A few weeks later…
He didn't want to hear it. I didn't tell him. After
eight years we'd just had our first major fight. Oh we'd argued numerous times but never had any of it been so
bitter. The last major fight I could
remember was a result of drugs in his water. And now. I look at him stunned
as the last words he said bounce of my brain. As if it wasn't enough he felt the need to repeat them.
"How long did you wait before you
crawled in bed with him Scully? Or was
it someone else? Did you enjoy
yourself? I certainly wouldn't want you to have gone through all that for
nothing." I still wasn't sure he was
saying these things to me. I couldn't
believe he could assume that. I
couldn't believe that he could believe that. I thought he trusted me. I
thought he cared.
"What's the matter Scully can't you
come up with any big words to defend yourself with?" He was trying to hurt
me. I wasn't going to stand for it.
"Mulder I don't know what they did to
you but it obviously effected your judgment. If you don't know the answers to those dim-witted questions I'm not
going to reward your cowardly behavior. I wouldn't want you to get the wrong idea and think that you actually
meant something to me and that this conversation actually hurt. Since you're so cock-fired sure that you
know everything why don't you tell me how this happened."
"Um lets see. You're a doctor Scully I would think you
knew how these things happened. Maybe
though you've conveniently forgotten. Shall I refresh your memory Ms Ice Queen?"
"No." it was said with clear
rage. I hated the name and I couldn't
believe that Mulder would ever use it against me. "I'm all to familiar with
it. Or have you forgotten." She
paused here for a moment.
"No." he echoed through gritted teeth.
"They should have kept you. I've forgotten how arrogant and narcissistic
you are. I'd even deluded myself into
thinking I'd missed you." I'd hit him low I could see it in his eyes but I
wasn't finished yet. "You know I
honestly thought that you'd be happy for me. I'd gotten the one thing that I'd always wanted but that because of you
I'd been denied." That finished him. I
hated myself for it and I couldn't even start to justify it. He nodded but couldn't hide the sadness in
his eyes. I'd broken the man that I
cared about more then anyone else in the world and I felt awful about it.
My heels rang too loud on the hard
cold floor as I walked away. I wanted
to turn around and tell him everything. But I couldn't. Not now. I wanted him to call out to me. If he had I would have come back running
spouting apologies. But he didn't. I never expected him to.
I watched her familiar and comforting shape slip
further from me. Her words still lay
wrenched in my heart and every breath hurt. From the moment I woke up weeks ago I had planned this fight. I never imagined how much it would
hurt. I watched as she tried to hold
her head up and pretend nothing was the matter.
I wondered if her heart ached the way
mine did. I knew that I had hurt her
deeply otherwise she wouldn't have said the things she did. I watched as her red hair bobbed a
little. I'd seen that before. It always came right after her clipped "I'm
fine." And before her heart wrenching tears.
I wanted her to turn around. I willed her too. My heart and my soul cried for hers. I realized then that the two of us were connected. I'd always known we were close but I never
realized that in the past eight years my soul had unexplainablely twined around
hers. My happiness depended on her and
now she was walking away.
She wouldn't turn and I couldn't call
her. I willed the Gods to step in if
there was such a thing as fate I wished it would deal me a kind hand. I needed her. I breathed her like air and I
quenched my thirst in her life giving essence. She was everything and now she was walking down that hall. Once before I had almost let her walk
away. Back then I had the courage to
stop her. But now.
Now too much lay between us. She'd have to turn or give me some kind of
signal that she still wanted me in her life. I would have come I would have come running. But she kept on walking.
I couldn't blame her. After all the cold things I'd said to
her. I wouldn't have been able to turn
around. I had treated her like s--- the
past few weeks. And I knew I didn't
deserve what happened next but it happened anyway.
Just as her clicking heels reached the
end of the hallway one of them broke off and she started to fall. I don't know how I got there so fast but I
caught her and we went down together. In eight years she's never had her heel break and now at the time I
needed it, it broke. If that wasn't
fate stepping in I don't know what was.
She started to pull away but I held
her to my chest. No I wouldn't let her
leave. I couldn't.
In eight years I've never said
anything to her that I meant more then my next words. Pulling her closer I whispered them in her ear.
"Scully…I'm sorry."
She melted in my arms and spun around
throwing her arms around my neck and hugging me so tightly I thought she'd
strangle me.
"Mulder…I'm not fine." She managed to
squeeze out past her tear-clogged throat. I didn't mind now that she clung so tightly in fact I wanted to hold her
closer and make it all right. And
unlike the past she actually wanted me too. I knew then that I had misjudged her. I even entertained the thought that maybe it was my child she was
carrying. Weirder things had happened
to both of us.
I kissed the top of her head and let
her stop crying. When she pulled away
from me our eyes met. Her always
distant and carefully guarded, even icy at times, sapphire eyes sparkled with
unshed tears but they were clearer then the sky they resembled. This time I could see into her soul and what
I saw amazes me still.
Her eyes didn't hate me, in fact just
the opposite. In her eyes I saw the
little pieces of me that had become part of her, I saw with an honesty I had
though not possible even in a woman of such integrity as her. The parts of me that were empty, the parts
of me that were missing, the things I needed, they all shined at me through her
eyes. That was when I knew with a
certainty that I wasn't alone when my heart leapt at her touch. It wasn't just me hiding layers of veiled significance
in every word.
For a moment I thought I had the
strength to confess everything but her eyes quickly darted away as a stray tear
slipped through her dark lashes. Not
wanting the moment to end I kissed her cheek where it had dared to tread. A flash of a smile crossed the lips I so
wanted to taste and she opened the eyes that she had momentarily hidden.
I noticed that a tear of my own had
slipped out as she caught it with her thumb. I wished she had kissed mine away like I had her's. Looking at her eyes I knew the moment was
over. She had her mask on again. But now I knew.
As I pulled her to her feet and walked
her to the car with my hand resting on the small of her back I knew three
things that would keep me going.
I loved Scully more then anything else
in the world.
She felt the same.
She didn't know that she loved me. It was something she'd hidden from even herself.