NEW STORY
Five Billion and One
By Pam Gamble
eksphyl@yahoo.com

SUMMARY: Scully attempts to deal with Diana's
intrusion into her life.
SPOILERS:  Nothing huge, but there are references to
just about everything.
TIMELINE: Takes place right after the scene with the
Lone Gunmen in One Son; then ignores the rest of the
ep.
CATEGORY:MSR, rated R for language
DISCLAIMER: Hey, if CC is too busy counting his money
to do his job, then I'll have to do it for him:)
DEDICATED to all the MNL, who always make me laugh and
make me look forward to Mondays!

Sorry this isn't a little more timely, it took awhile
to get this one close to right. Let me know if I made
it.
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Trust. 

The man said, "Trust no one", and Mulder sure as hell
took it to heart. 

Back then, even though I'd just met Mulder, I knew
that didn't include me. Well, not entirely. But
lately...

I'm not crying. I'm not. These are just tears of
frustration. Physiological reaction. Hot, angry
physiological reactions that I have to keep wiping
away so I can see the road.

I've lied for him. I've broken into government
facilities. I've obstructed justice. I told them he
was dead. That I saw the body. And right now I almost
wish I...


I offered to die with a murder charge on my head to
clear his name.

And he doesn't trust me?

Fuck him.

And this woman, who I've never even HEARD of before
now, waltzes in like he's spent the last five years
waiting for her and...

Maybe he has, Dana.

Maybe he has.

Red light.

I sit impatiently in traffic, pressing the heels of my
hands into my swollen eyes. I don't even bother
looking in the rearview, I know exactly how I look.
I've seen this face too many times before. Mulder is
the reason I buy waterproof mascara.

Blind faith--is that what he wants? Is that what he
gets from her? What about me? All the work I've done
to prove him right--prove it to myself, to everyone.
All that effort to validate his work, allow us some
credibility, when all he wanted was someone to AGREE
with him?

I shouldn't have wasted my time.

I. Me. My. My X-Files. *My* work. *My* life. "You were
just assigned here." Like I never had a choice...

Like I don't now.

I stomp on the gas and realize why it's not a good
idea for me to be armed and in heavy traffic.

I had to get the hell out of that room. I know it
would have disrupted what little equilibrium Frohike
has left to see me cry. And Byers would probably try
to comfort me, and I wasn't in the mood for that
either..

She's going to get him killed. I know it. Whether by
her own hand, or because of some insane lie of hers
that he chooses to believe, he's going to die. And I
am powerless to stop it. It's Robert Modell all over
again. He's not listening to me.
 
The scary thing is I can't remember when he ever did.

I had lulled myself into thinking I could control him,
the way a dull-witted villager believes a shaman could
control the weather, when he really just knows how to
read the signs and portents.

Shit. Has he manipulated me the whole time? Made me
believe I was a victim when he really was showing me
what he wanted me to see?

I don't really believe that. Maybe I do. I don't know
what I believe right now. 

I never thought he would use me to further his own
agenda.

But then, I never thought he would choose her over
me....



Well, maybe I am.

Or maybe it is. 

Keeping up with my partner's train of thought can be
physically exhausting. Occasionally, I'll repeat
things he says, words, phrases, and I see the
excitement light up his eyes. He thinks I'm agreeing
with him. Really, I'm just trying to clarify--make
sense of it in my own head. 

My brain needs things to form a logical pattern. My
brain is like a military schedule.


Mulder's brain is like riding the Tilt-A-Whirl.

Sometimes I want to get off.

How could a man who sees conspiracy in the metric
system NOT see it when it is so clearly warranted
here?  
I desperately wanted to ask him if the sex was really
THAT good, but I didn't want to sound like more of a
jealous wife than I already did.

He says I made him a whole person. Then why does he
look at me lately like he can't quite remember my
name?

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

As the door slams in my face, I turn to the guys,
expecting to see some male-bonding sympathy.

Wrong.

Frohike stands toe-to-toe with me, his neck arched at
the same angle hers usually is. He points a stubby
finger into my chest. "You fucked up royally."

I look down at him. Hard.

"Well, all hail King Mulder," I proclaim, raising my
arms to Langly. He'll take my side. Frohike's too far
gone over her.

But Langly just folds his arms and ambles out of the
room. I swear that man would amble if his ass was on
fire.

Byers meets my gaze but I can tell he's not exactly in
my camp either.

