From: Racheieio Date: 29 Dec 1999 19:11:13 GMT Subject: NEW: Torn and Most Whole (1/) by Rachel Nobel TITLE: Torn and Most Whole AUTHOR: Rachel Nobel (Racheieio@aol.com) SUMMARY: It's Christmas, it's angsty, it's redemptive, and Mulder and Scully are both there. From Scully's point of view. DISCLAIMER: Fox Mulder, Dana Scully and any other characters you recognize are the property of Chris Carter and Ten Thirteen Productions. No copyright infringement is intended. The Mrs. Beasley doll, which I confess to knowing nothing about (thanks to Shari, Mara and Sherrie for bringing it to my attention and showering me with pictures), was spun off a 1966-1971 television show called 'Family Affair.' (You can read all about Mrs. Beasley, as I did, at http://www.tvtoys.com/library/Beasley/index.htm.) I stole the line about being the "son of an agnostic Jew and a lapsed Catholic" from the character of Mark Greene on 'ER.' And, the title of the piece is taken from T.S. Eliot's "Ash-Wednesday." A WORD ABOUT THE TIME FRAME: I had no time frame in mind when writing this, except that it takes place during one of those infamous "rifts" that are so often discussed but never agreed on as to when they actually took place. To that end, this story takes place at Christmastime in whatever season you believe Mulder and Scully are rifting...or, as not having taken place in any particular season at all. Additional author's notes at the end of the story. __________ "This is the time of tension between dying and birth The place of solitude where three dreams cross Between blue rocks But when the voices shaken from the yew-tree drift away Let the other yew be shaken and reply." --T.S. Eliot, "Ash-Wednesday" (1930) ______________ Once, long before I ever knew how much I had to lose, Mulder asked me what it was I missed the most. At the time, I assumed he was being facetious, the way he often was on stakeouts when I began to nod off and he was bored of murmuring to me the Shakespeare and Tennyson he had once stored in his adolescent memory. So my reply, when it came, was drowsy and indifferent, formed from the growing list of things I never would have said to Mulder while the sun was up and the I Want to Believe poster still reflected dim light from the overhead onto his unshaven face. "My Mrs. Beasley doll," I said to him between yawns, watching as he cracked another sunflower seed between white teeth and rubbed a tired hand over tired eyes. A slow smile spread across his face at my answer. "Your *what*?" "My Mrs. Beasley doll," I repeated, shifting in the car's passenger seat. "Buffy had one on *Family Affair*. I got mine when I was three. My, uh...my father brought it home for me." Something in Mulder's eyes smiled, though his mouth was still crunching hard on seeds, so I plunged on despite the absurdity of my confession. "She -- Mrs. Beasley -- she had this blue polka-dotted dress and curly blonde hair...and glasses. She looked just like my grandmother. I took her everywhere. She talked, too -- I used to...I used to let her whisper in my ear when I was mad at the rest of my family." Mulder smiled at that; he could easily picture me in his mind, then, a chubby three-year-old redhead with a fierce attachment to a grandmotherly doll. "That's what you miss most in the world, Scully?" he asked, some of the charm gone from his voice. At the time, I gave it more thought than any grown professional woman should to an inquiry about a twenty- year-old rag doll, but even then I knew when Mulder's frame of mind had changed from playfully curious to wistfully serious in the splintering of a sunflower seed. So I considered what he was saying, probably more carefully than I should have, because years later I still consider Mulder's question that night, more than anything else he's ever pondered aloud about conspiracies and aliens and even undying loyalty and trust, the most essential thing he's ever said to me. I ended up telling Mulder the truth about Mrs. Beasley, though I didn't think even his Oxford-educated analytical mind could fully comprehend the depth of a little girl's relationship with her very first doll. What I told him was that Mrs. Beasley was comfort lovingly stitched into cloth, and that when you're a little girl in a house full of rowdy brothers and a know-it-all big sister, a Mrs. Beasley doll can be the only thing that stands between you and complete alienation. And -- though this I didn't dare tell Mulder, because the guilt alone would have killed him if the embarrassment hadn't overtaken me first -- Mrs. Beasley