A/N: Happy 10/13, X-Files fans! A happy birthday to the mad genius behind the show, Chris Carter!
Now this fanfiction is technically the first X-Files fanfiction I started. I was using it as a jumping off point to get an idea of how to write Mulder and Scully. In addition to that, I was using it as a sound board to put down all sorts of internal philosophical/moral debates I could see occurring between the two leads regarding all aspects of life. So it's sort of a story without a definite plot and it might seem a bit heavy-handed at times. I'm just letting the story map itself along as it comes to me.
There are numerous references to any and all episodes preceding Season 7's "All Things." And it's important to know that this story picks up at the final scene of "All Things." Otherwise, happy reading!
"One wrong turn, and we wouldn't be sitting here together. Well, that says a lot. Says a lot, a lot, a lot. I mean, that's probably more than we should be getting into at this late hour."
Fox Mulder turned to his partner. She had nodded off, her head coming to rest near his shoulder. He leaned into her, deftly brushing a few loose strands of her titian hair behind her ear. He allowed his finger to trail along her jaw bone for a few short seconds before drawing his hand back. Rather than immediately recoiling, though, Mulder took a few moments for himself.
It was rare to see Dana Scully so candid and exposed. Even in those moments when she was open and conversing on a more private level, there was always a degree of wariness; she was always prepared to draw back into herself if she somehow felt threatened or ill at ease. And the partner he saw on an almost daily basis in the X-Files office was the analytic, detached Dr. Dana Scully, a meticulous and shrewd investigator always prepared to bandy theories back and forth with an eye to the evidence. The woman sleeping soundly beside him was not that professional colleague in that moment; she was a friend able to drowse without fear of judgment or harm and completely trusting in Mulder's presence—a partner in every sense of the term. Mulder took stock in her solace, finding it enheartening—a true exemplification of how deep their relationship ran after seven years of working together. Such moments were rare and precious, ones that ought to be taken note of and filed away deep in one's memory. After allowing the magnitude of the moment to wash over him watched, he reached across Scully for a nearby blanket. He pulled it across her, carefully ensuring that she was well-covered by the fabric lest she get cold. Once satisfied, Mulder watched her a few seconds longer; he hoped he hadn't woken her. Scully's breathing remained rhythmic—steady and slow—while her eyes stayed fastened shut.
Mulder took the opportunity to ease himself off the couch. As the cushions flexed and creaked at the shifting weight, Mulder checked Scully again.
Out like a light, he smirked to himself. He reached toward the coffee table in between them, picking up two forgotten cups of tea. Steam had long ceased to rise from them as he and Scully had gotten chattering.
First it was about the aftermath of his visit to Avebury, Wiltshire, England. The crop circles he had hoped to see never appeared. The algorithm meant to predict the location of new crop circles did very thorough analysis of previous examples of the phenomena and seemed sound on paper, but there had been no pay-off. While he had been tromping through the fields near Avebury, another team of crop circle enthusiasts scouted out the location given by the Washington D.C. research group based on Colleen Azar's collected data. Like at the Avebury site, ultimately there was no evidence of anything having occurred. Mulder could hardly rest on the entire flight back to D.C. given all the man-hours and effort that had been wasted on a fruitless search. He was uncomfortably familiar with dead-end leads, but that never made them any less disheartening. Tangible proof of extraterrestrial or otherworldly involvement was always just out of his reach.
Then again...in his absence, Scully had a potentially life-saving vision. Perhaps the X-File Mulder had sought had been back home all along. He chuckled to himself as he padded across the living room and into his kitchen. He poured the remaining tea from the two mugs down the drain and deposited the dishware in the sink. It could be cleaned up in the morning. He crossed his kitchen once more, flipped off the lights, checked that his front door was fastened and bolted tight, then returned to the living room. Scully sat where he had left her, snuggled up on the couch beneath the blanket, seemingly without a care in the world.
She deserves a good night's sleep, Mulder mused. Especially with what she's been through. Scully had told him of what she had been up to since they had last seen each other on Saturday morning. Numerous hospital visits, reuniting with Daniel Waterston after a ten-year hiatus, having a heart-to-heart with Colleen Azar, finding her way into a Buddhist temple where she was suddenly struck by an unearthly vision—a vision that might have actually saved Waterston's life.
Mulder always knew that Scully was stunned that he consider himself a "believer" when he was willing to believe in just about any notion other than the existence of a divine being and the validity of religious faiths. He could believe in aliens, mutants, and psychics, but never God! He and Scully had trod that path many times before; of the matters of faith, Scully was the believer while Mulder uncharacteristically morphed into the skeptic.
For Mulder, archaic texts, religious ceremonies, and canonical proclamations were nothing more than man's attempt to swindle and manipulate other men to follow a set of societal laws. Illusions of demons, angels, and all the like existed to assert a further means of control over the human race. While demons dissuaded an individual from acting in one manner, angels coaxed that person to follow a different path; religious ideals and beliefs kept people boxed in—conditioning them until they were unable to even consider extreme possibilities outside their pre-ordained spheres of reasoning and logic. Some would argue that people willingly sacrificed their potential to believe and live freely in favor of something even harder to obtain—hope. The "hope" offered by world religions was just as contrived as the concept of religious belief itself, though. "Hope" was a sham—a cleverly crafted device to blind people to the reality: religion was just a means to an end. With just a word or a sign, people could be corralled together under one banner and one belief. And what did the faithful of Christianity or Judaism or Islam equate to? An army. An army from which wars could be won, governments toppled from without or within, and plots brewed. Religious leaders were as bad as the shadowy men found lurking the halls of the Bureau headquarters. They were all men who professed peace and good will to the masses while the masses were just innocent pawns in a larger game—unaware of the truth. And Mulder sought to destroy anything that dare obscure or bury the truth.
But despite his own feelings on religious faiths, Mulder felt compelled to give Scully the benefit of the doubt in this case. He normally railed against her on matters of faith, imploring her to think rationally and logically—as she did the countless times he would blindly believe in some paranormal phenomenon. The incident with Waterston was unlike other encounters Scully had with her faith, though. Something had changed within her in Mulder's absence. She seemed steadier and more certain of her path in life. Mulder could only attribute that to the spiritual revelation she had undergone the day before. And he couldn't help but wonder what that meant for her future.
And it was precisely Scully's future that worried Mulder. At least since the diagnosis of his rare brain disease. The doctor he had initially visited gave him approximately a year to live, and Mulder was slowly but surely taking the necessary steps in preparation. He had most of his funeral plans arranged, the Mulder family gravestone had been updated to include his name, and he had amended his last living will and testament. Being the last of the Mulder line meant he had no one to naturally bequeath his possessions to, so he had signed off all his worldly items to Scully. Though Scully was unaware of that fact, just as she was unaware of his impending death. Mulder had purposefully decided to keep his diagnosis a secret. He did not want to be forced from his work on the X-Files; he did not want to be shuffled from hospital to hospital looking vainly for a non-existent cure, and most of all, he did not want Scully to cling by his bedside as he wasted away. So long as he had his strength, he would keep up pretenses. As Scully had said herself years earlier during her battle with cancer: he would not let this thing beat him.
