Ewa
E-mail: ewa@whatewa.com

RATING:  G
CATEGORY: V
SPOILER: Season 8,up to PER MANUM
KEYWORDS: D/S D POV

SUMMARY: Why is her trust so important?
DISCLAIMER: Any characters you recognize belong to Mr.
Carter & Co. Doesn't stop me messing with them though,
purely for the fun of it, monetary gain has never been an
issue here.

ARCHIVES: You mean, I don't have to pay? Let me know
where it's gone please! Please keep declaimer etc with
it.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Just when I thought I'd never write again,
the muse returned, a little rusty but it's here.

Feedback is always valued

Visit me and read my other x-phile stories at
http://www.whatewa.com

07.08.02

TRUST SOMEONE, TRUST ME

I'm shattered, both physically and emotionally, as I
come in through my door and wearily climb the stairs to
the bedroom and fall on to the bed, not even bothering to
shuck off my shoes. The events of the past 24 hours
events have been a revelation.

Why?

The question ricochets around my brain like a ball in a
pinball machine, making no sense as it bounces off
thought after thought. Why? Why is this so important?

I lie in the darkness; thin shards of streetlight
penetrate the blinds and cast ghostly shadows in the
pitch-dark.

Why now? When I should be feeling so elated, why do I
feel such incredible melancholy?

My mind skips back to the beginning, to that first time.

Rumors about Agent Fox Mulder and his partner Agent
Scully were endemic around the building and in the men's
room and were offensive to say the least.

So her partner had disappeared, so what was it to do with
me?  Plenty it seemed, as Deputy Director Kersh made
clear to me. Shut the 'X-Files' shut down, discredit
Mulder's work, and I would go far career-wise, the Deputy
Director implied. I had been granted carte blanche to do
this.

Yes, I was annoyed to have been made to team up with the
woman, but even more so at the prospect of being used.
Still it was only to be for a short time, get in there,
do the business and be out.
 
Ice Queen, Mrs. Spooky, ferociously loyal partner,
paranoid loser, these descriptions and more scrambled
through my head at my first rather damp meeting of
Special Agent Dana Katherine Scully MD. I thought I'd
have a little fun while laying down the ground rules;
show her who was going to be boss from now on. Baiting
her should have been entertaining and there should have
felt some pleasure at her stunned expression as she
grappled with the fact that she didn't know her partner
quite as well as she thought.

She recovered well, dousing me with cold water for my
temerity before she walked out of the room. Why did the
look in her eyes made me feel like a complete ass-hole?

My first assignment as leader of the FBI Task Force to
find Mulder also gave me an opportunity to get to know
Agent Scully. I found there was a bleak emptiness
somewhere behind her blue eyes that reached inside me and
drew me to her, an echo of what I felt inside myself,
sadness I suspected most people didn't see.

And why was getting another desk down into that dim
office such a big deal? The name plate, what to call her,
my diligence in going through all their files, why was
this all so significant to her?  Agent Scully did not
want to let me into their world, I felt her bitter
resistance, but step by painful step she had to concede
some areas. Each time I felt I'd won the battle but lost
the war.

Once my re-assignment leaked out I seemed to get real
popular with the guys, they were worst than the typing-
pool for wanting to hear all the gossip. Had I
embellished the facts, I'd be more popular still, though
I found myself trying to avoid the guy's, especially if
she was in the vicinity.

She was so independent, yet every now and then there
would be a spark of defenselessness in her eyes,
vulnerability she would never admit to, and sadness, such
sadness. She fought for her partner's work and beliefs
every step of the way, for what he'd achieved, what she
considered was now being eroded and devalued. A gray veil
of anguish emanated from her, I could see it, feel it in
the weight of the air, smell the leaden scent, taste the
bitter pain.

Their relationship was so much conjecture and rumor, so
much I couldn't work out. There was a lot more to it all
I felt, something indefinable, the cause of her pain.

Once, I found her sleeping in Mulder's apartment. Curled
up on his bed cuddling his shirt, she looked so small,
almost childlike.  Her eyes were puffy where she'd cried
herself to sleep, traces of tears still not quite dry on
her cheeks. In the moments she become aware of my
presence there was such an air of fragility about her. I
felt an overwhelming need to comfort her, except I knew
she didn't want that from me. I gazed down at her for a
long moment then finally turned away to give her the
space she required and let her off the hook.

My entire time in the Marines and NYPD did not prepare me
for the sort of shit I saw over the next couple of months
and I grew to respect and admire her; her tenacity, her
professionalism and in those weeks, to my surprise, I had
occasion to change my more traditional methods of
investigation.

When did things start turning around? When did I start
wanting us to be part of the team? When did we become
*us*?  When did I start hearing what she said, seeing
things from a different angle?

As the cases we worked got weirder so did my need for her
to trust me become of the essence to me. She was driven,
encouraging me to open my mind to possibilities I would
have previously found unconscionable. Every now and then
I'd glimpse what our relationship could be like if only
she would trust me. And the comprehension that I didn't
want a sexual relationship with her threw me for a loop.
I wanted her to be my friend, to know she could rely on
me to be there for her. I wanted to take away that aura
of sadness and despair hanging over her, to make her
smile and to be part of that special relationship she
appeared to have with Skinner, and which to my shame I
felt a little jealous of.

