Open to White by Dasha K. (Part 1/2) Summary: We shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds. Rating: R Keywords: MSR, AU Timeline: This universe takes off somewhere in Season 6 and ignores the rest. Disclaimer: Even after ten years, they still don't belong to me. Archiving: Have at it, but I'd love a note letting me know where you're putting it. E-Mail: dashaxf@gmail.com Note: This story might not make a ton of sense unless you've read a previous story of mine, "Blinded by White Light." If you'd like to give it a read, it can be found on my web site at www.geocities.com/dashafic. I have taken a bit of liberty with some of the details from "Blinded by White Light." It's nothing major, though. Black as ink, soft as velvet. I've never been quite as happy as I am right here, right now. -------------------------------- In the morning Rachel walked to work in a thoroughly bad mood. She had too many roommates who snored or talked in their sleep, calling out names of people they'd forget by morning. Sometimes their bad dreams entered hers and she'd wake with a start in the dark room of bunk beds, wondering just where the hell she was. That, and bad coffee, made her irritable this morning. Seriously, they could revive the near dead and grow new cities from the ruins, but they couldn't properly synthesize coffee? How hard could it be? Rachel couldn't remember much, but she did remember the bitter-smooth richness of good coffee and the cup she currently held in her hand wasn't it. Not even close. Before she reached the sky bridge to the Clinic she pitched the cup in the garbage. She'd have to rely on adrenaline, not caffeine, today. In the middle of the sky bridge, she stopped to look over Atlanta, waking under the dome. It was beautiful - metallic surfaces glittering in the unreal morning sunshine. The city felt like a living organism, growing and mutating by the day. In just the last few weeks a brace of high-rise apartment buildings had emerged on the horizon and new roads were weaving their way east and west, north and south, through clusters of smaller buildings and patches of green. She was all for speed and progress. The faster the new version of Atlanta grew, the faster she'd move up the housing waiting list and get her own apartment. She was so wrapped up in watching the city, she almost her dread of the upcoming work day. With a jolt, she remembered what the day held and had to fight the urge to return to the dormitory. Keep walking, Rachel told herself, you're almost there. -------------------------------- A hot, hot night in West Virginia and we're stuck in a town so remote the single motel doesn't even have air conditioning, just a noisy, rusty fan that only pushes the humid air around the small room. This motel has to be a new low in our partnership, I think, while I finally pull off my suit, slightly damp with humidity and perspiration, and throw my briefcase in the corner. The walls are delicately brushed with mildew and the television is strictly black and white, sporting a pair of rabbit ears. On a night like this, memories of Antarctica seem pleasant. Mulder and I sprawl naked on the scratchy sheets, almost audibly sweating. At least the motel's ice machine works. We're both sucking on ice cubes, rivulets of freezing water running down our chins and splashing on our bodies in refreshing droplets. Thankfully, the case proved to be nonsense. The extraterrestrial sightings a number of teenaged girls reported turned out to be the result of a slumber party, a late-night viewing of "Alien" and several ounces of psychedelic mushrooms someone's sister had smuggled back from college. "Tomorrow," I sigh. "Tomorrow we go home and join the rest of the twentieth century. Oh, for central air. . ." "I'd settle for my cantankerous window box," Mulder says. I'm not really listening to him, lost in my own reverie. "Central air, ice-cold beer, delivery Thai, and. . ." "Thou," he interrupts, grinning. "Very funny," I say. It sounds snappy. I'm in something of a mood, have been from the time I woke up. I've felt oddly restless, keyed-up all day, as if I've forgotten an appointment I made long ago. Everything made me jump today, from the sound of a door slamming as we were interviewing a witness to the unexpected touch of Mulder's hand on my arm while in the car. I've been dreaming of things blue - swimming pools shimmering in the sun, Mexican tiles cool against my feet, even toxic blue Slurpees. Charlie and I used to rummage through the couch cushions for change and then run to the 7-11 to get the biggest Slurpees our money could buy. Blue raspberry was my favorite. We'd have contests in the parking lot to see who could spit the blue slush between their front teeth the farthest. I almost always won. Mulder rolls over on his side to face me. "If you could be anywhere else at this moment, where would you be?" "The morgue," I say. "The morgue?" He looks vaguely horrified. "It's always cool in the morgue. Slows decomposition." "Romantic, Scully." He half laughs, half snorts and I flick water at him. "No, really, where would you like