SYMPATHETIC VIBRATION by Blackwood entreamis@yahoo.com RATING: G CATEGORY: MSR, Angst, Post-ep "Sixth Extinction" SPOILERS: The Sixth Extinction, Biogenesis, Redux II, Memento Mori ARCHIVE: With intact header and a note to me. SUMMARY: Scully "speaks" her heart. DISCLAIMER: Consider this a benevolent offering to The X-File god, Chris Carter. No infringement intended, only homage. ~*~*~*~ It is only now, only here, that I can still the frantic beating of my heart. Twenty-two hours and thousands of miles spent traveling with but one thought in mind: you. Outside this room, I am adept in persuading the staff to grant me entry. Inside, I can no longer suppress the tears that threaten my composure and my authority; tears, which if your gift is real, you know to be my own, seeing into the heart of the one who weeps. It seems an eternity since the morning we first considered the rubbing that has led us down this otherworldly path. The voyage we began so long ago is at an end, though its conclusion is yet to unfold. Of that I am certain. Yet, even more certain is the fact that we are embarking on a new journey, the magnitude of which I can not begin to imagine. Standing beside you, watching your body weaken even as your mind gathers power, I am humble as a penitent to her confessor. Forgive me, Mulder, for I have sinned. I disbelieved. Even with the evidence staggering in its force, my mind recoils from the "truths" I have been shown. It is too much and still not enough. As ever, I sought the lesson to be learned, to integrate the unknown into the known and thereby possess it, consuming its power over me. What I discovered on my African sojourn, Mulder, beyond sobering possibilities with global implications, is an even more radical and intimate fact: I am no longer self-sustaining. I thought I was autonomous, confident in my self-sufficiency. I was convinced I could manage for the both of us; that I had the strength, the resources and the will to protect the work, your work--our work, alone. My solo flight as a true believer spiraled into disaster at a frightening pace. Merkmallen, Sandoz, Barnes: all dead and you lie helpless to act, a victim of the same obsession that seems to claim everyone who comes into contact with the obscure symbols whose significance threaten the foundations of the earth. I went to Africa for answers. I return with more questions; questions I am incapable of answering without you. I can no longer rely on the tenets I have held sacred to guide me. My persona, once steadfast, is buffeted by winds that herald the impending storm and through it all, the only mooring I have is you. I stare at the alien craft and see it through your eyes. I hear the wonder of your voice as Animah relates the latest translation. I feel the thrill of extreme possibility, knowing that I have come to this point, so far from where I began, because you have eased the way that I might walk beside you. And I realize, beyond all doubt, it is where I belong. My denial vanished with my pride as I stood, transfixed, on the white sands of the Ivory Coast. My protests, my explanations, my words of scientific rationale were silenced in the sound of surf pounding the shore and the carapace of that which can not exist, yet does. That this cursed state should afflict you now is no more comprehensible than the cancer which was given me and which lies dormant in my body, a mute invader held in check by a technology whose origins must now, perforce, be suspect. You told me, once, that the truth was in me. Now, Mulder, it is in you, in the lonely pilgrimage of your mind. Our work is not yet finished, but I can not do it alone and I can not leave it behind. I won't. So I stand here, pleading with you to return, to finish what was begun. The greatest irony of all is that I find my most fervent wish to be that you can, somehow, hear my thoughts and know the truth that is me. That is us. That beneath the arguments and superficial differences, we are really the same, like sympathetic vibrations from an errant chord. You are my partner, my dearest friend, my only love. I hope you know that it never mattered that I lost my chance at rising in the ranks when I entered your world. You became my world. END November 1999