Title: "Bleeding Purple" Author: R.M. Stratford E-mail: ddlover42@aol.com Rating: PG-13 -- some slightly disturbing images and a few bad words Category: VA Spoilers: Biogenesis Summary: Scully's burnt out and Mulder's in mental hell. Will things ever get back to the way they were before? Archive: Gossamer: yes. Xemplary: yes. Anyone else: If you really want it, ask me first, and then you most certainly can. Disclaimer: Not mine. Thanks: To Janie for letting me use her e-mail and webspace. Thanks, hon. Notes: This occurs sometime after the events in Biogenesis, maybe a few months, possibly more. I definitely didn't try to clear up any of the mythology in this. I really don't think I would've been able to. But in any case, you see Mulder get worse and worse as the piece goes on, and I guess I was kinda following what happened in the ep -- how he started out as pretty coherent, and then by the end he was wacko. I know now that he didn't just get to be "wacko" on his own. He had some help. But I didn't find that out til after I'd written a lot of this story. (More notes, etc. at end) Visit me sometime! http://members.aol.com/ddlover42/ Insanity ahead -- proceed with caution... "Bleeding Purple" by R.M. Stratford *** The lights are dim. Faded and unsure, they flicker every so often. And his eyes ache with the small amount of intensity they offer. He does not remember going inside any building. The last images wandering through his tired mind are of a gray and clouded sky hovering above him as they walked. And she was tired, but he desired to continue moving. It seems it happened mere moments ago. But now he does not know where he is, and she is strangely absent. He runs a hand slowly down his face, and it is then that he feels the throbbing in his head. His gaze turns to the floor upon which he sits. It is hard and cold beneath him, and his back is aching because of it. But the image of the dirtied-white tiles falls away as his eyes slip shut and he attempts to recall what led him here. They had been walking for some time. Perhaps tracking evidence, meeting a contact. He is not sure. But the pain began at his temples, and the proceeding events are unclear. She was there with him, at his side, when his movements slowed to a stop. It is the last memory he has before things become blurred. He remembers the disquiet in her eyes, the paleness, the trembling in her hands as she gripped his arm. And then the sudden sound of her voice startles him from his thoughts. Her speech is low and tender, but the word that leaves her mouth is clear, smooth, even from behind the wall. "Mulder," she says, and the door slides open to reveal her face. It is calm, shaded with a slight weariness that he has grown accustomed to. But the peacefulness painted across her slowly dissolves as concern floods her eyes. He looks away as she comes to kneel beside him, her hand moving gently to his forehead. He will not let her see the shades of helplessness blended into his somber expression. "What happened?" she softly inquires. He begins to lift himself from the floor with her arms supporting him. And she seeks his gaze, but he does not allow himself to meet her eyes. "I don't know," he whispers as his head lowers, falling close to her face. She is warm and soothing to him, her breath soft against his cheek. Her eyes still study his pallid features, searching for an answer. But none is to be found. He sighs softly, and she turns away. He can feel her begin to guide him forward, her arm moving to encircle his waist. They move slowly past a sink cluttered with toiletries and through the door, and he is met with familiarity. He is surprised he hadn't realized it before. But his vision is still blurry, and he can barely make out the worn leather couch across the room. His muscles are tired -- from what he does not know. His legs feel weak; he can barely bring himself to move them. And as a wave of pain floods through his already aching head, they go limp and give out. His whole body tumbles to the ground, slipping from Scully's careful grasp. *** Voices. Voices all around. Numerous and insistent. Loud and soft, near and far. Swimming and flowing. Enveloping his head. Like a vise gripping his skull. Tighter tighter tighter. Waiting for him to pop. He thinks he hears his cranium cracking and the wetness as the fluid surrounding his brain spills out and the blood oozing onto his scalp and his hair isn't brown anymore -- it's red. Red red red, and the pain at his temples is too much. The bile is rising to his throat, and he fears the bits and scraps of food he had eaten for lunch will soon be lost. He can almost taste the bitterness of it on his tongue and the rank smell that will consume his nostrils. He's not sure if he's swimming or floating now, alive or dead. There's fizzing and popping and static and whispers and yelling and screaming and choking and gasping and -- /...mulder.../ And there is quiet for just a moment because this voice is different. It is not faded and jumbled like the others. Not empty or hollow. But real and full. Alive. Familiar. /wake up/ it says. /please/ The words are soft and smooth, but he hears the fear, the almost-desperation lacing itself through its tone. If he weren't so damn incoherent, he might be worried that the voice is quivering, that its strength has dissolved. But he is not bothered by it. /mulder.../ It is close. It will lead him away. Away from the hurt, away from the pain. Away from the darkness and the incessant noise. He can almost feel the quiet. He can almost see the light. *** "Mulder." He imagines her face, her expression. He sees it before the gently faded green of his gaze is met with the tender and seeking blue of her own. She sits beside him on the floor, her palm resting lightly against his cheek. It is soft and