From: JingerLuvv Date: 10 Jan 2000 03:15:29 GMT Subject: NEW: "Symbol" Title: "Symbol" Author: virtue_fluttering Spoilers: "Never Again" Rating: R for some adult situations, and some emotionally tense scenes. Summary: We all have symbols we try to live up to. Disclaimer: Okay. Mulder and Scully do not belong to me. Neither does Ed Jerse--who I do not want anyway. They all belong to Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen Productions, and the Fox Network (WOW--I got through a whole disclaimer without making a smart remark CALL MIKE WALLACE!!!:)) This story goes out to my pal Jolene, who told me to sit at my keyboard and not to get up until I was finished with this one, Jo Moore, whom I admire greatly, for Erika, who never fails to inspire me with her wonderful encouragement, and to all the members of the Church of X and the ATXC who provided me with such amazing enthusiasm even as I felt my own beginning to slip. Words cannot express my gratitude. ******************************************************* "All this because I didn't get you a desk?" Stupid question, but what did he have to lose? It had been a stupid last few days. And it wasn't as if he had any real idea of what it was. "Not everything is about you, Mulder. This is my life." "Yes, but it's my--" My. My *what*, Mulder? her expression seemed to scream out the question, before settling back in the chair she inhabited as he did in his own. He should have known. There was nothing about Dana Scully that belonged to him. Not solely to him, anyway. And the thought that there was a part of her that belonged to someone else drove him crazy. Not that he knew that for sure, but he had his suspicions. He'd read the police report. He knew where she'd stayed that one night, and who's apartment it had been. A less than pleasant part of himself was almost smugly satisfied by the fact he'd turned out to be a substance enhanced psychopath. But he was certainly not satisfied that Scully had almost been killed. Again. And it was his fault. Again. If not indirectly. He hadn't taken her re-evaluation of her life and work seriously and, as a result, she'd, for lack of a better word, "rebelled" against it. But he wasn't about to appease her with the knowledge that he knew why she had gone and done what she did. And even understood it. Who knew, in the state of mind she was in right now, whether she would believe him anyway. Without a word, he watched her get up from the chair, picking up her briefcase along the way and head for the door. "So, where'd you get it?" "What?" she looked back at him, momentarily thrown by the break in the calm. "The tattoo. Where'd you get it? I saw a photo of it in the medical report, but it wasn't exactly informative about a specific location." "On my back," she replied hastily, almost curtly, without turning around. Her hand reached to open the door only to be startled as Mulder's much larger hand covered her own. In her eagerness to leave, she had not noticed him sneak up on her. 'Good.' "Where on your back, Scully?" His hand released hers to tentatively touch her shoulderblade. "Here?" When he didn't receive an answer, his hand travelled to the middle of her back. "Here?" The fabric of her jacket tickled his fingertips as they slid down the slope of her back, settling in their familiar place at the small of her back. "Here?" When her muscles tensed beneath his touch, he knew he had his answer. "Here." his hand moved to cover the intimate spot. "S'a good place for it," his voice softened slightly, "no significant muscles to fall or crease the image over the years, no visible stretchmarks to deface or reshape it. Very pragmatic location." He saw her fingers tighten against the doorknob. "Wasn't meant to be pragmatic, was it Scully?" Her knuckles turned white and her head turned to fix him with a pointed stare over her shoulder, daring him to taunt her in such a way again. "Want to see it Mulder?" Now it was his turn to stare. The challenge in her eyes told him, what he already believed in his hearts of hearts: she was bluffing. She was trying to astound him into submission. Startle him into paralysis. If he couldn't move, he couldn't bother her. He'd never been one for gambles or games of cat and mouse. But Dana Scully never failed to provoke a reaction from him. And he'd never been one to say 'no' to a bet. "Sure." He'd hoped his answer would shock her. God knew she'd shocked the hell out of him these last few days. Refusing an assignment. Getting a tattoo. Sleeping with someone she'd only just met. Or not. Just once, before this was all over and their silent apologies had been exchanged, he wanted to be the one to surprise her. But it was not to be. For the fiftieth time in the last three days, she was the one who surprised him. By not shying away from his response and by not backing out of her bluff. If she had indeed been bluffing at all. Whether she had been or not crossed his mind and then, just as easily, disappeared from it completely as her gaze left his to concentrate on the movements of her fingers as they made quick work of the buttons on her jacket, slipping it off her shoulders and setting it on the nearby filing cabinet. He watched the movements of her hands with rapt attention as they pulled the blouse from the top of her skirt. She managed another quick glance at him before returning to the task at hand. His eyes widened when her fingers slid