Thanks to Michelle for a kick-ass beta. You trimmed so much fat from this story, you're the Richard Simmons of fanfic! ;)

Feedback me, baby: [email protected].
 

OUR MATERIAL IS OUR FLESH
By: Jennifer Maurer
 

When I joined the FBI, I didn't especially like to go to the gym. I did it out of necessity, nothing more. Growing up, I was the smallest one in the family, and when I saw the FBI as a place to distinguish myself, I thought of that more in terms of brain, not brawn.

One of the things I enjoyed about teaching at Quantico was that I was able to wear scrubs and a lab coat -- badges of my profession. It made me ffeel less of a small woman in the "big boy's club".

After my first case with Mulder, however, I realized that I was going to have to get in better shape, if I was going to keep up with this guy. I cut my hair right after I got back from Oregon. It was more convenient that way; I could be ready to go at a moment's notice. I started working out more. My heels got a little higher, because I got a crick in my neck, standing next to Mulder and looking up at him.

I always declined Mulder's invitations to join him on runs, but once, right before they closed the X-Files for the first time, I accepted his invitation to join him at the pool. When I met him outside the locker rooms, I felt slightly ridiculous: without my heels I was a full foot shorter than him, and I felt very small next to his sleek swimmer's body. Mulder outpaced me easily, and by the time he was two full laps ahead, I decided to call it a day. I thanked him for asking me, and decided to refuse any future invitations.

Once back at Quantico, with Mulder off on wiretap duty, I allowed myself to slip a little; not just because I was back in a sedentary job, but also because I was more than a little depressed at the loss of the X-Files, and of Mulder. It surprised me how much I missed him, as a person and as a partner. I gained a fair amount of weight, but tried not to think too much about it; lab coats hid a multitude of sins. Mulder, on the other hand, lost weight, looking more tired and worn every time I saw him.

Then came Duane Barry.

He crashed through my window and took me away. When I thought about it later, I was disgusted with myself for being taken so easily. If I'd been in shape, I was sure I could have fought him off. As it happened, though, all I could do was struggle and scream for Mulder, a rescue that did not come in time. As Duane Barry dragged me across the mountain top and the white light swallowed me whole, my last conscious thought was that I had only myself to blame for falling victim to this man.

I awoke from my coma to find a body that was soft and doughy, like a woman who'd recently given birth.  Mulder said I'd been gone for three months, which explained the lack of muscle tone.  It didn't explain the loose pouch of my stomach. Once I was up and around, I promised myself, I was going to make some changes. I struggled through physical therapy with a grim determination that seemed to startle everyone except Mulder.

When I learned that going back to work would also mean going back to the X-Files, it only strengthened my resolve. I didn't want Mulder to think for one moment that I was not an equal partner, or that I had to be taken care of. Now I had as much of a stake as he did in finding the truth. I owed it to myself, and to him, to be the best agent I was capable of being.

I was on my way to getting my legs back under me when Donnie Pfaster came along.

The fact that I scurried back to Washington embarrassed me. Once I'd calmed down, I was ashamed at myself for leaving Mulder alone. I determined to fly back as soon as possible, no matter how spooked I felt. I had dropped much of my post-abduction weight by then, although I wasn't quite back up to what I considered fighting shape. Still, that was no reason to turn tail and run.

I told Mulder I'd be back on the next flight -- but it was Pfaster who met me at the airport.

I realized within moments exactly what Pfaster had in store for me. I fought him, but the sad fact was, I was overpowered too easily and froze like a deer in the headlights. I was ashamed to be found like that by Mulder. It was that now familiar disgust with myself that made me struggle to my feet and insist to Mulder that I was fine. Once he looked in my eyes, though, I could no longer hide how much this case had affected me.

The next morning, after the adrenaline had worn off, I was so stiff and sore I couldn't move. I lay flat on my back with tears flowing into my hair, hating myself for being weak again. Mulder found me that way an hour later, when he came to see why I hadn't made an appearance yet. When he sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at me so sympathetically, I started sobbing in earnest, which of course only made me feel worse. I asked him to leave, but he wouldn't; he held my hand until I stopped crying, then helped me get up and get dressed, aided by liberal amounts of Tylenol. I limped for a month afterwards, but never in front of Mulder.

When I got home, I gave away the last of my too-big suits and cut my hair again. It would seem that with every violation, every trauma, my hair needed to be shorter, and my body harder.

I marked my body in ink when I met Ed Jerse. It excited me in ways I couldn't explain, both the tattoo and Ed himself. Never before had I had a such a powerful sense that this was my body, and I could do with it what I liked. I felt wild and free, and I flaunted my body before his bleary eyes. I got on top because I was going to run this show, and I became another woman in the eyes of Ed's lust for me.

Afterwards I thought about Mulder and hated myself.

Mulder's scorn over the whole incident made me want to claw my way out of the body that I had foolishly allowed myself to play games with. That night I scrubbed myself raw, wanting to shed my skin like the dead rose petal on Mulder's desk.

Three days later my cancer diagnosis changed everything.

Once again, my body had been manipulated beyond my control, and damaged in ways I could not have imagined. I had been returned, but whoever had taken me kept my innocence; what else might they have kept? I wondered if something else might be broken inside me.

I began to say goodbye to Mulder in my journal.

Later I regained my will to fight, even as I understood that this time mind probably would not triumph over matter.

The cancer whittled away at me slowly, stealing back all the progress I had made. Treatments were a losing battle, and the side effects sometimes made death seem preferable. What often disheartened me the most was my body's betrayal. This thing growing inside me was going to kill me, but there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. Sometimes when the blood flowed from my nose I wished I was able to catch it in my hands and put it back inside my body. Every drop that fell seemed to count one more day off my life.

