Title: A Man Who...: Through Her Eyes

Author: DC Luder

Disclaimer: FM, DS, MS, WS belong to them crazy CC and Co. out in LA.

Summary: Mulder is confronted by Skinner as to his intentions…

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I strode as quickly as possible from the elevator to the main exit for the emergency room. That had not gone as planned. How was I supposed to rationalize with a man who had taken Scully from me? Who had pictures all over his office of her and their child? I almost hit him in there, barely able to keep control.

What was happening to me?

Before leaving DC, my doctor had checked me out, declaring grand improvements in my behavior and thinking. I was clear-headed and as he said "obviously on the path to recovery." Was all that gone? Reduced meds hadn't caused any problems at home, why was I so out of it here?

I got into my car and sat quietly in the parking lot. Although a weekend, the lot was full of cars and people bustling to and from the hospital. As my fingers tightened their grip on the steering wheel, I watched as a small family bustled towards the Walk-In Clinic's door. The parents could barely have been thirty-five, with worried faces free of wrinkles and dark brown hair clear of grays. The mother held the hand of a young and sniffling blonde girl dressed in a pale yellow dress with matching sandals. In the arms of the father, was a baseball uniform clad second-grade boy.

A family trip to the emergency room.

Any trip I ever made to the hospital as a child had been at the hands of my father. However, all of my medical charts had listed my injuries as "a result of sports accident." The looks the nurses gave me as they held cold packs to my bruised face said otherwise…

I jumped as my cell phone rang suddenly. The Caller ID listed: AD Skinner CELL.

I tempted letting it ring, but then changed my mind. "Mulder."

"Mulder, it's just me. Checking in."

"I think I'm a big boy now, Walt," I grinned, trying to picture his reaction to my forced calmness.

"I know that. Mulder, listen, I called earlier…"

"Yeah, I got your message, sorry for not returning it. I had some things to do earlier."

"As in breakfast with Scully."

"And little Will."

He paused before responding, "You met her so---, the boy?"

I sighed as he caught himself from saying it. Her son. "Yeah. He's great. Really bright too. A little brown haired Scully, he's even addicted to chocolate and everything." Although my voice had gone detached, my heart fluttered with emotion. The child of Scully, so much like her and so little like that arrogant…

"When are you coming home?" Skinner asked suddenly.

I paused, "I don't know." And I didn't.

"Mulder, I don't think it's such a good idea to drag everything out of the past like this. It can't be doing any good for Scully to see you all of the sudden, and I know damn well that it's no good for you."

He was pulling rank, voicing thoughts he wouldn't have had we been equals. But his rank was no longer that of a superior agent to me, but more. A paternal figure showing concern for his son.

"I'm sorry, Skinner. I don't know if I can walk away. I told you all I wanted to do was see her again but now… It's just gotten complicated. I'll sort things out, talk to her again. And we'll take it from there."

"We, Mulder? For Christ's sake, she's married. Are you trying to do what I think you're doing?"

"Impose upon a cheery and happily married couple? I think not." I took a breath and pondered telling him about our kiss. How everything had seemed like life was back to normal for me in that brief moment before Dr. B had walked in.

"Mulder," his tone was that of frustration and hopelessness, "I know this has to be difficult for you but think about Scully. Do you think it's any easier to see you out of the blue? Let alone her family?" he paused before talking quietly, "I had three friends MIA in 'Nam. Mulder, back then we were all hopeless and stupid but we knew they had to have been dead. Eight years after the war ended, I ran into one of them at the bank. I nearly fainted at the sight of him. He smiled at me and told me how he had gotten out and had a family started. How he had put his past behind him to move on with his life."

I paused, absorbing his story. I knew he meant well, but my subconscious took it as an insult, "So you're telling me to forget about her?"

"No, Mulder, I didn't mean it that way."

"Because it sure sounded that way. Put my past behind me so I can get my act together. So that means I have to forget everything in my work with her. Hell, why stop there, why not go all the way back. College, school, my sister's abduction, my father getting wasted and practicing his baseball swing on my back!"

"Mulder, please, calm down…"

"I am calm!" I yelled loud enough for a passersby to look my way. All right, maybe I wasn't calm.

An uneasy silence fell between us, of which I wasn't about to break. Finally, Skinner sighed, "Mulder, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you. Please, just… Just think about Scully. Think about what this is like through her eyes, and not yours."

With that, he hung up on me.

I sat motionless for well over a minute before shutting my phone off and putting it in the glove compartment. Through Scully's eyes. I had been dead to her, she had even said it herself. Was it lust last night, when we kissed? Was it not for love?

My gut surged with the thought that she didn't love me. I felt my skin crawl with the realization that she could feel something for another man. Especially that man. She had to have felt something, at least enough to leave me for dead and to marry and have a family and to live happily ever after.

For years, when we had been partners, everything had revolved around each other. Our work, our social lives or lack there of as well as family. Whenever something happened in any aspect of our lives, we were together to support one another. Our fathers dying, the end of the search for Samantha and Melissa's demise, Scully's waltz with cancer and my numerous face-offs with near-death, not to mention any time we had been in the line of fire for one another.

Wasn't that love? To cherish, honor and protect? To devote one's self to another being?

When did Dave Baker, M.D. ever cover Scully in a raid or hold her as she shed tears for her sister? When did he take the heat for her in a committee hearing? When did he do anything for her that was worth something, and not just buying her a nice house to live in?

He didn't now what it meant to love Scully.

Only I did.

Just from knowing him for less than twenty hours, I already knew that Scully's husband took her for granted, especially about how powerful and wonderful she was. All he thought of her was a pretty little wife with a medical doctorate. He didn't see the fire that was just beneath her jade eyes.

But I did. And I had last night, when we broke from our embrace. The Scully I knew and loved was still there, just beneath the skin of Dr. Scully-Baker.

My head snapped suddenly, and I found myself driving down the main drag of the town, ten miles over the speed limit. Window shoppers and midday gatherers glanced in my direction as I sped past. In my mind, I had no direction. Driving had always allowed for me to settle my nerves. In England, I would drive the countryside the night before exams, sometimes all night. My first car when I was seventeen was my sole link to sanity. Whenever things got to bad at home, I would leave and tour the shorelines, lapping lake roads and driving to the coastlines.

I would settle myself down; take Skinner's advice. See things through her eyes.

She may think she's in love with him, but that could be fixed.

It may take some work, but I never was a quitter.

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"I made this!"

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