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Truths 1
CATEGORY: Post episode chain RATING: PG so far ARCHIVE: Just let us know SPOILERS: Biogenesis FEEDBACK: PamalaSt@aol.com I wasn't asleep when the phone rang, even though it was well after midnight. I've been sleepless more and more the last two weeks. I'm not really sure why the recent events have been nagging at me so much. After all, it's not the first time we've uncovered a shred of truth, only to have it pulled from our grasp before we could bring it to light. Like so many times before, they stripped it away and buried it deep before anyone could ever know what we had found. I suppose I might be getting used to it by now. But not this time. This is weighing heavily on my mind. And why? Not for myself, or yet another roadblock in our never ending search for answers. But because of what it's done to Mulder. Knowing they would think he was crazy no matter what explanation he offered, he has been forced into living a lie, allowing them to believe that his condition was nothing more than a nervous breakdown. Halfway across the planet, as the truth we had found slipped through my fingers, his condition began to improve. I returned home -- empty handed, with nothing more than a story that only Mulder would believe -- to find that they had released him. No longer deemed a danger to himself or to others, they allowed him to leave the hospital to recuperate at home. The stipulation was he had to attend outpatient therapy twice a week until the doctors were confident he had made a full recovery. Unable to work, being forced onto medical leave, it's only now that Mulder is in real danger of losing his mind. Honestly, I have no idea how he does it, how he continues to fool the doctors at the hospital, Skinner, and others at work. Throughout it all, he has masterfully kept up the illusion that what happened to him nothing more than a breakdown brought on by childhood trauma and the pressures of his work. For two weeks now, he has sat through countless therapy sessions and meetings telling everyone just what he knows they want to hear. While only I know the truth. He shares it with me in what he has come to refer to as his "Scully therapy session". Like clockwork almost every evening, I hear the soft knock on the door accompanied by the standard "Scully, it's me". We say little to one another as he makes his way across the room to the couch outlining the lies he told today to hide the truth. In return I say nothing, knowing what he needs most is to say these things, for me to hear them and know the truth with him. At first, I was unsure of what he needed from me but by now it has become second nature. I know he comes to me for comfort. To hold onto him and keep him from slipping away into his own web of lies. And then, each night, we play the same game. After recounting his latest therapy session or meeting with Skinner, he sits down on the couch, remote in hand, searching the channels. I make the usual, always refused, offers of food or drink before sitting in front of the television on the other end of the couch. With a bright smile, he hands me the remote proclaiming "There's nothing on. You chose, Scully." Each and every time without fail, as I take control of channel surfing duties, he grabs a nearby pillow and lays it gently on my lap. Then he stretches out, eyes closed, to rest his head against me. While it shocked me at first, it has become one of the most intimate things Mulder and I have ever shared. I cherished each evening we'd spent that way until it all stopped suddenly three days ago. Something has changed, something has happened. I've hardly seen or heard from him since he walked out of my apartment late Wednesday night. I knew, or at least I hoped, he would talk to me about it when the time was right. So when the phone rang tonight, I knew it was him before I even heard his voice. With so much faith and trust built slowly between us over the years, I don't even question the logic of climbing into my car at nearly 1 am to meet Mulder in a deserted park. I just do it. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It's a relief to see his smile as my headlights find him leaning against his parked car. Pulling my car beside his, I walk over and lean against the car next to him. His voice is calm, soft, and warm as he thanks for meeting him at this hour. As if I'd ever really turn him down. Needing to touch him, more than I imagined possible, missing the closeness we've shared so often recently, I lay my hand on his arm as I speak. "What's up Mulder? I was worried about you. Just when I got use to your nightly visits, you disappear." "I'm sorry, Scully," he said, his eyes focusing intently on me in the faint light. "I've missed you." His hand reaches out taking mine. "Listen, I'll tell you everything. Let's just walk a little bit, find a bench to sit and we'll talk, okay?" I don't say a word. I just follow him, like I always do, into the dark park until he finally urges me to sit on dusty park bench several feet off the path. "Okay, Mulder, we're here, just you and me. Will you tell me what's going on?" He sits down close, very close, my hand still in his. "Well first off, I've been cleared to come back to work starting on Monday. So, no more having to run the show solo. Except for every other Thursday. I have