TITLE: "Relentless"
AUTHOR: Dana Hale
RATING: K
KEYWORDS: Mulder/Scully MSR
SPOILERS: I Want to Believe
SUMMARY: Scully's not coming home
DISCLAIMER: The X-Files television show/movies and characters belong to Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and the Fox Corporation.
Lying alone in their bed, Mulder found himself listening to the faintest of nighttime sounds in the dark. He was hoping desperately to hear the familiar noise of her car tires crunching the gravel as she pulled up the long drive, or her key jiggling in the door knob, or her footsteps coming up the stairs to their bedroom. But she was good on her word. She always had been. With each hour that passed, his heart ached at the harsh realization.
She wasn't coming home tonight.
His hand reached out in the shadows and lightly grazed her pillow next to him. Had it really come down to this? After all these years of running away with him, she would finally run away from him, and all because he believed he was doing the right thing. Damn her for thinking that he is supposed to choose between being true to himself or keeping her in his life.
To him there is no choice to be made. He can't be true to himself without her in his life. She keeps him honest. She makes him a whole person. And now she's not here. With a heavy sigh, Mulder grabbed her pillow as he lay in bed and embraced it, holding onto it as if it were her, breathing in the leftover smell of her shampoo that was infused into the soft cotton fabric.
He closed his eyes and pictured what she must be doing right now at this very minute. He sees her burning the midnight oil in her office, pouring over medical books, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, writing frantic notes in her journal, finding a way with that brilliant mind of hers to work her miracles, to cure the incurable. She would be focused, relentless.
He could be that way too, he knew. He was relentless to find the missing woman, to succumb to the darkness once more. But he also knew he would always find his way back because Scully would always be there...
He wanted to believe. He had to believe.
As the early morning light started to pierce through the curtains of their bedroom, he decided that there was only one thing he could do. He would place his full trust in Scully, knowing that she would be there as his ray of light, beckoning him back after the darkness is over. And he will be relentless after her heart, never letting her go.