Title: A Different Room
Author: Lisa Cole
Category: V, post-ep for Closure, a little MSR at the end.
Rating: PG
Summary: A reflective, first person view at how Mulder has changed over the years.
Disclaimer: Umm, no, they're not mine. I swear.
Thanks: To all of the lovely people who have chosen to archive my fic. Dina, Stephanie, LeAnn ....Thank you so much, really.

Seven years ago, on one of our first cases together, I had told you about my boyhood ritual, the one where I would close my eyes every time I would walk into a room, hoping to see Samantha there, just sitting, like nothing had happened, untouched by the cruel, spiraling hands of time. I told you I was still walking into the same room.

I was so young then. So determined to find Samantha. But it really wasn't  Samantha I was so desperately seeking. It was me. Samantha was an excuse, a metaphorical symbol for everything that was missing in myself, the love I was missing. I was empty. But I didn't want to admit that I had caused the void. So I blamed others. I yelled and rebelled, chasing down the aliens that were my personal demons. Part of me did want to have Samantha back, to find my sister. Part of the search wasn't metaphorical. But the reason I wanted her back was so that I could apologize, appease my guilt for being the inadequate brother I felt I had been. It was for me, always for me.

But the years went on, whatever the reasons for the search were. I continued blaming, yelling, and rebelling, always running in circles, ending in the same place I had started. I started to feel run down, almost ready to throw in the towel. Then,  Amber Lynn's case started. First it felt  unjust, outside of the order of things, because it seemed the precious aliens I had been chasing after for so long were out of the picture. I chided myself for believing in such things. I felt stupid. I finally stepped outside of my glass house, and saw what everyone else had seen for all these years. I was indeed, "Spooky Mulder."

Then my mother died. No explanation, no good-byes. First, I thought "they" had killed her, because of what she knew. Then I found out she had killed herself because of what she knew. I felt cheated, and lied to, because I was. Needless to say, her elusiveness had never been so severe.

The case was coming to a close. I could feel it, but I was numb all at the same time. I could feel the end coming, the closure for Samantha I so longed for, but a secret fear inside said my emptiness would stay.

But then I found myself in that field. I saw Samantha. It was a vision my subconscious had created for me, to let me know that I had come to the end of the road, as I had told you. Something happened in that field. I was able to find the strength within me to love myself. In loving myself, I was finally able to let go. To love you. Samantha was the symbol for that love.

I don't know what it was about the that field that caused me to have that vision. I don't know why it had taken so long to come to a resolution. The answer I was so desperately seeking, and had finally found had been standing beside me for the last seven years, becoming my breath and my very being.

Life's most defining moments often come without announcement. Maybe we get so tired of running, that the legs of our subconscious finally give out, and it takes awhile for our physical being to catch up.

All I know is, I am now walking into a different room. I don't have my eyes closed anymore, and my fists aren't clenched. I am not silently hoping for something to be there, because what I need is already with me. I am not alone. I have my willingness to love, and you to accept that love. Love is always the answer.