From: "Kayla Ariev" Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2000 14:58:50 PDT Subject: resolutions by Kayla Ariev Source: direct Title: resolutions Author: Kayla Ariev Spoilers: Some through early Season 6 Rating: PG-13 Summary: Mulder and Scully and some New Year's reflecting . . . Category: MSR Disclaimer: Mulder, Scully, and The X-Files are the sole property of Chris Carter, 1013, and FOX. I'm just borrowing them. (Again!) * * * I *should* have been drunk. That was how everyone spent New Year's Eve: getting smashed with friends and loved ones, partying until midnight and beyond, kissing the girl I love. But no, here I am at the Vietnam Memorial, commiserating in my own wretchedness. It had been one hell of a year. Not only had Scully and I solved one of our biggest batch of X-Files, but we'd discovered the mother evidence of the conspiracy. Of course, we'd lost all that evidence, and when the X-Files *had* been reopened, we were forbidden to go anywhere near them. Agent *Spender* and *Fowley* had been given the cases. It makes me want to puke. It seems like whenever anything was looking up, it all plummeted to lowest of lows. Even my attempted kiss with Scully failed and she'd been stung by that bee and infected with the virus. Scully. I told her I loved her. That was a good thing. I'd been trying to tell her that for five years. Our first year together I hadn't wanted to tell her I loved her. That first year, to me, she was only an infatuation. But after they'd closed the X-Files and we were still close as ever, if not closer, I knew it was more than an infatuation. It was love. I just didn't know if the love she felt for me was as passionate as the love I felt for her. I'd told her I loved her and she laughed in my face; passed it off as the influence of the medicine I'd been on. But my confession was entirely heartfelt. Nothing I'd ever said in my whole existence had ever been as passionate and heartfelt as that. Those three little words. Four, actually: "Scully, I love you." Four words. Or three words and one name. Her name. It's really a very beautiful name: Dana Katherine Scully. I've never called her Dana. Well, on rare occasions I think I might have used Dana. And a few times I've referred to her as Dana. But to me, she will always be Scully. There is no other way about it. She is my Scully and I am her Mulder. And nothing will ever change that. Not even marriage, in the bizarre event that occurred. She would be Mrs. Scully Mulder. Ha! That's not even funny now. It probably isn't funny at all, but my New Year's surge of emotions has me on a natural high and I can't think entirely straight. I think I am the only one here, plaguing myself with guilt and annoying thoughts, when I see someone walking in the distance, towards the wall that makes up the Vietnam Memorial. It's a woman and she's walking my way. She has on a dark suit, the skirt about knee length. She's wearing a dark trench coat, mittens and scarf, which is wrapped around her head. But no scarf can hide that fiery hair from me. Her clothes are kissed with snowflakes, as are mine, I realize. Snow. It's cold out here. What is Scully doing out here in this cold on New Year's Eve. She should be at a party, not wallowing in miseries as I am. She couldn't be out here because of me, either. No one knows of this tradition of mine. No one. She sees me and realizes it's not just some stranger standing along side the memorial, but her partner, Agent Fox Mulder. Fox. My mother must have been upset that I wasn't a girl when she named me Fox. But that's not important right now. Scully is the only thing important to my currently conscious brain. I realize she is looking at me in some confusion. "Mulder? What are you doing out here?" "That's what I should be asking you." She's taken aback. "You want me to tell you what you're doing out here?" Is she serious or is she fooling with me again? I hate the way she does that. It's infuriating and it turns me one. "Scully, what are you doing out here?" "I was taking a walk and saw you over here. I didn't actually see that it was you until I got closer, but I felt you. I felt you before I saw you, yes." Here's another weird thing about Scully and myself. We share this really bizarre bond no other agents posses. Except of course, for agents Kirk and Crawford, who were asked to leave after they had sex one too many times in the copy room. But even they did not share the sort of telepathic link Scully and I have. It's unnerving sometimes, having someone else know what you're thinking. But it's also comforting, not having to use words. I'm terrible with words and with the English language whenever it comes to myself or someone close to me. Sure, on cases I'm great with words. I can sweet talk like nobody else. But expressing emotions? No. Then I am just a babbling goon, mumbling my words and slurring my sentences. Few rare occasions have occurred when I've been so intent on voicing my feelings that my Oxford brain has prevailed and words have come out in complete thoughts. So this telepathic-like link with Scully isn't always such a bad idea except