From: Erilyn Date: 26 Sep 1998 12:36:48 GMT Subject: New: Paradigm Shift (1/1) Paradigm Shift (1/1) by Erilyn (erilyn_c@yahoo.com) Vignette - Angst Rating - G Spoilers - Fight the Future, The End. Disclaimer - Not mine, belong to CC, 1013 and FOX. Archive - Gossamer, yes. Anywhere else, ask me first please. Keywords - M/S UST Summary - Scully contemplates in her journal about what almost happened in the hallway will do to her partnership with Mulder. Feedback - is worshipped and adored. This is dedicated to Sally Helmerich for her advice, encouragement and flattery . Thank you. This is a sort-of sequel to "Reducing to Binary", but you don't need to have read it to understand this piece. If you are interested, RTB can be found on the Poor Dana - The ScullyAngst archive http://members.tripod.com/~ScullyAngst/ * * * * My world has shifted, been broken, changed, replaced, altered, and transformed. It has changed irrevocably, enormously, and yet nothing is different. Do desperate words, spoken hastily, count for so much? Do impetuous actions deserve the meaning I find in them? Alone, possibly not, but they are the product of what has gone before. And so very much has gone before. We started uneasily, preconceptions about each other already established, the Bureau outcast and the little spy sent to keep him in line. In time, we developed a unique partner/friendship, and the little things that blurred the edges, that didn't fit, were ignored, overlooked, or disregarded. But never forgotten. My partnership with Mulder is fundamental in my life, so when they took that away from me, I quit the FBI. They had already taken our work, the X-Files division shut down, the files themselves swallowed in fire, gone up in smoke, devoured by flames in an inferno of the paranormal. A spooky bonfire. They had taken the two things that kept me going, kept me fighting, despite my loss of faith in those institutions that had lead me to this career, and they expected me to move to Utah? I honestly felt that resigning and walking away would be for the best. Mulder felt differently. Now there's a surprise, Mulder and I disagreeing about something. I remember those few minutes when I went to see him, having decided not to take the cowards' option, remember them very clearly, despite the next few days being a complete blank. Another hole in my mind to add to the collection, a hole bounded by me in Mulder's arms in his corridor, and me in Mulder's arms in the snow and ice of Antarctica. Touching images spoiled by one of us passing out. I remember what he said to me, about me, about him, about us, and it shook me. It was unexpected, it was overwhelming, and it felt so true. But did those words contain the end of what we had been? Not just the words, but the actions that accompanied them, the maelstrom of emotions that engulfed us. They didn't appear from nowhere, aren't isolated threats to what we have been. The ignored, not-forgotten aspects of our relationship had finally accumulated to where they couldn't be explained away, and combined with the traumas we were going through, reached critical mass and triggered what happened. I think I just summed up our relationship as a Kuhnian scientific revolution. I don't know whether to laugh my head off, or drown myself in bitter tears. Sometimes I really wonder about the way I think. Particularly when I combine my scientific metaphors like that. To Thomas Kuhn, sciences progress in a certain way. Start off as a pre-science, then develop into normal science, during which a paradigm operates. This is an accepted body of knowledge that forms an underlying framework within which all research takes place, and all is governed by the rules of the paradigm. But over time, problems arise, inconsistencies that cannot be explained if those assumptions are true. They accumulate until a crisis takes place. The paradigm is broken, fractured, destroyed in a scientific revolution, the outcome of which is not always determined rationally, and a new paradigm is formed. This was the way things worked, said Kuhn, the orderly march of normal science. I'm glad Mulder and I fit one definition of normal, as it is probably the only one. I know that I'm avoiding what other's would see as the 'real' issue, whether I welcome this change in our relationship, what my feelings for Mulder actually are, but I cannot bring myself to answer those questions. I am scared. That is damned hard for me to admit, but I am terrified. Terrified of the answers to both of those questions. How will I operate in this new world? The old assumptions are gone, replaced by-I don't know what. Maybe we haven't reached there yet, maybe the old framework still surrounds us, a cocoon protecting us from the consequences of our actions. But it is frail shield, damaged beyond repair, and will not last long. What will I do then? I want to believe that we can build something between us, but I remain a sceptic. We have been through so much, shared so much, but is that a basis for wanting more than what we have already? We can each hurt the other more easily, more profoundly, than anyone else ever could. We have such power over each other. A lifetime ago, or was it yesterday, I can't remember when, I compared Mulder and myself to a binary sun. Twin stars orbiting each other, holding each other in place. Can we come together and not be consumed? Can we unite and remain whole unto ourselves? Do I want to try? Do I dare try? I have so many questions, so few answers, and a whole new paradigm, to search within for them. When did this become confusing? We were Mulder and Scully, Scully and Mulder. Not just partners, not just friends, but all that we were was implicit in the phrase our two names formed, Mulder and Scully. We are still Mulder and Scully, I just don't know what that means anymore.