SUMMARY: Scully finds solace. MSR CATEGORY: V ARCHIVE: Anywhere, but please let me know first RATING: PG SPOILERS: Post "Orison" DISCLAIMER: This vignette is based on the millenial/postmodern heroes and the mythological majesty created by Chris Carter and Ten Thirteen Productions, and certainly not by me. I ain't writin' this for money, so it must be love. AUTHOR'S NOTE: They are doing it behind our backs. Really. And they've been doing it for awhile. I know everybody and his/her dog has been doing this type of story, but hey -- this one's mine. Special thanks to Debbie Hewett, who is the Goddess of patience. More thanks to Becky D, Goddess of Betas (and the flu). Thanks to Ben, for the ride around town so I could think about this. Thanks to Scott who poured me wine and didn't expect me to talk to him. Extraspecial thanks and respect to Moby. I couldn't write without him playing loudly in the background. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Calm Blue Nowhere An X-Files Tale by Terri Monture xfactore@interlog.com The smell of gunpowder lingers in my apartment as thick as smoke. I pull the blanket around my shoulders and gaze at my reflection in the mirror, noting the smears of blood beneath my nose. I wash my face on autopilot, remembering what it was like when I had the cancer and a nosebleed was the ominous sign of something mortally wrong. This time the nosebleed is less terrifying. It means merely that I fought for my life, and that I won. But I feel nothing. I am empty even of relief. I can hear Mulder through the closed door of the bathroom, taking charge of the investigation as I knew he would, making all of the explanations, letting the police take his statement as the primary witness. I know he's saying that I shot Donnie Pfaster in self-defense. He'll lie for me, perjure himself if he has to. Because he knows that I didn't have to shoot him. Mulder had Pfaster in his sights, he would have had the cuffs on the bastard in two seconds. There was no need for me to pull the trigger and perform the summary execution. I did it anyway. Judge, jury, and executioner. I took justice into my own hands and at that moment, became the instrument of a wrathful God and righteously sentenced Donald Addie Pfaster to death. The water is still running. I come to that awareness slowly and turn the faucet off. I grab a towel from the rack and wipe my face. I am still blank, expressionless. I feel frozen, moving in a time that has no beginning and no end. He was going to kill me. He was going to do it slowly, leisurely, ritualistically, in some gruesome manner as dictated by his full-blown murderous fantasy. I bury that thought, look around the room. The bathtub is full of slowly dissipating bubbles. I can tell the water is as cold as ice. Every available surface is jammed with candles. He had to have brought some with him, I only had a few that Melissa had given me. I did buy a few after Mulder and I -- well. I may never burn another candle again. I let myself out of the bathroom. One more room that will have to be exorcised. It seems I have done that more often than not in my home, so that I may feel comfortable there. Mulder follows me into my bedroom. It is an absolute mess, the desperation of my struggle obvious from the disarray that greets me. The room is freezing cold, as cold as Donnie Pfaster's eyes. I shut the window, shivering in my pajamas despite the dawning light of the early morning sun. "If you pack some things, we can get out of here," he tells me, and the tone of his voice says, come home with me. I will look after you. I start to obey mindlessly, pulling open a drawer, but my eye catches my bible casually tossed on the bureau's top. I am drawn to it like metal to a magnet and I pick it up, caressing the smooth worn leather of its surface. As always, Mulder knows what I'm thinking. "You can't judge yourself," he tells me, his voice gentle. I cannot help the ironic sigh that escapes me. Suddenly I am weak and I sit down on the bed before I fall down. "Maybe I don't have to," I manage to keep my voice fairly level. For that small measure of strength, I am grateful. Mulder's keen gaze bores into me, measuring me swiftly, but there is no condemnation in him. "The Bible allows for vengeance," he offers quietly. "But the law doesn't," I remind him. I look up at him. He nods, conceding the point, but he is persistent. "The way I see it, he didn't give you the choice. And my report will reflect that." He tilts his head, studying me. "In case you're worried. Donnie Pfaster would have surely killed again if given the chance." In his voice, I hear it. I can hear his fear. And his need to let me know that he is not about to proclaim that I am a killer. I cannot abide my weariness. But I need to get this out of me. "He was evil, Mulder. I'm sure about that. But there's one thing I'm not sure of." The gentleness in his voice makes me want to fall into his arms and never leave him. "What's that?" he asks, wanting to know. "Who was at work in me?" I ask him and the universe. "Or what? What made me..." I falter but have to get it out of me. "What made me pull the trigger?" He knows what I am talking about. He knows me only too well. "You mean if it was God?" The tears well in my eyes and I am unable to prevent them. "I mean - what if it wasn't?" There. Mulder has heard