that she doesn't always read them and she often doesn't read them correctly. Like an "She's beautiful" in my mind might be read as "good meat." That's the problem. So when Scully and I have to talk, I have good reason to be scared shitless. "Scully, it's New Year's Eve. You should be at a party or something. Not out here in the freezing snow." "Should I be at a party?" I shrug at her, my hands shoved in my pockets, seeking more warmth than my black leather gloves provide. "You know, Mulder, you shouldn't be questioning my presence here, when you're out here as well. I mean, shouldn't you be at a party?" "I don't go to parties, Scully. You should know why." She's hurt me. Not terribly, but there is a slight stinging sensation in my chest and it's either because she has caused some emotional pain, or it's colder than I think. "I'm sorry, Mulder. My mom has a New Year's party that I usually attend, but..." Her voice fades out for a moment before she finds the right words. Scully always does that: pauses in the middle of a phrase to make sure she's using the right words. "After everything that's happened this year, I didn't feel like celebrating anything. Or spending the night listening to my brother insult you." "Scully, I know your mother. She wouldn't let you skip out without a good reason. What'd you tell her?" I know this woman too well, and she knows it, too, because she smiles when I say this. "My younger brother, Charles is supposed to be flying in with his wife from California. He couldn't make it for Christmas, and promised my mom New Year's. So I told her I'd pick him up from the airport. He didn't show up." She seems saddened by this. "I'm sorry." "I parked a few blocks down and decided to take a walk. I don't want to go back to my mother's. So what are you doing out here, Mulder?" "According to legend, the ghosts of the men who died in the Vietnam War haunt this memorial every New Year's Eve." Scully likes it when I mess with her. "You can't be serious!" "No." We both smile and laugh, our breath white against the cold air. "I always come out here on New Year's Eve. I just think and..." I lose my words. "Get drunk?" she offers. I laugh. "No. If I get smashed at any time during the holidays, I'll do it Christmas Eve. Cause if you get smashed then, you can sleep right through Christmas Day." The conversation has turned serious again. "Mulder..." "We celebrated Christmas only one year in our house, Scully." "Oh my god." She was shocked. "It's not what you think, Scully. Samantha learned about it at school and she wanted to find out more. So our parents decided to celebrate Christmas one year as well as Chanukah. But that was the last year we celebrated either holiday. After Samantha was gone, there was no family left to celebrate anything. And each New Year's Eve, starting with the one when I was thirteen years old, I ran away from the house. There was a park in our neighborhood that had a memorial from soldiers that had died in battle. That's where I would spend the night and I'd come home sometime around two in the morning. I took that time very seriously. It wasn't something even girls could interfere with. So ever since then, I've spent New Year's alone at a memorial for soldiers who have died in battle. Sometimes I go to the Marine Corps Memorial, but this one holds more meaning to me. It's more like the one at the park by my house." I have shocked Scully, not only with painful memories of Samantha and a torn family, but of my religious technicality. "Oh my god, Mulder. Every year?" I nod. "You only celebrated Christmas once?" "Scully, we were Jewish. Of course we didn't celebrate Christmas." Wasn't she listening. "But after Samantha, you never celebrated any holidays?" I sigh and grip her shoulders firmly. "Scully, you of all people should know that holidays are familial celebrations. Without a family, why celebrate them?" She looks away from me and moves her mouth as if to say something, but no words come out. I can see tears forming in her eyes. "Scully, it's okay. I don't exactly relish the holidays." "It just seems so horrible." I'm surprised. She has said nothing of my religion. I'd never mentioned it before. Neither of us says anything. We just stand in the stark cold with our own thoughts. But the silence doesn't last long when a cell phone rings. Instinctively, we both pull ours out. It's a funny thing. We both have the same Nokia cell phones. We realize it is hers and she presses the talk button and pulls out the antenna. "Scully." She says that with grace. It's funny, she always answers her phone with her last name. I think that's a bad habit she learned from me. Nonetheless, it's part of her I love. "Oh, sorry. It's just how I answer my phone." God, I hope it isn't her brother, Bill. "Sure. I'll be there in twenty minutes." She hangs up and turns to me. I look at her, awaiting a response. "That was my brother, Charles. He ended up on a later flight. I'm gonna go pick him up." I nod. "I'll see you next week, Scully." She turns around to face me again. She raises an eyebrow. "Mulder?" I shrug. "Come on." She knows I want to come