TITLE: i am
AUTHOR: FabulousMonster
EMAIL ADDRESS: fabulousmonster@hotmail.com
DISCLAIMER: I do not own these characters.  They are the
property
of Ten-Thirteen, Chris Charter and Co. and FOX.
DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT: Anywhere, just let me know.
SPOILER WARNING: Up to and including Season 7's "Closure".
RATING: PG
CLASSIFICATION: MSR, Scully Angst
SUMMARY: Scully ruminates on her feelings after leaving April
AFB.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: I am taking a stab at explaining our favorite
female FBI Agent's emotional make-up during Season 7. It seems
to
me that her emotional life has changed (how could it not?).
This is my first stab at fanfic and any type of creative
writing
since first-year university (and you don't want to know how
long
ago that was ...)
Comments and feedback are appreciated ... but be gentle!


i am


i am in chains ...

Ironically, i am my own jailer.  i am a prisoner of my
strength,
my sense of responsibility, my past and my future. i am a
captive
of how others see me:  coolly competent, immovably principled. 
A
middle-child of my mother's quiet character, my father's sense
of duty,
and my Catholic upbringing.

We drive through the night to the airport where we will return
to
our lives in Washington. He sleeps quietly in the passenger
seat
beside me, his jacket draped carelessly over his sleeping
form.
Despite everything that has transpired, he has slept more
fully
in the past 48 hours than I have seen in our past seven years
together.

'I'm free.'

How i envy those two little words. They allow him to sleep
without the demons that have stalked him, the guilt that has
plagued him, the anger that has run as an undercurrent through
his veins.  He believes he now has the chance at something
approaching a normal life, and rather than being grateful for
his
evolving insight into his existence ...

i am afraid.

Afraid of the evil in this world that manifests itself in
government conspiracies, black plagues, death fetishes,
Charlatan
preachers, neck implants, and dead and missing children. 
Afraid
of the darker forces that turn the most innocuous of items
like
honey bees, cornfields, playgrounds, and Santa's Village into
symbols of destruction. Afraid of the hidden significance of
my
encounter with our nemesis.  Afraid of his sickly complexion.
Afraid we are being lulled to sleep by the apparent fairytale
ending of our quest only to awake to ... what?  Afraid of the
yawning gap between what i know and do not. i am not only
afraid ...

i am angry.

Angry at the indignities thrust upon us over the past year.
Angry that my time in Africa seemed to both confirm and deny
my
beliefs.  Angry that more lives were sacrificed in the pursuit
of
our quest. Angry that I killed an unarmed man who invaded my
home; angry that I did not even draw my gun on another
intruder
who has brought misery to us and thousands of others, and may
hold the key to our future destruction.  Angry at a mother
who--
confronted by her own mortality and the futility and deception
of
her life--chose to end it without offering the comfort sought
by
her only son. Angry because i am Alice, Through the Looking-
Glass: i see darkly.  i cannot (will not?) reconcile the
distorted reflection of abducted and abused children with my
own--and that of another's--abduction reality. Angry at the
unfathomable waste of this lost generation, snuffed out like
so
many flickering candles.

Angry at him.  For quickly losing his objectivity and
Quixotically following the paranormal musings of an
emotionally
damaged woman and a "seer" of alternate dimensions. For
calling
on our friendship to compel me to perform the autopsy on his
mother. For assuming i would be there to pick up the pieces of
his broken psyche as he accepted her suicide.  For words that
continue to be unspoken between us and i fear may never be. 
For
appearing unaware of or not caring about the damage this case
would do to me as it conjured up a whirlwind of my own
unwelcome
memories ...

And i have manifested this anger physically: i see it in the
tightening lines around my eyes and mouth, my short-cropped
hair,
and the dark, body-armor-for-clothes i now wear. i have become
a
warrior, prepared for battle and angry, unable to escape the
feeling that we are being drawn slowly, inexorably into an
apocalyptic conflict that speeds silently towards us.

But mostly, i hear this anger in my voice: flatter, tighter,
knife-edged.  i have directed this voice at criminals (dead
and
alive), co-workers, supervisors, and him.  i have voiced this
anger to fight through the delusions he has held about his
mother's death, CGB Spender, his sister ... to somehow hear
the
truth as i know it to be.  i have walked a tight rope between
protector and punisher, comforter and taskmaster, and i have
done
so without a safety net.

Despite my fears, i have come to realize that my anger has
been a
tuning fork to the imperfect pitch of his recent life. By
following the tone of its clear precision, he has gained some
semblance of clarity, allowing him to push aside his grief and
find a sense of closure i confess to not understanding. He has
even managed to tune his anger to my own frequency, snapping
back
at my logic and mimicking to a degree our usual give-and-take
on
a case.  Anger as therapy ... i wonder at what altar of pop
psychology i worship with this approach. But more than angry
...

i am in mourning.

In mourning for a mother whose self-flagellation never allowed
her to know the extraordinary man that is her son, or find
understanding and absolution in his dark eyes.  In mourning
for a
"sister" (for she is as much mine as his) who i will only know
through his memories and her diary.  In mourning for all the
bodies in the field ... undeniable reminders of the one i have
lost.  Her name, normally a cool, trickling stream meandering
gently through my subconscious, now crashes insistently
against
the breakwaters i have so carefully constructed around my
heart.

With the unforgiving clarity of hindsight, i know he did not
see
"her" in his vision.  He followed Piller's son, saw little
Amber
Lynn and other dead children happy and at peace, encircled his
sister in his arms and enfolded her into his being ... but he
did
not see "her".  And as he spoke of his vision, oblivious to
the
implications it held for me, "she" flooded me to my very
marrow,
and i felt myself unable to feel or hear or breathe. Instead,
i
spiraled quietly into a liquid blue of failure and ache and
despair.  She remains lost to me, and i do not even have the
comfort of knowing that she is at peace.

Of course, he knows nothing of my torture: i do not permit the
raging waters churning through my soul to reach my glacial
countenance.  i am a mariner's daughter and i save myself from
this drowning pool by grabbing onto the paradoxical lifeline
that
is my science and my faith. i dismiss his vision as a product
of
grief and mental exhaustion; i accept that God always protects
those who are innocents.

i am not self-indulgent to my pain. i am responsible.

i am a FBI Agent with reports to file, supervisors to placate,
new cases to solve.

i am also a friend.  As i absently rearrange the jacket that
has
slipped from his shoulders as he sleeps, i know i will hold
his
hand during the flight back to Washington, drive him home to
his
too-empty apartment, erase the message from his mother, and
make
sure he is settled for the night.  Over the next few days, i
will
stand by him as he buries his mother, make arrangements for a
small gathering afterwards, and quietly protect him from the
mourners who awkwardly offer their condolences.

And because i am his touchstone (and he is mine), i will know
that 26 years of pain are not wiped away in one day.  I will
use
all my healing skills to sew together the fragile pieces of
his
fractured psyche.  And where pieces are missing, i will
transplant them with those of my own, creating a patchwork of
fire and ice, moment and time, passion and rationality.


But i am still in chains ...