Fic: Shouting Into a Hurricane
Title: Shouting Into a Hurricane
Fandom: The X-Files
Author: rachg82
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Mulder/Scully
Word Count: 4,600 words
Spoilers: Oh, yes. This entire thing is simply my speculation based solely on the spoilers that have come out for the upcoming revival. Consider yourselves warned.
Summary: Happily-ever-after sometimes comes with a detour.
Note: As with my previous stories, this piece was written largely in free-verse. Not to be pretentious, but because my brain is a weirdo, basically. Just go with it.
Also, I originally intended for this fic to go on longer than it did. Then I realized that I'd already written its ending, and that what remained would be better suited as a sequel. So hopefully that should be on its way soon-ish.
Before we begin, I'd like to keep with my fic-writing tradition & share a song to set the mood:
("Winter Song," Sara Bareilles & Ingrid Michaelson)
All right, everyone ready? Aaaaaand we're off!
---
Jan. 27th, 2016
"Check it out, Scully. You actually have a desk now.
Think we should christen it?"
Mulder's voice was flat, embittered --
a mere echo of the playfully sardonic man she once knew.
He'd changed, his spirit dimmed.
Then again, she'd changed too.
(She kept telling herself it was for the best, the way things were,
but those words were beginning to feel fruitless & absurd,
like shouting into a hurricane.
His presence in her life had always been a force of nature.)
Still, she arched a single brow at him, outwardly impassive --
a professional stoic with decades of experience.
Too soon, Mulder.
Truthfully, she'd been hopelessly adrift
ever since she first saw his familiar, damnably beloved face
several days earlier.
Her heart had contracted violently as if it might burst,
leaping excitedly, yet anxiously out of her chest.
When she met his eyes, it had felt an awful lot like falling.
Down, down, down --
past the floating clocks & their suspended time,
landing solidly in Wonderland.
He'd looked homesick & desperate more than anything else,
pleading his case to her with measured breaths & a heady gaze --
all the planets in the solar system
aligning beside them;
distant, fading stars genuflecting in their wake.
She hadn't forgotten how it felt
to be on the receiving end of his laser-like focus.
The rest of the world disappeared.
It was part of what drew her to him in the first place
& part of what eventually drove her away.
It's why she already knew she couldn't deny him again.
It had been so long, in reality, but suddenly
it felt like no time at all had passed.
That said, she wasn't going to let him throw her off even further.
They weren't there yet.
But they were on their way, weren't they?
(Well, weren't they?)
...She didn't know how to answer that question.
***
Dec. 22nd, 2012
"The world didn't end."
Mulder spun around slowly in his chair to face her, his expression grim --
a would-be Spartan with blazing eyes,
waging a quixotic kamikaze campaign as only he could.
When was the last time he'd even shaved?
"That's what they want you to think, Scully."
She could see his jaw clenching, his throat working each word out
with frustrated purpose.
"They want the public complacent & distracted.
More than ever, I need you to trust me on this: the end has only just begun.
We can't afford to let them pull the wool over our eyes here.
There's not enough time."
She shook her head, lovesick & weary beyond measure.
She felt like they'd had this same conversation so many times now;
it was like that bank explosion all over again.
But she had to give it one more shot. Maybe if she just...
Scully took one step closer & felt the chasm between them expand.
"Time for what, Mulder? To save the world?
You're not Atlas; you're not God. Look at yourself.
Do you really think we have that type of omnipotent power anymore,
after everything that's happened? After all we've been through?
Why can't today be enough? Why can't this, us, be enough?
For years now we've been doggedly chasing the unknown,
the past or the future; what about the present?
It's passing you by--it's passing *me* by--and you don't even notice."
She sighed, waving a hand halfheartedly in the air
like a shrug that had lost all will to go on,
soft eyes glassy with unshed tears.
"I'm drowning in the darkness, Mulder. I can't see my way to the shore anymore.
What kind of life are you hoping to save for yourself? For me? For us?"
He remained silent for a moment,
trying to locate the hidden words that would somehow make it all right.
He couldn't. "You're acting as if I have a fair choice. That it's you or the truth."
"But you do have a choice, Mulder, and you're making the wrong one.
I can't do this anymore. Can you?"
"What exactly are you saying?"
She drew in a hitched breath,
trying & failing to maintain some semblance of emotional equilibrium.
It felt as if the room were contorting into itself, walls closing in on them both.
"I'm saying I think we need some time apart."
There it was -- no turning back. Mulder closed his eyes for several seconds,
then finally spoke. "And here I thought you said the world hadn't ended."
***
July 7th, 2008
Despite Scully's weak protests (how could she deny him anything in that suit?),
Mulder had made a big production
out of carrying her over the threshold.
"Mulderrr," she'd insisted; "you'll throw out your back!"
He gave her an affectionate wink. "It's tradition, Scully.
Also, you weigh about a buck-ten.
I could bench-press you with my left pinky if I wanted to."
She feigned a frown, quite accustomed to playing this particular game.
(I wasn't sure your little feet could reach the pedals...)
"You're ridiculous."
He leaned down for a lingering kiss before lowering her to the ground.
"Your face is ridiculous," he rejoined. She rolled her eyes.
Fake annoyance aside, this banter was a welcome reprieve
from the teeth-grinding tension they'd been experiencing more & more as of late.
They'd struggled to remain on the same page during the case itself,
but afterward they'd somehow felt closer than ever before.
No more fake names,
no more hiding.
They were back
as Mulder & Scully
and could sing it from the mountaintops
if they so desired.
Not that she would,
obviously;
she couldn't carry a tune to save her life.
But she felt freer than she had in years.
It was with this mindset that she admitted to Mulder
in bed, one night,
that she didn't want to stop calling him her husband.
It had been a marriage on paper only,
technically speaking,
but the truth went beyond that.
