Title: In the End
Author: Dawn
E-mail:
leffue@hotmail.comRating: PG-13
Category: A
Spoilers: Orison and a mention of Emily
Summary: In the end, only a friend can pull you back from the brink.
Disclaimer: They aren't mine. Boo-hoo.
Feedback is always welcome!
In The End
In the end, there is very little mystery in murder. My words came back to haunt me as they rolled Donnie Pfaster's bag covered body past me. An involuntary shiver shook through me as what could have happened here went through my mind. I forcibly pushed the thought aside. I couldn't think about that now. Scully needed me. And that happened so rarely that I wanted to get it right.
I could not get the picture of her sitting on her bed out of my mind. To an outsider her stoicism in the face of what had happened would have seemed frightening. But I knew where to look to find the truth, her eyes. They were ravaged by fear, doubt, and uncertainty. She had committed murder. She had shot Donnie Pfaster at point blank range without a moment's hesitation, and although I believe she had every reason to do it, she believes she was prompted by some outside force. Which outside force she isn't sure.
That's what gets me. How could Scully believe that for one moment that evil had possessed her to kill Pfaster? If anything she was acting as the hand of God reigning justice down on a man I am convinced was pure evil. But Scully can't see that. I also cannot accept the fact that evil could reside in any part of my Scully. She is goodness personified. She is everything that is right and just and kind in this world. There is no room for darkness in her because what place has darkness in light? And she is pure light. I wanted to tell her that. I wanted to explain that it was impossible for her to be evil or to do it's bidding but I didn't know how to put in into words without sounding like a love struck fool. I could hear myself now.
"Oh Scully, you are light and beauty and grace. You are kind, good, and loving. Will you marry me and let me take you away from all this?"
I almost laughed at the ridiculousness of it. Take her away from it? I am the one who had brought her into it. I had taken a soul so full of life and light and plunged it headfirst into a pit of darkness, hate, and despair. And yet through it all she had immerged more beautiful than before. But this time I could feel the despair clinging to her like skin. It formed a shell around her that I could not break through.
I had left her huddled on her bed to change and pack a few things. I was taking her to my place for the night so that our fellow feds could clean up the mess Pfaster had made while destroying my partner's sanity. I looked up as she came out of her bedroom dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. She held her overnight bag in her trembling hands. The men that filled the room glanced at her warily as she walked by them. I knew they were all wondering what had really happened in this room not an hour ago. I would never tell so they would never know. My report would say that Scully acted in self-defense when she had shot Pfaster at point blank range. I would cover for her as she had done for me countless times over the last seven years. God, seven years, and in all that time I had never felt farther away from her, physically, emotionally, and especially spiritually.
She walked towards me with slumped shoulders and her eyes never leaving the floor. I put a protective arm around her shoulders and led her out of the door now ruined by my invasive entry. We walked down the hall and out to where I'd left my car pulled up on the curve. I hadn't even shut my door in my haste to get to her. I put her in the passenger seat and went around to the driver's side.
We rode in silence. She sat with her head leaning against the glass and appeared to be asleep but I knew better. She wouldn't sleep for a long time. I knew her mind was racing with what she had been through in the last few days and especially the last few hours. I cringed at the thought that while Donnie had been throwing my partner into a mirror I had been curled up in bed ready to sleep, oblivious to what was going on in her apartment. To think that the next morning there could had been a phone call to tell me that my partner lay naked and bleeding in a bathtub, killed while I had slept. The thought tore at me like a razorblade across my conscious. Tears filled my eyes and a fear so great welled up inside of me that I almost cried out with it.
I tried to wipe the pictures of Scully's body in a tub of blood from my brain but it was as if they had been burned there as a constant reminder that one of these days I was going to be too late. I nearly sobbed out loud but put a fist to my mouth to muffle the sound. Scully hadn't heard or if she had she pretended not to notice.
When we finally got to my apartment, she was shaking violently. I helped her out of the car but she shrugged me off. Getting fed up with her crap I swept her off the pavement and into my arms. She protested loudly but I ignored her.
In the elevator, she demanded that I put her down but I just starred at the numbers above the double doors as if they held the meaning of life. She finally quieted when she realized she wasn't going to get her way. When the doors opened, I walked to my apartment and fished the keys out of my pocket still holding onto her. I pushed the door open with my foot and closed it the same way. I carried her into my bedroom and laid her on the bed.
She huffed and mumbled menacingly at me but didn't try to get up. I plumped the pillow behind her and pulled the comforter over her. I got an extra blanket out of the closet and put that over her as well trying to ward off the tremors that wracked her body. I don't even think she was conscious of it.
"Rest, Scully. I'll get you some hot tea." I knew she was furious with me for the way I had just treated her but she would get over it. She didn't respond to me and instead turned her head. I had almost asked her if she wanted to take a shower, then realized that might not be a good idea seeing as how Pfaster had been about to give her the last bath of her existence.
