Trust No 1

Her life is a film strip, episodes upon episodes, cases and adventures and love and defeat. Each in its own frame, paralleling events and diverging. Such character development she's had, Scully thinks. What these nine years have been.

Mulder came back to her, alive, dead, in a dream. She doesn't know. And then she sent him away, and perhaps, she's the only one that truly exists. Now that she's banished him, maybe he doesn't even live outside her memory.

I am the child she's been given to drive her mad.

In the background, there are piano chimes and hymns, sung in her name, her honor. In the background, there is the ever present soundtrack that is hers alone. It's on a loop, on a repeat. Scully's categorized her feelings: With Mulder, Without Mulder, Rebelling against Mulder, Loving Mulder, Partner, Friend, Dead. And each time a situation arises, she has an emotion, ready, waiting. Always.

We are the ploy that she sees and believes, but knows all the while just how it will end.

Trust No One. Hah. Mulder, she thinks, I trusted you. Shouldn't have, but I did. Mulder, she thinks, I trusted humanity. Shouldn't have, but did.

I am the Man you've seen times before.

Doggett tells her this could be a lie, a joke, a way to get to Mulder. She thinks it's probably true, ascertains as much on her own. But if Mulder was dead maybe she could lapse into a single emotion, wouldn't have to think anymore.

I am Monica Reyes. In another lifetime I was burnt at the stake for what I know, what I understand. In another place or time, I was Mulder too.

The man, she could swear she's seen him twice before, takes her on a wild goose chase, as she's always done. It's a routine. And when he makes her undress for a completely unsubstantiated reason, Scully never considers it could be for the sick pleasure of seeing her semi-naked. Afterwards, she can't but think it was nothing more than a part of the plot, something put there to prove a theory.

I am John Doggett. I would die if it meant I could make her smile, just damn once. I've been trustworthy and a friend, wish I was something more. To someone, once, maybe I was. Someday they'll shoot me in the back, and I'll take the bullet knowing that at least someone else won't get shot.

The movie ends and there are no answers, no denials, no truths or half-truths. Only the ineveitable cliffhanger and tears on her part: Without Mulder.

My name is Dana Scully. I am in love with Fox Mulder. I am in love with a man in my mind. Once upon a time I was alive. Now I don't see the difference between myself and the cadavers I work with. Life is made out of cookie cutter shapes. I am not meant for anything but the tragedy, the tears, the angst. I was more than a one-dimensional character once, but now…this is all I was ever destined to be.

Some contrived, some brilliant, some battering and bloody beaten to a pulp. She's had so many episodes in her life. And she knows, someone, somewhere, has taken every image in her life and put them together in a film that takes less than half an hour to view.

I am a baby girl in the arms of my mother. Someone takes me and puts me in a car. They drive away and I am never seen again.

A/N: This was written post, "Trust No 1." The fic itself is both that, a fanfiction, and a comment on this particular episode. Unlike many (I think), I thought this episode was just another low-grade, mythology never-ending plotline where the twistswere prewritten in a billion other episodes we've ever seen. It was a distinct episode in some ways, some parts of it struck chords, else I wouldn't have written this. However, in many ways, this piece is my critique of the series, of Scully's character and of the series' overall caliber, season 9.

Thanks for reading! Please review.

P.S.- My "Two" fic is complete. If you never started reading it, I beg you to give it a chance, give me a review.