Author: Daydreamer
Posted: Mostly Daily beginning July 1 2004
Crystalship 134 Word Challenge I found what I was looking for -- in more ways than one.
Proof of alien life in the boxcar.
Proof of the conspiracy to cover up their existence in the destruction of the boxcar.
Proof that my sister is not dead -- in a conversation held with a man who is -- my father.
But none of that proof will stand. It's all destroyed or beyond human reach.
I saw my mother and still came away with more questions than answers.
What will stand, what there is no question about -- Scully loves me.
She loved me enough to shoot me to save me from myself.
She loved me enough to bring to this place.
She loved me enough to leave me -- to keep me safe.
She loved -- she loves me.
Crystalship 134 Word Challenge I walk into an empty room.
"She died for me" Scully says, "and I tried to tell her I was sorry but I don't think she'll ever really know.
I grieve with my partner, but a small, secret part of me rejoices that it wasn't her. It wasn't Scully.
"There is no justice," she says, but I don't think this is about justice.
"What is it about?" she asks.
Something we have no choice in, I tell her. Fate.
I ask her if she needs time, but she's strong. She wants to fight.
I want to fight, too, as long as it's by her side. We've both lost too much to give up now. I know we'll find the truth.
"I've heard the truth, Mulder," Scully says. "Now what I want are the answers."
Crystalship 134 Word Challenge "Nothing unusual was detected, Mulder."
"Darren Oswald is a perfectly normal, perfectly healthy kid. You believe that, Scully?"
She just looks at me.
"Neither do I."
"It makes no sense," she says as we walk away. "The deaths, the lightning, the tests. Even what went on with his teacher and her husband -- it just makes no sense."
"Hmmm..." I look at her sideways. "Maybe."
But inside -- what went on with the teacher is the only part I do understand. That insatiable need to do for and be with one person you think understands you.
"Maybe he just wanted acceptance, and he didn't know what else to do."
She's stopped, and she's looking at me, waiting.
"Maybe dragging her into his weird and macabre world was the only thing he knew to do."
Crystalship 134 Word Challenge Auto-erotic asphyxiation.
That's just -- ick.
I mean -- what kind of a loser do you have to be to kill yourself jerking off?
I guess I can live with my death. Then there's that other little thing Bruckman let drop. The thing that matters far more than my death -- how Scully dies.
She doesn't.
Crystalship 134 Word Challenge I have my own list. It's not as clearly defined
as Neech Manley's, but it's a list nonetheless. It
includes the people who took Samantha, the man who
killed my father, and the Smoker. Somewhere down the
line, I'll even have a name for the bastard who killed
Scully's sister.
My own little list.
I wonder if I would have the strength of will to stay
here after death, or somehow come back, and exact my
vengeance as Manley did. I wonder what he read, what
he saw, what he did that gave him that power. I wonder
if it is within me.
And I wonder if he's in hell now. Does vengeance and
retribution automatically mean hell? If I take out those
on my list, will I go to hell?
Do I care?
Crystalship 134 Word Challenge I point to what I think matters on the report.
"The second sample contains no oils or essential
fatty acid," she reads. "Well, Mulder, there are
any number of factors which could have caused that
result. Where are you going with this?"
Her intensity makes me smile.
"Okay, it's not yet the finely detailed insanity that
you've come to expect from me. It's just a theory, but
what if he's not doing this out of a psychotic impulse
but rather out of physical hunger? Maybe he needs to
replenish this chemical deficiency in order to survive."
"From a dry skin sample you're concluding what? That
he's some kind of fat-sucking vampire?"
She says I jump to conclusions -- fat-sucking vampire,
indeed. I hide my smile and think again how lucky I am
to have her.
Crystalship 134 Word Challenge These men, these armless, legless, often hopeless men,
have this dream -- the walk. Things are normal for
them, ordinary. They can get up from a chair, walk
to the door, play with their kids. Anything that let's
them move, let's them walk.
I have my dream, too. Vivid, realistic, recurrent.
It used to be pretty standard -- Samantha, me, at home.
Mom, Dad, together. Family.
It's morphed through the years.
Same emotions, same desires, just -- different players.
Sometimes Sam: home safe, normal.
Sometimes my Dad: alive, healthy, happy, and having
forgiven me.
Sometimes Scully: a home, a life, a love, a future.
