TITLE: Bounded In a Nutshell
AUTHOR: Denise Morgen
EMAIL: meadora@hotmail.com
CATEGORY: V, MA
SUMMARY: Mulder is prodded back to consciousness.
SPOILERS: The Sixth Extinction: Amor Fati
RATING: PG
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DISCLAIMER: Hi. Do I look like a six foot tall blonde surfer to you? 
Didn't think so. 'Nuff said. 

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Bounded In a Nutshell 
by Denise Morgen

"Traitor."

Her voice lashes me with the numb bite of a razor's edge, the white
shock of it drowning out the pain of its cut on the initial pass. And 
still she strikes me with the blunt trauma of her pronouncements.

"Deserter. Coward." I flinch back from the cool accusation in her 
tone.

"Scully, don't..." Don't do this to me now, not while I'm dying...

"You're not supposed to die Mulder. Not here."

"What do you mean?" Confusion muddies my already dull senses. Who's 
the one who can read minds now?

"Not in a comfortable bed with the devil outside." I shake my head in
rejection of her words.

"No...You don't understand, he's taken care of me..." 

"No Mulder...he's lulled you to sleep. He's made you trade your true 
mission for creature comforts."

"There was no mission..." I was a fool who wasted my life chasing
empty dreams and the shadow of my sister. "There were no aliens."
But my denial sounds shaky even to my own ears.

"No aliens-" She snorts in disgust at  my refusal. "Have you looked 
outside, Mulder?" I wilt before her patronization.

"I-I can't...I'm too tired..." But it's all just excuses, isn't it? 
I'm afraid to look, afraid to see the hell that I have built for the
world with the ashes of my life.

"No Mulder. You MUST get up - you must get up and fight: especially 
you, this isn't your place." She commands me with her pleas, regal in 
her disdainful passion. "Get up Mulder. Get up and fight the fight."
She leaves as suddenly as she came, fading into the shadows cast by
the dim light of the fires of colonization.

"Scully...scully...scully...Scully!" My pitiful cries follow her 
retreating form into the hallway and without a backward glance she 
is gone.

Despair washes over me as I realize I am all that she says. 
Everything she has said and worse. I am the Judas and the messiah, 
for I have betrayed myself to my own enemies. I have turned my back 
on all that was sacred to me, all that I held dear. I abandoned those 
who placed their trust in me, all for the empty lure of a 'normal 
life' at the hands of that black lunged bastard. 

I don't know how long I sit there, wallowing in acknowledgment of my
own treason before the room changes in a flash around me. The 
difference in light is blinding to my eyes, but soon my vision 
clears. Perhaps my earlier analogy was too correct, for here I am...
splayed out like Christ on the cross with a crown of electrodes in 
place of thorns around my head. My eyes role back in their sockets
of their own accord and I toss my head from side to side within the 
confines of my bonds. Another burst and the world has changed again.
My body is restored to youth and while I remain bound Scully is 
there by my side. Her voice is no longer the hallow knell that 
assaulted me at my deathbed. She is begging me with her words and 
tears to get up, to get up and join her in leaving this place. 

Reality blinks back and forth between worlds and I feel the choice 
that stands before me more clearly than the proverbial two roads. I 
can see how tempting it would be to stay in the gray darkness of my 
nightmare world, how much easier with the battles done and the war 
lost to slide down into obscurity. But I can't, I just can't. The 
salty wetness of her tears decides for me, I can never stand to see 
Scully cry. I have failed her once, I will not do it again...besides, 
the smile I get from her for opening my eyes makes any price I'll 
have to pay for my choice worthwhile. It might be easier to give up,
but the rewards for fighting are so much greater...

Fini.

"And I could be bounded in a nutshell and call myself a king of 
infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams..." - William 
Shakespeare