From: kitsunegari32 Date: 26 Sep 2002 03:19:21 -0700 Subject: [all-xf] Whoops! Repost: Fools in Love, hopefully easier to read... Source: atxc TITLE: Fools in Love AUTHOR: Freya E-MAIL ADDRESS: kitsunegari32@yahoo.com DISTRIBUTION: Archive anywhere, just let me know please. DISCLAIMER: The characters and situations of the television program "The X-Files" are the creations and property of Chris Carter, Fox Broadcasting, and Ten-Thirteen Productions. No copyright infringement is intended. SPOILER WARNING: En Ami, The Truth RATING: PG-13 for sexual situations CLASSIFICATION: Post-ep (for both En Ami and The Truth) KEYWORDS: MSR SUMMARY: Scully's musings on the Cigarette Smoking Man COMMENTS: This is my first time posting to any list. Feedback would be greatly appreciated. "I only did what you would have done in my shoes, Mulder." Scully was annoyed. The gunmen had left Mulder's apartment hours ago and he was sitting on the couch not talking to her. She was glad to be annoyed because it felt better than guilt, and it definitely felt better than embarrassment-two emotions she'd gotten well acquainted with during the past day or so, ever since she'd returned from with what Mulder thought was a reckless escapade with the manwhom they both knew to be Mulder's biological father. How long ago was it that Scully had run those DNA tests on Jeffrey Spender'sblood, confirming that he and Mulder were brothers, confirming thatMulder was indeed the son of a murderer? Had it been year? Two? A century? Yet it was still an unspoken truth between Mulder andScully. She had shown him the results and he had simply nodded, and put the files away. He never brought it up again. Had he confronted his mother about it? Scully doubted itvery much, and now it was too late. "If that's what I would have done, Scully, then I'm a fool, and you should know better than to follow fools by now." If this was Mulder's way of diffusing the tension between them, it was working. He stretched his arm out on the sofa as if he were making room for her there, and said, "Come here." It wasn't a question. Scully didn't know why, but she went and sat down and let him put his arm around her and draw her to him and bury his lips in her hair. "Maybe we're both fools," she whispered, pulling his arm tighter around her, thinking about the Smoking Man's words, and what they meant and why he said them to her and why it was so important to him to take her on such a wild goose chase. Then, she did something unexpected. She turned around, slowly took hisface in her hands, as if it were a fragile thing, made of glass, and started caressing it with her thumbs and then with her lips, too. Startled, Mulder let her go onlike that for a minute before responding, at first, following her lead, and then taking the lead with a fury and a passion all his own, but still, like Scully was touching him, he touched only her face Finally he stopped, and not letting go of her face, pushed it back far enough to look into her eyes and ask, "Why?" She smoothed the hair on his forehead and said, "I'm tired of having mystrings pulled, Mulder. We've thought for so long that lovingeach other would be dangerous..." Mulder didn't fail to noticeScully's use of "we" even though they've never, as far ashe remembered, discussed love. Not once. "...that we've denied ourselves the comfort and happiness that we could have had all along. Why? Because we thought they'd use us against each other? They're doing it anyway. What are we really afraid of, Mulder?" Mulder knew what they were both afraid of. He was afraid that if he admittedto himself or to anybody else that his world began and ended with her, that he wouldn't be able to bear losing her if and when the time came for them to part. Losing his sister had made him energetic. It had given him a purpose. It gave him the will to fight and find answers. Losing Scully would most likely have the opposite effect. If she died, he'd probably be not far behind. Suddenly, looking at her looking at him like that made him realize that it was far too late to escape that now. He loved her, andwhether he admitted that or not, he wouldn't survive without her. He wouldn't want to. Suddenly everything was so clear, whereas just a few minutes ago, he had been in a dream-state, only half awake. Or was this the dream? What had that sonofabitch said to her? Should he be grateful to the man who had before given him nothing but life? He smiled at Scully. For whatever reason, he knew he could love her now. He feltlike he was just released from a long stay in prison. She smiled back. He pushed her to her feet, stood up and walking backwards, never taking his eyes off hers, pulled her by the arm to his bed. The next morning, as they lay in bed, intertwined, they laughed together about the Cigarette Smoking Man's words to Scully. "So how did you respond to that remark?" "Oh, I made some comment about him adding 'pop-psychologist' under 'cold-blooded murderer' on his resume." "You didn't." Mulder laughed. She never ceased to amaze him. "I did. I just couldn't believe he had the gall to talk to me about love." "Well, maybe I should send him a thank-you card." He ran his hand along the front of her body as if he were reminding Scully that she was his now. "Seriously, Mulder. Why did he do it? I can't think of any reason otherthan to mess with our minds, but he went to a great expense just todo something he's been doing practically for free for years anyway." Mulder pulled Scully on top of him and spoke to her shoulder blade that he was now kissing and which seemed a lot more important right now thansmoking men and conspiracies and aliens. "I don't know if we'll ever know his motives, Scully. I don't know if we'll ever find the truth. Maybe it's not the truth that's important. Maybe it's the quest that counts. Maybe it's how we live our lives and it's the people we meet and the things we do on the way that are important." He kissed her shoulder again. And again. "That sounds suspiciously religious, Mulder," Scully said. Are you becoming Buddhist or something else I should know about? He fingered her cross and said, "I don't know about that, Scully, but in the past 24 hours, I've definitely become enlightened about a good many things." "Such as?" "Such as, that you like it when I do this." And he kissed her all the way from her collar bone to her ear, making Scully squirmslightly. "Mulder?" "Yeah?" "Shut up and make love to me." And so he did. And neither one of them knew they were being watched. Months later, when Scully was pregnant and Mulder was gone, Scully would again think about the Smoking Man's motives. She wondered if he really had wanted to leave a legacy, even if it wasn't one he could tell anybody about. That Mulder's biological father was evil, Scully was sure. Scully had seen evil, and each time, whenit was over, after she had been used by it, when she had finally triumphed over it, she was sure she would recognize it the next time it came to her, but the nature of evil, she supposed, is it's ability to deceive and so Scully finds herself again and again on the edge of the abyss. The Cigarette Smoking Man, however, was a puzzle to Scully, in part because she wasn't sure of her own motives in dealing with him. Did she want to find good in him, the father of the man she loved? Didshe hope he would want redemption? Was she arrogant enoughto think that he would come to *her* for absolution? She had told Mulder, that day in his apartment so long ago, the day they had made love for the first time, the day their child was conceived,that she had seen something in the man's eyes that she had never seen before. She didn't know what it was: regret, desire, possibly hope. But she was sure that at least at that moment, she hadn'tbeen looking into the face of evil. Years later, when Scully's and Mulder's child was safely hidden away, the Smoking Man was definitely and for all time dead, and Scully and Mulder were on the run, continuing their quest, looking for answers, Scully would stop sometimes to think about evil and love and the grandfather of her baby, and even though Mulder would never believe this, she was as sure as she was that there is a heaven, that the Smoking Man had acted out of mercy rather than hate when he enabled herto conceive. She was also sure that children are born instinctively knowing whether they were conceived out of love, hate, or indifference. Mulder hadn't been surprised at the results of the DNA tests because he had already known that he was product of an unhappy, if not unholy, union. When Mulder would dream about their son, worrying that he would take after his grandfather, Scully would hold him and remind him that their son was conceived out of love, and that was the most precious gift they could have given him, one that he would carrywith him for the rest of his life. And when they would cry togetherabout what they lost, she would remember that you can't lose something until you've had it, and she would silently thank the Smoking Man, or God, or whomever might be listening, for having had the giftof a child, even if only for a moment, and then she would rock her lover back to sleep. End.