It Returns

1

Scully

She sat at the bar holding back tears as she thought about the last few months. She had left early that morning after that night, to go to a doctor's appointment before work though she didn't want to leave him that way; with his mother's suicide hanging over him, but Skinner stopped by so she went. She had blood drawn and a CT scan done; all to confirm her continued remission. She wanted to celebrate her continued remission with him as they had always done. But it was not be, the cancer had come back, another mass was growing behind her nasal cavity. She did not know how to tell him or if she even wanted to tell him. So she didn't tell him right away, yet the more she thought about it the more she became sure that if anything should happen to her that he would not be able to move on and the closer they got to each other the surer that, that result would happen. So in order to save him; she made a promise to herself not to tell him. She also decided to start distancing herself from him.

That next week she started to put her plan in motion: she started to take her lunch separately and by the end of the week she was rarely in the Basement Office; instead finishing up her paperwork in her little cubby on the second floor or in a quiet office at Quantico after finishing an autopsy. When he started asking about it during the second week she said that being near the body while writing up her reports was a little more helpful, plus she could pull help from the other experts who worked at the lab there. And her office was quiet and didn't run the risk of having a pencil dropped on her head so she could type up her reports in peace. He didn't look totally convinced but let it go and did not ask her about it anymore.

Outside of work she also started limiting her contact with him. She didn't come over to his place, making him come to her and when he got there they would only watch one movie and they would never sit together. He would leave very confused and she would ignore the sinking in her heart. She kept telling herself that this distancing would make it easier for him to get over her eventual death by cancer. And he had to survive.

She sought no treatment this time around nor did she pray, it was futile, she may have gotten back into her faith but that did not eradicate half a lifetime of science. The only person she told was her mother who she made promise not to tell anyone: not Mulder or any family friends. Mulder eventually stopped coming by and she only stopped by the Basement Office in the mornings; going to her desk or Quantico by noon. It was going okay for her until Mulder decided to do some surveillance on this woman whom he believed to be not only a serial killer but also have the ability to disappear before authorities could arrest her. Trapped in a crappy apartment with only Mulder for company, she thought that he was going to try to find out what had happened between them and she knew that while her intentions were to protect him that if he even so much as asked she would tell him. So it was a relief in a way when Skinner called him to investigate something else and left her to continue the surveillance on the woman.

After she called him to let him know how it all turned out she recalled an earlier conversation while she was on a "vacation" in Maine and he asked her to marry him. And she felt her heart constrict painfully. She hoped he would be able to move on. He had to.

And yet some part of her didn't. Some part of her wanted him to waste away with his grief and be faithful to her memory. Some part of her wanted him to bust through her apartment door and demand to know why she had been distant from him lately. She wanted him to proclaim is undying love for her and push her up against the wall and kiss her until she fell into his arms; and she would kiss him back and tell him everything and she would start to fight again. She would fight to keep her life and fight to be with Mulder. Yet . . . She knew that he would respect her choices and that she would have to go to him. But she couldn't. She needed him to survive and continue to find the truth for both their sakes'.

Little did she know that fate would tear them apart and bring them together once again . . .

Two more weeks passed with their new pattern and other people started noticing the apparent strain this was causing both agents and whispered behind their backs about the cause, but Scully continued to ignore them just as they had always done. The following Monday they had a meeting with Skinner so she stopped by her second floor desk to grab her files before she went to remind Mulder about their meeting. Yet when she got to the office and unlocked the door, she found the room empty. Stopping for a moment and her brow wrinkling together in frustration. She was about to turn around and go up to the meeting and hoped he showed up when he heard his whistling coming down the hall. She turned around just as he came in the door. He was wearing one of his dark grey suits with a white dress shirt and a simple black tie. He stopped when he saw her in the doorway and the smile he had on his face faded away to be replaced with a look of apprehension. But then that look vanished behind his mask. And when he decided to speak his voice had scorn, hurt and anger laced through it.

"So the elusive Special Agent Dana Scully finally comes to see her partner. What can I do for you today Agent Scully?"

"We have a meeting with Skinner. I was coming down to remind you." Her voice was flat, toneless and emotionless. Her face was the same way. She was in no mood to deal with little attitudes and moods. She left the office with him following behind and they waited in a very uncomfortable silence. The meeting dragged on and a new case was assigned so after the meeting she followed him to the elevator and down to the Basement Office. They worked in silence until lunch, took lunch then started working again. About halfway through the afternoon silence a knock was heard. Mulder got up and answered the door. After a few seconds he stepped back and allowed the woman who knocked to enter the office; she stopped at the sight of Scully and looked to Mulder. Who again had the same look on his face as this morning didn't notice.

