Scully finds it difficult to deal with a side of Mulder she's never seen before in the aftermath of her adventure with CSM.
Original Author Notes
Just one of two stops between the events of Acceptance and Water's Edge in my Healing Waters series, which in turn takes place in my Crossing Lines universe. This one begins to address issues that Dana Scully has still not dealt with properly, issues that stem from the time of Amor Fati. They don't get resolved here, though — that'll happen in the next one; you'll have to stay tuned.
Back Story
This was an abandoned story from earlier this year, one of two that I had planned to deal with the Scully versus Fowley thing that both the series and my stories have sort of left hanging in the air. In Truths Untold, there was a flashback to a scrap of a conversation between Scully and Diana where the latter mentioned something about "still" being Mulder's wife if things had turned out differently. In Water's Edge, the implication is that M&S have since worked things out, but it had always been my intention that the "working it out" part would be a story in itself. So that's more or less the background of this story and the one that's meant to follow.
I was fascinated by the "feel" of the scene in En Ami where Mulder could barely look at Scully after she comes back with this CD that supposedly cures the world of its evils. It turned out to be the driving force behind this story, much to my surprise.
In my version of the TXF world, the events of this story take place in April of 2000.
ATXC Original Posting: February 2001 (released December 2000)
* * * * *
"I'm not going to lie and say that I don't know what's holding me back. I know what it is. But that doesn't help me in being able to bring it up with him... and I think it's because I know it should be a closed book. It's not fair that I should be asking him to open up old memories that can't change anything now. It's in the past and it can't come back. I should be able to let go."
"Why is it that you don't, if that's what you think?"
"Because I'm afraid that — regardless of whether or not the past can come back — I'm not the one he would have picked if he'd had a choice, or the chance."
* * * * *
Fox Mulder slammed the apartment door shut behind him, the force of the action reverberating beneath his feet as he took the few short strides necessary to reach his living room. He slumped down into his couch and tossed his jacket at the chair across the room, watching moodily as it missed the intended target and slipped off onto the floor. How fitting. He leaned his head against the back of the couch, closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath, exhaling it slowly. His hands were pressed open on the seat to either side of him, palms down, long fingers spread apart. It was as though he could barely control their urge to rip into the leather upholstery.
He hadn't felt so angry in a long time. That the anger was directed at his partner did not help matters. That it didn't feel like real anger only served to increase the tension within him. How could he be so angry at Scully, he thought incredulously? Never mind how the anger could continue to burn with such blazing intensity when she had been reaching towards him for understanding all day long. It wasn't often that Dana Scully gave him the puppy dog face, but that was a pretty damn close approximation of the type of glances that he had been seeing out of the corners of his eyes all day. It was all he could do to avoid looking at her directly until this afternoon, when they eventually came up empty searching for C.G.B. Spender's plushy office. He sighed at the vivid memory of her expression upon walking into the vacated premises. Why the hell had she been so surprised? He would have bet real money on the outcome of that one. Real big money....
"You may be right. But for a moment I saw something else in him. A longing for something more than power, maybe for something that he could never have."
[Yeah right. Look into the devil's eyes and tell me you see anything other than what he wants you to see...]
"Turn around, Scully."
"What?"
"I said turn around!"
Reacting instinctively to the urgency in his voice, she did as he requested. She immediately felt his hands on her, one holding her shoulder, the other pushing her hair up roughly and exposing the back of her neck. There was a moment of silence in which time appeared to stand still as she realized what he was doing. It made her blood run cold in the turn of a mere second.
As quickly as the examination began, it was over. He backed away from her, satisfied with what he saw, but overwhelmed by an odd combination of relief and anger.
"I just thought... I thought that he might have put you under and removed the chip. Like maybe he wanted it for some other purpose. You were gone long enough; I mean, you must have slept at some point in time —"
She knew that she must have looked guilty as the reality of his words washed over her. With all these other possibilities entering into the picture suddenly, she felt numbed and unable to put up her usual mask. It was such an abnormal position for her to be in, feeling this need to explain and validate her actions to him.
