From Starbuc810@aol.com Mon Apr 14 23:56:24 1997
Subject: *NEW*  "Necessary" (1/1)
From: Starbuc810@aol.com
--------

NECESSARY
by Starbuc810@aol.com
Please post to ATXC, ok to archive.
Spoiler:  None
Rating:  PG
Content:  No shippy stuff...implications abound, however...
Classification:  V
Summary:  Scully tries to sort out her emotions while spending a week with a
friend.
DISCLAIMER:  Mulder and Scully do not belong to me...they belong to Chris
Carter and 1013 Productions.  No offense was intended...this was written
solely for my own enjoyment, and not for monetary gain.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:  Some of the conversations between Scully and Rebeccah (who,
incidentally, belongs to me) were taken from a real-life conversation I had
with a very sick friend.  It scared me enough to inspire me to write this.

<<April 13, 1997
         From the Journal of Dana Scully

        They say writing is theraputic.  That, once on paper, problems become
less.  Are one step closer to being solved.  I must believe it - how long
have I kept journals?  All of my life.  
        I wonder, does it work the same way for sorting out tangled emotions?
 I must try.  For too long I have set aside feelings and emotions simply
because of their inconvenience.  I have never - or rarely - analyzed them.
 But for all that they are no less real to me.  And, alone again, they spring
to the surface.  Still there.  Still inconvenient.
        I am in the emergency room.  Tonight I am here for a friend, one whom
I have not seen nor heard from in months.>>
                                 
                         *                      *                       *
                         *

        "Ms. Scully?"  A young attendant said hesitantly.  "You may see her
now."   Dana Scully awoke from her reverie and abruptly closed her journal.  
        "Thank you," she said, smiling slightly.  The attendant led her to a
sectioned cubicle, where Rebeccah Paxman sat dejectedly.  She looked beaten,
defeated.
        "Dana," she said quietly, her eyes filling with tears.  "They're
sending me home."  Scully glanced at her friend, and then at the attendant,
who shrugged apologetically and walked away.
        "It's ok, Becky," Dana sighed, hugging her friend.  "You'll come home
with me for a couple of days, all right?"  There was no answer.  "Becky?" she
questioned.
        "Okay," Rebeccah whispered.

                     *                         *                          *
                        *

        <<I don't know what to do.  Rebeccah is clearly in shock, but the
emergency room doctors found nothing physically wrong with her.  Rebeccah
herself revealed that she has been participating in hormone therapy for
several years, to try and correct what she embarrasedly referred to as
"...you know, a *female* problem..."
        I've taken a brief leave of absence to stay with Becky.  I can't
express in words the intense rush of relief I feel that this absence is not
due to my own health, but devoted to the care of a friend.  Rebeccah is so
independent - has always been.  Although I am sad that she is ill, I am
nevertheless honored that she is allowing me to help her.  Rebeccah - who
needs nobody!  Needs me, needs *my* help.
        
        I feel unnecessary at work. 
        
        Sometimes.  
        
        I feel that I am being coddled.
        
        I do not like feeling that I am dead weight, tolerated only because
of one man's devastating quest for Truth.
        
        Finally I am needed.  
       
        Necessary.>>

                  *                         *                             *
                         *

        "How long has it been since you've had a good night's sleep?"  Dana
asked, pulling the blanket more securely over her friend's feverish form.
        "Oh, God, Dana," Rebeccah said limply.  She felt the hot tears steal
out of her eyes; she hated herself for it.  She angrily wiped them away.
 "Months, maybe.  And when I do sleep - " she stopped suddenly, throwing a
hand over her eyes.
        "What is it?" Dana asked.  "Do you have nightmares?"
        Rebeccah nodded weakly, absorbed in focusing on a lamp across the
room.  "Sometimes - sometimes they're really bad," she said, her voice
breaking.  She swallowed a dry sob, made a concerted effort to control
herself.  "I dream that I'm dying, but the doctors don't care.  They tell me
there's nothing wrong, and put me on more drugs.  They don't care."
        Dana nodded, unsure what to say.
        "They've got me pumped so full of hormones - I'm not the same person
I was six months ago.  I can't do this anymore," she said weakly.  "The pain
I can live with.  But the nightmares....Dana, the medication they've got me
on makes me do bad things," she whispered.  "Last night I - I took a lot of
pills.  But it didn't do anything, I deliberately took them but they didn't -
"  Rebeccah stopped, her face blanching in remembrance.  "It was like
somebody else was controlling my body, making me do these bad things...and I
dreamed of nameless, faceless men, coming at me with knives.  I saw bright
lights, and shadows - I know they're not really there, but I *still* see
them.  I'm not certain what's real anymore," she whispered.  " - and what's
not real."
        Dana felt tears streaming form her own eyes.  "I don't know what to
tell you, kiddo," she smiled weakly, taking Rebeccah's hands in her own.
 "You will get past this, I promise you.  There *are* answers out there, and
you will find them."
        "When I woke up this morning I found razor blades on my bathroom
sink.  A whole box of them, lying scattered around the bathroom.  I'm
scared...Dana, I wish..."  Rebeccah began.  She heard the tears in her voice,
and struggled to control them.  "Sometimes I wish it was just cancer.
 Tangible evidence that something's wrong - a tumor doesn't lie.  Then they
could treat it, and - and I could get on with my life."
        "Their treatments don't always work, Becky," Dana said sadly.  

