Coping with loss often involves tearing down walls in a big way…
Dana Scully snuggled down under her blanket for the evening, book in hand, music in the background, dishes in the dishwasher, and a pint of ice cream by her side. It was a simple reward for a grueling week. And although she was alone, she was grateful for that also. There were times in one's life when it was just easier and preferable to be alone and she knew that Mulder had been feeling that way since his mother's funeral service. Friends were important at such times to provide support, but the bottom line was that true acceptance of death only comes to individuals on their own, in their own time.
He had been in and out of the office throughout the past few days despite his having taken the week off. He seemed okay as far as she could tell, but it wasn't as though they had shared any quality moments together for her to determine if that was actually the case. If anything, he seemed to be in a state of perpetual numbness, neither feeling nor "unfeeling".
Scully cracked open her book, some new thriller that she had picked up during the post-Christmas sales. Three pages later, she realized that she hadn't retained any of what she had supposedly read. It was Friday night and she didn't know where Mulder was, what he was doing, what he might be thinking. She had managed to go through the whole day without calling him but now that he hadn't called her either, she was just a tiny bit concerned.
Her phone rang. Talk about a nexus...
"Hello?"
A pause, then, hesitantly, "Scully?"
"Mulder — where are you?"
She could hear the slightest sound of tightly controlled breathing over the connection, but not much else. Wherever he was, it was extremely quiet.
"Is anything wrong?"
Still no answer.
"Talk to me, Mulder."
He must have picked up on the alarm in her voice. She heard him clear his throat. "How soon can you get here, Scully?"
"That depends. Where are you?"
Somewhere where he wasn't supposed to be, obviously.
"Mulder?"
"I'm up in Connecticut..."
"I thought I told you —" Well, it didn't much matter what she thought she had told him; he was there already. At his mother's house. Tormenting himself in any number of ways, from what she could ascertain. "Look Mulder, I'm out of here in ten, okay?"
"Thanks, Scully."
As was their habit, they broke off the connection without saying goodbye.
* * * * *
Hurricane Mulder had hit the outskirts of Greenwich...
At least that was the first impression that came to mind as Scully peered into the living room window from outside his mother's house. Pictures were off the walls and leaning against every available vertical surface, boxes in various states of fullness were scattered all over the floor, and pieces — various knickknacks and display objects — were gathered in groups along every horizontal surface she could see. Apparently he had been here for some time.
She couldn't see the man of the hour himself, however, among the chaos. He hadn't heard her knocking or ringing at the front door, either. She took a final look and went back to the front porch, meaning to call his cell when she thought to try the door. It was, of course, unlocked.
The house was eerily quiet and cool, in stark contrast to the fact that almost every light appeared to be turned on.
"Mulder?"
She passed through the set of french doors and carefully picked her way through the veritable maze that she had viewed from the window. The back patio door — the one he had used to escape from her during another crisis when she was here with him — hung open. Outside, she finally found her partner, fully reclined on a chaise swing, gazing up at the sky. She noted that he was rather poorly dressed for the weather, wearing only jeans and a thin white t-shirt.
"What are you doing out here in the cold, Mulder?"
"Scully — hey. You made good time."
"Yes I did. It's freezing out here."
"The cold helps."
He sat up and turned around to her slowly. She instantly wished that he hadn't, because there was no way that she could have prepared herself to see the despairing emptiness stamped all over his face. He looked like he'd been alternately drinking and crying all day. Just thinking about it felt like a punch in the stomach, setting off a familiar sting across the bridge of her nose.
Scully took the glass that he cradled in his hands and held it up to the patio light, then sniffed it. "It's just water, Scully. I stopped drinking the hard stuff hours ago. Didn't do anything for me but make me sick anyway."
"All right, that's enough. We're going in." She swiped at her eyes quickly with her free hand and reached for his arm. He pulled away from her but stood up, making no protestations as he followed her obediently back inside. He stood in the center of the room and squinted against the brightness as Scully closed and secured the door behind them.
