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TITLE: Affinity - Part 1 of 4
AUTHOR: Dani Sheldon
EMAIL ADDRESS: dani@wolfenet.com
DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT: The X-Files, characters, episodes and any other
related stuff belong to Chris Carter and the FOX network. Thank you Chris!!
This story is my own.
SPOILER WARNING: Redux, Redux II
I have taken grave liberties with Scully's apartment location etc. Be merciful!
xxxxxxx
Apartment of Dana Scully
Annapolis, Maryland
0705
Special Agent, MD, Dana Scully got up early Saturday morning. She dressed in her soft and faded, dark blue naval academy sweat shirt that her brother Bill had given her. The poor thing had seen better days, but she could not quite bring herself to get rid of it. Then she pulled on a pair of faded Levi's with a slight hole worn at the right knee.
Analogous with a well-planned FBI raid, she picked the bathroom, as point of
entry, place to start. The smell of cleaners, most notably pine, soon filled
the air. The fixtures and tiles gleamed when the bathroom was complete. Scully forged on. She broke a sweat scrubbing the kitchen floor and applying a fresh coat of wax.
She stopped long enough for a well-deserved cup of coffee and a little cold cereal. Leaning against the counter as she ate, her mind roamed over the past several weeks she had been through. It was hard for her to grasp how close she had come to dying and again escaped as she stood on the threshold. What would have happened to Mulder if she had succumbed to the tumor inside her? She shook her head as if to rid herself the thought as she rinsed out her bowl.
A slight discomfort flared around her eyes almost on cue. Scully pinched the
bridge of her nose, a little frightened, and went to check in the mirror.
There were no signs of blood.
"Not happy to leave were you?" she asked her pale reflection.
Couldn't she just enjoy the mundane tasks she never believed she'd be doing again? Her mind roamed again to Mulder and how he had clung to her bedside like some hospital barnacle. It made her smile and she hoped he was getting some well
deserved rest.
With that warm thought, she left the mirror and threw herself into cleaning
the living room. The bedroom was next. Not only did she clean it, but she
went through her belongings and boxed older clothes and other superfluous
items to get rid of. These she placed by the front door to drop off later.
She tried to ignore the meticulously labeled boxes that neatly took up a
little space along her bedroom wall. She had put those together a dying
woman and here she stood gazing at them alive on the other side. Scully
wasn't exactly sure how she had been cured, but she was grateful and
murmured an out loud, shaky, "thank you." Her chores nearly completed she
stopped and savored a few more sips of coffee in the warm sun that streamed
in her windows.
Scully had accumulated several bags of garbage from her efforts, so she
slipped on some worn sandals, placed the neatly secured bags in the hall and
shut her apartment door. At the last possible second, just before the door
latched, she realized her mistake and tried to catch it. She was almost fast
enough, but not quite. Several of her father's choice expletives came to
mind as she stared at her securely locked apartment door.
Her only timely hope was that the building superintendent was home and could
provide a spare key to her apartment. She trudged, muttering, downstairs to
his unit and knocked.
No one answered.
She depressed the buzzer, which resounded hollowly inside, but nothing
stirred behind the door.
Scully left her superintendent's unit to dispose of the garbage while
considering her situation. No cell phone, no change with which to make a
call, no options. Scully returned to her floor and knocked on her neighbor's
door.
xxxxxxx
"Vould you like something to drink?" The stooped, gray haired Mrs. Pierson
hovered by her as Scully listened to the line ring at her mothers. She glanced at the elderly woman.
"No thanks, Mrs. Pierson. I don't want to cause you any trouble. I'm just glad you were home and kind enough to..." Scully stopped as the line clicked.
"You have reached the Scully residence, and no one can come to the phone...". It was the message her brother Bill had made for her mother. It finished with a beep.
"Mom are you home? I guess I'll try back in a little bit... you won't believe this, I locked myself out of my apartment and I was going to see if you could help me out. Don't worry though..." Scully sighed. "I guess there's always Mulder. I'll let you know if I get hold of him. Love you mom, bye."
