Both Sides Now 
by Jennifer Maurer (jenbird@earthlink.net)
and Leyla Harrison 

Disclaimer: (yawn) All characters belong to some guy 
up in Vancouver...CC...yeah, that's his name.
Rating: PG-13
Classification: VA
Spoilers: Memento Mori and Elegy 
Keywords: M/S Friendship
Summary: A look into the heads of Fox Mulder and Dana 
Scully.


"And I have the sense to recognize
That I don't know how to let you go..."
	--Sarah McLachlan

Dana Scully is my best friend and she has cancer.

Both of these facts hit me at the same time.  Hit me 
like a freight train, actually.  I'm not sure which 
was more surprising.

I don't know, exactly, how long I have taken for 
granted that she *is* my best friend.  I never 
introduce her that way, of course.  In the line of 
duty we're always partners.  "I'm Agent Mulder from 
the FBI and this is my partner, Agent Scully."  I have 
never had to introduce her to anyone in a social 
setting.  "This is my best friend, Dana Scully." 
That would get me a raised eyebrow for sure.  I wonder 
how she refers to me, if she speaks about me to others 
at all. 

There are long stretches of time when I can actually 
forget that she has cancer.  It's not as though she is 
dying right in front of me.  She is the same person 
she always has been.  A brilliant FBI agent.  A
remarkable woman who stands by me no matter what.  I 
have long since ceased to wonder why and simply thank 
God that she does.  I would be lost without her.  
Professionally, and personally.  

I'm never sure if it is okay to talk about her cancer.  
I don't want to upset her, but I also don't want her 
to think that I don't care.  If I ignore it, will she 
think me unfeeling?  I have a hunch Scully spends a
lot of time trying to ignore it herself.  The 
nosebleeds are the only time we ever openly 
acknowledge the cancer, and only then because we are
forced to.

My first reaction when she told me of her diagnosis 
was to deny it.  I refused to believe it was 
inoperable, even with her X-ray staring me
right in the face.  There *had* to be some way, I told 
her.  We would find it.  Nothing had ever separated us 
before, not for long.  Cancer wasn't about to start.  
The connection between us was too strong.  I
stubbornly cling to my delusion that if I flat out 
refuse to let her go, she cannot die.  I didn't let go 
when she returned from her abduction.   Against 
everyone else's odds I hung on and she came back.  I 
would give anything to be able to work that miracle 
again. 

Scully always goes to her treatments alone.  I 
occasionally field the calls from her doctor's office 
but that's the extent of it.  Her mother called me 
once to ask how I thought Dana was doing. That's when 
I figured out she's not letting her mother go with 
her, either.  I want to go with her.  I want to be 
there to support her, and carry my share of this 
burden.  I owe her so much and this is the only way I 
know how to repay.

I don't even know what kind of treatment she is 
getting.  After that disaster in Allentown, Scully has 
not shared the research I know she does about her 
disease.

I'm afraid I will ask and she'll say no and I'll feel 
even more helpless.

I'm afraid I will ask and she'll say yes and I'll have 
to watch her suffer, and live with those images long 
after she is gone.

I'm afraid I will ask and she'll tell me she is fine 
and I'll resent her for lying to me.

So I take the easy way and don't say anything.  My 
heart twists a little in my chest every time she walks 
out the door, but my cowardice keeps me silent.  

I want to bridge the gulf between us.  We don't know 
how much time we have left.  I don't want to be left 
with a lot of things I wished I'd told her.  They say 
the first step is the hardest.  Now, as the clock
ticks down for Scully, every time she shuts me out is 
like another nail in the coffin.  

*The doctor said I was fine.*

*I hope that's the truth.*

The shock on her face was evident.  

Do I trust Scully?  Absolutely.  With my life.  

Do I believe her when she evades my eyes and feeds me 
platitudes about her well-being?  Not a chance in 
hell.  

I have learned to separate the two Scullys.  I no 
longer feel betrayed by her evasions.  I am hurt, of 
course, but over the years of our partnership I have 
evolved from the Fox Mulder who would take these
white lies as proof of a deeper conspiracy.  I see it 
now for what it really is: a dance we do, keeping each 
other at arm's length.  To protect both our hearts.  
In my selfish moments I think that the loss, should it 
come, will be harder for me; I will be the one 
carrying on alone.  Then I remember that she is the 
one who may have to leave life, say goodbye in a 
completely different way.  Walk alone through that
door.  And she asked *me* to forgive *her* for not 
finishing our journey.  God.

