"This story is based on the characters and situations created by Cris Carter, Ten Thirteen Productions and Fox Broadcasting. Used without permission and no infringement is intended. All other contents are copyrighted to MLeaper@aol.com" Intro: Well, here's my answer to the x-philes challenge on Scully's attitude towards the Roman Catholic church before the episode Revelations: "Your mission, writers, should you choose to accept it, is to give Scully a reason for her skepticism." A Challenge Met By MLeaper 12/28/95 Georgetown Hospital Washington, DC Dr. Dana Scully hurried along the linoleum tiled hallway concentrating her entire attention on the dark shadows racing before her. The harsh flourescent overheads shot her shadow out from beneath her feet as she made a beeline for the shadowy stairwell leading down from the Georgetown Hospital Pediatrics Intensive Care Unit. Her seemingly endless shift was over at last and she desperately wanted to be alone. She carefully kept her head turned away as she hurried past the small crowd of worried, disheveled adults and tired medical personnel in front of the slow elevators. As she rushed down the stairs past several residents, she dreaded the thought letting any tears fall. "So unprofessional," her father's voice echoed in her mind "Just because you're a woman, there's no excuse for unprofessional behavior." She knew patients would die when she chose to go to medical school. This inevitable death was no excuse for falling apart on the job. Anyone could have predicted it. Why should the inevitable create this sense of absolute desolation? She wanted to run away. As far away as she could reach, somewhere where children were loved and cherished, not beaten and tortured. To go home to her parents and know that everything was fixable. She'd always be their little girl. But she was on call and couldn't leave the grounds. Anyway, she was a Doctor, not a child. She slowly pushed thru the carved wooden double doors in front of her. It must be ingrained in all good Catholic girls. When in doubt, go to church. The small chapel was an oasis of peaceful silence she'd found early on during her time here at Georgetown, when she was desperate for a few moments of peace and quiet. It offered a private hidey hole in the building itself when she was on break. It slowly became more. When she first went off to college, she'd found the practice of her Catholic faith so much more difficult than it had been during her upbringing as an Irish Catholic Navy brat. In college, her friends had laughed at the very thought of willingly waking up early and going off to church services on a rainy Sunday. Bit by bit, she'd found herself making less of an effort. She still considered herself a Catholic, but it was just too inconvenient to attend every week, so slowly she'd drifted away. Drifted away so imperceptibly that only her family still anchored her to the church. When she found the quiet chapel, she'd known that she'd rediscovered something vitally important that had somehow slipped away. Put away by mistake, along with her childish toys, after she'd grown up and moved away from home. She hadn't really understood its importance until she got it back. The turmoil and back breaking work of the last few years had turned from pure furious determination not to fail back into her original positive goal. She'd regained that determination to help, to stop death, that had started her out thru all the mind bending obstacle course that made up a medical education. She turned her head forward when she glimpsed a figure entering the aisle beside her out of the corner of her eye. Being caught crying in her hospital uniform would be embarrassing. The man politely ignored her as he walked over to another pew and quietly prayed before walking out just as silently. She'd prayed in this chapel, just last night, like she'd never prayed before. Her entire heart and soul pouring silent screams out to the silent figure on the wall before her, begging that tortured figure on its lacquered wooden cross for the chance to heal one little boy. Three times in this last year, she'd seen that beautiful little face with the shaggy dark hair and the wounded eyes looking at her from a delicate, nearly expressionless face. This last time, only the eyes remained and they broke her heart. He'd still trusted her, thought she could take away the pain, when all she could do was watch him die. The burns were so bad, she couldn't even hold him. Just gently caress the pitifully few unwounded patches of skin. Her supervisor had been brutally clear about who had all the rights to the child during his last hospital stay, when she'd insisted on personally calling child protective services and got into screaming matchs with the indifferent social workers. Tonight he'd been equally clear, "Maybe the autopsy will find enough evidence to convict, Dana. But I doubt it. The jury will look at this wealthy young bereaved couple and be convinced they just had a run of bad luck. Its nearly impossible to prove abuse in this type of case - the jury will see a simple accident. In any case, that family can afford lawyers so good, even a confession wouldn't put them away." Scully bowed her head, the shame moving thru her like a sword. When he'd been in her care with that network of old bruises and broken bones, she'd known in her heart what must have happened. He'd never blamed anyone. The social workers said it was simply a string of reckless childhood accidents and bad luck... But she used to stop by after her day shift to say goodnight and it had evolved into an hour or more of story time and quiet laughter. He'd told her a story about the two of them "going far, far away to a place where no one ever goes. Then we'd live in a little house, just the two of us with a little puppy and never, never hurt ourselves." That very day, that very moment, when all the official channels failed to act, she should have taken him and gone. Instead she'd only worried about finishing up for the day and calling more social workers before it got to late. She reflected with anguished self loathing on that day. She had decided she could call again tommorrow, she just didn't have the time then. She'd done everything anyone could ask of her, calling social workers in three different agencies. She still had to make something to eat, do laundry and catch up on her work all while longing for some desperately needed sleep. The thought of running off with him flashed thru her mind for an instant before she rejected it as a ridiculous overreaction. Just because she thought his parents were abusive, there was no way she could kidnap the child of a wealthy family. Give up years of striving to establish herself in a competitive profession and go into hiding until she could prove abuse, when she couldn't even afford a new pair of shoes was ridiculous. Instead, she'd spoken to the parents, making her suspicions and her determination to act if he was injured again crystal clear. She gazed up at the agonized figure on the cross and for the first time felt a sullen indifference to the divine suffering it represented. You chose to suffer and die, it was your choice, you weren't tortured to death by the very people who should have loved you. How could a loving God allow this horror. If I had the power, I would have... A new wave of tears flowed to drip with a burning salty bite against her chapped lips. I did have the power and I didn't do a damned thing really, it would have been too inconvenient. I dreamed of a happy perfect life, curing cute little children for their grateful families, settling down like I'd always dreamed during my nomadic childhood with lots of money and respect. For a moment she wondered dazedly from what odd corner of her subconcious that particular thought erupted from. I'll stop this from happening again. God may not care, but I do. I'll change specialties. As a forensic pathologist, I could prove that a crime was committed. I'll have to change specialties and I'll need to plan for an entirely different career, but I can do it. I'll do my damndest to see that criminals pay for their crimes. Never again, will I have to stand by a body, knowing in my heart that I could have saved someone and stopped a tragedy. I'll hunt the criminals down myself if I have to. Maybe I should go into law enforcement she mused as she wiped her burning eyes, rose and strode out the chapel doors. --------------------- Well, my quickie attempt at meeting the challenge. So please, please :-) some constructive criticism. Tell me what you think. MLeaper@aol.com.