From Pellinor@astolat.demon.co.uk Mon Mar 31 18:20:40 1997 Subject: Awful Moments (1/1) by Pellinor From: Pellinor -------- "Awful Moments" part 1 of 1 by Pellinor (Pellinor@astolat.demon.co.uk) ___ Classification: VHA (Angst-Humour!) Rating: G Summary: A dying Scully bids farewell to Mulder - or does she? A response to the letter challenge. Spoilers: Memento Mori, though I've not seen it. ___ Disclaimer: These people aren't mine. Some of them belong to Chris Carter, 1013 and Fox. Others don't. Whatever, they are used without permission but without profit. Little notes: Okay, who thought no-one was warped enough to take up the Emu's challenge for an angst-humour treatment of a post- Memento Mori farewell letter from Scully to Mulder? Well, I'm sorry, but I couldn't resist this one. This makes reference to my story "The Awful Truth," which is rather tough since Mulder and Scully ended up dead after that one. But the nice Men in Black at the Fox Network offered me a few million pounds more and I agreed to resurrect them from the dead and stay on and do another season - I mean, a sequel. Feedback? Oh, yes please. I'm going though a phase of insecurity with my writing and need to feel noticed. ********** Dear Mulder, It seems so familiar to be writing to you now - as if all my life has been about this moment. My emotions flow from me like the ink from my pen, like soft black ink escaping the rigid confines of the plastic. I am shedding my control, Mulder, by writing to you. My whole career - my whole life - has been about control. I have clung to that, needing it. I have hidden my fears, my desires, within a shell as tightly as an ink cartridge is concealed within the red plastic of my fountain pen. But without ink, a pen is nothing. It runs out. It is discarded. It dies. I can see you now, Mulder, reading this. You are crying, wondering. You are holding my pen as if it is life itself, clinging to it as you would have clung to me, had things been different. I smile at the image, Mulder - at the future we will not share. Even through the tears, I can smile. The red pen, Mulder. Not the green one. Do not waste your tears on the green one. Do you remember how we laughed, after that pesticide incident - long after, once you could walk again? No, Mulder. Don't look like that. It _was_ pesticides. There is no evidence it was killer tomatoes from outer space, controlled by a crazed scientist intent on world domination. It was pesticides, and you really should have asked me before eating that shiny green apple he offered you. As I told you when you woke up, you really had no excuse. Like I said after that green blood incident - red is red and green is green and.... Oh, Mulder. I would have told you. You don't have to try to be brave all the time. When I'm gone, I want you to remember the good times, but I don't want you to be afraid to admit weakness. I was afraid to admit weakness, once. I wanted control. But now.... Sometimes I feel now that an unknown hand is controlling me, manipulating me like I make this pen move across the white page. My life is like the tracks of ink on fate's page. Yes, Mulder. Something has taken over my life. At moments like this, thinking, it seems that something has been controlling my life always. I have.... The words are smudged, Mulder. It was iced tea. I was drinking iced tea and it spilled on the page, blurring it. That's all it was. I have cancer. See, I can write it. The words are scrawled, written fast, but they are still legible. It is still true. I have cancer. If you read this, I have died. I am dead. Oh, Mulder. Sometimes I dream I have told you. Sometimes I dream that I knew long before this. They told me last week, but their words seemed so familiar - as if they told me a long time ago but I couldn't face it. As if they told me, but I blanked it out of my mind. Your hands against my face are so familiar to me. They fill my mind, though they are but the hands of a dream. You kissed me on the lips once, Mulder. You kissed me in a dream, but then the voices of a nightmare screamed around us, and the kiss was expunged as if it had never existed. I saw the face of the man who cut us apart. He was smiling as he rode across the crashing wave of misery that pulled us from each other. He was like a surfer riding the crest of our misery. Memory is everything, Mulder. I cling to that, though it is so transient. It is all I have, but even that is taken from me. How long have I known you, Mulder? I can't remember. Time flies so fast. Sometimes it seems like six years, other times it is barely three. We have packed so much into so little time. Do you remember that quarantine, after you went into that volcano? We were together then, and the days flew as if they had wings. The weeks passed like seconds, and it seemed that barely a minute had passed before the quarantine had passed and we had done four cases. How memory lies. How time flies. It sometimes sees as if both are controlled by a God - or by fate, Mulder, if you prefer - who does not care about accuracy. A whole summer is a second, a second is an eternity of forgetfulness. I can not remember. The cancer eats into my memory. I am so sure I have told you this before - so sure the doctors have told me before this - but there is nothing there. Just the ghost of a distant memory. You would call it deja vu, and your eyes would light up. An X-File, you would call it. Ghostly memories of some former life, or ancient premonitions of the present when it was but the future of