Does death extinguish passion and bury the truth forever — or is it a whole lot more complicated than that?
"Is he aware of how you feel about her?"
"In a way, he must. I haven't been able to bring myself to talk to him about her; you know that. But when it comes to feeling threatened by the women in his life, I have this habit of overreacting. And unfortunately, it's usually so obvious that it's not something I can hide from him. So he must know in that respect."
"Do you think that makes him hesitant to bring it up with you, knowing how you might feel?" "I'm sure it does. And I know what that means. It means that at some point, I have to take responsibility for clearing the air myself."
* * * * *
Dana Scully leaned back in the driver's seat of her rental car, patiently waiting to be directed into the appropriate stall. An airport maintenance crew was doing some repair work in the rental return parking lot, creating a bit of confusion for travelers this Sunday afternoon in San Diego. Normally, the delay would have annoyed her to no end. Despite having grown accustomed to airports and the associated aggravations of air travel, she still found the experience stressful. Today, however — despite also finding out that her flight back to D.C. was going to be late — she was grateful for the extra quiet time to herself. Even if she was doomed to spend it sitting in an idling car waiting for a parking spot, it was nice to have a moment alone finally.
It had been a long couple of days, without even considering the gruelling work week preceding it. And while she loved her brother and his family, more often than not, her visits ended up being mired in that familiar, unpleasant tension brought on by her life choices and her work. It didn't even matter if nothing was ever openly said about it. She could tell — just by her brother's expression — what he wasn't saying that he really wanted to say. Ever since their near fiasco at Christmas last year, Bill had been quite willing to skirt around the topic of her relationship with Mulder. In fact, he was getting quite good at not even mentioning his name to her, except to ask perfunctorily how he was doing.
Truth be told, if it hadn't been for her mother, she wouldn't have even made the visit. After their recent run of cases, a weekend to herself would have been much more appreciated. Or maybe a weekend of trying to think of a way to bridge the ever-widening gap that was forming between her and her partner on a personal level. In an unprecedented move for even two such repressed individuals as themselves, neither she nor Mulder had made any mention of their surprise Saturday morning meeting about a month ago, when they literally ran into one another outside Karen Kosseff's office. The shock from having been unceremoniously "dumped" in the cafeteria had left her glued to her seat for thirty more long and agonizing minutes that morning, totally unable to move. When she came into the office the following Monday, however, Mulder already had his face buried in a new case file and the first words out of his mouth had nothing whatsoever to do with what had transpired two days earlier. So she decided to follow his lead and act as though nothing significant had happened.
A display of mutual stubbornness, perhaps?
Or maybe it was a test and she was failing miserably.
Whichever the case, life just wasn't peachy these days. While Mulder's anger had dissipated since having his say that morning, something still wasn't right between them. And he still wasn't doing much talking outside of work related matters. To her utter dismay, she had even allowed her vexation over his detached behavior to overcome her better judgment. The most notable incident occurred a couple of weeks ago, when she had agreed to come in to the office on a weekend to hear about a new case. Not that Dana Scully could understand even in hindsight what had caused her to be so absolutely and undeniably hostile to him, but there it was. He subsequently flew off to England to pursue the case on his own, leaving her — rather ironically — to embark on one of the most peculiar personal journeys she'd ever taken in her life.
When he arrived home a couple of days later, she made it a point to apologize for her unspeakable rudeness. But something about the way in which he just brushed it off — as though it hadn't happened, much like the Saturday morning encounter weeks earlier — was worrisome.
And even though her apology eventually led to an unusually open discussion between the two of them that night — at least on her part — there was still so much that she wanted to reveal to him, and so much that she wanted to ask in return. But the truth was, exactly as she had related to him that morning in the cafeteria, sometimes it was just difficult. She didn't feel ready to know that she might be right about her concerns; that there was, in fact, still someone between them. Someone who stood between them from virtually beyond this world.
Scully jumped in her seat and turned abruptly in response to someone rapping on her car window. "Sorry, ma'am, didn't mean to startle you. We'd like you to back it up and turn to your right over there."
Her eyes followed in the direction where his finger pointed. She saw the intended parking spot and nodded absently.
For as long as the weekend had been, it seemed as though she had just been here, picking up the car after having flown in from L.A. She and Mulder had just concluded yet another California -based case, prompting her to take advantage of the situation and drop in on her brother for a visit. She never told Mulder her plans until the last minute, making for an oddly uncomfortable exchange, one that had continually replayed itself in her mind all weekend long....
"So whose turn is it to book the return flights?"
