| Putting Out Fires By Amanda Finch [email protected] CATEGORY:
VA, UST, Post-ep This story is a little late. It was *supposed* to be posted after One Son, but the muse simply wasn't there. Read it with that in mind. If you're looking for a happy story (and I refuse to ruin the ending), bail out now. *********** It had become a joke of sorts between them. "Remember when we were married?" Like it was some weekend that had gone hilariously wrong nine years ago, only it had lasted for four months, and it wasn't very funny. Mulder couldn't remember who had asked who, just Diana smoking like mad on the courtroom steps waiting for three o'clock slot to come up with the justice of the peace. His own cigarette had twitched in his hands before he grew tired of waiting for her to say something revelatory and wandered the lobby with his hands in his pockets. It was two weeks before he turned thirty and a few months after that huge emptiness he'd always been latently aware of had been given a name by Dr. Werber. There had been a moment of bone-deep fear as he stared at her back through the glass doors of the lobby and realized, thanks to that ever-useful Oxford degree of his, that he was only trying to fill one emptiness with another, and she wasn't it. Instead, he'd gotten married, and they returned to work afterwards with only slight variations. He'd lifted his left hand, feeling the weight of that gold band, and mistook it for significance. Their honeymoon consisted of going to a hotel room that weekend that they would've gone to anyway, and when the housekeeper brought plush, warm towels to "Mrs. Mulder," Diana had locked herself in the bathroom for two hours and bawled herself stupid. Mulder had stiffly walked out onto the balcony, thought about jumping off, but went back inside to call and tell his mother the news. Soon, it was over, and the relief was in that final coffin-nail to any stab he might've had at the mortgaged home, two-kid, two-car, dog-in-the-yard existence his ISU colleagues called normal and pretended to enjoy. He'd monkishly descended into the X-Files with her a couple of weeks before the divorce papers went through, taking for fact that, pseudo-marriage or no marriage, she'd stick around. Struck by the realization that he had no one else, the possibility of walking into his darkened apartment alone scared the shit out of him. When she'd accepted the counter-terrorism assignment and told him she'd be leaving in the same flat tone that had just mentioned the foggy weather and her migraine, he'd thickened his skin, willed his heart into a stone and told her to go fuck herself. Oh, they'd smoothed things over before her flight left, the final silence- heavy meal and the farewell screw in her living room, but he'd engaged himself to his apartment and its empty darkness like he'd bolted himself into a womb. The begrudging commute from home to work, the immersion into other people's tragedies, his burning eyes and caustic flow of words was all he had claim to when Dana Scully wandered into the basement, like Technicolor walking into a film from the 40s, an angel who had taken the wrong exit off the interstate and mistakenly ended up in hell. And he let her stay. Diana had called, today, and asked him to dinner. He had no clue what the last course of the evening would be, and couldn't make himself either anxious or disgusted to ponder that. Her kiss still stung his lips, in a way that was only as pleasant as it was masochistic. I'm not going to go, he told himself, hands tight on the wheel, shoulders tensed to pilot him to the first available off-ramp. The rain started and little bits of ice clung to his wiper blades. He was halfway there. I'm turning around right up here, he thought, even as he continued driving. x It had begun to rain outside, and the constant rhythm of it against the windows paired with the staccato thumping of the old laser printer fought for control of her eyelids. The words slid together, congealing into a grayish smear across the pages. She took in a last, slow tragectory of the room, the way she checked the locks in her own apartment at night, assuring herself it was safe to sleep, safe to drift away. "Scully?" Frohike shook her arm. Papers cascaded to the floor as she jerked herself awake again, apologetic and annoyed all at once. When she stooped down to retrieve the pages, she called on that last bit of energy to help her back up again, like two handfuls of cold water for her face. In fact, she thought, that wasn't a bad idea. "Download's finished! It's printing," Frohike announced. She willed her eyes to stay open. Hanging out here like she had been lately reminded her of being dragged around like a third wheel to visit Melissa's friends when her mother left the base to run errands. Then it had been strange jargon, the unknown rapport of the clique itself, the black-light posters and the pretty, odd glass vases she would later find out were bongs. Here it was again, the jargon and rapport, but also the unfamiliar clutter of bootleg technology and surveilled corners. It had been Melissa's friends then, and it was Mulder's friends now. The papers in front of her brought her attention back. "There's nothing here except resume' credentials, professional information." She sipped at her coffee and reached over Frohike to get the printed portion that had already started to pile up. "What's this again?" "Case