A Man and a Woman got thrown together in a bit of a sticky situation.

You see, the Man was Peter Pan. And he's supposed to be an adult now. He was having a problem with it, too. His sister got taken by the Lost Aliens to Never Never Land and he never, never saw her again. That made Peter mad. He wanted his sister back. He kept looking for her and telling people about his Lost Aliens from Never Never Land and they just didn't believe him.

The Grown Ups got nervous and asked a Woman to keep an eye on him. They didn't want Peter Pan to find out the Real Truth. But they DID want him to keep looking. He was very good at solving puzzles.

And they wanted him to keep solving puzzles. The Woman's name was Wendy. And she was a Grown Up In-Training. She had always been a Good Girl and did as she was told. She went to work everyday and listened to Peter Pan no matter how outrageous his stories were. She saw a lot of really ugly things. She saw a lot of ugly creatures. But she still couldn't believe in the Lost Aliens and Never Never Land.

The years went by and Wendy and Peter Pan became friends. Not the go-out-for-a-drink-after-work-and-hop-into-bed kind. More like I-really-trust-you-and-I-can't-stand-it-when-you're-not-around kind.

Then Wendy found out that she had Cancer. She looked at her life and realized that she didn't really have one. Her life revolved around Peter Pan and her Work. She didn't have any other friends and most of her family were dead or had lives of their own. Wendy talked to another Woman at work and started to think about The End. And about Peter Pan. Wendy was sad. She was going to miss Peter and his Never Never Land stories of the Lost Aliens. She was going to miss... Peter Pan. Peter had changed since she told him about the Cancer. It was scary to see Peter Pan ask about her and how she was feeling. He usually just took off somewhere and didn't tell her where he was going. Now he's been... well. Nice. Sometimes. That was very strange.

Meanwhile, Peter Pan had been thinking of The End. Peter didn't like that. He was going to miss Wendy. She listened to him. And she smelled nice. (Well, except for that cockroach thing.) And she was almost like a sister to him. The sister he never had. Except... well, Peter Pan couldn't really put his finger on it, but Wendy was definitely special. Even if she didn't believe in the Lost Aliens from Never Never Land.

Captian Hook (He was hooked on cigarettes.) liked Wendy. He knew he could help her. He liked Peter Pan, too. But he didn't want Peter Pan to find the Truth about the Lost Aliens. If he helped Wendy, Peter might find the Truth. Captian Hook would be out of a job. And the Alligators were very, very hungry.

Wendy wanted to tell Peter Pan that she cared about him. But she didn't want to be mushy about it. She didn't want him to get the wrong idea. She just wanted him to get a clue.

Peter Pan wanted to tell Wendy that she meant a lot to him, but, well, she was a Lady. And Peter had a hard time telling Ladies how he really felt. The words just kept getting stuck somewhere and they wouldn't come out. The End?.....

Without making any assertions about whether or not a UFO crashed and was subsequently buried in Roswell, I want to discuss the issues surrounding the charges of cover-up. Why *would* the government be so motivated to hide and secrete information about alien life. The generally held rationale is protection of the "institution" of society. The order of our society, all its laws and its basic morality, is based upon Christian beliefs. The basic outline of our criminal laws is an elaboration of the Ten Commandments: Thou shalt not kill, Thou Shalt Not Steal and Adultery will still put you in a precarious legal position come divorce time. The conjecture then, is that the discovery of alien life would serve greatly to debunk many biblical myths: That there is a God, that he created the "universe", that he created "Man" and that man is the centre of the universe. That our "souls" inhabit our bodies with the directive of doing "God's work" and that failure to comply with His "Laws" can result in punishment or damnation. Successfully living a life in God's good grace will be rewarded with eternal life, exaltation to Paradise and reunitement with our loved ones. This then, is the spiritual motivation which keeps most of us on the straight and narrow. In order to preserve this law-abiding fear, the Powers That Be would be well served to maintain the myths.

