Date:  August 1998

Title:  Believer
Author:  Meredith
Address:  meredith40@juno.com or meredith_elsewhere@yahoo.com
Classification:  V,A

Key words: Mulder/Scully UST
Spoilers: Season 5, primarily "The Red and the Black" and The Movie. 
Disclaimer: Not mine. Mulder and Scully belong to 1013 Productions and 
Fox Television. Only borrowed for a little introspection. No copyright 
infringement intended.

Summary: A journey of closure and acceptance, as seen through the eyes 
of one who believes.

Author's Notes: This isn't flickfic, although it does follow closely 
after the events of the film. I prefer to think of it as a summation of 
Season 5. This tiny piece has been percolating for a while, and I 
finally had to put down my next long story to purge it.

Thanks to my fearless editors MCA and GirlGone - treasured 
friends who thankfully leave the gloves on the ground when they beat my 
work into shape. If this story is any good whatsoever, they deserve the 
praise.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Believer" (1/1)  

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

I am a believer.


Like any true disciple, I bear the scars of testing the faithful -- the 
cuts, the contusions, the tumors, the barrenness, the burns, the 
frostbite.

I have crises of faith, periods of turmoil and denial. There are times 
when I willingly turn away from the truth, sensing and fearing the pain 
that follows acknowledgment. There are times I rush forward, my arms 
open wide to receive benediction. I am a leader; I am a follower. I am a 
penitent soul; I am a heathen. But always I return to what cannot be 
denied.

I believe in God. 

Not some white-haired grandfather meting out justice and penance from a 
throne in the clouds, but a spirit of boundless love who guides us on 
the path of righteousness. We are here because of God's will, and our 
duty in this world is to be a force of good, to love, and to fight for 
peace. 

I know this to be true, because I have been directly affected by God's 
actions. I have met those marked to bear witness to the truth; I have 
experienced miracles first-hand. I understand God's place in the 
universe and the place of all that is good, because I have experienced 
the antithesis.

I believe in evil. 

English language makes the connection deceptively simple. An addition or 
deletion of one letter - God, Good. Devil, Evil. But nothing is ever 
that easily defined. Not all good comes from God, and not all evil comes 
from the machinations of a fictitious creature.

I have seen enough horror, survived enough nightmares to prove the 
existence of evil in a multitude of forms. In the handiwork of man; 
personified in human form; in the guise of an unnatural beast. I have 
seen evil wreak death and destruction, damnation and disease. It has 
made my soul shudder and scream in terror.

Yet despite it all, I still believe in Justice -- in the power of good 
to overcome evil. All my beliefs focus on this single, unwavering truth. 
For without this determination, I would crumble and disintegrate into a 
pile of worthless philosophical rubble.

I have nothing to back up this conviction. No tangible scar, no evidence 
labeled in a bag. Only my miraculous remission from terminal cancer, 
delivered as an answer to a prayer by the hand of God, the hand of 
science, or the hand of the only person who worships the truth more than 
I.   

I only have the faith that without Justice, we wouldn't be here to 
quibble over its existence. I know. I just know.

Yet these are all intangibles, proven only by human experience. I can 
prove these convictions to myself, understanding that I was of sound 
mind and body when collecting the evidence. For I do not have to prove 
my belief to anyone else. I will not willingly attempt to convince 
others of the existence of a higher spiritual life form, and I wish no 
one to learn the horrors of what I have seen and witnessed. For these 
truths are personal, sacred only to my heart and soul, shaping the being 
that I am, that I was meant to be.

Yet often it isn't enough. Believing in one's own convictions without 
understanding the laws of the universe is foolish, reckless - and 
ultimately destructive. We are crippled by self-deception, ignorance of 
truths greater than ourselves. For the world would exist without our 
presence - and we must understand the forces of this world before we can 
understand our place in it.

Therefore, I believe in science.

It is my foundation. My touchstone. My undeniable system of validation 
and verification. Science has saved my life, my partner's life, the 
victims we are sworn to protect and avenge. Science has never betrayed 
me, never hurt me or abandoned me. It is based in universal constants, 
invariants, and unwavering laws.

But what I have come to understand is that imperfect creatures have 
defined these tenets. It has been a life-altering, profoundly shattering 
realization that has come to me at an immeasurable cost. For at one time 
I included myself in this group of individuals, scientists who studied 
and hypothesized and proved, learned and taught and understood. Without 
fully comprehending human weakness, error, or ignorance. I had 
subconsciously considered these men and women of science beyond the 
limitations of this time, this place, this world. I had never thought of 
myself as infallible, but had somehow placed this burden on my 
predecessors, becoming a hypocrite in the process. My eyes have been 
opened.


I believe.... in life beyond our knowledge. Beyond our narrow scope of 
science, waiting to be proven when we are finally able to study it. 

I believe because I can no longer disprove its existence. I have been 
confronted by unexplainable events that yielded enough information to 
turn my world on end.

Not long ago I bore on my face and hands the burns of acknowledgment, 
the scorching admittance that nothing, nothing I'd ever believed to be 
fact had to be so. That memories, insistent and stubborn, could be 
manufactured as easily as dreams in the subconscious. I could no longer 
believe in myself, in my science, in proven facts or half-truths or 
outright lies. Everything was suspect, and I had no basis upon which to 
redeem any one person or any one truth.

The field was leveled, and at first I believed in everything even as my 
partner believed in nothing. But therein lies danger. Utter acceptance 
is as deadly as utter denial: a rule we were both intent on breaking, 
each in our own ways and at different times.

Yet undeniably, all my beliefs in this world came close to being 
incinerated on that bridge mere months ago.

It is said that lost souls are cursed to wander the earth until they 
find the light, comprehend their mistakes, and open themselves to 
salvation. I have been wandering for months, bereft by my soul's 
conflagration, the near destruction of my being. I was tied to nothing, 
no one. Not even Mulder. We were in danger of losing each other, each 
consumed by the loss of everything and the resultant belief in nothing.

Yet if the fire burned my soul and left a weeping wound, the ice 
cauterized it and saved me. 

More scars, more pain. Again on my hands, again on my face. But I 
welcomed the cold burn, the freezing of skin and tissue. Because the ice 
healed me, thawed my heart, sealed my partnership, restored my faith.

I am alive because I believe in love. 

I have the bruised imprint of the heel of Mulder's hand on my sternum as 
proof. A brown-green half-moon between and slightly above my breasts, 
testament of his overriding fear that I had taken my last fluid-bound 
breath. A mark of desperation. A mark of love.

I believe in love's cruelty, its beauty. Its faith and strength. Without 
this, we are nothing. Without love, we are less than human, our fates 
destined for destruction. We are civilized because we love. In specific 
-- in general. That human connection that binds us to other souls gives 
us the strength to surpass mere physical existence. The power to achieve 
the unattainable. The passion to save the world.

I feel it course within me, its infinite, omnipotent rhythm beating in 
time with my all-too-frail, faulted and human heart. My beliefs are 
renewed in love's presence, and I am chastened by my inability to see 
the truth in its simplest of forms.

Love gives us the security to know when to risk everything -- to throw
caution to the four winds and expect another to catch it. When to gamble 
on the certainty of a kiss.

He already knew I loved him. And that I knew he loved me. But all truths 
must be spoken aloud in time -- to renew the faith of the believer. I 
was so lost in that hallway, not recognizing the truths that surrounded 
me, that kept me from disintegrating. He revealed my blindness for what 
it was, and I was saved.

I believe in Mulder. Because even when I can't, he believes in me.


END


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