Last Night in Arcadia

Sara B. 07/06

They were heading home the next day.  The monster had been vanquished.  The rented furniture and van had all been returned.  Rob and Laura Petrie had been relegated back to Nick at Nite, where they belonged, and Mulder and Scully were ensconced in connecting rooms at the Radisson. 

All was right with the world; or not.

Mulder stared at the ring he still wore trying to make sense of it all.  No, not the case, but why he and Scully were so far apart emotionally. 

He wasn’t stupid he knew where the roots of this distance started; where it had gone to hell.  It wasn’t the night El Rico burned, no, this chasm had its beginnings with the events that led up to another fire. 

A little boy vanished, his, no, their office burned and his ex-lover was lying in the hospital fighting for her life from a bullet he later found out was meant for Scully.  Skinner had changed the shift schedules at the last minute.  Scully was supposed to have been with Gibson that night.  The thought was sobering.

They were in his apartment when Skinner’s second call came in.  This time he was the one to answer.  It was followed by a mad dash to the Hoover.  Mulder had a vague recollection of Scully holding him and him pushing her away.  He’d left her there and went to the hospital where he’d sat next to Diana’s bed holding her hand and watching the monitors. 

The next morning he found out, from one of the nurses, that Scully had followed him there.  She never entered the room but watched from the hallway.  The nurse said she left two hours later.  Scully never offered and he never asked but he’d always wondered what she saw in that hospital room that night.  It seemed to be the pivotal point when things between them changed.

He didn’t see Scully for three days, not until the meeting with Skinner to discuss their reassignment; Domestic terrorism.  Scully sat so still and stiff, her eyes never wavered from the window behind Skinner and for the first time in years Mulder wasn’t sure where Dana Scully stood.

Three weeks later he nearly kissed her.  They’d been a hairs breath away when she’d been stung and he nearly lost her again.  She’d been infected and taken again but he located her and brought her back and they never spoke of the near kiss again.

She didn’t support his position on what happened in Antarctica so he turned from her.  He used her science against her.  He’d asked if she were asking him to make a choice and he could see she would have been less shocked if he’d slapped her.   

Scully turned it around and handed him the proof he’d needed.  He should have trusted Scully.  Her original tests had not provided her with the results they’d expected so he thought she’d dropped it.  He should have known that Scully would not be satisfied; that she would continue to look into the evidence for him. 

If he were to point to the moment Scully lost her confidence in them, in her place with him, it was that one horrible moment defined by one carelessly cruel question.

Carelessly cruel, that could describe so many moments in his dealings with Scully’s feelings; too many moments.  Too many things needed to be said, never were and too many things that shouldn’t have been said were.

Mulder knew he would look at the roller coaster ride of the last year as some of the bleakest times of his less than shining life.  During the last year he’d turned his back on the one person who chose to stay with him.  Scully stayed, not because she had to but because she wanted to. 

He’d made Scully doubt her importance in his life and how much she means to him.  He’d given her reason to believe he preferred someone from his past and had done nothing to dispel that erroneous idea. 

Mulder played with the ring on his finger.  He knew he should take it off but then the spell would be truly broken and he’d be plain old Fox Mulder, single man.  He wanted the illusion to last a while longer.

The knock on the connecting door jolted him from his dark thoughts. 

Scully walked in carrying the room service menu.  “I was getting hungry so I thought I’d order in.  Care to join me?”  She waved the menu.  The sparkle of gold and diamonds from the third finger of her left hand caught Mulder’s eyes and he smiled.

End