====o=====================================================o===== "Passages in Memory" (revised) by Mary Ruth Keller E-mail: mrkeller@eclipse.net =====o=====================================================o===== Epilogue (Disclaimed in Prologue) -----o-------------------------------------------o----- I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is emulation; nor the musician's, which is fantastical; nor the courtier's, which is proud; nor the soldier's, which is ambitious; nor the lawyer's, which is politic; nor the lady's, which is nice; nor the lover's, which is all these: but it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects; and indeed the sundry contemplation of my travels, in which my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous sadness. As You Like It O, do not do your cousin such a wrong! She cannot be so much without true judgement,- Having so swift and excellent a wit As she is prized to have... Much Ado About Nothing -----o------------------------------------------o----- Lowenberg Home Miami, Florida Tuesday, February 18, 1997 11:27 am Dana Scully floated on the warmth of the pool, concentrating on letting her tensions flow away from her, through the hand that trailed off the clear inflated raft, into the water. The horrors were behind them; she had worked through her tapes and he through the report. All the evidence had been archived in secrecy, so they were using the remainder of their time for the recovery of their drained minds and weakened bodies. As she drifted, incidents from the past week replayed in her thoughts. --o-0-o-- Mulder opened the door to his stepfather's study. "You can work in here, if you want, Scully." She brushed past him, fascinated by the delicate Bas-relief figures all around the edge of the thick slab that was the desk's top. While he waited silently by her shoulder, she reminisced, "Your Mother said it's from the Tyrol. I saw it when she gave us the tour of the house. I've wanted to check it out, but Max was in here so much I didn't want to gawk." Mulder shrugged. "I don't think I was ever in here before, Scully, I was spending the time with my Mom." She sank carefully into the tall chair with red velvet seat and back cushions, rubbing the broad armrests ending in spirals. Twisting, she admired the carved rim of the back, showing hop vines that grew from the sunburst at the top. With an index finger, Scully traced tiny veins inscribed in the leaves. "Both of these must be antiques. I've never seen anything so beautiful in my life." As the devastation in his Mother's and Stepfather's lives suddenly meshed with his own, Mulder's eyes clouded. He ran his hand over the deep varnish on the writing surface. "When I spoke with him about coming down here, he mentioned this. It was one of the few pieces of furniture Max's family managed to hide before they were taken away. The chair is a replacement." He busied himself with unloading the pocket recorder and hooking it into the sound card in the PC. Rising to stand beside him, Scully reached for the mass of cables. He waved her off. "I'm not a total klutz; Frohike *did* teach me something." They grinned at each other, so she booted up the machine, verifying that the software and disk space were adequate for her plans. After she had activated the voice recognition software, she circled the room, her footsteps silenced by the thick Persian carpet. The office was what one would expect for a lawyer, floor to ceiling bookshelves in dark walnut covering three of the four walls. A deep bay window behind the desk looked out over the front garden of hibiscus, grown to a tall glory that had never felt a frost, and delicate, fern-like cycad palms. The ambers and tans in the book bindings were subdued compared to the indigo, azure, and silver threads in the rug outlining the shape of a phoenix, rising from scarlet, ocher, and auric flames. At the mythical bird's head, Max had positioned a settee with a pair of facing lions engraved on the back, a mate to the chair in its scrollwork, the seat as brightly upholstered. Scully settled in it, curling up on the padding while she watched her partner work, his tongue stuck slightly out between his teeth as he concentrated. Once he was finished, Mulder crossed the room to grasp her shoulder, relaying in hushed, sympathetic tones, "I'll just be in the entertainment room, across the hall, if you need me." --o-0-o-- "Of course, that's what they used." His partner's voice floating across the hallway to him brought Mulder to his feet, setting his reading glasses on the table before he stepped away. "What, Scully?" Relishing the change in climate, they had both reverted to summer attire. He was wearing his khaki shorts and black tank top, while she was relaxing in a violet polo shirt over her white canvas shorts. She looked up from the transcript she had generated with the computer, a