From: judyfromkansas@yahoo.com
Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2001 16:58:06 -0000
Subject: xfc: Hidden Victory 1/1
Source: xfc

TITLE: "Hidden Victory" (formerly "The Cure")
AUTHOR: Stormlantern
E-MAIL: judyfromkansas@aol.com
KEYWORDS: MSR, Post-Ep
SPOILERS: "Three Words"
DEDICATION: To Char Chaffin, the gargoyle on my ivory tower
SUMMARY: Scully gives Mulder a dose of the truth
ARCHIVE: Sure, take it, just tell me where
EXPLANATION: This NEVER happened when I used to post stories to 
Dejanews! In my earlier posting of this story, some weird font 
problems arose, enough to disrupt the flow of the narrative. I hope 
it's okay to try this again with (hopefully) corrected text. And 
since Char suggested a title for the fic that I felt was an 
improvement on my own, I decided to use it this go-round. Pray 
forgive me, folks -- when it comes to computer usage, I'm not exactly 
Gunman level. And thanks!


Dana Scully's apartment
Georgetown
2:38 p.m.


 "So how did I return from the dead, Scully?" Mulder asked quietly. 
The corner of his mouth quirked. "Don't tell me you used the Lazarus 
Bowl."

Scully smiled faintly as she sank down beside him on his couch. The 
smile was mostly sham; she didn't want to discuss this so soon after 
his dismissal from the hospital, after his return to his apartment, 
to her life. He was still smarting from his first contentious 
encounter with Doggett and his inability to expose the reason for the 
death of a nondescript census worker - she really didn't want to talk 
about this. However, while he had accepted her cryptic explanations 
of his resurrection earlier, she knew he would now give her no rest 
until she told him. Told him everything. "No. We...Skinner...took you 
off life support." 

Mulder blinked at her. "Wow," he said mildly. "Talk about a leap of 
faith. How did you know that would work?"

"We didn't." Scully flinched at the expression on Mulder's 
face. "We...it happened so fast - and - it's a long story, and 
fortunately it all worked out in the end - all I know for sure is, 
when you were taken off life support, the alien virus inside you 
stopped incubating. You began to recover. More than recover. And 
that's important, Mulder, that's why you have to understand..." She 
hesitated. 

Making him understand what she was about to say was going to be 
difficult.

The problem was that  Mulder could understand her joy at his 
resurrection. He could understand Skinner's wracking guilt at his 
failure to protect his agent and his relief at Mulder's miraculous 
return. But he could not understand how his return had any meaning, 
any significance to his quest, save that of defeat. He had sought 
knowledge of the alien host all his life. He had finally learned 
first-hand of their cruelty. But he had suffered and died at their 
hands, without understanding their agenda or hindering them in the 
slightest in their schemes. He had been just another pawn in the end, 
like all the others; injected with virus and left to serve as human 
yolk for the embryo growing inside him. All his strivings had led him 
to one horrifying conclusion: he could not defeat them. He could do 
nothing to impede their progress. His life's work was meaningless.

He had failed.

She had to make him understand that he was wrong.

Because in the face of his failure, Mulder had done what he always 
did in such a circumstance; he had charged ahead, determined to undo 
his enemies' evil no matter what the cost to himself. He was, after 
all, well-used to failure. His survival tactic had served him well in 
the past. 

But this was the present, and Scully knew that the playing field had 
changed and his old strategies might fail him. The life she had 
helped to restore had nearly been thrown away today on a wild goose 
chase fueled by misdirected rage and despair. She had to make him 
understand that his ordeal did indeed have significance, that he had 
nothing to prove. That something good had indeed come out of his 
horrendous ordeal.

A difficult task. But she had to try. Or he might try to throw that 
life away again. He was a warrior. She understood that. But a wise 
warrior would live to fight again...

"When we took you off life support," she began again, "the alien 
incubating inside you died. It lost its life as you regained yours -- 
lost its life, but not its virtue."

"I'm not following you," said Mulder with a frown that was almost a 
grimace. "'Virtue'? From the alien virus?"

"Yes. Virtue. Your healing." Scully touched his forehead. "Your brain 
disease. Gone." She touched his cheeks, his shoulder. "All your 
scars, including the one I gave you, when I shot you to save you from 
yourself. Gone." She reached down and brushed his abdomen with her 
fingers. "Your internal organs -- they had deteriorated, Mulder, 
essentially died. Now they've regenerated. Your skin -- " She felt of 
its taut smoothness where it stretched across his flat belly. "You 
wear a whole new skin, live a whole new life, by virtue of alien 
metamorphosis. By virtue of the virus."

Mulder frowned.

"Do you remember that weekend when I...accompanied Spender to learn his 
secrets?"

Mulder did not speak, but a barely perceptible nod encouraged her to 
continue.

"And he promised to give me the cure for all human diseases, saying 
it was of alien origin?"

Another nod.

"Well, he cheated me, as you know. But he gave me a clue 
inadvertently. A clue to a mystery that you've solved, Mulder." She 
smiled hesitantly. "The way I figure it, it's like using venom to 
make anti-venom. The alien virus, weakened, controlled, applied to 
any human malady..." She stopped when she saw Mulder's eyes light up, 
like suns cresting over a new horizon. "The cure for all human 
diseases..." she added softly, her eyes glowing with a solemn joy.

"Oh my God, Scully," he whispered. "Is..is it true? Is it possible? 
Can you --"

"I believe it is possible, Mulder. We can wrest healing from the 
aliens' poison. You're the proof of that."

There was one frozen moment, when he didn't blink, didn't seem to 
breathe. And suddenly Mulder hunched over and covered his face with 
his hands. Scully watched him carefully and did not immediately 
interfere.

These were tears that were long overdue -- tears he had not allowed 
himself when facing what he perceived to be his own weakness and 
defeat. Now he shed them freely in response to a hidden victory that 
Scully had tentatively brought to light.

Scully watched him carefully, and marveled at the tears a strong man 
shed.

After a moment, she moved to him, and at long last he let her touch 
him as she wished to. Now he let her maneuver his head into her lap 
and then reach to stroke the tender, newly-grown skin that only 
recently had been able to once again endure the friction of clothing. 
Now Scully focused on her partner as he finished his tears and turned 
his head on her lap, affording her a view of his profile. His eyes 
gleamed with far more than unshed tears. "Oh my God, Scully," he 
whispered again, in a voice that squeezed her heart, full as it was 
of his old excitement, reverberating with relief and awe.

"Now you see, Mulder," she said softly, stroking his cheek. "Now you 
understand." She bent down and kissed his tousled hair. "No, Mulder - 
you didn't die in vain."

~finis~