MSR NC-17 (3/4) Desire Is Suffering************************************************************************** Part 3/4 -- see part one for disclaimors and info Scully got back to her apartment at seven am on a Monday three weeks later, after a weekend in Los Angeles, hopping off the red eye aboard which she'd slept horribly if at all. She had been interviewing for a job at Pepperdine. She was jet-lagged and her skin filmy and dry. It was hard for her to imagine she'd once averaged that much airtime in a week. She wanted to sink into a hot foamy tub and then take a nap. She was glad she arranged in advance to take a personal day. She set her overnight bag down by the front door and walked into her bedroom, beginning to raise her shirt over her midriff. "Deja vu." Mulder said, from a dark corner of her bedroom. "You always peel off your clothes the minute you get home, Scully?" She let her shirt fall back over her stomach and stood in the middle of her bedroom and stared at Mulder. "You're wondering what I'm doing here. You're probably about to toss me out. I would." "Okay," Scully said, "Get out. Leave your key on the table." "Jeez," Mulder said. "I was joking. When did you get so serious, Scully? Or should I ask with whom have you gotten so serious that you're tramping in at this hour looking so... rumpled?" "Good guess, Mulder," Scully said, walking briskly into the kitchen, filling a glass with water and drinking it down. "It doesn't matter, none of my business," he said, following close behind her. "You scared me, Mulder. Scully said, putting down the glass. "I'm no longer accustomed to such routine breeches of my privacy." "You know, I've been rehearsing this for weeks, and it's not going at all like it did in my head." "Rehearsing?" "My apology," he said. Scully stared at him. "You know," he said, "when I came to see you at work, it was to make nice. I've thought about it, Scully, and I can't figure out why I acted like I did." It occurred to her she was starving. The last time she'd eaten had been lunch the day before. Scully pivoted and opened the fridge, stared into it as though maybe that was where all the answers were kept. "You got anything to drink?" Mulder asked, looking over her shoulder into her fridge. "A man gets parched, sitting in the dark." "Mulder?" Scully said, turning her head around. "How long were you in my bedroom?" "Twelve hours. No," he said, jingling his watch and holding it up to his ear, "thirteen." "In the chair?" "Yep. Well, I got up to use the john twice, but with the exception of that, in the chair." "Were you awake all night?" "I'm not sure. I hope not." "Join the club," she mumbled. She took out eggs and toast. "Who-hoo Scully. Some night? He held up a hand to high five her, which she would have ignored even if her arms hadn't been full. "Some night." she said. She didn't ask him if he wanted to stay for breakfast, she just made enough eggs and toast for the two of them. She kept handing him things that he ferried to the table: two place settings, a pot of jam, catsup and tobasco. They made small talk, like old friends who hadn't seen each other in a while. Which, she had to suppose for the moment, they were. They chatted easily about each other's families and what they had done for the holidays. They even talked about X-Files without incident, him updating her about some cases they had worked on together. The conversation became slightly more charged when he inquired how work was going for her. "Well," she said, "dead bodies. There's only so much you can say. It's a little slow compared to what we did, but slow can be nice. And I have some other irons in the fire." When he asked her to elaborate, she talked a little bit about the research she hoped to begin working on and her plans to leave the Bureau. She was glad to dispel his misconception that her motivations for leaving the X-Files included her secret FBI ambitions. Though she would have rather let him go on thinking that than tell him her real secret ambition, she supposed, which was to get into his pants. As Mulder chatted about some MUFON gossip she barely cared about, she smiled slightly as that thought wormed through her head, wondered briefly what he'd do if she just blurted out just one secret true thing over breakfast: Mulder, once I start, I can't stop thinking about your hands. She had to shake a smirk off her face as she stood to make more toast. When she sat back down, she asked him how Rhymes was. "Totally inexperienced." Mulder said. "But, all in all, a big help. He's no Scully, but he's basically working out." She smiled. "You call me when you need me," she said quietly, her eyes on her plate. "Scully," Mulder said when he'd finished his food and rose to leave, covering his hand