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  This author's e-mail address has changed to: xanaduxf@yahoo.com
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***DISCLAIMER***: All "X-Files" elements and references
in this story belong to Fox Broadcasting, Chris Carter,
and 1013 Productions, and I am making no money from it.

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Lifeline
By shannono
shannono@iname.com


Vignette, Scully first person angst

Rated PG

Spoiler for "The Beginning"

Summary: Scully tells her side of things following the events
of "The Beginning."

Comments: Found this one hiding on my hard drive at work, so I
gave it a little polishing and sent it to the Trusty Betas. It 
was written shortly after "The Beginning" and I made only small
changes, so any "foreshadowing" to events later in the season
is either coincidence or my latent psychic talents at work. <g>

I said at some point early in Season Six that I planned to do
a post-ep for every episode, and then I never posted one for
"The Beginning." Now I have. :)

Thanks: To Robbie, Brandon, and Paulette, for the beta. :)

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Lifeline
by shannono


It's a good thing I've been working with Mulder for as long
as I have. Otherwise, I'd have kicked his ass for the way
he's acted the past few days.

Mulder has been Mulder at his obsessive, insensitive, ornery
best -- or worst, depending on which way you look at it. He's
gotten pissed with me for no good reason, brushed me off,
accused me of ignoring evidence, and basically given me every
reason to just tell him I've had it and walk away.

But I know him. And I know why he's like this.

All I really had to do was stop and think about it. For the
past seven years, the X-files have been this man's life. He
has eaten, breathed, and not-slept them. They're a part of
him, as much as his arm or his heart.

And they've just been ripped away.

It's not the same as before. Not like when they were closed,
or even when they were burned. He could recover from those. 
The department was closed, but the files were still there. 
Then they were burned, but the option was still there.

Now, they're open, but someone else is running them.

God. It would have been better if they'd just kept the damn
things closed. At least then Mulder could have sneaked in a
few investigations on the sly to keep him from losing it
completely.

But Fowley and Spender have been handed Mulder's lifeline --
his heart on a platter. And those two are not exactly
trustworthy to take good care of it.

I don't blame the review panel for refusing to give Mulder
back the X-files. He was bullheaded, belligerent, and
downright nasty in that meeting. He never has been one to
play nice with the powers that be, but he was in rare form
that day.

Mulder's problem is that he's never quite grown up. He's
never learned that compromise is often necessary to make
headway against the system. He's better now than he was a
few years ago -- at least, normally he is. But this was a
special case, and all those lessons deserted him when he
needed them most.

But the gist of the matter is that when Mulder's like this,
I can take nearly anything he throws my way, because I know
it's not really him talking. It's the frustration, and the
anger, and the latent guilt that lashes out, and I'm usually
the most convenient target.

Because I'm always there.

Oh, it hurts; don't think for a minute that it doesn't. But
it's a fleeting hurt, not a lingering pain, because I expect
it by now, and I know the reasons behind it.

Even his irrational defense of Diana didn't bother me all
that much. I understand what happened -- he trusted her, 
and she apparently betrayed him, again. He just didn't want
to believe it. That's when he's most like a hurt little 
boy -- when someone he trusts lets him down.

And I don't want to let him down. Not if I can help it.

But I won't let him walk all over me, either. I wouldn't
invent evidence to back up our account of my abduction and
rescue. I can't blindly believe his version of events I 
barely recall, not without some kind of proof. I wouldn't
let him delay getting help for Gibson, even if Gibson 
himself turned against me.

I wouldn't let him push me away for good because he's having
a bad week.

I want the answers just as much as he does, but not at the
expense of everything we've worked for. We want to *prove*
the conspiracy, *prove* what's going on behind the scenes.

It sounds cliched, but the fate of the world might rest on
our shoulders.

What I need him to understand is that I can't just abandon
everything I've followed for so long. He knows he needs my
science to produce hard evidence to back up his beliefs. 
No one will take his word for it; the review panel should
have been proof enough of that. 

And I need my science just as much as he does. The X-files
may be *his* lifeline, but science has always been mine.

I told him it all comes down to a matter of trust. He has 
to trust that I've got *his* best interests at heart, not 
just the best interests of the X-files. I won't let him be
destroyed by this.

So I trust him. I trust him to eventually accept the evidence
I give him; I trust him to not abandon his quest just because
the X-files are no longer ours.

And I trust him to include me in his search.

I *have* to trust him.

He's all I have left, too.