From Afar
Time Frame: Post-IWTB, set in the present.
Key Words: Mulder POV, AU, MSR, Angst, Adele
This is the product of being sick and stuck in the house with an Adele CD… Obviously this is a mirror image of "Someone Like You", so if you want to think of it as a SongFic, be my guest.
Summary: A little piece of an AU (alternate universe) in the present. Scully and Mulder broke up in 2008, now Mulder sees Scully in a park and watches her from afar.
I looked over again, trying to convince myself that it wasn't her.
But it was. I had known it from the moment I saw that little red-haired girl go running past the bench I was sitting on. I knew. This had started out as a nice little run in the park, but now it was like tearing open an old wound and watching the blood flow.
Three years may not seem like a long time. But for me they had seemed like decades, each morning a stab of reality that she was gone. That Scully was really and truly gone. She left nothing, not so much as a sock in the laundry.
Just an empty closet. A perfectly made bed.
And eighteen years of memories.
I watched them, the perfect little family playing on the swing set. Scully laughed, her mouth shaped in a genuine smile as she made faces at the little girl, who swung back and forth between her parents.
Scully's hair was longer, lighter. It was no longer red but strawberry blonde, and it hung down nearly to her mid back. It suited her, suited her new life.
She wore a blue sweater and coffee colored pants.
Flat creamy sneakers.
Not a trace of black. I smiled. No black for this new Scully, no dark memories plaguing her dreams. She no longer had to carry a gun with her at night. She didn't have to drive anywhere at 2:00 in the morning to go on a stakeout. She didn't have to lie and cheat and steal and hide and fight. She was free to hold hands with her lover in public, free to laugh with her baby, free to go on vacations in the summer.
She was free from all the shackles I had bound her with.
My eyes made their way onto the man, her husband. He was tall and handsome: curly blonde hair, green eyes, and strong arms.
At that moment he stepped behind his wife and pulled her into an embrace, his hands resting on her belly, her head nestled into the crook of his neck. He said something and Scully laughed again, before learning over and kissing him on the cheek. They continued for a moment until their daughter made an impatient sound, causing them to break apart. There was no flush in Scully's cheeks, no nervous fidgeting with her hair: she was comfortable being seen with her husband, happy to be seen as a wife, as a mother. I felt my heart sink. She had never been like that with me, was never comfortable with having others view us as romantically involved, even after we quit the X-Files and were allowed to be together.
Maybe that had been for the better. She deserved a man who could provide her with safety, income, consistency, maturity. Someone other than me. Someone better than me.
I took one last look, lingering only a moment before standing and making my way toward the greenbelt. I prayed that she would not see me, not call me over and force me to congratulate her on her happy life, receive and decline an invitation for dinner.
I was almost to the secluded trail when she waved. Her face lit up for a moment as she saw me, her hand inclined slightly in a friendly gesture. I waved back, only slightly raising my hand. I willed her to understand, to know how much I wanted her to be happy. But also how much it hurt me to see her happy without me.
I love you Scully, I thought.
I hope you're happy. I hope you forgive me for not doing more. I hope you live a long life with your family and never think back on us. I hope you don't ask me to come back into your life, because I can't stand to watch you like this. I don't want to watch your new memories to replace the ones of us. Watch the "you and I" fade to "you and him".