"Why'd you come here by yourself, Mulder? I told you I'd help you with this."
"There was no need for that."
"Then why am I here?"
He had no answer for that other than maybe the pitifully simple one of needing her. "I'm only thinking that maybe you're taking this on too soon. What's the rush?"
"I'd rather not drag it out."
"That's fine, Mulder, but you didn't have to face this on your own."
"I had to try."
Scully was genuinely puzzled. "Why?"
The pained look on his face turned into one of absolute exasperation, tinged with anger.
"Don't you get it, Scully? Sometimes, just sometimes, I'd like your life not to be about shit like this —" He waved his hand around the room. "And even if you honestly don't mind that you're constantly being dragged down into my muck, I don't happen to like it!"
He turned away from her towards the nearest wall and slammed his fist against it, creating a noise that made her jump. He tried to take a deep steadying breath before continuing, in a barely audible voice, "But how pathetic am I...? Not like I could do it alone. I wasn't even sure I could last through the night here without you..."
Still facing the wall, he sank slowly down to his knees and began to tremble. Scully couldn't determine right away if he was merely cold or whether it was something else. She felt strangely rooted in place where she stood, unable to go to him. When he finally spoke again, the grief that resonated in his voice pierced her to the core.
"Why didn't she tell me a long time ago, Scully, if she knew? What am I believing now? That this is the final truth? The end... spirits and bodies travelling as starlight?"
Scully watched the scene unfold like an observer at a play. She was at a loss for words, at least for any words that might make a difference. This was too much for her all at once after her peaceful drive up. She hadn't counted on him being as despondent as he seemed, but then it was hardly unexpected. Outside of that emotionally draining night that she had spent at his apartment, he had been playing the part of the brave little soldier. He stayed around for the conclusion of the case despite his request to be relieved of duty. Then when he got home, he organized the funeral service and attended to the inevitable pile of endless paperwork. Even during the talks that they'd had on their trip back to Washington after the case wrapped up, she had found him to be amazingly healthy for the amount of turmoil that had been thrown at him. She knew that something wasn't quite right about it, and was expecting that the other shoe would still drop, that the full effect had yet to hit.
"You believed it that night in the woods. What's changed since then?"
There was a long period of silence in which he didn't reply.
"Mulder, for as long as I've known you, you've had an uncanny way of instinctively knowing what's true and what isn't. What I saw in your face that night was a clear and honest acceptance that whatever you experienced back there was real. As difficult as it must have been, you believed it. It gave you what you wanted, the knowledge that it's finally over."
She watched as he sat down on the floor, digging his fists into his eyes. She wondered if he had been going through this same cycle all day, fine one second, falling apart the next.
"She's never been here, you know?"
"Who?"
"Samantha. She doesn't know that Mom and Dad split up, got separate places." "Mulder —"
"She has no memories of this place. No memories of Dad's place. The only home she knew isn't even ours anymore. There's so little to tie us together anymore."
Scully approached slowly and found a bare spot on the floor beside him.
"There's your summer house. You still have that."
"Yeah, that's the only thing. Costs a mint in upkeep every year, but we've hung onto it because of that. It's our only common connection to the past."
"What are your plans for this place?"
"Movers are coming late Sunday afternoon to take the packed stuff to Quonochontaug. The lawyers are taking care of the rest, putting the house and remaining contents up for sale. I can't afford to keep this, not even for Sam."
Scully didn't know what to make of this renewed fixation on Samantha, how healthy it might or might not be. It had always been one of her deepest held wishes that Mulder might someday be reunited with his sister, but she had also always known that the odds were slim after twenty-some years. And now, after this case, there just seemed no possible way, despite the fact that she fully understood Mulder's present pain and alcohol-induced confusion. She herself had been left with that same niggling thought: all those encounters over the past several years — what were they really about? Was the mystery of Samantha culminating in ghosts and spirits any more believable than an end with aliens and their supposed conspiracy? In Scully's mind, they still had no real proof, no body. They had seemingly traded one fable for another. On the other hand, if it was enough for Mulder to be convinced to let go of his lifelong obsession, it really didn't matter what she thought...
