From: Jenhe3he@aol.com Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1998 13:23:27 EDT Subject: Musings of a Federal Man (1/1) - Jenny Radcliffe DISCLAIMER: I don't own Mulder or Scully or any of the other characters/situations, CC 1013 and Fox do. This isn't being done for profit but merely for my own amusement and the torture of others. No copyright infringement intended. TITLE: Musings of a Federal Man (1/1) AUTHOR: Jenny Radcliffe E-MAIL: Jen he3he@aol.com DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT: Archive at Gossamer but anywhere else let me know so that I can come visit!! Also please keep my name and e-mail attached. SPOILERS: Quite a few, but mainly Season 5, X-Files: Fight the Future. RATING: G CONTENT WARNING: N/A CLASSIFICATION: Vignette, slight angst. FEEDBACK: Please, please, please!!!!! Jen he3he@aol.com Thanx a billion to Cynthia for beta reading (even if i did give you the wrong stuff to read :o)) XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Musings of a Federal Man (1/1) - Jenny Radcliffe Sitting down at his desk, Mulder rubbed his chin thoughtfully. The previous day's growth of stubble scraped against his hand. He sighed deeply. The few days' vacation he had taken to relax had done everything but that to him. He had been reminiscing. Every inch of his life had been dissected by his conscience. He laughed inwardly, as he realized he sounded like one of Scully's autopsies. He returned to the laptop. He had never kept a diary and never felt the need to. The thought of this being a diary made him shudder; the thought that anyone else might read his innermost thoughts turned his stomach, but since he had began to type a few hours ago, a wave of relief had flooded over him. Years of held back emotion flowed on to the screen. He began to type. "The past year has really brought everything home to me. Scully's cancer has been so hard for me to deal with. It was all my fault, to make me believe. These men will stop at nothing. But why her? They could have done it to me. They had taken Sam, so why not harm me again? It's frustrating and unfair to Scully and her family. Her brother made it pretty clear to me that I shouldn't have involved her, that my quest for 'little green men' shouldn't involve his sister. I can't blame him. The body count of my search, for what I so desperately seek, has risen with every year it continues. Melissa Scully, Dad, Deep Throat, X, various detectives and other federal agents, not to mention all those other people harmed, injured or missing: my mom, Scully and my sister. I am also wondering about Marita Covarrubias; I need her help yet she has not answered my requests for a meeting. Have they reached her, too? "Sometimes I wonder why I am allowed to continue with my work. I have hardly any hard evidence--only what I have seen. With my reputation, it's increasingly hard for those above me to think my sightings valid in any case. I think the only reason I am allowed to continue is Scully. Her presence seems to validate my work. I watch Skinner's expression when Scully briefs him on a case. He takes in what she says with very little questioning, while when I repeat the process, I can almost see him shutting down, as if he is letting the information just go straight over his head. "Skinner's is an alliance that I now cannot survive without. He has helped me and hindered me, but his intentions are for the greater good. The greater good... sounds so patronizing now. I serve the Federal government for the greater good of the American people. It's a joke. Part of it is just another lie. Part of an agenda that serves only for the good of a selected few. "What hurts me most is that the men I have grown to despise have known my father. Was he ever part of 'it,' the whole agenda? I was so close to finding out that they put a stop to it. A stop to it in the only way they know how--with a bullet. And if you can't kill it, disguise it with more lies--apology has become policy. If in doubt, deny everything. The only way I truly know I get anywhere is when everything I work for is destroyed. "The fire in our office was the worst thing I could have possibly imagined. Years of my work gone. The five years of work that I had had to truly work for, gone. When I first saw the office, smelt the smoldered plastic and walked upon the sodden ground, tears had burnt my eyes. Amazingly, what hurt me most was the look in Scully's eyes. She was as devastated as me. That moment solidified my relationship with her. The hurt was that of someone who had lost something close to them. She's now as close to the X-Files as I am. As she said to me before, after she had been returned from her abduction, 'I had the strength of your beliefs'. It meant a lot to me. "I have tried to explain to her how much she means to me. I tried that night at my apartment--the night that she was stung, the night that she was taken from me yet again. All that I said to her I truly meant, and I know she knew, too. We survived Antarctica because we had the strength of each other's beliefs and our own to keep us alive. That day, it was the heat from our beliefs that kept us warm, the sight of the future that kept us focused. As someone close to me had once said, 'If a shark stops swimming it dies. Don't stop swimming Mr. Mulder.' Now I know that not only will I not stop swimming, but with all the work I have done, I can't." Mulder pushed back from the computer and surveyed the past few hours' work. He felt more relaxed than he had done in a long time. He couldn't explain why. He could open an X-File on it, he supposed and then laughed out loud. He moved his mouse and click on 'File', dragging the pointer down to 'Delete.' He clicked the mouse button. Confirming his choice by clicking on 'OK,' he watched the work vanish from the screen. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX So? What did you think? Please let me know.... Jen he3he@aol.com