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TITLE: After The End
AUTHOR: Tanya Larissa Chang
EMAIL ADDRESS: tlc88@hotmail.com
DISCLAIMER: The X-files and associated characters included within this work of fiction belong to Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen Productions, and the Fox Network. No infringement is intended.
RATING: G
SPOILERS: The End, bits from other seasons
SUMMARY: Mulder and Scully try to cope with their emotions after the
destruction of the X-files.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I wrote this in response to a posting I saw on atxc which I interpreted as a challenge of sorts. Although I can't remember who had written the post, this person had commented on how few post-episode fanfics from "The End" actually explored the feelings of Mulder and Scully without having them become physically entangled in an NC-17 scenario. So, here is my response to that posting. Feedback is always welcome.
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AFTER THE END
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by Tanya Larissa Chang
The smell of smoke was acrid and invasive. Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully stood among the remains of what had once been the X-files office, home to the "FBI's most unwanted". It had been a place seldom seen by others despite being the butt of countless rumours and jokes. "Spooky" Mulder was guardian of the basement hideaway with his seemingly unshakeable partner who was often unceremoniously dubbed "Mrs. Spooky". That office was where you would find all the unsolved and unexplained cases that no one else cared about, the cases which seemed best explained by the paranormal, the extra-terrestrial or the just-plain-weird. It was a territory where others had feared to tread,
but now it was all history, a pile of smouldering ashes... a victim,
some would say, of a secretive government cover-up.
Amid the ruins, Dana Scully fought back the tears which welled in her eyes. Her look of final defeat met the cold, unbelieving stare of her partner, and they stood silently for what seemed an eternity, trying to understand the truth behind the wanton destruction of the past five years of their lives. For Mulder, it had been his entire life.
Scully could hear the water puddled under her feet as she took a step closer to her partner and friend. She put her hands on his arms as a gesture of comfort, but by now he could not even look at her. He stared at the charred desk in front of them and then let his eyes take in the sight of the blackened walls. A portion of his favourite poster had somehow survived the flames, and he remembered the words that had now curdled into brittle, burnt remnants: I WANT TO BELIEVE.
He had wanted to believe. He had wanted some proof that what he had searched for for so long was real, and that there was a reason beyond human evil and corruption that might explain all the horrible things he had seen, all the things that he and Scully had seen.
Scully.
Mulder slowly began to emerge from his stupor and realized that his partner still clung to him, trying as she always did to comfort him, but also needing some reassurance herself that they would be okay. Mulder lifted his hand and gently stroked Scully's hair as he finally acknowledged her gesture. They stood like that for only a moment longer, but it was long enough for each of them to know that they had someone to turn to who could understand. No one else could, or ever would. Neither Diana nor Phoebe, nor even his own mother, had ever really been there for Mulder, and he now felt a pang of guilt for how he had treated Scully since Diana's return into his life. He would always
remember Diana with fondness, but Scully was more than just his current partner. She was the partner he wanted. She was the partner he needed. Certainly, Diana had believed in all that Mulder believed, but working with her had never been a challenge, and it would have become too routine and mundane had she not decided to leave when she did.
Scully complemented Mulder, and together they had been a force to be reckoned with. Had been... Almost from the day they had been teamed up, these two FBI agents had somehow created a threat to some megalomaniacal organization of suits and cigarettes... or, more precisely, Morleys.
"Come on, Scully. Let's get out of here."
Mulder noticed that Scully couldn't bring herself to look at him again. He also realized that asking her if she was okay would only be tactless on his part. This time he was sure she wouldn't be able to say, "Mulder, I'm fine," as she'd insisted so often in the past when she had been hurt. Mulder could tell when she wasn't okay, but most of the time he chose to let her be because he knew she didn't want him to think that she needed help, or that she needed a shoulder to cry on. This was not one of those times though. Scully had already been acting a bit strand-offish lately in any case, and Mulder didn't think he'd be the best person to talk to under the circumstances.