with hers. "Those were some good eggs." "Thanks," she said. When her phone rang a few days later, she was hugely relieved to hear Mulder launch into a description of unknown antigen that was jumping from chickens to farmers in a small South Dakota town, asking her if she'd ever heard of such a thing. ************************************************************************** Through that spring, Scully continued working in an unofficial capacity on the X-Files, answering Mulder's questions, keeping him on track by challenging him when he needed it, handling the dead bodies and other scientific evidence that inevitably turned up in the course of the work. Scully didn't exactly get the absence from Mulder and therefore relief she sought from her feelings, as they spoke nearly daily. He was still a central figure in her consciousness as well as in her life, but to a more comfortable degree. It was amazing how not staying in joining hotel rooms with someone on a regular basis could cut down on the number of impure thoughts you entertained about them. And since she wasn't working in the field with him, she didn't have worries that sprang up from that. For all of those reasons, she turned down a job in Pepperdine without a second thought when an offer came, and took a job at American University in DC that would begin in the fall. She'd give her notice at the bureau in mid-summer. Mulder looked as relieved as she'd ever seen him when she shared her decision with him. One night she met Rhymes and Mulder at a restaurant after her pathology had helped them solve a tough case that had gotten a serial rapist put away. The three of them were heady with the victory. They laughed and ate ribs in a booth, Rhymes next to Scully, the two of them ganging up on Mulder, teasing him. Rhymes finished his beer in a long sip then ducked out. "See you, Vinny," Mulder said as he left, and Scully felt a pang at the ease in his voice. She was jealous, and wondered for the millionth time her life why her emotions didn't make more damn sense, why she couldn't bring them under the umbrella of reason. Mulder's mood changed too, as soon as Rhymes was out the door. They sat silently for a few minutes, occasionally eyeing each other. "Tell me something," Mulder said finally, breaking the silence. "We've always put our trust in the truth, right?" "Yeah." "Have you been totally honest with me Scully? About the reasons you left the X-Files?" She hadn't been prepared for that question. Dealing such matters in a forthright way wasn't Mulder's usual style. "Why do you ask?" she said. He'd shed completely the wise cracking self he'd been a minute before with Rhymes. He was suddenly nervous, slumped in the booth, shredding his cocktail napkin. "I don't know," he said, and shrugged. "I've wondered that for a while. I talked to your mom after you left. She really helped me, Scully. She talked about how if you're patient, if you can learn to be still, you begin to see things you wouldn't see otherwise. Scully smiled, slightly embarrassed. "My mother talks that way sometimes." "No," Mulder said, shaking his head, "she's great. I don't know if you noticed this about me, Scully, but I tend to go around trying to force everything. That's how I wander into so many ass-kickings, I see now. I'm not sure I've changed my style dramatically, but your mother gave me something to think about that night. And she helped me to turn a corner, after you left. And she said that maybe you hadn't been able to tell the whole story in your letter." "Mostly I was. Do you suspect me of some specific duplicity, Mulder?" "Not exactly," he said. "It's been for the best. Now the X-Files have three pairs of hands instead of two, and we have a whole new angle for attacking cases. We have more leverage, and we're optimizing our separate strengths. You saw it would be that way." He took a swig of his beer. "All I could sniff was betrayal." "You've often been betrayed," Scully said. "Of course you'd see it that way." He give her so much credit for foresight. She had no idea it would work out as well as it had; she'd just needed to go pretty desperately. She felt guilty and wanted to confess that, but didn't want to open that can of worms, so she'd save it for her priest. "I couldn't have just let you go," Mulder said. "You were right about that. My head would have understood, but..." his voice trailed off. He was shaking his head slowly, staring out into the middle of the room. "But...?" "I wouldn't have had the stomach to do it, that's all." Scully didn't trust her voice so she sat silently across from him, fingering the lip of her wine glass. "Anyway," he said, waving his hand. "You said mostly." "What?" "You said you were mostly honest, in the letter. What did you leave out?" "The letter," she said, and laughed ruefully. "I'm not sure I can tell you. Does it still matter?" "Ah ha," he said. "Ah ha?" "I think I know what it is." "Do you?" she asked. Her heart thudded. "Yes," he said, holding the s, making the word hiss. "I think my sparkling personality finally got to you Scully. The one that never lets me keep anyone around for very long." "Rhymes..." Scully interrupted. "Rhymes," Mulder said, "is a saint. And it won't be too long before he's out of here, too. You put up with me for five years, Scully, and that's some kind of record. You should sue the FBI for hazard pay. I swear, I think if I found Samantha, she'd probably avoid me. 