TITLE: Seen and Unseen
AUTHOR: Michelle Kiefer
E-MAIL ADDRESS: MSK1024@AOL.COM
DISTRIBUTION: Archive if you like--just
tell me where.
DISCLAIMER: The characters belong to
1013, Chris Carter, and to the X-Files.
SPOILER WARNING: Amor Fati 
RATING: PG
CONTENT: M/S UST
CLASSIFICATION: V 
SUMMARY: Scully reflects as she brings
Mulder home from the hospital.
COMMENTS: Many thanks go to Kestabrook 
for helping me mind my Ps and Qs grammar
wise.

Seen and Unseen (01 of 01)
by Michelle Kiefer

Mulder leans against the wall next to his
door looking as white as a sheet of
paper, and I worry that he may faint
before I can get the door open. I always
have to jiggle the key to unlock his
apartment door. "You okay there?" I ask
as the lock finally turns, and the door
swings open. 

"I'm okay," Mulder says, but I still fear
that the walk from the car to the
elevator and from the elevator to his
door was too much. He smiles gamely, and
I come close so he can put an arm over my
shoulder for support. I put my arm around
him; he has lost weight during his
ordeal, and I can feel his ribs. We lurch
through the doorway like seamen coming
back from a weekend leave. I wonder what
Mulder's neighbors have made of our
staggering trip into his building. I
imagine there is precious little that
would shock them where Mulder is
concerned.

I kick the door shut after we cross the
threshold, and Mulder makes for the
couch, but I reroute him to the bedroom.
It is only days since I found him in a
DOD facility, and I think he should still
be in the hospital, but the government
insurance plan Mulder belongs to thinks
otherwise. The doctors at Georgetown
Memorial ran every test they could think
of to ascertain what had been done to him
but to no avail. All we know is that the
latest CAT scan shows no abnormalities,
no trace of the unusual brain activity he
exhibited before he was removed from the 
hospital by his mother.

While his test results show normal
readings, Mulder is not unscathed from
his ordeal. His body is exhausted and
still recovering from a massive sleep
deficit. In the three days since I
returned him to Georgetown, Mulder has
done little but sleep. He would rouse
easily enough when we woke him to get
some food into him, but he would fall 
asleep before he could finish a meal,
often dropping face first into his plate.
I haven't seen that much oatmeal on a
face since Charlie was a toddler.  

I pull back the covers on the bed, and
Mulder stretches out. He gives me a loopy
grin as I pull his sneakers off. "Hey,
aren't you gonna keep going?"

"I'm saving that for when you can keep
awake more than two minutes." I flip the
covers back over him. He takes my hand as
I prepare to leave, pulls me down to sit
on the bed, and doesn't release my hand.
This is how it has been for the three
days--when he is awake, he is holding my
hand or touching me. I need the
closeness, too; my nightmare was a waking
one--that I would lose him to death or
worse--to a death of the mind.

"I feel so useless--all I do is sleep." A
huge yawn adds credence to his statement.
"Thanks for cleaning the place up," he
says as he looks around the room.
Yesterday, while Mulder slept the
afternoon away, I came here and made up
the bed with fresh sheets and tidied the
apartment. The condition of the bedroom
was quite a puzzle; it looked like a
struggle had taken place. 

I had been inordinately giddy as I washed
dishes and did laundry, knowing I was
preparing for Mulder's return and not for
any of the terrible outcomes that I had
feared. I performed a burial at sea for 
the unfortunate residents of Mulder's
fish tank and found myself humming
tunelessly as I emptied the refrigerator
of questionable forms of life. My final
act before returning to the hospital was
a trip to the grocery store for
provisions.

His eyes are already glazed, and sleep
overtakes him. His face is relaxed and
peaceful, so different from the
frightening mask I saw on my return from
Africa. Mulder hasn't released his grip 
on my hand though it has slackened a bit.
He still has surgical tape around his
first and second fingers. It breaks my
heart to think of Mulder damaging his
beautiful hands in that padded room. I
think of him slamming his hands against
the walls over and over, perhaps in some
effort to clear his mind through pain.

I enjoy my opportunity to study him
without having to disguise my interest as
concern for his health. Oh, I am
certainly concerned with his health and
am pleased to see that his color has
returned to it's normal golden shade. I
run my fingers through the hair that is
not covered by the bandage that circles
Mulder's head. It is far too short for my
taste, and I wonder who cut it.  

Finally, he releases my hand and rolls
over with a little sigh. I pull the
comforter up around his shoulders, wander
back into the living room, and stretch
out on the couch. Sometimes you don't
realize how tired you are until you stop
moving. I suddenly feel bone weary and
reflect that I have barely stopped moving
since that day weeks ago when Mulder
first experienced the headache and
auditory dissonance.

When people say their world is upside
down, it is usually an exaggeration;
maybe everyone in the family has the flu
or they lost their job. But I fear that
my whole world has truly been turned on
its end. My faith in science is shaken to
its core. I'm afraid to even contemplate
what the words on the craft mean about
our origins.

We believe in one God, the Father, the
Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. I
say those words every time I go to mass.
Can I say them with confidence anymore? 
I don't know what to believe now. As
much as this frightens me, I realize that
this may be the first time I have opened
my mind to all the possibilities, and I
don't know if I'm capable of processing
all of this. With a bitter smile, I
imagine saying, "Our Father, who art on
Reticula..."

