Classification: SRA
Rated: PG-13
Key Words: Mulder/Scully Romance
Spoilers: Two Fathers/One Son
Disclaimer: No infringement intended.
Archive: Gossamer, please. Email me before archiving
elsewhere. I don't see why I'd refuse.
Summary: She left him there in the dark with her
lie, and now the truth won't leave her alone.

Notes: Although her life has been very difficult
of late, Lib has continued to send me wonderful,
constructive betas, helping me to improve the flow
and structure of my narratives. I want to thank her
for being of such value, not only as a beta but
as a friend :)

For more of my fic, visit my website:
http://www.invidiosa.com/oracle
Created and managed by the wonderful Circe Invidiosa.

--------------------

"When I'm broken down and hungry for your love
with no way to feed it
Where are you tonight?
child you know how much I need it
Too young to hold on
and too old to just break free and run..."

--Jeff Buckley, 'Lover, You Should Have Come Over'

The freezing water laps at her ankles, but Scully
doesn't notice. She stands looking out to the horizon,
watching as the first pale sunbeam appears. The
night begins to disperse, each star slowly fading
until it winks out. She hugs her waist, tucking her
hands into her sweater sleeves. The sun rises higher.

She turns and wanders down the beach for a while,
curling her toes in the saturated sand. Around her,
the day blooms with the first calls of seabirds. A
wind picks up, stinging her eyes with brine. It
reminds her of the tears she's shed so often lately.

It reminds her of Mulder's tears.

// "You hate me, Scully." //

// "I don't hate you." //

// "You should." //

She doesn't want to recall her reply. How many times
will she have to go over this in her head? She can't
change what she told him.

It passes through her mind anyway.

// "The opposite of love is indifference, Mulder.
Not hatred." //

It was the last thing she said to him, before she left.

A week has passed since then, but she can't stop
thinking about their argument. She'd never imagined
herself capable of such cruelty. Never, never, never.
The gulls seem to echo her thoughts with their cries.

A broken shell slices into the side of her foot, but she
doesn't notice. The sun rises higher.

Her hands clench into fists, her knuckles whitening,
as her tears begin again.

--------------------

When Scully returns, swinging open the kitchen door,
she finds Tara cracking eggs against the edge of a
bowl. Immersed in her muffin making, Tara is the
perfect image of a domestic goddess, with her checkered
apron, sparkling eyes and rolled sleeves. She's
whistling as she starts to stir in the blueberries.

"You're up bright and early, Dana," she says, turning
to give Scully a grin.

Scully manages to smile back, a faint curve of her
lips, before she stoops to brush the sand off her feet.
A sting of pain reveals her cut--a thin red line along
the arch of her foot. Wondering how deep it goes, she
gives it a gentle poke. Blood oozes out. It's deep,
she thinks, but not enough for stitches.

"Tara, I've cut my foot. Do you have anything I
could -?"

"Oh, you poor thing!" Tara immediately drops her
spatula and rushes over, blue eyes widening at the
sight of blood. "I'll get you a bandage and some
antiseptic cream."

Scully nods gratefully and Tara bustles off to the
nearest medicine cabinet.

The blood begins to trickle away from the cut, a thin
crimson river. Scully is amazed that her body produced
this vibrant liquid--that it flowed all the way from
her heart.

Then she wonders what Mulder must think of her heart.
Maybe he's thinking, you can't squeeze blood from
a stone.

I am bleeding, Mulder, she thinks.

--------------------

By the time Bill comes downstairs, yawning and
stretching in his striped pajamas, the muffins are
in the oven and Scully has carefully bandaged her
foot. She's got it resting on a chair, pointed at
the ceiling, and Bill can't resist reaching over to
tug her big toe. He stops when he notices the bandage.

"What happened, Dana?"

"Oh," she says, looking up from the Sunday paper.
She's been reading the same sentence over and over,
and for once Bill's voice is a relief. "I must have
cut it on a shell. I didn't notice until I got here."

"You've got to take better care of yourself," Bill
fusses, predictably. He's kneeling beside the chair,
peering at her foot. Scarlet splotches have already
started to soak through the bandage.

Scully smirks. "Yes Mom."

"I'm serious Dana," Bill leans even closer. "Maybe
you should go get this checked out. You know, get
some stitches or something."

"Do I have to remind you that I'm a medical doctor?"
She cocks an eyebrow at him, tossing the paper onto
the tabletop. "Honestly, Bill, I can take care of
myself."

