TITLE: Chronicle of a Life Foretold
AUTHOR: Sabine (emilyss@mindspring.com)
ARCHIVE: Gossamer, Xemplary, Spookys okay. Everybody else okay too. Tell, 
don't ask.
CATEGORY: V, MulderAngst, "Sixth Extinction" Challenge
RATING: PG-13
SUMMARY: Mulder's thoughts as he reads Scully's mind, combined with 
thoughts on the rumors of the Messianic arc. Warning: this is *not* a nice, 
shippy piece. Sorry.
DISCLAIMER: Consider it disclaimed.

For Aurora, who beat me to it, and for JZJenn who said "Joe Christmas" but 
I couldn't make it work.

        Chronicle of a Life Foretold

John Cotton in "Bless the Beasts and Children" had the right initials and I 
wish I had something to read. John Cotton led a band of misfits to the ends 
of the earth, freed the bison and drove his car off a cliff; he was 
finished, he was done, the world had stopped listening and wouldn't listen 
and slapped the gavel down, no more thoughts screaming, streaming, shut the 
fuck up, shut the fuck up, you are too much for us, you who has fallen to 
join us and has shown us our faults, our insignificances, our lost in this 
place as idiots filling up space. Distract me distract me distract me 
distract me distract me distract me.

Hey, isn't there a game show on, somewhere? Who wants to be a millionaire? 
Come on, fools, you know you want it, money can't buy me love, buy me a 
car, buy me a house, buy me a Palm Pilot, an iMac, a Nokia wireless phone - 
it could be my only phone! Maybe she's born with it; maybe it's Maybelline. 
I want to be a millionaire; I want to come home to Joy, I want to work with 
Kathie Lee Gifford, I want to make Christmas Albums, chestnuts roasting, 
joy to the world, the Lord is come. Distract me distract me distract me, 
remind me of the simple pleasures of basketball rubber against parquet 
wood, remind me of coffee, of blueberry Bubbilicious that was discontinued 
in about 1990 but I can still taste it, still smell it when I close my eyes 
and picture the train station in Boston, early steam rising from the 
tracks, pink and pink ceramic nametags and figurines in gift shops, "I love 
you, Mother," "Bless this house," "Sometimes I wake up grouchy; other times 
I let him sleep." Let him in, let Regis in, turn him on, turn me on, I may 
be mute and silent but inside here it's locker room after a winning game, 
it's Guadalcanal, it's Omaha Beach, it's Matthew Broderick in "War Games," 
I didn't mean it, I didn't want it, let me out let me out let me out!

Joy to the world, the Lord is come. And as rapidly, he is losing his mind.

She's here.

Somewhere there's a plane touching down and I can hear her, I can smell her 
sweat, too many nights awake without showering she's running, a man smiles 
at her as she speeds by and she shoots him a nasty look, she's busy, and I 
want to shout out to her hey! Stop! Hey! These are your last moments, your 
precious few, smile back, smile back, smile back. But she can't hear me and 
she's running for her life, like it's her life she's running for, like this 
has nothing to do with the world hanging delicately off fraying dental 
floss, strong enough for a man, but pH balanced for a woman she's running, 
she can't hear the sound of her feet as they pound the linoleum of the 
airport, the distant echo of announcements being made, people blissful, a 
child takes her father's hand and blinks up at him "I'm scared, daddy. I 
love you," and he picks her up, folds her into his arms and slips through 
the metal detector and a black woman with blonde hair smiles and gives him 
back his keys, "you have a nice trip, now" and they disappear down the 
concourse and she turns and presses her face to his neck, not wanting him 
to know she's started sucking her thumb again.

She's here.

And with this gift I've been given, with everything I've come to know now 
that I never asked for, I never asked for, damn it! And with this insight I 
have across worlds, for they are, indeed, worlds within worlds, world 
without end, ending, one after another, in syncopated time, with this 
instinct I can't do the one damned thing I want to do, I need to do, as 
simple as calling out "who wants to be a millionaire?" to her, to everyone 
around me, world without end; I can't open my mouth.

Time doesn't work that way, and from somewhere I can hear her saying "not 
everything is about you, Mulder; this is my life," but she's lying, and 
from somewhere I can hear her saying "I love you" and I want to believe, 
but she's lying then, now, too. I want to believe, I wanted to believe, I 
wanted the truth but not like this, damn it, not like this. Fucking 
bastards I don't even know who I'm angry with but why the fuck did you 
listen to me? Why the fuck did you give me this? I don't want to know these 
truths, I don't want to be responsible for the day I get out of this 
hospital and can't find that childlike fascination about the power locks on 
the rental car, about the waitress who winks at me and flicks free cinnamon 
on my cappucino, about that first real day of spring when the ground is 
still crunchy underfoot and the new leaves are that impossible green of 
frozen peas, of Gatorade, something so perfect it can't be real. I remember 
myself ugly, smiling to myself at the Playboy channel as I'm drifting off 
to sleep, the ugly-selfish smile of a man who thinks satisfaction comes 
with a thirty second orgasm and the rest of a warm beer and another perfect 
night, alone, no one to answer to, no one to be responsible for, no one to 
hurt. It's over, it's over, it's over.

