Title: Tonight I've Watched
Author: Emily Todd Carter
Genre: MSR/UST, Angst
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: It's not like anyone who matters will
read this, much less sue me.
Summary: 6/? (Takes place around 5th or 6th season) A
bullet taken one chilly November evening leads to the
merging of two separate paths, two separate people
already walking side by side.
The office, of course, was empty when I arrived. The stillness was typical for that early an hour, and I had anticipated nothing besides. But the bittersweet moments of solitude such as these that had wrested their way into my early morning routine over the years had become more than stale during the past month.
I refused to believe that she wasn't coming back.
The flooded light from the hallway pierced the darkness of the room, casting shadows behind the neatly straightened stacks of files and pencils, trophies and pictures adorning the cabinets.
The dust drifted above the desk and floated, posed. Silent. Still. I closed my eyes.
She appeared behind me and edged her way into the office. Quickly laying her briefcase upon the desk, she yanked off her coat and smiled, tossing it into the chair. Her dark suit was pulled sharply across her poised shoulders, her softly curved hair neatly tucked behind her ears.
"So, Mulder, where do we start?"
I opened my eyes to the darkness of the barren office, the image of my absent partner drifting slowly as the dust settled. Silence, and nothing more.
I instinctively flipped on the light and carried the empty file box to the desk. Its impeccability would go unnoticed, I mused. She had already gathered what few things she kept in the office and probably wouldn't return.
I began to place the stack of files on my desk into the box and continued to the drawers. Stapler, pens, and paper clips among random newspaper clippings and perfectly wholesome videos.
My things, my desk, my posters and files, but she was here-everywhere.
I had kept the last post-it she had left on the computer late one night still in place.
"Mulder-
GO HOME."
I smiled and recalled that I hadn't.
Her fingernail file in the top drawer, her extra pair of latex gloves shoved behind some files on the cabinet, the new trashcan she had quietly brought the day after I had destroyed the last one in frustration over the Ronnie Strickland affair.
I stood and turned to face the picture-flooded wall to my back. Pausing for a moment before choosing the ones to take with me, my eyes fell upon a small newspaper clipping tucked quietly between two crop-circle photographs.
I hadn't bothered to attach the article, as, it was, of course, inaccurate, but the accompanying picture remained the only one of Scully I realized I had in this office.
Leaning against a squad car and flipping through a case file with her hair falling before her face, she was, per usual, expressionless. But I stood before her, my jacket off and sleeves rolled, close enough to keep our conversation at a whisper despite the confusion surrounding us.
She didn't seem to be speaking, but her eyes were locked with mine.
The case was irrelevant, long forgotten and filed away. But the fact remained that this moment captured, this typical point in time so frequent in days past, served as my only visual reminder of the way we used to be.
The way I used to be able to speak to her across a crowded room without a word, to argue with her at a whisper six inches apart and leave the matter unresolved, but still place my hand upon her back and lead her from the room as if nothing had happened.
The way she used to struggle to keep a smile from her face when I'd make a wisecrack any normal person would have considered harassment, or lock the office door behind her so that I wouldn't have to ask, speaking the words aloud that revealed the unremitting paranoia she knew I couldn't escape.
The little things. The constants in this forever dynamic existence we had shared, had come to rely on.
These I had fought for more than once. And I had no intention of tiring in my resolve to gain them once again.
I pulled out the tack and dropped the picture in the remaining space beside the files. Grabbing the box by the handles, I lifted it from the desk.
As I paused for a moment before heading for the door, my eyes drifted to the unassuming nameplate resting silently beside the lamp.
The carved white letters of my name glared back at me indignantly, their stature slight but their connotation untold.
This is Fox Mulder's office. Fox Mulder's desk and Fox Mulder's files.
Fox Mulder began this search on a day too far distant to be remembered, a journey begun in solitude along a path meant for one. One man resolute in his solitary being, unwilling to share the burden, the responsibility, and the pain of his pursuit.
She hadn't been placed here by choice, but she had chosen to remain. And so she walked beside me, followed me and bore the sorrow and the hurting I hadn't warned her were only certain.
She doubted, and I made her believe.
She saw my weakness, but I turned away.
She had taken up my cross, though I refused to accept hers.
And now the suppression of these realities, the mutual refusal to speak aloud of the painful truths we both had endured had come to this.
This moment. This reality. This truth.
Burning, heat rose within me, spreading from my chest to the tired muscles of my arms and the sweating tips of my fingers.
