CHAPTER TWELVE
"If I could, I would shrink myself, sink through your skin to your blood cells, remove whatever makes you hurt, but I am too weak to be your cure."--Brand New, "Guernica"
I successfully tried to keep away from Mulder as much as possible that week. The following Saturday would be the night of the infiltration, and my mind needed to be on the task at hand. Going in, getting whatever the hell was in there--whatever could incriminate Krycek and the rest of those bastards, and getting out. Getting away.
The Saturday prior to that one, however, I was thinking of anything but work. I woke up, knowing the day it was. Imagining myself in the wedding dress I'd picked out just before I got that call... Imagining my brothers, Bill and Charlie, and their family in the church. Imagining Charlie's daughter, Sarah, tossing flowers in a little pink dress. Imagining Rob's nephew, Joseph, as the little ring bearer. Imagining my Mom, pride in her eyes as her daughter walked down the aisle. Imagining Rob, standing next to me, saying "I do," and his lips grazing my own...
A tear slipped from my eye, and I tried to forget about it, about everything. I made myself breakfast, but I barely ate it. I cut up the French toast, which is my favorite, and pushed it around on the plate, but in the end only two or three pieces made it into my mouth. I ended up tossing it into the garbage. Instead, I pulled out a gallon of double chocolate chip ice cream. That, I could eat.
I sat on the couch, thinking about how hard I was going to run tomorrow to work the ice cream off. Maybe I'd take a new route. Right through a bad area in DC, and maybe somebody would just fucking shoot me and I wouldn't have to worry about aliens and dead fiancés and sexy partners anymore. I laughed at myself and turned the television on. I flipped the channels. Saturday morning cartoons, Trading Spaces, infomercials for those vacuum things that let you freeze dinner and eat it a year later, a Lifetime movie, which is an old guilty pleasure of mine but--no, I couldn't watch that. The day that I got the knock at the door about Rob's accident, I had been sitting with the same flavor of ice cream, watching a Lifetime movie. Oh, god, I flipped the channel rapidly, and found an I Love Lucy marathon. I sat there, the epitome of pathetic, watching TV and eating ice cream for quite some time.
I finished the ice cream, which to my credit was not full when I began it that morning, and stayed there in my pajamas. I idly found myself fingering my engagement ring, and was surprised to realize that I had been crying. It had been months since Rob died, and I spent much of that time grieving, but still none of it made any sense to me. I didn't understand what to do with myself.
I felt an immense amount of guilt when he died, and I had been dealing with it just fine. Still, in so many moments I hated myself for it. I hated that just before I lost him, I began to doubt my feelings for him. This man who had promised to love and cherish me--who essentially died because of me, had given me his heart. Had I given him mine? Or did Mulder have it all along? Or maybe nobody ever had it...maybe I was still just too afraid to love anyone after what happened on the beach.
I had been wearing the engagement ring since Rob's death, but sometimes it was difficult for me. I would catch a glimpse of it in the middle of typing up something in the office, and my heart would sink. I would see Mulder staring at, trying not to be noticed. I would find myself wondering if he ever thought about how I was dealing with it. If he ever realized how much harder he made it for me to deal with it.
The ring was beautiful. It was perfect, actually, the kind of ring a woman never really expects to get. He had enough money to pay for it, and when we moved in together and there were two large paychecks coming into the house, we had even more money to spend. Still, we were not extravagant people by any means. The ring, however, well, he went all out for the ring. He wanted to make me happy, he always did. That was what was so wonderful about Rob--he was the most selfless man I'd ever met. I'd spent my life building relationships with men who were very selfish: Daniel Waterston, Jack Willis, Mulder...all career minded men, looking out only for what they really wanted in the end. Rob was so set on making me happy...it was amazing.
It was from Tiffany's, I remember seeing the blue box as he got down on one knee to propose. I had been expecting it, to be honest, we'd talked about our future before. That night, however, I didn't suspect a thing. We were eating dinner in this lovely place, The Lamont Street Grill, about a week after our one year anniversary. Quite frankly, I'd been expecting the question a week ago, but didn't put too much thought into it.
The Lamont Street Grill was very original. It had this great beach town atmosphere, kind of laid back but elegant all at once. We ate outside on the "patio," which wasn't quite a patio. It wasn't outdoors, so to speak, just on the edge of the building, enclosed only by big glass windows, and on one end, a brick wall with this perfect fireplace. There were palm trees and plants and flowers everywhere, and it was wonderfully beautiful and natural. It was still early, sunset, actually, and you could see the sun going down over the ocean out the windows.
"Where do you want to go after this?" I asked him casually, when the meal was finished.
"Everywhere."
I gave him the standard Scully raised eyebrow, which I've been doing since I was about five, and he grinned.
"I want to go everywhere on the earth with you, Dana Scully, and I don't ever want to go anywhere without you."
"Rob..." I smiled, and closed my eyes for just a moment, knowing, waiting, God I can still hear his voice sometimes...
He stood up from his chair, and walked over towards me. He dropped to one knee on the patio floor, and all the other couples in the restaurant turned to us, but my world shrank to just the two of us. He reached into his pocket, and pulled out the ring box. He took the ring from inside, and took my hand in his.
