Story Summary:  

Mulder finds a cure for Scully's cancer and then she must 
decide how to deal with the aftermath.  <no nudity, no bad 
language, no violence, WARNING: some implied religion)

This story is based on the characters and situations created 
by Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen Productions and Fox 
Broadcasting.  Used without permission and no 
infringement is intended.  All other contents are 
copyrighted to the author.  Please E-mail 
maslider@aol.com with any comments.

"Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air."

 - Sylvia Plath -

Ashes
----------------------------
by maslider@aol.com

FBI Headquarters
Washington, DC
February 12, 1997
2 pm

Dr. Dana Scully stood unnoticed by her office door gazing 
in silent consternation at her oblivious partner.  The 
annoyingly blase Fox Mulder she'd first met a few short 
years ago had disappeared entirely leaving a drawn and 
desperate man with a frighteningly intense look.  He'd lost 
pounds he could not afford and his brittle patently-false 
cheeriness had long since become painful for her to see.  It 
was still an improvement over the perpetually cheerful face 
she'd seen on her partner in the last few months.  Mulder 
seemed to have perfected the art of optimism in the months 
since she had told him about her cancer.  But she'd 
suspected from his increasingly stressed behavior that he 
was far less optimistic in private.

Scully wasn't due back at work until Monday, but her latest 
series of medical tests had been unexpectedly shortened, so 
she'd decided to return to work this afternoon.  Apparently 
thinking himself alone, Mulder was frantically typing on 
his keyboard; rapidly striking the keys with beads of sweat 
gleaming on his exhausted face as he concentrated with 
terrifying intensity on the screen before him.

"Having fun, Mulder?"

Every muscle in his tense body jerked galvanically as he 
swiftly blanked the computer screen and snapped his head 
up to gaze blankly at her.  Scully frowned, her partner's 
increasingly erratic behavior was becoming more and more 
difficult to ignore.  In the same way that her own rapidly 
declining health was equally impossible for either of them 
to continue ignoring.  She'd gone and bought another new 
suit this week, all of her old clothes hung with telling folds 
of extra cloth as she rapidly lost weight.  Her decline 
during the last few weeks had become painfully visible and 
she could no longer conspire with Mulder to ignore it.   Her 
now continual headache eroding her initial patience with 
Mulder's determined cheer.

"You've got dirt on your face," Mulder calmly glanced back 
at a file of papers on his desk as he removed his glasses and 
placed them on the crowded desk.

"Not dirt, Mulder, ashes." 

For a moment she heard the little priest's whisper again.  
Had there been a secret knowledge in those tired eyes as 
they peered at her?  

"Remember, dust thou art and to dust returneth."  The 
whisper soft pressure of his hand resting on her forehead 
like the gentle opening of a long closed window showing 
the world the rot that lay within.  By a freak, the ragged 
cross of black ash lay smeared precisely over her tumor.

She had spoken to Assistant Director Skinner  again today 
about approving the paperwork needing to be processed to 
cover her medical expenses, initiate medical disability 
coverage and increase her life insurance coverage to the 
maximum allowable.  Skinner had been strangely sure that 
her practical actions were unnecessary.  It was an oddly 
optimistic hope for such a pragmatic person.

Scully had continued her search for the truth to the end.  
And facing that end was becoming more difficult every 
day.  The end for herself that is, in the final analysis the 
search for the truth that had become the most important 
part of her life would continue on without her.  Mulder 
would continue on however hurt he might be by her loss.  
She should probably have gone on terminal leave weeks 
ago but she'd been afraid of the effect it might have on 
Mulder.  

Maybe she should have continued to try chemotherapy?  
No, it was far to late now.  She'd made the right choice, 
rather than spending her final months in agonizing pain in a 
futile attempt to prolong the inevitable, she'd simply chosen 
to ignore it as long as possible.  In any case, it was far to 
late now for regrets.

Her mother had already strained her financial resources to 
deal with the death of her husband and one uninsured 
daughter.  Scully's death with all those unpaid medical 
school loans originally cosigned by her parents could mean 
financial ruin for the entire family.  

