From: ephemeral@ephemeralfic.org Date: 29 Jan 2005 07:34:04 -0000 Subject: Lonesome by X-Phylia Source: direct Reply To: xphylia@yahoo.com Title: Lonesome Author: X-Phylia (xphylia@yahoo.com) Disclaimer: They belong to who they belong to. And it ain't me! Category: MA, UST Spoilers: Paper Hearts Rate: PG Archive: Sure, just let me know first Feedback: Of course Author notes: at the end "Lonesome" By X-Phylia The hour guaranteed silence. Almost midnight in the Hoover Building, they were probably the only two agents in the office at such ungodly hours. Skinner had left about half an hour ago, after reaming Mulder for his wildly irresponsible actions that ended up with his shooting John Lee Roche - and thus eliminating the only lead to clarify two unsolved murders. It was his job and he was right, but Scully wished Skinner had been a bit more gentle with Mulder. Now he was sitting on his desk, unmoving, staring at his sister's picture with an expression capable of breaking a chrome-cast heart. He didn't really care much about the reprimand, in the same way that commendations weren't all that important to him. It was the search, the truth... But he almost had a little girl killed, and he was not any closer to solving his sister's mystery than he had been two days earlier. So it had been for nothing. Scully fidgeted with her purse, deciding whether she should stay or leave. She wasn't extremely happy with him, Skinner's rant had been directed mainly to Mulder, but she had gotten part of it too - and she had been less than thrilled to begin with to have been assigned 'babysitting' duties. In all the time they had worked together, Scully realized that for Mulder there two kinds of cases: the ones that were somehow related with his family and the ones that were not. No one could deny that Mulder was a more than competent, sometimes downright brilliant agent. He might seem a little out there for the strict FBI codes, but he rarely failed to get results. However, when things got personal, he shifted from detached professional to irrational maverick, doing things that defied logic and common sense like driving from Cape Cod to DC half-drugged and a fever of 102 F, departing to Alaska to track down an allegedly alien pilot by himself, or running to Canada with an alleged miracle healer leaving her behind without explanations. He had so much pain inside, so much heartache, and nights like this kept accumulating on him like bags of grovel on a mule's back. What if he never found the truth about Samantha? How much more was he willing to take, to sacrifice? Why couldn't he go on with his life, instead of trying to fulfill a twelve-year-old's promise? He had *tried*, for God's sake. He'd done his best. There was no use in asking those questions. Mulder was simply relentless. Last year, during a case, he had claimed that not all his thoughts, actions, feelings or motivations went back to Samantha. That might be true, but the fact remained that few things in his life, if any, were more important to him than finding his long gone sister. After having ordered her already neat workplace, checked her email twice and perused several old journals, Scully couldn't find any more excuses to stick around the office. Mulder, on the other hand, was still sitting quietly, apparently not paying any attention to her or anything else but the framed picture in his hands. When she got up to leave, she approached him. "Go home, Mulder. Get some sleep." He nodded briefly, but it didn't look like he was going to move anytime soon. The thought of going back to his couch and start dreaming again about the hearts wasn't appealing to him. He'd have to wait until he almost passed out of exhaustion to merely hope for three or four hours of interrupted sleep. Right now though, even if his body seemed quiet, his mind was on overdrive, torturing him with images of the last couple of days, wondering what he could have done differently so things wouldn't have ended up so badly. Scully instinctively knew this. "What's done it's done," she said. "Everything dies," he mused. "I'll never know." It was how he said it more than the words themselves that threatened to break Scully's heart. "Yes, you will," she replied, carefully controlling her voice. "We'll find the truth, Mulder." He looked up at her for the first time and the loneliness reflected in his eyes devastated her. He didn't have anyone else with whom to share this moment of doubt and pain, and Scully remembered how easily he had slipped into her arms the night he returned to his mother's side in that hospital in Providence. It was hard to tell if he'd allow her to comfort him this time, but he definitely looked like he needed it. Half-preparing herself for a not-too-graceful rejection, Scully reached out to him and smiled with satisfaction that once again her instincts were right on the spot; not just by the way he eagerly rested his forehead against her belly, his arms were also tightly wrapped around her hips. They stayed like that for a long time, in silence. The only movement was Scully's hand caressing Mulder's hair, or rubbing his shoulder, as if trying to ease the pain caused by the world he carried on them. She couldn't think of anything to say to him, the moment was too fragile to threaten it with meaningless words. It was better to just hold him, and in the meantime find ways to justify what she was doing, what she was feeling, because Dana Scully wasn't ready to admit how much it hurt seeing Mulder in that kind of pain. Only when enough parts of the pieces were put together in a somewhat precarious way, Mulder felt it was safe to disentangle from Scully's warm embrace. The deep sigh he exhaled sounded resigned, like he would have preferred to stay in her arms all night. Embarrassed, he quickly wiped away a treacherous tear that had managed to escape his eyes. Scully noticed it, but she smiled - that same smile that often greeted him when he woke up confused and disorientated in a hospital bed - and let him know that she understood. "Are you going to be okay?" She asked softly. "Mulder?" "Yeah... yeah, I'll be fine." "Go home." Scully left, reluctant to leave him alone, yet afraid of going any further with. Before stepping into the elevator she walked back down the hall and heard the unmistakable sound of heart wrenching sobs. But she didn't go back in. Instead, she turned around and walked away, her own tears fading what was left of her make-up. Fin. Thanks for reading! (Completely unnecessary) Notes: This story - like so many others in my HD that never saw the light - was written a long time ago. I touched it up a little, but decided to keep the UST and not turn it to MSR because it was what I believed back then. As much as I love the idea of MSR, I was sure that the moment it became obvious on screen, it would mean the end of the show. And look what happened! This wasn't beta'ed so I apologize for the mistakes.