around to the back to fumble with the button on her skirt. And when the small plastic disk was free from it's confines, she slid the zipper down with a lax *snick*. When her skirt dropped to the floor, Mulder thought his heart would stop right in his chest. Somehow, this entire situation didn't seem at all possible. Not even Frohike's imagination could have conjured up such a scenario, of that he was certain. He allowed his eyes to draw a restrained path down her body. From the hem of her blouse down her tiny legs, where they froze. She wasn't wearing pantyhose. She *always* wore pantyhose. She looked at him over her shoulder and nodded, reminiscent of that night in the motel on their first case together. But there was one glaring exception. She had made herself vulnerable to him that night because she was scared. Scared of the welts on her back that turned out to be mosquito bites. Tonight, she did so again because she wanted to scare *him*. And--damn it--was he ever scared. His hands hesitantly reached for the hem of her blouse, feeling the soft silk texture between his fingers as he slowly lifted it, revealing the dark circle just above the white lace trim of her panties. 'Jesus.' He didn't feel quite real as his hand reached out to lightly touch her back. His fingertips traced the ring lightly. "I asked if you wanted to *see* it, not conduct a thorough examination." she softly bit out, but his mind was somewhere else, as he didn't stop touching her. "An ouroburos. Celtic symbol of a mythical serpent devouring its own tail," as he went on, his fingers left the softness of her skin for a brief moment before his hand moved to cover it, his palm flat against the image, "symbolizing death. Rebirth. And the never ending cycle of the universe. Representing both consistency and change." The air between them grew full as the silence around them became larger than the room itself. A knowing silence, he thought, as she made no move to dispute his knowledge of the origin of the product of her one night of insurrection. "I'm so glad you approve, Mulder." he stepped back as she stooped to pick up her skirt and refasten the button and zipper. "Wasn't aware you needed my approval, Scully." "I don't," she tucked her blouse back into her skirt, reaching for her jacket. 'Good, because you don't have it,' he thought to himself, 'it's grotesque.' "Hey, it's your life, right?" "I'll see you on Monday," she picked up her briefcase and left the office, shutting him out with the bolt of a latch. 'Whatever you say, partner' he thought crassly to himself. For the longest time, he stared at the door, replaying every moment of what had just happened, before returning to the safe ground behind his desk, laying his head down in the comfort of his arms. He didn't know how to deal with this. He couldn't recall a time when they'd ever been this hostile with each other. Not a time when they weren't under the influence of some cosmic energy. He didn't know what had been going through his mind, then. Even now, the memories of what had transpired in Comity seemed remote somehow. A series of images bobbing in the distance, shrouded by a diaphonous curtain which seemed to fall within minutes upon exiting the city limits. He suspected his rather adolescent advances on Comity's handsome blond detective had been more about Scully and him than anything else. She had laughed at his attraction to other women. He had been taunting her, yet again. He'd wanted to remind her that he was a single man, with no real emotional ties to her. But, in the end, of course, he had been kidding himself yet again. And if his own feelings of guilt afterward hadn't convinced him, the case with Patterson certainly had. If that particular case had done anything, it had made it clear to him how much of an airborne force he had been in those early years at the VCS. Swept up in the madness of the men, or rather the monsters, he profiled, always coming dangerously close to becoming consumed by it all together. On the Mostow case, he'd come closer than he ever had to tumbling over the edge of his own sanity, prompting him to cry out for the one person who, at that moment wanted as little to do with him as possible, but was the only person who could save him. And she had come. She had saved him, yet again. In that case, she had been the one to take the first step. This time, it was his turn. It had taken one of them to almost die the last time. And he'd be damned if that happened again. Purposefully, he got up from his desk, slipping his leather jacket on as he shut the office door behind him. ******************************************************* KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK Mulder's nervousness about approaching Scully flitted to the surface a good six inches with each knock on her door, but still couldn't be seen beneath the depths of his determination. He'd come with a purpose and would not leave until it was fulfilled. Or until Scully shot him again, whichever came first, it was totally up to her. It was only a moment before he heard the slide-click of the chain and deadbolt being released. Scully answered the door in a pale mint pullover and white leggings--clothes he'd often seen her wear when they weren't within the jurisdiction of the Bureau's strict dress code they both abhorred to a certain extent, particularly whenever there was a change of season. 