In My Absence by Nynaeve e-mail: mtknigh@ibm.net Rating: G Category: V Spoilers: Tithonus Keywords: Scully angst Summary: Scully reflects on the difficulties of the recent case and what it means to her and Mulder. Date Complete: 2/1/99 Disclaimer: Yes, I know, they belong to Chris Carter, 1013, and a bunch of other legal entities. I am returning them, for the time being anyway. No Mulders or Scullys were harmed in the writing of this story. Dedication: As always, to Alyssa and Lilac who read all of these stories and give me good reviews. NY Medical Center I'm lying in this hospital bed. Another hospital bed. Sometimes it feels like I spend more time in hospitals than in my own bed. If it isn't me recovering from something, then it's Mulder. He is sitting next to me, as he has been for several hours now, holding my hand, talking softly, or just watching me. He tells me that Kersch is displeased with me. I think he probably now categorizes me with Mulder. "A lost cause". I look at Mulder. I recall the look on his face when he arrived, just after Ritter's departure. I wonder if he's making the same mental calculations I make, trying to think how many times we've been here. I wonder if he's thinking about the last time one of us was hospitalized. After his trip to the Queen Anne. Is he wondering if I'll make any sick bed confessions? I'm wondering if I'll make any sickbed confessions of my own. At the same time, I'm trying desperately to push that away, back into the part of my mind reserved for those sentiments. The part of my mind I do my ultimate to ignore. This case was painful in so many ways, for me. Kersch assigning me to work with someone else. I know, Skinner split us up once before, but we found ways to work together, to help each other. Skinner knew it and looked the other way. If Kersch makes this permanent, we would be through. *He* would not tolerate any continued involvement. He would toss one or both of us out of the Bureau. I try to decide if that would matter. I said I joined the Bureau to make a difference. I've stayed because I think Mulder and I can make a difference, have to, even. I'm beginning to wonder. Maybe we'd be better off away >from this, on our own. I can't say exactly when I realized that no matter what may come, I can't work with anyone but Mulder. I just realized it one day. Mulder is the only person I completely trust. Maybe it was the way he brought me my cross after I was returned. The way he always brings me that cross, whenever I lose it. Odd as it may seem, maybe that's a metaphor for the impact Mulder has had on my faith. I had turned away from that until the cancer. And it's doubtful that without my involvement with Mulder, I would have contracted that particular cancer anyway. Maybe it's all the times he's come after me, saved me. My brother Bill would say I wouldn't have needed saving if it weren't for Mulder in the first place. That doesn't matter though. I do know it's all the little things, not only the big ones, that have built the trust I have for Mulder, in Mulder. That was another part of this case that hurt, not being able to trust the person I was working with. Ritter is a good agent. He looks for solutions and finds them, I'm sure. His solutions just aren't mine. I have to admit, if only to myself, that was something of a shock. I told Felig I needed some science to hang his explanation on. I tried to tell myself that too, but deep down, I believed what he was saying. I believed in the extreme possibility he presented to me. Mulder never questioned the story that Felig told me, believed it, encouraged me to accept it. Ritter couldn't believe a word of it. Some of the things Ritter said cut, more deeply than I'd like to think. How he should have known, given Mulder's reputation, that I'd behave the way I did. I think I was hurt more for Mulder's sake than my own. Mulder has endured years of comments, slanders, accusations from nearly everyone he's worked with. And I used to believe them. Maybe I never said anything to Mulder directly, but my actions spoke volumes. I still deny much of what is in front of me and I know that hurts him. I can't explain why I cling so tenaciously to this science that no longer holds all the answers. Maybe I am afraid to make the commitment that Mulder has made, to let go of that which I always believed to be the absolute truth. My fear pains me, especially on cases like this. Ritter's answers were too easily come by and too difficult to substantiate. Without Mulder, I had to be the one to find another solution. It brought me face to face with that fear; I could not avoid it, let Mulder come up with the "crazy" ideas, and sit back and safely scoff. And then I feel I am not worthy of Mulder, who is not afraid