I held her, the morning after Penny Northern died.  I 
wanted her close to me, as much for my comfort as 
hers.  Sometimes I dream about that moment.  Scully 
comes to me and I wrap my arms around her.  Then 
before my eyes, she dissolves into my arms until I am 
left holding nothing.  I open my embrace and stare 
before me, dumbfounded.  She must have slipped from my 
grasp...but then I realize the truth.  I have consumed 
her.  She has vanished into my darkness.  I wake up 
screaming.

It is almost beyond believing, even for "Spooky" 
Mulder.  This is one truth I would gladly bury.  The 
monstrous unfairness of it drives me insane with rage 
sometimes.  That someone so young, with such a
promising future, should have to face this.  It goes 
beyond all my it-should-have-been-me recriminations.  
This shouldn't happen to anyone.  That Scully has been 
given this cross to bear in my place makes the pain 
different.  Much worse.  I can't imagine it getting 
worse even though I know it will.  

I will be without her someday, as I was once.  
Incredibly, there was a time when Dana Scully was not 
a part of my life.  It is almost impossible to 
remember now.  It seems I have been blessed with her
friendship all my life.  I can never go back, not now 
that I would know what I was missing.  There has never 
been someone like Scully for me, and there never will 
be again.  She is not a substitute for my sister,
she is not merely my FBI partner.  She is something 
that I have trouble finding words to describe.

I revealed myself to her, piece by piece, starting 
with the largest of all: the abduction of my sister 
Samantha.  I knew what Scully thought of such things, 
yet she heard me out, without ridicule or scorn.  That
earned her the first crumb of trust, even if I 
couldn't admit it at the time.  Had I been asked, I 
would have said no, I don't trust her.  She is a spy.  
Yet I reached out to her immediately and was met half-
way.  The dividing line between us shifts constantly.  
She stepped into my arms, weeping, and let herself be 
vulnerable.  Other times it is me showing weakness.  
We cycle around, being strong for each other when
necessary, leaning when we have to.  The timing always 
works.  We haven't crumbled yet.

Despite some outward appearances, we have never 
betrayed each other.  The only way we lose the 
connection is through manipulation.  They drug my 
water.  They flash subliminal signals through her TV.  
Unnatural acts, disturbing our natural rhythms of 
trust.

That says a lot, I think.  We have had our moments of 
tension and perhaps even hatred, but we come out 
stronger in the end, the thread that links us doubled 
over, stronger than before.  It passes back and forth 
between us, a cat's cradle that grows more intricate 
every day.  Every time she doubts my theories but 
listens anyway, every time I have no faith in science 
but hear her out, we add another stripe to the 
pattern.  We weave a bridge between our worlds.

A safety net, if you will.  One that has caught each 
of us before we hit bottom. 

Will it be strong enough to catch her?  And even if it 
is, will she allow herself to fall into it?

******

"I grieve in my condition
For I cannot find the words to say I need you so..."
	--Sarah McLachlan

Mulder.  

I often wonder what he is to me.  

That's not completely true -- I know exactly what he 
is to me. 

Partner.  Friend.  Trusted confidante.

That last part sounds so ridiculous.  Who has trusted 
confidantes in this day and age?  It's more of a term 
that was used back in the 50's and 60's, when young 
women had close girlfriends and the word "confidante" 
was an accurate description of those friends.

Although I cannot say that I don't trust Mulder.  I 
do.  I trust him with my life.

When I was first told about the cancer, he was the 
first -- and only -- that I called.  Not my family.  
Not a friend.  I called only Mulder.  He came in to 
find me gazing at that x-ray in that quiet room, and 
his voice almost broke as he told me that it wasn't 
possible, that he wouldn't accept it.  If it hadn't 
been for the catch in his throat I would have thought 
that he was speaking about some paranormal activity
that he put his beliefs in so strongly.  But I knew 
that it was different.  I knew that he didn't want to 
accept what I was telling him because for once, he 
didn't want to believe.

I tried to talk to him calmly, rationally, about what 
it was, what it meant.  I avoided the one question we 
both wanted an answer to.  

How will this change us?

He doesn't talk to me much about the cancer.  I know 
why.  He thinks that he's going to upset me, although 
at the same time he knows deep down that he can't 
upset me any more than I already am.  He doesn't want
me to think he's avoiding the issue and therefore by 
extension not caring about me.  I know this isn't the 
case.  I know that he is scared, scared shitless that 
he's going to lose me to this cancer because he knows 
something as well as I do, even though I'm not sure 
how he's figured it out.

He knows that I'm getting tired -- tired of fighting, 
weary of waking up every day and looking in the 
mirror, seeing nothing but cancer and pain and death.

Mulder has a knack for knowing me.  Sometimes I think 
that he knows me better than I know myself.

He doesn't go with me for the treatments at my 
insistence.  I stubbornly cling to the belief that I 
can face this, that I can deal with this -- even this 
-- alone.  Doctor's offices are sterile and cold 
places.  There's no room there for Mulder, who is 
alive and warm.