was mine in a time when dolls could still make me feel safe in the dark, in a way that my Sig Sauer, black and sleek and cold, will never be able to do. For all his faults, that night, Mulder seemed to understand. "I think," he said slowly when I was finished, another self-incriminating childhood story fallen victim to Mulder's traditional stakeout curiosity, "I think Samantha had a Mrs. Beasley doll." He glanced at me sideways. "I don't think she ever practiced autopsies on hers, though," he said. I smiled, a drowsy nighttime smile. "Maybe, but she probably had to result to extraordinary defense measures to keep it from her nosy older brother," I said. "And I speak from experience." "Whatever happened to Mrs. Beasley?" Mulder asked after a moment of quiet, unwilling to let our conversation slip away with me into sleep. "Whatever happens to most little girls' dolls, I suppose. I've never really thought about it. She just...faded away." This time, Mulder's quiet lasted until dawn, and when I awoke to find him brushing away the last sunflower seeds from his pants, our suspect still MIA, my first instinct was to smile at him in the almost-dark. But that was weeks or months or years ago, when Mulder and I could still talk to each other about playful childhood memories on midnight stakeouts...when Mulder and I could still talk to each other at all. Christmas time is slow time for aliens and mutants, and no one knows this better than the man who spends every Christmas dredging up some excuse to come to work. Last year, when I called him at home to say merry Christmas, got no answer, and phoned the office instead, I was told -- in a voice Mulder uses only when he knows the lie he's telling me is pitifully weak -- that the heat in his apartment had broken and watching *It's a Wonderful Life* in the Hoover's basement was as good a Christmas as the son of an agnostic Jew and a lapsed Catholic deserved. This year, Mulder didn't even try to protest when I told him I was taking the day off -- just nodded in that defeated way I've gotten too accustomed to lately, as if he's afraid I'll take his head off if his attempts at holiday cheer go over the wrong way. I never imagined I'd live to see Mulder-Special Agent "I Argued My Way Into Solving Murder Cases When I Was a Trainee at Quantico" Fox Mulder -- assent without argument, accept without questioning, let my case vetoes slide without pointing out the twelve different ways he could make this one more case-cow mutilations in Wyoming, fuchsia lights over the water in Nebraska-worth my scientific while. And I *have* been snapping at Mulder more often lately, tired of the way he's always here and caffeinated when I arrive in the morning, the way the burden of proof always falls on me to disprove his latest outlandish theory. When I met Mulder, the childishly eager way he prodded at everything until it fell apart was endearing, and his enthusiasm for our work made even the most routine cases seem exciting and adventurous. And maybe I was more wholehearted then, too; field work was a challenge after Quantico, and Mulder was, too, even more so-someone I could argue with, someone so skilled at debating matters of which he knew nothing about that he made Lincoln and Douglas look pitiful in comparison. Dozens of cases later, those heated arguments have turned into limp fights. Our case histories are littered with Mulders who have alienated every law enforcement official from here to Seattle, Mulders who were so overcome by a noble sense of heroism that they went after dangerous men without backup, Mulders who stubbornly refused to listen to reason and got themselves half-killed in the process...Sometimes, I think in exasperation, Mulder seems to have aged twenty years in the time that I've known him, but he's managed not to mature at all. If Mulder and I were a married couple, we'd call this a "rut" and visit a psychologist, who would comfort us with platitudes about the need for great sex and healthy communication. But Mulder and I chase monsters, not rainbows, and Mulder wears his self-pity particularly well at Christmastime. My request for a few days off was met with a slow nod and a look that probably meant that the last great crusader wasn't about to keep his selfish quest from interfering with my gratuitous need for eggnog. At the time, I was so absorbed in completing the last of my paperwork before I took off that I barely heard Mulder mention-as casually as possible-that he was loaning himself out to the ISU for Christmas. At the time, I thought, Don't