From: eponine119  <eponine119@att.net>
Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 18:42:49 -0700
Subject: NEW: The Ex 1/1

The X Files belong to Chris Carter, 1013 and Fox, not me.

Summary: Scully doesn't know why she's so upset after meeting  Mulder's
ex-wife.

Comments appreciated.
____________________
The Ex
by eponine119
eponine119@att.net
May 4, 1998
____________________

	She was tall and thin and dark haired and
standing in the doorway of their office.  Mulder bounced
up from his seat to stand by her side, touching her arm
as he smiled at Scully.  "This is Karen.  My ex-wife."
	Scully nodded and managed a tight smile of
greeting.  She couldn't manage a wave.  "Hello," was out
of the question.  So she just nodded.
	She felt the woman's eyes on her, interested, but
then she turned to Mulder.  "Lunch?"  Karen asked. 
Mulder nodded like a  puppy and Scully bent her neck to
concentrate on the report she was reading.  Because she
had her nose stuck in a book, Scully didn't see Mulder's
lingering look and his silent wave goodbye.  She thought
he left without saying a word.
	The tears that streamed down her face a moment
later shocked her and she froze for a second.  Mulder
and his ex wife had just left to work on a non-X Files
case and he looked happier than she'd seen him in
months.  Even though she knew he'd been married
before and wouldn't talk about it, it still surprised her. 
She didn't know why.
	She looked down at the papers, but couldn't
work.  She was thinking about Mulder.  He had a "type." 
She'd seen enough of his women now to get it.  Tall,
slim women with dark hair and dark eyes. Phoebe,
Kristen, Bambi, Karen.  God only knew how many
others.  Everything Dana Scully was not.
	This one looked like Tom Cruise's ex wife, 
Scully thought.  Hey, Tom married Nicole after that,
didn't he? a little voice in her head whispered.  Shut up,
everyone knows Tom Cruise is gay, she thought
viciously.
	She had to get out of this office before the voices
in her head got any louder.
	She found herself wondering what Tom Colton,
her FBI Academy paramour, was up to.   She hadn't seen
him since he'd introduced her and Mulder to the slimiest
of mutants Eugene Tooms way back in the beginning. 
Now at what felt like the end, Scully wondered if seeing
him would enhance her perspective the way it had back
then.
	"I thought you were dead!"  Tom Colton, ASAC
of the Baltimore bureau, greeted Scully.  He shook her
hand vigorously and patted her on the back, impacting
her small frame more than either of them had expected.
	She was one of the boys now, apparently, she
thought, declining to take a seat.  Tom looked at her
curiously and she tried not to stare at his bald spot.  "Did
you come all this way to see me, Dana?" he asked.  He
seemed more mature now. Maybe responsibility had
done that, she thought, looking at the gold ring he wore
on his finger.  A plain gold band. Everyone seemed to
have one lately.
	She shook her head quickly, saving her self
respect.  "I was in the building and heard you had the big
office now so I had to drop by."
	Colton was nodding.  "How's Spooky treating
you?"
	"You thought I was dead," she answered.  
	Colton stopped nodding and looked at her. 
"You're okay now?" he asked.
	"Yeah," she said, staring back at him.  In a few
seconds she wasn't going to be, though.   She was going
to cry again.
	"You look like hell, Dana," Colton told her,
sounding very much the ASAC addressing an overtired
agent.
	"Please excuse me," she said and managed to
make it to her car before the torrent began.  She'd been
crying about everything lately, it seemed, without even
knowing why. Maybe it was something in the air. Maybe
she had a new allergy to spring.  Spring.  Rebirth.  She'd
been reborn, to some degree, last fall.  Getting her life
back, and not for the first time. And yet what was she
doing with it? Mulder seemed to be moving on and she
couldn't.  Didn't want to.
	Wiping her tears, she pulled back onto the
highway and wondered what was going to happen to her.
	The office was closed up when she got back.
Mulder and the ex had returned from lunch and gone
again.  It's fine, she told herself, picking out some files
and deciding to work on them at  home.  In her pajamas,
if at all possible.  She shoved them in her bag and started
upstairs.