silicon incongruity sitting on the Victorian treasure. "Oh, sorry." She carried the sheets over to the divan, tucking her bare white feet up as she sat. "I've listened to the tapes you made, working with my recorded words until I think I understand just what had happened to my body during those missing three months. It's not as bad as I had feared, Mulder." He smiled. "Does this mean you can stop worrying about cancer?" She glanced at him over wire-rimmed glasses that had descended partially along her nose. "I don't know. The radioactive implants weren't inside me as long as they were for some of the MUFON women, but sarcomas have a certain element of chance associated with them. My likelihood of developing breast cancer is more probably related to my family background, so I can't count it out altogether, but still, this is a tremendous relief. I think I've worked out how they kept me still for that period of time without drugs. Listen." Mulder cringed as she began to read her words out loud, holding his hand up, palm towards her. "Please, I had to hear you say all that once, and it nearly tore me up then. Just tell me what it means." She rolled the papers into a tight coil. "I had been rendered motionless with a sensory blocker, an electrical device that was basically a feedback loop, Mulder. It phase inverted and effectively cancelled the signals traveling along the major neural pathways into my arms and legs." She looked over at him. "You've heard of these, similar devices have been developed to fire the nerves in the legs of patients with spinal injuries, so they could walk." His lip curled. "You mean those butchers induced quadrupelegic immobility in healthy, functioning women, like yourself?" He stood in front of her. "How did they know they weren't crippling you permanently?" She blinked rapidly. "Mulder, the technology was proven, and they *didn't* use drugs." Shocked by her detachment, he stepped back. "Scully, don't talk about yourself as if you were an automobile they could change the transmission out for! You, and maybe," he lamented as he hugged himself, "Sam." She dropped the papers to stand beside him, prying his arms loose. "No, it disgusts me as much as it does you, but it means we'll ... both ... be all right, don't you see?" He focused on her. "I suppose." Chewing his lip, Mulder was lost in memories of a cold, sterile hospital room. --o-0-o-- Scully was on her way back from the kitchen with a glass of carrot juice, her mind puzzling over some of the exchanges between the doctors she remembered. She paused when she heard sniffles from the entertainment center. "Mulder?" She stepped in, but there was no sign of his brown hair, or slender white feet. Scully was used to the sight of either when she came and went. The one would be poking up above the sofa cushions as he wrote frantically at the low table. Or, the pair would be resting on the back while, in his mind, he reconstructed what he remembered from the missing portions of text. "Yeah?" She was surprised by his coarse crack of a reply. "You okay?" When he sat up, she could see his red-rimmed eyes. "Yeah, sure. You?" She closed the distance between the door and the back of the sectional couch, reaching to touch his shoulder. "I'm fine. What have you worked out?" He swiveled, relieved she was approaching him as his rational partner, not the friend who would worry over his tears. Padding towards the end of the cushions and down into the sunken part of the room, she gave him time to scrub his eyes with his fist while she faced away from him. After she rounded the corner and sat by his side, she pushed the notes and glossy prints of blacked-out pages away from her to set the tumbler of pumpkin- colored liquid on the glass-topped center table. He passed one of the photos for her to study while he summarized his findings. "Apparently, if a test subject turned out to have no genes of significance, they were returned to their homes. Usually the person had false memories of a kidnaping, or concealment in a tightly confined space, or underground, before release with no apparent notice. In an appendix that was all sanitized, the report discusses a plan to use two layers of hypnosis, one to plant similar recollections, and a second, deeper layer of what was much like the story of Betty and Barney Hill." They locked eyes. "Mulder, you don't mean..." He nodded. "They had been creating memories that would discredit both the test subjects and the UFO community, just to protect themselves." He shoved the papers off the table as he stood, pacing in front of her in a rage. "They tried, they wanted ... " He spun in a tight circle, crossed his arms, then stared at the ceiling, barely aware of her comments as she spoke to him. "So, they would have double-layered Sam's memories, and probably yours as well." She watched him, while chewing on his knuckles, nod