Title: About Love Chapter Four: He Needs To Know
Author: ValaGillian
Disclaimer: I don't own Mulder, Scully, or The X-Files. I do not intend to make any profit from this fanfic. Please do not sue me.
Summary: "Mulder, there's something I haven't told you. I haven't told you for reasons I hope you understand."
Author's Notes: This one took a little longer to organize the right details but I think I got everything I wanted in for this chapter. Whew, this is the longest fanfic I have ever written. I think I'm starting to scare myself with its length and possibilities. Anyway, I'll let you get on with the show. PLEASE tell me what you think!
The world is spinning. Spinning further and further out of my control. Control I thought I had at one time. Control my career demanded. My life demanded. My heart demanded. But that control is gone now. Gone with the shrill ring of a message. A statement that will change everything now. As change always does.
The spinning however is not the world falling to pieces around me although it would appear that way in a metaphoric sense. It is instead the familiar scenery of Arlington. The houses, apartments, and sidewalks all register in my memory banks under the name Mulder. This is his street we are now leaving. A street that has become a doorway of sorts. A doorway that is ominous and frightening. A doorway that can only lead to our eventual ruin.
The conversation was quick and to the point. The EMTs telling the surgeons the basic facts before performing immediate open-heart surgery. Though the type of operation we observed here wasn't performed by any sane doctor of acclaim. No, whoever did this used a short-handled dagger to stab a man three times in the stomach. An extremely painful wound that was performed with such haste and preparation to perfect the body of any evidence. Someone who perfected this body in an alley adjacent to Mulder's apartment complex. Someone who knew what to look for and where. Someone with criminal investigative experience. Someone who left Mulder and my prints on a bloody dagger. Someone who was just what the doctor ordered.
The agents at the scene were quick to bag this rigged evidence and assume truth without question. Our arrival only worsened the situation. Skinner immediately questioned us as to our motives of being at the scene of the crime. Our own motives being elusive in and of themselves. Like the mind destructively craving phobic images that will only torment the body further. His voice was very sullen and skeptical.
"You're both lucky to be outside a jail cell. What are you doing here?"
I don't remember the details of the speech that flowed from my mouth at this inquiry. Mulder's hand. I remember his hand on mine when the subject of our whereabouts at the time of the murder came up. The harsh tone of the executioner demanding a hanging. The silence that followed. The kind of silence that demands answers, demands explanations.
The air hung between the men and us. Mulder was getting angry. I could feel it. The hand that was showing me so much love in this time of need still masked the revulsion for them that was coursing through his veins. That still is coursing through his veins as they grasp the steering wheel as I reminisce now. So I squeezed in return. He probably saw it as a support. It was however a way to clench down on the pain invading his body. Pain attacking my body. Pain, unknowingly to him, assaulting his own son's body.
But he told them the truth nevertheless saving me the indiscretion. Jumping in front of the speeding bullet only to have it rip through his heart and keep coming, path uninterrupted. When the bullet had finished its journey it had killed two people not one. The bullet lay motionless in this deceased corpse that ironically enough died of stab wounds.
Then I felt it dawn on me. The body. The stab wounds. There had to be something. The bullet is still inside and it has a story to tell. An evil gunman fired that bullet through stab wounds and if we get to it first we may be able to run our own ballistics on it and figure out who the killer is and his motives. But the bullet does not truly exist. And ballistics is hard to run on stab wounds.
But the real surgeon will not announce time of death until punching in that last shot of epinephrine. That last shot that may just get us clear. Get that heart pumping healthily in the breast once again.
Arlington cemetery. Now it is we who move past the surroundings. Faster than the speed of this bullet. The body will have a story to tell and we will get there first. The early bird and the fat worm. This worm will be full of lies no doubt but the truth will surface and no matter how nasty the job is we depend on it. I depend on it. Love depends on it. It always has. The race may not be centered on the finish line just yet.
He looks beaten now as we sit in traffic. Like the war has already been lost at the expense of this one battle. Not here. Not now.
"Mulder…"
No answer. I don't know what to say. I don't know what to do so I touch his arm. Now he faces me. The emotions on his face are unreadable.
"Scully, this should not be happening to us. Shouldn't be happening to you. I can't risk you any longer. I will take the fall."
I swallow hard. I knew this was coming. He can't do this. He has no idea. He must know. He can't know. Not yet. But what do I risk now by not telling him. He must know. I feel the emotions deep within me stirring and bubbling to the surface.
"Mulder, there's something I haven't told you. I haven't told you for reasons I hope you understand."
I feel the tears welling up in my eyes. I want to turn to him. Let him see how important what I'm about to say is. The enormous impact it will have. On us both. But I can only stare at my lap ashamed. Ashamed for not telling him sooner. Ashamed for reasons I can't even comprehend. My vision is blurring and I feel dizzy. Instinctively I place a hand on my lower abdomen. I'm going to throw up.
"Mulder… Oh God."
I lean back my neck resting on the upper portion of the headrest. Everything is spinning. It's getting darker. The sun is setting and I feel the chill of darkness creeping into my body. I can see Mulder's worried expression and I believe we have pulled over. He's leaning over me now but I am speechless. He looks so worried. I want to run a finger down his cheek and sooth his anxiety but all I can do is stare into his eyes. I see pain, fear, and worry brewing in those hazel depths. My last thoughts are that he needs to know. I need to tell him, it can't wait. But I'm losing him now. The world is slipping away. All is black.
Reviews worshipped. Please tell me what you think! Pretty, pretty, pretty please… :D