They'd discussed the idea very maturely,
listing all the pros & cons of a legal union,
but in the end,
pure devotion won out.
Not the kind that never goes to bed angry,
but the kind that still remains in full force
after a week spent sleeping on the couch.
They'd both stopped trying to quantify their feelings years ago.
They were soul-mates,
through & through.
It was as simple
and complex as that.
It wasn't a well-planned ordeal.
Scully insisted in her typical rational way
that City Hall would more than suffice.
Her rebellious nature took over when it came time to pick a dress though --
pale blue to match her eyes,
but she did carry a bouquet of white flowers as a proper nod
to decorum.
Her mother would expect pictures, after all.
She remembered how grateful he'd looked,
like he'd been wandering in the desert for a lifetime,
and she'd stopped to offer him a glass of water.
"You realize you're mine now," he'd informed her afterward,
his full bottom lip curled into a smirk.
"That's very territorial of you," she'd observed,
eyes lowered coyly & hands
playing possessively with his tie.
His smirk widened. "Well, that's nothing new. Anyway, it's only fair.
I've belonged to you ever since I read that crazy Einstein thesis of yours.
You might as well have stamped 'Property of Dana Scully' on my ass."
At this she looked up.
"My thesis was *not* crazy."
Everything had seemed so easy then.
Their spirits were lit like two candles burning bright,
casting out the darkness.
Someone should have warned her
that happy endings don't necessarily
last forever
or make their way across a shared journey
without any detours.
Soul-mates or not,
their love was much more complicated
than a fairy tale.
***
Jan. 20th, 2016
Scully's left hand shifted restlessly on the steering wheel;
she could feel Mulder's eyes sliding back & forth
between her delicate wedding ring & the dark road in front of them,
his intense gaze boring a hole in the side of her face.
He hadn't removed his ring either.
It had been one of the first things she'd noticed
upon seeing him again.
Not that she'd been looking.
They'd been separated for three years now,
but neither had possessed the ability
to even consider filing for divorce.
She tried not to look at that too deeply;
it meant too much
and carried far too much
heavy weight.
She couldn't risk sinking into the ocean with him again,
not after all the time it had taken her
to reach the surface.
(Could she?)
She may only have been treading water without him,
aimless in her direction except when moving slowly
towards an aching, hollow
horizon,
but at least she felt like she could breathe.
It was a sense of safety that smothered her inner fire
and stripped her days of all highs & lows,
but there was a traitorous feeling of peace
which numbness could provide.
And there was healing to be had;
that fact could not be overstated.
Somewhere along the way, she'd lost her capability
to exist outside of his emotions --
to step outside the maelstrom
of her own trauma & grief.
Once on her own, back in D.C.,
she'd rediscovered the precise way the light fell on her face
when she stopped fighting the future
& reliving the past,
and allowed herself the luxury
of breathing in the moment.
Sometimes, the present
could be a gift.
How had she forgotten?
It wasn't what she wanted,
no,
but it is
what she needed.
Anyway, analyzing their convoluted relationship could sometimes feel
like staring wide-eyed into the sun --
majestic, but blinding.
Perhaps it was best to simply let sleeping dogs lie.
These were the things she would tell herself.
(Her heart knew better, of course.
It was well-versed in playing the long game.
It worked covertly
like a secret agent,
planting seeds of truth amongst tangled vines
of overgrown doubt and
miscommunication.)
It's not that she doubted her love for him,
nor his for her.
That would be more outlandish
than if she were to agree to pose nude
with the real-life Bigfoot.
It was more so that she didn't know anymore
how to erase the towering wall
that had been drawn between them.
It had grown insidiously,
inch by inch,
as she'd watched her husband
dive deeper & faster into the government's
black sea of lies.
He'd tried to put it all in the past.
He really had.
But they'd taken his sister.
They'd taken his father.
They'd taken his son.
They'd taken their lives.
He couldn't quit now;
he couldn't let go,
not even for a second.
If he did,
it would all be meaningless.
They would win.
The men who'd violated his wife,
who'd shot her sister,
who'd buried him
six feet
beneath the dirt.
He couldn't let that happen again.
Not to them,
not to anyone.
But it came at a cost.
His eyes began to lose their spark;
his words grew acerbic & morose,
his affect obsessive & oblivious.
He knew he was slowly losing
the one person he needed most,
and he couldn't force himself
to do anything about it.
How could he ever look his son in the eyes
if he one day did find him
standing atop the wreckage of all their broken dreams,
and explain why he'd given up
& surrendered
his child's unwritten future for a few years' worth
of domestic bliss?
He was still his father.
It was still his job
to protect him.
Scully knew all this,
but she also knew in her gut,
and believed in her heart,
that the game he was playing
had been rigged from the start.
She no longer had the reserves of strength
to trudge alongside him through endless puddles of muddy quicksand;
to play the eager, non-jaded Watson to his bitter Sherlock --
not when the effort seemed hopeless in every way.
She'd noticed his deepening signs of depression,
but she couldn't lift him out of that hole, as hard as she tried;
unbearably,
she'd been hanging off the side of her very own cliff.
Both were dangling above an abyss.
This time,
she couldn't save him.
She had to save herself.
She never did say goodbye.
Neither greetings nor fare thee wells
had ever really been their thing.
It had always been Mulder, it's me
or the gentle click of a steady line hanging up
on the other end.
She didn't want it to be goodbye in the first place;
she wanted it to be, "I'll see you later."
She couldn't bear the thought
that this separation would be for good.
As far as she could see, there was nothing good to be said about it.
And so, when she'd left,
only two days before Christmas,
she'd merely locked eyes with him
and let her face do the talking.
So much was left unsaid.
She remembered how he'd sat on the edge of their bed,
back hunched over in the shape of a parabola,
his devastated face buried miserably in his hands.
He'd somehow sensed her approach from behind
and lifted her final suitcase to hand it over
without looking up,
a consummate gentleman.
