From: MystPhile Date: 15 Feb 1999 04:24:48 GMT Subject: NEW: I Remember (post-One Son by Mystphile) Title: I Remember... Author: Mystphile (mystphile@aol.com) Distribution: Gossamer, yes; everyone else, please ask. Rating: G Classification: V, SA; post-ep One Son Summary: Scully deals with her repressed memories Spoilers: Anything to do with Scully's abduction, including One Son Disclaimer: She, and they, are not mine, more's the pity. I would be kinder. -----I remember less than I want to. Images flicker through my mind like poor TV reception, then vanish. Men surround me, masked men in surgical garb. Above the masks, cold eyes study me with dispassion. I lie on a cold hard surface. It is icy, unyielding. I shiver. Other times, I can see little. The light blinds me. Trapped under a piercing glare, I am utterly exposed. Like a hapless insect in the hands of a vicious schoolboy, I can only wait. Will he pull off my wings? He can, if he wishes. I have no power. These images last only a few seconds, sometimes for the merest fraction of a second. Mostly they come in dreams, but some intrude into my waking hours. I hope they are imaginary. I fear they are not. -----I remember more than I want to. The excruciating, never-ending pain, followed by a primitive wish for oblivion. The sound is not to be borne. Harsh, grating squeals, alarms. I wish to be made deaf rather than be assaulted by the screeching for one more second. The pain. Countless times, despite my dread, despite my terror, I'm taken to the bright white place. Hell. The agony of knowing what is to come, the violation itself with its unbearable physical pain, make me long for the warm release of death. -----I remember my shock when the MUFON women said they knew me. I refused to believe. Later, Penny Northern told me we were both experimented on; she said she had comforted me after the terrors. Although every cell in my being resisted, I had to believe her. She was a lovely, honest woman, and I--I had my visions. We spoke on her deathbed, she and I, the last of the MUFON women, the two survivors. Then there was one. -----I remember my refusal to hear Penny describe what happened to us in that...place. I wish I had been able to accept her information then. I wonder why Penny and the others recognized me, yet I had no memory of them. Cassandra, too, remembered me. Why am I the only one who can't remember? My fault? Or part of the plan? -----I remember choosing to live, to awake from my post-abduction coma, rather than allow myself to drift comfortably into a different lifeform. When I woke up, I wasn't frightened. My lack of memory kept me safe. I needed that safety zone, tenuous as it was. Pain did break through, in the visions, the nightmares. How many nights I awoke awash in cold sweat, shivering so hard my teeth clattered. I would breathe deeply, try to slow my pounding heart, whose rapid thuds echoed in my ears like hoofbeats. My heart, a bolting horse, convinced me I would die of fright. -----I remember other images, against my will. The dam begins to crack. Lights so harsh they expose my soul, not just my pathetic body. Machines, instruments of torture, attack my cringing body. Visions of a loud, immense, twirling wand, preparing to pierce my belly. My abdomen, swollen, mountainous, ready to erupt. I am a balloon ready to burst, the pin edging nearer. Will I fly apart? The cold eyes of the men. They *weren't* men; they weren't human, despite my recognizing the Japanese doctor, or butcher, when I saw him on Mulder's tape. No, not men. Beasts. -----I remember the flash of recognition that allowed me to connect Dr. Ishimaru with the film's image. Then, being in the railroad car brought more memories pouring, rushing into my mind. Welcome, in the sense that I would know something of what was done to me. Unwelcome, in the sense that I would know something of what was done to me, and that knowledge could drive me mad. I guess that's why I told Penny I wasn't ready to hear. I feared for my sanity. -----I remember finding the chip in my neck. Melissa knew me so well. I'd buried the memories deep, out of fear. She told me I'd lost touch with my intuition. Well, of course I had. My intuition told me I was irreparably damaged goods. She said I'd built up my walls. Yes, to survive. But I listened to her, hauled myself to see Dr. Pomerantz. I ran away. My self-image didn't include cowering with fear, surrendering to despair, lying motionless while being subjected to the vilest of violations. -----I remember the night at Betsy Hagopian's house when Mulder urged me to visit Penny. I didn't want to go. I was still on the run, evading the powerful images, the hints of truth. By this time, I didn't suffer only from sporadic flashes; I, like Penny, had terminal cancer. Then she was gone, and I was left with my promise to her that I would fight; I would survive. I began to open my mind a bit, lower some ramparts. A wish to find the truth and stop the killing was born, as Penny died. -----I remember the toll the cancer took on me, defeating my good intentions. I tried, every day with all my strength, but my body was weaker than my will. My hopes drained away, as I fought off bitterness, fearing I would never know the facts, and that others would be victims as I had been. The insistent flashes of memory continued to prod me, listless as I was. -----I remember meeting Skinner in the hallway, the day after Mulder faked his death. I was angry enough--and scared enough--by then to admit to him that memories were returning, that I was aware of the violations. As I neared death, and I was very close that day, I could no longer bury the