Date sent:        Wed, 3 Sep 1997 02:52:42 -0400 (EDT)
From:             AgentRLM@aol.com
Subject:          EP> Torn (1/1)

Title: Torn (1/1)
Author:  J. Chiprich
Email address:  ipomea@msn.com
Category: VRA
Rating: PG for a couple of bad words
Summary:  A post Paper Hearts story
Timespan: Fourth season/ definite spoilers for Paper Hearts.

Hey, everyone.  Hope you enjoy this one.  Let me know.  I love to hear from 
people.  This one came after watching Paper Hearts on tape.  Enjoy.

Disclaimer:  Here we go again.  None of these great characters from the 
X-files belong to me.  They all belong to Chris Carter, 1013 productions and 
the Fox Broadcasting Company.  They are used without permission.  No
copyright 
infringement is intended and no profit is being made from their use.

A man is the sum of his memories, or so the saying goes.  But what of a man 
that has lost his memory to the gaping sucking void of his own mind?  Is he 
less of a man?  Is he only part of what he could be?  Does part of him drit
in 
the sea of conciousness?  Fox Mulder shifted his body in the desk chair and 
leaned his head down onto the smooth surface of the desk.  It is true, he 
decided.  I feel lessened, weakened, less than whole.  My existence of the 
last twenty some odd years has been in the pursuit of the memories that would

make me whole.  And now, faced with a variable outcome, I sit here and strive

to disbelieve.

He shook his head, resting his cheek against the cool wood.  The coolness 
drained his skin of the heat that inhabitated it, soothing it.  His need for 
acceptance; his drive for the unconditional love of a family torn apart by 
agnst and broken hearts was all that had driven him for as long as he could 
remember.  Truth was what he sought.  Truth was the only thing that could
fill 
the emptiness created by loss of memory. In front of him an evidence bag that

held a cloth heart commanded his attention.  It mocked him.  It cried for
him. 
But as the cloth remained intact, his heart did not.  It tore. It bled.

Samantha had always been the answer to his life.  Once she had returned, all 
that was wrong: the pain, the anguish, the broken heart, would all mend.  
Here, on his desk, in the basement of the FBI, was a plausible outcome to the

mystery.  She could have been killed all those years ago.  She could have
been 
laid to rest in a shallow grave in the wilderness, a small part of her 
clothing cut as a souvenir.  This was a possible truth.  Yet, Fox Mulder 
refused to believe.  He protected himself, curling into a mental ball.  It 
could have been the truth, but this truth was too hurtful.  He conciously
made 
the choice to remain on his quest and to ignore this outcome.  It was not 
worth it to replace the emptiness with that pain.

The red in the cloth in the heart pulled on his mind.  The red was a shade or

two mor brillant than his partner's hair.  Scully.  Dana Katherine Scully.  
Another truth.  Not the one that he sought, but one that he was willing to 
fight for now.  She had left a few minutes previous, shutting the door
quietly 
on his cave. She, as was her trademark, refused to believe this outcome also.
 
She used scientific investigation, not her heart, as the source of her
denial. 
 Scully was amazing in that respect.  Her search to complete herself was 
submerged in autopsies, experiments nd textbooks.  But she was till on the 
same trip that he was.  They were in it together; searching for their own 
outcomes, but in the process found each other.

HE rose from his chair, pulling on his coat.  She had left, because she felt 
that he needed to be alone.  He knew that.  But tonight, of all nights, he 
needed to be reassured.  He needed to feel his existance in the here and now;

he needed to be shown that he was a whole person.  He needed to know that the

part that had been torn from him didn't make him less.  Scully was the only 
one now that could do that.
--------

Dana Scully pushed wearily into her apartment, shutting the door on the angry

world outside.  The last few days had been a strain. Her gray suit was 
well-worn, her hair was a tangle of red curls, her back muscles a clutch of 
tight knots.  She ran a hand over the tightness and moved into the kitchen.  
In the refrigerator ws a half full bottle of red wine.  It had been there for

the better part of a week.  Tonight was definitely the time to finish it.
 She 
fished it out and filled a crystal glass with the dark liquid.  Slowly, 
andwith purpose, she moved to change out of her clothes.  Once clad in a 
causal ensemble of jeans and a loose sweater, she lowered herself onto the 
couch and sipped her wine.

