Fate in a Trench Coat

by Trycee

Time Frame: All Things, Season 7: Scully has to confront her guilt over the past.

Disclaimer: I do not own the X Files, its owned by Chris Carter and Fox. I wrote this for fun not profit.

***I first wrote this in August 2010 but I thought I'd update it.

Mulder has always been clueless when it comes to women hitting on him. He's especially clueless when it comes to me. I am so sexually frustrated that I can barely stand looking at him. No, I don't want to run off to England and look for crop circles, Mulder. I have a better an idea of what we could do but again, clueless. God, Mulder! I want to settle down and I don't think he'll ever get to that point. Meanwhile we're getting older and more sexually frustrated and life is passing us by. I'm growing older, I'm growing tired, and my body is screaming for him and yet he only wants to talk about crop circles and aliens.

Sometimes I just want to hit him when he doesn't understand my need to slow down. I want a life with him, together as a couple. I want more than to be his FBI partner. I want him to touch me and kiss me and love me the way I crave. Will he ever grow up? I'm not sure I can wait another seven years to find out. I was thinking about Mulder, of course, when the mix up of the files in the hospital happened and I fount out that Daniel was there. I stood looking at my past and all my shame and emotions came rushing back to me as if the past ten years hadn't happened.

Maggie Waterston and I had been best friends in college. We were roommates and we shared most of our time together all through medical school. She was as close to me as my sister Melissa. I had always fell for older men and I had my eye on a certain professor, though I wasn't sure of his name. That's when Maggie introduced me to her father, my upcoming professor. He was so much older than me, wiser, and powerful and I was aware of my attraction to him and I was ashamed but I was intrigued when he seemed to be attracted to me as well. Before I knew it sparks flew and we started an affair in secret.

It wasn't unusual for some college girls to date their professors and I was no exception at the time. I hung on his every word. He promised me marriage, children, and everything I could ever want in life and I believed him. We kept our relationship a secret because he was my professor, my mentor, but also because we didn't want Maggie finding out. I felt guilty but it was exciting too; doing something I wasn't supposed too. How could I tell her that her father had been the guy I was seeing? Oh, the guys all through college and even in medical school wanted to date me but I was always drawn to older men. My therapist said that though I was a confident, professional, independent woman, I was drawn to older powerful men because I was always trying to compensate for my need for approval from my Naval captain father. There may be some truth to that, I suppose. All the men that I have loved including Mulder, I had been solely devoted too and were usually older than me and in a higher position than me.

I was looking for love and devotion back then and I saw it in this older man that made my head swirl. I was young and he was very powerful and I was drawn to him. The boys my age that I had dated previously only wanted sex out of me but this was a real man who knew what he wanted and what he wanted was me! I didn't recognize that he was controlling. I willing gave over my power to him. I wanted to be the woman he wanted to mold into his future wife. I wanted to be whatever he told me to be. He promised devotion to me and he promised me children, a career in medicine, everything that I dreamed of. He promised me things I had dreamed of as a little girl, to be a prominent doctor with a successful husband as well and he made me believe it was all possible. And then my world came crashing down. Maggie introduced me to her mother Barbara and I saw the wedding ring on her finger. I stared at her ring for the longest time as both Maggie and Barbara looked at each other. Daniel is still married, the thought came crashing around me, enveloping me with shame so thick I could hardly breath.

My face reddened as I stood in front of Barbara and Maggie and I was horrified. I was disgusted with myself and ashamed of us. I was so naïve back then. I immediately tried to stop seeing Daniel, cursing the day I had ever met him but he wouldn't let me go so easily. He confessed to his wife Barbara about us much to my shock. I was ashamed. I was hurt that he'd betray me by telling his wife but mostly I felt extreme guilt. I had deceived Maggie and because of the affair I had with her father, without a word, she was gone. There was no note, nothing. I came back to our shared dorm room to find her side empty except for the plastic mattress. I later learned that she dropped out of medical school. I always felt guilty not only for sneaking around behind her back but because I had caused so much damage to her life and our friendship.

I knew that if my parents found out they would be ashamed of me especially Ahab. Good Catholic Girls don't become Home Wreckers. Daniel tried to convince me to stay, he tried to convince me to stick to medicine and to remain with him. It was hard breaking from him. I wasn't sure if I could but then I realized that I knew I needed to escape him and my past and it was part of my reason for joining the FBI. Then there was Jack for a year, then Ethan briefly and then later came Mulder, though we are still at a stand-still in our relationship, if you could call it that. It's still taking me such a long time to show Mulder I love him because I'm scared to trust again, to let go of my heart...

But when I walked into Daniel's hospital room and I saw Maggie, I was too afraid, not wanting her to see me, ducking away. And then I saw Daniel laying in that bed and he looked so much older, much weaker than I'd ever thought he would and those past feelings came rushing through. I stood there, my mind going back to the last time I saw him years ago when he had begged me to stay. I had been vulnerable with my heart breaking feeling ashamed and guilty and confused. I loved him but yet I had become the other woman and I wasn't sure I could make it on my own. When I tried to walk out the door, he had grabbed me roughly, crushing his lips to mine trying to force me to kiss him. I barely was able to push him away. I told him that he scared me. I saw the look in his eyes but I then I turned and walked away. Now here I stood looking at the shell of the man I knew. What had those years since I left him done to him, I wondered. Daniel's hair was more gray than it had been and a single tear ran down his cheek. I didn't want to see him. I was going to push him back out of mind until she called...

"You came to see him," Maggie said on the phone.

"I'm sorry, who is this?", I asked, standing near my window at home.

"Margaret Waterston," she said.

"Maggie...Is everything alright? "

"That depends doesn't it."

"I'm sorry?"

"Whatever," she spoke. "Dr. Kopeikan told my father that you were here and now he wants to see you."

"About what?", I asked.

"Look," she said angrily. "He asked me to call so I'm calling..."

"I don't know. I don't Maggie, " I stuttered. "I don't know if I have the time."

"Don't know if you have the time," she sneered.

The phone had beeped. "Maggie, can you hold on, I have another call coming through."

"Look...Listen," she began. "If you come, it doesn't mean I accept you being in his life.", she said hanging up.

Mulder had interrupted Thank God, he was good at that. But I was still angry with him and confused about the Maggie/Daniel situation so I was short with him but when I told him 'I'd try for him', I meant more than what he thought. I loved him and it hurt that we were fighting. I don't know why but I never wanted to disappoint him and even though picking up some papers for him was the last thing I wanted to do I knew I would, of course, but it also meant that I would be going in the direction of Daniel, near the hospital and that meant inviting my past into the present.

Please Leave Feedback: Thanks!