	She found herself listening at doors and pausing
too long between desks, walking too slowly.  She
wanted someone to talk to her.  She wanted someone to
talk to.  
	Skinner opened his door as she was walking past
and she jumped, startled.  "Agent Scully," he said,
looking pleased to see her.  "Going to your car?"
	"Yes, sir."  Looking up, she realized he had his
trenchcoat slung over his briefcase as well.
	"We'll walk together," he decreed, punching the
button for the elevator.  She knew he was looking at her,
but she didn't know what to say.  He gestured her into
the elevator first and pushed the button for the parking
level.
	"Are you all right,  Agent Scully?" Skinner
asked.  She nodded.  "You look like you've been crying."
	Scully flinched.  She hadn't realized she'd been
so obvious about it.  "Springtime," she lied. "Allergies." 
Skinner nodded, but a glance at him told her he didn't
believe a word of it.
	"You knew Agent Mulder had been married
before," Skinner said.
	"Of course," she answered evenly.  "It was in his
file."
	"Do you know what happened?" Skinner asked,
holding her in conversation near the elevator in the
parking garage.
	"He doesn't talk about it.  Not to me, at least." 
Part of her hoped Skinner would tell her.  The rest of her
didn't want to know.
	"Not to me, either," Skinner replied and they
began walking.
	"Why is Mulder on this case?" she asked.
	"They requested him for his profiling skills."
	"No one ever requests my skills," she thought
and then realized she'd said it aloud when she noticed
Skinner staring at her.  "I'm sorry."  She was mortified.
	"I think they think you're too preoccupied with
the X files, Agent Scully," Skinner told her.  "This is my
car."
	"Have a good evening, sir," she said.  Skinner
had a nice car, she thought.  Mercedes.  Black.  Befitting
a man of his position.  She walked to her requisitioned
blue Taurus and tried not to cry.  Skinner might be able
to see her.  She'd become Spooky, and now Mulder was
the popular one.  She was the one who cared about the X
files and he was the one who had a life.  No one asked
about her because she didn't have cool profiling skills. 
And because they thought she was dead.
	Scully took the long route home.  Sometimes
driving allowed you time to think, to have ideas you
wouldn't normally have.  That wasn't the case today. 
She found herself stopping in front of a tiny cottage of a
house with a lovely lawn and garden and a small
monument sign out front.  "Karen Kossoff, Psychology
Services."
	The old Bureau shrink had retired from the
glamour of counseling agents traumatized by shootings -
themselves, their partners, the perpetrators, the victims -
and gone into private practice.  Scully had only seen her
two or three times, and she'd hated every session.  But
she got out of the car.
	"I'm sorry," she said when Kossoff opened the
door.  "You don't remember me.  Dana Scully.  From the
FBI."
	"Of course.  Come in.  Would you like some
tea?"
	"No."  Scully stopped just inside the door,
wondering what the hell she was doing there.
	"You came because you needed to talk, Dana,"
Kossoff said. It should have been a question, but it
wasn't.  Scully nodded and walked into the office with
the psychologist.
	"Things are changing and I don't feel like I can
keep up with them."
	"Why do you think you feel this way, Dana?"
	"I don't know," Scully cried.  "My partner's off on
some assignment that has nothing to do with our cases -"
	"Your partner.  How do you feel about him,
Dana? Do you feel as though he's abandoned you?"
	"Maybe."  She crossed her arms stubbornly.
	"Do you feel like he's betrayed you?"
	"Maybe," she said again.
	"You've been crying, haven't you?"  She nodded. 
"What made you cry,  Dana?"
	"I went to see an old friend.  He told me he'd
heard I was dead."
	"How did that make you feel?"
	This woman was ridiculous, Scully thought, but
she answered.  "Terrible.  It made me remember that I
had almost died.  That I was given the opportunity to
start again and I didn't take it.  Maybe I should have
died.  Maybe  I was supposed to die.  Agent Mulder has
moved on with his life and his work anyway, but  I
haven't."
	"What would have happened if you'd died, Dana? 
What do you think would have happened?"
