Disclaimer: Story's mine, characters are Chris Carter's. 
Don't pretend you wrote this or Agent Sibrava and I will 
come get you. 

To Paul, who helped me through some hard times. Now I 
hope I have the strength to help you. To Erika and Alyssa, 
who claim I'm a nut. I totally agree. And to 
what's-his-name, I hear I've been talking in my sleep. I wish 
I could say the words.

Summary: "The Fourth" is a story of Scully's faith and her 
religion. Since it's such a short story, I feel that's the best I 
can do for a summary.

Author's Random Thoughts: In the wake of the Heaven's 
Gate mass suicide, we X-Philes and sci-fi fans are taking 
quite a bit of flak. Apparently, the cultists were great fans 
of The X-Files, Star Trek, and Star Wars. Well, fine, but 
not all of us are kooks. These shows/movies aren't inducing 
anyone to do weird stuff. We EMXCers are fans with a 
love of writing and that's perfectly okay. So I just want to 
relay a quote from Time Magazine: "For most folks, The 
X-Files is not a Bible, it's a bedtime story. Only 39 people 
chose to rev the once-upon-a-mind of sci-fi into revelation; 
only 39 took their jumble of theological and televisionary 
lore to beds from which they never awoke." That's the end 
of my little rant. I'm done now. Read the story.

"The Fourth"
A short XF fanfiction piece
by K. Judson (Katiefrog@aol.com)
March 31, 1997

*************************************************

"[The time before death] is a time to say four things. First, 
'I love you.' Second, 'I forgive you.' Third, 'Goodbye,' and 
fourth, 'Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.'" --Dr. 
Craig D. Erickson
*************************************************


"Our Father, who art in Heaven. Hallowed be Thy name. 
Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done, on Earth as it is in 
Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us 
our tresspasses, as we forgive those who have tresspassed 
against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us 
from evil, for Thine is the Kingdom, and the Glory, and the 
Power forever. Amen."
 
Swish, clack. The small wooden portal opened and Scully 
looked down at her folded hands, noting how the black of 
her jacket made them appear paler, smaller. Or perhaps it 
was not the jacket but her fear that made them seem so. 
She clenched her hands tightly together. 

"Yes, my child?"

Scully looked up, not at the priest, but straight ahead at the 
wooden door, and sighed. They always say that one has to 
make one's peace, before... And so Scully was suddenly 
paying attention to a God she had previously neglected.

"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned," she began.

Scully smiled fondly at the memory of confessing as a 
child. It was five Hail Marys for fighting with her sister and 
jumping on the bed against her mother's wishes. It was 
eight for the death of a snake. How many, she wondered, 
for turning away from God? How many for killing a man? 
Scully realized she had fallen silent. The priest was waiting 
patiently on the other side of the screen.

"It has been more than a year since my last confession. I 
thought then that I was turning back to the church, that a 
miracle had opened my eyes, but I was wrong. It took a 
tradgedy for me to see."

"Have you come to confess?"

"No, I've...I've come to make my peace with the church, 
with God. You see, I'm dying."

There was a silence. The priest looked up at the screen, 
seeing only the young, healthy swatch of skin from hairline 
to cheek. Yes, indeed a tragedy. She was too young to die. 
Scully studied her hands. She did not look up.

"The period before death," he said quietly, "Is a time to say 
four things: 'I love you,' 'I forgive you,' 'Goodbye,' and 
'Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.'"

Scully filed the information away as a checklist. She was 
all for checklists. A list of things to complete before the 
day is over or before a trip. This was no exception. In a far 
corner of her mind, plans were being laid out, but first and 
foremost, she had questions.

"I feel I have only turned to the church because of recent 
events, because I am still a little afraid of dying."

"Do you believe?"

"Yes," whispered Scully, "I believe."

"Then there is no reason to be frightened. The Lord will 
always rejoice at repentance. Perhaps God has instilled in 
you this fear to bring you back. Sometimes the Lord must 
break us down in order to build us up closer to Him."

Scully turned the idea over in her mind. Duane Barry, the 
abduction, the implant...had all of this been orchestrated by 
a higher being in order to bring a wayward Dana Scully 
back to the church? Skepticism kicked in. 

"All of it?" she asked. "Everything that happened could 
have been God's plan to bring me back to Him?"

"Sometimes His plan is not clear. We cannot always see 
His purpose. We must have faith in Him, faith that He 
loves us and will provide."

"I've killed," said Scully, softly, abrubtly, "I've taken lives. 
They've been murderers, threatened me or my partner or 
innocents, but they were lives just the same. I took them 
away. And now someone, something, is taking mine. It's 
the kind of justice that never seems to work on my side. All 
I wanted was the truth. All I cared about were the answers. 
But I believe. I confess. I repent."

