This fanfic is set in February 2009, and it is a sort-of-sequel to 'All Things'. It's a one-shot story and I have no plans to continue it. Thank you to everyone who takes the time to read this fic, I really appreciate it. I don't own anything X Files related, only a box set and an active imagination.
Like All Things This Too Shall Pass
Dana Scully sat at her desk with her head in her hands. It had been a tough week, and the death of a patient had caused a painful memory to resurface. Her phone began to ring, and the sound jolted her out of her reverie. She picked up the receiver and said hello, but no one replied. There was just a strange static-like noise, and after a short moment the phone line went dead, so she hung it up. The weird call played on her mind as she pulled on her coat and prepared to go home. There was still a trace of daylight left as Scully made her way to the parking lot, and she thought for a second that she'd glimpsed an old acquaintance. A gasp of shock escaped her as she quickened her pace to get closer to the man, but he seemed to simply vanish before her. The experience left her shaken and she began to question the evidence of her own eyes; had she really just seen Daniel Waterston?
Scully got to her car and slumped behind the steering wheel. It was probably just a combination of stress and lack of sleep making her mind play tricks on her, she reasoned. But why did she imagine seeing Daniel, and why now? She wondered if it had some connection to the death of her patient. She had grown quite close to Robert Parker during his final months, and he became a true friend and confidante. There were only two other men, outside of her family, with whom she had ever forged such a deep connection. The first was Daniel, and although she had closed the door on him a long time ago, she hadn't locked it. Then there was Mulder; she'd long considered him to be her soulmate, but lately she couldn't help but wonder about that. Since leaving the FBI, it seemed like their interests and passions in life were diverging to the point where they were losing sight of each other.
It felt like a cruel twist of fate when Robert passed away on the eighth anniversary of her partner's "death". Mulder had been resurrected and restored to health, but the scars were still there on the inside, for both of them. Scully approached the gate that led to the long driveway to their house, and unusually, it was wide open. She drove straight on through, and didn't bother to get out of the car to close it again. It was now completely dark and there were no lights on in the house, that she could see. She went inside and called out for Mulder, but there was no reply. He hadn't mentioned that he was going out and he hadn't left a note. Scully thought about calling him, but instead she went upstairs to run a bath. Just as she was about to step into the hot foamy water, the house phone started to ring. She answered it and spoke her name, only to hear the same weird static sound that she had heard earlier that day.
"Hello, who is this?" She demanded.
The sound continued for another few seconds before the line went dead, exactly as it had done before. There was a loud knocking on the front door, and Scully reached for her robe as she ran down to answer it. She quickly pulled back the curtain of the side window to see who was outside, but no one was waiting there. She thought, for a moment, there was someone walking down the driveway, but the figure seemed to disappear as soon as she focused on it. The whole thing was very unsettling and she wished Mulder was home. It wasn't that she wanted him going off on tangents about the paranormal possibilities, but at least then she would be able to argue and rationalise everything, and it wouldn't feel like she was going crazy. Scully was just reaching for her phone to call him, when she heard the sound of the door being unlocked. It was Mulder.
"Hey, am I home late or are you home early?" He asked with a smile.
""Mulder, you didn't see anyone outside when you came in, did you?" Scully inquired as she peered around him to look up the driveway.
"No. Why?" He replied as he started to take off his coat.
"It's just, someone knocked but when I came downstairs, there was no one at the door. It was right before you got home, so I thought maybe you might have seen whoever it was," she explained.
He shrugged and shook his head because there had been no one around that he had noticed.
Scully thought about all the strange things that had occurred that day.
"Did you call here, or my work number, earlier today?" She inquired.
"No. I thought I'd get home before you, so I didn't bother to call," he said without elaborating on where he'd been.
Scully remembered her hot bath, which she presumed was rather less steamy now than it had been. She was about to return to it when Mulder caught hold of her in his arms.
"Don't you want to know where I've been?" He asked in a low voice next to her ear as his hands started to roam underneath her robe.
"I was waiting for you to tell me," she said between breaths as he continued to caress her intimately.
Scully was getting unbearably aroused, but she was still contemplating asking him to stop. They hadn't had sex for a couple of weeks, mostly because she'd been making up excuses not too. She even thought about taking a break from work, and from him. Her friendship with Robert made her question a few things, and not least whether she and Mulder had a future together. But Scully knew she still loved and desired him as much as ever, even when she tried not to. When he was touching her like this, she honestly didn't want him to stop.
