From: Gwendyn Date: 13 Apr 1999 21:56:58 GMT Subject: NEW: Patient (1/1) by Gwendolyn Title: Patient By:Gwendolyn, gwendyn@aol.com Category: S, A Keywords: Post-Colonization, MSR (Implied) Rating: PG-13 Spoilers: US6. The whole dang Mytharc and then some. Summary: Scully is a Prisoner of War, a woman without a past or a future, until an old friend arrives. Author's Notes at end, but before you get there, may I thank up front, the beta team: Dasha, Blueswirl, Alanna and Julie (yeah, it takes a lot ). Disclaimer: The X-Files and characterizations associated with it belong to Chris Carter, 1013 Productions and Fox. As far as I know, that's it. Not mine. * Oh. It's you. I know you, don't I? Will you be taking me for more tests? Wait. No. I do know you. I know you from before. From the outside. Please, you must accept my apologies. My memory is all but gone, you know. I think it's from the chip or the drugs they pump into me or perhaps from the energy I exert to fight them both. Most of what I do remember is of this place. How long have I been here? Do you know? No. Don't say. It will only depress me. I know it's been years. Years since the war began and they brought me to the facility. Five, I think. Yes, about five years. But enough of that. I'm still trying to place you. Don't tell - it will come to me. Please, have a seat on the cot. You sit on the very end over there and I will sit on my end over here and it will all be very proper, you see? That's nice. You seem like a nice man. Not a scientist at all. I was a scientist once. I do know that. These scientists here, though, the ones who run the tests - they make me hate the word science now. I frighten you. Don't deny it, I can tell. You knew me before, when I was more than a lab rat, in the days before the invasion. I must seem emotionless now. Mostly, I am. That window on the far wall, the narrow one with the bars, it provides my only view of the outside world. If you press your face up against it and look over in just the right angle, you can see a patch of trees over there. Amazing, isn't it? They're really thriving. Life has a way of establishing itself, even in this desolate place. I believe I learned that from science. Yes, science - not the poets. Leaving so soon? It was nice to see you, sir. Come back again if you can. There's something about you. I can trust you, can't I? I sense that. Yes, I'll be seeing you again, then. Good. I promise I will try to remember your name. That will be my project for the week. * Skinner. That's it, isn't it? I told you I would remember. We were associates in the Bureau. It is coming back to me. And I'm Scully. You're Skinner and I'm Scully. It has been so long since I've heard my name and I've been concentrating on other things, so I must have let it slip. They just call me "The Patient" here. That's fine, all I am anymore is patient. There's nothing else to be except crazy. But now I am starting to remember things I let go so long ago. Mostly, I remember fighting. Seems there was something worth fighting for back then. I believed in justice, in truth. I believed in righteousness. Now, I am completely alone, and I pray for death. But only when I'm not struggling to survive. Am I getting off track? I'm sorry, Skinner. You wanted me to tell you about the past. Maybe you've forgotten it too, or never understood its significance. I am beginning to remember. Yes, I remember the X-Files. Yes, I remember him. Mulder. I never knew what became of him. They said he died and I suppose it must be true. Once upon a time, I cried for him. I don't cry anymore, but I do feel some regret. Separating from him was undoubtedly my biggest mistake. Do you know that I saw him walking the halls once before we ever met all those years ago? I did. I was still in the first stage of my life then, the one that existed from birth to the X-Files. He carried with him a quality I so wanted to possess. This was a man who had made a choice, to travel his own path, and didn't care what judgments anyone else made about it. He carried that choice with him, in his posture, in the way his eyes swept over a room. He was a proud man. Even though they bowed him, I never saw him break. Never. Not from the first to the last. I remember that much. To tell the truth, they probably would have broken him if not for me. You see, I was strong then. I may not have carried my passion like a torch the way he did for the world to see, but it was my crusade too. Remembering is so tiresome. They will arrive soon to take me for more tests. That's what it's all come to. Tests and more tests. I have become a shell of what I once was. It's more comforting to forget. I will share something shocking with you, though. Move in closer, I'll whisper it. Ready? Here it is. I still have hope. * On Wednesday, they moved someone in next door. It's the first time I've had a neighbor since I arrived. When they led him down the hall, I peeked through the small flap in the door, the one they use to leave my meals. All I saw was the back of a man, with a shaved head and a scar going up his nape. He was chained and walking between two of the less pleasant guards here. I tried to talk to him through the vent last night, hardly believing my own daring or even my desire to communicate. But he did not answer. Maybe he was frightened or perhaps he was asleep. I think I will try again, though. At least it's something to pass the time, and I'm intrigued at having a new patient in my ward. This week I've been working on tracing the steps that led me here. Of course, the easiest place to start would be with the war