Disclaimer: characters and places belong to Chris Carter, to 1013 Productions and to Fox Network, except those created by me. If you find this fanfiction similar to another one, it's nothing more than a coincidence.
Production: January, 2009 – August, 2010
Rating: PG-13
Summary: In 1998, Scully left Mulder and the FBI to pursue her interrupted path in Medicine and try to be happy. Ten years later, while trying to save a young boy's life, some old wounds of hers are reopened once their paths cross in the search of the truth. Because lives may change and hope may be lost, but they still want to believe…
Extra: a different take on I Want to Believe, considering an Alternative Reality post-Fight the Future. Spoilers from the episodes.
A/N: I apologize for my real life.
English is not my first language and I don't have a beta-reader at the moment, so I'm sorry for any mistakes, no one is perfect. Hope you enjoy this fanfiction as much as I enjoyed writing it. :)
OUT FROM UNDER
Chapter IV:
Cold as fire
"Hi, doc!"
Scully froze on the inside after hearing that voice again. The soft tone and the playful trace, the sarcasm always there. She wondered if it could be just her imagination, if it could be worth to close her eyes and carry on as if nothing had happened.
But how could she run away now, anyway?
She took a deep breath before doing it, then turned back and faced him. It really was Mulder. Apart from the natural aging process, the uncut thick beard and the informal clothes that weren't very usual on him before, there was no doubt: those hazel eyes, sometimes green, sometimes brown, remained exactly the same.
Feeling suddenly dry, she bit her lower lip. Ten years later, she couldn't read his body language anymore; she couldn't see what was on his mind for being face to face with her once more.
"Hi, Mulder," she finally said, still unsure of how was she able to speak.
He looked around for a while, as if searching for something. Then his attention focused on her and he adopted his most ironical expression, the one she already knew so well, with the smirk and everything. Scully was fully aware that that wasn't exactly his most sympathetic greeting.
"You were right in front of me and you didn't say a word," he complained, to her surprise. "Are you mad at me?"
"You... you were asleep!"
"No, I was only resting my eyes!"
That was so typical of him...
Scully placed her hands inside her white coat's pockets and stared at the floor. Mulder wasn't exactly at ease either, she could at least notice that: with his arms crossed across his chest and his left shoulder leaned over the nearest wall, he seemed determined not to look straight at her face again. She couldn't remember the last time she had felt such tension between them.
Actually, she couldn't remember much beyond their last goodbye. His words. The hurt on his eyes. "I owe you everything, Scully, and you owe me nothing." His lips against hers. His fingers caressing her skin. The taste of disappointment and salt. The emptiness inside her.
Hearing his voice again saved her from the torture of her memories: "I didn't know you were working here!"
"Oh, yes. Around five years now."
"Good..."
Mulder raised his eyes to meet hers.
"So... is everything okay with you?"
His question surprised her. It was as if ten years had turned two best friends into perfect strangers. As if ten years had made them stop caring.
"Yes, it is!" It was the only answer she could give him. "You?"
He shrugged, plain and disinterested:
"Happy as a clam!" The only answer she got.
There was something wrong with him. She couldn't find her ex-partner's essence in that man. Mulder seemed sad, broken, defeated; where were his energy, his fury, his passion for what he did? Irony could be his favorite weapon but, even ten years later, Scully was still immune and able to see beyond it.
She pointed her chin towards the room where Father Joe was resting.
"I saw you on TV with that man," she observed very calmly, trying not to sound too curious about the case. "Are you working on the disappearance of that FBI Agent?"
"Hmmm... the journalists shouldn't have nosed around!" Mulder leaned his back against the wall. He seemed extremely tired. "But yes, we're working on something. Are you here to see him? You're not the doctor in charge..."
"Oh no, no, he's outside of my age range of work! I'm just here because..."
The voice failed her. What was she supposed to tell him, that she was there to chase the reason that had once broken them apart? That she was there to investigate what she had always refused to believe? That she was there harbouring the hope to find him again?
But Mulder wasn't stupid. Obviously, he understood.
"You know what happened," he whispered. "You're here to see it for yourself."
Scully lowered her head with a half-smile of both gloom and esteem. All of sudden, the conversation felt like a trip back to their roots, reminding her of those good old times.
"That man cried tears of blood, Mulder," she admitted, replacing the vision of the tip of her shoes for a straight look at his eyes.
"And you already have your scientific theories..."
His voice tone made her frown for a second. No, the actual scenario had not so very subtle differences from her memories.
"I have my explanations," Scully confirmed, back to her uncomfortable pose, "but nothing useful, according to the exams already performed by the primary physician."
"Some trick, hum?"
"Is that why you're here? For the man who cried tears of blood... or is there something more about him?"
She tried not to think about the journalists' words. The 'special help'. The elderly man convulsing and rolling his eyes on the television screen. What was wrong with Father Joe? What role was he playing in that story? What was his connection to Monica Bannan?
