May 16, 1998
Gaithersburg, MD
"How's little Karnac doing?" Mulder cordially asks Diana as he enters the observation room where she's standing watch of Gibson, who is glued to the Silver Surfer cartoon on TV, early in the afternoon.
"Put a TV in front of him and he turns right into a normal kid," she tells him with a smile. "He's the real deal, Fox. We tested him with Zener cards, random numbers, a variety of ESP tasking... he's got ability to not just focus on a thought, but a multitude of thoughts at once," she reports in awe of the child, this child that is the epitome of everything they had both searched for together at one point in the past.
Mulder is still conflicted about having Diana back in his life – it feels weird to have her call him Fox after all this time, brings back some unexpected memories – but he ignores the feeling and rather focuses on the work, one of the defense mechanisms he has developed ever since she left him in 1991. "There's something else; there's something we're missing here," he ponders out loud as he watches Gibson through the glass.
Once he turns back to look at his former life partner, she catches him off guard with her approach. "That was a good catch on the videotape. I was impressed."
He feels adorably nervous by her compliment, looks down bashfully. "Oh, you would have caught it eventually," he says as he plays with his right foot against the floor. It's like he's twenty-five and feeling coy when meeting her for the first time, listening to this confident woman's praise of him.
She still has some sort of hold over him of which he hadn't even been aware up until seeing her again.
"Nhe," she denies his claim self-deprecatingly, "I've been too many years trying to get inside the head of too many Arab terrorists; I'm out of practice with this stuff. But you seem at the top of your game," she states, and she hopes her honest flattery will help her get back in his good graces.
Fox was never one to hold grudges against people who tried to make amends.
"That's all I do," he admits to her assertion. "That's all I've been doing for the last five years. Been my life… such as it is," he acknowledges with a diffident grin.
She takes his demeanor as a sign to move on to more personal stuff, sees her opening to try and pick up where they had left off. "Sometimes I hear about you – about the work you're doing... and I think how it might have been if I'd stayed."
The sharp man in him sees where she is going with this, and then he's slowly making his way towards her, softly trivializing, "Ah, we'd all be… blown up by some terrorist bomb, no doubt, huh?" There is no hurt in his voice, he's actually being gentle with her; he's just not going down that path with her.
She catches the meaning behind his words, decides to tread lightly but still in the direction she ultimately wants to. This is a game that requires a lot of skills, and she trusts she's really mastered the art of reeling Fox Mulder in. "I sense you could've used an ally, though. Someone who thinks like you… with some background."
He knows exactly what she's doing, and his face changes almost imperceptibly as he slightly towers his frame over hers. "You mean Scully?" he asks in a casual tone, but there is nothing casual about the way he feels protective about his partner.
Don't go there, Diana.
The brunette knows better than to openly criticize her adversary for this man's affections, but she doesn't seem to read his minute signals correctly enough to completely avoid the matter. "She's not what I would call an open mind on the subject," she makes light of it.
He laughs with her to make her feel comfortable, but there is no mistaking how he truly feels about his partner once he turns solemn and explains in a careful tone, "She's, uh... she's a scientist; she just makes me work for everything." He drives his statement home with an intense stare.
An intense stare that is clearly meant to make Diana drop this line of discussion.
Maybe she's a bit out of practice, she concedes to herself, but she firmly believes she can still get him to see that she's better for him than his current partner. "Yes, but I'm... I'm sure there were times when two like minds on a case would have been… advantageous," she insists.
Mulder nods in thought, a diminutive smile on his lips as he decides that he needs to be at least blunt-adjacent about where the two of them stand. "I've done okay without you," he affirms, though not unkindly.
It drives a stick through her heart, and she can only stare at him for a few seconds – she's forced her hand. She tries to recalculate their route, to figure out how to salvage this conversation. "Hey..." she softly lets out, almost in a whisper, as she takes his hand in hers. "I'm on your side," she assures him with a smile.
