Date: 30 May 1998 15:34:53 GMT From: JMSchari Subject: NEW: Things Not Told, by Joanne (1/1) Things Not Told by Joanne (1/1) Spoilers: US Seasons Four and Five to Travelers. (The Ring is mentioned, so consider it part of that odd little genre known as Ringfic.) Lesser spoilers/general background from throughout the series. Summary: Mulder thinks about what he hasn't told Scully. Disclaimer: The character of Fox Mulder is the intellectual property of 1013 Productions and Twentieth Century Fox Television. The song lyrics from Pearl Jam's "Wishlist" and Hoyt Axton's "Joy to the World" are being used without permission of their respective copyright holders. This fiction is being written and posted without the authorization of the above parties and will be distributed over the Internet without fees or profits. Now that I've finished the legal yadda-yadda, may I keep playing with Agent Mulder? Especially if he wears his glasses again? S/RA, MSR, angst. R for some language. For Steve P., because you and I had the same question about Redux II. And thanks for the generosity back in April, Amy and Chickie. I'll see you and the rest of my sisters again in Austin. Again, my thanks to Lesley for archiving this in her post-ep archive long before I had the wherewithall to post it on atxfc. Any other archivists besides Gossamer, please e-mail me before archiving. i wish i was an alien ... at home behind the sun ... i wish i was the souvenir you kept your house key on ... i wish i was the pedal brake that you depended on ... i wish i was the verb to trust and never let you down ... i wish ... i wish ... i guess it never stops ... --Pearl Jam, "Wishlist" So why haven't I told her? That terrible night in the hospital when we felt she was on her deathbed and my career was as good as dead was the very time I should have told her. I kissed her hand and cheek, smoothed her hair, sat by her side. That was the time I've come closest to saying those four words: Scully, I love you. Maybe I had just told her. We've always had that unspoken communication thing between us. Besides, kissing and hand holding -- not to mention my hand's natural place on the small of her back -- are affectionate gestures between two lovers, not between two FBI agents. But I didn't tell her. I didn't say the words to her then. We had far more important things to deal with at the moment: Truth and impending death. Exposing the lies and saving our lives. She was panicked I had risked our entire fragile charade by simply going to her bedside. I was afraid I was watching her die. What good would it have done to profess my love to a dying woman? What could she have said in return? *Thanks, Mulder. You have the worst sense of timing in this or any universe. Have a life -- I won't for much longer, because of you.* Instead, Scully offered to lie to save me. I found the chip. She went into remission. The Bureau didn't send me to jail. We took a deep breath, smiled for a little while, went back to work. And when the Bureau sent us to the Partnership Communication Seminar in Florida she started coming on to me. Wine, cheese, a sly pass about sleeping bags ... and, when she thought I'd fallen asleep in the Everglades, I heard her sing the second verse from "Joy to the World." You know, "if I were the king of the world, tell you what I'd do/I'd throw away the bars and the cars and the war/and make sweet love to you." Innuendo and seduction, Scully Style. (Actually, it's really innuendo and seduction, Mulder Style. Scully's learned an amazing amount from me.) I did what she does when faced with my banter: I ignored it, blew it off, ran the other way straight into the work. So much for spoken communication again. Then things really started to fall apart. She found and lost Emily. Why didn't I embrace her -- or she me -- at Emily's coffin? Probably because good old brother Bill would have kicked my ass back to D. C. if he'd seen us. I let her down then and there. I didn't comfort her, I had taken so long to tell her about the ova. I still haven't found the courage to tell her the whole truth about the test tube I took from Allentown. The tube is hidden in another fertility clinic under the code name of Kathy Williams. (I was in a sentimental mood. Thought I'd use our middle names for the potential kids.) She can either use it for evidence or for a chance at true motherhood; the choice is rightfully Scully's. Would offering her my love offset even a fraction of her losses? Since she knocked on my basement office door just over five years ago, nearly everything she's ever loved has been taken from her. The child she never got a chance to truly know was just the latest in a long string of losses. Her father, her sister, the respect of her peers. Hell, even her dog was eaten during one of our crazy cases. I have my doubts about if my loving her would help her. I have also lost a lot in my lifetime. My sister and my father are gone. My own career is literally in the basement. I was the FBI Golden Boy, brought down by a series of manipulations starting with Cold War genetic experimentation and my father's shadowy involvement with the House Un-American Activities Committee. *Are you now or have you ever been normal, Mr. Mulder?* Now there's a question I've often asked myself. And just when you thought you knew everything about me, Scully, here's a surprise: You're not the first woman to wear the title of Mrs. Spooky! In 1990, I had a brief, intense relationship with another agent in the Behavioral Sciences Unit. She was pretty, brilliant, and, I thought, as normal as you can be in our line of work. We started dating in January and married in May. She handed in her resignation, wrote me a "Dear Fox" letter, and moved out when I was away on a case in early November. Two weeks later, I found my family's name associated with an X-File. Our stress-filled crazy jobs doomed our marriage. My discovery of the X-Files killed any chance of our reconciliation. The Gunmen helped me track her down so I could file for the no-fault divorce. Ironic, considering our jobs were based on finding personality faults. We found the former Mrs. Mulder analyzing psychological evidence for law firms in Minneapolis. I already knew the "and she wants nothing more to do with you, Mulder" part. So I took off my wedding ring, concentrated on the X-Files and finding Samantha, and chalked up one first marriage to stress and fate. Then I found Scully. As we came to trust each other, they took her away. For three horrible months, I'd lost her too. I have no idea how I carried on, save for my desires to find her and to find revenge for what I'd imagined they had done to her. So what did I end up giving her when she came out of her coma? A football highlights video. Scully's brothers taught her how to watch and like the game. And it was something for her to entertain herself with while she recovered. Still. I admit I give weird presents. An Apollo 11 keychain for her thirty-third birthday? Another odd present for a potential romantic partner. Odd even for your partner in law enforcement. But she had lost her old keychain the week before. And considering it could have been one of the last times we could have celebrated a birthday together, I wanted to give her something uniquely from me. An engagement ring would have been too obvious. I have proposed to her. Not in a serious, ring-and-candelit-dinner-and-bended-knee manner. No, I *had* to let it slip out jokingly when she called from her ill-fated Maine vacation, with cheesy "Alien Probes" porno on my office TV for my background noise. Oh, Mulder, you romantic, you. Of course, you said it just like you made that "china patterns" comment during the Van Blundht case: You were so thrilled she saw evidence your way, you were ready to take her right then and there. Now, since that terrifying time on the bridge, we cannot agree. We don't know what to believe. Was Scully almost abducted a second time? Have they selected her for secret testing? Are there such a thing as space aliens or is it just a bunch of governmental bullshit? Is Krycek right, is there some sort of alien war movement to colonize Planet Earth and I'm meant to lead the resistance movement? I don't want to think about that last possibility, because it's the worst possibility. If I am The One Meant to Save The Earth, may the powers that be help us all. What a time to want to tell someone you love her. Joanne OBSSE/cog6 Help! Should I continue to do this, or just be content to worship at the word processors of superior talents (like Lydia Bower, Jill Selby, Punk M., and Jennifer Stoy)? If you have an opinion, send it to JMSchari@prodigy.net, where e-mail is always welcome.