Like many of us, Dana Scully was raised as a child to accept biblical myth without question. And yet as an adult she has chosen a career of science, and more importantly a scientific mind set. Being practically-minded she has embraced a method of thought that seeks to explain natural phenomena with natural and methodical approaches. Her early training as a medical practitioner is exceptionally reinforcing of this method. Medicine is finite, it deals with the human body which is a closed arena of discovery. Only so many bones, only so many nerve endings and if you work hard enough you can find and name them all. Dana Scully was about as far from the indefinite borders of science as one could possibly get.

And yet -- a study of human anatomy necessitates a belief in evolution and a belief in evolution challenges a belief in creationism. So while Dana Scully worked away, she wore her tiny crucifix as a symbol of her religious beliefs -- what she clings to as the basic buildings blocks of her morality -- and yet she finds those beliefs challenged on a daily basis. What to do? Don't think about it. Ignore it. Do your work the way you were trained to do, let other people philosophize. Or maybe, she thinks, I'll think about it later.

Later has come.

This woman who has the strength of her convictions now finds herself facing her own death and naturally, she does so with fear. A fear of the unknown, yes, but made even greater by how much those key building blocks have been shaken by the revelations of her work in The X-Files. Before this, Dana Scully might well have faced death with regrets and uncertainty, but might at least have had the solace of falling back on her religious structure for comfort. She might have told herself that she would be rejoined with her sister, her father in an afterlife. But now there is a large element of uncertainty that has pervaded and unsettled those basic assumptions. Evidence of alien life, evidence that there is no order in the universe, evidence of reincarnation, to name a few.

We *have* also seen evidence of spirit life in The X-Files, Elegy being the most recent example, but this only serves to further confuse and exasperate a woman who must have ONE belief, one accepted set of facts. As Dana Scully faces death, she also deals with the breakdown of her belief structures. We see this in her first encounter with her therapist when, confronted by Donnie Phaster, she is shaken by a visualization of the entity of evil. Her scientific mind is disturbed by the appearance of this mythological phenomenon. Now that she needs to find and rely upon her religious beliefs, she has the countervailing problem -- the science she has embraced is in the way.

Certainly the season finale promises a religious allegory that will hopefully help Scully illuminate the path of her choices. I think that in Elegy we see both her inner turmoil along these lines, as well as an impulse to hold Mulder responsible for having caused this disintegration of her "universe" by offering too many possible truths.

In "Elegy", Scully paid a visit to the same counselor she sought out in the season two episode "Irresistible". On each occasion, she was forced to confront the issue of her partnership and analyze her interactions with Mulder. When Scully first spoke with the counselor, she had recently recovered from her abduction experience, but the healing had been more physical than mental. Scully is now forced to confront her mortality and once again she's holding back her fears and self-perceived weakness from Mulder. She doesn't want Mulder to feel he has to protect her. She worries that she will let Mulder down. Their partnership is built on an incredible bond of trust and respect giving rise to a level of intimacy that parallels a kind of love. If you don't love deeply, you can't be deeply hurt. The same holds for the bond that Mulder and Scully have built. If either one lets down or betrays the trust of their partner, it will be devastating and most likely destroy their partnership.

Why does Scully continue on with the X-Files? One answer is that it has become as much her quest as Mulder's. She has become a victim of the project and her health and future hang in the balance. But does she also feel she owes Mulder something? When the question is put to her, she denies the allegation but the real answer is a bit harder to find. Mulder has become a source of strength for Scully. Though she's a strong, independent woman who doesn't require anyone else, she has come to rely on Mulder's passion and drive. This idea of reliance is disturbing to Scully and she seems surprised by her own acknowledgment. Mulder and Scully don't seem to realize their partnership may represent the most intimate relationship two people can achieve. They share their goals and quite often their thoughts, practically reading each other's mind when they are in sync. Scully has realized how important Mulder is outside her work and it scares her. If Mulder had the same revelation about Scully, he too would be terrified. Mulder has suffered in his personal life and, if he acknowledged how close he and Scully have become, he would realize how much he has opened himself up to further pain if something goes wrong.

