Stuck in the Basement
Summary: Post-IWTB, pre-revival. How Mulder and Scully's relationship may have ended.
A/N: I used to write a lot of fanfic, but have done hardly any since life got in the way. I never used to write MSR but felt like doing this after re-watching some classic X Files pre-revival. Sorry if it's all a bit rusty. Also please put any mistakes down to baby-brain.
The dinner party was the last straw. The nail in the coffin. Whatever metaphor you want to choose for The End.
Of course, things hadn't been good for a long time. They had started to change around the time of the paedophile priest. Ever since the FBI had decided all was forgiven and dragged him out of the little nest she had built for them in the middle of nowhere. Had pulled him back into the darkness.
After the case was over she saw something in him she hadn't seen for a long time – a fire reignited, a longing for something other than her. She thought, at first, it could be a good thing, that it might encourage him out into the world a little more. She suggested they move, live back in the city now there was no longer a need to hide. He didn't resist, so they went. A new home, a new start, both their names on the mailbox, something finally conventional about their relationship.
For a while she was happy. Or maybe she was too busy to notice she wasn't happy. Busy with the decorator, getting the house just so. Busy at work, trying to prove herself with new colleagues. Busy getting to know her new surroundings – what the quickest route to work was, where the stores she liked were, whether that park or this was best for her morning run.
He was busy too. No longer an anonymous haunter of conspiracy theorist websites and paranormal message boards, suddenly every UFO nut in the country had his email address and wanted his opinion on the strange lights they had seen in the sky. His inbox clogged with accounts of abductions, reports of mutants and monsters, claims of psychic visions and supernatural powers. He devoured every detail he could, took every story seriously, documented and recorded everything, creating his own, new set of x files.
In amongst the lonely and the deluded, the kooks and the crazies who contacted him, there was the occasional genuine request from law enforcement for his expertise. He began to live for these cases, to crave again the feeling of being out there, so close to the truth he had almost lost hope of ever finding.
In the beginning, he tried to share things with her, to tell her case details, ask her opinion, recapture some of the old easy magic between them. But she didn't want to listen. That wasn't her life anymore, she had escaped from the darkness and she didn't want to go back there, to touch it again. She shut him down, shut him out, and the distance between them grew.
He stopped joking about being a kept man, stopped his efforts to make dinners that they ate together by candlelight, giggling over what a terrible cook he was. Instead he ate at his desk, in front of the computer, and she stayed later and later at work, eating cafeteria food out of polystyrene containers in front of piles of medical notes.
He kept odd hours, napping on the couch in his office, and coming to bed only in the early hours of the morning, if at all. They stopped making love. Sometimes they would go for days without exchanging more than two or three words. He started to trawl the Internet for more cases he could consult upon, and would disappear without a word, turning up uninvited in Utah or North Carolina, harassing local cops and generally being a pain in the ass. Sometimes he went too far and she would get a call from Skinner, asking did she know Mulder was in Alabama and people were starting to complain about him? Then she would have to hide her embarrassment (no, she didn't know, all she had was a post-it note, left on his desk, scrawled with the words 'Back in 3 days'), and call him up to order him home like he was a badly behaved teenager and she was his Mom.
Maybe they could have continued like that for years, out of the habit of talking about their feelings, neither of them willing to change, if it hadn't been for the dinner party.
It was an annual thing, hosted by the medical director of her hospital around Christmastime. Attendance for all senior physicians was considered mandatory, and she had managed to miss the last two years. First because she had been on call at work, and second because her Mom had been taken ill suddenly and she had flown down to San Diego to see her. So, when the invitation came, delivered in person by the Director himself on a tour of his domain, she had run out of excuses. She would have gone alone, of course, except however private she tried to keep her personal life, somehow it had seeped out at work that she lived with a man.
"I'm expecting you, Dana," the Director had said, "and bring that gentleman friend of yours. We're all waiting to meet him."
She had no choice. One night she came home from work early, knocked on his office door, and told him about the party. She felt strangely nervous, like she was asking a near stranger on a date. The words came out in a rush, and she held her breath while she waited for a reply.
"Sure," he simply nodded, "I'll be there." Then turned back to his computer screen.