aimlessly. "What did they do to the test subjects with genes of significance, the ones who passed the tests I failed?" She rose, snatching his thick-lensed frames out of the way of his restless feet. But he was too distracted to notice. "What they began to do to you, Scully. They would induce partial, or total memory loss, then re-release the victims on the other side of the continent from their homes. If they ever found their way back to their families, it would be years or decades later." He froze, running one hand through his hair. "I don't understand why you were returned, or how. It seems to violate all their procedures." She arched her eyebrows. "I can't imagine what it would have been like for those amnesia victims, lost and wandering." He chewed his lip. "I can." His eyes were fixed on some spot outside one of the walls while she walked around the table to him. She rubbed his elbow to bring him back from the dark world in the document. "Mulder?" When he realized there was someone still with him, her gentle prodding penetrated the confusion he felt. "Should we take a break and go walking on the beach? I'd like to, and after all that's happened, we shouldn't leave each other alone too long." Blinking, he allowed her to slip her hand around his arm, to lead him away from the mass of papers and his bleak thoughts. --o-0-o-- "No!" Mulder crossed through the hallway to the great desk, but his partner was not kneeling beside it, replacing a cable, as he had thought when he heard her shout. "Scully?" "Why are you doing this?" The new cry from her struck him like a blow. The following moan chilled him, so he spun, scanning the room for her auburn hair, or her round, owly glasses, perched on her nose. "No." His partner had retreated, whimpering, into one corner, pressing herself, shaking and wide-eyed, into the bookcase. "Scully!" Mulder darted to her side, ready to carry her to one of the Mercedes and the hospital, if necessary. He sat close to her huddled form to reach for her, hooking his fingers behind her arms. "Sh, sh, it's okay." He drew her into his lap, rocking her in his hold, and sandwiching her head between his chin and his shoulder with the careful support of his hand. She clutched at his shirt, unresponsive to his stroking of her hair. Mulder bit his lip, forcing back the tears that threatened to overflow. He would stay like this for however long she needed him to, until he brought her back from the warehouse and her own darkness. "Oh, Scully, what's wrong? You're not there, you know, you're here with me." After an eternity of fear, a slight nod, so he leaned back to see her face. "Talk to me." His partner dropped her forehead against his chest, concentrating on setting an even rhythm for her suspiration to focus herself. Through the hands he kept on her spine and shoulder, he felt her stiffen as she began wrestling her anxiety in submission. A soft tap on his arm, a little sigh, then Agent Scully took charge of Dana's wayward emotions. "It was just a flashback, Mulder, I'm sorry I frightened you." He released her, guiding her as they moved to the velvet cushions, taking seats at opposite ends of the settee. She rubbed her eyes, lowering her arms to hug her knees tightly. "It was after they had begun the attempt to change me. I was the first test subject who had rejected the retro-virus and survived." He slid beside her. "Was that the source of the branched DNA?" She nodded. "A retrovirus, or any virus, for that matter, survives by injecting its genetic code into the nucleotide sequences of the host cell it infects, using the organism's own replication processes to create new viruses for it. My guess is that the virus they generated was designed to insert whole new DNA sections into my body, to change me into..." He grimaced. "One of those deformed things I saw in the boxcar in New Mexico." "Or the people I saw killed at the Leper Colony." He shut his eyes tightly. The thought that his vital, beloved partner would have mutated into one of those misshapen grotesques sickened him. He was grateful Samantha had been spared. Mulder pushed that fear firmly away, refusing to kill the hope that sustained him through long nights and wearying days. "Mulder?" Her fingers on his arm brought him out of himself, as those green-blue eyes, full of concern, whose potential loss he had just regretted, focused on him. He pointed his chin at her. "What happened to you just now?" "I was reading my words when suddenly more images popped into my head, until I was overwhelmed by the sounds and the smells." She shuddered. "They *are* doctors, and they were curious. But all the probing, the prodding, the hands inside my body." She crossed her arms on her stomach and looked to him. "I felt so *violated* by it." Before he could check himself, Mulder reached for her shoulder, but she was fully Agent Scully again, and her muscles