She stared down at the offending object in her hands, unable to believe what she was seeing and she felt like her chest was caving in. She couldn't breathe, her lungs burned and she was quickly losing all perception of the room around her. She stumbled back to the bench behind her and sat without any finesse, almost falling into the wooden seat.
This was not a good time in her life. All over the course of a few days it felt like she was losing the one constant that she had had in her life for over fifteen years. He was pulling away from her, from the life that they had built together in that little house on the outskirts of town, a home that they had been blissfully happy in for almost five years. He was chasing a life that that they had left so long ago. A life that she swore she would never be a part of again. Now she was terrified for the first time in six years that he wouldn't be home for the night, that she wouldn't wake up in is arms in the morning and that possibly she would never feel his arms around her again.
Moments ago she had given him an ultimatum and once it was delivered he had barely given her a second look before walking out on her, before leaving her feeling empty and incomplete. She wanted to believe that the last six years were much more than necessity, but his indifference to her wants, her needs, made her question his love. She had never questioned how much he loved her before. Not since the middle of their partnership, and definitely not since they had first pushed aside all the questions and regulations and made love. Now she was beginning to wonder if it had all been a mistake. She knew she loved him. She had loved him since before she could remember. Her heart swelled and ached with love, but was love enough?
Glad she was alone in the locker room, but uncaring that it was a public area for all the hospital staff, she dropped her head into her palms and unstoppable tears rose in her eyes. Damn him.
-----
She ignored his calls as they came in, she couldn't talk to him. Not when he was so far away, so consumed in the dark that she wouldn't, couldn't go back to. She longed to talk to him, to be with him, to feel his arms engulfing her, but he had walked out on her. He was the one that hadn't come home since their talk in the locker room. She hated to admit it, but she was so lost without him.
Her phone vibrated against the top of her desk, she barely even chanced a glance at it. She closed her eyes trying to put the thought of him needing her out of her mind as she forced her focus on the computer screen in front of her.
-----
He sighed with frustration as he slid the phone into his pocket. It was obvious that she was ignoring him. It caused pain to well up in his chest. He needed her like he needed his next breath. Once again he cursed that stubbornness that seemed to always make an appearance. Sometimes he thought that it was part of his appeal, part of why she fell in love with him, but there were times when that stubbornness was a burden. He could see in her eyes how much he had hurt her when he had walked out, but his sense of duty was something that even after being suppressed for six years couldn't be erased. He hated the darkness that was eking back into his life, but he had to do all he could to save this girl. He needed to know what that felt like one more time before walking away. He had been forced away the last time, he needed to know that his choice would have been the same.
That look in her eyes haunted him. It had been a long time since he had seen that pain on her face and even longer since he had been the cause of it. That look of betrayal ripped out his heart. The last six years that he had completely devoted himself to her had been wonderful. He hated being a forced hermit, but besides all that he knew he was blessed if only for the way she looked at him, because it lit up his life and also for the time that he got to spend with her, when that trail could have been his end. In more than one way he wished he could go back in time and keep that meeting between Scully and the agent from ever happening.
-----
She hated the familiar feel of fear when she realized that he was in trouble. It had been another fast reminder of what had been, what seemed to be what their life was going to be again. She was taken back to a time when Skinner had once again been her only ally in saving him. The conditions were that same this time around. Almost exactly and she feared for her sanity all over again. Skinner's hand was comforting presence as he drove up the snowy road, but she knew that they were running out of time, she could feel it in the depths of her soul.
The pieces fell together like a perfect puzzle. Piece by piece, step by step until she was running to his rescue and with all the strength she could gather she swung at the assailants head just as he was bringing down the axe. As the Russian collapsed to the ground the relief rushed over her and tears were brimming in her eyes as she kneeled over Mulder, running her hands over his face and through his hair, thanking God once again for sparing his life. For giving them another chance, more time to be together.
Hours later she once again kept vigil by his bedside as he slept and recovered in the hospital. All the familiarity, all the darkness that used to be their life was coming upon them like waves, a rushing tide that grew with intensity. Large tears grew in her eyes. This was what she couldn't keep going back to. She could no longer handle this fear, this pain. She needed him more than anything in the world, but not even for his love could she continue to invite that dark into her life. She sobbed into her hands, the unknown was overwhelming.
-----
Two days later she stood in their bathroom, ringing out her hands as she paced the small confined space. She was trying to prepare herself for the talk that she needed desperately to have with him. Trying to talk herself through all possibilities. She was once a strong woman who was scared of nothing, pacing in the bathroom at that moment she didn't know where that woman had gone because she was scared to death.
Taking a deep breath and with more effort than it had ever taken her, she built up the walls around her heart and straightened her spine. Her armor in place she grasped the door knob and pulled open the door.
He was still sitting in the same place she had left him, sitting at the end of the bed with his long, muscular legs hanging over the edge. His face was clean shaven again and the dark, angry cut across his forehead looked even worse against his pale skin. The television was on low, the meteorologist predicting rain in front of a dreary doppler satellite.
After muting the television, he glanced at her and forced a small smile. Things had been tense between them since he had woken up in the hospital. "Hey." He whispered, his voice low and it cracked under the tension in the room.