I only kept tea in the apartment for her. I didn't like hot tea that much. Not even my sojourn to the homeland of the stuff could make me drink it. I put the water on to boil and got down one mug. Then I stopped, put my hands on the countertop and started to cry.
Gut-wrenching sobs bubbled up out of me from the molten core of my soul. I shook with the force of them and only tried to quiet them when I realized I'd left the bedroom door open and Scully could probably hear me. I nearly bit through my bottom lip trying to squelch the anguished sounds rising from the fear in my heart.
I had almost lost her…I had almost lost her…I had almost lost her. It repeated itself over and over in my head until for a moment I thought I might go mad. That he could make her think for one moment that she was evil made my skin crawl. That a madman, evil incarnate himself, could make my angel think she was a demon turned me inside out.
I felt a small hand on my forearm and I jumped.
"Mulder?" Her deep blue eyes searched mine and realization dawned on her battered face.
"Mulder, I'm okay."
A hollow moaning came from low in my throat as I grabbed her and pulled her to me. I held on to her for dear life. I needed to touch her and know that she was really here, that she was alive. I pressed my face into her auburn hair and breathed deeply of its scent. I rubbed my nose against its softness and felt my tears wetting it. Her small arms went around my waist and she pulled me closer. My hands splayed across her back almost going completely around her tiny frame. She was so small, so helpless. She would have punched me for that one. And here we were. She had almost been killed, had killed to stay alive and here we stood with her once again comforting me. I am a selfish bastard. I know this and yet I could not let her go.
She whispered reassuring words against my chest I couldn't hear because my shirt muffled her voice. But the vibrations of it soothed me nonetheless. I don't know how long we stood there. I finally realized the keening cry I heard was coming from the kettle. I reached behind Scully and took the offending thing off the cap. The whistling died slowly. I took a fortifying breath and stepped back, holding her at arm's length. Her eyes were dry and hard. She had not cried. Not once during the whole ordeal. I felt the fear creep in again. When had her soul become granite? When had her heart hardened to crystal? And where was I to go if there was no room in it for me? I am a selfish bastard.
Scully:
I see the fear in his hazel eyes as he gazes down at me from way up there. He is afraid because I cannot cry. I don't know why I haven't. It's as if I am not me. I am numb. I can feel his strong hands gripping my shoulders and I can feel the cold linoleum under my bare feet but my mind and spirit are just a hollow place inside me.
He is afraid that I am to far away for him to reach me. He is afraid this is one more thing I can never express to him, like Emily's death. One more thing for me to file away that will push us farther apart than we already are. I feel that with each new case we are given, each new evil we uncover, a further wedge is forced between us. We know so much about each other and yet so little. We are better partners now than we have ever been but our personal relationship has become like me, numb and hollow. It has suffered in silence at each death, each murder, each lie.
I glance back on my life and think of what role this man could have played in my life by this point. A best friend, a lover, a husband? And yet it was death, murder, and deceit that had kept us from going any further than friendship. It was not that we did not care enough or love each other enough, it was simply evil and its many forms that had selected the roles we would play in each other's lives. It was evil that was now destroying what was left of the relationship between us.
At one point in my life I would have given up everything just to be able to tell Mulder that I loved him and wanted to be with him. I would have said to hell with all of it and forced him choose between me or his work. But I had been afraid of his choice then. I wasn't afraid now. I knew without a doubt he would choose me. But now I no longer wanted to walk away from my work. I feared everyday he would ask the same question of me and I would have to choose my work. The two had become so intertwined that if he left me I would still have the work and in that I would still have a part of him. Still, the sight of him could make me weak and his voice over the phone could make me shiver, but the depth of our perception of one another that had once been like a steel cable connecting us was unraveling, stretched so taut that at some point it would have to break. His voice startled me out of my reverie.
"Scully what's happening to us?" His beautiful face was awash in anguish. I laid my hand against his stubble-covered cheek and sighed.
"I don't know, Mulder. We just don't work as hard at it as we used to. We stopped jumping in to pull each other back from turning within ourselves. We stopped pushing each other to be honest. We stopped talking about ourselves. We've been at a standstill for so long that we've forgotten how to move forward. Our souls have become so heavy with this journey that they can't lift a foot to take a step toward each other. We used to hold so tightly to what was between us, whatever it is, and lately we've been loosening our grip. The ropes that we held onto to hold us together have been getting slack and slipping through our fingers and we've been so distracted with our work that we haven't noticed."
I could tell he was surprised at how well I had put it into words. He was the poet of the two of us. I could rarely find the words to express my feelings about anything. Yet this was so poignant to me that it just flowed over my lips.
"So I'm holding it again, Scully. I'm holding on so tight it's cutting my hands open. I'll pull hard enough for both of us if I have to."
"You can only pull from your end, Mulder." My voice was little more than a whisper now. I saw the flash of pain in his eyes. He thought that I meant I wasn't going to take up the slack on my end of this relationship. I grabbed the front of his shirt. I balled it up in my fists and pulled him to me until his face was inches from mine.
"I've got my end, Mulder."