As he led Scully past the curious eyes of the other FBI agents and office workers who had gathered to see what all the commotion was about, Mulder kept a hand firmly on his partner's arm.
"Agent Mulder!" It was Skinner who brought their attempt to escape the stuffy surroundings to an abrupt halt.
Scully was the first to acknowledge the assistant director's voice as Mulder remained facing the opposite direction.
"Sir?" Scully spoke with a tone of defiance in her voice. It was the only way she knew how to control her otherwise confused emotions.
Walter Skinner approached the two agents and spoke in a low rumble which Scully found oddly comforting. Next to Mulder, Skinner was one of a very small number of people that Scully trusted, and even that trust had been difficult for this man to earn.
"Agent Scully, I want you and Agent Mulder to take some time off."
"Sir..."
Skinner cut off her protest. "We need time to clean up the basement, and I think the two of you need to clear your heads. I know this isn't easy for you. I'll call you in a few days and let you know what's going on."
"What about the case?" The fire in the X-files office had been perfectly timed to coincide with the shooting of Agent Diana Fowley and the disappearance of chess wunderkind Gibson Praise. Both Scully and Mulder had been part of the team to ensure Gibson's safety, but now that he had been kidnapped, more manpower was needed than before.
"I'll let you know if you're needed, but right now Agent Spender is stirring up enough dirt on the two of you that it might be better if you stepped out of the picture for a few days."
Scully cringed at the thought of Jeffrey Spender heading up the investigation to find the twelve-year-old whose mental capabilities had been scientifically proven to be far beyond the norm. She herself had made a personal promise to Gibson, and considering the type of case this had become, she and Mulder would be much better suited to the task of finding the boy than Spender would ever be. But she knew there were problems at the Bureau, problems that she and Mulder could not transcend this time.
"Thank you, sir," she replied at last. Scully turned to join her partner and was about to leave with him when she felt a light pressure on her shoulder.
"Dana, tell Mulder I'll do my best."
Scully's eyes met Skinner's, and she saw the troubled look there. "We know you will, sir, but even you can't win this war."
Skinner had to concede that Scully was probably right, but he wasn't going to give in that easily, and he wouldn't allow his agents to either.
*****
Scully and Mulder had left the J. Edgar Hoover building as they had arrived: together, but this time there was no destination in mind. They both sat in Scully's car in silence before she finally asked if he wanted to go anywhere.
"The hospital...," he answered at last. Mulder really couldn't think of any other place he could go at the moment. His office had been his sanctuary, the one place he could go when he needed to sort things out. He knew he and Scully needed some time apart, that it wasn't the right time to talk just yet. His apartment seemed an unwelcome place too, and Mulder didn't want the two of them to be uncertain as to whether Scully should stay or go if she dropped him off there. The only other place he could go was the hospital. Diana was still in critical condition and had not regained consciousness since she had been shot the night before, but he would at least be with someone who he knew cared about him.
If not for all the equipment measuring her vital signs and pumping air into her lungs, Diana would have seemed to be resting peacefully, but no one could tell him what she was thinking. No one except maybe Gibson Praise. Somehow that young boy had seen right into his mind and known his deepest thoughts: his yearning to return to the relationship he had once had with Diana just so that he might have some physical comfort from all that was going on, and his total commitment to Scully who had somehow taken Samantha's place as the most important person in his life. Had it been Diana who had been thinking of him the other day, or Scully?
What was Diana thinking now? Was she wondering what might have happened
differently the night before if she had only reacted a moment sooner? Was she regretting having taken the assignment to watch Gibson? If Scully had been on her shift just a few hours more, it might have been her lying here instead, and what would Mulder have done then?
How could this happen now? Was this another way for the Consortium to punish him? They had tried numerous times to take Scully from him, and maybe now they had decided that Diana was a better target. But they had already hit him where it hurt most. As much as Mulder cared for Diana, it hurt more to know that the X-files had been destroyed and that he and Scully would be reassigned for good, possibly never to cross paths within the Bureau again.
