From: ephemeral@ephemeralfic.org
Date: 14 Aug 2001 11:54:30 -0000
Subject: I Will Come Home, I Promise by cerulan_blue
Source: direct

Reply To: blue_cerulean@hotmail.com


Title: I Will Come Home, I Promise.

Author: Gillian (not that one, sorry)

E-mail: blue_cerulean@hotmail.com

Rating: gentle

Spoilers: season eight

Disclaimer: These characters and all things
X-Files are the property of CC and 1013.
Story created out of respect for that amazing
gift.

Comments: This is the final piece of the
puzzle for me, how to deal with Mulder's
absence next year.  This is a companion story
to "Partners, in all Other Senses of the
Word" and "Which is What?"

Story: Scully fights to give Mulder the
freedom he needs to go.

Dedication: to David and Gillian who gave
these characters life.


I Will Come Home, I Promise
by Gillian

It has started slowly.

She knew it had nothing to do with her, and
it had nothing to do with William.  She knew
that he was going to have to go, and despite
feeling the agony of that with every fibre of
her being, she also understood the reason
why.

The joy that they had felt those first few
days had been euphoric.  She had given him
her keys, hoping that he would choose to come
and stay with her.  But, as with many things
in their relationship, it had remained
unarticulated.  But, that first night, while
Langly, Byers and Frohike were there, he let
himself in, and then he didn't leave.

The first night that they slept together had
been enormous.  She had awoken to find him
out in the living room just sitting there
with William.  And, she had known, without
hesitation, that everything they had been
through had at last come full circle.  They
were home.

Everything about those first few days now
seems like a blur of feedings, bathings, naps
and frantic conversation.  And he had been
amazing.  He seemed to just intuit the
moments where he needed to do things without
being asked, and when it made sense for him
to just do whatever she asked him to do.  His
severance from the F.B.I. had been generous,
and so, for the moment, they didn't worry
about anything to do with money.  They just
stayed together in that little house and
rediscovered each other.

They talked about stolen moments over the
past eight years when they had begun to
realize that they were in love with each
other.  They talked about their dreams for
William.  They talked about their childhoods. 
They talked about parents and old friends,
and college.  They talked about old loves and
the ways in which those relationships had
readied themselves for this one.  The one. 
And, when the moments were particularly
clear, they talked about the past nine
months.  Each agonizing moment.

What they couldn't talk about was what was
going to happen now.  That they would love
each other forever was a given.  That their
lives would remain interconnected and their
trust interdependent was beyond a shadow of a
doubt.  It was unthinkable that either of
them could be intimate with anyone else. 
That they would do whatever it took to give
William the best possible life was at the
centre of everything.  But something was
missing, and not quite right.  And with each
passing day it became a little more clear.

It started when she realized that he hadn't
slept once through the night since they had
been living together.  At first she thought
that was just because of William and the
feedings, and that he liked to get up with
her and sit straddled around her as she
nursed.  But then she began to realize that
he was always awake first when William cried,
and sometimes he was already holding him
before she even stirred.  It wasn't though,
until the night that her mother agreed to
take William so that they could have a night
together that she realized he was unable to
sleep.

He brushed it off as being about new
surroundings, being so amazed at being alive,
not wanting to miss a moment of William, and
other such stories.  And she believed him. 
Everything about Mulder had changed since he
had returned from the dead.  He seemed to
take so much more pleasure in the simplest of
things, and was very content to just be with
her and William, listen to her endless
stories.  Entertain her with remembrances of
all the times she had driven him absolutely
crazy with desire over the past eight years.

And then, he started to look tired.  And she
found that his wanting to be around her
sitting and listening to her stories seemed
to be connected to some kind of lethargy.  He
was going less and less to play pick-up
basketball at the gym, and only seemed go out
of the apartment when they took William for a
walk.  The rest of the time, he seemed quite
content to just stay inside.

And, while the pattern of their love-making
had seemed so frantic from the outset, it was
now much less so.  Everything about their
lives now seemed so intimate, she didn't
realize that while they touched and kissed
and always slept intertwined, that they had
stopped making love.  

While it has seemed for eight years that
there was nothing that they couldn't say to
each other, now it looked like there was
something enormous in their way.  And, she
was terrified to find out what it was.  He
had lied to her about his brain illness, and
she had found out for herself that it was
gone.  But what if it was back?  What if he
couldn't talk about it to her?  What if he
was now realizing that being with them was
not his dream?  What if he was miserable? 
She couldn't bear to know the answers, and
yet couldn't go on with the feeling that the
life that she felt so sure they had been
heading for, was not what either of them
really wanted.

She had to know.  So, she finally just asked.

"Mulder, what's happening?"

He looked at her and in his hazel eyes she
could see that he knew exactly what she was
asking.  In an instant she could see the
terror, and then the most extraordinary look
of love that she had ever seen.  It took her
breath away.

"Let me just go check on William, Scully. 
Then..."  He took a deep breath, and she
could see the tears welling up in his eyes. 
"Then, we'll talk."

She watched as he turned and went towards the
bedroom.  She could see the weight in his
steps and the tension in his shoulders.  She
closed her eyes and waited. 