'Sorry Fox,' he said in a falsetto voice, 'I've got to do my laundry tonight. Don't you have any friends, Fox?'" Scully smiled at his imitation. "G'head Scully," Mulder said, "Let me have it. I think it will be good for us. I was moody. Self-centered. I took you for granted." Scully burst out laughing. "What?" Mulder said. Scully got up from her seat in the booth and plopped down next to Mulder on his side. He sat up. "I'm right, aren't I?" "So you thought the think the thing I left out of the note was that you were annoying? Of course you were annoying, Mulder." She brushed the hair from his forehead and kissed his cheek. "I'm going home." As she stood she broke out into a fresh round of laughter and left him sitting in the booth. When she left the restaurant she was smiling, but by the time she got home Scully was sad. He had such a self-assured exterior, but how easily his self-confidence could be rocked. It wasn't as important to Mulder as it was to most people to be liked, and that was the beauty of him. But he needed her to like him, at least. She always forgot how fragile he was, how lonely at his center. Thinking about this reminded her how much she missed him day to day, the way he made every exchange an intimacy, how his calls and visits were often the highlight of her otherwise humdrum week, how things just seemed to matter more when he was in the room. Scully ran the tub for a round of hydrotherapy, sinking into the bubbles a few minutes later. She might as well have dozed off, for how relaxed she soon was, but when she next fully conscious moment she was aware that someone was in her apartment, banging around in the kitchen. She hopped out of the tub and wrapped herself in her robe, moving quickly through the bedroom and scooping her gun from where it rested in its holster on her nightstand on the way to the living room. She pivoted around and pointed her gun at Mulder's head, which was in her kitchen. "Woah," he said holding out his hands. She lowered her gun breathed her hair out of her eyes. "I knocked. I didn't think you were home. I was leaving you a note." "It's after eleven, Mulder. I just saw you. What are you doing here?" "You left so fast," he said. His eyes traveled the length of her body. "Were you in the shower?" She pulled her robe more tightly around her. "I thought of something I needed to ask you," he said. "It couldn't wait?" "I don't know. I tried to phone but you didn't answer. Your place was on my way home. I thought you'd be up." "What?" She said. He took a step toward her. "Can I sit down? On your couch? Scully, we're standing in your kitchen." "Sorry," she said, "of course. Just give me a minute here, okay?" "Take your time," he said as she passed through the living room back into the bedroom. "I'll polish the silver or something." Scully hastily brushed out her hair and went to pull her clothes back on, but they smelled like smoke from the bar. She pulled on a pair of jeans, a cotton pullover, and some thick socks, released the plug on the tub, and went back out into the living room. "Nice socks," Mulder said when she emerged from the bedroom and sat down on the other end of the couch from him. "Are they mine?" "Would you like something to drink?" "You trying to get me drunk, Scully?" "Mulder." Scully said, sinking down at the other end of the couch, "Couldn't your jokes have waited 'till morning?" "Yes, sorry. Of course. Which reminds me of why I came over to bother you at this hour. You never said what you omitted from the letter." "What?" "You said there was something you didn't tell me when you ditched me. You listened to my guess, you laughed at my guess, and you took off. You never actually said what it was." "Damn," she said "I though I got away with it, too." Mulder was looking at his hands, smiling. "If it wasn't that I'm a pain in the ass, what was it?" "You know what?" Scully said, "I want something to drink." She was stalling for time, seeing that any possible safe avenues out of this conversation were in the process of closing themselves off. He wouldn't