Title: Abiogenesis Author: RM >lebontrager@iname.com< Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully belong to CC, 1013, and Fox. No fringe is intended. Summary: Alien-human hybrids and Mulder's innane willingness to believe. Scully proves herself. SPOILER::: Only includes up to the season finale. (Biogenesis) Since I haven't seen the finale yet, I wouldn't know anything about it but the previews I saw, and those made no sense whatsoever. ~~~~ Abiogenesis ~~~~ Abiogenesis-- the science which states there was a 'start' to life, the first cell, the first human, etc; that life simply did not exist before someone or something created it; spontaneous generation. ~~~~ Mulder licked his lips and glanced once more around his office, looking for what? he wasn't sure, but feeling better for his caution. The file folder was thick and bulky as he slipped it from his desk drawer, and the edges were already becoming blurred by his hands and time. He thumbed it open and scanned the data he'd already memorized, and knew by heart. Lists and columns of biological jargon that only Scully could interpret for him, and then her findings, printed clearly and neatly by some computer printer about eight months ago. It was so precise, so her. Gibson Praise had DNA. Everybody had DNA, just like Gibson's in most ways, with the four bases (five if you included RNA) and the hydrogen bonds. Everyone had DNA. So did that claw. The alien claw they'd found at the house, after it had gestated. It had DNA. It had human DNA. Or rather, humans had alien DNA. Have alien DNA. It frustrated him to no end. This information was so so important, but he couldn't get a straight answer from Scully about it, and if he did question her on it, the entire ordeal was brought up again and she trusted him less and less. His fault, that lack of trust. He knew that. He couldn't fix it, but he sure did want to know what the hell this report meant. Alien claw equals Gibson Praise equals human. What did this mean? Mulder blew a frustrated breath from his lungs and searched through the file for that claw, amazed it was still here and relatively intact, after all this time. He would have thought there'd be another mysterious fire, or perhaps it would just vanish. But here it was. Proof. An alien claw. Well, Scully said it obviously couldn't be an alien, since, strictly speaking, alien was extraterrestrial and his DNA being the same meant it wasn't from another planet. But that thing wasn't human. He had *Seen* it with his own eyes. She couldn't say anything about it at all. She hadn't Seen. He wished she would just talk to him about this. They'd been through hell and back and still, she didn't want to admit anything, for fear of his insanity? What? Did she think that agreeing with him once would cause her to fail? He had told her -- Now was not the time for science or her outlandish attempts to keep things normal. This wasn't normal. She'd seen enough to know this wasn't normal. They needed to be rational, yes. Usually she provided that rationality. But when she ignored obvious facts. . .that wasn't being rational. That was being foolhardy. "Mulder?" He jerked up, thrusting the file folder beneath his desk, out of view. Scully. "What're you looking at?" she asked, stepping inside his office. "Just some possibilities." "Like what?" He shrugged and leaned back in his chair, the folder tucked calmly into his crossed arms. Scully came forward, stepping carefully around a mess of things he'd piled in the floor, coming to rest at his desk. He'd been trying to redecorate the place, since the fire. He watched her lean against the right hand drawers, her customary spot, and bit his lip to keep from saying anything just then. She was eager looking, and her face seemed fresh, not at all tired or bitter, as she had been for awhile. As they had both been for awhile. "Nothing new. Just some old stuff." She nodded and waited for him to offer more, not pressing, not ready to dismiss him. "Scully, I have to admit. I'm not too anxious to share." Her face flashed, but with more hurt than anger, and she crossed her arms, wary. Mulder sighed and handed it over to her, seeing her eyes as she registered the familiar tests, the information that actually meant something to her. She looked less than thrilled, but she also didn't seem surprised to find him holed up in the basement, pouring over this particular truth. Her mouth opened to speak, but he held his hand up, shaking his head. "Before you say anything, let me warn you. I wasn't looking for a fight with you, Scully. You wanted to know what I was looking at. I tried to do it in the privacy of my own time-" She was grinning. "You sound like I just caught you with a dirty magazine or something." Mulder gave her a quick flash of upturned lips to show he appreciated her attempt at humor. "Feels enough like it." "Mulder. . .I thought we were done with this. . .it's not solved, I know. But-" "Scully, look, really. I don't want to get into this with you. Things have been tense enough between us." She looked genuinely hurt then. Mulder was surprised his words had affected her so much, surprised she didn't already realize how sick he was getting of her incessant love affair with science. She walked away from his desk, the folder still in her hands, her back turned to him. "Mulder. . .I'm truly sorry that you think. . .that you think I'm only out to get you." She turned swiftly and tossed the folder to his desk, the brief flash allowing him to see that tears had formed in her eyes. She grabbed her jacket and walked quickly from the office. Mulder buried his head in his hands and groaned. Mistake. Big huge stupid mistake. ~~~~ Scully was curled tightly on her couch, hands tucked under her chin and her eyes shut tightly. She wondered if she should leave. She was doing him no good anymore. No