"— but thankfully there isn't a fresh scar."
"Mulder, I don't think — "
"I'm going home, Scully. There's nothing here. Or at least if there was, there's not anymore."
With that, he turned and left her standing in the middle of the room....
Mulder couldn't help but think back to the number of times that he had held that reviled man against the wrong end of his gun. And how it was always somehow the thought of Scully that made him avoid pulling the trigger. Never in his wildest dreams could he imagine her taking off for a ride through the countryside with him, leaving herself open to whatever kind of Godforsaken trickery he had up his sleeve. Mulder had already been quite appalled a couple of months ago when Scully intimated that she had had contact with the smoking man regarding the truth behind the search for Samantha. If he remembered correctly, she hadn't answered him directly when he had asked her about whether she had actually contacted the mysterious C.G.B. Not that there seemed to be much doubt now. Just another of those occasions when he dropped by her apartment for a visit, perhaps? Like her landlord had witnessed several times?
Mulder suddenly felt a tight clenching deep within his soul that didn't quite seem like anger anymore. What was it? Betrayal? Bitter disappointment?
Wrapping his arms around his stomach, he fell over onto his side and drew his knees up to his chest slowly.
Why did it feel like everything was falling apart?
* * * * *
"How's the work relationship?"
"No complaints really. In fact, we seem to get along better at work than off work these days — there's none of that unspoken stuff that seems to get in the way. After so many years, we're well familiar with one another's 'buttons' and know how to work them. We still push the wrong ones on occasion — I'm not sure if we can help it — but at least we both know what sort of reaction to expect. Professionally speaking, I think we've hit some sort of super-efficient plateau. But our personal life has cooled off. Ever since his mother died, he's sort of pulled back... and it's not even like I'm saying that it's a concern; it's not. He's doing remarkably well for all that's happened to him over the past several months."
* * * * *
Mulder opened his eyes and brought his hand up to check his watch. Half an hour of lying here in a semi-fetal position was definitely enough. There were obligations yet to take care of before the night was out. He reached for his phone and punched in some numbers from memory.
"Mrs. Scully?"
"Hello, Fox.... there's nothing wrong is there?" Poor woman. I bet she hates getting calls from me, he thought to himself.
"No, no, ma'am. I'm actually calling to apologize. Every time I phone you it's either with bad news or to make you worry. I don't mean to do that."
"No apologies are necessary. Although maybe if you'd call once in awhile just to say hello, you can start to even out all those bad ones. I don't like it that I get tense every time I hear your voice, either." Her sense of relief seemed to carry right through the telephone wires into his apartment. "By the way, I didn't get the chance to ask the other day... how are you doing?"
Margaret Scully had been one of those who had left him a detailed voice message expressing her condolences at his mother's death a couple of months ago.
"I'm doing okay. Thanks for asking."
"That's good. I'm here if you ever need to talk, you know."
"I know. And I appreciate it... I'm actually checking to see if Dana called you yesterday."
"Yes she did. In fact, I think she used the words 'Mulder will have my hide' if she didn't."
"Not far from the truth.... " There was that tightening in his chest again. Mulder had a sudden thought. "Say, Mrs. Scully, do you still take those evening walks around the neighborhood?"
"As much as I can. Am I to take it that you might want to join me for old times' sake?"
"Absolutely. Is tonight too short notice?"
"No, tonight's fine. Say seven thirty thereabouts? Have you eaten?"
"Don't worry about me; seven thirty's good."
"I'm looking forward to it. I'll talk to you soon, Fox."
"See you, Mrs. Scully."
* * * * *
"What evidence do you have that he's still thinking about her?"