Mulder stopped in front of his room, flipping through his wallet in search of his magnetic card key. It wasn't often that they actually stayed in hotel rooms with interior hallways, never mind those with high tech security features.
"Yours, but let me do it." Scully stopped in front of the adjacent room.
"Why?"
"Because I'm not going back to D.C. just yet."
"What do you mean?" Surprised, he stopped in mid-motion, the card inserted halfway into the electronic lock.
"I'm going down to San Diego. Turns out Mom was talking to Bill and mentioned that I've been in Southern California a lot lately. You know, Mulder, the real X-File is why so many of our cases this year have brought us out here...." She stopped, sensing that work was suddenly the farthest thing from Mulder's mind. "Anyway, uh, I've sort of been waiting for one of these cases to wrap up close to a weekend so I can take a Bureau-sanctioned side trip to visit with my brother and his family." There was a moment of thoughtful silence before he said softly, "Well, it's good that you keep in touch."
"I'm going to call right now. I'll get you on the next flight back to D.C."
"When are you coming back?" He tried to sound casual in how he was asking but couldn't tell if it came out that way.
"There's a flight on Sunday afternoon. I'll book it now, too; let you know the particulars. Can you pick me up at the airport?"
"Of course."
"Okay, then." She turned her attention back to getting her room door unlocked, struggling with the unexpectedly stubborn card that simply wouldn't give her the green light.
"Dana?"
It was her name, of course, but in a way it sounded extremely foreign to her. That he had used it purposefully was obvious. Just one of those moments when he made an intentional decision to address her as such, for whatever reason. Likely because he knew it would shake her up and give him her full attention. It usually worked that way. In fact, she was mildly irritated at how he succeeded in doing so every time. After all, it was only a first name, for Christ's sake. But because he hadn't used it in anything other than a joking manner for quite some time now, Scully found herself hesitating before turning to look at him.
"Yes?"
Another long moment of consideration.
"Pass along my regards to Bill and Tara when you see them, will you?"
This time it was Scully's turn to pause. Mulder had just made a definite and obvious attempt to draw a line between work and personal life. She studied him for a brief moment, trying without success to ascertain which way his thoughts were going. In the end, she just smiled reassuringly and answered, "Of course. Consider it done."
Mulder pushed his card in fully and turned the lever to open his door. He half-gestured, half-waved towards the inside of his room with his hand. "I'm gonna — pack. Call me when you get the flight details."
With that, he disappeared inside. Scully heard the soft click of his door closing as hers finally yielded to her efforts.
* * * * *
John Byers left a tip on the counter and turned away from the bar. He scrutinized the room quickly and then walked towards a small corner table, his drink in hand, a ready smile on his face. "Hey, Mulder — thanks for meeting me."
Mulder raised his glass of iced tea in a salute as the other man sat down opposite to him. "No problem. So where are Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee? I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen any of you guys apart."
"I had to get out. Think about things. I'm not sure they'd understand."
"And I would? I'm flattered."
"Well, Mulder, short of calling Agent Scully, I don't have too many options here." "Scully? Now you've intrigued me. What's up?"
"I got a note the other day. From Holly."
"Holly?" It didn't seem to ring a bell for a moment, despite the fact that Byers had emphasized the name. But then, the look on the younger man's face clarified the memory for Mulder. Not really Holly, but Susanne. He leaned in closer and whispered, just to confirm, "Modeski?"
"Yeah."
"Is this the first contact you've had with her?"
"Uh huh. In almost a year, ever since we left her in Vegas."
"So where is she?"
"The envelope was postmarked Paris. Says she's moving through Europe right now. There wasn't much detail, but she did say that nothing out of the ordinary has happened and that she feels safe."
"So why didn't you think the boys would understand? I mean, they know more about your last adventure than I do. I'm sure they'd be happy to hear that she's okay."
"Oh, I don't doubt that. And — and I will tell them at some point. Just that —"
Just that we're men and this is so bloody hard, Mulder thought, pitying poor Byers while at the same time trying to deal with the sudden paralyzing twist he felt in his own heart. "Don't you ever think that there's gotta be more to life than just this?"
Mulder couldn't help but laugh. Mostly out of irony perhaps, but maybe just a tiny bit out of real humor also. "You mean that after awhile, the excitement of what we do just pales in comparison to the mortgage payments and boy scout meetings provided by life in the white picket fence world?"
"Something like that."
"All the time, Byers. And even though I know that the 'full version' of that dream probably isn't for me, I sometimes wonder if I even have what it takes to move a step in that direction." "Yeah, well, it's not something that I suppose Frohike and Langly really think about, you know what I mean?"