against colonization. For us, though, it started so much earlier than that. For me it began with my assignment to the X-Files. I believed in my role as the skeptic so strongly that I willfully denied much of what I saw. My denials only fueled his belief. His belief, his wild theories, drove me to seek more valid scientific evidence. My evidence forced him to take a more pragmatic view of the truth. We worked. It was never purely professional as far as I can remember, although I'm sure I tried to convince myself that it was. He was a pain in the ass, as you know. So was I. But it was so stimulating to have such a strong-willed, challenging sparring partner. After some time, no one else would do. I can't help but wonder why you're here. Are you with them, now? It has occurred to me that before you showed up here, I was a woman without a past. Now, I remember. Perhaps they've activated some feature of this chip. What I can't figure out is why they would want me to recall the past. So, maybe this reawakening I feel isn't their doing at all but something in myself. Somehow, I have reclaimed my past but my life now and my future still belong to them. It seems like a tragic thing. * If it were possible, I would have removed the chip years ago. I tried. The back of my neck is proof of that. The scars there are from my fingernails. Shortly after that little incident, the scientists became very thorough manicurists. I don't remember the last time I shared the room with a sharp object. They have had absolute control over me - mind and body. I have managed to preserve a small piece my soul for my own use, should the need arise. It's buried here under layers of time and boredom and dormant memories. They sense this about me, despite my still exterior, and it scares them. I almost enjoy scaring them. I have been attempting to talk to the man next door every night since you were last here. He has never answered, but three nights ago he knocked on the wall. It happened when I asked, 'Are you one of them, sent here to spy on me?' Having given it much consideration, I have decided the knock was a firm denial. Yesterday, they had me on the table for more tests and as I was about to go under, I heard one of the scientists say that there was a new test subject, an independent survivor they picked up in the desert. That's him, my friend next door - the survivor. Do you know who that man is? You do, yes. But you won't tell. I remember that about you, your unwillingness to share information. Never mind. The mystery is an interesting diversion, anyway. Looking back, I think that perhaps my years with the X-Files prepared me for the life I live now - if you can call what I have a life, or what I do living. I learned how to be captured and how to be helpless. I learned how to be rescued, and more importantly, I learned how to rescue myself. Before you, I had resigned myself to this silent struggle, but now it is excruciating. It is impossible to remember the woman I was and not want to be her again. The woman I was belonged only to herself for most of her life. Of course, she doled out pieces of the whole to family and friends, but only on loan and always with the understanding that what was given could as easily be taken away. She...I was in control. That control was what I valued most. Do you remember how I was? Yes, you do. You remember the woman I was and how you admired me then. But, perhaps you thought I was a bit stand-offish. I worked at that. Keeping people at a distance was my special skill, necessary for the maintenance of my control. You know where this is leading, don't you? To Mulder. Always. He was the first to challenge that control. Not the first to try, but the first to succeed. I made a game out of not letting it show - how much he got to me, how much of that faade he stripped away. But he knew. Sometimes, I resented the hell out of him for it. Sometimes I was scared. Sometimes, I was amused. Mostly, I pretended it wasn't what it was and he played along because it suited him to do so. So often, it really did all seem like a big game. UFOs and monsters and shadow governments and Mulder and me battling them all and battling each other. And somehow, we were supposed to save the world but we were never sure quite how that would happen. All the while, whatever it was that we had between us lived and breathed all on its own, requiring no sustenance. We tried to starve it and smother it and kill it with pure neglect, but it thrived despite our efforts. How could we hope to save the world when we could not see beyond each other? Of course, we denied ourselves love and chose the rest of the world instead. The world hasn't taken the time to thank us, though, and who can blame it? He's dead and I'm here and the world has gone to hell. Seems like we could have chosen more wisely. * No, we weren't lovers. Not then. But we fought like lovers. And when I was hurt by him, I locked myself in my bathroom, turned on the faucets and cried like a woman who had been hurt by her lover. Then, I blew my nose, applied the eye-drops, re-applied my make up and left the tears behind. I never let him know how much I hurt, but that didn't stop me from blaming him for not knowing. It's just another game that some lovers play. I was thinking. What was I thinking? Oh, yes. About the man next door. I'm developing a strange fascination. Wondering about him allows me to forget myself. That's not entirely true. We're entwined, he and I, by circumstance. Do you believe in fate? He still doesn't speak but he has made muted, shuffling noises in response to my vented