A Fading Shimmer of Gold Part 7 of 7
Sarah Kingman
Author: Sarah Kingman
email: sarahk...@yahoo.com
Previous parts to this series can be found on my website:
http://www.envy.nu/kingman
Keywords: This is not a happy story. No character death,
but this is not a happy story. I guess you could say it's
post-Requiem...Scully's pregnant and Mulder's back.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine, never were, never will be
Archive: Yes
_____
A Fading Shimmer of Gold Part 7
by Sarah Kingman
He stood before her door again; it had been four days, but
he was certain now that he was ready. The task would be
difficult, but it was no longer daunting.
Talk to Scully. It was something they had avoided for so
very long. Now they had to give, and they had to take.
Both of them.
He knocked with surety this time, not allowing himself to
hesitate, and for a terrifying instant was afraid she might
not be at home; he knew it would take forever to reach this
moment of courage again.
He breathed a sigh of relief when the door swung open, and
smiled, a smile which died a quick death when he saw her
face. Her hair was mussed, her eyes red, her face pale, she
was dressed in old pajamas, and he vaguely recalled having
seen them somewhere before, perhaps on one of their earliest
cases together.
"Come in," she said, her voice roughened from emotion, and
he didn't pause to wonder at her lack of surprise at his
appearance.
He obeyed, sinking to a chair without her invitation,
because the last few days had been hard on him physically,
and in spite of his fragile confidence, his body was
exhausted.
She took a good look at him then, seeing the paleness of his
skin, the circles beneath his haunted eyes, and grinned
without mirth.
"You look like hell."
"So do you," he returned, no rancor in his voice, only
truth.
"I've been thinking," she admitted, and he noticed for the
first time, the papers scattered about the floor. He looked
more closely and realized they were his; at least they
contained his name, but the data therein was unfamiliar to
him.
"What is this?" He touched it with the toe of his sneaker,
wondering if it had fallen to the floor or been deliberately
scattered in a fit of anger or frustration.
"Medical records," she said shortly. "Yours. Supposedly."
He raised curious eyes. "Supposedly?"
She fished around the papers, withdrawing a few and handing
them to him, and he took them with fingers that trembled,
scanning them quickly before returning them to her.
"I've never seen that doctor in my life," he told her
flatly.
"I know. I know that now."
He closed his eyes tightly, relieved to note he didn't have
to concentrate on his breathing any longer.
"Him?"
She nodded. "He impersonated me once, too."
"So you thought..."
"I thought you were dying."
He digested the information, forcing himself to do it
slowly, one word at a time, safely.
"...thought..."
"...you..."
"...were..."
"...dying..."
"That must have been devastating for you," he offered at
last.
She looked surprised. "It hurt to believe you'd keep it
from me."
"But you did believe it."
For a long time, he thought she wouldn't answer. "I
shouldn't have," she admitted at last. "After all we've
been through, I should have known."
It was his turn to be silent, and the ticking of the clock
on her wall filled the room with seconds, more seconds
wasted between them. "When you were returned," he said at
last, hesitant but knowing the subject must be broached, "I
couldn't face your death. I tried to run away."
She nodded. "I know. Missy told me."
He made a noise of self-deprecating humor.
"But the important thing, Mulder, is that you came."
He stared at the floor, afraid to meet her eyes.
"And that I searched for you."
He sighed. It was a truth, one he knew he had to accept if
they were to ever go forward.
There was another long moment of silence, not uncomfortable
this time, and she held out her hand. He stared at it,
longingly, feeling an inkling of the trust he used to feel,
knowing it was all there buried beneath the surface if he
could only find it.
And he wanted to find it.
Slowly, slowly, his fingers extended, brushing
the tips of hers gently before sliding to lock with them,
breaching an immeasurable gulf he'd previously thought
unreachable.
They sat that way, unmoving, for a long time, and at last he
broke the embrace, not because he wanted to pull away, but
because his fingers were growing numb. She smiled slightly,
and he knew without asking that she felt the same thing.
"I have an appointment in the morning."
He raised his eyebrow at her sudden change of subject.
"An appointment?"
"With Dr. Sheffield. Would you like to hear your daughter's
heartbeat, Mulder?"
A smile broke out across his face, the feeling unfamiliar,
but not unwelcome.
"Life goes on."
"Whether we want it to or not," she agreed.
He pulled her quickly into his arms, his ear pressed against
her abdomen as if hoping to hear the miracle they'd created
at once.
"But now, Scully...now, I think maybe I do."
He moved away after a while, breaking the mood along with
the embrace. It was a beginning, yes, but their
relationship was still far from being repaired.
"I should go."
She clutched at his hand for a brief instant. "We'll talk
again?"
"Of course," he promised.
"Will you go with me tomorrow?"
He gave a slight shrug. "Let me call you later."
He knew she wanted more, but it was the best he could give
her at the time, and after a moment she nodded reluctantly.
At the door he paused, turning back to see her hopeful eyes.
"We've both made mistakes, Scully."
She nodded.
"We have a lot to forgive."
"But we can do it, Mulder. Can't we?"
"I hope so, Scully. I do hope so."
Back in his apartment, which he would soon come to think of
as "home," he vowed to himself, he closed the door quietly,
forced himself to prepare a sandwich, and sat in front of
the silent television, munching it solemnly. It had been a
long day--a long week. The time spent with Skinner had been
productive, if painful, and he had finally allowed himself
to feel, losing not his sanity in the process, as he'd
feared, but instead shedding some of the awful weight of
despair that had shrouded him for so long.
He thought of Scully, of all she had endured since becoming
his partner, and the wonder was not that she hadn't spent
every waking moment searching for him; the wonder was that
she was still there at all. He still felt anger at her
perceived abandonment, and jealousy that she had worked with
someone else while he'd been gone, that he had not consumed
every one of her thoughts, but he knew it was time to begin
letting go.
He wondered what less than stellar emotions she felt toward
him, based upon his actions of the past and present.
Certainly she had the right to feel them, even as did he.
That fact was indisputable. The only question that remained
was what they would choose.
Everything was a choice. Skinner had been right. It was up
to him to choose to live or die.
He reached over to the desk and opened the drawer, making no
move to touch the dimness of the plate inside at first. She
had put it away, and he no longer cared what her reasons
might have been. He wanted to know them, someday, but not
now. It seemed right, somehow, that he be the one to remove
it from its exile, the one to choose to live, and he did,
slowly and reverently, holding it up to the light so the
letters gleamed as they once had.
"I didn't die, after all," he commented to the empty room.
"Only hibernated for a while."
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The END of it all
Feedback is manna!
Author's notes: In the course of writing and posting this
story, I heard from those who thanked me for taking Mulder's
side, and those who thanked me for making Mulder out to be
a jerk--it was interesting to read all the differing
perspectives with which people read the story. In the end,
I only tried to listen to the characters in my head, and do
what they would have me do. While I don't think this is
the scenario CC is or ever would show us, the joy of fanfic
is the fact that it brings about so many possible endings.
This is only one.
Sarah
TedFan
Sarah Kingman
Anyway, you can find the whole thing on my website, either
in parts or in one 50k txt file:
Thanks for your interest!
Sarah
TedFan wrote in message <20001211170837...@ng-bk1.aol.com>...