Title- The Protector
Author- Aurora
Category- V, VR
Rating-: PG-13
Archive-: Wherever you like, just let me know.
Spoilers- Tithonus
Keywords- MSR, Scullyangst, post-colonization, character death
Summary- Scully reflects upon the reasons of her
unusual survival after finding herself in the path
of another deadly bullet.  She remembers a time
when her heart was completely alive to love, even
though alien colonists threaten to extinguish that
love.  In remembering her past, she understands why
she must find a way to join the ones she has lost to
Death.

Disclaimer-- Chris Carter owns them and has become a very rich man
from creating these wonderful characters.  I'll never see any of
that money, and I really wouldn't want to take it away from the
Man himself.  I just do it for fun!

Notes and Thanks--This is my very first posted fanfic, after
months of encouragement from the Neophytes.  I'd like to
thank Listmom Tammy for being so supportive, Julian for
giving me one of his future ideas, and Bidie for being
an awesome beta editor.  You really transformed this
little story, and I owe you my next life (this one's
unfortunately spoken for).

If you guys like this story, let me know and I might write
a longer version.  Thanks and please send feedback to
AuroraVer2@aol.com.

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One bloody bullet encased in a plastic evidence bag.

One heart which had encased the bullet mere days ago,
beating as if nothing had happened to offset the delicate
balance between life and death.

One life which continues to cheat its longed-for demise.

I was supposed to die with him, one year ago today.  I
absorbed in my body the bullet which was meant for the
First Consul, thinking I could save him and all hope
for the human race.

I wasn't prepared for the bullet from behind.

He died in my arms mere minutes later, blood pouring
from another bullet lodged in his cranium.  I could do
nothing but hold him close to me as tears poured from
my eyes.

If only I'd reacted in time.

I could have saved him.

Now, one year later, I examine yet another bullet I have
taken for my new superior, and a dull throb begins to
surface in my brain as I contemplate the future of my
own existence.

The new First Consul hasn't a chance of saving us
from the alien colonists, and the people know it.
I can't begin to count how many attempts have been made
on the Consul's life since his appointment to office
last year.

More attempts than even his predecessor ever encountered.

His predecessor, however, was an expert at negotiation,
a consummate skill my current superior has shamefully
lacked.

Yet it is my job to protect him.

As it was the man before him.

The doctors call it a miracle, how my wounds seem to heal
within a matter of days.  They marvel on how young I've
remained over the course of twenty years and have sought
desperately to find any technology, any genetic material
capable of generating such a response in another human
being.

I have no answers by which to aid them.

I've tried to die for the past year, hoping that just
once a bullet would find its way into my body and never
leave.  I've prayed that somehow I would never wake
from the anesthesia given me in surgery.  I've even
removed the implant in my neck in the hopes of reviving
that nasopharyngeal tumor, to no avail.

My body is as stubborn toward death as I am toward love.

Yet both are buried six feet under some small little
gravestone in Arlington Cemetery, never to return to me.

Mulder.  My beloved Mulder.

He'd chosen to be buried there, in the manner befitting his
position.  There were no family members to mourn his passing;
all had gone to prepare the way for his spirit.  Yet, in a
sense, the whole planet had become his family.  They had
honored and admired him for his courage and foresight -- of stalling the
aliens' plans for human extermination.
Colonization had become inevitable, but through his efforts, Mulder had made
human extermination difficult for the
colonists.

Through Mulder they had seen the soul of a human being,
after having learned all they could of its mortal shell
in countless abductions and gruesome experiments.  They'd
been fascinated, intrigued by this foreign manner
of expression, of interaction, and had desired to know
more about our species before driving us to extinction.

First Consul Fox Mulder had become the voice of the human
race, the mediator between the aliens and every single
life still fighting for survival on this planet.

And my God, did I love him.