"I hope you find what you're looking for," he'd murmured.
She'd swallowed her tears one by one,
replying, "You too."
It was the most she could manage.
He finally made eye contact then, irises stormy & gray,
his voice strong & reassuring
despite the fact
that his entire known world was crashing down around their ears.
"That door will always be open to you --
you know that, right?"
Scully nodded. "I can't make any promises, but..."
She trailed off, unable to go on.
Her feelings refused to be boxed in by sentences & punctuation marks.
They drifted around the room, instead,
stopping at the bed, the lamp, the nightstand --
all their shared spaces,
now subtracted by one.
He was so, so angry
when it came right down to it--
at her, at himself, at the universe--
but it was an impotent rage.
He understood why she was leaving;
he couldn't truly blame her.
He'd already forgiven her,
as frustrated & heartbroken as he was.
It's what the most insecure part of him had expected
from the very beginning.
And so before she'd departed,
he'd opened his arms to her in a long embrace,
silently letting her know
that she could in fact always go home again.
It's just that her home
and his
weren't the same thing
anymore.
He had no way of knowing
if they ever would be again.
It took him weeks after she left
to so much as step one foot in the shower --
months before he gave in & removed the barren pine tree
from their former living room.
There wasn't much living
to be found in that room anymore.
They say life goes on,
but his never really did.
(How to floss
and do normal things
when nothing whatsoever was normal?)
He dutifully went through the motions, determined to carry on,
but inside he felt like a wind-up toy
marching back & forth upon a dusty shelf,
abandoned & obsolete.
New wrinkles seemed to appear around his mouth
every time he caught a glimpse of himself in the bathroom mirror.
He tried not to look, but there they were:
frown lines reminding him all too well
that he had nothing to smile about.
Each night,
the vacant pillow next to his
haunted him, questioned him.
Was he on the right path, after all?
Did it even matter anymore?
His arms still reached for her, ached for her,
every morning --
the rising arc of the sun doing a fine imitation
of the gentle, warm curve
of her conspicuously absent hip.
Now here she was again,
sitting next to him in a car like she'd never left,
driving into the unforeseen -- always driving,
as she'd once complained,
past the twinkling lights of the murky multitude
of tired souls coming home to their loved ones,
unaware of the dangers lurking all around them.
The matter at hand was deceptively difficult:
how to put Humpty Dumpty back together again?
They'd always relied on a certain unspoken communication,
but now that fact was biting them in the ass.
There were so many things
that needed to be said,
but he had no clue where to begin.
"I've missed you. I need you.
I'm sorry I stopped taking the time
to see you
as you really were,"
seemed woefully inadequate.
She was still so painfully beautiful,
a seamless sculpture of porcelain and steel.
Thinner now, yes,
but still soft at the edges --
crisp & regal, yet hot & vulnerable at the core.
He couldn't stop staring. That mouth of hers...
Jesus. The things she still did to him
after all these years.
He was afraid if he blinked, she might disappear.
He knew her heart still trembled when he stepped too close.
His own felt not unlike an ancient engine
sputtering back to life.
It was as if he'd come back from the dead all over again.
He'd been alone for so long.
He had to actually work
at approximating the correct facial expressions
and mannerisms of a casual social being.
Nothing felt casual anymore.
He'd felt frozen to the touch since the day she left,
his passion running along icy tracks,
now rapidly melting in the powerful glow
of her petite presence.
He couldn't run fast enough to escape the rushing floodwater
she'd unleashed.
(He was gonna need a bigger boat.)
***
Feb. 3rd, 2016
Scully hesitated at the front door to their office.
Mulder was standing with his back to her,
facing the new poster she'd left hanging on the wall for him.
I Want To Believe
She cleared her throat, gently announcing her arrival,
and he quickly turned around,
offering a shy, sheepish smile.
"I can't believe you found one of these still floating around out there for sale."
She stepped further into the room,
sensing an invisible force guiding them together
as if their bodies were composed of two opposing magnetic poles.
(She should've known they were inevitable -- they always had been.
The laws of physics never lie.)
"I have my ways," she replied, enigmatically.
He sucked in his lower lip, biting it briefly
before releasing it with a sigh.
It sounded like he'd been holding that breath in for years.
Maybe he had.
"You still sure about this, Scully?"
She tilted her head to one side, questioningly.
"Are you ever going to stop asking me that?"
He shook his head in the negative & laughed.
It was a gorgeous sound after the week they'd had --
hell, the past three hundred weeks.
"Probably not for a while, no." He paused, then continued.
"You know, even once you were my wife, I actually missed calling you my partner."
She took his hand, now standing merely an arm's length apart.
"I'll always be your partner."
She had her answer.
(They were on their way)
***
Feb. 1st, 2016
Scully had known it was bad news
before she even picked up the phone.
No one called at 3 a.m. for small talk.
Some stranger had knocked her frail, elderly mother's head in,
and she'd been brought to the ICU for observation.
Undoubtedly, the assault had been anything but random.
This was her fault.
This was the price one paid for uncovering truths
that the rich & powerful had already laid claim to.
She'd never seen her mom look so small as she did now,
lying in that enormous, sterile bed with tangled cords & a gaping gown
that was at least two sizes too big.
It took her eight hours to first open her eyes,
and from that point on, she weaved in & out of consciousness
unpredictably & at inopportune times -- sometimes for an hour,
sometimes for five minutes,
sometimes fading away without a hint of warning
& leaving her daughter talking reassuringly to herself.
She was going to be okay;
Scully knew that, but that didn't
make it
okay.
Was all this really worth it?
Was she making a mistake
taking Mulder's side once more?
It didn't feel like a mistake,
but here they were, regardless.
She'd told Mulder that she didn't feel
as though they had a choice anymore
whether to bury their heads in the sand,
but hadn't she once been convinced of the exact opposite?
Was she just making excuses?