questions. I have learned nothing significant in this limited communication, but I believe I am developing a sense of him. He is lost and afraid, like me. And he has been damaged. Like me. He lives in silence, fearing the outside only slightly more than where he resides now. Like me. I dreamed last night that we were in a car, the faceless man and I. He was at the wheel as we sped down a desolate highway. The windows were open and the wind blew in, whipping my hair against my face, stinging my cheeks. Around us was nothing but sand. The sun was setting before us as we drove west, casting diffused shades of pink and purple and yellow across the desert landscape. I was filled with peace and joy. Something else, I think. Yes, purpose. I was filled with a sense of purpose and I turned to my partner to see if he felt it. He turned his face to me and the man was Mulder. Yes, he was filled with purpose too. His face shone with the joy of the moment. When I woke from the dream, I was crying. Do you know: I had forgotten the taste of salt-water on my lips? * Can you tell me what became of my mother? No. Never mind, I remember. They killed her, like they killed the rest. I suppose I should take some small comfort in the fact that they are all together. I am my family's only surviving member. Five years, give or take, since the warring alien races invaded. Mulder and I knew it was coming, had been warned time and again, had seen the evidence of it. Still, we were mired in disbelief. Told the news on that first day, of the holocaust of hundreds of thousands of people around the globe, we could only ask, "What could we have done? Nothing. We tried to warn you." But there was no excuse for us. Did those first days of the revolution seem to you like they did to me? These were higher life forms from other planets vying for control of earth - yet they seemed so primitive somehow. Their weapons were fire and basic biology. At first, it seemed that the whole human race could at least put up a good fight. After all, we'd seen "Independence Day." We were hopeful, then, but it didn't last long. Mulder found out what had happened to Samantha, and that was the beginning of the end. She arrived, with the other Colonists, and Mulder's hope soon departed. Sam was one of them, beyond the reach of human compassion or understanding. An expatriate of the human race. Our enemy. I was not there when Mulder met this Samantha for the one and only time, in an abandoned hospital in Arlington, but the results were shattering. The girl whose memory he cherished was gone, replaced by a cold, merciless creature. He could have more easily faced the death of her body than the death of her soul. Yes, he still fought, went to the strategy meetings, tried to arrange truces...all the while believing the worst. We could not win. The only chance was to hide. Sam had told him so. If not for that meeting with her, I'm sure he would have fought harder. As it stood, I was helpless in the face of his despair. Despair. These halls are filled with it. The man beyond the wall and I; we are filled with it. It permeates everything and Mulder is gone. He's been gone for five years and I forgot to even care. To despair is a sin in the eyes of God. I am surprised to find I still believe in him, still cross myself when I am alone. In the Name of the Father, of The Son, and of The Holy Spirit. Amen. Please, Dear Lord, I pray, deliver me from despair. Sometimes, he does grace me with hope, but it is such a fragile thing. There is hope, I think, in companionship. You have helped me. The man next door has helped me. You are my sole companions; you have given me some glimmer of hope. But your silence has not escaped me. I give you my memories and you offer nothing in return. The other man, perhaps he still has some hope of his own. Last night, they went into his room to take him for the tests and he fought them. He actually caused quite a stir. I heard his voice for the first time, hoarse from disuse. He said, "No." Over and over again. No, no, no, no, no. They subdued him in the end, but the struggle was in itself heroic. Perhaps, when they come again for me, I will say no too. * I'm beginning to have my suspicions about the man next door. Do you know who he is? No, you don't know or no, you won't say? Yes. That's what I thought. You're like that sometimes. Well, I am too. * So, what is it you want to know now, sir? What test of memory must I pass today? You ask so much and offer so little in return. I suppose we did the same to you in our time. If I tell you what happened in those last days, what will you give me? I'm in a rather precarious bargaining position, I know. Silence. Pretty much what I expected. Fine. Leave me then. I'm in no mood to reminisce. * You insist on returning, despite my request that you stay away. Yes, I am agitated, damn it. What the hell do you want from me? I don't have any more to give you. I'll raise my voice if I damn well please. What happened in those last days before my captivity? Why on earth do you care? You, you who are free to come and go as you please, you ask this of me. Why not tell me what happened in those last days for you? You cut a deal with them, obviously, to save yourself. I owe you nothing. Nothing. Who is the man? Why are you here? Still nothing. Goodbye. * It's him, isn't it? All this time, these weeks I've been talking to you, telling you everything. It's been him all along and you haven't said a word. More of the same. Silence. Go to hell. * You should know that I'm making plans. The word plan pre-supposes a future and I'm doing that