Character: Dana Scully
Fandom: The X-files
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: Personal Jesus vol 2 week 17
scifi_musesSetting: Season Three Episode “Revelations”
AN: Some borrowed dialogue.
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“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.” The memorized words tumbled from her lips, a familiar ritual, the timeless words of an ancient sacrament. “It has been six years since my last confession, and since then I've drifted away from the church. I'm not sure why exactly.”
Yes you are, Dana. You know exactly why you drifted.“Have you come to confess?” The small, darkened cubby filled with the dark, comforting tones Scully always associated with the confessional booth. Here she could speak of her deepest sins and darkest desires….the fact that she was the one who broke Bill’s football trophy, the way she envied her sister’s grace and ease in situations, the fact that she had impure thoughts about a boy in her algebra class.
You never confessed the truth about Daniel.“No,” She wasn’t there to confess the sins she knew still lay heavy on her heart. No, there were other things she had to bring before God, other questions that called her this day. “There's a man that I work with…a friend.” She blushed slightly, feeling the need to clarify Mulder’s presence in her life to this priest. “Usually I'm able to discuss these things with him ... but not this.” This Mulder couldn’t understand, no matter how heard she tried to make him.
“Father, do you believe in miracles?” It seemed such a silly question to ask of a priest.
“Of course, I see them every day,” he spoke with the quiet assurance of one who really didn’t understand what she meant by that statement. “The rising sun, the birth of a child…”
“No, I'm talking about events that defy explanation,” she clarified, her voice thick. “Things that ... I believe helped me to save a young boy's life. But now I wonder if I saw them at all. If I didn't just imagine them.”
“Why do you doubt yourself?” The question wasn’t chiding, rather curious. She licked suddenly dry lips, her thoughts on Mulder and his dubious looks, his outright condescension. He hadn’t believed…Mulder, the man of ultimate faith. He had never hidden his doubt of Christianity, and had been nothing but up front about it from the beginning. Why did it bother her so much on this case?
“Because my partner didn't see them. He didn't ... he didn't believe them. And usually he ... he believes without question.” If Mulder couldn’t believe it, could it really happen? So much of her faith, her belief was tied up with that of Mulder’s. She followed him to hell and back in his pursuit for the truth. So much of her faith in her own work was tied up in Mulder’s belief. Was it to that point she was questioning her own faith in God because of it?
The priest seemed to read her thoughts. “Maybe they weren’t meant for him to see. Maybe they were only meant for you.”
Miracles only she could see but others couldn’t. Mulder would call it religious psychosis. And till a few days ago, she would have as well. “Is that possible?” Really she had never thought of that, not once in her life, that God would send her, Dana Scully, a personal message only she would understand. That was the sort of thing that happened to the saints, to the blessed, not to an FBI agent who hadn’t performed confession in close to six years.
“In the Lord, anything is possible,” the priest replied philosophically. “Perhaps you saw these things because you needed to.”
Why, she wondered. “To find my way back?”
“Sometimes we must come full circle to find the truth.”
Full circle…her eyes flew to the screen that separated herself from the confessor, allowing her to speak but not to see the man on the other side. Those words seemed to be the mantra of her days in Loveland, of her life really. Always coming back, coming full circle, going back where she started…was this God’s message?
“Why does that surprise you?” The priest was curious at her silence, her apparent surprise at his choice of words.
God is speaking…
“Mostly, it just makes me afraid,” she whispered, tears stinging her eyes.
“Afraid?”
“Afraid that God is speaking,” she sighed, tears thickening her voice. “But that no one’s listening.” Least of all herself…or Mulder.
The priest was silent for long moments. She couldn’t imagine this was a conversation that came everyday into his confessional, this sort of crises of faith. She waited, her hands clasped in front of her, like long ago when she had first sat in the confessional booth, sharing her minor sins of gossiping and tormenting her siblings. How she wished her problems were as simple as that now.