itineraries." He wearily flexed the fingers that poked out of his cut gloves. "All I had to do was cross-check Agent, unit and ASAC, so Mulder in ISU with Perdue and Diana in VCU with Fuller. Then both of them with Skinner's name." "ISU and VCU work side-by-side a lot. That's probably where he met her," she said to herself, rustling through the papers. They were lucky. In early '93, right before she been recruited out of Quantico's teaching program, the Bureau had decided that each individual agent could handle their own case itineraries, and just turn in a DAT copy every three months to Records. Before that, ASACs kept their agents' itineraries and posted them to a database that was laughable by today's technical standards, but the reports were left intact instead of being broken down for statistics and keywords. She remember sitting at Mulder's desk once, years ago, bored, and putting his name in the FBI database as a keyword search. He'd been in some way connected to a daunting list of cases, called in on several when other departments hadn't been able to solve them. She'd felt such tremendous pride for him then, and the poignancy of his having given up that kind of track record and reputation for the X-Files, where the only ones who won were those left alive. They'd be the *first* to say that winning wasn't everything. Binding the page with one hand and flipping through them with the other, she realized she wasn't so proud of him anymore. Mulder had stood in that very room days before, a couple of feet from where she was now sitting. When she gave him a wealth of reasonable doubt and practical suspicion, he'd deflected it all with his damned passive expression and a jumble of apathetic words that all bled down into one toneless "whatever." *Mulder, your ex-partner's stuff isn't on the computer.* *Whatever.* *Look at all this stuff about MUFON...* *Whatever.* *She's one of them, Mulder. I can't explain it, but the first time I saw her, there was this urgency to push her away that had nothing to do with you, and everything to do with the fact that her eyes looked dead and the hair was standing up on the back of my neck.* *Whatever.* She never thought she'd miss his typical paranoia, not realizing the person he could be without it. The flippant, eye-rolling version of himself who was so cold and unmoving, so impervious to reason. Letting her vision blur slightly, she tried to figure out what was wrong with the page in front of her. She was *so* sleepy, and she couldn't make her mind pick it up. "This can't be right." Scully shoved the page under Frohike's nose. "Mulder's never been married." Frohike peered over the top of the computer at Byers, who glanced helplessly at Langly, who haltingly announced that he needed to pee and quickly left the room. "What?" She demanded. "Actually," Byers began softly, "he has." Frohike laughed, trying to dissolve the sudden tension and only adding to it. "For a few weeks anyway." "It was more than a few weeks. A couple of months," Byers corrected diplomatically. "But not much longer than that." "To who?" She already knew. They didn't have to say a word, but Byers continued anyway. "They were divorced before her change-of-name form even went through official channels." Mulder, married. The image would be laughable if it didn't make her sick to her stomach, for reasons she didn't want to explore at the moment. "Not that it proves anything," she said aloud, knowing what they were thinking as they watched her read. She'd known him back when he was normal. Back when he was Spooky because his mind could touch and tear through what others fled, not because he thought little grey men had hovered over his house and sucked his sister away from a perfectly good game of Stratego. That was in there, too, of his first sessions with Dr. Heitz Werber. Fowley's name jumped out at her like a swear word in bold print. According to the records, she'd referred him to Dr. Werber. She'd been the first to look into the X-Files. Why couldn't Mulder see something so blackly apparent taking place right in front of him? Her phone was in her jacket, thrown over the back of their sofa. It was all- or-nothing time, and Diana was nothing. She had no idea how she was going to phrase it without her tongue stepping out on her. She had dialed her number before she even realized it, so programmed. Five rings and he answered, nearly missing her by one ring. "Mulder." His voice was so unfeeling and strange. She wondered if it was him at all, and didn't speak, imagining some stranger with his Nokia. "Mulder," he repeated, inquisitive now. "Hello?" The voice in the background asked, "Who is it, Fox?" *That* voice hadn't changed, and nor had her reaction to it dulled in any way. Scully hung up, feeling like she'd been pierced straight through. Or maybe just stabbed in the back. She stowed her phone back in her jacket and walked to the table, aware of them staring at her, waiting for an update. Even Langly, stiffly sitting in a beanbag chair, looked concerned. Because if Mulder had betrayed her, he'd betrayed them too, hadn't he? Calmly, she took her seat, but her voice was the opposite of her forced posture. "Who knew him first? You guys or Diana?" Frohike looked cluelessly at the pile of papers. "What was their first case together?" Scully pushed the pile away. "May, of 1990. Both units were called in on a kidnapping case. They