But I always wake up, I always come to realize, that
my reality leaves me just as crippled, just as broken
as these men.
I want to believe -- but how?
Crystalship 134 Word Challenge "Mrs. Jacobs? I'm Fox Mulder. I'm with the FBI. I'm sorry
about your daughter."
"It's her birthday on Tuesday."
"We're going to do everything we can to find her."
"Who could do such a thing? Who could take somebody who
wasn't theirs?"
"I know you must be feeling..."
"I'm sorry... but how could you really know how I feel?"
I turn away. How, indeed, could I know?
Because I've watched as someone I loved was dragged away,
disappearing forever, destroying my family, and it set me
on a collision course with this very moment.
Because I've been too slow, too late, too unprepared to
stop them from taking someone else I loved, and it nearly
destroyed me.
I study the blood on the floor.
How could I know?
Because I've been there.
Crystalship 134 Word Challenge I want to show her the pictures. I want her to believe.
Instead, she shows me something.
"I went to go see those MUFON members to find out about
that woman, Betsy Hagopian.
I sent her, but I'm not sure I'm going to like what she
found. "Oh, what'd you find?"
"I found out that she's dying along with a lot of other
women who claim to be dying too."
She shows me a small glass capsule containing an implant.
"All of them who say that they have these implanted in
them. It's the same thing I had removed from my own
neck."
"But you're fine, aren't you, Scully?"
You have to be. I can't lose you again. Not to them,
not to anyone, and certainly not to cancer.
You have to be fine.
Crystalship 134 Word Challenge "They're getting away with it, Scully."
They always get away with it. I've been busy lately,
tracking down this thing that no one wanted me to find,
but I've had a new specter keeping me company. Cancer.
Scully and cancer. They took her. They put something
in her. And I don't know what's going to happen from
here. I just know I have to keep looking, I have to keep
trying.
Scully's still talking. "...helping them to create a
story to cover the shameful truth... and what they can't
cover, they apologize for. Apology has become policy."
"I, I don't need an apology for the lies. I, I don't
care about the fictions they create to cover their
crimes. I want them accountable for what did happen.
I want an apology for the truth."
Crystalship 134 Word Challenge This case was hard for Scully. She got personally
involved, and I know she thought she saw things,
believed things were happening even without hard
proof.
It was an unusual situation for us.
Normally, I'm the believer and she's the skeptic, but
not this time.
She has faith and I don't. I lost my faith on a cold
November when Samantha disappeared. After, I prayed
and promised and pleaded and none of it brought her
home.
It became clear to me that if I was ever going to find
out what happened to my sister, it wouldn't be through
a miracle. It would be through my own hard work and
unwavering determination.
So now, while I disagreed with Scully and poked holes
in her theories -- I envied her faith.
And missed my own.
Crystalship 134 Word Challenge I'm sitting and thinking, trying to sort things out,
when the cop stops to check on me, then I find out
about the cockroach attacks.
I call Scully and she says anaphylactic shock.
~*~*~*~
There's another roach attack.
I call Scully and she says Ekbom's Syndrome.
~*~*~*~
The ME dies and she says brain aneurysm.
~*~*~*~
I find out there really are experiments with roaches
going on up here and now she decides to drive up.
~*~*~*~
I tell her about the USDA scientist who's conducting
the experiments and she doesn't ask about the case
or the experiments. Just, "Her name is Bambi?"
~*~*~*~
The whole thing ends up basically being a load of crap
and all she can say is, "Smart is sexy."
Hey, Scully. You're a bright woman. PhD over here.
Don't forget, I'm pretty smart myself.
Crystalship 134 Word Challenge "I'm going to drive, Mulder," she tells me through gritted
teeth.
Great. Now I get to sit in the front with my knees tucked
under my chin for the entire drive back and does she care?
No -- not one bit.
But, it's beginning to dawn on me that what went on in
this town definitely spread beyond the two girls. I mean,
the local townsfolk were just plain nuts, and look at the
way Detective White was behaving.
And Scully? She's been totally weird since we got here.
I'm the only one holding it together.
But she's staring at me, waiting, and I'm not sure I want
to go there right now, so I pass over the keys and resign
myself to a long, cramped, uncomfortable ride home.
"Sure, fine, whatever," I mutter.