She said nothing more, but when she left the room she felt a small smile grace her face. It had long been a frustration for her, a point of friction between them, that social isolation, no longer a necessity for him, had become a habit. They didn't go places together, didn't see people, didn't have friends. Perhaps, that could change though. One dinner wasn't much, but it was a start.
When the night came, she took more than extra care getting ready. A new dress, a look he wasn't used to seeing on her, more make-up than usual to cover the faint lines that now crisscrossed her face. He'd been away somewhere that day, but he had called to say that he would make it, that he would meet her there, and for a short time she felt hopeful, even excited.
Hope wavered when she arrived at the Director's house. It was huge, a sprawling mansion paid for by lucrative private practice. Every inch screamed extravagance, a conspicuous show of wealth and power that she knew Mulder would hate. The party inside was no different, white-shirted wait staff circulated flutes of champagne on silver trays, while pretentious guests made polite conversation about nothing of any importance. She scanned the room for familiar faces, realizing with a jolt there were few of her work colleagues she knew well, fewer still she cared anything for.
Time ticked by as she hovered self-consciously alone in a corner, holding her full glass in front of her like a shield. His lateness distressed her more and more. If he were here at least they could laugh together about how awful it was, reconnect in the realization that neither of them belonged there. But already dinner was being called and he still hadn't arrived.
She let herself be ushered to the table, smiling awkwardly at the disapproving glance the empty seat next to her attracted. Her stomach lurched at the sight of the place card there – Mr Scully, it read. Another time it would have been funny. He might have joked about being a house husband, or how she had always worn the pants in their relationship anyway. But today it just felt like more of an insult, a reminder that despite their years together marriage had never been on the cards, had never even warranted a mention.
She crumpled the card up and slipped it in her purse, keeping her hands under the table so no one else would see. A server came by with wine, and she accepted even though she was driving. The seat to her left remained empty, but to her right a neurologist she knew only in passing was feeling chatty. She sipped anxiously at her drink, not in the mood for conversation.
He arrived just as the appetisers were being served. Despite her resolution not to be angry, she could not help but glare and hiss at him under her breath.
"Where have you been?"
He shrugged, unrepentant as ever. "I had to follow something up."
Before she could reply, their hostess swooped down, directing the nearest waiter to bring an extra plate.
"Dana," she gushed, "so glad your friend could make it."
"Fox Mulder," he held his hand out to be shaken, charming when he wanted to be, especially around attractive women. "Sorry I'm a little late, got tied up with work."
He delivered a compliment about the house and the party, the sarcasm just veiled enough so that only Scully heard it. The hostess bustled away, mollified, but the neurologist, on his third glass of expensive red, was still keen to talk.
"You a doctor too, Fox?"
Scully cringed internally, partly at the use of his first name, mostly because this was not a topic she wanted raised. "No, actually," she interjected quickly. "He's, um, self-employed."
"Doing what?" The neurologist wouldn't let it drop.
"Research, compiling data, sometimes I consult for law enforcement, help them out with difficult cases."
"Really?" Neurology leaned in further. "What's your field? Forensic science, I presume?"
"Actually," Mulder's eyes flicked over to Scully. "I'm an authority in paranormal phenomena."
"Paranormal?" Neurology's eyebrows shot up. "You mean…?"
"The unexplained," Mulder supplied helpfully. "Occurrences outside the realm of normal experience, things modern science cannot yet account for."
"Such as?"
"Satanism, The Occult, Black Magic, psychokinesis, biological and genetic aberrations, UFO's – "
"UFO's?" A woman from across the table interrupted, incredulous. More people were listening now and Scully felt her face burning with embarrassment.
"You can't be serious? You don't actually believe in that stuff?"
Mulder grinned, enjoying his audience, oblivious to Scully's discomfort. "Not only do I believe, but over the course of my work I've gathered considerable evidence suggesting that aliens are actually here on earth, walking among us."
Laughter rang out. "Aliens? I've never heard anything so ridiculous!"
"Surely you don't buy into any of this nonsense, Dana?" Neurology nudged her jocularly, sloshing wine on the tablecloth.
Scully blushed, acutely aware of the number of eyes watching her, waiting for her response. "I, um…"
Mulder watched her most intently, his confidence faltering for the first time, disbelief colouring his expression. "Scully?"
