Hi everyone! I got this idea for a new story and decided to put it out here. It's set in the same universe as my other txf story (Some Nights) but it's not necessary to have read that as well.
The first part starts right at the end of IWTB. I'm sorry if the mythology doesn't make much sense, but that's not why I'm writing.
Rated M for (mild and sporadic) sex scenes. English is not my first language.
Well, enjoy and let me know :)
Part I
Mulder promised her a vacation, just the two of them, and he kept his word. He takes Scully one full week in a luxurious five star hotel at the Bahamas, ocean view, a king size bed, as far away from the darkness as they could get. They are on a tropical paradise, but they barely leave their room.
The days go by among hot sex, mind blowing orgasms, her body aching with the most delicious kind of soreness.
She's on all fours and he pounds into her, hard, fast, her face hidden in the pillows to muffle her moans, as she feels her orgasm building. It's her third that day, and it's not even lunchtime yet. He wraps an arm around her waist to pull her up against his chest, and her head falls on his shoulder, his hot breath against her ear sending shivers down her spine.
"Oh God, just like that," she moans, when one of his hands slides down her body to rub her clit while the other grabs her breast and pinches her hard nipple.
"I love you Scully, I love you so much," he breathes, his cock thrusting furiously in and out of her.
"Yes, yes," she whimpers incoherently, again and again. A couple more thrusts and her body goes rigid in his arms, her walls clenching around him and milking his own orgasm too.
Just a couple of hours later, they are fucking again in the bathtub. She moves on him, his cock sliding in and out of her wet pussy, perfectly hitting her g-spot at every stroke, the water splashing out of the tub and flooding the surroundings. He pants, starting at her tits bouncing in front of him in a mesmerizing rhythm, and she yelps as he softly bites on her swollen nipple. She comes, once with his mouth sucking on her breasts, and then a second time when his fingers swipe across her clit.
Later on that afternoon her internal walls are way too sore to handle another penetration, so he goes down on her and fucks her with his tongue instead. Then it's her turn to reciprocate the favour, and she kneels between his spread legs, sucking his soul out of his cock while her hands work on his heavy balls. He comes unexpectedly with a feral grunt when she sneaks her hand lower and softly circles his most secret opening.
And that is just day one.
By the end of the vacation, Scully is drunk with endorphins, and thinks that things are going to be okay. She thinks that she hasn't been this happy in a long time, and that they will solve together every problem that may come between them, because they love each other so much that her chest hurts if she thinks about it.
She comes home from work every day in the evening and they have dinner together. They talk. Mulder asks her about her day, about her patients, about her colleagues. She asks him about his day, what he read, if he found more newspaper articles to cut and pin to the wall of his office. They watch TV and exchange comments on the news. Senator Barack Obama has just clinched the Democratic nomination for the upcoming election, against the Republican John McCain.
"Can you believe it, Mulder? By the end of the year we could have our first black President," Scully says.
Mulder shrugs. "Let's see how he handles the end of our civilisation."
She knows he's referring to the Mayan prophecy, but doesn't want to go into it just now. They switch channel and watch The Da Vinci Code. She falls asleep with her head on his lap and his hands in her hair before the end of the movie.
In November, she takes him to the polls to cast their vote.
That night she wants to stay up to watch history being made, and this time, it's Mulder who falls asleep on her lap.
He hears the roar of her car approaching, and he immediately goes to the kitchen to wait for her. She had an important surgery today.
He smiles brightly as she opens the door.
"So? How did it go?" he asks eagerly.
She's pale as a sheet with dark circles under her eyes, but she's smiling too. "It was a success… everything went well," she replies, "but I spent the last 7 hours standing in the OR, and I'm exhausted, I just want to lay down."
He follows her upstairs to their bedroom.
She sighs loudly as she lets her body collapse on the bed, finally feeling all her muscles relax, while he helps her get her feet on the bed too. Then, he sits on the edge of it and removes her shoes and socks.