with her and she doesn't even question it. She just commands. And I follow like an obedient dog. We go to Dulles to pick up her brother and the usually thirty minute drive takes only twenty minutes, like she'd said, due to the lack of traffic. Charles and his wife, who's name I learn is Deborah, are waiting for us outside the arrivals area and get in quickly when we pull up. Scully is driving and I am next to her in the front, so the couple climb into the back seat after putting their luggage in the trunk. We drive towards Mrs. Scully's house. "So, Dana," said her brother. "Who is this young man who has accompanied you?" Scully seems confused. "What?" she asks. "Who is the gentleman who came with you to pick us up?" He motions to me. "Oh," says Scully, realizing her brother is referring to me. "You mean Mulder?" "Is that his name?" "Um, yeah. I'm sorry. I'm so used to Mulder being here that I didn't think about it. Charles, this is my partner Fox Mulder. But he prefers Agent Mulder." "Pleased to meet you, Agent Mulder," says Charles. He reaches out his hand, which I shake. He seems like a very pleasant man, the exact opposite of Bill, who suddenly appears in the conversation. "Charles, whatever Bill has told you about Mulder, I think you should ignore. Bill doesn't really...know Mulder, but has made assumptions based on half-facts." "You mean Agent Mulder *doesn't* chase little green men?" "No," I say. "Gray." "Excuse me," says Charles. "They're little *gray* men. Reticulans have gray skin, not green." "Charles, you'll have to excuse Mulder. He likes to put on his 'Spooky' act whenever someone knows of his reputation. He's not what Bill says he is." "You should try it sometime, Scully. It's fun. You are Mrs. Spooky, are you not?" "I will *always* be Mrs. Spooky, Mulder. I think that name will always follow me around and, frankly, I'm proud to have it." "If only," I look at her with my best 'Spooky' look "you wanted to believe." "I *do* want to believe." "Really?" "But you know I need proof; irrefutable proof." "We had proof!" I exclaim. How could she have forgotten it all. "You were there, you saw those creatures and you saw the ship and you were infected with the virus. You were kept in that cryopod and if I hadn't gotten to you in time, you would have died there in the ice, the creature gestating inside of you." "Mulder, I don't remember hardly any of that. And you saw more than I did. You saw everything, Mulder, and I only saw small bits that give no credence to your story." Ever the skeptic. "Do you doubt me?" "No, Mulder, I never have. What I doubt is the lack of, not so much evidence, but reality. That virus does *nothing*. I ran as many tests as I could on it once we got back. And I'll be the first to admit it, I couldn't verify anything. The virus could not be identified. But that does not mean that it is extraterrestrial or that it causes the gestation of an E.B.E. when in the human body. Mulder, I didn't turn into an alien." "Because I gave you the vaccine. The vaccine developed by our government, Scully, to save themselves from the alien colonists when they come to take over the Earth." Why can't she fucking believe? After all she's seen and experienced? "God, Mulder, this sounds like the plot to some alien movie like 'Independence Day.'" She's tired and doesn't want to continue our controversial conversation. But Charles, who has remained silent throughout this whole time, speaks up out of curiosity. "This doesn't have anything to do with that human-development theory you told me about, does it, Dana?" Scully looks like she wishes Charles hadn't said that. *I*, for one, am intrigued. "Human-development, Scully?" "Mulder..." "No, please," I persist. "Tell me about it." I am genuinely interested, but hold a slightly mocking tone to my voice. Scully knows I really do want to hear her theory. "I just thought that because the virus is found in all of us, that maybe it isn't extraterrestrial, but is, in fact, entirely human. That it is an undiscovered genetic trait that leads to a new development in humans, which has remained dormant for thousands of centuries. And that, maybe, this Hanta virus is causing it to become active and alive, causing no foreign creature to gestate, but the humans themselves." I look at her. She has truly given this a lot of thought. But she isn't sure of herself. She doesn't even like her own theory. I, however, am in love with her. It. I am in love with her theory. Not her. Am I? "It's nothing, Mulder. Just a crazy notion of mine and you should disregard it immediately, as I have, and never bring it up again. And I certainly don't want credit for it." "But, Scully-." She cuts me off. "No, Mulder. This topic is closed to discussion. I've had enough of this year." She looks ahead bitterly. This day is very bittersweet for both of us. It is the end of beautiful things and the culmination of everything bad. It holds no optimism for us. This New Year's Eve is no party for us. It only causes us to think back on things we'd rather not discuss. "So Agent Mulder," says Deborah. This is the first she has spoken since she said