From: "Michelle Hurt" Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 19:38:32 -0400 Subject: Thank you Source: direct FROM: M. K. Marshall DATE: September 15, 1999 SUBJECT: Wanting for Words TITLE: Wanting for Words AUTHOR: M. K. Marshall RATING: PG SPOILERS: Milagro FEEDBACK: Sure, just don't get too rough. It's my first time out. CLASSIFICATION: Mulder/Scully UST ARCHIVE: Gossamer. Others please ask. DISCLAIMER: They're not mine. Mulder, Scully, and Padgett belong to Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and Twentieth Century Fox. No infringement is intended. Don't bother to sue because I have no money. THANKS: To Michelle for all her help and feedback. AUTHOR'S NOTE: Picks up right where Milagro left off. Wanting for Words by M. K. Marshall Mulder burst through the door of his apartment. His gun was raised and ready. He had heard the shots, heard Scully's screams. But now there was just silence. Silence and an empty room. No, not empty. His gun dropped to his side when he saw her. She was lying on the floor, soaked in blood, unmoving, and silent. In a slow trance of panic he crossed the room and knelt beside her. His eyes poured over her, looking for a wound, but there was none. Just blood. So much blood. He wanted to touch her, but was afraid...afraid he wouldn't find a pulse. His hand reached out... She felt the slightest touch reach for her from the darkness. The hooded figure was back to finish what he had started. She had felt his fingers slip through her flesh, dig deep into her. She had pulled her gun and watched the bullets fly through him like air, striking the wall behind him. He wasn't real, he wasn't really there, but she could feel him. Her hands fought him, her fingers strained at the base of his neck wanting to squeeze the life from him. But he had no life to take. And he wanted to take hers. Pain tickled and burned through her like a rough fire as his hand reached around her heart and pulled. Blood spilled from her open chest, poured over her. His hand tightened, she screamed and then... She felt the slightest touch reach for her from the darkness. Her eyes snapped open, her arms instantly, instinctively jumped in defense, startled by the figure hovering over her. A sudden breath of terror escaped her, paralyzed her for one brief moment. But in that moment she recognized him. Mulder. It was his touch that had awakened her, his arms that were gathering her from the floor. Mulder. Her arms slid desperately up and around his shoulders, pulled him tight. The heart still beating in her chest longing to feel the comfort, the closeness of his. Her fingers tugged and kneaded at the muscles of his back, searching and finding his solid warmth. He was real. He was here. And she didn't want to let him go. He held her. Cradled her as she cried deep and heavy into his arms, her broken sighs brushing his ear, her body shaking beneath him, trembling with every breath. He settled around her, wanting to take her fear as his own faded from his heart. She was alive, she was safe, she was still here with him. His eyes drifted closed in a thankful prayer. He nestled his cheek into her hair, wanting for words to whisper to her. But he settled for the silence, and let her cry. Let her empty her tears. Let her be held. Sirens could be heard in the distance. The neighbors knew the drill well enough by now. The police were on their way and hopefully an ambulance was not far behind. But the sounds of the world that were about to come crashing in on them didn't separate them. They stayed there, locked in that moment, tucked away in an unspoken need. Touch was such a rare thing for them. A denied thing. Limited. Guarded. Forbidden for fear of going to far. Of never letting go. Subtle glances, stolen and shared, forgiving gestures, and simple, unspoken comforts had kept them close, kept them safe. But never safe enough. Voices murmured from the hall, neighbors peered in through the doorway, but none dared to cross the threshold. The elevator chimed and a rush of heavy footsteps followed. "All right folks, let's back up," came the unmistakable authority of an Alexandria officer. The scanner chatter of police radios and the squeak of their uniformed shoes preceded them as they pushed their way into the room. Mulder reached into his back pocket and produced his ID, flashing it to the officers behind him. "I'm a federal agent, there is a murder suspect in the basement of this building. His name is Phillip Padgett and needs to be apprehended immediately!" he bellowed. He never turned to look at them, never bothered to see if they dropped their drawn weapons, and he never let go of Scully. One of the officers approached, and took Mulder's badge from his hand, inspected it. He nodded and two of the policeman hurried back down the hall. "And I want a paramedic up here, now." "No," Scully whispered suddenly and took her arms from him. "I'm fine, Mulder." But it was too late. The remaining officer was already on the radio with the ambulance that was waiting. "Really, I'm fine..." Mulder watched as