were tight, her jaw clenched. "I'm sorry." Shifting his hand to the sofa back, he rubbed the fine acanthus leaves carved there instead. "It's no wonder I was so sick, the carrier virus they use is more virulent than the cold viruses in its infectiveness." She straightened, setting her feet on the floor. "I'm glad I'm a pathologist, Mulder; the dead can't be tortured." He touched her knee, desperate to reach past the chain mail and shielding to comfort the woman beneath. --o-0-o-- Lowenberg Home Miami, Florida Monday, February 17, 1997 8:53 pm "Mulder?" She walked in behind him, and he swiveled. "I'm done, I think. We can talk about what to do with our papers and notes tomorrow. But, I'd like to make some use of those wonderful, imported feather beds, rather than crashing on the rug again." He hopped over the back of the couch. "I'm pretty much finished up myself; I think I've remembered or worked out all I can. It's what time?" Since she had shrugged, the pair walked to the kitchen, seeking the cuckoo-clock hung by the door. He rubbed the white band on his wrist, remembering he had left his watch on his bathroom sink. "Oh, five of nine. That makes it almost four in the morning in Santorini." Scully sat at the counter, propping her head up with her hand, recalling that her partner had spent the better part of the afternoon exchanging encrypted E-mails with his stepfather. "You think Max can help us hide this evidence and the originals of the D'Amato documents?" He nodded. "He's already reserved a container in a Swiss bank vault. All we have to do is make arrangements to meet his courier at the Airport, and he'll take it from there. The guys have already gathered the D'Amato documents." He grinned. "I let Max work out a code for the courier to use when he meets them at National. I couldn't keep up with what Byers and Langly were proposing, but somehow, Max could." Scully slipped off the stool. "I can imagine. It's good we amended the signatories for the safe-deposit boxes to include one of the Gunmen on each, or we would be flying all over the Northeast between now and then." He pulled the refrigerator door open and knelt. "Right." She peered on over his head. "How do we know the materials will arrive safely?" She accepted the tray of vegetables and cheeses he passed her, set them on the counter, and reached into the bread box by the refrigerator. He glanced over, then mentally berated himself for not sharing all the details with his partner. "This is Mossad we're talking about, Scully, not the CIA." He fixed a significant stare on her lined face. "It's not a problem." Drawing a well-honed blade out of the knife block to cut their crusty rye bread into thick slices, she nodded. "Oh. I had forgotten how well-connected Max was." He grinned. "The wealthy and powerful." He pulled a slip of paper out of his pocket. "I have the number and the code." After stuffing it back away, he dug in the bottom bin of the refrigerator, retrieving a bag of corned beef and holding it high. "Ah, the joys of a high-fat diet, Scully." He smirked at her expression of severe doctorly disapproval. . --o-0-o-- "Scully?" She had lain awake, listening to the shuffling footsteps outside her bedroom. The auburn-haired woman slipped out from under the covers, opening the door a crack. "Is there a problem with the documents?" He shoved his hands into the pockets of his sweats. "No, not yet. Max will phone with the verification in our morning." Scully studied his eyes carefully, sensing that the horror of a nightmare lurked behind them. She realized that while the dreams filled with terror might be over for her, they would continue to plague her partner, until he found his sister, or perhaps afterward as well. She disappeared in the darkness, returning to step into the hallway, concealing the flannel pajamas, faded to the same pale shade as her skin, under her white terrycloth robe. Scully had stuffed the thick rubber-soled socks she used to warm her feet into one of the robe's sewn-on pockets. She softened her voice until it was as gentle and soothing as she could manage. "Mulder." She brushed his rough cheek with her fingers. She felt him shudder at her touch, so she knew it was some echo of a past torment in his mind that had him pacing outside her room in the night. "What is it?" Attempting to push his fears aside, he shook his head, but they tumbled out nonetheless. "I thought I was with Sam in that warehouse, then it was you, then Sam again." He swayed on his feet. "I need to rest, but these images are still there, and the faces keep screaming in agony." Suddenly grateful she lacked his vivid imagination, she slid her arm around his waist, feeling the warmth the pacing had generated through his under-shirt and sweats. "We'll go watch a movie, relax, and you'll fall asleep in no time. I think I saw that Max has 'The Return of the Pink