good. Maybe once, her science had made him realize a whole new world of possibilities, and maybe once her science had grounded him, but not any longer. She had slowly been coming to this realization, for a long time now, with every small brush off, every weary look her cast in her direction, and every sigh when she began to speak. She wondered if she should leave. After their little field trip into the bowels of some massive fungi near Brown Mountain, she had second thoughts, triple and quadruple thoughts on their partnership. In her hallucinations, she'd experienced her worst nightmare. Without Mulder, her sole anchor in this fight for truth, her world had crashed to a halt. Her own thoughts were rebellious, and she saw reality clearly for the first time. Funny that within a hallucination she had finally come to understand what was truth. She held him back. She did. Everyone spouted back her ridiculous science when he had died. Acid solution, ritualistic overtones, all that crap she had previously, so calmly, told him. It didn't make sense. It made no sense, and Mulder had tried to tell her that. He had tried to tell her that she had to stop making these rash, scientific judgments that maybe sounded quick and painless, but in reality were the idiotic ramblings of a woman who couldn't see the truth if it gestated in front of her. She made herself sick. Scully glanced past the coffee table to the boxes piled beyond, then the grey and silent television, and finally, her dark, plain hallway. Only her clothes were still unpacked, and just a few of those hung in the closet for her to wear in this last week. The decision had been in the making for awhile, but it had taken this night for her to recognize the seriousness of her position. She wanted to make them pay, make whoever it was that had taken her. . . make them suffer for what they'd done. She wanted it more than anything. . . More than she wanted to be with Mulder on the X-Files. She was keeping both of them from achieving this, keeping them from finding the truth and exposing the lies with her own science. She'd forgotten how to dream, how to open her mind to new things, and it was costing her the entire partnership she'd built with Mulder. It was hopeless; she couldn't change. Scully felt tears trickling down her cheeks and she wiped them away angrily at first, then allowed them to sail down, free and unfettered. She couldn't do this. She just couldn't. But she was killing them both by staying. Whereas before she had shielded Mulder from making stupid mistakes, now she was suffocating him, keeping him from doing anything at all. His weariness was loud testimony to that. Every time he met her eyes, she saw this pleading little boy, begging to be let out to play. He could get so far. . .so far. . .without her. It was for the best. They had to be exposed. . .the truth had to be found before it was too late. It was more than just her own aduction, or his sister's disappearance, or her own sister's death. It was some type of plan to overthrow the entire known civilaztion -- and someone had to stop it. Aliens or no, something was going on. And only Mulder had the courage and the will and the ability to find it out. She had to do this. "Oh God. . .please." ~~~~ There was only a faint light coming from her apartment window, but his conscience forced him to park the car and ride the elevator up, hoping she had fallen asleep and he would not have to do this tonight. He knocked twice, soft enough not to wake her, but loud enough that she would hear if she was awake. The door opened with a loud click, and she was standing there, looking as if she'd been crying half the night away, her hair tousled and swept back from her face. She stayed still, blocking him from entering, but he pushed on the door and stepped inside. "Having a garage sale?" he joked, noticing the boxes. Scully glanced back, her face pale, and he moved her into the middle of the living room, anxious to speak. "Things aren't right between us, Scully. I know that. I just don't know how to fix it. I feel like you're not listening to me anymore-" He stopped suddenly, glancing around him, seeing piles and stacks of boxes that towered over him like guards to her heart. "This isn't some garage sale. . ." he muttered, spinning around. Her eyes betrayed her. "This is packing, Scully." She couldn't speak. She felt trapped and thrilled all at the same time. He had come here to fix things. . .but things couldn't be fixed. "You're leaving." She glanced to the floor, feeling tears of shame and horror slide down her cheeks. "You're giving up. On the truth. . .on *us*. . ." He stepped back, his hand roughly scratching his face, his head shaking. "I can't believe you. You're the one. . .the one. . ." He sputtered to a stop, just staring at her, daring her eyes to meet his. When their gazes locked, it was like fire had started in him and was being burned into her heart, brittle and breaking, with a pain that made her gasp for breath. "You're leaving me." She wished he had left the silence. "No. . ." she said, shaking her head. "Then what the hell is going on?" he yelled, his hands grabbing her shoulders roughly. She closed her eyes, wishing he'd given her time to prepare herself, time to harden her cracked heart away from him. "I'm holding you back, Mulder. You told me. . .now isn't the time for science." He looked stunned, as if bitten by his own words. A remarkably similar conversation played round and round in his head, like a skip on a record. "Now isn't the time for the only thing I can offer you, Mulder. You don't need me anymore. I don't think you ever really did. . ." "Don't *say* that," he hissed, his hands tight on her shoulders. She shook her head and tried to pull away. How did he expect her to think with his hands shaking her and his eyes staring