CHAPTER THIRTEEN

"So you left to find a better reason than the one we're living for,
and it's not that nursery mouth I came back for,
and it's not the way you're stretched out on the floor,
'cause I've broke through all your windows and I've rammed through all your doors,
and who am I to ask you to lick my sores?
You should know that it's true, I came for you, for you, I came for you, but you did not need my urgency.
I came for you, for you, I came for you, you're life was one long emergency."

--Bruce Springsteen, "For You"

He had said: "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."

Mulder's remark stayed on my mind all week. I kept busy, which was a very easy task, in preparing for our infiltration. We had received blue prints of the warehouse from the Gunmen, including the locations of filing systems and computer databases. Our strategy was to go in quickly, get what we could, and get out before getting caught.

Mulder's informant, whom we had not yet met, continued to give us instructions. He told us the easiest way to access the facility, and also said that he would make sure nobody was on guard that night. He had explained to Mulder that they usually kept round the clock security, but that he would stay late in his office there, and create a diversion keep the guards from the information area. As the blueprints had revealed, there were offices on the higher floors of the large building, which was disguised as storage space. The ground floor was completely empty, and one floor below the ground housed a large area of filing systems and computers, where the information was kept. What went on in the offices was relatively unknown, but we assumed it was accounting and paperwork for the Syndicate--after all, somebody had to take care of those matters.

I was still curious about the informant, who disguised his voice over the phone. He had given us nothing but an alias, "Travis." Mulder suspected that he was a public official, possibly a politician, and that was why he was reluctant to reveal his identity. Mulder wanted my trust on this, and he had it. He may not have had my trust in every respect, but I trusted him in the field. We were taking necessary precautions, anyway, so I tried not to worry too much about it. I resolved it in my mind by reminding myself that it was too late to back out at that point, so worrying wouldn't do anything.

When my mind wasn't on work, it was on my partner. I was trying to sort things out, especially after what he said. The words rang in my ear each day that week: "I made the biggest mistake of my life worrying about how I was supposed to feel instead of feeling what I did feel." Was that what I was doing? Was I doing the same thing he had, when he cut short what could have been between us?

For the first time, I asked myself the question without running away from it, or without giving myself a circular, figurative answer. Did I love Mulder? When it came down to it, I was almost positive that I did. I was harboring a great deal of resentment towards him, and I was still hurt by what he did, but I loved him. I began to realize that maybe that's what love is. Love hurts, but that's the price you pay to experience it. For me, love had always hurt. I just wanted it to stop hurting. I just wanted everything to work out nicely. I wanted it to be my turn to have a fairy tale. But I knew that was silly. Whenever I thought things like this, I was always reminded of that movie "Moonstruck" with Cher, when her fiancée's brother tells her that love ruins everything. That we were meant to be love the wrong people and break our hearts. That all of us, and love, were not perfect.

Love had never been the problem between Mulder and I. It was never an issue; there was always something greater between us: trust. When we started, neither of us trusted one another. Over the years, our trust grew from just being work-related to being rather personal. Then, it came down to me trusting him with my heart. He had betrayed that trust, and it had become difficult for me to give it to him again.

So as this swirled through my mind, the week dragged on. Between my anticipation of the infiltration, and my growing realization of the feelings I had for Mulder, I was nearly driving myself insane. I knew that I should be concentrating on work, since getting caught up in these emotional matters before our plan had been carried out was dangerous. Still, that thought brought me back to what Mulder had told me... I should stop feeling the way I am "supposed" to, and start feeling the way I was feeling inside. I was never one who cared what others thought of me, but I suppose in this subconscious way I had.

Beyond the mental exhaustion, I was also physically tired. We were going to enter the facility on Saturday night--well, technically, one AM Sunday morning. To be alert, we'd been altering our sleeping schedules for a few days leading up to it. We were working bizarre hours, but Skinner was in on it so nobody was too suspicious. The exhaustion of trying to train my body to be awake when all it wanted to do was sleep was beginning to get to me.