weren't mentioned together in the report, so they may not have even met then, but they were two of eight agents assigned to the investigation." She raised her face. "When did you meet him?" "The year before, " Frohike answered. "June, 1989," Byers added, brow furrowed. "I think." "In other words," Scully murmured, leaving the stool to walk nervously, "before he knew her?" "We assume." Byers pushed the disassembled phone into a drawer, as if clearing his mind at the same time. "He never mentioned her then, that I can recall." "He actually had dates then," Langly piped in. "And friends." "He's got friends now," Frohike argued. "I mean, friends...in suits." Byers, who was wearing a suit, ignored this. "I think we knew him first. We spoke with him quite regularly after first meeting him." Now wide awake, Scully stopped her pacing to sit down. "Then you have to help me put the two together." "Mulder and Diana?" Frohike shook his head. "The itinerary is as close as -- " "No, no," Scully interrupted. "Not Diana. Mulder. Nothing on paper can summarize what the three of you saw in the year before he met her." Byers frowned. "I'm not following." If Diana had been intentionally planted in Mulder's life as an aberration who would guide him towards what the Syndicate wanted and needed him to believe, then there would be a difference, gradual but total, from the Mulder they'd met in 1989 to the one they knew after May 1990, wouldn't there? She wanted to know where it had all began, like a "Before" picture, showing her the person Mulder had been before they pierced him, sucked all the joy out of his life and filled the emptiness with nightmares and terrible suggestions. Before, and After. She'd seen the After picture. She'd *lived* it. x It was time to cut the kite string. That was how they worded it. Always euphemistic, always never quite as cruel as what it implied. They spoke and shadows came out. She liked their ambiguity. He sat there on her couch, eyes fixed on a picture above her mantlepiece. It was a framed print of an aerial photograph, a castle in Bavaria, Germany surrounded by a fort of hills on all sides. She couldn't be sure if he really saw it, but it was his kind of scenery. All the pictures in his apartment were of other places, or of photos taken out in space. Where do you want to be? She asked him once. Someplace else, he said. The here and now would never be good enough for Fox. Her repeated offer of red wine had been refused, and he no longer smoked. She had only two vices to offer him now, and one he wouldn't take. Kiss or no kiss, it wasn't what he wanted, or they wouldn't still be in the living room. The other one he wanted more than anything. The truth. She swirled the red liquid in her glass, took a drag off her cigarette and smiled at him. "Who was that on the phone?" He raised his eyes. He shouldn't have. They betrayed everything. His face could be so impassive, so unmalleable. But his eyes were liquid and alive. "No one." The sound of his voice alone said that it was a lie, one on which he wouldn't elaborate. To her surprise, he didn't drop the gaze immediately, but held her in a stare. "Why did you invite me over?" "Why did you accept my invitation?" A better man would have known not to answer. "I want to be finished with you, and I don't feel I am." Oh, how sweet. She fought back a laugh. "Goodbyes, then? I kiss you and you say goodbye?" Diana pretended to be hurt. "It's enough to give a girl a complex." Her aim had hit him right in the center, and he twisted towards her like a knife that always twisted in his side, winding him like a clock. "That's not -- I didn't mean to give you the wrong idea." "You didn't give me any ideas that I didn't already have." She smashed her cigarette into the ashtray. "And I must admit, I didn't ask you over simply to feed you a meal." Involuntarily, he seemed to sit back, pushing away. "It's not what I want." It wasn't what he wanted. So typically noncommittal. Ten minutes and she could enslave him again. That was all the time she needed. Sex was escape, and damn, he was good at it, transcendent even, but he would sway to what she wanted if she came close enough, if she talked dirty enough. If she wanted it, he could want it too. Nothing was non-negotiable with Fox. Too bad it wasn't the time or place. "You don't even know what I'm offering you." He couldn't sit back anymore. Trapped now, he just waited. "A man approached me in 1991, a man we both know. He was interested in your work, and he wanted me to introduce myself to you. He said I was your type." She paused to drain the last of the wine from her glass, and dabbed at the red that stained her lip with her finger. "Would you like to hear more?" His handsome face had gone pale. Slowly, he nodded. The merciful thing to do, she guessed, was to give him some chance to get out. To give him the option to remain oblivious to the truth. Instead, she told him the story. x Scully regretted asking them to paint the picture. Getting men to talk about other men was always a pain. But as the narrative emerged, drawn out so slowly, she grew more regretful. Mulder in 1989 was a tough animal, and she wondered if they didn't describe him this way to flatter him. Fast-track wasn't the word. A flagging case resolution record had left the Violent Crimes Unit sinking, and Mulder, almost getting himself killed at least six times in the process according