From: Agent M Date: Sat, 01 Aug 1998 23:41:28 -0700 Subject: NEW: As Ever 1/1 (sequel to Dear Scully) Disclaimer: Fox, 1013, Fox, not me. Notes: Sequel to "Dear Scully." Hopefully this will answer some questions without losing what was good in the first story. If it does, or doesn't, work, email me and let me know. Involves slight movie references. As Ever by eponine119 eponine119@att.net July 10, 1998 There was a soft knock at the door and she looked up from the letters in her hands. They were everywhere, all over the bed and half the floor. A glance at the clock told her the time had slipped away from her. She felt like she'd woken from a trance. It was almost one a.m. xxx There was a monster in the lab. She'd seen this kind of thing before. A man, eaten from the inside, his organs and bones and flesh dissolving, nutrients for an alien entity. One that had the potential to kill. She hadn't expected to ever see it again. There was nothing else Scully could do. She had absolutely no choice. She took another deep breath and reached for the telephone hanging on the wall near the door. Nine to get out. One. Two one two. It had to be past four a.m. on the east coast. Five five five. Not much chance of getting an answering machine at four a.m. One. What was she going to say when he answered? Zero. Worse, what if a woman answered? One. Maybe she could hang up and deal with this herself. Three. Too late, the call had connected. Ring. He was going to hang up on her. Ring. Her heart was beating so furious, it was sure to stop. Ring. God, she didn't want to have this conversation. Ri - "Hello?" The bottom dropped out of her stomach. His voice. Sleep-tossed. Still the same after all this time. It took a second before she was able to get the words out. "Mulder. I think you'd better come here right away." There was a long pause. An angry pause. "I'll be right there," he said and the phone call was over. Scully needed him. Her voice had told him that much. Hell, her phone call told him that much. Three years of absolute silence interrupted by one tense sentence. He wondered if she'd gotten the letters. It was still early. He wondered if she would be home. He wondered what she would say, after all this time. He wondered if she'd changed. He knew he had. She knew the moment he walked in. She didn't hear the door or see the light from outside leaking in. It was more of a catch in her breath, a missed beat of her heart...a feeling of his presence. A feeling Scully hadn't known in three years. Almost four. Where was he? she wondered, her eyes scanning the seemingly-blank rows in front of her. A spotlight from the back of the hall had her caught in its beam, she couldn't see anything. Like a performer on a stage, she was blind. She turned around to write on the chalkboard. She could feel his eyes on her. The lecture went long with students bombarding her with questions. The midterm was in two days. Even when she ended the lecture, unclipping the microphone from her shirt, they swarmed around her, demanding answers and knowledge. He was still there. Mulder. Somewhere in the auditorium, waiting for her. It made her feel nervous. A part of her wanted to stay and answer questions all afternoon. Another part of her wanted to run to him. "Office hours are at four," she reminded them, shooing them away from her with both hands and looking up into the rows of seats. They were empty. Scully looked harder, but the seats were all empty. She raised a hand to rub her neck. She was just jumpy at the prospect of seeing him after all this time. She gathered her notes and her pens into her backpack and headed out into the sunlight, slipping a pair of sunglasses onto her nose as soon as she cleared the doors. He was waiting for her. She couldn't breathe. He didn't move, barely seemed to look at her. She couldn't think of anything to say. After so long, there was so much...and so little. Mulder took care of that for her. "I hardly recognized you," he said, falling into step with her, easily slowing his stride to match hers. "You look like one of them." Scully couldn't help glancing down, turning her thoughts inward. No, she didn't look like the same person. Like most of her students, she wore shorts and T-shirts to class, banding her hair up into a ponytail. It was easier, and the school was casual. It was one of the things she liked about it. "But that voice..." he continued and it tightened her stomach. She realized he was staring at her and she fought the urge to cover herself. "That voice," he murmured. "Where are we going?" "The dining hall. I'm starving, and I'm sure you haven't eaten..." "You didn't call me all the way out here to eat," he reminded her. "I need to have lunch," she informed him. "It won't take long." Her tone must have been strident, because he didn't protest after that, just followed her soundly as she paid for their meals. He copied her, taking a tray and silverware and requesting food to fill his plate from the other side of the buffet. She led him into a cool, quiet, deserted room where they sat down on opposite sides of a booth. It was nothing like Oxford. He watched her amble over to the drink machine and fill two glasses with water. Her ponytail