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Title: Wrestling With Inconvenience Summary: Mulder's thoughts in "The Beginning" as he travels with Diana to the power plant. Author Ramblings: Just a quick piece on that little exchange in the car during "The Beginning". Why did Mulder follow Diana? Hmm?! Thanks go out to Pam for her "beta-age" and moral support! I promise that I'll finish the smutty one, honey! This one is for all the Ladies of Monday Night, for being incredibly welcoming and generally great people! For Laura and her midnight confessions, for Kasey and Bacardi151-induced drinking games ("When did the X-Files turn into M*A*S*H?"), for Fay and her "enhanced" Mulder pics, and for the rest of you lovely ladies just because! Thanks again! Gibson weighs light in my arms, shifting uncomfortably. I can't believe that they did this. That they used this little boy so insidiously. Cut him open and peered inside. For what? To find this thing. I'm just as bad as all of them -- I want the same from him. I place him gently in the car, silently apologizing to him and my battered morality. Heading for the passenger seat, I wonder how normal this scene appears. How many fathers have had to carry their ill sons to the family car, with the mother uneasy behind the wheel. Unfortunately, life is not that easy, nor simple. My car doesn't stop. Headlights fill my vision. A silver car pulls up, blocking us in. I expect the worse, figuring that the Consortium goons are here to muscle Gibson away from us. I wish. At least Consortium goons are predictable. They show up, stare menacingly, beat the shit out of me, step on my cell phone, and leave me in humiliating agony. "Fox, I'm going to get out of the car. I'm alone." Well, not Diana Fowley. This women could give those goons a good name. Shit. "Diana, what are you doing here?" She looks up at me like I should know better, that I should have trusted her. "I couldn't say anything to you earlier. I was given this assignment, Fox, okay? They offered it to me. I took the chance." Chance? I don't quite understand her approach, but Ill bite. "I'm listening..." "...To make sure someone served your interest, someone who believes in the work." Shes imploring, manipulating her thin lips. "Hey, you and I found the X-Files together, don't forget that." Oh, like I could. How could I forget that my lifes work created and destroyed our farce of a relationship. It suddenly occurs to me that the Diana I knew would never be having this conversation. Her motives, however, have seldom been her own. "Who sent you?" "I'm here on my own." Right. And that Black-Lunged Bastard smokes herbal cigarettes. "Why? To convince me of your noble intentions?" I've earned another exasperated look from her. "Listen to me. That thing is somewhere inside the number four reactor building, now we can let them find it and destroy it, or we can go find it ourselves." She moves closer to me. "You need proof Fox." Her voice takes on a secretive tone. "You're so close. Why can't you see that?" I'm stronger than this. I should be stronger than this. I should be able to resist the one women I hate. I should be able to resist the one woman I hate baiting me with the proof that I need. Its like a sewer worker offering you a nice, medium-well piece of tenderloin with his bare hands. But, if you're hungry, you eat. If you're desperate, you follow. I walk over to the car and lean in to face Scully. Her face is a mask of concern. "Mulder, what's going on?" I can't very well explain the logistics of my convoluted logical processes to her in the span of two seconds, so I take the easy route. "You take Gibson." I ignore my glowing angel to follow my dark pride. "Where are you going?" She already knows. She wants to hear me say it. To say that I am ditching her. For Diana. And this pseudo-truth. "To find this thing." The horizon rushes forward as Diana's car eats up the miles of blacktop. Funny how one can be hurtling forward at 65 mph and feel like they're not moving. that's me traveling without moving. "Agent Spender and I got a call. We were on a plane within an hour in constant contact." She finally breaks the ice. I take a deep breath. "With who?" "The nuclear regulatory people. NRC was first on the scene, they found the victim. But, by the time we got there, it had been removed. We never saw the body." She keeps trying to meet my gaze. I'm getting nervous. Shouldn't she be watching the road? Focusing on the road, I attempt to hide my discomfort. "Who removed it?" Through my peripheral vision I see her focus on me. Her speed does not falter. "I don't know. Couldn't get a straight answer." She scoffs. "Then the NRC sealed off the number four reactor due to a problem with the heat transfer systems. I believe that was legitimate." A jolt charges through my system. Heat. "Maybe that's why it's there. It wants heat. It needs heat. This thing gestated abnormally fast. What if heat activates it?" I'm thinking out loud at this point. "It could spur on the virus and the rapid development of the entity." Immediately she answers me, as if she expected the question. "But it's still seeking heat, why?" My body is tingling. I feel a rush of understanding beginning to rise and crest. "What if it's still developing?" She pauses and looks at me. I suddenly realize that it is her in the seat and not my partner. It's Diana, not Scully. It would be so easy to stay here. It would be so easy to remain in a comfortable little world with a person who doesn't refute every theory that leaves your mouth. She's talking again. "You're not under the impression that what we're looking for makes sense in any conventional way?" Maybe I once lived like that. I can't go back. The man that loved this woman no longer exists. The convenience she embodies, the reason why I once stayed, why I once loved her, does nothing but disgust me now. I choose inconvenience. The inconvenience of truth. Then why am I here? To find the truth. To give Scully the answers she deserves. To make them pay for what they've taken from her. That is why I am here, in a car with a convenient woman. I give Diana the only answer I can. "No." Thanks, but no thanks, Diana. I'll continue to wrestle with inconvenience. FINI Well? Feedback, sweeties! I eagerly await it. "Time is irrelevant. Lunchtime doubly so." -D. Adams "I want you to do me a favor. It's not negotiable. Either you do it, or I kill you. You understand?" -D. Scully
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