"Looks like my mother's out. Would you mind if I made another call, Mrs.
Pierson?"
Scully glanced around the tidy apartment as she caught the faint
smell of some sort of menthol ointment. The apartment was clean as always,
furnished in solid, dark, antique furniture. An old fashioned, flowered
pattern papered the walls. Although it had not occurred recently, Scully had
occasionally spent a quiet afternoon with Mrs. Pierson at her cribbage board
drinking strong tea. Dana would listen enthralled to tales about Mrs.
Pierson's youth in Sweden.
Mrs. Pierson face crinkled up like a raisin as she smiled. "Dat's no
trouble. You make all the calls you vant. I am going to make some tea." She
patted Scully's cheek and then shuffled stiffly to the kitchen.
xxxxxxx
At first Scully was simply unable to dial his number and stared at the
phone. The specter of Mulder's grief troubled her deeply. He never received
any information on where Samantha had been all those years and now, without
the smoking-man, would he ever find out? She could also tell by her brother
Bill's frosty behavior at any mention of Mulder that something negative had
transpired between them, but neither was talking.
The clatter and the smell of fresh brewed tea reminded Scully of her current
untenable predicament. She dialed the familiar number.
"Mulder," he answered on the third ring.
"It's me, Mulder."
"Scully.. is, is everything OK?"
Scully heard several male voices in the back ground and rolled her eyes.
"Everything's fine Mulder, sort of. Let me guess where you're at?"
"I'll make it easy. Frohike and the guys had some photos I just had to see,
and I needed the distraction. Exactly what do you mean by things are, sort
of OK?"
She took a deep breath. "Well, I was cleaning my apartment today and I went
out to empty my garbage minus my keys. I'm kind of locked out."
"Could you delimit kind of locked out?"
"How about completely and thoroughly locked out.""I'll be right over."
"Only if it's not a terrible bother... " Scully stopped, realizing the click
she heard meant she was now just talking to herself. She hung up the phone
as Mrs. Pierson tottered in balancing a tray with a steaming pot and cups.
"Let me pour you some tea."
"I'll have one cup with you Mrs. Pierson. Then I better go wait for my friend."
"Oh good!"
Scully smiled as Mrs. Pierson grabbed her cribbage board.
xxxxxxx
"Gotta run guys!" Mulder snatched up his black leather jacket.
"Did I understand correctly, poor Agent Scully is locked out? I could come
assist in the rescue, perhaps some of her gratitude would rub off on me."
Frohike scuttled behind as Mulder approached the door. "Even better give me
the key and I can go."
"You think I'm dumb enough to let you have the key to Scully's apartment?"
Mulder dangled his keys in the air. "I can't even imagine how fast you would
make a duplicate key and have a surveillance system in place. It boggles the
mind." With an incredulous shake of his head, Mulder was out the door and gone.
"Way to go! I think he actually considered it," Langley laughed. "For a
nano-second!"
Frohike shrugged and pushed his thick glasses back into place. "Well, that's
an improvement on last time."
"I think he's weakening." Byers chimed in, but his eyes never left the
glowing screen in front of him.
xxxxxxxx
Mulder pulled into light traffic as an unseasonably warm breeze blew on him
through the open car window. He passed a park, caught the distinctive smell
of cut grass and took a deep breath. It helped ease the tension that seemed
to plague him since Scully had returned home from the hospital.
He shifted restlessly as he drove, uncomfortable it was so difficult to talk
to Scully now that she was cured and home. Ever since seeing Samantha,
Mulder found himself filled with grief at the strangest of moments and the
last thing he wanted to do was to break down in front of Scully.
