From: Maria Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 04:05:49 -0700 (PDT) Subject: xfc: {New} I Promise You (1/1)*Spoilers for Orison* Source: xfc Author: Maria O'Rourke. Title: I Promise You. Summary: After the events of Donnie Pfaster's re-appearance into Scully and Mulder's lives, a promise is made from one hurting heart to another. Feedback: dk_scully_101@yahoo.com Spoilers: Orison and Irresistible. Homepage: http://geocities.com/Area51/Meteor/4816/ Author's Notes: The episode Orison really touched me but I felt that it was left unfinished. I watched Irresistible and felt the same so I decided to do something about it this time.*g* Remember to tell me what you think! {*~*}{*~*}{*~*}{*~*}{*~*} "And I promise you, Never will you hurt anymore. I give you my word, I give you my heart, This is a battle with words. And with this now, Forever has now begun." * {*~*}{*~*}{*~*}{*~*}{*~*} His head lay propped up against the arm of the couch and he stared at the ceiling above him. He was looking at the paint and wondering why the hell he was so stupid. He should've checked the messages. He should've known where Donnie would go. He should've been there for her. He should have stopped her from shooting him. His mind paused on that last thought. Where the hell had that come from? Wasn't Mulder glad that Donnie was dead? Shouldn't he be glad that the only thing, which had caused Scully to ever break down, was gone? Shouldn't he be glad that the only thing that had plagued her mind, even worse than her abduction, was now finally gone? But the truth was, he wasn't gone. He was only now becoming real again. He'd seen the look on Scully's face when she'd read the file in the prison. He'd seen the look on her face when the marshal had asked her if the case was supernatural. "He's just pure evil" That response had chilled him to the bone. Evil was not a word that Scully used lightly, or often. She'd never even referred to Duanne Barry with that word. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, swallowing as he did so and then he closed his eyes. In reality, he knew that the nightmare for Scully was only beginning. It would take a long time for her to come to terms with what she'd done. She'd killed him. Not in self-defence. Not because she was in a threatening situation. But because she'd wanted to. Maybe it was because she needed to, but it was the same idea. The fact remained that she had done it not because she had to. He saw the look on her face after she'd pulled the trigger and he saw the look of fear and confusion mixed in her eyes and he had stared at the raw emotion he'd glimpsed back in 1994. The same fear. The same hatred. He knew from experience that Dr Dana Katherine Scully prided herself on the fact that she could hide her emotions from everyone. He'd even been fooled in the beginning, but even when he had become accustomed to her methods of hiding emotions, when he'd found ways of deciphering her movements or words, he'd never ever glimpsed into that one look which sent tremors and fear throughout his body. Until tonight. Tonight, he'd glimpsed into her soul and he didn't like what he saw. He saw a frightened woman who never lost her control. A woman who, just that day, had told him that she was going to face up to the demon which had plagued her. He knew now that the fact she had killed him, would only make matters worse. It would only start the nightmare that she'd have to face every day, every hour, every second of her waking and sleeping hours. He reopened his eyes and stared at the ceiling again. He knew in his heart that she'd want to return as soon as possible to her own apartment. She'd claim that she was fine, that she felt all right, that everything was Disney-world-okey-dokey. He sighed again and swallowed, running a hand down his throat, across his Adam's apple and allowing it to rest on his chest. He was worried. He was afraid. And both were for Scully. She'd gone to bed almost three hours ago. She'd cried softly for the first two. It was only over an hour ago that it quietened to low cries. It had torn him apart to listen to her. But he knew that it wouldn't do any good for him to go to her. He'd done that before. He'd done it after the last time. And it hadn't done any good. He'd stayed with her for at least five hours until she told him that she was fine and he'd honestly believed her, but she wasn't. He knew that she thought that he couldn't hear her. He knew that she thought that he couldn't feel her crying. He could, on both counts. But he couldn't go back in there to her. He was going to stay in his own room until the crying had stopped. The only trouble was, that it had never stopped. He'd lost count of the amount of times that he'd heard her cry in her room, sometimes unknown to herself. He took another deep intake of breath to calm his rising anger and he allowed it to slip out from between his lips. The true fact of the matter was, alive- Donnie Pfaster had been ruining Dana Scully's life. Now, in death, he was going to do something worse, eat her up until there was nothing left but a broken shell. In the moment it had taken him to turn from Scully to the falling body of Donnie Pfaster and then back to his partner, he had seen her turn from a prized Special Agent with a medical degree and a hard belief system which allowed her to face up to other things which people couldn't even dream of, to a fear-filled, teary-eyed woman who had pulled the trigger on a man who was under arrest and at that moment in time, posing no threat. He knew Dana Scully and he knew that the worse thing she had ever done was pull the trigger on that sorry son-of-a-bitch. It came so quickly and quietly, that he didn't even realise it had happened until he felt the soft thud of her body beside his on the leather-bound couch. He didn't move, he hardly allowed a breath to enter or escape his lungs. He just lay there and waited. For her to speak. For her to move. For her to do something. All she did was drape her arm over his chest and allow her head to rest under his arm. He found his own arm reaching around and pulling her closer to him. He pulled her closer again and her hand tightened against him. He sighed and closed his eyes. She'd come to him. And he realised that was the only thing that he needed to hear from her. He felt her tears soak into his t-shirt and he swallowed to stop himself from joining her. "You'll be alright Scully...." He soothed and he felt her head shake against his chest. His hand reached up and gently rubbed her hair. He could feel her freeze underneath his touch so he stopped in his tracks and swallowed again, kissing the top of her head. "I promise...." And for the first time that night, she stopped crying. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ *~*~ Disclaimer: They don't belong to me, but to Chris Carter, 1013 and Fox. The song used is called "This I promise you" by Nsync. No infringement is intended on either of these two works. ===== You can find my website at http://geocities.com/Area51/Meteor/4816