO, short, controlled tragedy works better than long pieces. Because you tighten your gut, and that hurts after a while. In that regard, I strongly warn against Everyone Having A Good Time (?), although Sabine is a very fine writer.

Does anyone remember: is "drive, he said" some kind of famous quotation? Guess I should go find out. It sounds borrowed, which is not a criticism.