Dana Scully closed the office door, leaving her partner and her
superior alone together. She smiled a little to herself, despite her
worry. Fox Mulder was hurting badly after that last little caper with
Linda Bowman. Walter Skinner was the one to help him now, if they'd
only stop running in place.
* * *
Mulder thought he was keeping a big secret. They all did.
Scully, though, had a sense about these things. Melissa thought she was
psychic, but that was ridiculous. It's all a matter of mannerisms and
subtle reactions - purely scientific in nature. Not that she expected
every man who saw her to be attracted to her. She was not vain, and she
certainly pegged men as straight who didn't look at her twice. And men
as bi who never looked at anything else with her in the room. There was
just something about men that she could always know. One day she'd sit
down and figure it out, but not now. Not when she was finally picking
up the pieces after her cancer and after her daughter, rebuilding her
life again.
She could remember walking into Mulder's office for the first time
with crystal clarity. He turned around in his chair, looking at her
through those glasses that made him look so adorable. It wasn't fair.
*Her* glasses made her look forty. *His* made him look cute.
Her first thought was, "Oh, he's gorgeous. This could be fun."
Her second was, "Too bad he's nuts." Followed by, "It doesn't matter,
he's gay." She just knew it, again. It wasn't anything he said or did.
He didn't hit on her, and he treated her as an adversary (well, she had
been sent to spy on him) but not as helpless or stupid or weak. He
assumed that she was competent and went on from there. She even liked
that he called her Scully. There were times now that she responded to
it better than to Dana.
He was gorgeous, and he was nuts, and he was unmistakably
brilliant and intuitive. He read people like they were books, and he
remembered every book he ever read. They tossed theories about like
racquetball and even when they reached an impasse they never lost
respect for each other.
When did he become her best friend? When did he become her only
friend? Everyone else was dull next to Mulder. Everything was dull
next to Mulder. She knew she was more intelligent now. She had to be
just to keep up. And he needed that competition. He also needed
something to rely upon. Someone he could call in the middle of the
night. Someone to drive three hours to bail him out of a drunk tank or
to lock him in a storage room or shoot him in the shoulder if he needed
it. Scully liked being needed. She became a doctor to help people, she
joined the FBI to help better. No one needed more than Mulder. He was
sometimes more than one person could manage.
"Hey, Scully. You awake?"
"What is it now, Mulder? It's 2AM!"
"I just had this dream. I don't remember it now, but I woke up on
the floor again."
"Buy a bed, Mulder. They're lots more comfortable than couches
and you don't fall out of them."
"I can't get back to sleep. Can I come over?"
"Now I won't get back to sleep either. Is that your plan?"
"Misery loves company." And she'd throw on some sweats and put a
frozen pizza in the oven. The frozen pizzas she bought just for times
like this. She should get an award for Co-dependent Partner of the
Year. And they'd talk for a couple of hours until she fell asleep on
*her* couch while he channel surfed. She'd wake to find him gone. He'd
be bright and chipper at the office the next day, waving airline tickets
in her bleary face.
No wonder there were rumors about them. They spent off-duty time
together. They were always traveling together, staying in motels
together. How many nights did he spend on the floor of her room because
one of them had nightmares and couldn't sleep? The only way they could
spend more time together would be if they were married. Now, that was a
scary thought. Living with Mulder fulltime for more than a week or so?
She couldn't survive it. She hoped that...
She actively tried to squelch the rumors, and that, predictably,
spread them further. That was her intention. If her friend wanted to
keep his lifestyle a secret, this would only help.
She didn't mind that he stayed closeted around her. She knew that
a gay FBI agent would have a short career one way or another, so they
tended to stay hidden except in the secret places that she wasn't
supposed to know about. She did mind that he had felt he needed to put
on a charade around her - all those magazines and videos. She didn't
doubt that he had real magazine and videos that she would never see (and
didn't especially want to see, either.) But he was so obvious about it.
