Suspension of Belief 3: Catharsis
by Barbara Barnett
(Barbara462@aol.com)

Rating: PG-13; VSA (ok, a bit-o-romance, CC style)
Spoilers: Seasons 1-5
Summary: A Red and the Black post-ep story.
A continuation of my Series:Suspension of Disbelief.
Disclaimer: Not mine, no profit. Nuff said.
=====================================
"What happened?" A velvet whisper, urgent, full of feeling. It was all it
took to undo him completely. The fragile threads that had held him together
for the last several months came unbound, and in a final attempt to keep some
sense of himself together he covered his face to hide his eyes from her.

"I don't know."

The panic was clearly written on her face. She was beyond concern for
propriety's sake in the presence of the military police that had taken them
into custody. She had to let him know she was there for him; as he had been
for her. Always.

Her touch was a gentle feather. A caress along his index finger, urging it
away from his brow and into her waiting hand. Slowly his hand moved from his
brow. She noticed it was trembling slightly, and cold. His fingers curled
around hers, holding on to a lifeline. His eyes, which had been blankly
staring ahead, looking inward, now sought hers. His eyes were terrified and
sad, struggling not to unleash tears of frustration, of sorrow. He then
looked away again, staring ahead.

With a sigh, Scully continued to gaze at his profile. Something had happened
in the truck. He would tell her. In time.

They were driven back to their car, and after a checking of credentials, they
were released. Mulder silently handed her the keys to his car. And in
silence they drove. Mulder stared ahead, his lower lip drawn in. Scully
feared that he was withdrawing into himself as the silence deepened.

"Mulder?" No response, not even an acknowledgment that he had heard her.
They reached his building in Alexandria. Scully pulled into his space,
looking at him with fear and concern. She reached for his hand, gently
removing it from the seat between them. His fingers had curled into a tight
fist. She held his hand in both of her own, stroking it, willing
it...him...to relax. Oh, God, she thought, what had happened in that truck.

Suddenly he looked at her, his eyes glistening. He laughed ruefully. "What a
piece of work is Fox Mulder. He lives in a world of tenuous reality, not
knowing what is and what isn't. Doesn't that make me mentally ill? Fox
Mulder, Ph.D. from Oxford U, psychologist, criminal profiler par excellence: a
deluded wreck of a man, retreating from the remnants of a life not well lived.
I just don't know anymore, Scully. Am I insane?" A deep sigh, shakily
exhaled.

"Mulder, let's go inside. C'mon, we'll talk there, OK?" Her voice, unusually
soft, tender. She was frightened.

Mulder continued, not making a move for the car door. "Why do you do it,
Scully? How could you...why would you have followed me...why do you care?
I've done nothing to you but cause pain...I..."

It was an impulse fed by the emotion of the moment. She knew she was
responsible in a way for Mulder's current state of mind. Her constant
challenges, her unflinching rationalism, her so often calling his ideas
insane. And then. Oh, God. And then there was Kritschgau. She believed
him. She was so ready to latch onto his dismissal of everything Mulder
believed as a lie. It was she who insisted that Kritschgau was right; that by
default, Mulder was wrong. Had lived a lie. Within a moment she had shaken
the underpinnings of everything that was Mulder. She knew what she was doing.
Knew so well. A moment of arrogance, of frustration. Angry at her own
impending death. She plunged the dagger to the hilt--a direct blow right to
the heart. How could he not have collapsed right then? How could he have
remained strong for even this long after?

Now she was cured. Cured through the essence of Mulder's tenacity, his
refusal to give up. And now she understood; had the evidence. Mulder was
right after all. But she had already struck the blow, and Mulder continued to
hemmorage; a slow bleeding out of soul. She had destroyed his faith. And it
was all he had.

She looked down at their hands. Somehow, of their own volition, their fingers
had intertwined. She gripped him tighter, leaning into him.

"Mulder, I am so sorry. Have I done this to you?" For the first time since
they'd gotten into the car, Mulder turned to her, catching her eyes with his
own. Scully could almost not bear to peer so deeply into his ravaged soul.

"You?" His voice a thick, hoarse whisper. "No, Scully, not you. Never..."
His brow furrowed deeply and again he turned away from her.

With her left hand, she drew Mulder's face back toward her, her gaze intense,
eyes moist. "Mulder, I need you. Please don't do this. Don't withdraw from
me...I..." Her eyes beseeching, inches from his. He closed his eyes against
the turmoil churning within. Scully drew his head closer to her own, leaning
into him. She kissed a closed eyelid. A delicate caress. Mulder's eyes flew
open in surprise.

It had been impulse, fed by a need to tell him in more than words, how much he
meant to her. It had surprised her as much as it had him. His arms flew
around her shoulders, holding her fiercely. He drew a breath, a sob, looking
toward the sky before again closing his eyes. And they wept. In each other's
presence. Nearly five years of grief, pain, anger and frustration. Triggered
by a caressing kiss; fused by shared sorrow; by a trust that transcended
everything. They stayed that way awhile, weeping, holding on to each other;
revealing to each other the grief that had been too long in finding
expression.

