*All My Journeys' End (1/1)*
By MCA
February 1997
Warning: 4th Season spoilers -- "Memento Mori";
brief reference to "Leonard Betts."
Rating: G
Categorization: V, A (MSR only if you're really looking for it)

Disclaimer: The characters of Dana Scully, Fox Mulder, and Margaret
Scully are the property of Chris Carter, Fox Broadcasting and
Ten-Thirteen Productions, and have been used without permission. No
copyright infringement is intended, nor are the characters being used
for commercial purposes.

Author's Note: My apologies for yet another MM-inspired bit of fanfic,
but it seemed to me while watching MM, that Scully's journal entries,
wonderful though they were, were somehow incomplete.

Herewith is my humble attempt at filling in the gaps. As always:
feedback /greatly/ appreciated.



Allentown Hospital
6:20 a.m.

The noises of the hospital corridor followed him into the room, shut off
again with the muffled swoosh of the closing door.

He sat down by her bed, in the pre-dawn dark of her room, watching her
sleep. The lingering effects of that first massive chemo and radiation
treatment weakening her to the point that she would have to stay one
more day.

She had been up all night, and slept now, exhausted. He'd watched her
walk away down the hallway, knowing that she needed a moment alone to
pull herself together. Scully hated for anyone to see her cry. He knew
from Margaret Scully that all through their first meeting in the
hospital room, and during the worst reactions to her treatments Scully
still hadn't shed a tear.

But he couldn't leave her for long. Giving her time to compose herself,
he'd lingered in the corridor, turning the vial of her ova over and over
in his fingers, wondering how he would tell her that news. How he would
add to the burdens that she already carried.

And finally, unable to wait any longer, he'd quietly entered her room,
and found her sleeping.

Her journal lay next to her on the bedside table. Despite what she'd
told him: that she didn't want him to see it, he couldn't help himself.
He had to know. And he thought that maybe she'd understand. She, of all
people, had always understood his need to find the truth.

As he picked up the book, a slip of paper fell out. Bending to pick it
up, he realized it was addressed to him:


/Mulder:

I began this journal for my own purposes; to record my final
journey, in a life of travels. But I found in writing these words,
that it was your face that I saw before me. And I realized that I
needed to say these things to you -- needed you to understand
these things about me.

The Truth is out there, Mulder, and I know you'll find it. But I
wanted to give you these truths about me.

-- S./


Oh Scully, he thought, I've always known all the truths I need to about
you -- your strength, your compassion, your honesty, your dedication. I
trust you better than I trust myself. But, if you thought I needed to
know these things about you, I should read....

He was rationalizing, he knew. But he had to read the journal, had to
learn all he could.

The first page began abruptly, with Scully's typical style, at the
beginning:


I was born a nomad.

My life is haunted by journeys. By departures. By partings.

As a Navy Brat, I traveled where ever Ahab's orders took us. Every
2-3 years, packing all my belongings into boxes. Traveling to new
cities, new ports. Wondering each time what I would find there, and
when the traveling would cease. The only constant was change, and
the boxes.

We would meet our boxes at the next base, the next post. We would
unpack our things, and then begin the process: learn the new school,
the new names, the new faces. Until it was all new. And all old.

I learned to be quiet in those years. Melissa would get to a new place,
and plunge in. She would join all the clubs, meet all the popular girls,
get invited to all the dances. Charlie and Bill would join the football
team, the basketball team, the baseball team -- some sport was always
in season whenever we arrived. But I learned that there was safety in
quiet -- in watching and learning until I had things figured out.

I can almost hear Mulder laughing at me. Yes, I was a scientist, a skeptic,
even then.

The paths I traveled then were circular. The 3 year cycle of a Naval tour
of duty has a pattern -- you learn its rhythm. Learn to anticipate the
inevitable goodbyes. You make friends, sometimes very good friends,
but you always hold a little of yourself in reserve, knowing there is an
end.

You teach yourself to say goodbye. You convince yourself that there
will always be something better at the next base, the next school, the
next house.