do it, Mulder, this is bad news, but I didn't say anything aloud -- how could I, when we hadn't held a decent conversation in weeks? -- as I practically flew out the door. ISU cases *were* bad news, particularly for Mulder, especially on Christmas, but the last thing Mulder needed, I told myself, was another mother, when his first one had failed him so miserably. And, I was reminded, Mulder hadn't seemed to need very much of me at all lately, least of all my compassion on top of my scientific analysis. If I had known... But I didn't know. Instead I returned to a Scully household that didn't stop for serial killers or alien mutants, that still found humor in TV sitcoms and embraced me as the baby girl with the big FBI job. Medical degree and federal badge notwithstanding, no one in the Scully family was ever going to call on me to rescue them from military bases in the dead of night or bandage a gushing head wound they insisted on referring to as "just a little scrape." Then again, I find myself thinking as the Scully world revolves around me, no one will ever need me to brew coffee after a nightmare, either, and judging from Bill's continued insistence on referring to me as "Squirt," I am certainly not my brother's one in five billion. I do my damndest not to think about Mulder -- that's what we wanted, this vacation, a break-but giving it the old college try doesn't have any effect when it comes to my partner -- Mulder, bleeding to death from a paper cut because he refused to put on a Band-Aid, Mulder, pulling a gun on the first rookie who has to shake him out of a nightmare. By the time I get through to him on Christmas Eve -- good boy, he's managed to keep the batteries on his cell phone charged -- even Mulder's raspy post-profile voice, the one I've privately labeled as Yellow Light, Proceed With Caution, sounds beautiful. "It's Scully," I say when he answers the phone. "Did I wake you?" "No," he says, in a voice that means he's trying to hide his confusion. , he's thinking. God, Mulder. Why do we let this happen to us? "I'm just surprised to hear from you," he says, his voice strained. This is the kind of awkward conversation that I thought Mulder and I, with our endless supply of disagreements and private jokes, would never have. "How's it going in the ISU, chasing bogeymen?" I ask finally. His response, in a low voice, makes me wish I hadn't taken the week off. "Not bogeymen, Scully. Monsters." "What's this case you're working on?" I ask. "You don't want to know, Scully. Not on Christmas Eve." "I'd like to be able to help you, if I can. You sound as if you need some sleep." "What I *need* is a handle on a murderer," he snapped, and then let out an explosive sigh. "I'm sorry, Scully. Look, it's...four eight-year-old girls, Caucasian, all in the Maryland and Virginia area. He rapes them, keeps them alive for a couple of days at the most, then dumps them." Eight-year-old girls, on Christmas Eve. I fight to keep from shouting at him. "What's the M.O.?" I ask, my voice neutral. "He beats them to death," Mulder answers. "But...?" "But he keeps the hands," he finishes. "Look, Scully, I know what you're thinking. Don't...There are thousands of dead eight-year-old girls in this country," he trails lamely. I try to make my voice sound firm, but I can feel my resolve slipping away, as it always does when Mulder approaches me with his sister's blood on his hands. "I want you to fax me the file." "No, Scully." "Mulder -- " "It's Christmas, for Chrissakes. Look, I'll -- " He hesitates. "Why did you take this case, Mulder?" I ask softly. "Because I can stop it," he hisses fiercely, and silence cuts a whistle through the line. "The profile's nearly done," Mulder says finally. "Scully, I....Everything's fine. Go enjoy your vacation." "Mulder. I want to help you." His words sting. "I don't need your help, Scully. Not on this." Another stab of silence, but I don't let this one linger. "I'm at my mother's," I say, "if you need to reach me." In the dark, I can almost imagine that his sigh is an apology, his answer a blessing. "All right, Scully. Merry Christmas." "Merry Christmas to you, too, Mulder," I say, missing the soft sounds of his breath in the dark. But he's already hung up. That night, I dream that Mulder hands me a 302 which consists solely of a farmer's account that his prized cows were abducted by a large hairy being on foot surrounded by an unearthly light. "Mulder," my dream-self says as we stand knee-deep in a muddy field, "this is ridiculous -- *you* are ridiculous." Dream-Mulder