Work Text:
Disclaimer: No profit, no money, no foul, no sue.
Spoilers/Setting: Mulder’s thoughts during a scene in X-Files: I Want to Believe
Final Completion Date: 11/03/08
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Mulder stood in the falling snow and really looked at Scully. Looked at her like he not done in a long time. At the hardness of her face, the intensity in her eyes – an intensity born not of her convictions, but of her refusal to let him in. What the hell was she doing – coming here to Father Joe’s? She did not believe, she had never believed in things like this. Not with Boggs, not with Clyde Bruckman. Not once did she really think it could really be true.
It had been sixteen years and he could still see her standing in the rain with him Oregon, arguing like there was no tomorrow. The freshest, most naïve face. She was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen. Intelligent, graceful, courageous. He could always see that young woman in her, lurking in the depths of her eyes - but not tonight. This was someone different. When had she changed? When had she stopped letting him in? Scully would always talk to him, at least tell him what she was thinking, usually try to draw him out into a debate. Now, it was just a solid wall of silence. Determination had turned her into intractable marble.
Who had she become? A doctor? She dealt with living patients now, not corpses. They received the blessing of her bedside manner. This physician standing in front of him was someone else, truly Dr. Dana Scully. The FBI agent he had spent so long disagreeing with and challenging and learning to love was gone.
Or maybe it was him that had changed? Had he spent so long locked away in that office, looking for answers to an unanswerable quest, that he had grown stale? Complacent? A crazed recluse?
The FBI agents were loading back up. Leaving him behind. Mulder looked at Scully standing there, her silence enveloping her like armor. This wasn’t working, not for either one of them.
He made a snap decision. He had to go – he had to discover the truth. Not only about this case, but about himself. Mulder walked away from this person, wrapped in Scully’s glorious hair and shining eyes. Walked away from the only thing he had ever truly trusted.
Maybe he could find himself again. And she would be willing to come home.
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the end
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serafine