she pulled away and quietly withdrew into herself, burying her fears, hiding any need of him, putting the distance back between them. Making them nothing more than partners. He didn't like it, but he understood. The outside world was watching, and what could be seen could be broken, misused, misunderstood. But at the moment he didn't give a damn about policies and protocol. "You're not fine, Scully," he insisted and saw her eyes drop away in denial. He took her face in his hands and tried to force her to look up at him. But she wouldn't. "You're going to the hospital. You've lost a lot of blood, and you need to be checked out." The paramedics wheeled a stretcher through the door and she winced in hesitation. Her body stiffened with defiance. His thumb traced the path of a lost tear. "Please." It was all he said. But he said it so simply, so honestly, with as much desperation a whisper could carry. It surprised her, softened her. She nodded. She would go. For no other than he had asked her to. Mulder let her go from his arms as the medics moved in and took her, placed her carefully on the stretcher. They covered her, took her vital signs, strapped her down, and began wheeling her away. How many times did he have to see this? Watch her be taken from him, stolen away, hurting from more than the wounds that bled, but from those that couldn't be seen. He looked down at the blood that stained his hands, that had soaked through his shirt. More of her blood on his soul. Because he had left her behind. Again. Because he had run off, deliberately distracted, and left her to fight what couldn't be fought alone. The gurney slipped out of sight and he started to follow, but the two officers who had gone after Padgett stumbled back through the door. "Where's Padgett? Did he get away?" Their faces and their silence answered for them. Mulder brushed by the them, catching the elevator already crowded with the Scully and the paramedics. She looked up at him, saw the questions stirring in his eyes and mirrored his confusion. He reached down and took her hand, caressed her fingers and felt how cold they were. "It's all right, Scully, don't worry." The elevator doors opened to the lobby and the stretcher was pushed toward the spinning red lights outside. He stayed behind but held to her until they were forced apart by the distance. "I'll be there in a little while..." he promised softly as the doors began to close. Her eyes held onto him until he was shut away, descending into the basement. Guilt twisted through him, he was leaving her again. The elevator dropped him into a living inferno. Hellish red light spilled out from the incinerator, washed over the shadows, trickled into hidden black crevasses and corners. There was already a team of officers cataloging the scene, dusting for prints, making notes, their cameras sparking vivid flashes of the grim sight. Mulder slowly walked down the stairs, sinking deeper into the nightmare. Padgett's body lay on the floor in front of the incinerator, his heart in is hand, and a gaping hole in his chest. Mulder stood over him, noticing how much his sacrificial form looked like Scully as he had found her just a little while ago. Silent, still, his body stretched out as an offering, blood pooling over and around him. How close did Scully come to meeting the same end? What had stopped the ghost of Naciamento? A figure conjured of only words and imagination. Mulder glanced the tattered ashes of paper that floated like black phantoms it the heat of the fire. They were all that was left of Padgett's novel, his creation. And suddenly Mulder understood. A grizzled old detective approached him, startled him from his reasoning. "Don't know how he managed it, but it looks like he ripped his own heart out. Damnedest thing I ever saw." He handed Mulder an evidence bag. "We found this in his apartment... thought you might understand what it means." Mulder looked closely through the plastic. It was a page from Padgett's novel. The final page. A page left purposely behind... ...And as the agent took the bag from the detective, he knew instinctively that it had been left behind for him. To be found. To be read. And that was all a writer ever wanted. To have others know the power of his words. Agent Mulder fought the overwhelming urge to feed the final scene to the starving flames, to let them devour any vestigial spell that could still be cast upon the living world. To let the hiss and crackle of the heat sing requiem to a story whose horror should never have been told. He longed to deny the Stranger his final voice and his players their closing act. But this subsistent page was evidence. Solid, physical, perceptible, unlike the rest of the twisted narrative. It was tangible, cataloged, referenced, not to be destroyed. Certainly not with so many witnesses. Tilting the protected page from the darkness and toward the devil's light, he began to read, the words bleeding through the glare, like solitary relics of a desolate soul. A penitent token spared from the ruins and ashes. A confession. A confession