He lets her hold his hand, tries to avoid being rude to this woman who had been part of the only healthy-ish relationship in his adult life – at least before he'd met Scully.
Not that his relationship with Scully is actually healthy according to any regular standards either… but that's more of a him-problem than a her-problem.
"Well, we're still working on the weekends, but at least this time we get to this on Bureau's dime, right? It's not like we're spending our off-hours traipsing all over the State looking for psychiatric patients to conduct our unofficial research like in the olden days," she chuckles trying to get him to relax.
He smiles at her fondly, "I still do that a lot from time to time, actually. Not the visiting mental health facilities for interviews as extracurricular activity, but the working in my down time," he clears up, then further mentions, "Drives Scully nuts, really." He laughs at himself.
She pauses for a moment, uncertain if she should mention what is on her mind or not. After a brief hesitation, she observes, "You two seem very close."
"We are," he states with assurance. "Not in the way you're probably insinuating, but… yeah," he admits, thoughtfully looking at his hand still caged in her own and then gently extricating himself from her grasp. "She's had to work hard for my trust, but we got here. She's the most important person in my life."
He doesn't want to hurt his ex-girlfriend, he really doesn't, but he can't lie to her really. She needs to know that he's not in the same place as they had been when she'd left. And even if he's not officially romantically involved with Scully, it's not because the sentiment isn't there.
He's trying to give her a baby, for crying out loud.
Diana smiles mechanically, in an effort to hide the pain she's feeling from him. She sits down at a nearby table, pretending to look over some of Gibson's test results.
"How did he do in the ESP category?" Mulder asks, changing the subject.
She looks down to gather herself and then looks up with a wounded, fake smile. "A perfect score."
His phone rings before he has a chance to say anything else and so he just fishes it out of his pocket. "Mulder."
"Mulder, it's me," his partner's voice comes alive.
Talk about timing. He turns his back to Diana in an attempt to give himself some privacy. "Where are you?"
The brunette tries to not pay attention to his conversation, but it's hard not looking at the man she'd so ill-advisedly left behind many years ago. She listens to him telling the person on the other side of the line that he's at the psych facility with "him" right now – probably, Gibson Praise – and then invite them to come by and show him whatever they want him to see.
From the softness in his face and the words he's speaking, that's most likely Dana Scully on the phone with him. It's hard for her to come to terms with the fact that there is a real chance she won't be able to get back together with this man for whom she still has feelings.
"I'm on my way," Mulder says at last into the receiver and then hangs up. Turning around to face Diana again, he speaks as he pockets his phone, "Well, I have to go." A pause ensues once she doesn't say anything to that, and he awkwardly shoves his hands in his pockets. "Are you spending all day here with Gibson?" he asks in an attempt to fill this awkward silence.
"No, actually – Agent Johnson is coming to relieve me in about…" Diana checks her watch. "Twenty minutes. Then I'm off for the rest of the day; nightshift and all," she says in reference to the fact that she's been in here since last night, and he nods in understanding. Her eyes turn soft once again as she looks at him affectionately. "I'll see you tomorrow, Fox."
His lips turn up in a miniscule smile and he turns to leave, speaking over his shoulder as he walks out of the room, "Goodbye, Diana."
Scully looks out the basement windows high on the wall as she sits at her partner's desk and waits for him in their office at the FBI Headquarters, struggling to keep the battle between her thoughts and emotions from tearing herself apart.
She had always believed Mulder to be someone who deeply struggled to lead what society deems to be a normal life because of his childhood traumas – he had even pretty much told her so in her living room that evening they had first socialized, after the Linda Bowman case, when he had portrayed himself to be a normal kid until his sister had disappeared and his family unit had fallen apart. During all this time that she's known him for, she had only heard accounts about how Mulder had always been a loner, despite the fact that he is a handsome man with great sense of humor, an upstanding moral code, a big heart and a brilliant mind. Pretty much everything she knew about him and his habits up to this point – his social ineptness, his obsession with work, his proclivities to porn material and phone sex rather than actual romantic couplings (other than a few failed relationships, most notoriously with Phoebe Green) – screamed that Fox Mulder had never been able to personally connect in full with other people, had always chosen loneliness in his adult life… up until the time when she had walked into his life.
