Questions Serie
Questions (1/1)
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 00:22:50 +0000
Author: RocketMan >[email protected]<
Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully belong to CC, 1013, and Fox. No
infringement is intended.
MS? ahead. (Could be MSR, could be friendship. You be the judge.)
Spoiler for Paperclip and Anasazi and those.
==================================
"Good-night my angel, time to close your eyes
And save these questions for another day.
I think I know what you've been asking me;
I think you know what I've been trying to say.
And like a boat out on the ocean
I rocking you to sleep.
The water's dark and deep
Inside this ancient heart
You'll always be a part of me."
--Billy Joel, "Lullaby"
================================
She was too tired to find her bed, but somehow she got there.
Mulder led her there she realized, as his hands roamed across her back,
pulling on the zipper to her suit and sliding it from her. She could not
be coherent enough to be embarassed, but she could sort of sigh at the
idea of him there, and wish he wasn't seeing her like this.
After her sister's death, sitting numbly in the hospital for hours on
end, Scully was a walking, breathing zombie. She barely made it to
Mulder's side and now, here he was taking care of her again.
She let her eyes slip closed, then they shot open as she felt his cold
fingers slide her pajamas on her.
She turned wearily to him. "Sorry about this Mulder." she murmured.
He smiled and shook his head. "Don't apologize." He gave her a little
grin. "I don't know about you, but I'm having fun."
A sort of grin flickered on her face like a dying light bulb and it soon
faded. He wished he could do something to change that.
She let him put her to bed and pull up the covers and gently stroke her
forehead as her eyes pulled down.
"Mulder, there are still so many things I don't understand...." she
murmured, her voice zoning in and out as her consciousness did.
"Shh.....It's time to sleep."
She nodded and turned over, leaving her back to him. "Why did this all
happen to -"
"Scully. You need to sleep. You're exhausted. Those questions can wait
until you're rested."
She turned around to face him, her eyes drooping and her fingers slowly
reaching out to him.
"Come here." she said and took a weak hold of his hand.
He crawled across the bed to her, shutting out the part of him that
screamed foul.
He smoothed her hair and eased her body back into slumber.
She looked like an angel in her sleep, free of doubts and fears and
questions that couldn't be answered.
She sighed and her face turned and meshed into his thigh, as if she were
a little girl again, finding comfort in Daddy's presence.
The room was getting dark as the street lights cast odd shadows around
her room, making the blinds slant across her bed.
He fingered her bangs and drew them behind her ear, then leaned down and
kissed her forehead.
Such an angel.
end
adios
RM
Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 22:15:10 +0000
From: Lyle Bontrager <[email protected]>
Subject: [Fwd: Questions II (1/1)]
Title: Questions II (1/1)
Author: RocketMan >[email protected]<
Disclaimer: M&S are prop. of CC, 1013, and Fox. No fringe intended.
"Mysterious Ways" is a Kim Hill song.
Notes: This is turning into a series. It will be a short little glimpse
of Mulder and Scully after one of their more harrowing investigations
(which ones aren't harrowing!) and a sort of aftermath of the whole
thing.
You get to try and figure out which ep!! No, kidding. This is
Post-Firewalker.
Questions II
=======================
"Questions fall like showers of endless rain into oceans of the
unexplained. Someday, it all will be made known."
--"Mysterious Ways" Kim Hill
=======================
The rooms were white.
The beds had white blankets and white pillows and the odd attempt to
personalize things hadn't changed the dazzling whiteness.
It made her nervous; he saw this clearly on her face and in the way she
sat stiffly beside him, neither noticing him nor ignoring him.
At night, she worried that she would wake up and be leached of color
from being in the room for so long.
Third week of isolation, of decontamination. These were the words spoken
aloud to her and him and these were the words she had come to revile,
like the taste of steamed broccoli on her tongue, gagging.
He slipped a hand around her and pushed her forward, wishing she
wouldn't act so weird. Her irrational behavior was probably the reason
why they had been there so long. He wanted to tell her to stop sitting
and staring, like a catatonic vegetable, but he figured he'd be met with
a blank stare.
Instead, he sought to the refuge of memories, slipping away from the
metal hands that worked his muscles, that kept him physically fit in
their bubble. These precious twenty minutes of nothingness allowed him
to forget the white walls and the white eyes and her white face.