to believe these things, who is not afraid to express his thoughts. It hurts to feel unworthy of him. Even when I debate with him the finer points of logic on an X File, I know I am worthy of his trust, because I do not do it to hurt him, and he knows this. He knows that I believe no matter what we may uncover it is science that will hold the answers, that will save us. When alone though, I cannot believe, nor can I be the complete skeptic. I have no integrity, in the sense of being wholly committed one way or the other. I was unaware until working with Ritter how much my partner's trust mattered to me. I value Mulder's trust in me, as a partner, as a friend. That trust has become like the air I breathe. Unequivocally necessary to my existence. To work with someone who did not trust me left a void, dare I say, in my soul. I have grown accustomed to sharing my thoughts with my partner, waiting for his response. I have grown accustomed to his sharing his thoughts with me, waiting for my response. Respecting each other's positions, learning from each other. Ritter wanted nothing from me, nothing other than simple agreement, maybe some ego stroking in the end. Mulder wants everything, on every case. I think I was unaware of how much I wanted to give everything, on every case, until this one. I couldn't connect with Ritter. How I have changed, that I chose instead to connect with Felig. It is amazing with how much power we imbue simple words at times. My mother calls me Dana, as do Bill and Tara. The few friends I still keep up with from college call me Dana. Kersch just uses "Agent", rarely even "Agent Scully", as though he wants to keep everything as impersonal as he can. Frankly, that's fine with me, when it comes to A.D. Kersch. With Skinner sometimes it's just "agent", but more often "Agent Scully", and occasionally he'll adopt Mulder's habit and just call me "Scully". I recall how annoyed I used to be that Mulder did that, just calling me "Scully", not with an "agent" in front of it, or even "doctor"; he couldn't even be patronizing and call me "Miss Scully". I remember seriously contemplating wounding Mulder when our Washington D.C. colleagues started using it. Yet, over the years, I've learned I wouldn't want to be anyone else. Dana is a nice person, the dutiful daughter, someone's little sister, a friend. Scully is Mulder's creation. I discovered just how much I missed her, working with Ritter. He thought he was getting personal, using my given name. He thought he could get close to me in some way. And I suppose it might have worked, if it weren't for Scully. Dana was anxious to please, recited Mulder's nickname with a grin for that cigarette smoking bastard, turned in her "little notes" dutifully, endeavored to reign in Agent Mulder at every turn. When I told Ritter "It's Scully" I think that was as much a warning to him, as it was a reconnection for me. Believe it or not, it hurt not hearing those comforting tones, that familiar voice at my side, saying "Scully" throughout this case. I was fascinated by Felig, I'll admit that. Fascinated and repulsed. I was horrified at his attitude toward those he saw who were going to die. He knew and did nothing to save them, nothing at all. He relished their deaths, savored the moment their lives went out of them. He envied them. He profited by their deaths, always getting the first crime scene photos. It was revolting and yet... I couldn't step away from the man, couldn't leave him to his arrest by Ritter. I said it was because I didn't want him to escape, but I really needed to talk with him before Ritter got to him, to know what he knew. The questions I needed to ask him, the how, the why. I hated myself for being there, for wanting, for needing, to talk with him. I have seen and been touched by more things than I can explain in my life with Mulder. But never have I felt such a need to be so close to that which I loathe. I could have shared that with Mulder. Instead, I had to struggle through it on my own, bereft of the other half of my soul. I ached for Felig as he told me his story. I can only imagine the moment when he must have realized he was not going to die, the moment he began his quest to look death in the face, to be taken. I understood his struggle in the hospital, ill with Yellow Fever. I have been close to Death more times than I can remember anymore, and have struggled against it, have been rewarded with renewed life. I could empathize with him when he suddenly knew there are worse things than Death. I wondered how he felt when he was the last of his friends to live, and knowing by then probably that he was going to keep on living, when he lost the one he loved. How he must have wanted to die and the agony of being unable to