"Someone has a birthday coming up," Mulder whispered in a seductive tone as he kissed her neck.
"You remembered this year?" She asked with surprise.
"Every four years, Scully. It's our thing," he said and continued to gently stroke her body.
She tried to stay in the moment, but her mind began picking over all the little traditions that he considered to be their "things", like how they still called each other by their surnames for most of the time. She had to admit, it never really bothered her, unless she thought about it for too long. But still, she never called him Fox, and he only occasionally called her Dana. When they were partners at the FBI and trying to maintain a professional distance, she never questioned it. But now, when they were together in every possible way, it sometimes felt like there was still an invisible barrier between them. Mulder noticed she had become distracted and stopped trying to arouse her.
"What's wrong, Scully?" He asked in a slightly irritated tone.
"You're still doing the dog years thing?" She asked wearily.
"That's what's bothering you?" He was irked.
"You know in dog years you'd be..." Scully cut him off.
"Dead?" She replied bluntly.
Mulder sighed.
"What's really bugging you?" He asked.
"I think maybe it's time I started calling you by your first name. I mean we had a child together for Christ's sake, and you never seemed to mind when Diana Fowley called you Fox," she said in a whinier voice than was intended.
"What? Where the hell's all this come from?" Mulder wasn't even trying to hide his annoyance now.
He moved to put some distance between them and sat down at the dining table.
"I don't know, I just feel like sometimes we aren't really a couple at all. We live in the same house and we share the same bed, but otherwise, we go our own separate ways," she said with sadness.
"I'm writing a book now, just like you suggested I should, and you have your work at the hospital. We don't spend as much time together as we used to, but I thought we were doing okay," he sounded hurt.
Scully sighed and took a seat next to him at the table. This was not the way she wanted to tell him about her recent doubts about their relationship. She didn't want to cause him any pain, and in her fragile state, she worried he would retaliate with grievances of his own.
"I've been thinking about taking some vacation time from work, and maybe visiting mom and then Bill and Charlie," she said hesitantly.
"I take it, I'm not invited?" Mulder asked coldly.
"Are you saying you'd want to go? There was me thinking you'd rather be flayed alive and forced to eat your own intestines, than spend a minute in Bill's company," Scully sneered.
"Okay, so you'll be going solo, but for how long? A couple of weeks? A month? Forever?" He questioned desperately, his sadness showing in his eyes.
"I don't know," she replied honestly, blinking away the tears that were threatening to fall.
Mulder seemed to be frozen in place and kept on staring at her. He didn't move or speak for what seemed like an eternity. Scully was exhausted and it started to make her feel sick. Although, whether that was all down to the tiredness, or because of the emotional turmoil, she couldn't say. She moved to get up and go upstairs, when Mulder grabbed a hold of her hand.
"Don't go," he pleaded.
Whether he meant at that moment, or ever, he didn't specify. But in his heart, he definitely meant both.
Scully knew she had to find the strength to walk away from him, but she faltered and he pulled her back into his arms. He made love to her, like he was trying to persuade her to stay by his actions alone. Her body was certainly open to his argument.
The sound of a ringing phone awakened Scully from her fitful slumber. She reached out for the receiver and spoke her name, but no reply came. She was on the verge of hanging it up, when a faint voice began calling her name.
"Who is this?" She asked shakily, unnerved by the spookiness of it all.
The voice faded away, and the now familiar static sound began hissing in her ear, until it came to an abrupt stop only seconds later. She replaced the handset and turned to speak to Mulder, only to find that he wasn't in bed. Her head was spinning with all the strange things that were happening to her, on top of the turmoil in her personal life. She got out of bed and went in search of her errant partner, but he was nowhere to be found. He had left her a note on the kitchen counter, that simply said he'd had to go out. But where he'd gone, and why it required him to leave the house, in what must have been the early hours of the morning, he didn't say. Scully got ready for work and tried not to think about her troubles. She turned the car radio on as soon as she got behind the wheel, hoping the music would be a useful distraction. It was tuned to an easy listening station, and she was surprised to find the song playing brought back a poignant memory. It was one that had been in the charts when she'd told Daniel Waterston they could never be together.