He remembered:
slipping on the sweat of the volcano as it trembled up steam, the way it
had seeped right into his marrow and made him slow, even as his heart
beat extra fast to make him run to her:
the utter darkness of the lab, the frozen silence that made him all too
wary of the dark, having to slow down so that he would not be caught off
guard, yet wanting, needing to run in after her:
yelling her name, blanking out in the sheer desperation pulling down in
him, moving forward only because some inner voice told him to:
her voice:
clear as angel whispers into a mortal's ear:
weary as a pilgrim in foreign land, thirsting not for water, but for
spiritual cleansing.
He could see her in his mind as the exercises went on monotonously. Her
panting, her chest rising, falling, heaving, head tilted back, lips open
and wide and red, one arm raised and locked, her body slumped as if in a
victorious kind of defeat.
He had gone to her, had unlcoked her from the cuffs, had wanted to touch
her so badly, wanted to make sure she was indeed "still here." She
simply regained her strength, maybe, hopefully, from his presence, and
went back to the job.
The metal hands released him and he went back into the bright white room
and there was Scully, looking just as lost and alone as before.
He took her hand.
Had she managed to escape the spores? What if she hadn't and her
despondency was the onset of the parasites attack?
He shivered.
It had been three weeks.
Surely.....
"Mulder....."
He glanced to her with a kind of half look that told her he was off on
tangents, floating freely into nothingness.
"Mulder, that parasite . . . it was strange."
"No kidding."
"It wasn't carbon-based."
"It was extra-terrestrial."
"No, just strange. I thought things went into certain places, but now
nothing does anymore. And this white . . . whiteness all around . . .
it's making a lot of things not fit into place."
He frowned and led her to one of the long, couch-like beds and sat down
next to her, needing the touch of her to help him remain grounded.
"What's not fitting?"
"My missing time."
A hell of a lot more than nine minutes this time.
"This is familiar."
He glanced sharply to her, mind busy recalling other testimonies in
other cities of other woman who claimed to be abductees.
"This white room is familair?"
"Yes. And not because of any of the other contamination procedures we've
been in--like those bugs that attacked after nightfall."--a shiver
here--"But because I remember it and I'm not supposed to be having these
memories. This wasn't supposed to happen to me."
He wanted, needed, to touch her again, but as before, looking was all he
could hold out to her.
This thing between them was close and hot and furious and it was fueled
by strength and some kind of connection that went beyond any paranormal
phenomenon he'd ever read about. It also didn't need more fuel.
She sighed, as if she needed more than his eyes that time.
"Are you saying that you remember a white room from the time you were
gone?"
He choked on the 'gone' and had a hard time forcing it out of his lips
and into her ears. She simply watched him before nodding one last time.
He could tell this was not the end.
"Are you okay with that?" he said softly.
She shook her head and he was surprised to see tears slipping down her
face.
His arms were around her and pulling her in and feeding their fire
before he even knew he was working his muscles.
"It's too white," she said into his shoulder.
He nodded as if he could ever hope to understand, and let her stay right
where she was, safe for the moment from the intensity of the white room.
Safe from the monsters out there.
She gasped in breath and clutched his white shift.
"Why me, Mulder? Why did it have to be me?" she whispered and it was the
harsh, pathetic cry of a child abandoned to the dark by someone she had
once loved.
They were questions he had no answers to, even though he wished he did.
Luck or chance or fate or The Powers That Be were not comforting things,
and neither was his own admission of guilt. She didn't want
explanations, she wanted it to be gone.
Gone.
He wanted her to promise she'd still be there.
Silent, death-like, she stayed wrapped in him, smelling the disinfectant
of his shift, the Vaseline smell of his hands, the base and animal
pheremones of his body.
It gave some comfort; it harbored some relief.
She fell asleep.
He looked up, then back down.
It was just too white to face.
Just too white.
end
adios
RM
Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 23:02:37 +0000
From: Lyle Bontrager <[email protected]>
Subject: Questions III (1/1)
Title: Questions III (1/1)
Author: RocketMan >[email protected]<
Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully and the X-Files belong to CC, 1013, and
Fox. No infringement is intended.
SPOILER: This is the post-ep story for All Souls. I know I will be
jumping ahead a whole lot by doing this, but I just have to write this
one.