Friday night, we were meeting at his apartment to go over the plans one last time. Then, Saturday we'd get some sleep, prepare ourselves, and wait for the night. I arrived at his door, and everything was relatively normal. Neither of us brought up the words we had exchanged, but part of me wanted him to. We meticulously went over the plan, making sure everything was perfect. Finally, we came down to the end of the plans. It was quiet, and he fumbled around with his papers for a moment.

"Um, would you like a glass of wine, Scully?" he asked.

"No, thank you," I said. I had decided on a no-drinking-at-Mulder's-house rule. The only thing that was stopping me from kissing Mulder was the rational, bitter part of my brain. I wasn't going to drink that away.

"Well, I uh, I guess we're done, then..." he trailed off. I knew that he wanted me to stay.

For some reason, I didn't get up to leave. There was a long silence until he spoke again.

"What I said to you the other day, Scully... I meant it. Ever since you began to tell me whatever you were going to that night we went out for dinner, I've been thinking. I just hope that you realize how big of a mistake censoring your feelings can be. It changed both of our lives once, I don't want it to happen again."

Quietly, my voice almost a whisper I said, "So what do you want me to say, Mulder? That I've been hiding it since I came back? That I have the feelings for you that you hid that night three years ago? I don't know what you want to hear from me. I don't know what to tell you." I was getting frustrated at this point.

"I want the truth, that's all," he said.

"The truth? The truth is that I loved you once, Mulder, and that doesn't disappear, but it just...changes. Of course I still have feelings for you, you were my best friend. I do have feelings for you, but I just, I can't just live on my feelings anymore. It's gotten me into trouble too many times. I just feel like I'm betraying Rob, endangering myself... I just shouldn't feel the way I do."

Feelings. I still couldn't bring myself to define what those feelings were.

"You're doing it again, Scully. You're letting the world around you define how you should feel. Why do you think I said goodbye to you that night? Because I THOUGHT that I SHOULD care more about my work and my sister than YOU. I was wrong, and I paid for it. I THOUGHT you deserved someone who could devote themselves to you--and you did, and you found that person, but both of us know that it didn't work, and I'm sorry for that. I truly am. But we don't know what we SHOULD feel, Scully, we can't. We can only know what we DO feel. Are you going to let another opportunity for us just slip away, because you THINK that feeling anything for me MIGHT be wrong? I loved you years ago, and I still do. I was just lost. I got lost in what I was SUPPOSED to feel, and you're doing the same thing. Stop pretending that you don't feel the way you do. Follow your heart, Scully, not your brain. Please--just this once. I made mistakes, but I want to make up for them. I was being selfish then, about my own desires in the X-Files, my own searches. Not anymore...now I want to be everything you need."

By the end of his little speech, his voice had become a few decibels louder. It rang out with passion and power; the thick, rich, sound filled the entire apartment. I formulated my response, still unwilling to confess any kinds of feelings for him. It wasn't practical, it wasn't logical, it was insane.

"You seem so sure of what I need, Mulder. What do you expect me to do? Forget everything and tell you I'm in love with you? I can't do that Mulder, I'm sorry. I can't tell you that I need you. I can't tell you about my feelings, I can't. I can't just suddenly trust you with that, not after last time. I've already told you too much. I can't say what you need me to."

He reached out, to me, his hand catching my chin in his grip. He turned my face to his, and our eyes met. Mulder always had such an intense, piercing gaze, and I tried my hardest to match it. No, no, I will not fall for him, I will not do this to myself again. I chanted it over and over, a mantra in my mind. He was wrong. I DO have to ignore what I'm feeling for him. I CAN'T just give in to the way I feel. I can't...I can't... After a tense moment, he spoke.

"I don't need you to say anything."

