From: Kbxf@aol.com Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2000 19:35:53 EDT Subject: NEW: Keeping Things Whole (1/2) by KatyBlue Source: xff *************************************************************************** TITLE: Keeping Things Whole AUTHOR: KatyBlue CLASSIFICATION: MA, MSR SPOILERS: Paper Hearts, Closure RATING: R DISCLAIMER: CC and 1013 -- I credit you with the creation of these characters. However, any character growth that happens under the ticking of my nimble fingers at the keyboard is mine...all mine FEEDBACK ADDY: katy2blue@aol.com SUMMARY: Mulder finds Roche's final victim. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Meredith and Toniann are two amazing authors in their own right. They've indulged me by making this a better story through their gentle suggestions. In return, I thank them from the bottom of my heart for making me a better writer. A special thanks to Toniann for reminding me of Mark Strand and indirectly being the inspiration for this story. If you haven't read her own story based on Strand's poetry, run over there and do so. It's called 'The Story of Our Lives'. My story was inspired by the following Strand poem... *********************************************************************** ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In a field I am the absence of field. This is always the case. Wherever I am I am what is missing. When I walk I part the air and always the air moves in to fill the spaces where my body's been. We all have reasons for moving. I move to keep things whole. ~Mark Strand~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ******************************************************************** Part (1/2) A hotel room 5 o'clock P.M. Mulder knew that it was not his fault. At least, he let Scully tell him that as the sun set and the shadows lengthened across the room. Until the last rays stretched the chair and Scully's legs impossibly long into an absence of light behind her. Lecturing, Scully's voice droned on. The lecture had to do with him but he was only half listening. Distorted, the shadows of Scully and the chair crept over the badly laid brown carpet. The wrinkles of the rug added more confusion to the view, until the darkness became indistinct, waved lines. Until he just stared at the shadows behind her. It was a little like looking in a funhouse mirror. Mulder smiled slightly, tuning Scully's voice out completely. Comparing the long, slim stilts of her shadow legs to the powerhouse before him. He imagined Scully's legs as they really were under her slacks. The skin would be smooth and slightly pale. The tone well-muscled. She'd been running lately and he'd caught a glimpse of them the last time she wore a skirt. There was impressive definition to her calves. Power. He'd caught her skirt riding up in one meeting. Dared a glance and saw the cut of muscle in her thigh. Strength. Reaching up, he rubbed a hand over his eyes as if to stop the images growing there. If his partner knew even a fraction of the thoughts he had about her, no doubt they would not still be partners. If he wiped away these pictures in his mind, what would he see instead? The field. That was the image he saw next, when he made himself let go of the fantasy of Scully's legs. Long grass, waving. A stand of evergreens at the edge. Interrupted by the white of birch trees, bending and bowing gracefully to a blight that would, in time, wipe them from the forest. The wind, moving the grass. He didn't want to see the field. The field was red. The child. She waved, standing in the long grass. Sweeping her hand back and forth. Back and forth through the blades. Don't think of the child. Mulder brought himself back to the hotel room. To the chair. To Scully. "Mulder, listen to me..." she was saying. "You could not have done anything differently..." He just looked at her. Just stared. He was waiting for the night. Waiting for the moon. Waiting for something to swoop down and carry him away from all this. It wouldn't. He knew he just needed to keep moving. "It's five o'clock, Scully." For most people, this was the time to lay the day's work to rest. He thought about one of the maintenance workers in the Hoover building suddenly. If you passed by him when he packed up his mop at exactly one minute to five each day in the bureau hallway, you would hear his missive. Loud and proud. Wiping his hands clean of the dirt that had accumulated over the past eight hours. "Done for the day," he would crow. Mulder tried the phrase out. "Done for the day," he murmured quietly. It wasn't quite the same thing. Every day it was the same for for this man. Five o'clock sharp. Done for the day. Over and over, the same thing. Until Mulder purposely avoided going by that spot each day. He didn't want to know that anyone's life was that routine. Done for the day. Wasn't his life just as monotonous? Scully was staring at him. He returned the stare. He wished she hadn't cut her hair so short. It made her look older. More tired. Harsh when she stood in an unforgiving light as now. She added to the effect by putting her