warm like sunshine, and he welcomes the feel of it. With eyes calm, yet strangely unsettled, she watches him as a long-held breath escapes her lips. Worry still colors her eyes, but he does not see it. /idon'tknowwhat'swrong.idon'tknow.headiswarm.faceisflushed.doctor.hospital./ /they'lllockhimupagain.toomanydrugsinhissystem.hecan'ttakeit./ /ohgodlethimbealright.../ Don't worry, he wants to say because she sounds so desperate, so disturbed, so un-Scully. But he quickly refocuses on her face and sees her expression has not changed but for two things: her lips are pursed, and her eyes now stare into his forehead. And he realizes suddenly that no words have left her mouth, that she hasn't spoken. And he knows he still heard her. He knows he did, but he never saw her lips move. She's been so still, and he thinks he would've seen it. He knows it. And now he understands. His breath quickens, and he is afraid the nausea may get the best of him. But he swallows hard, holding it in as his eyes scatter around the apartment, and his brain searches for a way to disprove this. He doesn't want to believe it. It isn't fair. After all he went through. It can't be happening again. He had always dismissed the soft echoing in his ears. Always thought he had heard it because he was tired. He wonders now if it ever really went away. If it wasn't just there the whole time. But, no. It was quiet once. It was quiet bef-- And his thoughts are slashed away. Shrieking, piercing, shrilling tones assault his ears and god his eyes can't focus. Splashes of light, purple flashes. Pounding. God, no... He doesn't want to feel this. He doesn't want the voices to take him away from himself. He doesn't want to go through what he had to before. Scream. He wants to scream. Loud and clear so the whole world can hear, so the voices can hear. So it'll drive them away. He wants to open his mouth, but he can't now because the pain is becoming too much to bear. No, not again, he thinks, not like before... Now there is screeching and ringing and his ears feel like they're on fire but he isn't really hearing anything. There is hissing and static -- louder and louder, and he wants to close his eyes, but she is afraid. No more pain, not like before... Her gaze shifts from one of his eyes to the other, and her mouth is moving. But he barely registers it. Not like before... She grips his shoulders, begging him for a response, but he cannot offer one. Please... His eyes slam shut, and everything is quiet for a split-second. And then there is nothing left but darkness. *** He is sitting now, his back up against a wall. He does not remember passing out again. But he does not question that this is exactly what happened. He has no other way of explaining his disorientation. There is weariness all about him. He feels it deep within, and he is almost sure it seeps from his pores. He blinks away what little he can from eyes, and all he hears is... Quiet. Everything is quiet. No sounds, no thoughts, no worry or desperation in her voice. Silence. And he wonders where she is. And then his gaze shifts to the right for a moment, and he sees her beside him. He sighs with relief and now the pounding in his head is dull, faded. And he wishes the silence could comfort him, but he knows it isn't possible. They're still there. He can feel them. That tingling in the back of his neck, up and down his spine. They're still there. And he's afraid. The touch of her hand against his arm stills his thoughts for a moment, and he turns to her. Her mouth moves as if she wishes to speak, but no words emerge. His gaze settles on her face, and she watches him like she always does. Her eyes are patient, tender, yet perceptive. They seem to soothe him but are always aware of changes, of anything that is wrong with him. But something is different now. She is disconnected from him, her eyes unfocused. She stares not at him, but at a point somewhere beyond him. Somewhere far away. He might've said something about that if the circumstances had been different. But he's too afraid to talk. She is tired, she keeps thinking, and he hears it now. Over and over. And he's known that, he's felt it. Tired and unsure, he keeps hearing, unsure of her course, unsure of whether she should choose to go on at all. And he's sorry. He's sorry she's so tired. And then he remembers something she said to him once about missing things. "The small things, the unnecessary things, the things unimportant to tracking a global conspiracy," she said. "They all just pass us by, and we never stop and look. we never appreciate them." And he wonders if she still remembers that, if she's thought about it since, if maybe she wouldn't be so tired if she had those things. He imagines what she says. He imagines the sun with its purples and oranges and its reds and its golds and they're all falling on to one another and the moon looks like a bright, white hole blistered and bruised into the black sky and its midnight blue edges and the stars that frame it. And then it's all blurred together, and it's all gone and he can't think about colors because they all get distorted and they all scream and cry and it's not really happening but it is. And now he's breathing hard, and his eyes are closed. But she hasn't noticed. He can't think about that, but he can think about her. She won't unravel and she won't fall away. And she'll always be there, won't she? And he's not quite sure but maybe if she could just see what he sees before it all comes apart. Maybe then she wouldn't be so tired. Maybe then she'd be alright. Maybe then they both would. *** Hours and hours and days and days. And he doesn't know but he thinks it only been hours. Slow, empty hours and his back and neck are stiff from sitting in the same position for so long. It's quiet now, but they're