From: laster Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2000 09:51:50 -0400 Subject: Reflections of a Rainy Night by dlynn Source: direct TITLE: Reflections of a Rainy Night AUTHOR: dlynn RATING: PG CATEGORY: Vignette,UST,DAL DISTRIBUTION: Xemplary, spooky's, gossamer, yes. Others please ask, so I can visit. FEEDBACK: dlynn1550@my-deja.com SPOILERS: Red and Black, Christmas Carol, Emily SUMMARY: An innocent question at a crime scene leads Mulder into a contemplative night. AUTHOR'S NOTES: Not only is this my first foray into fan fiction, this is my first attempt at creative writing since high school. I won't even tell you how long ago that was. DISCLAIMER: I don't own Mulder and Scully or anything pertaining to the X-FILES. I realize that all things X belong to Fox , Chris Carter and 1013. This and my other stories can be found at http://home.mpinet.net/laster Reflections of a Rainy Night (Nov. 1999) Mulder stood quietly at the hotel window. He pushed back the stiff, beige drapes the few inches needed to peer out into the hotel's small parking lot where he could see the cars and trucks lined up in neat little rows, each with signs signifying the driving habits of its occupants. The rain still drizzled down in a fine mist he could only see when he looked at it through the outdoor floodlight's harsh glare. The rain droplets were spattered on the hood of the car directly in front of his window. It was there his eyes settled. He had noticed the vehicle earlier in the day. Now with the darkness nestled around him, he was drawn back to look more closely. It was a midnight blue minivan, streaked and dirty with highway mud. But it was well cared for as attested to by the new wax job. The droplets gathered in neat little spherical blobs on the hood, glistening spheres that reflected the light. Bringing his hand up against the window, he noticed the large glass pane appeared to be sweating. It was that streaky condensation which always exists when the humidity outside clashes with cool air-conditioned air. He trailed his hand slowly over its cold, hard surface, feeling the moisture beneath the calluses of his palm. Gently turning his hand over, he flexed the fingers, examining the moisture collected at their tips. It mesmerized him as if he had never seen such a thing. After staring for several seconds at his damp hand, like it was some new mystery yet to be discovered, he laid it firmly back against the window glass. Bringing his eyes forward, he once more focused on the dreary parking lot, captivated in the dichotomies of glass, steel and liquid. He let his eyes travel over the blue minivan, still glistening with the fine rain sheen. Even when he wasn't consciously making the effort, he still used an investigator's eyes, finding it almost impossible to shut down his mercurial mind. Chuckling, he realized all investigators are voyueristic at heart. They couldn't help but watch life. He examined the large, plastic car top carrier shell strapped to the top to the vehicle. He saw the driver had, in either haste or weariness, neglected to completely latch the lid. Insidiously, rain slipped inside to soak its interior. Letting his eyes travel inside to investigate the van's interior, he saw a dashboard littered with little pieces of slick, yellow paper, probably candy wrappers that hadn't made it into the trash. There was change, bobby pins, and some little piece of ribbon with a nipple attached, one of those pacifier things with the little clips to clamp to baby's shirt. The car seat was visible, attached snuggly to the middle seat. An orange stuffed animal was in it. He was perched on his head, his furry little marmelade legs stuck up under the safety seat shoulder harness. He appeared to have been unceremoniously dropped. Assuredly someone would need to fetch him before too long if his less than pristine condition was testament to how well loved the little Muppet was ---"Elmo" that was it! A small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. He remembered how Scully wanted to just "check out" the local Wal-Mart last year in search of some elusive tickle monster. Her whole family had been on its trail in order to fulfill young Mathew's Christmas list. Never mind her nephew was just shy of a year old and probably hadn't known an Elmo from a Big Bird. That was beside the point...the chase was on. He understood probably better than most the thrill of the chase. Bringing his thoughts back inside his room, Mulder glanced down at a small, round, wooden table. On top of it were the tell tale signs of his less than perfect housekeeping habits. There were jumbled papers that had been rifled through way too many times; styrofoam cups, some empty and tipped over and others with dark, noxious looking liquid residue he'd hate to run by any lab. There were pencils with little teeth marks, looking like tiny mice had gnawed them. A pile of sunflower seed hulls had gotten interspersed with the papers and cups. Trailing off the edge of the table, they were scattered throughout the shag fibers of the dingy carpet. There were corners of pictures sticking out beneath the stacks of papers. Glossies of "crime scene" photos that were too abhorrent to leave out where one had to see them all the time. He gently reached under the precarious pile, pulling out one of the photos. In the dim light from the parking lot, he could just barely see the badly burned form of a mother and child. It was another one of those group human bonfires, like the one at Ruskin Dam where he had almost lost Scully. This was black and white proof of the world coming to an end in such small increments society at