But while his decision worked best for him in the long run, he was not sure how it would affect Scully in the long-term—hiding his illness as he was.
Taking one last look at Scully, Mulder turned off the lights to the living room and stepped into his bedroom. He swung the door closed, leaving about an inch gap between it and the door frame. While he desired his privacy, he didn't want it to appear as if he were shutting Scully out. Should she awake or something important occur to her, she was more than welcome to disturb him. But that door existed as a much-needed barrier between them, allowing him to toy with his thoughts-and the associated guilt-only exacerbated by her presence in his apartment. His decision to keep the truth from Scully could easily be seen as selfish and base, especially since he was such an advocate of the truth, and even more so because the foundation of their entire relationship rested upon their candor with one another.
Mulder flipped on the lamp on his bedside table and kicked his shoes off, nudging them under the bed. He pulled of his clothes, haphazardly tossing them into the nearby hamper. His favorite sleepwear slacks were still buried somewhere in his suitcase, so he quickly set about digging them out and pulling them on.
But was it so narcissistic of him to keep such a secret? He could either spend his last few months of life in joint agony or joy. Agony in convincing loved ones of the reality of his impending death and suffering along with them as they suffered, or joy in living life as he always had until the Grim Reaper finally came to claim him.
Granted, that meant Scully would be in for a rude awakening very soon. The doctors he had been visiting on a bi-monthly basis reported on his rapid decline in health. They informed him that in a few months' time, he would steadily lose mobile function and his cognitive abilities would shut down one by one as he degenerated into a vegetable. Life support would only keep him alive for so long. Eventually his body would completely give out, and that would be that. Mulder had assured that he would not live that long; in updating his will, he added a clause stating that once he degraded beyond a certain point, they would remove him from life support and allow him to die with dignity.
He smiled grimly to himself as he reflected on Scully's abduction five years earlier. She was returned to them in a coma and had added a similar clause to her will, requesting that life support be terminated should certain conditions be met. How the thought had nearly destroyed him so early in their partnership. He roughly pinched the bridge of his nose. Miraculously, she had come out of the coma, just as two years later, her cancer miraculously went into remission. But short of another miracle, there wouldn't be such a happy ending for him. And if Scully were anything like him in those times when she was on her deathbed, she would fight tooth and nail for him. She would refuse to accept defeat.
So the question came down to whether he should give Scully cause to fight now or wait until later? In any case, death was inevitable. So why burden her early on when the time could be better spent building good memories and enjoying the last of his days? After going back and forth on his decision so many times over the last months, he found himself returning to the same conclusion: he would bury the truth. It would be unearthed eventually, so there was no harm in delaying the occasion of that revelation.
A yawn escaped him, and he once again pinched the bridge of his nose. It had been a long few days, days only made longer when he was trapped by indecision. But after his cross-Atlantic trip, he needed his sleep. Saturday and Sunday alone included an eight hour flight from Dulles to Heathrow, followed by a taxi ride to the nearest car rental site, then a two hour drive to Avebury. To get around Avebury itself—a quaint rustic English town with a lot of ancient history—Mulder had to rely upon the kindness of his fellow paranormal enthusiasts. He was too unfamiliar with the countryside there, and it made him prone to getting lost. After his nonexistent findings on Monday, he immediately started on his return trek back to D.C., and found himself home by Tuesday afternoon. He hadn't spent enough time overseas to be that effected by jet-lag, but he did suffer from exhaustion because of extensive travelling, limited sleep, and his rampant insomnia.
Mulder stepped into his bathroom to use the toilet before finding himself in bedroom once more. Thoughts still buzzed noisily in his head, and he sought to ignore them. He walked over to his bed and collapsed on it, only taking a moment to flip off the lamp on the table next to him. He pulled at the disheveled sheet and blanket balled underneath him, trying to drape them over his torso and only half succeeding as a corner of blanket became dislodged and was able to land unceremoniously on his chest. He buried his head into his pillow, trying to drown out the clamorous thoughts, and was pleasantly surprised when they started to dissipate and blend into unconsciousness. Apparently his sheer exhaustion outmatched insomnia. He took a slow breath, sensing he would fall into a deep, comfortable sleep in a few minutes' time, plaguing thoughts be damned.
Until three soft knocks penetrated Mulder's near-unconsciousness. His eyes lazily opened and he rolled over to look at his bedroom door. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could just make out a shape or shadow in the tiny space between the door and the frame.
"Mulder?"
Scully, his mind noted unnecessarily. Mulder shifted his weight and moved to sit up, shoving his sheets idly aside.
"Scully, come in," he replied, throwing his feet over the edge of the bed so that he could sit upright. He rubbed his eyes, trying to shake away the sleep that had already settled there. The bedroom door swung open to reveal Scully in her green sweater, black skirt, and stocking-ed feet. He could easily make her out in the eerie glow of the street lamps filtering through the window blinds. Hardly a hair on her head was out of place; obviously she had slept very deeply and soundly if only briefly.
"Sorry to wake you, Mulder," Scully apologized quickly. Mulder noted she seemed a bit uncomfortable, perhaps embarrassed by her behavior. Or maybe she just found it awkward to be infiltrating his room as she was in the middle of the night.
"Nah, don't worry about it, Scully." Mulder shook his head dismissively and motioned for her to enter the room. "I'd only just gotten to bed." He stifled a yawn. "What's up?"
"I just wanted to tell you that I'm going to head back to my place. I didn't want you to wake up and find me mysteriously gone." Mulder smiled appreciatively, quickly conforming to his role of keeping up pretenses.
"God forbid!" He hoisted to himself to his feet dramatically. "I'd be calling in the search and rescue teams at first light." He grinned lightly, bringing forth a small chuckle from her.
"Thanks for letting me stay, Mulder," she said in earnest. "And I'm sorry about dozing off on your couch like that."
"Hey! Mi casa es su casa, Scully," Mulder waved off the apology. "Lord knows that you and I both could sleep for weeks in our current states."
"You can say that again," Scully nodded before stifling a yawn of her own. Mulder absently crossed his arms in front of him as he stared down at her for a moment. Scully returned his gaze with a quizzical expression of her own. "Yes?"
"Why not just stay here, Scully?" he said suddenly. She was tired, as they had both just attested to. And the last thing he needed was Scully ending up in the hospital due to some easily avoidable car accident. "I'm assuming you were comfortable enough on that couch," he added, pointing out to his living room. "I mean, I wouldn't be able to double as your pillow like before, but it sure beats driving home in the middle of the night."