all still there. They're waiting for him to move, waiting for him to flinch. So they can scream, so they can make him blind with pain. But they've been silent, and he hasn't felt any pain. He doesn't know why, but he doesn't question it. No static, no noise, no ringing in his ears. Only her thoughts. And he didn't mean to hear, he never meant to see. He didn't want to. But he had no choice. At first they were all random thoughts, snips of memory, worn and fuzzy photographs of the past, of her childhood. Of piano lessons for some reason and the dirtied-white ivory keys and the shiny black ones and clumsy young fingers and wrong notes and chords and crescendos and crisp white sheets of music new music black clear notes strewn along the pages brand new the new clean smell of freshly printed paper and she loved that smell but she never really loved to play she just loved that smell... And then she wanted to speak to see if she still could to see if her voice would crack at first to see if it was still strong and sure to see if he would still hear her. And he did hear those words, their soft, muted sound, still vibrant to him because she was vibrant to him even if she wasn't vibrant to herself or anyone else. Because he still saw her strong, because he never saw her fall, even though she did fall and even though the falls weighed heavily upon her, but he still didn't see it because in his eyes she was always the same and he would never let that change because he couldn't because... And then he was drifting away from himself and that moment when all he really needed to understand was that she wouldn't let herself speak. And that the words never actually made a sound. He just thought they did. And then she wanted to reach out to him once, run her fingers delicately over his palm, entwine her hand with his. But there was frustration painted into her thoughts then and ribbons of desperation wrapped neatly around it all. And they were nice looking ribbons, red and shining brilliantly in light that wasn't visible to anyone else but him. And that red was so bright and so bold and it was dribbling, dripping, dropping, weeping, bleeding everywhere and oh, god, he thought, things shouldn't look like that and he had to close his eyes because even the blackness was more comforting. Her hand never did find his, but it was ok. He understood, and he forgives her now because his eyes have remained shut and, yes, it's been quiet. Quiet ever since. She sighs, and the noise is so sudden and her breath is so clear to him as he finally opens his eyes again. He sees every molecule of it, every atom, and they're all alive and they're all staring blindly at him and they're all laughing and oh god he never should've looked, he never should've let himself see. He's afraid to move now. But he has to, to make the images go away. Just a little. Just a little won't hurt, he thinks to himself. And so his gaze focuses on her, but he doesn't meet her eyes. Instead he looks down at her hand. It lays against the hard floor, limp and tired, mere inches from his own. He realizes now he can feel its heat, although only slightly. And he thinks to himself, it's damn cold in here because his body wants to shiver, but he won't let it; he can't allow it to move that much. It's too dangerous. And now the goose bumps are rising on his skin, crawling across his arms. But maybe he's not really cold because there's sweat in beads across his brow and on the back of his neck. Maybe he just thinks he is. And then he looks down at himself, noticing for the first time that his tie is undone. He hadn't even known he'd been wearing a tie, but now it's undone. And he wonders who did that, and he sees the imprints from her fingers on it and he sighs with relief. And he thinks that's ok because they're her marks. And he watches them for a moment and they're calm and they don't move, not like the other marks around his apartment. Marks from men who've broken in, marks from men who are against him. Her touch won't hurt him, her touch doesn't strangle. It only burns, but burns in a good way, in a way he wants to feel. In a way he needs to feel, he thinks as he looks down at her hand again. And god he doesn't want to move so much, but he's got to. He's just got to do it quickly, quickly so they'll hardly notice, so even the air around him will barely move. He's just got to reach out and take her hand, just reach out... And he does it so swiftly that he isn't even sure it's happened until he looks down between them again. And now he's so still; he's clutching her hand so tightly and there's cold sweat, slick against his palm, and he knows she feels it too because she's thinking poor mulder poor poor mulder he's sick and he's tired just like me and I wish I could help him I wish I could do something. And then her mind is wandering off. She's thinking of those artifacts now and that ship and ways to make him better. And it's all so clear in his head. A place he's never been to but sees anyway. She's thinking about it now, about the crisp, white sand and the craft just beyond her feet and the blue in the water is so full and the sun is so strong and he has to shade his eyes because it's too bright, far too bright and he can't look anymore because it's blinding him. And now the wind is blowing, blowing everything together, everything away. And he never should've looked at the colors because somehow they always end up red. Somehow they always do that to him. Somehow he always sees the blood. And it won't go away, even when he closes his eyes it's still there. And oh god now it's on her, pooling just above her lip. Drip drip drip straight from her nose. And it's not really happening is it? No, she'd be screaming inside her head just like him, but still it's so real, so so real. And it's staining