The world stopped around them in the sanctuary of a mid-sized Ford.
Wordlessly, eventually, they emerged, each from their side, only to seek out
the shelter of each other as they walked the steps up to Mulder's building.
Mulder remembered being thankful for the cover of dark that concealed the
extent of emotional nakedness from each other and passersby.

In his apartment, Mulder began to pace around the room, his eyes eventually
coming to rest on his microcassette recorder. The memory of three nights
past coming back into horrifying focus.

"Mulder, come sit." Scully patted the couch and extended her hand toward him.
He nodded and moved wraithlike to sit beside her. A long moment passed and
Mulder finally spoke.

"When you were in the hospital, you asked me if it was what I really wanted:
to disprove my beliefs. To prove that I was wrong all these years. You
followed me, despite your doubts, for most of the time we've been together as
partners. And now at a time when you're ready to believe, I found I could no
longer do so. You had made me see that what I had believed in was a fraud,
and that in believing it, it made me just as much of a fraud--a dangerous
fraud. I no longer could know what to believe. I...we...have seen so much
that defies scientific explanation. Much more than the grey alien
bodies...those chimera-created beings found in the ice cave. Those creatures
I now know to be a hoax. But it's like I've lost my way, fallen off a path
that I was once certain of; one that was well marked.

"I know the memory of my sister's abduction is false. That is was somehow
implanted. You see, Scully, I've met my sister. She wasn't abducted by
aliens. She was abducted by people in our government. Raised as a daughter
by..." Even now he couldn't say it without his voice wavering. "...By the
cigarette smoking man. All done with complicity of my mother. Or my
father...or both. I have to wonder how much *they* had to do with these vivid
memories of mine."

Scully gazed at Mulder in horror. My God, she thought, when did this happen?
How long has he been keeping this information inside? Scully started to
speak, but Mulder put a hand up, silencing her. "Let me finish this,Scully,
while I can. There's more. Much more. Everything that's happened these last
months. Your cancer, the duplicity. The knowledge that everything I've known
my whole life might be just a staged play...My sister..."

"I was so sure Scully that when I took you to Werber and you recounted your
'experience' at the dam in Pennsylvania, that it would parallel my own. That
it would prove that *your* memory was also implanted. But you believed. And
again I had failed you. And again we were on opposite sides of the issue.
Destined thus, so it seemed to me at the time. But then in the truck at the
Air force base, it became clear. Clearer, anyway." His eyes no longer held
agitation. He seemed calmer at last. Scully sighed, relief overtaking her.
He was going to tell her about the truck at last.

"I saw them, Scully. The faceless men. The one's with the fire sticks. And
then it became clear. It was them that I saw in my memory of my sister's
abduction. Not some little grey alien with big eyes. The light, the shaking,
everything. In the bright light, the faceless man appeared and then I saw it
for the first time. A memory flashed back to me of its own accord. Not under
hypnosis; not under the influence of a drug. It was clear and it was vivid.
And it stunned me to the core. Scully, I feel as though I've been on a roller
coaster. One that can't stop. Facts and images bombard me lately with such
speed, I can't seem to tell anymore what to believe. Only that the *only*
thing I've been able to be certain of, to believe in, is you. " Mulder's eyes
settled on Scully's. Her eyes widened, searching his. His hands, still
trembling, reached out and took her face in his large hands. Scully's eyes
closed involuntarily at the warmth and tenderness of the sensation. "Scully.
I only know I need you to help me find my way back. I know it's a lot to ask
of you..."

Scully opened her eyes, looking directly into his. "No, Mulder, it's not.
Mulder, I disbelieved you for four years. I ignored evidence, facts.
Dismissed you out of hand. I was no better, in my own way, than the envious
idiots that call you "Spooky" behind your back. You wanted entrance to my
soul, to my heart and time and again I denied it to you. You have been there
for me every step. I would knock you down and you'd get up, relentlessly
being my support, even if I didn't know I craved it, needed it. I owe you
alot, Mulder. Not the least of which is for opening my eyes, making me a
better and more curious scientist. For testing my faith in prevailing
paradigms and conventional wisdom. No, Mulder, it's not alot to ask. And you
don't even have to ask it."

His face was close to hers now. She could feel the warmth of his breath. To
Scully, they seemed frozen in place as every nerve ending tingled with the
sensation of Mulder hands cradling her face. She raised her own hands to
cover his as she sought within his eyes the answer to an, as yet, unspoken
question. And in his eyes she found it. And in a moment of absolute clarity,
she removed one of his hands from her cheek, bringing it to her lips. She
kissed his open palm gently, non-threateningly, lovingly. Now it was his eyes
that closed to savor the sensation. His hand moved to the back of her neck
seeming slow motion. Touching his lips to hers, he inhaled, eyes closed,
surrounded by an indescribable sweetness. The moment over, he brought her
head to the hollow of his neck in a warm embrace. There was much more to
say.

They were home at last.

fin