By True
thetruex@yahoo.com

RATING: PG
CATEGORY:  V, A
KEYWORDS:  Scully angst?
SPOILERS:  Thru Per Manum
ARCHIVE:  Ephemeral, Gossamer, go for it.  Everyone else,
please ask first.
FEEDBACK:  Pretty please?
DISCLAIMER:  Not even in my wildest dreams.
SUMMARY:  A unique POV of Scully's worst fear.
NOTES:  This may not stick with canon completely (does
canon even stick with canon anymore?).  The whole 'junk'
DNA/alien DNA thing is a tad over my head, so please bear
with me.
Thanks go out to those who have always encouraged me.

- - - -

You are afraid, aren't you?

I know you are.  I don't have to ask.  You have been afraid
for a very long time now.

First there was the fear of succeeding.  Not career success
yet; life success.  Success in school.  Success at home.
Success in society.  You had good guides - mother, father,
sister, brothers - who helped with the fear then.  You knew
you would stumble, and you did, but they were always there
to catch you, straighten your clothes, swat you on the
backside, and send you back out there to try again.  To win
one for the Captain.

Then came the fear of growing up.  Of course, you weren't
afraid until it was too late - until you had to grow up.
College will do that to a person.  You were afraid when you
realized how few life skills you really had.  You were
afraid when you had to make a decision before you had the
chance to call home to mother or father for their advice.
You were afraid when you failed your first test and
realized how easy it could be to lose your scholarship.
You were afraid the first time your car broke down in a
strange part of town - before the days of trusty cell
phones - and you had to find a reliable repair shop on your
own.  You were afraid of all of the things you weren't
prepared for.  But you had good friends, good professors,
and almost everyone liked you.  Your fears became stories -
common ground with the others going through the same
things.  Knowing you weren't the only one was comfort
enough.

Fear of uncertainty came next.  With a crisp new doctoral
degree in hand, the very different world of the FBI was
both intriguing and frightening.  There was the fear of
being able to hold your own among the boys.  There was fear
of making the wrong decision - what if the FBI was a
mistake?  And there was the corresponding fear that it
would be a deadly mistake. You often found comfort in
your faith, then.  That cross around your neck kept you
grounded.

When you were partnered with him, there was an underlying
fear of rejection.  Not his rejection so much as the
rejection of others.  Your bosses, the people who used to
be your friends, teachers, everyone else in the Hoover
building.  He was spooky.  You were afraid you would come
to share the label, which you did.  But it wasn't as scary
as you had feared, was it?

No, because by that time, the fear had focused on much more
serious things.  Conspiracies.  Alien abduction.  The
lingering stench of Morley cigarettes.  Donald Atticus
Pfaster.  Robert Patrick Modell.  Cancer.  Alien
technology.  Bounty Hunters.  Fear was not paralyzing, most
of the time, but it was very real.  Very palpable.

You were afraid when you realized how acclimatized you had
become to that fear.  Fear, after all, had saved your life
before.  It made you sharp.  Kept you honed.  Brought
everything into startling focus.

Then things started changing.  You didn't notice the change
until you realized how afraid you were of losing him.  How
afraid you had always been of losing him.  You were afraid
of his penchant for getting into life-threatening
situations. You were wracked with fear every time you heard
the words "He's gone" or "He's dead," whether they be in
your dreams or in the A.D.'s office.  Not only would there
be so much dropped on your shoulders - you have always known
you were the only other one who could finish the work, had
reason to finish the work.  No, if he were really to die, you
would be alone.  And that is a fear so great that you won't
even allow yourself to acknowledge its existence.  You would
be fine, you tell yourself and others.  It would hurt like
hell, but you would be fine.

Just like you are always 'fine.'

Just like you are telling yourself you are 'fine' right
now.

You're not fine.  Don't you see?  Won't you let yourself
see?  You are not fine.  I know you are afraid.  I can feel
it in every muscle, bone, synapse, and cell.

Do you know how painful it is that all I have ever felt
from you is fear?