Time doesn't work that way and she's here.

Her hair pulled back from her face she is beautiful, she is 
simple-beautiful, she smacks me on the ass with a rolled up towel, come on, 
Fox, batter up.

And she's speaking to me now, wasting breath talking aloud because I can 
hear her, and she knows I can hear her, "I know you can hear me," 
apologizing for ever doubting me, asking me to hold on, to hold on for what 
she's learned, for what she wants me to walk through with her.

Fucking idiot bitch thinks the secrets of the universe were written with 
chalk in the rain. Fucking idiot blissfully ignorant bitch, she's left me, 
she's abandoned me to do this alone, she's playing melodrama, pretending 
she's got it, by George she's got it, pretending there's anything worth 
knowing that can be understood with a golf pencil and a Navajo-to-English 
lexicon. Who wants to be a millionaire, Scully? You should enter to win, 
it's the million dollar question you're asking, the million dollar question 
you'll answer, with your years of science-knowledge and education that I've 
come to lean on, come to trust, come to love.

Would you hate me if I told you I was right the first time? That there is 
nothing worth knowing that can be taught; there is nothing worth believing 
that can be understood in words except this: I love you, Scully.  Like 
Samantha before you you depended on me, you challenged me like a brat and 
you showed me that shimmer of really being alive that comes with forgetting 
yourself in the face of another person. For years I've forgotten myself and 
worried only about you, about protecting that fragile origami structure of 
flesh and bone, gene and genetics, folded fluttering in my arms, smiling up 
at me, "Mulder, it's me."

Please stop talking, damn it, please stop crying, Scully! There's a world 
out there for you with the wind blowing through it and when the spark 
ignites it won't leave ash when it burns away. Please stop talking, Scully, 
please let go of my hand and get out there, leave me to this stuck and 
alone and find something beautiful, find something perfect where you can 
still see it, see yourself in a puddle of rain as you pass by and brush a 
hair from your eyes, feel the amazing power of the human animal as the tiny 
muscles in your arm flex and extend as you push the door open, feel the 
shockwave of vibration against bone as the door shuts behind you, go home. 
Shake your hand out, when it's asleep. Drink a beer, drink ten. Watch the 
TV on mute with captions on; read out loud to yourself. Take the phone off 
the hook. Fill a bubble bath. Get a paper cut. Eat McDonalds. Remember the 
kid's table at Thanksgiving, you and Melissa plotting the hostile takeover 
of your grandparents' house, hiding clues for your cousins to find, playing 
games in the dark and hiding so the adults with their drinks clinking in 
the livingroom, the smell of old-lady perfume won't bother you and you 
think you're so smart, you've outwitted them, and it's only later you learn 
that your dad knew all along and had said to your mother, let them stay up 
a little while longer, it's a holiday.

Get out of here, Scully. Get out of here, now. My god, Jesus Christ, I've 
got no one left to implore to, now, but come on, Scully, get out of here. I 
love you so much my chest hurts and I'm watching you there with tears in 
your eyes and you're asking me to hold on like it's really up to you, like 
you have some control over it, like me holding on could have anything to do 
with you, so small and perfect here in this origami world fluttering away.

It's over, Scully. I've got the wrong initials but it's calling me anyway, 
F.M. like an FM radio calling me across wires of letters of implants of 
information of information of information. I wanted to believe.

Yes, yes, I hear you, I hear you choking back fear in the face of strength, 
false strength, for me, through your tears, but I swear I don't need you, I 
can't use you, I can't take you with me, where I'm going. Yes, yes, I know 
you see us together and you want us together and for six years we were 
together and we will always be together because time doesn't work that way, 
but I can't take you with me, where I'm going, and I don't want you to try 
and follow.

I love you, Scully. Dana Katherine Scully, daughter of Margaret, daughter 
of Bill. I love you for generations, life begets life, world without end.

I'm tired, now. Apostles, later, will betray me; with the best intentions, 
you will deny my name. I don't blame you for it; I forgive you, I forgive 
them all.

I'm shutting you out, now; I'm shutting out the tired stream of necessity, 
your lonely, perfect, ignorant professions of profundity, what you've 
found, what we've found together. The one gift left to me is sleep, and I'm 
unwrapping it, curling up inside it, now.

I feel your hand in mine; you know I do. And if ever we met on a plane of 
the minds where we were untouchable, hear me in this abyss. I love you. 
Save yourself. Say goodbye.

THE END