From: Rachel Bain Date: Sun, 2 Oct 2011 22:03:14 -0400 Subject: The Other Side of All Things by: Saab32 Source: direct TITLE: The Other Side of All Things AUTHOR: Saab32 E-MAIL: Saabstory32@gmail.com DISTRIBUTION: archive freely RATING: G CATEGORIES: MSR KEYWORDS: Mulder/Scully Romance SPOILERS: Millennium; All Things SUMMARY: Mulder's perspective during All Things Disclaimer: X-Files characters belong to FOX Corporation and 1013. Sesame Street belongs to the Sesame Workshop and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Author's Notes: First Fic... Leaving the office in a huff, I am nearly shaking with rage. She is infuriating and I have grown tired of the dance. We have become formulaic in our interactions. I present a theory, a fact, proof undeniable and she questions, denies, and rejects. I pester, she argues. I push, and she begrudgingly accepts. They are carefully choreographed dance moves honed over seven years of partnership. Today was but a slight variation in the step -- crop circles and a spontaneous trip to England was met first with disinterest and then exasperation. But, I am weary of the rut, so I didn't pester and I didn't push, and she did not follow. I am all at once terrified of the implications -- she didn't follow and now I am alone. I changed the script and now I am sitting in my apartment by myself trying to figure out how to undo it. My ego pushes me to pack my bags while I pretend not to care that she hasn't called. I will forge ahead. I will go to England. I will go by myself and I will not care. An excuse to call her forms in my head as I pack and I lie and tell myself that I don't care if all I get is her machine. I didn't call to talk; just to relay facts. It shocks and elates me when she picks up but her distraction eggs on my ego and while I silently beg her to join me; I will not give the plea a voice and should not have been disappointed when she offers no response. Now I am at the airport, packed and waiting for my flight, wandering aimlessly around the terminal. I feel panicky and untethered. In a moment of weakness, I place another call -- silently chastising myself as the phone rings. I want to tell her that I'll leave her ticket at the counter, that she has time to make the flight. I want her to ask me not to go. I will gladly abandon these plans. She asks me nothing, and I say nothing and we hang up and all of a sudden I feel very far away from her. I miss our dance, our script, our rut -- it was familiar, like an old t-shirt and I was a fool to mess with the formula that has worked so well for us for so long. I shouldn't have walked out. All it did was land me on a transatlantic flight next to a bald middle aged business man, instead of comfortably next to my partner. After countless hours logged in the air together she and I have established a routine. She gets the window and I get the aisle to accommodate my long legs. The middle arm rest goes up because years ago we determined that it impeded comfort by unnecessarily restricting movement. We kick off our shoes, pull out the case file, and when the plane takes off, we quietly and without any additional discussion, hold hands. It is a chink in her armor. She doesn't like to fly -- she doesn't like the lack of control. Holding on to me is a rarely visible representation of her need to feel safe and grounded. That she gets that from me is flattering, and I cherish the moment. When the plane reaches altitude, the seatbelt sign dings, and we let go. Time's up. Now I'm sitting on this plane, crammed into the window seat with no one's hand to hold and I feel utterly alone. I meet with my contacts in England and quickly realize that the trip is a bust -- the crop circles are a hoax and I am torn between relief that she was not here to scold me for the wasted time, and disappointment. England brings up mixed feelings for me. It is the first place I ever lived that felt entirely my own, without constant reminders of my past. I started fresh in England. I could breathe here. I could reflect. But, you can't out run your past and I was often lonely and my method of solving that problem just generated a whole new set of problems. England makes me feel adolescent, angsty, and self-indulgent. As I drive through Salisbury Plain hoping to catch sight of anything even remotely supernatural , I feel desperately homesick, but not for a location -- no one place makes me feel safe and secure -- only one person does that. She is my home. I pull over, suddenly tired of trying to drive on the wrong side of the road and have this epiphany at the same time. I get out of the car and begin to walk. She is my home -- safe, warm, and caring. I realized long ago that she was the only person left in this world who cared whether I lived or died for some other reason than how it would impact the global conspiracy. To them I am a chess piece -- to her, I am me. She would miss me. I wonder if she misses me now? If I am passion, she is reason. She needs facts to prove what I know through faith alone. And yet, she has a faith that I find hard to believe -- not her faith in God -- she wraps herself up in that childhood tradition for safety and comfort, No, it is her faith in me that I find fascinating. So many times I have come to her with gut feelings and instinct, and despite her better judgment, she has followed me As is so often the case in this country, a light rain -- little more than a heavy mist - has started to fall, and I start to head back to my car. I love her. I am more certain of this than of anything else in my life. I am also certain that she loves me. This is the path we have been on since the beginning. It was the inevitable outcome. I just don't know what to do with the information. I'm afraid to go too far off script. We have a formula that works and I am afraid that if I add an unknown element into the mix it could literally blow up in my face. I kissed her six months ago. I couldn't help it. It had been a long year right up to the last day and she was standing there watching the ball drop looking content and slightly wistful. Kissing her was suddenly the thing I wanted to do most in the world -- so I did. It was respectful, friendly, and most importantly, it was reciprocated. We left it in that moment, expecting no more from it than what it was. I realize, with intense conviction that I want more moments. I want to go home. I was looking for her but she found me. I realize instantly that she has experienced something in my absence and I am at once curious and jealous. As her story of youthful indiscretion and cosmic epiphanies unfolds I am pleased but still jealous -- as if I had some egotistical notion that her life started when she met me. We speak of fate and the trajectory of our individual paths, with all of their twists and turns that have landed the two of us on my couch sipping tea. She drifts off, my voice apparently soporific. She looks very young to me in that moment and I resist the urge to shake her awake and tell her that I am glad that I'm home, that I don't ever want to go anywhere without her again, that I hate flying by myself, that I am happy that fate has destined us to walk together through life, that I am hopelessly in love with her... Instead, I brush the hair from her face and cover her with a blanket and go wash out the tea cups. I dream that I am walking through an apple orchard and it has started to rain -- instead of cold, I feel warm and secure. I slowly wake and the apples I smell is her shampoo as her hair fans out across my chest. The rain is her tears. The warmth is her arms wrapped around me. She is sitting on the edge of the bed crying softly and hugging me. I nuzzle her hair with my nose and wrap my arms around her. She whispers that she missed me and I hold onto her tighter. I whisper that I am home and she looks up into my eyes and I realize we are about to permanently go off script, add a new chemical to the formula, change the steps of the dance -- because I want to kiss her more than I want anything in the world. So, I do, and she does, and we are home.