Crystalship 134 Word Challenge I did this. I followed one monster after another, never
stopping, never resting, until I knew the monster, could
touch the monster, could become the monster.
Constantly tapping into the darkness that exists in all
of us, we risk getting caught there. Each time I crawled
inside a monster, it was harder to get out.
Patterson did it -- and he didn't get out this time.
I wanted the X-Files. I wanted to find my sister. I
wanted to pursue these odd and unusual cases that were
labeled "X." I wanted to chase monsters that weren't
so much like me. It was safer than what I was doing.
I wanted to know that when I finished a case, I wasn't
going to be the next case.
I didn't want to end like Bill Patterson.
Crystalship 134 Word Challenge It's lonely in the mind of a killer. It's cold,
freezing cold, cold without end.
And dark. The complete absence of any light.
I walked through Mostow's mind, touched the darkness
that had consumed it, and was very nearly lost.
It came over me as I held the knife. The ease with
which the knife slips in. The slick feel and coppery
scent of blood as it spills. The challenge of taking
someone down, making the cuts just so.
I had put the knife back and fled.
I was cold, so cold, and I couldn't find the light. I
was trapped in this search, half-hunter, half-hunted.
Trapped in the dark.
But Scully brought the light. She didn't understand at
first, but she followed me without question.
And where there was Scully, there was light.
Crystalship 134 Word Challenge Episode: Piper Maru
by Daydreamer
I’m updating her on the case when she speaks.
"I'm just constantly amazed by you. You're working down here
in the basement, sifting through files and transmissions that
any other agent would just throw away."
"Well, that's why I'm in the basement, Scully."
"You're in the basement because they're afraid of you, of your
relentlessness, and because they know that they could drop you
in the middle of the desert, and tell you the truth is out there,
and you would ask them for a shovel!"
I’m not sure if I’ve been insulted or complimented, and it hurts
a little to wonder.
"Is that what you think of me?"
"Well, maybe not a shovel. Maybe a backhoe."
The tilt of her head, the smile. It’s a compliment, and I can’t
help but smile back.
Crystalship 134 Word Challenge Episode: Apocrypha
by Daydreamer
I find her in the cemetery, by her sister’s grave.
"I was just thinking about something that a man said
to me," she says. "That the dead speak to us from
beyond the grave. That that what's conscience is."
"It's interesting, I never thought of it that way."
But I realize Melissa was my conscience, even alive.
It was because of her that I went and stayed with
Scully, when I was ready to give up hope and all I
could think of was catching the ones who had taken her.
"You know I thought... when we found him, this man
that killed Melissa, that when we brought him to justice,
I would feel some kind of closure. But the truth is no
court, no punishment is ever enough."
And again, Scully is right.
Crystalship 134 Word Challenge I almost killed her. I pointed my gun at her. I
could see the fear, the disbelief, the astonishment
that crossed her face before she spoke. She told
me I didn’t have to do it. Told me I was stronger
than that.
She doesn’t know how wrong she was.
Doesn’t know how close I came to pulling the
trigger -- at her.
She saved herself when she pulled that alarm.
Another fraction of a second, and I’d have killed
her.
All because Modell wanted to be remembered after
he was gone.
Whatever failures he had in his life, he succeeded
at that.
I’ll remember holding my gun on Scully, aiming the
barrel at Scully, pulling the trigger on Scully,
for the rest of my life.
I’ll never forget Robert Modell -- or forgive him.
Crystalship 134 Word Challenge We’ve been together three years now, and her
steadfast commitment to science continues to
both impress and infuriate me. She discounted
the curse and so readily dismissed the possibility
of a spirit animal that one would think she’d
missed the required college reading of Carlos
Casteneda.
It’s strange how, even when we are at odds, we
still manage to work our way to a similar conclusion.
In this case, the urn will be returned (what I wanted)
because of Bilac’s protest letter (which makes it
acceptable to Scully). The rats and cats are gone
(because the urn is going home) but there are miles
of tunnels to explore (so Scully can believe they
will be found).
We function so well together, despite this dichotomy,
and I continue to wonder how I managed before her.
Crystalship 134 Word Challenge I didn’t understand this case.
Was it some sort of punishment from ancestral spirits?
Was it some sort of black magic used by a wizard to
keep superstitious and fearful immigrants under his
control? Or was it simply, as Scully suspected, an
organ theft ring? If I were forced to choose, I would
take some portion of all and cobble together a theory.
