| "You okay?" He asked her. "Your hands are freezing." "Just tired, I guess." She replied, looking beyond his glasses into his beautiful brown eyes. She loved the way he looked when he wore his glasses. They made him look younger and they brought back the memories of the time they had first met so many years ago. "Have you been sleeping okay?" Mulder questioned. Although they were engaged, Scully was very old fashion in their living arrangements. Despite a few nights that they had spent at each other's apartments, they still hadn't moved in together. They were looking to get a brand new apartment, one that was suited for a married couple, not a single guy without a bed. "No." She answered simply. "I guess I haven't been sleeping very well." "Have you seen a doctor?" "I'm okay, Mulder." She said. He looked at her sternly. "Really, I'm okay." He had heard those words too many times when she wasn't really okay. There were too many times that she was hurting and she hid it from him. He didn't want that anymore. "Do you want me to reschedule the meeting we had with the florist tonight?" "That was tonight?" She asked, not aware of the arrangement that was made. "Yeah. We've known about it for weeks." He was surprised that she hadn't remembered. Usually she was on the one who was on track of everything. It was usually her who had to remind Mulder of those kinds of things, especially since she was the one who wanted the traditional wedding. "I guess I just forgot." She said, pulling her hand away from Mulder's. She stood and walked to the other end of the office from which Mulder had come. There was a large magnifying glass with a light attached above the blurry photos. Scully looked down, closing one eye to get a better view. "Do you really think these are real, Mulder?" "Scully, don't change the subject." He said, standing. He took off his glasses and placed them on his desk. Scully bent down and took a closer look at one of the photos. "This one's fake." She informed him. "How do you know?" He questioned, obviously interested in what she had to say. He moved next to her and looked down at the photographs. She pointed to the sun in one of the photos and then to the shadow that was cast by a nearby car. "The shadows in the wrong direction. It should be facing east, it's facing west." She explained as she traced the outline of the shadow with her fingernail. "Looks like you're right." He admitted. His concern wasn't for the photograph, however, or even for the $15.95 that he had lost by buying the fake pictures. He was concerned for her, and her obvious dodging of the question about the florist. "What should I do about the florist?" He finally asked while she looked at one of the other pictures. She looked up at him. "I wanted to talk to you about that." He leaned up against the table behind him and crossed his muscular arms over his chest. "I'm listening." He said impatiently once she had looked back down at the pictures, acting like she was going to tell him after all. "This is…this is difficult for me to say." She said quietly, close to tears. With her right hand she pulled off the ring from her left and held it out to Mulder. "What's this?" He asked, unsure of how to react. "I can't marry you." She replied, looking down to the ground, still holding the ring. He wouldn't take it. "What do you mean you can't marry me?" He asked somewhat angrily. He stood and cupped her left elbow with his hand. She shrugged away from his touch but he held her firmly. "Let me go." She pleaded. "Give me an answer, Scully." "I just can't, Mulder. I want to explain, I do, but…I'm sorry, Mulder." She dropped the ring and walked out of the room. He wanted to run after her. He wanted to stop her from making, what he considered to be, the biggest mistake of her life but for some reason he couldn't. He couldn't do anything. He wanted to sink into the earth like his heart was doing in his chest. He allowed himself to fall onto the floor, his legs not having the strength to hold him up any longer. Tears welled in his eyes and eventually he let them fall like he hadn't done in years. He picked up the ring that she had dropped and just cupped it in his hand, crying for the one he loved. Later that night Mulder stood outside a familiar door. He had tried calling, leaving messages, and he had even showed up at her door and waited outside for almost two hours before he realized that no matter what he did, she didn't want to talk to him at this time. Being rejected brought him to one conclusion, he had to find out why all of this happened. Just a month ago, they had the perfect relationship. They were happy, madly in love, and impatiently awaiting the day that their love would be pronounced forever to the world. Mulder had popped the question seven months earlier. They had planned the wedding for mid December. It was already July, the invitations had been ordered and made, and now she was breaking it off with him. Mulder still didn't want to believe what he had heard just hours earlier. He knocked on the solid, wood door in front of him and then listened as someone walked briskly towards it. There was a pause before he heard the chain lock being undone and the door swung open. His sister's husband stood facing him. "Hi Fox." He said. "Hey Chris. Is Sam home yet?" Mulder asked. Chris noticed his somewhat puffy, red eyes and quickly came to the conclusion that he had been crying and then whatever it was about was very important. "Yeah, she's in the kitchen. Come on in." Chris said. He stepped aside as Mulder walked in. He walked right into the kitchen where his sister was at the stove, stirring the contents that were in a large, silver pot. "Fox, what are you doing here?" She asked him as he walked in. Mulder looked around the kitchen to see dirty pots and pans everywhere. Knowing his sister's likeness to cleanliness he quickly concluded that all of the different cooking contraptions that she had used were used to cook one very special meal. The table was set with the nice china and a bottle of wine was placed in the center. "I need to talk to you. That is, if you're not too busy." He said. Chris walked in as he spoke. "Sure." She answered. "Chris, can you stir this please?" Chris walked over to her side and took the wooden spoon from her hands. She untied her apron and playfully draped it over her husband's head before following Mulder into the living room. "I need you to tell me something?" Mulder said once he had closed the door that connected the door to the kitchen. Although he trusted Chris, he wanted the conversation he was about to have kept between him and his sister. "What is it?" Sam asked, taking a seat on her light blue couch. "What's wrong with Scully?" Sam sighed. "I can't tell you." She responded. "Why not, Sam?" "Why don't you ask Dana what's wrong with her?" "She won't talk to me. I need to know." "I'm sorry." Sam answered, truly sorry that she couldn't tell her brother Scully's secret. Sam thought it was wrong from the beginning not to tell Mulder but she had made a promise as a friend not to tell him and as her doctor, under the law, she wasn't allowed to. "She broke off our engagement." Mulder said, sitting down on the couch next to his sister. "She what?" Sam exclaimed, taken aback. "Today…in the office. She just dropped the ring and left. She wouldn't tell me why. She said she wanted to tell me but that she couldn't. Something tells me you know why." "God, Fox, I'm not one of your suspects. You can't pressure me into telling you. Dana had her own reasons. Take it up with her." She said angrily as she stood. Mulder stood, as well. "Please, Samantha…" He said. She looked up at him. When they were children, Mulder never called her Samantha unless he was angry with her. Despite her thirty-year absence, that tradition continued. "All I can tell you is that I'm not allowed to tell you. I would if I could, Fox, because I believe what she's doing is wrong. But I can't." "You're her doctor." He concluded, picking up on her hint. "Just talk to her, Fox." Sam said. She patted her brother on the arm and walked off into the kitchen. Mulder sat outside Scully's apartment door. He leaned against the wall for support. A few of the apartment residents had walked by, confused as to why a man had been sitting outside this particular apartment for the last four hours. Some of them knew him simply as the man that the redhead worked with, but most just dismissed him as a man who had locked himself out of his lover's apartment. He rolled the ring between his fingers almost the entire time he was there, unable to stop thinking about the events that had unfolded that day. He wondered what had gone wrong and whether it was something he did to make their relationship go astray. The elevator down the hall made a bell sound and the doors opened. A tired and ragged looking Scully stood inside, looking for her keys. Mulder looked over at her and stood once he realized who was standing in the open elevator. Once she had found her keys from her purse, Scully began walking towards her apartment door, still not noticing Mulder. She didn't seem to acknowledge his appearance until she basically made it to her apartment door. |