Panther' on laserdisc." He froze, making her wonder if there was more to his insomnia than terror. "Okay." She waited, sensing his hesitancy in his withdrawn posture. "Do you want to tell me, Mulder?" He bowed his head. "In a little while, Scully, but not now." He clutched her to him. She rubbed his side, hoping he could release the suffering from this night without keeping her up for the rest of it. They settled in to enjoy the film, his head on a pillow by her hip, she wondering how many years he had been without such simple comforts as a child. Having passed blissful evenings with her head on Ahab's shoulder while they counted stars on the back porch, or just listened to the sounds of the deepening night, she mourned for him. Scully watched Mulder, smiling, occasionally chuckling, drowsing in and out during the film. Once when his eyes were closed, she stroked his hair, but lifted her hand away when his sister's name escaped silently from his lips. She could sense him relaxing, snuggling down into the cushions before he wrapped one arm around the pillow, feeling the solidity of his muscles against her thigh. During the credits, she began to rise. But, not really asleep, he sat up and touched her shoulder. "I'll get it, Scully." She wondered if their closeness had been enough to banish his torments, but the pain she saw in his eyes when he resumed his seat beside her told her otherwise. "Mulder?" Since he had waved his hand in a silencing gesture, she waited. "Thanks for sticking with me, Scully." "Mulder, I..." He shook his head. "I keep thinking about Sam, lost and alone..." Mulder struggled with his sorrow, forcing himself to speak. "I can only hope there was someone who listened to her when she was remembering, someone," he whispered as he touched her hand, "for her." The tears came to him again, first as a trickle, then great gasps that shook him, and Scully pulled his head onto her lap. As he wrapped his arms around her back and hips she forced herself to stay relaxed, soothing him with her voice and hands as his fear poured out of him onto the terrycloth. "We'll find her, Mulder, you and I, we will." These were words she had whispered to herself often these past few weeks, and he nodded as she spoke them to his ear, the flow ebbing to stillness. "Are you ready to sleep, do you think?" Another nod, so she began to shift, but he tightened his hold on her. "Not in bed, Scully, here. I can't handle a bed, not tonight. Please." She settled back down, slipping on the socks, then noting his own bare feet. "All right, do you need a blanket?" He raised his head, flicking his face dry. "No, not unless you're cold." She wiggled over until she was propped against the corner of the couch, before stretching her legs out to let him fit himself between her and the upright cushions. It had been, perhaps, this aspect of her partner's personality that Scully had accepted first, this urgent need for physical connection that kept him grounded to her while he pursued his quests. As little as she liked to be touched, and resisted it from others, they had worked out their communication in gestures, glances, and light contacts. In fact, it served as well as or better than words, in the difficult, often overwhelming situations they stumbled into. Now, she had come to accept that Mulder was, at times, a lost twelve-year-old boy, wandering in the body of a troubled thirty-five year old man, looking for a little solace. Scully's eyes roamed aimlessly over the white expanse of the ceiling. Mulder was the first man she had worked with closely, and she wondered if that was why she had managed to adjust so effectively to his quirks and habits. She thought of Jerry Lamana, how attached Mulder had been to him, submitting without public protest when the blond man had stolen his profile, the shock and grief over his death. Tipping her head, she dropped her hand from the top of the cushions to his side, heard him murmur, and felt him shift closer to her. She smoothed the bunched material in his T- shirt, before deciding it was too early in the morning to puzzle through the nature of her bond with this man, and dropped her head back on the white cushions. --o-0-o-- Dana Scully blinked and focused on the dancing highlights of gold and ivory on the wall by the bed. The flickering specs were from sunlight reflecting off the ripples in the pool, and she turned towards their probable source. She was back in her own room, she realized, and she was not alone. Her partner had flopped into the armchair beside the glass door leading onto her deck. By the sprawl of his long arms over the high sides, he appeared to be as totally at ease there as he was on her sofa back in Alexandria. Turning down the covers, she shifted her weight carefully, hoping to close the drapes so he could continue to sleep. She lifted her robe off the foot of the bed, tugging it