“My child,” the priest finally began, contemplative and considerate. “Many before you have asked that question. In this day and age, with so much before us that crowds and blocks God’s message, many feel the way that you do.”
“Do they see visions before their eyes, Father,” she asked honestly. “Did they feel the witness of God in their life, a direct presence, his hand touching them?”
“Some do,” he admitted. “And for those I say take it as a blessing…a call to be aware, to no longer shut out God’s voice from your life. Listen to those signs put before you, and trust them. Do not doubt your faith child. Even when the world is at its bleakest, when we think that God has abandoned us or has turned his back on us, he is there. We just have to search deeper to find the signs, to find his message for us….to have faith that there is a message for us.”
God is speaking…sometimes we just don’t always hear it.
“Father, I went through a horrific experience a year ago.” She had no idea why she was confessing this, admitting to this in this space, in this sacrament. But it seemed the right and proper thing to do, to bare her soul before God like this. “I was abducted by men who did things too me…things which quite possibly could have lasting effects on me. I met other women…women who suffered like I did. One of them died the other day, Father. They called to tell me….I was so angry with God that night. I wondered why it was that God would have forsaken us? I wondered what God it could be that would allow something so horrible happen to good women.”
“I’m an officer of the law, Father…I was here to solve a case, to protect a boy. He was a special boy; one that many felt God had blessed. I don’t know if he was or not. Many do not…including my partner. But I have to believe, Father, that these people who risked their lives to protect this child weren’t crazy religious fanatics. Something inside of me needs to believe that God spoke to them….just as I believe he was speaking to me.”
“But you are afraid?” He hit the matter succinctly. “Of what?
“I’m afraid….of what this means.” The tears that had threatening to fall spilled down her face, her fingers absently wiping them away. “Of what the message her means for me and for my work. I’m afraid to go there…to go back there.” Melissa had been right. She was scared of confronting the truths about herself. “I terrified of what I will find when I go back…go full circle. It could change everything.”
“Yes, it could,” the priest replied softly. “Or it could lead to the truths you have been looking for all along. You can’t ever know until that step is taken. Perhaps these signs…these were God’s way of pushing you in the direction you need to go.”
Would she listen?
“Thank you for listening, Father,” she rubbed her knuckles under each eye, trying to compose herself into the calm, collected FBI agent she was. Her fingers fluttered to the necklace at her neck, pressing it to her breastbone as she murmured a soft prayer along with the priest, the formula as familiar to her as her own personal information.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee…There was blessed stillness in the church as she exited the confessional. In front of the icon of the Blessed Virgin there sat the table filled with votive candles, flickering in the dim light. Kneeling, she lit one, and murmured a quick prayer, for Kevin, for his father, and for the souls of his mother, Owen Jarvis, and her sister. She prayed for herself. She wanted to have the strength to do that which she feared.
She stood in one smooth motion, her heels clicking against the hard floor as she scanned the pews briefly. In the middle of the day no one was there, save for a clique of older women in the corner, fingers working strings of rosary beads, and a tall figure standing in the light of the open door in the back. He stood watching her as she moved down the center of he aisle, hands shoved into the pockets of his great coat, his green eyes glittering as she stopped in front of him.
“I thought I’d meet you at the airport,” she murmured up at Mulder who shrugged, looking unapologetic for following her to what was a deeply personal, religious moment for her.
“I know…but then I thought maybe I could come see if God would truly strike me down for stepping inside of a church. So far, not even a little static shock.” He held up his forefinger by way of an example, his mouth curving upward in a sly smile.
She should be angry with him. She had needed this moment, away from him and his doubts on faith, to contemplate and reflect on just what had been revealed to her these last few days. But she was glad he was there, standing at least with a foot into the world of her faith, peeking in the door respectably. Mulder she doubted would ever accept God in the same way she did…but at least he could come to respect him.
“Maybe it’s a sign God hasn’t forsaken you all together, Mulder,” she grinned, reaching up for his hand and squeezing it gently. “Maybe it’s a sign he hasn’t forsaken any of us.”