He was as much as shouting that he was a heterosexual pervert. She
would have figured out his secret even with out that odd sense. Maybe
he decided that himself, since he wasn't talking about his videos or
reading his magazines quite so much lately. Or something else had taken
his attention.
"Scully, are you all right?"
"I'm fine, Mulder."
They had that conversation every day for months. They both knew
she was lying, and they both let it go. She loved him for that. Oh,
yes, she loved him. He needed her so much and Scully wanted to be
needed, even when she was dying. She worried about him when she was
dying. Who come to his rescue when she was too sick to work anymore?
When she was dead? He'd closed himself off from everyone else in the
world. He was alienated from his mother, and the three guys were not
really in a position to save him. Someone else was.
"Agent Scully?"
"Yes, sir?"
"I have your report about the events in Rhode Island."
"Yes, sir. I hope it was satisfactory."
"You did a commendable job, Agent Scully."
"Mulder should be ready for duty in a few more days."
"Yes. That's good news." Skinner took off his glasses, rubbed
his eyes and replaced them. He shook his head. "Is it good news, Agent
Scully? Or will the damn fool go after something else?" His knuckles
were white.
She just smiled.
"I'm sorry, Agent Scully. You don't need this now. You didn't
need this past weekend, either."
"He's my partner, sir. And you made perfectly clear that taking
care of Mulder was part of my job description."
He had, too, during the Roche investigation. Scully would never
forget the way he tore into her when that idiot Mulder actually took a
convicted mass murderer on a commercial airline to Boston. She resented
it for a moment. Then she understood. She knew, of course, that
Skinner was bisexual. Now she had final confirmation that Skinner was,
for whatever reason, in love with her partner. She'd thought something
was up while Mulder-the-idiot was off in Russia *breaking into* a gulag,
and proved it. He was worried sick about her partner and could not show
it in any other way without arousing suspicion.
"I'm sorry about that, Agent Scully."
"It's all right, sir. He obviously needs someone to take care of
him. I'm his partner for as long as I can be."
"Thank you."
"Sir?"
"Yes?"
"When I...can't be anymore, find him someone else. Don't let him
be alone." She clasped her hands together so hard she could feel her
fingernails.
"Agent Scully, you have my word on that, even if I have to do it
myself."
"Thank you, sir. I need to know that."
She did, too. She knew it would be hard to find Mulder a partner
who would refute his theories without refuting him, and who would care
for him at all. Mulder made pissing people off an art form. But
Skinner had already seen past that. He cared about the brilliant idiot.
He'd take care of her lost little boy for her.
She wasn't sure if Mulder knew or how he felt. He was so
concerned about her that he may not have had room for anything else
anyway. And she couldn't help him. She had to deal with dying on her
own terms. It was too much to ask her to help him through it, too.
And then...then they were told Mulder's search was all "beautiful
lies." And she told Mulder it was *his* fault she had cancer. And she
walked into her apartment and found a tear-stained partner with a
horrific tale. It wasn't the surveillance or the dead body on his floor
that horrified her - these things were nothing new in either of their
lives.
"We can make it look like a suicide. I blew his face off so no
one could see who it was." He was in her living room, drinking coffee.
"Suicide, Mulder? Why would a strange man come to your apartment
to kill himself?" She'd finally changed into nightclothes, and was
sitting in a chair opposite him.
"Not 'himself,' Scully. 'Myself.' We can make it look like I
killed myself."
She froze. Would anyone believe that? Yes, they would, and all
too easily.
"Mulder?" She could hardly speak. "Mulder, why suicide?"
His voice was always flat, but this time it was dead. "I was
holding my weapon in my hand when Kritschgau called. If he'd delayed a
few minutes longer, it might have been me on that floor."
"Oh, Mulder, no!"
"I've never had a strong hold on this life, Scully. The events of
the past day have made it a little weaker."
"You've done this before?"