I spend evenings with large mugs of peppermint tea, 
installed in front of the computer, downloading all 
the latest statistics and clinical trials from the 
Internet, from the CDC, from the National Cancer
Institute, from various medical centers, from anywhere 
that has any information about cancer.

Not just my cancer.  There's scant little information 
about my cancer.  So I look into other cancers, 
similar cancers, cancers that are completely different 
from mine.

I even check out web pages that have been put up by 
people, cancer patients just like myself, who have put 
up information and links to cancer centers and support 
groups.  I read the personal stories with a clinical 
detachment.

"I'm 25 years old and I have melanoma, which is a 
fatal form of skin cancer."

"I'm 31 years old and I have breast cancer."

"I'm 17 years old and I have Hodgkin's disease."

"I'm 32 years old and my three year old daughter has 
leukemia."

What would my personal story say?  "I have a naso-
pharangeal tumor that is inoperable and untreatable."

The evenings are quiet and still in my apartment.  The 
nights are just as quiet and even more dark.  My body 
refuses to sleep.  So instead I move from room to 
room, sitting in the dark, occasionally turning on a
light and looking out the window, watching the cars 
that drive by.  Sometimes I'll pick up a book, but it 
doesn't distract me.

From time to time my mind tells me that if I go to 
sleep I'll never wake up, that the cancer will claim 
me while I'm dreaming, that I'll never know that it 
happened, and that I won't have had the chance to say
goodbye or to have set my affairs in order.

Every time I leave the office at the end of the day I 
can't say goodbye to Mulder.  I can't accept the fact 
that it may be the last time, and so I say nothing, 
instead just nodding my head to him, seeing the
disappointment flicker across his face like a shadow.  
And I ignore it.  I walk out anyhow.

I know it hurts him.  I know that it destroys him just 
a little more each time I do it.  Why does he continue 
to stand by me even though I continue to hurt him?

The morning that Penny Northern died was one of the 
hardest moments of my life.  My defenses were down.  I 
was physically and emotionally drained of all my 
energy, and at that moment, Mulder was there. 
Standing in the hospital hallway dressed in all black, 
a kind of angel that only I could appreciate.  There 
was little talk.  He held me.  I felt safe.  I let him 
protect me for moments that are burned into my memory.  
When he released me, our eyes held and I felt for the 
first time that I was maybe going to be able to get 
through this after all.

Mulder blames himself for my cancer.  I know that.  
And I cannot take that guilt away from him.  It is 
something that he has to bear on his own.  

I don't blame him -- I never have, not really, and I 
never will.  This cancer is something that was 
orchestrated to push us farther apart from each other, 
until one day I would be pushed so far away that I 
would be gone, out of my misery, and out of his life.

We have come to depend on each other so much that it 
is hard for me to remember what my life was like 
before I met him.  Quantico, the Academy -- all of it 
sometimes seems to be a blur.  Even my childhood, high
school and college years seem to pale in comparison to 
the moment when I met Fox Mulder for the first time.  
We connected, whether we wanted to or not.  We 
disagreed much more back then than we do now, but we
respected each other.  We always respected each other.

We still do.  Regardless of what we have been through, 
we still respect each other.  It's what keeps us 
strong.  I know that we've been through so much 
together and I know that people have tried to separate 
us, but we will always have that strength, whether or 
not we are together or not.

We have been linked forever, I think.  

Which makes me wonder if Mulder knows how absolutely 
terrified I am.

Terrified of the pain and the sickness.

Of death.

I've lost my father.  My sister.  But even the thought 
of being with them again is not enough to assuage my 
fears of dying.  I'm not ready to go.  What about my 
life?  What about a family?  What about my future?

The cancer has taken away my future.  It has taken 
away my chances at ever having a family and a future 
life.  And it is trying to sever the bond I have with 
Mulder.

The question is, am I going to stand by and allow that 
connection to be broken or am I going to fight it?

Do I have the strength to fight it?

It is always easier in life to give up, to give in, to 
not fight.  Even if it means losing something or 
someone important, it is easier to let it go than to 
fight for it.

But as my mother reminded me, I've always been the 
strong one.  What she meant was that she didn't want 
this cancer to beat me -- that I had to fight to beat 
it.  

By extension, if I choose to follow her veiled advice 
and fight, then I have to fight to keep Mulder as 
well.

The bond we share should be enough to make it easier 
for me -- it should cushion the path that I know will 
be bumpy and painful.  I have to decide if it is 
enough.  I have to decide if I want it to be enough.

I know my answer.


******
END

Comments welcome: jenbird@earthlink.net