swayed, tapping her shoulders as she walked. Mulder felt the sudden, inexplicable urge to pull out the rubber band and run his hands through the waves of red hair. Scorning the food in front of him, he stuck a fingernail into his mouth to chew. "You never used to bite your nails," Scully remarked, digging in as though she hadn't eaten in a week. Maybe she hadn't, Mulder thought, she looked thin. Thin in some places and rounder than he'd ever seen her in others. He tore at the nail more vigorously. Her smooth hand touched his, urging it away from his teeth. He shot her and angry look. "I just quit smoking," he sniped at her. "I didn't realize you'd started," she said in those same practiced tones he'd recognize anywhere. He'd know that voice in his sleep. "There's a lot you don't realize," he informed her, pushing his tray away untouched and staring at her. It made her uncomfortable and he liked that. "I know you'll jump on a plane after three years and fly across the country on my say-so," she said and instantly regretted the words. She couldn't look at him. She felt like she was abusing some power she had over him. "I assumed after three years, you had a pretty damn good reason," Mulder retorted, watching the way she looked anywhere but at him. She downed both glasses of water and picked up her tray, which she'd hardly touched. He grabbed his and followed her. "Did you get the letters, Scully?" he whispered. Her shoulders stiffened, so he knew she'd heard, but she pretended she hadn't. He wasn't sure if that reflex meant she'd received them or not. He'd poured out his heart to her and she'd never said one word in response. He was certain she hated him and he was a fool to have kept writing. It embarrassed him. "Let's go," she said, and they left. In the years without her, he'd gotten older. She seemed to have grown younger before his very gaze. Being around young people had done it to her, he theorized, or just being out of the FBI. She led him across the campus and up a flight of stairs. They left her out of breath. But not him. Finally, he'd bested her. It was waiting for them, in the lab, the way she'd left it. She drew back the sheet and waited for Mulder to say something. Mulder didn't turn around. The silence was awkward. "Why did you call me?" he asked finally. "I knew you'd know what to do." "And if I don't?" he asked, turning to face her. Her eyes were wide and focused on him. "You have to," she whispered, glancing at the thing in the tray. It twitched and she shivered, looking away, wrapping her arms around her body as though she couldn't get warm. He wanted to touch her then, but knew his touch would be unwelcome. They couldn't start this again. He couldn't let himself get caught up in her again. "Kill it," he told her in a leaden voice. He turned away from the body and from her. "Are you sure -?" she asked. He nodded, tense. "We've seen this before...I wondered...have you learned anything else about it?" Her eyes seemed almost innocent again. In a way it was a relief. He hadn't inflicted any permanent scars. Nothing she couldn't heal from in a year or three. She'd been free of him. She should have left it that way. "Kill it," Mulder said again, but still she looked hesitant. "Then I don't know what I can do here," he told her, whipping out a very small cellular phone and beginning to dial. "Mulder, wait," she said, hesitantly. She didn't want to tell him to stay when it was so obvious the only thing he wanted to do was leave. He paused and waited for her to say something else. There was nothing else for her to say. He continued dialing. He wanted her to stop him. There were so many things he wanted her to say, but he knew he was crazier than he'd ever been if he actually expected to hear them coming from her mouth. She'd left him. It had been three years. She had a different life now. So did he. "I need the next flight to Washington DC," he told the ticket agent. "That's it?" he demanded a moment later, then sighed. "I guess it'll have to do." "Try LA," Scully suggested. He glanced at her. She must be eager to get rid of me, he thought, but he said it. "What about from LAX?" A few minutes later, he hung up. "They have a flight in three hours. It will have to do." "Sorry you came out here for nothing," she said, trying to make her tone light and failing. "It wasn't nothing," he murmured. What was he supposed to do now? Walk away? He took a couple of steps. "Let me at least drive you," she offered, following him. "I have a rental car," he informed her. "Still," she shrugged. He knew he should say no. But he couldn't. "Why not," he muttered. The words hit Scully in an unflattering way, but she didn't let it show. She walked along next to Mulder, feeling like she should take his suitcase and carry it for him. What was she doing? she asked herself. She didn't want to start any of this up again. She wasn't going to go back to the FBI - it had nothing left to offer her. That was why she had gotten out in the first place. She didn't cry at night any more and she had gotten good at not thinking about Mulder. Now she was going to have to get over him all over again. They hit traffic after a few miles and the rental car didn't have