From starbuck72@netaxis.ca Thu May 22 11:33:08 1997
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: NEW: Strange Truths by Leyla Harrison (1/1) **NC-17**
From: "the *enigmatic* Dr. Scully" <starbuck72@netaxis.ca>
--------
Strange Truths
by Leyla Harrison
<starbuck72@netaxis.ca>

Standard Disclaimer (aka legal stuff): All characters are owned by
someone other than me.  I'm just playing around with them.

Personal Disclaimer and Spoilers: post-Gethsemane.  Tiny spoilers for
Memento Mori and One Breath.  I could spend all summer writing
explanations for how Chris Carter is going to get himself out of *this*
one, but I would rather not.  Special Note: I'm kind of vague in this
story about what has happened to Mulder - I've done that on purpose so I
have something to write about for the rest of the summer.  This story
instead has Scully dealing with the spread of her cancer.  I seem to be
a bit obsessed with the cancer angle at the moment - forgive me.  It's a
personal thing; I've been sick with it myself lately.  I watch Gillian
Anderson portray Scully, who lately has been the absolute strongest
woman on television, and I am in awe.  In the meantime, I'm trying to
get back to the smut I am known for.  Anyhow - there's a bit of sexual
activity and also some introspection here.  A few words of advice: if
you're looking for a story to cheer you up, go look somewhere else.

Rating: NC-17, strong suggestions of MSR.

Thank you Jenbird, for putting up with my ramblings these days about my
own illness.  Now...on with the show....  

********

The cancer has spread.

As my brother Bill so thoughtfully pointed out, it's in my bloodstream
now.  Little tiny cancer cells, invisible to the human eye, are floating
through my veins.  I can't see them, but they're there.  

Before bed, I stand in the bathroom, in front of the mirror and look at
my face.  I don't recognize the woman I see in the reflection.

That woman is thinner, paler, and unhappy looking.  She has circles
under her eyes and her skin is more similar to chalk than it is to
alabaster as it used to be.  That woman is sick.  That woman has
cancer.  

And then I remember: that woman is me.

I realize it with a detachment that I have gotten better and better at
over the past few months.

I cannot turn to the church now.  I have no respect for a God that
allows this to happen to me, to the other women in Allentown.  They are
all dead now, all of them.  I am the only one who is not yet in a grave.

My mother shared something with me once.  She told me that when I was
missing, she had to assume finally that I was dead.  She picked out a
headstone and had Mulder come and look at it with her.  She told me that
he didn't want her to believe that I was dead.  He said that it was too
soon to give up.  

My mother and I are now not nearly as close as we were before this.  Of
course, before the X-Files, we were quite close, even though I was
always Ahab's girl.  In the last five years, my mother and I were
closer.  Although I was the younger girl, Melissa had always been
involved in what my mother believed to be "craziness" with her belief in
the occult.  My mother couldn't accept that and pulled me closer to her
bosom emotionally.  When I bean working with Mulder, my mother was more
accepting of me because it was legitimate craziness - after all, I was
working for the Federal government.

But then things happened.  My life was in danger all the time.  I was
taken.  Missy died.  My mother was alone and frightened.  She didn't
want to lose her only remaining daughter.  With the news of my cancer
she was at first angry and then withdrawn.  I had caught her eye over
the dinner table that night as she was lighting more candles and I knew
that she had set the whole thing up with Father McHugh.  She felt as if
she had been unable to reason with me.  She wanted me to stop working. 
She wanted me to take care of myself - she wanted me to let her take
care of me.  

But I couldn't.  I can't let myself rely on anyone right now.

For all that she's done, I couldn't be angry at her.

I convince everyone that I am fine.  That I can handle this.  That even
though the cancer is spreading within me with such speed, I am strong. 
Nothing matters except that I have my game face on.  Nothing matters
except that everyone think that I am the same Dana Scully that I have
always been.

The question is, who have I been all these years?   Have I always been
this cold, unfeeling, always formal, always in control woman?  Have I
ever let my hair down and relaxed, enjoyed life a little?  

The answer, of course, is yes.  But that was all before I became the
other half of the X-Files.

And now, I am alone.  Mulder is gone.  I am alone with the X-Files. 
Perhaps this time they will be shut down again, this time for good.