How am I supposed to live without you?
Now that I've been loving you so long…
She hated that song. It made her cringe to hear the lyrics, and to recall the hurt she had caused. It wasn't as if Daniel actually said those words to her, but it was all there in his eyes when she'd walked away. She quickly tuned her radio into another station and began the drive to work. The DJ started talking about the icy weather when suddenly, the hissing and crackling sound of static began to cut in. Scully swore that in the middle of it, she heard someone calling her name. She began to fiddle with the tuning button, and her attention was momentarily diverted from the road. The sound of a blaring car horn brought her focus sharply back on to her driving, but it was too late. There was a screeching sound as she slammed on the breaks, but her tyres had already hit a patch of ice. The car kept moving forward, although it felt to Scully as if time had slowed down. She thought for a second, she could see Daniel's reflection in the rear-view mirror, and her eyes widened with shock and fear. She fought to get control back over the steering, but her car left the road and rolled onto its roof.
Scully opened her eyes and found she was in a hospital room. She blinked at the brightness of the light and tried to focus on the person who was sat next to her bed.
"Daniel, is that really you?" She asked with uncertainty.
After all the strange tricks her mind had been playing on her recently, she wasn't sure she could trust her own eyes anymore.
"Hello, Dana. I waited for you to wake up so I could speak with you," Daniel replied, as if he hadn't appeared in her rear-view mirror from out of nowhere, that morning.
"What the hell's going on?" She was uneasy about his presence at her bedside and wanted an explanation.
"I've been trying to get through to you for a couple of days now, but I guess you weren't ready to listen then," he said.
"You were the one calling me? Why didn't you just speak to me?" Scully was confused.
"I told you, I tried to, but you couldn't hear me," Daniel smiled as if he was being perfectly rational.
"I'm sorry, but none of this makes sense. Where's Mulder? Did anyone call him?"
She was getting increasingly agitated and frantically looked around for her partner, but he wasn't there.
"I thought you wanted to get away from him?" Daniel queried.
Scully narrowed her eyes suspiciously at him as she contemplated what he'd just said.
"Why are you here? How did you even know where to find me? There was a car accident, right?" She questioned in an attempt to make some sense of it all.
"Yes, you were in an accident, but you're going to be just fine. I needed to see you one last time, before I have to go away. I had the strong feeling that you needed to see me too, and that you wanted to talk," he said without exactly answering what she'd asked him.
"What do you mean, before you have to go away? Go where? And how did you know about Mulder and me?" Scully was getting frustrated with his obfuscation.
"The last time we saw one another, I began to realise that I'd been chasing a fantasy for years. The person I thought I was in love with, didn't exist anymore, and I was left wondering if she ever did. I learnt a hard lesson that day, and it came about ten years too late for me. But still I couldn't let you go, so I found out where you lived and I went there one night. I thought if we could just talk, then maybe I'd see the girl I fell in love with, once again. When you returned to your apartment, you weren't alone. I was standing across the street, and I watched you kissing another man. I saw the way you looked at him, and that's when I knew I'd been a fool, because you'd never once looked at me that way. Fox Mulder was the reason why you weren't the woman I fell in love with, and he was the reason why your heart could never be mine," Daniel explained with sadness.
Scully was shocked by his confession, and despite the damage he'd done to his own family, she still felt largely responsible for the hurt he suffered.
"Oh, Daniel," she sighed.
"The last time I last saw you, when you were in the hospital, I tried to make amends for the pain I'd caused your family. I hoped you would be able to do the same, and that you'd realise we never had a future together. It wasn't because I was in love with Mulder, it was because I realised I'd changed and grown as a person. You were right, I wasn't the girl you fell in love with, I was the woman who made her own choices, and lived by them. I chose not to be with you, and I don't regret it for one moment. I'm sorry if hearing that causes you pain, but it's the truth," she said.
Daniel looked sad but nodded his head in acceptance, as if she had only confirmed what he already knew.
"I'll have to leave soon, but I don't want to go without making sure you'll be okay. I know you still love Mulder, so why are you considering leaving him?" He asked.
"I'm not comfortable discussing my relationship with Mulder with you. I don't know how you even know these things about us, are you still spying on me?" She questioned angrily.