Mulder straightened and faced her again, in silence. His arms were still crossed, almost as if glued to his chest.
"I don't mean to sound rude," and yet the way he spoke made it sound like that was his intention, "but why are you so interested on this? This is an X-File... I thought your heart was no longer here!"
Cold, distant, absent. There it was, the final confirmation of what she already suspected – that wasn't the Mulder she had once known. It was the end of a decade of doubts and uncertainties; she hadn't been forgotten, but she hadn't been forgiven either.
What had she done?
"Yes, let me stick to the Medicine," she agreed, pressing her lips against each other to not allow him to understand what was going on inside of her mind. "I wish you the best for this case you're working on. And the next ones, of course..."
He nodded, as if he had nothing else to add. Scully was starting to feel as a spare in the small and narrow corridor.
"I better go back to where I belong now, they might need me."
"Sure..."
"I hope Father Joe gets better soon. And good luck in the search of your missing colleague." Scully grabbed both ends of the stethoscope that was hanging around her neck. Alex's words were echoing in her mind and she couldn't help but to smile: "You know, my colleagues don't believe you're an FBI Agent. They say it's pretty obvious that you're not!"
The hazel eyes, sometimes green, sometimes brown, gained a strange glow. She knew there was something wrong before hearing him say:
"I don't work for the FBI anymore!"
And it felt exactly like that: quick, unexpected, painful and effective. Like a slap in the face.
"I don't work for the FBI anymore."
The uncomfortable silence was brutally cut short when a door opened somewhere along the corridor. The woman that Scully had seen near Father Joe at the infirmary left, searching around until she found them.
"Mulder," she called, walking towards them, "Father Joe is awake!"
"Let's go then, I need to talk to him!"
"Oh, do you need something from him, Dr.?"
The woman was now facing Scully. She tried to give her an answer but Mulder was faster:
"No, she was just walking by. C'mon, Agent Whitney, I need you on the interrogatory with me." Pulling her by an arm, Mulder started walking away, not without giving her a last goodbye: "Good night, doc!"
And he left with the woman with long dark hair, headed towards Father Joe's infirmary. Agent Whitney still gave her one last look over the shoulder, but he didn't. Just like she had once done to him.
Scully remained stuck to the ground, incapable of moving a muscle. She couldn't believe it had just happened! She couldn't believe she had just found him, talked to him, looked him in the eye, heard his voice again. So, maybe he wasn't the same anymore... but neither was she, right?
Only in that moment she realized that, in the whole fifteen minutes of conversation, Mulder hadn't mentioned her name once.
Dana Scully was a stranger to herself. The other, the Dana Scully she and everyone else had known, had died many years ago.
She could still remember how it felt like, dying. She remembered its touch and its smell; the feeling of powerless and despair while walking towards the end of the line without a solution that could save her. She had never been more terrified as in that moment, when she at last understood that miracles only happened in movies. But then she managed to break free from her fears and accepted her faith back. She was ready to leave.
When she had woken up in that morning, she had felt different. In fact, she was different, and it wasn't just the cancer that had gone into remission – it was her. The person she had been had expired for the last time during that night. Facing Death had forced her to open her eyes to everything she was missing without even knowing it; the miraculous recovery was a second chance she couldn't afford to lose.
Still, she didn't like to think that her 'rebirth' was behind her decision of leaving the FBI. Maybe it had been the culmination of everything: Melissa's murder, Emily's loss, the unexplainable abduction, the fight against cancer, the nightmare of infertility. She had suffered more in those five years than in her entire life! Besides, she saw Mulder and realized that she would never be like him: she could lose her friends, her family's approval, her peers' respect, but she couldn't put the X-Files in front of everything. She couldn't look into the darkness anymore.
Did that turn her into a bad person?
She cleaned up her bathroom's fogged mirror with one hand and faced the woman that returned the stare. The wet red hair was falling in locks over her chest and back. She would never admit it out loud, but allowing her hair to grow had been a desperate attempt to run away from the old Dana Scully. That woman was who she was now: the doctor, the pediatrician, the life-saviour, the guardian of souls. That woman was who everyone wanted Dana Scully to be. She just kept wondering why had everything changed for the best, but her eyes had lost the shine from before...
For years she had wondered how it would go when they happened to run into each other. In vain, every single time – a thousand different scenarios and not even one had come close to what really went down. Mulder had been cold as fire, hot as ice; a simple exchange of bitter and gelid words and so much for five years of friendship. Could she blame him? She had hurt him where it hurt the most. But he wasn't exactly innocent in that situation, right?
Right?
Maybe they were both right. Maybe they were both wrong.
"If I quit now, they win!" Mulder had quit. Had they won?
Scully looked around, to the small bathroom full of steam, and pressed the Turkish towel against her wet body. She urgently needed to sleep.
