Chapter 6: Heartbreak
Mulder's apartment.
He is in jeans and his gray t-shirt. He is rewinding and listening to the message on his answering machine over and over. It's not easy for him.
Teena Mulder: (voice) Fox, it's your mother. I'd hoped you'd call upon your return but I haven't heard from you. I'm sure you're busy. There are... so many emotions in me I wouldn't know where to start. So much that I've left unsaid, for reasons I hope one day you'll understand.
He rewinds again and puts his head close to the machine as if trying to hear any noise in the background
Teena Mulder: (voice) There are... so many emotions in me I wouldn't know where to start. So much that I've left unsaid for reasons I hope one day you'll understand.
There is a knock at the door. Mulder opens it for Scully. She looks very sad and tired.
MULDER: I'm glad you're here. My mother was trying to tell me something. I think I figured it out. It's something about my sister that she was never able to tell me.
(He plays the tape for her.)
MULDER: She knew what I'd find with this case out in California.
SCULLY: How could she know that, Mulder?
MULDER: A child disappearing without a trace… without evidence... in defiance of all logical explanation? She knew because of what's driven me... what I've always believed.
SCULLY: (walking toward him) Mulder...
MULDER: Scully, these parents who've lost... (swallows painfully) … who've lost their children... They've had visions of their sons and daughters in scenarios that never happened but which they describe in notes that came through them as automatic writing and words that came through them psychically from old souls protecting the children. My mother must have written a note like that herself. Describing the scenario of my sister's disappearance of her, of her abduction by aliens. Don't you see, Scully? It never happened. All these visions that I've had have just been... they've been to help me cope, to help me deal with the loss but... I've been looking for my sister in the wrong place. That's... what my mother was trying to tell me. That's what she was trying to warn me about. That's why they killed her.
Scully sits facing him
SCULLY: Your mother killed herself, Mulder. I conducted the autopsy. She was dying of an incurable disease. An untreatable and horribly disfiguring disease called Paget's Carcinoma. She knew it. There were doctor's records. She didn't want to live.
Mulder stares at her a moment, then puts his face in his hands. Suddenly he stands and shakes the desk violently. Scully touches his arm to calm him down. He pulls away in agony, starting to break down.
SCULLY: Mulder …
MULDER: She was trying to tell me something. She was... (voice breaking as he cries) ...trying to tell me something.
Scully is almost crying herself.
SCULLY: Mulder, she was trying to tell you to stop. To stop looking for your sister. She was just trying to take away your pain.
Mulder turns to her desperately and holds her tightly around her waist and cries. Scully holds him and puts her lips against his neck. She rocks him gently. They stay like that for a while, he is shaking, she is very concerned, she does understand his pain but this is the saddest she has ever seen him, when he calms a little she push him away gently cupping his face with her hands.
SCULLY: I am so sorry Mulder… but I'm here.
MULDER: I know Scully (he says in tears) I don't wanna believe this, I can't, I won't.
SCULLY: Mulder please stop, please.
He cries hard and she tries to reassure him, but it's useless, she cries with him seeing that her efforts are in vain
SCULLY: Mulder don't do this to me, I don't know how to help you… Mulder! What you want me to do?
MULDER: Don't worry about it Scully, I just want to be alone.
SCULLY: I won't leave you
MULDER: I won't kill myself if that's your fear
SCULLY: How can you say that Mulder? To me
MULDER: I'm sorry
She closes her eyes trying to think clearly
SCULLY: Let's go to bed
He obeys her and puts his arm over her shoulder feeling that maybe she can lighten the weight inside him, she guides him towards the room without separating her gaze from him, he looks at the void with a lost and glazed look. she deposits him on the bed and forces him to lie down while going to the kitchen to prepare an infusion of chamomile. She cries alone for him, for the first time she doesn't know how to help him, she feels useless, she wants her Mulder back, the dork, the guy full of jokes, the one who wants to believe, she looks at the fire on the stove and a sob scapes her lips, a hand touches her shoulder and she jumps in fear, is him, she clean her tears with her hands but he hugs her from behind crossing his arms over her chest, she bends her head and puts her hands on his arms, he kisses her hair.
MULDER: Don't cry Scully, with me is enough, I'm grateful you're here with me otherwise I will lose myself.
She turns around and looks into his red and glassy eyes with pain.
SCULLY: I'm sorry, I shouldn't be crying, I just wanna help you.
MULDER: I know
he interrupts her hug as she prepares the tea, then they go to the room together and sit on the bed, side by side, he drinks his tea while she watches him silently, then goes for a blanket and forces him to lie down again.
she lies down beside him and he crosses his arm over her head so that she lies on his chest, he kisses her hair but continues crying, she knows that he will not sleep, neither of them will, but her presence can dissipate a little his pain, even if it is very little.