hands on her hips and scowling at him. It didn't make him love her any less. It just made him sad. It made him question his effect on her. Keep moving. The air. The air had been warm. The wind had been mild. Not really wind, but more of a breeze. Lifting the hair of the child. Swirling the white nightgown around her legs. A picture of a time of a place that once was. A picture of a time of a place that would be no more. That maybe never was. Mulder dropped his eyes finally from Scully's. She couldn't help him with her platitudes. She was only trying to fill in the empty spaces inside him. "I'm tired, Scully. I think I need to sleep," he said quietly. "No, you need to eat something, Mulder. It's only five o'clock." "Sleep," he repeated firmly. "I'm cold..." he said, and paused. Remembering a poem that had plagued him in a particular way, and he recited it aloud. "First the chill- then the stupor- then the letting go-" Her eyebrows lifted anxiously. "Mulder, I'm going to take the fact that you're quoting Emily Dickinson to me as a bad sign." "You should, Scully." She walked over to the bed. The coverlet was an ugly quilted pattern with brown highlights that matched the rug. He knew, as she turned it down, that the underside would be colorless and badly stitched, the uncomfortable feel of some cheap, manmade material that is scratchy and not meant to rest against skin. The threads would be loosened. Caught over time by others' snags. There would be pills gathered there from the wear of the rough blanket underneath it. He wondered, as he always did, who washes the sheets? Do they get them clean? It was the same in every hotel room. Scully was inspecting the bed as she pulled the covers down for him. No doubt she was wondering the same thing. Great minds think... He was so tired he wasn't even completing his metaphors now. She sat on the edge of the bed precariously. He could tell she was uncomfortable. She patted the spot where his body would lie. Alone. "Come here, Mulder." Woodenly, he crossed the room. He walked the path of the stilted chair leg's dark shadow. Trying not to step out of the line. It was difficult where the rug twisted the shadow. The air filled in behind him. He sat. Slumped on the edge of the bed beside her, he let Scully loosen his tie. She pushed the jacket off his shoulders until it fell. He watched her bend down and untie his shoes. Slip them off. Strip the socks from his feet. He liked the way her hair fell forward. The way the material of her jacket strained against the movement of her arms. He wanted to reach out and rub her back as she did these things for him but he couldn't. There was no reason to. She placed a hand on his chest when she straightened. She was going to push him backward. He stopped her then with a hand closed gently around her wrist. The field. The child. The air behind him. Rushing up. Sending him forward. Backward. Out of synch with himself. "There's nothing that you could have done differently, Mulder." He stared down at the floor. At the sock lying there. And finally saw it. A splotch of darkness against the gray of his sock. In reality, it was red. There was the blood. "I know," he mumbled and let her push him back onto the bed. *************************************************************** ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If the moon did not...no, if you did not I wouldn't either, but what would I now do, what prevention, what thing so quickly stopped. That is love yesterday or tomorrow, not now. Can I eat what you give me. I have not earned it. Must I think of everything as earned. Now love also becomes a reward so remote from me I have only made it with my mind. ~Robert Creely~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ***************************************************************** He lay in the bed. And Scully stayed beside him, her hand stroking up and down, up and down his arm. He could not sleep, though he was weary. Weary beyond all comprehension of the repeat condition of his life. The sheets smelled of detergent, so he knew, this time at least, they were washed. Still the white of them seemed yellowed. Was it just age or something worse, he wondered? Only the details changed. He couldn't close his eyes. If he closed his eyes, he would see the red. Yellow was a better color. If he didn't close his eyes, he saw the child. And he compared the patch of sheet visible near his wide open gaze with the pristine white of the little girl's nightgown in his vision. For some reason, his mind refused to color it red, though in the end, it had been. Scully's hand slid up and down. Up and down his arm. At some point, her fingers moved across to the buttons of his shirt and start to undo them. Methodically. He felt the tiny scratching of her fingernails as she did this. He treasured her touch. The care she took in touching him. Her eyes held to her task but she lifted them for a second to his. She abandoned the buttons to lay the back of her hand against his cheek, maybe because of something she saw there. He wanted her to keep her hand there. Capture the feeling. But in