If it wasn't her mom,
would it simply be somebody else lying in that bed?
Some other victim without a voice?
Maybe trying to avoid pain
would only invite more of it.
Lost in thought, she failed to notice her mom's eyes opening again
until she felt her soft, weathered hand tightly gripping her own.
"Dana," her mom mumbled. "You're still here? Where's Fox?"
She gripped her hand back, clasping it between both of her own;
she could have lost her --
the woman who'd raised her, cared for her,
who always kept the lights on for her.
It was inconceivable that the Earth should continue to orbit
without her standing somewhere on it.
"I told him to go get some sleep," she answered.
Maggie gave her an inquisitive look, her bleary eyes suddenly clear as day.
"And what about you? Don't you need sleep?"
Scully found herself staring down at their joined fingers. "I'm fine."
It might as well be her motto in life:
forever fine.
There weren't many people who could successfully crack that facade.
Mulder was one of them,
her mother another.
"You should've gone with him."
She was right, but it wasn't that simple. How could she explain?
She decided to go with the obvious route --
denial.
"We aren't together anymore, Mom. You know that."
There was that face again. "Aren't you though?
I didn't see any other men at the foot of my bed today,
bringing you coffee & reminding you to eat.
I have eyes, Dana. I can see the way you two still look at one another,
especially when you think the other isn't paying attention."
Scully brushed a stray hair behind her ear, feeling oddly self-conscious.
"I asked him here as a friend."
Her mother scoffed, not unkindly.
"If you two are just friends, then Bill Jr.
is the next president of the United States of America.
He'd better call Hillary and let her know."
She exhaled on a laugh. "He would like that, wouldn't he?
His first order of business would be sending Mulder straight to Gitmo."
Making jokes was always a good way to change the subject,
but her mother wasn't taking the bait.
"Don't you think it's been enough time, Dana? He loves you,
and I know you love him."
She withdrew her hands, wiping them on her slacks, restless & agitated.
(When had her palms started sweating?)
Her head leaned back of its own accord,
eyes drifting briefly to the ceiling,
not sure who she was really talking to anymore.
"Of course I do. I never stopped loving him.
The question is, is that enough?"
In their time apart, Scully had learned again
how to crawl, how to walk.
She'd regained her balance
and found her way back to the middle --
back to who she was at the root,
stable in the stillness
of an anchored soul
whether the wind tossed her to
or fro.
All that was true.
But what she didn't know
was whether she could still safely cross the high-wires
that loving Mulder entailed.
Working together was one thing.
Living together, loving together, & learning
the nooks & crannies of each others lives all over again
was another.
Her mother gave her an understanding smile,
wan but wise. She too had traversed her own detours in life.
She knew from hard-won experience
that any relationship worth its while
involved far more than a direct route from point A to point B.
"Well, you can't find out unless you try."
That morning, when Scully had gotten the call,
her husband had been the first person whose voice she wanted to hear.
The only person she wanted to see.
Surely, that still had to count for something,
maybe everything.
Ridiculously, sitting there next to her injured mother,
Scully suddenly found herself frantically wanting to touch
her long-lost lover --
to kiss him and remind them both
of what they used to be
and, miraculously,
what she realized with a start
they could still become.
It seemed so obvious in retrospect,
but she knew she wouldn't have been ready for this revelation
any sooner.
Now, it was as if her body had been waiting for permission
to feel,
and all bets were off --
bonfires of raw desire being set alight
across dozens of reawakened nerve endings.
Decisively, she stood up, leaned over
and gave her mom's forehead a short, grateful kiss.
"I've got to go."
***
Feb. 1st, 2016
Mulder sat in his hotel room, distractedly
flipping through the channels on the room's lone TV.
His mind was still back at the hospital,
wondering how his partner,
his wife,
was handling the latest in the string of crises
he'd brought into her life.
He knew it was her choice
whether to join his crusade once again,
but he couldn't help feeling responsible
for the consequences of her decision.
Maybe he never should've come back here.
He also knew, however,
that these self-pitying thoughts of martyrdom
meant nothing when faced with the reality
of seeing Dana Scully again --
smelling her,
holding her,
hearing her voice.
He couldn't get that out of his head,
the fact that she'd let him hold her,
standing together in a long, white hallway
outside her mother's room.
Her head still fit just right
tucked beneath his chin.
Their bodies seemed so incongruous when viewed apart,
but they fit together like interlocking puzzle pieces.
Simply put, they were meant to be.
He knew this to be true,
and yet
there was still this looming silence
that stretched between them now.
It felt like riding a bicycle again,
but one without handlebars.
Long looks & crowded mouths --
too many words to narrow them all down.
He could imagine the stubborn letters colliding into one another
and ricocheting away,
taking with them all courage to act.
He'd wanted to kiss her
so many times
since that first reunion,
but it had to be her move first.
She'd been the one who left;
he'd never closed the door behind her.
It remained wide open.
Pondering this, Mulder almost didn't notice
the knock at his actual door until it was too late.
Scully was already half a step away from fleeing the scene,
her heightened emotions triggering an eruption of insecurity.
She was sure of what she was doing,
but not the how
or when.
Fortunately, he saved them both
by appearing at her feet mid-flight.
For several moments, she merely stood there, staring,
lips parted, struggling to articulate anything & everything
all at once.
"Scully? Is everything okay?"
And just like that, the ice was broken.
She grasped his face in her hands,
leaning up-up-up on her toes,
and kissed him again & again.
Once for every day they'd spent apart.
Twice for every night they'd slept alone.
Three for each of the words they now realized
they didn't need to say.
(I love you)
(I missed you)
(Come on back)
The words could wait.
Now was for bodies colliding,
hands stroking,
and hearts beating.
It had been a long, dark turn in the road,
but they were, at last, homeward bound.
Later,
they would watch the sun rise in the east --
the start of a new day,
facing the dawn
together as one.
