Oh my gosh! I can't believe I've neglected this story for so long! Time has seriously gotten the better of me this year. I'm sorry, truly. I didn't know it had been so long.
I'm out of school for the summer, so all I have is work and trying to keep in shape—I'll definitely try to be more efficient with my updates. I seem to say that every time, but I still seem to neglect my stories and you guys.
Thank you all for your wonderful reviews. They're amazing, and I'm sorry they went unappreciated by way of lack of updates on this story.
I'm sorry, you guys, seriously—I'll try not to let so much time go by again.
Anyway, without any further adieu, here's chapter four, for you to review! (haha, sorry, I couldn't resist the rhyme)… review if you're not too angry at me. :-)
Natalie
break
"Shit!" Mulder cursed out loud as he watched Scully's car drive off into the distance. He thought about chasing it, but he didn't. Instead, he ran to his car and jumped in. He put the key in the ignition, but paused.
How the hell had this happened? If he weren't so upset with himself he probably would have laughed. The situation would have been comical were it happening to someone in a movie and not to him.
A man so desperately in love with his partner manages to hurt the hell out of her like he never has before all in one day. He couldn't have made things worse if he had tried. Well, maybe if he had tried, things would have been better.
He shouldn't have hesitated like that. But it was so hard—all these years of emotions, of pent up feelings culminating in the one moment when she actually asked him what he thought of her. How the hell was he supposed to tell her that he thought she was one of the greatest human beings to ever walk the planet?
Just "Hey, Scully, I know I said you were a cold hearted bitch, but the truth is you rock my fucking world" ? Really, how was this sort of thing supposed to be done?
Damn, hesitation can really lose the game. Or the woman, as it were. This thought put him into gear, and made him start the car—he realized he was hesitating again, and that sure wouldn't help him undo what he'd so carelessly done.
That is, if she would let him undo what he'd so carelessly done.
Mulder knew that he had to fix this. He absolutely had to fix this. He'd screwed things up enough between them through the years; there was no way he was going to wait for this one to just blow over like it had in the past.
Not this time. This was too big, too important, and too awful of a mess. He had spent too much time messing things up between them, and this was the last time. It was about time he fixed things; it was about time he made them right.
So, he did the only thing he could think of.
Scully drove around the corners back to her apartment, not noticing the familiar car that turned whenever she did. It's a good thing she knew the route blindly, because she couldn't see through all of her tears. She had long given up swiping at her eyes, she couldn't catch them fast enough, so she just let them fall freely and land where they would.
She hated crying. Most of the time she hated crying, anyway. There were those rare times when it felt so cleansing that it was enjoyable, but this was definitely not one of those times.
She felt so stupid for crying. But she couldn't help it; there was nothing she could do. And she hated it. She really hated it.
She felt stupid, period. All these years of partnership, she'd convinced herself that there was this unspoken thing between them. No, not even this unspoken thing…this unspoken love. When she first started to fall for Mulder, she told herself that she was being silly, that there was no way that he would feel the same about her, and even if he did, that they would never act on it.
But somehow, somewhere, slowly over the years those feelings started to change. She fell, she had fallen. Hard, too. But instead of telling herself that it would never work out, that he would never feel the same, she somehow began to convince herself that maybe it did, and maybe he did.
She had obviously misinterpreted all the 'signs' she saw, all the little things that, in her mind, had made reciprocation a viable option.
But she had so obviously miscalculated everything.
He didn't return the feelings she had—far from it, in fact. He thought just like everyone else—that she was a cold-hearted-bitch-ice-queen of a woman. She had thought that of everyone she knew, aside from her own family, that he would be the one that would see past that image she so often projected.
It's true, in the beginning of her career, that's the image she had wanted to project. She had always had something to prove. She needed to let her coworkers and superiors know that she could play with the boys. She needed to show everyone that she could do just as good of a job as the men, and most of the time better. She knew that to be seen as emotional was inherently female, and considered inherently weak. So she worked early on at controlling the 'feminine' emotions she displayed—and after awhile she became a pro at it. She never let anything phase her in front of the boys, she never let them know that there sexual innuendos made her sick to her stomach.
She just took it and shut up about it. Because to do otherwise would bring more adversities and adversaries, and in her profession of choice, that was the last thing she needed.
And it worked. It wasn't long before men started respecting her, at least started respecting her more than they respected the other women who did what she did. And she was seen as their professional equal more often than not—and that's what she had worked for, that's what she had wanted. But she didn't know the repercussions would be so damning.
She was seen as cool, calm, collected and absolutely 100 percent detached. She had become Scully the robo-bitch. Ice queen, ice princess, whatever name suited a particular male.
But that's not who she was. Truth be told, that was never who she was. Not for even a second.
She was sensitive. She was fragile. She just never showed it to anyone else; she never let them know she could feel, she never let them know she was human.
But she was. Of course she was. And she thought she had shown that part of herself to Mulder. She had thought he understood.
She had been wrong.
And she hated that almost as much as she hated crying.
She tried to focus on the road again only to find that she was home. She made it to her apartment, made sure she was locked in, and changed into her pjs.
She had stopped crying, but she still went through the motions without ever really focusing on the tasks at hand—she was still thinking about Mulder.
That's when she heard a tentative knock at the door.
Scully made her way to the door, she knew who it was, but she also knew that she had absolutely no intention of letting anyone into her apartment that night—least of all him.
Mulder's mind raced as he knocked a second time, more forcefully this time. He knew she was inside. After a couple of minutes, he spoke to her.
"Scully, open up. I know you're in there, I saw your car outside."
His plea was met with silence, even though he knew full well she was standing on the other side of the door. And she knew he knew, but she didn't care.
"Come on, Scully. Let me in…please."
She sighed. "No, Mulder, go away."
"Scully, I'm not going away. Now let me in. We need to talk."
"No, Mulder, I'm not going to let you in. I don't want to talk. There's nothing to talk about."
"Of course there is Scully." He said, leaning close to the door "There's plenty to talk about, there's a ton of stuff to talk about, but I'd rather the neighbors not hear."
She shook her head, even though she knew he couldn't see her. "No." She said firmly.
"Scully, come on, please let me in."
"No!" she said again, louder this time.
"Fine!" he shouted, matching both her level and tone.
After a minute or so she thought that was the end of it as she heard silence on the other side of the door, she thought that he had left, so she made her way to the couch.
Just as she sat down, she heard a sound at the door. A dreadful sound.
The sound of someone inserting a key into the lock.
"Mulder, no!" she said, but it was too late, she saw the lock on the door turn, and she knew he was coming in and that there was no stopping him. "Damnit, Mulder!"