When he didn't come out of the bedroom for
what seemed like ages, she slowly walked
towards it.  She entered to see him, sitting
on the bed, his legs up against his chest,
staring into the tiny basinette where their
son had slept from the first night that he
had come to her.

"He's so beautiful, Scully.  How did we make
something so beautiful?"

"Mulder?"

He turned to her, and the look on his face
was one that she had never seen before. 
Perhaps in fleeting moments of pure pain. 
When his mother died.  As he read in his
sister's diary that she hoped one day her
brother would read those words.  When he
learned she had cancer.  But even still, this
look was different.

He stood, and put out his hand to her, which
she took.  For a brief moment they just stood
there, hand in hand.  She then gently led him
to the living room where they sat on the
couch.  A place where they had had thousands
of conversations over the years.  

"I'm lost, Scully."  He breathed deeply and
avoided looking her directly in the eyes. 
Looking down at his hands he began to quietly
speak.  "I need to know what happened to me,
and I need to know what is still happening to
all those others.  I dream about it every
night.  Its at the point now where I am
terrified to go to sleep.  All I see are
their faces, I have no idea whose faces they
are, but they are haunting me.  I need to do
something to make it stop.  I need to help
them.  I need them to feel the joy that I
feel being with you and William.  Being
alive."

He lifted his head and looked her directly in
the eyes.  "I love you, Scully.  My place is
with you and our son, and I know that.  I
honestly believed that when I left the F.B.I.
and the X-Files and came to you, that this
was the path my life was meant to take.  And
I still believe that.  You have to know that. 
But something isn't right about this. 
Something is left unfinished.  And I am not
sure that I am going to find peace until it
is.  I just want to grow old with you.  Teach
our son to play baseball, or dance, or
whatever he wants to do with his life.  And
then I just want to sit somewhere with you
where we can breathe ocean air, tell each
other stories, watch the sun rise and set,
and be with our dreams.  But until I find out
what is keeping me from that, I am not sure
that I will be able to be really free."

She couldn't speak.  She just stared back at
him, trying to reflect back to him in the
azure blue of her eyes, the love that was
resonating to her from his.  She knew he
wasn't finished, and despite having a world
of things to say.  She waited.

"I think the only way that this is going to
work is if we work on this together.  And
they won't let us do it.  But you still have
access to the X-Files..."

"Mulder, no."  She couldn't bear it.  She
knew where this was going.

"Please hear me out.  What I think makes
sense is for you to continue to work on the
case of Billy Miles, and Jeremiah Smith, and
all the other missing abductees.  The file
isn't closed, and Agent Doggett knows that
too.  Monica will help.   With your direction
and insight, I think the two of them could do
some amazing work.  And that will free me to
look."

"I can't be without you, Mulder.  Not now. 
Not again.  Not ever."

She looked down at her hands.  She couldn't
look him in the eyes.  Mostly because she
couldn't bear the pain of his sorrow.  And
also because she knew he was right.  And, she
knew it made sense.

"Damn it, Mulder.  I have earned a normal
life.  Why can't I have that?  Why can't you
and William and I just go now.  Somewhere,
anywhere.  Isn't there always going to be
just one more case?  Why can't we just go and
begin that life now.  I can learn to play
baseball, I can..."  She leaned her head back
and closed her eyes.  Again, she took a deep
breath.  "I know you're right.  They will
never let us work together on this, and I
know you have the ability to find them, most
likely just inside you.  But I can't bear
it."

As he reached out for her, she knocked his
hand away, and began to pound against his
chest. And he just let her, holding her
firmly until her poundings slowly subsided,
and she leant her head down with the tip of
her forehead resting against his shoulder. 
When it finally seemed o.k. he gently traced
his finger across her eyebrow and down the
side of her face.  He then took both his
hands and placed them gently on either side
of her head.

"I will never leave you, Scully, no matter
where I am.  I am your partner.  But if I go
now, and it looks like I've really left, I
might get the independence I need to find
these people.  And, if you can continue to
work on it here, then I know we can solve
this.  We will be working together.  And
then, I can come home."

She opened her eyes and looked at him
directly.  In her eyes flashed the spirit of
a woman that had endured eight years of a
search that had been his.  Sure, she had been
part of it, but it had always been his
search.  In that moment, she conveyed to him,
that the search was no longer his, that now
it was about her partner and her family.  The
search was theirs.  This last piece had to be
solved.  He had come back from the dead, and
they couldn't just go on with their lives
pretending that nothing had happened.  They
would find a way to make it look like Mulder
was gone.  And they would find a way for her
to keep up the search for the missing others. 
And, they would find a way to keep in
contact.  They would work together, one more
time.

And, when it was all over.  They would come
back to each other.  

She took a deep breath.  "You will come home,
Mulder."  Scully looked at him, her words
searing into his mind as a command, not a
question, and giving him the freedom he
needed to go out and find the final answer.

It was all he could do to keep from breaking
down.  Knowing that he had asked her for
sacrifices so many times in the past eight
years.  And each time, she had offered him
unflinching support.  This time it was his
turn to give her the words that she needed to
hear.  Words that he intended to honour like
nothing else he had ever done before.  "I
will come home, I promise."


the end.