to the injury reports, had dragged them ashore just before budgets got axed, asses got chewed and heads rolled. Less than three years there, and he'd already made an indelible impression on men who spent more time on the golf course than they did in their offices. Committed, said some of them optimistically. Obsessed, remarked others. Sure, he'd had dates -- with women who worked alongside him. Sure, he'd had friends -- other FBI agents. But nothing really touched him. He was, at his best, empathic with the victim and dedicated to the hunt for their assailant. At his worst, though, when work was lacking or the cases unchallenging, he was a pain in the ass. Sarcastic and distant, he pushed at the others. Some of them went for the ride, and some of them broke. Some of them had hit him, or only threatened. Some of them hated him, or only wished they did. Before the year was up, he was profiling. He'd met his match in Bill Patterson, and recognized that Patterson was his destiny: the man who made it to a point where no one could push him. Suddenly, he was the subordinate, and had to behave, because god forbid he disappoint a man who wouldn't be pleased. "Was he happy?" She asked. They didn't answer. So the answer was no. When he was searching, it was different. He had a goal. Given any seemingly impossible puzzle to piece together, he was sated for days, pleased and challenged. Byers said he was brilliant and Scully was proud again, for a moment, to hear someone else say it aloud. Patterson had said it without saying it, because he wanted to exploit it. Skinner said it because he'd wanted Mulder away from the X-Files. But Byers said it as a friend. That didn't make him happy. That barely made him content. But then something strange had happened. Mulder came to them one day, totally bewildered, talking excitedly. They knew about his sister, vaguely, just that she was missing. A man who hunted kidnappers, molesters and killers had to have guessed what fate had befallen a little girl who never came back. He stood before them in their dark little hideaway, and told them she'd been abducted by aliens. He remembered it so clearly. His photographic memory had finally handed him something that gave him hope. A search that began inside of him and worked its way out. Suddenly what he hunted could be a *good* thing. It wasn't a killer. It wasn't a human monster, but her. Samantha. The epicenter of All That Had Gone Wrong. Diana had left shortly thereafter. The very idea pissed Scully off until she couldn't see. She'd been put in his life to maneuver this change of heart, to implant this quest in him. Her work here was done. Besides, They'd decided she was the wrong person. Something in her stifled Mulder's spirit, and They couldn't have that. But Scully had been the right addition to his life. She'd boosted him up. She listened, and he found that strange, even as she refuted his beliefs. She sat in his dark apartment, clenching and unclenching her fists. She didn't have the nerve to call him. There were words to work out, sentiments to untangle. The quest was gone, rendered false, but she would stay. Hopefully, it would be enough. x She told him the story and she handed him his jacket. There was the door. They were finished now. All of it was finished now. He sat in the car for the longest time, wishing he had something to muddle through and sort out, but it was all very clear. Diana had pulled no punches, and played no games. Finally, he started the car and headed for home. The ice was getting thicker on the road, making patches that ominously caught the streetlights. The unadulterated, unabridged truth. Curse the day he'd ever thought it was what he needed. He put his head down on the steering wheel and tried to cry. He couldn't. The cold silence of the car bounced all of her words back on him. She'd been selected by hand and placed in his life as a slow sabotage. Purposefully, she was instrumental in his every shift of perspective, responsible for every fracture in his ideology. When she was no longer needed, they told her to go elsewhere, and she did. She had never loved him, and even the men who put her there picked up on it. They couldn't have a terrible actress perpetuating Fox Mulder's drama. Scully had been the second and better choice. He didn't need her approval like he did Diana's, because not having it felt okay. She didn't know she was there to steer him off course, so she didn't give herself away. She won the role. And what did she get for it? Irrevocably changed. She'd been close enough to death to tell him how harsh the light was. She'd been so besieged in her life with him that she'd wanted to touch that light again, over and over. Now everything was ruined. He could go back to being what he was before, but for her, no return remained. He didn't *want* to be that unhappy again. He didn't want her to be unhappy at all. He didn't even know where he was driving now, just that the maneuvering got more and more difficult as the weather froze the surface of every living thing. There were no cars on the road before him. He checked. No cars on the road behind him. No houses, no people. Just vast, open spaces of nothing. No one to hear anything. No one to stop anything. Soon, the roads ended and the trees began. He stopped the car and killed the headlights. It was for the best. ---------------------------------------- March 1999 |