Mulder wished that Diana could hear him, that she could open her eyes and see him and comfort him, but what could he say to make any of them feel better? Mulder felt alone as he had never been before...
*****
After she had left Mulder at the hospital, Scully had felt a crushing disappointment and a sudden emptiness which she couldn't quite comprehend. She knew that she and Mulder needed some time to think before they could confront each other with their feelings, but she had to admit that she didn't feel good about leaving her partner at Diana's bedside. Ever since Diana and Mulder had been reunited at the debriefing the other day to determine how to proceed after the assassination of the Russian chess master, Scully had begun to feel more
unneeded with every passing hour. She had felt like the odd man out, no longer privy to Mulder's confidences.
Diana was more like Mulder than Scully imagined any woman might be. They thought so much alike and they shared a common background. Scully still didn't know for sure what Diana Fowley meant to Mulder - no one had given her a straight answer to any of her queries - but she had begun to get the distinct impression that their liaison had been a romantic one as well as a professional one. How could she, Scully the skeptic, compete with that combination of intimacy? Most good partnerships at the Bureau lasted decades, but maybe this wasn't one of those and she should start considering being paired up with another agent. For the past few days, she had already felt like she was losing
her partner and best friend, and now someone - undoubtedly that cigarette smoking weasel - had made sure of that. She and Mulder would be reassigned and, knowing her partner of five years as well as she did, they could very well lose touch if he allowed his paranoia to mount and prevent even the most clandestine meetings between them. It had almost happened once before when the X-files had been shut down not even a year after she had met Mulder for the first time, and it could happen again.
Scully realized suddenly that she had been driving in a complete haze and had somehow ended up in her mother's neighbourhood. She took it as a sign from her own subconscious that this was the place where she might find some comfort in someone's arms. She was fortunate to have a caring mother to run to when times got bad, and she thought sadly of Mulder who seemed to have no one. His mother was still alive, but she knew they didn't talk.
Margaret Scully must have heard the car pull up in the driveway because she was already halfway to her daughter's car by the time Scully stepped out and shut the door.
Scully looked up and her mother sensed immediately that something was wrong.
"Dana, what happened?"
Scully threw herself into her mother's arms as she had at least twice before in recent memory, once when she had feared the worst and that Mulder had died because of her, and once when she had admitted that perhaps she had been wrong in letting go of her faith in God as she had faced death from her cancer. Now, as always, Margaret did not question her daughter, but guided her into the house waiting for her to speak in her own time. When the words finally came, they came wet with tears and laden with grief.
"Mom, I just can't understand why anyone would want to destroy everything?" Scully swallowed hard as she tried to control her sobbing. It was difficult confiding completely in her mother because of the nature of her work, but she had to somehow let everything out or she would be consumed by all her emotions. Five years... "How could they destroy a lifetime of work? This job is Mulder's life, mom."
Margaret smoothed her daughter's hair as she held her tightly against her bosom. "It's yours, too, Dana. I fear every day that one day you won't come home ever again. Are you sure the questions that you're asking are that simple? As much as I'm afraid for your life, wouldn't it just be easier for these men to kill you?" Margaret felt her head pounding as she thought about what she had just said. It would be so easy for someone to choose to take her daughter's life, and the people that Dana investigated and arrested on a regular basis had the means to see that those choices would become reality. It was a miracle that her daughter was still here to seek comfort, and Margaret continued to count her blessings every day.
"Mom, I don't know if I can keep doing this. Maybe dad was right after all. Maybe the FBI was never the place for me."
Margaret took her daughter's hands and looked her straight in the eye. "Dana, you are an excellent FBI agent and I am extremely proud of you. Your father may not have approved, and I'll admit I didn't either, but that's changed. Your father was just afraid for you as I am now, but he always believed in you."