It was time to put her house in order, in more ways than 
Scully could face at the moment.  Sorting out her sister's 
things after her death last year for charity had nearly 
destroyed her.  Everything she found in Missy's apartment 
bringing back memories that had torn at her heart.  She did 
not want to leave that gruesome job in her mother's hands.

Simply because she had decided to try to ignore her own 
approaching death with the help of Mulder and Skinner did 
not mean she could ignore what her death would mean to 
her mother.  

At least she didn't have to worry about Queeg Queeg.  Her 
mother wouldn't have been thrilled having to adopt a 
cannibalistic dog; but Dana wished sadly for a moment that 
Queeg Queeg were still here to worry about.  She'd loved 
having the little dog to fuss over.  She had no dependants to 
leave behind, no husband, no child, no pet.  Not even a tank 
of fish like Mulder, though she had long suspected that 
their casualty rate must be nearly as high as the rate at 
which his friends, relatives and acquaintances were 
destroyed.  No, Scully decided, she had to start tying up her 
loose ends now.  She didn't want to run out of time.  
Continuing to ignore the inevitable would drive her mother 
into bankruptcy.  Emotionally, she feared her death now 
would complete the ruin of her mother's life.  

Melissa's death had been such a shock.  Even today it 
seemed like only yesterday she was laughing and 
squabbling with her younger sister.  Scully could close her 
eyes and in an instant return to that moment of horror in the 
hospital.  She'd thought that she'd seen her sister's face in 
church a few moments ago and wondered if her sister 
would meet her on the other side.  It was a strange comfort 
to think of her father and Melissa arguing together like they 
had in her younger days.  The scent of incense and candles 
always brought back the days of sharing a bedroom with 
her aggravating sister, trying to study while Missy explored 
her own neo-hippy truths.

Scully had always feared how losing her would effect her 
mother.  Ever since she joined the X-Files it had seemed a 
frighteningly likely prospect.  She prayed it would not be 
one blow too many.  Scully had chosen to pursue the 
X-Files without guessing what the effects could be, for 
herself, and more importantly for her family.

Her own estimate of her life expectancy was a month now, 
possibly two.  Her oncologist refused to name a specific 
length of time, saying it was a highly uncertain 
measurement, but he had silently handed her the current 
historical data on her tumor during her visit and pointed out 
the rapidly accelerating rate.  She'd already guessed.  
Mulder must know.  Neither of them had said anything 
about her accelerating symptoms, but then neither of them 
had ever been very good with words.

She remembered how she'd found herself back in church 
again today.  She'd passed it on her way back from the 
hospital in a daze, slowly returning to awareness to find 
herself kneeling in the shadowy recesses of the small 
chapel and wondering why she was there.  She'd forgotten 
it was Ash Wednesday today.  It felt as strange as she had 
always imagine astronauts had felt venturing out onto a 
new world.  Walking, jumping in a world where gravity 
and air itself were nullified.  All the familiar rules changed.  
Did this mean she had finally reached her first true 
understanding of Lent?  She had only a month, forty days to 
tie things up.  Forty days, forty days of repentance to usher 
in the new day.  To start learning a new set of rules.

)*)*)*)*)*)*)*

Special Agent Fox Mulder finally relaxed as his partner's 
gaze became fully focused on the pile of papers in front of 
her.  Her pale face had been a shock when she suddenly 
seemed to materialize in the doorway of their office.

He didn't want her to discover the truth about his finally 
successful search for a cure for her malignant brain tumor.  
Mulder had followed a trail of historical crimes to finally 
locate the ideal solution to Scully's terminal illness.  Now if 
only he could get his stubborn scientist to agree to trying 
the new treatment.

She had to.  All of their hopes and dreams of a scientific 
cure had failed.  Even his faith healer and kirilian aura 
therapy had failed and time was rapidly running out.

This was the answer and now it was simply a matter of 
preparing his partner for tonight's treatment.

