A Walk Through Fire

A Walk Through Fire

I never really knew what it was like to lose, not before I met Mulder.

Sure, there were all the usual small defeats, the little losses. Like, not coming first in art class. The acknowledgement that I'd never win an Olympic high jump. Knowing for sure that my football hero had failed to invite me to the prom. The realization that I wasn't going to be, didn't want to be, the safe, wealthy hospital doctor that my father imagined.

They were nothing. My eyes were on the prize. Me. A voyage of discovery that would let me understand my world, let me fight the good fight, let me be me the best I could. For me, for others.

What now?

I scarcely noticed when something started to strip it all away. As if one night I went to bed, secure, confident, proud of my work, of my life, of myself. Then found, by the time I woke up, that it had all gone. My sister, my health, my career, my fantasies of a family of my own. I hadn't realized how important my dreams were, until they vanished. Lost on hospital gurneys. Gone up in smoke.

Mulder's frozen solid. Switched off. Standing up, to keep from falling down. Staying silent, to keep from screaming. A statue, because if he wasn't, he'd just melt away, crumble to dust, ashes, like these files.

I touch him now, to remind myself, that not everything dies, that some things are harder to kill than others. Not a comfort exactly, just a focus. A tentacle reaching out to reality. God, did I say that? Mulder, as a touchstone to reality? Maybe I should tell him, it might make him laugh.

I remember laughing. Long time ago. Too long. So little to laugh at.

What was it I was telling him in his apartment? That this time they may have won. Of course, I didn't expect him to agree. My oddly skeptical partner, immune to loss, indifferent to defeat. Programmed to react instinctively, by trying again.

Me? I've only had five years of practice at losing.

God, I envy him. Frozen to the spot, yet, I envy him. He'll bounce. He won't want to. But, he doesn't have a choice, he can't help it.

If I'd died, I'd know by now. I'd know, not just believe, that God loves his children, that all things are as they must be, that his guiding hand is there, if we only reach out. I'd know it.

Mulder made me explain about Gibson, tell Skinner and the watchers, about what I saw on the scans, what we had discovered on the tests. Me and Mulder, singing from the same page of the song sheet for once and talking about god nodules.

I was fulfilling my mission. Understanding my world. Tidying up loose ends. Explaining the inexplicable.

Proudest moment of my life. Should have been. Wasn't.

Maybe I could sense the storm coming.

Gee, wouldn't that be good? Months since I last made an official entry into the X-Files. I wouldn't let Mulder write up the visions of Emily. I didn't document my close encounter with an angel. I have not forgiven myself for my failure. To fail to protect those girls was bad enough, even though I know, that choice was not mine to make. But, to fail to confront it, to analyse it, to write it down, that tells me that I'm weak. Scared to look.

Mulder doesn't get off the hook so easily. He always looks, scared or not.

I joined the Bureau to protect and serve, arcane and cliched as that might sound. I moved to the X-Files to further my career. I stayed to learn. I never thought that I'd learn that I was too weak to fight the horror, the truth, the lies.

The office doesn't matter. Not really. The files, the ones that we know are crucial, are copied and tucked away. The files, the ones that FBI cares about, are just copies of the masters in the fireproof vault. It's not the destruction that matters, it's the violation.

I'm surprised that I care about an inanimate thing. My body has been used by them, their chip keeps me alive, momma lab rat. My apartment has been a battle zone, my sister died in the crossfire. Yet, still I'm offended by this seemingly trivial, inconsequential assault.

The last of my innocence has been stripped away. I joined the FBI to keep people safe. I can't even keep myself safe.

What happened to the sprinklers, the alarms. Who set the fire? In the FBI Headquarters for God's sake. Jesus, can you imagine that? The FBI, victims of an arson attack right on the premises.

I know what they'll say about it, saving face with the press. Inconsequential damage of a disused storage area.

That'll be the epitaph on five years of my life. Inconsequential.

I can already visualize the investigation. Fingerprint and other forensic evidence, if any remains, will be useless. Chances are that whoever did this can give good reason for visiting the office. And, of course, these guys are professionals. The only evidence will be what they want us to find. Mulder will try to explain that security video images of people approaching the office are irrelevant because shape changers may have morphed their way in. The investigation will conclude. Will blame me, or Mulder, or our allies, or no one.

Only my partner will disagree. And me, but I'll have no hard evidence and therefore, no words to say.

Hard evidence. When did my life grow so narrow?

Claustrophobic. Since the day the tumor was diagnosed, the walls have been closing in. Not quite crushing, just pressing tightly against my skin, but all the time. Till I get so I can't breathe. Can't turn. Can't move.

I remember the miracle cancer cure, the waving of a magic wand. Of sorts. A flight of adrenaline and relief that let me escape the weight on my body, allowed me to fly above the pressure on my body. For a while.