it. My fear. That the same evil which corrupted the likes of Donnie Pfaster and any number of villainous souls we have encountered these seven years together has possessed me, has turned me not into an instrument of justice, but purely one of wrath. That even I, with my attempt to remain true to the principles of valour and justice that have always been my personal moral code, was corrupted in a blind instant by my need for vengeance. The nuns at my parochial schools always warned that pride was the greatest of sins, and now I see where it has brought me. Pride opened wide the door to my heart and welcomed evil. Mulder gazes at me, seeing the price my internal struggle is exacting in tears. There is nothing but solace and the promise of warm comfort in his gaze as he wipes away my tears with the gentlest of fingers on my face. "Scully, I know you," he declares solemnly, and I close my eyes, unable to bear the utter conviction in his voice, blinded by the power of his belief in me. "And I know that you did what you had to do." Like a father confessor, he has released me to my penance and I am lost. In my desperation, I can only reach forward to cling to him, as if he is my lifeboat in a stormy sea. Mulder gathers me to him as though I weigh no more than a feather and sits next to me, pulling me onto his lap so that I can lose myself in his arms, if only for a moment. He whispers calming, nonsensical things in my ear, as if I am a small child, and I sob quietly against his neck, unable even in my extremity to let those hardworking DC cops in the other room hear how thoroughly I have gone to pieces. Mulder allows me just enough time to get out the first wave of my delayed reaction. "Come on, Scully," he says, raising my chin to gaze into my tear-filled eyes. I hiccup softly and manage to pull myself together. He raises his eyebrows, reassuring me without words that he will look after me. "We should get out of here. Okay?" I nod. "Okay." My voice is squeaky, like a little girl's. I wince at my own weakness but it doesn't bother him. Mulder is always stalwart and brave, my own knight errant, and the emotion that wells in me nearly undoes me again, but I push it away with the last shred of my control. Not here, not now. Not on my bed in a room that is a shambles from the fight for my life. Mulder bends forward to press a mute kiss of love and consolation on my forehead. "Let's go." With a strength born of the desire simply to get away, to leave this wrecked apartment and the large bloodstain proclaiming the place where I killed a monster, I climb to my feet and find some clothes to wear. Mulder brings my overnight bag and at my direction, fills it with at least a week's worth of clothing. There is no modesty between us anymore; I strip off my pajamas, too bloodstained and ripped to be worn again, and pull on a black sweater and khaki pants. My shoulders are paining me in a strangely muted way and there are welts and marks all over my torso and legs that by tomorrow will be purple, but I don't care. I can bear the physical pain. It is the mental pain of my actions that make me want to fall asleep and hide for at least three months. Mulder whisks me past the investigating detectives, telling them they can contact me at the FBI offices tomorrow, and if they need anything, they should contact him. I notice that two of them are exchanging raised eyebrows even if they won't say anything to our faces; we get that a lot, Mulder and me. We're being as discreet as we know how and still something between us betrays us to the world. But I am past caring how we appear to other people anymore. Mulder buckles me into the front seat of his car like I am the most precious object in the world. Normally his natural tendency to want to coddle me rankles, but today I welcome his chivalry. I haven't been able to stop shivering since we ventured outside; he turns the car heater on full blast and tunes in some soothing classical music. One of the best things about Mulder is that sometimes he seems to know instinctively what I need, before I can even voice it. And now he knows that I need silence and respects this as he drives the distance to his apartment. I close my eyes and lean back against the headrest, huddled into my coat. I try to empty my mind of all thought, except I am drawn back into the nightmare of scant hours earlier. My hands closing around the butt of my gun, feeling its cold weight like the hand of an old friend. The way time slowed down, crawled at a snail's pace, how I knew that Mulder had him, *HAD* him dead in his sights, but still I remember the carpet, strewn with shattered glass that cut deep into my feet, how Pfaster's cold eyes blinked in a reptilian glance of dumb surprise as I brought the gun up in a classic shooter's stance and the shot echoed, echoed like thunder in the room and my arm flew back in recoil and I felt the splatter of his brains against my face, and they were warm, and I liked it, was glad glad glad of it because he was dying in pain and in terror exactly as he wanted to do to me -- "Scully? Are you all right?" Mulder's voice is low and urgent against my ear. "I -- what?" I am stunned into opening my eyes, blinking in the pale dawn and seeing familiar landmarks. We are almost at his apartment. "I'm -- I'm just really tired." "You're sure --?" I cannot bear