looks wounded. "I just wanted to find the truth," he says. "Well, I'm sick of arguing with you, Mulder," my dream self retorts, beginning to stalk off. "Can't you for once find truth in something human?" Without warning, Dream-Mulder begins to cry. My dream self gapes. "What's human can hurt us, Scully," the dream Mulder sobs, his weeping the comical melodrama of a televangelist. "The real danger lies within." My dream self opens her mouth to ask Mulder if there's anything else his Oxford psychology professor wants her to know when the furry creature we've come to investigate unzippers the front of its chest and steps out of it to reveal a man. Dream-Mulder springs into action. "Scully, run!" he commands, completely in control. But I can't run. I'm sinking, deeper and deeper into the mud. "Scully!" Mulder shouts. "Grab my hand!" His strong arms reach for me, his hand () no more than a few inches away, but I can't reach it, of course. Mulder grunts in desperation. "You have such small hands, Scully," he muses, his fingers dangling inches in front of my face. My dream self is bewildered. "Mulder," she commands. "This is no time to be thinking about my hands!" "But he keeps their hands, Scully," Dream-Mulder replies. "He keeps them because they're perfect, because they're so small and gentle. They have his mother's hands." "Mulder, please," I say as I sink deeper, but Mulder is no longer listening. "His mother hurt him with her beautiful hands," he says as I fall into the dark. "She hurt him and she healed him with her hands. "You should have told me sooner, Scully. You should have told me you could reach me with your human hands." "Dana?" I gasp into awareness. "Dana" -- my mother's voice. "You must have fallen asleep under the tree. You were dreaming," my mother says, her own hands warm on mine. "Was it a good dream?" I think of Mulder's anguished face, his hands groping despairingly at nothing. "Not really," I say. My mother nods, but doesn't press for information. "Your cellular phone is ringing," she says, nodding toward the upstairs banister. The voice on the phone begins to speak before I've even said a word in greeting. "Agent Scully, this is A.D. Skinner." Dear God. "I'm sorry to bother you so late at night on Christmas." My words tumble out in a rush. "That's all right, sir, is Mulder okay?" "Mulder's fine," Skinner says. "He's banged up, scrapes and bruises, nothing that a day of rest won't cure. The case is closed. But..." "But what, sir?" Skinner chooses his words carefully. "Mulder has been having some...difficulty...this past week. The case didn't end as we had hoped. I know you and Agent Mulder are close; I didn't think you'd want to see him...distressed...on Christmas." In the morning, I think, I will look back on this, and Skinner will seem more like an assistant director and less like the Ghost of Christmas Present. For now, though, I appreciate his suggestion. "You're right, sir," I say. "I wouldn't want that. Where are you now?" The Hoover building is completely dark by the time I arrive, but I could find my way to Skinner's office blindfolded. The A.D. is waiting for me, his hands clasped pensively together. Idly, I wonder if he has anyplace to be on Christmas, if he had plans before a child murderer with a hand fetish got in the way. "Scully," he says as he rises in greeting, in a voice that means everything that will take place here tonight is off the record. "Sir," I nod. "Where's Mulder?" "He's inside. Scully -- " Skinner stops me. "I assume you must suspect the degree to which this case affected Mulder." I avoid his gaze. "Mulder and I haven't spoken very much lately. We've...disagreed, to an extent, on what cases we should be focusing on." "That's understandable," he says. "Have there been any significant problems between you and Mulder that I should know about?" "No, sir," I respond, "has Mulder exhibited any significant behavior on this case that *I* should know about?" Skinner sighs. "Agent Scully, I first met Mulder when he was a rookie. Fresh out of the Academy. He was a kid, cocky as hell and passionate as the devil. He functioned on sheer adrenaline. I'm sure you've noticed that's...changed, in recent months." "He's not a young man anymore, sir," I say levelly. Skinner looks away. "No," he says. "None of us are. Good night, Agent Scully." "Good night, sir," I say quietly. I find Mulder in the inner office, where the lights are off and my partner lays draped across Skinner's leather couch, his hand over his eyes. "Mulder," I say. He doesn't look up. "Skinner