by
Shawen A. Greer
Residence of Special Agent
Dana Scully
“I’ll
take care of it, Sir. Thank you.”
Scully snapped her cell phone closed.
Unable to move she stared at it as if it could magically clarify the
conversation that it had just contained.
She was lost in a web of fatigue and confusion.
She
had returned from the coast of Africa a little over a week ago, and was still
emotionally drained from her unsettling experiences there. Then to be faced with Mulder’s disappearance
from the hospital was more than she could reasonably cope with. The last weeks events were still spinning in
her head like ghosts in the wind leaving her to piece it all together into some
sort of understanding.
When
she stepped into that hospital room to see Assistant Director Skinner pacing
beside an empty bed where only hours before her partner and friend had been
fighting for his life, she was filled with a terror unlike anything she had
experienced before. She could still
feel the dull ache in her heart. Mulder
was more than her best friend. He was
an extension of her. Together they
completed each other.
Their
relationship had grown so much in the last seven years that it now surpassed
any one definition. She was more in
love with him than any man she had ever known.
In turn, she knew that his unspoken love for her was just as true. Yet no words were ever spoken, no thoughts
ever expressed. They didn’t have to
be. They had shared more with each
other than most married couples. They
each knew the other’s heart, more clearly than words could ever explain.
She
went to the kitchen and opened a bottle of Boordy that had been chilling for
some time. The dark wine splashed into
her glass and she made her way to the sofa to sort through the many thoughts
and images now flooding her mind.
She
glanced at her cell phone, which she had laid on the table. She could still hear Skinner’s words echoing
in her head. “Diana Fowley was found
murdered in her apartment this morning Agent Scully...I thought you’d like to
know.”
It
had felt as if some blunt object had struck her in the chest and for a moment,
she couldn’t breathe. When she managed
to take a staggered breath, she had dared to ask him if Mulder knew. The response had come as “No...I thought you
would want to be the one to tell him.”
Walter Skinner had become a good friend, though Scully had sometimes
questioned his motives. Somehow, he had
always managed to come through for her in the end.
Scully
had ended the conversation then. She
found it difficult to speak. Her
thoughts turned to Mulder. What would
she say to him? This woman had shared a
very special part of his life once. He
had loved her. Even now, there was
something between them. Not love, more
an understanding and respect. Well, at least
from Mulder anyway. Scully had never
doubted for a second that given the opportunity Diana would have stopped at
almost nothing to be with Mulder. Her
feelings for him were obvious, though unreciprocated. What was also obvious was the friction between the two female
agents. From the very beginning, Fowley
had thought it necessary to allude to her partnership with Mulder years
ago. Of course, Scully had known that
the partnership she spoke of was more of a taunting of their sleeping
arrangements than their Bureau assignments.
Moreover, if she heard about how they “were of the same mind” or “shared
the same beliefs” one more time, she swore she would have strangled Diana
Fowley with her bare hands. However,
after evaluating her own relationship with him, she realized that what she
shared with Fox Mulder was more precious than Fowley could ever dream of
knowing. It was their differences that
made them stronger. Together.
Scully
had always been sure that Diana’s continued interest in Mulder was due to
motives other than her professed concern for him and their “friendship”. She had suspected for some time that Diana
Fowley was somehow involved with the dark game and the men who played it. It seemed now that she too had been a pawn
in their plan. She had been eliminated
as had many others in the search for the truth.
As
she poured herself another glass of wine, it became painfully clear to
her. Through it all, through all the
lies and the deceit, Diana Fowley truly did love him. She had compromised him on many occasions, but at no time in
those instances had his life been in jeopardy.
Had she been consumed by their lies too? Was her compliance to their orders because of a promise that in
the end they would be together? But
that was before she saw him suffer at their unmerciful hands.
Scully
had exhausted every resource to find him.
To save him. Every day regretting they words she had never said. Her only solace came oddly from his illness. In the state induced by the unexplainable
and possibly alien virus, it was probable that he was able to know her heart
just as surely as if she would have told him.
His
salvation came from an unlikely source.
She slept on the floor of her apartment, emotionally exhausted yet
unwilling to give up her search for him.
It was as if he were calling to her, lost in the darkness. A noise disturbed her sleep as an envelope
was slipped under her door and she desperately fought to regain
consciousness. This envelope contained
the key card accessing the medical area of the D.O.D. where she found Mulder.