"Ah." He took a long sip of his iced tea and then studied Byers' expression carefully. Mulder ha d always considered him the "lone" Lone Gunmen of them all. Not quite belonging to the same extremes that his cohorts seemed to represent, yet not quite out of place among them. And yet if there was any person out of the four of them — himself included — that Mulder could see settling down and living an actual normal life, John Byers was that man. "Do you find yourself thinking that you want a life with her? Is she 'the one'?"
"Well, Jesus, Mulder, don't you sometimes think that you want a life with Scully maybe?"
Byers' face colored ever so slightly when he realized how brazen he sounded. Mulder, however, didn't react in any way to make him feel like he had overstepped his bounds, showing him nothing more than his usual poker face. In fact, the barely perceptible tightness in his voice when he finally answered managed to reveal much more than his expression.
"I have a life with Scully. And at times I think it's the most frustrating life in the world, but at least we're in the same time zone and can work on it."
That didn't sound especially promising to Byers, but he didn't want to push this silent understanding he and Mulder shared about "the Scully thing". He never asked specific questions about the two of them, but from answers such as the one that he just got, he sometimes had the feeling that Mulder wouldn't object to having someone to talk to either.
Byers reached into his pocket and palmed something, then brought his hands back up onto the table. Mulder eyed him questioningly, a distinct look of surprise crossing his face when Byers opened up his right hand.
"She gave me this when she left last year."
"Well if that isn't all the rage..." It was barely a whisper. But he actually hadn't meant to say it out loud at all.
"Excuse me?"
"Nothing." Mulder stared at the small golden band for a moment, his mind circling to recapture a memory long pushed into the dark recesses of his past. After warring with himself for a few seconds, he blinked and looked up to see Byers staring back at him patiently. "You want to find her, Byers? Wear this ring for real and make it mean something?"
"I don't know. There's a part of me that thinks she'll eventually find me if we're meant to be, but then there's another part of me that doesn't want to wait another ten years to find out, one way or the other."
"I don't suppose you're asking for advice?"
"Not specifically, but I wouldn't be unwilling to listen if you had any to give."
"I don't think I'm at all qualified to give any. But I know what you mean; I don't even want to wait the first ten years.... Here's some advice for the both of us, my friend. Give yourself a time limit. Tell yourself that by this date — whatever it is — you're going to take some action: start searching for her, move on and forget about her, whatever. I'm starting to get the feeling that things only take ten years when you let them take ten years."
The sound of a cell phone ringing broke through the thoughts of both men.
"Mulder."
"Hey. It's me."
Speak of the devil herself.
"Where are you?"
"At the airport still. We're only just about to take off now, so it looks like I'll be about an hour late." "A little after eight thirty then?"
"Is that all right? I can always just catch a cab."
"Not like it's past my bedtime, Scully. It's not a problem."
"All right, well, I'll see you later."
"Scully?"
"Yeah?"
"How was your visit?"
Short pause.
"It was all right. I'll tell you about it later."
Well, Mulder thought to himself as he clicked off the phone, if you don't, I'll be asking.
* * * * *
Settled into her seat with a varied selection of reading materials close at hand for the long flight ahead, Scully leaned back against the headrest and closed her eyes in preparation for takeoff. Despite the usual airplane noise and distracting sounds of conversations around her, the fact that she was flying solo from the west coast brought back clear memories of one of the few times that she did so — right after Christmas of 1999...
At the breakfast table on Christmas morning, Dana Scully concluded that mothers — bless their sweet and well-intentioned little hearts and souls — just couldn't keep secrets when it came to their daughters' love lives. That she could understand this fact didn't make the ensuing experience any easier to take, particularly as she was seated directly opposite to brother Bill and had to endure his looks throughout the remainder of the meal. Luckily she had a buffer of sorts with the presence of her other brother and sister-in-law, even though their curiosity was almost equally discomfiting. All things considered, she just wasn't ready to talk about it in roundtable fashion in front of her family. Of course, everyone except Bill was willing to let it go at that.
He managed to recruit his sister's assistance to do the breakfast dishes while everyone else gathered in the living room to wait for the gift opening to resume, watching the kids enjoy their new toys in the meantime. The door to the kitchen had barely swung closed when he started — albeit relatively calmly and quietly — with his protestations.
"You know, all this time I thought those naysayers were off their rockers when they spouted this crap about the year 2000 and the end of the world and all. But now — you and Mulder? It has to be true, right? The world's coming to an end? I mean, nothing short of that will convince me of why this is happening."