His grip lightened, and his hand moved up to caress my cheek. Slowly, so slowly, he moved closer and closer to me. Finally, his lips were just centimeters from mine, and I sucked in a deep breath through my nose. That part of my brain--the part he told me to ignore--was screaming: I shouldn't kiss him, I shouldn't... If I kiss him, I'll never get away. I'll never leave. Oh God...maybe I don't want to leave.

Our lips touched, and my eyes closed. The kiss was intimate, but not hungry or passionate. He was holding back. Mulder was just as afraid as I was, and I knew it. I knew that he was scared to push me into anything. I knew that he's scared to lose me again. Still, it couldn't match my fear that I myself would be lost in his kiss. I knew that there was little hope for me as he pulled away.

"I don't need you to tell me anything, Scully. If you can look me in the eye, and tell me there's nothing between us... If you can tell me that you didn't feel anything in that kiss, then I'll forget about this. If you honestly don't have those feelings for me, then we'll finish our work and I'll never talk to you about any of this again. But if you can't tell me that, if you can't tell me there's nothing there, then I can't leave this behind."

I closed my eyes. I couldn't tell him there wasn't anything between us. I couldn't. There IS something between us, and--God, help me--I wanted it to exist. I want to be with him. Even after all of the pain, and all of the hurt. That was love. That's why I still want to be with him, after everything we've been through. In that moment, faced with it, I was terrified. I couldn't vocalize it to him. I couldn't speak the words. I couldn't tell him that I love him. I had told him that once before, and I couldn't go through that pain again. I couldn't let him see that vulnerable part of me.

So I kissed him. I kissed him hard, unleashing all of the passion he had suppressed earlier. Apparently, that was enough assurance for Mulder, because he kissed me back with the same ferocity. His hands tangled in the hair at the base of my neck, and for just a moment, everything seemed right. I couldn't admit it, couldn't speak it aloud, but I loved. I loved him, and I hoped more than anything that he really did love me.

Our kiss was broken momentarily, and he moved his lips up my cheek to my ear. I could feel his breath, hot and moist, as he whispered, "Trust me, Scully."

Trust. The magic word. I felt all of my bitterness slowly unravel as he kissed me again. It was hard for me to trust him, and I knew that he wasn't expecting a response. I couldn't give him one. If this was just another fling for him, I didn't think I could handle it. But in his passion, in his honest baring of his soul, I had come to believe in him again. I trusted that he really was trying to be what I needed. I believed that he wanted to make me happy. I believed that our split those years ago didn't mean that we didn't love each other. I did love Mulder, I always had in some part of me. That didn't change what I had with Rob, but it didn't mean I couldn't have something with Mulder again. Love was a funny thing like that. Sometimes you were able to set it aside, and never think about it. You were able to almost forget it, but it was still there. My love for Mulder had been tested over and over again, but it was still there. I just wasn't ready to admit it, not to him. I couldn't face the pain of loving someone, and not receiving it in return all over again.

I remembered the first time I had told him I loved him. We had come together as a result of his desperation to hold on to me. In the end, that led to losing me. Now, as I thought back, I realized that he had wanted to be with me for selfish reasons. Then, it was all about the fact that I wouldn't leave him, that I would be there to take care of him and work beside him. That was the difference. Last time, he wanted to claim me. This time, it was about our feelings, not about shock or fear of losing one another. It was about love. This time, he wanted to make me happy. It was about trying to find that happiness, that completion.

So, we searched for those perfect ideals. We found them hidden beneath clothes and bed sheets; we found them in our minds and in our hearts. He found happiness in the soft curve of my neck, and marked its place with soft kisses. I found completion in the feel of his lips against my own, in his warm embrace. We found what we had been looking for in one another.

"I love you, Dana Scully," he whispered into my ear, his breath sending shivers down my spine.

I couldn't say the words back. All I could remember was the time I had spoken them to him, and how he didn't return them. I knew the pain that he had caused me in that gesture, and I didn't want to do the same to him, but I couldn't bring myself to say I loved him. I couldn't bring myself to tear my mind away from the simple pleasure of being with him, in mind and body. I was too busy reveling in feeling loved again, by the one person whose love had been so hard to attain, to worry about letting him know I loved him back.