She was caught in a trap, at a loss of what to say. "When I was working at the FBI," she chose her words carefully, "I – we – certainly saw things that I struggled to explain."
Mulder looked disgusted, but the others were already losing interest. "Really what I do isn't that exciting," he shrugged dismissively. "It's mostly just talking to crazy people on the internet."
The entrée arrived and people turned back to their plates, but somehow Scully had lost her appetite.
They left her car at the party – she had too much wine to be on the road – and he drove them both home. He fiddled with the radio, changing stations, while she stared out the window at rain-lashed streets as they passed by. They didn't talk.
Outside their house he killed the car's engine, yanked on the parking brake, but didn't move from the driver's seat. She waited in silence, watching him through the darkness. So many of her memories of him were associated with darkness – crime scenes, motel rooms, seemingly endless car journeys through the night. His shadowy profile was so familiar to her, and she knew he had something he wanted to say, something she wouldn't want to hear.
"I embarrass you," he said finally, flatly, a statement of fact.
Perhaps she was masking her guilt with anger, or perhaps she had drunk too much, but her temper flared.
"Tonight you embarrassed me, Mulder," she shot back. "You turn up over an hour late, start talking about little green men – how do you expect me to feel?"
"Little grey men," he corrected her calmly.
She blinked incredulously. "Do you really think these people care what colour aliens are?"
"No." He shook his head, sounding more tired than angry. "But I care. And at one time you did too."
She sighed. "That was a long time ago."
He nodded. "It was – you've changed."
"I've changed because I care what people think?" She asked angrily. "These aren't strangers at a dinner party to me Mulder, they're my colleagues. I have to work with them. If they don't respect me I can't do my job."
"And if you believe something different to them they won't respect you?"
"If I believe something they don't understand then, no, I don't think they will."
He tilted his head to one side, thinking, processing what she had said. "Why not try to make them understand?"
She smiled sadly. "Because I'm tired of trying to make people understand. I'm too old, I'm too…" she searched for the right word. "Too jaded. Because I'm not you."
"Then tell them what they want to hear. Tell them you think it's all bullshit and it's a good job I'm independently wealthy. Let think I'm a crazy rich guy with too much time on his hands and leave their world view unchallenged."
"You're not crazy, Mulder," she said softly.
"No, I'm just really passionate about my work, isn't that right, Scully?" He laughed harshly. "Any other old favourites you'd like to hit me with? How about 'science just hasn't found explanations for the things I believe yet'? Or 'I've seen things I can't explain so I'll just pretend they didn't happen'."
"That's not what I said at the party, Mulder."
"No, what you said was nothing. What you said was something I would have expected to come out of your mouth 15 years ago. I don't care that you didn't stand up for me, Scully. I don't care what some stuck up doctors with egos as big as their bank balances think of me. I care that you meant it." His eyes bored into her, and she saw the pain in them even through the darkness. "You don't believe it anymore, any of it. Everything we saw, everything we went through – you've forgotten."
Tears sprung to her eyes and she spoke angrily. "That's not true. I haven't forgotten – not what we suffered, what we sacrificed." She paused, painful memories intruding, catching her voice in her throat. Cancer, death, infertility, lost family, lost friends, children there so briefly before being taken away.
"I remember what happened. But the reasons for it – the truth you spent so long searching for – it seems further away than ever. I look back on the things I once felt certain of and they seem incredible now, part of a life I don't belong to anymore."
He said nothing, so she continued, putting a voice at last to feelings she now realised she had had for some time.
"I fell in love with your passion Mulder. I followed you because I admired the intensity with which you believed. There was a time when I even came to share your beliefs, shared them so completely that I gave my son away on the strength of them. But now I can't help but doubt whether it was truly real, whether it was all an illusion leading me to make the biggest mistake of my life."
The air in the car rang with her words. She had hurt him, but she cannot bring herself to take any of it back. It is the truth and they have always told each other the truth no matter what the consequences. The only thing she regretted was the use of the possessive pronoun. My son. When in her head did he stop being theirs and become hers alone?
"Maybe the mistake was choosing to follow me in the first place," he replied bitterly, opening the car door and striding out towards the house.