images. Painful truths were forcing their way to the surface, piercing my soul. They spurred me on, made me act, till my body collapsed. The truth: I have been raped, robbed, used, abused, and discarded. The horrors so impossible to accept that my mind shut down, permitting flashes to filter through only when the pressure grew so great that the dam was springing leaks. A small turn of the pressure valve, a little relief, then the memory would be packed away again, thickly blanketed. The dirty little secret was that I, Dana Scully, strong and independent, could be so complete and abject a victim. This was unacceptable. -----I remember the compulsion I felt a year ago, shortly before I walked out of the Hoover Building, a lemming drawn to a fiery slaughter. It was then I realized that strong, independent Dana Scully existed no more. If someone, somewhere, activated my chip, I would do *anything*. My free will, and a large part of my self, was gone. Abducted. -----I remember the regression session with Dr. Werber. Or at least I remember listening to the tape. I believe what I said at that session. I've seen too many charred bodies, too many incredible sights, to doubt. I've seen too much, period. Suffered too much, denied too much. -----I remember being afraid of lightning when I was a small child. In a memory that time has gilded into a glowing frame, I see Ahab pick me up, settle me on his knee, and explain that if we grow to understand the things we fear, we can learn to be less afraid. He then served me up a child's portion of knowledge about lightning and its causes. I was fascinated, fear forgotten. This time I cannot forget. I have spent years pushing these memories, these elusive images, as far from my mind as I could. But year by year, event by event, they have insisted--cried out--for my attention. I am ready. The time has come to pull the unspeakable, the unthinkable, into the light. The odious, not-quite-repressed memories must be disinterred. -----I remember as a med student studying the psychology of rape victims. How they may be embarrassed to admit what happened, irrationally afraid they were somehow at fault. How so many wash away the evidence and neglect to report the rape, or even acknowledge to themselves that it happened. Well, that's what I've been doing. I've been raped, not by a common sexual predator, but by a horrendous predator on womankind. My lack of ova is proof of violation. As is the chip. And Emily. I am out of options. I want--I need--to find out what happened to me. It may be too late to redress my losses, but I may regain a sense of control if I can understand what happened, and why. I might be able to be my self again, one that I can accept without blanking out large portions like an overzealous censor. Just as important, I'd like to stop these beasts from ever preying upon another human being. No more test subjects for them--just years, decades, centuries, of jail time. -------------------------------------------------------- But it's too late now. Yesterday those predators, many of them, received their just rewards. They are charred corpses, along with poor Cassandra, another woman sacrificed to the nebulous cause. -----I remember finding out how many women may have been involved in these experiments. And I found out who was visiting the European MUFONs. We are *not* alone, apparently. Whoever these predators and their faceless enemies are, they are unlike us in that they refuse to discriminate on the basis of race, religion, or nationality. They are equal opportunity brutes, willing to ravage anyone to advance their cause. -----I remember Mulder's response to my information about Diana Fowley. It is usually considered a desirable trait to be loyal to one's old friends and lovers. But his attitude does not help me in my struggle to understand what happened to me. It hurts to be doubted by the one I thought would be most interested in my quest. Women all over the world are abducted and used for experimentation, violated and abused. These women include his sister, his partner, and Cassandra Spender. Mulder can only defend his ex-flame, deserting me and all other abductees. Where was his loyalty to me? To our cause? Who does he trust? -----I remember my determination to find Cassandra after Jeff called me. I resolved to do my best, not because she was a source of information, or because she was "the one," but because she was a worthy, much-abused human being. I would have pursued her indefinitely, with or without Mulder. His presence seemed to make little difference, after all. -----I remember the years we've spent together, Mulder the zealot on the charger, I the stubborn doubter. Now *I* want to know the truth of my abduction--and that of countless others--and Mulder seems...deflated, confused, lost. I don't know what the future will bring, but I do know that Mulder is not the man he used to be. Has his quest so disillusioned him that he will turn, sneering, on those who have been closest to him? Has our partnership lost its firm base of mutual support? -----I will *always* remember Mulder's response to my information about Fowley. He accused me of making it a personal issue. Ironic, after all these years of his making *everything* personal. Ironic, after his telling me he wasn't sure he could go on without me. I am not his one in five billion, obviously. I'm in this alone now, and Mulder can join me if he likes. I am beginning to care less and less about his decision. -----I will remember yesterday as the day my trust in Mulder, the rock on which I'd built six years of my life, wavered and sank. I have my priorities now. He is not one of them. END