His eyes widened as he chewed his lower lip. How could he ever explain to Scully that in his experience intimacy lead to abuse, anguish or loss. Usually all of them. William Mulder had never physically or verbally allowed his son to
forget who he held responsible for Samantha's disappearance. Though now even
that appeared to have been a lie. He truly wanted to unburden himself to her, so he could move on and share his joy at her recovery. Mulder was a psychologist, but sadly he could no more relieve himself of his tormented
psyche than Scully had been able to cure her own cancer.
xxxxxxxx
Apartment of Dana Scully
Annapolis, MD
1541
Mulder found a parking space close to her building and maneuvered his Ford
easily into it. He jumped out of his vehicle with Scully's apartment key in
hand. He entered the tidy building, hurried to the elevator and punched
impatiently at the button to her floor. The old lift whined into action.
Mulder was shifting his feet impatiently when the elevator doors finally
opened on her floor. The golden afternoon light streamed in the far hall
window and momentarily blinded him. Holding up his hand he shaded his eyes
enough to vaguely make out a figure sitting on the floor.
"Scully?"
"Hey, Mulder." She stood up and stretched.
Mulder stood before her, illuminated by sunlight. He was dressed in jeans,
with a slightly wrinkled white shirt and obviously hadn't shaved since the
morning prior. Scully, who had not seen him since returning home, felt a
wonderful rush of affection.
"Should I torment you at all about this," he leaned in and gave her a wry
grin, "or just open the door?"
"Open the door Mulder. Use the key not your foot."
Mulder grimaced as he inserted the key and opened the door, but still he
gestured gallantly with his arm for her to enter.
Scully had not planned to shut the door in his face. It was almost as if her
hands were sentient beings carrying out their own childish agenda. She
suddenly found herself twisting the dead bolt and peering out the peep-hole.
His stunned expression made her giggle and Scully hadn't giggled for a long time.
xxxxxxx
"Scully!?" He tried the knob. "Ha-ha, very amusing." Mulder stood with the
palm of one hand on the door and yelled. "Is this how you treat the person
who drove all the way here to rescue you?"
Scully muttered inside, "I could have asked the same of you a hundred times
over."
The click of an apartment door opening down the hall caused Mulder to
glance over where an elderly woman frowned at him through her slightly open
door.
"FBI ma'am," Mulder gave her his best, everything's-under-control
expression. "Nothing to worry about."
The frown on the gray haired woman deepened as she snorted and gave him a
good, long, thorough stare of disapproval.
"C'mon Scully, we're making a scene." He wiggled the knob hopefully.
Scully peered out at Mulder. He stood staring sadly at her door, brow
creased, his lip sticking out a little. She stepped back and shook her head.
What was wrong with her? The lock clicked as Scully cracked the door.
"We're making a scene?" She asked as she leaned against the door.
Mulder shifted uncomfortably. "Honestly, I hoped since I'm here, I thought
we could talk about... we could talk."
She looked at him a long moment, one eyebrow raised and finally spoke. "What
have you done with the real Agent Mulder?"
Mulder's mouth twitched, but he didn't smile. "He's right here before you."
Scully playfully started to close the door again.
Mulder instantly placed his foot in the way. After struggling gamely for
several moments, she relented as he jubilantly forced his way past. He
closed the door behind him and proceeded to stumble over the boxes stacked
near the door. He glared at Scully who now laughed out right.
"I thought you were cleaning up around here?" Mulder asked trying to regain
his aplomb. Scully stood with arms crossed face again unreadable. He missed her laughter immediately. "I think we should consider investigating your neighbor as some sort of X-File."
Scully looked dangerous. "Mulder."
He shuddered. "You didn't see the evil eye she gave me just now. She made
Luther Lee Boggs look like Bambi Berenbaum."
"Mul-der!" Scully had both hands on her hips as she glared at him. "That is
my dear sweet neighbor Mrs. Pierson, without whom I would still be roaming
the halls of this building with no way to get a hold of anyone."
"Just joking, how about we start over?" He appeared contrite. "Would you
like to go grab something to eat?"
"Did you have lunch Mulder?" Scully was temporarily defused.
"Nope."