"Mulder, it's hardly the middle of the night," Scully retorted with an uncharacteristic lack of pizzazz likely due to her sleepy state. She pushed back the sleeve to her jacket and checked her watch. "It's only twenty to midnight, and you know it'll only take me twenty minutes to get home."
"All the more reason to stay," Mulder asserted simply. "If you want to get up at the crack of dawn and toddle on home, fine by me, but right now I'd feel better that you stayed here as opposed to you falling asleep on your feet."
"Mulder..." Scully sighed indignantly. "I have some paperwork I have to get to in the morning, and—"
"Weren't you practically in a car accident on Saturday?" Mulder talked over her as she abruptly frowned in return. He refused to budge on the issue. Neither he nor Scully were conscious or alert enough to get behind the wheel between his multiple cross-Atlantic flights and her weekend fretting over Daniel Waterston and the direction of her life. Mulder clapped his hands on the sides of her petite frame and leaned in.
"Do this for me, Scully. I'd rather you get enough rest here than risk driving out there in your current state." Scully's mouth began to gape open.
"And what's the supposed to mean?"
"You're tired," he replied matter-of-factly. "So am I. So off to bed." He flicked his wrist at her as if to shoo her off. Scully's usually meticulous straight, stern posture slipped just a little bit as her eyes became more lidded. Mulder knew he had won the argument.
"I sometimes think you forget I'm not a dog, Mulder," Scully grumbled before letting out a sharp sigh. "But fine. I'll stay here. Just let me use the bathroom first." She turned to the door on her right, ambled in, and shut it quietly behind her.
Mulder turned around to look at his trussed up bed. He wanted nothing more than to sink into its comfortable depths and sleep for a week assuming his perpetually busy mind let him, but he felt a bit guilty insisting Scully spend the night against her fervent protests. They had both gone driving under less than ideal conditions in the past-usually because one or the other of them phoned in an emergency or there was a sudden break in a case. Despite the knowledge that she was aware of her personal limitations and obviously deemed herself fit enough to operate a motored vehicle, he felt better with her remaining at his apartment for the night. He couldn't rightly say why he felt that way. Perhaps because of the near car accident she'd had over the weekend. Maybe because of her more recent run-in with the late Donald Pfaster. The last thing either of them needed was for Scully to get home and be taken hostage in the middle of the night, and unfortunately, that kind of event seemed to happen more often than not for her. So altogether, Mulder felt much more comfortable with her staying the night.
The arrangement wasn't entirely foreign to them; Scully had stayed with him at Mulder's insistence following Pfaster's assault on her. After an ordeal like that, he hadn't wanted her to spend the night alone in some nearby motel. As per usual for Scully, she maintained she was fine-just a little shook up, but Mulder wasn't having it. He had seen how Pfaster shook her to the core during his first attempt on her life five years previous. While she had prevailed over him during his second attempt, it was no less horrific. And Mulder wasn't going to let her deal with the shock of the event and its aftermath alone.
As memories of Pfaster's attack resurfaced, another night came to the forefront of Mulder's mind: when Scully had stayed with him following the unexpected death of his mother. Granted, he had been a bit of a mess on that occasion, and Scully was serving as a sort of caretaker to watch over him and comfort him in his loss. He remembered breaking down at the news that his mother had committed suicide. Or maybe it was just him finally breaking down at the acute realization of her death. He had never been all that close to his mother as tight-lipped and distant as she was, but he had loved the woman dearly. And Scully had stayed with him that night just cradling his head on her lap as they sat on the couch. She would run her fingers through his hair as he sobbed quietly, eventually falling into an uneasy sleep.
And to think that his mother had killed herself to escape an incurable disease. Mulder couldn't help but chuckle at the twisted irony of it.
He glanced at the closed door of his bathroom before his eyes wandered once more to his bed. His mind was made up. He'd offer her his bed for the night. The single thin sheet and heavy blanket being twisted and strewn every which way didn't give off the best ascetic appearance. Nor did his distorted, flattened pillows that had been punched into every conceivable shape over years of use. Mulder wasn't sure if he had a set of fresh sheets to spare in a closet in his chest of drawers. He hoped Scully wouldn't be too put off by the sight. In a meager attempt to make things a bit more presentable, he lugged the blanket off his bed, snapped the sheet to lay it out flat, and reapplied the blanket in like fashion. He stared at his work; it wasn't much of an improvement, but it was something. The bed didn't look quite as mussed up as before.
There was nothing more to be done about it, though. With an inconsequential shrug, he meandered into the living room and took a long look at his worn leather couch. Hey there, old friend, he thought as he snatched up a few of the pillows, tossed them to the opposite side of the couch, picked up the blanket, and plopped himself down on the sofa. He threw the blanket over him before locking his fingers together behind his head. The noise of a flushing toilet sounded from the bathroom as he stared at his bedroom doorway expectantly. Next came the sound of a faucet being turned on, then off, and the rattle of the well-worn doorknob as it turned. A few seconds passed and Scully stepped into the living room, her sharp eyes scanning the small, dark space. Her perplexed gaze rapidly landed on Mulder. He grinned lazily up at her.
"What are you doing, Mulder?"
"Sleeping on the couch," he replied nonchalantly, the grin never fading. "I thought you ought to have the bed. It allows for better beauty sleep, I hear." Trying to cover a laugh at his bizarre display of chivalry, Scully shook her hand and crossed her arms.
"I'm not kicking you out of your bed, Mulder."
"Don't forget that this thing used to be my bed, Scully," Mulder replied smoothly. "At least before that entire bedroom set appeared in there overnight." He glanced at the adjoining wall to the bedroom suspiciously.
He had never figured out how his bedroom had actually transformed into a bedroom. While his apartment was listed as having one bedroom and one bathroom, he had always just used the space as a makeshift storage room. A place for stacks and stacks of unfiled X-Files, a healthy amount of his triple-X collection, possible clippings and information related to Samantha's disappearance, and other odds and ends. He'd left just barely enough room to slip through the door so that he could squeeze into the bathroom. Otherwise, his living room which doubled as an office had also tripled as a bedroom. Then one night he got home from an outing with Scully only to find his walk-in storage closet clear of all junk and mess with a fully furnished bedroom in its place. Mulder's gaze wandered from the wall and returned to his partner standing at the foot of the couch.
"I always thought you had a hand in that...uh, transformation," Mulder admitted, meeting Scully's blue eyes with his own. Her blank countenance broke into a smile as she laughed.
"I'd know better than to give you a waterbed with leopard print sheets and a mirrored ceiling. I always wondered if it was Frohike."