As death approached, I lost much of my anger. When my mother's priest came to pray with me, I asked him to read from Revelations, Chapter 21: 'He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.' It was comforting to believe that once I shed this body, I would receive a new one that would always be strong and could never be hurt.

My family and I prayed for a miracle, while Mulder risked his life to bring me another chip. At that point I would accept a miracle in whatever form it might arrive. When I was cured, my mother believed it was the hand of God, and Mulder believed it was the chip. I never said one way or the other which I believed it to be. I forgave my body for its weaknesses.

I rebuilt myself over the next few months, at the same time gradually trading in my colors for a mostly black wardrobe. I went to the gym almost every day, and if I was out traveling on a case, I exercised alone in my room. Now I was the one extending invitations to Mulder to go for a run, but after one time he politely declined. I fought too hard to keep pace with him, he said. It didn't seem like I was enjoying the run at all.

My recovering body had another betrayal in store for me: my missing ova, and what had been created from them. I remembered how my body had felt after I returned from my abduction, and I was sure I had given birth to Emily; later I learned from Mulder that I had even been denied that. I wondered how many more like her might be out there: flesh of my flesh.

For weeks after Emily died, the pain in my womb was a constant, low grade ache. I wasn't sure if the pain was a symptom of my grief for my child, or from the truth about my ova.

Whoever had taken me had stolen not only my memories, but parts of my body as well. I obsessed about what other pieces might have been left behind when I was returned all those years ago. Even as I tried to convince myself to let it go, I had the recurring thought that my last wish in life would be to recover all my missing parts and be whole again.

Not long after that, the chip that saved my life nearly ended it, when it called me to a bridge to be burned. In the hospital, as Mulder explained what had happened and I realized my body had been manipulated like a puppet, fear overwhelmed me. Somehow I had driven to Ruskin Dam with no memory of how I got there or how I escaped. Mulder left before he could give me answers or even try to calm me down. Alone, I lay in bed and considered taking this chip out, too. Even if the cancer came back, wouldn't that be better than living like this? I thought I would rather put a bullet in my brain rather than let it be used like that ever again.

Before I had a chance to fully come to terms with this, the X-Files burned, and Mulder and I were assigned to Dallas. I told Mulder I remembered nothing after the bee sting until I woke up a week later in a military hospital, but that wasn't entirely true.

My few memories were not of events but rather physical sensations: the cold air hitting my skin as they stripped off my clothes. Smelling cigarette smoke. Being vaguely conscious but completely paralyzed as the alien tube crawled down my throat. Even as the cold numbed me, I could still feel the creature inside me shift and grow. It was not an accident that my eyes were wide with horror when Mulder found me. This was a violation more intimate and brutal than any I had ever experienced.

I saw my doctor a few days after we arrived home because I couldn't keep anything down. Mulder ran around preparing to reopen the X-Files, but I spent most of my time on my knees in front of the toilet, vomiting. Trying to swallow any kind of food was out of the question. Even the sensation of water going down my throat would bring back the feeling of being submersed in that icy, viscous fluid.

The doctor could find nothing physically wrong with me and delicately broached the subject of psychiatric consults and gastric feeding tubes. I assured him none of that would be necessary. Eating was a force of will rather than something enjoyable for months after that, but I eventually relearned to swallow without gagging.

When Donnie Pfaster came back, I thought this time I was ready for him.

He was able to overpower me only because he surprised me, but this time I was not going to wait for him to kill me. I contorted myself until my joints cracked to escape my bonds. Even though Pfaster was under control, I shot him anyway. At that moment, in my mind, he deserved to die because of what he had done to me. He would have cut me into pieces for his own enjoyment. Nobody was going to violate my body like that, ever again. Even as I wondered whether God or something else had made me pull the trigger, secretly I was also satisfied.

I am a different person than I was when I first met Mulder. Some say the body completely changes it cells every seven years, and here I am after seven years with him, a whole new woman. I look at the picture on my ID, which I've never updated, and I don't recognize that woman anymore. I think of her body as young and tender, waiting to be sacrificed; now I am stronger and tougher and covered with scars.

They have carved my body up, kept pieces for their own purposes. They have almost destroyed me with cancer and viruses. My body rebounds every time, rising from the ashes, dragging my soul along with it. This body has fought and won, time and again. Each time I put it back together it gets stronger, like metal forged in a fire.

All of these changes to my body and my life have brought me to where I am now, standing outside the door to Mulder's bedroom. My past, in the person of Daniel Waterston, caught up to me. I chased the girl with the ponytail, certain she had answers for me: what if there was only one choice, and all the others were wrong? When I finally reached this person...it was Mulder.

In slowing down to examine my path, and all the endless forks in the road I might have taken, suddenly the way forward is so clear.

Mulder has my love and my trust. He has all that is inside of me. It only makes sense that I would also want to share my body with him.

I open the door and walk in.

Mulder sits up, surprised to see me. I stop his question with a finger over his lips, then bend to kiss him. Time slows down again as he helps me undress and welcomes me into his bed with kisses.

I had often imagined the first time making love with Mulder would be an explosion of heat and passion; instead, time stays beautifully slow, each sensation drawn out and heightened. It is a revelation: Mulder is far more gentle with my body than I have ever been. He feasts on it with his eyes and hands and mouth, and finds it beautiful.

Afterwards, Mulder and I lie on our sides, facing each other. Neither of us can stop smiling. His hand is on my hip, his thumb stroking my skin. I smooth his cheek with my fingertips. I lean in until our foreheads are touching, and I whisper to him.

"I like my body when it is with your body."
 

~*End*~
 

First person to tell me where Scully's line of dialogue comes from gets an inflatable Mulder doll. ;) Send your guesses and feedback to: [email protected].