the end, like everything, it moved away too quickly and left an impression of vacancy. "Close your eyes, Mulder," she said with a sigh. "I can't," he answered. The grass was waving in the field. The child was waving to him. She was laughing in the vision. She was happy. The field was just a field. If he moved through it, the blades of grass would close in behind him and hide his passage. He never saw the child laughing. In fact, he never truly saw the child. "I need to stay awake and keep moving. If I keep moving, it'll go away," he mumbled. "I'll get past it." She was frowning at him as if this statement displeased her. "What do you mean, Mulder?" He was more tired than he thought. He wasn't making sense and now she'd noticed. At the same time, she finished with the buttons and hesitated. Her courage faltered and finally lost her. She couldn't push the material from his chest because it would bare him to her. He knew that she was afraid of this. He imagined it instead. He imagined her hand, sliding across his skin as she moved the material aside. Her fingers exploring him. The passage they would make across his heart. How the very tips of her fingers might caress him on their way to somewhere and nowhere. Learning the sensation of touching him. Teaching herself. The way she would lean over him and the shadows would fill in the hollows between them until they were one continuous entity. The stand of evergreens. And the white birch bowing. And the moon, a slivered silver orb in the sky. Of course, there would be stars. Scully's hand slid across his skin and moved the material aside bravely. She sighed, the breath escaping from her lungs with a small sound. He was wrong. She used her eyes, staring at his chest first, her hand frozen at the edge of the darkness between cloth and skin. Between day and night. It slid underneath him without touching, bracing herself against the bed. She leaned over him, as he'd imagined. Her hair fell in her face and cast a shadow there, like a harlequin mask. Half dark, half light. Her expression was not amorous, but serious. "Mulder, you need to stop this. You need to stop torturing yourself." If she knew what erotic tease his mind was currently involving itself in, she might have held her words. She might even have allowed the more pleasant fantasy of her touch to chase away the other images that were flooding there. He never considered it torture to imagine Scully. To picture what it would be like with her. Frustrating, but never torture. He would never earn her love. Keep moving. And the air filled in between them. The wind hadn't much been there at all in the field. The blades of grass had only whispered. Swaying so minutely that one had to focus on them in order to see the nature of the movement at all. A little swirl and then stillness. "I should have stopped it from happening," he said dully. "How?" she demanded. "Are you psychic now, Mulder? Have you mastered time travel?" "No." She stared and shook her head. "Help me understand, Mulder. How could you have stopped it?" ********************************************************************** TITLE: Keeping Things Whole (2/2) AUTHOR: KatyBlue DISCLAIMER: please see part 1 for any and all excuses for my behavior... ******************************************************************** ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Here is tedium, despair, a painful sense of isolation and whimsical if pompous self-regard. But that image is only of the mind's vague structure, vague to me because it is my own. Love, what do I think to say. I cannot say it. What have you become to ask, what have I made you into. ~Robert Creely~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ********************************************************************** Part (2/2) The child had never been alive. When they found her, she had been no more than old bones. The nightgown tattered and worked over by the field mice. It was not white but had taken on instead the color of the raw earth. And the blood that covered it was not red, but long-dried to the dark rust hue of the clay in that area. They had dug and dug. From day to night. And night into day again. The grass in the field had been torn up in clumps by the frenzy of the activity. By the crush of people invading its sanctity. Violating its silent, earth- covered secret. The sun had been hot and the breeze had been absent in the moment of final discovery. So hot and still that Mulder had taken off his jacket and sweat had stained his shirt in a line down his back. Until both he and Scully used dirt colored rags to mop the perspiration from their brows as it dripped off them into the soil. When they found her, he lowered himself down to his knees at the site. Peering into the hole of bones and feeling strangely as if he were praying, though no prayer escaped his racing mind. It had happened a long, long time ago. Mulder's mind had jumped to sarcasm. In a galaxy far, far away, he'd wished. In the darkened hotel room of the present, Scully was waiting expectantly for the answer to her question, though it had been a rhetorical