"No. No, that's not it at all. I just have clarity of vision now, and if I can help you before I go, then I think it will help me as much as it will you," Daniel said earnestly, although Scully still didn't understand his intentions.
"Where are you going?" She asked.
"It doesn't matter. Speak to me, Dana."
He looked at her expectantly, and against her better judgement she let all her hidden thoughts pour out. It felt right somehow, and cathartic, like she was confessing to her priest.
"I had this patient, but he became more to me than that; he became my friend. His name was Robert, and we could talk about anything and everything. I would look forward to going into work every day just to see him. Even when my shift was over, I would stay with him and we would just talk and laugh. I'd forgotten what it was like to have a friend like that, and I started to think that maybe I'd been missing out. I thought I had everything I needed with Mulder, but then I began to wonder. With Mulder and me, our relationship has always been as much about what we don't say to one another, as what we do. But lately, we seem to have stopped communicating and having fun, altogether. We've turned into two people who share a home, but not each other's lives," Scully explained.
"Did you have romantic feelings for Robert?" Daniel inquired.
"No. It wasn't like that at all, and anyway he was gay. I think I just go through these phases every so often, when I kind of butt my head against a wall, and then I take a look at my life and I'm not sure I'm where I'm supposed to be," she tried to express her feelings of frustration in the best way she could.
"Maybe you're not where you're supposed to be?" Daniel was playing Devil's advocate now.
Scully furrowed her brow as she contemplated everything, and then she had a kind of epiphany.
"I love Mulder, and I've loved him so deeply for so long, I can't even remember a time when I didn't. We've been through so much together, and we've had to endure painful separations, but they just made our love stronger. I can't imagine my life without him in it, and when it comes right down to it, I know I don't want too. I am where I want to be, I just lost sight of that, and of myself," she smiled.
Scully felt at peace with her clarity of mind, after the confusion and emotional turmoil she'd suffered in recent weeks. She yawned and realised she felt quite exhausted all of a sudden. Her eyes started to flicker, and Daniel knew it was time for him to take his leave.
"You'll be alright then?" He asked as he stood up to go.
"Yes. I'll be just fine, like you said," she reached up to take his hand.
"Thank you for listening, Daniel. I hope wherever it is you're going to, that you'll be very happy there," she smiled sleepily at him for one last time before her eyes closed.
"Goodbye, Dana," he whispered, and then he was gone.
"Dana?"
Scully thought she could hear someone calling her name, but the voice was very faint, like it was far away. She tried to open her eyes but the lids felt so heavy, she couldn't do any more than make them twitch.
"Dana, it's me. Can you hear me?" The voice was louder this time and she realised that it belonged to Mulder.
She tried to speak but no words would come out. There were other voices, talking all around her now, as she forced her heavy eyes to open. Her vision was fuzzy at first, but she could just about make out the concerned face of her partner. He was leaning in towards her and she could feel the pressure of his hand over hers.
"Dana? Do you know where you are?" An unfamiliar voice inquired of her.
She tilted her head slightly to see a doctor checking her vital signs, and he began shining a light into her eyes.
"In the hospital?" She replied shakily.
"Yes, that's right. Do you remember what happened?" The doctor asked.
"I was in a car accident?" Scully was confused because she'd been okay and talking to Daniel just a short while ago.
"You were, and you've been in a coma for almost two days now, so we're very happy to have you back with us." The doctor explained.
"What?" She was shocked.
"I've been here with you the whole time," Mulder said as he brought her hand up to his lips and kissed it.
"I don't understand this, I was awake. A friend visited with me, and we talked," she explained as she tried to make sense of what was happening.
Mulder looked at her with incredulity as he continued to stroke her hand.
"No one's been here, only me. Maybe you dreamt it?" He wondered.
Scully considered his words, and the strangeness surrounding her reunion with Daniel. She had mostly overlooked the weird events that led up to his reappearance, and simply took him at his word. None of it made sense now, and she wondered if it really had all been just a dream.
The doctor finished checking her over and seemed to be satisfied that all was as it should be. He told her to get some rest and then left the room. Mulder moved to sit next to her on the bed and looked like he was going to start crying.
"If anything had happened to you..." he said, his voice breaking with emotion.
