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For all the big words he believed in, truth, justice, honesty, trust, he broke them all today. And with none other, than the one person who stood for all of them. Shame filled his veins, purple like sour grapes. She was right, it was time to chose whom to trust.
She was home and despite the late hour, the lights were on. Scully open the door without a word and he followed her to the kitchen. He knew some of the pictures that lay all over the table, freshly printed, each one clipped to at least one sheet of paper. He recognized the long paragraphs. She was sorting through what she had in her own private archive, her reports and notes and photographs she must have saved for reference over the years. Technically they were not supposed to keep such data on private computers, but everybody did it. It wasn’t everything they lost in the fire, but it was a start. Between her archive and his, they might recover at least a third of every case file they ever worked on, maybe more. She was doing her part to restore what they lost. A sudden stab of shame pierced his chest.
Scully sat down without speaking and went back to her task.
He picked up one of the few photos that were’t prints from her computer. “Is that from the Budahas case?”
“Yeah,” she smiled faintly. “I made a copy some time ago. After what you did, I wanted to frame it and give it to you, as a gift.”
Mulder knelt beside her and she finally looked at him. At home, in her home clothes, stripped of armor of business suits and heels her frayed emotions were showing. This Scully was vulnerable.
“It’s probably nothing compared to what you saw in the Arctic.” She said a little sad.
There was no sarcasm in her tone, only regret that she couldn’t give him the proof he so desperately needed or reassurance he wanted. He couldn’t take it anymore, the back and forth between them in addition to the world seemingly falling apart around them. Since he didn’t have the power to stop the world, he could at least try to restore their balance.
Not so long ago they were in a situation just like this one. The truth was out there and it was up to them to bring it to light, together. In the yellow light of his hallway he called her out on her bullshit excuses and, fear be damned, for once in his life tried to stake his claim. Unfortunately the truth they both so desperately sought, crawled out from beneath her collar and almost killed them both. Not tonight though, tonight the light of truth was upon them, illuminating every corner of their shared world.
“When Duane Barry took you,” he started softly, keeping his eyes on the photograph in his hands, “I felt angry and detached, a few steps shy from realizing, there was nothing to hold me here anymore. Nothing but rage, and that would be a short and straight path down into the void. But you came back.” Her eyes were on him now, but pressed on.
“Then it was cancer. I watched you fight the disease, keeping me at arms length, something I only recently came to understand. I don’t know how bad it really was, but to watch you wasting away before my eyes, would probably drag us both into the ground. I wouldn’t be strong enough to leave your side and pick up the fight,” his heart ached still when he thought of her sunken eyes, of her diary, of the goodbyes.
“On that last night before the hearing, before I came to ask if I was doing the right thing, I sat in your room and thought of all the things we didn’t do. The little, simple things, conversations, trips, movies, morning coffees, things people did every day and which we would miss. That was the moment I realized I loved you, and that I need you to live, even if we’d stay nothing more than friends. I wouldn’t regret a day I got to spend with you, future or past. ” The photo in his hand was shaking slightly, but his resolve never wavered.
“Now Diana is back, and I see you’re anxious, about me, about her, about what that might change between us. It never crossed my mind but I should have told you then and there. I was serious when I said you're my one in five billion, I thought you believed me. That's why I never thought to stop and tell you that me and Diana, it was nothing more than a memory." Kneeling before her, this was his confession.
“I didn’t want us to be pushed into making declarations for the benefit of others, that's why I didn't want Gibson to say anything in front of Diana, because it was none of her business.”
“I’ve met her straight out of the academy, I was young and stoked up on my reputation, she wanted the golden boy, someone with enough clout to get the X-files opened. She wanted them because of her fascination with the paranormal, for me it was more personal.”
“My name and reputation opened a lot of doors back then. When spooky Mulder still meant spookily good at profiling psychopaths. We got the job through contacts I made in the Congress and dived in, but once it turned out the X Files were a dead end for her career, she jumped ship and left me. I stayed, because I believed.”
“Diana may have the background and faith in the paranormal,“ he looked up, into her eyes, looking for understanding, “but she’s not like us Scully, she only believes the truth as long as it serves her gain.” This was the hard truth he learned, the choice he thought Scully knew he already made.
“You, you’re different, you’re so much better than her, than me. You see the truth and you see the lies and you know which is which," he cupped her cheek and she leaned a little into his palm, "you light up the path.”
“It’s you Scully, you’re the most important person in my life, and I don’t want you to think that anything Diana says or does could ever change that.”
She slipped of the chair, onto her knees before him and with a sigh rested her forehead against his. A tear rolled down her cheek and he caught it, wiping it away as she put her arms around him.
“Mulder, the truth we seek isn’t just for us, it’s for the world to see, and we still need proof. Substantial, tangible, scientific, rock-solid proof of everything we know to be true. That’s what I want. I believe you, and I trust you, but we will disagree and I will question your assumptions just as I always did.”
He chuckled slightly and brushed the tip of his nose against hers, “I woudn’t expect anything less from you.”
“I don’t trust her,” her tone turned serious, “her report, her sudden return and taking over our work, something’s not right. I don’t know what yet, but I will find out,” she paused for a second then added, “and you might not like me for it sometimes.”
Her breath was warm, just as that night in the hallway, it clouded his mind and made his heart run faster.
“Scully” he sighed and in that sigh was all the disbelief he had for that last notion.
Mulder pulled back and they looked at each other as words failed them, just like when she came to tell him goodbye. He dropped the photo and his hand drifted up to her side, ready to finish what he started in his hallway on that fateful night.
In the soft warm light of her kitchen lamp, kneeling on the floor, having served his penance, she finally absolved him, forgave him all this transgressions against them and with the first brush of her lips against his, opened a new chapter in their story. And the kiss was just the beginning.