He was speaking again, sounding almost normal now.
"Have you ever thought about how easy it is to talk to people that you grew up with? Even when you haven't seen them in years, just because you have shared memories..."
She considered carefully before responding. "Shared history is an important bonding factor, yes."
"Mom and I never really talked all that much over the years, but whenever we did, the conversation would invariably lead us back to something that happened when I was a kid. Now I've lost everyone who knows anything about who I was back then."
He dragged the nearest box over and peered inside. "Everything that's in here, everything that I see or touch in this house, there's something about it that only Mom and I knew. Stories that only we could tell. And there were some that only she could tell. She was supposed to have the chance to tell them to Samantha, Scully. And Samantha was supposed to have the chance to hear them. I wasn't supposed to end up being the keeper of all this history..."
She reached over to put her hand on his leg and was mildly surprised when he quickly pulled his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them. His body language had never been clearer to Scully. For whatever reasons, he wasn't wanting to be touched.
"I never thought this would happen, but I should have. When she had her stroke, that could have been it. But this, this is different....I never thought that she'd make a choice to leave me all alone." "I'm sure that wasn't how she saw it, Mulder." If only I could believe my own words, she said to herself as an afterthought.
"How the hell else could she see it?" He flinched at the force of his own anger.
"I told you — she saw how you let things consume you. It was to spare you the further pain of seeing her suffer even more. And, of course, it was to spare herself further pain. You know that it hasn't been easy for her either, and it wouldn't have gotten any better as the illness progressed."
"All I know is that I didn't do anything to make it better for her."
"What could you have done?"
"I don't know. I've never known, or I would have done it. She was never able to tell me..." "But doesn't that mean that there's nothing you could have done?"
"I always thought she had something to tell me about whatever it was that Dad was involved in, and about who she — about who she knows. But for some reason, I was just never able to find the right way to get it out of her. I always got too angry. Too obsessed with my suspicions. I always ended up accusing her. In the past couple of years, we just stopped talking about it."
"Surely that was a mutual decision on both your parts. It wasn't just you."
Mulder dropped his head on top of his knees, rocking back and forth slowly. "Why didn't she talk to me, Scully? If she really knew what happened to Sam, and if she really wanted me to go on with my life, why did she leave it for so long? Why couldn't she tell me while she was alive? That doesn't make any sense..."
Scully thought back to the smoking man's comment about "kindness" and shook her head from side to side slowly. "I'm no expert, but sometimes, it just doesn't work out that way. People often make decisions that we can't understand, for what they feel are all the right reasons."
She watched him, her heart breaking for the new pain that he was feeling, the pain that she knew he'd eventually encounter, along with the questions that he'd continue to have about who had supposed knowledge of what and when. It puzzled her too, the overwhelming evidence that pointed to his mother knowing all along — at least in part — what the real story was, what had actually concluded so long ago.
Mulder lifted his head at the continued silence.
"I think I still need answers, Scully. Even if I know that she's gone and never to come back, I still need answers."
"I know you do." So do I, she thought to herself, feeling a sharp pang of sorrow as she remembered suddenly how she still had no answers regarding Melissa. "But you know that none of the answers that we're looking for are easy to come by. I think, sometimes, for our own sanity, we have to accept the answers that we have while we search for better ones."
"I'm tired of searching. Every stone we turn over has three more underneath."
"You say that now, but for as long as I've known you, digging for answers has been your specialty."
"My specialty? So how come I was led so far astray all these years? How did I get dragged off onto all these wild and crazy tangents? All this time... " He dropped his head back down to his knees and drew in a shuddering breath.
