From: PipnTook@aol.com Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 07:20:35 EST Subject: The Ninth Circle by Lauren Belmont Source: direct Title: The Ninth Circle Author: Lauren Belmont Feedback: Loved and adored at pipntook@aol.com Distribution: Anywhere, just let me know Disclaimer: Not mine. Someday, maybe.. Spoilers: Anything up through season 8 is fair game Rating: PG Classification: I have no idea. V A Keywords: MSR, Scully angst, little Mulder angst. Doggett free! Summary: The world is deafening at three a.m. Author notes: The Ninth Circle refers to Dante's Inferno. I figure Scully is experiencing her own personal hell in some ways, so it seemed fitting. As always, thanks to all my friends who support my writing: Katie, Clare, Brita, Todd, Nick, Evan, Matt, Jon, Kindree, Mary Kate, and anyone else I forgot, thanks guys! I love you!! The Ninth Circle The world is silent at three a.m., it's inhabitants hidden in the shelter only dreams can provide. Motors and machinery have long since departed until morning, leaving only the emptiness and the silence under the night sky. The world is beautiful, peaceful at night. Stars above, stars below, and sweet breaths of air bringing it all to life. But that is outside of apartment walls. She lost count of the hours lying in this bed tonight, and her eyes have nearly bored a single hole in the ceiling. Her mind is blank. Thinking hurts too much, so she doesn't. Instead, she remembers. She remembers the days she long ago thought she had forgotten. They come to her in her dreams, little things, like how he had smirked at a joke she once said in the car, or that time he tossed her a pen, missed, and it stuck against the wall. Little things. They would mean nothing to anyone else, but they are all that she has now. The world is deafening at three a.m. Silence reins all, leaving people to their minds whose thoughts and dreams echo more loudly than gunshots. Sometimes she feels like she could scream and the pleas would die in her throat as the memories muffle the sound. "I've been doing well," she whispers to no one. She has survived, and that seems a miracle in itself, looking back. The cell phone is always charged, and her portable line always stays beside her bed, but they never ring. It almost killed her the first few weeks, but she fought her way back. Is he fighting way back? Rolling over, she shoves her face into the pillow and exhales. The breath reflects back into her face in one hot puff of air. She turns and faces the clock, the green light blaring through the darkness. It distracts her, so she returns to her back once more and continues burning holes into the ceiling. "I've been doing well," she repeats. The silence mocks her. XxXxXxXxX His hands are whispers against her arms. Behind her, she can feel his breathing flutter the strands of hair on her neck, and it almost tickles, but not enough to force her body to move from his embrace. They have neither spoken nor budged in over an hour, but she knows the pattern of his breathing, and she knows he is not asleep. She shifts gently and murmurs his name to catch his attention. "Hmm?" he mumbles, his voice drowsy and sedated. The sound rumbles against her neck, and she shivers involuntarily. "Why aren't you asleep?" His hands tense, but they relax so quickly she can make herself believe she imagined it. "Just thinking." "About what?" The pause before he responds does not go unnoticed. "Nothing important." "What's wrong?" "Nothing." Turning to face him, she discovers his eyes focused at the ceiling, and she can almost hear the unspoken words as they course through his mind. She has been able to do this for quite some time now -- hearing the ramblings without the ability to decipher them -- and she wonders about it now. she begs him silently. But if he hears her, it's the same way that she hears him. All mumbling but no meaning. "Please, you know you can tell me--" "Look," he snaps and turns toward her in a quick whip of the neck, "if you're the one asking why I'm not asleep, it would be nice if you would be quiet so I could." "We promised we'd tell each other everything," she whispers harshly. "All this time, you've asked me to be honest with you. You've told me to stop bearing it all myself. Now it's your turn. The deal goes two ways, and you can't take it back now." "I SAID it's NOTHING." In one quick motion, he leaves her staring at his back. Even in the darkness, she can see the tense muscles knotting under the skin. He doesn't move. He doesn't relax. He doesn't anything. The silence is a dagger, slicing the space between them and sweeping her aside. "Go to sleep," he orders. His sharpness startles her and seems out of place in the early morning silence. So she sits up and away from his body, which is now as cold as she has ever felt him, and she heads for his couch, gathering