"Frohike?" Mulder replied incredulously with a laugh of his own. He unlaced his hands from behind his head and crossed his arms. "Nah! I mean...yeah, he's an odd guy," he nodded lightly, "but I think his tastes are a little better than that." Scully shrugged, indicating she had no other possible answer to give.
"But I'll tell you, Scully," Mulder continued. "My first few nights in that bed scared the hell out of me. You ever wake up from a nightmare in a cold sweat, open your eyes, only to see someone looming over you? I about emptied my clip into that mirror a few times. I got used to it, of course, but once the waterbed gave out, I was done with all the crap. I packed it all up and sold it." Even in the dark living room, he could see Scully trying to hide a smile. "Go ahead! Laugh," he encouraged her, sitting up on the couch as he got more animated. "Point is: you should be thankful that what you'll be sleeping in tonight is a normal bed with normal sheets and no damned hanging mirror." Scully ducked her head and pushed a strand of hair behind her ear.
"Oh God, Mulder. Only you would be able to magic up a bed set out of thin air with no recollection of where it came from." She shook her head at the absurdity of the conversation. Mulder had an inkling of where her stream of thought was taking her. He tossed the blanket off him and stood up, smiling and pointing at Scully.
"I promise you, Scully. I wasn't drunk." She opened her mouth to ask a question, but he beat her to the answer. "Nor was I under the effect of any hallucinogenic drug or gaseous substance or anything of the sort. I didn't suffer any black outs either." He marched right up to her and peered down into her face. "In fact, I'd been with you that night. We'd gone to Nevada—near Area 51." Scully's eyes narrowed and her whole face tightened as she tried to recollect the night.
"Oh, yeah," she nodded in acknowledgement. "We were going down the highway when that bunch of dark sedans came out of nowhere and boxed us in."
"Yes!" Mulder about shouted in victory. "The men in black! They told us to pack up and take off."
"Which we did," Scully slowly added as the pieces of the memory fell into place for her.
"Yeah," Mulder agreed. "I had a contact in Area 51. He said he was going to show me something—more proof as to the existence of extraterrestrials, I'm guessing. When the suits showed up, I figured he'd been found out. I thought it was safer that we got out of there."
"That's right," Scully grinned. "And somehow Kersh overlooked our little detour." She stared off into space for a moment as she reminisced before returning to Mulder. "But you're saying that's the night that the bedroom appeared?" She pointed to the room next door.
"Yep," Mulder nodded. "So unless we got caught up in some kind of Area 51 time warp, I can't explain how that bedroom exists." Scully's countenance took on its typical stern expression.
"I don't know, Mulder. Think it's worthy of an X-File?" Her eyes glinted playfully at him through the darkness. He grinned in response, albeit tiredly; his fatigue was catching up with him again.
"I think," he slowly replied, "we should both get some sleep before we end up passed out on the floor and entangled in some kind of compromising position. Last thing we need to do is give the Bureau probable cause to cut short our careers."
"Wouldn't that make your day, though, Mulder?" she smiled cheekily. "You could finally say you slept with your partner." Mulder feigned hurt and struck a hand to his chest.
"Ooh, Scully. Don't tease a man like that."
"Maybe it would be safer for me to sleep on the couch then," Scully replied with a laugh. Mulder spread his arms wide with a glance about the apartment.
"Whichever place you want. Whatever's most comfortable for you." He was getting tired. While he loved to banter with and incessantly tease Scully, he was much more prodigious at it when not sleep deprived. "What's your choice?" Scully's light-hearted demeanor faded minutely.
"I've already come to a choice, huh?" she asked, though Mulder sensed it was a rhetorical question. He watched her face sharpen into a more serious expression as she became lost in her own thoughts.
"If you're struggling with an answer to that question, I'm a bit nervous to see how you'd respond to 'soup or salad?'" The joke was dry and perhaps a bit inconsiderate, but he wanted to add a bit of levity to the sudden no-nonsense mood that had enveloped the room. It succeeded in breaking Scully from her thoughts at the very least.
"What's that?" she asked, turning to Mulder.
"Uh...nothing," he smiled weakly. "What is it, Scully?"
"You know how I told you my theory about choices?" she asked as Mulder folded his arms in front of him. "That maybe we go through life on our designated path, and of all the choices we face in life, only one set is incontrovertibly 'right.'" Scully was now very much awake and wanted to talk about a serious matter; he had to remain alert enough to engage in the conversation with her. He curtly nodded. "Well..." she paused for a moment as she selected her next words, "I do believe going with Daniel would have been a wrong choice—either ten years ago or today."
Scully's nostrils flared a bit, and Mulder quickly glanced at her eyes. He thought he could sense an oncoming wave of tears. To be frank, he had been surprised she hadn't cried earlier. Perhaps her senses had been too much in shock and dull at the time. Since some hours had passed, though, Scully's dam of clinical, professional, and rational cool-headedness was beginning to leak. He had seen her reach this breaking point before and mentally prepared himself for the onset.
"I told him that maybe I wanted the life that I didn't choose. At the time, I'd been referring to my potential life with him, of course." She hugged her arms to herself protectively, and Mulder noticed the beginnings of tears in her eyes. "A life away from the Bureau," she continued. "Maybe as a medical doctor somewhere with a house in the suburbs, and...I don't know. Maybe a dog." She smiled tightly at Mulder, a tear slipping down her cheek. He slowly dropped his arms to his sides, realizing that his previous cross-armed stance could be read as more aggressive than he intended. He wanted to appear open and non-judgmental regarding her thoughts.
"I feel now, though, that that life wouldn't have made me happy. I couldn't have been with Daniel, no matter how much I once loved him. But..." her breath caught in her throat as she fumbled to finish her sentence. "But can I even be sure I'm currently on the right path?" She looked at Mulder imploringly; she wanted an honest answer from him. For a moment, he didn't know what answer he could possibly give. He watched scant tears flow down her cheeks. She wasn't hysterical or broken; she was uncertain—and most of all, she was afraid.
While she had undergone a certain spiritual transformation or rediscovery upon receiving her vision the previous day, she wasn't sure how much she could trust in her newfound beliefs. Did life only amount to a bizarre children's game—a sort of treasure hunt where one followed clues in hopes of finally discovering the elusive X that marked the spot: a chance at happiness? And if one was steered wrong, was there ever the chance of getting back on track or was it game over? If one ultimately came to the wrong conclusion—and the wrong end—there certainly wouldn't be a consolation prize. So was the only option was to keep plowing on, searching for clues, and praying the right ones were found? Life is nothing if not complicated, Mulder mused to himself. He searched Scully's eyes before finally settling on his honest answer.
"I-" he licked his lips, "I can't tell you that, Dana." All hint of levity and lightheartedness were absent from his tone now that the time for witticisms and banter had passed. His voice was soft and somber, the tone he reserved for his heart-to-hearts with Scully. "Only you can know if you're where you really want to be in life."