I dropped the box back upon the desk and stared at the cruel letters of my name, the pitiful plate I had refused to move after so many years.
I had forced her to stand behind and bear the pain in silence. I had let them take her and strip her of her identity and her resolve, of her health and her beliefs while I looked the other way. She had remained in the shadow of my grief, had suffered this silence out of commitment and a sense of obligation that had already begun to fade.
And the light that had been Scully had suddenly left me in the darkness of this suffering, this guilt.
Alone.
I grabbed the nameplate without a second's hesitation, the cool of the metal yielding to the heat of my palms. Running my fingers gently over the carving of the letters for a moment, I slowly closed my eyes.
Silence.
With a strength I had never possessed and an anger I had never allowed to surface, I turned and hurled the nameplate at the wall behind me, refusing to flinch as it smashed the glass of the bookcase and sent shards falling to the floor below.
The office was quiet for a moment longer, and I stared at the reflection of the lamp's light upon the broken glass. I reached for the box and lifted it from the desk once again.
When I turned, she was standing in the doorway silently, her face expressionless.
Her eyes were tired, resigned, and they said not a word as they had so many times before.
This place had once been ours, alone for days and months and years. And I needed her to walk into the office as if nothing had changed. I needed her to stay, but I hadn't the strength to tell her of my weakness. Somehow, I needed her to feel the pain I felt, to see that I couldn't carry this burden alone, but the words wouldn't come.
So I ignored the tears I saw forming in her eyes and shouldered the pain I knew I would bear in solitude in the days to come as I headed for the door and cast my eyes upon the ground. She looked down, moved silently away, and allowed me to pass.
The echo of my steps upon the chill of the hall broke the silence, but I refused to turn and watch her cry in the doorway.
I knew my way through the darkness and tread mechanically to the elevator, ignoring the throbbing in my ears and tightness in my throat. Blood trickled quietly down my fingers, but I couldn't feel the sting of the broken glass that had flown into my hand and now rested atop the files in the box I held.
The doors opened and I shivered unwillingly as I stepped inside.
I found myself alone and rested against the wall of the elevator, sinking slowly to the ground. Staring as the blood dripped from the hand I clutched before me, I resigned to the rising swell within my throat and quietly allowed the tears to fall.
END CH 6
Author: Emily Todd Carter
Genre: MSR/UST, Angst
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: It's not like anyone who matters will
read this, much less sue me.
Summary: 6/? (Takes place around 5th or 6th season) A
bullet taken one chilly November evening leads to the
merging of two separate paths, two separate people
already walking side by side.
The office, of course, was empty when I arrived. The stillness was typical for that early an hour, and I had anticipated nothing besides. But the bittersweet moments of solitude such as these that had wrested their way into my early morning routine over the years had become more than stale during the past month.
I refused to believe that she wasn't coming back.
The flooded light from the hallway pierced the darkness of the room, casting shadows behind the neatly straightened stacks of files and pencils, trophies and pictures adorning the cabinets.
The dust drifted above the desk and floated, posed. Silent. Still. I closed my eyes.
She appeared behind me and edged her way into the office. Quickly laying her briefcase upon the desk, she yanked off her coat and smiled, tossing it into the chair. Her dark suit was pulled sharply across her poised shoulders, her softly curved hair neatly tucked behind her ears.
"So, Mulder, where do we start?"
I opened my eyes to the darkness of the barren office, the image of my absent partner drifting slowly as the dust settled. Silence, and nothing more.
I instinctively flipped on the light and carried the empty file box to the desk. Its impeccability would go unnoticed, I mused. She had already gathered what few things she kept in the office and probably wouldn't return.
I began to place the stack of files on my desk into the box and continued to the drawers. Stapler, pens, and paper clips among random newspaper clippings and perfectly wholesome videos.
My things, my desk, my posters and files, but she was here-everywhere.
I had kept the last post-it she had left on the computer late one night still in place.
"Mulder-
GO HOME."
I smiled and recalled that I hadn't.
Her fingernail file in the top drawer, her extra pair of latex gloves shoved behind some files on the cabinet, the new trashcan she had quietly brought the day after I had destroyed the last one in frustration over the Ronnie Strickland affair.
I stood and turned to face the picture-flooded wall to my back. Pausing for a moment before choosing the ones to take with me, my eyes fell upon a small newspaper clipping tucked quietly between two crop-circle photographs.
I hadn't bothered to attach the article, as, it was, of course, inaccurate, but the accompanying picture remained the only one of Scully I realized I had in this office.