large was still ignorant to the potential horrors that lay ahead. Even with as much as he and Scully knew, there were still so many questions. There were so many truths to uncover, an overwhelming feeling that time was speeding up to break neck speed heading toward a cataclysmic ending. There was no way to slow it down. No way to say "hey wait a minute. I've got to catch up here!" Surprisingly, it wasn't the "weight of the world" kind of burden keeping him awake tonight. It was a burden of a more personal nature. He was not grieving for those poor souls caught up like lemmings in the upcoming holocaust, in a battle for which they had no control over their actions or their lives. He was grieving the loss of control in his own life. It wasn't like he had a lot of choice anymore. In fact, ever since that fateful night over 25 years ago when a young boy's innocence was yanked from him as surely as the younger sister "he lost", he'd really had no choice. Oh sure, he could have given into the darkness, dropped deep into the alluring comfort of depression or worse yet, succumbed to mind numbing indifference, placing Samantha in a box with barely recognizable memories of song fragments, fairy tales or ghost stories... a specter only haunting him in the darkest hours of dreaming. But he chose. He made a conscious choice to survive, however dysfunctional his life may seem to those who think they know him. He had his intellect, his education, and his tenure with the bureau. He had his memories, fragmented and suspect though they might be. He had the x-files, his quest for the truth, his railings against the shadows and he had Scully. In a world so totally out of control, where order was only an illusion, Mulder felt that he had been holding his own. The grainy photo fell gently from his hand to the floor, landing midst the empty seed shells. A loud noise from outside drew his attention and he turned once more toward the window. The outer door next to his slammed open, and he could hear frustrated voices over the din of a crying baby. The piercing glare of that room's overhead lights escaped into the blackness in front of his window perch. A harried young man sprinted into the drizzle, hastily unlocking the sliding door on the mini van. He reached inside, grabbing the Elmo doll by his foot. Easing back out of the van, he grinned, holding the furry prize over his head like a trophy. "Hey, I found it!" he yelled through the rain, towards the light. He trotted once more to the open door, back into the warmth of the room, triumphantly returning with his treasure. As the door softly closed behind him, the small amount of light that had permeated the gloom disappeared, leaving the dreariness behind. Mulder's thoughts focused again on the rain. It was picking up. The droplets now bounced off metal, glass and concrete. No longer a fine mist, but spattering, stinging precipitation, it was much like the showers that had soaked him and Scully earlier in the day. It had been a cold, piercing rain that had pelted them out at the crime site, one of those dismal afternoons where you were chilled to the bone and nothing you did seemed to warm you up. Ruefully, he noted that it could have been 75 blissfully sunny degrees and they still would have suffered from the aches of a frozen spirit. Not only did they have to deal with the horror of another mass burning, but the anniversary of Emily's death. Two years ago Scully found and lost a daughter in only the space of a week. She was the daughter that never should have been, probably her one and only chance at biological motherhood. He knew the day was difficult for her. She didn't let on in such a way the casual observer would have seen anything other than the professional agent she was. But the casual observer didn't know what to look for, didn't know the extra tightness around the mouth, the haunted sadness in the eyes was far more than just empathy for so many that had horrifically died. The tragedy of the day was profound on so many levels. It was another vicious reminder of her vulnerability -- their vulnerability. Another reminder of the gray area they traversed. Nothing was black and white anymore. Consequences for actions, choosing the lesser of two evils was becoming so much of who they were. Daily they were reminded of the gradual ways control had begun to disappear. Such subtle small instances, in hindsight foreshadowing the increasingly painful decisions that had to be made. Her decision to join him in the basement was subsequently followed by her abduction at the hands of a shadow government. Her cancer was miraculously cured but at the expense of her free will. She worried about being "called" again due to the chip in her neck. It was a constant reminder of the precarious position she was in. He walked a fine line between informants, the syndicate, the FBI, conspiracies, the resistance and his own conscience. Ethics and morality were getting so muddled up with expediency. He feared that ignorance would not only be the death of him and Scully but also of their world. In the middle of all of that, in the middle of dealing with global issues, there was also the intimate personal tragedies coloring their lives. There never seemed to be time to dwell on these. Sometimes he wondered how much they could continue to handle before they lost it. How much could two lives endure, how much betrayal and pain could they suffer, without collapsing from the weight. To work through the nightmares, might be psychologically beneficial, but who had the time to afford to this self- healing. So they shoved it all down, pushing every monster, every betrayal