2.08 glared in luminous red numerals on the bedside clock. A dream, no a nightmare woke Scully. Truth be told, she couldn't be more pleased. Only moments ago she'd been reliving those events in the ambulance with Lennard Betts.
'I'm sorry,' he'd told her, 'but you have something I need.'
Then he'd come at her with a scalpel. After fighting for her life, once again, Scully ended up in the ER. Unable to be in the same room with the man threatening her world, she'd fled to the car after a cursory exam and dressing to her head wound. Only to have Mulder confirm her worst concerns, Betts mother, in fact all of Betts victims had cancer.
They drove from Pittsburgh to D.C. in silence. Mulder watched her occasionally, his concern obvious. Several times he thought about initiating conversation, before thinking better of it and popping a seed in this mouth. Scully didn't fight when he walked her to the door of her home. Nor did she argue when he carried her bags in. This seemed to worry Mulder more than her silence. His final glance elicited a 'I'm fine, Mulder, go home and get some rest.'
Turning on the lamp beside her bed, Scully found the red spot on her snowy pillow cover. Reaching down a hand, confirmed her greatest fear. A spot of bright crimson blood stained her bedding. Seeking the source, she soon found it. Streaming from her nose, a thick red rivulet of life sustaining liquid escaped. That moment Scully knew. She knew she'd soon be diagnosed with cancer.
Reaching for the phone, she called Mulder's number. Before entering the final digit, her rational mind finally kicked in. What could he do at two in the morning? Nothing would happen between now and seeking medical advice tomorrow. Even then it could be days or weeks before a diagnosis, depending on what tests she'd need to book and which specialists consulted for treatment. Mulder's panic she didn't need, nor his sense of protective responsibility. No tomorrow or better still, when she received a concrete diagnosis would be soon enough to inform Mulder.
The next morning, Thursday, saw Scully completing the paperwork for the Betts case. When Skinner called Mulder into his office just after ten, Scully built up courage, taking the opportunity to contact her doctor. They could see her at three this afternoon. She left a note for her partner not wanting or willing to face him with her fears. Scully inferred the need to catch up with her primary physician in regards to refusing medical treatment last night.
Fingering his name plate on his desk, Scully wondered where she stood in his life, professional and personal. They'd worked together five and a half years, yet only his name plate hung on the door. Scully didn't truly have a work space to call hers. She made do with the small space in the back room. Personally, they'd been through so much, supported each other, spent time outside of work together. They could be called friends but the bond they shared went much deeper than the word implied. In the last few years, with their work becoming darker and being unable to trust anyone, Scully social circle, never large to begin with, had dwindled to Mulder and her mother.
No wanting to think, Scully left. She needed sunshine and open space. She needed to see and feel normal. She needed time to prepare for her appointment and perhaps the most devastating news of her life. She needed to be Dana Scully, discover why she'd allowed herself to be swallowed whole once again, before it all came crashing down on her.
'Scully,' she answered the phone half an hour later, sitting on a bench by the Potomac.
'It's me,' Mulder announced.
Like it's going to be anyone else, Scully sarcastically considered, my mother calls me on my land line and we're not on a case at the moment. I guess this call will change that.
'I just got back to the office and your not here. Skinner is sending me on a week's vacation, starting Monday. I have this lead I want to check out tonight. Where are you?' he fired, the enthusiasm mounting in his voice.
Sighing at the sound of the excited four year old, Scully closed her eyes and allowed the weak sun to warm her face. 'I left you a note on your desk. It's probably under the new file you've just dumped on top of it,' she rebuked.
'You OK Scully,' Mulder finally found the sheet and read the words. Her detachment caused a moment of unease.
'Yes, Mulder, I'm fine. I told you that last night. My doctors office just wanted to update my tetanus shot after nearly being stabbed.'
'OK then, I'll pick you up at eight. We're meeting a possible new source at the Veterans Gardens Memorial,' the excitement spilled over the line making Scully wince.
He doesn't get it, he just doesn't get it, she realised but answered with, 'see you at eight, and Mulder, I'll drive myself.'
Just as she thought, the doctor couldn't conclusively say anything without tests. Blood drawn, the office sent the tubes to the lab for testing. X-rays ordered, the nurse arranged appointments for Monday morning at Georgetown Hospital Radiology Department. Scully thank a merciful god at Mulder's enforced vacation. He'd fight it, but in the end bureaucracy would win and he'd be forced to take the leave. She'd on her own for the next week, be able take her tests and receive her results without his knowledge and cope with the fall out before his return. Scully felt this to be both a blessing and catastrophe, torn between her professionalism and personal need. Mulder's return would coincide with Scully restoration to her stoic, proficient self because she knew the results would be conclusive by then.
The interview turned out to be much more difficult than Scully anticipated. Unable to keep her mind on the broken English as the Russian man answered Mulder's increasingly inane questions, her mind wondered to the list of names on the wall. She found the surnames beginning with S, and then those sharing her name.
A car and note attracted her attention. Walking over, Scully picked up and fingered a petrified rose petal. Identifying with the dead object she could only imagine her future. Gently, she placed it in the trench coat pocket. Like so many young men and women, would her life be cut tragically short by circumstance beyond her control?
