Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully belong to Chris Carter, 1013 and Fox.  But
that's pretty clear from the story itself.

Author's note: please go see "The Truman Show"

Comments would absolutely make my day.
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Created by Chris
by eponine119
eponine@prodigy.net
June 5, 1998
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	Mulder wept at the end of "The Truman Show."  
	I tried to prevent his seeing it, but he'd insisted, so the best I
could do was go with him.  He looked at me with tears on his face as the
light from the credits flickered.  Just stared at me.  And I knew that
he knew.
	"Mulder -"
	He shook his head.  "Don't."  He got up and I followed him out of the
theater, into the bright sunshine.  He sat down on the cement steps of
the multiplex, shell-shocked.
	I sat down next to him.  "What's wrong?" I said and the words were
meaningless.  He only stared at me.  I put my hand on his shoulder.  "I
know you feel like you've been used.   The Consortium, everything
they've done -"
	His eyes were cold. Dead.  "Drop the act."
	I nodded.  He did know.  All of it.  The wheels had been turning for
the last two hours.  The reason all those backwater towns looked the
same, the times we'd encountered people with familiar faces, but
different names and circumstances.  Everyone had warned he would catch
on, but Mulder never seemed to.  Until now.
	"How long?" his voice was raw.
	"You were a child," I said in a soft voice, surprisingly thick with
tears.  "I don't know the exact moment."
	He nodded, his jaw tight and strong.  "All of it, then.  My parents. 
Samantha."  His eyes flooded with tears that he was determined not to
shed when he looked at me.  "You."
	I took a deep breath.  There were tears in my eyes, and Dana Scully
never cried.  Fear beat through my veins, and Dana Scully was never
afraid.  This was the first time I didn't know how it was all going to
turn out.  I couldn't look at him, and I didn't know what to say.
	"Why?" he whispered.
	There were no answers.
	"Was none of it real?" he asked.
	I blinked and one of the damn tears slid down my face.  I hated that
drop of water passionately.  "Most of it was," I said, my voice rising
with the strain not to cry.  "Most of it was."  He was asking about me,
and  I knew it. I also knew he wouldn't believe another word I ever
said.
	He stood, a proud figure in the sunlight.  "I want to meet him."  His
eyes found me, disdainful.  "You can do that, can't you?  Set it up."
	I nodded, getting to my feet and pulling out my cell phone, dialing the
number with sure, swift fingers.  He noted my familiarity.
	"Is it him?" he asked.  I looked at him as the line rang.  "The man
with the cigarettes.  Is he the one?"
	"No," I said softly.  "It's someone else entirely."
	"So he's like you.  The cigarette man, I mean."
	"I guess."  Bill liked Mulder.  In that way, he was like me.  None of
us ever wanted to see him hurt.  On some level, we were always aware
that we were using him, that his world had been created and we had been
placed in it for some higher purpose of entertainment, but we cared
about him.  He was better than the rest of us.  Our emotions were real,
and we wanted to provide him with challenges and comfort.  The line was 
picked up.  "He wants to see you," I said.  A moment later I hung up and
replaced the phone in my pocket.  Mulder was staring at me again. 
"Let's go."
	We got into the car.  I drove, because I knew where we were going. 
Mulder's eyes roamed, as though searching for hidden cameras and
anything out of place.  Looking for anything he might see differently
now than he had before.
	I pulled into a reserved parking space in front of the office.  Mulder
was trying to hold himself together. I'd seen him do it before - there
had been other instances when he'd suspected his life was a lie.  Just
not this big a lie.  "Mulder," I said softly, putting my hand on his
wrist.  "This has been my life for five years.  That hasn't changed."
	"But you're not you, are you?" he said and got out of the car.  I
followed him, wishing I could make this  better.
	"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" I asked.
	"I want to talk to him." Mulder was determined and I knew better than
to stand in his way.  I stood back and let him go inside.  The meeting
was ready; Chris was waiting for him.  I lingered back, watching rather
