Title: Out of the Sky (1/1) Author: RocketMan >lbontger@wmcstations.com< Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully belong to CC, 1013, and Fox. No infringement is intended. Also, "Lights of Life" is the property of Donna Lewis. Rating: Harmless. UST OKay for Non-Shippers but also wonderful for Shippers. SPOILER : This occurs during "The Red and the Black" when Mulder comes to her in the hospital, then directly after. Spolier for all of US5. Out of the Sky ~~~~~~~~~~ "out of the sky came the lights out of the night out of the fear came the strength strength to live out of the sky came the lights lights of life" --Donna Lewis "Lights of Life" ~~~~~~~~~~ She watched his eyes follow her body along the length of the hospital bed, her face drawn and incomplete without the strength she normally depended upon. He had come in and sat down and looked at her as if she was the only thing alien in all of this. She turned her eyes away and wondered how he could possibly do this to her. She had trusted his ideas, his belief, and he had given up on those things. He had given up. That was what it came down to. Here she was, alive, fighting, needing answers to the truths they had found and Mulder had given up. She said nothing of this though. "Scully." he said and stopped. He wanted to ask her why she had gone to that place, why she had allowed herself to be fooled, duped, controlled, when she had been the one to show him the way of true 'enlightenment'. She had taken the Department of Defense man to him, she had said the words that would condemn him. "They gave me this cancer to make you believe." His head jerked up as if she had spoken the words aloud. Of course, she had said nothing. She never spoke when speaking was what they needed most. She never shut up when it was not what was needed. She confused him now. She believed and she had been the one to show him the light, to bring him the truth. She had been the one to reveal the lies. Why did she now embrace those lies? "Scully-" She turned and he stopped speaking, realizing that there was nothing he could really say right now. She would have to begin. "Mulder." It was not enough. Words were never enough. It didn't matter why she'd been there, why she believed in these lies, or even why she had destroyed his own belief in the very things she now beleived. It did not matter. "I thought you were dead." Her face collapsed into pain and she reached for his hands, pulling him closer until he could hold her. "I thought you were dead, Scully." He did not cry or tremble or fear, only stayed in her embrace, willing her strength to once again come over him like a heavenly benediction. Her strength did not come. He slumped away and stood softly, looking out to the sky. Everything he thought had been, everything he had assumed to see, everything she had denied. Everything. It was there with them, holding council and deciding their fate. Would they be as strong? Would death take them or just rob from them? Would belief be more important that trust? Would life be important enough to give strength? He had no answers. He had nothing. ~~~~~ (In the car, after Mulder's encounter - so to speak) ~~~~~ She was taking his hand and prying it from his face. He still did not know what had happened. He knew nothing anymore. He looked at her with such abuse and hurt and wretched confusion that she could say nothing to him. Nothing to make him easy about it. Once, long ago, he would have been ecstatic, painting lines onto roads or running out into the rain and whooping like a warrior sucessful in the hunt. Long ago, there had been things to believe in. Long ago, she had been green and closed minded, yet also accepting and embracing. Long ago, nothing had changed them. His hand was cold and wet from tears of stunned confusion. He had pulled his head out of the sand to find the land destroyed by flood and fire and famine. He had pulled his head out to find her standing there in confusion, not knowing even where to start, where to begin cleaning up. But alive. Alive and that was all he had asked of anyone. "Mulder. Lights . . . " "I saw lights." he answered, turning his head to look at her again. "People?" "Something. Figures." A pause came through as he collected all his strange thoughts. "When you reached out to me in the hypnosis, you talked of men without faces, Scully." "On the tape, I heard that. Yes." "I think I saw your faceless men." He squeezed her hand and knew why she had reached out her hand to him. He needed something too. "Yes, and then?" She prompted him gently and a part of him was proud of the way she handled the questioning - not too obtrusive, not too soft. Just right when dealing with a person in shock. She had learned alot from him. "Then nothing. Nothing." "Remember this Mulder. Don't try to make it fit into something, don't try to make it a truth or a lie. Don't close your mind to anything." He grinned with the irony. "At one time, I said such things to you." "At one time, I did not want to think." "You think more clearly now?" "I see more clearly the things I did not like to see before. I just wish it hadn't taken the destruction of your belief to make me see." He reeled away from her mentally, but his hand stayed firmly in hers. He could not remember who had reached for whom, who had needed the touch. "Are you saying you believe? After you've torn apart my belief in these things piece by piece, you're saying you believe?!" Her eyes would not look away from him and she would not let his go. "I was . . . I still don't believe in everything, Mulder. I still have trouble thinking there are aliens . . . but there is something going on." "Yes. It's called government conspiracy." "Yes. I know that. What else though?" "Nothing else. Scully, you brought the man to me. You heard what he said and you beleived it. After years of listening to me, years of seeing the same things I had, years of witnessing, you believed him. Someone had to be wrong there, something had to go." "But that could have been a plot, a deception too, Mulder. He could have been given a different kind of lie, just as you now believe you were. It-" "Scully! Make up your mind. You go back and forth and never say anything. You came to me in the beginning, scoffing, and said it was highly unlikely for there to be aliens here. You said you did not believe. Lights in the sky, implants, odd creatures, *things*, did not change that. Nothing changed that. Now there are things in the sky, lights, unexplained phenomenon and you believe." He stopped to breathe in, exhaling the pent up pain. "Where has my old Scully gone?" She fell silent and looked at the sky for awhile, wishing she had said nothing to him about it. Then a soft question from her that rocked him back, breaking their connected hands: "Where has my old Mulder gone?" His eyes sank down into the recesses of his cheeks, hands coming to his face. "I need your stability, Scully." "You think I don't need yours?" "For what?" he whispered. "To know where I should stand!" she cried out, but shut up when the MP came in and started the car. They were driven to a barracks and questioned, sometimes roughly, sometimes softly. Words dribbled from them that had no coherence. They didn't know what to believe, what to suggest had happened, what to ask to find out. They were taken to a street corner near Mulder's apartment and dumped. They were alone again. He took her hand and rubbed away the dirt smudged on her fingers. His eyes did not look at hers, his face did not look down to meet hers. He stared above her and started for his apartment, letting her walk beside him like a ghostly shadow. She did not know where to stand. ~~~~~ end adios RM