Mulder wasn't exactly pleased with his answer; it sounded like the sort of drivel read off a holiday Hallmark card, and it was anything but comforting. The sincerity behind his words was real, though; he didn't want her thinking that he was brushing her off or not taking her seriously. He imagined that had happened far too often in her life, and their relationship was based so strongly on the mutual respect and trust they had for one another. The larger scope behind the question she asked wasn't one he could just spout off an answer to, though. It required serious thought and time to fully consider. Time that Mulder didn't have right then. He silently posed a variation of the question to himself: did life consist of someone blindly walking through life on rails or was it a serious of crossroads where one needed to choose which fork to turn down? The gears in his mind spun wildly as he attempted to recount the myriad of philosophies and theories he had read about over the years. He locked eyes with her, and his gaze sharpened as thoughts began to click together into a bigger picture.
"I wonder—and this might just be me talking out of my ass, but—I wonder if life is a sort of amalgamation of pre-destined, pre-determined decisions and the choices we make through life. A combination of the fate or free will argument." He paused for a second as he tried to figure out how to put his next few thoughts into words. Scully looked at him curiously as she attempted to wipe away the few falling tears. Mulder took that as an opportunity to earn a few more seconds to map out his attempt at logic; he squeezed by her and into the bathroom to grab a tissue box. As he returned to his previous position, he offered her a tissue and set the box on the arm of the couch—easily in reach should she need more. She offered a small, grateful smile and dabbed at her eyes. He quickly tried to recollect his train of thought.
"As I was saying—an alternative theory on fate versus free will. Uh...take, for instance, your life. You were the daughter of a Navy Captain and a housewife. You were born to a household of four children, and you were raised Catholic." Mulder ticked off each statement on his hand. "Those are facets of your life that were completely out of your control. You can't change who you were born to or the circumstances to which you were born. Yet those circumstances shape you. A-at least up until a point." Mulder could sense his theory coming together in his head, and the rapidity of his speech was increasing as he became more invested in his thoughts. "Your childhood—the thoughts and values instilled in you by your parents and your life experiences as a child—made you into a type of person, and that made you more prone to making certain choices in life. Ultimately, that choice is yours, though." He paused, sensing that his theory wasn't coming out exactly as he wanted it to. It wasn't grounded enough in reality and needed a concrete example to give it substance.
"So..." Scully cut into the silence, "you mean to say that my parents and childhood create my initial persona, and I make life choices based on that?" Despite her tearstain covered cheeks, she adopted her carefully detached, analytical tone, the one she used for when she was trying to rationalize his thoughts.
"Yes," Mulder nodded, "but there's more to it, Scully." He paused again before plowing on. "Perhaps your father's naval background coupled with having grown up with numerous siblings nurtured certain qualities in you: loyalty, camaraderie, level-headedness. Those qualities, in turn, made you naturally more inclined to join a career based on the concept of community—where people came together and worked toward a common cause while openly relying on one another for guidance and assistance. We're talking about the fate component of the fate versus free will argument. You were fated to be loyal and level-headed because of the circumstances of your childhood. Now the free will comes into play with the choice you are given: what you want to do—what career you want to go into, in this case—with those values in mind. And ultimately, you chose the medical field." Scully nodded; Mulder couldn't be sure if she was just indicating that she understood his newfound theory or if she agreed with him. Before she had the chance to speak, though, he continued again.
"And that pattern repeats indefinitely throughout a person's life: a segment is pre-disposed and out of our control—perhaps because so many lives exist in sequence and in correlation with one another—and then we are met with a choice based on that pre-disposed segment." He stopped in his open-ended theorizing to look at Scully, to ensure she was still with him. The tears had since stopped, though he noticed she was holding a couple of tissues in her hand. She seemed to be considering his proposition; her eyes were darting back and forth as she mused on his words, perhaps trying to attribute them to her own life.
"Like how I ran across Daniel?" she mused aloud, seemingly uncertain if she was understanding Mulder's theory correctly. Mulder said nothing, waiting for her to continue. She noticed his inquiring gaze. "I'd gone to the hospital to pick up the Szczesny autopsy results. The nurse gave me Daniel's X-rays instead."
"Something out of your control," Mulder nodded encouragingly.
"And I learned it was Daniel," she continued slowly.
"And what did you do with that information?"
"I visited him," she said simply.
"When you could have chosen not to." Mulder found himself nodding a bit more vigorously. "That's exactly it, Scully. Life isn't so black and white as we might think. It's a combination of what lies within our control and what doesn't." Mulder felt a smile creep into place. Scully raised her brows at him curiously.
"So when you look at it in terms of the bigger picture-from where you are right now in your life-seven years ago you got through your training at Quantico, and you were given your first assignment. The powers that be—or in this case, former Division Chief Blevins—declared you should make your way down to the sequestered basement to join a crackpot psychologist in a dead-end division of the Bureau." His wily smile broke into a grin. "Now as much as you deny it, Scully, I know you weren't happy be down there at first." Scully cocked her head and considered Mulder's words.
"No..." she thoughtfully responded. "It was my first assignment, Mulder. I didn't have any comparative Bureau experiences to draw on, so I didn't really have right to be either pleased or displeased. I was going into it fresh-faced. I mean..." she paused for a moment to collect her thoughts, "I knew of your reputation as a brilliant man who had a promising career ahead of him thanks to his uncanny skills at criminal profiling but suddenly fell off the wagon and into obscurity..."
"Is that all they say?" Mulder teased. Scully rolled her eyes.
"The point is, Mulder: I was intrigued by you. I was wondering what a man with your story could possibly be like."
"So did I exceed your expectations?" Scully smiled coyly.
"You didn't disappoint. I probably wouldn't have stuck around seven years if you had." Mulder grinned, suddenly pointing at her.
"And that's the point, Scully! You chose to stay. And you had plenty of opportunities to leave. Since you were assigned to be my handler more or less, you could have easily stuck to the short-term agenda and waited for them to cart me off and shut down the X-Files. You probably would have been in line for a nice promotion right off the bat and a cushy position in the Bureau." Scully frowned.
"That's not how I operate, Mulder," she returned. "I never wanted to be part of their agenda. I came on to work."
"And that's where you tripped them up," he asserted. "They didn't anticipate that you would be open to my unconventional practices. They expected you to see me as some maniac let loose in the Bureau-a liability that should quickly be eradicated."
"Because if it looks bad, it's bad for the FBI," Scully replied smartly. Mulder had always been impressed by her sardonic wit. His eyes brightened in amusement.
"And you proved them wrong, Scully," he commended her. "And me, too, for that matter." His complimentary tone diminished into a more somber one as his statement came to a close. "You've stuck it out on basement detail. And for some reason or another, you've stuck by me."