and tragedy deep into the inner recesses of their minds. All it added was one more layer of distrust, one more emotional wall separating them from the rest of the world, and sadly, one more wall separating them from each other. Mulder gently reached down, picking up the discarded picture from the floor, laying it face down on top of the table. Haunting him was the visage of the mother, bent protectively over her child. "How long have you been standing there?" he sighed, rising and facing the window again. He could hear her soft breaths coming from the doorway between their adjoining rooms. He had, on a subconscious level, been aware of her presence for some time. Whether it had been a "feeling" or his brain's awareness of her delicate perfume, he had known she was there, standing just inside the threshold. He just hadn't been ready to recognize it yet. "Awhile," she replied, moving farther into the room, far enough for her to be seen in the diffused light of the window but still distanced from him. It was as if she were afraid of getting too close. "What do you see out there, Mulder?" Scully queried. "What holds you tonight and keeps you from sleep?" "Ah, Scully. You know me. Since when do I need an excuse not to visit with the sandman. He and I haven't been on speaking terms in quite some time. How do you spell insomnia? M..U..L..." "Mulder you're avoiding..." "Scully you're "mothering...," he trailed off, letting the words hang there like some very large elephant in the room that everyone was trying to avoid noticing. "I'm sorry Scully," he apologized, slowly turning from the window to face his partner. He could kick himself for inflicting the hurt she quickly tried to cover as she turned to organize his haphazard mess on the table. "That was another example of me having the sensitivity of a turnip where your feelings are concerned." "Well maybe Mr. Potato Head," she murmured, affectionately alluding to the potato faces he had made for Emily when they'd first met. "Mulder, don't beat yourself up. I'm -- " " -- fine," he finished for her with a smirk. She chuckled, pushing a strand of auburn hair behind her ear. "Yes, Mulder, I'm fine. I won't say that the last few days haven't been difficult... but, Mulder, thoughts of Emily are always with me. Today isn't any different from any other day with regards to that." Mulder walked toward her, putting his hand gently over the back of her neck, briefly touching the spot where her implant was imbedded. Resignedly dropping his hand to his side, he said, "Yes, but it's not every day you have to deal with those memories as well as confronting the possible consequences of having that thing a part of your body." "No, Mulder, it's been a hell of a day. Is that what you want me to admit? You're right." Scully reached down to the table, picking up the photo that had so fascinated him. "I won't lie to you. Seeing all this again just makes me feel sick and scared and vulnerable and so many other emotions that I can't begin to quantify them all. And yes, my feelings about Emily are all jumbled up in there somewhere but you know that," she finished. "This," she gestured at the window and the thunderous downpour wreaking havoc outside, "is not about all that though. This is about you, Mulder. There's more going on tonight than your usual guilt trip where I'm concerned. You've been this way since this afternoon." Scully tentatively reached out, placing her hand on his forearm, touching the soft fleece of his sweatshirt. She raised her face to his, forcing him to meet her eyes, to stare into their compassionate blue countenance. "What did the coroner say to you this afternoon?" Scully felt the tremor in his arm as he pulled away from her. He walked back to the window just as a lightening flash illuminated the room and his face enough to see his pained expression. "I know there was something," she pressed. "I was coming to talk with you just as you were finishing up with her. You blew right by me as though I wasn't there. And I know damn well you saw me." Mulder continued gazing out the window, not really with any cognizance as to what he was seeing. The silence from her unanswered questions filled the room, but Scully waited, seating herself on the edge of his bed. As the quiet loomed between them, she scooted herself farther up the bed, pulling one of the pillows out from beneath the spread. She lay down on her stomach, situating the pillow up under her crossed arms. She rested her head while she watched and waited for him. He was aware this was all going on behind him, and he knew that he would eventually have to give in. She was going to lay there and wait. It had been that way recently. 'I'm fine' from either of them no longer seemed to cut it. However, more times than not they avoided the emotional minefields of their lives. Knowing each time they revealed a little more of themselves, it only made it harder to deny the strength of their feelings toward one another. And for reasons he couldn't even remember, he knew he should keep that distance from her, not allow himself to sink into the comfort that she could offer. Mulder abruptly turned. He pulled the curtains tightly closed, effectively blocking out any light save for the narrow glowing band spilling over the edges of the drapes where they came together less than perfectly. The sliver of light was no more than a nightlight but it was sufficient for him to at least dimly view her face. Sliding his long body down the wall, he rested with his back against the door, facing the bed where she patiently reclined. He dangled his hands over his bent knees and looked up at her. "Hey