Their horizon was plain to see.
---
Fin
Fandom: The X-Files
Author: rachg82
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Mulder/Scully
Word Count: 4,600 words
Spoilers: Oh, yes. This entire thing is simply my speculation based solely on the spoilers that have come out for the upcoming revival. Consider yourselves warned.
Summary: Happily-ever-after sometimes comes with a detour.
Note: As with my previous stories, this piece was written largely in free-verse. Not to be pretentious, but because my brain is a weirdo, basically. Just go with it.
Also, I originally intended for this fic to go on longer than it did. Then I realized that I'd already written its ending, and that what remained would be better suited as a sequel. So hopefully that should be on its way soon-ish.
Before we begin, I'd like to keep with my fic-writing tradition & share a song to set the mood:
Click to view("Winter Song," Sara Bareilles & Ingrid Michaelson)
All right, everyone ready? Aaaaaand we're off!
---
Jan. 27th, 2016
"Check it out, Scully. You actually have a desk now.
Think we should christen it?"
Mulder's voice was flat, embittered --
a mere echo of the playfully sardonic man she once knew.
He'd changed, his spirit dimmed.
Then again, she'd changed too.
(She kept telling herself it was for the best, the way things were,
but those words were beginning to feel fruitless & absurd,
like shouting into a hurricane.
His presence in her life had always been a force of nature.)
Still, she arched a single brow at him, outwardly impassive --
a professional stoic with decades of experience.
Too soon, Mulder.
Truthfully, she'd been hopelessly adrift
ever since she first saw his familiar, damnably beloved face
several days earlier.
Her heart had contracted violently as if it might burst,
leaping excitedly, yet anxiously out of her chest.
When she met his eyes, it had felt an awful lot like falling.
Down, down, down --
past the floating clocks & their suspended time,
landing solidly in Wonderland.
He'd looked homesick & desperate more than anything else,
pleading his case to her with measured breaths & a heady gaze --
all the planets in the solar system
aligning beside them;
distant, fading stars genuflecting in their wake.
She hadn't forgotten how it felt
to be on the receiving end of his laser-like focus.
The rest of the world disappeared.
It was part of what drew her to him in the first place
& part of what eventually drove her away.
It's why she already knew she couldn't deny him again.
It had been so long, in reality, but suddenly
it felt like no time at all had passed.
That said, she wasn't going to let him throw her off even further.
They weren't there yet.
But they were on their way, weren't they?
(Well, weren't they?)
...She didn't know how to answer that question.
***
Dec. 22nd, 2012
"The world didn't end."
Mulder spun around slowly in his chair to face her, his expression grim --
a would-be Spartan with blazing eyes,
waging a quixotic kamikaze campaign as only he could.
When was the last time he'd even shaved?
"That's what they want you to think, Scully."
She could see his jaw clenching, his throat working each word out
with frustrated purpose.
"They want the public complacent & distracted.
More than ever, I need you to trust me on this: the end has only just begun.
We can't afford to let them pull the wool over our eyes here.
There's not enough time."
She shook her head, lovesick & weary beyond measure.
She felt like they'd had this same conversation so many times now;
it was like that bank explosion all over again.
But she had to give it one more shot. Maybe if she just...
Scully took one step closer & felt the chasm between them expand.
"Time for what, Mulder? To save the world?
You're not Atlas; you're not God. Look at yourself.
Do you really think we have that type of omnipotent power anymore,
after everything that's happened? After all we've been through?
Why can't today be enough? Why can't this, us, be enough?
For years now we've been doggedly chasing the unknown,
the past or the future; what about the present?
It's passing you by--it's passing *me* by--and you don't even notice."
She sighed, waving a hand halfheartedly in the air
like a shrug that had lost all will to go on,
soft eyes glassy with unshed tears.
"I'm drowning in the darkness, Mulder. I can't see my way to the shore anymore.
What kind of life are you hoping to save for yourself? For me? For us?"
He remained silent for a moment,
trying to locate the hidden words that would somehow make it all right.
He couldn't. "You're acting as if I have a fair choice. That it's you or the truth."
"But you do have a choice, Mulder, and you're making the wrong one.
I can't do this anymore. Can you?"
"What exactly are you saying?"
She drew in a hitched breath,
trying & failing to maintain some semblance of emotional equilibrium.
It felt as if the room were contorting into itself, walls closing in on them both.
"I'm saying I think we need some time apart."
There it was -- no turning back. Mulder closed his eyes for several seconds,
then finally spoke. "And here I thought you said the world hadn't ended."
***
July 7th, 2008
Despite Scully's weak protests (how could she deny him anything in that suit?),
Mulder had made a big production
out of carrying her over the threshold.
"Mulderrr," she'd insisted; "you'll throw out your back!"
He gave her an affectionate wink. "It's tradition, Scully.
Also, you weigh about a buck-ten.
I could bench-press you with my left pinky if I wanted to."
She feigned a frown, quite accustomed to playing this particular game.
(I wasn't sure your little feet could reach the pedals...)
"You're ridiculous."
He leaned down for a lingering kiss before lowering her to the ground.
"Your face is ridiculous," he rejoined. She rolled her eyes.
Fake annoyance aside, this banter was a welcome reprieve
from the teeth-grinding tension they'd been experiencing more & more as of late.
They'd struggled to remain on the same page during the case itself,
but afterward they'd somehow felt closer than ever before.
No more fake names,
no more hiding.
They were back
as Mulder & Scully
and could sing it from the mountaintops
if they so desired.
Not that she would,
obviously;
she couldn't carry a tune to save her life.
But she felt freer than she had in years.
It was with this mindset that she admitted to Mulder
in bed, one night,
that she didn't want to stop calling him her husband.
It had been a marriage on paper only,
technically speaking,
but the truth went beyond that.
They'd discussed the idea very maturely,
listing all the pros & cons of a legal union,
but in the end,
pure devotion won out.
