Corrigenda (15/15)
TITLE: Corrigenda (part 15/15)
GENRE: WIP, MSR, A, Post-IWTB
SUMMARY: see part I
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Corrigenda is a Latin phrase meaning “things to be corrected";
sorry for all the grammatical errors, I am posting this as fast as I write it
so there is ZERO editing done...consider yourself warned! :) This is the end of the journey, folks. Poorly written as usual but I am hoping not to leave a bitter taste in your mouths ;) THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR STILL READING!!!
Thursday, April 17, 2008
3:21pm
"Who were you talking to?" Scully asked as Mulder slunk through the door frame, closing the door to the bedroom and facing her with an expression that struck her as too-blank. The heavy sigh, affirmed her suspicions. "Skinner?"
"Yeah," he answered, hesitant on how much he should add.
"You asked him to put the house back in order--"
He did a double-take as he sat across the room from her in the easy chair. "How did you--"
"Sixteen years together. And, I'm not mad." Mulder's eyebrows wrinkled together. "That you weren't going to tell me."
"Scully--"
"I told you I'm not mad. You were just..." Her words caught in her throat, and she swallowed painfully in an attempt to clear it. All that time over the last week to think about Mulder and what he went through was replaying at four times normal speed. What was his reaction to the letter? Did he, for a second, believe the lie? Had he shown it to anyone else? Did he find the necklace first? How did he track her down? Even with the German clue she had given...why did he come back after she told him to go?
She suddenly had trouble breathing.
"How did you do it?"
"How did I do what?" Mulder's voice was barely a whisper, his face so close that it blew the wisps of hairs that had fallen in front of her eyes. So overcome by her thoughts, she had not even noticed his panicked reaction to her own anxiety.
Scully forced herself to stare into his eyes and the emotions that overwhelmed her as she did were many years old. She could feel the tears burning as she looked at the man who had gone, literally, to the ends of the world for her. And she for him: this man who had given her life purpose and direction. This man who had given her a child. This man who had shown her the true meaning of forgiveness and everlasting love.
Her voice squeaked as she ignored his question, trying instead to convey everything she felt in one statement, "I love you...a lot." Scully's lower lip trembled, her chin quivered. She huffed a laugh. "Can you understand how much?"
Mulder's lips curled into a half-smile. "Can you?"
She nodded. "I think I'm beginning to, yeah."
"Good. Because...Jesus, we've been through a lot, but..." The psychologist in him screamed at him to stop realizing he was about to release his anxieties on her. That's the last thing she needs right now, he told himself.
"But this feels worse somehow," she finished for him.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to--"
"No...don't." Her hand moved without conscious thought to his knee, and her eyes followed. Even through the layer of denim she could feel the warmth that radiated from his body, the muscles taught from surprise or just overall tension from the last few days. "I know that I'm not usually so verbose when it comes to what you mean to me, Mulder, but...but after..."
His stare moved from the fingers grasping his leg to Scully's face, seeing the pain and remembrance in her eyes even as she avoided his. He could see her fighting to come to terms with her attack, and it took everything he had not to run from the room back to Virginia and find a way to get to Patterson. Adrenaline coursed through his body at the idea of vengeance.
"When I thought I might die with you thinking that I was in love with someone else..." The tears that built at the thought choked the rest of her words and, knowing there were no words to convey the sheer agony that one thought had given her during her time away from him, she locked eyes with his.
His silence was a blessing, a jolt of strength that she needed to continue the purging of her demons. Her hands did not shake as she brought them up to take his face between them. The slight stubble of his cheeks was a comfort grown of immeasurable touches over the past fifteen years -- both platonic...and not. Mulder's lips parted just slightly, her name forming there in silence, and she leaned forward just enough to press hers against their heat.
And the kiss deepened. What her tongue couldn't produce in words it did in caresses, moving slowly, deliberately. His air was hers, and hers was his. Several long seconds later, she gently withdrew from his mouth to rest her forehead against his, relishing in the radiance of his breath against her face and the feel of his nose on her cheeks as he raked it back and forth in a hypnotic manner.
"You've known me a long time, Scully," he whispered and then leaned back just enough to look into her eyes. "And in all that time, when have you ever seen me give up on the truth?"
His comeback effectively stripped her of all arguments, as only Mulder had ever been able to do, and her shoulders shook slightly, the tiniest of smiles appearing on her lips.
"I, uh, I didn't know exactly how to bring this up, but..."
