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Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 13:48:11 +0000
From: Lyle Bontrager <lbontger@wmcstations.com>
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Subject: The Way IX: Making A Fist
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The Way IX: Making A Fist
Author: RocketMan >lbontger@wmcstations.com<

see part one for other:::::::::this has nothing to do with the movie

The Way IX: Making A Fist

=====
"And now I will show you the most excellent way."
--1 Corinthians 12:31
=====

She was still asleep, her body curled tightly into a ball and taking up
no room at all on his bed.

Of course, it was his bed at the beginning, but turned into hers when he
managed to camp out every night on her own bed.

She looked haggard, exhausted, old.

He wished somehow that they'd not seen this at all.

Truth was a horrible thing sometimes, yet he supposed it would be rather
hypocritical to pick and choose which truth he liked to have. This was
one of those truths he'd rather not know.

It made him feel guilty. The not wanting to know about his own sons and
daughters out there. But how much could he do to save them? How could he
stop those men from making more and more and more?

He now knew the utter hopelessness that  had plauged Scully since she'd
found out about Emily.

How could they beat something this huge?

They couldn't.

It would live on and on, and through them too.

It still hurt. Still made him feel absolutely cold on the inside.

The children in there were not loved, or cared about, or talked to. The
children in those bubbles were test subjects and nothing more.

The children in there were his and Scully's and he sure as hell wanted
them back.
~~~~~

When she woke, she felt a hand on her back and rough denim under her
cheek.

She opened her eyes and saw Mulder's body stretched before her with an
easy grace that belied the tense, haunted look in his face.

"Oh, Jeez, Mulder. Pick a bed," she muttered.

But she did not move. He needed closeness at times, and that sense of
humanity that not many people showed to him.

And she really didn't mind sleeping in his lap.

His hand twitched and his body jerked and she looked up to see that his
face was a riot of emotion, ranging from fear to anger to love.

She pulled herself up and took his face in her hands.

"Mulder?"

His body shivered and she used her thumbs to pull back his eyelids.

"Mulder."

He yelped and would have fallen off the bed had she not grabbed him.

He gazed at her a long time.

"I'm sorry, Scully."

She reeled away from him, mind spinning. Mulder never apologized, never
came right out and said those words. It was always some kind of peace
treaty he handed her, never a worded apology.

"Why?"

"For all of this. For finding this out and having . . . having all those
. . ."

He didn't seem to know what to say. Words failed him just as his
thinking did and all he could do was sit there open mouthed, waiting for
her to forgive him.

"Mulder, it's more comforting to know you're those children's father,
than to be forever wondering about extra-terrestrials or hybrids. . ."

He gave her a litle grin. "Am I making a believer out of you, Scully?"

She flashed him one of her "I'm not amused" smiles and shook her head.

"Mulder, really, though. I . . . it's not you who has to apologize.
There can be no "I'm sorry" for this."

He hung his head and closed his eyes, once again locking himself in the
self torture chamber he had in his mind.

She reached out and touched his cheek. "Please, Mulder. Don't blame
yourself. I could blame myself too. I could tell myself I should have
been more careful with that implant that came from Duane Barry, I should
have fought him off, I should have believed you more and maybe it
wouldn't have happened. I could say maybe I should have been more open,
that way I would have seen it coming-"

"No," he said, in a kind of gut-wrenching whisper. "You couldn't help
those things!"

She eyed him meaningfully. "Exactly. You couldn't help those things. See
that Mulder? You can't stop these people. They're going to do what they
want. All we can do is win the little battles here and there."

"How can we ever win? They could hold this over our heads forever."

Her face drained of color and she glanced away.

With a tentative hand he touched her cheek. "Scully, if you want to . .
. to get out of this, I understand. I wouldn't stop you."

She turned back to him in panic. "You want me to leave?"

"No!"

"Then why the hell *say* that?"

"Because this just keeps getting worse. It can't get any better. We're
going to always be fighting them. We're never going to reach the end of
this."

She shook her head. "I don't care."

"What?"

"I'm with you, that's enough."

His eyebrows jumped and he felt nauseated.

"No, no, no, Scully. Don't keep doing this because of me. I'm nothing."

"Mulder!" She was exasperated, frustrated that he could not see what he
did to himself. "I don't do this because of you. I do this for myself,
for my own answers. I have always done this to find my own answers. From
the very first case, I wanted my own answers, Mulder. But I can't get
them without you. You have the energy, the determination, the focus and
passion to actually find the truth."

He shifted on the bed, pushing his body into the corner of the
headboard.

"You could actually find the truth, Mulder."

He shook his head. "So when I find it, I'll tell it to you. Meanwhile,
this isn't worth it for you."

She exploded up in a frustrated fury, angrily stalking the small floor
of the motel room, her hands working at clenching and unclenching a
fist.

It reminded him of a poem he'd read. A little girl sick in the back of a
car had asked her mother if she was going to die. The mother had told
her that if she could still make a fist, she was all right.

She was still making a fist.

"Mulder, I don't know what I can say that will make you stop beating
yourself up over things you couldn't and can't change. I don't know how
to show you that love forgives whatever you've done, whatever you
haven't done, whatever you think you've done. And I think the only
reason I would leave you was if you never *did* understand that."

He was watching her very carefully, thinking about how she was opening
and closing her fist, her fingers gripping air tightly and then lettting
it go, in the same rhythm that her heart beat.

She came to sit in front of him on the bed. "Does it matter to you what
I see  you as?" she asked suddenly.

He jerked out of his poetic epiphany and focused his energy on her
words.

"Yes, it matters a lot."

"This is what I see you as, Mulder: someone strong, admirable, fighting
for what's right instead of running away, and most of all, someone who
doesn't give up on me."

He was looking right into her, his eyes dark obsidian with flecks of
warm life running through the centers.

"Who in their right mind would ever give up on you?" he whispered.

She smiled. "Who would ever give up on you?"

His muslces seemed to loosen and his body slump toward her, arms came
around her tightly as if to make sure she was still alive.

Opening and closing her fist.

It felt too good to hold her and not care about what was being said
without the words; it felt too good to have her in his arms and not say
anything.

"You make me feel good," he said softly, and he didn't know if his words
came out right or if she even understood what he was trying to say.

But she laughed and hugged him harder. "You deserve to feel good."

He bit his lips hard to keep from making some kind of comment and
ruining the moment, but it came out anyway.

"You can make me feel good any day, G-woman."

She slipped from his arms and he mourned the loss.

The room had gotten dark with rain clouds and she was a shadow on the
bed, moving softly around to his side.

"Where are you going? This was just getting good," he said, catching her
hand.

"I'm not going anywhere." she said and her voice was not joking with him
anymore. "I'm staying right here."

She leaned forward and kissed his cheek, planting her body up next to
his and letting her arms slide around his chest.

He held her face for a long moment, feeling the gentle tug within him
that made him want to simply hold her forever, never let go and never
let her down.

"I'm glad it was you, Scully. The mother of my child . . ."

She pushed her head down, onto his chest, eyes closed and buried into
his shirt. She was shaking, crying he thought, and he felt awful for not
paying more attention to the hurt inside her.

Her body got so small, so very compact that he felt as if he was holding
nothing, that she was shriveling in on herself and going to float away.

He tucked her neatly in his arms, rocking slightly on the bed, running
his hands down her back, through her hair, across her cheek. Seducing
her through her pain.

"I want to go back, Mulder." she whispered. "Just to see. See if they're
all dead."

He nodded. "Cry first, Scully. Then we'll go back."

At his words her body shook and she was crying, the large tears that
slipped endlessly down her cheeks were like silent thunderstorms.

All he could do was just not give up.
~~~~~