her clothes as she walks. The night air bites her skin. She doesn't feel it. XxXxXxXxX She feels as if she is defiling the night by driving at this time. Her car is so loud; people three miles away can probably hear it. The radio is turned off. She does not think. She doesn't even know where she is going -- only that she is now dressed and orderly, briefcase and purse at her side, and perfectly professional. Except for that fact that dawn hasn't even considered of crossing the horizon. It comes as a surprise when the car stops outside of his building. Funny, she thinks. She had almost expected the lights to be turned on upstairs. She keeps driving. The guard allows her into the parking garage with a look of disapproval. She can't blame him at this hour. Her tires scream around a bend, even at this slow speed, and she pulls into a parking space far, far in the corner. She removes the keys, and silence dominates once more. Time passes slowly in the car, and she counts each heartbeat until she realizes that she is thinking again and pushes the numbers out of her mind before she starts counting the days since he has gone and the weeks since that night and the months until his return and the years he has known him and the numbers keep coming one after another, over and over, until she just wants to scream and break that silence into a thousand pieces... Until she remembers where she is. She swallows all the numbers -- it's as easy as swallowing bile -- and exits the car. Her footsteps pop against the cement, her breathing echoes in the emptiness, and her heart continues to beat in her breast. Subconsciously, she begins to count. XxXxXxXxX "What's wrong?" "Nothing." She looks up and meets her mother's scrutinizing gaze at the obvious lie. She amends the statement. "Nothing I want to talk about, anyway." The older woman nods understandingly and takes a sip of her tea. It smells like wild berries. Her daughter smiles at the memory. When she was growing up, no matter where they moved to, the scent of her mother's tea would follow them. It was never home without the smell of berries in the kitchen. "I'm doing well," she insists. "What do you want, Honey?" her voice is soft like cotton, the same tone as when she was a child. She sat a moment. "I don't know, Mom." "Yes you do. Don't lie to me." she thinks. No! Stop thinking! Her mind ignores her, and guilt stabs as she recalls how often those times have been. She never told her about half of her hospital admittances, never told her the sheer terror of having a tumor growing inside her brain. Nor did she tell her the time she first spent the night in his bed. Many wouldn't inform their parents when their relationships consummated, but she and her mother were different. Sometimes she wonders how long her mom expected this had been going on. When the truth finally came out last week -- a few months -- the older woman's eyes had opened wide. "That's all," she had insisted. "That's all? No longer?" "No longer." No longer. She doesn't think. She only remembers. She remembers his arms around her, the way her head fit snugly under his chin. How whenever something bothered her, he always knew some method to ease it out. Sometimes, when the world felt like it was flying apart, all he had to do was put a hand above her hip, and she would feel grounded. How the look he held in his eyes for her was a gaze he never gave anyone else. Love. Betrayal. Renewal. Everything. Listening to him cry the day his mother died, holding him until the sobs subsided, and his comfort after countless cases, countless events that threatened to break her mind. He always restored her. The nights she lay in bed, dreaming of waking beside him. The day she actually did. "I want the phone to ring," she whispers. "I want the phone to ring at some inane hour of the morning because he's the only one who would ever call then. In that instant...I would know it was him, and suddenly nothing else would matter -- not work, not the time without him -- because he would be back. And then I could ask him. I could ask him why he didn't tell me what he was thinking about that night. I would ask why he couldn't tell me he was dying." Her throat is suddenly thick, and she stops talking. "It's the same reason as you. You're afraid to spread your pain. You think by keeping it inside, you'll be able to bury it." Her mother traces the ridge of the teacup. "I don't bury it," she murmurs. "There's just no one now to share it with." XxXxXxXxX Fear is not the problem; it's the emptiness. The building is dark, emergency lights only, at this hour of night. She's not used to it; she doesn't like it. The building still confuses her, even after all these years -- agents ten years her senior still find themselves turned around -- but she knows all the important trails by memory: the path to the cafeteria, to the lab, to the bullpen...to the office. The last is by far the least traveled overall, but she can almost see the trail two sets of footprints have paved into the floor the past few years. Anyone else's paths have long since been trodden over. Reaching into her pocket, she makes sure the keys to the office are still where they should be. They are. <"How many more times are you going to forget them?" "As many times as you remember the keys instead of me." He grins. She groans.