He gives her his 'yeah, sure' sarcastic sneer, which
used to send her right through the roof. She's older
and wiser now--she knows that anger isn't going to
change him. Nothing she does will ever change him.

"Sure you can, Dana," he says, and suddenly his eyes
turn bitter. "You take care of yourself very well,
letting yourself get dragged into the worst
situations -" He cuts himself off, but she sees he's
dying to continue, his lips whitening from the strain
of being held together.

Uh-oh, Scully thinks. She'd been hoping to avoid this
particular confrontation.

"Bill -" Tara begins, hands on her hips, her voice
mock-stern. She sounds like a mother telling her son
to play gently with a kitten--Now, now, Billy, don't
be too rough.

Scully smirks and Bill takes this as the worst kind
of insolence. He straightens up like Ahab used to,
stiff and proud, trying to intimidate her. It's such
a primitive male reaction that Scully's smirk widens
on its own accord. Bill flushes red, his eyes blazing,
and she pities the pimply, sniveling cadets who have
to train under him.

But she doesn't balk.

"Don't worry Tara," she says, calmly, "I want to hear
what Bill has to say."

Her words have the desired effect--Bill splutters,
suddenly unable to speak. She smiles at him, but it's
a threatening gesture, her teeth bared. Two can play
at intimidation, she thinks, you sanctimonious
bastard. Her eyes are ice.

"Why don't I finish your sentence for you, Bill?" she
asks softly, but doesn't wait for an answer. "Dana,
why do you let that partner of yours drag you into the
worst situations? Can't you see how he's poisoning our
family? Why couldn't you have stayed in medicine and
settled down with a nice doctor? Why don't you have
2.3 kids? Oops, I forgot, you're barren -"

"Are you finished?" Bill snaps, although she sees a hint
of contrition in his eyes. Good.

Tara clears her throat and Scully glances up in surprise.
She's still here? "Look, Bill...Dana...let's just calm
down and have some breakfast. Mattie's going to wake up
any minute and -"

Scully feels Bill's eyes on her face. "So *are* you
finished, Dana?" The question is smug and belittling,
making her cheeks flush hot with rage. Her composure has
ebbed away.

She flicks her eyes back to lock on his. "I'll never be
finished," she says, sharply. She intends to get the
last word in and escape through the kitchen door, back
to the beach.

But as soon as she stands up, Bill speaks.

"I've got something to tell you, Dana," he says. "Your
partner, Mulder...he called."

All the blood drains from her face. "What?" The word comes
out as a gasp. She steadies herself on the back of a chair,
her legs weak.

"Yeah, he called the first night you were here. You were
already asleep, so I said I'd take a message. Then I
thought...I just thought you must be here to avoid him.
He sounded like he was desperate to talk to you, Dana.
Like he'd done something to hurt you."

--------------------

Scully leaves Bill's house without saying goodbye. She
doesn't have time to deal with her brother--not that he
would ever listen to her, anyway. He glowers at her
until she's finally out of his sight.

She almost tells the cab driver to 'step on it', but
thinks that would be more Mulder's style than her own.
She prefers to leave sedately, coolly, as though she
was never there in the first place.

That's how I hurt people, she realises. That's what hurt
Mulder the most.

--------------------

On the flight back to DC she imagines Mulder sitting
next to her, his hand pressed over hers throughout the
midnight turbulence.

"We're almost there," she hears him whisper in her
ear, warm lips brushing the lobe.

In reality her hand is cold, and someone's dowdy
grandmother, knitting a scarf, fills the seat beside
her. The clacking needles are giving Scully a headache
that she chooses to ignore. Her mind is filled with
Mulder, replaying her last conversation with him.

The scene was familiar at first. He was sitting on his
couch, in his darkened apartment, dressed in a crumpled
shirt and black pants. His feet were bare, resting on his
coffee table. But that was where the familiarity ended.
Because Mulder was smoking.

And he wasn't just smoking. There was a half-empty
bottle of whiskey beside his feet and a glass smashed
against the far wall. She wondered what his neighbours
had thought. She wondered what she'd do, if he threw
her against the wall like that.

He took another puff of the cigarette before he spoke,
not looking at her. "What's a nice girl like you doing
in a place like this?"

Exactly, she thought.

"I came to tell you that I'm taking a leave of absence."

He grinned, tapping his cigarette against the side of
the table. "Would you like a drink?"

Now, she wishes she'd accepted. It would have made their
conversation easier to bear.

"Would you like a drink, ma'am?" says a female voice,
and Scully starts, her heart pounding until she sees
it's only the flight attendant.

