Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2000 11:48:44 GMT
Subject: xfc: NEW *Selflessness* by Sandee
Source: xfc

Selflessness
By Sandee 

DISCLAIMER: Mulder and Scully don't belong to me. Do you hear me? They 
don't!
RATING: PG
SUMMARY: Scully's best friend is there for her. Again.
SPOILERS: tiny Ice, maybe FTF?
ARCHIVE: Anywhere. Just e-mail me first
NOTES: I was bored. I had an idea. This is the result. I'll have to admit it
was a weird idea, too weird an idea to run through my beta readers for fear
of rejection. I sure hope you guys still love me because I damn well still
love you!
*****

"You have to do it. You have to do it NOW!"

Her voice was shrill and high with emotion and it rang in his ears. Sad, 
that
it had to come to this. All the reasons, the rationalizations and
the explanations in the world could not have been able to answer the
one question buzzing through Mulder's mind at the moment; WHY?

"I can't. Don't make me do this."

"THIS IS WHAT I DRAGGED YOU OUT HERE FOR! NOW DO IT!"

Water. The world was swimming. Perhaps it was better this way. But upon
further investigation, the water turned out to be tears and they were
streaming down his face unchecked, annoyingly.

One look at his face and her own fell. "Don't cry, don't cry, please
don't cry..." she muttered in a small voice, clenching her hands into fists
at her sides.

The air in the abandoned warehouse suddenly became unbearably cold, and the
air surrounding them suddenly became oppressive and uncomfortable. The feet
that separated them seemed like kilometers.

A swipe at his cheeks confirmed it. He was bawling like a baby.

"Scully. Of all the people you could choose to do this why ME? To PUNISH
me?" and then the unanswerable question: "WHY?" he hollered sourly at her.
More water. More salt.

Her eyes held fire, but he refused to be burned by it. Instead, when it
would have warmed him all over, all he got were chills. "Because nobody
else would know. Nobody would understand."

He shut his eyes momentarily. When he opened them again, the fire in her
eyes was gone and was replaced by a distinct fear. Fear of death and dying.
Fear of herself. Fear of him.

She continued: "If I had asked someone else to do this, to hold my life in
their hands, do you think they would do it? I asked you to do this because
I trust you. Because you already hold my life in your hands along with
my heart."

Words spoken. Not communicated non-verbally, but spoken directly. They hurt
him. A lot more than she would have thought. "I can't." he whispered softly,
as if in her ear. He went on to explain, "Because I can't accept
it."

A sniff. "Well, you'd better. I'm infected with it, Mulder. If I go back to
the population, I'd infect everybody else."

It was his turn to sniff. "I can't. Ask someone else to do it. I can't
shoot you, Scully." With that, he took as step nearer to her and she
backed away, a look of dread crossing her features.

"Not one step closer, Mulder. You promised."

Sighing, he found himself in a state of trouble. This was Scully, for whom
he was willing to do anything, *anything*... but ending her life? With just
a flick of his index finger? Nothing had ever sounded so incredibly stupid.
But the reality of the situation was just beginning to hit
him.

Scully.

She was infected.

With the unidentified virus they had discovered in the Atlanta child
center.

God, it sounded so horrible. So PC. Like in a video game: 'You have
been infected. Game Over.' It was incredibly morbid and
infinitely disheartening, to hear that such a thing had happened to Scully.
His Scully.

The virus they had discovered could be contracted easily, by the touch of a
hand or the slightest brush of skin. That was probably how Scully had gotten
it, through the interview she'd had with one of the infected victims. It
was still unsure then, so she hadn't taken any special precautions. Ten
hours later, the woman was dead.

They should have known.

They didn't know how it worked, but what they did know that it worked
quickly enough and could destroy a city the size of New York in a few hours.
How similar to the other viruses and diseases and sicknesses that they
had fought before, but so much harder to combat now because one of them
was infected.

But as far as both of them knew, she was the last remaining infected entity
on the face of the earth.

And if she wasn't annihilated immediately, the rest of the people would
suffer. The only way the virus could be destroyed was if the host or the
carrier was destroyed, too.

What a noble way to die, Mulder thought proudly. With the pretense of saving
the world. That's my Scully. My Scully. Selfless in every way that she can
be.

But still... these thoughts, all these ideas, they did nothing to squeeze
the thought out of Mulder's head: Scully was going to die... and he was
never going to be able to kiss her.

What a thing to think of right now.

"Scully, please..." he murmured at last. "Don't make me do this."

Once again, her eyes were steel. Cold steel, blue steel, steel like those
they used to make sleds in Alaska. So cold, so distant, yet holding a
certain warmth that Mulder knew he was going to see for the last time...

"You have to. You know that you have to."

"I won't be able to live with myself--"

"YOU WILL SHOOT ME NOW, MULDER!" she screamed suddenly. Mulder jumped.
This wasn't like her. "YOU WILL OR I WILL!"

"I wouldn't let you do it..."

It all seemed like too much for her to take. She grabbed her face, bent over
and began sobbing. Loudly. Like a child. Mulder took a step towards her
again. And, again, she backed away.

"Please," she sobbed. "Please, Mulder. Just do what I ask. It's my final
request of you. It's the right thing to do."

The right thing to do! His mind scoffed. Hell, it was the right thing to do.
If he were that dense, or that stupid, or maybe if he didn't love her. But
he wasn't any of the three, so that stopped him.

So sad, that she would die without knowing the extent of his heart.

If there were only some way, to share her pain and let her know that he felt
the hurt within him, too, that he was willing to do anything so that
she wouldn't sacrifice herself. If there was only a way to erase
everything.

But she wouldn't even let him come near her.

Oh my god.

A lightbulb... a tiny lightbulb, so small it seemed to be the type used
for walkmans or discmans... an idea. A small idea, but the lightbulb
grew brighter and the idea bloomed and blossomed for all it was
worth...

Before she could do what her nobility and selflessness commanded her to,
Mulder walked towards Scully quickly, with a strong, confident gait and
grabbed her shoulders to face her to him. Her blue steel melted.

And before Mulder could appreciate the sight of the blue swirls of melted
steel, he pressed his mouth to hers and tried to communicate to her what
was within him. She reacted surprisedly, but he righted the way she was
standing quickly so that she could lose himself in her.

The kiss, as it was, was neither hurried, rushed nor frenzied. It was slow
and sweet and still, and best of all, it was, in Mulder's humble
opinion, effectively communicating to her what he felt. The love was
said wordlessly by the way his lips lay against hers. The fear was
communicated mutely through his shaky caresses to her shoulders. The sadness
was contained in the tears that dripped down their faces like the
Niagara.

It seemed as though the kiss was knocking the wind out of him, even though
it was as simple and innocent as one a child might give to his best
friend. Unable to breathe, he pulled away gently and gazed at her to see
her reaction.

Oh, that did it. The steel was completely gone. It was replaced by
massive swirling pool of indigo.

Her lips parted to speak, but he put a finger to her lips to silence her.
She spoke anyway. "Why'd you have to go and do that?" she asked
tearfully, though no tears fell.

"I needed you to know. I couldn't let you go without you having a clue." He
said honestly.

His hands were still buried in her hair and his thumbs still rubbed her
cheeks softly, erasing her tears. Beneath all this, his message was 
apparent:
I would die for you, and I'm going to die with you. Her face wrinkled up
when this got across to her.

"Sweet bastard."

"Only to you."

A secret smile touched her lips and she leaned up to kiss him again. "Yeah.
Only to me."

*end*