Every day I stood beside him, protecting him from wayward
bullets and other deadly weapons aimed at him with murderous
intent.  Every meal was prepared under my supervision.
Every evening was spent performing a complete analysis of
his vital signs before he drew me into his arms and made
earth-shattering love to me.

I was his guardian, protector, friend, and beloved, his
salvation, as he often called me.  His salvation in a
troubled and uncertain future.

"We could die tomorrow," he would often say, "so I'm
taking all of you tonight."

And he took me, every night, everywhere and in every way
imaginable.

My body shudders to even remember the nights of
unrestrained, unbridled passion, wondering if it might
be the last we'd spend together, wondering if the
colonists would change their mind and wipe us all from
the face of the planet while we peacefully slept in
our beds.

Mulder always assured me of my safety, that as long
as I was with him, no harm would ever come to me.

The protected had become the protector, somewhere in
those fifteen years of wondrous love.  The line had
been blurred so indiscriminately over those years that
we'd forgotten whose job it was to protect whom.

So we'd protected each other.

Fifteen years after the alien invasion, First Consul
Fox Mulder was still negotiating a treaty -- "The Treaty"
as it was so dubbed by the entire world -- by which
the colonists would spare the lives of every living
human being.  Thanks to Gibson Praise, who was now
fully grown and an invaluable ally to Mulder,
the colonists had agreed to sign over governorship
of the earth to the former wunderkind and the First
Consul.

The colonists' directions had been clear:  Gibson
and Mulder would govern the earth as the colonists
saw fit, maintaining close communication with each
other as the colonists sought alternative planets
for colonization.

If, in fact, a suitable domain was found, ownership
of Earth would be relinquished entirely to the human
race.  If the colonists' efforts proved futile, all
human beings would have no choice but to relinquish
their lives to the imminent tragedy of extermination.

For the first time in fifteen years, Mulder had gone
to bed an incredibly happy man.  He'd made love to
me with such tenderness that I could not control the
tears of pleasure falling from my eyes.  And finally,
after our desires were satiated and we succumbed to
the abyss of repose, he had whispered the three words
I'd ached to hear for an eternity.

"I love you."

His hair was thin and gray, his voice fatigued from
the years spent in countless negotiations, and worried
wrinkles adorned every inch of that once-youthful
face, but I loved him.  I loved him more in that
instant than I'd ever loved him before, even more
than in our earlier days of blissful ignorance to
all that was happening above us in the sky.

I remember his next words, more clearly than any other
words he'd ever spoken to me:

"When this is all over, and The Treaty is signed, I
want you to marry me."

A shudder runs through my body.

"Marry me, Scully."

Familiar tears cloud my eyes as I remember how I'd
cried that night, how I'd sobbed through my acceptance
of his proposal, and how we'd made love another time
before falling into the most peaceful sleep we'd ever
known.

My life had become complete.

The next morning, we'd made love again before readying
ourselves for another day of negotiations.  It was
the last time I would ever know the pleasure of
being one with Mulder.

Later that day, as we made the long walk from the
car to the alien craft, I heard a gunshot and, by
sheer instinct, immediately moved in front of Mulder
to protect him.

The bullet lodged itself directly in my heart.

I remained standing, spread-eagled against my lover's
torso, yelling for help from the nearby soldiers
controlling the crowds.  I don't know how I managed
to stand for so long; I can only assume my love for
Mulder kept me conscious and mobile throughout the
ordeal.

Mulder was yelling, begging for help, his eyes wide
as he watched the blood drain from my body.  He tried
to staunch the flow of blood with his fingertips in
an effort to save me when it was not his job nor his
place to be saving my life.

And then I heard the final shot, and the sickening
sound of metal entering flesh and bone.  Mulder
collapsed against me, sending us both onto the
ground, and I took only a fraction of second to
get my bearings before rolling him beneath me to
locate the point of entry.

Dear God...

The bullet had found its resting place in his skull,
deeply rooted in what the autopsy would reveal to be the
right frontal lobe of his brain.  Mulder had mere
seconds to live.