"I'll ignore that, thank you very much... aren't you overreacting just a bit? It's not like he's asked me to marry him —"
"Not like any of us would be wondering what your answer might be if he did. Really, Dana, of all the men in the world —"
"In case you hadn't noticed, Bill, all the men in the world haven't exactly been beating down my door." In fact — she thought rather humorously to herself in spite of the strangely hurtful moment — Mulder was the only one who had ever done that. Beat down her door, that is. Literally.
"Don't give me that. You know exactly what's happened. How much you've totally disregarded any possibility for a normal life over the past ten years. Ignoring how much time has passed and pushing aside any attempts that we've made to bring it to your attention. That's why it's ludicrous that you're entertaining thoughts of wasting even more time with this... Mulder."
"What exactly do you have against him, Bill?"
"Are you serious, Dana? You have to ask?"
"Yes. Yes, I do, because I don't know. Or if I might suspect, I don't understand how you can still feel that way. Nothing that's happened to me or to this family has been his fault. And the fact is, you don't even know him beyond what you think he's done to me."
"All I know is that if you hadn't been with him in his insane pursuit of God knows what —" "I'd have been doing something else just as dangerous. I'm an FBI agent, remember?"
"And what about that, Dana? How does the Bureau allow you guys to have any sort of relationship? I can't imagine that's condoned."
"For now, it's none of their business. It's not like we're making out in the hallways. For your information, we haven't done anything."
"Oh please, spare me the details of what you have or haven't done, okay? Look, I know you don't think I'm showing it all that well, but I have a lot of respect for you and the decisions that you make in life. I don't know if you'd ever intentionally get involved with someone who's going to do you harm, but.... I don't know him, like you say, but at the same time, I don't think I'm being unreasonable either. It's not that I suspect him of being an axe murderer or that he actually means to put you in danger. Hell, as little as I've talked to the man, I even believe that he does care about you. But I don't know how he cares. He's so driven —"
"That's much of what I admire in him."
"'Admire'? Jesus, do you even know how you feel about him?"
The exchange came to a halt as two equally strong Scully siblings stared at one another, one surprised that perhaps he had hit onto something significant, the other not wanting to carry on the conversation any further because it had just taken on a new and different complication. "Dana, I want you to have the chance to love someone — and to have someone love you back — in a way that'll see you through to old age, not just through to the next alien-chasing case. I'm not convinced that Mulder's the man for the job. Or that he even knows what to do with the job. And you've said or done little to convince me otherwise."
"I wouldn't know where to start, Bill."
"Start anywhere, Dana. Just convince me."
The sound of jet engines revving up brought her back to the present, back from memories of her clumsy, futile attempt at explaining her feelings to her brother. As the plane moved forward on the tarmac, she was struck by a sudden flash of insight that seemed so simple as to be obvious. It finally occurred to Dana Scully that it wasn't Bill that she needed to convince.
* * * * *
"What bothers you the most about the increasing distance that you've felt?"
"That I don't know how she feels anymore.... Maybe she actually prefers the ambiguous games that we used to play, I don't know. Or maybe she's had a taste of what a relationship with me really entails and it's not what she wants. Or it could just simply be that I've read her wrong all these years and she never did love me in that sense."
"Do you really think that's possible?"
"That last one? No. I don't often read people wrong. And six years of reading Scully had resulted in some pretty consistent observations long before I ever made a move. But it's because I don't often read people wrong that I'm all the more convinced that something's changed in how she feels."
"What are you prepared to do about it?"
"I don't know. I guess that's partly what I'm here to find out. But the bottom line is, I'm not going to spend my life chasing after someone who really doesn't want to be caught by me. That's not what I want out of life. That's not what I'd want for her, either."
* * * * *
Mulder stole another sidelong glance at his partner's preoccupied face and pulled the car over at the next available opportunity. He shifted the vehicle into park, sat back, turned towards her and waited.
Thinking something amiss, Scully quickly turned in all directions to assess the traffic. Seeing nothing other than cars whizzing by as usual, she looked at him in amazement and asked, "What's the matter?"
"Us. We're the matter."
"What do you mean?"
" Don't ask me that. You know what I mean. These days I can't tell if you tolerate me or just plain hate me. It's aggravating and I need to know. I need to know how to fix it. Or if we can't fix it, I need to know that too."
Despite the way that his words seemed to tumble out nonstop, his impression was that she understood both his meaning and motivation. However, the expression that he saw on her face — whether she intended it or not — resembled vague accusation, like he should have known better about something.
It was a look that he had been seeing far too much of lately.