Scully had always believed that the two of them had somehow managed to professionally and personally connect throughout the years they have known each other in a way that Mulder had never before experienced. She had believed what they shared was unique.
But then all of these assumptions had gone down the drain last night when she'd learned that Diana Fowley used to be in an established romantic relationship with Mulder – and not only that, but that she had also been a partner of sorts in his quest for the truth about paranormal phenomena. Byers's final words had really done something to her, had made her doubt everything she had known to be true.
I always wondered why they split up.
She had gone home last night having to accept the fact that, at one point in his life, Mulder had found a connection with another person, with another woman, that had given him all that he had ever craved for – and apparently the only reason for their breakup had been that this other woman had moved to Germany and left Mulder behind.
When she woke up this morning, Scully was still feeling the sting from learning that Diana Fowley had at one point held such a prestigious place in her partner's life, and so she had to force herself to rationalize her pain as a mere result of being both surprised by this new information and disappointed in herself for having had misread her partner for so long.
Safe to say, she was completely in denial.
She managed to convince herself that she was fine, decided to go back to Gaithersburg and continue her work with Gibson Praise alongside Agent Fowley, because that was what she was good at, that would help her clear her mind, she thought. And for a brief moment that worked – other than having to go through Gibson's meddling inside her head and listening to him bring to her attention that she was still wondering about Fowley's existence and that the other woman was also wondering about her, she managed to go through the morning mostly fine. But then Agent Fowley told her that she and Mulder used to visit psychiatric hospitals to interview patients they had felt had been misdiagnosed; then Scully wasn't so fine anymore.
She excused herself and drove all the way back to D.C. to visit the Gunmen and gather the results of their analysis of Gibson's medical exams, hoping that the time away would help her clear her head again. She listened to them report to her all of their findings – their extraordinary, incredible findings – and left as soon as Frohike asked her how she was doing and she noticed the remorseful looks on Byers and Langly's faces.
Why were they pitying her? She was fine.
So, about two hours ago, after going to the deli around the corner from the Gunmen's office/house to force herself to eat something, Scully drove back all the way to Gaithersburg, knowing that Mulder would most likely be there by then, and certain that she would feel better once she could see his appreciation for her contribution to their partnership. She didn't have to make a big deal about her personal feelings for him or about the fact that he had loved Diana in the past; everything would be just fine again once she felt confident that they were still partners and friends. She would have time to deal with her infatuation for him later; it's not as if she had never been romantically disappointed before.
Yet, upon getting to the psychiatric facility and seeing Mulder and his ex-girlfriend holding hands through the window of the door to the observation room they were standing in, she was sucker-punched by the reality of it all – Diana Fowley, the woman Mulder had loved and shared his body and mind with years before, was back again, working right here with him, smiling right here with him, and neither of them seemed to be adverse to the idea of picking up where they had left off.
Scully stood to lose everything she thought she had with him, everything she had created with him, everything she had dedicated herself to in detriment of all other aspects of her life.
It was about the job, yes, but it was also about so much more.
As she gets up from her partner's chair to walk around their office – is he still her partner, really? Is this still their office? –, she wonders how she can compete with Diana Fowley and her good-looks, out-of-the-box ideas and paranormal interests, all perfectly aligned to Mulder's taste.
How can she let Mulder help her with her IVF procedure now that he has a chance to have the life he has always wanted? How can she ask him to donate his sperm to her, to create a child with her, and then watch him walk away with another woman and leave her behind? She knew that asking for his assistance with conceiving didn't mean that they would undoubtedly become a couple and, ultimately, a family in the first place but she certainly wants to rethink her idea of going through with this now that she is aware that there is a bigger chance of them not even being in each other's lives in the near future.
