"Things Unknown"
Name: Branwell
E-Mail: COMBS-BACHMANN@WORLDNET.ATT.NET
Date Finished: May 26, 1999
Rating: PG-13, Innuendo, mild language.
Category: Post Ep story for Biogenesis, Angst, Mulder/Scully Friendship
Archiving permission: Anyone may archive this. Just keep my name
with
it.
Time: The setting is on the plane with Scully on the way to the
Ivory
Coast.
Disclaimer: Chris Carter, David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, and
Ten
Thirteen productions created and own the characters you recognize.
My writing is for fun, not profit.
Summary: Scully thinks about her mission to the Ivory Coast and
her
role in partnership with Mulder. She comforts herself by remembering
the last normal, happy activity they shared before the Merkmallen
case.
-----------------------------------------------
"Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends."
From "A Midsummer Night's Dream" by Shakespeare.
She wondered if Mulder had come to grips yet with the new configuration
of his brain, or if the small signs of coping she had seen had
faded
after her departure.
Officially this was a trip to investigate the background of
Merkmallen's murder. Before she left, the mystery of Sandoz's
disappearance/murder was added to her mandate. She had spent a
precious
hour trying to justify the trip in terms the bureaucracy could
grasp.
In the end she had written a report that alluded vaguely to Libyan
laboratories and Agent Mulder being the possible victim of a drug
intended for use in terrorist attacks against the United States.
She
was a liar too.
If she wrote enough Federalspeak she'd forget how to speak a real
language, like Shakespeare's English.
But she didn't kid herself that her college anthology of Shakespeare
was with her on this relay of flights to the Ivory Coast to improve
her
communication skills. It was because it was the last good thing
she and
Mulder had shared. She desperately needed to feel some connection
with
him during this lonely pilgrimage.
They both played hooky from a workshop in Crystal City the day
before
Skinner assigned them to the Merkmallen case. Their decision to
skip
the lecture on "Accounting Procedures for Your Unusual Expenses"
came
quite easily. Instead they slipped over to the mall and saw "A
Midsummer Night's Dream."
She had forgotten the satisfaction that precise, vivid language
provided when it was delivered with just the right twist. And
how bawdy
the bard could be. When the fairy attendants gazed as one at Bottom's
lower torso after he kissed the queen, Mulder couldn't resist
whispering
in her ear.
"Do you think any parts besides his ears got enhanced with
ass-type
proportions? It might be worth it."
She had to smile back.
"His eyes were green as leeks," the ridiculous Thisby
said of her
expired Pyramus. It was supposed to be farcical. It wasn't poetry
to
compare a lover's eyes to a root vegetable. Yet what if that were
one
of the colors of his changeable eyes?
Under the hot blue Washington sky that day Mulder's eyes were
as green
as leeks. Today, surrounded by walls padded with smelly, yellowing
rubber, their color was a muddy brown.
As soon as he saw that rubbing in Skinner's office the day after
the
workshop, he was a stranger to cool reason.
On the elevator she tried to explain why the panspermia theory
didn't
capture her imagination.
"What if humans did result from an intergalactic convoy that
traveled
without pooper scoopers? Or if earth is just a huge petri dish
that's
been left to grow wild spores for a hundred thousand years? Or
if an
unimaginable, non-material being distanced itself even further
from its
creatures by a four billion year process of evolution? Accepting
one of
those theories as true doesn't change anything about life on earth,
or
describe it in terms that allow us to make predictions and build
on our
knowledge. That's what science does. You can't possibly hope to
find
out more without it."
She must not have explained what she meant clearly, or else he
couldn't
hear her at all. His answer had nothing to do with what she said.
It
was the voice of his heart, not his head.
"My sister," he said sadly.
She should have realized then that he was faltering.
Mulder always knew that the difference between them was more one
of
degree than of kind. His impatient nature skipped ahead, ignoring
the
boundaries defined by "her Science" as he liked to call
it. She
followed after him doing the backfilling with boring, rigorous
procedures that would, in the end, extend the boundaries of "her
Science" to include the distance of his leap of faith. Or
in some
cases, exclude it.
He wasn't thinking clearly.
She followed the evidence to New Mexico. Chaos waited for her
on her
return.
If there was one thing Scully had learned as a medical doctor
and the
daughter of a naval officer, it was how to pull rank. Within half
an
hour of her arrival at the hospital she entered Mulder's room.
She
couldn't get the administrator to waive the requirement that two
huge
orderlies accompany her inside. Presumably they were poised to
jump on
Mulder and wrestle him to the ground when he attacked her.
Maybe he was violent last night, but not today. It broke her heart
to
see the tremors in his muscles just from the effort needed to
stay
upright. He was at the brink of collapse.
They didn't want her to touch him. Screw them. She knew how arbitrary
medical rules could be.
She took his hand and pulled him down to sit on the floor next
to her.
With one hand on his cheek she used the other to smooth his bramble
bush hair. When she opened her mouth to speak he laid one finger
across
her lips.
She noticed the men in the corner startle alertly, but she sternly
tuned
them out of her consciousness.
Scully wanted to explain about the artifacts, what she found in
New
Mexico, and how she had to go to Africa to get more pieces of
the
puzzle. It was only by patient research that she could come up
with the
cure for his affliction.
He still didn't want to listen to reason. She heeded his quieting
finger
and let him sit beside her in silence, his eyes closed at last.
While they sat she thought about her travel arrangements, and
reminded
herself to sweep their office for bugs before she left. Then she
reviewed the scene in the hall with that lying coward Skinner
and that
two-faced bitch from hell, Diana.
She glanced over at Mulder to find his eyes open and the beginnings
of a
smile on his face. It cheered her up considerably to receive even
that
much recognition from him. She had to speak.
"I'm sorry. I've got to go. I'll bring back the answer. Don't
give up.
You know you can trust me."
He nodded at her. Then he put his hand on the back of her head
and
tipped their heads together until their foreheads touched. After
a
minute went by he looked into her face searchingly and then let
his
hand fall to his side.
She stood up and signaled to the orderlies that she was ready
to leave.
Mulder sat on the floor with his eyes closed again. If he hadn't
shown
her that smile and nod she would have feared he was sliding into
catatonia. It was exhaustion taking hold now that he had relaxed.
She couldn't stop wondering if he had held onto those moments
of peace
now that she was gone.
The last thing she did before leaving for the airport was to set
up
daily consultations for Mulder with a notoriously open-minded
Jungian
therapist of her acquaintance. Dr. Warner was a motherly woman
who had
a way of getting everyone on her side---and her side was always
the
patient's side. Scully wished she could witness the inevitable
clash
between the doctor and Diana. Bibi Warner could have made Mother
Theresa look like grifter scum if it suited her purposes. Diana
would
be less of a challenge.
There was only one more thing Scully could do. She took two Dalmanes
out of her purse and asked the flight attendant for water. There
were
no other options. She would sleep on these flights so that she
could
work when she arrived.
Afterward she drifted drowsily, thinking of "A Midsummer
Night's
Dream." She comforted herself with the line that Mulder had
mentioned
to her after the movie. It stayed with him, he said, because it
described her perfectly. She hoped he was right. She hoped their
enemies didn't realize it yet.
"Though she be but little, she is fierce."