Not the kind that never goes to bed angry,
but the kind that still remains in full force
after a week spent sleeping on the couch.
They'd both stopped trying to quantify their feelings years ago.
They were soul-mates,
through & through.
It was as simple
and complex as that.
It wasn't a well-planned ordeal.
Scully insisted in her typical rational way
that City Hall would more than suffice.
Her rebellious nature took over when it came time to pick a dress though --
pale blue to match her eyes,
but she did carry a bouquet of white flowers as a proper nod
to decorum.
Her mother would expect pictures, after all.
She remembered how grateful he'd looked,
like he'd been wandering in the desert for a lifetime,
and she'd stopped to offer him a glass of water.
"You realize you're mine now," he'd informed her afterward,
his full bottom lip curled into a smirk.
"That's very territorial of you," she'd observed,
eyes lowered coyly & hands
playing possessively with his tie.
His smirk widened. "Well, that's nothing new. Anyway, it's only fair.
I've belonged to you ever since I read that crazy Einstein thesis of yours.
You might as well have stamped 'Property of Dana Scully' on my ass."
At this she looked up.
"My thesis was *not* crazy."
Everything had seemed so easy then.
Their spirits were lit like two candles burning bright,
casting out the darkness.
Someone should have warned her
that happy endings don't necessarily
last forever
or make their way across a shared journey
without any detours.
Soul-mates or not,
their love was much more complicated
than a fairy tale.
***
Jan. 20th, 2016
Scully's left hand shifted restlessly on the steering wheel;
she could feel Mulder's eyes sliding back & forth
between her delicate wedding ring & the dark road in front of them,
his intense gaze boring a hole in the side of her face.
He hadn't removed his ring either.
It had been one of the first things she'd noticed
upon seeing him again.
Not that she'd been looking.
They'd been separated for three years now,
but neither had possessed the ability
to even consider filing for divorce.
She tried not to look at that too deeply;
it meant too much
and carried far too much
heavy weight.
She couldn't risk sinking into the ocean with him again,
not after all the time it had taken her
to reach the surface.
(Could she?)
She may only have been treading water without him,
aimless in her direction except when moving slowly
towards an aching, hollow
horizon,
but at least she felt like she could breathe.
It was a sense of safety that smothered her inner fire
and stripped her days of all highs & lows,
but there was a traitorous feeling of peace
which numbness could provide.
And there was healing to be had;
that fact could not be overstated.
Somewhere along the way, she'd lost her capability
to exist outside of his emotions --
to step outside the maelstrom
of her own trauma & grief.
Once on her own, back in D.C.,
she'd rediscovered the precise way the light fell on her face
when she stopped fighting the future
& reliving the past,
and allowed herself the luxury
of breathing in the moment.
Sometimes, the present
could be a gift.
How had she forgotten?
It wasn't what she wanted,
no,
but it is
what she needed.
Anyway, analyzing their convoluted relationship could sometimes feel
like staring wide-eyed into the sun --
majestic, but blinding.
Perhaps it was best to simply let sleeping dogs lie.
These were the things she would tell herself.
(Her heart knew better, of course.
It was well-versed in playing the long game.
It worked covertly
like a secret agent,
planting seeds of truth amongst tangled vines
of overgrown doubt and
miscommunication.)
It's not that she doubted her love for him,
nor his for her.
That would be more outlandish
than if she were to agree to pose nude
with the real-life Bigfoot.
It was more so that she didn't know anymore
how to erase the towering wall
that had been drawn between them.
It had grown insidiously,
inch by inch,
as she'd watched her husband
dive deeper & faster into the government's
black sea of lies.
He'd tried to put it all in the past.
He really had.
But they'd taken his sister.
They'd taken his father.
They'd taken his son.
They'd taken their lives.
He couldn't quit now;
he couldn't let go,
not even for a second.
If he did,
it would all be meaningless.
They would win.
The men who'd violated his wife,
who'd shot her sister,
who'd buried him
six feet
beneath the dirt.
He couldn't let that happen again.
Not to them,
not to anyone.
But it came at a cost.
His eyes began to lose their spark;
his words grew acerbic & morose,
his affect obsessive & oblivious.
He knew he was slowly losing
the one person he needed most,
and he couldn't force himself
to do anything about it.
How could he ever look his son in the eyes
if he one day did find him
standing atop the wreckage of all their broken dreams,
and explain why he'd given up
& surrendered
his child's unwritten future for a few years' worth
of domestic bliss?
He was still his father.
It was still his job
to protect him.
Scully knew all this,
but she also knew in her gut,
and believed in her heart,
that the game he was playing
had been rigged from the start.
She no longer had the reserves of strength
to trudge alongside him through endless puddles of muddy quicksand;
to play the eager, non-jaded Watson to his bitter Sherlock --
not when the effort seemed hopeless in every way.
She'd noticed his deepening signs of depression,
but she couldn't lift him out of that hole, as hard as she tried;
unbearably,
she'd been hanging off the side of her very own cliff.
Both were dangling above an abyss.
This time,
she couldn't save him.
She had to save herself.
She never did say goodbye.
Neither greetings nor fare thee wells
had ever really been their thing.
It had always been Mulder, it's me
or the gentle click of a steady line hanging up
on the other end.
She didn't want it to be goodbye in the first place;
she wanted it to be, "I'll see you later."
She couldn't bear the thought
that this separation would be for good.
As far as she could see, there was nothing good to be said about it.
And so, when she'd left,
only two days before Christmas,
she'd merely locked eyes with him
and let her face do the talking.
So much was left unsaid.
She remembered how he'd sat on the edge of their bed,
back hunched over in the shape of a parabola,
his devastated face buried miserably in his hands.
He'd somehow sensed her approach from behind
and lifted her final suitcase to hand it over
without looking up,
a consummate gentleman.
"I hope you find what you're looking for," he'd murmured.