Mulder was in pain, she thought.  Deep, deep emotional pain.  She had wanted 
to help him, to protect him, to beat into submission the demons that
tormented 
him, but knew that she could not.  Fox Mulder was a loner.  Even now, in the 
fourth year of their parnership, he was still the lone wolf.  If his pain cut

deep, he was likely to curl up in his cave and lick his wounds. His eyes,
like 
those of the wolf, had flashed at her, warning her to keep distance.  She had

relented, leaving him to his dark thoughts, though she wished that she could 
have remained.  As a friend, she felt she owed it to him to sooth his pain;
as 
a partner, she felt she owed him support.

Now she needed to calm her own demons that had surfaced when she had watched 
Mulder's tortured reaction to the case.  She took another sip of her wine, 
feeling the familiar burn as it crept down her throat.  This was not the 
answer, but it was the only one presented to her at this time.  As she went
to 
take another mouthful, her door shook with the force of a knock.

Mulder, she thought, as she moved to the door.

When she opened the portal, her partner lifted his head from where it rested 
against the frame of the door.  His clothes were the same ones that he had 
worn all day, his hair was unruly and in his eyes.  And his eyes, his eyes 
were teeming with pain and anguish.  "Mulder?"

"Hiya, Scully.  Can I come in?"

"Come on." she stepped aside to allow him entrance.  He stumbled into the 
living room and stood in the middle of the floor staring intently at his
feet. 
"What is it, Mulder?"

He lifted his eyes to hers and smiled a half grin.  "Oh nothing, Scully.  I 
just had my whole life for the last twenty years put into question.  Nothing 
out of the ordinary."

She shook her head at his humor and motioned him to the couch.  "I thought
you 
would have wanted to be alone."

"Usually I would have.  Tonight though, tonight is something different.  I 
hope you don't mind..." he shrugged, his hands in his pockets.

"Not at all.  Sit down." she sat herself, curling her legs under her body.

"I just..." he sat heavily on the couch and hung his head forward.  "I 
just...you...I..shit."

She grimaced at his inability to form a sentence and stood.  "Need a drink, 
Mulder?" he nodded and she moved to the kitchen, giving him distance to form 
words.

Five minutes later, she returned, handing him a glass of wine.  His eyes 
crinkled.  "Wine, Scully?  I don't drink.  Well, at least, not much."

"Drink it, Mulder." she ordered, recapturing her postion on the couch. "Drink

it and tell me what's on your mind."

He sipped the liquid, screwing his face as the taste hit his throat.  "Uhh. 
Good stuff."

She waited, twirling her hair around one finger, waiting for him to talk.  
After he finished half of the glass, he turned and started to talk.  "I want 
to feel like I'm all here."

"Excuse me?" she opened her eyes wide.  "Come again?"

"I want to know that I'm more than a sum of my memories, Scully.  I want to 
know that I'm all here.  I thought I was whole there for a while.  I thought 
that recalling my memories through hypnosis would make me real.  I've
felt..." 
he stopped.  He was saying too much. 

Scully felt his sudden restraint and sighed to herself. No, I don't think so,

she thought.  Tonight you are not closing me out. She grabbed his arm
lightly, 
restraining him before his fight or flight response asserted itself. "Tell
me, 
Mulder.  I'll listen."