Crash. Emily.

Crash. A bridge with bodies waiting to be burnt.

Crash. Mulder.

He's a kaleidoscope. Such pretty patterns, such ugly mistakes, all mixed up, never the same man twice. Collide-oscope perhaps, so cold and so passionate.

I'm jealous of that passion. I was actually furious with him when he lost it. It felt like a betrayal. Like our work was a lie. If he could just stop believing, then where did that leave me?

I'm jealous now of his freedom. So, Mulder had once known Fowley, his "little chickadee". Seems like Mulder has always had options.

I'm jealous, frustrated, furious. So, he chose this life, this isolation. And tomorrow? Maybe, he will choose another life. I watched him with Spender. Saw the way the other agents wanted to deride Mulder's intervention. Saw how hard he is to ignore.

I want to choose. Not too much to ask, is it? I want all my choices back.

I've been alone for too long. Thought that other people could only weaken me. What did I tell that woman, that stranger? That I avoid emotional attachment.

Irony of ironies. Great leap forward. I let myself attach to things that can't attach back. Emily, now she's dead.

Mulder. Mulder's dangerous. The all embracing, skintight membrane that drives this bubble of claustrophobia. Demanding, questioning, challenging. I reach out for him, so he backs away. I lock myself into my cocoon and retreat, so he comes back to press at its walls, search out the weak points. Push, push, push. Cat and mouse. I leave him no openings.

I gravitate towards him only when I am secure that he can't respond.

I don't want to see these images when I close my eyes. They are his images. His angry mother. The holes are drilled in his head. Total recall, how easy it was, I threw myself into a battle to save him from himself. Secure in the knowledge that he couldn't respond, that he could scarcely even see me.

A year later and in some insane mocking parallel, Skinner has him strapped in restraints in some psychiatric ward. Generous, as ever, in Mulder's defeat, I allow myself to see his demons.

I wonder. Will I ever be able to show him mine?

I think not. Surely, I need something that is mine. Just mine. A love. A faith. A mission. My demons.

Everything else I have, I share with him. Either by confirming him or by denying him. But existing only in his shadow, like some imperfect reflection.

I want. I want. I want.

I want to know what I want.

I don't want this. I don't want to salvage files, spend days in the records office, painstakingly reconstructing this odd little world.

Not that I'll get a choice. Not now everyone knows about the X-Files. Our little secret. Me, Mulder and Skinner. A private vice, known about, but not understood by outsiders. Gossiped on in private by other agents, but like any other offbeat family quirk, never spoken of in public. The unwritten law of the playground had protected us, don't ask, don't tell.

Jesus. Mulder got a mention on the Jerry Springer show. I could have killed him. Dopey smirk and all. The stupid bastard, how could he let us get that kind of exposure? Well, not us, him. And if I was feeling generous, I guess he didn't really have a choice. In fact, that was probably how Skinner covered for him that time. Pinned it all on tabloid journalism and misrepresentation. Never mind if this was the one story that was actually true.

If we were heading for closure, then this is our crash and burn arrival.

Go directly to your new assignments, do not pass go, do not collect any personal effects. Because they went up in flames. I think Mulder was probably more at home in here than he ever was in his apartment. Me? I never really lived here. Not wholly. Story of my life. Wallflower. Impartial observer. Parrot on my own shoulder.

It was bad enough last time they closed the files. Mulder almost came apart at the seams. But at least then, we knew that this place, the holy of holies, was still here. Waiting for us, like some El Dorado, promising hope and renewal. Mulder never bothered to pack. Some bit of him wouldn't let him acknowledge that it was really over. He just got housekeeping to throw in a few dust sheets, locked the door and walked away.

This time, they've even taken that from us. We won't even be allowed the illusion that it's all just waiting here, ready for us to step back into. Our new assignments, just a pause as we await some more politically favorable time.

I don't think I want to wait for a more politically favorable time.

I don't think that I want to know that the X-Files, my life, are a luxury item that the Bureau can't afford.

I don't think I have faith in the kind of people who could sanction us to operate again.

I don't think I want to hear that they have things buttoned down so tight that we are again deemed safe and worthwhile.

The Bureau, our strait jacket and our life line. Mixed blessing for so long, maybe not a blesing at all, not any longer.

I don't know what Mulder will do. They'll try to make him eat shit. He's just perverse enough to let them do it. Preprogrammed, so maybe he won't be able to stop himself from just dusting himself off and biting down.

Me? I'm different. I'm not actually his imperfectly reflecting shadow.

How many more Emilys are out there waiting for their mommies? How many more alien beacons are biding their time, waiting to beckon me to my death? How many more superannuated bastards think that I'm just a pawn in their game? How many more messages from God before I understand what he wants from me?

There are other ways to fight. There are other ways to live.

You've just got to know where to look.

It's why they put the "I" in FBI.