"My guess is there was no breakfast either."
Silence.
"Let me see what I can fix here." Scully glanced down at her attire. "I'm
not exactly prepped to go out." She turned towards the kitchen and spoke
over her shoulder. "Make yourself useful and put those boxes back in my
bedroom for me. It's too late for me to drop them off."
Mulder obediently stacked the boxes and hefted them into her room where he
heaved a sigh of relief. It was fortunate for him that Dana Scully's
instincts to care for him were stronger than those that screamed evisceration.
In her room his nose filled with the smell of fresh wood polish, mingling
with a subdued sweet scent that he could identify only as Scully. The bed
was military crisp with fresh sheets and his investigator trained eyes
spotted a small framed photo on her dresser.
He peered around the boxes he carried and saw the shot was of Scully slipping under crime scene tape which he was holding up. In the photo he looked at her fondly and she smiled back. It was a spontaneous moment of camaraderie that some nameless crime scene photographer had captured. He had never seen the photo before.
Mulder suddenly felt like a trespasser in Scully's private space, in her life. Bill Mulder had said it all there in the hospital. He was one sorry
son-of-a-bitch, but Scully was better and that was all that mattered to Mulder.
He maneuvered his burden of boxes next to a few others along the far wall of
the bedroom. It was not until he turned to leave that he noticed something
written boldly on a box that caught his attention. He moved close enough to
read it. In Scully's precise block print it said, MOM. He glanced at one of
the other similar boxes saw, BILL, and on another MULDER.
He stood befuddled a moment. Then realized that Scully had been tying up her
loose ends in preparation for death. The thought of her being gone from this
earth suddenly landed on Mulder like a crushing weight. He stumbled
backwards, overcome, until he sat on the bed and quietly sobbed.
Scully stirred the pan of soup on the stove. There was a time where she and
Mulder would actually joke with one another, but there had been too little
mirth in their lives lately. Scully knew Mulder had a well developed
fun-streak, as he proved in the struggle at her door, but childhood and
adult trauma had virtually eradicated it. Except of course his mordacious
humor which protected him like a strand of razor wire.
Thinking of Mulder, he was certainly taking his sweet time with those boxes.
She placed the spoon down rinsed off her hands in the sink and went to check
on him.
She paused at the bathroom door, it was slightly ajar. "Mulder?" She eased
the door open. "Mulder, are you in here?" It was empty.
"What, are we playing hide and seek?" Scully asked as she stalked into her
bedroom. She was shocked to find Mulder slouched on the end of her bed,
tears glistening on his cheeks and his hands covering his face. "Are you OK,
Mulder?"
"No. I'm really not, Scully." His reply was muffled, distorted.
Crouching in front of him she tentatively placed her hands on his knees.
"I didn't mean to see the box, but I did." Mulder rubbed his hands over his
face and through his hair."
"What are you talking about?"
He gestured one hand at the box on the floor, but wouldn't meet her gaze.
"What's that about, Scully, a few trinkets to remind me of you once you were
gone?"
Scully felt as if the wind had been knocked out of her and had a hard time
finding her voice. "There were some things I wanted to be sure people
special to me had."
Mulder's red rimmed eyes finally met her own. "If you had died it would have
been because of me. I don't know how I could have lived with that."
"You have to stop blaming yourself for everything. I never blamed you for my
cancer and if I had died it was because... it was meant to be."
"That's not what your family believed!" The room resonated with his voice.
"That's not what I believe."
Scully stared at him, stunned. "What did Bill say to you?"
He returned her gaze, eyes swimming with pain, but refused to tell her.
"No matter what anyone has said to you Mulder, I have always taken full
responsibility for my life and my death would have been no different."
"Always the rational one, aren't you?" he ground out, and instantly regretted
the words.
