Date: 31 Mar 1998 02:30:07 GMT
From: TCN YT 
Subject: Painful To Love By McCord (1/1)

Title: Painful to Love

Author: McCord

Email: TCNYT@aol.com

Rating: PG-13 for language

Category: Pre-XF, Vignette

Spoilers: Travellers, Unusual Suspects, Small Potatoes

Keywords: Mulder/Other, Mulder/Scully romance, Ring story

Summary:  Possible explanation for the "Ring"

Disclaimer: The characters (except Patricia and her family) aren't
mine, and are instead the property of CC, Fox, and 1013.  Please
don't hurt me, I'll give them back.

Author's Note:  I know I should be working on "Starbuck," but this just
came to me and I had to do it.  Hope you enjoy. 

****************** 

Painful to Love by McCord

***************************************************
Basement Office
J. Edgar Hoover Building
Washington DC
Friday, April 3, 1998
5:45 P.M.

	Fox Mulder watched silently as his partner of five years closed
the door behind her.  Had it really been five years?  And seven years
since...  Mulder's thought trailed off as he took the wedding ring out of
the hiding place in his desk.  It took him several minutes, but finally
got it out.  After Skinner easily finding the DAT tape, he wasn't taking
any chances.  Mulder twirled the ring in his fingers, letting his thoughts
drift.  He had shared things with Scully, almost everything about himself. 
Yet he hadn't told her about his four years of marriage.  Why not?  Why
had he not told the most important person in his life about the person who
used to be the most important person in his life?  He didn't know, though
he had warned Scully of what had destroyed that happiness:  his obsession
with the so-called 'Truth.'

********************************************************

	He had met her at a party in 1984.  He was still trying to get
over the hurt from Phoebe, the scheming little bitch.  He was standing
quietly in a corner, nursing a iced tea when he saw her.  She was shorter
than Phoebe, but only by what he guessed to be just a few inches.  She had
her dirty blonde hair down, which cascaded past her shoulders to brush
along her lower back.  Her eyes sparkled with an intensity and
intelligence that he had never seen in anyone.  She was standing with a
few friends, laughing and joking as the music played in the background. 
He didn't think he'd have a chance with her when she looked over at him
and caught his stare.  She smiled, and moved over to him.  "Hi," she said,
"My name's Patricia.  Patricia Talvert.  What's yours?" 
	"Mulder." 
	"That's different.  What's your last name?" 
	"That is my last name." 
	She chuckled and smiled at him again.  "I figured as much.  Do you
have a first name, Mr. Mulder?" 
	Mulder grimaced, then gave in.  "Fox." 
	She smiled brighter, then grinned a little, moving her eyes up and
down his form.  "Well, I must admit your parents named you aptly." 
	This comment brought a smile from Mulder, something he hadn't
really done in a long time.  "What brings a sociable, gorgeous woman like
yourself over to speak to me?" 
	"Just wondering who the unsociable, gorgeous man in the corner
was."  She glanced at his drink, then back up at him.  "Tea?" 
	"Yeah, I tend not to drink often."  He shuddered inwardly,
remembering his father in his drunken rages.  He rarely truly beat him,
but when he did, it was not forgotten. 
	Patricia noticed the shudder, and a frown of concern crossed her
features.  "Are you okay, Fox?" 
	Mulder started at the use of his first name, since very few people
ever used it.  He nodded.  "Unpleasant memories." 
	She took his hand and led him out to the dance floor.  "We'll just
have to make some better ones, won't we?" 
	Mulder and Patricia had a great time that night together.  She
seemed to understand him like no one else had before.  They agreed to get
together again, then began dating regularly.  He soon was recruited by the
FBI, and went to Quantico.  He continued to see Patricia, and they both
grew extremely close.  She seemed to understand his fears and anxieties
from the little he told her of his childhood.  And in late 1985, a little
over a year after they met, Fox Mulder asked Patricia Talvert to be his
wife, and she agreed.

******************************************************

	When Mulder started working for the FBI, they moved to Alexandria,
Virginia.  They got an apartment in a decent building, at least it was
then;  apartment number 42.  They moved in and were married shortly after. 
It was a small ceremony, with none of Mulder's family attending. 
Patricia's family, on the other hand, greeted Mulder with open arms into
the family.  Patricia's father was a retired construction foreman, and a
kindly man with a big heart.  Her mother was the same way, and Patricia's
sister and brother immediately took a liking to Mulder.  They all seemed
to understand Mulder and not judge him from his brooding personality. 
Instead, they judged him by his sincerity and love for them, for he truly
did love them.  They were the first people to ever treat him as family. 
Patricia worked at a restaurant near the Hoover building, so she and
Mulder would ride into DC together everyday.  They had a wonderful life
together, even through the times when Mulder's caseload overwhelmed him
and he sunk into his own dark world.  At these times, Patricia would
cradle him softly and reassure him everything would be all right.  Until
Mulder's paranoia came to the front, and he met three computer/conspiracy
nerds:  Langley, Byers, and Frohike. 