For just a second, I saw a flash of disappointment on his face when I failed to speak those words to him. The words were more intimate for me than the act, which I had separated from feeling three years ago. He hid his disappointment quickly; I knew that he didn't expect things to be perfect overnight. We both knew that this relationship was going to be something we needed to work at. We both knew that we had probably jumped back in too fast. But both of us were impatient, and there we were, quite possibly not ready for our intimacy, but in a different way than last time.

We were laying beside one another some time later, not able to sleep despite the late hour. It was then that I realized we'd be infiltrating the Sydicate's building in about twenty four hours. I chastised myself for letting my feelings get in the way of work, but decided that I had found the best way to stay awake and adjust my sleep schedule.

"This time tomorrow, we're gunna pretty busy, G-Woman," he said, mirroring my own thoughts. He was holding me, and we were facing one another eye to eye.

"Yeah," I said quietly. "Better keep to our schedule, and stay up for a while."

"We can catch up," he said.

"How many times are we going to do that?" I asked.

"Well, now that you're willing to actually open up to me again, we can do it once more," he smiled.

"I hope I wasn't overly closed-off before, Mulder, but I also hope you realize that I can't just suddenly bare my soul to you overnight. It doesn't work that way."

"I know, I understand. I don't expect anything from you, Scully. You've already given me so much. It's so good to have you back."

"It's good to be back," I said, and for the first time that I was in DC, I meant it.

We held one another in silence for a long time. I felt wonderful, all of a sudden. Mulder loved me, and this time, I believed him. I loved him too, I knew it now, and I knew it then, but I couldn't say it. I was close a few times, but I just wasn't there yet. Still, I was finally able to admit that he meant something to me. I was able to move on. He had challenged me to forgive and forget. I had forgiven him, and I was beginning to forget about his past indiscretions. Maybe not forget as much as accept them and move on. As I had figured out in grieving for Rob, there is a difference between forgetting and moving on.

"Did you ever read that book From Outer Space by Jose Chung?" he asked, interrupting my thought with the seemingly tangential comment.

"Of course," I smiled.

"We look like idiots."

"No, you look like an idiot. What brings this topic of discussion on?"

"At the time he released it, I refused to read it. I was opposed to it because it made our work look less than professional. But a few months ago, just before I came out to California, I saw it sitting on the sale rack in the book store and I couldn't resist. We've been reduced to a dollar ninety-nine."

We were quiet for a while, until I asked, "What made you finally read it?"

"I ran out of good pornography so--"

I cut him off with a playful smack on his arm.

"I don't know, I had been thinking. Thinking about you. About us, about old times, and I just wanted to get them back for a little while, you know?" he asked.

"Yeah," I smiled.

"But, Chung's version of events wasn't exactly the reality I was looking for. Though I loved the way he changed our names," he smiled. "It was interesting. It reminded me of you. Little things like that kept me sane since you left. But having you here, Scully...it is the reality I was looking for. Even if it hurts sometimes, it's real."

"I'm flattered," I said quietly, not sure what else to tell him.

We were quiet for some time, until he asked me another seemingly random question.

"Hey Scully, remember when we played baseball together?"

"How could I forget, Mulder?" I asked, and added, "Hips before hands."

"You said you never hit a baseball before. Is that really true?"

Laughing, I said, "This is what comes to your mind after sex? Books and baseball?"

"No, you come to my mind," he grinned. "All our old memories. I want to know these things about you. I always had this impression of little Dana Scully as a tomboy, and I don't know...these are the things I've thought about while you were gone. Why you never hit a baseball, your first kiss, what you were like in college...When we were together, I never bothered to ask. I want to do things right this time. I want to know everything about you."