leave, she knew, until he had an answer. At least not happily. She drizzled some brandy into each of two snifters. It wasn't that she was above lying to him, it was just that she could think of nothing. "You really need to know?" she asked, sitting in the chair across from where he sat on the couch after handing him a glass. "The truth," he said, nodding solemnly. "Okay. The truth. I guess I owe you that," Scully said. "The truth, Mulder, is the opposite of your guess." "Hmmm. A riddle. You quit because I thought you were a pain in the ass? Of course you're a pain in the ass, Scully." He was smiling. She tried to make herself small, leaning out over her knees and taking a sip of her brandy. She was suddenly cold. And then she watched as what she was trying to say to Mulder sunk in. The smile left his face and he looked at her, squinting. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it, took a sip of his brandy, swirled it around so it coated the sides of the glass and took another sip. "Really?" he asked, his voice cracking, tilting his head at her. Scully covered her face with her hands. "Yeah." "Huh. I mean, that makes sense. But me? I mean, look at you. For real?" "Now you know, Mulder. Could we just not talk about it? Ever again? Please?" "Yeah. I mean, I'm just surprised. Glad, I mean." "I guess I'd like to be alone now," Scully said. Mulder put his brandy on the coffee table and stood up as if to leave, then sat down again. "So you quit because you liked me too much? I'll never mention after tonight, but I have to leave here clear on this. And that was the problem?" "One of the problems. The one I left out of the note." "Yeah, of course," he said. "Along with the others." "And it wasn't that I liked you too much, but that I liked you too much in a specific way you're not supposed to like your partner. I mean I'm mostly over it now. But I was worried my feelings was interfering with the work. I needed some space from you. And to even discuss those feelings with you Mulder, well, it would have violated about a dozen bureau policies." Scully was folded over in the chair, rocking as she spoke, looking everywhere but at Mulder. Mulder's head snapped up. "When did we care about rules?" "There are good reasons for those guidelines, Mulder." "You're right," he said, "I know." Scully's face felt hot. The brandy wasn't helping calm her nerves like she hoped it would. She needed Mulder gone. She handed him his jacket and picked him up by the sleeve while he still had that dumb look on his face, before he had time to fully absorb any more of what she'd told him. She pushed him in the direction of the door, hoping they hadn't hired anyone else out at Pepperdine yet. She'd call over there in the morning. Mulder walked in front of Scully, her hand prodding the middle of his back to keep him moving. When they got to the door, he turned to face her. Pressing his back against the jam, he prevented her from turning the deadbolt and showing him out. "I'm just thinking out loud here, Scully," he said. "But you know what I think I would have done if you'd run this problem by me while you were still partners?" "No," she said, sighing, trying to gather her patience. "I think," he whispered, raising his right hand to stroke her face, "something like this." He leaned in and brought his lips close to hers, then kissed her mouth slowly and soundly. "Yeah," he said after he had rocked back on his heels and opened his eyes, "that's about right." Then he turned around and let himself out. Scully finished her own brandy and then the one Mulder'd barely touched. She refused to wonder what anything meant as she slipped into her silk pajamas and climbed into bed, running her fingers over her lips where his lips had been lightly. She was trying to hold onto that one brief wave of sensation, Mulder's achingly soft mouth and his aftershave and the taste of the brandy all colliding to fill her horizon with a momentary roar as he listed toward her, receding as he fell away. Then he didn't call her for two weeks. She'd been convinced that the whole evening was another fantasy of hers, an hallucination, a hoax. Except that if it hadn't happened, she would have heard from him, she was sure. ************************************************************************** The day after Mulder had that confusing, beautiful moment with Scully at her apartment, he was called to New Mexico with Rhymes on an X-File. The twenty or so Navajo code talkers who had been remembering the contents of the Defense Department tape that catalogued the governments cover-up of knowledge of certain secrets each began to come down with a strep virus. At first, it looked a lot like mononucleosis, but they kept getting sicker and sicker, until they