hello. "Do you believe in the existence of extraterrestrials?" I have to laugh at the irony of this and so does Scully. It begins with a mild chuckle and erupts into loud uproar from only Scully and myself. "Yes, I do," I manage as our laughter dies down. "What was so funny?" asks Charles. "When I first met Mulder, he asked me that in his best 'Spooky' voice," answers Scully. I smile softly and look down away from her gaze, remembering that day. March 6, 1992. What a day that was. I mean, hell, that was the day I met the most important person in my life; the woman who makes me whole; who completes me. She looks to me, now, and shares in my reminiscing smile. I reach out a palm to her and she fills it with her tiny hand. Our hands clasp and we exchange a reassuring squeeze. That has always been one of our most effective ways of physical reassurance, squeezing. Sometimes it's the hands, or the arm, or the shoulder or we'll just plan embrace and squeeze each other. But it has always aided us. We drive in silence the remainder of the drive. When we arrive, Mrs. Scully insists that I come inside, if only for a moment. I know that unless Scully leaves before the party is supposed to end, I am stuck there for the remainder of the evening. That's just how Mrs. Scully is. But I am lucky in that I know Scully has no intention of staying much longer. She says hello to her family and friends, although she seems close to no one. She has me following her heels everywhere, partially because she wants me there and partially because I am comfortable with only her. She then goes to her mother and bids farewell. "But Dana, it's not even ten o'clock yet. Why are you going?" "I'm just going," Scully replies, not warranting any better an explanation. "I'm not going to except that as an answer," states Mrs. Scully loudly. Everyone's attention is held. "Mom, this is not a year I want to celebrate." "Surely there were *some* good things. Probably more than you think-." Scully cuts off her mother. "No, there have been no good things. And anything that had the prospect of being good was cut of and ended either by a fire or a bomb or another agent or a god-damn Africanized honey bee. I'm sorry, but I don't want to sit around reminiscing about vampires with glowing-green eyes, or moth-men, or Seraphim, monsters, computers that think. And by no means do I want to reminisce about office fires, federal building bomb-explosions and being blamed for them, or the arctic or alien viruses or being totally disregarded by OPR. Or having the X-Files reopened only to be ordered to have no contact with them whatsoever." I mumble "Or bees in my apartment building hallway." She looks to me. "I didn't say that, did I?" I look surprised and I take her hand. "Let's go. Now." I nod at her and she follows me when I tug on her hand. No one stops us. We get into her car and drive to nowhere in particular, although vaguely in the direction of her apartment, but just to get away from the party. We do eventually arrive at her apartment and we agree with as few words as possible that I'll stay the night on her sofa, rather than my own. That's another weird thing about Scully and me. We each keep an overnight bag with the essentials for a one night stay away from home and change of clothes at the others apartment. They are for those rare occasions when one of us will end up staying the night at the other's apartment; those occasions that had become more frequent lately. At least, my trips to her apartment. See, I don't own a bed, I just sleep on the sofa, so there really isn't anywhere for Scully to sleep at my apartment. When she has stayed, we've slept with her head on my shoulder, my head atop hers, sitting up. When I stay at her apartment, she sleeps in her bed and I sleep on the sofa. Twice, she has slept there with me, when we both needed comfort to just know that the other was alive. Inside her apartment, I build a fire in her fireplace while she makes some popcorn and gets us something to drink. We're going to watch a movie together, although we're not sure which one. Maybe we'll watch an Adam Sandler movie or something by Stephen Spielberg. Or maybe we'll watch some old movie or a comedy or a romance. But not a drama. Anything but a drama or an alien movie. We can't take either of those. She comes into the room with a bowl of popcorn and two cans of soda and sits by me on the sofa. We can't agree on a movie, so we turn on the TV and flip channels. I want to watch the "Twilight Zone" marathon, but because she doesn't, we settle on something else. Something we can both relate to and enjoy. Bugs Bunny cartoons. I like the Marvin the Martian ones best, but they are all wonderful and they bring us both happy memories. It is here on Scully's sofa that we fall asleep. She does so in my lap. But before either of us drift off to sleep, we share something that will become more very soon. It is our New Year's resolution to complete our relationship and we seal it with a kiss. A kiss that is also the promise of what more is to come. I am happy. Life is getting better. * * * feedback to kayla_ariev@hotmail.com