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CHAPTER 2: Send My Love

I'm giving you up
I've forgiven it all
You set me free, oh
Send my love to your new lover
Treat her better
We gotta let go of all of our ghosts
We've both know we ain't kids no more

THE UNREMARKABLE HOUSE, JANUARY 2015

"It's me," she starts yet another voicemail message and once again he thinks about how he misses hearing his name in front of that. Except for that first call, she never uses his name. At least she has stopped introducing herself.

This has become a habit of sorts. She calls every Friday evening and every Friday evening he makes sure to be home so he can sit on the floor next to the answering machine and not pick up. Now he's in the kitchen, though, getting himself a cup of coffee. He has time. She always chats for a while.

Usually she talks about the little things. How her day at work was, what are her plans for the weekend... Sometimes she talks about the big things as well. She has stopped apologizing, but the remorse is obvious in her voice when she talks about the two of them sometimes, be that the good times or the bad. This time there is something else in her voice that he doesn't recognize.

"I spoke with my Mom. She had seen you the other day. I know you're wondering why she didn't come say hi and the reason is that you were with someone."

His throat constricts a little bit and he has a pretty clear idea already where this is going.

"It never occurred to me that- It probably makes me a bad person. Actually, I know it does. I just never realized you might be with someone and that's why you're not picking up. I truly hope I haven't caused any trouble with your- with her." She heaves a sigh and he's already making his way to the machine, coffee splashing over the sides of the cup as he rushes to pick up and explain. He trips over the vacuum cleaner and has to stop to breathe as the pain shoots up from his big toe and for a moment he's certain he broke it this time.

"This is me letting you go, Mulder. I won't call you again. You have my number should you ever need it. I wish you all the best with her. I hope you're happy. I hope she's happy. I truly hope it works out better than we did, Mulder. You deserve happiness in your life."

When he finally makes it to the machine and picks up the phone, he only hears the dialing tone. The way his name left her lips sounded wrong, like it was a challenge to get it out but she gathered her energy resources for one last time because she will never mention him again.

He hesitates exactly a second, then pushes speed dial one and holds his breath. She lets the machine pick up for her, and he finds himself at a loss for words.

"It's me." He finds himself unable to say her name out loud, even to her. "I'm... There's no one. The woman Maggie saw me with... We had coffee one day. Then we had a dinner becauses it felt like a good idea for some reason. And then we had ice cream few days later as she explained she doesn't date recently divorced men."

"You keep looking at your left hand like you can still see the ring there," she told him, and he gave her a sad smile instead of an explanation because it felt easier to let her assume than to tell her that it's not a ring he expects to see, it's Scully's hand in his. Because sometimes he still feels her presence like a phantom pain of a missing limb and finds himself looking around, expecting to see her.

"I'm-" Yours, he wants to say into the phone. Still hoping for you to come home some day. Still sleeping with the light on.

"-sorry," he says instead. There are so many things he wants to say to her but it feels odd confessing them to her answering machine, even if he knows she's right there listening.

"I wasn't ready to talk when you asked to see me but maybe... maybe next time you're in DC. Give me a call if you'd still like to meet up."

He is almost certain she will never call, though. There was something final in her voice when she called, something that said she had made a promise to herself and he knows how stubborn she can be with those. This is me letting you go, Mulder. What if he's not ready to be let go?

"I hope you're happy," he says because he feels like he owes her that much, a hint of something real, after all the long, deeply personal messages she has left in his answering machine. "I hope there are things, people, in your life now that make you smile. I miss seeing you smile."

More than that, he misses making her smile. He misses being the one who brought light and laughter into her life. Somehow, at some point, he became the one who brought pain and sadness instead, and he's not sure if he can ever forgive himself for that.

"I'm gonna hang up now," he says because he feels the need to warn her somehow, just in case she wants to pick up the phone. Not that he could handle hearing her voice right now but he wants to give her the chance she never gave him tonight.

"Goodnight," he says, because he can't bring himself to say goodbye. He lowers the phone in its cradle, the cling awfully loud in the silence of the empty house. He heaves a sigh and runs his hands down his face.