CHAPTER EIGHT
"What I really wanna know, my baby, what I really wanna say is there's just one way back, and I'll make it. My soul will have to wait."--Sublime, "Santeria"
I was confused when I woke up; I was not in my own bed, in my large, empty San Diego house. I was in a motel room, like the hundreds of motel rooms I've been in on X-Files cases before. Thought flooded back to me, and I sighed out loud. Mulder was back and I'd gone with him. In a few days I'd be back at the FBI, trying to forget my brief stint as a normal person in California.
That was when my conversation with Mulder last night came back to my mind. God, why did he have to play around with my emotions like this? First he sleeps with me, then he tells me he can't love me, then three years later he shows up and my new life falls apart, I lose the man who I thought I loved, and I leave with Mulder because I feel that's the only way to avenge my fiancé's death...and then he tells me he's always loved me?
I don't rise from the hotel bed, but lay there for some time thinking. Thinking about how hard it was to hate him when at one time he'd been the only person in my life. Thinking about those days we spent together...hitting baseballs in the park, dancing to Cher, laying in hospital beds, or sitting in the stiff chairs beside them.
He was there when I woke up in a hospital bed, having been missing for months. He had kept my cross, he'd worn it... He was there. When I had cancer, when I was dying, he was the one I turned to. He held me, he came and sat beside my bed while I slept. He was my comfort. He was willing to do anything to save me, and he did save me. The memories like those had been the hardest to leave behind. That night in the hospital in Pennsylvania, when Penny Northern died, when I was so sure I'd have the same fate...he was there. He was there, and he helped me to have the strength to continue, to fight the bleak outlook for my life and keep working. He was there.
One night had made all of those memories just that--memories. Things of the past. The feeling of knowing that the man who had shared those things with me had hurt me--it was the most terrible feeling I could imagine. A betrayal of our precious trust... Regardless of hurt feelings, it wasn't practical to think I could work with Mulder after bearing my heart to him, and having a one night fling. There was no way for us to have a normal working relationship. It was impossible, and to this day I wonder if he knew that. I wonder if he knew that by telling me he couldn't love me, that he was telling me to leave his life. I wonder if he knew I'd go, and I wondered if he had made that sacrifice for the X-Files. I used to wonder what had become of him and the X-Files. I used to wonder if he ever wondered about me. If he missed me at all, or if he was too consumed in his conspiracies and syndicates and plans for colonization to even consider me now that I was out his life.
And now he says he loved me? I didn't know what to do at that point, I wasn't sure about my feelings for him let alone his for me. I had loved Rob, and I hadn't seen Mulder for three years. He didn't think I'd swoon over his confession in the bar last night and follow him back to his room, did he? Maybe he'd merely forgotten what he had been missing these past three years, and once it was before him again, he thought he'd have another try at me? He'd slept with me just to do it once, and that was what kept me closed off from him that night in the bar--I was afraid he'd do it again. That he'd lie to me, and once again I'd love him, and once again he'd leave me.
I still trusted him, but not with my heart. I trusted him with my life in the field, a place I hadn't been in what felt like ages. I trusted him when it came to conspiracies, things like colonization... I didn't trust him with my feelings. I did once, and he broke that trust. I knew that it would be hard for me to talk to him, especially if he continued to press me about my feelings for him.
My plan had been to answer all remarks about what happened in a somewhat bitter manner. To remind him he made the choice to end things between us, and to remind him that this was indeed his fault. It wasn't exactly a nice thing to do, but it was the only defense mechanism I had against him. I lay there thinking about how I was once again at a major crossroads at my life. How many times I'd heard that--graduating high school, college, med school, Quantico... I was there again that night on the beach, and now once more as I was laying in that hotel bed, trying to decide what to do with myself.
He had made me leave because he thought he could only hurt me. Out of some skewed need to protect me, he made it impossible to stay with him. He didn't realize that what he was doing hurt me more than anything else. That he was still able to hurt me, even when he was living a separate life, thousands of miles away from me.
A knock at the door startled me, and I rose from my bed. I looked down at my pajamas, and then around the room for a robe. Not finding one, I sighed and figured it was probably Mulder, who had seen me in my pajamas plenty of times. I had wanted to keep a professional, or at least friendly distance between us, but didn't really feel this would be a breach of that. I opened the door, and light flooded the room around Mulder's figure.
I smiled at him and he said, "Mornin', Scully."
"Good morning, Mulder, what's up?" I asked.
"I, um, I went to get some coffee and breakfast, and I figured I'd get you some, too," he said, holding up a paper bag.
"Thanks, um, come in," I said.
He came in and we sat at the small table and chairs in the room. I took out the contents of the bag. He'd gotten me a plain bagel with cream cheese. I looked at it and smiled a bit and he added, "Vegetable cream cheese. I know how you are with that health food stuff." I sighed a bit, and took a sip of the coffee. Light and sweet, just the way I like it. God, how did he remember these things? Of course, we did drink coffee together about five times a week in the office for about seven years, so I guess it's not too hard to forget.
He took a sip of his own coffee and said, "I just want to apologize for last night," he began.
"You don't have to apologize," I said. I never liked it when Mulder got apologetic. It was very unbecoming.