There was nothing.

Everything was black, black, black, and smoking in some places as heat
met rain, like God's tears meeting the souls in Hell.

The trees were scorched and withered into chunks of disintegrating coal,
ash sprinkled liberally around the place as if it had been a campground
for a giant.

He was holding her hand tightly, watching her face to see movement, to
see life again and know that she would be okay.

Her face was cold and dead, frozen into hopelessness.

Her eyes closed and she trembled but he made no move to hold her. He
knew she needed to know her own strength, needed to understand her
limits, reach her end. And then he would be there.

There were no bodies. They had called in to the police and fire office,
and both had told them it was victimless.

Their truth, their personal truth was gone.

One little boy with tousled brown hair and shocking light caramel brown
eyes along with thousands of other test tube children, were gone.

Once again, too late. Too late with Emily, too late with Scully, too
late for Samantha. Everything was discovered too late.

His face was as bleak as hers.

She watched him as he walked a little ways, watched his coat billow in
the rain's breeze, his eyes flicker over the deadness.

Her hands clenched, opened, made a fist.

Mulder was watching her, smiling now.

They stood apart, waiting for something.

"Now we know," she said.

He nodded.

"We'll find a way. We'll get them back." He was looking at her.

They had a new quest, a truly joint quest that left no room for
misgiving in either.

She echoed his words, opening and closing her hand, reaching for
something. "We'll find a way."

And his hand came and caught hers.
~~~~~
end sat.
In Him
RM