From: ephemeral@ephemeralfic.org Date: 13 Oct 2002 14:19:24 -0000 Subject: Where Would You Be by XFKirs Source: direct Reply To: jennascully1013@yahoo.com Title: Where Would You Be Author: XFKirs Rating: R for language Spoilers: Season 6 through Two Fathers/One Son, plus large references to The End, FTF, and The Beginning Keywords: MSR, Scully Angst, Songfic Disclaimer: I'd love to own 'em but I definitely don't. This is purely for entertainment. All characters depicted are property of Chris Carter and 1013. And I like to think that Mulder and Scully belong to GA and DD. Song credits at the end. Summary: Mulder and Scully's relationship is falling apart because of his relationship with Diana Fowley. Scully is home one night, thinking about everything that has happened and what will happen next, when she hears a song.... Feedback: Constructive criticism is ALWAYS welcome at jennascully1013@yahoo.com. PS: I love feedback. :) For anyone who is not a fic author, you don't know the feeling of writing a story and not hearing anything about it from anyone. It's always so appreciated when people take the time to say even a few words. Archive: Anywhere as long as you let me know about it. Thanks! Where Would You Be By XFKirs Dana Scully entered her apartment feeling tired and defeated. Every day she felt more lonely than the one before. She couldn't understand how her relationship with Mulder could be falling apart so completely. Although she couldn't understand for the life of her how this could happen to them after so many years together, she knew damn well why it was happening. It wasn't the Syndicate. It wasn't a loss of trust. It wasn't a fight. It was the universal problem that had come between men and women for all time. In this specific case, the problem was a woman. Another woman. Everything Mulder and Scully had gradually built between each other for five years had begun to crumble the day that Diana Fowley walked into Mulder's life, for the second time. Mulder had never mentioned her, and yet she had been such a big part of his life. On top of that, he didn't even mention that they knew each other when she showed up. Scully had to find out about her from the Lone Gunmen. Scully walked into her room and pulled some sweats out of her dresser. She changed out of her suit and into some comfortable clothes, but that really wasn't the kind of comfort she needed now. She could tell right away that the two of them were more than colleagues. Every time Scully turned around, they were sharing an intimate look or exchanging cryptic statements that Scully didn't have a clue about like a couple of fucking middle schoolers with an inside joke. Then Mulder went with Diana to that factory and the bitch set him up. Mulder was completely blind and didn't even realize it. That wasn't the first thing he had blind to over the years. When she had tried to warn him about Diana not being trustworthy, he accused her of making things personal. Of course it was fucking personal! Her partner was going off believing a woman he hadn't seen in years and was leaving her in the dust. She had been replaced, in every way she could be. Hell, he was probably having sex with her too. In some ways, that was the worst part. When she had gone to show Mulder the results of Gibson's tests that night and seen him holding hands with Diana, she felt like her heart had been torn right out of her chest. She had violated the unspoken Bureau rule years ago. Thou shalt not sleep with your partner. OK, so she hadn't really done that. She had done something worse. She had fallen in love with her partner. It was the only reason she had stayed all these years. She had resigned from the Bureau rather than be transferred to Salt Lake City. That didn't have a damn thing to do with her career. The reason was simple. She couldn't bear to be so far away from him. She had always hoped that one day things between them would change. She had hundreds of fantasies about how it would happen. Not to mention all the steamy ones about what happened next that were locked away in her mind. Mulder was so damn attractive. She had dreamed about him originally for only physical reasons. She dreamed about wild, mind-blowing sex with her partner. Along the line, things had changed. The fantasies were no longer about having sex, but about making love. She had never understood what people meant about the two being different until then. She dreamed about Mulder telling her that he loved her, and then making slow, passionate love to her. Too bad she had been waiting for a fucking fairy tale ending. She had been royally stupid to think that things could magically go from friendship to romance. There wasn't some invisible line that they could just jump over. If things were going to happen like that, it would have been years ago. It was way too late now, regardless of whether Diana had shown up or not. At least before, they had a wonderful friendship and partnership. They weren't lovers, but it seemed like they were beyond that. Everyone thought they were lovers because of the way they acted. They could have entire conversations using only their eyes. A simple touch was more meaningful than making love could ever be between other people. But for the two of them, the foundation of everything between them had always been trust. That was something he didn't seem to have in her any longer. He trusted that bitch implicitly, but not her. Scully went into the living room and curled up on the couch with a blanket. She wanted to cry more than anything, but she was beyond tears. The tragic events in her life were always so monumental that crying seemed to almost trivialize them. She