"Things Unknown"
Name: Branwell
E-Mail: COMBS-BACHMANN@WORLDNET.ATT.NET
Date Finished: May 26, 1999
Rating: PG-13, Innuendo, mild language.
Category: Post Ep story for Biogenesis, Angst, Mulder/Scully Friendship
Archiving permission: Anyone may archive this. Just keep my name with 
it.
Time: The setting is on the plane with Scully on the way to the Ivory 
Coast.
Disclaimer: Chris Carter, David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, and Ten 
Thirteen productions created and own the characters you recognize. 
My writing is for fun, not profit. 
Summary: Scully thinks about her mission to the Ivory Coast and her 
role in partnership with Mulder. She comforts herself by remembering 
the last normal, happy activity they shared before the Merkmallen case.
 
"Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends."
From "A Midsummer Night's Dream" by Shakespeare.
 
She wondered if Mulder had come to grips yet with the new configuration 
of his brain, or if the small signs of coping she had seen had faded 
after her departure.
 
Officially this was a trip to investigate the background of 
Merkmallen's murder. Before she left the mystery of Sandoz's 
disappearance/murder was added to her mandate. She had spent a precious 
hour trying to justify the trip in terms the bureaucracy could grasp. 
In the end she had written a report that alluded vaguely to Libyan 
laboratories and Agent Mulder being the possible victim of a drug 
intended for use in terrorist attacks against the United States. She 
was a liar too.
 
If she wrote enough Federalspeak she'd forget how to speak a real 
language, like Shakespeare's English. 
 
But she didn't kid herself that her college anthology of Shakespeare 
was with her on this relay of flights to the Ivory Coast to improve her 
communication skills. It was because it was the last good thing she and 
Mulder had shared. She desperately needed to feel some connection with 
him during this lonely pilgrimage.
 
They both played hooky from a workshop in Crystal City the day before 
Skinner assigned them to the Merkmallen case. Their decision to skip 
the lecture on "Accounting Procedures for Your Unusual Expenses" came 
quite easily. Instead they slipped over to the mall and saw "A 
Midsummer Night's Dream."
 
She had forgotten the satisfaction that precise, vivid language 
provided when it was delivered with just the right twist. And how bawdy 
the bard could be. When the fairy attendants gazed as one at Bottom's 
lower torso after he kissed the queen Mulder couldn't resist whispering 
in her ear.
 
"Do you think any parts besides his ears got enhanced with ass-type 
proportions? It might be worth it."
 
She had to smile back.
 
"His eyes were green as leeks," the ridiculous Thisby said of her 
expired Pyramus. It was supposed to be farcical. It wasn't poetry to 
compare a lover's eyes to a root vegetable. Yet what if that were one 
of the colors of his changeable eyes?
 
Under the hot blue Washington sky that day Mulder's eyes were as green 
as leeks. Today, surrounded by walls padded with smelly, yellowing 
rubber, their color was a muddy brown.
 
As soon as he saw that rubbing in Skinner's office the day after the 
workshop, he was a stranger to cool reason.
 
On the elevator she tried to explain why the panspermia theory didn't 
capture her imagination. 
 
"What if humans did result from an intergalactic convoy that traveled 
without pooper scoopers? Or if earth is just a huge petri dish that's 
been left to grow wild spores for a hundred thousand years? Or if an 
unimaginable, non-material being distanced itself even further from its 
creatures by a four billion year process of evolution? Accepting one of 
those theories as true doesn't change anything about life on earth, or 
describe it in terms that allow us to make predictions and build on our 
knowledge. That's what science does. You can't possibly hope to find 
out more without it."
 
She must not have explained what she meant clearly, or else he couldn't 
hear her at all. His answer had nothing to do with what she said. It 
was the voice of his heart, not his head.
 
"My sister," he said sadly.
 
She should have realized then that he was faltering.
 
Mulder always knew that the difference between them was more one of 
degree than of kind. His impatient nature skipped ahead, ignoring the 
boundaries defined by "her Science" as he liked to call it. She 
followed after him doing the backfilling with boring, rigorous 
procedures that would, in the end, extend the boundaries of "her 
Science" to include the distance of his leap of faith. Or in some 
cases, exclude it.
 
He wasn't thinking clearly.
 
She followed the evidence to New Mexico. Chaos waited for her on her 
return.
 
If there was one thing Scully had learned as a medical doctor and the 
daughter of a naval officer, it was how to pull rank. Within half an 
hour of her arrival she entered Mulder's room. She couldn't get the 
hospital administrator to waive the requirement that two huge orderlies 
accompany her inside. Presumably they were poised to jump on Mulder and 
wrestle him to the ground when he attacked her.
 
Maybe he was violent last night, but not tonight. It broke her heart to 
see the tremors in his muscles just from the effort needed to stay 
upright. He was at the brink of collapse. 
 
They didn't want her to touch him. Screw them. She knew how arbitrary 
medical rules could be.
 
She took his hand and pulled him down to sit on the floor next to her. 
With one hand on his cheek she used the other to smooth his bramble 
bush hair. When she opened her mouth to speak he laid one finger across 
her lips.
 
Out of the corner of her eye she saw the men in the corner startle 
alertly, but she sternly tuned them out of her consciousness.
 
Scully wanted to explain about the artifacts, what she found in New 
Mexico, and how she had to go to Africa to get more pieces of the 
puzzle. It was only by patient research that she could come up with the 
cure for his affliction. He still didn't want to listen to reason.
 
She heeded his quieting finger and let him sit beside her in silence, 
his eyes closed at last.
 
While they sat she thought about her travel arrangements, and reminded 
herself to sweep their office for bugs before she left. Then she 
reviewed the scene in the hall with that lying coward Skinner and that 
two-faced bitch from hell, Diana.
 
She glanced over at Mulder and was surprised to discover the beginnings 
of a smile on his face. It cheered her up considerably to receive even 
that much recognition from him. She had to speak.
 
"I'm sorry. I've got to go. I'll bring back the answer. Don't give up. 
You know you can trust me."
 
He nodded at her. Then he put his hand on the back of her head and 
tipped their heads together until their foreheads touched. After a 
minute went by he looked into her face searchingly and then let his 
hand fall to his side.
 
She stood up and signaled to the orderlies that she was ready to leave. 
Mulder sat on the floor with his eyes closed. If he hadn't shown her 
that smile and nod she would have feared he was sliding into catatonia. 
It was exhaustion taking hold now that he had relaxed.
 
She couldn't stop wondering if he had held onto those moments of peace 
now that she was gone.
 
The last thing she did before leaving for the airport was to set up 
daily consultations for Mulder with a notoriously open-minded Jungian 
therapist of her acquaintance. Dr. Warner was a motherly woman who had 
a way of getting everyone on her side---and her side was always the 
patient's side. Scully wished she could witness the inevitable clash 
between the doctor and Diana. Bibi Warner could have made Mother 
Theresa look like grifter scum if it suited her purposes. Diana would 
be less of a challenge.
 
There was only one more thing Scully could do. She took two Dalmanes 
out of her purse and asked the flight attendant for water. There were 
no other options. She would sleep on these flights so that she could 
work when she arrived.
 
Afterward she drifted drowsily, thinking of "A Midsummer Night's 
Dream." She comforted herself with the line that Mulder had mentioned 
to her after the movie. It stayed with him, he said, because it 
described her perfectly. She hoped he was right. She hoped their 
enemies didn't realize it yet.
 
"Though she be but little, she is fierce."


end