I could tell him now. He was my Mulder again. The one
I had grown to care for so much over the years. G—how I'd missed him. We were sitting in my apartment on my couch
with a cushion and the truth between us. I really wished however that there was nothing between us.
After he helped me to the car he
stayed with me and drove me home. He'd
helped me to my apartment and now we both sat staring at each other while the
coffee I'd just made sat cooling in our cups. I didn't want to look away but the reasonable part of me broke our gaze
and sighed. I watched out of the corner
of my eye as he too turned away with a strange look on his face. He was sad I'd turned away first. I knew I had to tell him without sparing him
any detail of what had happened. I knew
it wouldn't be easy and right now I just wanted to sit with him like this in
silence. Looking back I don't know that we ever did the silence
thing very well. We'd always tried to
fill the little spaces with witty and sarcastic phrases, playing a verbal cat
and mouse game. And it worked for us
but this silence worked too and I wanted it to continue.
William however wanted to meet the man
who would hopefully become his father, so he kicked me harder then he ever had before
(he keeps getting smarter everyday and is becoming a second conscious for me.)
and I grimaced. Mulder smiled as if he
had wanted to do the very same thing.
"Can I?" he asked. There was the awkwardness again; we
definitely had to get over this. The
old Mulder would have reached over and touched me without hesitation. I nodded my encouragement and he slid closer
to me and placed a hand on my stomach. I was suddenly very aware of the slight pressure each of his five fingers
made on my stomach. I wished Mulder
would open the conversation more so that I wouldn't have to bring it up. But I knew that he wouldn't.
"Mulder…I" I tried to start but his
eyes went wide like a little boy who just discovered some amazing wonder.
"Scully shh." He interrupted taking my
hand and placing it with his as William kicked. He was being even more wonderful then I thought he would. He actually cared about my child. I could
see in his eyes the sorrow for not being here with me sooner.
"I have a confession." He interrupted
the moment.
"I do too." I admitted.
"It seems we've had our share of
misunderstandings." He started out and I nodded for him to continue. "I've been
pretty selfish and 'narcissistic' lately haven't I." He smiled at me as he
quoted my earlier words. I smiled back at him. "I thought…" he stopped here and
looked down at his lap I broke in to make it easier on him like I always used
to.
"You felt betrayed. You thought I'd
replaced you. You wanted to be happy
for me but you couldn't because you felt that you'd let me down." I supplied.
"You always do that." He commented
smiling. Oh how I had missed his
smiles.
"What?"
"You always know what I'm thinking and
I never know what your thinking. One of
these days though I'm going to figure you out Agent Scully." He teased. I wished he could read me right now.
"I don't think you'll ever achieve
that area of enlightenment Mulder."
"I'm hurt. Don't you think that my
experience with the reticulan world has opened me up to new levels?" he joked
back.
"I'm sure those little green men
opened you up to all new levels but I don't think that you'll ever be open to
that." Hoping my comment wasn't too off I watched him closely. When he gave me
a full-blown Mulder grin. I loved those grins they lit up the entire room and
you couldn't help but smile back.
"Grey Scully. I thought you knew that
by now."
"Yeah. I know a lot of things now."
" Like?" he questioned.
"Like it's getting late and our coffee
is getting cold."
"Let it." He said staring in my eyes
with the look that had gotten all too familiar in the months before he was
taken. It left me confused and alive at
the same time. I didn't want to get locked in his gaze again so I looked
away. His hand came up and cupped my
cheek and I closed my eyes enjoying his touch. But only because he had been gone so long.
"Scully look at me." He begged. There
was something in his voice that sent a chill down my spine. I opened my eyes
and stared into his liquid puddles. So
much like a puppy's but filled with depths I had never imagined, not that I'd
imagined the two of us sitting here just staring into each other's eyes. They were searching for something, I wanted
to give him whatever he was looking for but I couldn't because I didn't know
what he was looking for. He looked away
with that same disappointed look as earlier.
"I'd better go." He said and started
to leave. I didn't want him to leave and before I knew what I was doing I
called to him.
"Mulder…" he stopped and turned to
me. "Can you just sit with me?" He came over and sat by me.
"Scully when I was gone…"
"Mulder don't…it can wait." He nodded somewhat grateful but somewhat
hurt too I think.
"When you were gone. I…" he grabbed my
hand to give me courage to continue. "When we found you and you were…I…" a tear slipped down my cheek but I
let it go unchecked. After this
afternoon and after my experience with his autopsy I wasn't afraid to cry in
front of him anymore. I decided to try again with a different route. "I wanted
to believe. I wanted to believe that
all of it wasn't real but it was real. I just…I don't know how…"
"Sometimes with all the words we have
we still can't say it. No matter how
many words there are in the English language there is never enough to say what
we need to say. We used to play with
the English language everyday for fun. We were good at it. One witty
comment followed another. Artists of
the language really. But it never
worked when there was something important to say. Some things just can't be captured and put into words. We can't put them in black and white. To do so takes the magic from them and they
become synthetic and cold, meaning nothing. For example the words 'I love you' mean nothing now. We toss them around like confetti and they
land almost anywhere. They've become
commercialized and overused by the public for cheap thrills and quick self-satisfying
encounters. I could buy a hallmark card
with all sorts of romantic words but what would it mean? The sentiment fades when we try to put it in
words. Some things just can't be
explained." How right he was. About it
all. How many times had we skated around an issue because we didn't know how to
say it? For all our skill we still
couldn't express our own needs.
"You know Mulder maybe I was wrong."
"Hmm. Bout what?" he said lost in
thought.
"About you never reaching that state
of enlightenment." I said lightly.
"No. I think you were right. Think about it Scully can we ever really say
we know someone well enough to understand them. There is too much unpredictability, too many random acts that can
occur, all of which could shift the score. As much as we'd like to think that we can read each other's minds, for
all our predictability there is too much of that other element. I think that the human mind is something
that we will never be able to understand or predict."
"Mulder?"
"Huh?"
"Shut up." I said with a smile and he laughed.