	"To the people around me?" she asked, and the
shrink nodded.  "I don't know. My mother would have
mourned and my brother would have been angry.  I
guess...my fellow agents would have been sad, but they
would have forgotten."
	"You said you haven't moved on with your life. 
Isn't there anything you've done, or seen, or realized,
since your encounter with death that you're proud of?"
	Seven cases solved.  A couple of vacations taken. 
Emily.  She never would have known she'd had a
daughter if she'd succumbed to cancer last fall.  Maybe it
would have been a blessing.
	"I'm sorry.  I have to...I have to go."  She was
choking on the words, trying not to cry.  Scully bolted
from the tiny house, embarrassed for having gone there. 
She hoped Kossoff could be trusted to send her a bill
and not call anyone.
	At home, she put on her pajamas.  She made the
hot cocoa and curled up in bed with the files.  But she
still couldn't concentrate on them.  When the telephone
rang, she prayed it was Mulder, but knew it wasn't.  "Hi
Mom," she said.  "What's going on?"
	"I felt like maybe you wanted to talk," her
mother told her.
	I hate that psychic routine, Scully thought, but it
was good to hear a friendly voice.  "I'm fine, Mom." 
Silence.  Her mom wasn't going to ask, and she wasn't
going to tell her.  "Do you ever think about getting
married again, Mom?"
	"Where did that come from, Dana?"
	"That's what people do, isn't it?  They suffer a
loss, and they recover, and eventually they go on. 
Right?"
	"Yes, but this is different, Dana.  Your
father...was very special to me. I think he was the only
one for me."
	"You never think about -?"
	"I suppose I do, from time to time.  But I have
my friends, I have my children -"  A pause as Scully
knew she was thinking 'that are left,' "- I have my
volunteer work and my hobbies. It's a full life, Dana.  A
good life.  I'm happy."
	"If you met the right man -?"
	"I don't know,  Dana, that hasn't happened yet. 
Where are you going with this?"
	Now her mother was annoyed.  Fine. 
"Nowhere," Scully said.  "I've got to go, I'll call you this
weekend."  She hung up before her mother could say
another word.
	I just hung up on my mother.
	The walls seemed to be closing in.  Scully
slipped into some shoes and put her trenchcoat on over
her pajamas.  It was long enough, no one would ever
know.  She walked out into the night.
	It was cool and moist and beautiful.  Clear.  She
could see the stars as she walked along the tree lined
streets, one block up and two blocks over to the coffee
shop.  She bought a sandwich and some milk and slid
into the booth in the back to watch people and try not to
think.
	The next person who walked into the coffee shop
was Mulder's ex.  Scully jumped and put her head down.
Mulder wasn't with her.  The woman surely wouldn't
recognize her.  Even if she did, she wouldn't come over
here...
	"Do you mind some company?" the ex asked her.
	Scully looked up, caught.  "Not at all."
	The ex smiled and sat down.  "I hardly
recognized you from this morning," she said brightly. 
Self-conscious, Scully touched her glasses and raked her
fingers through her hair.  The ex looked perfect as she
had that morning.  "You must live around here."  Scully
nodded.  "So do I.  Funny."  The ex took a bite of her
sandwich and Scully saw it was the same as hers.  "I'm
glad I ran into you.  I'd been wanting to speak to you, but
I didn't have the time, what with the case -"
	"How is that going?"
	"It broke late this afternoon."
	"Is Mulder okay?"
	The ex almost laughed, but managed to stop
herself when she saw Scully's earnest face.  "Mulder's
fine.  A little tired.   I sent him home to get some rest.  I
don't think he sleeps when he works on these things."
	"Don't you know?"
	"What?"
	"You were married to him, don't you know if he
sleeps when he's working on a case?"  Scully asked.
	The ex nodded and put down her sandwich.  "Did
you know he'd been married?"
	"He doesn't talk about it,  but yes, I knew." 
Scully answered.
	"You want to know what happened."  Scully
didn't say anything, but the ex told her anyway.  "We
were young and we were stupid, basically.  We started
fooling around in the academy and thought we could
keep it up when we got to be agents.  I was assigned to
Seattle and he was assigned to D.C.  I cheated on him,
he probably cheated on me, end of marriage, end of
story."