"You're always chastizing her about being more
open-minded. Perhaps you should take your own advice."

"What are you saying, exactly?" I try to sound
intimidating, but they know better. Hell, witnesses
with swiss-cheese alibis know better. 

Frohike's agitated voice rises to my ears. "He's
saying you're obviously thinking with something
besides your brain." Finger in the chest again.

I look back to Byers, but he just raises his eyebrows
in agreement.

"So you don't trust Diana now, either?"

Langly comes back, leaning in the doorway, as tense as
I've ever seen him. It's subtle.

"It's not about who we don't trust, it's about who we
*do*."

Byers leans against the counter, suspiciously close to
the microscope we used to analyze Scully's implant.
"Have you ever known her to present a theory without
feeling she had some factual basis supporting her
argument?"

Obviously, they've all become Scully-fied. Dammit,
these were my friends first.

I stalk out the door as quickly as I can unbolt it,
and, like the petulant 12-year-old I've become, I take
my ball and go home.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
7pm
The next day
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
That's enough.

Absolutely enough.

Eight straight hours of "Yes, Mulder," and "No,
Mulder".

Okay. Mostly "No, Mulder."

Throw in some brisk, efficient cabinet slamming and
some long, uninterrupted silences and you've pretty
much got the soundtrack to my day.

I let her leave without comment, but if she thinks I'm
not coming over there tonight...

I will *not* work like this. Technically, I am her
superior officer...when it's okay with her.

I play an impatient tune on the steering wheel as I
cruise towards her place. There's construction
everywhere these days, with orange cones placed to run
you right into the larger potholes.

I make it to her door, ready to let myself in if
necessary. Much as I would enjoy demonstrating my
virility by knocking her door down, it would be a
shame to waste this perfectly good key.

Foiling both my plans, Scully chooses to let me in the
old-fashioned way. She stands there a moment, resigned
but not surprised. "Yes, Mulder?"

"You sound like a broken record, Scully." I push past
her roughly, wanting to get a rise out of her. Fight
with me, Scully. I'll do anything. Just look at me,
for chrissakes!

She folds her arms and leans back against the door,
watching me like I'm a nervous puppy on new carpet.
She'd probably just say, "No, Mulder", and rub my nose
in it.

Okay. Time for some of my psychoanalytic genius to
come gushing forth. "You're angry."

She sighs. "No, Mulder".

Damn. Note to psychoanalytic genius: stop asking yes
or no questions.

"Yes, you are. Why?"

She looks at me finally, and I can see why she has
avoided it all day. She knows I'm afraid of fire.

"I'm not angry with you. I'm angry with myself."  Red
eyes belie her outward calm, and my daylong urge to
throttle her becomes a desire to hold her in my arms.

"I think I made a mistake."

Bless me Mulder for I have sinned. You were right
about Diana and I was wrong. I'll take anything along
those lines. No sense making this hard for her.

"About Diana?" 

When she looks up at me this time, the fire is gone.
The heat is still there though, because something has
melted. It's dripping slowly down her face. She takes 
a deep breath and looks away. That one breath sucks
all the oxygen out of the room. 

"About staying."

Waitaminutewaitaminutewaitaminute. My head is spinning
and I feel an urge to grab onto something to steady
myself. My hands fall to the chair in front of me, and
I hold on for dear life.

Didn't we do this already?

"But, but Scully, I need you. I meant that..."

She nods too quickly and I know I'm in trouble. "You
do need me, Mulder. To do your autopsies and your
paperwork. How hard was it to find a coroner willing
to go along with your insanity before I showed up? You
must have been so relieved. Collecting forensic
evidence must have been a real bitch."

I shake my head as she talks, but nothing will stop
the torrent of words coming from her. Or the tears.
"Scully, please don't do this now."

"When, Mulder? When you're gone off God knows where
and I have nothing to show for the last five years of
my life? When would be a good time for you?" 

Five years. Five years I've taken from her. The guilt
in my eyes drops into my tears, the weight of it
pulling them down my cheeks.

"Scully, I..." I take a step forward, wondering when
things got so out of control.

Even husky with tears, her voice is surprisingly calm.
"What are you going to do to get me to stay this time,
Mulder. Fuck me?"

I've been shot before. A few times. Felt the bullet
pierce my skin. The instant hot/cold of the bullet,
the searing pain. The rush of adrenaline followed by
the shock, the cold that comes with the loss of blood.
Weakness, numbness if you're lucky. But mostly the
gut-wrenching pain.