So wrapt up in the case and being force to take his vacation time, Friday afternoon rolled around before Scully saw Mulder in their basement office. She'd been sitting in his chair, examining the environment in which she worked. Seeing Mulder everywhere, Scully hadn't made a dent on the décor let alone space in over five years. She'd become consumed by Mulder and his work. Somewhere, sometime she'd lost herself. It'd happened before, only Scully though she'd learnt her lesson the last time.
Picking up his name plate from his desk, she fingered the object. What is it about this man that makes me follow him so blindly, to the exclusion of all else, she wondered, true, he's intelligent, driven, almost obsessive, but surely there must be more to it than this. I'm not a believer yet I stay at his side and rationalise his view, allowing Mulder to keep his life work with my logic and playing by the rules. What makes me stay?
'I made a last ditch effort to get out of it,' Mulder explained, bursting into the office and Scully's reflections.
Scully allowed her eyes to follow him around the room until he finally took a file out of the cabinet and settled it on his desk. 'I don't like it but I gotta do it. I gotta pay the rent. I gotta eat,' he explained, still looking down at the open case file.
Have to pay the rent, as if, Scully allowed her eyes to roll. Not that Mulder noticed. He continued his monologue while absorbed in the dossier. Your father left you his state department pension, his bonds and shares, not one by three house's in Rhoad Island and an investment account. You are his sole heir and you wear designer suits to work with silk shirts and ties. And how do I know this, because you made me the executor of your last will and testament as well as your beneficiary should your mother pre-decease me. Then you call me to help pick out your shirts and ties because your colour blind and you're vain enough to want them to match. Any of the sales assistants at the designer shops you frequent would fall all over themselves to serve you, instead of giving me the evil eye when you introduce me as your partner. They don't realise you mean in a professional capacity.
Continuing to babble about work, Scully looked at him with incredulity in her eyes. Testing him, Scully attempted to turn the conversation personal. Fear of the news she might receive driving her need to connect with Mulder on a private level. Maybe even turn the conversation to a point she felt secure enough to hint at her personal suspicions. Her request met with sarcasm and rebuke for abandoning him the evening before. Then Mulder neatly returned the conversation to its former topic. Finally losing her professionalism by comparing his source to an episode of Rocky and Bullwinkle, this, if Mulder stopped long enough to examine, displayed her level of anxiety.
'Let me remind you that I worked my ass off to get these files reopened,' Mulder's annoyance at her defection reflected in his tone. Striking out he continued with, 'you were just assigned. This work is my life.'
Absolutely stunned by the outburst, Scully fought valiantly to hold back unaccustomed tears. Under enough internal stress, she wondered what more she'd have to do to gain this stubborn man's complete trust. 'And it's become mine,' she retorted softly, realising for the first time that maybe she didn't want this. Maybe the time had come to break out, break free of Mulder, of her rationalism, her professionalism and the confines of her current life.
That got his attention. 'You don't want it to be?'
'This isn't about you or maybe it is indirectly,' considering this, Scully realised it actually had a lot to do with how she felt about Mulder and his quest for the truth. 'I don't know. I feel like I've lost sight of myself, Mulder.'
What I've lost sight of is life, my life. Is this all I'm going to amount to. Dana Scully, Mrs Spooky Mulder, basement dweller, career washout. Once I had a reputation, career aspirations and men falling over me.
'It's hard to see let alone find in the darkness of covert locations. I mean I wish we could say we're going in circles but we're not. We're going in an endless line. Two steps forward three steps back.'
After all this time, what do I have to show for five years work? A single colleague who thinks I rationalise all his theories to death. What about me, no husband, no boyfriend, hell not even a date since that Jersey Devil case and then I dumped him for Mulder and uncovering his truth. Indirectly you are to blame for my lack of a life and not just professionally. Oh god, what am I saying. I'm attracted to my partner, impossible and yet the truth, my truth. Why else would I stay and give up all that I could have had.
'While my own life is standing still,' Scully finished.
'Maybe it's good that we get away from each other for a while,' Mulder commented, not really meaning it. Something felt off, but he couldn't put a finger on it. Watching Scully, he felt her thinking, considering, weighing up her thoughts but closing access to him. Somehow Mulder felt he'd missed some vital clue. If he stayed could he get his partner to open up emotionally, on a personal level? Never, Mulder scolded, knowing how tightly Scully held to her independence.
'Where will you be?' Scully asked into the deepening silence.
No, Mulder, no, I don't want you to go. I want you by my side, holding my hand, telling me it's going to be fine, we're going to get thought this, together. I want you to hold me because you want to, because you can without me having to ask. I want you to want to be with me every step of the way if this thing is what I think it is because I'm scared, frightened, terrified and visiting that memorial last nigh only increased my fears. I feel like this rose petal is my future, shrivelled and dried up, dead and preserved.
'Ironically enough it's personal, it's a place I always wanted to go, what I anticipate to be a spiritual journey. I hope to discover something about myself. Maybe you should do the same,' Mulder said, watching her reaction. He didn't like it, not one bit, yet she didn't ask him more. Scully never would because Scully professionalism wouldn't allow it. So he picked up his bag and headed for his car, anticipating a long drive south.
If only you knew what I hope not to find out about myself in the week you'll be gone. Spiritual journey, what a laugh, this may lead to my last journey. But as always, Mulder, you only see what you want, what interests and intrigues you. Quite obviously I do not. You have no idea how sad that makes me. How impossible to open up and tell you what's going on in my life. Then again, would you even be interested.