"Oh yes, just like that," she whispers as he starts rubbing her feet, the grin on his face growing wider hearing the almost erotic sounds she emits.
She loves that she doesn't have to say anything, he knows exactly what she needs. Among a series of moaned 'oh god' and 'right there' that have him in giggles, she tells him the details of the operation while his hands work on her sore heels, arches and toes.
When he's done, he places a feather-like kiss beneath her toes and crawls up her body until they're face to face, cradling her in his arms.
"That was one of your best performances," she comments.
"What if I told you I ordered a pizza and it should be here any moment now?" he says, wiggling his eyebrows.
She grins. "I love you."
Their routine goes on until one day she comes home, cooks something, but he says he's not hungry at the moment, he will eat later. She asks if he's not feeling well, but he says he's just busy with something. She shrugs and closes his door.
She eats alone, watching the latest developments on the swine flu, thinking it's just once, it can happen that people are not hungry. That night, she's in bed reading a book when he joins her, and they make love. He apologises to her for having missed their dinner, and tells her that the chicken she cooked was delicious.
He spoons against her still naked body, his fingers drawing slow, relaxing circles on her belly. He knows how much she loves that. As a matter of fact, she closes her eyes, purring softly. Soon they fall asleep.
Overall, things are good between them. Her job keeps her away from home almost all day, five days a week with some extra weekend shifts, but they make the best of the time they do share. He surprises her one day with the Nintendo Wii, and they spend hours during the weekend playing various virtual sports. She accidentally hits him with the remote controller while they play tennis, making his nose bleed. They laugh together, then she fucks him on the couch, making him come so hard that his nose bleeds again.
As the seasons go by, as the short cold days of winter turn into long hot summer days, Mulder spends more and more time in his room, surfing the Internet, cutting out newspaper articles. It happens again, and then again, and then again, that he doesn't join her for dinner. Scully thinks of William while she eats alone. She wonders what his favourite food his, and hopes his adoptive mother cooks it for him from time to time.
Soon it happens almost regularly that she has dinner alone. Those times in which they do have dinner together, he still asks her about her day, and then they make love afterwards. She thinks it's just a phase. He's obsessively into the WikiLeaks scandal these days, he follows everything that Julian Assange says or does, every interview, every small development.
She worries for him, a little, but when she tells him, he dismisses her immediately, saying it's just a topic he's very interested in.
"Why don't we watch a move tonight? There's Notting Hill on TV at 9," he proposes to prove his words.
She cracks a smile. "And we order a pizza?"
"Pepperoni and mushrooms."
She closes the distance between them and kisses his lips, before enveloping him in his arms. Pizza and movie nights were one of their favourite activities, and they don't do that enough lately.
Afterwards, in bed, he lets her ride his face, and she comes twice, loudly, his mouth relentless on her clit.
However, even after the scandal seems to be over, he still has days in which he says he's busy and won't have dinner with her, nor propose any other kind of activity to make up for his absence.
She starts occupying her evenings taking up extra work, or watching TV series. Her favourite ones are How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory, at least she laughs a little. Then she watches Grey's Anatomy, because her colleagues at work talk about it. There's an episode in which one of the doctors has the chance to meet again her daughter whom she had given up for adoption years earlier, for her good, but the little girl has now no interest in meeting her birth mother.
Scully thinks of William. He turns ten in a couple of months. His childhood is almost over already, and she's lost every single moment of it. She never witnessed his first steps, his first words, she never potty trained him, she never taught him how to use a spoon. She never watched him ride a bike, she never met his friends, never helped him with his homework. She wonders what he likes. Is he a little math genius, like she was, or is he the talented boy in art class? Or is he the sporty type, the one who always gets picked first when it's time to make the two teams to play something? When he's alone, does he play videogames, or does he prefer reading a book?
Whatever he likes, whoever he has become, she hopes he's healthy and happy and loved, and that his adoptive parents wake up every day feeling blessed for having him as a son.