'For God's sake, even J. Edgar Hoover got to wear a casual blouse and wool skirt when he wanted to,' he'd heard her say once. He'd laughed back then. But now, standing at her door after what had happened back at the office and in the past few days, he was at a loss of what exactly to say. "Hey," he finally managed. "Hi," she said, more of a reply than a greeting, as her eyes seemed to reflect his apprehension and uncertainty, and that same old underlying antipathy. For a moment, they just stood there in their respective corners, each one appraising the other's stance and position. In true Scully fashion,she was the one to make the first move. "Come on in," he watched her move away from the door and head into the kitchen, a slight sway in her step--he wondered if that area just beneath the hem of her sweater was still sore, silently cursing himself for touching her down there. Chances were Dana Scully would never admit if it hurt. Her stoicism would never falter, if she could manage it. "I was just about to pour myself a cup of coffee," he heard her call from the kitchen as he shut the door behind him, taking the first few steps into the living room, "do you want some?" "Uh, no, no thanks," he stood half in the living room, half in the vestabule, unsure of whether to proceed onward. He'd interrupted one of Scully's creature comforts on this night: the television had paused on a grainy black and white club scene while a slightly worn silver and black copy of "Silence of the Lambs" lay, bookmarked, on the sofa. He'd once heard her mother marvel at how in the world she could do two things at once. That wasn't a concept of Scully's he was unfamilliar with (often, he'd walk into her hotel room to find her studying autopsy photos of the previous day's work while simultaneously snacking on the traditional out- of-town-on-a-case fast food dinner they'd adopted long ago). Not like lately. As though on cue, she reappeared suddenly, cup in hand, seeming to concentrate on its contents rather than the man standing next to her. "What *do* you want, Mulder?" she lightly traced the rim on her cup, walking a bit further into the living room. Right to the point. Very good. Something else he was familiar with. "Something I didn't get the chance to ask back there in the office," he moved to stand behind her, somewhat surprised when she turned to face him. He felt his stonefaced expression begin to crack. "Um...About everything that happened..in the office and..in Philadelphia, Scully," he felt his composure falter for a second but quickly regained it, "I need to know...Is everything okay?" "The case was solved, everything's fi--" she started to tell him. "I meant *you*. Are *you* okay?" "I'm fine, Mulder." Damn. He felt himself cringe under the one word he'd become perhaps the most acquainted with over the last four years, and seen the most of the last week or so. "Yeah," he said to himself, almost a quiet whisper under his breath, "what else is new?" "What's that supposed to mean?" But, evidently, not quiet enough. "It means that," he surprised himself with the amount of resolution in his voice, especially with Scully stood there looking at him that way--the look that could make a grown man cry, "that seems to be your answer for everything lately. I mean, now everytime I ask you a question concerning your well being, you find some way to elude the question with an elusive answer." Her posture seemed to stiffen, as though preparing for battle. "What do you feel you need to know that I haven't already told you, Mulder?" she asked, maintaining her own calm exterior just as he felt his slip through the cracks. "Told me?" his voice rose as anger inflamed his words, "you haven't told me anything at all. Ever since the Leonard Betts case you've barely spoken to me at all. All you've told me is that you're 'fine'. She stood at attention as he continued his onslaught. "You were fine before you went to Philadelphia, you were fine at the hospital in Philadelphia, you were fine on the plane ride home, and apparently your fine now? You're *fine* Scully?" "You ask me why you don't have a desk. You make various inferences that you're unsatisfied with the work but won't tell me what or why. You go to Philadelphia on a case, but don't work on the case. You go to a bar. You get a tattoo. A *tattoo*, Scully? You become.."personally involved" with a possible suspect in a murder case. Back there in the office, you asked me if I wanted to see your tattoo, and then you dropped your skirt to show it to me!" Words to make her look away for a moment, cheeks slightly flushed. "I mean, you were almost killed...God Scully," he moved to place his hand on her shoulder and to dip his head to try to look into her eyes, "do you know how close you came to death this time?" His last statement seemed to set off a chain reaction of sorts and her head snapped up so that he could look into her face. Gone was the weary, irritated expression he had just become acquainted with recently, and in its place was the fire and brimstone meets Antartica in December stare he had seen his partner unleash on many an unsuspecting person (usually a male 'superior') over the past few years. This time, it was fixed on him. "Don't you talk to me about 'personal involvement', Fox Mulder. You wrote the book on it. And don't think that because I'm your partner, I owe you any explanation for what goes on in my private life. As long as it does