And even so, you leave bits of yourself behind, every time. Every good-
bye diminishes you -- but you tell yourself that you don't miss what you've
lost. You tell yourself that every journey is a new beginning, a chance
to gain what you've missed the last time.

You never allow yourself to become too attached to any place, any
person. You know that we all have journeys to make, and that we must
make most of them alone.

College was simply an extended tour of duty. Four years in one place,
instead of 2 or 3. I never imagined that the friendships I made at the
university would last any longer than others in my life. I understand
the rhythms of change, of life, of departure.

Med School was a journey of different sort. I began to realize that I
would depart from the direction that Ahab and Mom wanted me to take.
Forensic pathology and the FBI were unfamiliar and uninviting waters to
them. But as much as I feared the distance my choices might put
between us, I knew that I had to chart my own course.

Teaching at Quantico felt like I'd found an oasis. A combination of
a military-like structure and academia, the only two worlds I'd ever
known. I thought that maybe I had finally reached the destination to
which I'd been traveling all along.

But paths are funny things. You no sooner think you've reached an
end point -- a resting place -- than you realize it was only a mirage.

I was assigned to the X-Files.

Standing in your office that first time, meeting your mocking gaze,
I could feel my path shifting under my feet. I didn't know then, that
the movement I felt was the shock of our two paths joining.

Our path these last 4 years has taken me to places I could never have
imagined. It has taxed me physically, intellectually and spiritually --
teaching me my limits at the same time that it has revealed to me
unexpected strengths.

I've discovered that sometimes the journey is also the
destination. That departures need not always diminish you.
That even when the road leads back on itself, there is
sometimes gain.

I cannot imagine a better traveling companion.

We've each departed from our shared path. We were forced apart
by the closing of the X-files, by my disappearance, and yours. We
have also each taken separate journeys of body and soul. But always,
we've returned to our common purpose -- our conviction in each
other ever strengthened.

We are so much better together than apart.

When we are together, Mulder, I hold nothing in reserve. You
once told me that I'm the only one you trust. Know this:
You are the only one who has ever seen all of me. I think
maybe you already know this. But its important that
this record be accurate.

But, Mulder, as I write this, I'm embarking on a new journey.
Of all the journeys of my life, it is, perhaps, the one I fear most
and least.

I know where it will end. I have cancer. I have a tumor that will
almost certainly kill me within a year or two.

And, now, for the first time, I feel time like a heartbeat. The seconds
pumping in a my breast like a reckoning. The numinous mysteries that
once seemed so distant and unreal threatening clarity in the presence
of a truth entertained, not in youth, but only in its passage.

I feel these words as if their meaning were weight being lifted from me.
Knowing that you will read them and share my burden as I have come
to trust no other.

That you should know my heart, look into it; finding there the memory
and experience that belong to you -- that are you -- is a comfort to me
now as I feel the tethers loose and the prospects darken for the
continuance of a journey that began not so long ago and which began
again with a faith shaken and strengthened by your convictions.

If not for which I might never have been so strong now as I cross
to face you and look at you, incomplete.

Hoping that you will forgive me for not making the rest of the
journey with you.

********

Today was harder than I thought it would be. I had rehearsed the
words to tell you about the cancer, but was unprepared for your reaction.
Oh Mulder, /you're/ supposed to be the believer, even in the worst.

Your eyes reflected the shock I expected, and a sense of betrayal for which
I was unprepared. Until I realized that I had just told you that I was
leaving.
You were losing another person that you cared about, that you loved.

I think you were scared, too, by my insistence that nothing could be done.
I think you felt our paths diverging again.

I nearly lost it, you know. Nearly lost my calm when you said that /we/
would look for a treatment. As much I know I will need your strength
and your companionship in the coming days. I also know there will be
roads we must each take alone.

*******

I was so angry at you tonight. You looked at me, at the blood on my face in
the alley, and I could see that you suddenly saw me as a sick woman. I'm
fine, Mulder. I know I say that to you all the time, but it really is true.
I feel fine. I have to rely on you to keep relying on me. I have to keep
working, because if I don't, then They've won.