a distant past. I have learnt of this before. I search my memory in sudden panic, searching through out past cases for clues - for anything that will cast light on the confusion. There is nothing. I did not think of this last month, when we were knee-deep in mud while the hybridised hamsters tried to bite our ankles. And no, Mulder. There is no evidence that they were the manifestation of the ancient tribal rodent goddess, summoned up by the hate-filled mind of the mystical ancient shiban. No evidence at all. They were just a little.... truculent. I need.... The smudge.... There is more iced tea there, Mulder. My dog jolted my handdd. I'm sorry. The pen slipped again. Something about the dog. It made me start, for a moment. Queequeg. I had this terrible feeling.... No. It must have been a dream. Not even you could confuse an alligator with a plesiosaur. Oh God, Mulder. I can't pretend any longer. I don't want to rememeber. I need.... I need to forget. I can not cope with this. I need.... The pen slipped again. It was someone in the street. A car radio. It was as loud as if it filled the room - as loud as the voice of.... as the voice of God, booming, drowning everything. I hope you laugh at that, Mulder. I deserve it. The voice of God. As if God speaks like that - like the voice on the radio. "Damn!" it said. "I forgot about that. Delete that bit. What did Darin mean, putting the animal in? Never trust a Morgan. Never again." I wonder what show that was? I have never heard it, though the voice seems so familiar. But I am wandering, Mulder. You can see it, can't you. I am evading the question. I have cancer. I want to forget. I want so much to forget. I am taking a deep breath before writing the next bit, Mulder. I want you to read this carefully. I want you to listen. I know you will want to go after the man who did this to me, but I want you to promise me something. If my death is to have any meaning, I want you to promise me you will not go after him. You must let him live. I have met that man, Mulder. I sought him out to kill him for doing this to me, but he reached out to me. He offers me hope. He offers me forgetfulness. When I feel his presence it is as if nothing else matters. My cancer. The deaths of.... The deaths of who? No-one has died. You see? He is close to me now. I am happy. Nothing matters. He has told me the truth. He has told me the real evil behind what had happened. He is on our side. I know you blame him, but he is on our side. He wants to close down the people who cause us pain. Do you remember, Mulder. Do you remember back in April 1995? The box car? Sit down, Mulder. If this is one of the days in which you have a bedroom, take this into it and sit down. Sit down, and remember. Remember. Do you remember the boxcar? I know we have both lived for years, forgetting. We found so much, but we forgot. He took it from us. He erased it. He told me those words. He said you said them to Deep Throat, once. He told me I could use them. But then his eyes were dark and he spoke at the shadows. I couldn't hear his words, but I caught the words "right" and "copy." It is right that I copy his words. It is the way to get through to you. Like at Ellen's airbase, he had them erase our memories. If you had remembered then, what would it have cost you? They would have killed you if you had remembered. After the boxcar, it was best that we forgot. He bartered for our souls at the highest levels. For months, we floated between life and death. But he cared for us, Mulder. Our contract on life was renewed. We escaped, though the odds were extreme. We survived, though none can explain it. He made us forget. So we could continue the show of normality, he made us forget. But now I remember. Just one thing. He told me just one thing. I know the name of the people who are really guilty. I know who you should blame. He has told me this, and I trust him. He caused my cancer, but he offers me the sweet balm of forgetfulness. But they.... I am overcome with hate, Mulder. It is an alien emotion. I need something to hug. I can't find my dog. No, Mulder. I don't mean _that_ sort of alien. See, I can smile still, though _they_ would have me grieve always. _They_. Do you remember. Think through the forgetfulness he imposes on you. Change your calendar. Tell yourself it is November or February, sweep away the cobwebs of forgetfulness, sweep your memory clean. Remember. Remember what we found in the boxcar. The files.... Kill them for me, Mulder. No court on earth will find you guilty. I have taken off my cross. There can be no forgiveness for them. They want me to remember. They reach in with their cruel probing hands, and make me remember. They kill me daily, and watch you mourn. When I forget - when I smile at our last case - the strangely familiar case of the genetic mutant that crawls through air vents and eats people's spare ribs before hibernating for twenty years - they are displeased. They do not want me to smile. They want me to think of my death. They revel in my death. They will not let me forget. I want to forget. The Project will not let me forget. The Project makes an endless agony of my every nuance of thought. The Project loves my cancer and sees it only as an opportunity to exploit. He showed me their files, Mulder. I saw their huge piles of files - lots and lots of piles of files - describing my pain in every lingering detail. They inscribed them openly with the name of my death. With their name, and with the death knell of my life. "Memento