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Rated: PG
Category: Angst, Story.
Spoilers: Up to Season 6.
Feedback: patfiler2016@outlook.com
J. EDGAR HOOVER BUILDING
WASHINGTON, DC
OFFICE OF THE X-FILES
Scully opened the file cabinet and as she was leafing through
the folders searching for the Benetto case, the thought that so
many people's lives had been mysteriously interrupted, even
taken, by strange people, oddities of nature, perhaps even aliens
made her shudder. She turned to see her partner searching his
computer for a lost casenote and wondered aloud, "How many
people do you think have been POSITIVELY affected by the
things we've seen?"
"Positively affected?" he grinned. "Well, that's something I've
never heard coming from you, Scully. You're usually the one
who's skeptical about all of this."
She found the file she was looking for and closed the drawer. "Oh,
I am, Mulder, I am. That will probably be so for the rest of my time
down here. But I was curious: if there's a negative to something,
is there not a positive somewhere to balance things somewhere
in this universe?"
"I suppose so. I mean, cause and effect, pluses and minuses in
math working out to a perfect zero when theorems are proven in
solving equations. Why, Scully?"
She then pulled up a chair to his desk. "Well, there seem to have
been a lot of lives shattered in all we've dealt with these past few
years, and many more in those files over there. It really seems
like there's been so much tragedy caused by chance mutations,
mentally ill suspects, psychically inclined villians, aliens,
hallucinogenic fungi. This seems to me a really sad commentary
on our lives as FBI Agents, Mulder. I mean, what ever happened
to putting the bad guys away, knowing the streets were once again
safe, and going home to nothing worse than a burned out lightbulb
or expiry dates on milk cartons?"
"Milk has a best before date?" By this time, Mulder was tapping his
pencil on the desk. "Hmm... Well... There were some good things
that came out of our investigations, Scully."
"Please, Mulder, refresh my memory. Lately, all it's been are serial
killers, shapeshifting bounty-hunters, and bizarre basement meetings
with shady characters offering questionnable tips."
"So, you remember one of our first cases, Scully? The one where the
dead business partner eventually revealed the financial indiscretions
of one Robert Dorland?"
"Oh, only after a lot of weird things like an invisible man defending
Lauren Kyte at the ATM machine, throwing things around, turning car
lights on and scaring the crap out of everybody he ever knew."
"Yeah, Scully. But he revealed his killer and showed us the evidence
we needed to prove there was a murder AND a fraud committed. And
he protected that woman like she was his own child."
"Well, yes, she's alive and doing well. And yes, the killer was revealed,
and we probably would have heard about it without all the phenomena
occurring, someday. Yes, there were three positives there. That was
luck. Everything eventually comes out into the open, though."
"All right. What about Sally Kendrick, the result of a cloning experiment
to create superhuman Adams and Eves gone awry? Can you tell me the
families of the two little girls... "
"Cindy Reardon and Teena Simmons... Okay, maybe they weren't your
average in-vitro girls... "
"Mulder, they were little MONSTERS! Killing their Dads, poisoning my
soft drink, inherently psychic yet inherently psychotic. What good came
of that case?"
"We know about it, Scully. And, we know this was likely to prepare us to
find out just how far this type of thing was headed, what the Government
and the Consortium were up to." He figured he'd won and that Scully would
go back to her reading. The smile was quickly wiped off of his face.
"That Fluke you were chasing around the sewage plant, Remember him?"
"He made a splash."
"Yeah, Mulder. Biting potential hosts and using them to harbor its young. And
you, up to your neck in sewage..."
"Well, if it's any comfort, Scully, that was likely a freak occurance, and it did
give me a better appreciation for our ecosystem after you gave me a long-
winded speech about the things man is doing to the environment." He had
that *gotcha* look in his eyes again, along with a smug smirk.
Scully was not one to be easily defeated, and was certainly not going to quit
this debate. "Eugene Victor Tooms, Mulder. Remember Old Yellow Eyes? A
liver eating, mutant, bile secreting creature. You nearly died going after him
under the escalator."
"Well, he was still human, Scully. Not your typical human, but all the same,
we could have learned something from him, and as a scientist you should
know that."