"Don't turn this into some personal failure, Mulder, that won't help you —"
He looked up at her, obviously wanting comfort but still keeping her beyond his self-made barrier.
"What will help me, Scully? I've been asking myself that all day long and I've come up with nothing. All I get is this image of my mother, in this house, all alone, getting ready to do what she thought she had to do. Deciding that this was her only choice. Leaving me a cryptic message that may or may not tell me anything."
"Time is what you need, Mulder. That's why I question you coming up here by yourself like this." "Maybe I just needed to find out what it really feels like to be that alone. At the end of the road with nowhere to turn, in the way that she was."
"You'll never be alone. You know that."
"People are constantly disappearing from my life, Scully. You know that. Maybe I'm meant to be alone."
"That's ridiculous."
"Is it?"
"Yes."
"You don't agree that people drop like flies around me?"
"I don't know how you expect me to answer that, Mulder."
"Just, yes I agree, or no, I don't."
They stared each other down for several seconds before Scully gave in, got up, and walked away. She went to the window and closed the curtains, trying to occupy herself with some manual task while deciding what to say next. He beat her to the punch.
"There are times when I think it'd be better if you just left and pursued some other life somewhere safe."
Patience and understanding was one thing, but that remark made her angry. "Better for whom?" "For you, of course."
"That's a lie. It'd be better for you. So that you can finally stop fearing all the things that might happen."
That one came out much too quickly for her to consider whether or not she should have said it. She didn't mean it, after all. In fact, she really wouldn't be one to say that Mulder was afraid of very much at all. Or if he was, he would never be the sort to allow fear to stop him. It was something about him that — while terribly annoying — she actually admired.
However, her comment seemed to have had the benefit of awakening him from his funk. "Is that what you really think?"
"No. Not unless you really think it'd be better if I left you."
He gazed up at her briefly, long enough to let her know that he didn't believe it.
"What I really think is that you've been wallowing in this for long enough today, Mulder. I can help you with the packing now or we can get an early start tomorrow morning. Your choice."
He looked at her, seeing the compassion on her face, her desire to comfort him. He couldn't trust what he was thinking or feeling, however, to accept any of it. When he called her earlier tonight, he had wanted nothing more than to hold her and perhaps be held by her, but the thought of doing so now was frightening to him. He had gotten to the point where the hurt seemed to have been numbed somewhat; he didn't know what would happen if he were to seek any type of refuge in her arms.
She looked at him and saw that his face appeared weary and resigned for the moment. No longer quite as anguished as when she first saw him, but still far from well. She remembered the cycles of pain and numbness that she felt when her father died, and could only imagine what it would feel like to lose her mother also. She had always believed that children, regardless of age, forged a unique bond with their mothers. In a relationship as complex and as difficult as Mulder's had been with his mom, she could only guess at the agonizing depths of what he must be feeling, the hurt mixed in with the understandable anger that was only surfacing now.
The clock on the wall chimed loudly, interrupting their thoughts. Mulder stood up and did a quick survey of the room.
"So, Scully, I don't see your overnight bag anywhere in this mess of mine. Did you bring one?" "It's still out in the car."
"Give me your keys. I'll go get it."
She watched as he went out the front door. She hadn't moved from her spot when he came back in with her bag and dropped it beside her. He stood in front of her, shoving his hands into his pockets.
"I think it's late enough to call it a night."
"That's probably a good idea."
"There's a room ready for you upstairs. Yellow bedspread."
"Okay. I'm going to hit the shower first, though. You're going to be all right, Mulder?" "Yeah, I'll be fine."
Scully frowned slightly but picked up her bag and headed upstairs. Was it her imagination or did Mulder just give her her standard treatment?