"Good morning, Dr. Scully!" the Emergency doctor greeted when he bumped into his colleague at one of the corridors. "I saw Dr. Wood this morning, are you with her?"
"No, Dr. Randall, I did the night shift, I'm not working today." Scully tried to sound casual and even attempted a convincing smile. "Actually, I'm here because of that elderly man that entered last night with the FBI, do you know where I can..."
"Dr. Scully?"
It wasn't Randall who was talking – despite not hearing that voice for ten years, she could still recognize it perfectly. She turned her face to where the sound had come and noticed the bald man all dressed in black and with eyes hidden behind round glasses: Walker Skinner was walking towards her, with a smile on his face and wide open arms to hug her.
"Assistant Director Skinner?" she asked, caught in surprise. Dr. Randall used the moment to ask for permission to go.
Skinner came closer and hugged her tight in his arms. In face of such reaction, Scully couldn't help but to feel a sudden tenderness over her former boss; in moments like this, she always felt terribly sorry for once not trusting him, his words and his actions.
"Dana Scully! It has been so long..." he whispered in her ear. "I thought you were still in Salt Lake City!"
"Oh, no... It has been quite some time since then!"
"And in such a great country, with so many places and hospitals, we had to end up right at the one where you work!"
She smiled. She had noticed the irony too.
Skinner finally released her, which was a relief for her. She took a deep breath to compensate for the suffocation and he realized her state of mind. His eyes went down in embarrassment when he said:
"I'm sorry, Agent... I mean, Doctor! Wow, I almost can't believe it..."
"It has been quite a while, Sir!"
"Yes, I know. Ten years… it's a long time, Scully!" Skinner raised his eyes again and adjusted his round glasses. She could almost swear she had never seen him so satisfied. Or maybe she just couldn't remember how her former boss was when in a good mood. "I maintain the words I told you during our farewell: the FBI misses you a lot!"
Actually, she missed the FBI too. She missed the suspense, the making of the puzzle, the proving of her value, the adrenaline of a persecution, the bringing of justice to those who searched for it. Being a doctor wasn't very different from being an FBI Agent, but it wasn't the same.
"Thank you, Sir. But I think we both know I'm right when I say this is where I belong." And she opened her arms, indicating the Our Lady of Sorrows. "Are you here because of Father Joe?"
Skinner confirmed it with a nod.
"A pain in the ass!" He looked around. Between doctors, nurses, auxiliary people and patients, no one was paying attention to their conversation. "Are you aware of his history? Did you assist him this night?"
"I'm a pediatrician, but I was working and my colleagues asked me for an opinion on his case."
"Any conclusions?"
She denied, exasperated. She hadn't talked to Dr. de Mayo that morning, but she doubted that he had found any explanation for Father Joe's tears of blood.
"Well, it doesn't really surprise me…"
"Who is this man?" Scully questioned, incapable of holding back her curiosity. "Is he a psychic? A medium? Does he talk to God, to the dead? I know he's helping you with the Monica Bannan case and I saw him… Sir, I saw Mulder. Right here, at this hospital."
Skinner stared straight into her eyes. She didn't need to tell him how much the encounter had affected her, he probably already knew; surely he hadn't missed the break in her voice. And, if he had kept working with Mulder, he probably knew more than her. He knew what had happened during the past years.
He knew what he thought of her and her departure.
He knew the reason that had made him give up on his quest for the truth.
"You saw him…" Skinner looked around again, maybe to confirm Mulder wasn't there. "Did you talk to him?"
"Yes…"
"And how did you find him to be?"
Scully remembered his facial expression, his appearance, the aura that now surrounded her former partner.
"Sad. Defeated." She shook her red head and her eyes ran to the tip of her shoes with a smile of despair: "Mulder is still mad at me for what happened."
"No, it's nothing personal…"
"Why did he leave the FBI?"
She had to ask him, she just had to. The question was right under her tongue, waiting for the right moment to be spit.
The other man hid his hands on his long coat's pockets. Suddenly, Skinner seemed bothered by their conversation.
"Mulder," he said after a few seconds of silence, "has been through a lot. His life complicated a little and eventually he left the Bureau, almost six years ago."
"But why? Sir, the FBI was his home, the X-Files were his life! What happened that could be so serious for him not to be able to face it?"
He shook his bald head.
"I can't… I don't think I should be the one to talk to you. This is Mulder's personal life."
"Oh, of course!"
"I'm sorry, Scully."
But there was no need for him to be sorry. Skinner was right, anyway – Mulder's matters were Mulder's matters, no one else should be nosing around.
It still didn't help her curiosity, though.
Skinner raised his chin and adopted his professional expression. She already knew what he was about to tell her:
"I'm talking to you because of your past and because I know I can trust you," he lowered his voice tone and Scully had to come closer to be able to listen to his words, "but do you want to know the real mystery behind Father Joe?"
TBC