not of sin, but of salvation. ************************************************************************ For the Stranger, faith had been lost at the first painful touch of truth. A sobering hand placed upon a raging arm. A touch to calm, to quiet, to forbid. But that simple gesture had not been made for the protection of the Stranger, it was made instead to save the roused agent that hovered over him. And in that moment, the deep, shifting tide of understanding turned, surrounded him, drowned him in its clarity, washed away the sand from dream heavy eyes. How could he have miscalculated her character so completely? The mask she wore was perfectly practiced, controlled, precise, as though she herself believed in the deception, hiding the clues as only a searcher of them would know how. But they were there. The obviousness so palpable that it struck him physicially, laughed at him, sorely, heartily. He watched them through the thin bars of iron and steel that held only his body captive. It was the unseen tethers that tied the two together, delicate and fragile and forever that tightened, twisted and stole the Stranger's breath of hope. Sentenced by his own arrogance and innocence, condemned to isolation. The Stranger watched them in their dance of uncertainty and absolute, of almost and never-to-be. They used no words. They spoke in a broken language of silence. Voiceless confessions shared in tempered glances, desires denied in too seldom touches, a faith unquestioned, but incomplete. How strange. How wonderfully ironic. The profiler, so dependant of his intuition and instincts, ever pulling apart the intricacies of the human mind, taking theoretic leaps that transcend all logic, could not guess at the secret that slept in his partner's thoughts. And she, the scientist, the reasoner, the seeker of facts, the believer in proof could not see the testimony in his eyes, could not hear the evidence in his voice whenever he spoke her name. Magnetic opposites pulled needfully together. Conscious and physical. Mind and body. Whole but separate. The Stranger had unwittingly trespassed into their hidden place, stepped beyond the map's edge to where dragons lay. Gentle demons whose ember hearts slumbered, waiting for the words that will break their spell, allow them to spread their ancient wings and breathe their fire of light and passion. It was easy to see why her head had been turned by the Stranger. She was naturally inquisitive, and he a curiosity, but it was his gift for words that attracted her. Words that could reach into the hollow places that silence could not fill and let her hear the song of possibilities. But as much as his words had penetrated her, intrigued her, they frightened her, threatened to expose her. The Stranger knew her secret. Had given it voice. Had given it words. All they had to do was believe... ************************************************************************ "Make any sense to you?" the detective questioned, his gruff voice suddenly breaking the stillness that settled in the room. Mulder lifted his eyes from the page and turned to him. He didn't answer. He didn't have one. He simply handed the page back to him and made his way for the elevator. Scully was waiting for him. ************************************************************************ The drive from the hospital had been made in silence. She was weak from the loss of blood, and a little unsteady from the shock, but well enough to be released, well enough to go home. Mulder unlocked the door to her apartment and followed her inside. The lights warmed the room, pushed the darkness back against the night covered windows. He closed the door behind him and tossed his jacket over a chair. There would be no argument as to whether he was staying to watch over her. The certainty was accepted, unspoken. "I'm gonna take a bath," she said softly, barely finding the courage to lift her eyes to his. He nodded as she disappeared behind the bathroom door. The blood had been cleaned away at the hospital, and he had brought her some clothes to change into, but it wasn't enough. She needed to soak away the shaking that still plagued her, wanted to wash away the stains of guilt that Padgett had left behind. He could almost feel the nightmares that were waiting to haunt her the moment she closed her eyes tonight. He listened to the squeak of the faucet and the tumbling of the water and left her to their comforts. Mulder drifted toward the kitchen, and started rummaging around for something to cook. He knew she wouldn't want to eat, but she needed to, and he needed something to do. Scully took very long baths. She shed the clothes that Mulder had brought her. His clothes. An old set of academy sweats that he had probably outgrown but kept tucked away in the back of his dresser. They smelled of Mulder. Of cedarwood and aftershave. Familiar, safe, and full of trouble. She loved that smell and the way his oversized clothes billowed around her with a protective warmth. His warmth. She didn't want to let it go. But the tub was full and