Never's Game
by Trillian
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Dedication:  This one's for President Rachel, if she'll have it, for
forcing me to watch One Breath.  Thanks for the inspiration.
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I awake to the first light of dawn seeping through my window.  I swing my
legs off the couch, stretch, and wonder where Scully is.

Halfway to the bathroom I stop short, realizing what I just asked myself. 
I fight the urge to call her and push the thought from my mind.  The
unbidden question remains forgotten as I go about my morning routine.

I see the gleam halfway down the corridor, and begin to walk faster.  My
heart begins to roar, and soon I am sprinting.  I am on my knees at the
door before I realize it is ajar.  But I can't look away from the sparkling
metal in front of me.  The light reflecting from it sears my eyes, and I
welcome the burn.  I wish I am a vampire, that the light might kill me.

From this moment forth, I will never close my eyes without seeing lines of
gold, weaving among each other to the horizon and beyond.  I will never
take a breath that does not feel like the tearing of a chain.

Scully's cross.

And I know that this time she will not be returned.

*   *   *   *   *
Her mother's voice cycles endlessly through my mind.  "When you find her,
you give it to her."  But this is madness.  Margaret Scully has been dead
for nearly a year.

Another time, another life, another Dana ago...a time when I was learning
the rules.  A time when love and fate were on my side, however briefly. 
Scully was returned, and I believed that I could no longer be touched.

But I soon forgot.  And she became, as before, a blessing taken for
granted.  But somehow, miraculously, the luck remained.  I didn't lose her
to the cancer.  I began to tempt fate.  I was cruel in my game with the gods.

She was so very strong, but I saw the pain beyond her eyes.  The hurt
began to build, and still she stayed.

Still she stayed.

All that remains now is a most fragile cross.  A gold chain I have
clenched so often that the palm of my hand bears a permanent imprint.

And I hate what I've become.
*   *   *   *   *

It was tidy.  One neat, clean, sweep.  One day.  My life was destroyed.  I
knew, in a part of me deeper than I had ever dared know before, that I
would never see her again.  And so I simply shut down.  I never grieved.  I
never felt again.  I neatly divided myself in two, taking my logic and my
rationality and leaving another Mulder forever on his knees in a deserted hall.

I became a player.

It was easier than I expected.  After a year, I succeeded Skinner as
Assistant Director.  I began to deal exclusively in shadows.

I learned about the Project.

I became the Project.

I discovered the truth, and could do nothing with it.  I realized the
ultimate futility of my quest.  I could not go public with my information.

When I ran out of truth to find, I created truth.  I fabricated lies and
truths so real that I can no longer distinguish my fact from my fiction.

I alone am left alive to know the truth.  The knowledge grows each day,
and I am afraid to rest, afraid it will swoop down and crush me in my
sleep.  I dream of eagles diving for my eyes, and a cry of a woman I dare
not name.

I died the day they took her.  I understand the life of a cancer man.  It
is not a life at all.

It is a waking death.

An equal horror.

And I continue on the one hope that someday I may be forgiven.

Tonight I dream of an endless hallway, doors reaching infinitely.  Locked.
 It is not an unfamiliar dream.

But tonight, a door opens in front of me.  From the shadows emerges a
shape, so faint I can barely distinguish.

I know the shape.  It has haunted me as long as I remember.

And suddenly I see a flash of red.  And I am on my knees, sobbing.  I
reach out to her with trembling fingers.

"I was holding this for you."

Q.E.D.