"Hey," the masculine voice coming from somewhere in the room behind her startles her, and she quickly turns around to see him there, standing there behind his desk.
"Mulder, hi," she greets, stunned.
"Are you okay?" he asks with an amused smile as he takes a seat, leisurely throwing his legs on top of the desk and interlacing his fingers behind his head.
"I'm sorry… I guess you just took me by surprise; I didn't hear you come in, that's all."
He observes her quietly, trying to figure out if there is something she is not telling him. Giving her the benefit of the doubt for the moment, he moves on. "So what did you want to tell me that you'd rather be here in the privacy of our office?"
At least it's still our office, she thinks to herself.
She proceeds to relay to him her findings about Gibson's scans, explaining that the Gunmen helped her at her request with the research on the parapsychological angle of it all. He looks so proud of her, so in awe of the lengths she's gone to for him and their quest, that it almost makes her forget all that she stands to lose now that Diana Fowley is back in his life.
Almost.
"I'll talk to Skinner and arrange a meeting with the taskforce so you can tell them all about this, Scully," he is saying, and she tries to shake herself out of this funk she's in.
"I can tell them?" she asks, confused, as Mulder holds the phone receiver in his hands, ready to dial Skinner's extension.
"Well, yeah," he says, like it's obvious, before he hangs up the phone. "These are your findings, Scully; you should be the one to present the evidence to them all," he sounds confident for her. "Besides, scientific proof is really your kink, not mine," he adds with a teasing gleam to his eyes.
She stands there mutely, uncharacteristically uncertain of how to proceed.
"I'll see if we can still schedule it for today, but most likely we won't be able to assemble everyone on such short notice on a Saturday, so –"
"Actually," she interjects, "is it okay if we do it tomorrow morning at least? I was thinking of leaving early today."
"Are you sure you're okay?"
She doesn't address his concerns directly. "I guess I'm just tired; I stayed up most of the night going over Gibson's test results."
Well, that's a lie.
"Okay, sure," he replies, oblivious. "I'll see you tomorrow then."
"Good night," she tells him even though it's merely four o'clock.
May 17, 1998
Washington, D.C.
When Mulder leaves Skinner's office after telling his boss to call the Attorney General to work out an immunity deal for the shooter so they can confirm that Gibson Praise is quantifiable scientific proof of pretty much everything in the X-Files, he notices that Diana is the only one around and that his partner is no longer nearby.
"Have you seen Scully?" he asks the brunette.
"I think she went back to your office," she reports and immediately catches his forearm in her grasp as soon as he starts to leave towards the elevator. "Fox, are you sure you want to do this? The X-Fi–"
"You've been away for too long, Diana," he interrupts her before she even gets the chance to finish mentioning the X-Files. "You have no idea how hard Scully and I have worked for the past five years, how much we have sacrificed to get to this point," he tells her impatiently. He's feeling anxious after this morning's meeting and considering that he has a chance to prove that he's not a paranoid lunatic.
"I have no idea? Fox –"
"No," he interrupts again. "You don't. I know that you have an interest in the X-Files, I know that parascience has always been of great importance to you, but you left, Diana; you got to make your choice seven years ago and you chose to go to Berlin," he says in a raised voice, to her utter astonishment. He's on a roll, so he continues loudly, just a couple of notches of what's considered shouting, "And I stayed here, and I put aside a mainstream career and dove headfirst in the Files, and I pissed off a lot of people to the point where they decided to send Scully down to the basement to debunk my work and shut me down, and you know what? She didn't." He takes a breather before he works his voice back to a normal tone. "She stayed, and she joined me in the work, brought legitimacy to the Files. And she lost a lot because of it too, but still she stayed," he says and it's like a switch has been flickered in his mind. "And yes, you have no idea what the past years have been like. So, I'm sorry if you don't agree with my decision, but it's mine. Actually, it's ours – Scully's and mine. So, excuse me," he finishes as he turns around and heads for the stairs, not giving a second thought to Diana's bewildered and regretful look.