The woman who stood next to her partner is tall, not as tall as Mulder but close her eyes came up to his nose. She was to use the phrase "busty", busty. She had curves that suggested she worked out, dance and weights was Scully's guess. She was pretty, Scully had to admit her eyes were a creamy chocolate that danced and could not hide her emotions like Mulder's hazel or Scully's Icy blues could. Her hair was a dark shade of brown almost black and was straight and went down to her shoulders. Her brown eyes narrowed as she took in Scully's gaze and sent one right back. Finally when Scully noticed that her partner wasn't going to introduce them she stood up and walked over the woman.

"Special Agent Dana Scully." She said extending her hand to shake the other's hand.

"Jane Brock." She replied shaking hands with Scully. "Uhmmm . . . I don't mean to be rude but who are you, I have never seen you before?"

"No need to feel your being rude. I am Agent Mulder's partner. And I could ask the same of you." Was Scully's polite reply.

"I am Fox's girlfriend."

Girlfriend? She calls him Fox?

"That's nice how long have you been going out?"

"Since I got back from the Crittendon/ Adderly case; I met her in the train station." Mulder speaks at last.

"Oh really, how nice." My reply was strained as my heart broke; so he had moved on before I even died, did he even love me in the first place? I most have spun off into the collapsing world of my heart and missed the next few minutes of conversation between the others. When Mulder said my name I had to make a huge effort to bring myself back. They were inviting me to eat a late lunch/early dinner with them I could hear myself saying no: I had paperwork to finish and my mother was coming over tonight. Which was only half true my mom was coming though.

So they left and after she heard the elevator close she waited for a few more minutes than cleaned out the rest of her stuff from her little area of the office and returned to the second floor to get ready to go home.

Scully came out of her reprieve by the sound of the bar door opening and looking up she saw that it was just another patron, not who she was waiting for. That last memory had been at the end of April it was now early August. She had gotten a call from Jane while she was sitting in the Doctor's office waiting to get her latest test results on the progress of her cancer. She had agreed to meet Jane here after the appointment. Seeing as how she was not here just yet she let herself slip back into her memories.

It was early July and Mulder had asked her to come over to his apartment and she agreed. Once she was there she noticed that Jane had moved in with him. Another blow to my heart. Jane greeted her and took her coat and asked her to sit down on the couch as she moved into the kitchen to continue cooking and Mulder came out of the bedroom and sat on the chair to the desk. After a few minutes Jane came into the room and moved to sit on Mulder's lap. As she sat down Mulder kissed her forehead and wrapped his arms around her waist.

"We have a few minutes before dinner is ready baby." She told Mulder who smiled at her. She then turned to me. "Dana, we have some news to tell you. We are getting married!" At her exited proclamation my heart shattered and through a force of will that I didn't even know I had I kept from reacting with sorrow and put a smile on my face as I gave them both my congratulations; but my body had decided to react to the news and the stress I was putting it under my clamping down on my emotions that my nose started to bleed. I could feel the blood start to fall down my face and into my stomach, making me sick. I stood up suddenly and rushed into Mulders bathroom and to the toilet just in time as my stomach rejected the blood. After I had emptied my stomach I sat on his, not their bathroom floor weakly. Eventually I remembered that my nose was bleeding and grabbed some toilet paper and put to my nose and moved my head forward over the toilet bowl. After a few minutes Jane came in to see if I was okay, I just ignored her putting all of my focus into stopping my nose bleed so I could leave and go home to cry myself to sleep . . . again.

Twenty minutes later my nose had stopped bleeding and I was going to go home. When I decided to speed up some of my plans regarding work, I was going to leave now and not wait for the cancer to start to make me weak. And I was going to tell him before I left tonight and never see him again. I stood up from where I was sitting on their bathroom floor. I left the room and made my way back into the living room.

"Hey Mulder?" I called, he came out of the kitchen and looked at me.

"Yeah Scully? You doing ok there?"

"I'm fine, don't worry about me. But I wanted to tell you something. I was going to wait until I saw you in the office, but I think I need to tell you this now; before things get any more complicated." I took a deep breath and his eyes told me to continue.