the concern and caring in his eyes and close mine against his beauty. "I'm sure," I whisper. "I just need to sleep." Mulder accepts this, but I can see that he doesn't believe me. At least he is not willing to press the point. I force myself to remain upright and awake until we reach his apartment building. Then I am glad to allow myself to fall into a stupor that makes me move robotically forward with Mulder's arm supporting my weight as we lurch inside. His apartment is blissfully warm and safe, and I can at last allow myself to relax. Once there was a time when my home was like this, and now that sanctuary has been taken away from me. Again. It will take months to rebuild the peace I knew. At least I have another place to find shelter. And I know that Mulder would never begrudge me a temporary stay here. Beyond that, we have no words to describe our future, what it means for us to be together. We only have the now, and at least for the moment, we feel free enough to inhabit it. Mulder takes my overnight bag into the bedroom and I follow him, stumbling behind like a drunk. I'm still shivering and I don't think I'll ever be warm. He turns to me and takes my coat from my shoulders, throwing it to the floor and folding me into his embrace. "Are you hungry, Scully? Thirsty? I can get you something if you want it," he tells me, brushing my hair away from my eyes, caressing my face with light flutters of his fingertips. The thought of food makes my stomach roil in horror. "No thanks," I murmur against his chest, the steady thumping of his heartbeat so soothing to me, like a lullaby. "Jus' wanna sleep." Mulder smiles at that. "Okay, sweetheart," he whispers. "I'll just be in the other room --" I wrap my arms tighter around him. "Don't go," I plead, unable to prevent him from seeing my need, hating how vulnerable it makes me, yet completely unwilling to let him go. If this is what loving him and allowing myself to express it means, then fine, I will be honest, I will admit my weakness. Mulder has become my beautiful temptation, and I will deny him nothing. Not even the pretense that I am strong and capable without him. Mulder moves to the bed and throws back the covers, then comes back to me. His gaze is direct, open; in his hazel green eyes lies the promise of solace and a love so deep that I am drowning and it is wonderful. There is so much healing and hope in his eyes. And then his long fingers on my clothes, lifting the hem of my sweater and bringing it over the top of my head. I shiver as he makes me naked, can only watch in numb longing as he takes his own clothes off. He picks me up in his arms and there is the shock of the warmth of his skin against mine, and the sublime map of contrasts that is his body. Mulder's golden smooth skin, silky man-fur and the hot need at his groin. Wordlessly I try to meld my entire body into his and he presses me into the bed. He is mine, and he will watch over me. He makes me safe. In Mulder's arms there are no monsters; in his kiss the world melts away, and there is only me and him, and love. But I am so tired. I shake my head against his questioning kiss. He acknowledges my decision with a nod, draws me close to his shoulder. I curl up inside his arm like a cat, burrowing my head into the place between shoulder and the curve of his neck. I inhale deeply of his warm, familiar scent and feel drowsily satisfied. He is the haven that I have only recently allowed myself to find, the shelter that I have sought for so long. It is in him, and he is in me. Maybe now I am complete. Nearly asleep, I am caught by a revelation. I murdered another human being today. Even though he was a monster, capable of unspeakable things, he was still accorded due process under the law. I took that right away from him. I murdered him. I pulled the trigger. In my sound mind and of my own free will, I killed a man in cold blood. Perhaps it was God, or maybe it was the devil who urged me to take action. Maybe it was my own righteous and all-too-human anger. Maybe I needed to do it. Regardless of why, the fact is that I did do it. I accept the responsibility. And I will live with the bloody stain on my conscience. Mulder won't accept anything less. In loving him, I realize this. This is the gift he gives me. To be myself, to be free, to be human. I am released into the relaxation that precedes sleep and snuggle deeper into Mulder. He whispers, "I love you, Scully," against the top of my head. I am floating into the calm blue nowhere of sleep. Now I can smile and say, with conviction, with heart, with the fiery light of the truth, "I know." The End XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Terri Monture "X-Files worshippin', bike ridin', beer drinkin', music listenin',latte lovin', bread makin',tattooed nose-pierced urban Mohawk ultramom... slaving over a hot computer." -- Proud member of The Cult of The Smoking Alien Hello Kitty is the mouthless representative of a much cuter planet than ours!! XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Terri Monture "X-Files worshippin', bike ridin', beer drinkin', music listenin',latte lovin', bread makin',tattooed nose-pierced urban Mohawk ultramom... slaving over a hot computer." -- Proud member of The Cult of The Smoking Alien Hello Kitty is the mouthless representative of a much cuter planet than ours!!