Truth be told, Mulder had never fully understood why Scully stayed on at the X-Files or as his partner. Mulder wanted nothing more than to find the truth—whatever that truth may be. Over the course of his near seven years with Scully, they had uncovered innumerable truths regarding the existence of extraterrestrial biological entities, government experiments and conspiracies affecting the general populace, and other strange phenomena. Mulder had even finally determined what happened to his long-absent sister Samantha; she had already been dead for approximately twenty years. Yet with that chapter of his life finally closed—the driving force behind Mulder's ever-constant quest to discover the truth, he still found more truths that had to be unearthed. Scully, meanwhile, had some investment in their search—mainly to determine the reason for her abduction five years earlier and the ongoing repercussions she had to face due to said abduction. Those questions had been answered for the most part though, so what else could be tying her to the X-Files? A sense of loyalty? Obligation? Perhaps that were true now—seven years down the line, but why had she stayed at the very beginning of her assignment? There had been opportunities for her to leave very early on, but she never took them. Mulder never understood why, especially since everyone else at the Bureau had always abandoned him to his mad fantasies of little green men zipping around in their spaceships.
"Mulder..." Scully's voice brought him back to the present. Suddenly focusing on her, he looked at her expectantly. She knew he had been lost in thought. He could see as much in her eyes. There was a slight tug at his hand. Somehow she had grabbed it without him noticing. He gave her a slight squeeze of acknowledgment and slipped it from her grip. His eyes returned to hers. They were less fearful; more comforted. Good. That's what he had intended in expounding upon his rapidly conceived theory. There was no point in worrying about the future because the best one could do was look back upon life experiences and character values to make the best possible choice in the moment—and because it was the best choice in the moment, it was the quintessential "right" choice in one's life.
Yet Mulder was suddenly perturbed. Not about any choices he had made in life; he was well aware that he had chosen a life devoted to the truth. And unexpectedly on his journey, he had found lifelong ally in Scully. She always stood by him despite the apparent risks and the heartrending losses she had suffered. It was unfair to her-to have her constantly and consistently in harm's way, and he was always terrified of losing her—whether to reassignment, abduction, or death. He realized that to stay with him was to have a death wish—and the implications of that thought had gradually disturbed him more and more as the years went on.
His death was imminent. She would soon be free of him and his ridiculous ambitions, but would that be enough to save her from dying because of him while on some foolhardy errand?
I just spent minutes asserting that Scully had made the "right" choice in life to join the X-Files, and here it was possibly the worst choice she could have made. Mulder found himself maddened by his inherently selfish motivations. Of course Scully's assignment to the X-Files as his partner was the right choice-for him. He gained a comrade in arms, a friend, an equal. She only lost family, credibility, and the prospect of a normal life. And she was soon going to lose him, as well. Another casualty to the truth.
If he was ever to make it right for her—to save her once and for all—he had to drive her away. Force her to forget him, and maybe then she'd be able to get back on the right track: to a long, fulfilling life with a family while free of the pressures of unearthed government conspiracies and secret truths.
"Why help me, Scully?" he suddenly asked. "Why willingly help me for all these years?" His tone wasn't cynical or sarcastic, but it was insistent. As with everything else, he wanted the truth from her.
"You're my partner, Mulder," she replied simply, looking a bit uncertain. Soiled facial tissues were crumpled up in her hand. She stepped around him and to his desk, tossing them into the near-overflowing waste basket, then turned back to face him.
"There's more to it than that," he probed, standing still as stone. Scully stared up at the ceiling for a moment; Mulder supposed she was searching for an answer. He had to find a way to refute that answer.
"You showed me a world outside conventional wisdom, rationality, and science," Scully eventually said. "Things I once thought of as only fantasies and myths—or as products of science fiction..." she paused as she chose her words, "you've shown them to be real. I suppose I want to uncover the truth as much as you do." She leaned up against Mulder's desk and crossed her arms.
"That might be true now, Scully," Mulder replied unwaveringly. "But what about when you first started. Why did you stick around? I remember your buddy from the VCS who brought you into the Tooms case—" he was surprised he struggled to remember the man's name.
"Tom Colton," Scully offered.
"Yes," Mulder nodded. "He offered you a way out. He said he'd pull you out of the basement, and you turned him down flat. I even told you that I wouldn't hold it against you if you kept on with the VCS."
"Well, I seem to remember him being a right bastard at the time," Scully replied coolly. "He was so caught up in boosting his own reputation and career that he didn't want to take into account evidence you brought forth concerning the case. To be frank, Mulder, he didn't like you even before he met you, and didn't take any of our work seriously." She met his gaze calmly from across the room. "Because he didn't take you seriously, he didn't take me seriously by extension. And I didn't need to work with anyone who couldn't respect me or my partner."
"We were hardly even partners at the time, Scully," Mulder retorted. "It was our third case together."
"We still had established a certain level of trust and respect between one another. Or have you forgotten that on our second case together I negotiated for your safe return at that air force base in Idaho after you had been captured and had your memory wiped?"
"I've not forgotten your rescue, at the very least," Mulder frowned. Scully narrowed her eyes at him.
"Why are you trying so hard to discredit our partnership, Mulder?" Mulder rubbed his face with his hands and let out a groan. After seven years together, she would not let go easily. It was to be expected, but it was frustrating.
"I am not trying to do that," he finally replied. He looked back up at her. "I'm trying to understand why you stuck around all these years when you could have and should have run away dozens of times."
"Explain," Scully requested simply. Mulder sighed and settled into pacing about the room. Scully remained perched on the desk with her arms crossed, calmly regarding him.
"During the Tooms case, Colton called off the surveillance on his apartment. Because of that you were attacked in your own apartment. You were almost killed." He stopped in his pacing and looked at Scully as the last word sounded in the air. "After that kind of visceral attack, you had every reason you could ever want to walk away from the X-Files. Only you didn't."
"Mulder, you know as well as I that we're trained at Quantico to specifically prepare for such situations. You don't enter the Bureau—or any other type of law enforcement agency, for that matter—without the foreknowledge that one day you could just wind up dead." In his anxiousness, Mulder visibly winced at her detached tone. "I'm sorry, Mulder, but this isn't something I can sugarcoat. Our profession is known to be a dangerous one." Mulder continued his movement about the room. Meanwhile, Scully abandoned her position at the desk, stepped closer to Mulder, and lightly grabbed his wrist. He immediately stopped in his pacing and looked down at her. "I am thankful every day that you and I have survived everything that we have, Mulder. You honestly don't know how much it would kill me if you were to die." While he forced his features to remain composed, Mulder felt himself internally collapse. Scully was too attached; she would refuse to let him go. He practically laughed at the morbid irony: whether he lived or died, she would still remain a casualty in his quest, and by her own initiative no less! He sensed her nimble, thin fingers wrapped around his wrist, but he could hardly feel them for the thoughts pounding in his head. She released him. "I know I won't ever be able to convince you to stop. You'll always be searching for a new answer. That's who you are. So I have no other choice but to let you run headlong into danger, Mulder. You've done it for seven years now, and you'll keep doing it. I'm not going to try and change you into something you aren't. And I'm certainly not going to try and shield you from every threat we encounter on the field. I'd hoped you held me in the same respect."