But I don’t have to choose. Chao, a good and hard-working
police officer, was injured and now has vanished. It’s
left me uneasy enough that I’ve taken a bit of the hell
money and left my own offering – at my place and
tucked away at Scully’s as well.
After all, you can never have too many happy spirits
on your side and there’s no such thing as too much
good luck.
Crystalship 134 Word Challenge Jose Chung.
Respected novelist.
Now he wants to create a new genre: non-fiction science fiction.
And Scully likes him.
Likes his work.
“The Lonely Buddha” was one of her favorite novels.
He asked her for the truth about what happened in Klass County, and she told him.
Why does that feel like betrayal to me?
I asked him not to write the book.
Told him it would do a disservice to a field of inquiry that has struggled for respectability.
All he wanted to know was what happened to the kids that night.
He may not believe, but I gave him the truth as well. The case was so weird, with so many things left unexplained.
What happened to the kids?
Like everything else in my life -- How the hell should I know?
Crystalship 134 Word Challenge I’ve doubted where Skinner’s loyalties lie. All too often, the Smoker haunts his office and I’ve questioned his decisions on many, many occasions.
But after this, I don’t think I’ll doubt again.
He was framed for the hit and run on his wife. He even lost his job, albeit temporarily, and all because he respects the work I do -- we do -- on the X-Files. He’s supported us, been there for us, and it almost lost him everything.
Sharon Skinner said that her husband thought silence was strength.
Watching Skinner mourn his wife, watching him refuse to accept or talk about the things that happened to him, I know that I don’t want to find my strength in silence.
My strength is in my partner. As long as I have her, I can go on.
Crystalship 134 Word Challenge Scully doesn’t realize how close she came with her comments on my similarity to Ahab. She said I was so consumed by personal vengeance against life, whether it be its inherent cruelties or mysteries, that everything takes on a warped significance to fit my megalomaniacal cosmology.
I’ve thought about that. My training is in psychology. I’m a top-notch profiler. Of course I’ve analyzed myself. That’s normal. I do look for explanations that fit my personal worldview, and my worldview is different from most. It can be both a strength and a weakness.
As strength, it helps me see things others miss or refuse to see.
As weakness, well, that’s what I’ve got Scully for. To make sure I don’t drift too far off the beaten path, and to bring me back when I do.
Crystalship 134 Word Challenge She pulled her gun on me. Pulled her gun and was going to shoot me. I could deal with that, but it was the why that broke my heart. She thought I was going to hurt her.
How could she think I would hurt her?
I know it wasn’t her fault.
I know they messed with her mind.
I could kill them for that.
I fight against shadows, ever-shifting, ever-changing, and I grow weary. These people who operate with impunity –- they makes me sick. Experimenting on innocents. My Scully being dragged into it.
What if she had shot me? Or her mother?
It would have destroyed her.
I will find the bastards who did this. I will find them, and I will make them pay.
No one gets away with hurting Scully.
No one.
Crystalship 134 Word Challenge My mother had a stroke.
We’re not close; you’d think after I became an only
child again, that we would have been, but it didn’t
work out that way.
I’m closer to her than I am to my father. Dad traveled
and it was often just Mom and me. She was a good
mother but something -- the spark of her -- was lost
after Sam was taken.
It never came back.
But when Skinner told me she’d had a stroke, I had
to get to her. To see her. To be with her one more
time -- just in case...
It was a relief that she was awake enough to write,
but scary that she seemed so damaged, so not herself.
I’m riding an emotional roller coaster. Thank God
that Scully’s here.
Crystalship 134 Word Challenge I should have known that the Smoker was involved. When
I got the word that my mom was ill, I should have realized
he’d be behind it.
He denies it, of course, but I know the truth.
I’ve seen the pictures of them together.
I’ve found what he wants. And I know how to use it.
I never imagined that all my time searching for answers
to my sister’s disappearance and investigating UFOs and
alien abductions would lead me here. To the knowledge
that the earth is facing colonization.
I should be appalled.
I should be terrified.
I should feel vindicated.
But right now? I don’t care. All I want is Jeremiah Smith
and a way to heal my mother. And if I have to kill to get
him to her -- I will.
Please send feedback to: Daydreamer
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