Chapter Seven

THE RETRIEVAL FROM THE VORTEX

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MULDER’S FATHER AND HIS CONFESSIONS

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Scully stood on the metal platform which was suspended from the wall of the cavernous lower section of the spaceship.  The floor of this section ballooned out into the concavity which formed the bottom of the ship itself.  Here the floor, like the rest of the exterior of the ship, was made from real Kakelle flesh, it’s intestines to be precise.  In the case of the Kakelle intestines this flesh was, by some strange fluke of nature on the aliens homeworld, transparent when viewed from one side.  Outside the ship was the same metallic blue-green-grey as the rest of the structure but inside, when standing on the metal platforms, it seemed as if you were floating in space.  The platform ran all the way around the highest point on the interior of the cavern-like area and extended into a bridge which spanned the void to create a quick crossing point to the other side of the circular platform.  Beyond the bridge and the Kakelle flesh wall, the globe of the Planet Earth shone blue-white in the inky darkness of space.  The stars were the same pinpoints of light they seemed from within the atmosphere but up here their sheer number was the extraordinary thing.  The only light pollution to mar their brilliance was the glow given off by the Earth itself.  It made Scully humble to see how beautiful the planet was from up here and realise how much it meant to her.  She had never thought of it before as anything but the ground under her feet, science and matter, physics and energy.  Here, high above its reasons and rationales, Scully realised that she was a part of this gleaming ball of light and that the persistence of humanity on this world was not a right or a fact of nature but a privilege.  A privilege which they must not take for granted or risk losing it to others who were more understanding of the importance of it.

In the centre of the bridge Mulder stood looking down at the Earth.  Scully stood in the dark alcove created by one of the four ‘elevators’ that lead from the main decks into this area of the ships.  She watched Mulder’s silhouette as he stayed there unmoving, just staring at the formations of clouds as they progressed through the atmosphere over the wide blue oceans and immense land masses with their forests, mountains and rivers.  She saw none of it now, she saw only Mulder standing there.

“They always choose to forget.”  The Cancerman’s voice said from deep in her memory taking her back in time. 

“Mulder wont.”  She’d insisted.  “This is the truth he’s been fighting his whole life to find.” 

She had been so sure that he would prefer to remember, despite the consequences of that knowledge.  She had been shocked when he’d chosen to forget, to have it erased from his memory.  He’d come searching for her this time, not for the truth, but he’d found it anyway and here they were again.  The same choice.  He didn’t even know that he’d made the choice before. Would he choose to forget this time as well?  Had anything changed to make his decision a different one? 

She almost didn’t want to know.  Her new strength had deserted her just when she needed it.  When Mulder had made his choice initially he had bolstered her spirits and made her strong but she knew that if he chose to forget again the effect on her would not be the same. 

Scully bit the bullet of her fate and walked out towards Mulder across the bridge.  He looked up at her as he heard her approach.  He smiled, a broad smile but his eyes still held a touch of sadness for Skinner and for his father.  He would surely not want to forget their brave sacrifices, Scully reasoned internally.  She placed a hand down next to his on the railing and smiled back as best she could.  He gestured towards the planet encompassingly.

“When I was a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut so that I could get to see the Earth from up here.”  He looked down almost lovingly at the planet.  “I’d given up on that dream a long time ago.”  He looked back at Scully and smiled wryly.  “I probably told you that last time we were here.”

“Actually no, you didn’t.”  Scully lied flawlessly, if a trifle breezily. 

Mulder took a serious breath as he watched her face intensely.  After a long moment of silence, he placed his hand over hers on the railing.

“Scully, I..”  He paused to look down at their hands.  “I think that…”  He looked up into her eyes and she knew what he was going to say.  “We have to go back home and that means that I…”

“No.”  Scully stated and tried to withdraw her hand, he held onto it tighter to stop her.

“I have to forget.”  He finished.

“No.”  She said again and irrationally felt tears start to well in her eyes.

“If I remember this place and everything that exists here, then they’ll be able to find out about it too.  We have to bury it so deep in my head that it’s gone forever.” 

“No.”  Scully said once more.  “This is what you’ve always wanted, how can you throw it away?”

“Scully, It’s not throwing it away, it’s preserving it.  I know that you understand why I’m saying this.”  He said seriously, then actually smiled.  “It’s ironic, I’ve searched for the truth for so long and the one thing which could destroy it is me knowing it.” 

For Scully that was the final straw.

“Mulder, it’s not ironic.  It’s tragic.”  She exclaimed with a passion that came out-of-blue and caught Mulder so much by surprise that she succeeded in pulling her hand from under his.

“Tragic?”  He questioned incredulously, gaping at her.

“Yes.”  She insisted.  “Tragic…and unfair.”  Tears spilled down her cheeks before she could stop them and she turned away in the hope that he wouldn’t see them.  He already had.