Questions III
Mulder could see the fear in her eyes.
He shivered; fear wasn't one of the things he saw a lot of in her.
She glanced around them, her dress billowing in the slight warm breeze
as he led her back to the car.
St. Paul's was serene looking, the huge stained glass window depicting
some kind of comfort that he couldn't quite make out at this distance.
He knew she was feeling confused by everything, confused becase she
could not talk with him; he did not believe.
Yet, how could he believe in angels, in seraphim and nephilim, if he had
not beleived in God since his sister had disappeared?
So many fragmented answers, so many things she thought she had seen, so
many questions that were frightening to ask.
He saw her sigh heavily as she got in the car, the kind of sighing that
came from crying.
Had she been crying as she was in that church? Had she turned away from
him again, when he offered her freely the right to come to him?
As he got in the car, he saw.
She had.
She had turned away from him again, had gone running to the church when
she was confronted with something that tore at her faith, or perhaps
strengthened it.
That could always be a good thing, though.
~~~~
When Dana closed her eyes, she could see the faces, the four faces of
the seraphim. She knew what she had seen, she knew she had not been
delusional. It was possible with Emily, the first time, in the cold of
the autopsy bay, in the harsh lights of the morgue.
It was not possible the second time, or with the seraphim.
But how had she been able to see the creature, and not have her eyes
smote out too? Was it because she was not a nephilim, not a child of him
that she was protected?
After Father McCue's denouncement of her visions, she had looked into
the story behind the seraphim, looked at everything she could find.
There were lots of things in texts the Church *did* recognize.
She closed her eyes and imagined the words:
"The Nephilim were on the earth in those days--and also afterwards--when
the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them.
They were the heroes of old, men of renown."
That verse from Genesis, before God had flooded the world to kill
everyone with a wicked heart. And that subtle hint that the Nephilim had
survived the flood, made it out alive even though they had not been in
Noah's ark.
She shivered. These Nephilim were heroes though, not diseased women with
mental disabilities.
And then again:
"Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they
covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they
were flying."
That was the only time seraphs were mentioned, and this was in
connection with the throne of God. The rest of the time they were
cherubim.
And cherubim weren't nice looking little babies with rosy cheeks either:
"Each of the cherubim had four faces: One face was that of a cherub, the
second the face of a man, the third the face of a lion, and the fourth
the face of an eagle."
This also was connected to God's throne, she remembered, but from a
different prophet's point of view. She could reconcile some of the
differences, but it was still strange. To have seen what the prophets
had seen and be just as rebuked and discouraged as they had been.
And then the last example, in Revelation, also connected to God's
throne, only this time, there were four creatures, with the face of a
man, an ox, a lion, and an eagle.
All in all, it didn't answer much, only that there was precedent for
such things, and that other people had seen such things and were
ostracized for it.
She felt awful though.
She still saw Emily when she closed her eyes.
She still saw Emily when her eyes were open.
~~~~
He wondered if she still thought she had seen an angel . . . or whatever
it was.
He had heard her breathing on the phone, heard her shock, her stillness,
and he knew she had seen *something* he just didn't believe it was an
angel.
A seraphim, whatever.
He glanced at her while she unlocked her door, noticed the abstract
horror on her face and he wondered if she was seeing Emily again.
"Scully?" he said softly, taking her hands.
She was staring at her keys.
"It's broken," she whispered.
"What's broken?"
"The keychain. The one you gave me for my birthday."
Her words were strained, as if the very symbolism behind that made her
hurt. To have broken something he had given her . . .
"It's okay, I'll get you a new one."
She shook her head. "No, it can't be replaced."
He frowned at her and he wondered what exactly she was reading into
their conversation.
"Scully . . ." He paused; it was time to talk about this, but he knew
she wouldn't want to. "Scully, tell me what's going on, okay? I know
you're . . . you're hurting and I want to help . . . You've got to show
me how."
Her face tightened and her eyes closed briefly, as if to dispel some
image, only it made it worse and she opened her eyes again.
He saw her fear again.
"I don't want to see Emily again, Mulder. Not again. I can't . . . I
can't . . ."
He wanted to hold her.
