Transformation by chalcedony Spoilers: Requiem, DeadAlive, IWTB Summary: No plot, just Scully thoughts Feedback: chalcedony.1@hotmail.com She didn't want to breathe in the air of that apartment--an apartment too close, too intimate with its cooking smells and its unmade sleeper sofa and Father Joe in his bathrobe, praying in plain sight. She didn't want to share the oxygen--inhale what he might have exhaled. Scully knew more than she wanted to know-- what he had done to those boys. She had a son. Mulder treated Father Joe's guilt and his open repentance as though it were a minor imposition, but to Scully it felt unjust that he should be here, comfortable and satiating his needs for food and sleep and peace with God. She would have felt better if he were suffering somewhere. She had spent plenty of time in the company of psychopaths and felons, but this was different. Her hardened mask of professional indifference was not what it once was. And he had been a priest. It was shameful. She wanted to reject the situation entirely and never look back. If it weren't for those young agents' lives on the line, she would have. ___________________________ After they left, driving in the car, memories connected to her faith, flashed through her brain. ___________________________ She remembered a short trip to Italy during high school. Her father was stationed in Naples--the family was stateside. Maggie had found some cheap airline tickets, and they stayed for one week. Bill and Charlie had their sports games and didn't come, so it was a girl's trip. Maggie, Melissa and Dana. One day of sightseeing in Rome and then they caught the train south. At St. Peter's she was struck by the immensity of the space in the square--as if it conveyed by its size that in comparison to every other square in Europe, this one was God's. A cardinal strode purposefully through the milling crowd of tourists who snapped photos or simply gawked. There was a group of middle-aged nuns huddled together speaking some unrecognizable Asian language. Inside of the basilica, the dome rose to dizzying heights-- marble, stone, light, air. Its magnificence was almost frightening, for such beauty could not have come into existence without a cost--and what was the cost? What sacrifice or suffering did it impose on its makers, what sacrifice or suffering compelled its construction? Back then she couldn't articulate those thoughts--it was only an overwhelming sense of awe and a kind of fear that there were things in the world she didn't understand and couldn't comprehend. ___________________________________ She had known boys and young men who had grown up to become priests: a boy from elementary school, a second cousin on her mother's side, a Jewish roommate's brother she had known during freshman year who had converted and taken orders. ______________________________ Home on summer break from University, the family took a trip to the lake. They sat on the shore eating sandwiches. "Life begins at conception. That's what we've always believed," said Bill in response to something Melissa was saying. Dana didn't respond. Just looked at him quietly. "A baby can survive at what, thirty weeks?" asked Charlie. "Sometimes earlier," Maggie replied. "And what's the difference between an embryo and a fetus? Which one has a soul?" he continued. "Well, that depends on who you talk to," his mother said softly. "It's one of the mysteries that only God can answer." "And I say if you don't know, best to respect it from the beginning--don't mess with the man upstairs," said Bill assuredly. ___________________________________ Early at the office one morning, she sat going over expense reports when Mulder dropped the paper on her desk, pointing wordlessly to a photo and the headline that Mother Teresa had died. That day she thought about what she was doing with her life and wondered if it was enough. __________________________________ Her faith had waxed and waned and changed with the years. Before and during the IVF procedure, she had been so afraid to hope, that it was like a wall had gone up. She wouldn't consider prayer--wouldn't ask for what she wanted--didn't want to open up that kind of a rift with God if the answer was going to be no. When Mulder's disappearance coincided with her pregnancy, it was fear and joy colliding. It was incomprehensible. She prayed a lot. She prayed indiscriminately and without prejudice, alone and in the presence of others, quiet prayers and loud, reckless, I-dare-you-to-strike-me-down- with-lightening prayers. _________________________________ And then William was born. _________________________________ Once she gave William up, faith and hope and trust were still present, but always came with a bitter aftertaste. ________________________________ Since Mulder had been returned, she wasn't sure whom to give credit, and in her more generous moments wasn't inclined to rule out God as a possible contributor. ________________________________ They didn't watch the speech on TV because they didn't have one. They were in a rented house in the middle of nowhere still working at odd jobs. It was Mulder who brought it up the next day. He had clipped an article out of the paper and pushed it in front of her. She eyed it askance, skimming while he talked. "This guy doesn't make any sense, Bush. It's ethical to use the stem cells that we already have, but unethical to develop any new lines? Government funding of stem cell research would sully the country but private businesses can go for it? " Scully was quiet. She hadn't gone back into medicine yet, but had been having fantasies about work and hospitals and making people better. _________________________ Her church, the church that had protected the likes of Father Joe for decades, that had hushed up scandal and shuffled the guilty back and forth between parishes like an unwanted relative, would condemn her for what she was doing. Unless she succeeded. In which case, opinions might be revised. __________________________ Embryonic stem cell therapy made her think of Zeus Genetics. Was there a way to reverse that kind of evil? Was there a way to overcome what had been done to her? In her quiet moments, she wondered if all of her suffering, all those dreams shot through with images of eggs and sperm, zygotes and embryos weren't for some reason. If there wasn't a reason, she wanted to make one. If she could lessen Christian's suffering, maybe there had been a purpose to her own. Maybe it wasn't all just darkness and evil.