by Justin Glasser
Rating: G
Category: V/A, Missing Scene
Spoilers: The End
Keywords: Mulder/Scully UST
Summary: Scully ruminates on her partnership with Mulder while waiting in
his apartment.
Disclaimer: No permission has been granted, no money has been made, no
infringement is intended.
Dedication: This one is dedicated to the ladies of the Box2.
There are times, like tonight, when I want to call Mulder something besides "Mulder."
He's lying on the couch, not asleep, although he wants me to act like he is. I do. His arms are folded across his chest, hands tucked into his sides. I would take one of them if I could, and pretend to wake him, fold his fingers in mine and hold them loosely and allow him to stir, but he does not give me that option and the others seem like too much, so I wander around his apartment and stare at photographs and book spines that I've seen a thousand times before. He has a picture of me that I wish he'd change--I'm looking up at him, a file folder open between us, and I look frumpy and disgusted. Not my best side, although one Mulder often sees.
Sometimes I wonder if that side is all he sees.
That picture is us, over and over again. I am the spectator to Mulder's action, the supervisory eye that gives approval and lends credence, or not. Skinner looks to me. Mulder does not look to me, suddenly, not since he came on Spender's case and blew it wide open. Not since he has had Diana to look to. I don't blame him. If I had someone to turn to, someone who said "you're right, Dana, and you're brilliant, and I think you're amazing," someone who looked at me like she looks at him, I'd probably turn that way as often as possible. Instead, I have Mulder.
Or, more accurately, Mulder has me.
After the VinylRight case, after whatever it was leapt out the window and into the night, I went to my partner, lying still and fearful in his restraints, and I untied him. I didn't want to. I wanted to shake him, to slap him, to say "this is how I feel, bound to you, unable to stop my own destruction!" I wanted to reach out and touch his face, smooth his hair, forget what I had just seen. Forget that, once again, Mulder had been right. "You're my one in five billion," he had said to me, and I believed it.
That was not the first time I wanted to call him something else. There have been many. Many times when someone has done something to him and I have wanted to help, offer some words of comfort. Say "oh, sweetheart," like my mother says to me when there are no other words to say. Other women do it, I know, women like me who aren't mothers, women who have male friends and who kiss hello and who don't spend most nights on the couch reading medical journals. Women who have known their co workers only for a month or six weeks, who nevertheless walk up to them and smile and say "hey, sweetie, how are you?" with unpracticed ease and an asexual hand on the sleeve. Other women. Women who aren't me.
Other women.
I don't even call him Fox. "I even make my parents call me Mulder," he said, so early in our partnership that I can't even remember which case it was on, although I know we were on stakeout. I obliged him in that, like I oblige him in almost everything else, even after I found out that it wasn't true, that his mother calls him Fox, as did his dad, and as does Diana Fowley. I call him Mulder and nothing else. Just Mulder, over and over again in a thousand different ways, with a million different meanings. Two syllables, a multitude of possibilities.
I'm not his one in a five billion as it turns out. I'm second, third, maybe fourth on the list after those women who have been smart enough or unfortunate enough to leave him. I wonder what happened when I was taken, if Mulder lay on his couch hugging himself and breathing slowly through his nose. We've never talked about what happened to him when I was abducted, perhaps because it seems so unbalanced--he has memories of my abduction and I have nothing but emptiness and fear. In rare moments of self-pity and loneliness I wish I could have seen him, like a child who wishes to die and attend her own funeral so that she can see who misses her the most.
"Scully," he says suddenly.
"Mmm?" His eyes are still closed.
"We used to go out."
I look at him for a long silent second. "I figured," I say.
"It was a long time ago."
She mentioned that in the hallway of the Ignet Murray Psychiatric Facility, but I don't repeat her comment. I say nothing.
"She left because of the X-files."
"I thought the X-files would be right up her alley." I try to keep my voice neutral, to sound like I'm thinking about something else.
"They were. I wasn't. I was . . . too involved." His eyes open and he inclines his head toward me. He's not really looking at me, so I say something that will force him.
"Did you love her?" I ask.
Now it's his turn to be silent. I recall seeing them through the door at Inget-Murray, his hand clasped to hers. I wonder what she was saying to him, what she called him, if she ever held his face against her chest and whispered into his hair. Mulder is staring at me, but still not seeing. He's only seeing memories.
"I missed her."
There's no appropriate response. I know nothing of this Mulder, a Mulder who was involved with a woman, who had interests outside of a small office. I ask the only thing I can think of, a silly self-serving question that I shouldn't ask.
"Do you still?"
He looks at me, his eyes seeping a few tears which may be caused by the angle of his head. "I don't think so. At first . . . things were easier then. I got nostalgic. I don't miss her."
"She's a beautiful brilliant woman. What's not to miss?"
Mulder closes his eyes again, turns his cheek into the pillow. He's not going to sleep, he's retreating. His parting shot takes my breath away.
"I have you."
I can't remember the first time I thought of him as someone besides "Mulder," someone closer, dearer than my partner, my colleague, my comrade-in arms. I can't remember the first time I put my arms around him and rested my cheek against his chest. I can't remember the first time I took his hand in mine and tried to tell him that it would be all right, no matter what it was. I can't remember the first time I reached out to him and choked an endearment back in my throat, the first time I didn't call him sweetheart, or honey, or doll. That's not who he is, who we are.
"Get some rest," I say, placing my hand on his hair and kissing his forehead. I rest my lips on his skin for a moment. "Mulder."
It will have to do.
*****end*****