her blouse, her white blouse -- the one that always gets ruined. How did she ever get all that out before? And Christ, it's all over the floor now. But it's not really there, right? It's not really there. But, Jesus, it's so red... And oh god. Oh god oh god oh god. He wants to cry, but then they'll know he's vulnerable and scared and weak and then they'll just haunt him more. And no, he'll hold it in he'll hold it in, oh god help him, god help him please... *** His eyes are squeezed shut so hard it hurts. And he opens them so carefully and glances from side to side, expecting to see them, to see something. But it's all gone. One of his hands is still clutching hers and they're both shaking, shaking all the way up through his arms, but just a little, just a little bit, not enough to be visible, he can disguise it. They won't see. He's so on edge now, his whole body stiff and alert, his breath is coming in short, restrained gasps and his teeth are chattering. And he knows they're still there. He knows the voices are still there, and it's driving him crazy. That they're watching him, teasing him, ready to pounce on him at any moment. God, it's making him crazy. He can hear them. Whispering just behind him, the muffled, almost-smothered wailing, gasping, gurgling sounds above him and all around. And Jesus, he's a sick man. A sick sick man. To hear and feel things he can't see. He's sick as hell. And oh god he's falling apart. He doesn't know if it's real or not. He doesn't know if anything is real. He's suddenly not even sure if he's awake, if maybe all this is just some dream, some nightmare. And his mind is scattering and crumbling away. And he can feel himself getting lighter lighter lighter. And Christ, he thinks, I just want to go home. I just want to go home. Wherever or whatever home is because he doesn't think he ever really knew a home but see everyone's got a home somewhere so it stands to reason that he ought to have one too. But god he's messed up now. He's fucking insane. He can't even think straight. But he can't let on, he can't let anyone know because they'll lock him up again. Oh please god don't let them do that. Oh please... But she's here with him, grasping his hand as he grasps hers, and she wouldn't do that to him. She wouldn't do it. He feels her eyes on him now, and he turns ever so slowly. And she's looking at him, looking straight into him and why is she looking at him like that? Why is her gaze so sad? And god she thinks he's crazy too just like before she thinks he's stark raving mad. She's afraid he's going to snap and she doesn't know what to do she doesn't know what to do. And she doesn't realize he already has snapped and he never did ask her if she really believed him, if she believed he could read her mind. But god he's too afraid to talk now, too afraid to do anything. And she's just as scared as him, just as scared for him. And she doesn't know what to do and she doesn't know if he'll ever get better and she wishes things were ok but she doesn't know if they will be. And he's fucking crazy, he's fucking crazy alright, to keep hearing her voice when she isn't even speaking, and it's not getting any better but god he wishes it would and he knows she does too but she just doesn't know if it will. But please god don't do this to him, don't do this. Please god let him be alright, please. He wants to believe it'll be ok he wants to believe it'll get better. And he knows it's got to, but he just needs some sign, something to rely on, something to tell him it'll turn out so he can invest what little faith he has left in it. And she's still so unsure, but it'll get better, he tries to tell himself. It'll get better now. It's got to. Because it did before, because before it went away. And he should just sit and wait and watch and think and things'll be ok. Yes, things'll be ok. She'll see. And then, the moon is out tonight, he hears from her. And he smiles to himself, but he doesn't know why. And he watches her watching it and it's not blurred and it's not distorted and it hasn't come apart and she hasn't seen it in a long long time. And come to think of it, neither has he. --finis-- For Sue -- I'm grateful to you for all you've done for me, and I'm truly sorry for what's happened. Please take care. Notes(cont'd): I don't think I've ever revised a piece this much. And I think that if I'd had more time, I'd probably go back and revise it again. It was very difficult to write, and I think that's mostly due to the fact that I didn't know what I was doing with it. 5 months. Who woulda thunk a piece so short would take so long? And I think it's definitely taken a toll. I think I've become more insane trying to think like I'm insane. Did that make sense? Probably not. Anyway, the piece was probably a bit difficult to maneuver through. Hell, I don't even understand half of it. But I would like to say that inspiration for this insanity came from Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun. The message has nothing to do with it. Just the style. I started writing and it really reminded me of this book and that helped a lot. About the title: What does it mean? I really couldn't say. I had the title all worked out a few months ago. And it was good cuz it was real ambiguous and I wouldn't need to change it if I took the story in a completely different direction. But here's my justification for it: "Say you write a song about a chandelier, and the chandelier gives off light. And the light is the color red, and red reminds you of the color you're not supposed to wear around a bull. So you name the song 'Cow.'" Just replace "song" with "story" and there you go! Well, thanks so much for reading, and just remember: Feedback is more helpful than a trip to the rubber room. Honestly it is. (ddlover42@aol.com)