not begin to affect my position at work, you have no grounds to demand anything from me. This is *my* house. If you came here to yell at me, *get* *out*." If her words had not stopped him cold, what he saw next did so. Beneath the blazing fire coiling in those fierce blue eyes, beneath her tiny patrician nose there was a small trickle of blood... He felt all of his fury, all of the pent-up hostility that had been approaching a slow boil the past few days slip to puddle at his feet. All the anger and frustration seemed to melt from his features as though she'd slapped him across the face. Scully's eyes asked a silent question, then widened as her hand rose to her face. She saw the fresh traces of red on the soft white of her fingertips. The path of her gaze wavered from her now slightly fidgeting hand to his face, then back again twice. Her lips pursed sheepishly as she hesitated, then slowly moved past him, heading for the bathroom, softly shutting the door behind her. Mulder heard water running in the sink. He felt his body go completely numb all over. Before his knees could give way, he settled down on the far end of the sofa, folding his long legs into a quasi-comfortable position between him and the coffee table. Now he had it. The answers he had come here looking for. He didn't need to ask her what had happened to instigate what had transpired during her stay in Philadelphia and between them. He already knew. Suddenly, he was seeing the tension that had suddenly erupted and tautened between them over the past few days in an entirely different light. The problem had not been with Scully, but with himself. He'd expected too much of her. Unintentional, but no less true. And the worst part about it was that it stemmed from admiration. He'd built her up in his mind as a powerful, immortal force. A symbol of beauty and diligence and all that was good. Everything that was honest and without pretense, because she was the first person he'd met in a long time who *was* honest and without pretense. The countless citations and praise in the sterling record (not being completely dense, he'd read it from cover to cover a full half hour before that fateful knock on his door) had not done justice to the flesh and blood woman. He revered her. A reverence that, from another perspective, could quite easily be viewed as a brand of professional (and personal) worship. He'd praised her as little more than a saint, and had become indignant when she proved herself to be very much human. He'd put her on a pedistal of the highest regard, and turned away from her when she'd fallen because in his mind, she could do no wrong. Make no mistakes, she was infallible. The image of red on white flashed in his mind. Invulnerable. The door to the bathroom opened once more with an idle *click*, startling him from his musings. He turned around to see Scully reemerge from the bathroom, her face and some tresses of her hair which framed her cheekbones and the slope of her forehead slightly damp from washing away the image that had burned an imprint into his mind. One that would appear to him from now on whenever he raised his voice. Whenever he cracked a joke she didn't laugh at. Whenever he felt like childishly rubbing her nose in a theory of his which checked out. Whenever he thought of her as more than his partner... A corner of her lip curled up in an apprehensive smile before relaxing once more as she drifted across the room to sit down on the opposite side of the small sofa, leaving a little less than two feet of space between them, picking up the VCR remote and unpausing the tape she had been watching before he arrived. Unsure of what other cause of action to take, Mulder settled back further into his side of the couch and looked up at the screen. Marlene Dietrich sat, slightly reclined, fingers locked on her knee, across the top of a piano, belting out a song that would become one of her many trademarks. "Morocco?" No. No, "The Blue Angel." For in the audience of the tiny club, a bearded college professor sat in Cary Grant's place. His eyes follow her every movement with rapt attention in silent admiration. Funny. Somehow, the older man seemed more focused and attentive than the young and flightly Grant could ever be. He's lived more years, had more experiences to draw from, is older and wiser. He can give this beautiful young woman the respect and consideration she deserves. He;s more than capable. Sitting up a little, Mulder reached for the television remote on the glass surface of the coffee table and pressed the 'MUTE' button before turning in his seat to look over at Scully. She readjusted her position, tucking her legs beneath her in a fashion that in any other situation he would have thought of as demure, but continued to watch the flickering images on the screen, as though she could still hear the dialogue. Mulder swallowed, trying to replenish a mouth that had gone completely dry, and find the words that it could put forth. So much so, he thought he felt his throat creak on his next few words. "I'm sorry..." his voice was little more than a whisper, "I didn't come her to yell at you or accuse you of anything...and the last thing I want to do is make you feel cornered. It's just...these last few days. There all a jumble inside my head. There's no consistency to them. It's more of a rapid succession of moments than memory. Confrontations, in particular, are