God, how I need him.  How I have come to depend on him.  How I care for
him.  He has become the one and only constant in my life over the last
four years.  We have gone through so much together, and although the
goal was to make me believe that he was responsible, for my cancer, I
cannot blame him.  I can only blame those who orchestrated this entire
master plan, the plan to make Mulder believe.

I still cannot get over this simple fact - yet in some ways it does not
surprise me.  I do not want to believe that somewhere within our
government, the very government that we work for, lies a shadowy
conspiracy that is determined that Mulder be kept from the Truth.  I do
not want to believe that they would go so far as to try to kill us.  To
try to kill me.  To give me this cancer.

But they have.

I am an employee of the Federal government, and yet they think nothing
of it to infect me with cancer, to watch as it spread from a
nasal-pharyngeal mass to a disease that is now running free in my
bloodstream.

I often think of it when I get the nosebleeds.  The blood will trickle
down my nostril, for one brief moment unknowingly, and then I will feel
it - the cold wetness of it, and I will touch my nose and see the blood
on my fingertips.  It takes all my energy and willpower to not cry right
there on the spot.  For I can almost imagine that I see little cancer
cells, cells that have grown and multiplied, right there on my
fingertips.  If only I could expel them all from my system with the
nosebleeds; if only every time I have blood drawn they could remove more
and more of the cancer cells - enough to make a difference - but I know
that this is impossible, that I am holding onto something impossible.

I have begun in the last few weeks to take Valium - a prescription I
have written for myself, and only to be taken when I am trying to get to
sleep.  That seems to be when the anxiety is out of control.  I try so
hard to close my eyes and simply lie still and let my body fall into
sleep as it normally does, but these days it does not work anymore. 
When I close my eyes I see images of people I have loved and lost, and I
see images that are unclear, images from when I was taken.  Images I
don't want to see.  If I'm going to die I want to die without any more
memories of that time.

So tonight I am not yet ready for bed.  I take 10 milligrams of Valium
and crawl beneath the cool sheets.  I close my eyes and try to focus on
something else until the drug kicks in and I am able to sleep.

Mulder.

My mind always comes back to Mulder. 

How could it not?  He is everything to me.

For years I was not sure.  For years I told myself that it was
impossible, that we were not right for each other, either professionally
or personally.  And yet I have done the best work of my life with him. 
I have felt the best in my life as I have with him.  And I have felt the
worst with him, too.  I try to push that from my mind.  Not tonight.  I
am not going to think of the pain tonight.

I imagine him.  In the office.  In the car.  In Skinner's office.  In my
apartment.  

I remember the morning that he held me after Penny died.  I remember
thinking to myself at that moment that I had never loved him more than I
did right then.

I remember the teasing - the sexual tension that existed between us.  He
would lean close to me, to look at a file, or to whisper something in my
ear.  His breath would be hot on my neck and I would shiver.  

I think of those times now, those shivers.  My hand slips into the
bottoms of my pajamas almost of its own will.  I know that I will never
feel this with Mulder.  I know that it will never happen, so I may as
well just allow myself my own pleasure.  God knows there is little of it
to go around these days.

My panties feel constrictive.  I can't shift around the way that I want
to, so I slip the pajama bottoms and my panties off, pushing them
aside.  I pull the covers over me, up to my waist, covering me.  I run
my hands over my chest, my fingertips over my breasts lightly, feeling
the nipples harden in response to the light touch.  Would Mulder be so
gentle? 

The thought of his hands on me hardens the nipples more, and my
fingertips tease them, my eyes closed.  I sigh aloud.  I am pretending
that it's Mulder eliciting this response from me.

I pretend that his hands are slipping below the covers, stroking my
stomach lightly, his hands cool on my warm skin.  He is parting my legs,
slipping a hand between them, his fingers tickling the insides of my
thighs, barely touching them.  My breathing is coming faster as his
fingers slip through my hairs, slipping lightly between my warm lips,
finding me hot and wet.  I arch up against his hand as he slips two
fingers within me and then back out again.  I gasp his name.  The
fingers move in a slow and lazy rhythm for a few strokes, and I am
lifting my hips to meet him, trying to get him to go deeper, faster. 
His fingers slip out of me and over my clitoris, and I moan his name and
clutch at the sheets.  