"She . . . I saw her Mulder and it hurt so bad. It hurt that all I know
of her is the brief time I saw her. It hurt that she was gone and I'd
never know why, or how, or even very much about her. It hurt that
someone else was raising my daughter. My daughter . . ."
She trailed off and went into his arms at the same time he was reaching
for her.
He had nothing to say, no words of miraculous comfort. There was nothing
he could say.
Emily was dead, and she was alive.
And all the angel sightings in the world couldn't change the fact that
Scully had seen her little girl.
It was what hurt her the most.
Challenged and pained and confused her the most.
Mulder held her, cradling her head and squeezing his eyes closed, as if
that could make it all go away.
He never wanted her to hurt.
She began to cry.
~~~~
end
adios
RM
Date sent: Sun, 17 May 1998 22:00:01 +0000
From: Lyle Bontrager <[email protected]>
Subject: [Fwd: Questions IV (1/1)]
Title: Questions IV (1/1)
Author: RocketMan >[email protected]<
Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully belong to CC, 1013, and Fox. No fringe
intended.
SPOILER:::::::THE END::::::::US5
Summary: Scully and Mulder after the events in The End.
Questions IV
========
"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned;
and the flame shall not consume you."
--Isaiah 43:2
========
It was the smell that hit her first.
Thick and lingering, like burnt plastic and electricity when people's
homes are destroyed.
That was what she knew when they came to the basement.
He had been before her, but stopped, unable to go in.
She had needed to see the ruin, see that everything was gone.
She always needed proof; now, she knew:
this was the end.
~~~~
He sat on his couch, hands clasped tightly and over his mouth, eyes
staring vacant into nothing, sometimes moving to look right into her,
sometimes on her but blind.
She chewed on her lip and when she closed her eyes, there was all the
blackness, there was the smell, there was the nothing left of their
office.
She had complained about a desk: she wished she had that un-space now.
His hand reached out, fumbled at her knee and grasped her outstretched
fingers.
"We're over," he whispered and it sounded final. It sounded like they
had really had hope before he had said they didn't.
Their files, their X-Files, burned, destroyed: a lifetime of answers to
unasked questions just gone.
Just gone.
"I had some copies. Some."
"Nothing official."
Yes, things needed to be official to be proof. Without the folder and
the tape and the printed X with random numbers, his copies were
worthless. He had everything in his head anyway.
Yet worthless.
She realized: numb. This was her now. Diana shot, working on dying,
Gibson stolen, their files burned, their *life* burned . . . she was in
shock, in a numb haze of idiocy where she didn't know how to react to it
all.
Mulder looked at her for a second, then yanked on her arm so that she
would pay attention.
"About Diana . . ."
"I already know."
If he was surprised, or guilty, he didn't show it.
He just nodded and looked heavily to the couch, as if he longed to crawl
into sleep and wake the next morning to find it had all been a dream.
"If she had not've relieved you . . . if you had been there a little
longer . . ."
She tilted her head and watched his face scrunch into a tight ball of
fear.
What was he getting at?
"If they had come earlier, it would've been you . . . "
His whisper left her wondering for a second if he wished it had been
her, instead of Diana, but his face . . . his face told her other
things.
He crashed into her, crushing out her breath with his tight hug, the
arms encircling her as she had needed at the fire, needed as her life,
his life, had stood before them drippng and smoldering.
She closed her eyes and cried.
~~~~
She knew why he slept on his couch: it was comfortable.
Looking around in the sun of early morning, she found that nothing had
been a dream and everything was still miserable real.
Silence greeted her and she wandered around his living room, looking for
the hastily scrawled Mulder-note that would tell her where he'd gone off
to, what reasons he had ditched her for.
It was there, on the desk that she had sat at: yellow Post-It with his
lanky style of writing that mimicked him.
"Went to hosp. She's dying.
-M"
She felt the guilt and the self loathing rise in herself for her
feelings towards the woman. She was dying: Scully had been there before,
knew that road, and yet she had hated the woman for being in Mulder's
life first.
First.
She hadn't felt exactly like that with Phoebe, had she? No. No, then it
was a certain amount of disgust that she could string Mulder along like
that and he'd willingly go.
Now . . .
Scully shook her head and grabbed her coat and car keys.
One thing at a time.
First, help Mulder grieve.
Then, put back the X-Files.
~~~~
adios
RM