                          *                       *                      *
                        *

        <<Cancer.  I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, and here is Rebeccah
wishing it upon herself.  She slept last night for perhaps three hours.  I
heard her nightmares.  I lived them.  Between dreams she mumbled, nearly
incoherently, "I can't do this anymore..."
        I am afraid for her.
        She is not the young woman I knew in college.  So independent, even
then.  We kept in touch regularly, over the years - I as I pursued my career
with the Bureau, and she, pursuing hers as a classical musician.  She has
taken her career very far already, and will go farther.  Provided this
illness *allows* her to.
        Ours is a strange bond.  We are completely opposite - a scientist and
a musician.  Even in college we recognized the bond and forged a deep
friendship.  I have never known such an independent spirit.  Well...except
perhaps for my partner.>>

                      *                        *                          *
                          *

        "Do you ever wonder what it will be like to die, Dana?"  Rebeccah
asked listlessly, staring moodily out of Dana's bedroom window.  She observed
the gray skies, the falling rain.  There looked to be no end to the dullness.
 
        Dana looked up from her computer with frightened start.  "No, I - I
don't think I've ever really thought about is," she lied.  She had not told
her friend about her cancer.
        "I've been thinking about it a lot," Rebeccah mumbled, once again
feeling the effects of the hormone prescribed to her by her doctor.
        "Like what?"  Dana asked, hoping that it wouldn't be too long before
Rebeccah succumbed to another fitful sleep.  She had no desire to get into a
conversation about death.  It was too intimate a subject.
        "I just wondered - when you die, are you still there?  Conscious?
 Your body no longer exists, but does the spirit live on?  Or...or is it
simply blackness, nothingness, an abyss in which you are no longer aware of
self."  Rebeccah returned to the bed, crawling clumsily under the covers.
        Dana drew the blinds.  She paused at the door, a serious expression
on her face.  "I think that the spirit truly does live on.  In the people
left behind.  I hope they know it, I hope they can feel it....when I'm
gone..."

                    *                       *                      *
                        *

        <<Do _I_ ever wonder what it's like to die.
        
        Every day.  
        
        I wonder if the end will come quickly, or if it will linger with a
sweet sobriety.  I wonder if I will be alone, or surrounded by my loved ones.
 By Mom...by Mulder.  It's true, I suppose: when I mention "loved ones"
Mulder's name appears on my list.  I do love him, very deeply.  And, in his
own way, Mulder cares for me.
        It is unfair to ask for, or expect, more than friendship dictates.  I
know Mulder would do anything to cure my cancer. I know he believes it is his
fault.  
        It is not.
        Rebeccah's question frightened me, perhaps because I am afraid of the
question.  No, it is more than that. 
        I am afraid of the answer.
        Imagining Death - what alternative is there to Death?  I do not
believe that that is where my fear lies.  It is the thought of "what comes
after?" - that is not a comforting one.  This is where my *faith* should step
in and help me through this.  I am afraid to step to the edge, to look into
the blackness.
        Perhaps I am afraid that I will see my own reflection in that
blackness.
        Death is inevitable.  Daily I hope for a miracle, but as yet none has
been forthcoming...
        My God, that sounded like something Mulder would say.  The Scully I
once knew would shout, in her quietly understated way, "In Science I Trust!"
and Mulder would spout some nonsense...
       
            //"Conventional wisdom.  And when Convention and Science offer us
no       answers, might we not finally turn to the fantastic as a
plausibility?"
        "What I find *fantastic* is any notion that there are answers beyond
the realm of science.  The answers are there.  *You* just have to know where
to look..."//
        
        How ridiculous, how young I was.  No, I have not abandoned Science.
        I fear that Science has abandoned me - thereby forcing me to open my
eyes to other, fantastic possibliities.  The answers are *not* out there.
 Sometimes I think there are no answers, there is no Truth.
        And then I feel overwhelming guilt for even thinking those words.  To
say that there are no answers, no Truth - negates everything I have worked
for.  Everything *he* has worked for.  My work has become my life, and he -
Mulder - is such a large part of that.  If he were torn from me right now I -
>>

                     *                     *                          *
                          *

        "Dana, I don't know how to thank you," Rebeccah said with a genuine
smile, the first in weeks, it seemed.  "You've always been such a good
friend," she whispered.  "If I can ever return the favor in any way, you'll
let me know, won't you?" she asked.  She loaded her overstuffed suitcase into
the waiting taxi.
        "Of course I will," Dana said.  She wasn't fully aware that she was
lying.

        <<Rebeccah went home today, not completely well but healthier than
before.  Before I smugly take credit, I am reminded of the power of the human
spirit, and friendship, to heal.  Kind words can mend a broken heart...or so
the saying goes.  Ah, well.  Back to work tomorrow.  I'm ready to start
finding answers.
       
       //"...the Truth will save us both"...//

        I know the Truth.  I know I cannot do this alone.  And I will not
try.  There is someone out there willing to help me...>>>

        "Hello?"
        "Mulder, it's me..."

-------------------------------------------------------
END
4/14/97