She'd swallowed her tears one by one,
replying, "You too."
It was the most she could manage.
He finally made eye contact then, irises stormy & gray,
his voice strong & reassuring
despite the fact
that his entire known world was crashing down around their ears.
"That door will always be open to you --
you know that, right?"
Scully nodded. "I can't make any promises, but..."
She trailed off, unable to go on.
Her feelings refused to be boxed in by sentences & punctuation marks.
They drifted around the room, instead,
stopping at the bed, the lamp, the nightstand --
all their shared spaces,
now subtracted by one.
He was so, so angry
when it came right down to it--
at her, at himself, at the universe--
but it was an impotent rage.
He understood why she was leaving;
he couldn't truly blame her.
He'd already forgiven her,
as frustrated & heartbroken as he was.
It's what the most insecure part of him had expected
from the very beginning.
And so before she'd departed,
he'd opened his arms to her in a long embrace,
silently letting her know
that she could in fact always go home again.
It's just that her home
and his
weren't the same thing
anymore.
He had no way of knowing
if they ever would be again.
It took him weeks after she left
to so much as step one foot in the shower --
months before he gave in & removed the barren pine tree
from their former living room.
There wasn't much living
to be found in that room anymore.
They say life goes on,
but his never really did.
(How to floss
and do normal things
when nothing whatsoever was normal?)
He dutifully went through the motions, determined to carry on,
but inside he felt like a wind-up toy
marching back & forth upon a dusty shelf,
abandoned & obsolete.
New wrinkles seemed to appear around his mouth
every time he caught a glimpse of himself in the bathroom mirror.
He tried not to look, but there they were:
frown lines reminding him all too well
that he had nothing to smile about.
Each night,
the vacant pillow next to his
haunted him, questioned him.
Was he on the right path, after all?
Did it even matter anymore?
His arms still reached for her, ached for her,
every morning --
the rising arc of the sun doing a fine imitation
of the gentle, warm curve
of her conspicuously absent hip.
Now here she was again,
sitting next to him in a car like she'd never left,
driving into the unforeseen -- always driving,
as she'd once complained,
past the twinkling lights of the murky multitude
of tired souls coming home to their loved ones,
unaware of the dangers lurking all around them.
The matter at hand was deceptively difficult:
how to put Humpty Dumpty back together again?
They'd always relied on a certain unspoken communication,
but now that fact was biting them in the ass.
There were so many things
that needed to be said,
but he had no clue where to begin.
"I've missed you. I need you.
I'm sorry I stopped taking the time
to see you
as you really were,"
seemed woefully inadequate.
She was still so painfully beautiful,
a seamless sculpture of porcelain and steel.
Thinner now, yes,
but still soft at the edges --
crisp & regal, yet hot & vulnerable at the core.
He couldn't stop staring. That mouth of hers...
Jesus. The things she still did to him
after all these years.
He was afraid if he blinked, she might disappear.
He knew her heart still trembled when he stepped too close.
His own felt not unlike an ancient engine
sputtering back to life.
It was as if he'd come back from the dead all over again.
He'd been alone for so long.
He had to actually work
at approximating the correct facial expressions
and mannerisms of a casual social being.
Nothing felt casual anymore.
He'd felt frozen to the touch since the day she left,
his passion running along icy tracks,
now rapidly melting in the powerful glow
of her petite presence.
He couldn't run fast enough to escape the rushing floodwater
she'd unleashed.
(He was gonna need a bigger boat.)
***
Feb. 3rd, 2016
Scully hesitated at the front door to their office.
Mulder was standing with his back to her,
facing the new poster she'd left hanging on the wall for him.
I Want To Believe
She cleared her throat, gently announcing her arrival,
and he quickly turned around,
offering a shy, sheepish smile.
"I can't believe you found one of these still floating around out there for sale."
She stepped further into the room,
sensing an invisible force guiding them together
as if their bodies were composed of two opposing magnetic poles.
(She should've known they were inevitable -- they always had been.
The laws of physics never lie.)
"I have my ways," she replied, enigmatically.
He sucked in his lower lip, biting it briefly
before releasing it with a sigh.
It sounded like he'd been holding that breath in for years.
Maybe he had.
"You still sure about this, Scully?"
She tilted her head to one side, questioningly.
"Are you ever going to stop asking me that?"
He shook his head in the negative & laughed.
It was a gorgeous sound after the week they'd had --
hell, the past three hundred weeks.
"Probably not for a while, no." He paused, then continued.
"You know, even once you were my wife, I actually missed calling you my partner."
She took his hand, now standing merely an arm's length apart.
"I'll always be your partner."
She had her answer.
(They were on their way)
***
Feb. 1st, 2016
Scully had known it was bad news
before she even picked up the phone.
No one called at 3 a.m. for small talk.
Some stranger had knocked her frail, elderly mother's head in,
and she'd been brought to the ICU for observation.
Undoubtedly, the assault had been anything but random.
This was her fault.
This was the price one paid for uncovering truths
that the rich & powerful had already laid claim to.
She'd never seen her mom look so small as she did now,
lying in that enormous, sterile bed with tangled cords & a gaping gown
that was at least two sizes too big.
It took her eight hours to first open her eyes,
and from that point on, she weaved in & out of consciousness
unpredictably & at inopportune times -- sometimes for an hour,
sometimes for five minutes,
sometimes fading away without a hint of warning
& leaving her daughter talking reassuringly to herself.
She was going to be okay;
Scully knew that, but that didn't
make it
okay.
Was all this really worth it?
Was she making a mistake
taking Mulder's side once more?
It didn't feel like a mistake,
but here they were, regardless.
She'd told Mulder that she didn't feel
as though they had a choice anymore
whether to bury their heads in the sand,
but hadn't she once been convinced of the exact opposite?
Was she just making excuses?
If it wasn't her mom,
would it simply be somebody else lying in that bed?