She chased after him, catching up with him as he opened the front door.
"I'm sorry," she said breathlessly. "But you can't expect me not to have doubts after all this time. Not to wonder, not to change."
He turned to face her, his tall frame taking up most of the space in their small entrance hall. "I haven't changed." It came out as an accusation, angry and hurt.
She shook her head. "No, you haven't Mulder. You haven't changed and I don't think you ever will. You're still chasing after a truth you'll probably never find. Twenty years later and you're still in that basement, still looking for your sister."
Her words seemed to hit him physically, and his whole posture changed. His shoulders dropped and his head dipped. He smiled that goofy half-smile of his that she loved so much, and suddenly she was confused. He didn't look angry anymore and for the first time in the course of their argument she felt afraid.
"You're right," he nodded. "I haven't changed, but you have. You've moved on. That's good. It's time you did." He kissed her gently on the cheek then turned to walk up the stairs.
She stood motionless for a moment, still feeling the softness of his lips on her cheek, struggling for understanding. When it came it landed solidly in the pit of her stomach and made her feel sick. She followed him upstairs. Because to follow him was what she did, all she knew how to do.
She found him in the bedroom, packing a duffle bag.
"Where are you going?" she asked, her mouth dry.
He shrugged. "I've been getting some reports of cattle mutilations in Idaho, thought I might go and check them out."
"And after that?"
"There's a UFO conference in New Jersey next week. I said I'd give a guest lecture."
"And after that?"
He looked at her, smiling sadly this time. "After that something else will come up – it always does."
She nodded, because he was right. Something always did come up and it was simply not in his nature to let it pass him by. He would always be chasing the next puzzle, the next mystery, the next truth, that was just who he was.
She watched in silence as he finished packing, then sat heavily on the bed as he disappeared into the bathroom to change into travelling clothes. Ready to leave he embraced her, his only goodbye a wordless kiss, brief and soft to her lips. She closed her eyes, listening to the sound of his footfalls on the stairs. This time when he went she did not follow.
Days passed and she found it easy enough to carry on as though nothing had changed. He was just taking another trip, she told herself, and when she thought of the little he had packed – just a few clothes – it was easy to believe that was true. Days became weeks and she found herself searching the house for traces of him. There were fewer than she ever thought possible. Pictures on walls, ornaments, books on shelves, they were all hers. Only his office – his dark, messy, cramped, chaotic, glorious office, the only space she'd allowed him in her otherwise ordered, regimented world – fairly breathed of him. She began to spend hours in there, falling asleep on the couch, comforted by the sense of him surrounding her. She longed for him to return, but wasn't sure what she would say or do if he did.
One Friday, nearly three months after he had gone, she came home from work late. His office door was ajar and the light left on. She felt her heart start to beat a little faster in her chest, thrilled and afraid at the prospect of seeing him again.
"Mulder?" she called out his name as she approached the door, the familiar word sounding strange to her ears after months of disuse.
There was no answer, no Mulder when she opened the door. Just an empty room. Truly empty now. The walls had been stripped bare of printouts, clippings and posters. Files had been removed from drawers, wires that used to connect to a computer lay coiled haphazardly on the floor. Even the basketball – stowed away for the winter in a corner of the room – had gone. Apart from furniture the only thing left in the office was a post-it note, positioned prominently in the middle of the desk. She snatched up the note, not sure what she hoped to find, but reading only an address and phone number written in Mulder's hurried block printing. She let the post-it flutter out of her hand and down to the floor. The address was in another city, another state even. Her breath hitched in her throat and for a moment she feared she might cry. But the moment passed, probably quicker than it should as her heart became a little harder, the walls she had built around herself growing a little higher.
She pulled out her phone, bending to pick up the fallen piece of paper. She would put the contact details in her address book. Perhaps she would send a card for Christmas, a letter around his birthday. He would become another Bill, another Charlie, another person she loved cast aside as she continued through life increasingly alone.
Her fingers gripped the note and she noticed for the first time a message on the other side.
"The Truth is Out There. Miss you. M."
She smiled in spite of herself as she programmed his new number into her phone. She will call him or he will call her. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but soon.
Soon.