Scully?" "Yes Mulder." "Do you remember? -- " he started. " --Our first case. It was the night I careened into your hotel room in the middle of a storm. I was scared to death I was going to be the next abduction victim," she finished for him. "Ah, you were so cute Scully." "I was naive Mulder. I had no idea of the "real life monsters" that exist. I let your passion for your work inspire ghost stories in my mind. I didn't give them any more credence than a footnote in my field journal of the ravings of my "brilliant, albeit crackpot" partner. I had no idea the man yelling "the sky is falling, the sky is falling" was a prophet. " Ewhh! Scully I always hated that story, Foxy Loxy, remember?" Mulder said, a disgusted look upon his face. Scully scrunched her pillow up a little more as though she were trying to get more comfortable. "Quit stalling, Mulder. Just talk to me. I know it's a new concept between us. Two reasonably intelligent people should be able to practice a little verbal communication. The way we suppress and repress everything of importance in our lives would keep the mental health community rolling in dough for years to come. "You know I love you don't you," Mulder began with hesitation in his voice. "I mean I may be verbally challenged when it comes to conveying it, but you do know, right?" "Yes," Scully replied with equal deliberation. "But it is nice to hear it anyway." Mulder rubbed his hand over his face, rubbing the grime of the day into his pores. He pinched the bridge of his nose, squinting like he was trying to avoid a bright light. There was nothing but muted darkness. "Well, hell, while I'm playing true confessions, maybe I should enumerate on your other various attributes," Mulder playfully leered as if he had just noticed the presence of his partner decked out in her green silk pajamas lying across from him. "Mulder," Scully admonished. "Behave." He looked up, dejavu from that first case where they had settled down to talk for the first time, he sitting on the floor, she stretched out above him on the hotel bed. He remembered how he had told her about Samantha, trying to shock her, see if she'd react as most people did with patronizing disbelief. "Mulder", Scully said pulling him out of his reverie. "Give." Resignedly, he began. Not quite sure if he could make it all come out right. but willing to risk it, to take a chance for once. For a man who faced monsters and aliens on a daily basis, facing Scully and his inner-most emotions was downright terrifying. "The coroner came up to me as I was examining the bodies of the mother and child from that photo you were looking at. I guess I had been staring at them for awhile. She noticed my reflection and asked me if I had children," he began, looking Scully fully in the eye for perhaps the first time since she walked into the room. "With the life I lead, with the dysfunctional family I come from, and my search for Sam, I guess I really haven't allowed myself to dwell on the fact I might someday have a life past all this," he paused, moving his arm around the room to encompass it in all its tacky Motel 6 glory. "It's not as though I've felt pulled to procreate, Scully. Let's face it, the only connection I feel with salmon is having them grilled with a little butter and lemon. No I haven't felt drawn to pass on the Mulder gene pool. God, what a joke. In fact, with my exposure to the virus, who knows what genetic problems there might be --little uber Mulder's might be a reach at this point." Scully reached her hand down off the bed dangling it within Mulder's reach. He slid over slightly so he could reach it. He grasped firmly onto its cool smoothness as though it were a lifeline. She held on tightly, saying nothing, allowing him to continue at his own pace. She wanted to assure him that she was ok, this conversation was not too much for her. Actually it was long overdue. She knew where he was headed. She'd already been there. She had dealt with all of this during the last couple of years as she grieved for Emily and mourned the future children she would never have ---not only her future but -- "We'll never be able to have children, Scully," he whispered looking up at her, his eyes glistening like the raindroplets sprinkled outside their window. "No, Mulder, we won't," she answered. It never occurred to her to play dumb about what he was intimating, to pretend she didn't understand he wanted to give her children, his children. "I guess...ah... I just hadn't processed the fact that you're being...that you not being able to have..." he stumbled. Wistfully, Scully smiled at his discomfort and twisted her body until she was sitting up on the end of the bed. She pulled him gently up beside her, wrapping her arms around him, holding on for dear life. Pressing her face into his shoulder, she whispered, "You can say it Mulder. I'm sterile. The bastards have made me barren and you have just come to realize -- " "I'm barren too." Mulder finished, pushing away slightly so he could look down into her eyes. "They've stolen_our_children." "Yes, Mulder, our children," she echoed, pulling him back with her onto the bed. She kept him wrapped in her arms, pulling the blankets over them. She settled them down within the soft cocoon. The rain outside was diminishing. She could barely make out the spatters in the night. Through the wall she heard the faint sounds of a baby crying. Plaintifully, it echoed from the room behind their headboard. She felt the tired presence of Mulder, lying comforted in her arms. They needed to talk, it was past time. Conspiracies and global apocalypse be damned. But not tonight. fin ~dlynn, Nov. 1999