Day after day, her conversations with Mulder get more and more shallow, when they happen. When he asks about her day, he doesn't listen with the same interest. He looks at her, and nods. When she asks him about his day, he shrugs and says he did nothing particular, the usual stuff. She wonders if he thinks of William too sometimes.
She knocks to his door one evening, after work.
"Have you heard?" she asks, "Bin Laden is dead."
He nods, without even turning to look at her. "Yes, I've heard."
That's the only interaction they have that day. She's already asleep when he gets in bed.
She spends the following day worrying for her relationship, but when she gets home that evening he's waiting for her, and they have sex on the kitchen table. She's still wearing her sweater. Her hips bucks against him with each push into her.
"Harder. Faster," she moans, over and over again.
He complies, thrusting in and out of her as harshly as he can, his hand groping her clothed breast. Just a minute later, her eyes squeeze shut and a feral wail leaves her mouth. She's coming so hard she sees stars behind her eyelids, as the strength of her clenching muscles push him over the edge too.
She thinks the situation can't be so bad if sex is still so good.
One Sunday she joins Facebook, since it has become popular among her colleagues. She adds them, and then she adds her brothers, her sister-in-law, and her oldest nephew. She also looks for old friends from high school, college, and med school. She can't help grinning when she finds Walter Skinner and John Doggett. There was a time in her life in which they were the closest thing to a friend she had. She adds them both, then she types 'Monica Reyes' on the search bar, without any luck.
The following evening, Mulder is in his room, and Scully eats her cheeseburger and salad while chatting on Facebook with Doggett. He lives in San Francisco now. She thinks it's funny, because back when they worked together they never really talked, and now this was turning out to be the most interesting conversation she's had in a while. They talk of their jobs, his new partner, her new colleagues. They talk about Mulder, and Skinner, and Monica. Doggett says he hasn't heard from her in years, and she doesn't ask for further details. They have a conversation that goes both ways, that goes beyond monosyllabic words, unlike what she's having with Mulder lately, and that's what makes it good.
"I joined Facebook yesterday," she tells Mulder later on, in bed, "you should too. It's fun."
"That shit? No thanks. They spy on you through that."
For some reason, his reply annoys her more than usual. He's so focused on himself that he doesn't care about anything that might interest her. She wanted to tell him about her conversation with Doggett, about Skinner's terrible choice of profile pictures, about the games one can play. She wanted them to have one normal thing to talk about, but of course he had to find darkness in it too. Now she just wants to sleep.
She rolls onto her side and switches off the light. After a couple of seconds, she feels him shift closer to her, and put a hand on her hip. His hardening erection presses against her buttocks.
"I'm not in the mood," she states.
He mutters something she can't understand, and rolls on his side too.
Before she realises it, their sex life deteriorates too. They go from making love multiple times a week, to once a week, to once or twice a month. They don't even undress each other anymore, all they do is lower their pants and underwear to make the act possible.
She remembers the long foreplay sessions they used to keep each other busy with on lazy Sunday afternoons. She remembers how he would get hard immediately, just with a glance at her naked body. She remembers the way her pussy tingled when he kissed her neck, or stroked her sides up and down, or just looked at her as if she was the sexiest woman alive.
Now their sex is not an act of love and passion anymore, it's just a mere physical relief, or at least that's what it feels like to her. They fuck silently, the breathy moans and pants that used to fill their bedroom are nothing but a memory. Gradually, the times where she doesn't have an orgasm become more frequent than the ones when she does.
"You didn't finish," he tells her one time, after he comes.
As if it's the first time that happened.
"Uhm… no, I didn't… but it's okay," she replies.
Before she can say anything else, he reaches between her legs and slides two fingers inside her pussy. She gasps in surprise when his pads immediately find her g-spot, and a soft moan escapes her lips. However, the mood is soon broken when she realises his movements are mechanical, and his gaze is lost somewhere in the void, as if his mind wansn't there at all, as if he was just fulfilling his duty.
She wants to cry. Making her feel good was never an obligation to him before.