And then you insisted that I go see Penny Northern. You must have known
how the idea terrified me, but you pushed and pushed, finally resorting to
reminding me that I'm an FBI /Agent/ shirking her duty.

I nearly hated you then.

But you were right.

I needed to go see Penny. Needed to face the truth in a new way. Needed
to begin looking for the answers inside me.

I'm sorry I made you call Mom. I should have been the one to call her, to
explain. But somehow I thought that she would take the news better
from you. I was wrong. I should have been the one to call her.
I'm sorry.

It was so hard to tell Mom to her face. So hard to tell her that she
might lose her last daughter. I had to reassure her that I would be fine,
that the treatments would work. I have hope, Mulder, but I am a doctor.
I know the odds. This is a long shot, at best.

Tomorrow I begin a new journey. And a battle.

In med school I learned that cancer arrives in the body unannounced. A
dark stranger who takes up residence, turning its new home against itself.

This is the evil of cancer. That it starts as an invader, but soon becomes
one with the invaded. Forcing you to destroy it; but only at the risk of
destroying yourself.

It is science's demon possession. My treatments -- science's attempt at
exorcism.

Mulder, I hope that in these terms you might know it, and know me.
And accept a stranger so many recognize but cannot ever completely
cast out.

And if the darkness should have swallowed me as you read this, you
must never think there was the possibility of some secret intervention.
Something you might have done.

And although we have traveled far together, this last distance must,
necessarily be traveled alone.

*************

He paused in his reading then -- tears obscuring the words on the page.
He was torn between his own agony, and the quiet strength he drew from
her words. No bravado for Scully. This was pure courage.

Would he ever fully know her? She said that he had seen all of her, he
wasn't sure.

On a journey to what she knew to be a dark place, she had stopped to
leave a light for him.

She had been his light for so long. Now he had to be the one to carry
the lantern. To light her way back.

He knew what he would read next. The words he had absorbed so quickly in
his frantic search to find her. But the story had to be finished.

******
I have not written to you in the last 24 hours because the treatment has
weakened my spirit as well as my body.

Mulder, it is difficult to describe to you the fear of facing an enemy
which I can neither conquer, nor escape.

Penny Northern has taken a downturn. I now look at her with the
respect that can only come from one who is about to walk the same
dark path. Seeing her, I can't help but see myself in a month, or a
year. I pray that I have her courage to face this journey.

Mulder, I feel you close. Though I know you are now pursuing
your own path. For that I am grateful. More than I can ever express.
I need to know that you're out there if I am ever to see through this.

*************

He paused again, glad that she had felt him near. Glad that he could, in
any way, provide strength to her. Did she know that he carried her where
ever he went? Did she know the terror that her doubt that she might not
"see through this" raised in him?

He glanced down at the book, intending to place it back on the night
stand, and was surprised to see that the entries continued:

This will be my final entry in this journal. I thought when I told you
tonight that I was going to throw this away that I spoke the truth.
But I find I have one last thing to say:

Our journey is not yet over, Mulder. I have too much left to do.
We have too much left to accomplish.

I'm not willing to abandon the road just now, although I don't
know that I will be able to complete the whole distance with you.
If there are truths to be found, I want to find them with you, for
as long as I can.

When you held me in the hallway tonight, I found quiet and peace
for the first time since that night in the ambulance when Leonard
Betts told me that I had something that he needed. I had decided
that I had to go on, but you gave me the strength I will need for
the traveling.

I think I will keep this journal, after all. As a record of a journey --
a journey that led me back to the last path I will need to find.



He closed the journal quietly, and looked up to find her watching him.

For a moment he had no words. The enormity of his intrusion into her
private thoughts overwhelming.

She gave him a small, rueful smile.

"Guess I never could keep you from searching for the truth, Mulder."

He closed his eyes, her grace washing over him.

"Let's go, Scully. It's a good day for traveling."


END

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