He smiled lightly, "You always do, Scully." His features turned serious and
he 
angled away from her. "Did I ever tell you about my family right after Sam
was 
taken?  I didn't. Dad and Mom tried to get me to remember what happened that 
night.  They sent me to physcologists, they sent me away, my father even
tried 
to beat it out of me. No matter what they did, I could  not for the life of
me 
remember.  It was gone. Zip. Nada. Nothing   I had a fucking photographic 
memory and I couldn't recall one  second.  Days turned into months and months

into years.  Dad  got angrier and angrier, going away for weeks on end.  They
 
drifted apart, and finally got divorced when I was in high school.  All that 
time I felt, was made to feel, whatever, that  it was because of me and my 
loss of memory that everything was  falling apart.  Then, I left for college 
in England...you know,  tried to start over.  Figured that she was dead, Iwas

to blame  and that I needed to deal with that.  Then, I started with the  FBI

and eventually the X-files.  I still felt unwhole, all that  time, unwhole.  
That missing time....Anyway, I underwent the  hypnosis and recalled that 
night.  For the first time in I didn't  know how long...I was together, all
of 
me. My memory was restored and with it my psychy.  So for the last  four 
years, I've been searching simply for the evidence to back  my memory.  
Now...."

Dana shifted.  "Now you've been returned to square one, haven't  you?" she 
asked, her eyes shining with sympathy.  "You're questioning your memories 
about your past again."

He nodded, smiling slightly. "Yeah." He rubbed his temples.   "I mean, what 
if, Scully."

Scully's throat tightened, seeing the obvious pain in his face.  She lifted 
off the couch and sat on the coffee table in front  of him. Quietly she took 
his hand off his temple and held it.   "Mulder." he continued to look down.  
"Mulder, look at me."

He lifted his eyes to make contact with her blue ones.  He loved  looking in 
her eyes; the truth always stared him back, literally  jumping out of her
blue 
depths.  She tilted her head to the  side and laid a hand against his cheek.
 
"Mulder...I am so sorry  that you have been made to feel that way.  You are 
'all here'.   You always have been.  The memory was never lost.  As a 
psychologist, you know that a traumatic event that a child can't  handle is 
compensated for in the mind by submerging it.  You  were traumatized, Mulder.

Your sister was taken from your house  when you were twelve and you witnessed

it.  Whether or not it  was by aliens or by a serial killer, the event was 
compensated  for in your mind.  It is just a part of your existence that  is 
too painful for you to handle.  It is there, and when you  are ready to
handle 
it, your mind will show it to you."

"But..." he swallowed and looked at her with puppy eyes.  "I'm  thirty five 
years old.  That happened when I was twelve. I need  to know.  I want to know

now what happened to her.  I want to  now if it was in my power to stop what 
happened, or if I had  no choice. I want...."

"I know you, if it was in your power, Mulder, you would have  done
something."

"Regardless, Scully." he pulled slightly from her.  "I want  answers.  If I 
knew that I couldn't have done anything...if  I could have proven that to my 
family... Damn it, Scully, I  want my family back.  Maybe if I had remembered

and showed them..."

She gripped his chin and forced his eyes to remain in contact  with hers.  
"Maybe, Mulder. More than likely they would have  divorced anyway.  You can't

live your life on maybes.  Concentrate on what you do have, on what is in
your 
life now.   Be assured that it is there, in your mind, and that it will  come

back to you.  If you don't want to handle this outcome,  if it's too painful,

don't.  The facts are in the contrary to  it being the truth.  Just devote 
yourself to the search again."

He laid a hand over hers and smiled lightly. "I just want that  acceptance 
that I missed."

Dana added her other hand to his face.  "I can't replace what  you lacked, 
Mulder.  But I can tell you that you have my acceptance now.  
Unconditionally." she nodded as his eyes filled  with unshed tears. "What.. 
you think I'm still in this with you  because of my job?" he shrugged. "I can

assure it's not.  You're  my friend, my best friend.  I accept what you do, 
what you believe, because, and only because you are my friend. I care."  she 
shrugged, adopting a half smile. "And I can tell you that  I don't care for 
people that are only partly there, Mulder.  I only care for whole people.  
What you lost to memory you made up for in drive. You are most definitely all

there."

One tear made its way out of his eye and weaved a path down  his cheek. "You 
really do care, don't you?"