"I better go check on that soup." She turned and left him.
xxxxxxx
Wiping away tears she walked into the kitchen, Scully tried to grasp the
exchange that had just occurred. What exactly were they to one another? It
seemed sometimes that got extremely murky; harder to see than the bottom of
the pan as she gave the soup a stir. She opened the cupboard and got out a
loaf of bread. Her appetite had fled, but she had promised lunch to Mulder.
When things were more stable, stable as possible for the X-Files division,
she and Mulder had never dwelled on personal matters. Her illness had
scrambled their well established patterns of dealing with one another.
Scully felt at a loss for where they went from here. She went to the fridge
and grabbed out a package of sliced cheese.
When Mulder disappeared into one of his "ME" modes, there were times where
she was certain she hated him. For running off without her, for not letting
her in and for generally acting like an ass for several days to weeks. She
often wondered if their partnership could endure the strain, but somehow it
did. Sometimes it seemed to grow stronger. Scully arranged the sandwiches in
the skillet on her stove and turned on the burner.
Then there were times when he was whole and 100% there for her, as he had
been during her illness, and at the hospital. It was then the damage and
neglect wrought at other times would be hard to recall. He could be one of
the most giving, generous and loving individuals she had ever known. She
sometimes fancied herself actually needing Mulder around. What then? Had she
died, she would just have been the latest in a long line of persons Mulder
had lost through death or betrayal. There was no doubt in her mind that she
and Mulder should reestablish their professional distance with each other,
but she wasn't even sure at this point if that were possible. On top of that
her heart wasn't willing. She reached for a spatula at the same moment
Mulder's voice spoke from behind her.
xxxxxxx
"You've heard what they say about a watched grilled cheese, haven't you?"
Scully sighed. "I don't know we're going to get anywhere with this
conversation. Maybe we she should just let it go for now."
"Please, Dana, I apologize. I didn't intend to upset you, or put you on the
defensive."
Reaching around, he grabbed her spatula wielding hand. Scully remained stiff
and unyielding as she was turned to face his anguished eyes.
"The most important thing is that you're here with me... to continue this
journey." Mulder kept a warm hold on her hand which still clutched the
spatula. "I just have a hard time of forgetting how when I was young, after
Sam was taken, nothing I did was good enough. No matter how much I do I feel
I'm always letting those closest to me down." His voice dropped as if
conversing with himself. "The solution to that of course is to not let
anyone close. It was never my intent to depend on you, but here I am doing
it." He shook his head.
"I'm not good at communicating how I feel, you know that by now, but if you
had died it would have been the end of me."
"Mulder, if it weren't for what you did, I might not even be here right now."
He took a gulping breath. "My father never allowed me to forget how I let
them take Samantha and he may have been in on it." Mulder's eyes moved to a
distant point across the room as his voice wavered. "The first time I
remember him coming home after her abduction, he was drunk. My mother was
stoned on whatever pills she took at that time and just sat there shaking
and crying. He stunk like alcohol and stormed around for a long while
ranting at us. He worked himself into such a rage... he pulled out his gun
and said he should just kill us both. My mother was cowering behind a chair
so I charged him. He didn't expect it and fell. The gun skittered off
someplace and you should have seen his face." He gave a bitter, teary,
laugh. "He... he was astounded a little 13 year old had bested him." Mulder felt again the hatred and helplessness of that moment as he finished. "Then he beat me, beat me senseless. I tried to fight, but once I was down, he started kicking me until there was no more fight left in me."
"My God, Mulder." Scully gasped.
"It was months before I made it back to school." He gritted his teeth and spat the words. "God, I hated him."
He met Scully's compassionate gaze. "It's made it hard for me to get close
to anyone. If they don't hurt me, I end up hurting them." He felt the
familiar wave of guilt then as he thought of her cancer. "I've hurt you and
I have caused you to be hurt." He touched her forehead right where her tumor
once was.
"Yet you never gave up trying to save me Mulder. Even I had given up."
Scully watched Mulder weep and felt some momentous emotional shift was
occurring, but it was as yet undefined and loomed before her large as an
abyss. Teetering on the edge, she finally whispered, "Come here," and opened
her arms.