"Busy tonight, Scully?"

"Of course, Mulder, another coffee at the White House."

"Well, you'll have to tell Bill you're busy tonight.  
Interested in a new antitumor treatment that is proven 
100% effective in all the cases that I've examined?"

"Seaweed, feng shui and shark vomit courtesy of the Lone 
Gunmen, Mulder?" a wry smile brightened his partner's 
pale face.

"That is a method of preserving perfect physical heath 
proven by centuries of documented human cases."  He felt 
his anxiety increase, she wasn't even listening to him.

"Mulder, I won't be in until next week.  I need to start 
finishing up some personal business."

"Scully, this treatment will cure you.  I've made absolutely 
sure.  You know that the other treatments were just a way 
to buy time 'til we found a real cure."

Scully's face grew serious again, "I know that Mulder.  Its 
just that I'd hoped for a miracle and now time's running out.  
I'm going to take the rest of the week off.  I need to take a 
little time now..."

Mulder felt his chest closing in "Not a miracle."  His 
traitorous throat caused him to stumble over the world.  
"No Scully, you won't need to take any time off.  After this, 
you won't have to worry about your health.  You'll have all 
the time in the world..."

"Okay Mulder, give me the information and I'll read it over 
the weekend.  We can think about giving it a trial run."

"Not a trial, its all set up and it has to be tonight.  It'll only 
take one treatment and you'll be cured."  She was humoring 
him now, but it didn't matter just so she let him get her 
healed.  She'd never admit to the possibility of this cure if 
he told her all of the information.

"One?  What's the catch and why doesn't the world know 
about this miraculous cure for cancer.?  What are the side 
effects?"

He felt a brief flicker of guilt.  He had to be fair.  But not 
too fair, she might refuse.  She could be blind on some 
things.  Scully had all the drawbacks of a traditional mind 
set.  She had to stay with him.  He couldn't let her 
prejudices get in the way.  She would be, she must be 
cured.  "Not a cure for cancer, a way of healing you."

"And the side effects, Mulder?"  Scully calmly continued 
organizing the stack of papers she'd pulled from her 
briefcase.

He hesitated briefly, wanting to skim over the rest.  "You'll 
need to make a few dietary changes and you'll have some 
photosensitivity, maybe even a few allergies you didn't 
have before."

"That's it?  If this treatment is so successful, why haven't I 
ever heard of it?  I thought Frohike and you had already 
looked into every medical project in the world.  Knowing 
Frohike, I wouldn't be surprised if you haven't checked into 
all the alien off world ones as well."

"Its a little unusual.  I had a hard time locating a treatment 
source and making sure you could be -- treated.  But it will 
work.  All you have to do is come to my apartment tonight 
and everything will be fine."  Mulder felt perilously close 
to vomiting as his partner continued looking doubtful.

 She looked intently into his eyes holding his attention until 
he was ready to scream.  "Mulder, why is this so important 
to you?"

Mulder wanted to scream 'because you're dying.  I can see 
it in your eyes, you'll disappear any moment now and I'll 
never see you again.  Never know...'  Instead of making a 
fool of himself before the so logical Doctor, he simply tried 
to hold her gaze "Its been hard getting the treatment 
arrangements made and tonight is the best time."  
Unspoken was his thought that she might not live until 
tomorrow.

Washington, DC
March 31, 1997
4 am

Dana Scully, Doctor, scientist, pathologist and FBI agent 
gazed in silent despair at a cobweb filled corner of her 
partner's apartment.  The newest member of the undead sat 
silently meditating on how quickly and radically her life 
had been changed by her traitorous partner.  

She no longer needed to worry about cancer ending her life.  
Instead of resigning herself to death and finalizing the 
arrangements for her passing she now had to contemplate 
the prospect of immortality and eternal damnation.  

The slender red headed vampire sat in motionless silence 
watching the shining streetlight outside Mulder's 
apartment.  She had refused his 'cure' and still her partner 
had done this to her.  Now, freed at last from his continual 
company over the last few weeks, she didn't know what to 
do.