didn't think I was okay to drive," he says. "I'm sorry he dragged you all the way down here." "Would you rather have tried to hail a cab?" I say. "Why didn't Skinner want you to drive home, Mulder?" He doesn't answer. "So tell me about this case," I say. "There isn't much to tell," he says flatly. "The fifth victim was dead by the time we got there." "Did you apprehend her killer?" "Somehow I doubt that will make her family's Christmas any merrier, Scully." He flinches as he slowly sits up. "I'm sorry, Scully, you didn't deserve that." "I think we've both been through a lot that neither of us deserve," I say. "He kept their hands, Scully," he says, staring vacantly at the wall behind me, his own hands drumming absently on a box at his feet. "He beat them to death but he kept their hands. Because his mother -- " "Because his mother abused him but tended to his wounds with the same hands?" I finish. Mulder stares at me. "How did you..." I shake my head. "Not...not tonight, Mulder." We sit in near-silence. "Why have you been choosing obviously ridiculous cases for us to investigate?" I say finally. Mulder looks at me in surprise. "I don't...You think they're ridiculous?" "Mulder, you have more investigative talent than most of the Bureau's agents combined. Why would you want to waste it chasing after swamp gas in Mississippi?" Mulder looks down at this and studies his hands. "Compared to the work I've done this week, swamp gas feels safer," he says in a low voice. "I didn't know you minded." "I mind when my intelligence is being insulted by deluded farmers," I say. "Mulder, if I had wanted to be kept safe from monsters, I would have never joined the FBI." "But aliens aren't exactly the monsters you thought you'd be fighting," he says flatly. "Tell me, Mulder, do you get into this line of self-pity very often, or only on Christmas?" "It was their hands," he says softly. "I kept thinking that I could be reaching out for you and killing you with the same hands." "Mulder," I say. "I've put my life in your hands because I choose to. And any monster that I encounter, human or otherwise, I can fight with my own hands." I think, Mulder looks away, off into the dark. I follow his gaze to the far walls, to the box at his feet. "What's in the box, Mulder?" I say. His response is a low murmur. "A Mrs. Beasley doll." I stare at him. "What?" "I, uh...I called your mother," he says, stumbling over the words. "She...she's kept it in her attic all along." His voice drops. "I didn't know any other way how, I just...I wanted to give you back something you missed." The room is still. "Mulder," I say softly in the darkened silence, "what is it you miss the most?" A sound cuts deep in his throat, like a sob. "You," he says. He turns away, his hands pulling from mine, and the salty warmth of his cheek stings my hands like blood in the dark. ________________ END ________________ ADDITIONAL AUTHOR'S NOTES Ah, the continual cry of an average-quality fanfic writer: What might have been. I have been attempting for years to write a Mulder-and- Scully-do-Christmas story, always without any success, and this-while not in time for Christmas itself, unfortunately, unless you're Eastern Orthodox-is the very final fruit of my labors. It doesn't quite jive with the What This Fic Should *Really* Read Like file in my head, in which this story is a 300K case file filled with separation angst (I very nearly sent Mulder to Seattle), missing-sister angst (I was this close to selling my soul to The Samantha Cliche), the motives of a madman (those eight-year-old hands play a much larger role in my head), and, of course, a lengthy Mulder-hospital-stay. If anyone would like to go ahead and write this brilliant, Mulder-torture-filled, angsty fic, I'd be delighted to read it. My specialty in fan fiction has long been post-episode fic, and one of the many difficulties I encountered in writing this story was creating a rift where seemingly none already existed for me. I can only hope I succeeded without becoming too melodramatic. As for Mrs. Beasley...When I asked my dear online friends, the Primal Screamers, to provide me with the names of some dolls that Scully might have owned as a child, I was deluged with a flood of e-mail about Mrs. Beasley, Baby Tender Love and Tiny Tears. In the process, I got to hear a lot of warm memories. I also got to hear that a Mrs. Beasley in mint condition today goes for about $400, so start checking those attics, folks! Well, I hope I've done my job. Any feedback at all is dearly savored: Racheieio@aol.com