Mulder gratefully stepped into her embrace, awkwardly bending to return it.
He buried his nose in the hair just behind her ear, breathed deep of her
essence and realized that by telling her maybe he could forgive if not forget.
He spoke, his voice muffled by her shoulder. "I think I'm yours, Scully."
"I know Mulder." A few tears rolled down Scully's face and dripped off her
chin making dark spots on his white shirt. "We just have a few things to
work through first."
He stepped back, lightly wiped the tears from her face and then dried the
answering tears on his own. "You better get those sandwiches out or they'll
be ruined."
Scully sniffed and nodded, her spatula at half mast as she turned back to
the stove.
xxxxxxx
Mulder insisted on serving her lunch. He cracked jokes, dripped soup and
finally got everything on the table. She stayed quiet, even as he lightly
coaxed her to eat more. They both sat in silence when they had finished.
Finally Mulder spoke. "You're not a member of the clean plate club." He
pointed at the other half of her sandwich.
"I was hoping you might cover for me."
"Really?"
"Yep."
He sighed, "I suppose," and reached across the table.
"Hey Mulder?"
"Yeah?" He paused in mid-bite.
"Thanks for... telling me."
Bright hazel eyes met deep blue. "I should be thanking you."
"I'd be kind of an ingrate if I didn't toss a thank you at you once in a
while, wouldn't I?"
He chuckled. "Trust me, I'm the ingrate."
"Any plans tonight, Mul-Dar?"
"We are from France." He intoned perfectly as he polished off her sandwich. Scully laughed.
Mulder thought it was the most beautiful sound he would ever hear.
She unexpectedly had to suppress a yawn.
"Damn, I don't want to wear out my welcome."
Scully held up her hand. "I'm the one who should be apologizing, all this
cleaning and communication wore me out."
He stood. "I should definitely get going, you need your rest."
Scully was reluctant to let him go. "I was just going to clean up a little,
sit on the couch and do a little channel surfing. Your more than welcome to
join me and if I doze off you can just pretend we're on a stake out."
He leaned in close. "I'd really like that."
Scully experienced both joy and sorrow simultaneously. She turned away
before either could spill out again and walked towards the bathroom. "I need
to clean up a bit." The bathroom door closed as Mulder began clearing the table.
xxxxxxx
Scully, refreshed from her shower, returned to no trace of their lunch
dishes and an again immaculate kitchen. Mulder sat on one end of her couch,
shoes off, feet on her coffee table, remote in hand, happily channel
surfing. He had placed a few pillows on the opposite end of the couch and a
blanket lay folded ready for her use. He noticed she was there, smiled and
invitingly patted the sofa cushion.
Scully did not immediately respond. She first wanted to get her fill of a
sight that could be a rare moment to treasure, but really felt like the
beginning of a new consanguinity. How could she even begin to guess with Mulder?
Mulder seemed to realize he was not at home. Gingerly, he removed first one
foot, then the other from her coffee table, and guiltily glanced back at her.
Scully rolled her eyes.
"That's O.K. I do it all the time." She moved to join him on the couch as his feet returned to their former comfortable position. She nestled herself on the sofa, knees bent and feet towards Mulder. "What did you do with those dishes, Mulder?"
"You mean they weren't disposable?"
Scully snorted. She stretched her feet a little too far and her toes bumped
Mulder's' thigh. She instantly jerked them back.
"It's OK, Scully. I don't bite." He took the blanket, unfolded it and gently
covered her. After tucking the blanket carefully around her feet, he dragged
them both over until they rested against his leg. "Toasty?"
Scully stared at Mulder and he stared back. She relaxed and wiggled her toes
against his leg. They both smiled and turned their attention to the television.
"What are we watching?"
"The Twilight Zone." Mulder said with reverence.
Scully layed her head back and her eyes drifted closed. "I thought we were
living it."
xxxxxxx
FIN
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