Mulder put a hand onto her shoulder and tried to turn her back to face him.

“Scully?”  He coaxed but she just bowed her head and tried to dash the tears away.  She didn’t even try the “I’m fine” lie this time.  Mulder wouldn’t have believed it anyway.  Since she wouldn’t turn to face him, he moved to face her and wrapped his arms around her.  “You’re crying for me!”  He stated with continued surprise as he held her tightly. 

“Yes.”  She stated, breaking free suddenly and moving away.  “Somebody has to cry over this.  You can’t even open up enough to me to tell me what you really feel about..about…”  The tears were getting in the way of her vision and the bleary sight of Mulder’s anguished face through them was confusing her mental faculties.  “About…losing all of this…everything you wanted… this is your truth we’ve found…this is everything you’ve wanted and you’re giving it all up…for…for…”

“For the sake of humanity.”  Mulder cut in softly but insistently.  His words were the hot knife of truth through the insubstantial agreements which she knew were purely selfish.  She wanted to be selfish for a change. 

“Scully….Dana…”  Mulder spoke softly into her heart.  “This place is our last chance as a species to survive a holocaust.  I don’t mean anything compared to that.  My search for the truth means nothing compared to that fact.”  His eyes held hers.    “If me knowing will contribute to that destruction, then I can’t be that selfish…”

“I know..”  Scully replied glumly,  dropping her gaze to her feet.  “I’d have probably thought less of you if you had chosen to remember.”  Mulder laughed at her response.  Her head snapped up and he walked over to her.  Scully froze as he took her hands into his and interlaced their fingers.

“Damned if I do and damned if I don’t.  You’re starting to sound like a wife, FBI-woman.”  He smiled wryly at her and their eyes locked.  His wife.  Something she would never be.  Something she had never even stopped to imagine that she wanted to be.  Something, she realised, she DID want to be.  The words hung in the air for a long moment before Scully looked away. 

“That has become so tired.”  She told their joined hands in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere.

“Marriage has?”  Mulder asked with an attempt at joviality. Scully smiled back up at him and played along.

“You know what I mean.”  She replied. 

“I thought I was just stating a fact.  You are in the FBI and you are technically a woman.”  He answered flippantly, the painful tension of the truth and the forgetting of it dissipated and the UST filled banter was back.

“You mean you actually noticed?”  Scully added with a raised eyebrow.  Maybe it was because she had asked the question too seriously, maybe he was still affected by the days events or maybe it was just because he knew that tomorrow everything would be different and he wouldn’t remember this moment, but, whatever it was, it prompted Mulder to tell the truth.

“I noticed.”  He said into her eyes. “It’s funny.”  He continued after an unfeasonably long and not entirly uncomfortable, silence.  Scully looked at him warningly and he smiled,  “Alright, it’s not funny.  It’s strange.  I’ve never had to consider what it would be like to chose to forget something.  For a long time I haven’t trusted my memories of a lot of things but I never even thought that I might have actually chosen to not have those memories.”

Scully bit her lip wondering whether to tell him, but Mulder kept talking and she didn’t have the heart to interrupt him.

“There’s so much in my mind that I don’t.. The truth…having the truth hasn’t done me any good and I really can’t understand why I spent so long searching for it,”

“I know why.”  Scully answered him.  When he looked up at her she smiled reassuringly.  “You’ve been searching for yourself.  You are the truth you needed Mulder and that’s what you’ve found today.”  She sighed.  “I’ve been lucky.  I spent my whole life not knowing that I was missing the truth about myself, until I met you.  You opened my eyes and that made me a stronger person.”  She paused in her sincere speech.  “I’m grateful to you Mulder.”

“I never wanted or expected anything from you Scully.”  He replied softly.  “After everything that’s happened to you, because of me, I especially never expected your gratitude.” He held onto her hand tightly.

“You have it anyway.”  She answered seriously.  Their eyes burned into each others.

“There’s a million reasons why I have to forget all of this Scully.”  Mulder told her.  “And they’re all great reasons, but right now I’d sacrifice everything to hang on to just one memory.”

“What memory?”  Scully asked past the golfball which had appeared in her throat.

“You.”  He replied firmly.  “Here.”  He smiled and gestured towards the planet just beyond the hull of the ship.  “In the Earthlight, with tears on your face,  for me.”  His fingertips touched her cheek,

“Mulder…”  She began but he held the finger to her lips.

“Don’t.  Don’t say anything.  If you do then I wont be able to leave, and I have to.”

He would have moved the hand away but she reached up and held it against her lips.  Gently she kissed the fingertips. 