a radio. Scully looked at Mulder, wondering if he intended to sit there in the passenger seat clenching his jaw for the rest of his life. "So..." she said, trying to open a conversation with him. "What's DC like these days?" "Same as ever. Crappy politics, everyone lies. Cold. You've been there, you know." "I was asking about you personally," she murmured. "There is no me, personally." "I'm sorry to hear that," she said, looking at the rear bumper of the car in front of her. "What about you, Scully?" "What about me?" "You're teaching school at a second-rate university!" he demanded. "I like my life," she protested. "And look at you!" "What?" She looked at him. Damn it. She hadn't wanted to. "You look like a kid! You run around in shorts and a T shirt and your hair in a ponytail. Don't you care how you look? Don't you care what people think of you?" "I stopped caring what people think of me a long time ago, Mulder. Working on the X Files didn't gain me a lot of esteem." "I didn't realize you were looking for esteem." "I wasn't," she snapped and the car inched up a few more feet. "What the hell are you doing here, Scully?" he asked. "Teaching young people about science." "Why?" She bit her lip. She didn't think he wanted to hear the truth, but she was tired of the pretty lies, and even the angry lies. She could feel him looking at her. "I didn't want my old life any more. The lies, the bureaucracy, the paperwork..." "You didn't quit because of paperwork." "No, I quit because of you." That shut him up. "When they closed us down, they sent me away and you didn't even protest. Off to Salt Lake City. I was a field agent, Mulder. A damn good one. But they sent me back there, hiding me away like I knew nothing and was nothing and you didn't say one single word. And that was all it would have taken. One word from you and I'd have been with you." "I don't think it would have been that simple, Scully." "Why didn't you try?" He didn't have an answer. She looked at him and he still didn't have an answer. She nodded. "That's why I left." The silence was deafening. "You haven't done much better for yourself here, then," he commented. "I have, because it is my choice now. I chose to teach, I wasn't assigned to it." "Big difference." "It is a big difference," she told him, and the silence came back. "So I guess if I asked you to come back, you wouldn't," he said. Her heart rate doubled instantly. "You don't want me to come back," she said and her voice was breathless. "You don't want to come back," he said. "Did you even get my letters?" So that was what it was about for him. The letters. "Yes," she said, almost inaudibly. "Why didn't you write back?" he asked. "Why didn't you call?" she asked him. Neither of them had answers. "We can't go back, Mulder. Even if we want to." He nodded. "I guess long-distance things never work out anyway," he said quietly. "We never had a thing, Mulder." "Even though we both wanted to." The only thing she wanted to do was throw her arms around him, but traffic had cleared so she couldn't. The rest of the drive was awkwardly silent. They had been the best of friends and now they had nothing to say to one another. Nothing that they wanted to hear, anyway. She walked him to the airport gate. "You have to kill it," he reminded her. She nodded. "Be careful." "I will," she promised. "You don't have to stay with me." "I want to." So they sat on the plastic benches awhile, still trying to think of something to say other than all the things they were avoiding telling each other. After so long a time, she had thought this would be easier. "You don't have to watch the plane take off," he told her. She nodded, knowing that she would. She hadn't been on a plane in three years. After so many flights with him in so short a time, she hadn't flown after that and she hadn't missed it until now. Now she had a strange pull in her stomach. She wanted to feel that loss of gravity, that lurch as the plane strained for altitude, the bumps as the wheels touched ground again. She wanted to go with him. "I guess I shouldn't bother writing again," he said and she could see the words pained him. "If you stop, Mulder, I will kill you," she informed him just as they announced his flight. His face crumbled into a tormented smile and she pulled him into her arms. One hug, between old friends. His arms felt good around her. When she closed her eyes, she could pretend everything was fine. She released him and they looked into each other's eyes for a moment, silently communicating the things they wouldn't say aloud. Maybe she would write back this time. Maybe he would call. Maybe they could work something out. He walked away to get on his flight and she watched him go. All the way down the ramp, and then she walked over to the window, to see if she could see him through the windows of the plane. She thought she did. He settled into his seat, shrugging out of his coat, getting comfortable. Her fingers touched the glass as the plane taxied away. She didn't lose sight of it as it began its ascent. Then he was gone. She took a breath and turned away, wiping her eyes with her hand. Everything was back to normal. They were apart again. Just like always. the end.