* * * * *
Scully came out of the bath and peered into Mulder's room. The bedside lamp was on. The bed was turned down but it did not look as though anyone had disturbed it since. She felt a cool draft and pulled the belt of her robe tightly around herself as she quietly made her way to the top of the staircase. There were no lights on, but she could make out a dark form huddled at the bottom of the stairs. The front door was wide open, allowing the cold night air to sweep into the house. She went down to him and put her hand tentatively on his shoulder. He didn't move away this time.
"I thought you were going to call it a night, Mulder. Please, get some rest. Everything will still be here tomorrow."
"Isn't that moonlight something, Scully? I remember seeing it like this a few days before Christmas." Actually, even on Christmas Day, it was still a sight to behold. He remembered sitting here in this very same spot, having gone through the whole day waiting for her to call. She never did. She had promised to, but the call never came. He never brought it up, either, outside of giving her a slightly biting "Merry Christmas" greeting during their first case back the following week. Sometimes he just didn't know what she felt about where they were headed.
"Yes it is, but it's very cold and I don't think you want to risk getting sick if you intend to go back to work next week."
"Was it clear where you were at Christmas?"
"Yes, yes it was."
"Did you look at the moon?"
"Yes, but I didn't fixate on it." She didn't really want to think about Christmas. She knew that he was bothered by the fact that she didn't call him like she said she would. But what he didn't know was that it hadn't been the best of Christmas mornings for her. Her mom had let the cat out of the bag about her and Mulder's progressing relationship and brother Bill certainly hadn't warmed up to the news. No way could she have gotten to the phone that day, and if she had, she wouldn't have trusted herself not to let on what had happened.
"Is that what you think I'm doing? Fixating?" His normally vibrant voice sounded dull and lifeless.
She closed the door and locked it; Mulder remained seated on the bottom riser, watching her. The moonlight coming through the window reflected off the tiled floor, providing enough illumination for them to see one another's faces. God only knew what sort of thoughts he had been revisiting while she was in the shower, but she could tell that they couldn't have been good ones. His eyes were bright with unshed tears.
"Come on up to bed, Mulder."
She stepped past him, but paused when he got up and turned towards her. They were eye to eye as a result of their tiered positions on the stairs. She knew instantly that he was moving in to kiss her and she knew that it was going to be a kiss unlike all others that they had previously shared. It wasn't going to be anything playful or experimental or even gentle. She knew that this was going to be a raw exploration of sexual need that would invade her spirit and awaken her deepest of desires. In short, it was going to be totally inappropriate for the moment that they were in.
And yet Dana Scully could feel her body responding instantly to the mere thought of the potential behind this kiss. Was it the seduction of the moonlight? The way he was consuming her with his look? She was almost appalled by the churning in her stomach and the latent heat pooling in her lower regions. She had not experienced this reaction while in the presence of a man for such a long time that she was afraid Mulder would see it in her face.
Fortunately — or perhaps unfortunately — Mulder was too consumed himself to see much of anything clearly. He connected hard against her lips, open-mouthed, his tongue searching for hers immediately. The connection wasn't really rough, but it was slow, deep, and persistent, surpassing anything they had ever tried before. One part of his brain reminded him that this was not a good idea. But another part told him that this time, it really was Scully's turn to take charge. If this wasn't what she wanted, she was going to have to stop it. And if by some chance she did want it, it was going to happen, pretty or not. At this very moment, Fox Mulder felt nothing other than a singular desperate need for something to dull his pain. For life to give back a little for everything that had been taken away from him over the past two weeks. Hell, for everything that had been taken away from him over the past twenty-six years and counting. As pathetic as it probably seemed, right this second, he wasn't even above accepting pity sex from his partner. Not that that would ever be the case anyway, would it?
His hands roamed her body, at first doing nothing more than caressing innocently over her robe. He soon found his way underneath its front opening, however, loosening the belt around her and exposing her pajamas. As his hand swept across her chest, it suddenly occurred to the both of them that she wasn't wearing a bra. Not odd, considering that she had just gotten out of the shower and was ready for bed. But it definitely added a bit of spice to the situation. Before Scully could consider what sort of spice it would add, Mulder had already cupped one hand over her left breast, his warmth seeping through the cotton fabric to her skin as he moved his fingers around in a slow massaging motion.