"It started last fall, when I found out some surprising things that may or may not be true. At a critical point in his life — he was close to dying, actually — he had visions, dreams. He later explained to me that he experienced a taste of life in another reality. What 'could have been'. He didn't tell me in so many words, but it's not like he was very good at hiding it from me. He told me about living a normal life, and it was clear that it hadn't been with me. I was only the nagging influence who came to him at the end to tell him to get off his butt and go back to work."
"He said this?"
"No, no, that's me. Sorry. Poetic license."
* * * * *
Fox Mulder had liked Margaret Scully from the moment that he first met her, as ugly as the circumstances had been at the time. Little had he known then that it was the start of three long months of ugly circumstances. But in the end, he had been thankful for the opportunity to get to know this extraordinary woman who was also his partner's mother. He had never met Scully's father and therefore didn't have any personal knowledge of him, but he could definitely see from her mother the source of Dana Scully's resiliency and strength.
They had taken a break from their walk and were sitting on a park bench, watching some neighborhood children play in the distance. She noticed in their amiable silence that he had taken to staring down at his shoes and ventured to take a chance.
"You're angry with her, aren't you?"
He glanced over at her, embarrassed that he was that obvious and slightly disturbed that he likely wouldn't be able to manage even a little white lie. So he decided to go with the whole truth.
"Mad as hell."
And hurting like hell for even saying it, she thought as she glanced over at his expressively sad face, so uncannily reminiscent of the one she had first seen so many years ago, which then reappeared week after horrifying week for what seemed like another lifetime.
"That's allowed, you know. Feeling angry, I mean."
"But — " I love her, he wanted to say. And even though he couldn't get the precise words out in front of her mother, his face gave most of it away. He knew it. And maybe it hadn't even been a secret to her for a long time. In his most fragile moments back when, he had once said something to her about wondering "what might have been if we'd met under different circumstances... if we weren't partners." He wondered if she still remembered.
"I know, dear. It's still allowed. So what was all this about? Can you tell me?"
"She didn't say?"
"She just told me that she trusted someone that she shouldn't have trusted. That when you found out, you were too disappointed for words. And that she really wanted to forget about the whole thing... I didn't press it. She hardly ever tells me about work; you know that."
"She took a stupid chance — put herself in danger. And I know I've done that myself in the past, but that was the past. She didn't like it and I haven't pulled one of those on her in ages. And I don't think I've ever done so with the man that she took off with..."
"Who is this person?"
"Only the single worst constant in our lives over the past eight years. A man who quite possibly has the power to snuff out either one us on a whim. For some reason, though, he's never done it. I sometimes think he actually wants to protect us for some perverse reason."
"So she was never in actual danger, then?"
"I don't know, Mrs. Scully. She really didn't tell me what happened. I don't suppose she told me much more than she told you, actually. And I hate playing 'fill in the blanks'. But the worst part of it is, this isn't even the first time in the past several months that she's had contact with him. She may have sought him out. And as far as I knew, I didn't think that she had ever even spoken to him before. I thought this man came to me and me only. I just don't get it."
"She would never do anything intentional to betray you. You know that, don't you?"
"I know," he whispered, surprised that he could barely find his voice.
"But that's not why you're angry, is it?"
At his non-response, Margaret Scully continued, "You know, Fox, my daughter is very committed to her work. To the exclusion of almost everything else in life. She once told me how that was the case with you, and how difficult it was to match your dedication."
"This wasn't work."
"Maybe it wasn't in the strictest sense of the word, but why would she have taken such a chance if it didn't have some bearing on the work that you do?"
Again, Mulder had no answer.
"We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. But you should probably talk to Dana about it. I think she saw a reaction in you that she's never seen before and neither one of you knows how to deal with it."
There was a moment of silence before he found himself asking a question that had been laying low in the back of his mind for a long time.
"What happened last Christmas, Mrs. Scully? At Bill's?"
At the sudden change in topic, it was her turn to be stuck for an answer.
"What exactly do you mean?"
"We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to." He smiled at her, enough to make her return it.