"No." Scully could breathe again. "Not voluntarily, anyway. But
sometimes I look at my weapon and think how easy it would be."
Scully sat for a long moment, and then walked over to her partner
and took his hand.
"Mulder, promise me that you'll talk to someone about this. And
that you won't do anything after my funeral."
"You're not going to have a funeral, Scully. I'll find a cure."
And that was that. He wouldn't talk about it anymore. Instead,
he was filled with plans to go to the DoD and to find out the Truth, as
if it still mattered. She was to identify the body as his, and find out
who in the FBI was part of all this.
She lost faith in Skinner then. She believed that she had proof
he was with the enemy. Mulder never did. He continued to trust the man
even after Scully said not to. He also alienated Bill and refused her
offer to take the blame. And he found her cure. And intuited who was
the real force, and restored her faith in Skinner - so much that she
asked him to take care of her partner.
Her cancer gone, she could focus on those around her again. And
she could see something was not right between the two men. When she
thought back, she realized it began before Rhode Island. There was a
strange tension between them. They made a point of not being alone
together, of standing far apart. Of looking at each other out of the
corners of their eyes. There was something there, and both men knew it,
and both were doing their best to control it. It was Hell for her just
watching their pain and longing. It must have been a thousand times
worse for them. Damn homophobia and regulations. The one would take
Mulder's career and kill him, the other would destroy Skinner and his
exemplary record.
She'd hoped they could talk about it in Florida, but the damned
Mossmen showed up and all she could do was hold him like a child and
sing to him. And then there was that weirdness in Bloomington that she
still couldn't understand. And then she was off to San Diego for a
peaceful holiday with her family. Hah. From now on, Christmas would be
a beautiful little red-haired girl who should never have been. There
was Mulder's big confession, but she already knew it. Did he really
think that she wouldn't know the cause of her own infertility? All of
her ova were gone - if her ovaries hadn't still be secreting hormones,
she'd be in menopause now. She knew exactly what had happened. Mulder
who loved the truth loved his secrets more.
She wondered if she should tell him she knew all about the nursing
home, too? No. Just as he felt the need to protect her, she felt the
need to let him think he was.
And here the three of them were, in a triangle of love and respect
and need, compounded with secrets and pain. And Modell came back into
their lives. She'd never forget how easily Mulder had placed the gun to
his head, and she knew how vulnerable he was to suggestion. So, when
Skinner, with all the control he could muster in his voice not quite
covering his love and concern, ordered Mulder to give him his weapon,
she backed her superior up. It hurt, and she wondered at the wisdom of
leaving Mulder unprotected and unguarded, but she could not bear the
thought of him carrying a gun. There was no way to know where he'd aim
it - at a foe, at a friend or at himself.
And then he was holding a gun on her again, and this time she
didn't have a bullet-proof vest on, but she knew that if she could
distract him, she'd get Linda Bowman and they'd be safe. And she was
right, and they were safe and all was over.
And now he was standing in Skinner's office and Skinner was
visibly controlling himself again because Mulder was hurting so much.
*She* could hug Mulder, but that wasn't what he needed. She was only
his best friend. Damn their careers. There was a man's soul at stake.
So, Scully walked into the office again. They were standing a
mile apart and studiously not looking at each other's eyes.
"Sir, Mulder, I have something to say."
"Agent Scully..."
"Please, sir. Both of you." She took a deep breath. "I know.
And only I know." She walked quickly out of the room, leaving silence and
a closed door behind her.
* * *
The silence turned to soft voices and then tears. She opened the
door a crack. Skinner was kneeling by Mulder's chair, his arms around the
agent, stroking his hair and back, and pressing kisses on Mulder's head.
Mulder was holding his boss tight while he cried on the broad shoulder and
kissed the muscular neck. Scully closed the door again and smiled to
herself. They would be fine. She knew.
copyright 1998 Debra Fran Baker and NightRoads Associates
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