"No, I do... It was inconsiderate of me to bring up my own feelings when so much is going on with you. I mean, it shouldn't matter what I feel for you... I had just wanted you to know what those feelings were. I shouldn't have said anything so soon, I mean, right after you lost Rob and all, but it's just... You were there, right there for the first time in so many years and... I was being selfish. I'm sorry."
I took a sip of my coffee and said, "Apology accepted, Mulder. Now, what do you have in mind as far as this conspiracy goes? I mean, how are we going to go about this?"
"Well, first I figured you should get settled in at DC. You know, get your job back and everything. Once you've got an apartment and whatnot, we can get working. I've got a contact, a mole inside the Syndicate. He's the one who sent me the key to the base where I saw the colonization date. He said he'd help us find where they're working locally, so we can go in and get proof. Then, we can expose them. I wanted you with me on this, because I know it's important to you. My contact says they've got files...on everything. On the people that the government has abducted, working with the aliens... Files on you. On what they did to you. Besides, I knew I couldn't go at this alone, and you're the only person who I trust enough to have beside me in the field. I knew you wouldn't betray me. I know that you're on the right side."
"You're sure this contact checks out? That it's not a set-up?" I ask, slightly suspicious.
"That passed through my mind, but I don't see any reason why he'd show me the date, why he'd bring me this far..."
"But how did Krycek find out about you?" I asked.
"When I breached security at the base, I was on camera. I had blacked most of them out, but I missed one. The base knew I'd seen the colonization date, so they contacted Smoking Man on what to do with me."
"And?" I asked.
"And, somehow, I got out of that base alive, and old Smokey told Krycek to take care of it. So, he attacked me in an alley by my apartment. After that, the Gunmen checked for bugs, and I realized they'd been tapping my phone line. They'd heard all of my conversations with my contact, but they were unable to identify him because he disguised his voice. I still don't know who he is, but everything he's given me so far has worked. Krycek then must've followed me out here, or somehow had me surveilled, I don't know, and found out I was coming to get you. So he...he tried to frame me. So you wouldn't help me. He knew I couldn't take them down alone."
"Well, now I'm here to save your butt in the field, like old times," I grinned.
"It was tough working alone all these years," he said.
"They never assigned you a new partner?" I asked.
"Not one that lasted. Skinner knew there wasn't anyone I wanted to work with, and nobody wanted to work with me. Soon enough it made sense for them to let me tinker by myself. It was inexpensive for them, and I think the director figured I'd get nothing accomplished down there with a whole unit to myself... The X-Files was seemingly forgotten by everybody except myself for quite some time," he said.
"So, what did you get done down there? You said you found answers..." I asked curiously.
"Things about Samantha..." he trailed off, but my eyes goaded him to continue. "She's dead, Scully. She died in 1987... They took her, the Smoking Man and his group..."
"I'm sorry, Mulder," I said quietly.
"It's okay. I finally found closure, you know? I finally have an answer."
"Yeah," I replied.
We sat in silence for a long moment after that. I felt some closure, too, knowing what had happened. When I was working with Mulder, finding Samantha had become important to me, too. I knew how hard it must have been for him to find out that all this time, she's been dead. I was curious as to how he found out, or what had happened between when she disappeared and 1987, but the look in his eyes told me the wounds were raw and that I probably shouldn't ask. It was quite a while before he spoke again.
"Well, I'm gunna go back to my room and get my things together...um, I'd like to get back on the road soon."
"Yeah, I'll just take a quick shower," I said.
"Okay, great. Just come over to my room when you're ready."
"Sure," I said.
He left, and I quietly finished my breakfast. After a quick shower, I threw on some clothes and blow dried my hair. I put on some makeup, grabbed my overnight bag, and walked out of the hotel room into the June air. It was warm, as the month was slowly drawing to a close. If things hadn't turned out the way they had, I'd be eagerly anticipating the wedding we'd planned for the last weekend in July. Of course, I'd never anticipated that I'd be here.
Mulder emerged from his room at my knock, and we returned the keys to the motel office. With that, we got back into the car and I got behind the wheel. We began driving, making idle chit-chat during the ride. Mulder fiddled with the radio every so often, which was always an irritating habit of his. We switched off at the wheel whenever one of us got tired, and of course made more overnight stops. The drive was long and conversation often ran very thin.
I tried to avoid talking about the past. I brought up other things instead. We talked about the plans to infiltrate the organization when we got to DC, we talked about the Gunmen and Skinner and how they were doing, we talked about music. When things looked like they were going to get too personal for my comfort, I would bring up politics and before Mulder was able to lure me into personal conversation, we'd be debating the Clinton administration's policies, or the election results of 2000. It was in this fashion that we made it to DC without another serious argument.
I knew that soon I'd be thrust into this life I'd given up three years ago, and I didn't know how to feel about that. Everything was going to change, and my feelings were becoming more and more conflicted. Here I was with Mulder, who in a way I wanted to open up to...he had been my best friend once, after all. In another way, a bigger way, I wanted to remain closed off from him. I'd let him in once, and it was disastrous. I couldn't stand for something like that to happen between us again. I had come back for the work, I reminded myself.
I could separate myself from my remaining feelings for Mulder. I could handle this. I could make it about revenge for what they did to Rob. I could make it about the X-Files. I would not let it be about Mulder...
I didn't find out how hard that would be until we were back at the Bureau, back in Washington...back in our old, familiar, and very much missed routine.