It had been over a month now since Mulder lured her to his 
apartment.  Weeks since he seized her arms while the 
crewcut man with magnetic eyes that held a thousand evils 
spoke in a deep seductive voice about "bringing her 
across."  

Mulder's eyes had begged for her forgiveness before he 
ripped the cross from her neck and whispered "It's all for 
the best Scully.  You'll thank me in the end.  Its real, its a 
cure.  You'll be healed."  His roughness covering horrified 
terror.

The pain in her neck was brief, the cold realization that the 
Mulder who betrayed her this time was not a shape 
changing alien bounty hunter, but her own partner, hurt far 
worst than any pain from tearing fangs.  

"That's enough LeCroix.  You've done your part.  Leave her 
to me." Mulder's hoarse whisper was oddly loud.

"Done.  It will never be done, Agent Mulder.  She is one of 
mine now and she will seek me out in the end."  His cold 
magnetic eyes and deep whispery voice commanded her 
fading attention as she slipped beneath the surface of 
consciousness.

Then there was only darkness.  As there had been every day 
since.  Yesterday, she'd approached a small sliver of light 
sliding through a slit in the thick curtains.  A brief instant's 
exposure to the tiny glimmer had literally melted the flesh 
from her finger.  A burn so fearsome that it put the oozing 
sore within her other hand to shame.  

And still she waited.  She'd spent the last month arguing 
with Mulder and avoiding this decision.  Gathering data 
she'd told herself whenever she contemplated her own 
cowardice.  She'd spent the hours of this night facing up to 
her decision.  Time was running out, some inner instinct 
told her that she must choose tonight.

Mulder was finally asleep and she was free.  Free of her 
partner's hopes and fears.  Free of his continual arguments.  
His hurt which he claimed was caused by her prejudiced 
ingratitude.  Free of the cancer growing within.  Free to 
feed.  

Not on this cold dead soup of rotting blood that she held in 
her hand, but on him.  She no longer dreamed of daylight 
but her daytime dreams were gradually filled with images 
of him.  Mulder in her arms.  Moaning, warm within her 
arms, his neck beneath her lips, that strong pulse beating 
beneath her lips, touching it with her tongue.  The sweet 
scent of him pulled her even now.  Her partner, who had 
become her jailor.  She longed to make him something 
more.  To take him, drink him and continue to drink until 
they were one at last.

She was ravenous.  A hunger so enormous she felt as if she 
could eat anything, anything at all.  As long as it was salty 
and sweet.  A hot steak, something anything full of hot 
juice.  The feel of her partner in the next room registered as 
nagging strange distraction.  

She could smell him, smell his sweat, his fear.  The blood 
pumping through his veins.  She could hear his heart beat 
even through the wall.  Hear his every breath.

She hungered.  Somehow she had to get away from him 
before it was too late.  Too late for Mulder -- it was already 
far too late for her.

She fled again from the choice.  Running away physically 
this time, using her newly augmented speed to run across 
the stately Memorial Bridge out of the District into 
Virginia; over the Potomac River in a blind dash through 
the enormous cemetery to the dark mansion overlooking 
the capitol.  Thinking only to seek the grave that had 
eluded her.  Past the enormous gold statues guarding the 
entrance to the bridge like Cerebus at the gates of hell.  

Scully needed to think, to plan, now; while she still had the 
ability to control her hunger.

Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington House
5:15 a.m.

Mulder could be a human bloodhound with an uncanny 
knack for hunches.  He'd track her down.  She had to make 
up her mind now while she was still alone.

He'd damned her.  The one man, the one person in this 
world that she'd truly trusted and he'd eternally damned her 
by forcing her into this undead existence.

How, how, could he possibly have thought in his alien 
obsessed excuse for a mind that she would want to join the 
undead?

Eternally denied the light.  She'd had the strength of his 
belief to draw her back to that distant shore once when 
she'd slowly drifted to her peaceful death.  Now he'd bound 
her eternally to this one place with his single act of 
treachery.  This time, there would be no boat upon these 
dark waters to carry her on to her father.