"Then you are forgiven. For the Lord sent his son that 
whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but have 
everlasting life."

"Yes," said Scully. "Thank you." And she slipped out of the 
booth. 

She passed through the sanctuary on the way to her car, 
stopping at the statue of Saint Joan. She stared up into the 
marble face of the maid, her kindred spirit, another Jeanne 
D'Arme, a crusader for the truth and for justice. Another 
woman to be sacrificed for her faith. A fire, a tumor, what 
did it matter? They were just punishments for virtue, 
punishments for being right, earthly punishments from men 
who couldn't understand, who feared truth and change 
enough to kill. The only difference between Joan and Dana 
was that Dana couldn't fool herself into believing that 
they'd cannonize her after she was gone. There would be no 
cries at Rouen, no blazing fire. No marble statue of a 
woman in a power suit would stand next to the one of a 
woman in armor. She'd pass quietly, and everyone would 
forget. 

Well, maybe not everyone, she amended as she saw a 
familiar figure touch a blazing wick to an unlighted candle. 
There were just a few people who would carry the memory 
of her throughout their lives, no matter what. There was the 
woman who had given her life, the brothers who had shared 
her childhood days, and the man who was, at that moment, 
in a church that was not his faith, lighting a candle for her, 
praying for her to a God he wasn't sure existed. All for me, 
she thought. I have at least one friend in this world who 
cares about me so deeply, he'd die for me. He'd *die* for 
me. The last willing sacrifce for Dana Scully had been on 
the part of Jesus Christ, and he'd died for so many others 
that she often felt she was not that special. But Mulder, he 
had been by her side to help her out, to save her. He was 
right there at the small alter. At least, she *thought* it was 
him.

"Mulder?"

He jumped about thirty feet in the air. Yep, it was him. 
"Good thing this place has high ceilings," she told him. "I 
didn't mean to startle you."

"You didn't," he assured her. A tart remark about lying in 
church formed on the tip of her tongue, but she swallowed 
it. No sense in pressing the issue. No sense in pressing 
Mulder, either, she realized, and did not ask him what he 
was doing. Instead, he asked her.

"Scully," he asked hoarsely, "Um, what do I do now?" He 
was holding the lighted candle in his hand.

"Place it." Mulder gingerly placed the little candle in a bare 
space on the rack. It dispelled the gloom around it with soft 
light. Scully watched and understood. She smiled. Mulder 
smiled back. Scully knelt and Mulder, following her lead, 
knelt next to her. 

"Mulder," she said, suddenly vulnerable, "I don't know if 
this will make you uncomfortable, so you can feel free to 
say no, but I was wondering if maybe you'd pray with me." 
He looked at her cool countenance and her tiny, hopeful 
smile, and nodded. "What do I do?" he asked again.

"First, we say the Our Father." She reached for Mulder's 
hand, held it, and said the words slowly, carefully 
contemplating each one. When she had finished, she began 
her own petition. "Thank you, God, for each new day that 
You allow me to stay on this Earth with the people I care 
about. Lord, be with my mother. Help keep her from 
lonliness. Please protect my brothers, keep them safe. I 
pray for my sister and my father, that they walk with You. 
Be with me and my partner as we work, hold us in Your 
hand, for we have dangerous jobs and require Your 
protection. Help me feel Your presence as I go through a 
difficult time and if it pleases You, guide Mulder and me to 
the justice that we have been looking for."

Here Scully stopped, for Mulder had reached out to touch 
her arm. There was something he wanted to add. "Scully is 
sick, and she needs someone's help. I don't know what to do 
for her. If anyone else knows, they're unwilling to come 
forward. So I want You to help her. All I'm asking is some 
help for my friend. It means the world to me."

He stopped and there was a moment of reverent silence 
before Scully spoke again. "Father, I wish to forgive those 
who have sinned against me and I wish for You to forgive 
them as well. The list of names is too long for me to name 
and I have a feeling I'd miss some, but You know them. In 
the end, that is all that matters."

"Scully's trust is in You," said Mulder. "If You're so 
wonderful, and You can do anything, if you're really up 
there, You will not betray her trust."

"Father," said Scully, "Into your hands I commend my 
spirit." She felt Mulder's fingers clench with painful force 
over her own, as if he were the only thing tethering her to 
this world and he was *damn well* not going to let go.

Scully was thinking on the words the priest had spoken to 
her. Four things. The checklist. "Father, into your hands I 
commend my spirit." Check. "I forgive you." Check. 
"Goodbye." Well, it wasn't quite time for that yet, thank 
Heaven. Other than that, there was only one more thing that 
had to be done. And as Scully turned to her partner and best 
friend to say the words, she wondered if it might be the 
hardest one of all.      

~End~