> She follows the worn road subconsciously down the hallway, fits the key in the lock, and jiggles the familiar stick in the doorknob just the right way. His name is missing from the door. The screw holes laugh. She steps inside. XxXxXxXxX The fish tank is ear piercing. She wonders how he slept here for so many years with the eerie glow and endless humming right behind his head. Beating her pillow one more, she tries yet again to drift off, but he permeates through the wall. Every nuance of him; she can practically see his legs askew in the bed. His scent has blended with hers, and she can no longer tell one from the other, and she has no desire to make it go away. It's the only thing she has right now. A deep pain, a blend of rage and confusion and sadness resides deep in her chest, and she tries to convince herself that he's only tired; he'll be fine, come morning. But the thought doesn't make the pain go away. She's furious. She's upset. She's worried. She's raging. The Indian-print blanket scratches against her chin as she hugs it in replacement of the man lying in the next room. It's a poor substitute. The room is silent, save the humming of the tank. Doubt creeps through the window and buries itself within her breast among the other emotions already fighting inside. It's a terrible feeling, doubt, and, lying motionless, she wonders if she has stretched too far. If this has been one giant mistake. If everything happens for a reason, but this is not it. The door squeaks open. His eyes shine in the cold light, and the depth of emotion burn out the frigid glow. All she sees is him, all he sees is her, and doubt flees out the window in a heartbeat. "Hey," he whispers. His eyes are filled with unshed tears. "Hey," she replies. He opens his mouth once, twice, and a minute later he lies down in the space she has opened for him. XxXxXxXxX She knows every inch of this office. Every picture, every poster, and yet she has never stopped to look. There are so few pictures of the two of them in here. Hundreds of newspaper clippings, but only three with them included, and one framed photo in the corner. She has never truly examined the shots before. Candid shots, all of them, and in each they are either looking directly into each other's eyes, or in the exact opposite direction. They look so much different in those photos. In some, her hair brushes beyond her shoulders where in others it barely reaches her chin. Sometimes his face seems so young that he looks like a college student rather than a special agent. But as the dates progress, his eyes seem deeper. Wiser. She forces herself to stop thinking, and suddenly the office is nothing more than an office. It's just a place the copier once resided until it was promoted to the next floor. XxXxXxXxX Her skirt and blouse lay abandoned once more, and the sun peeks shyly through the window. His apologies still ring in her ears. "Sleep," he murmurs. "You'll be exhausted tomorrow." "I can't. I'm afraid I'll wake up." "And what's so bad about that?" "Because I'll be back at home. And you'll be here." He kisses her then, slowly and soundly, and she shuts her eyes under the intensity of his eyes. When he drops his gaze, she takes the chance to wet her lips, and she stifles a yawn fighting its way out. He repeats his words. "Go to sleep." "I will," she says, voice slurred, "if I know you'll be here when I wake up." Another pause, just like the one that came before. "Mulder?" "I'll be here, Scully," he promises. "I'll be here." Sleep surrounds her like a blanket, like the bare arms securing her against him, and she starts to fall in. "I'll always be here," he says once more. "Even when I'm gone." She's asleep before she can ask what he meant. XxXxXxXxX She sits at the desk and stares, burning another hole in another ceiling. "I'm doing well," she mutters. "I'm doing well, I'm doing well." Her mantra. The baby fidgets within her belly, kicks once, and she gasps. With a jerk, she places her hand to her abdomen, and the smallest of smiles creep over her face. "You've never done that before." As if in answer, it kicks again. "Your dad was a fighter too," she says. "Whenever we were stuck somewhere we didn't need to be, he would start kicking and screaming like a --" The phone rings. She stares at it in the darkness of the early morning. The baby kicks once more. And she answers the phone. end