"Uh huh.  I do.  I care very much."

"About me?" he tilted his head to the side. 

"No, Mulder.  Harvey, the six foot invisible rabbit. Yes, you."

His arms swept out and gathered her into an embrace that pulled  her onto the

couch.  "I..." he swallowed, burying his head into  the softness of her hair.
 
"I don't know what to say."

"Nothing would be a good start." she said to his chest. "Just  bask in the 
feeling."

He chuckled. "Dana Scully cares about me.  That makes me feel  good." he 
rested his lips against her forehead. His breathing  quickened slightly as
she 
shifted on his lap and leaned into  his caress. Her hair smelled wonderfully 
like shampoo and sunshine. Mulder tightened his arms and sighed. She
whispered 
 a laugh against his neck and he smiled in return.  This felt  good, warm.  
Her small body was fitting his perfectly and he  felt loved...

Dana knew that his mind was whirling.  He was more than likely  in a state of

stupor, turning things over and over in his mind.  She felt a puff of air
next 
to her forehead. She decided to  put his fears to rest.  "I love you, Mulder.
 
That is something  you can trust; it's not going to change any time soon."

My heart has stopped, Fox thought.  Scully...strike that.  Dana  loved him. 
Her perfect mouth had just told him that she loved  him. Instinctively his 
arms tightened around her body, crushing  her to his chest.  He gulped air 
into his lungs, and buried  his lips further into her hair.  "Now...I really 
don't....I..."  

Dana pulled her head back and tilted up to make eye contact.  She put a hand 
against his lips.  "What?"

He smiled against her fingers. "I don't know what to do now."

"Do whatever makes you feel comfortable.  Don't feel what you  can't.  I told

you simply to let you know what I feel, Mulder.   To let you know that there 
is someone that cares."

A single tear clung to his lower lashes.  His lower lip stuck  out farther 
than usual, and with his face bathed in soft light,  he looked twelve again.
 
She smiled a sad half smile. "This  can be what ever you need, Mulder.  A 
friend, a sister..."

"A lover?"

"Possibly.  We would have to examine the evidence and the situation." she 
gasped as his mouth gently caressed hers.  He  pulled back to smile, amused
at 
her action.

"A sister, never, Dana. A friend, always.  But I'd like to test  that final 
possibility.  Tonight, if at all feasible."

Scully kissed his mouth slowly, tasting his lips gently.  Mulder  sat still, 
allowing his lips to move in complete synchronicity  with hers.  She blazed a

trail to his ear, tracing its shape  with her tongue.  He sighed and she 
pulled her head back.  "I  take that as a yes?" he asked hopefully.

"No.  Take that as a promise.  We aren't going any farther than  this right 
now.  We need to talk about this."

He nodded, resolute.  "I know.  It would be awful quick, wouldn't  it?  I 
just..."

"I know, Mulder.  I want you too." she rose from the couch and  moved to the 
hallway closet.  From there, she retrieved a pillow  and assorted blankets.  
"Here you go, bear.  Make your cave.   You're staying here with me tonight."

Leaning over, she kissed his mouth one more time and pulled  back.  "We'll 
talk tomorrow, Mulder."

He caught her hand as she went to walk away.  "Thank you, Dana.   I..."

"Don't say it, Mulder.  Don't say it until you're sure and okay  with it.  
And, after you've thought about it and figure it all  out...if you still want

to say it then...well...."

He nodded and smiled.  "Good night, Scully.  Sleep well.  Dream  of..."

"Don't say it, I have a gun."

He smiled as she moved down the hallway to her bedroom.  The  door closed 
quietly and he leaned back into the cushions.  Around  him, he felt the
warmth 
of love and acceptance and he was at  ease.  Suddenly the pain of earlier
that 
night was not as intense  as it had been.  He no longer felt torn.  His paper

heart was  intact.  Maybe her love could redeem him.  Maybe....


                                                                             
                                            
End(1/1)