Out of the Cage
by Leigh Alexander
leigh_xf@geocities.com

First posted: April 24, 2000

RATING: PG
CATEGORY: VAR
SPOILERS: all things
KEYWORDS: post-ep, Mulder/Scully Romance
SUMMARY: How did Scully end up here? She was supposed to lead a nice, 
normal life...

DISCLAIMERS:
1) Dana and Fox belong to Chris and Ten Thirteen Productions
and the other Fox. Absolutely *no* copyright infringement is
intended - I'm not doing this for money, I'm doing it for
love. I *love* these characters, I wouldn't want to hurt
them! :)
2) OK to archive, but if it's going anywhere other than
Gossamer, please drop me a line just so I can keep track.
3) Feel free to distribute and discuss this, as long as my
name and addy remain attached.

INTRO:

I guess I could say that I tried desperately to stop myself from writing 
this post-ep piece, since so many other people have already tried their 
hand at it, but that wouldn't be honest. To tell the truth, as soon as I 
saw the ep, I knew I wouldn't be able to resist putting my own spin on 
it. I think it's just a testament to how interesting the episode was 
that so many people have chosen to tackle some of the ideas it raised in 
their fanfic. Let me add my piece to the chorus. :) 

Feedback is loved, cherished and obeyed... sorry, *respected*!

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Out of the Cage
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She had never expected to lead such an unconventional life.

Granted, she hadn't exactly grown up within the rigid confines of a 
picket fence; Navy life had given her an unbalanced, peripatetic 
childhood--something not quite real, hard to define and even harder to 
describe. Her father's life, passed on to his children not through his 
genes but through his promotions and reassignments, was an unenviable 
lifestyle. Constantly moving, always the new kid, with Melissa and 
Charlie her only close friends; it was an existence completely unlike 
those of her college acquaintances, work colleagues and, later, lovers.

So perhaps it was unfair of her to expect something akin to stability in 
her post-adolescent years. Maybe she had never been selected for 
normality and was destined instead to continue bucking trends, 
expectations and the confines of the picket fence life. Yet, she still 
stubbornly believed that things would eventually settle down. Sure, 
she'd gone through a rebellious stage, just like every other teenager, 
but for some reason the kneejerk reaction/attraction to authority 
figures had remained. She'd had her wild days in college, yet had never 
quite shed that need to expose herself to the adrenalin pump of danger. 
And the men in her life had gone from shy, submissive teenagers to 
dominant, possessive older men. Every trait she should have kicked 
herself free of had lingered, getting inside her psyche until they were 
more than just part of her, they *were* her. Meanwhile, her ambition to 
settle down--husband, kids and job--had slowly eroded.

At first the FBI had been an escape. An escape that she'd run to with 
open arms, thanks to her distorted perception of what this "career" 
would entail. She'd wanted to join the FBI for reasons far more complex 
than pure spite; it wasn't solely about slapping Daniel with her 
independence, or her father with her anger--though she couldn't deny 
those thorns of motivation--it was also about wanting to make a 
difference. Wanting to carve out a life for herself that had nothing to 
do with all that she'd been before, and all that was expected of her. 
Wanting to help others while simultaneously helping herself. Her reasons 
were hardly selfless.

What had started as an escape quickly transformed into just another 
cage. A beautiful, interesting cage, filled with puzzles and stories and 
hours of glory, yet a cage nonetheless. Jack had been the first wall of 
ensnarement. She had left her father and Daniel, yet somehow walked 
straight into their image. He became her instructor in more than just 
firearms and procedure. Whereas Daniel had given her the gift of 
adulation, Jack encouraged her dormant assertiveness and introduced her 
to the pain of adult love. In each case it had been a two-way street. 
Daniel adored and was adored. Jack got as good as he gave. Positive 
things had come from the two men, but through it all, she was a child. 
Bad relationships, both of them, yet even now she remembered them with 
fondness.

Quantico had been her first tentative step into the foothold of 
normality. The hours were regular, the pay was good, she'd had a nice 
apartment and a happy life. And then she was transferred. Two years of 
paying the bills and Sunday night dinners with her mother, two years of 
setting down the frames of a stable future, two years of escaping the 
cage--before being sucked right back in once more. And again, she'd 
welcomed it. Revelled in the challenge. Practically jumped up and 
clapped her hands the minute Mulder placed that first plane ticket in 
her hand. Was a change as good as a holiday, or was she just a sucker 
for punishment? Or maybe the lines of latitude and longitude just ran 
through her veins with as much force as her pumping blood--an addictive 
compulsion, a wanderlust need--desperate to be sated.

This time, the cage was final. Duane Barry pushed her in, uncaring, 
unknowing; but it was the dark evil that stole her choices, locked the 
gate and swallowed the key. When she returned the cage had expanded, 
fitting her in one corner and Mulder in the other. Unlike Jack, this man 
wasn't a part of the trap; he was just captured within, as impotent as 
she in deciding his own fate.