that afternoon off to meet my 'therapist' so he can keep tabs on my rubber room eligibility." While I'm still uncertain why this development may have caused such a change, I act decidedly out of character, throwing my arms around him in as fierce a hug as I can offer up with our difference in size. "That's wonderful Mulder! It'll be great to have you back. I've gone a bit crazy myself wandering that basement without you." As I pull myself reluctantly from his embrace, his face clearly shows there is more. "Did something happen in therapy last Thursday, Mulder?" "No, actually it went well last time around. For a switch, I was able to be honest in my last session." I feel my heart rush up into my throat. "You told them the truth, Mulder? You told them what really happened to you?" He looks at me his eyes bright and his soft laughter floods the empty park around us. "God, no! Would I be here right now if I had? No, I'd be locked up again in one of those nice white coats that encourages you to give yourself a big warm hug and buckles up tight in the back. I didn't tell them, Scully. No one will ever really know other than you." I'm relieved, confused, and frustrated all at the same time. "Okay, I don't think I'd tell anyone either if I was you. But you said, for the first time, you were honest in the last session?" "I was, Scully, and if felt incredible. I could tell the truth, let things out. Because he wanted me to talk about you, Scully. He wanted to hear who you are and what you mean in my life." I can feel the tears building in my eyes as he tells me again of how, without my knowledge, I was there to heal his pain. "Everything I've been though these last 2 weeks, Scully, the pain, the lies, all of it faded in just one short hour of finally being forced to say out loud all that you mean to me." It's a cowardly thing to do but I turn away, unwilling to let him see the tears threatening to make their way down my face at hearing his admission of what I already knew in my heart. "Why here, Mulder? You could have told me these things at my apartment. Why a dark empty park in the middle of the night?" "I wanted you to meet me here because of the voices, Scully." Shock and fear for him wash over me, making me turn to face him wiping away my tears with the back of my hand like scared child. "What? I thought you said it had faded away." I search his face while worry spreads over mine, wishing in vain I had the power to hear his thoughts. "Are you okay, Mulder?" "It has been fading away, Scully. With each day that goes by, the voices drift farther away." I know him well and can see there is something he's not telling me. Fortunately he knows me well also and does not even attempt to hide it from me. "In the last few days, Scully, it's gotten to the point where I can only hear it if everything around me is centered on one person. No distractions. Just one person, one mind, in silence and calm. Only then can I reach out. Then I can hear it." I look around us. The empty park, the darkness, and the quiet confirm what I had suspected all along. Each time Mulder came to my apartment, he was trying to touch my thoughts, to hear the things I have failed to tell him time and time again. I watch his face seeing the guilt written all over it. I should be angry with him. But how can I be when I knew it all along? In truth, I sat there each night hoping he might know the things I hadn't been able to find the strength to tell him. But it's my duty in our relationship. I have to call him on it; he'd expect no less. "Is that what this is all about, Mulder? Meeting in this place? No distractions, just the two of us so you can...." I'm not really angry. I didn't mean to hurt him. My heart breaks as I see pain in his eyes as he does what he can to defend what in truth I want as much as he does. "Scully, I'm sorry. I just couldn't help myself. I needed you so much these last few weeks and maybe I did something I should not have, but I wouldn't change it. Right or wrong being able to reach out and touch your heart and hear your thoughts saved me." He moves closer, holding my hand tightly between his hands. "We will both be back at work in a couple days. Following dead ends, searching everywhere we can think to look for the truth we both know is out there. But I'm not thinking of that right now. What happened to me is fading away. In a few days it will be nothing more than a memory. So right now, tonight, what I need more than anything, the thing that will keep me going is to *hear you* one last time, Scully." I have to suppress a chuckle at the bewildered look at his face as I pull out my gun and put it in his hands. "While I can understand them taking your weapons Mulder -- we've seen first hand the outcome of a gun in the hands of a disturbed mind -- I'm completely comfortable with your level of sanity." He looks at me with a look of utter confusion. "This is not exactly the safest place you could have chosen for this rendezvous." I move closer, bringing my head to rest against his chest, his heartbeat strong and steady in my ear. "One of us has to be prepared for anything, Mulder." His arm slips around my shoulder, pulling me tight against him, as I let my eyes fall shut and I allow all the things I wish I could tell him to play across my thoughts. |
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