From: "jesse bee" Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1999 06:11:18 -0000 Subject: NEW STORY "Catch-22" Title: CATCH-22 (1/1) Author: jesse (jesse.bee@mailcity.com) Rating: PG-13 Category: V, A, a touch MSR Spoilers: The Beginning, FTF Summary: Scully considers the events of The Beginning (companion to TRUST & CHOICES) Disclaimer: 20th Century Fox, Chris Carter, and 1013 Productions own the rights to THE X-FILES. No copyright infringement is intended. Archive: If you like the thing that much--sure! Go for it. Just let me know when and where. Feedback: PLEASE. It reminds me I'm alive. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- CATCH-22 (1/1) jesse120198 I have rarely been this afraid. My gut is roiling with a huge slow mass of crickets, the nausea creeping partway up my throat again and again before I can force it back. "You're asking me to make a choice...." Was it a question or a statement? I couldn't quite tell. At that moment I only had the sudden intense relief that the information in my hands was what you'd consider good. I don't want to think about what could have happened if it hadn't been. What might happen the next time you want a miracle and I can't produce it. But in the evening shadows of my apartment, your words and your eyes are haunting me, playing on endless loop like an unstoppable old eight-track from hell. A choice, you said. Yes, I think there are choices that will have to be made, and much sooner than I want. You are thinking in terms of just *you* again, aren't you? God, you put a knife in my gut when you said that. "...harder to see that I'm disregarding everything I was told." Why are you thinking in the singular again? Dammit, Mulder--it's NOT just about you. Not then and not now. I have a choice to make, too. A classic Heller-type catch-22 choice--no matter which way I go, I lose. I lose myself--or I lose you. It's a hysterical thought, but I had it easy before this. Before she returned. Before she was given control of the only thing you've ever really wanted. Back then it was just you and I, and you listened to me because I listened to you. I took you seriously, even when I thought you were nuts. I believed in you and I frustrated the hell out of you too. But then it was just you and I. And we had time to grow close. Because there was no place else for you to turn. That's not true any longer. You said I kept you honest. But I fear that now honesty isn't what you want. You want validation. And you don't want to do it the hard way anymore. No longer for you my methodical, careful, science. You've decided that you know what you know and you're going to drag the proof in kicking and screaming by its heels. And if I won't run after you RIGHT NOW and help you haul it in, there is someone else who will. But she won't, partner. Not like you think she will. You might be angry enough with me to call my certainty the result of an ugly emotion. Hell--thinking about it, I think that's exactly what you did. But I read her report with the eyes of a skeptic. Perhaps ou're right--she does want to protect the work. But she doesn't want to protect you. It comes down to a matter of trust. I trust you, Fox Mulder. I believe in you. Since our first year together, I always have. But you're reinvested in your search now, fired up and obsessed far, far past anything I've seen in you before. You don't want my caution--you don't want to wait. And if I can't, won't, go as far and as fast as you want, you believe that she will. And it's going to get you killed. Or worse. I don't know if I can protect you any longer, my friend. But I'll give it everything I've got. For as long as I can stand it. Until the catch-22 shreds me to pieces. To subsume my science to your beliefs, to lose myself so that you'll stay with me--or to be who I am and watch you run, not walk, to her. I almost wish I could just take a bullet for you, you God-damned brilliant fool--it would be easier. Much, much easier than loving you. finis