"Dammit Scully, what is it? Why do you let your brother get to you like that? That is it, isn't it? Every time you come back from seeing him, you're distant."
"It's got nothing to do with Bill —"
"Then who or what's it got to do with?"
As they sat and stared one another down, something clicked into place. Whether it was a decision made or an irrevocable step taken, Scully knew that the time was finally at hand, regardless of whether she — or he — was actually ready for it.
"It's got to do with the truth, Mulder. The truth that you haven't told me."
He was stunned. No less than if she'd clobbered him over the head with a bat.
"The truth that I haven't told you?" He parroted back at her when he finally found his voice again. "What truth is this?"
"The truth about Diana." She said it calmly and evenly, in much the same way as she imagined the woman she just named would have done.
He continued to stare at her, seeing real emotions flitting back and forth underneath the calm surface, knowing that this wasn't just something that she had pulled out of a hat to avoid further confrontation. Knowing that, in fact, this was going to be the confrontation that they had both been avoiding since Agent Fowley's death in the fall. Knowing how hard it had been for her to bring up the subject to him, finally.
And yet — sometimes —”knowing" just wasn't enough to alleviate pent-up anger and frustration. Obviously not hers and certainly not his. In fact, he was in serious danger of losing control entirely. "I can't believe this. You mean to tell me that all this — everything that's been making you run hot and cold on me over the past few months — is about a dead woman?"
"No, it's not. It's about a life that could have been —"
He interrupted her impatiently, "Didn't we have this conversation already?"
Her eyes narrowed in puzzlement. "When?"
"The other weekend, when you told me about your doctor friend and how maybe we only have one right path to take in life."
"That is entirely different —"
"How is that different? Just because I haven't gotten myself all screwed up over who he might have been to you?"
"No." Her face turned a deep red as a combination of frustration and embarrassment flooded over her inexplicably. "The difference is that I told you about him."
"But you knew Diana!"
"Not as well as you did, apparently."
"And what do you really mean by that, Scully? Is that just something to make me feel bad for having slept with her before I knew you, or what? I thought we've been all over that too."
"We've been over it without actually getting into it. Mulder, I know you had real feelings for one another. It would be easier if I believed that she really was just one of the bad guys out to get you the entire time. Or if somehow I thought that you never loved her at all. But I know differently, and yet all you've ever done is hide it from me. Even in death, you can't talk about her —"
"Even in death, you can't leave her alone!" He clenched and unclenched his fingers around the steering wheel and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. I understand where you're coming from, but you also have to understand where I'm coming from. It was never part of my grand plan to go through the rest of my life without talking about Diana — but you, Scully... you really haven't been giving me much of anything lately to make me think that you're still interested. Like I said, I don't know how you feel anymore."
She saw him swallow hard after that last statement, as though hearing his own words had caused him unexpected pain. It would have been understandable, since those same words had just triggered genuine panic in her. It was questionable whether she ever really had the advantage of time, but she certainly no longer had the luxury of being able to proceed slowly. She had the distinct impression that if she didn't take action now, something precious was going to die a painful death right here on the car seat between them.
Scully extended her hand towards him slowly, letting it drop onto his forearm. His tightly clenched muscles rippled beneath her fingers.
"Can you take us back to my place so we can talk about this, Mulder? Let's not do this here on the roadside, okay?"
* * * * *
The unnervingly silent drive back to her apartment was uncomfortable but ultimately provided a welcome respite. It gave them both the opportunity to cool off, take stock of their situation, and decide how best to proceed. By the time they sat down in front of Scully's fireplace with cups of hot cocoa beside them — the evening had been unusually chilly for May — they appeared willing, if not entirely ready, to settle whatever issues needed settling.
They joined one another on the floor, half facing the glowing flames of the small fire and half facing one another. He was leaning back against the heels of his hands, his long legs outstretched and crossed in front of him. She had her knees drawn up close to her chest, with her hands clasped in front. There were no lights on except for a nightlight in the kitchen; Mulder had been the one to turn off the floor lamp once Scully finished with the fire. He knew that the semi-darkness would be welcome. It was always much easier to talk without being under the bright lights of interrogation.
"Before I forget, Bill and Tara wanted me to return your hello."
"He did?"
Their eyes met knowingly for a brief moment before Scully turned her attention back to the fire.
"Well, he asked how you were doing. I told him about your mother and he... he wanted to pass along his condolences."
Mulder kept his eyes focused on her face, acutely aware of the fact that it made her uncomfortable. "He knows about us, doesn't he?"
A quick darting glance indicating surprise and several seconds of ensuing silence was his