Title: Comfortably Numb Author: Paige Caldwell Feedback: paigecaldwell@hotmail.com Classification: MSR, S Rating: NC-17 Spoilers: Through season six Archive: Please do, just let me know where. Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me, damn it! Author's Notes: See notes at the end of the story. For previous installments you can find them at http://members.xoom.com/galias/paige.htm Summary: There is no pain...you are receding...a distant ship... smoke on the horizon...you are coming through in waves... Your lips move but I can't hear what you say... I have become comfortably numb... Part 11 of 11 I'm losing her... She's not breathing... Panic floods me as I see the pupils of her eyes dilate and fix into an oxygen deprived stare. Her throat begins to convulse with rhythmic spasms like she's trying to expel a foreign object. Her frozen, horrified expression propels me to another time and place. Oh my God.... The Profiler has studied too closely.... In my attempts to get into her mind, I find myself trapped in her most petrifying flashback of all.... I return to the cavernous, alien craft that is buried under the polar cap. The cryopod... that stores her like a refrigerated meal awaiting consumption... has finally cracked. Green, icy slush collects at my feet. When she chokes, I frantically pull the tube from her mouth. What should be less than a foot seems more like a yard. It stretches out like an unfurling intestine in my hands. Holy shit.... She's still choking. This bizarre paroxysm is killing her.... Scully.... I pry open her mouth and force my fingers to the back of her throat. She gags when I try to clear her airway. Her chest lurches forward and I have to press my knee against her ribs to hold her down. I probe for something I'm not sure is there. Nothing.... There's no physical hindrance to her breathing.... I call out to her, tipping her head back to initiate CPR. Just as I lean over to cover her mouth with mine, she jerks away and fills her lungs.... And screams.... The room fills with the sound of her terror. I yank her up by her shoulders, shaking her, trying to break through her wall of hysteria. "Scully...." I drown out her screams with my own. "Tell me what you see." "Creatures...," she shrieks. "They're trying to claw their way out...." Shuddering, she clutches her stomach and groans. "No, not in you," I yell back. "It never gestated in you." "The others are not dead," Scully cries, twisting in my arms. "They feel the pain. They're being slowly digested... bone... tissue... blood... but the tube silence their screams...." I finally understand the link to her stomach pain.... The gagging, the choking, the vomiting.... Her creature is horror. It has been gnawing at her for months, mauling its way through her denial, disguising itself as physical pain. I cup her face with my hands, forcing her to meet my gaze. She squeezes her eyes closed in a desperate attempt to shut me out. "Scully, open your eyes and look at me." "I can't...." "Damn it, look at me," I bellow. "Speak the words, Scully... before they really do eat you alive." My analogy finally hits home. Her eyes fly open and she screeches, "Aliens... they're aliens!" The vision in her eyes explodes into a million pieces. Her gaze is no longer frozen in muted fear. Ice melts to tears. They spill down her cheeks and onto my hands. The feel of them washes me with relief. "It's over, Scully." I tell her excitedly. "The flashbacks. They'll stop now." "What do you mean?" she sobs. "It was more than just your emotions trying to connect." I explain. "It was the truth struggling to break free." "Oh, Mulder...the truth will enslave us all." "Not you..." I emphasize, squeezing her tightly. "You're the one who was successfully vaccinated. That's why the Consortium wants you safe. Because the future courses through your veins." "Well, it better include you in it, or I'll slice through those future holding veins." I close my eyes and steel myself to her weeping. "There is a better use for your blood than to spill it for me." I remind her. She collapses against me and continues to sob. "I won't live without you," she sniffs. "Hey... don't write me off just yet." I make my voice light, trying to tease her out of this inordinate, melodramatic mood. The "voice of rationalism" is rapidly turning into the "voice of dependence" and this transition scares the hell out of me. I may not be there for her.... This is the terror of my truth. "Don't you understand why you must live, Scully? You're not only capable of rewriting history. You're capable of changing it. It's the vaccine. The key to its effectiveness is in your blood." "I want to believe...," she stops as she recognizes the impact of her own words. She edits herself and continues. "I want to feel hope." "That's okay." I press my lips against her forehead. "Right now, I have enough for both of us." Scully exhales slowly, sagging against me. Her energy level is gone, depleted by an endless night of trauma and revelation. The flashbacks have done more than just strip away layers of denial. They've sandblasted her endurance, leaving her physically drained and emotionally scathed. I offer her what comfort I can. Easing her back to the bed, I blanket her body with my own. I limit my touch to soothing caresses. I repeatedly kiss her cheeks, mopping her tears with my lips. Her lashes flutter against mine as fatigue overtakes her. Nestled in my arms, she drifts off quietly to what I know will finally be a dreamless sleep. *************** When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse Out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look but it was gone