now. I'm pre-supposing. That's Mulder over there. He's not spoken a word to me, only shuffled and knocked. But, I suppose it's him anyway. You could tell me if I'm right or wrong, but you won't. Instead you come seeking answers from me, when I have so few answers left to give. As part of my plan, I will tell you everything I remember in the hope that you will reward me with my freedom, that it's within your power to do so. It's a risk I have to take - the same risk as it ever was. That you're on my side. I've been pacing this room now for weeks, like a caged animal. This circumstance will no longer do, for me or for him. The world outside may be populated by the so-called Colonists and enslaved former human beings, but it's where I want to be. Where I will be. I don't give a fuck about this chip. With or without you, I can overcome it. All we ever needed to triumph over impossible odds was each other. Maybe triumph isn't the right word, but I believe that he's next to me now, less than five feet away. And only this wall is between us. His presence strengthens my resolve. So, as you know, the Colonists and the rebels finally tired of our attempts to negotiate peace. It was pretty much a foregone conclusion to Mulder and me that they would, but we had been bidding for time. It ran out on a Tuesday. When the rebel troops first arrived, it was in a rain of fire. It was amazing how soon we all forgave them for that, in the heat of the negotiations. Both sides bargained through hybrids who looked human; by doing so, they lulled many people into a sense of false security. If we cooperated, we were told, we could live. Our mistake was in treating the rebels and the Colonists as one entity. They weren't like us; so, of course, they were all the same. The world's leaders tried to bargain with them the same way, focusing their hopes for the future on the rebel factions slightly more than the Colonists'. We offered to cooperate, then to submit without even knowing their motives and capabilities. Enough of that. You know all that. The Colonists made the first move. One day, negotiations simply ceased. Just like that. Reports came from all over the globe that we were being taken over by the aliens, slaves inside our own skin, incubators for a new generation. Then, they took over the satellites and destroyed all communications. Surely you remember the panic that caused. The rebels responded quickly. Word came through telegraphed messages that the holocaust had started anew. Countless people around the world were being called to their annihilation by the faceless alien race. We had seen the rebels as one possible source of hope, but we were wrong. The Colonists needed us, or at least our bodies, to carry out their plans but the rebels had no use for us at all. We were better off dead as far as they were concerned. I don't believe that they bore us any ill will, but our bodies were the primary weapon of their enemies. The first point of attack is the enemies' arsenal of weapons. It's nothing personal, just strategic warfare. I'm sorry. Am I boring you? You already knew all this. Should I tell you what happened to me that last day? It became obvious to me and to Mulder that our presence was accomplishing nothing. In a panic, people were running away, not toward anything, just running, in the hope that there was a place they could run that would be far enough. We decided to run too, to Oregon. You seem surprised. I suppose you thought we were brave, that we would stay and fight for justice no matter what. Don't you see? There was no justice. All we had was each other. In the midst of the madness we never could have prevented, we finally realized that and it was what we chose to fight for. I won't bore you again with the details, but we came to an understanding that afternoon, in the parking garage of the Quantico building. It was a tentative start to a new way of looking at each other and a shift in priorities that could have saved us, had the past not interfered. We decided to contact The Lone Gunmen and go get our families first and, yes, you. The phones were out and the Colonists controlled the oil and gasoline, so transportation was difficult. Mulder thought he could arrange a car or van using some underground contacts, something about 'requisitioning' a government vehicle. The Bureau and some other government agencies were running transport around the area and I was going to hitch a ride to go see The Lone Gunmen. Mulder and I planned to meet at The Jefferson Monument later that evening with whatever and whomever we could gather to take with us. We said our good-byes, knowing as we did that we might not make it back to each other. We knew this, but it was not an emotional good-bye. For myself, I held my emotions in check because I refused to believe that we would not be together again, and I suppose I thought that to make too much of our separation might jinx our reunion. My memories of that moment are abstract, the warm touch of his hand against my face, his hair smoothed under my fingers. The smell of the garage and of him are still with me, a mixture of gasoline and exhaust fumes, cut with the tangy scent of Mulder. Impossible to describe but still so substantial to me they have taste. I remember the look in his eyes - they've haunted me ever since. So full of love and determination. Fear. Commitment. Then with just a brush of our hands, palm to palm, we stepped back from one other and walked away. It's been an eternity. I was captured that evening, at dusk. I know that it happened as I stood on the sidewalk outside my mother's