"Yes please," she says, annoyed at her soft tone. "I'd
like a gin and tonic." At least this time she'll be armed
with some Dutch courage.

--------------------

Arriving at Dulles Airport doesn't help Scully's mood. The
whole place stinks of wet wool and spilt coffee, and its
wide windows are obsidian black, shining with splattered
sleet. Scully weaves through crowds of dour business
commuters and chirpy tourists, walking as fast as she can
with her trolley of luggage.

In her haste she nearly runs into an embracing couple.

"Sorry," she mutters, but they don't hear her. She
catches snippets of their conversation as she moves
past--"...missed you so much..." "I couldn't stay away
another day..." Her eyes sting but she ignores them,
choosing to scowl at herself instead of crying. Tears
won't help anyone.

Isn't that what she said to him?

// "Do you think you'll make me feel sorry for you?
Tears aren't going to help, Mulder." //

// "What the hell do you want me to do? What can I do
to fix this?" //

At the time, there was seemingly no answer, no way for
them to heal. No elixir, no suture, no salve. There was
no way to stitch this kind of wound.

What could Mulder do?

The answer arrived too late, a few nights later. Scully
was sitting in front of Bill's cold fireplace, a
refugee from bad dreams at four in the morning. When
the answer came to her, it burned bright for an instant,
bursting like a flare in her mind's eye. It had been so
obvious all along.

And then it shattered.

-------------------

Maybe can still salvage something, Scully thinks, when her
taxi pulls up in front of the Hoover Building. She climbs
out into the pouring rain, sheltering under her briefcase.
She almost forgets to pay the driver.

Instinctively, she knows Mulder will be in their office,
making it ready for the X-files. She didn't try calling
him from her brother's house. In the steely silence after
her fight with Bill, she did nothing except book a flight,
pack her things and kiss her sleeping nephew on the cheek.
Tara stood in the front doorway, wringing her hands as
Scully's cab pulled out of the drive.

Bill was up in his room, staring down at her from the
window. Another attempt to intimidate her, she realises
now. Her big brother was watching from above, like God
himself.

Scully smirks as she lets herself into the office
building's musty sanctuary. Poor Bill, with his
delusions of omnipotence. He'll continue to believe
in his supreme influence over her until the day he
dies. He's convinced that his words of divine wisdom
will eventually penetrate her skull. Then, of course,
she'll quit her job to settle down in suburbia with a
normal guy, maybe a stockbroker, and some adopted kids.

Poor Bill, she thinks again. Talk about fruitless quests.

She can't figure out why she went to Bill's in the first
place. Maybe because it was the farthest she could fly,
under the circumstances. At any rate, she was on autopilot
when she called her brother.

--------------------

It was the day they got the X-files back. A day they'd
been dreaming about for months--the day when all those
boring hours in the bullpen were brought to a close.

She cried in the ladies' room after their meeting with
Kersh. As always, her sobs were merely silent spasms.
She leaned on the tiled wall for support.

Afterwards, she went home and started making methodical
plans.

First, she called Skinner. She told him she needed some
time away and he said she could take two weeks. Then she
called Bill and he said--"We'd love to have you come stay
with us, Dana". After that, she booked her ticket and a
mechanical voice wished her an enjoyable flight.

But when she called Mulder, he didn't pick up and his
machine was turned off.

She almost left without telling him. Skinner would pass
the message on, after all. She couldn't do it, though,
despite everything. She couldn't disregard Mulder, as
he'd so often done her. She couldn't ditch him.

So she drove to his apartment, let herself in, and found
him smoking in the dark. He offered her a drink.

"I want to talk to you," he said.

"You've been drinking."

As she spoke, she remembered the time he'd shown up
at her door, sweaty and flushed in his leather jacket,
hard liquor on his breath. But she discarded these
thoughts immediately. He was pale this time, his eyes
shadowed and desperate.

"Look, Scully," he began, "I know it's unusual, but
I've been thinking."

She didn't allow his flippancy. "About what?" she
asked, maybe more sharply than she'd intended. Or
maybe not.

She wanted him to think she was impatient to leave--that
she had more important things to do than stand here in
the dark, speaking to him.

"I think you should get a transfer. Not only for selfish
reasons..."

"I'm sure there are plenty," she said, her words icicle
sharp. Her anger had been there all along, festering
beneath the misery and hurt, but she was still surprised
when it hit. It broke over her like a tsunami.

Mulder continued as though he hadn't heard her, like he
hadn't seen fury flicker in her eyes. His voice was
slightly slurred. "Look Scully, I know how you feel.
How could I not? I can't stand another day having
to...having to..."