around her as she crossed the room. But, just before the thick brocade met in the center of the windows, the cel phone buzzed from his lap. He pulled himself awake. "Mulder." A pause, then he punched the end button. Glancing at the bed, he called for her softly, before checking around the room, smiling when he saw his partner standing just a few feet away. "They're delivered and secure, Scully." Nodding, she opened the curtains again. "Good. So, when do we head back to DC?" Rubbing his eyes, he stood and stretched, scratching his chest through the cotton knit. "We don't. For once, we give ourselves a real break, partner, just as I promised. I haven't taken a swim or run on the beach since we arrived." She crossed her arms. "How did I...?" He shuffled his feet, managing to look embarrassed, apologetic, and delighted, in three quick shifts. "I carried you in here." He shrugged. "You don't need to develop my bad habits, Scully." --o-0-o-- Mulder was lapping the pool, over and over, while Scully floated on her raft, pulling in the heat from the air and the sun. Occasionally, she would be jostled by the wake when he passed her by. Eventually, she heard his even strokes cease, felt a light tugging at her fingertips, and responded in kind to his playfulness. "Nessie squeezed in through one of the drains. It must be an X- file." Turning, she beamed at the pair of mock-serious hazel eyes fixed on her face, and the hair that was plastered straight down on his head. "I haven't seen anything unusual, Scully." Kicking his feet to keep himself vertical, he looked around. "Should I check for you? It *would* qualify as work, then." Lazily, she shook her head. "So, have you crossed the Channel yet, Mulder?" He grinned broadly. "Decided to try for the New World, and I had to stop off at Iceland. I hear the women are beautiful and oh-so- friendly." Crossing his arms on the raft, he rested his chin on his hands, while he unwittingly pulled them both out into the deep end of the pool. She patted the four corners of her inflated mattress, appreciating and encouraging this rare feeling of relaxation they shared by her pantomime of an intense search. "No Nordic beauties here. Must be Spitzbergen. You didn't take a wrong turn somewhere, did you?" He cocked his head, searching for a suitable riposte, but finding none. She reflected on the absolute trust she felt towards her partner at this moment. But their discoveries had left him in one of his quiet, protective moods, while she felt safe and cared for. "No. I'm sure this is where I want to be." --FINIS-- PASSAGES IN MEMORY -----o-------------------------------------o----- "Now our sands are almost run; More a little, and then dumb. This, my last boon, give me, For such kindness must relieve me, ... So, on your patience evermore attending, New joy wait on you! Here our play has ending." Pericles, Prince of Tyre -----o-------------------------------------o----- =====o=====================================================o===== Well, as the Bard said it so much more eloquently, a little more prattling on the author's part, and I'll go away! Lest you think the report showing up unexpectedly is a too-convenient device of fiction on my part, let me reassure you (or frighten you) that it isn't. The US Federal Government uses prison labor to clean and rehabilitate old safes for reuse. There have been several embarrassing incidents (mostly done with now), where a container full of classified materials has been delivered for reworking. I just took literary license in assuming that sailors might be called in if an exceptionally large cache of documents was suddenly discovered, and as for the connection to Scully, well, there's a reason why there are X-Files. I'd like to thank Virginie Chaplais, Michelle Creek, and Adina Ringler for all their support while I worked this one through. Virginie, challenged me to produce a story that was as hard- hitting as "Sins", Michelle kept asking me when it would be coming out, and Adina cheered me on when my spirits flagged in the effort. Part two of this trilogy will involve the full-up X-Files Section (Yes, you finally meet Agent Woo-Woo!) and some life-forms from the newly verified Kingdom Archaea, that bear suspicious similarities to the 'silicon' bug in "Firewalker". I have stacks of articles from "Nature" and "Science" on the subject to read. Anyway, all praise, comments, and constructive criticisms are especially welcome, or just E-mail me to chat, if you want. Flames are handled by my familiar, Princess, a grey and brown tabby who faithfully soaks them through the top of the monitor as she lies upon it, watching me type. Originally released to ATXC: 10/11/96 Corrected and revised for POV shifts with some content changes: 6/20-23/97 Second revision: 3/10-13/98 Third revision (minor): 2/1-6/99 =====o=====================================================o=====