jumping into sharp focus. The first one in my office, the phone call I made to you from Memphis, the one I got later from Philadelphia mercy Hospital, and the one back at the office just now. I'm just...I'm just trying to process everything...I'm just trying to figure it out." His voice grew stronger but remained at a softened state, the slightest hint of a plea in it. "Scully, I know you. I've worked next to you almost everyday for the past four years. Now, all of a sudden...this whole thing with Philadelphia. I'm at a loss here. Please. Talk to me. She digested that for a long moment as he held his breath. "It didn't *happen* in Philedelphia, Mulder. It started here." Gone was the anger and stoicism from her voice. At last, this was the woman he was talking to, not the agent. He nodded. His three minutes were up, now it was her turn to talk. "Listen to me," she turned around so that she was facing him, her back against the arm of the sofa, "something's been happening lately..that's caused me to re-evaluate my place. In my work, in my life, or lack of same. He felt a slight laugh rise in his throat at that, as a previous conversation they'd had was conjured by that statement: 'Do you believe in an afterlife, Scully?' 'I'd settle for a life in this one.' Just as quickly, he returned to their present conversation. "Work especially, Mulder. The X-Files are a part of my life too. You may have been there longer, but I put in just as much time and I am just as dedicated as you are." "I know, I know..I didn't mean to devaluate your role in the X-Files. And I'm sorry. I just..." he searched his mind for exactly why he had treated her so this past week, "I guess I thought, maybe you'd lost interest in it finally.." There, he'd said it. He hadn't quite realized it before, but he'd always had the underlying foreboding that one day, she would become tired of risking her life and would leave. And when that day came, he was uncertain of how he would handle it. Her eyes seemed to gain a new intensity and she leaned in slightly as she talked to him. "Nothing could be further from the truth," she insisted, "what happened in Philadelphia..had little connection to the work itself.." Her voice trailed off. He knew. And he felt like a heel for his behavior. She had been on a personal odyssey which, others may have viewed, had failed, and he had had the nerve to be angry with her for it. For putting her life at such a risk (keeping in mind that he himself had done the same thing repeatedly--deliberately stepping into the line of fire--but Dana Scully was not him) 'Congratulations on making a personal appearance in the X-Files for the second time.' He hadn't wanted this for her. He had wanted her to work with him, beside him on the work he had come to both love and hate, but had nevertheless become an appendage of his existence. He had never wanted her to become another face in its cavalcade. Certainly not twice. "Scully," he wanted to take her hand in his, but deduced that what he had to say would be no less dramatic if he didn't, "I know that you have a need for a life outside of the X-Files, outside of the work. And I understand that it helps you to be able to step away and clear your head. Look farther down the road and be able to see where you're going...Where your life is going to take you. A beat. "And I want you to know that, whatever choices you make with that life, I will support you...And, selfish though it may be, I like to think that I have a place in your life outside of the work." Time seemed to elapse between them like nothing at all. As though she'd read his mind before, she reached over to lightly squeeze his hand. "Thank you, Mulder." she told him, voice taking on a raw quality he was not only familiar with, but loved. He returned the gentle squeeze, indulging in one more glance into those eyes, filled with gratitude that could have been hers or could have been his own or could have been both, before picking up the remote with his opposite hand and returning the television to normal sound. Allowing their hands to part company, they both returned to their former positions on the couch, though more at ease than before, to watch the film. Mulder felt himself let go a breath he realized he'd been holding since he walked through the door to her apartment, to their office, to the hospital room, and before she'd left on the case. A darker more concerned corner of his mind was troubled over what it had seen after she'd told him off, fixated on the red and white. But it was to that particular corner which he exclusively confined it. In her own time, she would tell him. Meanwhile, he would not press the issue. He knew his place. ******************************************************* "Never Again" has never been one of my favorite episodes of Season 4, or one of my favorite episodes period. But it always seemed to me there was something of a transition between "Never Again" and "Momento Mori." At least there should have been. And that's where this one came from. I'm very proud of this one and I hope you enjoy it too. Feedback is always appreciated. "The Blue Angel" was adapted from a novel to a screenplay by Heinrich Mann (the book's author) and Carl Zuckmayer. The film was directed by Josef von Sternberg. "Silence of the Lambs" is the product and property of the brilliant Thomas Harris, and St. Martin's paperbacks. It is also one of my very favorite books.