From: "Susan Moritz" Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2000 15:35:58 PDT Subject: story Source: direct Title: Details Author: Susan O. Moritz Rated: PG Spoilers: Requiem Keywords: Scully angst Summary: What happens to Mulder's apartment while he's away? Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Files and I don't think CC will pick up on the important details of Mulder's life such as whether or not his fish survives his absence:) Details By: Susan O. Moritz "A man's dying is more the survivor's affair than his own."-Thomas Mann-The Magic Mountain Dana Scully sat on Mulder's sofa, her hands folder over her extend belly. She looked around taking it all in. Soon it would all be different. Scully could keep hope of finding Mulder alive for the rest of her live if necessary, but the rest of life would not allow her to do that. Perhaps if she were rich things would be different. There were a lot of ifs these days. If Mulder hadn't been taken, none of this would have been an issue. Mulder's landlord had been sympathetic, but he was just a person trying to make a living. And how could one make a living by holding an apartment open for a person who may or may not ever appear again to pay up. And as sad and depressing as it was, Scully had to face life's hard fact that she didn't have enough money to pay for both her apartment and Mulder's. For a few months she had been able to make both the monthly payments, but she couldn't keep it up forever. The cost of living in the D.C. metropolitan area was just too expensive and the cost of one G-woman's salary wasn't going to cut it. And now she had to think of financially supporting her child. Scully let a small, sad smile play over her lips. She never had thought of herself as a single mom before. She had always thought of herself and Mulder when thinking about the child. Scully glanced at the empty, space where the fish tank use to be. Soon after Mulder's abduction, she had moved the fish to her apartment. There she would remember to feed them more often than not. The Lone Gunmen had been a wonderful help to Scully. It took Mulder's disappearance to make Scully realize just how important she was to them. She wasn't just Mulder's partner to them; she was their friend too. The Lone Gunmen had offered to move Mulder's belongings not only because physically Scully was unable, but also to help ease her pain. Scully was going to place most of Mulder's stuff in the basement of her Mother's house, which she had graciously offered to her daughter. Some of the more personal reminders of Mulder would go to Scully's apartment. A few of the items, Scully had decided to give the Lone Gunmen. Scully might have felt some qualms about moving Mulder's stuff if she hadn't know that he had left her everything that he had left everything to her. Since his Mother's suicide he hadn't had to worry about providing for his Mother, so he had left everything to Scully. She was all the family he really had left. She remembered the day Mulder had told her about his new will. She had protested that she didn't want his money. He had simply laughed and asked who else was going to take care of his affairs after he was gone, the Lone Gunmen. Scully had eventually reluctantly agreed that she would take care of things if Mulder died before she did. She didn't like the idea of Mulder talking about his demise as if it might bring bad luck, which it certainly seemed to have done. But she supposed that one had to take care of all the details of life, especially in their line of work. Scully would soon have to make sure that her child was provided for in the case of her death. One never liked to think of these things, but they were things that had to be done. If Mulder was declared dead, she could access his bank account and use his retirement money (Scully was listed as the beneficiary) to pay for the apartment, but Scully was in absolutely no way prepared to declare Mulder dead. That it would make his case inactive was the least of her concerns. She didn't want to admit that he might never return to her. The apartment would just have to go. It depressed the hell out of her. Here was where she had spent so much of her life for the past seven years. It was here that she could access Mulder. She could smell him in the air. She could picture in her mind a thousand and one images of them together here. She half expected him to walk through the door and tell her that he was back and that the hell that she had been going through looking for him the past couple of months had all been a bad dream. Scully noticed that the light that had been streaming through the windows next to his computer was slowly fading. She got up and headed into Mulder's bedroom. She hadn't meant to spend the night at Mulder's place, but she was tired and somehow it seemed right. She needed the comfort that this place had always given her. She got into bed and pulled the covers up around her. She rested her head on one of Mulder's pillows and wrapped her arms around the one Mulder always used. She pulled it close to her face and breathed deeply. She could still detect Mulder's smell, albeit very faintly. She soon fell sound asleep. Amazingly, she managed to push out all thoughts of tomorrow and dreamed of happier moments with Mulder.