one. Her body was leaning over him protectively. Waiting for him to actually come up with a verbal reason for why he thought he could have done anything to prevent it. Her one eyebrow climbed, a perfect crescent rising on her face. He wanted to reach up and smooth the wrinkle of dismay that was beginning to mark her brow. He knew she didn't know how to help him. She didn't understand the nature of the emptiness he brought with him. "Scully," he began. For a moment, saying her name was enough. And then he continued. "Sometimes, I think I'm like a black hole." "This one should be good," she muttered. She was trying to change his statement by lightening it. She didn't want to hear his seriousness. He didn't answer her humor. "Sometimes I feel like wherever I am...I'm what's missing." He wanted to convey how he felt. That if he kept moving, the empty places he left behind him would fill up again. That he would take the hole with him. But it sounded foolish. Pathological. Scully looked stricken. "Mulder," she exhaled. She leaned closer and hovered over, holding his eyes fiercely. And this time she put her hand against his cheek and kept it there. "By any convolution of fate and time, you could not have predicted or interfered with what happened to that little girl. Roche took away her life long before you knew of him. He holds sole responsibility. You've just been the unfortunate one chosen to lay her to rest. To bring some measure of peace to those she left behind." He nodded and liked the way her hand gripped his face lightly, as if to hold itself in place with his movement. Still, he put his own hand up and helped to keep it where it was. To press it even closer. Light shadows into dark. Day into night. The blood had been dark. As dark as the night sky outside the window. Not the midnight blue of the sky. And not the blackened hue of red on his sock. That was the color of his own blood. The glance of his ankle against a sharp rock that he'd kicked at in denial upon the discovery. The sharp edge that connected with and excised skin in his frustration to vent. Until the same hand that gripped him now had latched firmly onto his arm and pulled him away from his self-inflicted punishment. The child's blood had been the same color as the deep hole in the earth. "Mulder," she said now, softly. "You let Samantha go peacefully. This little girl is in the same place. Let her go too." He saw the little girl, standing in the field. Waving. Smiling. Swaying slightly in the breeze that hadn't been there. "Please..." Scully added. The blades of grass were eddying in little swirls. The little was girl standing against the backdrop of genuflecting birches and the contrast of evergreens. But she had never really been there. At least, not today. Today, she was no more than a pile of old bones and rags deep in the ground. He wondered who the little girl he imagined in his mind was. He could see her so clearly. She was, of course, in some ways, Samantha. Another small part of his sister that he was laying to rest. She was also Addy Sparks and Amber Lynn LaPierre. And, finally, she was the anonymous patch of nightgown that had been hiding in his desk drawer for so long and never had a name to match it to until today. And the nightgown had not been a blank white, but covered with pink and blue swirls and roses. She was every little girl who was taken from this life before her time. He imagined another little girl. "I'm sure Emily is there too, Scully." She sucked in her breath at this comment. Her hand shot away. The moon. The stars. The entire blanket of the night sky would be sucked into the yawning hole of his mistake. Scully threw it into full reverse throttle. But it wasn't a mistake. It was just something they never talked about. That she never talked about. "Why wouldn't she be there, Scully?" he said gently. He felt himself reaching out to her, halting her retreat, but he wasn't sure that he was. He imagined himself pulling her into his arms but it was never that easy with Scully. She held herself like a wall against him until he realized that he wasn't holding her at all but only a shell of herself. But he was holding her. He wasn't imagining that part. He noted the feel of his arms around her small body. Her breath was careful. Even. He felt the bones of her ribs contracting and expanding. Contracting and expanding. He thought, if the little girl had grown up, she might have been Scully. Or someone else. But fully realized. Alive. Finally, she squirmed out of his embrace and pushed him back down into the bed. Away from her own pain. "Go to sleep, Mulder." ************************************************************ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ He holds her tightly As he can, she buries herself in his body. Morning, maybe it is evening, light Is flowing through the room. Outside, The day is slowly succeeded by night, Succeeded by day. The process wobbles wildly And accelerates: weeks, months, years. The light in the room does not change, So it is plain what is happening. ~Robert Hass ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ************************************************************ The day passed into full night. The moon rose in the midnight blue, cloud-studded sky. Sometimes, Mulder wanted to tell Scully how he felt about her. Other times, he thought she should know, but couldn't imagine telling her. And the rest of the time, he was glad that she was never made to realize the painful nature of this confession. He was falling asleep. With his shirt gaping open and the rough quilt she'd pulled up to cover him scraping its polyester against an unforgiving layer of skin. Scully perched at the edge of the bed. Soothing him into sleep with the ceaseless motion of her hand on his sleeve. Avoiding the exposed areas. Mulder knew that she was both afraid to leave and afraid to stay. The grass of the field had been ripped up by shovels and tossed upside down back into the dirt. With his eyes open, he saw the bright yellow plastic tape rippling in the shallow breeze. Holding vigil to the violation, a stark contrast to the more subtle hues of nature. The milling crowd of cops and FBI agents, trampling any grass that had missed the violence of their search. And one, who stopped to take his first curious look at death puking over at the edge of the woods, though there was no liquidity or putrescence to warrant such an act. The bones were dry and brittle. The diggers lifted them carefully. The little girl's name held no meaning to him. At the tender age of seven, it would hold meaning for only a small circle of people whom she touched in a life cut short of accomplishments. It would be carved on a stone they could visit to mourn. Mulder closed his eyes. And this time, he saw Scully. Holding him. In his imagination, his hand entered her jacket and ran over the back of her blouse. Tugged the silk gently from the waistband of her slacks and finally, slid in against the smooth skin of her. Sliding upward. Celebrating her life. In his imagination, she did not protest, but allowed this small indiscretion. "Mulder..." at her voice, he opened his eyes. He thought she was stopping his thoughts. But instead, she was leaning over him. Surprisingly, her blouse was untucked and his hand was in against her skin, sliding upward and around to the front. He was scared all at once about what he was doing. She was frightened too. "I know you're hurting, Mulder." Her voice was soothing but also warning him. It was like a clock, ticking out the measure for him. Keeping time. For days, months, years, it had been his constant. He relied on her voice to keep him moving. To keep him whole. But also, to keep him distant. He removed his indiscretion with the slightest inching of his fingers downward. Outward of the danger zone until they rested on top of silk rather than skin. But still, his hand rested on her. The audacity of it was uplifting. She placed her own hand over his and gently lifted it away. He felt its leaving and mourned. She set it down on the ugly coverlet, beside hers. The moon was forgiving of Scully. Its light threw away the earlier shadows and enhanced her beauty tenfold. Her skin was smooth and unlined. A lock of hair fell gently to frame her face. Colors had been washed out so that everything was black, or white or a shade in between of gray. But even without color, Scully was beautiful. "Tell me about this black hole theory, Mulder," she said gently. "Aren't you uncomfortable yet?" he demanded of her tentative position on the edge of the bed. She nodded. "Yes." "Then get in the bed," he demanded further, knowing that he was pouting at her. Slightly angry that she was holding herself apart from him. That her beauty was so impenetrable to everyone. But especially, when it was him she was resisting. "Get on my level and maybe you'll understand." She reared back. "I am on your level, Mulder." "Not always, Scully." He stopped. "And I know that's probably a good thing," he added finally. "But still..." This time, he wanted her there, no matter how selfish it was. He held up the covers in a challenge, forcing her off the spot of bed she'd claimed but inviting her into another. A closer one. She stood for a second, staring at him. Arms crossed in righteous indignation. And in the light of the moon, all dark and light. Grace and strength. Finally, she took the challenge. She looked away as she shrugged her own jacket off and threw it on the chair. He didn't. He liked the way the silk of her blouse clung to her breasts. As she approached the bed and toed off her shoes, there was an answering challenge in her eyes. It protected her from him. It told him that she would not be a victim in this life to anyone if she had any say in it. Even him. She climbed into the bed with him. She lay on her side and propped her head on her hand, her elbow on the second pillow, watching him. A good foot between any part of her body and his. "Well?" she prompted. "A deep subject," he sent back. She snorted. "Mulder, that has got to be the oldest joke on record. I haven't heard that one since I was about ten." He smiled because she did. Until her eyebrow rose, waiting for his actual answer, but he'd