Getting Back

Sara B. 08/05

Scully watched him getting dressed in complete disbelief.  They’d been lovers for three months and one phone call from that woman had him racing to her side at three in the morning.  It hadn’t even been a lead or even a promise of a lead; just Diana Fowley calling to tell him she needed to speak with him and Mulder couldn’t get dressed fast enough. 

Sadly, this wasn’t even the first time; but it would be the last. 

Scully heard the click of the apartment door and threw the covers back.  She moved to the window, watched him leave the building and make his way to his car.  He was running and somehow that made it worse.  She watched as his car made it to the corner, saying a silent prayer that he would turn around.  He didn’t.  She slowly turned back to the bed, where, not ten minutes before, they’d been sleeping wound in each other’s embrace.  Scully felt the tears prick her eyes but she refused to give them permission to fall.  She made quick work of the bed, changing the sheets to remove their scent from the room.  She dressed and collected all the little things that had migrated from her apartment in old grocery bags then left.  She’d debated whether to leave his key but decided that was foolhardy; they’d had each other’s keys long before they were lovers and they’d had many occasions to use them. 

Scully arrived home and, after dumping her collection from Mulder’s apartment, she ran into the shower.  She desperately needed to remove all traces of their last night from her body for fear she would weaken her resolve.  Cleaned and dressed she put the sheets in the wash, put away the minutia from the bed and collected his items that had made their home in her apartment.  She’d return them with the cleaned sheets when she went out for breakfast.  Sadly, the history of the Fowley calls taught her that Mulder wouldn’t return before seven or eight, nine if he took that woman out to breakfast.  Scully would have been there and gone by five-thirty; she was in no danger of meeting Mulder.  No, their showdown would come later.  Not today or even tomorrow, she had no intention of seeing or speaking to Mulder until Monday and by then she’d know what to tell him.  By then she’d have the words.

-x-

Scully retrieved the box containing Mulder’s belongings from her trunk.  She glanced around to see that she’d been right; Mulder’s car was nowhere in sight and the small ray of hope harbored in her chest died.  She slowly made her way to his apartment with her bundle.  Once inside, she took the box to the bedroom and placed it on the freshly made bed and hung up his suits.  In her earlier haste she’d forgotten to take the two suits she kept in his closet so she retrieved them then moved from the room.  Scully walked to the fish tank and fed them.  “Sorry fellows, you are going to have to get used to Mulder’s haphazard feedings again.  Maybe I’ll get you one of those feeders.”  If she were even the slightest bit fanciful she would have thought they understood her and looked saddened.

-x-

Scully moved straight to her old bedroom and collapsed into the embrace of the small twin bed.  It wasn’t the most original hiding place but her mom was out of town and she needed some comfort to regain her balance.  She couldn’t be in her apartment because he would go there; she doubted he’d go to her mom’s and even if he did Mulder didn’t have a key.

Scully wept.

-x-

Mulder couldn’t wait to get back home and crawl back into bed with Scully.  He still couldn’t believe he’d left like that.  The worst part was he didn’t even have any good information to give her as a consolation for his abrupt departure.  He couldn’t understand why she put up with him but he thanked the powers that be she did. 

He replayed the scene from  the previous night.  He and Scully had exhausted each other in the most beautiful and wondrous way.  They’d taken their time because it was Friday and the only plans they had for the weekend was being together and enjoying a rare opportunity of just being.  He’d only been asleep a short time when the phone rang.  He tried to grab it before it woke Scully and he turned away and spoke low but when he turned back he saw her watching him.  He’d already grabbed his pants and he saw the reproach in her eyes and, he regretted to admit, it made him a little angry.  He hung up the phone, finished dressing and left without any words exchanged.

He really regretted the whole thing and he silently vowed that he would make it up to Scully; this was the last time he went running to Diana.  He’d told Diana exactly that when he realized the lead she promised was nothing more than another spurious hatch job from some very unscrupulous characters.  He knew she was playing him when she insisted that they needed to leave for Kentucky immediately and they couldn’t take Scully.  All the light bulbs came on as Scully’s many warnings about Diana rushed back to him.  No, he didn’t believe Diana was working for the other side but he now knew she was trying to cause trouble between Scully and he.

