DISCLAIMER:   Everyone in this story belongs to Chris
Carter, 1013 Productions and the Fox Network. I mean no
infringement.

This is a Mulder first person vignette, post-"Emily" and
contains major spoilers.  Read at your own risk.


Category:  V, A
Rating:  PG-13 for strong adult language
Spoilers:  US Season 5
I was asked after "Changed" to include "tissue warnings."  
This is one--get out your Puffs Plus--you're probably gonna
need them.

All other information withheld at the request of the author.

SHOOTING STAR:  "Irrevocable"
by Anne Haynes
 


I don't know what to say to her, so I say nothing.  We've
never been big on words, not the ones that mean anything. 
We can spar for hours about striated muscle tissue,
recombinant DNA and sewer monsters, but when it comes to
saying something real, something honest, we rarely say
anything at all.  I want to change that about us.  I think
she does, too.  I wonder if we know how. 

Her eyes are red-rimmed, but I have yet to see her cry.  She's 
too still, too silent.  I am afraid that if I touch her, she will 
shatter.

Or maybe, I'm afraid I'll shatter.

She grieves, but it's more than that for her.  She feels
cheated.  Robbed.  

I feel it, too, and I can't really explain why.  Emily
wasn't a part of me the way she was a part of Scully, and
yet, I find myself so angry at her loss that I'm shaking
with it.  

I am shocked to realize I'd begun to want that baby.  

I wanted her for Scully, and I think maybe I wanted her for
me.  Because I know I would have loved her.  I think I knew
it the moment I cuddled her small, soft body in my arms.  
I could have taught her how to shoot a hook shot and throw 
a curve ball and make stupid fucking little paper footballs to 
shoot at her stupid fucking little third grade heartthrob, and, 
oh GOD!  I hurt.  The realization stuns me.  I hurt so hard and 
so deep I can't breathe.  

And yet I doubt my right to grieve.  I haven't earned it.  I
don't know if rage is my prerogative.  I know I'm a selfish
prick--maybe all I really wanted was another Samantha to
obsess over, to make my sorry life mean something.   Maybe
Scully would have kept her far, far away from me, and maybe
she would have been right.

Does she wish now that she'd never laid eyes on me?  

I do.

I have lived so much of my life trying to go back and fix
the past, trying to make things different, that I ought to
be able to wish away the past few years with masterful ease. 
I used to picture my life as it would be now had I stopped
Samantha's abduction all those years ago.  I was a sappy
optimist in my dreams, envisioning Mom, Dad, Samantha and me
having happy family Christmases and birthdays, celebrating
the births of our children, the little milestones of joy
everybody else seems to mark with officious pride.  I would
be married, with children, of course.  At various times
throughout the years, my dream wife changed--my high school
sweetheart Eve, even Phoebe for a short, stupid period in my
life.  But it was always a beautiful, beautiful dream,
something I clung to in some deep, hidden part of me, to
pull out in the middle of a sleepless night and comfort
myself with.

Then came Scully.  And somewhere along the line, I stopped
dreaming those dreams.  Maybe because she opened my eyes to
the futility of living in the past that was all an illusion
anyway?  I don't know.  I used to resent her for it, as if
she had purposefully killed my hopes with her logic and her
reason.  Now I know that Scully was teaching me about
growing up.  Leaving the past behind me and concentrating on
now, what I can do now, who I can be now.

But here, in my despair, I want to go back one more time.  I
want to turn back the clock to March 6, 1992, and scream at
Scully to get the fuck out of my office and never come back. 

As if she finally feels the focus of my thoughts enveloping
her, she shifts beside me on the waiting room bench, turning
her head to meet my gaze.  Her eyes, though red from crying,
are dry.  Her face is a pale, porcelain mask.  Her voice is
low and modulated.  "I should go check on Tara.  See how the
labor is coming."

I shake my head.  "Scully--"

Her voice hardens to steel.  "I need to see how the labor is
coming."  

I slump back against the bench, helpless.  I can't fight
her.  Though I know that seeing her brother's baby born will
only keep open her wound, keep it fresh and raw and
bleeding, I can't stop her.  I need the same thing.  I need
to know that life goes on.

But I will also deny myself this need.  I will stay here, in
exile, as atonement.  

I watch her walk away from me, and I try to comfort myself
with the picture of how life would have been for her had she
not been thrust into my world.  I try to see myself, sitting
on one of the benches outside the Hoover Building, maybe
eating lunch on a sunny day, and looking up to see Dana
Scully walking down the sidewalk, a beautiful little tow-
head little girl clinging to her hand, laughing and whole. 
I want to see this.  I need to see this. 

But I can't.  

Because in this future, I don't exist.  In this future, I am
dead a thousand times over because Dana Scully wasn't there
to save me.

There is no comfort to be found.

I bury my head in my hands, tears burning my eyes and
spilling across my palms.

"Mulder."

Her voice is soft. Raw.  Compelling.

I look up and find that Scully has returned.  Tears sparkle
in her eyes, and her hand is outstretched to me, her fingers
splayed and trembling.   I see her lips move, try to form
words.  

I don't need to hear them.  I know what she knows.

I know we are irrevocable.  

I stand and take her hand in mine, our fingers twining,
weaving, and the feel of her skin against mine is another
epiphany.  

This is our mercy.  This is our grace.

Together, we walk the slow, painful march of the living.


- End -