CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Scully looked up from her magazine as she heard a light knock on her door.
Her face fell. "What are you doing here, Mulder, my mom is coming to pick me up."
"Change of plans," Mulder said. "She called me and agreed to let me drive you home."
Scully sighed angrily. "Just call me a cab and go."
"That's frowned upon by hospital policy," he informed her.
"Why exactly are you here?"
He reached his hand into his coat and pulled out a small blue onesie and unfolded it and placed it lightly on her stomach. "I guess you got your miracle after all."
"I guess I did," she said, as she crossed her arms across her chest.
"You don't look very happy."
"I never wanted to do it alone."
"I'm sorry."
"Does it change anything?"
"You were right, I never wanted you to leave. Not for a second. That pathetic dependency you were talking about earlier, it goes both ways."
"What are you saying?"
"I can't not have you in my life. I know it's selfish, but if for some absurd reason you still want me, then maybe it's worth the risk."
Scully picked up the onesie and inspected it as she ran the fabric through her fingers. It has an alien in a spaceship on the front.
"Why the sudden change of heart?"
"We literally defied science by making this baby," he started.
"It was just sex, Mulder, remember?" she shot at him.
He ignored her comment; "I think I have been believing in the wrong thing all this time. For the longest time, all I wanted to do was find my sister and prove to the entire world that we weren't alone in this universe. But, then you came along and my priorities started to change. Somewhere along the way I realized that what I really wanted to believe in was us. Our partnership, our friendship… our love. It's always been you Scully, and I know that I haven't always seen it or acknowledged it, and I certainly haven't made it easy for you to see, but it has been, Dana, its always been you."
"Did you practice that on the way here?"
"Scully…"
"No Mulder, did you think that your little heart felt confession was going to make everything okay?"
"No, but I was hoping it would be a start."
"I don't think so, Mulder. It's too late."
Mulder nodded sending them both into a lapse of silence.
"Are you ready to go?" he finally asked.
Scully looked up at him. "Yeah, I'm ready."
Scully settled herself into the passenger seat of Mulder's car, as he started the car. He threw the car into reverse and soon they were silently cruising down the freeway.
Scully broke the silence first. "What did my mom tell you on the phone?"
"Nothing important."
"Don't give me that. You have been screwing with my head for months, first you claim to want nothing to do with me and then you suddenly confess your love, she said something to you. Something that changed your mind. What was it?"
"She told me that I couldn't control everything, that some outcomes are just fate. And no matter how hard you fight, no matter how hard you try, sometimes things are either meant to be or they're not."
"And you accept that?"
He nodded.
"So that's your new philosophy, nothing can be your fault because all outcomes are written in stone?"
He nodded, "It sounds so much easier."
"Easier? Mulder nothing in our lives has ever been easy. You honestly think that if you hadn't come to Antarctica, that if you hadn't found my cure, I'd still be alive? How is it fate? Fate is just another word for people too scared to fight for what they want." Mulder met her eyes and she realized what he was doing. "We are not something worth fighting for, Mulder, if that's what your little speech was trying to get at."
"I'm wiling to fight," he informed her as he pulled his car in front of Scully's apartment and put it into park.
"Well, it's a good thing that you are so damn used to disappointment."
And with that she slammed the car door and stormed off into her apartment.