My need to protect her when that slug-like creature was
implanted in her stunned me. I couldn't get what had
happened to her out of my head, and it was more than
guilt, more than a futile desire to help her and salve my
conscience. I became aware then that there was more
involved, that Skinner knew, but I wasn't to be told, I
wasn't to be trusted with the secret.

I should have known better than to be haunted by a woman
with frightened eyes who needed a champion, a knight in
shining armor and however foolish, it seemed I needed to
be that knight.

Although she had an air of sorrow about her, but she was
far from impotent when it came to work. I've seen men who
towered over her; shrivel at the sound of her commanding
voice or the sight of he flashing blue eyes. You do not
mess with Agent Scully. She would watch my back just as
rigorously as I watched hers and I believe her
intervention stopped me killing myself during my
experiences with the phenomenon of Via Negativa when I
believe a madman invaded my dreams. I'd have rather done
that than harm her, no big macho thing, just our
relationship changing.

When did she start letting me in, when did we start
trusting one another in our odd, guarded way? When did I
begin to read between the lines?

For some reason, she cried off some of the cases, with it
seemed, the full backing of Assistant Director Skinner.
In some instances he'd partner me and it was on one such
case that Agent Scully arranged I met and worked with
Mulder's wacky friends, the Lone Gunmen.

Inadvertently I discovered she'd been hospitalized for
abdominal pains. I was never told, never given an
explanation, but then I didn't need an explanation and
the need in me to protect her, to guard her well being
suddenly become paramount. In my thorough studies of the
X-Files I'd come across two folders that related to her
specifically. I didn't imagine Agent Scully, with her air
of dignity and vulnerability, being comfortable with me
knowing about them or with my need to be there for her.

My gut feeling told me that Agent Dana Scully had a lot
of secrets, those that caused the bleak wasteland in her
gaze and those that caused the aura of danger surrounding
her. She hadn't lied to me, but she hadn't told me the
entire truth, but then, she knew next to nothing about
me. I was not a man that the faint-of-heart could exist
alongside. As a man who'd lived through his own personal
hell and had survived I felt her need for privacy and
would back off, letting her share with me as much as she
felt capable of. I hadn't been open with her over many
things including Luke but sometimes there is empathy
between us, without reason or explanation. We built up a
sort of rapport, where each of us had permission to read
between the lines, so long as nothing was ever said.

I developed a certain sixth sense where she was
concerned, so when she asked me to be her eyes and ears
on a case I didn't question her motives, supporting her
decision not to go down with me into the tunnels. I
wouldn't have let her go down there in any case.

"Let's go home." Such a short little sentence, except
hearing it from her when she came to spring me from
hospital that time meant more to me than could be
expressed
 

She tried so hard to walk in Mulder's footsteps, to think
as he 'd done, to make the same leaps of logic and when
she thought she'd failed she was consumed with self-
reproach. I hate seeing women cry, and the single tear
escaping and making its way down her cheek was almost
more than I could bear. I felt my gut twisting with my
inability to help her, to comfort her. I wanted to hold
her, to tell her it would be okay, not to beat herself up
like that. Instead, I kept my hands firmly in my pocket.
This was not what she needed, she had to remain in
control, that was the only way she could cope alone; and
she was alone, for neither Skinner nor I could ever come
anywhere near to Mulder.

For all the progress we'd made I still didn't know,
couldn't understand, So much finagling and obfuscating,
until tonight that is. Suddenly everything is clear.

I sat at her bedside waiting for her to wake up, her
cinnamon hair fanning out on the white pillow, the only
splash of color in this aseptic room. My mind is in
turmoil. How many other people knew?  She's fourteen
weeks pregnant! It explains so much. How could I have
been so blind?

On the sterile hospital bed she seems so small, so
vulnerable like a fine porcelain cup that you see in
antique shops, the kind a guy is afraid to pick up
because it might break if he held it too tight, but that
in itself is a delusion. I know her now, she is like a
willow, strong and pliant and no matter what, she will
bend but they won't break her. I watched as she roused,
trying to focus on whoever is keeping vigil over her.
Fleetingly her eyes shone with love and longing before
fully conscious, she saw I was not the one she needed at
her bedside and the joy flickered and died in her azure
eyes.

She looked so crushed when I told her I knew, momentarily
I thought she would crumble before my eyes, but Dana
Scully is made of stronger stuff than that!

She looked at me, moisture shimmering in her eyes and at
that moment I knew our relationship altered. I feel her
trust in me and I believe she knows now that I will never
betray that trust, no matter what. I feel privileged to
be so trusted and extraordinarily shy and self-conscious.
The only comforting gesture I can make is to reassuringly
squeeze her shoulder as I reaffirm the promise I've made
myself, but this time to her. I'll find Mulder for her. I
*will* protect this woman and her unborn child no matter
what, until the time Mulder returns. She's got me now to
add to her ragged band of knights. She has someone to
trust, she has me.
 

FIN
08.11.02