than participating. It had always been my role, hadn't it?  Support?  I
didn't cause things to happen; I reacted.  So it would remain.  No 
matter how much I wanted to change it now, I would never have the power.
The power  Mulder had seized for himself now.
	Mulder sat down across from Chris.  Both men were serious.  Mulder
noticed the "I Want To Believe" poster on the wall, next to the one for
the series.  "Why?" he asked.
	Chris didn't have an answer, and he didn't say he was sorry.  Chris
wasn't that sort of man.
	"Why did you put me in a place like that?  A dark, terrible world
without any light?  Why would you do that to me, to anyone?  Take away
my hope, take away everything I ever loved or believed in.  You pushed
me around and made it a game, worse than they ever did.  Why would you
create a world full of suspicion and hate?  If you were going to do this
at all, why not put me into a place that made sense?"  Mulder was
sobbing again.
	Chris put his hand on Mulder's shoulder.  "But I did," he said simply. 
Mulder wiped his nose on his hand and looked at him.   "Your world had
rules.  It had order.  It had hope, Mulder, even if you lost sight of
that at times.  That was why people love - loved - it.  And you.  You
had hope.  Integrity.  You were the last bastion of that in this
crumbling universe.  The last piece of something good and pure that was
tangible, that we could see.   That was why  I did it, Mulder.  So we
could see that it still exists."
	"But the world, the real world, can't be such a dark and terrible  -
there can't be conspiracies and paranoia at every turn.  There can't be
such horror as the things I've seen," Mulder protested.
	"You'll see," was all Chris would say.  "You'll see."
	Mulder nodded and I knew he didn't believe Chris.  I didn't want him to
have to find out that Chris was right.  The world was dark and ugly.  I
saw it every day on the streets where I drove to get to work and on the
news I watched when I got home. It was a relief to spend my days with
Mulder, a man who knew in his heart that the worst thing that could ever
happen was to be carried away by a bright light and little green men. 
People went away, but in Mulder's world, they always came back.  People
suffered, but in Mulder's world, they always recovered.  No one died and
it was forever.  It wasn't that way in reality.
	I didn't like reality.  I'd spent a lot of nights envying Mulder's
belief.  He was lucky, I thought.  He didn't live in the same world we
were forced to.  And I was lucky, too. Because I'd spent five years
living in his world.  There had been limits and rules, but it had been a
good place to be.
	Now it was gone.
	He stopped in front of me on his way out. I looked up at him, wishing I
knew the words to say to make him understand.  But he would find out. 
"I'll miss you," he said.
	I wanted to tell him he didn't have to, because I wanted to go with
him.
	"I mean," he corrected,  "I'll miss her."
	"Mulder, I am her," I said.
	He walked away.

	I never saw him again.  Every so often, I'd hear about him.  He'd
continued to chase aliens and lights in the sky.  They were the link
between his world and ours, even if the rules were different.  Sometimes
the phone rang late at night and there was no one on the other end of
the line, but I wouldn't hang up.  I'd hold it there, next to my ear,
listening to the silence in the dark, believing it was him.
	I missed him because he had been my best friend and I loved him.
	I missed him because it had been real.
	I missed him most of all because he would never know.
	The show continues on in reruns on late-night TV.  I watch it
sometimes, because for those few short minutes, I can not only remember
the past, but relive it.  I miss those days.  I miss him.
	He wrote me a note when I won my award.  A small gold statue - at once
such a coveted item in my life, something I dreamed about at night.  Now
I dream about Mulder.  The note was simple.  No salutation - he didn't
know what to call me. No signature, either - he didn't know what to call
himself - but I knew it was from him.  "It's a good program."  A few
words, almost cold, but I knew without thinking how much he must have
struggled over them.  He was learning that it hadn't been real.  Even as
I tried to forget.

the end.
okay, the p.o.v. is possibly sketchy, but don't let it concern you. ;) 
It's fiction.
comments adored --> eponine@prodigy.net



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