Mori," they said. "Post Memento Mori." They want to _remember_ my death. They anticipate my death before I have even faced it. Kill the Project for me, Mulder, after I'm gone. Kill Gossamer. Break their tangled webs that ensnare us - the webs that ensnare people like us in their terrible nets, the whole world over. But let _him_ live. He has killed, I know that. He told me. He killed Deep Throat. He smiled at that, and muttered something about cheap thrills and contract renewal. He killed X, and Pendrell. He smiled at that too. His words were unclear, and I couldn't tell his motives - somehow I never can. It was something about more money, and wanting a name. And, Mulder - he told me your father is dead, and my sister. I feel I have known that once, but his words mean nothing to me. He tells me that is for the best. I will remember.... He turned away and I couldn't catch his words. Something about a sweep. We will remember as this season draws to a close and summer is nearly on us. We will remember, and our lives will freeze in an endless horror - a limbo. But then, months later, we will continue as if the horror never was, and the long months will seem as a second, and we will forget. We will forget. It is for the best, Mulder. Give yourself to him. He puts us through Hell, but he lets us forget. It is as if the horror has never been. Forget me, Mulder, when I am gone. Go to him, and forget me. Do not grieve. He will let you carry on with your life as if none of this has ever happened. It is for the best, Mulder. Forget me, Mulder. And whatever you do, do not ever read those Gossamer files marked "A". Do not do what _they_ wish you to do on my death. They are evil. They know nothing. Forget me, Mulder, and live. Love, Scully. ********** Dana Scully sighed, sinking down into her chair, the envelopes clutched in her hand. It was years since she had cleaned her apartment, though it always seemed so clean, but this time.... She smiled, shaking her head. No, she hadn't cleaned it. It had been the dog. Poor Queequeg.... Poor Queequeg? She laughed, wondering. Just because she'd forgotten she'd got a dog didn't mean.... "Damn! That creature! Done it again!" A voice from above - from the apartment above - made her start. She looked around, wondering. Something about that voice.... It seemed familiar. It made her feel safe. But the envelopes in her hand drew her attention, pulling her away from that train of thought. Three envelopes, addressed to Mulder, written in her own hand. She _had_ to look at them. She couldn't run away from the gaps in her memory. There was a small yelp, but she didn't look round. Queequeg disappearing under the couch again, chasing a f.... She shook her head, wondering. Why did Queequeg always make her think about Flukemen? Her fingers shook as she opened the first letter. It was dated May 1997 - three years ago. "I had cancer?" She spoke aloud, her voice high with horror. "I had cancer? Why don't I remember?" The paper fell onto the floor in shreds as she clawed at the envelopes like one possessed. A second letter, a third.... All the same. All full of death. _Her_ death. "Cancer?" She could hardly speak with the horror of it. "Why didn't I remember when I wrote these? Why don't I remember now?" Blood surged from her nose, splashing onto the papers, drowning the words. Her heart was heavy with dread as she pulled her gaze round to the calendar. It was May. Outside, the flowers were blooming and the leaves were burgeoning green. Summer. It was a new season. It was the end of the spring - the end of the old season. Tears flowed from her eyes and she knew she would remember again. Last week nothing had mattered but the case of the mutant sausages - the _alleged_ mutant sausages - that had walked out of the woman's kitchen in Oregon. It had seemed so important then, to convince Mulder that it was only the work of a band of petty thieving dachshunds. Nothing else had mattered.... Dachshunds? Did she have a dog? She laughed suddenly, knowing it was so incongruous. It was years ago now. How could she have thought she still had a dog? Tears poured down her cheeks, though she smiled still at the tricks memory played on her. Cancer. It was cancer again. She remembered. She sighed, picking up her pen, and starting to write. Chris's words were loud in her ears, and she derived some comfort from them, though she did not understand them. "Don't worry. It's just for the cliff-hanger. When we get the contract renewed, you will forget again. There is no Gossamer project to make you remember. I closed it down. Remember?" She didn't understand his words, but they were like a light of hope in the darkness of the end of the season. She would forget. Her pen ran across the page, surging ahead of her thoughts. "Dear Mulder....." ********** The end ********** More little notes: I'm truly sorry about this one. It is sick, isn't it, to make a joke about such things. I'm sorry. Blame Emu's challenge, and home-brewed peach wine. I'm sorry. Ooh, I feel the angst flowing now. Back to page 49 of my latest angst marathon.... Tomorrow. Oh, by the way, for non-Brits - the whole dog business comes from the fact that the BBC, in its infinite wisdom, changed the order of the third season on television so Scully's dog was eaten a good three months before she was seen washing it in the sink. Strange, that. ********** Pellinor@astolat.demon.co.uk "King Pellinor could now be seen to be visibly troubled in his brains." from "The Sword in the stone" by T H White.