All her life, Scully had feared her father's disapproval, and even now she could only hope that he would have eventually admitted that she had chosen the right career, but how could she even hope for that much now that she questioned her own choices? "Last night, Assistant Director Skinner told me that Mulder and I were going to possibly be reassigned. One of the other agents is trying to drag our names through the mud... They're going to break us up if it's the last thing they do."
Margaret waited for her daughter to continue, but when she didn't, the older woman stated what she had suspected almost from the moment they had sat down to talk. "There's something more, isn't there?"
Scully nodded, and she tried in vain to fight back the tears which rolled freely down her cheeks.
"Is it Fox?"
Scully shook her head and then knit her brow in confusion. "I don't know, mom. I just don't know. Lately I've been finding myself questioning how I feel about him... There's a woman - Diana - who's returned to DC after five years away, and now everywhere I turn she's there. No one will give me a straight answer about her relationship with Mulder and I've been feeling more and more left out lately. This fire was just the final blow, but I don't know if I'd already lost Mulder before today."
"You make it sound like he's more than just a partner, Dana. Do you know what your feelings are towards him?"
Scully needed more time to think, and while she knew her mother would give her that time, she herself was impatient for answers. "He's my best friend, mom. I don't want to lose him."
*****
Scully had spent the entire day with her mother, but had gently refused the offer to stay overnight. It had been hard enough to admit that, at her age, she still needed her mother in situations like this one, and Scully knew it would be all too easy to give in completely to her mother's warmth and never face another day alone. But she wouldn't burden her mother with that, and she wouldn't do that to herself. Today had been her day to grieve, but just as life went on after the loss of a loved one, life would continue after the X-files. It would be different though, and Scully wasn't so sure she wanted to be answering to a government which continually thwarted the efforts of well intentioned people.
But Scully had made a promise to a little boy that she would not let anyone hurt him, and now Gibson was missing and he needed her help. The agent who had been responsible for his safety at the time of his abduction was now lying in a hospital fighting for her life, and thoughts of the boy kept creeping back to Scully's mind in the form of unforgivable guilt. She couldn't afford to grieve when Gibson's life was in danger. While she knew that Skinner undoubtedly had a team of qualified agents looking for the boy, Scully felt personally responsible for his disappearance. She should have been the one to take that bullet trying to protect him, and now she had wasted too much time - precious
time - that might cost Gibson his life.
Scully had been unable to get in touch with Mulder that evening, so she decided to go on without him, connecting to the FBI's mainframe database in search of clues. It would be no use going into work because she didn't have an office to go to and, besides, she would only be sent home again if Skinner found her there.
It was late when Scully finally checked the time, and she was about to reluctantly try to get some semblance of a good night's sleep when she heard someone knocking heavily on the door.
Scully only needed a glimpse through the spyhole to know that Mulder was standing in the hallway outside her apartment, and she quickly undid the chains and deadbolt.
"Mulder..." Scully stopped short as she took in her partner's bedraggled appearance His eyes were tired and bloodshot, his hair was unkempt and standing in every which direction, and his breath smelled mildly of alcohol. Scully had never known her partner to drink heavily, and she knew at once that something terrible had happened.
"Oh, my God. You look horrible."
Scully led Mulder to her living room, shutting the door behind them. Mulder lowered himself onto the sofa and leaned forward, his fingers raking exhaustedly through his hair.
Scully sat quietly beside him and put her hand on his back, a small gesture for such a great emptiness. "Mulder, I'm so sorry..."
They were those words that broke the dam that had held back Mulder's emotions so precariously since that morning, and he finally began to cry. His sobs were uncontrollable and Scully held this man as a mother might hold her child... as her own mother had held her just hours earlier.
When it seemed that Mulder had spent all the tears he had pent up inside him, Scully pulled away from him and quietly went to the kitchen to boil some water for coffee. After a minute or so, Mulder followed. "Scully, I'm so sorry for the way I've behaved lately."
"You don't have to apologize," she replied, trying not to look at him as she retrieved the cups and spoons from their respective places.
"I think I do. I know I haven't been the best partner lately."