"Fox — I think I told you this a long time ago. Whatever we discuss is held in the strictest confidence between you and me. Even Dana knows this. But I think you need to be more specific about what you're asking."
"I shouldn't; forget I brought it up. I think I'm just looking for excuses."
"Talk to her. Talking is the easiest thing in the world."
"I know that."
"Then convince her. It's worth it, isn't it?"
"Not if she doesn't think so..."
"What do you mean by that?"
Margaret Scully peered into Fox Mulder's face and saw a hint of an expression that she had only seen once before. On the day that she had asked him for his help in picking up a headstone that she had ordered for Dana. It wasn't a decision that had been made lightly. She knew that it must have been terribly unsettling for him to have faced reality in such a harsh manner that afternoon, but from her point of view, it was time to move on with their lives. She had come to terms with the fact that her daughter was gone. Stopping him from sinking deeper and deeper into false hope and helpless despair was at least something that she could focus on for the sake of those who had to go on living.
Back at the house after he had dropped her off and stored the headstone in the garage for safe-keeping, she discovered him leaning against one of the trees in the backyard, as though needing it for support. In all the months that he had been coming to her with his weekly reports, he had always managed to put on a brave face. Not that he was ever false with her, but she knew that he was always careful not to appear defeated, even when it was clear that he had every reason to be. Despite the emotional encounters that their meetings invariably turned into, she never saw him break. Except that day. That day, under the bright sunshine, amidst the sound of children playing in the neighborhood, she saw Fox Mulder as near to crumbling as he had ever been during those horrible weeks.
Unable to look directly at her even after she had finally loosened his grip on the tree and turned him around, he simply let her hold him for several long minutes. Remaining uncharacteristically wooden, it was truly one of the few times in his life when he succeeded at refusing to cry. But she could feel him using up all of his body's resources in his attempt to hold everything in, like a child holding his breath.
The face she saw now had matured over the years, with more than just age. Sadly enough, the remnants of shattered innocence that she recalled from back then were now totally non-existent. The realization was balanced, however, by the fact that he was more open to her now than he was then. Even though they had not had much exposure to one another in recent times, the bond that they had forged years ago had grown into something strong all by itself.
"Fox, what do you mean?" she repeated, extending her hand towards him, ultimately resting it on his forearm.
"Sometimes I think that — she doesn't have much hope for us.... And I won't stand in her way if that's how she really feels. I mean, if that's the case... I think we both deserve better."
"But you don't know how she really feels."
"You don't understand. I used to be sure that she didn't feel that way. I'm not sure anymore."
"Because of this?"
"No, because of a lot of things. And this..."
He looked at her directly before continuing. "It scares me."
* * * * *
"Just the one dream, Dana? While he was ill?"
"No... I had more or less come to terms with that one from when he was sick. But there have been others. One was recent. We were flying to or from California, I don't remember which. He said things while he was asleep, that... well, let's just say that by his actions and reactions when he woke up that it was pretty obvious what he had dreamt about."
"Can you truly hold him accountable for what he dreams?"
"No, but he's the one who's always held the opinion that there's some deep meaning in them."
* * * * *
Mulder paused at the building directory kiosk and ran his index finger down the panel, searching for Kosseff & Associates. He nodded to himself when he confirmed that his memory had served him right. A few years had passed since he had last been here, and he couldn't even place exactly what it was that had prompted his last visit.
He glanced casually around him, noting the ground floor businesses — a photocopying service and a small pharmacy at the front, what appeared to be a small cafeteria in the back — and then headed towards the elevators directly in front of him. Once inside, he pressed the button for the tenth floor and watched the numbers fly by on the display.
The hallway leading down to his destination was quiet; not surprising since it wasn't even nine o'clock yet on a Saturday morning. Just as he pulled open the heavy oak door, someone stepped out.
"Sorry."