She'd tried to touch a rosary weeks ago.  A simple test of an 
inherently illogical legend.  A sparkling crystal set of rosary 
beads she'd gotten from Melissa on her confirmation day 
years ago when their quarreling had been at its worst.  The 
gift to bridge the gap between the  nerd' and the  flower 
child'.  Missy had claimed the beads felt "serene".  Only her 
sister could combine new age mysticism with medieval 
superstition without seeing any inherent conflict.  She 
hoped Missy had forgiven her.  For failing her, getting her 
killed, laughing at her gift so long ago.

She'd reached into the drawer and continued reaching to 
hold the beads even when the pain began.  Scully gazed 
again into the raw wound that still remained in her hand 
after nearly a month.  Every painstakingly carved curve of 
the crucifix burned into her hand.  

She was denied more than simple physical light.

So, Scully walked among the quiet graves of countless 
Americans and wondered whether she should join them or 
reject them.  She stood in the shadows out of sight where 
the light of the eternal flame over the Kennedy graves 
couldn't reach.  Openly stared at the stoic young guard 
marching before the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers.  And 
all she could feel was the call of the blood surging through 
the veins of the young soldier.  She couldn't find any deeper 
meaning in the enormous graveyard.  

Dana Scully stood alone in the shadowed porch looking 
down at the nondenominational Easter Vigil Service 
getting underway in the cemetery below.  It reminded her 
of the many Easter services she'd gone to with her family 
over the years.  The Scully family tradition, the entire 
family all dressed up in their new Easter outfits.  All of 
them gathered together to welcome Easter's dawn.  Dressed 
up in their new clothes, her father's dress white uniform 
gleaming in the first light of dawn.  Even when he was 
deployed they all thought of him in that first light of dawn, 
knowing that he'd be thinking of them.  

She could never enter a church again.  Her father would 
never again greet her in that dimly remembered light.  Her 
family was dead to her.  Her mother might somehow find a 
way to forgive her but she feared that God never would.  
Certainly the church's teachings were clear.  She had 
become an abomination in the eyes of her church.

She could make a new start.  What would yet another 
miraculous medical recovery mean to her fellow agents?  
She'd already beaten seemingly certain death a dozen times.  
Who would ever guess why she changed to the night shift?  
She was already linked to the FBI's greatest eccentric.  A 
certain absence from daylight activities could easily be 
explained away.  Photosensitivity as a result of a new 
cancer treatment.  It could work.  It would work.  A new 
start.  She was cancer free and with some careful arranging 
the surface of her life could be recreated.

Or should she choose to reject this unlife?  It was really a 
quality of life question.  Dana Scully giggled softly in the 
last dark moments before the dawn.  Did she want to live 
like this?  No.  But she could change it, make it more like it 
once was, pursue the X-Files again.  Did she have the right 
to reject this unsought gift?

Countless graves of American patriots stretched out in the 
mist before her.  She always thought of her father, his ashes 
scattered upon his beloved ocean tides when she saw the 
silent rows of grass covered veterans lying in their ordered 
ranks.  It was time to decide, already she could see the 
gradual lightening glow of an early dawn brightening sky 
above the city beyond the Lincoln Memorial.  She could 
see across the dark Potomac to the flashing lights atop the 
Washington Monument from this ante-bellum mansion's 
porch.  

She leaned tiredly against the mansion's pillars.  Could 
good really come from evil?  She'd never killed for blood, 
never even tasted human blood.  Mulder assured her it was 
animal blood that she drank.  Even now, she hoped she 
never would.  Her will had always been strong.  However 
weak her body, her mind had always been strong.  

There was still time, time to hide beneath the newly 
renovated lower floor of the mansion.  Hide beneath the 
dirt filled rooms of Robert E. Lee's slaves quarters till 
nightfall.  Had his slaves thought him a good man making 
the best of a difficult time?  Or had they simply known him 
as a slave holder, their master, a man who would claim to 
own others.