That was a paper-cut compared to this.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

He stands there, looking at me with that wounded gaze
I've come to expect from Repentant Mulder. His body
folds in on itself, crouching to deflect the next blow
from any vital organs.

"I don't know what you want me to say, Scully."

His voice is deep and low, strumming across my frayed
nerves. I close my eyes for a moment, then shake my
head sadly. It's really over now. Whatever we'd had
had been dying for so long, it just seemed cruel to
keep pumping artificial life back into it. Being the
doctor, I needed to be the one to pull the plug. Do
not rescusitate. Do not use any extreme measures.

"It's too late for words to fix this, Mulder."

I expect sadness from him. I expect pouting. Even a
few tears. 

What I don't expect is anger.

"Maybe I don't want to fix it."

I whirl around to see the stony expression on his
face. He's standing so close now, towering over me.

"You've made it very clear how unhappy you are here.
So just go, Scully, just go." 

I stare, having lost my place in this argument. "I've
WHAT? You have..."

"No." He is full of indignant anger, his body is
shivering, but he never raises his voice. "No. Before
you were sick you couldn't wait to get away from me.
Ran off to Philadelphia and shacked up with the first
guy you saw. Then you got sick and decided staying
with me was only mildly preferable to dying alone. And
once you were better again, it wasn't even a year
before you were practically at the airport. You
weren't even gonna tell me to my face, Scully. You
were going to leave and you weren't...you weren't even
going to tell me." His last words gasp for air, as
though long-buried.

"How did that make you feel, Mulder? Betrayed? Like
you'd lost your best..." I stop, realizing I'm talking
about me, not him. "Besides, I'm telling you now. Is
this better?"

He spreads his hands open wide and I have to hold
myself back. It is not an invitation.

"Over Diana? I've had other informants. Even if you
didn't believe them, you were willing to check out
their stories. Over this--you're leaving?"

I don't know if I really meant it, but I am overcome
with vengeance. To mock him the way he had mocked me.

"You won't be alone, now, Mulder. You'll have her."

"Scully, I don't want her, I ..." He swallows a sob,
and rests his head in his hands. "Please don't make me
say it like this."

"What? That you love me?" I am consumed with the need
to inflict pain on him, and it is as unfamiliar to me
as his betrayal. I hurl his own words back at him like
a magician snatching glinting knives in midair.
"Mulder, you're making this personal." I lower my
voice, out of respect for the dead. I know I have
killed whatever chances we had. 

"You don't love me, you never have."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

I don't understand. I thought this was a little
disagreement, not a major blowup. Oh, God, how did
this happen? A million words run through my mind as I
try to find one that will fit perfectly into the vast
space now between us. Analyzing, but no match.

I just sit there, ducking my head to deflect the
blows.

My hands knead my hair, wanting to touch her. If I can
just touch her, everything will be okay. One finger
along the side of her face will erase the pain in her
eyes. The bright haze of her anger will lift, and my
Scully will come back to me.

Unless I am the cause of that pain. What am I doing?
Why do I keep hurting her? I love her. But I can't
tell her that now. She ripped it away from me, stole
the magic those words hold for me when I think of her,
and rendered me mortal. Do not look at the man behind
the green curtain. He is only a lovesick fool.

I stand again, still drunk from the sudden tilt of my
world on its axis.

I reach out a hand to her, but find myself paralyzed
by the mere thought of her absence. I have to stop
hurting her.

"I can't stop you from leaving, Scully." Her gaze is
suspicious, questioning.  "I just, I don't know how to
live without you anymore. Just promise me you won't
hate me. I can't live with that--knowing you hate me."
I suck in a deep breath, preparing to really lie to
her for the first time. "I could live without loving
you, if you just promise to be my friend." Okay. It's
a lie. A small one in the great scheme of things, but
a lie nonetheless. 
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

He walks to my door, his giant strides causing the
floor to vibrate beneath me. I slump into the chair
behind me, anger burning my face. Be his friend. Sure.
No problem. We'll do lunch.

I cover my face with my hands, incredulous at what he
has asked of me. My mind immediately assesses the
situation, indexing the causal factors for this
condition. And as much as I know we bring about our
own destiny, our own fate, my mind keeps circling back
to the one person who I will hold responsible for this
for the rest of my life.

DianaDianaDiana. The name that has become a nauseating
mantra ringing in my brain suddenly transforms itself
into something much more insidious. I raise my head,
and hope that my trembling is obscured by the shadows.