They had been so close that had she not spoken, Mulder was certain that they would simply have passed one another without a second glance. But there was no way that he wouldn't recognize that voice. He let the door go as he turned around to see that familiar form walking down the hall.
"Scully?"
She stopped and turned on her heels. "Mulder?" She had the look of 'I've just been discovered' on her face, a look that Mulder didn't quite know how to interpret.
"What are you doing here?" they both asked simultaneously.
She took it upon herself to answer first, although she didn't move from her spot. Mulder, however, was closing the distance between them. "Maybe the same thing you are."
"Oh? I was coming in to get a referral."
"I — had an appointment."
So there it was. He had finally succeeded in driving her to the shrink's couch. And it wasn't even his...
An oddly familiar sensation hit him at the base of his gut. It was something that he hadn't experienced in a long time and its sudden return was an unwelcome reminder of how much time had passed and how little progress had been made.
"Are you rushing off anywhere right now? I mean — do you have time for a coffee or something?" There was no way that they could simply pass this one off with a "nice seein' ya" and a wave.
"Aren't you going in, Mulder?"
"I told you, I was just coming in to get a referral. I can come back later."
He could see her thinking, considering. The pause grew a bit long, or was that just because his own thoughts were racing?
"So where do you want to go?"
"Downstairs is fine, unless you have a preference for something else."
One almost uncomfortably long look at one another later, Mulder attempted a smile and automatically placed his hand at the small of her back, guiding her towards the elevators.
* * * * *
They walked away from the self-service checkout line with their coffees in silence. Scully took a careful sip, and then ventured a sidelong glance at her partner. For someone who had suggested their current activity, he wasn't making much of a contribution.
Of all the people in the world that she could have bumped into. How many times had she come here in the past, not even thinking of the possibility that perhaps he frequented the place as well? The office upstairs was her sanctuary from "real life", somewhere where she could speak openly and freely about her deepest desires without wondering if the person she was revealing herself to would "know" who and what she was actually describing. It felt different and odd now that she knew Mulder came here as well. To top it off, she was just not ready to share any of it with him, as awful as that sounded — even to herself. This current difficulty between them was certainly an unanticipated and unwelcome diversion. She had been seeking help to sort out something else entirely, something that she was ultimately prepared to share with him. Unfortunately, this latest turn of events had managed to place the focus on the wrong issue.
To say that it had been a bad week would be laughable, if, in reality, she could laugh about it. The level of awkwardness and discomfort between the two of them had stretched beyond bearable over the past five days. And the really strange part was that neither of them seemed to want to take the next step. Scully could think of numerous occasions in the past where one or the other of them would take the initiative to make necessary amends. This time, they both seemed willing to let the proverbial elephant in the room crush them.
They headed for a nondescript table in the far corner, away from prying eyes and ears, and sat down opposite one another.
Not looking up from his coffee, Mulder finally broke the silence. "So when did this start, Scully?"
"Seeing a therapist?"
"Yeah." He wrapped his hands around the styrofoam cup, silently cursing it for not transmitting any heat to his suddenly cold fingers.
"A long time ago, but it's not a regular thing. I saw Karen a few times at the Bureau over the years. But eventually I had things that I wanted to discuss that I didn't feel right discussing with her, especially not at work. She told me she ran an outside shop and, well... I come when I need to talk."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Was it wrong that I didn't?" It was starting to annoy her that he still had his head down, refusing to meet her eyes. There had already been too many days of that sort of treatment over the past week.
"No, I guess not."
They each paused to take a sip of their respective coffees.
"What's your connection?"
"I originally met Dr. Kosseff after my first psych review when I was with Behavioral Sciences. She got to know my background and I expressed an interest in keeping up with the scientific aspects of my training. She introduced me to her team of associates and every now and again, I got involved with studies that they did, in my spare time. But because I know the staff, I wasn't too keen on the idea of talking to any of them on a personal level. So I came by today to get a referral."