to be?" Anywhere blue. "I see a swimming pool, perhaps in Mexico or the Virgin Islands." "Those places are hot." "It's night and while the air is still warm, it's not sweltering. And the water's nice and cool. I'm up to my shoulders in the water, eating a mango, letting the juice run into the water." Right now, nothing sounds better than a perfectly ripe mango, but I'm guessing the Abbottsville EZ-Stop doesn't stock a whole lot of mangoes. "I like that place. Am I there?" I smile. "Of course you are. You're floating on your back, watching the stars." "That sounds like me." "I know, always working." I grab another ice cube from the bucket and let it melt through my fingers onto my thighs. "Where would you be?" Mulder doesn't hesitate. "Yankee Stadium. They're playing the Red Sox and we have really good seats, between home plate and first base. Maybe the second or third row." "A baseball game?" My eyebrow rises. "Sure. I've always wanted to take you to a Yankee game. We'd have hot dogs and beer, yell at the umpire." "Why don't we do things like that more often?" "Because we're working all the time," Mulder sighs. "But we could do it. Maybe next weekend. . . if we don't pick up a new case by then." "I wonder what it would be like if. . ." I say, not quite sure how to say it. Something sad flickers through me. "If what?" I picture a sunny apartment or a small house on a quiet street. Rooms that have never known murder or abduction. A lazy dog stretched out on the floor. Maybe a garden. I even, just for an instant, picture a little girl, straight brown hair cut in bangs. No, I tell myself, don't imagine that. You'll never have that. "I just wonder if this all ended, what do you think we'd be like?" Mulder closes his eyes, as if he can see my idealized vision of the future. "We'd just be ourselves," he says. "But with fewer hospitalizations. Maybe some peace and quiet." "Do you think we'll ever get to be those people?" This is the question I've don't like to ask. He touches my shoulder. "Do you want out of this?" His voice has dropped to a whisper. I shake my head. "Of course not. I just wonder sometimes." And truly, I don't. What we have is enough for me. It has to be. It's all I know now. Warm lips press against my forehead. "All we can do is hope that day comes." Hope. After all we've seen, the horror we've endured, hope still remains - battered, bruised and torn, but still standing. -------------------------------- Yesterday, after her shift was over, Bradley called Rachel into his office. She sat on the edge of a desk chair, trying to remember if she'd done anything egregiously wrong lately. Bradley stroked his salt-and-pepper beard. "I've been very pleased with your work," he said. She noted the slightest trace of condescension in his voice. Some of the Ones could be like that, fluffed up with pride in the fact that they had more time than anyone else, that they were the first to wake, the true pioneers. She thought it was ridiculous. Their numbers had been called first in an intergalactic lottery, so what? "Thank you," she said, demurely folding her hands in her lap like a good little Four should. "I enjoy my work." She treasured the hours she spent with her Second Week patients, talking to them, helping them ground themselves in their new realities, even holding their hands as they cried or screamed out their wrath at the brave new world. Her favorite thing was taking them for little walks to the garden behind the Clinic or to the sky bridge to see the city's lights at night. Their lost faces would light up at the odd beauty of it all. "I think you're ready, Rachel," he said. "Ready for what?" she asked, but she suspected she already knew. Her mouth felt dry. "I'd like to reassign you to the First Week Unit. I think you can do it this time." Her mind flashed to being pinned to the floor, a strong arm at her throat, and the sound of her own screams for help. "You've grown and matured into your position. What happened wasn't your fault. We shouldn't have assigned you to First Week at that time. It was premature." Bradley chuckled a bit and she almost hated him for it. "Admittedly, that was a rather unusual case. Incidents like that are rare. I'd be very surprised if you saw a reaction like that again." She frowned, remembering the broken collarbone and the livid bruises that had mottled her arms, the souvenirs of her sole day on the First Week Unit. "Do I have a choice?" she asked. "Of course you do, Rachel. No one is going to force you to do anything you don't want to do." She lifted her chin. "Then I choose no. I don't want to do it." "Are you sure?" "I'm sure." Bradley chuckled again, but this time there was real warmth in the chuckle. "Were you this stubborn Before?" "How would I know?" She shrugged. Really, what a stupid thing to ask, almost bordering on impolite, she thought. "Good point. But I just want you to know one thing. We really need you, Rachel. We need someone with your compassion and patience. Tomorrow a new batch of Eights arrives and we need good people in the unit." Oh, he'd hit her where it counted, her