I clutched him close to me, sobbing in anguish as I
felt the lifeforce of my love ebb from the body which
had given me such joy, such unspeakable pleasure.

Don't go, Mulder...please don't leave me...

The soldiers had surrounded us by then, attempting
to pull him away.  But I resisted.  I knew it was
only a matter of moments before I would lose everything
I'd learned to depend upon for the last fifteen years,
my rock, the source of my strength.

I ordered the soldiers away.

"I love you," I told him, cradling his aging face in my
hands.  "I won't let you die alone!"

I remember his kind words of compassion, barely uttered
through his mouth, but filled with love and tenderness.

"You have to keep going, Scully.  For me.  For us and
for the whole damn human race.  You have to continue my
work."

I couldn't continue his work, not with a bullet in my
chest.

"I won't let you die alone," I remember saying to him in
his final moments, pointing to my own horrid wound.  "I'll
join you very soon."

I remember a sardonic grin spreading across that still
full mouth.  Even in the face of death, he was still
my Mulder.

"You won't die," he whispered to me, taking a ragged
breath.  "Someone---already died for you---"

I thought Mulder had found religion in his last few
moments.  It was only later until I realized what he'd
meant by those words.

"Alfred Fellig...Case Number 50-0026...."

Suddenly I feel a presence nearby and shudder as a
bright light begins to overtake us.

His eyes widened in awe.

I couldn't bear to look at him.

I turned away from the light.

"Love you...Scully...."

And then he breathed his last against my lips as he
ended his life with one final kiss.

I remember holding on to him until the paramedics
arrived, unwilling to let him go even after they tried
to take him away by force.  I just sat there, sobbing,
holding and rocking him in my arms until a large arm
finally was able to pry me away to attend to the gaping
hole in my chest.

I'd lost so much blood...and yet I was able to walk
to the ambulance.  I'd suffered severe myocardial
damage to my heart, yet I made a complete recovery
in only a week.  The doctors were as amazed as I was.

I was given a mandatory leave of absence for two weeks
and soon found myself protecting Mulder's former assistant,
a bumbling klutz of a negotiator who paled in comparison
to his predecessor.  From the moment he took office he
threatened every clause of The Treaty with his inept
and ignorant breaches of alien-human protocol.  I could
have shot him myself, so enraged was I with the idiot.

And yet I've taken a bullet for the bastard, this time
more deadly than before, and somehow remarkably managed
another full recovery.

While another First Consul lies in an autopsy bay.

One bloody bullet encased in a plastic evidence bag.

One heart, alive and well by the standards of science,
but dead to everything but the memory of the idyll of
love...love gained through countless years of dedication
to another, and lost, so swiftly, so suddenly, by such a
small, deadly object.

One life which continues through the rigors of a
meaningless existence, unfeeling, uncaring as to what
life may bring on the morrow.

I was supposed to die with him.

I was cheated out of my rightful place with him.

I could have died *for* him, had I known then what I
remember now.

And now, as I hold in my hands the remnants of the case
file Mulder had led me to in his final moments, I
understand what I must do to gain my rightful place
among the ranks of the dead.

I must find a way to die for someone else, to find that
bright light again, the light that had taken my Mulder.

Fellig was right about love:
"You don't want to be around when it's gone."

I have to find that light.  I have to find a way to
locate the dying, as Fellig did.  I have to find Death
again, to look into that light and feel the essence
of my spirit drain from this mortal body.  I don't know
how, but I will.  I will do anything to spend my eternity
with Mulder and those who have gone before me.

Missy's there.  Mom's there, holding hands with Ahab.  God,
I wish I could see them right now.  They're so close I can
almost feel their spirits hovering near, calling me to take
my seat around the family table.

Death will not evade me again.  Fellig taught me well.

I clutch the camera I'd requested from my house and hold
it tightly to the tender flesh of my chest.

This lens will be my faithful guide.

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