When he gets to the basement, Mulder sees Scully leaning her hips against his desk. He doesn't even get a chance to speak before she straightens herself and pushes away from the furniture at the sight of him.
"What did Skinner have to say?" she asks, apprehension in her eyes.
"He just wanted to make sure that we know what we are doing, what this could entail."
"Maybe Agent Fowley is right."
The words out of her mouth stun him. "What?"
"Mulder, if we make one wrong move now, it could cost us the X-Files. It could cost you all of your life's work; the chance to find Samantha…"
"Scully, we've already talked about this; why are you backpedaling now?"
"I'm not backpedaling. I just want to check if you're really willing to take this risk right now, with this case. I don't really trust Agent Fowley –"
"Why don't you?" he interjects. "Trust Diana, I mean."
Everything about his stance, about his words and his tone of voice, points her in the direction that he's trying to turn this into a fight.
"I don't know her," Scully says in a controlled pitch.
"But I do," he replies levelly, honey in his voice, and if feels like he's slapped her in the face.
"Yeah, I gathered that," she states mostly to herself as she looks down.
That's enough of an opening for him to feel self-righteous. "What does that mean?" he questions confrontationally.
She instantly looks up at him. "It means you haven't been upfront with me, Mulder. Is there a reason you didn't want me to know that you two have a history?"
"A history?"
"Well, she mentioned that you two have worked together before she left. And when I told the Gunmen that she was working with us on this case –"
"You went to the Gunmen?" he asks, taking a step towards her.
"About Gibson's scans, Mulder," she grits out, in a tone that is meant to remind him that she had already told him yesterday about talking to the boys about this case. Her words are accompanied by a look that tells him he shouldn't flatter himself.
Well, you should, she mentally admits, even though she's certainly not going to let him know that right now.
Taking advantage of his silence, she continues flatly, "When I told them that Agent Fowley was working with us, they told me she's also your ex-girlfriend."
He bristles at the tone she uses, thinking of it as an accusation. "Fine, I slept with her in the past – is that relevant to this discussion?" he asks passive-aggressively, gradually raising his voice and flailing his arms.
"Only because you tried to keep this from me," she raises her tone to match his, although her posture is much more restrained. Fixing him with a hard stare, she adds, "And I don't know why that is."
They remain locked in a staring contest for what it feels like forever, both refusing to be the first to give in. The office phone rings, a stab at the bubble of tension they're wrapped around in.
"Mulder," he answers the phone as Scully takes a few steps towards the back of the office. He mumbles a couple of short okay's and yes's as he talks to the person on the other side of the line and finishes the call with "I'm leaving right now." Turning to Scully with closed eyes to calm himself, he takes a deep breath and finally looks at her. "That was Skinner. The Attorney General is willing to grant our immunity request if we get something concrete out of our gunman. I have to go to Fort Marlene and talk to him."
"Okay," she sounds robotic.
"Can we talk about this later?"
She raises her eyebrows and then looks down with a sarcastic half-smile, clearly doubtful that they'll ever finish their conversation.
"I want to tell you about Diana," he says as he approaches her. "I want you to understand where I'm coming from when I say that we can trust her; I know her. And we will talk about this later, Scully. But I want you to know in advance that her coming back doesn't change anything for us – about our work, our friendship, the IVF… she's not in the way of anything when it comes to us." He searches her eyes with deep emotions in his.
The underlying message she believes is there takes her breath away.
"Okay?" he asks for good measure, wanting to make sure that she understands.
She refuses to meet his eyes but nods profusely. "Okay."
Author's Notes:Take that, Christopher Marlon Carter.
