From kaiser@v-wave.com Sun Apr 13 19:49:19 1997 Subject: A Choice Of Dreams (1\1) From: kaiser@v-wave.com (RALPH FRIEDRECHSEN) -------- POSTiNG: Anywhere! DiSCLAiMER: I hate these and really don’t feel like writing something imaginative, ok? If you don’t know the drill yet then you haven’t been paying any attention anyways. TiME SPAN: Anytime after ‘Momento Mori’ CATEGORY: much Mulder-angst WARNiNGS: again, Momento Mori SUMMERY: Mulder has to make a decision regarding the two most important people in his life. AUTHOR’S RAMBLiNGS: Hi y’all! This isn’t like anything I’ve posted before, it’s the first non-MSR I’ve attempted so I’d really apprehiate some feedback on this one. My e-mail has changed yet AGAIN!! Please don’t send anything to this address, but to blackwaters@hotmail.com Thanks! Anyways, I know that I said I hadn’t any intention of doing a post Momento Mori story but I guess I lied! Believe this or not, this was a homework assignment! I had to beg and plead with my English teacher, but she also is a hopeless X-Phile and let me do this. Thanks to her! But, like you all care, right? So just enjoy the story. ************************************************************************ A Choice Of Dreams by Jessica Friederichsen (blackwaters@hotmail.com) April, 1997 Special Agent Fox Mulder sat in his dark apartment. All the lights were off and an eerie blue glow came from the empty fish tank and mixed with the orange of the street lamp. The suit that he had been wearing earlier was crumpled on the floor. Mulder himself was dressing in shorts and a tee shirt, sweaty from his run. He had needed to clear his head, get rid of the thoughts that occupied his everyday life. Tonight, he must be all himself. Tonight he had to make the most difficult decision of his life. He buried his face in his hands, hiding silent, shameful tears from the world. Why was it that everything he loved had to be killed? Everyone? Sometimes it was ripped away from him in the night, whisked away to who knows where. To be remembered. Because it never died. It lived, and he could never let her go. He wanted to believe. Sometimes it would be condemned to slowly die, to be forced to allow the precious life to seep away into the ground, as dew slowly seeps into the moist air of morning. The cure, the solution, dangled before his eyes. The knowledge that it existed, that it was possible. Yet unable to do anything. He wanted to believe. He wanted to believe. That is how it always turns out. Just a want. A desire. A dream. Yes, a dream. Nothing more. A fine mist sprayed around your consciousness as you slowly wake from a dream, unable to grasp it firmly and then choose whether to hold it close to your heart, to love it, nurture it. Or simple to cast it away, throw it to the savages of life, and walk on. But he couldn’t, because he reached for two dreams. He reached out, stretched his entire body, so that he could graze both with his finger tips. But to get either, he would have to give one up. And so, just when he thought he would finally break in two, he was given a way out. A way out, but that forced him to finally choose. Skinner had called him, and only him to his office. Scully had looked at him quizzically, but hadn’t asked aloud. He had only shrugged. Skinner had made a deal with the devil. He had done so when Scully had first been diagnosed. They would save Scully, he would shut down the X-Files. Simple. Relatively clean. Then they had gone and screwed it up. Scully or Samantha. Scully or Samantha. Why couldn’t Skinner have just decided then and there? But he hadn’t. He had decided that it was Mulder’s choice, and told him. Now Mulder had to choose. Scully or Samantha. Samantha. He loved her. She was his sister. She was his life. Ever since she had been taken, he lived every moment of every day to find her. She was the driving force in his life, she spoke to him from where ever she was and commanded him to look. To find her. To save her. But how could he? They left no clues, no traces. That picture was forever ingrained in his head. Her, a little girl, clothed in a bathing suit, dark hair in long braids. Picture perfect. He knew he could never give her up. Scully. He loved her. She was his partner. She was his best friend. She had given him a new life. She always understood him. She would argue for hours with him about a case, but she would always help him find the answers, even if they weren’t the answers he wanted to find. She spoke to him with her eyes, telling him all he needed to hear. She was so strong. She was the cane that he would lean on. He knew he could never give her up. Images flashed through his mind. Samantha. Scully. Samantha smiling at him, eyes full of mischief, and impish grin on her little girl face. Scully smirking at his little jokes, rolling her eyes affectionately. Samantha. Scully. Samantha and himself arguing, as sibling often do, over what to do what to watch. Scully and himself arguing over the facts, the implications, the truths and the lies. Samantha. Scully. Samantha as she followed him around, always getting in the way, never giving up, always being a pest. Scully as she demanded that she drive, and him replying her little feet were to short to reach the petals. Samantha. Scully. Samantha screaming out his name through the light and the wind, as he groped for the gun. Scully lying motionless on a white hospital bed, both alive and dead. Samantha. Scully. Mulder realized that they were the same. They had the same role in his life, at different times. Samantha had become Scully and Scully had become Samantha. He groaned in the sickly half-light of the apartment. He was supposed to be making this decision easier as time went on, not harder. He wanted to hear her voice. Not caring that it was nearly four in the morning, he lifted the phone to rest on his stomach and dialed her number. It rang a few times, then a groggy voice answered. “Hello?” “Scully, it’s me.” Mulder spoke softly into the cold plastic. “Mulder? Are you all right? Did you have a nightmare?” Scully became awake with worry. “The worst kind.” Mulder stated flatly. “Can you hold on a minute?” “Sure, Mulder.” He got up and brought the photo to the couch where he lay. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t see it, he knew every square millimeter of the crumpled picture. “Mulder?” Scully voice gently broke though the monotonous breathing. “I’m here.” Mulder could feel Samantha’s eyes boring at him, seeing right down to his soul. “Are you all right?” Scully repeated her earlier question. Mulder didn’t answer her, caught between the silent stare and the low voice. “Mulder, why did you call me?” Mulder hesitated a moment then replied, “I needed to hear you.” “It’s four in the morning, Mulder and I need sleep. If you want to talk about what ever is bugging you tomorrow then we can.” Mulder knew that by then he would had have to have chosen. “I understand, Scully.” and he did. “I know that you do. Goodnight, Mulder.” “ ’Night, Scully.” And they hung up. Samantha glared at Mulder throughout the glossy finish of the paper. Scully’s voice echoed back at him. Mulder gave in, and threw his arms up over his head, sobbing like a little boy just woken from a nightmare. For a long time he lay like that. Sobs working their way through his lean figure and the tears leaving salt on his cheeks. The photo fell from his hand. Then the apartment was quiet again. The absolute stillness burning like acid through Mulder’s mind, hissing and fizzing. Maybe he should go for another run. Mulder longed for the jolt of the pavement as his feet hit it again and again. Longed for the pain as the air would force itself down his protesting throat. But Mulder was tired. And his mind swayed as he closed his eyes. Mulder woke. The sun was peeking reluctantly above the houses and apartments. He had to get to work early, so that he could inform Skinner of his decision. Somewhere, in the land of dreams, his dreams managed to agree. And Mulder knew he had chosen correctly. He just hoped that she would someday forgive him. ************************************************************************ Sequel anyone? Drop me a line at blackwaters@hotmail.com