could honestly count on her fingers the few times she had cried in the past few years. She needed to stop reveling in her self-pity, but she had no motivation to do anything else. Mulder had slowly become her entire life. Without him, she wasn't whole anymore. She couldn't even function normally without him. He had said the same thing to her before, but he clearly didn't mean a fucking word of it. She picked up the remote to her stereo and turned on the radio. She started going through the stations trying to find something to fit her mood. She stopped on the introduction of a song that sounded.....for lack of a better word, sad. She put the remote down and tried to relax. That didn't last very long. When Scully heard the lyrics echo in the room, she was completely floored. She was hearing her own thoughts. She started to cry. For the first time in months, tears ran down her cheeks. This song was opening the heart that she worked so hard to keep a wall around. She honestly did feel like she had already lost Mulder, like their emotional connection had been severed forever. How long had they been going downhill in their relationship? She knew the day would come when Mulder tire of her, when he would be sick of hearing her contradict everything he said. When she would no longer be a challenge, but only an annoyance. The day when he would want to work with someone who would agree with his theories. Someone like Diana. All of her fears were laid out in that one set of lines. The words were so simple, but so honest that they were heartwrenching. The woman singing might as well have been her. Lately, she felt like Mulder didn't really want to be around her. It always seemed like he wanted Diana instead. Who would Mulder love? Last summer, in Mulder's hallway, Scully was almost sure that he loved her as much as she loved him. After everything that happened with Diana, though, she decided that his actions had merely been a desperate attempt to keep her there. He was lost and confused, and he didn't want her to leave. It had absolutely nothing to do with love. Otherwise, he would have brought it up again. He never did. As the chorus echoed again, Scully cried even harder. She had always been holding Mulder back. Maybe Diana would be better for him. Maybe she was what he needed. She believed in the same things as he did. But Scully couldn't let him go. She just couldn't. Maybe she was being selfish, but even if Mulder didn't want or need her anymore, she still needed him like air. But she still couldn't live the way things were now. Were things ever going to be alright between them? Or would everything just fall apart until they couldn't even speak to each other. Scully remembered the conversation in California when Mulder told her that her science was wrong. She had shown him that she remembered every word that he said to her in his hallway, and he blew her off by telling her that she was wrong. It seemed like she had been wrong about everything. The music changed key at that point to repeat the chorus the last time. The instruments in the background made the song sound hopeless and melancholy. The woman singing sounded as if she were crying as she choked out the words. Scully sobbed with the music. No song had ever made her feel so emotional. She was so vulnerable right now that it was all that it took to break her. She turned the stereo volume down as the song ended and picked up the phone. With shaky fingers, she dialed Mulder's number. She needed to know. She needed to know what was going to happen next. Her whole body was trembling, and she felt faint. She heard his familiar voice, and her heart crumbled as she realized that she couldn't go through with it. She had no right to ask him anything, regardless of how badly she wanted to. If he wanted to tell her anything, he would, but she wasn't counting on it. She hung up the phone and burst into tears again. She had never felt so alone. Over the years, Mulder had become her one and only friend. Now, she had lost him as well. She had been replaced, and left with no one. A little while later, she heard a knock on the door. She looked at her watch and realized that she been crying for half an hour. She knew she must have looked like a complete wreck. Since her life couldn't get any worse, she opened the door anyway. "Scully, we need to talk." She nodded and let Mulder in. He knew she was the one who had called. He knew she had called and he had come over to talk. Maybe there was a little bit of hope left. Fin. Author's Notes: This is the first time I have ever written a fic that isn't complete and utter fluff. I am a total romantic sap at heart and had such a hard time ending the story there but I wanted to try something different. I wanted the open ending where you don't know what they are going to say to each other. In my heart, there really is only one way the conversation can go though. :) The song, "Where Would You Be", is by Martina McBride. For the sake of this story, let's pretend it came out during seasons 5-6. Really, it was just released this past year. Oh well. :) Anyway, being the sap that I am, I constantly relate songs that I hear to Mulder and Scully and their relationship. This one stood out though because it wasn't "I love you, I love you too". The Diana arc came to mind immediately and I've had this story in my head ever since. Its a gorgeous song, and if you haven't heard it, you really need to download it. The song is beautiful for its honesty and Martina's voice has always been amazing to me. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it. Please take the time to write some feedback and let me know what you thought!