By X-Phylia
xphylia@yahoo.com
 

Disclaimer: They belong to who they belong to. And
it ain't me!
Category: MA, UST
Spoilers: Paper Hearts
Rate: PG
Archive: Sure, just let me know first
Feedback: Of course
Author notes: at the end

"Lonesome"
By X-Phylia

The hour guaranteed silence. Almost midnight in the
Hoover Building, they were probably the only two
agents in the office at such ungodly hours. Skinner
had left about half an hour ago, after reaming
Mulder for his wildly irresponsible actions that
ended up with his shooting John Lee Roche - and
thus eliminating the only lead to clarify two
unsolved murders.

It was his job and he was right, but Scully wished
Skinner had been a bit more gentle with Mulder. Now
he was sitting on his desk, unmoving, staring at
his sister's picture with an expression capable of
breaking a chrome-cast heart.

He didn't really care much about the reprimand, in
the same way that commendations weren't all that
important to him. It was the search, the truth...
But he almost had a little girl killed, and he was
not any closer to solving his sister's mystery than
he had been two days earlier. So it had been for
nothing.

Scully fidgeted with her purse, deciding whether
she should stay or leave. She wasn't extremely
happy with him, Skinner's rant had been directed
mainly to Mulder, but she had gotten part of it too
- and she had been less than thrilled to begin with
to have been assigned 'babysitting' duties.

In all the time they had worked together, Scully
realized that for Mulder there two kinds of cases:
the ones that were somehow related with his family
and the ones that were not. No one could deny that
Mulder was a more than competent, sometimes
downright brilliant agent. He might seem a little
out there for the strict FBI codes, but he rarely
failed to get results. However, when things got
personal, he shifted from detached professional to
irrational maverick, doing things that defied logic
and common sense like driving from Cape Cod to DC
half-drugged and a fever of 102 F, departing to
Alaska to track down an allegedly alien pilot by
himself, or running to Canada with an alleged
miracle healer leaving her behind without
explanations.

He had so much pain inside, so much heartache, and
nights like this kept accumulating on him like bags
of grovel on a mule's back. What if he never found
the truth about Samantha? How much more was he
willing to take, to sacrifice? Why couldn't he go
on with his life, instead of trying to fulfill a
twelve-year-old's promise? He had *tried*, for
God's sake. He'd done his best.

There was no use in asking those questions. Mulder
was simply relentless. Last year, during a case, he
had claimed that not all his thoughts, actions,
feelings or motivations went back to Samantha. That
might be true, but the fact remained that few
things in his life, if any, were more important to
him than finding his long gone sister.

After having ordered her already neat workplace,
checked her email twice and perused several old
journals, Scully couldn't find any more excuses to
stick around the office. Mulder, on the other hand,
was still sitting quietly, apparently not paying
any attention to her or anything else but the
framed picture in his hands.

When she got up to leave, she approached him.

"Go home, Mulder. Get some sleep."

He nodded briefly, but it didn't look like he was
going to move anytime soon. The thought of going
back to his couch and start dreaming again about
the hearts wasn't appealing to him. He'd have to
wait until he almost passed out of exhaustion to
merely hope for three or four hours of interrupted
sleep. Right now though, even if his body seemed
quiet, his mind was on overdrive, torturing him
with images of the last couple of days, wondering
what he could have done differently so things
wouldn't have ended up so badly.

Scully instinctively knew this. "What's done it's
done," she said.

"Everything dies," he mused. "I'll never know."

It was how he said it more than the words
themselves that threatened to break Scully's heart.

"Yes, you will," she replied, carefully controlling
her voice. "We'll find the truth, Mulder."

He looked up at her for the first time and the
loneliness reflected in his eyes devastated her. He
didn't have anyone else with whom to share this
moment of doubt and pain, and Scully remembered how
easily he had slipped into her arms the night he
returned to his mother's side in that hospital in
Providence. It was hard to tell if he'd allow her
to comfort him this time, but he definitely looked
like he needed it.

Half-preparing herself for a not-too-graceful
rejection, Scully reached out to him and smiled
with satisfaction that once again her instincts
were right on the spot; not just by the way he
eagerly rested his forehead against her belly, his
arms were also tightly wrapped around her hips.

They stayed like that for a long time, in silence.
The only movement was Scully's hand caressing
Mulder's hair, or rubbing his shoulder, as if
trying to ease the pain caused by the world he
carried on them. She couldn't think of anything to
say to him, the moment was too fragile to threaten
it with meaningless words. It was better to just
hold him, and in the meantime find ways to justify
what she was doing, what she was feeling, because
Dana Scully wasn't ready to admit how much it hurt
seeing Mulder in that kind of pain.

Only when enough parts of the pieces were put
together in a somewhat precarious way, Mulder felt
it was safe to disentangle from Scully's warm
embrace. The deep sigh he exhaled sounded resigned,
like he would have preferred to stay in her arms
all night. Embarrassed, he quickly wiped away a
treacherous tear that had managed to escape his
eyes. Scully noticed it, but she smiled - that same
smile that often greeted him when he woke up
confused and disorientated in a hospital bed - and
let him know that she understood.

"Are you going to be okay?" She asked softly.

<I don't know, but can you please come home with me
and stay over, so I won't have to call you in the
middle of the night because I can't sleep? I need
you, Scully. I don't want to be alone, not
tonight.>

"Mulder?"

"Yeah... yeah, I'll be fine."

"Go home."

Scully left, reluctant to leave him alone, yet
afraid of going any further with. Before stepping
into the elevator she walked back down the hall and
heard the unmistakable sound of heart wrenching
sobs.

But she didn't go back in. Instead, she turned
around and walked away, her own tears fading what
was left of her make-up.

Fin.
Thanks for reading!

(Completely unnecessary) Notes:
This story - like so many others in my HD that
never saw the light - was written a long time ago.
I touched it up a little, but decided to keep the
UST and not turn it to MSR because it was what I
believed back then. As much as I love the idea of
MSR, I was sure that the moment it became obvious
on screen, it would mean the end of the show. And
look what happened!
This wasn't beta'ed so I apologize for the
mistakes.