She gently puts an hand over his to stop him, and tells him she's tired and a little stressed from work, so it's not going to happen. He nods, kissing her goodnight on her cheek, and he turns on the other side, while she lets a few tears stream silently down her face.
The following times in which she feels she's not going to come during sex, she fakes it, just to make sure she never has to go through such a humiliating situation anymore.
Slowly, they stop having sex altogether.
She starts masturbating, while taking hot baths after work. She used to masturbate fairly regularly when she was single, but she's lost that habit since she and Mulder got together. He would always satisfy her needs. Now, she gradually starts touching her breasts, pinching her nipples, before dipping her hand between her thighs. In a few minutes, she's wetter than she's been in months. She goes slowly, loving herself, touching all the spots that she knows drive her insane. She comes hard with two fingers inside her pussy and the other hand on her clit. She feels good, and a little guilty at the same time, because the man in her brain wasn't Mulder, but a random guy she's seen on TV.
With the beginning of 2012, what is supposed to be the last year for the human civilisation, Mulder slides more and more into apathy as weeks go by. She can count on her fingers the times they have dinner together in a month. He loses appetite, he stops shaving, he comes to bed later and later or sometimes he doesn't come to bed at all. One weekend they have lunch together, and he tells her he's found this website with people organising to survive the apocalypse. That's the only thing he talks about, the end of the world and conspiracy theories. At this point, she'd almost rather watch The Big Bang Theory instead.
"It's William's birthday," Mulder tells her as he comes to bed unusually early. It's a cloudy spring night, the raindrops fall against their bedroom window.
She lifts her eyes off the book she's reading to look at him. She wants to ask why he's in bed so early, it's not even midnight yet, but all she can do is smile.
"Yes… He's eleven," she replies.
Mulder lays down and tucks his arms under his head. "Do you think he's going to have a big party? Eleven is an important age."
They talk for a while about their son, a bittersweet conversation that ends up reminding both of them why they never talk about him. It's incredibly sad that the only memories they have of their eleven-year-old son are along the lines of 'that time you changed his diaper and he peed on you', but at the same time talking about him from time to time helps them relieve the huge grief they carry inside. It's just good to know, for both of them, that the other shares their pain.
Albeit sad, they just shared a brief moment on intimacy, something that hasn't happened in far too long. Feeling confident, she shifts closer to him and kisses his lips. He kisses her back at first, but stops abruptly as her hand slides down his body to palm his flaccid cock. His whole body stiffens.
"Scully, stop," he says firmly, and she removes her hand, searching in his eyes for an explanation on why they haven't had sex in months and now he's rejecting her.
"I'm sorry," is all he says.
She silently cries herself to sleep. She doesn't know whether he hears her and doesn't want to deal with it, or whether he just can't sleep, but soon he gets up and walks out of the room. Then she hears the door of his office open and close with a clicking sound.
For the first time, she wonders where things went wrong. Well, at least the world is going to be over soon.
The green leaves in the trees surrounding their house gradually turn into a beautiful foliage that is red and brown and yellow, and then they fall to the ground. Mulder rarely sleeps, eats just the minimum amount to survive, only talks about the impending apocalypse. They haven't had sex for 11 months, she's been counting. After her failed attempt in May, they tried once again, in August, he fucked her from behind. It used to be one of their favourite positions, it made her feel sexy and wanton and overall very good. That night instead, she picked it so that they could avoid looking at each other's face. Not that it mattered, since he lost his erection after less than a minute.
She masturbates regularly though, she even bought a couple of new toys for her pleasure. If he saw them, he never said anything.
A Saturday, an unusually warm November afternoon, he emerges from his room and finds her curled up on the couch with her laptop. His eyes are red with blood and there're big black circles underneath. He hasn't gone to bed last night.
"I'm… going out," he announces.
"What? Where?"
She's taken aback by his statement, because she honestly can't remember the last time he's left the house.
"I'm going to buy something. You'll see."
With that, he leaves.
He's back a couple of hours later with two huge black backpacks.
