Ripple Effect of a Goodbye
September 2014
Maggie drove down the dirt road toward the home Dana and Fox shared, her stomach in knots. She had been there many times, even stayed the night a few times when it was too late or she was too tired to drive home. She loved the little eclectic house, but she was worried about what she would find when she arrived.
It had been a week since Dana arrived at her door, crying and heartbroken. A week of
not speaking although she wanted to know how things reached such a point that separation was the best answer. Instead, she gave Dana the space she needed.
Growing concerned for Fox, and how he was faring on his own, she decided to drive out to see him. Needing a minute, she pulled the car over and shut it off. She could see the house, but she was still a ways off. She knew Fox would not be looking for her, so she was safe where she was for now. Her hands were shaking as she looked at the house and she held her keys in her hands.
She felt that lump in her throat she had been feeling for a while when she thought about Fox. She saw him changing, saw his physical appearance altering, but she had not pushed, and instead accepted Dana's halfhearted excuses.
He was tired, he was taking medication, he was focused on work.
That last one puzzled her. Fox was not working and therefore she could not understand what work Dana meant. She did not push however, and Dana and not given more of an explanation. Fox stopped coming to dinners, and after a while, so had Dana.
Never would Maggie have imagined it would reach the point where they would separate. They fought so hard to get where they were and it felt to Maggie that Dana was giving up. She would be angry if she had not stood outside Dana's old bedroom and heard her painful cries. If she had not heard the way she said his name or seen her disheveled appearance the next morning.
She knew this decision to leave him was excruciatingly painful for Dana. She was there when Fox was gone before and saw how it had torn at Dana. But this ... this was different. This was a conscious choice Dana made and Maggie knew she would fight that choice every day. She was so much like her father in that regard. A decision would be made and then he would agonize over it for days.
Maggie put her head on the steering wheel, and took a deep breath. This was going to be hard and she did not know what to do to try and help. She knew that if Dana was suffering, Fox would be as well. She had been there for him, when Dana was missing.
She remembered those days and nights of uncertainty. Her own feelings dwarfed by the pain she saw on his face every time she saw him. For two months after Dana disappeared, he would show up at Maggie's house. Random times, sometimes days apart, sometimes consecutively. She never turned him away. She knew he needed to talk to someone.
He would pace in her living room. Back and forth like a caged animal, telling her about cases he had in his filing cabinets of people who had been abducted and returned unharmed.
"I've read every file in there, Mrs. Scully," he would say as he paced. "There are countless cases of people being found and returned. I know I will find the answers we need in one of them." He would pace, talking a mile a minute, and she would let him.
Never did she approach him until he would finally stop, falling to the floor, weeping and apologizing to her, to Dana, to everyone but himself, as if accepting it was his fault and taking the burden was his punishment.
"She shouldn't have been there, it's my fault she was, I'm so sorry. So very sorry," he would cry, over and over, his body sagging with the weight of worry.
When he quieted a bit, she would go to him and wrap him in her arms. She would hold him as she held her own children when they were younger. She did not know much about his past, aside from what Dana told her of his sister disappearing, but she recognized the need for love. The desire to feel cared for and the emptiness a person had who lacked it.
He never returned her embrace, but held firm, as if he would not allow himself the comfort, another way to punish himself. He stayed on her couch some nights, but was always gone in the morning.
He had not agreed with her when she purchased the headstone, wanting to bring closure to Dana's disappearance. He said it was as if they were giving up and he would not do it. He walked out of the office angrily, pacing in the parking lot, until she came outside the office.
"This is wrong! How can you just give up on her? I told you we would find her. That I would find her. I have to," he yelled at her, before he walked away in anger.
He turned, but came back almost immediately, apologizing to her, as he reached for her. It was the only time he initiated an embrace and she clung to him, both of them sharing the pain of losing someone they cared about.
The days began to bleed together as she drifted aimlessly, waiting to hear news of Dana. A phone call came in the middle of the night, or early morning, she could not remember, telling her that Dana had been found.
Seeing her in that hospital bed, seemed to ground her, keep her focus on one thing. It was not so with Fox. His shouts as he came to her bedside, his demand for answers, the sound of his frustration, was not something she would soon forget.
"Who brought her here? How did she get here? What's going on? How the hell did she get here? Was it, was it paramedics, FBI, military? Answer me right now! What, you're telling me she just appeared? Who did this to her!? I want to see her admission forms. Who did this to her? I want to see what tests have been done!"
Seeing him being physically dragged from the room out of the corner of her eye, she wanted to weep. His fear for Dana's safety had come to pass and now he wanted to know who hurt her to such an extreme.
"Listen, if you're hiding anything, I swear, I will do anything, whatever it takes, I will find out what they did to her!"
His shouts echoed off the wall, his distress hurting her heart. She stayed silent and stoic by Dana's side, but inside she raged like him. What had happened to her daughter?