Leaning against a squad car and flipping through a case file with her hair falling before her face, she was, per usual, expressionless. But I stood before her, my jacket off and sleeves rolled, close enough to keep our conversation at a whisper despite the confusion surrounding us.
She didn't seem to be speaking, but her eyes were locked with mine.
The case was irrelevant, long forgotten and filed away. But the fact remained that this moment captured, this typical point in time so frequent in days past, served as my only visual reminder of the way we used to be.
The way I used to be able to speak to her across a crowded room without a word, to argue with her at a whisper six inches apart and leave the matter unresolved, but still place my hand upon her back and lead her from the room as if nothing had happened.
The way she used to struggle to keep a smile from her face when I'd make a wisecrack any normal person would have considered harassment, or lock the office door behind her so that I wouldn't have to ask, speaking the words aloud that revealed the unremitting paranoia she knew I couldn't escape.
The little things. The constants in this forever dynamic existence we had shared, had come to rely on.
These I had fought for more than once. And I had no intention of tiring in my resolve to gain them once again.
I pulled out the tack and dropped the picture in the remaining space beside the files. Grabbing the box by the handles, I lifted it from the desk.
As I paused for a moment before heading for the door, my eyes drifted to the unassuming nameplate resting silently beside the lamp.
The carved white letters of my name glared back at me indignantly, their stature slight but their connotation untold.
This is Fox Mulder's office. Fox Mulder's desk and Fox Mulder's files.
Fox Mulder began this search on a day too far distant to be remembered, a journey begun in solitude along a path meant for one. One man resolute in his solitary being, unwilling to share the burden, the responsibility, and the pain of his pursuit.
She hadn't been placed here by choice, but she had chosen to remain. And so she walked beside me, followed me and bore the sorrow and the hurting I hadn't warned her were only certain.
She doubted, and I made her believe.
She saw my weakness, but I turned away.
She had taken up my cross, though I refused to accept hers.
And now the suppression of these realities, the mutual refusal to speak aloud of the painful truths we both had endured had come to this.
This moment. This reality. This truth.
Burning, heat rose within me, spreading from my chest to the tired muscles of my arms and the sweating tips of my fingers.
I dropped the box back upon the desk and stared at the cruel letters of my name, the pitiful plate I had refused to move after so many years.
I had forced her to stand behind and bear the pain in silence. I had let them take her and strip her of her identity and her resolve, of her health and her beliefs while I looked the other way. She had remained in the shadow of my grief, had suffered this silence out of commitment and a sense of obligation that had already begun to fade.
And the light that had been Scully had suddenly left me in the darkness of this suffering, this guilt.
Alone.
I grabbed the nameplate without a second's hesitation, the cool of the metal yielding to the heat of my palms. Running my fingers gently over the carving of the letters for a moment, I slowly closed my eyes.
Silence.
With a strength I had never possessed and an anger I had never allowed to surface, I turned and hurled the nameplate at the wall behind me, refusing to flinch as it smashed the glass of the bookcase and sent shards falling to the floor below.
The office was quiet for a moment longer, and I stared at the reflection of the lamp's light upon the broken glass. I reached for the box and lifted it from the desk once again.
When I turned, she was standing in the doorway silently, her face expressionless.
Her eyes were tired, resigned, and they said not a word as they had so many times before.
This place had once been ours, alone for days and months and years. And I needed her to walk into the office as if nothing had changed. I needed her to stay, but I hadn't the strength to tell her of my weakness. Somehow, I needed her to feel the pain I felt, to see that I couldn't carry this burden alone, but the words wouldn't come.
So I ignored the tears I saw forming in her eyes and shouldered the pain I knew I would bear in solitude in the days to come as I headed for the door and cast my eyes upon the ground. She looked down, moved silently away, and allowed me to pass.
The echo of my steps upon the chill of the hall broke the silence, but I refused to turn and watch her cry in the doorway.
I knew my way through the darkness and tread mechanically to the elevator, ignoring the throbbing in my ears and tightness in my throat. Blood trickled quietly down my fingers, but I couldn't feel the sting of the broken glass that had flown into my hand and now rested atop the files in the box I held.
The doors opened and I shivered unwillingly as I stepped inside.
I found myself alone and rested against the wall of the elevator, sinking slowly to the ground. Staring as the blood dripped from the hand I clutched before me, I resigned to the rising swell within my throat and quietly allowed the tears to fall.
END CH 6