"Mulder, what are those?" she asks.
"The 21st of December is close Scully, less than a month away. We need to pack our things and leave. With the guys on the website, we identified the spots where the colonisation begins…"
He keeps on talking, but she stops listening. She is terribly worried for him. She stands up and walks towards him, to wrap her arms around him. She immediately notices he's lost some weight since the last time she hugged him, and that says a lot about how long it's been.
He remains motionless in her arms, sighing loudly.
"Scully, you're not taking this seriously," he says.
Since he's not hugging her back, she takes a step back too.
"I think you're taking this way too seriously, Mulder," she whispers, purposefully avoiding eye contact.
"Too seriously? Too seriously, you say?" he snaps, "it's the end of our fucking civilisation Scully, it's the end of the world as we know it!..."
Once again he rumbles on, barking angrily at her, and she disconnects herself. He's too far gone to care about anything she might have to say. When he's done, he walks to his office and slams the door loudly behind him.
They fight about this a lot. He says they have to leave, he figured out exactly what is going to happen, and he has no intention of going down without a fight. For the first time, he tells her he sent his discoveries to all newspapers, magazines, but he was never published except for a couple of blogs on the topic.
"They didn't believe me, but I don't give a shit Scully. This is it, this is the truth, we have to go," he insists, his voice firm and loud.
She can only put a hand above her eyes in desperation. She knows there is no way she can make him change his mind, and she can't let him go alone. She sighs, silently, resigned.
"Okay. Where is this place exactly?"
He looks down for a brief moment, as if he needs to collect his thoughts. When he looks up again, a strange light lingers in his eyes.
"It's where you gave birth to William," he replies eventually. Then he goes on explaining how he found out the colonisation starts there, but she isn't listening anymore. She feels sick at the mere thought that she has to step foot in that abandoned house again, reliving the moment that has been, at the same time, the scariest, happiest, and saddest of her life.
In that moment, she thinks she hates Mulder a little, and she wishes she were strong enough to tell him to go chase his truth by himself.
She isn't, and she dislikes herself for it. She thinks she could never forgive herself if something happens to him because she didn't go with him. She believes he's not used to driving long hours anymore.
She tells him she'll go with him.
That night, she cries herself to sleep, but as usual, he's not there to hear her.
They leave on the 19th of December. They drive all night and all day, in silence, the landscape changing right before their eyes, the radio playing Christmas songs from time to time. Mulder parks the car exactly where Monica parked it years earlier. Scully remembers that day so well she has a hard time believing eleven years have passed.
How could you take me here, Mulder, how could you?
There're a few other people there already, and Mulder immediately joins them, leaving Scully alone in the car, her arms crossed to her chest.
Rage fills her so abruptly that she forgets how much she loves him. He gives zero fucks about her right now. She's not an alien, so she's not worthy of his attention.
She takes the deepest breath, and she thinks of William. Just for a moment, she lets herself recall the joy she felt when she first held him in her arms, watching all the people around disappear, thinking her little family would have a bright future together, filled with love.
She doesn't know what hurts more, the fact that their future never came to be, or the fact that Mulder seems completely oblivious to her pain. Or the fact that she's the only one in pain, as if her son wasn't his too.
Sitting in her car, she wonders how William's doing, hoping that if he's to die soon, like everyone else, it is a quick and painless death. A couple of minutes later, she steps out of the car.
They drive their way back to Virginia in the same way they drove the first time. In complete silence. This time, Scully drives, and Mulder spends his time between falling asleep against the window and staring at the landscape.
Nothing happened. They waited the whole day and the whole night, and nothing happened, nor there, nor anywhere else in the world.
He can't believe nothing happened, she somehow already knew. She spent the night sleeping, in the same bed she lay while she gave birth to her son, and when Mulder came in the morning after and woke her up, all she could do was ask him "Can we go home now?".
She feels sorry for him, because once again years of research have taken him nowhere, but she feels sorry for herself too, because once again she let him take over her life and drag her into his darkness.