secret soft spot, underneath the hard carapace she presented to the world. Slowly, Rachel nodded her head, even though her brain was telling her it was a bad, bad idea. "So, you'll do it? Excellent." Bradley typed something into his computer. "We'll start you with just one patient; keep it light to get you into the swing of things. You'll also receive a ten-percent raise." Big deal. There wasn't much to buy, not yet. Commerce would come, they were told. They just had to be patient. Rachel thought about the patient. Sometimes, although it was rare, they didn't make it back, not all the way. Sometimes they were left a mere husk of a person, doomed to drooling from the sedatives in an out-of-the-way ward. And sometimes they made it for a while, seemed to be thriving along with all the rest, and then figured out a way to commit suicide. There was always something in the Clinic, or the Orientation Center, that could do a person in if they were clever. She stood up. "So, 8:00 tomorrow?" "Yes. K will be the doctor on duty." Bradley stood up to see her out of his office. The news made Rachel smile, just a little, although she tried to make sure Bradley couldn't see it. She didn't want to give him the satisfaction that she found good news in any of this. -------------------------------- Sticky fingers travel up and down my thigh. When I was young, I thought my life would be unexceptional. Oh, I was sure I'd excel; I'd excelled at most things I'd done, but I imagined my life traveling the well-worn path followed by most people. How wrong I was. In high school, I could clearly see the Dana Scully of the future. She'd go to an excellent college, then an even better medical school. I couldn't remember a time when I hadn't wanted to be a doctor. I'd do my residency in pediatrics, maybe family practice, and then join a successful practice and heal the ill with my compassion and intelligence. Somewhere in all that, I'd marry my nice, steady college sweetheart. Maybe he'd be a doctor, too. At the very least, he'd be a lawyer. Our wedding would be big, complete with a white dress and veil, all the relatives squeezed in the church, walking down the aisle on my father's arm. We'd buy a house in a gentrifying neighborhood and spend our free time fixing it up. After a few years there would be children - two of them, a boy and a girl. I could almost see their faces. Sometimes I daydreamed their names. Watering the lawn, Sunday Mass, wiping runny noses, a Volvo station wagon, and summer weekends at the Chesapeake Bay. Surprise, surprise - my life didn't follow that exquisitely planned script. I look into Mulder's eyes. I know that look well by now. "It's too hot," I say. "I don't know if I can stand to be touched." The fan sounds like it's whirring louder but it's not working any harder to cool the stifling air. "It's never too hot," he says. "Or too cold, or windy, or rainy, or snowy. . ." I mutter, "You're a veritable U.S. Postal Service." His kiss changes my mind. I can't refuse him, even on a sticky night after a strangely nervous day. So much is bound in his touch, his presence. We've lived a thousand lives together and endured unimaginable events. Mulder is now an elemental part of me. With Jack, Ethan, all the others stretching back to my first date with Sean Cafferty to see Star Wars, I could never figure out why love disappointed me so. I thought I was cold, withholding, all of the names they called me when it finally went sour. Now I know that they, and I, were wrong. It was a matter of waiting - long, lonely years of waiting. I was abducted, shot, and made barren. I was given cancer and lay beside my child as she died. I was torn and humiliated in hundreds of creative ways. But sometimes I also found wonder, small pieces of the truth, and fleeting moments of beauty that knocked me to my knees. Through it all, I became the woman who is here today lying on the bed with her partner in this dingy motel room somewhere in the West Virginia mountains. She's not the caricature doctor-wife-mother I'd daydreamed about in study hall, but someone stronger, tougher, and much wiser. A woman nursing a full load of hurt and anger, to be sure, but a woman who can take it and who will fight back. And through it all, the unbearable and the triumphant, was Mulder. Is Mulder. My partner, walking side by side with me on the journey. His mouth hard on mine, hands everywhere, reading the Braille of my body. He knows everything about me now, the crooked little toe on my left foot and the brown birthmark at the crook of my elbow. A thousand times, Mulder has kissed the gunshot scar on my belly and traced the colors of the snake on my lower back. He has felt me arch against him as I've come so hard I thought I'd snap a ligament and held me as I've cried from the nightmares that haunt me on an all-too-frequent basis. Mulder isn't like the others were, I think drowsily, as he takes nips at my neck, my breasts, the soft skin of my inner thighs. He wants to know the real me. Mulder has seen me at my darkest and lowest moments. He's not dazzled by the wonder girl facade. He