From: claypotato@netscape.net   
      
   OUR DARKER PURPOSE   
      
   by Rae Lynn   
   (claypotato_AT_netscape.net)   
      
   RATING: PG   
      
   CLASSIFICATION: SA   
      
   SPOILERS: Through "Grotesque."   
      
   KEYWORDS: Post-episode for "Grotesque."   
      
   ARCHIVE: Please inquire within.   
      
   SUMMARY: Mulder and Scully and the aftermath of "Grotesque."  Scully's POV.   
      
   AUTHOR'S NOTES: Well, folks, I’ve fallen off the fanfic wagon once   
   again.  This story has already been written in the fanfic community --   
   many, many times -- but it's hard for anyone who eats MulderAngst for   
   breakfast to resist the siren song of trying their own hand at a   
   post-"Grotesque" fic.  Midway through the writing of this fic, I   
   attended a very weird production of "King Lear," hence the title and all   
   the quotes, which belong to Shakespeare.   
      
   DISCLAIMER: All the 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.   
   ____________   
   "The weight of this sad time we must obey;   
   Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.   
   The oldest hath borne most: we that are young   
   Shall never see so much, nor live so long."   
   --Shakespeare, King Lear (last lines)   
   ____________   
      
   Nearly every argument Mulder and I have had about our partnership has   
   begun or ended the same way, as if something in me can't resist pointing   
   out to him what he once accepted without question but now stubbornly   
   refuses to acknowledge.  Why was I assigned to you in the first place,   
   Mulder?  To debunk your work.  To discredit your theories.  To piss you   
   off.  And I have done that, and somehow managed to validate you at the   
   same time.  My scientific inquiries have only intensified Mulder's   
   passion, his paranoia, his pursuit of the truth.  Like a Hydra.  Cut the   
   head off Mulder's unique investigative philosophy and more will grow in   
   its place.   
      
   In the three years Mulder and I have been partners, I have found myself   
   living two lives.  Mulder's and my own.  For three years I have been   
   holding the future of Mulder's work in my hands.   
      
   Mulder's life.   
      
   Partners are supposed to look out for each other.  I have pressed my   
   hands into Mulder's flesh and felt rivulets of blood flow through my   
   fingers.  I have shone penlights into Mulder's eyes and willed his   
   pupils to dilate.  I have burst numbly into emergency rooms only to   
   watch Mulder code on the table.  I do it because it's Mulder, because I   
   know he would walk barefoot over broken glass for me if I -- or anyone   
   else -- asked him to.  All the while I've tried not to think about the   
   absurdity of it, or the odds stacked against one woman up against a   
   formidable force.  Dana Scully, meet Darkness; and get comfortable with   
   it, because you two are going to be at each other's throats for a long,   
   long time.   
      
   I knew when I met Mulder that I would be expected to hold his life in my   
   hands.   
      
   But nothing in the Federal Bureau of Investigation's code of conduct   
   ever prepared me to safeguard his sanity.   
      
   Mulder's lifeless eyes and stumbling steps as I ordered him repeatedly   
   to get in the car.  Mulder's bloodless face, glazed with fever, his   
   shirt still incriminatingly spattered with his father's blood.   
      
   The rigid outline of Mulder's back, these last few days, the tenseness   
   that gripped his shoulders as I watched him walk away from me.   
      
   I hadn't answered when Skinner asked me if I was worried about him.   
   Even my silence felt like a betrayal to the man I once thought only of   
   in terms of superlatives: the most articulate, the most passionate, the   
   most intelligent, the most infuriating.  I felt that man slipping away   
   from me and this time there was no physiological source to explain it away.   
      
   I told Mulder I was scared.  It was simpler than telling him the truth:   
   that I was terrified.  For him, for all of us.  It was a shortcut to the   
   truth I could never admit to him: it is easier to watch Mulder die than   
   to watch him go mad.   
   It felt like a lifetime before I heard the comforting wail of ambulance   
   sirens arriving.  Still hunched over Patterson, I don't dare look up at   
   Mulder kneeling beside us, still clutching his cell phone, his head   
   bowed as if for a benediction.  A final prayer for peace.   
      
   There had been a struggle.  But Mulder -- usually so impetuous, so   
   reckless in his pursuit -- had been precise.  He had not shot to kill.   
   Patterson, I decided as the EMTs approached, would live, at least long   
   enough to torture Mulder with his madness.  Just as I had tortured   
   Mulder with my pointed questions, with the unwelcome concern he must   
   have felt radiating off me in waves.  I was scared, Mulder.  I didn't   
   know where you were.  As if Mulder didn't already do a stunning job of   
   torturing himself.   
      
   This thing exists, Scully.  It's real.   
      
   And it had been.  As real as the bullet in Bill Patterson's chest.   
      
   The paramedics who arrive are efficient, separating my hand from   
   Patterson's breast and herding Mulder off to one side.   
      
   "Agent Mulder, we're going to need to take your statement," says a   
   police officer.  Mulder nods mutely and follows the officer to a dark   
   corner of the roof before I can even open my mouth in protest.   
      
   "Agent Scully, we'd like you to ride with us," says a paramedic, and I   
   watch helplessly as the distance between Mulder and I grows.  Mulder   
   would crawl to the ends of the earth for me, but tonight he can't even   
   bring himself to traverse the length of Mostow's roof.   
      
   _______________   
      
   At the hospital, I find myself supervising Patterson's transfer from   
   backboard to gurney and then, literally, washing my hands of him.  As I   
   emerge from the ladies' room I spot a familiar figure striding   
   purposefully down the hallway -- the only body language other than   
   Mulder's I would have no trouble picking out of a crowd.   
      
   Assistant Director Skinner must feel the same way, because he makes his   
   way over to me immediately.   
      
   "Agent Scully," he says.  "I received a call from local PD that there   
   was a shooting at Mostow's studio, but they weren't clear on the   
   details."  His eyes track grimly to my bloodstained sleeves and I know   
   what he must be thinking.  If there is blood on my hands, it must be   
   Mulder's.  After all, it always has been.   
      
   "It was Patterson, sir," I say quickly.  "They're working on him in the   
   ER."   
      
   Skinner considers this impassively for a moment before asking me where   
   Mulder is.   
      
   "He's still at the scene.  They're taking his statement," I say, and   
   suddenly I realize that I am desperate to see him -- and determined to   
   *see* him, this time, all of him, not the pale shadow who's been living   
   inside my partner for days.   
      
   Skinner looks at me closely.  "His statement?" he says.  "He hasn't been   
   taken into custody?"   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)