After days of worry, living with fear residing in her heart, Maggie called Fox, her tears falling as she told him Dana was awake and asking for him. He walked into her hospital room, and he was a different man. His worry passed and his happiness could not be contained. His smile was radiant and while Dana was tired and beyond confusion, her answering smile was just for him.
They stared at each other, seeming to forget she and Melissa were in the room. She saw it then, but she did not know what to call it. Love was not quite right, but it was more than relief or a feeling of happiness for a friend. He had not stayed long, but the small interaction kept returning to her for the rest of her visit with Dana.
"Mom, would you mind picking up some things at my place for me?" Dana asked sleepily as they sat there and Maggie was happy to oblige.
Making a list, she left, telling her she would be back soon. A couple of hours later, she came back, a bag holding the requested items inside. Opening the door to Dana's room, to no great surprise, she found Fox. He was asleep in the same chair she herself sat in earlier. Dana was on her side, facing him, also sleeping. Their fingers lightly grasping to the other.
Maggie stood in shock. She had been wrong earlier. It was love she had seen when he walked in her room. Love trying its damndest to stay down when it knew it wanted to jump out, take a seat, and fill the hearts of everyone in the room.
Maggie had been to weddings, births, and funerals in her lifetime. She had seen love and beauty, but seeing them that way, it made her want to weep. It was incredibly small and could possibly be viewed as insignificant by another, but Maggie knew the truth. Her daughter was not always overly affectionate and she herself held Fox's rigid frame often enough in the past few months to know he was probably the same. Yet, there they sat, fingers holding to the other, unable to let go, even in sleep.
She set the bag of Dana's things down and left the room as quietly as possible. She made it to the bathroom down the hall before she started crying. Tears falling for the love she saw and for which she had not been prepared. Dana deviating from her plan to go from medicine and work for the FBI had boggled her mind and angered Bill. They did not understand, but in that moment she did. He had been waiting for her, her other half.
Maggie was now weeping, her tears falling fast as she thought of that one specific memory. There had been many more, but that one, so early in their partnership, was the one she called upon most when she thought of the relationship they shared. It showed the truth about who they were, the one person the other needed, before they even knew it themselves.
She sat up and dried her tears as she tried to control her crying. She took a few minutes, checked her reflection in the mirror, and restarted her car. She took a few deep breaths and then put the car in drive. She had no idea what she would find or what she would say, but she knew without a doubt she was needed there.
She pulled up in front of the house, shut off the engine, and stepped out of the car. She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. She walked up the steps and knocked on the screen door. Hearing no movement, she opened it and knocked on the front door. Still, she heard nothing.
She stepped back and looked into the windows, hoping to catch a glimpse of Fox somewhere inside. The house was a mess. Papers and books everywhere. Dishes were piled on the table and the side of the sink. She did not see Fox, but she did see something that made her pulse race and her breath catch.
On the table was a bottle of vodka. She could see it plain as day. She knew neither Dana nor Fox were big drinkers. They usually enjoyed wine or beer when the occasion allowed. Looking at that bottle of alcohol made her feel cold. It made her think of her father and she shook her head. No chance would she let what happened in the past happen now.
She tried knocking once more on the door, but he still did not answer. She shook her head again and walked back down the stairs. She opened up the back door and took out the basket she had brought with her. In it was some of the food she knew he enjoyed. Lasagna, a meat casserole, and a lemon cake she made especially for him.
She set the basket on the stairs and searched for a piece of paper to write him a note. She was angry now, and she felt her hands shaking. She found an old empty envelope in the glovebox and a pen in her purse. She sat on the stairs and wrote out her anger and frustration.
Fox-
I don't know what exactly has happened. I know you two are hurting, but drinking won't help. I refuse to see you walk down a path that will lead to nowhere. Take this food and throw out that bottle of alcohol. This will nourish and that will hinder.
I will be back tomorrow. I hope to find this basket empty, that bottle inside it, and your face when I knock on the door.
Please, Fox.
Maggie Scully
She left the basket in the shade of the porch and knocked once more, hoping he might finally hear her. She waited, but still there was no movement. Walking down the steps, she got in the car, looking back at the house as she started the engine. Backing up and glancing one more time at the door, she put the car in drive and headed down the driveway.
Her heart was heavy as she drove away. She knew she was not the one to fix this problem, but she wanted to help in any way she could. She knew loneliness and heartache and she hated it. Her one great love had died, leaving her suddenly, taking part of her heart with him. She knew she would never find another like him, so she had never tried.
Dana and Fox ... they were different and this was wrong. Giving up, walking away from the other when death had not forced it upon them … no she simply would not abide it. She would do what she could to repair this very large crack. She was needed, she knew it. She could feel it in her very soul.
A mother always knew.