He finally looked up, but his gaze was focused on the view of the parking lot outside the window to her left.
"You know the staff here?" Her tone was almost overly casual, not something that would fool her partner, she knew.
"Haven't been here in years, Scully. I don't think you have to worry that whoever you're seeing knows me." His eyes finally swung back to her face.
"Well, not that it really matters. I'm sure that professionally speaking —"
"Violating a confidentiality like that would not be taken lightly."
"What made you come here today, Mulder?"
"I'm not really sure, which is kinda the reason why, I guess. It was officially 'suggested' by the Bureau that I do so after the events of February, but I had been delaying it. After this past week, I figured it was probably time."
"So what you're saying is, everything that happened concerning your mother and your sister weren't enough to send you to seek help but my little excursion with Cancerman was?" She couldn't keep the incredulity out of her voice.
"Something like that." His eyes grew dark; his expression was otherwise stubbornly inscrutable. It succeeded in putting her on the defensive, a state that Dana Scully knew that she didn't handle well.
"Do I need to beg you for forgiveness on this or have I scarred your psyche so badly that apologies won't even suffice?"
"I don't think you have the right to be angry here, Scully. Or sarcastic, or whatever the hell it is you're trying to be."
To say that she was surprised at how he came up swinging against her little dig was an understatement. Mulder was hardly ever one to raise his voice at her, but she had no problems identifying the heat of suppressed anger beneath his words.
"So let me have it, Mulder. Speak your piece and let's see if we can get past this —"
"What were you thinking?"
"Can you be a little more specific?"
"How's this for specific — what was the point of that half-assed, piss-poor excuse that I managed to check out in less than five minutes? Alarming your mother in the process, I might add — was that your way of not telling me? Your way of ensuring that I wouldn't go after you? Or was it in fact some strange signal to ensure that I would go after you? Tell me which one it is so that I'll know next time."
"Are you sure that you have the right to be this upset when it's no worse than countless incidents that you've pulled on me over the years?"
"Don't even go there, Scully. Understand that I've made an honest effort not to do any of the things that have ticked you off in the past. You've made your dislike of my running off on you abundantly clear to me. But never — never — have I hauled off and trusted someone like C.G.B. Spender. And for what? Some altruistic claim to cure the world of its diseases? How naive or egomaniacal are you?"
She disregarded the sting of that hurtful accusation, one that he probably didn't mean.
"I wasn't being either. You keep telling me to be open to extraordinary possibilities and this was exactly that. I carry around a chip in my neck that may or may not be keeping me alive. What he described didn't seem so beyond the realm of credibility when it was brought up to me." She looked directly at him before continuing, "I thought it was my chance to prove something about our partnership."
Mulder blinked in confusion, his brief anger dissipating as quickly as it had arisen. "Prove? What is it you feel you have to prove?"
"That I contribute more to our work than just the annoying scientific rebuttals that you've grown so tired of."
"That's nonsense — you do contribute more than that. How can you even think otherwise? Am I still behaving like such a jerk that you think I take you for granted or —"
"No, that's not it."
"Then what is it?"
"There are times when I don't quite feel like your equal, Mulder. And before you say anything, it's not your fault and it's nothing that you can 'fix'. It's just something that I feel. My problem. It's part of the reason why I'm here... upstairs. I know that the work that we do on the X-Files is equally mine by virtue of the fact that I've spent so many years at it, but in the end, the keeper of the sword, so to speak — is still you."
Mulder looked at her, mystified with where she was going with this.
"I thought that I had a chance to contribute something real, something concrete to the cause. The smoking man came to me and told me that I could only have access to this information if I didn't tell you about it —"
"And does that still make a lot of sense to you, or do you just not realize how dangerous it was, what you did?"
"I do know. Hell, Mulder, I wired myself —"
"It wasn't even a live wire... how would that have been helpful if anything had happened?"
She had no immediate answer. Mulder sat back in his chair and placed both hands flat on the tabletop in front of him.