“Dana..”  Mulder warned, but Scully was beyond warning.  She now knew that despite his words and despite her actions he would chose to forget, but she would have this memory.  She held his hand loosely and kissed the palm.  He moved his hand away and shook his head.  Scully thought that he planned to move away but he didn’t.  The hand slid away from her but moved instead to cup her cheek, 

“You’re…”  he began as he stared deep into her eyes.  The hand slid into her hair and the kiss became inevitable.  Scully drew back at the last possible moment.

“What was the first thing you ever said to me?”  She asked with an edge of desperation.

“What?”  Mulder asked, bemused.

“The very first thing.”  She insisted.

He thought for a second, then smiled broadly.

“Nobody down her but the FBI’s most…”  Scully kissed him and the words disappeared.

ETC.

“What was all that about?”  Mulder asked a long time later.

“Your father never taught you the birds and the bees?”  Scully joked the moment before she remembered.

“In our family it was more like the aliens and the bees.”  Mulder quipped back before he too realized.  Scully face had frozen into a look of regret the instant the words were out of her mouth.  Mulder looked decidedly pained.

“Mulder, I’m sorry about your father.”

“Yeah.”  Mulder sighed,  He shook himself visibly, as if he could shake away the memories themselves.  Then he tried reconciling himself with the thought that it didn’t matter anyway.  Tomorrow he could once again believe that his father had died in his arms in his own house a long time before now.

“Anyway.”  He said to the woman who was still in his arms.  “You never answered my question.  First words, why?”

“Just checking that you are who you say you are.”  She told him with a broad smile.

“I’m no Eddie van Blundht.”  He smiled in response.

“No you’re not.”  Scully replied honestly.  “I’d much rather be with you.”  And she kissed him again.

Scully was also the first to pull away but it was only to look up at him longingly. 

“I wish..”  She began.  He pulled her back to him.

“Me too.”  He replied and kissed her.

For long minutes they stood there kissing.  The two of them silhouetted against the intense blue-white light of the planet met on level they had never intended to.  The had avoided this moment for so long because they had both known how difficult it would be to ever forget.  It changed them. 

Scully tore herself away from the kiss with difficulty but could not resist the urge to cling to him.  It felt so strange to lean on someone but it was no weakness.  His arms around her held her almost painfully close.  His shivers betrayed that he felt the same as she did. 

“Why?”  She asked so quietly that his ears didn’t hear it, but he still knew that she’d said it.  He had no answer for her and she hadn’t been asking for one.

“I love you.”  He told her into her hair.

“We could stay here.”  She suggested, unsure whether she meant it or not.  “They already offered to let us stay.”  She moved back so that she could look into his eyes.  He shook his head.

“We can’t..”

“Mulder, yes we can.”  She began to get enthusiastic about the idea.  “We could be so much help up here.  We know so much that could help the resistance.”

“No Scully.”  He replied softly.  “You can’t stay and I wont stay.”  His eyes betrayed his genuine regret.

“I can.”  She insisted, gripping his arms to make her point.

“Okay, I won’t let you stay.”  He said firmly and she closed her mouth with a snap, stunned.  “You have a family on the surface.”  He told her.  “You have to go back to them.  They’ll need you Scully, when the time comes.”

“You could stay.”  She tagged on weakly.  “I could visit..”

Mulder smiled wryly, then shook his head again.

“I have to go back.  They’ll be time when I really have knowledge that’ll be useful to the resistance.”

“If we can’t stay, then I want to forget too.  I don’t want to remember all this.” 

“But you’re the most important one of us Scully.” Mulder enthused.  “Without you remembering, I wont have anyone to guide me when I screw up.”  He attempted another wry smile.

“I can’t go through all this again.”  She replied, tired.

“You can.”  He told her firmly.

“No, you don’t understand.  You seem to think that I’m strong enough for that, but I’m not.”  She shook her head as if to emphasize her impotence.

“You are strong, but I don’t expect you to be superhuman.  I know how much it takes.  I’ve been fighting this most of my life.  I know the sacrifices and the pain of watching people you care about just walk away from you because you can give them no other reason other than it’s just something you have to do.”

“Tomorrow I wont remember any of this conversation but that doesn’t mean I wont be missing you.  Just because I wont remember this, doesn’t mean that I wont be missing the feel of you.  The man that I’ll be tomorrow would never tell you that he loves you.  He’ll hide the fact that everytime he looks at you he forgets who is for a moment.”  He brought his hand up to touch her cheek again.  “He’ll go out of his way to find an excuse to touch you, because he just has to.”

“You make it sound as if you’ll be a different person.”

“I will.  I wont be complete.  I’ll be hell to live with because I wont have the truth that I have today.  It’ll be lost to me and I wont understand why.  You mustn’t give up on me, because I’ll need you more than I ever have.”

“I wont be going anywhere Mulder.”

“I know that,  The Mulder of tomorrow’s biggest fear wont be aliens or invasions like mine is.  It’ll be that you’re going to leave him.”

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