Scully squeezed her legs tighter together, feeling like she needed their combined strength to keep her from toppling over. She felt sure that actual steam was escaping off the top of her head. As she clamped her legs together, something else also became apparent to her when her underwear bunched up uncomfortably. The tell-tale warmth had turned into actual wetness.
"Oh, God, Mulder —" She broke off their kiss for a moment to take a gasping breath, punctuated by a low moan as he completed the circular exploration of her breast by teasing her nipple with the tip of his finger. If this was any indication of what their ultimate experience would be like, Dana Scully was almost afraid of what might happen if either one of them were to take off some actual clothing.
"Just go with it, Scully..." His voice was low and hoarse, his lips and tongue needing to be linked back to hers. He recaptured her mouth as his hand continued to travel down her torso. He moved slowly and precisely, holding her tightly against him with one hand at the small of her back, caressing gently with the other as he proceeded downwards.
Mulder had been thrusting at her hip periodically, but by now it had become a regular motion that went beyond simple pleasure. He was starting to feel painfully confined, with the unfortunate result that the sexual aching came close to being replaced by mere aching. The little voice in the back of his head told him that there was only one solution for that. The hand that had been exploring the general area of Scully's navel automatically reached down and tugged at his fly. He didn't have much luck in pulling it down, due to his condition. He didn't quite realize what was happening or what he was doing until he felt her small hand on top of his, closing over the fingers that were fumbling with his zipper. They both stopped breathing momentarily, still lip to lip.
She couldn't believe where her hand was. But if she didn't stop him now there would really be nothing much more to stop. So there she was — their joined hands on top of his groin — and she could actually feel his organ pulsating beneath them. But that wasn't the end of the surprise yet. Before she could figure out how he could manage it so quickly, he had switched positions with her. His hand was now on top of hers, guiding her as he rubbed her palm rhythmically against his growing erection. He moved his mouth away from hers, trailing kisses down the side of her face, down to her throat, neck, and shoulders. She shuddered and sagged against him as her knees gave way. He leaned into her smoothly to compensate, keeping her balanced between himself and the wall.
"Jesus, Scully...it feels so good when you touch me like that..."
He kept her hand right where he wanted it — stroking the rock-hard stiffness that was now throbbing painfully and demanding to be released — while he found the top of his zipper once more. Although Scully felt her own mind grow alarmingly fuzzy, she knew she had to stop him now. Really. Stop him or wrap her legs around him. One or the other.
"Mulder, this isn't the right time —"
"Yes it is —" The sound of the zipper being ripped down sounded like a crack of thunder in the stillness of the night. Scully yanked her hand away and grabbed his arm.
"Mulder, no..."
"Scully, yes... " She could feel his whole body shaking uncontrollably as opposing halves fought for control. Incredibly, he was still doing a admirable job of holding her up.
"No —"
"Yes, Scully, yes..." His voice broke and trailed off into a choked sob as he finally tore himself away from her, crying. "It'll take away the pain. I want the pain to stop... you said that's what she wanted... I need you to help —"
Tears filling her eyes, she watched helplessly as he collapsed against the banister. He slid down into a sitting position, one arm over his face. His other hand, inside his jeans now and seemingly possessed by a mind of its own, was pumping feverishly. She found the image gut-wrenching and disturbing, but there was also no denying that it was excruciatingly erotic and arousing. The sight of Mulder essentially masturbating in front of her made her want to touch herself, to appease the dull, heavy ache that had taken control between her legs, the ache that was fast becoming the single most dominant sensation in her whole body.
She swallowed hard and attempted to concentrate, forcing herself to keep her eyes up and willing her legs to support her weight.
"Mulder? Mulder, look at me." His arm dropped as he obeyed her instruction. He loo