Scully reached up to touch his face, it was rough and scratchy from being unshaven for a couple of days.
"I'm so sorry, Mulder," she said earnestly.
She was truly apologetic, not only for giving him such a scare with the accident, but for the way things had been between them beforehand.
"If you still feel like you need to get away for a while, I won't stand in your way," he said sadly, and without meeting her eyes.
"No, I don't want to be apart from you. I realised, I am exactly where I want to be. So it looks like you're stuck with me," she joked.
Mulder didn't laugh, instead he leaned in and gently kissed her.
"How about when you get out of here, we take a trip somewhere? Anywhere you want to go, I'll even go with you to visit Bill," he smiled and held her close.
"Don't think I won't hold you to that," she chuckled and nuzzled against his chest.
A couple of days later, Scully was well enough to go home. She tried to forget about all the strange happenings, and her supposedly imagined meeting with Daniel Waterston. But it had been bothering her, and she made up her mind to call him, to see if any of it was real. She explained everything to Mulder, and he tracked down Daniel's number so she could try to get some explanation for her experiences. She dialled carefully, and with some trepidation. It seemed at first, as if no one was going to answer her call, but then she heard a woman's voice.
"Maggie, is that you?" Scully asked, sure she recognised the responder.
"Yes. Who's this?" Daniel's daughter confirmed her suspicion.
"It's Dana Scully. I was hoping I could speak with your father. Is he there?" She inquired.
There was the sound of sniffling as Maggie was clearly upset.
"Is everything okay?" Scully asked although she already knew it wasn't.
Eventually Maggie was able to speak again.
"Dad died, a couple of days ago. It was his heart," she explained.
"Oh, Maggie, I'm so sorry," Scully was beyond shocked.
It was clear that Daniel Waterston had never been anywhere near her hospital room, and she didn't know how to process that fact. She expressed her condolences once more to Maggie, and then hung up the phone.
Mulder considered this new information in relation to cases he had compiled over the years. He wanted to help Scully make sense of what she had experienced. He also reminded her of the time she swore she'd prayed for his salvation with Albert Hosteen, even though the man himself was in a coma in another state. They talked for a while about his theories, but in the end she was able to find her own meaning in it.
"I think all of us carry around the weight of so much emotional baggage, that we let ourselves get dragged down by it at times. We don't even always realise we're still holding onto these things, until we get a reminder. One minute you're fine, and the next you're on your knees, and you don't know how you'll ever get up again. That's how I was feeling before the accident, and I guess what I got from Daniel, was a helping hand. He needed to unburden himself before he could move on, and I was part of the weight he'd been carrying. When I saw him nine years ago, he helped me to realise that I was exactly where I ought to be in my life. This time around, he did the same thing, by making me see that I belong here with you," Scully explained with a hopeful smile.
Mulder was happy and relieved, not only to have her home and on the mend, but also because she was planning on staying.
"I think you're just sticking around for that birthday present I got you," he joked.
"Oh, right. I'd actually forgotten all about that," she really had until he'd just mentioned it.
"How about you open it a few days early?" He said, producing a small box from his pocket and holding it out to her.
Scully took it hesitantly, as it looked suspiciously like a ring box, and she didn't know how she felt about the implications of that. She slowly opened the outer wrapping and her suspicions were confirmed. She gave Mulder a questioning look but he was just beaming back at her, so she tentatively opened the box. Inside, nestled on a silk cushion was not a ring, but a beautiful antique cameo brooch. She took it out and admired it, on the back he'd had the following words inscribed: Dana, My Touchstone, Love Always, Fox.
"Oh my God, it's beautiful," she gasped, not at all disappointed it wasn't a ring.
"It belonged to my grandmother, and she passed it down to my mother," he explained.
"Thank you, I love it, and I love you," she said before expressing her gratitude with a kiss.
"My grandmother actually left a few pieces of jewellery to my mother. There's even a diamond ring," Mulder gave her a cautious but meaningful glance.
Scully understood his inference, of course, but didn't feel the timing for such a declaration was right.
"There's always next year, that is assuming you don't forget," she said with a playful grin.
"I have to get you a birthday present every year?" Mulder asked in mock horror.
"Thank God my grandmother had a decent jewellery collection," he quipped.
They both laughed.
THE END