She
could still see him there in that terrible place, restrained to some sort of
surgical table. The soiled dressings on
his head covered the surgical procedure they had performed. The room was empty and seemingly
forgotten. The only sound was the vague
hum of the lights above her. He lay
there unconscious and practically discarded, having evidently served his
purpose. Her heart pounded in her chest
as she approached him, unsure if he was alive or dead. She remembered the terrible mutilations that
they had performed on Gibson, and the tears ran freely down her cheeks. She could not handle the thought of her
Mulder being subjected to the same pain and torture.
She
had stood by him her tears covering his face and begged him to wake up and help
her. She knew that she had to get him
out of that terrible place, but was helpless to do so by herself. Then his eyes finally opened and he spoke to
her, his words ringing now in her ears.
He knew that she would find him.
He had believed in her and trusted his life to her.
Together
they had managed to slip away undetected, but she somehow knew that they were
allowed to leave. Once in her car, she
laid his head on her lap and held him with her free arm. She wanted desperately to hold him in both,
to convince herself that he was really there, but knew that it was imperative
that he got back to the hospital quickly.
She needed to mend all that had been done to him. She would deal with the physical first, and
tend to the emotional and psychological later.
Now that he had been returned to her, there would be plenty of time for
that.
The
key card had been the second mysterious parcel she had received in those few
days surrounding Mulder’s disappearance.
The first had been a book of ancient Navajo writings recanting some of
the mysteries that Scully had worked so hard to solve in Africa. To add to the puzzlement, the book had been
delivered in the Inter-Office mail at the Bureau.
She
had been certain that Skinner had routed the book to her, obviously more aware
of her discoveries than he had let on.
However, upon confronting him, the puzzled look on his face told her
that he did not initiate the delivery.
She knew now that the mysterious gifts could only have come from one other person. No matter how difficult it was for her to believe, the truth had revealed itself and she was forced to face it. She wished that she could say the things that needed to be said. To somehow make things right.
She
walked into her bedroom and removed the journal from the drawer in the
nightstand next to her bed. The gold
edge of the pages flashed as they briefly passed into the light. She took out the slim silver pen engraved
“D. K. Scully” that had marked her place.
She always used that one because it was special to her. Melissa had given it to her when she
graduated medical school with a card that said, “Take the time to write from
your heart.” Now with her big sister
gone, the gift and her words had taken on a whole new meaning in Scully’s life
and she followed her advice often.
She
sat again on the sofa with her feet tucked under her supporting the book on her
folded legs and began to write...
-Journal Entry November
1999-
“I write these words for my
own soul with the hope that somehow you will know them.
We are the product of the
relationships that we encounter and establish.
Some connections are to be more positive than others and share a larger
part. Others are no less important to
our individual development, but can sometimes be unsettling causing us to look
more closely at ourselves.
I find myself now
re-evaluating who you were now upon hearing of your death. I know now that you were the one that led me
to him. Your love for him was far greater that I ever believed true, and you
were willing to sacrifice yourself to save him. You gave him back to me and returned a part of myself that I
feared I had lost forever. For this I
am eternally grateful and I wish you peace.
I will do everything within
my power to make sure that your sacrifice was not pointless. They will fall to the hands of some justice
whether by us or by another that has yet to be determined.
If in fact we do meet again
someday, I hope that it will be on more amiable terms than we have shared
here. In sparing Mulder’s life, you
have spared my own. For truly you know
that, he is my life. I know that is why
you empowered me to save him.
My prayers are with you as is my deepest respect and gratitude.”
With her closing, she signed
it as if Diana would somehow read it.
She dried the tears that she realized dampened her cheeks and replaced
her journal in its sacred place.
With a deep breath, she put
on her jacket and picked up her car keys from their usual place on the
table. She had faced her ghosts and put
them to rest. Now she needed to go to
him. She didn’t know how to tell him
the news. She resolved to let her heart
speak for her and she stepped out into the brightness of the hallway and locked
the door behind her.
Residence of Special Agent Fox Mulder
Her footsteps echoed in the
empty hallway leading to his apartment.
Still searching for the right thing to say she swallowed uneasily the
dry ache at the back of her throat. She
paused for a moment outside his door to compose herself and her thoughts. Then her knuckles gently brushed the hard
wood, which he opened quickly as if anticipating her arrival.
He stood there before her,
his baseball cap covering the bandages that still adorned his head, smiling
eagerly at the sight of her. She stood
there for a moment pressing the image of him and the smile that she loved into
her memories. She felt the tears on her
cheeks again, but this time they were of relief. She tried to smile through her tears. Through it all, she loved him.
He knew that now.
Her words came out quickly
and she finally delivered the news of Diana as she held him in her arms. He held onto her tightly and Scully knew
that the embrace was not comfort for the loss of Diana. It was for the love that he had gained with
his partner and the life that they shared.
Together.