house. Now I remember, I remember the look on her face as she opened the front door to usher me inside. She was full of love and relief that I was all right, but still so full of fear. She held her arms out to me with a strained smile. The shots that killed her came from behind me. She dropped like a marionette whose strings have been cut. And blood. I remember... Well, I barely had time to register the scene, or even cry out, when I was grabbed from behind. Then came darkness. The darkness lasted for quite a while. When I woke, it was in a room much like this one. Men came and questioned me for hours upon hours, day after endless day. I did not know who they were at first, but I came to realize that they were new associates of the Smoking Man. I was scared. Scared for myself and for Mulder. I could see no way to save myself or to get to him. It was impossible for me in the circumstance to deal with the loss of my mother and the capture of so many others. They cut me off from the world, a life without context, and immersed me in their interrogations. They wanted to know about the vaccine, about the Colonists, imagining that I knew something through some old contact or even through Samantha and her meeting with Mulder. With my knowledge, they said, came power. We could fight the alien invasion, save the human race. Hell, if I had the information they demanded, I probably would have given it to them. They did seem to offer some small chance at victory or at least a chance to fight. One day, they told me Mulder was dead... I'm sorry. I just need a moment. Mulder was dead, they told me, burned by the rebel forces in a raid on Skyland Mountain. He was searching for me when the rebels found him. That's what I was told and I believed it. Believed the lie all too easily because I was worn down to my core, hungry and scared, begging for death to come and take me too. They broke me that day, as much as anyone ever will and anything that's happened since has only been extended overkill. They finally determined my uselessness to them and ransomed me to the Colonists as some sort of bargaining chip. If I knew the conditions of the deal, I would tell you. Why and how and for what I was turned over. But I don't know, and back then, I didn't care. One prison was as good or bad as any other. There was nothing in my human enemies that made them any more appealing than the Colonists. So, I was turned over. They wrapped me up in some kind of shroud, I suppose you would call it. They tied me up and wrapped me up and delivered me to the Colonists. The Smoking Man was there for the delivery, sitting next to me as we were driven to the drop-off location. It was the first time he had shown up since the onset of the invasion. Even though I was shrouded, I knew he was there before he spoke. I recognized the stale stench of cigarettes. He leaned over to me only once on the short trip. He told me in a conspiratorial whisper that he liked me and would never seek to do me harm. 'Agent Scully,' he told me, 'what we do, we do for the greater good. By turning you over, you and others like you, we buy time. Time is essential.' Time for whom? I wanted to ask. Our time was up. 'By turning you over, we give ourselves leverage.' That's what he said, and, 'you are valuable to the Colonists for the research they continue to conduct.' 'The date is set,' he said. But the date had come and gone, I knew. They were here already. Yet, he intoned the words as if preparing a eulogy. Then, he told me that the aliens were not ready for Colonization, could not sustain their lives on earth under their present circumstances. They had been forced to move ahead with their plans sooner than intended because of the Rebel forces. They still needed human test subjects to develop the tools necessary to live, once again, on earth. It was odd the way he spoke to me, like a college professor giving a lecture. Then, he said, 'I'm sorry.' He spoke no more, only handed me over in silence. In all, it was a strange day. And then, I was here and the past slipped away from me by degrees as the tests progressed, until you came. I have had very little contact with anyone outside of the scientists, until you came. Now, I have told you all I know. I will answer any question. Yes, I feel I am myself again. They no longer control me. Is that what you wanted? /yes/ Can you tell me why? /yes/ We're running out of time, aren't we? The date is set. /yes/ Is that man...is that Mulder over there? /yes/ Has his memory been stolen, as well? /yes/ I see. You know I have loved him all this time. I'll admit that to you now. I suppose you could say that memory fades, but love remains. If that is true for me, it must be so for him as well. Did you come to help us out of here? /yes/ Good, I believe I'm ready now. * The End Feedback makes me do a happy dance (but you won't have to see it - just read my appreciation): gwendyn@aol.com If you liked this, look for the sequel, Break of Day, coming in about a month or so, to a fanfic venue near you. It WILL have smut Author's Notes: This story's style (and, okay, some of the plot) is inspired by a wonderful, amazing book by Walker Percy called 'Lancelot'. Since this is the XF Universe, let's just call it an homage, 'kay? THANK YOU: Oh, I am a lucky girl to have such a group of fabulous writers as beta readers: Dasha, Blue and Alanna - you would not want to see what this story looked like before they got their eyes on it. And a very special thanks to Julie for everything, including giving me her valuable perspective on this story. April 13, 1999 http://alanna.net/gwen/