the water waiting. She pulled the sweatshirt up over her head and took in another strong breath of Ode de Mulder with a faint smile. It quickly faded when she found the bruise in the center of her chest. She had seen the first traces of it appear at the hospital, but it was darker now, the blues and purples having had time to sink in a little deeper. Her fingers absently followed its rough outline, finding the places where his phantom touch had broken through her skin, where his hand had pressed and pinned her to the floor. A cold flutter of ghost pains trembled through her, setting off a ripple of bumps over her skin. She hurriedly lost the rest of her clothes and slid into the tub. Scully sank into the hot water, felt it chase the chill away, welcomed the heat as it scalded her skin pink and burned at her muscles. It was too hot really, almost painful, but she didn't fight it. She accepted it, deserved it, a small penace for being so...so...How could she have been so stupid? To be so easily swayed by a stranger's words. Words. They were such simple things, and so complicated. She had always had trouble with them. The right words were easy to find for filed reports and scientific explanations, to tell Mulder just how outrageous his latest theory was, but allowing them to reveal what she felt inside frightened her. She chose them carefully, never to give too much away. Her father had had difficulty with words, held them back, kept on the quiet side of things, Mom had always been the one who knew exactly what to say. Sometimes all she had wanted from him was a single word of approval instead of a knowing smile or a nod of pride. She remembered the desperation in the days after he died, tempted to bargain for a convicted killer's life because he promised to channel her father's final message, to deliver his last words. But in the end she didn't need to hear--she knew. She followed in his silent footsteps and allowed words to become unnecessary. Sometimes it wasn't fair to the people in her life, as few as they were, to not say the things that needed to be said, should be said. But she wasn't the only one. Mulder wasn't exactly easy with words, always hiding behind a sarcastic remark or a deceptively playful tone, masking the pain in his quiet eyes. How could he have faith in words when his life had been built on a foundation of lies? Words weren't always to be trusted. But did he believe what Padgett had said? Did he trust in that spoken secret stolen from somewhere deep in her heart? She listened as the confession echoed through her, resonated with the whispers of truth that stirred and trembled at their sudden freedom...Agent Scully is already in love... She never turned to see Mulder's reaction, to see if his eyes would seek the truth in hers, to question the words of an obsessed man who spoke out of hurt and hopelessness. She had stood there in the uncertainty, holding a breath, waiting for the need to admit or deny what had been offered to him. Instead, the moment had slipped away into an awkward silence, as always. The silence had followed them. Mulder wouldn't tell her what he had found in the basement, he would only say that Padgett was dead. He knew that she going to discover the details in the days to come, in the reports that would have to filed, the statements that would have to be made. But he was holding back, trying to keep the truth away for just a little while longer. They were both getting used to hiding truths. "Scully, you okay in there?" His voice and the gentle knock on the door startled her, making her jump in the water. She was suddenly aware that it had lost its warmth and wondered just how long she had been in here? "Yeah, I'm fine," she called, supplying her standard answer. "I'm just getting out." She sighed, and pulled the drain plug, allowing the water to empty away, leaving her shivering and cold. Mulder saw her emerge from the bathroom, a little smile not quite daring to cross his lips when he noticed that she was wearing the sweatshirt that he had brought to the hospital for her. His sweatshirt. He dropped his eyes away from her as she approached and finished dividing a kettle full of soup between two bowls. She quietly stood across the counter from him, her head still hung heavy, unwilling to face him. "I know you're gonna tell me that you're not hungry, Scully..." He placed the empty pan in the sink and set the steaming bowls onto plates already dressed with sandwiches and crackers. "...But you need to eat. I know it can't compare to your mother's cooking, but it's the best I could do with what was in your fridge and my limited cooking talents..." his faded as he suddenly realized that she was staring at him. She had lifted her head and her eyes were waiting for his. She was actually looking at him for the first time since... Forever. It seemed like forever since the last time she felt the warmth of his eyes touch her, strengthen her, protect her. Had it only been hours, barely even a day? She had avoided lingering in his eyes since Padgett's release, afraid of