"I do, Scully," he answered numbly.
"Then why are you recommending that I abandon the X-Files?" Mulder sighed again, then glanced back up into her blue eyes—eyes that flashed in earnest. He had to give her some sense of the truth. Maybe if she saw it from his perspective-that her life wasn't worth the risk-maybe then she'd hear him out.
"Because I've suddenly found the will to put into words something that's disturbed me for a long time. It was something your brother said to me a couple years back, actually."
"Bill?" Scully asked, searching Mulder's eyes. "What did he say?" Mulder took a moment to breathe in and out-a deep, steadying breath.
"That I'm to blame." He made sure he held her gaze if only to prove to her the validity of his words. "You've lost your father, your sister, Emily. You've been abducted and assaulted more times than I can count: Tooms, Duane Barry, Pfaster, Padgett, the lot of them. You've suffered from inhumane treatment because of your status as an abductee; the chip in your neck, your cancer, your infertility." Mulder tone deadened and hardened as he spoke, a rare glimpse at the self-hatred he possessed. "And what have all your sacrifices been for? I found my sister—dead for almost 20 years now. But was my finding Samantha really worth everything that it's cost you?" Mulder's mused with cynical irony that while he had put his all in his quest for the truth—ultimately with the goal to help the general populace—he had subsequently ruined the lives of so many others. He chuckled darkly to himself.
"Mulder." Scully's voice penetrated through the cacophony of internal anguish and frustration that possessed him. He had destroyed so many lives; he was determined to not drag Scully down with him. Usually he worked so hard to conceal the sense of guilt and failure he frequently felt in his pursuit of the truth. Of course it would be Scully to bring it all out of him instead. He offered a twisted smile.
"Don't say that I'm not at fault, Scully," he interjected before she could say anything more. "I know I am. I've known I was to blame ever since Duane Barry took you, and I never did anything about it. That shows you the kind of person I am at heart." Scully simply shook her head at him.
"Mulder," she began slowly. "A number of minutes ago, you just gave me your theory on what the path of life consisted of. You said life consists of pre-determined, uncontrollable segments and the choices we make in correlation to them. In each of those situations, I made a conscious choice. Ultimately, I decided to invest myself into the X-Files and our partnership, and you cannot blame yourself for my decisions in hindsight." Mulder shook his head somberly. He had guessed Scully would attempt to assuage his guilt and pass some of the blame to herself, but he couldn't let her continue to be a martyr to his cause. He wouldn't accept it.
"Mulder," Scully pressed again. "You've already asserted that life is not a vacuum in which one person's choices affect the course of the whole world. Everyday life is made up of billions of choices made by billions of people in tandem. Therefore it doesn't make any logical sense for you to take the blame for all the ills that have befallen me over the last seven years." She paused for a brief moment.
"I would never blame you, Mulder. Not after everything we've been through together."
"But this can't be your life forever, Scully," he quietly retorted. "I've made my choice. I'm in this for the long-haul, but I can't force that on you." Mulder just wanted her to let go—to begin the process of moving past the X-Files and himself. He couldn't bring himself to tell her the absolute truth, though; that would be counter-intuitive. He had to free her, not give her reason to cling all the tighter as he lay on his deathbed.
"Since when are you forcing it on me?" she countered.
"The sacrifices you've made..."
"You've made sacrifices, too," she interjected, refusing to back down. She sighed before looking him sternly in the eyes. "Yes, I've suffered losses, Mulder, but so have you. If we've come this far, and you mean to continue, why would I stop?" The vehemence in her tone struck Mulder as soundly as if she had slapped him. He smirked.
"You and me against the world, Scully?" he said deadpan.
"That's the way I've come to expect it, Mulder," Scully replied, her tone equally devoid of emotion. They stared at one another, each unwilling to budge from their position.
"Then answer me this, Scully," Mulder demanded stonily, not once allowing his gaze to waver from hers. "Why? Not an hour ago you were questioning the direction of your life. Now you seem suddenly comfortable with it. So what changed?"
"I could ask the same thing of you, Mulder," she returned. "First you tell me that I'm where I belong in life due to my decision to remain with the X-Files. And now you ask me why I haven't left."
"And that's something you haven't answered yet," he seethed.
"Damn it, Mulder!" she shot back. "It's because of you!" Mulder started. That wasn't the answer he had expected, but Scully was just beginning, her fiery temper having been lit. "I've told you that you have a blinding passion. At times it's overwhelming, and in my case, it's infectious. You push me, Mulder. Further than I could ever dream to push myself. You drive me to the boundaries of conceivable reality and ask me to look beyond it for something thought to be surreal and mythical. And more often than not, it's there. While you've never found the truth you've always sought, you've shown me hundreds of new truths. And that's not something I can just walk away from. After all these years, you've made me want to believe, Mulder, and I try to believe." She finally broke eye contact from him, and looked off in the distance, sighing and taking a few calming breaths. Mulder just found himself struck dumb. Scully was rarely ever this candid. She looked back at him again, breathing more evenly than before. "So, no," she continued in a plain speaking voice, "I won't leave."
Mulder swallowed, seeking his voice.
"Even if I were to ask you to?" he asked quietly. Breathing steadily, she watched him out of the corner of her eye, contemplating his question. Finally, she shook her head.
"No," she said again. "You've tried that once before." She smiled lightly, almost as if remembering an inside-joke. "And where did we end up?" Mulder chuckled.
"Not too far gone from where we began," he admitted. "Due to your stubbornness, I might add."
"I'm only as stubborn as I have to be," she replied easily, meeting Mulder's gaze.
"See?" he joked. "I told you all those years ago that I'm a pain in the ass to work with." Scully sighed.
"But for all your trouble, you're somehow worth the effort, Mulder." Scully rubbed at his arm affectionately, the time for sharp words having passed. She looked up at him with an encouraging smile.
Mulder met her comforting gaze and couldn't help but smile in return. His inherent guilt still lingered, as did his fear for her future and the plaguing questions of what he was to do over the next few months. None of those things were bound to go away, but whenever he got too worked up, Scully and her ever-ready rationalizations stepped in to taper his fervor. It was for that very reason that Scully so often maddened him—with her rigorous scientific practices and constant search for concrete evidence to back up his off-the-wall theories. But her approach had merit. Not only could she employ her well-honed skills on X-Files cases, but during times of personal crisis. Scully had done what she always did: grounded him. He was the sort to wear his heart on his sleeve and allow his emotions to compromise him whereas Scully frequently kept her heart locked away to keep it from harm. In such moments when she drew him back to earth, she was attempting to protect him in turn. And she had no idea of how much Mulder thoroughly appreciated that fact.
