TITLE: If At All AUTHOR: Rachel Nobel (Elimmac@aol.com) SUMMARY: Scully makes the decision to read the X-File bearing her name. CLASSIFICATION: V (A?) TIMELINE: late second season DISCLAIMER: Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, and the X-Files are the brainchild of Chris Carter and the property of Ten Thirteen Productions. No copyright infringement is intended. THANKS: To the Screamers, who encourage, amuse, and inspire. _________ "...As we grow older The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated Of dead and living. Not the intense moment Isolated, with no before and after, But a lifetime burning in every moment And not the lifetime of one man only But of old stones that cannot be deciphered." --T.S. Eliot, East Coker, The Four Quartets ___________ I've never seen the file documenting my abduction. *My* file, I mean--the one that chronicles the kidnapping and return and three-month gaping black abyss in between. Most people would consider that event a significant milestone, life- changing perhaps, but in a sense nothing really did change; I didn't take up yoga in a futile attempt to connect with some deep portion of my unawakened soul, I didn't even replace the blood-stained glass table in my living room. I...I theorized that since I had been gone for three months but remembered none of it, it would be useless to dwell on such a depressing subject when there were more important matters to be taken care of, like how soon I could get my weapon recertified and how many salads substituted for steaks in the God-awful diners Mulder chooses on road trips it would take before I could return this new, too-large wardrobe to the store. I think, in retrospect, I was so concerned with making sure my abduction didn't change how everything affected me that I neglected to worry about its impact on others--when really I was the only one who hadn't been around to try and pick up the pieces. That first day, back in my apartment, I had no pictures in my mind of shattered glass and blood and the smell of fear. To borrow a well-worn cliche, it seemed like a nightmare, a horror movie, something that had transpired in the life of some big-breasted bimbo onscreen. Something that's easy enough to control. At that point I had more inconvenient things to worry about--trivial details like soda and popcorn versus The Big Picture. I was--or I thought I was--logical enough to reconcile that decision not to deal with the all-encompassing everything; I thought I'd cross the bridge of memory and violation and terror when I came to it, later rather than sooner. Or maybe at the time I thought I *was* dealing with it, as if throwing myself back into work pursuing truths that were as much mine now as they were Mulder's could be called effective stress management. All I knew was that I was strong and didn't need to be smothered or coddled or protected. I never considered that maybe smothering or coddling or protecting was something the peoplearound me needed to do. The people around me. Mulder. That first day, Mulder sat in my hospital room well past visiting hours and smiled at me--the first real, honest, magical smile I think I've ever seen on anyone, like a toddler who's just seen Santa Claus in his sleep awakening on Christmas morning to discover it's all come true. As if I were a miracle. Mulder moved through that first week with all the grace and care of someone passing through heaven; I think he was afraid to breathe for fear that his fragile castle of reaffirmed faith would come crashing down with the weight of my smashed cordless phone. Most people--two words that in an instant damn me to a martyrdom no longer acquainted with the average world--perceive a miracle like my return as something that opens up channels betweenpeople, something that forces us to appreciate the small things in life, something that brings families back together and heals forgotten hurts. But--such a small word for such a telling contradiction--most people wouldn't believe themselves guilty of encouraging aliens to make off with their partners. Mulder never discussed my abduction with me because he thought I would change my mind if I knew. Mulder was afraid I would leave him. Maybe I was afraid of that as well. I can offer myself all these rationalizations and more for living my life as I did, but the truth is that I never read my own file because I was afraid Mulder would catch me, and that somehow this would implicate him--not just him but us, as if the folder lying on the desk in that office would symbolize a truth serum that would force us to speak. Mulder *is* infinitely different now from the partner I once had: more cautious, more quietly resolved and determinedly passionate. The shadow world we operate in is so secretive that something might as well disappear when you cease to remember it, and conversation has never been our strongest asset, Mulder and I. Small talk is useless on the other side of evil, and deep, philosophical, sharing-of- feelings sessions...well, those just get in the way. I want, I realize, to get away. To run, as Mulder does. I was taught in medical school that the best way to elude disease and destruction and decay is to confront it all head-on. I want to see that file. The simple request comes out of nowhere. I want to understand all the changes that evolved in Mulder while I was gone, ebbing and flowing until he turned up again in my hospital room so different from the cocky, impetuous man with the just-give- me-a-chance-to-kick-your-ass-all-the-way-back-to-Quantico grin I knew from that first case. There are support groups from here to the moon that are designed to help us deal with loss, but no one warned me that the world and all its inhabitants woul continue their course of evolution without me. When I returned to Life As We Know It the Ikea on the corner had closed, Starbucks had invented eight new varieties of coffee and Mulder and my mother were playing by a whole new set of rules. That file, and its contents--if it can teach me not even why, but simply how--I think I can be satisfied, I think I can move on. The file cabinets in this room are ancient--they were so even when a younger, more idealistic Mulder first ripped the plastic sheeting off the dusty stacks so long ago--and the drawer creaks and groans as I coax it open. A lifetime ago I marveled at the sheer number of files in this place, all of which I assumed Mulder had read through and properly filed. But Mulder only catalogues what's most important to him, and idly I wonder where my file--life, death, and rebirth--is stored. Under abductions? Conspiracies? Unfortunate ex- colleagues? I can almost smile about this as I picture Mulder sitting on the floor with the sleeves of his white dress shirt rolled up to the elbows, tugging on his lower lip as he weighs the merits of tossing the arbirtrary #X060644 into one pile or the other of his unique filing system. #X060644 isn't my case number, though. I'm finding out what is as I heft the folder marked out of the surprisingly neat drawer. It lands on Mulder's desk with a resounding *thud*, upheaving scraps of white, scribbled-on paper--Mulder doodles when he's talking on the phone--and settling them again. I take a careful seat in Mulder's chair--it's missing a wheel--pull in closer to the desk, and open the file. I can picture Mulder sitting in the dark of his living room--Mulder, I have found on countless middle-of-the-night trips to the bathroom in connecting motel rooms, works better in the dark--with this photograph and writing this note to himself to check out such-and-such or so-and-so in the morning, when the rest of the world is awake. Some awful black-and-white movie is playing on the muted television, and still the file grows. If I am to be honest with myself, I know I don't need to read it to understand the avenues of investigation that were taken or the bits of evidence that were painstakingly collected. If I am to be honest with myself, I needed proof that this was more than just a nightmare. If I am to be honest with myself, I was afraid that this was my, and only my, bad dream. This is what you wanted to understand, Dana, but nobody has taught me it can be like this when someone is missing, when every day another eight dead ends are investigated, when there is proof positive that the face on the milk carton is most certainly dead...or alive. I know I have felt sorrow before, but this must be a new kind of heartbreak, one that not having been a survivor of violent tragedy I can't identify with, one for the mourners left behind. I may tell myself I am over that experience, but I wasn't the one living with it for three months. In a philosophical flash of clarity I feel the need to mourn for myself so that others--so that Mulder--can finally mourn for me. I look down once, then up again and tears--God damn it--prick at my eyes. And when Mulder's eyes move finally move from the file to my face, for the first time in months I am allowed to read the message there. Hide and seek, Mulder. Lost and found. _______ END Support the Help Keep the Author Awake Until School's Out Fund...send any kind of feedback to Elimmac@aol.com.