From: claypotato@netscape.net   
      
   CLOSE   
      
   by Rae Lynn   
   (claypotato_AT_netscape.net)   
      
   RATING: G   
      
   CLASSIFICATION: SA   
      
   SPOILERS: "Sein und Zeit"   
      
   KEYWORDS: Missing scene.   
      
   ARCHIVE: Inquire within.   
      
   SUMMARY: Scully's thoughts during select scenes before and during "Sein   
   und Zeit."   
      
   AUTHOR'S NOTES: I blame TNT completely for their seventh-season   
   middle-of-the-night reruns, without which this story would not exist.   
   It turns out I still abhor “Closure” but find “Sein und Zeit” full of   
   interesting possibilities, which is why this story concentrates on “SuZ”   
   and steers a wide berth past all notions of walk-ins, starlight and   
   ghostly figures cavorting to Moby music.   
      
   DISCLAIMER: All characters contained within are the property of Chris   
   Carter and Ten Thirteen Productions.  No profit will result from this   
   story and no copyright infringement is intended.   
      
   ___________________________   
      
   Once, early in our partnership -- before I would become almost as   
   familiar with Mulder's demons as I was with my own -- I came   
   face-to-face for the first time with my partner's incessant sleeping   
   problems.  He had been injured: a deep cut on the arm, or maybe a blow   
   to the head -- who can remember anymore? -- and instead of resting as I   
   had advised him to do, he was pacing the length of his motel room,   
   clearly exhausted, pausing by the desk chair to hold himself upright,   
   with that wild look in his eyes that I would later come to learn meant   
      
      
   But I didn't know that, not then -- not when Mulder's body language was   
   still as mysterious to me as some of his more bizarre theories.  Instead   
   I launched into a stern lecture about the importance of sleep as a   
   body's means of rejuvenating itself after injury.   
      
   I asked him to take a pill.   
      
   I can still remember the rigidity in his back as he whirled to face me,   
   the expression in his eyes clear, for once, as a signal of their   
   damnation.  You, he seemed to be saying, do not know me at all, and   
   somehow that hurt more than any rejection of my practicality.   
      
   "No," he had said violently, as if I wasn't perfectly capable of   
   inferring that for myself.  "No pills."   
      
   I think I made an attempt at easing the palpable tension by suggesting   
   that he drink warm milk instead and try to get some sleep.  I also think   
   I remember sleeping fitfully myself that night, awoken and re-woken by   
   the noise from Mulder's television and the sound of his laptop keys   
   tapping through the thin walls.  But instinctively I knew that I had   
   touched a nerve that night.  And for seven years I've endured all kinds   
   of nocturnal disturbances -- Mulder's door slamming shut as he leaves   
   for a run at the first hint of daylight, Mulder's sink running when he   
   splashes water on his face after a nightmare -- without so much as   
   hinting to him that he might consider a sedative.   
      
   So when Mulder's mother kills herself by ingesting a massive overdose of   
   Diazepam, I consider it the cruelest blow of all to a man who has   
   endured more than his share of tragedy.   
      
   I've always valued my affinity with logical, dispassionate science, with   
   ration and reason and plausibility serving as my holy trinity of   
   investigative techniques.  And despite his frustration with what he   
   perceives to be my close-mindedness, Mulder has, too, his instincts   
   complementing my science in an unorthodox approach to problem-solving   
   that's earned us one of the highest solve rates in the Bureau.   
      
   But as I steeled myself to knock on the door to his California hotel   
   room, I realized, not for the first time, that common sense plays a very   
   marginal role in my relationship with Fox Mulder.  That if it had, there   
   would be no relationship to speak of at all.   
      
   There was no logical reason for me to stay.   
      
   Seven years ago, if A.D. Skinner had called me into his office and   
   ordered me to California to retrieve Mulder and his report on the   
   disappearance of Amber-Lynn LaPierre, I would have resented it.  I had   
   been assigned to the X-Files to debunk Mulder's work, that much was   
   clear to me, but I hadn't been told that I would be expected to babysit   
   him.  I might have protested openly: Mulder is a grown man, I am a   
   capable agent, surely there must be a better use of my time than this.   
      
   But this time I just nodded resignedly.  I had been expecting this.   
   Skinner's eyes seemed apologetic behind wire-rimmed glasses: "I didn't   
   want him near the case, Agent Scully," he said.  "But Mulder   
   was...persuasive.  He thinks she's still alive."   
      
   Oh, I can bet he did.  I'm certain that no sooner than Amber-Lynn   
   LaPierre was just a memory in her bedroom did Mulder and his gigantic   
   brain of empathetic intuition scramble to get in on the investigation as   
   quickly as possible.   
      
   Without calling me, of course.   
      
   I had to call him myself as soon as I left Skinner's office.  I used an   
   oldie but a goodie to kick off our conversation -- "Mulder, where are   
   you?" -- knowing there were two possibilities about the Mulder I might   
   find on the other end of the phone: a self-assured, self-aggrandizing   
   Mulder pushing an alien abduction scenario and keyed up about pursuing   
   his own agenda, or a grim, bleak Mulder deeply haunted by what he'd seen   
   in Amber-Lynn LaPierre, a Mulder whose flat, listless voice always left   
   me profoundly unsettled after talking to him.   
      
   Naturally, I quickly discovered that it was the latter: Congratulations,   
   Dana, today you'll be working with the Mulder behind Door #2!  You're   
   the lucky winner of a trip to a personal investigation that will   
   inevitably dredge up your partner's more horrific memories and leave him   
   virtually unable to function without snapping in two.  Be sure to pack   
   your empathy voice!   
      
   It was night by the time I reached him -- more than enough time, I   
   reflected, for the dark wheels to have set in motion in that   
   ever-churning brain.  Sure enough, I could tell what kind of evening it   
   was going to be when I found Mulder sprawled across his hotel bed, fully   
   dressed and completely unable, judging by the deadness of his face as he   
   stared ahead at the muted TV, to look me in the eye.   
      
   Damn it, Mulder.   
      
   He told me he was thinking.  I asked him what about, as if it wasn't   
   screamingly obvious.  He was distracted, clearly already six leagues   
   deep into the case.  Head-first.   
      
   "Amber-Lynn LaPierre," he said.   
      
   This was great.  Obviously I would be the one trying to explain this to   
   Skinner.  In some ways it represented a breakthrough, a new record for   
   Mulder.  Back in the early days of our partnership, it might have taken   
   five or six days before I was presented with the distinctly tormented   
   Mulder I saw before me; if the case involved children or an embattled   
   member of Mulder's immediate family, as few as three or four.  But this   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)