As they finally cross the 'Welcome to Virginia' sign, her mind is screaming this isn't the life she wants for herself anymore.
Mulder spends a couple of days in bed, drifting in and out of sleep, only getting up to go to the bathroom. He's lethargic. She becomes his doctor, she takes his temperature, checks his blood pressure, brings him food, helps him bathe. She cries when she takes a shower herself, wondering if things could possibly sink deeper than this.
"My mum invited us over for lunch tomorrow. Are you coming?" she asks him on Christmas Eve.
He shakes his head. "You go. Have fun."
She wants to cry and scream and punch him because all he does is lying there, as if it could possibly make things better, and she hates herself for this. She wishes she could talk to him, like the old times, she wishes she could cradle him in her arms, help him, love him.
More than anything, she wishes she wanted to do any of this, but she's been lacking strength lately. Sometimes she finds herself thinking that that man in their bed is not the same man she fell in love with almost 20 years ago, and some other times that thought makes her laugh. Of course he's the same man. It's her the one who's different.
"Alright," she whispers.
She diagnoses him with endogenous depression, and thinks she should have realised this earlier. He's probably had it for years, the missed colonisation just aggravated the situation, didn't create it in the first place. Insomnia, lack of appetite, disinterest in sexual activities, mood swings, all are symptoms of this disease. She prescribes him some pills.
Now she hates herself for being harsh on him, she wonders if she could have done something more, she tells herself that she loves him, and it is nothing but the truth.
No matter how hard she tries, the sense of unhappiness won't leave her be.
With the new year, she has drinks with her colleagues one evening. They're fun people, a little younger than her, but definitely good company. She likes herself when she's with them, more than she likes herself when she's at home with Mulder. She feels younger, full of ideas that she can share with people who understand them and appreciate them.
A couple of hours later, she is sitting in her car, in front of her house, and she thinks that she doesn't like her life anymore. She's not happy. She's lonely. There's only darkness in that house. Her relationship is dead.
She says it out loud, "my relationship is dead."
She hides her face in her hands and cries, loudly, her body shaken by sobs and sighs.
Mulder gets better with treatment, less lethargic. A part of her wishes they could face their problems now. However, he soon begins again to spend his hours in front of his laptop, shut in his room, never really talking to her about anything that might be crossing his mind.
One night she's in bed alone with her laptop, she's rarely been so miserable before, she had one too many glass of wine, and she does something she never thought she would do. She opens Google and types 'find adopted child'. Back in 2002, she specifically asked for a closed adoption, for obvious reasons, and she knows that the adoption records are very hard to unseal. Hard, but theoretically not impossible.
However, the search is like a cold shower, much more than she imagined. First, it is only allowed to look for adult kids, which means she has to wait 7 more years before she can even begin to look for William. And even after that, it's a long, extenuating, expensive procedure, that might even require a court order. Otherwise, she discovers there're some social networks created with the specific purpose of reuniting biological parents and children, but that's even a longer shot, as it requires that both parties are actively seeking each other at the same time, and using the same website. She doesn't know if, or when, William will ever want to look for her.
Left with nothing but hopelessness, she closes her laptop and cries, wishing Mulder was there with her, to hold her, comfort her, share her pain, like he used to do. But no, he's downstairs, dealing with his bullshit as usual. And he drove you, without batting an eye, where William was born.
She's angry, and sad, and she starts toying with the idea that she can truly, concretely change things, that she can leave him and this house.
Fuck you Mulder, she thinks for a fraction of second, but she immediately regrets it.
When she allows her rationality to kick in, she knows he's sick and he needs her. He needs her to check on him.
She just doesn't know how long she'll be able to live like this.
She starts seeing apartments after work, and she hates herself for it, but at home she's so miserable that she can't stand it anymore. The darkness drains her, has been draining her for a long time now.
Mulder is much better now, but he still doesn't acknowledge her and her needs, not just the sexual ones, but the emotional ones. She feels lonely. She feels abandoned. They live under the same roof, but there's the distance of an ocean between them.