I cannot put my finger on it now The child is grown The dream is gone.... I stand by the bedroom window, parting the blinds with fingers that are no longer dull, but feel sharply sensitive. It's late morning according to my clock, but the sun is hidden behind heavy clouds that predict more than just rain. They forecast the futility of my future, the bleakness of my days to come. Mulder says he has hope enough for the both of us.... That's good, because I have none.... I'm no longer comfortably numb.... I'm painfully aware.... Does he sense my anguish? He wakes the instant my thoughts turn as grim as the overcast sky. His hazel eyes snap open with a sudden alertness that suggests that this "thing between us" is a connection more profound than a joining of our flesh. I startle, as does he.... Both of us seek the other's gaze. His shines with the light of our newly shared belief. Mine only reflects the shadow of my despair. Can I thread hope through him? Do you feel me, Mulder? Is this bond, this unspoken communication between us so strong that it can transcend time and space? "Mulder," I whisper the question. "What made you come back last night?" He shifts up onto his elbow and studies me thoughtfully. "Did you hear my voice inside you? Did you turn around because I was crying for you to stop?" I see the debate in his eyes.... I guess my stomach's not done churning after all.... "Did you sense that I was in danger?" I add in a desperate voice. "Did you change your mind about revenge?" Still no answer. "What was it, Mulder?" I let the blinds close behind me. "What brought you back to me?" "It was your phone," he answers reluctantly. For a minute, the seriousness of his voice competes with the absurdity of his answer. "What?" "You kept ringing my cell phone," Mulder explains. "I finally answered." My phone.... I remember dropping it when I opened the door.... "You overheard...," my voice cuts off with a gasp. "Every sinister word from the junkie's mouth," he relates caustically. "Offering you sugar coated pills. A prescription known as suicide." "Oh...," I swallow hard, almost choking on this tablet of reality. It was a coincidence. A twist of fate. I turn back to the window, focusing my attention on the void of what my world has become. "Scully...." I hear the shuffling of sheets and comforter as he gets out of bed. "I can't lie to you, even if it means giving you hope." "I know," I murmur sadly. "There is another way," he suggests as he approaches me. When I feel his hands graze my arms, I cringe from what I perceive to be a sexual overture. "No." I push him away and reach for my robe on the bottom of the bed. "Don't you want to hear what I have to say?" "Not if you intend to regale me with your body," I retort. "Jesus... is that what you think?" Mulder shoots back, sounding both deflated and suddenly angry. "Or, is it what you've become?" "What are you talking about?" "Last night, you spread your legs open in an effort to distract me." I tie the sash of my robe around my waist, pulling it into two tight knots. "Well, maybe I need more just a distraction in return." I state coldly. Mulder scrutinizes the knot before meeting my gaze. His eyes darken with a menacing challenge. "You know, Scully, I could untie that with my teeth." "Not if you don't have any left." Mulder rubs his chin, remembering how I almost knocked his jaw off the night before. He gives me a scoffing look, saying, "Well, then I'd have to use my tongue." "Save it, Mulder. Find a better use for it. These legs are definitely closed." I watch him reach for his jeans. "Then try listening to what my tongue has to say," he berates me. "What I was trying to suggest is that we use our Bureau resources to isolate this vaccine. To stop investigating X-files and start pursuing our future." He yanks his shirt over his head and continues, "But, I can see that you'd rather wallow in self-pity, turning everything good between us into something sordid." He sits on the side of our bed, digging his sneakers out from underneath it. "And, I know why, Miss Numbness. That way, if anything happens to me, you can anesthetize your pain by making the loss insignificant." I watch him tie angry knots with the laces of his sneakers. Oh God.... He's forcing me to acknowledge another horrifying truth.... This one is not about aliens.... It's about my attempts to alienate my feelings. I rush to the side of the bed and drop to my knees. My fingers fumble against his. I try to grab the laces and loosen the knot, equating it with how I've twisted our love. "I'm sorry...," I mumble, trying to tug the knot free. When it refuses to give, I feel a rush of anxiety crash over me. Biting my lip, I try again. "I can do this." For the first time, I hear hope and determination in my voice. Mulder catches my hand in his own as he says to me gently, "We can do this." His fingers guide mine as we untie his sneakers. My hand escorts his to the sash of my robe. "Together...," I whisper against his lips as my robe falls open. I think I've discovered a better definition of dependency. The one that prescribes hope. And hope, through him, is the most profound comfort of all. The End. I'd like to thank all of you who have read and shared your thoughts about this story. So many of you guided me along this angst filled path, keeping me focused and inspiring me to a new level of appreciation. My never-ending thanks to Kimberly of Clinique's Hidden Gems, who is a diamond in my treasure chest. To Galia, who very graciously designed a page for a Paige. My special thanks to Exley_61, my beta whose own writing shines like the evening star...first...brilliant...enduring....