began to die. Mulder and Rhymes stayed in New Mexico two weeks, trying to untangle it all, Mulder feeling more and more humiliated as each code talker died, some young and healthy, parents and children at their bedsides. He had been to six memorial services and twice as many sickrooms. Finally all that was left to do was go back to Washington. He hadn't called Scully, though she would have been helpful on the case. He didn't know why. An hour after he got back to his apartment and his cell phone rang, he wasn't surprised when it was Scully. "Hey, Scully," he said. "I meant to call. I've been really busy with this case. I just got back." "I know," she said. "I've been getting updates from Rhymes." Rhymes. Mulder made a mental note to have a talk with that kid. "I was worried about you," Scully said. "Didn't your boyfriend keep you company?" he asked. He didn't know why he said it. Partly to hurt her, partly because he wondered if it was true. After all, where had she been that night he sat in her bedroom? It had occurred to him to ask, but he never worked up the courage to hear the answer. She had moved on, but he was stuck in the rot and death and corruption of the X-Files. He was still living it. He would be mean to her, then. Scully let out a slow sigh. "I don't have a boyfriend, Mulder," she said. "I don't even have a cat." "I don't care," he said, relieved. "You know what, Mulder? You may not like me much right now. You may still harbor all kinds of resentment against me. You're probably frustrated by the work and afraid of any one of a thousand things," she said. "and you might even miss me. But you have no right to talk to me that way." He ached across the span of his chest as his phone went dead. He was such an asshole. She'd made herself vulnerable to him and he was a total asshole in return. (Good work, slick.) Still, he had no idea what to do with the information Scully had given him that night, the last time he saw her; he honestly hadn't been fishing for that type of confession. So it surprised him. Confounded him. Confused him. Aroused him. Of course he'd known from the very start that he'd like have Scully, in that specific way you're not supposed to have your partner, as she so euphemistically and adorably put it that night.. She was-- well-- she was Scully. But he never dared to act on his desires other than in his fantasies-- he kept his feelings for her as well as his speculations about hers for him tucked deep inside him, somewhere below his diaphragm-- there was just too much at stake. Starting with, she was his only friend, and if he lost her because she wasn't interested or because she was and it turned out he was a bad boyfriend (of course you are, you schmuck!), then what was he left with? Second, if he were to kiss Scully and get naked with Scully, and eat leisurely, weekend breakfasts with Scully, if they were to give into that, then the rest of it wouldn't matter any more, he feared. He couldn't see himself caring as much what happened to Samantha or what his father died for or the conspiracy or any of it if he had Scully to come home to. To let anything else in, to let it matter at all, would be to give up. Lastly and most importantly, he was terrified. His loved ones tended to die and / or disappear in bad ways. And if something were to happen to Scully, he would never forgive himself if he thought that his being her lover had anything to do with her commitment to the work and to him. As it was, their attachment made him nervous. Sometimes, when he was just enjoying her platonic company, he got a sick feeling like he was running up a huge bill at a restaurant he didn't have the means to pay. It had to be her choice to do the work, free and clear of personal attachments, or he felt too responsible. He felt responsible anyway, and sometimes used to hope she would just ditch him. But when she did, of course, it felt like a death. And now that he knew the reason was because she liked him too much, of all things (one of the reasons, you self-important bastard!), he just felt worse. And he also felt like the next time he was alone with her, knowing how she felt about him (or used to feel, she said herself she's over you, you arrogant prick!), he didn't know if he would be able to stop himself from kissing her again. ************************************************************************** Later that night he called her at home. "Scully?" he said, "I'm an asshole." "Keep talkin'" she said. "Doesn't' that about say it all?" he said. They were silent for a minute. "Mulder, when I was a junior in high school a boy I liked, my lab partner in advanced biology, Robby Stinson, asked me to the junior prom. "Do you still have the corsage pressed between the pages of your