She raised an eyebrow at his sudden loss of confidence. "But what, Mulder?"
"When I was on the phone to Skinner...we were also talking about some of the legal actions that need to be taken."
Her head nodded. "We have to go back tonight."
"The house will be ready by tomorrow morning, so we can stay here and then drive back in the mor--"
"No."
"Scully, I don't think you want to see..." He stopped before he let out the truth of what he had done to the house himself. She had already put herself through enough torture.
"It's not that." Upon seeing his confusion, she continued, "I'm not going back to that house."
Illogical fear gripped him and her name came out in a gasp of confusion. Hadn't she just...?
Securing his hand in hers, she quickly amended, "That's one of the things I wanted to talk to you about. Do you remember when you told me the darkness finds us?" He nodded for her to continue. "Those words have haunted me since the morning you spoke them," she sighed, her eyes closing briefly as she shook her head. "And, I think I'm finally tired of trying to escape it."
"And the house...?"
"While I was gone," she continued, seemingly avoiding Mulder's question. "I thought a lot about that. And it seems, no matter what we try to do to keep ourselves 'safe', there's no way to escape the past. I've been kidding myself for a long time that I was independently working towards finding the truth. Because the one truth I know is the one I've been foolishly and obsessively denying for a long time."
"Scully, listen, I'm not sure what you are referring to but I know I don't need to remind you what the amount of psychological turmoil you've been under can do to a person and--"
"I want to find William, Mulder."
THE END
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Corrigenda is a Latin phrase meaning “things to be corrected” and is a title I chose because I knew how this would need to end. I apologize for posting such a short section/ending after such a long hiatus, but I wanted to stay true to the spirit of the show and that, for me, meant less inner-character dwelling and more truth-searching (no matter how maddening that was for me as a shipper). I know there will probably be flames or people upset (whether they voice it or not) that I didn't go more into Scully's healing process, but I mean good gosh the character was kidnapped, beaten, given cancer, infertility, then a child only to feel forced into giving him up and did the next episodes ever deal with her pain? Yeah, I think you ALL know the answer to THAT one ;) So to all of you guys who have stuck around to the end, you have my eternal gratitude for all the support. I hope some of you got a little bit of satisfaction from the ending. Feedback of any nature is, of course, welcome.
GENRE: WIP, MSR, A, Post-IWTB
SUMMARY: see part I
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Corrigenda is a Latin phrase meaning “things to be corrected";
sorry for all the grammatical errors, I am posting this as fast as I write it
so there is ZERO editing done...consider yourself warned! :) This is the end of the journey, folks. Poorly written as usual but I am hoping not to leave a bitter taste in your mouths ;) THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR STILL READING!!!
Thursday, April 17, 2008
3:21pm
"Who were you talking to?" Scully asked as Mulder slunk through the door frame, closing the door to the bedroom and facing her with an expression that struck her as too-blank. The heavy sigh, affirmed her suspicions. "Skinner?"
"Yeah," he answered, hesitant on how much he should add.
"You asked him to put the house back in order--"
He did a double-take as he sat across the room from her in the easy chair. "How did you--"
"Sixteen years together. And, I'm not mad." Mulder's eyebrows wrinkled together. "That you weren't going to tell me."
"Scully--"
"I told you I'm not mad. You were just..." Her words caught in her throat, and she swallowed painfully in an attempt to clear it. All that time over the last week to think about Mulder and what he went through was replaying at four times normal speed. What was his reaction to the letter? Did he, for a second, believe the lie? Had he shown it to anyone else? Did he find the necklace first? How did he track her down? Even with the German clue she had given...why did he come back after she told him to go?
She suddenly had trouble breathing.
"How did you do it?"
"How did I do what?" Mulder's voice was barely a whisper, his face so close that it blew the wisps of hairs that had fallen in front of her eyes. So overcome by her thoughts, she had not even noticed his panicked reaction to her own anxiety.
Scully forced herself to stare into his eyes and the emotions that overwhelmed her as she did were many years old. She could feel the tears burning as she looked at the man who had gone, literally, to the ends of the world for her. And she for him: this man who had given her life purpose and direction. This man who had given her a child. This man who had shown her the true meaning of forgiveness and everlasting love.
Her voice squeaked as she ignored his question, trying instead to convey everything she felt in one statement, "I love you...a lot." Scully's lower lip trembled, her chin quivered. She huffed a laugh. "Can you understand how much?"