And of all things seen and unseen. The
things I have seen are spinning around in
my head like the fragment of artifact.
Memories flash before me: visions seen
through a veil of semiconsciousness in 
Antarctica; the inscriptions on the craft
partially covered by the sands of Africa.
Can I believe in the unseen, make the
leap of faith, and put all of this
together in some fashion that I can live
with? I cover my face with my hands as if
that could keep me hidden from these
thoughts. 

I've had time during the last few days
sitting by Mulder's hospital bed, to
search my well-worn Bible for a path out
of these tangled thoughts. I found myself
more confused than ever as no better
guide for living exists beyond the simple
truths contained in that Book. Treat
others as you want to be treated. Care
for the least among you. Would an alien
race give us such wisdom if they wished
to harm us? Is the hand of God evidenced
in an even larger arc than we can
conceive? I pray to a God I can no longer
envision for guidance.  

A thought keeps nagging at me, like a
small animal scratching at the door of my
brain. Who sent me the book? Who slipped
the cardkey under my door? Much as I hate
to entertain the thought, I think Diana 
was my secret Santa. At this point I have
nothing on which to base that suspicion
beyond some flicker of emotion I saw in
her face. Maybe that flicker was an
under-exercised conscience.

I am too tense to sleep and am propelled
off the couch by a need to do something.
Anything. I decide that a cup of tea will
warm me as I have that shivery feeling
that has less to do with cold and more to
do with nerves. I fill Mulder's teapot
and flip on the burner under it. The tea
helps a bit, warming and steadying my
hands, if nothing else.

It is after four in the afternoon, and
I'm starting to get hungry. I pull the
ingredients for the chicken casserole
that I had planned out of the fridge and
search the cabinets and drawers for
knife, cutting board, casserole dish. I
spend a pleasant half hour cutting and
chopping, and the casserole is soon
bubbling in the oven.

As I finish cleaning up from the food
preparation, Mulder emerges from the
bedroom, stretching and yawning like a
bear fresh from hibernation. I am rocked
by a wave of emotion so sharp it feels 
like a giant fist is squeezing my heart.

"You cooked?" he says in a slightly
incredulous tone. The kitchen, frankly,
smells wonderful, redolent with onions
and mushrooms and garlic.

"Hey, watch it, or I won't let you have
any." I make a face, and Mulder smiles. I
think I have seen him smile more in the
last few days than I have in months. He
greeted me with a smile just about every
time he woke up, and I wonder how his
experience may have changed him. I want
to gather up those smiles and keep them
like coins in my pocket.

Mulder crosses to open the refrigerator
and is poised in front of it in the 
traditional stance of "what is there to
eat around here?". He turns and faces me
with a package of sunflower seeds in his
hand and a stunned look on his face. "Did
you put these here?" he asks in obvious 
confusion.

"I must have had my hands full with stuff
that needed refrigeration and stuck those
in there by accident. Is it ok? Did it
spoil them?" I can't figure out why he is
so unnerved by this.

He shakes his head as if to clear it and
says, "No, no...it just...reminded me of
something." 

I guess if you've been desperately sick
and have nearly died, you have a right to
act a little goofy.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" he
says after opening the bag and having a
few seeds. He leaves the bag on the
counter.  

I had gathered dishes, silverware, and
napkins, and now I hand him the pile.
"You can set the table," I suggest. From
the dubious look he gives the pile and
the awkward way he starts to arrange the
dishes, I realize that it may have been
years since he has set a table. When we
have shared meals here, it has usually
been take out food spread over the coffee
table as we worked. I suspect that left
to his own devices, Mulder eats standing
at his sink or out of take out boxes in
front of the TV, and I have a feeling
that his mother left Mulder alone at
mealtime after the divorce.

Mulder seems a little stymied by the
cutlery placement. "Here's the way my
mother taught me. The knife and spoon go
on the right--'knife,' 'spoon,' and
'right' all have five letters. The fork
goes on the left--'fork' and 'left' both
have four letters," I offer.

"It's been a while." He says sheepishly 
as he begins to arrange the dishes and 
cutlery.

"If you play your cards right, I'll sing 
you the song Mom used to teach us 
to tie our shoes." 

"I knew there was something to live for." He 
quips, smiling.  He has laid the table perfectly 
and goes back to the kitchen for glasses. The 
timer on the oven sounds, and we both startle 
and then laugh.  I guess we're both a little 
gun-shy these days. I bring the casserole out 
of the oven and place it on the table as well as 
the basket of bread.

We sit, and if Mulder notices that I
don't say grace, he doesn't mention it.
We haven't spoken in detail about what I
saw in Africa, about what happened to
him. Mulder has done so much sleeping,
and I haven't been ready. I know we have
a lot to talk about, and I've made myself
a promise to share all I know about the
seen as well as the unseen. I have
brought my journal here and won't try to
censor or qualify anything I wrote there.
I owe this man that much--my honesty
without any hedging.

I serve the food, and Mulder pours iced
tea. He tucks into his dinner with
enthusiasm, and I am ridiculously proud.
I have a 1950s farmwife moment watching
the menfolk eat heartily. I shake my head
slightly and take a bite. I could tell
myself that as a doctor, my pleasure is
simply that of seeing an undernourished
patient get desperately needed
sustenance. I would, of course, be
telling only the smallest part of the
truth. As I have resolved to be honest,
I will admit that the domesticity of this
scene pleases the woman in me. Mulder
spoons out a second helping.

"I can't believe how hungry I am. This is
really good." He seems a little
embarrassed. I smile at him and push the
bread towards him. He takes another slice
and lays it on his plate. Then he reaches 
across the table to take my hand.

"So, tell me about Africa."

End "Seen and Unseen" (01 of 01)