She hates herself so much for her selfishness, and at the same time, she's tired of hating herself.
She visits a very nice place, quite close to the hospital, it reminds her of the apartment she used to have while working for the FBI, and the rent is not that high. She says she'll think about it.
When she goes home that night, Mulder is in his room, and tells her he's not hungry. She's been there before.
She knows treatment takes a while, the symptoms won't just disappear in a couple of weeks, but she silently cries herself to sleep almost every night now. She owes happiness to herself. And she hates herself for it.
The following day, she phones the agency, and tells them she'll move in in a couple of weeks.
The day she finally bring herself to talk to him about her decision is a Saturday, and they're having lunch together, in silence. He has nothing to tell her, she has nothing to tell him. The only sound in the room is the TV announcing that Benedict XVI is the first Pope to resign in more than 600 years.
She suddenly drops her fork on the table. "I can't do this anymore Mulder."
"What, be the head of the Catholic Church?" he jokes, but then he sees her eyes, and those aren't joking. He doesn't understand what she means at first, but then she explains it, she explains how miserable she is, how lonely she's been feeling for months, years, and she tells him she has found a place close to the hospital.
The air between them is thick with shattered promises.
"Are you… are you breaking up with me?" he asks, his voice quivery, his eyes glistening with tears. Never in his life has he been so afraid of the truth.
"I'm sorry, Mulder," is all she says.
He's startled, and a silent tear streams down his cheek. He hopes this is all a nightmare, from which he's going to wake up soon, but he knows it isn't.
"Scully… no… d-don't…" he stutters, searching for a sign in her eyes that this is temporary.
He finds none.
Suddenly he has a huge weigh pressing on his chest that prevents him from breathing. He can't cry, he can't scream, he can't say anything.
The room spins all around him, her mouth is moving, she's saying something, he doesn't get it. He gets up from the chair and walks to his office, shutting the door behind him. His food rests unfinished in his plate.
She watches him aghast, the consequences of what she's said sinking down on her. It's over. They're not together anymore. She's leaving.
A part of her wishes he'd at least fought back, told her that she is being an idiot and that her choice to leave is a shitty one.
He didn't. Not one word came out of his mouth.
The TV goes on talking.
As in a trance, her head floating above her body, she walks to their bedroom, now his, and she sits on the bed, staring at the void in front of her. Memories of twenty years of their life together play like a movie in front of her glassy eyes.
Later that afternoon, the sunset light is peeking through the bedroom windows. There's a suitcase open on the floor, all the drawers are open too, and her clothes are all over the bed. She told the landlord of the new apartment that she'll be there the next morning, and now she has twenty years' worth of things to pack. She had no idea how many things she owned, and she has no idea where to start.
Suddenly there's a knock on the door, interrupting her stream of thoughts. Mulder is leaning on the jamb, his eyes puffy, his cheeks visibly damp. He's been crying.
There are so many things she wants to tell him, but none leaves her mouth. He speaks first.
"I'll help you pack," he says, nodding at the bed covered with clothes. His voice is filled with misery and acceptance.
Scully wants to weep too, and she almost does when he approaches her and takes her hands in his.
"Mulder, I-," she starts, but he silences her with his forefinger on her lips. He's so close now, and he has that look in his eyes, and she thinks he's going to kiss her. He strokes her cheek before cupping it softly.
"Please don't make this harder," she whispers in one breath.
He still doesn't speak, but squeezes his eyes and fresh tears start spilling out.
"I'm letting you go, Scully," he murmurs, his voice broken and choked. "You're… you're the only woman I ever truly loved, and the best friend I could have ever asked for, and…"
He's sobbing now, loudly, repeatedly, uncontrollably, trying his best to keep talking through it all. "…and the only, the only thing I want is… it's you, to be happy, Scully… and, and if you're not happy here, with me, then…"
She's crying too now, shaking her head because she knows she'll be teared apart once he's done speaking.