Some other victim without a voice?
Maybe trying to avoid pain
would only invite more of it.
Lost in thought, she failed to notice her mom's eyes opening again
until she felt her soft, weathered hand tightly gripping her own.
"Dana," her mom mumbled. "You're still here? Where's Fox?"
She gripped her hand back, clasping it between both of her own;
she could have lost her --
the woman who'd raised her, cared for her,
who always kept the lights on for her.
It was inconceivable that the Earth should continue to orbit
without her standing somewhere on it.
"I told him to go get some sleep," she answered.
Maggie gave her an inquisitive look, her bleary eyes suddenly clear as day.
"And what about you? Don't you need sleep?"
Scully found herself staring down at their joined fingers. "I'm fine."
It might as well be her motto in life:
forever fine.
There weren't many people who could successfully crack that facade.
Mulder was one of them,
her mother another.
"You should've gone with him."
She was right, but it wasn't that simple. How could she explain?
She decided to go with the obvious route --
denial.
"We aren't together anymore, Mom. You know that."
There was that face again. "Aren't you though?
I didn't see any other men at the foot of my bed today,
bringing you coffee & reminding you to eat.
I have eyes, Dana. I can see the way you two still look at one another,
especially when you think the other isn't paying attention."
Scully brushed a stray hair behind her ear, feeling oddly self-conscious.
"I asked him here as a friend."
Her mother scoffed, not unkindly.
"If you two are just friends, then Bill Jr.
is the next president of the United States of America.
He'd better call Hillary and let her know."
She exhaled on a laugh. "He would like that, wouldn't he?
His first order of business would be sending Mulder straight to Gitmo."
Making jokes was always a good way to change the subject,
but her mother wasn't taking the bait.
"Don't you think it's been enough time, Dana? He loves you,
and I know you love him."
She withdrew her hands, wiping them on her slacks, restless & agitated.
(When had her palms started sweating?)
Her head leaned back of its own accord,
eyes drifting briefly to the ceiling,
not sure who she was really talking to anymore.
"Of course I do. I never stopped loving him.
The question is, is that enough?"
In their time apart, Scully had learned again
how to crawl, how to walk.
She'd regained her balance
and found her way back to the middle --
back to who she was at the root,
stable in the stillness
of an anchored soul
whether the wind tossed her to
or fro.
All that was true.
But what she didn't know
was whether she could still safely cross the high-wires
that loving Mulder entailed.
Working together was one thing.
Living together, loving together, & learning
the nooks & crannies of each others lives all over again
was another.
Her mother gave her an understanding smile,
wan but wise. She too had traversed her own detours in life.
She knew from hard-won experience
that any relationship worth its while
involved far more than a direct route from point A to point B.
"Well, you can't find out unless you try."
That morning, when Scully had gotten the call,
her husband had been the first person whose voice she wanted to hear.
The only person she wanted to see.
Surely, that still had to count for something,
maybe everything.
Ridiculously, sitting there next to her injured mother,
Scully suddenly found herself frantically wanting to touch
her long-lost lover --
to kiss him and remind them both
of what they used to be
and, miraculously,
what she realized with a start
they could still become.
It seemed so obvious in retrospect,
but she knew she wouldn't have been ready for this revelation
any sooner.
Now, it was as if her body had been waiting for permission
to feel,
and all bets were off --
bonfires of raw desire being set alight
across dozens of reawakened nerve endings.
Decisively, she stood up, leaned over
and gave her mom's forehead a short, grateful kiss.
"I've got to go."
***
Feb. 1st, 2016
Mulder sat in his hotel room, distractedly
flipping through the channels on the room's lone TV.
His mind was still back at the hospital,
wondering how his partner,
his wife,
was handling the latest in the string of crises
he'd brought into her life.
He knew it was her choice
whether to join his crusade once again,
but he couldn't help feeling responsible
for the consequences of her decision.
Maybe he never should've come back here.
He also knew, however,
that these self-pitying thoughts of martyrdom
meant nothing when faced with the reality
of seeing Dana Scully again --
smelling her,
holding her,
hearing her voice.
He couldn't get that out of his head,
the fact that she'd let him hold her,
standing together in a long, white hallway
outside her mother's room.
Her head still fit just right
tucked beneath his chin.
Their bodies seemed so incongruous when viewed apart,
but they fit together like interlocking puzzle pieces.
Simply put, they were meant to be.
He knew this to be true,
and yet
there was still this looming silence
that stretched between them now.
It felt like riding a bicycle again,
but one without handlebars.
Long looks & crowded mouths --
too many words to narrow them all down.
He could imagine the stubborn letters colliding into one another
and ricocheting away,
taking with them all courage to act.
He'd wanted to kiss her
so many times
since that first reunion,
but it had to be her move first.
She'd been the one who left;
he'd never closed the door behind her.
It remained wide open.
Pondering this, Mulder almost didn't notice
the knock at his actual door until it was too late.
Scully was already half a step away from fleeing the scene,
her heightened emotions triggering an eruption of insecurity.
She was sure of what she was doing,
but not the how
or when.
Fortunately, he saved them both
by appearing at her feet mid-flight.
For several moments, she merely stood there, staring,
lips parted, struggling to articulate anything & everything
all at once.
"Scully? Is everything okay?"
And just like that, the ice was broken.
She grasped his face in her hands,
leaning up-up-up on her toes,
and kissed him again & again.
Once for every day they'd spent apart.
Twice for every night they'd slept alone.
Three for each of the words they now realized
they didn't need to say.
(I love you)
(I missed you)
(Come on back)
The words could wait.
Now was for bodies colliding,
hands stroking,
and hearts beating.
It had been a long, dark turn in the road,
but they were, at last, homeward bound.
Later,
they would watch the sun rise in the east --
the start of a new day,
facing the dawn
together as one.
Their horizon was plain to see.
---
Fin