into her soul? Taking a deep breath, Scully firmly pushed him away, biting off the overwhelming sorrow that threatened to suck her down. "I'm going to quit, Mulder. I'm no good to you anymore, and you've ruined me for anyone -- any*thing* -- anything else." He sucked in his breath, face pale and slick with a kind of fevered franticness. "No no. no. You can't leave me, Scully. You're the one who said we couldn't let them beat us. You're the one who made me *stay*. . .I stayed for you, Scully." "Stay for me still. I need you to find them, Mulder. I need you to stop them. . .but I'm only hurting you by tagging along." His eyes flared then shut tightly, pushing out the image she made, standing there cold and distant, her eyes so closed off to him. "You've never been just a tag-along, Scully. You're my partner. . ." She shook her head. "I'm endangering all you've ever worked for, Mulder. Not only do I hold you back with my science, but I'm your Achilles heel. Your vulnerable spot. I can't let this fail because of me." He turned on her in desperation, forcing her eyes to meet his as she clutched her shoulders, pressing her close to him. "You will *always* be my vulnerable spot, Scully. I can't stop it. You keep me alive. I thought you *understood* that. I thought I made that clear before." Scully gave up trying to make him understand. Sometimes Mulder could be so randomly sweet, and most times, he was indifferent. He really didn't need her. He might have at one point, but he didn't anymore. "Just. . .just let me go, Mulder." He shook his head, wildness in his eyes. "No. I'm not. You're staying right here until I make you understand this." "I'm killing us, Mulder! Can't *you* understand that?" She felt exhausted, and his forehead came crashing to hers, like a fallen tree. "Scully. . .Scully. . .God, no, please don't leave me." He whispered his final plea, not expecting her to mind to change, not understanding how it could have gotten so bad so fast. "Mulder. . ." She stepped back, pushing him to the couch, then taking a seat on the coffee table, needing space. "Mulder. . .you don't want to listen to my science anymore. It's that simple, and that complex. You think I ought to be past it or something. All I know is science. It keeps me sane, Mulder. All those cases where things just didn't make sense, the 98.5 percent of our cases. . .you may have been right, but science will explain it. . ." Mulder was shaking his head, frowning. "I have to make you work for your theories. It's how we've always worked, how we work best. Before this anyway. But the things that have happened to us. . .I can't find any hope of explaining them but in my science, Mulder. And you're dismissing it out of hand." "But we've seen these things. . .we've seen them and you won't let yourself admit to it. You'd rather believe in spontaneous human combustion than . . . than aliens. I can't understand you anymore. You act as if you've been humoring me all along, and when it comes down to it, you're too afraid to make the logical conclusions, the truths that all the evidence points to." She shook her head. "Forget it, Mulder. Forget it. We're getting nowhere." She moved to stand and he roughly grabbed her wrist, yanking her from her chair and into the couch, his eyes feral and untamed. "I'm not letting you go. . ." She shivered, truly chilled by his strange attitude. "I need you, Scully. I don't know how to say it anymore than this. . ." His eyes closed and before she could move, his lips were pushing into her mouth, his tongue gliding along her lower lip. She breathed in Mulder and tasted Mulder and knew only Mulder. When he pulled away, she was still staring at him, speechless, unable to move or breathe or gasp or punch him like she really wanted to. Then she closed her eyes. He waited, stroking her cheeks with his thumbs, peering into her blank face, asking questions in his silence. "Why. . .why'd you have to go and do that?" she said, her voice shaky and her hands unsteady as they took his palms from her skin. He felt his guts twist with her sorrow, and she looked at him finally, regret swimming through her sea longing eyes. "We can't do this Mulder. We'd never work. . .you'd lose everything." "No. No. Scully, Scully. . ." She shushed him with her fingertips, shaking her head. "I'm sorry, Mulder. Oh God. . ." Her last words were a kind of prayer and she closed her eyes tightly, needing to cry. "You're worth it, Scully. Don't turn away from me. Don't you dare turn away from me." She looked back at him, wishing that something could happen, wishing that something could come from this nothingness deep inside her. "I love you. . ." He wasn't sure she said it at first, thought maybe he just wanted to believe it so much that he'd been hallucinating. She rubbed the tears from her face. He laughed at her grief and pressed his lips into her forehead. "I know, I know you do." She nodded against his embrace and let him pull her into his chest, tight and forever, not wanting him to let go. It was filling them both. Her words were slipping and sliding into the dark places of their partnership, cementing the cracks in their faith, and drying out the tears. She laughed and felt better than she had since waking from an icy coma to his beautiful face, anxious for her and loving. "I've never needed you more than now, Scully. Never." She nodded again and relaxed into the easiness of them. "I don't know how to be. . .how to believe, Mulder." He shrugged. "And I don't know how to take your science and apply it like you do." There was a long moment of silence, and then he leaned down and kissed her again, gently, tenderly, amazed at this new thing between them. It had never been like this. "Where did this come from?" she whispered. "I don't know. . .it just came." She didn't question it any longer. ~~~~ end adios RM