Mulder's lips curled into a half-smile. "Can you?"
She nodded. "I think I'm beginning to, yeah."
"Good. Because...Jesus, we've been through a lot, but..." The psychologist in him screamed at him to stop realizing he was about to release his anxieties on her. That's the last thing she needs right now, he told himself.
"But this feels worse somehow," she finished for him.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to--"
"No...don't." Her hand moved without conscious thought to his knee, and her eyes followed. Even through the layer of denim she could feel the warmth that radiated from his body, the muscles taught from surprise or just overall tension from the last few days. "I know that I'm not usually so verbose when it comes to what you mean to me, Mulder, but...but after..."
His stare moved from the fingers grasping his leg to Scully's face, seeing the pain and remembrance in her eyes even as she avoided his. He could see her fighting to come to terms with her attack, and it took everything he had not to run from the room back to Virginia and find a way to get to Patterson. Adrenaline coursed through his body at the idea of vengeance.
"When I thought I might die with you thinking that I was in love with someone else..." The tears that built at the thought choked the rest of her words and, knowing there were no words to convey the sheer agony that one thought had given her during her time away from him, she locked eyes with his.
His silence was a blessing, a jolt of strength that she needed to continue the purging of her demons. Her hands did not shake as she brought them up to take his face between them. The slight stubble of his cheeks was a comfort grown of immeasurable touches over the past fifteen years -- both platonic...and not. Mulder's lips parted just slightly, her name forming there in silence, and she leaned forward just enough to press hers against their heat.
And the kiss deepened. What her tongue couldn't produce in words it did in caresses, moving slowly, deliberately. His air was hers, and hers was his. Several long seconds later, she gently withdrew from his mouth to rest her forehead against his, relishing in the radiance of his breath against her face and the feel of his nose on her cheeks as he raked it back and forth in a hypnotic manner.
"You've known me a long time, Scully," he whispered and then leaned back just enough to look into her eyes. "And in all that time, when have you ever seen me give up on the truth?"
His comeback effectively stripped her of all arguments, as only Mulder had ever been able to do, and her shoulders shook slightly, the tiniest of smiles appearing on her lips.
"I, uh, I didn't know exactly how to bring this up, but..."
She raised an eyebrow at his sudden loss of confidence. "But what, Mulder?"
"When I was on the phone to Skinner...we were also talking about some of the legal actions that need to be taken."
Her head nodded. "We have to go back tonight."
"The house will be ready by tomorrow morning, so we can stay here and then drive back in the mor--"
"No."
"Scully, I don't think you want to see..." He stopped before he let out the truth of what he had done to the house himself. She had already put herself through enough torture.
"It's not that." Upon seeing his confusion, she continued, "I'm not going back to that house."
Illogical fear gripped him and her name came out in a gasp of confusion. Hadn't she just...?
Securing his hand in hers, she quickly amended, "That's one of the things I wanted to talk to you about. Do you remember when you told me the darkness finds us?" He nodded for her to continue. "Those words have haunted me since the morning you spoke them," she sighed, her eyes closing briefly as she shook her head. "And, I think I'm finally tired of trying to escape it."
"And the house...?"
"While I was gone," she continued, seemingly avoiding Mulder's question. "I thought a lot about that. And it seems, no matter what we try to do to keep ourselves 'safe', there's no way to escape the past. I've been kidding myself for a long time that I was independently working towards finding the truth. Because the one truth I know is the one I've been foolishly and obsessively denying for a long time."
"Scully, listen, I'm not sure what you are referring to but I know I don't need to remind you what the amount of psychological turmoil you've been under can do to a person and--"
"I want to find William, Mulder."
THE END
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Corrigenda is a Latin phrase meaning “things to be corrected” and is a title I chose because I knew how this would need to end. I apologize for posting such a short section/ending after such a long hiatus, but I wanted to stay true to the spirit of the show and that, for me, meant less inner-character dwelling and more truth-searching (no matter how maddening that was for me as a shipper). I know there will probably be flames or people upset (whether they voice it or not) that I didn't go more into Scully's healing process, but I mean good gosh the character was kidnapped, beaten, given cancer, infertility, then a child only to feel forced into giving him up and did the next episodes ever deal with her pain? Yeah, I think you ALL know the answer to THAT one ;) So to all of you guys who have stuck around to the end, you have my eternal gratitude for all the support. I hope some of you got a little bit of satisfaction from the ending. Feedback of any nature is, of course, welcome.