"I am giving my two weeks' notice to Skinner on Monday, Mulder, I have decided it's time for me to leave the FBI." I finished in a rush and looked away to avoid his eyes; I didn't want to see what they held or as the case may be: not see.

"Ok then, good luck then and thanks for telling me beforehand. What are you going to do? Go and practice medicine or something? He asked me in a voice that to anyone else might seem a bit odd, but to me it was the voice of his mask, a voice that I hadn't heard in years.

"No I am not going to practice medicine; I would have to quit in a few months' time anyways." That was all I was going to tell him about my situation. Let him figure it out, if he wanted to.

"Oh okay. Bye then; see you around then."

"Good bye Mulder." Good bye and see you in whatever is after this life. I grabbed my coat and left without saying a word to Jane. I made it home before the sobs and tears caught up with me and I just lay on the floor in front of my door and cried myself to sleep.

A hand on my shoulder pulled me from my reprieve this time I looked around to see Jane standing next to me. Giving her a tight smile I move my coat off of the seat next to me so she could sit down and we could talk. She sat down and the bartender came and took her order and returned with it a few minutes later.

She sipped on her drink and then took a deep breath. She started to say something but then decided not to. So I decided to ask and just be straight up with her.

"Did you need me for something Jane? When we talked on the phone earlier it sounded like it was important?" There I said it, now it is her turn.

"Yes I did Agent Scully. I wanted to say I was sorry that this is the first time that we have seen each other, though Fox says that he has not seen you since I had either and not to worry about it. I hope that our sudden announcement did not catch you off guard or make you uncomfortable in any way . . ." She trailed off uncertain of what to say now. My turn again.

"No its okay you didn't and I am fine. No my FBI trained gut says that you wanted to talk about something other than that night, am I right?" Her turn once more.

"Your gut is correct. After you left Fox seemed so down and he wouldn't tell me why. I kept after him about it and he eventually told me some stuff about the two of you." She stopped to take a drink and look at me. She had my interest now.

"What did he say about us?"

"He told me how you met and about that first case, your father dying, his father dying and you shooting him. He told me about your sister's murder and how he felt like he was to blame. He told me that you were taken and left barren, then how you got cancer and how it went into remission. He told me that you kissed at the Millennium and that he thought that he loved you. He also told me that you were distancing yourself from him and that you had started to ignore him."

"And you are wondering about what? It sounds like he told you everything."

"Do you love him?" Finally there we have now we are taking about what she wanted to ask. Here we go I will tell her everything, no holds, she deserves to know. So I told her the truth.

"Yes. Yes I love him. I love him with all my heart. A heart that shatters each and every time he leaves me. Every time he looks at another female. Every time he looks or holds you." My eyes start to well up and she notices.

"Then why did you hurt him by distancing yourself from him. If you love someone then you don't hurt them." Accusation was in her tone as she hurled that question at Scully.

"Because if I told him that I loved him and we became a couple, like I wanted to be, then in a few months' time he would be completely devastated and the vortex of his emotions would pull himself so low that eventually all he would feel is his pain." The pain was in my voice as I told her my prediction of what would happen to Mulder after my death.

"Why?" Her tone softening.

"Because, if we were to consummate our mutual feelings then my death would be impossible for him get over because that would mean that everyone he has loved has in some form abandoned him to his madness, his vortex."

"Your dying?"

"Yes. My cancer is back. I only have about four months left at the rate the cancer is growing and spreading."

"I am sorry."

"Don't be. It is what it is. However I would ask that you only tell Mulder if you have to. He will only blame himself and I want him to be happy. That is all I want for him is to be happy. I wish that he could be happy with me, but soon he would only be a living ghost. Not able to feel anything but pain and grief."

"Okay I won't tell him and I understand why you are doing this. You are trying to make your death less to him, so he can continue to live. You really do love him. Were you ever going to tell him?"

"Yes I was. I was going to invite him over to my apartment and tell him then. I was going to wait until I had my cancer-remission test results back. The result should have been no cancer; remission still in effect. I would have celebrated 3 years of cancer remission by telling my soul-mate, my other half that I was in love with him." I finally broke down and started sobbing, and even though I am sure that she does not like me at all she still pulled me into an embrace and held me until my tears stopped coming, until I ran dry. We went our separate ways: Jane to Mulder and myself to my lonely, half-packed apartment.