Do you know how devastating it is to know that it is not
the future or the situation or these past demons that
terrify you so?

Do you know how crushing it is to know what scares you most?

That you are terrified of me?

That you are petrified that I will be who I am?

I have heard your thoughts, even heard you voice them aloud
once, very early on when I was but 8 centimeters long.  You
are afraid I am alien.  That I am different.  That I am not
normal.

I am alien.  Not in the sense that you expect, however.  I
am not a gray.  Nor do I bleed green.  My eyes are not
glass-black.  I do come largely from another world, but in a
roundabout way, and one very familiar to you.  I am not
something that has been seen on this planet before.  Gibson
Praise is close, but I am not he.  I am the absolute
future.  Do you see the magic in that at all?

No.  All you see is fear.

When you see pictures of me, when I try to smile at you and
reassure you, all you see are enlarged eye sockets and a
strange shaped head.  Your eyes deceive you, yet you trust
them as if they have never failed you before.  They have!
You seem to have forgotten the case with the Siddhi mystic.
Your eyes believed you had shot a blonde-headed, innocent
little boy, but you didn't, did you?  Why did you shoot?

Because your heart told you your eyes were wrong.

Why won't you listen to your heart now?

Because your mind has quieted your heart's voice.  Your
mind is falling back on its ever-trusted logic.  Thinking
with your heart is far too risky.

If you did that, you might miss him.

If you did that, you might feel the pain of his absence.

If you did that, you might love me.

And you cannot allow yourself to do that.  I am a part of
you.  Of you and of him.  You have seen too much, though.
You fear I am a sick and twisted alien scheme.  That they
are using you as a vessel for their colonization.  That
someone will take me away after you hear my cat-warbling
cries and I will be destroyed.

You will suffer another loss.

You cannot let yourself love me because you do not want to
hurt.

So you do the only 'safe' thing.

You fear me.

Except when you let your guard down under the protective
blanket of sleep.

Yes, I know about your dreams.  I can see those, too.  The
dreams that mothers always have.

In your dreams, you coddle me.  You clutch me to your
breast and murmur fairy tales and love whispers against my
forehead.  You delight in my coos and giggles.  And you
know no greater joy than stretching out on your bed,
nestled against pillows, while I drift in and out of
slumber to the sound of your heartbeat.

I am always very still during these dreams.  They are my
solace, and I have learned that anything - a car engine, a
distant siren, a drip of the faucet - immediately raises
your guard.  Then, even in your sleep, you push me from
your mind and silence your dreams, the fear enshrouding you
once more.

You are not the only one who is afraid.

I am different.  You know that.  You just don't understand
how.  You may never understand how.  I am afraid you will
always question whose child I really am.

I *am* yours.  And I *am* his.  But neither of you are
normal.  You used to be, but your experiences have altered
you at a very basic level.

Your abduction.  The chip that gave you cancer.  The chip
that cured it.  The bee sting.  The antidote he gave you.
His exposure to the black oil in Tunguska.  His illness while
you were in Africa.

This is why I am different.  Why I am somewhat alien.  I am
the combination of all of these things.  I have your combined
immunities.  I have no dormant DNA.  I have the same powers
as Gibson Praise.  The same brain capacity.  The same
prodigious abilities.  I am different from him, however.  I
am an improvement even over Gibson for one very simple and
very basic reason.  Much of the 'alien' talent is directly
linked to the X-chromosome.

I have two.

Will that frighten you, too?

So do you know what my greatest fear is?

What if the reality - my reality and your reality and his
reality - is something you can never reconcile?

What if you are always afraid of who I am?

What if I look into the eyes of my mother and see how far
away you are from me?  How far you have separated yourself
from me?  What if I see a physical manifestation of what I
am feeling now?

So I try now, with all of my might, to make you hear me.
That's why I stay so still when you dream.  If just once,
you would sleep long enough to hear me cry, you could hear
me.  You could hear what I desperately want to tell you.

I am your child.

You don't have to be afraid.
 
 
 

END