"Diana. That's why you never called me Dana, isn't
it?" And I know it is true before his eyes betray him.

He opens his mouth, emitting a silence that confirms
my fears. My face, my voice, linked to her name.
Painful, longing memories evoked by the difference of
one damn letter. Even his subconscious interchanging
the two of us sickens me. 

"At first, maybe. Does it really make a difference
now, Scully?" I don't answer, and he heads for the
door again.

That is what this whole argument has been about,
really. We have faced what we must give up to have
each other. A normal life. Other people. And we have
asked ourselves if it was worth it. So afraid the
other would give us an answer we couldn't bear.
Dragged into the abyss of each other, we'd almost lost
ourselves.

I watch his hand reach for the chain lock, sliding it
into place.  

He's not leaving.

He leans back against the door, sad eyes promising me
things I have never asked of him. He has come to the
same realization I have. I open my mouth before my own
words come back to haunt me. Too late for words...too
late.

Does what happened between them change what happened
between us? I don't know. I don't know that he is all
that I need to make me happy. But I do know that
without him, the rest of my world would fade to black
and white.

I've sort of gotten used to technicolor.

"You said at first. What about now?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
In the handbook titled, "Working with Agent Scully",
I'm sure the next chapter would be titled, "Don't
Become Possessive". And yet that seems to be what I'm
about to do. I've never really been one for going by
the book anyway.

I kneel in front of her, a light touch on her neck
asking her to look at me. Please. Please understand
me, Scully. I don't understand myself sometimes, but
you seem to have the secret decoder ring. 

"Now? You're my Scully. You have been for so long..."
The stabbing pain in my chest reminds me that she
won't be anymore. It wrecks me. I helplessly drop my
cheek into her lap, and wait for the guillotine to
drop.

But instead of a sharp slice of death, there is only
the feel of her tiny fingers dancing through my hair.
I've never been much of an optimist, but I think
maybe, just maybe, I have received a stay of
execution.

"I don't hate you," she says softly. And I can hear
the relief in her voice as she realizes it's the
truth.

"I don't hate you, too," I  answer in a voice drowsy
with relief and the calming motion of her hands. It is
only when foreign teardrops fall over my lips that I
lift my head. She shies away from my glances, but I
draw her chin back toward me. "Hey." 

I stand before her then, reaching out with my heart,
my soul, my body, and one hand.

There is no hesitation when she returns my gesture,
and I know then that she is mine.

And I am hers.

Her voice is a warm whisper that floats and rises to
my ears. "I love you so much. I could never love
anyone else."

I bite my lip, but tears squeeze from my closed eyes
anyway. Traitors. "Say it again." Okay, so I'm weak.

"I love you."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

My lips melt into his, and I feel like I'm floating. 

Wait a minute. 

I am.

He's holding me about a foot off the ground. I can
rest my elbows on his shoulders. 

Bliss. People may think they know what that word
means, but they couldn't possibly; I just discovered
it.

His lips pull away from mine, and I mumble a protest,
but then he places long kisses on my eyelids, my
forehead, even my nose.

"I've loved you for so long, I don't think I could
stop now, even if you wanted me to," he whispers.

I shake my head, leaning in to kiss him again. "I
don't want you to," I breathe into his lips.

The beginnings of a smile are erased by my lips on
his, and I feel his hands tighten around my waist as
he puts me back down. Slowly he pulls away again, and
I look up enviously, to where I was moments before.

He lifts his hands from my waist to my face. "I love
you. You know that, don't you?"

I nod, and feel the tears come again.

Of course I know. But..."What about Diana?" 

He pushes my hair off my face, replacing it with his
mouth. He kisses his way up my jaw, stopping only to
whisper in my ear.

"Diana is just business. This is personal."

Yes. Yes it is.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Two weeks later
Scully's apartment
3:23 am

He calls out for me in his sleep, and I turn gently on
the mattress, trying not to wake him. The slightest
touch of my hand on his arm is enough to clear the
static of his mind, and his breathing again becomes
even and deep.

As I run my hand over his warm skin, I wonder if he
has called for me before, when he was alone. How many
times?

I bite my lip, then begin placing tiny kisses along
his back. One press of my lips for each time I wasn't
there, each time we denied ourselves the comfort of
each other. It is a long time before I fall asleep
with a promise in my head.

One I hope that I can keep.

The end

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eksphyl@yahoo.com

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