"Having to what?"

Mulder shook his head, leaning forward to snub his
cigarette against the whiskey bottle, sending tiny
sparks across the table. Scully watched them flicker
orange and burn out.

"Having to what, Mulder?"

He shook his head again. "Just leave, Scully," he muttered.

"I thought you wanted to talk. Well, talk Mulder. Go
on." She spoke as though she was rolling her eyes at
him, as though she was saying--I'd rather fold laundry
than talk to you, Mulder. Just get it over with.

That was when his tears started, without warning. They
rolled down his face without sobs or moans, without even
a hitching of his breath. He squeezed his eyes shut but
that didn't stop them. He was a pitiful sight, but her
anger had stolen any sympathy she might have felt. She
just watched, impassive, as he turned his face away. He
didn't want her to see.

"Do you think you'll make me feel sorry for you? Tears
aren't going to help, Mulder."

He raged then. "What the hell do you want me to do?
What can I do to fix this?"

She didn't reply.

"I know how you feel, Scully. I screwed up badly this
time. Are you waiting for an apology? Gee, Scully, I'm
sorry I was such as ass, it won't happen again. I went
on instinct, listened to Diana and nearly sold us out,
and I'm sorry." His words were lacquered with a hard,
sarcastic veneer, but then he paused, ashamed. When
he continued, she could barely hear him. "Is that what
you want? Because I can give you that. You know I can."

"It isn't enough," she whispered.

"I didn't say it would be." He laughed, painfully.
"Scully, don't you get it? An apology is all I can
give you. You already have everything else."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Her voice
was a study in feigned indifference. She turned
slightly, as though she would walk out before they
were finished.

Mulder pretended not to notice.

"There's nothing else, Scully," he said. "I'm cleaned
out. You have everything I had when you met me. All I
can do is apologize, which isn't enough, because we both
know it *will* happen again. Who knows when?"

She didn't answer.

"We're at an impasse, then. You can't trust me and I
can't give you a reason to. You hate me, Scully."

"I don't hate you."

"You should."

"The opposite of love is indifference, Mulder.
Not hatred."

--------------------

These last words have plagued Scully more than anything
else she said to him, mainly because they aren't true.

She's usually a bad liar, but somehow pulled it off
this time. She lied to Mulder without stuttering, without
even blinking, and from the expression in his eyes she knew
that he believed her.

She left him there in the dark with her lie, and now
the truth won't leave her alone.

What she feels for him is the opposite of indifference.
She loves him from her feet to her forehead, to the
tips of her fingers and nose.

She's loved him in cars and planes, in elevators and
expense report meetings, in jungles and ocean liners,
and in tawdry motel rooms.

Most especially, she loved him when he brought her out
of a three-month-long absence, when he was determined
to cure her cancer, and when he rescued her from a
frozen, subterranean spacecraft.

She loved him when he vanished into the desert and
reappeared in a starlit dream.

And when she catches him sleeping, with an unlined
face and even breathing, she can hardly stand the feeling.

In every place she's been, at every time, she's held him
in her heart. He was there even before she met him, and
he'll still be there after one of them dies.

There's no escape. Even if there was, she wouldn't
take it.

--------------------

When Scully opens their office door she's greeted by
silence and bare walls. At first she feels a pang,
thinking she was wrong. Maybe he isn't here.

But then she sees the desk, reassuringly cluttered with
files and blurry photographs. Mulder's elbows are also
resting upon it, his face in his hands.

"Scully," he whispers, when she steps into the room. "Why
are you here?"

He rubs his eyes, keeping them closed. It's been a
while since he shaved and she wants to run her fingers
along his roughened jaw.

"Mulder, I -"

Usually, after they've argued, she comes up with some
kind of stratagem. Sometimes she even writes it down.
This time she has nothing to go on, so she tugs her
necklace and bites her lip, totally at a loss.

"Bill didn't tell me you called until today," she
finally blurts. "I came as quickly as I could." Her
voice shrinks with every word. Telling him the blunt
truth is harder than she'd thought, although maybe
that's because she's rarely tried it before.

Mulder stands slowly, looking up into her eyes. He
walks around the desk and leans against it, his arms
folded. She's surprised there's no hurt in his expression,
after his broken words of a moment ago. His eyes are
blank as a fresh page, but they're studying her,
cataloguing everything. His gaze is almost unbearable.

"I didn't think you were coming back," he says, sounding
almost casual. There's bitterness as well, of course,
and resignation.