"Thanks, Scully," Mulder muttered quietly as he looked into her blue eyes. They were cool and calming, and that was an intense comfort to Mulder as he found himself battling with personal demons and long-held regrets. He slid his hand into hers and gave it a squeeze.
"I suppose I owe you thanks, too, Mulder," Scully replied. She smiled lightly, but confidently. He didn't need to ask her what she meant; there were always small things between them that they owed to the words or actions of the other. It was yet another facet of their complex relationship.
Despite the steady return to their characteristic roles as partners following their tumultuous argument, Mulder sensed a rawness still remaining—a vulnerability. He wondered if Scully felt the same sense of exposure. They had both bared themselves to one another in a manner not done before. Scully had revealed her deeply-inset insecurities while Mulder had shown his ever-gnawing guilt. Such revelations could never be unseen by either partner, and it only deepened the bond between them as they each had suddenly learned more about their partner's inner workings and struggles.
Mulder wanted nothing more than to give his battered conscious time to heal, as he normally did at such times. He was used to the occasional bouts of agonizing guilt, and he was getting more accustomed to thoughts of his rapidly approaching demise. He'd feel the intense repercussions of the choices he had made in life and the losses he had suffered because of them. He'd be haunted by the seeming futility of his quest as each step forward led to more questions and more bloodshed. On those nights, he'd typically sit in the darkness of his living room and let the thoughts play out. Sometimes he'd flick on the TV and let its monotone drone filter over to him. Sometimes he'd find himself unconsciously crying. When the initial barrage had passed, he would begin to build up the mental walls again and lock away his ever-clawing guilt. The experience always left him raw and hollow, though, and he needed something frivolous and effortless to pass away the hours—something that dulled the pain until he could once again be completely numb to it. Most men turned to the bottom of a bottle; Mulder didn't drink often, though, and he had a low tolerance to alcohol. He would turn to his extensive pornography collection. The collection existed less as a lecherous, testosterone-fueled hobby and more as a coping mechanism for dark times. But he was perfectly fine with the presumption that he just had an affinity for the stuff; it was easier to explain and fit much better with his happy-go-lucky, boyish persona.
There was a small tug at his arm, and it sharply pulled him from his reflections. He was still holding hands with Scully. She was slowly trying to slip her hand from his, but he welcomed the touch. Even while lost in troublesome thoughts, it kept him locked in the present. Mulder tightened his grip on Scully's fingers, unwilling to let her go. His mouth fell slack and he watched her as she looked at their clasped hands. Her blue eyes rounded upwards to meet his in an inquiring glance. Her lips parted as if to silently mouth a wordless question. She didn't move to pull her hand from his again, but Mulder could read the confusion and curiosity in her eyes. He, too, was confused at his actions in some recess of his mind, but he found himself compelled to act and thought it easier to give into the compulsion.
Almost as of on its own accord, Mulder's free hand slowly raised and placed itself on the nape of Scully's neck. His thumb rested just above the curve of her jawbone as threads of her hair tickled the back of his fingers. He watched as recognition dawned on her, but she didn't actively try to pull away. She just remained still and continued to meet his gaze. He lightly ran his thumb along the flesh beneath her earlobe, and heard a hiss of breath. That was Mulder's breaking point.
He released Scully's hand to capture the other side of her face and leaned in. Scully's hand flew to where his shoulder met the base of his neck; he was surprised to feel some pressure applied there as she sought to pull him down to her. She, in turn, leaned in as well.
It was slow progress meeting Scully as Mulder felt himself drawn in though simultaneously questioning his sanity. Two halves of the same mind were at war with one another, and one side slowly winning out. Getting so close to Scully was the last thing he should do given the unavoidable future. Reasoning told him it was the wrong choice to make, but he didn't care in that moment. Because it had been so long since he'd been with a woman. Because he and Scully had both sacrificed so much and ultimately deserved some compensation. Because she had taught him that there was more to life than the truth, and because she was the only person he trusted unconditionally.
Finally, he felt the tickle of her breath on his lips, and he hastily closed the gap, catching her mouth with his. She moved deftly beneath him and in complement to him, returning his affection with her own zeal. Mulder felt her nails dig into his shoulder, but the minute pain wasn't a bother; it was real and sharp and only added to the intensity. His hands slipped from her neck and slid down to her skirt. Predicting his maneuver, Scully wrapped one hand around the base of his neck and the other up into his hair, pulling herself nearer to him as he hoisted her off the floor. She locked her legs around his waist and tugged at his hair as she kneaded her fingers into it. Mulder was surprised by how much he enjoyed the sensation; he would have suspected the action would annoy him more than anything, but then again, he was plenty occupied with the feeling of Scully crushed against him, and she kept making as if to pull him closer.
Mulder's mind was practically swimming in the release the situation offered him. Holding her tightly, he spun around and made his way to the bedroom. At the sensation of movement, Scully somehow furthered her grip around Mulder's neck, though he was sure she trusted him not to drop her. As he crossed the threshold, he was met with the choice of what to do next. Collapse on the bed in a fit of blankets and clothes? He decided on the alternative option: setting Scully down beside his bed where they could more easily disrobe. Once she was safely on the ground, Scully unlocked her hands from around Mulder's head and ran her fingers down his chest. Mulder let out a soft chuckle, and then he noticed what Scully was doing; she retracted her hands from him and gripped the bottom of her green sweater. Mulder teased the front of her teeth with his tongue before breaking the embrace. Scully swept off her jacket and pulled off her sweater, letting both drop to one side before suddenly coming to a standstill. Mulder stared at his partner; reckless affection had morphed into uncertainty, even fear. The spell of the moment had broken for her.
"Should we do this?" she suddenly asked.
"Scully," he began huskily, "if you're going to give me some line about Bureau regulations on fraternization between agents, you can save it."
"No," she said, shaking her head. "Should we do this?" she repeated. Mulder's heart palpitated wildly as his entire body seemed to surge with energy. He inhaled and exhaled slowly a few times in attempt to calm himself down. Finally, he found himself able to speak, albeit raggedly.
"It depends if it's what you want," he returned. The rational side of his mind was rejoicing at the sudden halt in their progress. Anything to make Scully's adaptation to a life without him easier. But Mulder couldn't deny his private disappointment. He had been so close to achieving something he had wanted for so long.
She refused to look at him, but Mulder needed an answer from her.
"What do you want, Dana?"