The major point of dissension between our dynamic duo has always been their varying viewpoints when approaching a new case. The evidence usually suggests the paranormal to Mulder while Scully views everything through the lens of science. These contrasting perceptions can be very helpful in the analysis of the evidence, but they can also lead to a lack of harmony. "Why can't you believe?" becomes a weapon Mulder can use to manipulate Scully's feelings. Scully's skepticism is as much a part of who she is as Mulder's desire to believe and he should accept their differences. Instead, he dwells on it, turning her denial into a personal affront. The partners need to work on their communication skills otherwise their different styles will become a barrier, and "Elegy" seems to indicate it's already under construction. When Scully finds it difficult to accept a paranormal explanation, it's partly due to fear. Accept one case and it makes the next easier, and pretty soon you're accepting that you were truly abducted by aliens. This analysis is flawed and as a scientist Scully realizes this, but to Mulder, Scully's lack of belief becomes doubt, which implies a lack of trust. If she can't believe as he does, then maybe she is losing her trust in him.

But should Scully's beliefs be changing? There have been plenty of instances where Scully has seen something that she'd be hard pressed to fit into her previous scientific filing system. How can she explain the aliens in the mountain vault, the existence of the Alien Bounty Hunter or Jeremiah Smith, and most recently the morphing of Eddie Van Blundht into Mulder? Scully has stretched her concept of what constitutes a reasonable explanation and has come to accept, if not believe, Mulder's seemingly outlandish ideas. But as the partnership grows and changes, her acceptance in Mulder's beliefs lags behind, creating a focus of discord. Maybe as she accepts her own mortality and comes to terms with the facts of her abduction, Scully will find herself more willing to embrace Mulder's philosophy of science and in so doing will be able to find a cure for her cancer; possibly a cure with an alien origin.

Seeing Eddie Van Blundht's success at breaking down the barriers established between Mulder and Scully has made me sanguine. It seems likely that Scully would be receptive to a Mulder who wanted to drop by and shoot the breeze on a Friday night. And Mulder's hangdog, fishing response when Scully noted he wasn't a loser could imply that Mulder might also consider stepping to a new plateau in their relationship. What I wouldn't give to see them in a conversation about nothing in particular, just relaxing together. When they're on the road, they could hole up in one of their hotel rooms and share junk food from the vending machines, just winding down together. They don't need to escalate their relationship to a physical level (in fact, I'm rather opposed to the idea in the context of the show), but they're already friends, so why don't they act the part? They share so much in common...the stress of their jobs, the long hours, the personal losses. If they wanted to move beyond trivial conversation, it might actually be cathartic to talk some of this stuff out. It certainly would help to open up the lines of communication which are in definite need of repair.

If Mulder isn't up to sitting down for a heart-to-heart with Scully, then he should consider visiting the FBI counselor. He certainly has plenty of issues to work out and would gain some insight into himself and his relationship with Scully. At the end of "Elegy", Mulder's outburst at Scully's admission sounded like a selfish response to me. Scully admits to Mulder that she saw something and she is obviously scared, yet Mulder somehow manages to make it all about him. He's scared of losing Scully. He's also frustrated by the fact that people he loves are taken from him and he seems impotent in the face of outside forces. Sam was taken and now Scully seems to be on the verge of leaving him and, despite the fact that he's no longer 12 years old, he feels as incapable of acting on her behalf as he was with his sister. With Sam, his pain and anger were turned inward, but since Scully is still here, his feelings may find a target in her. Why Scully and not him? Why is she going to leave him after he placed all his trust in her? All of the issues surrounding his feelings for Scully and their relationship could be illuminated and worked on with the help of a therapist. It might provide Mulder with the sort of insight that could offer stability to the stressed partnership. He might as well take advantage of the FBI counseling since without it, he'll probably spend enough to purchase a small island republic.

The partnership of Mulder and Scully has evolved and deepened, and the relationship between them has broadened. Whether they admit it or act on it, they have become friends. They share a bond that outsiders look upon and envy. It occurs to me that Skinner might envy their bond since, despite his positive intervention and sacrifice, he is not privy to the relationship they share. But with this increased intensity comes a greater impact if betrayal occurs. To avoid potential misunderstandings in such a time of stress and pressure, Mulder and Scully should strive, more than ever, to communicate. They are each taciturn in nature, but staying their course is to invite tragedy. Trust is a cornerstone of their partnership and without it, they may find their journey at an end, with their friendship toppled like a house of cards. Their strongest ally at this time may be found in the power of words. The truth is out there but the trust must come from within.