"Mulder, he didn't bring any good to anyone back then! HE killed his own
doctor! For a liver!" She had the *I don't believe this* look on her face.
"Well, I did learn what's underneath an escalator... " He grimmaced.
Even Mulder knew he was grasping at straws. "Remember that case back in
1993? A Dr. Saul Grissom's murder gave way to our discovery that several
Vietnam War soldiers had been sleep-deprived in order to make them the
perfect killing machines. They hadn't slept in 24 years because of his
technique."
"Yes, and one 'Preacher' Cole figured he had to go around killing Grissom and
his fellow members of his company... There were a lot of deaths, Mulder."
"Yes, but you and I learned a lot about the doctor's methods, AND the lengths
our government went to in conditioning those men who had no desire to be
there in the first place. Both of us gained knowledge and some day, when
there is another call for an inquiry into the methods the government used,
our files will be used to prove what had happened."
Scully still had that straight-faced, *you can't win this one* look in her face. "I
still think there's been more pain and sorrow than gain, Mulder. And it's a sad
commentary on what we do here. Especially here. This department. Tell me
one good thing that came out of our little venture into the Norwegian Sea?"
"Well," Mulder said with a cocky smile, "We did grow old together. Something
we may not really do again."
"Mulder, we were exposed to harmful elements, and we still don't know what
damage it caused to our bodies."
"We found out what happened to the U.S.S. Ardent. Scully, we lived through the
same phenomena that the scientists were researching after the U.F.O. crashed
in Roswell. Who knows what else the world would have been made aware of
had everyone not aged so rapidly out there. You kept a running journal of all that
transpired. Doesn't the scientist in you say you had a unique glimpse into things
others have only dreamed of experiencing?"
"Mulder, you're crazy. We were on and off of the radar, and found damn near
dead. We could well have died, Mulder. Which reminds me of the time you went
out into the desert after your father was killed, once again putting yourself into
mortal danger chasing down a lead on the Anasazi writings. I don't even believe
I fell into the trap of having them analyzed for you. But I did."
"And today we know a lot more, and we know why my father was killed. We're
not in the dark anymore, Scully." Well, he thought that maybe this would set her
straight.
"And you were once again in deep trouble with the FBI."
"That's because they didn't want us to know the truth, may I remind you. And that
box car in New Mexico had a lot of truth in it."
"Is the truth worth dying for, Mulder?"
"I didn't die. Albert Hosteen saved me."
"What if he hadn't Mulder? What if you had died? Don't you think anyone would
have missed you? Your mother, me, your friends..."
"Then you would have all died afterwards." he countered.
"What I did was basically what the ancient text said I would do. That was my
destiny."
"Yes, and now you're like an old car wreck: your parts will all fall off someday,
mark my words."
"We'll see. I think Marty was very helpful to us when we investigated her murder
charges. She was pointing to her mother's killer. That says something." Mulder
crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. "I love being right."
"Because we were getting too close to the truth, Mulder, I lost my sister, was
abducted, experimented on and had cancer. The only reason I stick with you on
these things is to see if any of this will bring about something good. I became a
doctor to help people. To do something good that would make a difference."
"I think you have, Scully. Many, many times, you've... " he was shouting with
frustration. "You've discovered truths that no one else could have, but you still
deny it exists. How?"
"Mulder, calm down. I happen to believe there's a plausible explanation for all
that was going on, all that we've found."
He quickly calmed himself. "There is. You just still don't want to believe it."
"All I know is, Mulder, our lives have been turned upside down because we've
gone places we weren't supposed to have been. It's like what happens when
a clay pot shatters on the patio. Shards all over the place. And I believe that,
in essence, that's where we're headed, Mulder. Our lives nothing more than
shards of clay on the patio. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get home and
it's late."
"See you tomorrow, Scully. But, you know, there is one good thing out of all
the dangers and secrets we've faced."
"Yeah? What's that?"
"We've become good friends."
"Well, that's something," she conceded. "Good night."
As the door closed behind Scully, Mulder sat back and thought over all they'd
discussed. "Maybe you're right in many ways, Scully."
END
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