	Scully nodded.   Mulder wouldn't cheat on his
wife.  She knew that, she knew him.  Even in a long
distance relationship, one he didn't want anymore, he
wouldn't do it.  She'd hurt him, or he would have been
able to talk about it.  Like Phoebe hurt him by cheating
on him.  He still loved this woman a little, or things
weren't resolved between them, or he wouldn't have
been so puppyish eager to please her.  Scully wondered
if the woman across the table knew Mulder as well as
she did.
	"Are you jealous?"
	"Why?" Scully asked.  "He's my partner."
	"Still, I took him away from you."
	"It was only one case."  Implying she'd better not
do it again.
	"We didn't sleep together," the ex offered.  Scully
nodded. She really hadn't wanted to know.  "I sense he
has...baggage."
	One suitcase, named Dana Scully.  That's all she
was to anyone, really, was baggage.  Too bad she
couldn't be checked at the door or mishandled and lost
on some flight.
	The ex nodded and patted Scully's hand.  "I'm
glad we had the chance to talk," she said.  "See you
around."
	Scully watched her walk away, knowing that
now they knew each other lived in the same
neighborhood, Scully was going to see her all the time at
the grocery store and the video shop and the dry cleaner. 
She'd probably been there all along and Scully hadn't
noticed.
	Scully got up, too, but when she walked out, she
went a different direction.  She headed over to Mulder's. 
She didn't know why, exactly.  Except that as his
baggage, she had a responsibility to make sure he'd got
to his destination with everything he needed, no worse
for the wear.  
	She had the idea he might be worse for the wear.
	"Hey Scully."  Mulder didn't sound enthusiastic
when he let her into his apartment.  "What brings you
here?"
	"I was in the neighborhood.  I heard your case
broke. I thought you might need to talk."
	"Who'd you hear that from?"  He settled on the
couch. 
	She didn't want to sit next to him, so she leaned
on the desk, looking at the fishtank.  "Your ex."
	"You talked to her?"
	"I didn't stalk her, if that's what you're thinking,"
Scully said.  "I ran into her in the coffee shop. She lives
in my neighborhood, isn't that funny?" Maybe Mulder
already knew.  Maybe all those times he happened by it
had been because he'd been thinking of her.
	"Funny," said Mulder.
	"Are you okay?" Scully asked.
	"I've been over it for years," he answered.  "Had
the breakdown, took off the ring, got my life together. 
I'm fine.  Are you fine?"
	"I'm fine."
	"You don't look fine."
	"Thanks."
	"Scully, you're in your pajamas."
	She looked down.  She'd forgotten.  
	"Come here," Mulder said and she sat down on
the couch next to him.  To her ultimate shock, he put his
arms around her and hugged her.  She looked at him. 
"You looked like you needed that."
	"Maybe I did," she admitted.
	"How was your day?"
	She shook her head.  "How was yours?"
	Mulder shook his head.  "Do you want to know
what happened?"
	"She told me.  It doesn't matter."
	Mulder hugged her again, tight and this time he
didn't let her go.  "What was that?" Scully asked.
	"I think I needed it," he admitted in a small
voice, nudging his face into her shoulder.  She  put her
arms around him and squeezed back gently.
	"Mulder, do you think Tom Cruise married
Nicole Kidman because they're both gay and needed a
cover story?"
	He chuckled and she could feel his breath. 
"That's an interesting conspiracy, Scully.  But no X File. 
I think he likes redheads now."
	"Now?" she asked, but he seemed to be sniffing
the collar of her pajamas.  "Mulder?"
	"What kind of fabric softener do you use?  It
smells good."
	"Generic," she said.
	"Why did you come here in your pajamas?" he
asked.
	"I had a hunch you'd like my fabric softener." 
She brushed the hair out of his eyes and settled in next
to him, her arms around him and his arms around her. 
Maybe things had changed after all.

the end.
comments appreciated --> eponine119@att.net

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________________I REFUSE TO BELIEVE_____________________
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