From: eponine119 Date: Fri, 12 Sep 1997 22:11:26 -0700 Subject: NEW: Mulder Shrugged 1/1 Disclaimer: The X Files, its characters and situations, belong to Chris Carter, 1013 and Fox, not to me. Spoilers: Gethsemane. Author's notes: I just finished reading Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged." What a book! And I came up with this truly odd theory that *that's* what Chris Carter is doing. Dagny Taggart is so very Dana Scully. Mulder...well, maybe he's not John Galt, but maybe he is. And you should hear my theory on the Eddie Van Blundht - Eddie Willers connection. Oh, wait, my point...I took the ideas of that book, as I saw them, and put them into the X Files. *This is not a crossover!!!!* But what a fun idea... And you don't have to have read the book to understand, I hope. I guess I'm just trying to explain why this is weird, if it seems weird. Now imagine, if you will, the careful editing that must have taken place during the scene where Mulder was crying in his apartment. They wanted you to think he was alone, watching television. You believed Them. But now see what They didn't want you to: the television was on to distract the listening devices. Scully was sitting on the table, close enough to touch him if she reached out. And he was crying because he knew what he was about to do... ____________________ Mulder Shrugged by eponine119 eponine119@att.net June 10, 1997 _____________________ "You were right, Scully." The words she'd waited so many long years to hear him say. And now he said them under the worst possible of circumstances. She wanted to reach over across the space between them and touch him, make the tears flowing from his eyes stop because she knew it was she who had caused them. But she didn't move. "All they ever wanted from me was my approval of their lies. They needed someone credible to become their spokesperson. He was right when he said they created me - who would be more credible than a man who's seen all of the things I've seen? When the time was right, I would go public with my story. It was never my intention or my goal, but there it is. They want me to tell the press that extraterrestrials do exist on this earth. They want me to expose all of the evidence documenting that fact. So that then they can counteract the story. Once and for all, it will be their opportunity to explain away every tiny bit of proof. To cover up the truth. The truth that I know." He looked at her and she could still see the tears swimming in his eyes. "I refuse. I will not allow them to continue with their plans. They will not be able to use me in this way." "Do you understand what the consequences will be?" she asked seriously in a soft voice, holding his eyes with all the gravity of the situation. "I lose either way. I will not allow myself to be discredited by these men. I will not allow them to take my dignity and everything I've worked for away from me. They can pull the strings of some other man. And if I don't...I don't know what happens. Everything continues, working to no goal, no end but my principles?' "You can't just quit, Mulder," she told him. "You can't walk away from them." "Why not? Why not. They can't kill me if they can't find me. And if I have to live with myself, knowing that I went along with their game - I should welcome death by their hand or by my own." "Don't say that." "It's true," he told her but he had to look away because of the tears. "I will not live my life for any other man." It was her turn to nod and look away, feeling shaky with all of the tears she'd been holding back for days. She would not relinquish them now. Once today already she'd thrown her pain in Mulder's face, when she accused him of being responsible for the illness that weighed so heavy upon her. She swallowed hard. "Then this is goodbye." He looked at her with the light of a dawning thought breaking across his face. "You could come with me." "No," she said. "I belong to the people who have done this to you. Their work and my work are the same. It would be wrong for me to go with you." "No," he murmured, but she didn't acknowledge him. "I set out to the same goal as theirs - to prove your work unworthy. And in that context, I have succeeded. I have found scientific evidence against your theories of extraterrestrials." "But you aren't one of them." He said the words passionately. "No," she agreed. "But I have to remain here. To help you escape. To complete my work. I care too much about this world to leave it, Mulder. Even if that means we can't be together right now." He drew a great shuddering breath and she waited for the sob. It never came. He looked at her, listening in silence. Accepting. "If I went now, I would be going because of you and not because it was what I believed in. I haven't reached the end of my ability. Maybe I can make them see -" "They will never see." Mulder had no doubts. "They will," she replied. "They will see as I have. They will miss you, Mulder, and the others like you. And eventually...the day will come...when their power will be gone. You will have taken it from them and you will have prevailed." There was a long pause. She was fighting with herself. Her heart told her this was wrong; her heart told her she belonged with Mulder. But her mind had to do what was right, regardless of her heart. "Even if it means you have to destroy me as one of them." "You are not one of them." "I am," she said sadly. "We wouldn't be having this conversation if you were one of them. I wouldn't -" "You wouldn't what?" He looked at her with defiance that told her he was no longer afraid to say the words: "I wouldn't love you if you were one of them. You belong with me." "If I joined you now, I would be living my life for you, Mulder." "Aren't you living it for them if you stay?" "No. Because it is my choice." "You'll change your mind." "Probably." "I'll be waiting. When you do." That was all he said. The time for words between them had finished. His tears were dry and hers would not fall, not now. They would be together, someday, in a world better than the one they stood in now. But there were preparations to be made. It wasn't so easy to quit as it had been in the old days. Not facing the kind of men they were against. Mulder wouldn't be able to simply walk away and leave them to discover he had quit. They wouldn't leave it at that. They would find him and they would make him do as they wished. They would use her as their power over him. They had already done so in many ways, and that was one of the things she could not condone. They had to make this quitting more final. That would take some work. There had to be no doubt in anyone's mind that Special Agent Fox Mulder died early that morning by an apparent self inflicted gunshot wound to the head. She had to make that happen so that he could make his escape into freedom. The freedom to pursue his work and use his mind, answering to no man but himself. He left her and they knew they would have no more contact until the day she, too, decided to quit. They both knew the day was coming. They just didn't know how soon. The end. "Who is Fox Mulder?"