Summary: Part 2 of 3 in the Struggle series. This time from Mulder's POV.

Thanks again to Mimic117 for a great beta. You keep me honest, my friend.

His Struggle
Rated PG-13
Suzanne L. Feld

Scully was stubborn, but I knew I was even more tenacious. I was determined to win her back and refused to take no for an answer. Although a lesser man than me probably would have given up by now, I simply refused to no matter what she said. The mulishness that had carried me through years of being blocked and impeded on the X-Files, and being a wanted felon, would now serve me well, I thought.

Despite the things she said, I saw the way she looked at me and I knew she still loved me as much as I did her.

I had fucked up bigtime, I knew that, and wasn't arguing it. What was really frustrating was that, unlike any previous time in our long and rocky relationship, she wasn't giving me another chance. I had never thought that day would come.

And that was my undoing. This time I was wrong. I still didn't remember exactly what had been said the night of that huge fight, though I did recall more of what she'd shouted at me than whatever I'd said to her. That was the worst part; most of it was a total blackout except for the part when she left. That had sobered me up just enough to remember some of it. And when she returned two days later with a small U-Haul and took her things without a word to me.

I had wallowed in shifting sand until she came along and stood me on rock, and I wanted that stability once again.

Now, sprawled in a hot tub with her, I was still both surprised and pleased that she had asked me to come with her to her mother's funeral. I'd been shocked when she called a few weeks ago about Tad O'Malley, but I'd been thinking about tracking her down anyway so I didn't hesitate to go. I still had trouble sometimes wrapping my head around the fact that we were back on the X-Files after everything that had happened. At one point in my life I was sure that I'd be nothing other than a felon on the run, but oddly enough Scully and I were happy during those years. Especially after she got the job at Our Lady of Sorrows and was a doctor again. I'd been very pleased for her, and content holed up in our remote farmhouse writing articles and stories under a new pseudonym while continuing my research into the paranormal.

Then the FBI wormed its way back into our lives. The Father Joe case had awakened me in a way I'd never thought I would feel again after that joke of a trial. But though the FBI cleared me, they wanted nothing more to do with me. Nor did any other law enforcement agency I had applied to. I was blackballed, branded, outcast. I couldn't even pass the background check to be a security guard or private investigator.

I was the first to admit it, I hadn't handled it well. When I realized what was going on I pulled away from Scully and fell into a deep depression, feeling sorry for myself and mourning my life as if it had all been wasted and worthless. And nothing Scully said or did could pull me out of it because I was too busy wallowing in my own sorrows to see what a toll it was taking on her. Unlike the years we were on the run, when we had worked in tandem and been on the same page, I walked my own path without her like I hadn't done since the earliest years of our partnership.

It had taken the shock of her leaving to begin to pull me out of that, and getting put back on the X-Files was completing the process. I wasn't done, not by a long shot, but I was well on the way. I had finally come to see that my past life was not a waste and even though I was well over fifty years old, it was far from over. I was seeing a psychiatrist for antidepressants and had weekly appointments with a psychotherapist, though these days I missed more sessions than I made due to our schedule.

When had psychiatrists stopped doing therapy and started just handing out pills? That was a new one on me, but I hadn't been in the mental health field since leaving Oxford.

Working out and starting to run again had gone a long way towards helping me claw my way up out of depression. When I'd stopped exercising, Scully repeatedly bugged me to get out of the house but I had resisted her and now I knew that it helped contribute to my depression. I was in better shape than I'd been in years and was going to keep it up until I was too damn old to move.

I had noticed her looking at me when we got in the tub, and was glad. It wasn't like I wasn't checking her out in that bathing suit either; it didn't seem like she'd aged at all except for the drawn look of her thin face. I knew I'd done that to her with all the stress I'd heaped on her over the years but this time she wasn't letting me try and make it up to her.