She forced a smile in return and sat next to him on the end of the bed. "Mulder, we need to talk." She said softly, unable to meet his eyes she stared down at his hands that were resting in his lap.
"I know." He admitted with a tortured sigh.
She forced her eyes to meet his and again her heart caught in her chest. She hated fighting with him, she hated what she was about to do. "For as long as we have been together, as both partners and lovers, we always had our trust in each other. We've had honesty. Now I am asking as both your lover and your partner to be my friend and tell me the truth." She took a deep breath, gathering her courage and her words, trying desperately to suppress the tears that were coming unbidden to her eyes. "I love you, I love you so much. But I need to know, can you leave behind the darkness? Can you walk away and never look back? I hate to make you chose, but I can't be a part of that darkness anymore, not even from a distance. I can't have this constant fear that you are going to walk out of that door and never come back, that each case will be your last. I hate that darkness. It just hurts so much and I am not the same person I was back then. Burying you and thinking that you were dead for three months nearly killed me. Then when you had to go away for months, not knowing if you were alive or if I would ever see you again, I know I can never handle that again. I can't handle the uncertainty of the FBI and that job. That is why I am asking. Mulder, I need to know, honestly, could you be happy away from that. Was what we had based on necessity or could you be happy with just me? Or now that you are a free man do you need to go back and have the life that was taken from you?" Tears were running down her face as she finished. When she meets his eyes they were darkened by the same pain.
"Scully...." He began only to be cut off by her.
"I want the truth. I need the truth." She insisted.
He nodded in understanding, "I know." He paused for a moment, looking into her eyes. "Honestly? It felt good to be useful again. It felt good to help with and solve the case. It was a rush to chase that suspect through the construction building, but then again it just proved to be just as dark as you talked about when you asked me to walk away." He paused, lifting her hand in his and sandwiching it between his two larger ones. "When Agent Whitney was killed," He shook his head to rid the image that popped into his mind, of all the blood and the rhubarb poking through her body. When he turned back to look at her his eyes were clouded with pain and the wet evidence of tears growing in his eyes. His voice was raspy when he spoke again. "God baby, it crushed me. And that look of pure terror in your eyes when you saved me. I don't want to be the cause of that again. I don't want to have the guilt from someone getting hurt or for hurting you. I felt like I needed to continue that investigation to save that girl and I selfishly wanted to prove to myself that I could be the Agent Mulder that I used to be, the one that was taken away from me, that agent you fell in love with again. But honestly?" He questioned. "Honestly, I would be happy the rest of my life as long as I have you. I don't need to do anything else ever again, I just want you. And I never, ever want to put us back through the pain that both of us went through those last two years there."
Hope flared in her eyes as she meet his once again. "Positive?"
"Absolutely." He answered without hesitation and swiftly pulled her into his arms. For the first time since it had all began they felt like they were home again. She relaxed into his arms as they fell back on the bed. Her cheek pressed firmly to his chest. "I hate that this case made you question my love for you. Baby, what I feel for you was NEVER out of necessity. You are so deep a part of me that I don't know how to exist anymore without you." He admitted against the crown of her head. His arms almost painfully wrapped around her. "I love you, I adore you."
"Think that you could share me?" She asked softly against his chest. She felt the jolt of movement beneath her cheek and leaned up to look at him.
"Scully? What are you talking about?" He asked, his eyes wide with questions.
"I'm pregnant." She breathed, the first time she actually said the words out loud. With as much joy as it gave her to have the opportunity again at motherhood, she felt an intense emptiness for the son that they never got to see grow up and the daughter that they barely got to know.
"Pregnant?" He asked.
She nodded. "I honestly don't know what to feel. This baby can never replace William, can never bring back our son or our daughter. The pain of their loss will always be there. But I kind of want the chance to try together, away from everything, where we can start again from scratch and have a family." She admitted shyly.
"Scully, oh wow, for someone that is supposedly barren, we certainly work against the odds don't we?" They laughed. "We'll never get over William, but I want this baby. I want this baby so much and I'm so happy!" His hand wondered down to her flat stomach.
They lay wrapped up in each other's arms, savoring the safe haven that was restored to them. Once again the FBI had tried to separate them. Maybe not intentionally, but their involvement had put their lives in jeopardy. But even so their love and their devotion to each other had won in the end. He held her tight, knowing that if they hadn't arrived the moment that they did, if she hadn't once again saved him, his life would have been cut short before he had a chance to know this child too. William had been taken from them because he had been a distant father. Not by choice, but regardless he couldn't imagine not being there for Scully, not being a father to this child.
"When did you find out about the baby?" He asked minutes later.
"In the locker room, before you came up to the hospital." She burrowed further into this embrace, not wanting to see his reaction in his eyes.
"That is why you asked me to leave it all alone." He thought out loud.
"I needed to know if you could walk away without looking back. I needed to know that you were going to be there for me, for the baby. When you walked out the door I started considering abortion. I can't raise this baby alone. I can't give it to someone else. But I didn't want you to stay for me or for this child. I need you to be here because you want to. Not because you have to."
"Baby, I am so sorry, so sorry." His voice was thick with tears as he held her tighter. He turned on his side to draw her into his chest. He laced his legs through hers and covered her as completely as he possibly could. "You never have to doubt again. I am right where I want to be. I don't care where we are or what we do as long as we go and do it together."