Scully had put up with too much of his shit and he was going to spend his life making up for it.

Mulder turned the corner and his building came into view, a smile graced his face as he thought about climbing into the Scully-warmed bed.  A full fledged grin emerged when he thought of what he’d do with Scully in that bed.

Mulder made his way to the living room when it struck him.  Something was not right, something was missing.  He quickly made his way to the bedroom and nearly fell to his knees at the sight before him.  The bed was made and a box sat in the middle.  He scanned the room and quickly saw that her things were missing and he knew that if he checked the other rooms he’d find the same.   Scully was gone. 

He made his way to the box and opened the lid hoping to find a note but instead found the sheets that just the night before had been on this bed.  The significance of Scully washing these sheets was not lost on him.

Moments later he was in his car and speeding toward her apartment.  No, that isn’t where she is, he thought.  Mulder pulled into the grocery store parking lot and turned off the engine.  Scully knew he’d go to her apartment so she wouldn’t go there.  But he knew she’d need a place that gave her comfort.  Her mom was out of town but it was still a place she thought of as home.  Mulder headed toward Virginia.

-x-

Mulder picked the lock of the front door and entered the security code before the alarm activated.  He’d made a mental note to have the guys install a new system that didn’t have all the sloppy failings of the commercial models like the box being in the front closet.  A check of the lower level proved she wasn’t up so he made his way to her old room.  Mulder stood in the doorway and watched her sleep, tear tracks stained her cheeks and she looked like a young girl in the bed of her youth.  He glanced around the room taking it all in.  The accouterments of the teenaged girls who shared this room were long gone but he imagined them as Scully had once described them.  The walls on one side lined with David Cassidy and Peter Frampton posters and the book shelves littered with Tiger Beat magazines and topped with Homecoming Queen and Prom Queen Crowns.  The other side, Scully’s side, lined with books and awards from science fairs and various academic achievements.  Both sides of the room reflected of the dichotomy yet the closeness of the sisters who once shared this space.

Mulder made his way to Scully’s bed and sat on the floor.  He fought the urge to take her in his arms and hold her forever.  She stirred and mumbled something resembling his name.  Suddenly her eyes shot open and she pinned him with them.

“I can’t come in second to her anymore.”  Scully said quietly.  “I can’t let you do that to me.”  She turned away because she couldn’t look at him.

Mulder wanted to say something but the lump in his throat refused to let him speak.

“Mulder, I’ve been in a couple serious relationships.  None, not a single one, comes anywhere close to what I have with you.  I love you; you are the only man I will ever love.  I’m selfish; I need to be the only one you love.  But I’m not and I can’t, I won’t go on like this anymore.”

Mulder grabbed gently and pulled her back to look at him.  “You ‘are’ the only one Scully.”

Scully placed her fingers on his mouth silencing him.  “If that were true you wouldn’t have left this morning.  We would still be in your bed and I wouldn’t feel like dying.”

“Scully, I was foolish and I made a mistake, it won’t ever happen again.  You’ve forgiven me in the past, forgive me now.”  Mulder pleaded but the hollowness of his words were evident to both of them.

“It should never have happened at all and we both know that this wasn’t the first time not even the fifth.”  Scully sat up and pulled away slightly.  She placed her hand on his cheek.  “I love you so much Mulder.”  Her eyes lowered, “I love you so much that I’m freeing you.  Freeing you so that you can figure out what you really want Diana or me.  But you can’t have both and I will not be a convenient substitute who shares your bed.”

Scully rose from the bed and headed toward the door.  “It’s time for you to leave.”  She said the words gently but they left no room for him to argue.  They walked silently to the front door and she opened it for him. 

Mulder turned and tried to say something, anything that would help; nothing came to him.  Scully saw his turmoil but had nothing to offer.  Mulder’s arms reached out to mere inches from her but she didn’t move into them so he dropped them.

-x-

Hours later Mulder sat on his couch and Scully’s words pounded at him like an angry sea.  Scenes from the past year flashed in his memory, the hurts and anger.  The times he deferred to Diana, the too many times he deserted Scully to run to Diana; the times he seemed to choose Diana over Scully.