She doesn't hear any pain. Is he hiding it, or is there none
to hide?

"Mulder, how could you think that?"

He shrugs as though she's boring him. "I know you want to
keep working on the X-files, Scully. I also know you
don't want to work them with me."

"I didn't think there was an alternative."

"Oh, I'm sure we can arrange something. Or you can arrange
something with Skinner, if you'd prefer."

"Mulder -" She shakes her head, swallowing a rush of
exasperation. "Mulder, I'm not working on the files
without you. It wouldn't be possible."

He smiles sardonically, "So you've come here to make
nice."

"Mulder, no. Of course not." She pauses, taking a sharp
breath. "I've come here to apologize."

"Why?"

When he averts his eyes from hers, she knows for sure
that his barbed words have been a front. Now she's
finally forged through it, into his sorrow, and she
knows what to tell him. She's envisaged this.

"The last time we spoke, I wasn't honest with you."

He winces, his shoulders tensing. "You don't need to
apologize, Scully. I know how you feel, and you know how
I -" he cuts himself off with a grimace.

"You don't know how I feel, Mulder."

"Stop it." His voice is painful to hear, a raw scrape of
hurt. He's more beaten than she's ever seen him, more
wounded than she'd thought he could be.

"Mulder, I'm not indifferent to you -"

"Please stop."

"If I don't care about you, then why did I go to your
apartment that night? I could have just left."

A silence arcs between them for a moment, their
conversation suspended. Their eyes tell what their
voices can't describe.

Then he walks towards her and she can smell him, stale
cigarettes and a coffee stain on his breast pocket. How
long since he showered? Scully doesn't care, really. She
just wants his hands on her body, his arms around her.
She's so greedy for his touch she'd do anything for it,
for its electricity. The air is humming around them
already and he's three feet away.

They make eye contact again and she puts a hand behind
her back, crossing her fingers. Please keep looking at
me, she thinks to him. Please believe what I'm saying.

"Then how do you feel, Scully?" he asks. He's leaning
forward and she feels his breath on her face. It
smells like a potion, tastes like a drug. "What do you
feel for me?" His questions aren't demands, but behind
them she hears his ever-present desire for answers.

She hesitates, terrified because she knows that this
is it. This is the making or breaking point.

She wills herself into it.

"Mulder, what I feel for you...what it comes down to, is
that I don't want to leave. Even if I wanted to, I'm not
sure that I *could* leave, at this point. I refuse to give
our partnership up as a lost cause." She smiles, gently,
watching as her words leach the darkness from his eyes.
"And Mulder, the things I said to you at your apartment...
they couldn't have been further from the truth."

He pulls her to him, clasping her body against his. They
breathe together for a moment, his heartbeat pressed to
her ear. As always, he's unfazed by her oblique style,
by the way her words skip over her emotions like a stone.

"I feel the same," he says quietly, his breath stirring
her hair.

"I'm not sure I could describe what we are to each
other," she whispers, nose pressed to the silk-smooth
skin behind his ear. "But I know, Mulder. I understand
it now."

These words first came into her mind in front of Bill's
fireplace. The ocean wind was howling outside, echoing in
the chimney. She tried to choke back her tears as she
imagined this soothing embrace, this confession. She
thought it would never happen, but she was wrong.

Cupping her face in his hands, Mulder kisses her forehead,
then the bridge of her nose, and she gasps. Tiny zips of
current jolt through her system. She's been so starved
of him, so exhausted without him, and now he's waking her
up like a fairytale prince and she can't resist. Her
fingers slide into his hair, while his velvet lips move
over her cheeks, her chin, her earlobes and eyelashes.

"Mulder no, stop -" she whispers after a while, as he
trails tender kisses down the side of her neck.

When he pulls away abruptly, readying for a backlash,
she tugs him down again so she can whisper against
his mouth.

"No, Mulder. Here."

She kisses him slowly, teasing her tongue over his
warm lower lip.

Mulder stiffens further in her arms, so she tries again,
her thumbs stroking through his hair, over the curves of
his ears, while her tongue darts into his mouth.

"Here," she murmurs when she's done, licking her own
lips and tasting him there.

He gapes at her for an instant, so she whispers, "Here,"
once more. When he bends to caress her mouth with his,
she knows he finally understands.

--------------------

I took the title from a Chili Peppers' song.

"something inside the cards i know is right
don't want to live somebody else's life
this is what i want to be
and this is what i give to you..."
--The Red Hot Chili Peppers, 'I Could Die For You'

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