"Dana Scully, I love you more than anything. You've made the last year the most amazing year of my life. You've made me a better person, you've made me whole. I want to be with you forever, I want to wake up next to you on lazy Sunday mornings, argue with you over whether or not the way the towels are hung up in the bathroom is important"--I was always neurotic about stuff like that--"I want all of it. I want everything about the two of us, forever. I want you to be my wife. Dana, will you marry me?"
Eyes full of tears, smiling like an idiot, I said, "Yes, yes, of course, yes..."
Speechless. He slid the ring on my finger, and the room applauded, like a scene straight from a Julia Roberts movie. I looked down at the ring with a feeling of contentment I'd never known before.
I looked down on that ring months later, on the day we were supposed to be wed. It was set in platinum, with this beautiful diamond in the center. I looked at it, lost in the memory of days when things were simpler. When my feelings were so much less complex. It was our wedding day, but we never would be married. I would never get to slip the cool platinum of the matching wedding band around my finger... It was time to let go.
I slowly rose from the couch, tears in my eyes, and walked into my new bedroom. Opening my jewelry case, I extracted a silver necklace chain, the one I kept in case the one my cross was on broke. I ran my finger around the ring again, and slowly slipped it off. I placed it on the chain, and clasped it around my neck. It fell next to my cross, and though I was never a fan of wearing more than one necklace at once--I felt it looked too gaudy most of the time--this seemed right.
Another loop around my neck, to sit by the cross that had meant so much. So many of my memories associated with that cross reminded me of Mulder, but now there was a plain reminder of Rob to accompany that. Another part of my past around my neck, just above my heart. Another albatross. Another part of me I never really understood. Another part of me that I lost before I could figure it out.
I finally managed to shower and get dressed, to try and function for a while. I felt free after thinking about Rob, after remembering the things I hadn't let myself think of. I had been trying to forget about it, but that's not what I needed to do. There was a difference between forgetting and letting go, and I had found it. I had to realize that I'd never be with Rob again, not in this lifetime, but that didn't mean I had to forget I had ever been with him. I could remember that year of my life, that year where everything was so perfect, but I could never have it back.
The afternoon went about quietly. My mother called, and we had a long talk. I told her about how I had finally let go in a way, and it was good to talk to someone about it. I was sitting on the couch, some time later, reading a book when I heard a knock at my door. I knew it would be Mulder--who else would come by? I sighed out loud, hoping that I was ready to deal with all of this.
I opened the door to see him standing there, a hand behind his back.
"Hi, Mulder," I said, trying to sound nonchalant.
"Hey, Scully, I um, just came by to give you these," he said, pulling his hand out from behind his back and offering me a dozen white roses.
"Mulder..."
"For what today should have been. To not let them claim it. I know it was important to you. I know I can't really ease the pain, but, I just wanted you to know that I really appreciate what you're doing. I know what you're going through to do it."
Holding the roses I said, "Thank you, Mulder. That means a lot to me."
He offered a sheepish smile and added, "I also wanted to make sure you weren't upset over our dinner."
"No, Mulder, I'm not. I was just overwhelmed. All the feelings involved in all of this...it's a little hard to deal with it sometimes."
"Yeah... I know it's hard, especially when it comes down to how you're supposed to feel. I just wanted to let you know that I made the biggest mistake of my life worrying about how I was supposed to feel instead of feeling what I DID feel. Please, Scully, don't ever do the same thing."
I closed my eyes for a moment. He hadn't forgotten what I had said to him, then...
"Thank you, Mulder," I offered.
"So, then, I'll, um, see you Monday."
"Yeah, Monday," I said, forcing a small smile.
He left and I closed the door. I carried the roses into the kitchen, and took out a vase for them. I put them out on the table, a sad smile on my lips. I closed my eyes, and I could see the church we'd picked out, adorned with the flower arrangements I'd had picked out in my mind since I was just a kid. I could see my dress, I could see everything. When I opened my eyes, it was all gone. All just let go, its existence marked only by the roses on the table and the circlet of platinum around my neck.
Rob was gone and there was only Mulder. Maybe there always was Mulder, and I was just refusing to see him.
The past was gone, and in its wake was the present and future. The infiltration in one week, and after that, anything. The roads lay open, but I knew I wouldn't take any of them. In my heart, I knew I wouldn't leave again. I never really had. I would always end up back here, back to the person I really was. Maybe, back to Mulder. I said goodbye to the past that afternoon, and apprehensively awaited the future.
What was I supposed to feel? What did I feel? It would all come together so quickly, but I was beginning to see from that point that I felt something for Mulder I simply could not deny. He was on to me, and it was time to put aside what I was supposed to feel and face what was really going on in my heart.
NOTES: Thanks for all the kind reviews! They thrill me ;-) Next chapter, Scully and Mulder spend an evening in his apartment going over the infiltration plans, and well, they get to talking...all you shippers will want to tune in. :-D And then the infiltration comes (bum bum bum!) and there's even more drama... So hold on tight, guys! Thank you so much for reading--you all rock!