TITLE:  Out of Africa
SPOILER STATEMENT:  Biogenesis
RATING:  PG
CONTENT STATEMENT:  M/S married.  ScullyAngst.
CLASSIFICATION:  VRA
SUMMARY:   Post-ep for Biogenesis.  A "Making It Personal" story. 
Scully is on her way home from Africa.  But what will be waiting for her
upon her return?
THANKS:  To Lisa, Paulette, Robbie & Shannon
 
 

Out of Africa

by Brandon D. Ray
 

I'm on my way out of Africa in a wide-bodied jet.  I don't know where
I'm bound, but I fear I've lost my way.

I've grown accustomed to some uncertainty, of course.  In the six years
and more since I started working with Fox Mulder on the X-Files, there
has been more than one occasion when we embarked on an investigation
with no sure knowledge of our final destination.  But this time is
different.  This time I've lost the anchor of my beliefs.

Thirty-six hours ago I stood on a beach on the Ivory Coast and watched
all of my convictions crumble before me.  Everything I thought I knew,
about science, about God, about humanity, about myself -- in those few
seconds all of it came crashing down around me.  A day and a half later,
I'm still waiting for the dust to settle -- and when it does, I'm not
sure that I will like what I'm going to see.

I told Mulder when I called him from New Mexico that what he believed
was impossible; that it was science fiction.  The artifact with passages
from Genesis on it could not be extraterrestrial in origin.  It was a
fraud; a hoax; a lie.  And if the object *was* what Steven Sandoz
claimed, that still would not support Mulder's conclusions.  It would
not abet his assertions that humans had not evolved on Earth, or that
the Bible came from an alien intelligence rather than the Hand of God.

Even as I spoke those words to him, I knew that I was on thin ice -- ice
which had been growing steadily more treacherous ever since the Gibson
Praise case.  Where once I moved and spoke and thought with confidence
and assurance, now I shuffle and creep, each hesitant step taking me
further from the safety of the shore.  And now, at last, the ice has
cracked and given way, and I've fallen through into the freezing water
below.

Somehow I managed to go through the motions, back there on the Ivory
Coast.  I interviewed the local residents, performing physicals and
taking medical histories on whoever would cooperate.  I collected soil
samples and water samples and air samples.  I took specimens from nearby
plants and animals.  I am now smuggling these items, along with my
notes, back into the United States under the aegis of a forged
diplomatic passport provided by Langly and Frohike on the night I left
Washington.  This one last time, at least, I will be a scientist.

I wish I could believe that it was all going to be of some use to someone.

I glance around the cabin at my fellow passengers, and for a moment I
can't help wondering what they're doing here.  Why are all these people
gathered in a fragile metal tube, five miles above the sea?  Don't they
know how insubstantial the science is which holds this craft aloft? 
Don't they realize that all of it is based on the unproven and
unprovable assumptions that the world is what we observe it to be, and
that natural law is universal and unvarying?  Would any of them have set
one foot in this plane if they *did* know those things?

Perhaps they would.  I did, after all.

My gaze falls on the empty seat next to me, the one where Mulder ought
to be.  For the thousandth time in the past three days I feel a tremor
of anxiety at his absence.  I've given up trying to stop this emotion; I
fear for my husband's safety and well-being, and there's no use in
trying to deny it any longer.  I spent six long years fighting my
feelings towards this man, and now that I've given up that battle there
can be no turning back.

For just a moment I try to imagine what Mulder would be doing if he were
here with me right now, but I cannot.  From the day I walked into the
office which once was his and now is ours, we have been at odds with
each other.  Not over goals or values, and certainly not over trust; but
over methods and evidence.  And although I have become intimately
familiar with the nature of our arguments and disputes, I am unable to
imagine the form of our agreement on such a fundamental issue.

I find this fact disquieting, because very soon -- in a matter of hours
-- I am finally going to have to face that.  I am going to have to look
Fox Mulder in the eye and tell him that he was right all along.  This is
unknown territory, and the prospect of finally stepping off my chosen
path and walking into the darkness terrifies me, even if I am going to
have my husband at my side.

I turn my attention to the cheap paperbound Bible which I purchased at
the airport in Accra.  This, of course, is the other part of the
equation.  Just as my training in science provided the underpinnings for
my professional endeavors, so my faith in God has guided my personal
life.  But now even that has been called into question.  I no longer
know if the Bible is what I've always believed it to be.  I no longer
know if I can trust that this is the Word of God.

Trust.  Before this week, that's a concept I never thought to apply to
my relationship with God.  I was raised to be a believer, to have faith,
and although I've had my differences with the Church from time to time,
it had never crossed my mind to question the underlying goodness of God
-- much less His existence.  My deep, unquestioned certainty of His
presence and concern has sustained me more than once through the years,
as I faced the inevitable trials and tribulations of being human.  But
now I don't know what to think.  Now everything has changed.

There are limits, though, even in this dark moment of the soul.  There
are good teachings in this Book; rules for leading a just and moral
life.  No matter where these ideas came from, I cannot believe that the
injunctions in favor of peace and charity and kindness are
ill-conceived, or were merely part of a malevolent plan for our eventual
subjugation.

I will not accept that we were not meant to love.

I reach up and pull Mulder's class ring from where it hangs beneath my
blouse, as once again my thoughts return to him.

Mulder is the key, of course, as he so often has been in the past. 
Professionally and personally, he is the linchpin around which the rest
of my life now revolves, both for good and ill.  I've long since passed
the point where I can pull away from him; to do so now would be
unthinkable.  And the only thing that makes that bearable, despite my
need for independence, is the sure knowledge that I am just as necessary
to him as he is to me.

Now he's more important than he ever was before.  I've come to believe
that Mulder may be part of the chain of evidence -- along with Gibson
Praise and Cassandra Spender -- that will finally allow us to answer
many of the questions which have plagued us these past six years.  And
with those answers may come the opportunity to finally take effective
action against the aliens whose existence and intentions I am no longer
able to deny.

In the few minutes I was in Mulder's presence, back at Georgetown
Memorial, I had a sense of contact which I had never felt before -- not
with him, and not with anyone.  I could perceive him in my mind.  I
couldn't hear his words, but I could sense his being and his emotions; I
could actually *feel* his thoughts surging as he seemed to realize I was
there.  And I took vindictive comfort at the revulsion I saw coiled
within him at the presence of Diana Fowley.

Even while it was happening I knew that I should fight what I seemed to
be experiencing.  I knew then and I still know now that telepathy is
impossible, and without any scientific merit or evidence.  I have spent
the last six years of my life combatting just these sorts of subjective,
unmeasureable phenomena.  But what I felt inside me was so strong, so
all-pervasive ....

When I returned to the hospital later that evening, I wanted him to know
that I loved him, and that even though I had to leave, I would soon be
back. Even as I was speaking to him I didn't really believe he could
hear me, but I had to do something -- to assuage my own conscience, if
nothing else.  So I used that connection to try to communicate with him,
to let him know that he could depend on me, and that I was *not*
abandoning him.

And then I had to leave him there, and I've prayed all the way to Africa
and halfway back that my mother and the Gunmen can keep him safe for me
until I can return.

I wish I could be sure there was Someone there to hear those prayers.

I'm on my way out of Africa in a wide-bodied jet.  In a few more hours I
will arrive in Baltimore, my final destination unknown, my one remaining
certainty residing in the man I am returning to.

I can only hope it will be enough.  For both of us.
 
 

Fini