And I swore that her boobs were bigger. They never seemed to go down after she had the baby, and it was difficult to keep my eyes off of her these days. If she knew how hard I was right now, she'd probably kill me. Luckily the bubbles hid it, and I was hoping that the hot water would deflate me before we got out of here.

"So, Mulder, I think it's time to straighten out a few things between us."

Her words surprised me; I didn't think we'd get into anything heavy on this trip after what she'd just gone through, but I was wrong.

"Yeah? What would that be, Scully?" I didn't dare get my hopes up so I acted very casual, like my heart wasn't speeding up.

She sighed, still floating. I was trying to see her chest through the bubbles to no avail. "I'd like to clear the air about the fight that broke us up."

That was my Scully, always direct and to the point. "I would too, but honestly, I don't remember much," I said carefully. "I'm not being obtuse, Scully, but I was blackout drunk."

She nodded, her chin dipping into the bubbles. "Do you want to know what you said?"

I winced and took a deep breath, and then nodded, meeting her eyes seriously. "Not really, but you get it off your chest so I'm willing. Fire away."

She sat up, baring her slender, creamy shoulders and cleavage in the low-cut suit. Ethereal bubbles slid down her smooth skin, following all those curves. It was all I could do to hold her eyes. "Well, first and worst of all, you accused me of giving up William just to screw you out of being able to see him."

I closed my eyes and hung my head, the bubbles tickling my chin. I'd been afraid of something like that. In the darkest days of my imprisonment at the army base, after I'd found out that she'd given up the baby to keep him safe, I had wondered how she'd been able to do it, but I had never second-guessed her. At least not consciously, apparently. "God, Scully, I am so—"

"Don't apologize yet, Mulder, there's more."

I lifted my head and opened my eyes to see her still gazing steadily, seriously at me. There was no anger or judgement in her gaze, just a quiet waiting that I had seen many times before. "Ugh. I was afraid of that. Go ahead."

"Well, among other things, you said that I slept with the Smoking Man to get pregnant with William that time I went away with him looking for the cure for cancer, and you wondered if I had ever banged Skinner as well."

I could only groan.

"Last but never least, you said that you still believed I was working with the Syndicate to debunk your work. After six years on the run with you, leaving behind my family, career, friends, everything."

"Can I apologize now?" I asked miserably. It was even worse than I'd been afraid. I had no doubt that she was telling the truth, because I knew she'd never lie to me about something like that.

"Well, if you do, I do as well so I guess we're even. I said some pretty nasty things to you, too."

I nodded. "I remember some of that." From what I recalled from that drunken haze, she had blamed me for the death of her sister and her abduction and the loss of her ova and pretty much everything bad that had happened from the day she was assigned to work with me. She told me that she loved me, but hated what knowing me had done to her and her family. How could I blame her? It was all true.

But then I remembered one of the things I was working on in therapy, mainly to quit taking the weight of the world on my shoulders. Not everything was about me, and I wasn't guilty of anything except my once-unshakeable determination to find out the truth.

What I had finally found out was that there are many different truths.

"I think we were both wrong, and we should let it go," I finally said into the bubbling silence. "We're both sorry it happened, and I know I'll never forgive myself for what I said, drunk or not. It was inexcusable."

She quirked an auburn eyebrow at me. Though she had lightened her hair, her natural coloring still shone through. I could only hope she hadn't dyed the carpet to match the drapes. "There's a chance for you yet, Mulder. In the meantime, we'd better get out of here before we're boiled to prunes."

Right on cue the jets in the hot tub died, having reached the ten-minute limit. I heaved myself out of the hot water and extended a hand to her, much like I had at that Cher concert so long ago. She smiled up at me and took it, letting me help her out of the tub. I had deflated while we were talking, thank God.

It was then that it hit me. In all the years we'd worked and been together, I had never romanced Scully. I had always treated her with the respect she earned and deserved when we were agents, and after we slept together I was careful to continue to do it. Perhaps the way to win her back, now that we'd cleared the air, was to treat her like the beautiful, desirable woman she was.

It was worth a try.

finis