He slides his fingers back into me and his thumb moves over my clit,
carefully, not too hard, but providing just the right pressure.  He rubs
in tiny circles and continues to move his fingers within me until I am
moaning continuously.  With his other hand he teases my nipples.  I am
crying out, thrusting up to meet him, so close, so close...

"Mulder," I let out a strangled noise, and his thumb vibrates fast on my
clit, and I cry out.  "Ohhhh...." I gasp, and I feel my muscles clench
around his fingers as the orgasm crashes into me.

As my body stills,  he comes up to me to kiss me.

But he doesn't.

Because he isn't really there.  It's just my fantasy.

I sink back into the pillows, exhausted and covered in a fine sheen of
sweat, and I curl over onto my side.  In all the fantasies, he's never
come up to kiss me, not once.  He's never really been there. 

The thought makes tears well up in my eyes.  I don't want to cry.  I
don't want to give in, but I can't control it.  I squeeze my eyes shut
tightly, hoping it will stop the tears from coming out, but they slip
out from the corners of my eyes anyway.  I roll over onto my stomach and
put my face into the pillow, letting out a sob as I do.

I may never feel his lips on mine.

That sends me into a whole new wave of tears that I cannot control. 
They come fast and hard, and within moments my face is hot and wet with
them.

Finally, they slow, and I sniffle.  I reach for a tissue, and blow my
nose.  When I bring the tissue away from my nose, it is stained with
blood.  The reminder of the cancer slams up into my chest and hits me
like a dead weight.  I feel as if I can't catch a breath.  

"Damn it," I mutter, and get up from bed.  There is no time to get the
bottoms to my pajamas back on, so I patter off naked from the waist down
into the bathroom to get a warm washcloth to take care of the nosebleed.

Even though I am alone in the apartment, I feel strange about my
nakedness, and with the washcloth pressed to my face I go back into the
bathroom and pull my panties and my bottoms back on.

Mulder, I think.  Mulder, why?  Why has this happened? 

Why has this happened to us?  To me? To you?  Where did it all go so
terribly wrong? 

The nosebleed slows, then stops.  I return to the bathroom.  I rinse out
the washcloth as best I can and return to bed, turning out the light. 
Between the tears and the Valium I am thoroughly worn out.  My eyes
close of their own accord, and I settle down to try to sleep.  My
thoughts are fuzzy from the drug.  Visions of Mulder float through my
head idly.  I'm unable to focus my thoughts on one thing anymore.

I pull my knees up to my chest and wrap my arms around them, trying to
block out all other conscious thoughts.  I am finally drifting off to
sleep.  Finally.  No more thoughts of cancer, or conspiracies, or of
love and loss.

I shift slightly in bed, trying to rearrange the covers.  But instead,
the weight of the bed changes.  Someone has joined me in bed in my
dream.  Strong arms go around my waist, pulling back into a warm solid
body, holding me close.  Making me feel safe.

What a wonderful dream.  For the first time in ages, I am not having a
nightmare or a dream that I will awaken from in a panic or with sadness
pain.

I have always been able to dream lucidly, so I focus and pretend that
the arms around me are Mulder's.  I press my body back into his.  "I'm
so glad you're here," I murmur to him.  Thoughts of cancer have slipped
away.  There is nothing but him.

"I am too," he whispers back.  "I love you, Scully.  I always have."

I shift slightly against him.  He feels so...real.  It feels so real. 
Not like a dream.  Like he is real.  Like he is really there.  

I struggle to fight sleep for a moment.  I try to know if I am really
dreaming.  Or is it real?  Is Mulder really here with me? 

I am unable to tell.  I can't.  So I settle into his arms and allow
myself to sleep peacefully.  It would be so strange for him to be here
with me.  So strange.  And yet Mulder's search for the truth has never
been normal.  So why should this be any different? 

I love him.  I do.  And that is all I can think of.  

END

Author's Note: OK, so in case you didn't get it, here's a hunt: is
Mulder really alive and in bed with her? Has she known all this time
that he's alive?  Or is he really dead, and she's just imagining it?  
-- 
the *enigmatic* Dr. Scully - the Queen of Smut
if you don't believe me, go check out my home page: 
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/1377
---------------------------------------------------
"My mind?  I don't have a mind.  I'm the village idiot."