**********************************************************

	Mulder was never sure why he wanted the Susanne Modeski case.  He
just knew deep down that he was supposed to take it.  So he did, and met
three people who would become great friends.  They took to calling
themselves the Lone Gunmen, and were convinced of a governmental
conspiracy to try and control the lives of the American public.  Mulder
really didn't remember exactly what took place in that warehouse, but he
knew something did, and he believed the Gunmen.  Patricia, on the other
hand, wasn't quite so convinced. 
	"Are you sure that chemical is still not effecting you, Fox?"  She
stood defianantly with her hands on her hips, glaring at him. 
	"Yes, I'm sure.  Something's going on that cannont be explained, I
just don't know what." 
	Patricia didn't like it, but didn't bring the subject up again
until the file on Edward Skur showed up one night.  She was cleaning up
the living room when she noticed it sitting on the coffee table.  She saw
the 'X' in the file number, and knew that Fox had been showing an
increasing interest in them. When she pressed Fox about it a few days
later, he explained the meeting with Agent Dales and what he had been
told.  She kicked him out of the bedroom for the night in fury.  He didn't
sleep that much anyway, but it was the act of doing it that mattered to
her.  His was starting to become obsessive about these 'X-files' as he
called them, and she feared what it might do to his and her life.  He
seemed okay about though, at least for awhile.  Then he went and had the
hypno-regression therapy. 
	When Mulder told her about what he remembered, she couldn't take
it anymore. Over the past two years, she had seen the man she had fallen
in love with turn into a paranoia freak, and believer in government
conspiracies and aliens, and obsessive about what he referred to as a
Quest:  to find the sister that he lost when he was twelve.  She left him,
taking the bed from the bedroom along with other things, and walked out of
his life.  From that moment on, Fox Mulder vowed not to let anyone close
again.  He regretfully cut himself off from her family, though he cared
for her and them a lot, and withdrew within himself. He migrated to the
basement, where he could study the X-files undisturbed.  And that's how he
planned to live the rest of his life:  a lonely, pathetic martyr to a
quest for a sister long thought gone. 

*******************************************************************

	After the divorce was finalized in '91, Mulder threw himself into
his work.  A year later, when he would tell a young, petite redhead that
nothing mattered to him but the search, it was true at the time.  Except
that Dana Katherine Scully would slowly but surely integrate herself into
every fiber of his being. Mulder sat there looking at the ring and
thinking, letting his mind just go with the thoughts.  He was so lost in
them that he didn't notice when Scully returned to the office. 
	"Mulder, I left..."  She trailed off as she saw the ring in his
hand. 
	"Wha?"  Mulder snapped out of his reverie and saw Scully looking
at the ring in his hand.  He had been hoping he'd never have to bring this
up.  It was still too painful, even 7 years after.  He averted his eyes
and tucked the ring back in its hiding place in the desk.
	"Mulder."  Mulder looked up at that tone of voice.  Scully was
determined to know, and nothing stood in the way of a determined Scully. 
He sighed, and looked at the wall silently. 
	"It was seven years ago, a week from tomorrow, that I was divorced
from my wife of six years, Patricia Talvert.  She left because of this,"
he said, waving at the office, "my so-called quest.  And what has it
brought me?  Pain, sorrow, suffering, and the loss of a woman I had loved. 
I threw myself into my work after that, forcing myself to believe it
didn't matter;  that it didn't hurt.  I was so good at it, I usually
forgot I was ever married.  Except around this time of year.  I cared for
her, and her family.  They were the first people to ever treat me like a
person, like someone who mattered.  And because of my damn 'quest,' I lost
all that."  Mulder closed his eyes then felt and hand on his shoulder.  He
looked up, and into Scully's eyes. 
	"Do you wish you could do it all over again?"  she asked, echoing
the question Eddie Van Blundht had asked her. 
	"No, because then I might never have met you."  He reached up and
squeezed her hand.  Scully smiled softly and squeezed back.  "I thought I
had learned something from that time with Patricia and the divorce.  I
thought I had learned that nothing good comes from love, from emotional
attachment except pain.  You changed that, Dana.  I once again learned the
joy of love and being loved, even if it isn't a romance.  You mean more to
me than anyone, ever." Scully turned his chair around and leaned in close
to him. 
	"Who says it isn't a romance?"  she whispered quietly before
gently brushing her lips against his. 

	Patricia Talvet went to her mail box and pulled out her mail.  She
picked out a lacy envelope with an Alexandria, VA return address.  She
opened it, and smiled when she saw an invitation for her and her family to
the wedding of Fox Willaim Mulder and Dana Katherine Scully. 

The End.  
*************************************************************
Feedback?  Anyone?  Please?  I've been a good boy, I pwomise. 

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