TITLE: Go On Rising

AUTHOR: Rae Lynn (rae_lynn05@yahoo.com)
http://geocities.com/rae_lynn05/

RATING: PG

CLASSIFICATION: Angst, and angst again.

TIMELINE/SPOILERS: There is no timeline.  Spoilers 
are plentiful.  If nothing else, you'll enjoy playing 
"Guess the Episode."

SUMMARY: What if, instead of asking him to 
hold on, she had told him to let go?

DISCLAIMER: All characters contained within 
are the property of Chris Carter and Ten 
Thirteen Productions.  No profit will result 
from this story and no copyright infringement 
is intended. 

SUGGESTED SOUNDTRACK: David Gray's "White 
Ladder" album

ARCHIVE: Inquire within.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: I like to save them for the 
end of the story.

* * * 

"to go into the dark and to go on and remember"
--from "Fox Sleep," by W.S. Merwin

* * *

"Mulder, no," she whispers, crumpling under the 
horror of it, but his head is too full with the 
chanting to hear her: Pull the trigger, his voice 
hisses, somehow his own even when the thoughts 
aren't.  Pull the trigger, my God, he would never do 
such a thing; he sees the thought reflected in her 
eyes as she stares at him, her gaze holding him hard.  

If he can be willed to do this thing, why can't he be 
willed to stop?  

His arm twists and trembles, the fight going out of 
it as the chant intensifies, his grip solidifying 
around the butt of the weapon.  Her eyes never leave 
him as they rise from their chairs, the thing fixed 
in their minds, the chant unyielding.  Pull the 
trigger.  Pull the trigger, Mulder.  

Without sweat, without blinking, it happens in the 
opposite of slow motion: Pull the trigger, his voice 
demands, wanting it and wanting it to be over -- and 
he obeys, desperate to stop, and nothing flashes 
before his eyes but darkness --

* * *

The ship has grown too ancient now even to cradle 
them with its rocking motion; instead it settles 
uncomfortably into the waves as if testing the depth 
of its final plunge.  It isn't fair, he thinks again, 
plaintively this time, as if hoping someone will hear 
him.  

He is so tired, cataloguing all the times he has been 
this close to it, all the violence and ferocity it 
took to bring him back.  He has never realized that 
it might be this easy, this effortless, to let Scully 
close his eyes for him, to sink back into the ocean 
and let it wash him away.  

It's not our time, he thinks, but less fiercely now, 
wanting it less, and he feels her small hand brush 
quietly across his face.  Bon voyage, he thinks.  
Farewell.

* * *

He senses her there behind him and then he doesn't; 
she flickers and fades like a hologram, the hum of 
her voice replaced by buzzing sound effects that howl 
insistently inside of him.  My baby.  You're a little 
spy --

He needs to feel it pressed against his neck, needs 
to let it rest there as if it belongs in the crook of 
his chin, poised beside him, wanting to enter.  

"Don't try to stop me," he mumbles.

"Please, Mulder," she says, and he takes the words 
and shakes them loose from his mind, willing himself 
to forget them, forget her, forget everything at all.

I'm afraid, Fox.  I'm afraid, he thinks, seeing it 
return in flashes, seeing it surge and recede until 
his finger twitches and he sees nothing in the 
darkness.

* * * 

They have made several days' study of avoiding each 
other's eyes, their own feelings as tender and raw as 
the fading scars of their frostbitten skin.  What has 
occurred in the tundra does not -- cannot -- change 
what had once transpired between them; it hangs in 
the air and settles in their throats, waiting to be 
spoken.

He feels bare and defeated, like someone has 
excavated his insides and scooped them out of his 
chest, the heavy feeling settling there where his 
lungs used to be.  

He knows he has brought her back only to send her 
away.  "Get as far away from me as you can," he 
commands, willing his voice to harden and turn cold 
as if he still hasn't left the ice.  

She hesitates, her hand hovering as if she wants to 
touch him, and he is torn between wanting her and 
wanting to save her, knowing that to do both is 
inconceivable.  For a second he falters, his chest 
aching, but then he turns from her, walking away just 
to keep from turning back.