truly forgotten the question. "Well, what?" "I told you. I want to hear about this 'Mulder as a black hole' theory of yours." He sighed and closed his eyes, though he very much wanted to continue to look at her. He didn't want her to read the emptiness. The heavy leather of his belt was digging sharply into his side and not thinking, he unbuckled it and slid it out of its loops. At the point he opened his eyes to toss it to the floor, he saw Scully's expression. A curious mix of fear and something else. "Sorry," he mumbled at the intimacy of the gesture. He changed the subject. Sending his words away. Back where they belonged. He didn't feel them with Scully in the bed with him. "Forget about the black hole thing, Scully. I was just talking out of my ass." She wrinkled her nose at him in an expressive display of mock distaste and fought back the slightest of smiles. "Funny, I could have sworn I saw your lips moving, Mulder." "You know what I mean." "That's why I'm asking, Mulder. Because I don't know. Please...explain your theory." Her voice was less forgiving. She wanted answers. "Are you a licensed therapist, Scully? If not, maybe you shouldn't fool around with this." She sighed. "Mulder, I'm asking as your friend. I want to help you." She had already helped him, just by being there. But she wanted more from him. In subtle ways, Scully asked for more from him than he'd ever been willing to give anyone. And most of the time, he gave it to her willingly, amazing no one more than himself. "I don't think I can explain, Scully," he said sadly. She reached out to him. Ran her hand over his arm. Up and down its length. "A few years ago, you thought you'd never find this little girl, Mulder, and now you have. It's a good thing." The field. The child, waving, so happy in the swaying green grass of the innocent picture presented by his mind. He corrected the vision. The field. The bones of the child and the dark color of their earthy reality. "Is it really better to know, Scully?" he asked. "Because I'm not so sure about that. Is closure just an end to hope?" Scully's hand slipped. It dared to grace the bareness of his chest. Her fingers, once they found themselves there, stroked up and down over the bones of his ribs, comforting. The tips of them caressed his skin, exploring it just as he'd imagined. Learning the tactile sensation of him. Her touch woke up something in him almost asleep. "Hope never ends, Mulder. I think it's just picked up and carried with us to the next crisis." Her touch was driving him crazy with another interpretation of hope and a strange satiation coupling with this more arousing sensation. He moved then, unable to stop his response. He pulled himself up against her. Pulled her into his hold. Wrapped his arms around her and completed himself. He felt the yawning emptiness inside him lift away as her presence filled him in. The nature of dependency. Of need. With her there, he didn't feel the urgency to keep moving. He felt whole. Scully moved in his arms, but not to pull away. To fit herself more completely to him. He felt her answer his hold with her own. Her body relaxing into his. Forgiving of his demands. They'd been here before. Her whispered answer of equal need was evident only in these precious moments stolen between the night and the day. Present in the way she held on. In the way he felt her lips touch lightly to his skin in either a benediction or a prayer. He held her against the darkness and toward the light. Merging two into one. Knowing in the morning she might easily diverge from him again. And he fell asleep somewhere in her arms, letting go of his sorrow. Able to still his restless soul with her to help him do so. Releasing his reluctance for the sun to rise and deliver him into another day, as long as she was there to share it. To ground him to the earth by the light of day. To allow him the stars by dark of night. To begin again, moving to keep things whole. *********************************************************** ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ One more day gone, done, found in the form of days. It began, it ended - was forward, backward, slow, fast, a sun shone, clouds, high in the air I was for awhile with others, then came down on the ground again. No moon. A room in a hotel - to begin again. ~Robert Creeley~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ***************************************************************** THE END Please send feedback to katy2blue@aol.com To anyone who's sent me feedback on my recent postings, your reply is on its way! I'm more than slightly e-mail challenged, but please know that I profoundly appreciate the encouragement. I just have trouble fitting everything in. Without feedback, self-doubt would take over my keyboard :) The poetry of Mark Strand, Robert Creely and Robert Hass is used in this story without permission but with great reverence. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Visit my very own website at http://xoom.members.com/KatyBlue update coming in September!!! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~