I smiled and said, "The truth is, I hit a baseball, well actually, I swung at it anyway, once. I was playing with my brothers and all the kids on our block in San Diego. I must of been nine or ten years old, I guess. Bill Junior was pitching," I enjoyed the face he made when I said Bill's name, "and I was up. He kept pitching these fastballs at me, and I wasn't able to hit them. He kept teasing me, in front of all the kids, and they all laughed. I finally gave up, and while Bill was looking the other way, gloating to his buddies, I threw the ball at him with all my might. I hit him in the back of the head and almost knocked him out. I guess I made a better pitcher," I finished, evoking a laugh from Mulder, which I added to with a chuckle of my own.

"So that was the end of baseball?"

"Oh yeah. I got punished for throwing the ball at Bill's head, because he had this huge lump for days, but I think my Dad was kind of proud of me for sticking up for myself. We both ended up punished, and Bill wouldn't let go of it for years. God, he still teases me about it whenever we go to Charlie's son's little league games."

"I knew there had to be a story behind it," Mulder smiled, "and it is no surprise that Bill Junior is the antagonist."

"He always was. When I started dating, he used to threaten all the guys who I'd go out with. My high school boyfriend, Marcus, was terrified of him."

"Well, Bill Junior's habits haven't changed," Mulder said, "although he doesn't scare me."

"It's nice to talk like this," I smiled.

"Yeah. It's nice to have answers to all of these questions."

"Why did you wonder so much? I mean, why did you never wonder before I left?"

"I always thought I'd have more time, you know? After you left, there wasn't a day I did not think of you... You were still part of my life when you were gone. I have to be honest, I came to see you in California not just for selfless reasons. Don't get me wrong--colonization is the most important issue of the moment. But...beyond that, the underlying reason, was for you. I missed you, Scully, so much. As my partner. As my best friend. As all the things I never gave you the chance to be. That's a big part of why I came. It was selfish, but now that you're back, I want that to be over. I want to be fair, I want to stop being such a jerk."

"Well, we can work on that," I said with a smile. "I'm flattered. I'm glad you came to get me."

"Even after what it led to?" he asked.

"Oh, Mulder, you can't blame yourself. I've lost so many people, and the one thing I've learned is that blaming yourself--or anyone else--doesn't make the pain go away. I tried to find someone to blame, but it doesn't work. Sometimes you just have to let go. Move on. So, yes, I am glad you came. Even if it led to all that it did. After all, it led to this, too." I said, my voice the softest and most sentimental it had been in a long time.

"And of course, anything that leads to a naked Scully is wonderful," he said, pulling me closer to him. "Unless it's a naked Bill Scully Junior. Then it's just wrong."

I laughed and said, "Well this naked Scully is glad you think so, and hopes that we will be doing things that lead to more naked Dana Scully in the future."

He placed a kiss on my lips quickly and said, "You have no idea how much I've missed joking around with you like this. You may have been back for the past few weeks, but I'm just now getting to see this part of you again. We're finally getting it back, Scully. Let's do it right this time," he said.

"Yeah," I smiled back at him.

The right way. That would probably include being honest with him, but I wasn't ready to tell him I loved him. Still, I was happy for the first time in what felt like ages. We laid there together, and in some time we fell asleep. Finally, I had found what I was looking for. He loved me. I was never exactly love-starved or anything, but when it came to Mulder... I had tried to so hard with him, I had wanted him to love me back, and he didn't back then. Now, he finally did, and it was seemingly perfect.

I just wish I could've have the courage to tell him I loved him. I wish that I had the courage to tell him EVERYTHING--but it was always one of my shortcomings. A shortcoming I'd come to greatly regret just hours later...when a new day dawned and a new obstacle presented itself.

NOTES: What, you thought just because it got shippy the angst was over? grin You should know me better than that by now! Sorry this took so long to post--but it's almost done! I've been inundated with schoolwork as of late, but expect more fairly soon. Hold on tight, the infiltration is near...bum bum bum...