Mulder had inadvertently sold her into slavery to a master 
she would never have chosen.  He still didn't suspect the 
true meaning of what he'd done.  He could be as 
unbendingly blind on the meaning of mysteries beyond his 
alien mysticisms.  Scully regretfully remembered the 
miracles that she'd seen while her partner blindly denied 
the very possibility of such a thing.  It had given her more 
tolerance for the bizarre theories he'd had in more mundane 
cases.  In this case, it had led him to utterly ignore the 
darker implications of the unlife he'd forced on her.  She 
knew in the depths of what she'd once thought of as her 
soul that the mysterious LeCroix was her master now.  
Some strange force gave her a continual awareness that he 
lay somewhere to the North and Scully knew that she could 
follow that invisible force directly to the other vampire if 
she chose.

Mulder would be delighted if she chose to return to live out 
the endless nights at his side.  He'd enjoy helping her learn 
all the secrets of the night.  Testing all the myths, 
developing her new powers.

But did she want to?  She'd had more than a month of this 
shadow life.  According to all the legends and myths, she 
was eternal now.  No wonder poor Queeg Queeg's friend 
had never been able to see her end.  She couldn't be killed 
by a bullet, a knife or any mortal hand.  

So few ways of destruction seemed to work on the damned.  
But was she damned?  Could the God she'd learned of as a 
child damn her simply because she'd been changed against 
her will?  

She'd seen as that one ray of sunlight last week destroyed 
part of her hand that simply gazing upon this fast 
approaching dawn would destroy her newly adapted body.  
What hope did she have of her true self, her soul, surviving 
the dawn on this holiest of days?  

There were always possibilities someone had told her once.  
Or maybe it was a bad science fiction movie Mulder had 
talked her into watching.  Would God damn her for 
another's sins?  Would the physical destruction of this 
vampire body free her essential self?

She'd spent her life trying to explore, to learn, to seek.  
She'd always been strong.  Dreaming of helping others by 
discovering the truth.  Surely she could control this craving, 
stop this need.  She could learn so much that had always 
been hidden with her new powers.  She suspected she could 
learn to control minds, fly, maybe even change shape.  She 
could protect her reckless partner from the shadowy forces 
that blocked them and continue to live until she'd answered 
all the questions.  Found all the truths.  Mulder would 
share, would let her drink his blood if necessary.  As a 
physician she had access to an endless supply of human 
blood.  She wouldn't have to kill.  

All she could think of was the unending horror of the last 
forty days.  Lenten penance should be a journey to Easter's 
joy.  A new dress, a family get together.  Instead she stood 
alone.  Clad in ashes.  All her life she'd been taught that the 
only unforgivable sin was despair.  

To commit suicide was to deny God's gift she'd learned as a 
small child.  Her catechism class had said that Judas' true 
sin wasn't the betrayal of Christ but his despair.  His 
decision to reject the life he'd been given.  

But her life was already gone, artificially prolonged by the 
dark blood of countless crimes.  Could she bear to return to 
that darkness below knowing that in the end her strength 
would fail and she would take her partner along with her 
into this deadly existence of endless darkness and bloody 
hunger?  Drink and drink from his sweet blood until he'd 
finally filled her.  Then give it back again.

The first blush of light had given way to a rising glow and 
at the non-denominational service below she heard the 
glorious sound of a soprano voice joyfully singing.  
Welcoming the dawn.  

Scully hid for another final moment in the shadows behind 
the door.  In the last instant before her decision was made 
she heard the frantic sounds of Mulder's steps running up 
from the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  How did he do it?  
It should have taken days to track her here.  

She'd run out of time, Mulder would be here in a moment.  
Scully had to decide now, while the decision was still hers 
alone.  To her own relief, as simply as that it was done.  
Like taking that first plunge as a child into a cold, cold 
ocean wave the decision was made.

"To err is human,
To forgive divine."
 - Alexander Pope -