He has already made up his mind.

* * * 

"Let me do that," he tells the coroner, certain the 
man can hear his heart curling inside out and 
crawling into his throat, refusing to beat.  He 
reaches for the blind and the thing strikes him in 
the chest, a sudden assault, the floor swirling 
dizzily beneath him.  He is acutely aware, suddenly, 
of his body, tilting helplessly to the side, while 
the coroner reaches to steady him with a latex-gloved 
hand.

"Is that a positive ID?" he asks, sympathetic but 
distant, the mental checklist plain on his face while 
Mulder gasps for air and finds nothing, a vacuum, his 
breath consumed with her body and the way her red 
hair arranges itself around the bullet lodged within 
her.  When he closes his eyes he can see her there, 
still; he will stare through that window for the rest 
of his life.

He nods at the expectant coroner, the air convulsing 
in and out of his lungs, hoping for it to feel 
different.  

The coroner draws the blinds.  Behind them, she does 
not move.

* * * 

"I know you can hear me," she says, and he knows it 
too, her voice swelling inside his mind that is 
crammed with a thousand other voices pulsating 
inside.  He knows it even though he can only stare 
through her, his eyes vacant while his mind is full, 
the voices crawling and clamoring around him.

He knows that she has not come to save him.  He 
thinks about her technique with a defibrillator, the 
way she has siphoned blood from his veins, felt his 
pulse, fastened tourniquets, pressed her hand to his 
forehead and to his bleeding chest.  She has asked 
him to hold on and he struggles to do it, wanting to 
spare her that anguish, that desperation.

She looks at him and he knows there is nothing left 
for him to fight, nothing more she can do.  

"You can go now.  You can let go," she whispers 
finally, her voice raw as though it's been skinned, 
broken and full of tears.  

Let go, he thinks, and her words echo and fade.  Let 
go, and let go, and let go.

* * * 
END.
* * *

   "after the goodbyes after the faces and the light
after the recognitions and the touching and tears
   those voices go on rising if I knew I would hear
in the last dark that singing I know how I would   
 listen"
--from "Night Singing," by W.S. Merwin

* * *

ADDITIONAL AUTHOR'S NOTES
(or, You Didn't Ask, But I'm Going to Tell You 
Anyway):
This story sprang from a number of different places.  
First, my stories tend to follow a certain formula -- 
there is angst, there is the barest hint of romance 
and then there is a hopeful resolution -- and I 
wanted to experiment with something different, and 
darker.  

Second, I was listening to a lot of David Gray and 
reading a lot of W.S. Merwin, and I wanted to infuse 
a story with that quiet kind of angst.

Third and perhaps most oddly, the day I first fixated 
on that W.S. Merwin line ("to go into the dark and to 
go on and remember") as a source of inspiration, my 
car was broken into and burglarized.   I couldn't 
sleep that night thinking about the strings of events 
that lead to these critical moments in our lives: If 
I hadn't gotten myself out of work early in order to 
attend a meeting, I never would have been parked in 
that parking lot in the first place; on the flip 
side, if I hadn't gotten heavily involved in that 
crossword puzzle at the coffee shop, I might have 
left earlier and not been robbed or I might have 
surprised the burglar mid-robbery and gotten myself 
hurt.  That day, suddenly nothing seemed random, and 
every moment became precious and precarious all at 
once.  And somehow, don't ask me how, this translated 
into thinking about Mulder and Scully, and how all of 
those critical moments could have just as easily gone 
the other way.  

It's very different from what I usually write, and I 
doubt I'll make a habit of it, but, much like Scully, 
I hope you respected the journey: 
rae_lynn05@yahoo.com.

Lastly, my real-life alter ego will be participating 
in Boston's Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in May, and I 
am grateful for any and all support.  To learn more, 
or to offer a donation, please visit me online at 
http://www.avonwalk.org/site/TR?px=2234147&pg=persona
l&fr_i
d=1160