"Why do you feel you have to prove anything to me this way, Scully? Or better yet, of all the things that you could prove to me, why this? Why put yourself in danger?" His throat constricted around the final question that he wanted to ask. Why trust him?
"You may not think that I have any sense of adventure, Mulder, but what he proposed was... intriguing. Maybe I was thinking too highly of myself, but I thought that I could handle it. It wasn't like I was his prisoner, or held hostage. I was free to leave at any time."
"I can't believe you're still taking it so lightly..."
"We face danger like that in our work almost everyday —"
"This was not about work!" he whispered fiercely, sitting forward so quickly that the table shook beneath his grip.
She hadn't seen that kind of fire in his eyes in a long, long time. So long that she couldn't recall when she had last experienced anything like it. But the look softened almost immediately after his outburst.
"And if you really think that it is, or if you think that's why I'm upset.... well, then, I don't know what to think."
* * * * *
"Did she have an importance to him in any way other than personal?"
"What do you mean?"
"Did she work with him?"
"Oh yes, it was a long time ago though. From what I know of it, they worked quite well together. They were well matched; they had the same 'feel' for things. Unlike..."
* * * * *
It was almost ten o'clock and their cups were long emptied. Silence had taken over most of their "conversation".
"Why are you here today, Scully?"
"I've been coming in every two weeks for a few months now."
"So nothing specific triggered this visit?"
"Not really. Although... I wasn't sure how to fix this between us. You've been really quiet the past couple of days."
"I didn't think it was up to me to start the ball rolling."
Another heavy moment of silence settled between them.
"Do you remember, Scully, when you were in the hospital just before your cancer went into remission that I told you about coming in one night, wondering about what I should do regarding a 'deal' that had been offered to me?"
"Yes."
"It was a deal that had been offered by Mr. Spender, back when we didn't even know him as Mr. Spender."
"What was the deal?"
"He wanted me to come work for him... since the Bureau at the time was going to prosecute me for murder, anyway. I told you that I left you that night deciding to take the deal, but do you have any idea what made me change my mind after that?"
"No, what?"
"I heard your voice that night, as I was trying to get to sleep. You said that it's preferable to sleep with the fishes than to sleep with the devil. I know, I know... it doesn't even sound like anything you'd ever say, but I heard you loud and clear."
After another lengthy period of silence, he heard her say softly, "I'm sorry, Mulder."
"For what?"
"Everything."
Something resembling an ironic chuckle was his response. It wasn't very often that Scully apologized for anything, but this time, it was obvious that she didn't even know why she was apologizing. On the surface, Mulder didn't know whether to be amused or offended. Deep down, however, he was just sad.
"Why can't you talk to me about things, Scully? We've made so much progress but sometimes it's like we're back at square one."
The look on her face revealed the confusion, frustration, and worry that consumed her on having to explain herself. She knew that she wasn't ready to do so, yet to leave him with nothing was not an option right now. She could only be honest with what she felt at this precise moment.
"When you get right down to it, Mulder, I've never felt so exposed and yet ultimately so hidden from someone as I feel with you. I think it gets easier, but then it's like another new barrier pops up in this maze that we're in."
He leaned in close across the table. "Why do you persist in making this so hard?"
"Because sometimes it just is."
"No it's not. It's easy. If you really want it, it's easy. Easy as breathing." He got up from his seat, pulling his coat on quickly. "Just breathe, Scully."
He gave her a look that seemed to contain every emotion possible to be felt, ending with a lingering sadness and resignation. He half-turned, pausing momentarily as though he had something else to say. But whatever it was, he decided against it. Scully watched in surprise as he walked away, through the exit and out to the parking lot. Through the window, she saw him enter his car and stared in disbelief as he pulled out without a moment's hesitation.
And Dana Scully was suddenly left with the bizarre and painful thought that she no longer knew how to breathe.
* END *
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