"…I'm letting you go because I wish… I wish I could tell you that I want to make love to you one last time… but it would be a lie… I can't give you what you want, Scully, what you need… all I can do is let you go, let you be happy."
His face is red, wet, he sniffles and crashes his head on her shoulder. She never had a sword through her heart, but she guesses that's what it feels like. She wraps her arms around him, their sorrow ripping through their bodies, and they shake in each other's embrace, knowing this time there's no way back.
"I'm sorry, Scully," he continues, his cheek damp against her neck, "I'm so sorry… for all the pain I caused you, in twenty years… I ruined your life…"
His last sentence is a punch in her stomach, and she grabs his shoulder, forcing him to look at her.
"Don't you dare say that," she weeps as firmly as possible, swallowing the lump in her throat, but her voice is unsteady and faint, her mouth dry, "don't you dare think that, Mulder…"
Her lips and chin quiver, and right when she is starting to think she has no more tears to cry, here they come, rolling down her burning cheeks.
"…we were happy together… you made me so happy, Mulder, so happy."
Her voice abandons her completely in the end, and she weeps, and he hugs her again when he understands she can't speak anymore. Their knees wobble and they kneel down on the floor, wrapped in each other's arms, crying it all out, years of love and frustration and loss and more love.
But they both know now that love is not enough anymore, and neither is guilt.
They cry together until there are no more tears.
Afterwards, they pack her things in silence.
When she goes to bed that night, he finds him already there.
"I'll take the couch," she says, nodding at the door.
"No!" he says, sitting up, motioning as if he was going to come after her if she hadn't stopped, "Stay… let me hold you."
She accepts, sighing, diverting her gaze not to see the tears pooling up in his eyes again.
He spoons her, her back against his wide chest, his hand immobile on her stomach. She remembers when cuddling with him was one of her favourite things in the whole universe.
"We can…" he starts tentatively, "we can give it a try… at sex… if you want to."
She hates when he makes sex sound like a favour he's doing to her.
"Good night Mulder."
After they fall asleep, they soon roll away from each other, like a confirmation that there's nothing else left to do.
Mulder helps her load her car, the morning after. He also offers to come with her to her new place, to help carry the heaviest things, but she assures him she can do it herself.
"Will you be okay?" she asks.
He nods. He wants to tell her that he loves her, he's always loved her, he'll always love her, but doesn't want to start crying all over again. He will cry, later on, once he's alone in their house, the one they bought together because they used to love each other and think nothing could possibly come between them, ever.
"I'll create a Facebook account and add you," he says instead.
He waves at her while she drives away, and she keeps her eyes fixed on him on the rear-view mirror until he's no longer in sight.
For the first time in nineteen years, Dana Scully is by herself. She never believed that thing people say, that a couple is made of two 'halves'. It's a concept she doesn't like. Mulder isn't her half, and she isn't his. They're two wholes fitting together.
But damn if it doesn't feel like she's left behind a piece of her soul.
She calls him a lot during the first weeks, to check on him, to ask how he's feeling and whether he's taking his medicines. She gives him the name of a new doctor, an actual psychiatrist, to renew the prescription.
Then, she calls him less and less.
He only calls her first on William's birthday, but she's at work, or somewhere, and she doesn't answer. He wants to call her so many other times, but he reminds himself that she's happier now, without him. The least he can do is try to find happiness again himself. A part of him keeps hoping that she will get back to him eventually.
She visits him on his birthday, and is pleased to see he's doing well, and the house is not a mess. It's quite clean, in fact, and he looks like he's been exercising.
They talk for a while, he makes her some tea.
"I miss you," he says out of the blue.
Her lips curl in a sad smile. "I miss you too."
"Not enough to come back, though, right?"
She doesn't reply.
When she leaves, they both know their beautiful relationship is over for good.
The following years, she only calls him for his birthday and for Christmas, and on other very sporadic occasions.
He creates a Facebook profile, with a false name, and chooses not to add her.