what they would ask and what her own would give away. But she needed to feel their hazel caress, feel the secrets that they shared only with her. Their laughter, their doubts, their truths, their pain. She had gotten lost in those eyes a long time ago, and when she needed to find a little bit of herself she always knew where to go. Suddenly, inexplicably, the fear that had been possessing her passed. She was smiling. Smiling at the dishtowel slung over his shoulder, at the terrible but thoughtful mess he had made in her kitchen, and at what looked suspiciously like grilled cheese on her plate. What was there to be afraid of? "Thank you, Mulder." He nodded and favored her with a lopsided grin, one that understood everything she meant in those three words. "You're welcome." They sat and had their dinner in comfortable silence, a familiar silence. Mulder was surprised to see that she actually ate all of her soup and most of the sandwich, at least the part that he didn't burn. Together they cleared and washed the dishes and cleaned up the aftermath left in his culinary wake. When they finished they drifted into the living room, settled on the couch and into a movie. They started on opposite sides, respectably distant, but throughout the movie, the commercials, a sit-com, and the late news, the space between them had faded. Almost touching. Scully had drifted off somewhere between the weather report and the sports scores. Mulder considered bringing her into the next room, to let her rest in the comfort of her own bed, and as much as he reveled in the thought of carrying her in his arms, even for just a few steps, he wouldn't take the chance of waking her. It was a small miracle that she'd managed to close her eyes at all to meet sleep. But she had been quiet for nearly an hour, and he turned the volume down low, wishing for just a few hours of sleep for himself before the morning. He was somewhere between the muted basketball game and a dream when she stirred. It was a little cry that came and went, a trembling that started and didn't stop. The nightmares had found her. He closed what little space there was between them and eased her into his arms. She settled there without waking, calmed with the gentle stroke of his hand along her back. "It's all right, Scully," he said softly, his tone low and soothing in the darkness. "It's all right." She moved deeper into his arms, into the lull of his voice, her head nestling against his shoulder, her hand searching him unknowingly, until it found the beat of his heart. Her palm rested there in the middle of his chest, warm and feather-light, clinging to him as if his pulse were a lifeline that kept her safe while she slept, that could pull her back if she sank too far into dreams. His arms tightened around her, worshiped the feel of her body tucked in his, lost himself in the slow, heated rhythm of her breath as it pooled in the nape of his neck. Why couldn't she need this closeness when she was awake and aware? He would never deny her. His mind helplessly wandered to thoughts of holding her every night, of lying beside her in the warmth of his bed, of her bed, here on her couch. It didn't matter where, so long as she was in his arms. So long as she needed him. But it was hard for her to accept what she was afraid to give. It was the same for him. Padgett was right, how ironic. Their devotion was beyond words. Both willing to suffer any pain so long as the other was spared. But to admit to how they felt was a step both were too afraid to take. He had tried once, and had meant what he said, but an IV drip laced with pain killers didn't lend much to his believability. Padgett's words echoed endlessly through him...Agent Scully is already in love...The certainty that had been there in that rasp, whispery voice haunted Mulder with doubt...All he had to do was believe...How could Padgett have known? What clue had he divined that he himself hadn't been able to see in six years of searching? And what trust could be placed in the words of desperate man? Scully stirred suddenly in his embrace, as if, even in sleep she could feel the restlessness of his musings. His lips brushed lightly against her forehead, lingered there in the forbidden taste of her skin, in the spicy-sweet scent of her hair. She calmed at his touch, the hand clutching at his heart holding on a little tighter. Her cheek reached for the roughness of his chin, savored the scratch of stubble for just a moment before she settled back into his arms. Mulder smiled, at last understanding. In the innocence of sleep she had given truth to Padgett's words. Telling him everything in silence that she couldn't say with words. It was all in her touch. In the easy way her arms possessed him, held to him. In the way her fears had faded in the promise of his closeness; the gentle hum she made as his fingers caressed at that soft spot on the back of her neck. It was all the answer he needed. He leaned forward and shared a secret of his own with a faint kiss whispered upon her lips... ...Agent Scully was already loved. END