memory book Scully?" Mulder said. "I'm telling you a story to illustrate a point, Mulder, so pipe down. I didn't really date much at that point. In fact, in that way high school is a lot like my life right now. But Robby was smart and studious and cute with a gap-toothed smile. I'd had a secret crush on him all year." "I'm not getting your point, Scully." "So you can imagine my surprise, when, a few days after he asked me, I heard Vicki Weston talking in the girls bathroom about how Robby Stinson had asked her to the prom." "Ouch," Mulder said. "What happened?" "I presented him with this infromation, fully expecting him to explain away the contradiction rationally, to clear up the misunderstanding." "Uh-oh. What'd he say?" "He looked at his shoes and confessed that he'd just blurted out an invitation to her when she brushed up against him at the lockers." "Oh no!" Mulder said. "Big tits?" "Vicki was a C student who went on to distinguish herself by dropping out of cosmetology school because the psychology class was too hard. Huge tits. And frankly Mulder, though she was nice enough, she was easy. Even then. And I couldn't believe someone as smart as Robby could be so stupid and insensitive." "Heh heh." "Anyway, the work was never the same after that. He claimed to have scarlet fever the week we were due to present our experiment at the state science fair. Pickeled frogs suffered from our strained relationship, Mulder. And the cat we tried to dissect. I can't even talk about the cat." "Does this story have an uplifting ending Scully? Because I was depressed when I called you, but this conversation is making me suicidal." "Well, my brother Bill made sure Robby had a black eye for the prom, if you count that." "I've met your brother," he said, "and I don't." "I didn't either. The point is, Mulder, that I've learned something since high school. And we've been through too much to wind up awkward, inept, and hostile with each other because of one chaste, little kiss given and reciprocated to express an infinitely complex range of emotions. Frankly, Mulder, I've been on the other end of hotter kisses from my six-year-old nephew. So get over it." "Scully?" Mulder said after a pause. "What?" "Will you go the prom with me?" "Didn't I just say I'd learned something since high school?" ************************************************************************** They talked every night after that, Mulder working sixteen hour days tracing down every possible lead on the Navajo case, pushing too hard, riding this new partner, evading Skinner who was leaning on him to wrap up the case. Late at night he would call Scully to get the results of the lab work she'd performed that day and to update her on the case. Usually, nothing was new. Some nights he wound up telling her over the phone how hard it had been to watch the same men who nursed him back to health in the desert die, and without having any rites to perform against it. He confessed to her how superfluous and useless he felt. "At least," he told her, "they could have been angry at me for being the one to bring this thing down on them, but they weren't. And I can't turn up a damn thing." She would quiet him, encourage him, assure him it wasn't his fault. Whatever he needed. It was a new dynamic for them. In the past, he didn't bring up such issues with her, and even if he had, she would have been too close to the case herself to talk about them with such clarity and compassion. He felt slightly dirty, that he had been so bad to her and still she was there for him to lean on when he needed her. Where her faith in him came from, he couldn't guess. It astounded him. He made a mental note not to be a creep or to dash off to a skin flick the next time she needed his support on something. One night around eleven called her to see if the pathology was in from the latest body she'd autopsied. It was, and it showed nothing more or less than the rest. "Sorry," she said. "I wish I could be of more help on this one. Where are you?" "I don't know," he said. "Connecticut and 53rd. Driving around in the rain. I'm out of leads, Scully," Mulder said. "Whoever is responsible for these deaths-- and I have a feeling I know who that is-- is covering their tracks completely. The last code talker will die tomorrow if he didn't die tonight, and I've done everything I know how to do. I just don't have any idea what do next." "Come over," she said. He pulled the phone from his ear and looked at it for a split second before pressing it back against his head. He hadn't misinterpreted what he'd heard in the low rasp of her voice. It was longing. "You sure?" He said, "It's late." "I'm sure." she said. **************************************************** End part 3/4 Darwin .