The memory of their first time together came to him with all the joy and pain of that time.  They’d met with Jeffrey Spender, Skinner and Kersh and had been reassigned to the X-Files, active following the completion of their suspension.  Scully had managed to not speak with him and somehow left without his knowledge.  His anger made him bold and he went to her apartment.  They stood in her living room just glaring at each other.  Not a word was said and before either knew it they’d torn their clothes off and were joined.  It had been filled with bitterness and pain but it also held gentleness and love.  It was furious and delicious and, in spite of everything, it was right because it was everything they were.

They’d been together two weeks when the first ‘Diana call’ came.  It was around midnight and their breathing had barely evened out when the phone rang and he’d left.

Mulder wasn’t sure if it was real or a reflection of his guilt but his mind’s eye focused on Scully’s face.  He hadn’t seen it then but now he saw the hurt and disappointment in her countenance.  It was a look that before this past year he’d never seen but had been seeing increasingly since Diana’s involvement in his life.  An involvement he wasn’t sure he wanted to do away with, he realized bitterly. 

Scully was right, she was being selfish but she should be.  Love is selfish and she should never have to share. 

-x-

Monday they were in the elevator after meeting with Skinner.  Mulder’s mind was a jumble and his thoughts were all over the place.  It was as if he were picking up bits and pieces of radio transmissions but nothing came in clear enough to follow.

Things happened quickly after that and now Scully was walking away from his apartment after telling him that Diana Fowley had been murdered.  It had been a week since Scully had rescued him where they’d left him to die; where Diana had left him to die.  By then he knew all about Diana and her loyalties. 

He’d also lived a life with her.  A life where he lived as a husband, a father, a brother, an uncle and a son.  It was a life of easy comforts, where he carried no burdens.  He was given the gift of ignorance and it turned into a curse.  It was cold and colorless; completely empty.  That is until the end when Scully came to him and told him the truth and made him see what a coward he was.  It was then he understood just how vital Scully was to him and how unfair and cruel he’d been. 

The irony was that now Diana was gone how could he convince Scully he’d chosen her because she really was the one and not just a convenience?

Mulder called the Gunmen for help, he had the plan but he was in no shape to put it in place.  It all started with a candle lit dinner from the Italian place down the street.  Tonight he would tell her everything about his history with Diana.

-x-

Scully walked to her car in a daze.  Mulder had wined and dined her then confessed.  He told her about meeting Diana Fowley just after Quantico when he’d been assigned to work a case with her.  How two months later they ended up in bed together after a drunken celebration for the apprehension of Dale Meleander, serial child molester and murderer.  Mulder told her how they grew closer and how she was the one who introduced him to Werber and regressions.  It had felt like a kick in the ribs when he told her of their quickie marriage and even quicker divorce. “I guess the obsessions she found so endearing in her lover lost their attraction in her husband.”  He’d said in such an offhanded way she knew it had hurt him deeply. 

Mulder held nothing back and when he told her about the dream he’d had she nearly lost her dinner.  The blow was softened, slightly, when he told her how empty his dream life was.  But she was still reeling from it. 

Mulder told her what he’d read in Diana’s mind; everything about her associations and betrayals.  He also hinted that he knew what was in her mind, that he knew just how deeply she felt for him. 

“Scully, if you take nothing else from this, please believe me when I tell you that I never slept with Diana since she returned.”  Mulder’s eyes had pleaded with her to understand and believe.

Scully smiled and touched his cheek.  “I believe it but I still feel that you cheated on me.”  She laughed at his look of shock.  “Mulder, fidelity is more than physical.  Fidelity, real fidelity, is physical and emotional.  You had an emotional affair.”

The night had not ended badly but she was sure Mulder had expected more from her.  She’d waited this long for him to be ready, now it was his time to wait for her.

-x-

Mulder rose from the couch carefully so as not to wake her.  He took the cups to the kitchen and washed them.  He leaned back against the counter and thought of everything Scully had told him tonight.  At first he’d been angry that she hadn’t told him of Daniel Waterston before but then he remembered his own actions regarding Diana.  At least Scully told him before it interfered in their lives. 

He dried his hands and walked into the living room.  Scully was no longer on his couch.  Mulder made his way to the bedroom and found her already in bed.  He wasn’t quite sure what his next move should be. 

Scully saved him from his mini hell of indecision.  “Come to bed Mulder.”