wants to know my secrets, and I, his. There's nothing to hide anymore. We haven't always been kind to each other and we haven't always been honest. Our suffering has torn us apart and brought us together dozens of times. But we're trying, we're really trying. We deserve an A for effort. His beauty never fails to take me by surprise. The gold smoothness of his skin, the way his hands clench and unclench as I take him deep inside me, the stunned look in his eyes as we move together, as if he can't believe this is really happening. I know I can't. It's still too new, too fresh - we're still surprising each other by the day, still a little shy with one another, still in awe at how large this is. Sweat is now running down my face, into my eyes, as I ride him harder, faster, wanting nothing more at this moment than for everything to dissolve, for the separate Mulder and Scully to merge for just one moment and become one being. I've never wanted forever before him. I was so careful of my precious identity, and so ready to shield my heart from hurt. Now I know who I am and Mulder is inextricably entwined with that identity. When I come, it feels like letting go of everything for just a moment - my doubts and my fears. They'll return soon enough, but now I breathe with pleasure and contentment. This is a respite, a time to recharge for the inevitable battles ahead. No, this is more. This is love, I think, touching the face of my beloved. -------------------------------- She stood in front of the door to the unit, palm poised to touch the security plate. Deep breath, Rachel told herself. Just do it. Her heart was beating out of control. Just a few months earlier, her debut on the First Week Unit was a very different experience. She'd been so excited and confident. Wasn't she the first Four in her work group chosen for this most important assignment? Wasn't she widely regarded as one of the best befrienders at the Clinic, sending her patients off to their Orientation Centers as almost-functioning human beings? Didn't she consistently get the mute to speak and the despondent to laugh at one of her terrible jokes? Rachel had been awed at the responsibility of her new position, but she was sure it was something she could do, and do well. She'd be the befriender every survivor wished they'd had when they'd awakened to the brave new world - calm, compassionate, and infinitely patient. She'd passed her training with flying colors and had shadowed several of her colleagues. Head held high, spine straight, she'd been so ready. She remembered the small room, painted a soothing sage. False sunshine spilled through the filmy curtains at the window. Soft classical music played somewhere in the background. A bed with a dark green quilt. Pictures of flowers and trees on the walls. It was meant to be a happy, calm place to wake. Non-threatening, non-clinical. The only sign the room belonged to a medical facility was the IV unit on the wall, a plastic line running to the sleeping patient's hand. A thin band of plastic ran around his forehead, monitoring his vital signs and brain activity. He looked so peaceful, her first patient. Rachel wondered if she'd looked like that, months ago, as if she'd just dropped off for a nice nap on a lazy Sunday afternoon. She sat in the chair at the bedside and took his hand in hers. It was a large hand, pale olive in skin tone, the veins prominent. He was probably in his late thirties, early forties; there wasn't much gray in his brown hair. Dark lashes fanned on his face and his cupid's bow of a mouth was slightly open. His hospital gown was pale green, almost matching the walls. She thought, who are you? There was no match in the DNA database. No name, no date of birth, no record of where he'd been found. There had been mass chaos in those days of rescue; keeping good records hadn't been a priority. The Others had assumed that survivors would be able to sort themselves out after awakening. They hadn't known what their miracle drug for the Plague would do to Human brains. She squeezed the patient's hand. "I'm ready," she said. G, the doctor, could hear everything she heard and see everything she saw through the connector wrapped around her left ear. It felt like having someone reading over her shoulder. "Everything's looking good," G replied. "We're going to start." The IV unit began humming; new drugs were being introduced into the patient's system. It would only be a minute or so. Rachel felt pity for her patient. Awakening was something she'd never want to go through again. Another squeeze of the hand, this one a bit stronger. "Good morning," she said in the soft voice she'd been trained to use. "It's time to wake up." A tiny fluttering of lashes and a cough. Then his eyes opened all the way, cloudy hazel, trying to focus on what they saw. A sharp indrawing of breath. "How are you feeling?" she asked. He turned his head to look at her. His eyes narrowed, but he said nothing. He now looked exhausted, as if he'd witnessed a thousand terrible things. Rachel tried to make her voice sound even gentler. "Do you remember your