And so it had begun. Their odyssey, his quest, her life.

Despite it all, the hope was still there. That one day she'd have it 
all: the dream life that continued to circle her at a distance. She 
still reached out for it from time to time, and every time she came back 
burned. But never wiser.

When Daniel had reappeared she had been mired in self-pity. Despondent 
at her life, her choices and the path she seemed to be on. Then an X-
ray, a near-accident and a comment from a stranger had spun those 
thoughts off into another orbit and she'd suddenly seen her mistakes. 
Not the usual ones that she'd berated herself over for years, but the 
new, startling ones that nearly made her lose grip on her own solid axis 
of reality. There was no cage. There had never been a cage. All there 
was was a single path. A path that led only one place...

She'd never imagined making love to Mulder in his bed.

If she thought about it at all, she assumed it would happen on the road, 
on his couch--at a stretch, in her apartment--but she'd never thought 
their first time would be in the sanctuary he kept hidden from her for 
so many years. That it happened in such a typical, logical place was in 
itself a further example of the way her life veered from the norm. The 
hotel room would have been expected.

She woke in a place that smelt of leather and Mulder. Until her eyes and 
memory fell into focus, all she was aware of was a blanket scratching 
against her lip. Then she remembered and things became so clear. His 
invitation manifested itself with a wide-open door, but when she stepped 
inside he was dead to the world. Never mind. She'd use the bathroom 
instead. And either he wasn't as immersed in sleep as she originally 
suspected or her quiet actions in the adjacent room were enough to pull 
him from his slumber, because when she emerged he called her name in a 
whisper, pulling her to his bed with nothing more than the tone of his 
voice. Her jacket came off first, needing to get closer to his own state 
of near-nudity, and she perched precariously on the very edge of his 
mattress. At ease, yet somehow not.

"What does it mean, Scully?"

"What does what mean?" Her voice was subdued and husky; plunging them 
further into night-time intimacy.

"You said there was only one choice."

She hesitated, wavering on the edge of committing because it was a leap, 
and normally he was the one who leapt. He was sitting cross-legged, his 
forearms resting on his leg and his hands dangling loosely above her 
skirt. His knee under the sheet was brushing her hip but apart from that 
whisper of contact, there was nothing. Except his eyes, which were 
pinpricks of black tugging words from her soul.

"This is it, Mulder. This is my choice."

In keeping with their unconventional courtship, the next step was not 
taken with their lips, but with their hands. His fingers twitched--the 
pads dancing achingly close to her thigh--then his whole arm rotated, 
offering his hand palm-upwards before stretching forward slightly and 
linking her fingers with his own. In that one gesture, she wiped Daniel 
from her skin and her past from her mind. She was Mulder's and he was 
hers. Together they would follow the path that led not to a picket fence 
and 1.9 children, but instead to a singular, extraordinary existence all 
their own.

In that instant she recognised that what had once been a cage was now a 
compulsion, guiding not entrapping her. Where once she'd kicked away 
from its confines, she now drew it close. Understanding, finally, that 
while she could never deny who she was and the origins of her character, 
the future was still hers, the choice still open. Her life--while 
unconventional--was hers to lead and if she stuck to the path, she might 
just find the freedom and stability she'd been craving for so long. 

She never imagined falling in love with someone like Mulder.

In fact, he was so far from her ideal that she sometimes found herself 
wondering if she even *liked* him. 

Like most young girls--and with Melissa's prodding--she had once summed 
up the qualities of the man she would marry. He'd be an inch taller than 
her with blond hair, a strong chin and blue eyes that matched her own. 
He'd be a writer, or a chef; a stay-at-home husband who'd happily look 
after the kids while she tended to her career. They'd attend church on 
Sundays and watch their kids play sport on Saturdays. They'd read the 
same books, enjoy the same movies and vacillate between San Francisco 
and Boston, but ultimately settle in Maine. 

Yet somehow she'd ended up with this man. With his wild eyes and even 
wilder theories. This man for whom the words "it's me" took on a unique 
and binding significance. This man who challenged everything she 
believed in, and did it with a smile. He was messy, obnoxious, 
egotistical and demanding. He was infuriating. Never mind that he was 
also passionate, caring, dedicated and loving--sometimes all she wanted 
to do was turn her back on him and walk away. But she never could. She 
never would. Thrown together, they'd developed an attraction that was 
based not on shared interests and similar dreams, but on the verbiage of 
their minds, the link of their passion and the angst of too many 
separations. And whether it was by design or default, she had chosen the 
life she now lived. All the good and bad decisions she'd ever made in 
her life led to the moment when she sat on Mulder's couch and told him 
her story. She gave him her life and even as her eyes were drifting 
closed she felt his acceptance of what she was offering through his 
gentle touch blanketing her with love. 

Released into his careful hands, she was free. Finally.

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THE END

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Thanks for reading!
leigh_xf@geocities.com
http://www.geocities.com/leigh_xf