Scully looked up, searching Mulder's eyes and seeing only the deepest sincerity in them. She never expected an apology from him for anything because she knew the way he worked, but maybe they both needed it. Maybe Mulder needed to ask forgiveness so he could rid himself of some of the guilt he constantly carried with him, and maybe she just needed to know that he really needed her around.
"I sat by Diana's bedside for hours just going over my entire life over and over again, wondering if I could ever have done anything different. I have so many regrets, Scully, and I don't want to have any more. I should have told you about Diana. As my partner, you're at least entitled to honesty, to know about things that might affect my judgement, especially something this big. Diana and I were partners for a short time, but our personal relationship interfered with our effectiveness on an emotional level which is why she finally decided to leave when the opportunity came up."
"Did you know she had come back?"
"I honestly had no idea."
Scully handed Mulder a cup of coffee and followed him back to the living room. After they had sat down, Scully stared into her cup at the swirling heat that rose from it, warming her hands against the feel of the smooth ceramic. Mulder didn't owe her an explanation... or did he? Scully had begun to wonder if her own jealousy had been heightened by her own emotional confusion lately, and perhaps even a subconscious paranoia that some mysterious woman from her partner's past might take him away from her.
"As I watched the nurses and doctors try to revive Diana, I realized something important," Mulder continued at last, unable to take even that first sip of coffee. He hadn't eaten all day and the alcohol sat heavily in his stomach.
"What did you realize?" Scully prompted softly.
Mulder lifted his head and looked into his partner's eyes, searching for what he couldn't say. "I realized that I need you, Scully. I hate to admit it now that Diana's gone, but I need you more than I ever needed her. I've coped without her before, and I will again, but when I think of all the times I nearly lost you, I was a wreck. You may make my job difficult at times, but I don't know where I'd be without you to keep me grounded."
Scully allowed herself a ghost of a smile at Mulder's confession. It was good to know that he appreciated her, but what good did that do them now? The X-files were gone. Someone had made sure of that on several levels. "So, where do we go from here?"
"Anywhere but back, I guess."
Scully broke eye contact as she realized that this was the moment of truth. She worried about her partner's reaction but knew she couldn't base her decisions on how he might feel. One way or another, she had to continue on. "Mulder, I'm considering leaving the Bureau."
There was a moment of silence. "You're not the only one, Scully."
It wasn't like either of them to give up, but even they had to admit that they might just have encountered an unbeatable foe, and fighting against something so powerful was not worth their lives. "What will you do?"
Mulder shrugged. "Get a job in a private investigation firm. Maybe write a book. Anything but the kind of government crap that got us here in the first place."
"Mulder, that's not you."
"I'm just tired of running into brick walls, Scully. I don't appreciate being manipulated and set up for failure." Mulder realized that neither he nor Scully had taken a sip of their coffee and he pushed his cup away from him. "What about you?"
"Hmm?"
"What would you do?"
"I'm not sure yet. I could stay in forensics, but maybe I'll try family medicine. I want to help people."
"You'd make a good pediatrician," Mulder said. He wanted to encourage Scully in whatever she chose and knew it was small comfort, but it also seemed strange to be talking about a future without the X-files. It had become such a big part of both their lives.
"It's not over yet," Scully finally replied. "I made a promise to Gibson Praise that no one would harm him. I want to find him, Mulder."
Mulder could tell that his partner was deadly serious and he nodded his consent. As their last official gesture together as partners, they would solve this case. If the war was already lost, at least they could win one more battle and hopefully save a young boy's life.
As Mulder settled down for a night's sleep on Scully's couch, he felt a sudden fear deep within him, a fear that there was no assurance he'd know where he was going from one day to the next. But for now he knew he at least had tomorrow and that, even though they might have lost the X-files, he and Scully were still a team and always would be. Together they would investigate one last case, and then maybe they could begin again in hopes of one day finding the truth.
THE END (or, perhaps, a new beginning)
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