name?" He jerked his hand out of hers. "Who the hell are you?" he demanded in a voice hoarse with disuse. She took a calming breath. "My name's Rachel. You're in a safe place and nothing bad will happen to you here." The words from her training module flowed off her tongue like honey. The patient struggled to sit up. "Take it easy," she said. "You've been ill and need to get your strength back." He sat up all the same and looked Rachel dead in the eyes. "Where is she?" he rasped. "Who?" They'd covered this in training. Sometimes the patients called out for loved ones, lost artifacts from ruined memory banks. Still, it threw Rachel. "Just go with it," G whispered in her ear. "See where it takes you." "Where. Is. She?" he said, through gritted teeth. "Who are you talking about?" she asked. Maybe this would be a good way to jump-start the few memories he had left. The patient looked momentarily confused, as if the name was just on the tip of his tongue. He shook his head. "What have you done with her?" Tears began to run down his face. "She's just fine," Rachel said, improvising. "You liar!" He was shouting now. "What have you done with her, you bastards? I'll fucking kill each and every one of you if you've hurt her!" She touched his shoulder. "Shh, shh," she soothed. "Everything will be all right." "Fuck that shit - WHERE IS SHE?" "G, what do I do now?" she whispered. There was no answer. Her hands began to shake. Rachel remembered what happened next in jagged shards. One second he was tucked in bed and the next he seemed to be flying directly at her, the IV line ripping out of the unit on the wall. The weight of his body knocked her out of the chair and she hit the floor, hard, her head bouncing off the tiles. The patient straddled her, his large hands gripping her arms with impossible force. He leaned towards her, his breath hot on her cheek. "Now, are you going to tell me where she is or am I going to have to shoot you in the head, you fucking bitch?" She heard herself scream. Where the hell was G? Where was security? His arm was now at her throat, pressing at her, and she struggled to breathe. She felt a sickening pain flood every cell. The next thing she heard was the door opening and frantic footsteps, G's voice saying, "We're here, Rachel." She saw G's lean form bend over the patient and inject something into his bare thigh. Almost immediately, the patient loosened his grip on her. G and a security guard rolled him off her and managed to deposit him back in the bed. Rachel lay on her back, staring at the white ceiling tiles, too stunned to move. G crouched next to her, charcoal eyes wide. "I'm sorry," he said in his soft voice. "I wasn't paying attention like I should have. I took off my unit for just a moment and -" She turned her head and threw up on the shiny floor tiles. Rachel was taken to the Medical Unit in a wheelchair. As an orderly rolled her out, she saw the patient. He was lying in bed, glassy-eyed from the sedatives, but the tears continued to roll down his face. She looked away. Her injuries weren't anything life-threatening. A hairline fracture to her clavicle, bruises on her arms and chest, a goose egg at the back of her skull. She was given a sling to immobilize her shoulders, pain and anti-inflammatory derms, and was told to go home and rest. When she got back to the dorm, everyone on her wing seemed to have heard the story and wanted the gory details. The last thing she wanted to do was discuss what had happened. Rachel was achy and feeling a little dazed from the pain derm on the inside of her forearm. Instead of lying down as ordered, she left the building and began walking until she'd climbed the small hillside behind the Clinic and the dorms. She sat on a bench at the top of the hill, wincing at how even her leg muscles were sore from what had happened. The adrenaline from the attack had long since worn off and Rachel now felt drained and disappointed. Her first day hadn't gone as expected. She'd failed and nearly gotten herself killed in the process. She remembered the anger on her patient's face and, more importantly, the sorrow and loss. Who was she? He hadn't remembered himself, probably never would, but some elemental part of his subconscious had only wanted to protect her. Rachel wondered who she'd been to the patient. Wife, lover, daughter? And what had happened to her - had she been killed in the Invasion or die of the Plague, or was she somewhere out there, in a Clinic or Orientation Center, not remembering him either? I can't do this, she thought. That afternoon, Rachel did something she rarely allowed herself to do anymore. She cried. She wept for her bravado and her failure, and she cried for the patient and his lost one. But mostly her tears were for herself, for the ones she'd lost and could no longer remember. The next day, she walked into Bradley's office and demanded that he reassign her. And now here she was, about to hop on the merry-go-round for another ride. Rachel took a deep breath and touched her palm to the plate. The door swished open and she stepped inside. End of Part 1 of 2.