follow them out of this life. In hearing his story I could come to understand his envy of those about to die, to end the struggle here, to move on. But I didn't want to understand; it wrenched my heart and soul to understand Felig. Although I didn't want to, I asked him, before Ritter burst in. I had to know. I was hoping for an answer that would put an end to the fear I live with, to the pain I can't let go of. I don't know if that's the answer I got or not. I was surprised to hear the raw emotion in my voice as I asked him about love. Why was I asking this bitter, ruined man about love? What did I think he knew that I should ask him that? I knew though when I saw his eyes. I saw my answer. Yes, it lasts, seventy-five years, really a lifetime. But he had outlasted his love and had no hope of an afterlife, since he could not shed this life. Would it have been better to have never known love at all? But I couldn't ask him that. I wouldn't. What do I do now with that knowledge, with his assurance, such as it was, that love lasts a lifetime? I have tried for years now to hide from the love I feel for Mulder, to hide >from what I know he feels. Our lives are too precarious, love would be too easily used against us. Yet, I know that is false - they know and admit what we refuse to. Why else was I taken to Antarctica? They knew he would come for me or die trying. The fear that rips through my heart and soul is meaningless, or it should be. I think I have feared that it might end, that we might suffer, pay a heavy price, and in the end, lose each other through indifference. Or that they would kill one of us and the other would have to live with the knowledge of all that was lost. Having met Felig, I begin to have courage. I recall all the moments, so many, when we have nearly lost each other and I have thought the same thought, same accusation, each time: I never told Mulder. He didn't know. How could I not have? I hope Felig has been reunited with the one he loved. My faith teaches there is a Heaven and I like to believe that. If I choose to believe that, I think I can learn to conquer my fear. I know Mulder will always be with me, if I never say the words, if I never acknowledges what he said, he will still always be with me. He is the other half of my soul. "Mulder?" He looks up at me from the chair by the window. He quickly comes to my side and sits gently next to me. I take his hand in mine and look into his eyes. His eyes are glowing with a deep inner light. I think I can see relief cling to him everywhere: his eyes, the hint of the smile on his face, the slackness of his jaw, the drop of his shoulders, the tender pressure of his hand on mine. I see questions in his eyes. I haven't said a lot since he first came here. I've been too deep in my own thoughts, trying to make sense of myself, trying to deconstruct the wall I've built around my innermost self. He is only looking at me, not saying word, allowing me to say whatever it is I'm going to say at my own pace. I don't know if he is being patient or if he is just as terrified of what is unspoken between us as I am. We are still safe if it remains unspoken. If we remain mute, we lose nothing but that which neither of us truly possesses yet anyway. I see visions dance before my eyes of all the times we've shared like this. Is it possible for physical injury to be a metaphor for emotional pain? We have, both of us, always healed well from our various wounds. Our bodies are strong; our souls fragile. I think of moments when I sat beside him, my very soul trembling at the notion he might leave me. I often felt I was willing him back to me, drawing his pain from his body into mine, sending him the energy and will to heal, to live, to return to me. I ponder the times I've woken up in a hospital bed with Mulder at my side, smiling at me, murmuring light words to me, holding my hand. In the beginning, when we began our quest (which I think sometimes is to visit every major metropolitan hospital in the United States), he would only touch me with his eyes and I him with mine. It took time and repetition for us to come as far as we have, to comfort each other with these little gestures. Yet, even then, his eyes, smile, how the tension would be released from his body, welcomed me back, told me I was missed in my absence, told me I was needed. I have more scars from my association with Mulder than I ever thought possible. And that's coming from a tomboy who chased after her two brothers with verve and enthusiasm. Scars Bill maintains I never would have had, were it not for this man. What Bill cannot see, what Felig's vision imparted to me with focus and clarity, is that were it not for Fox Mulder, I would bear deeper, more horrific scars. on my soul. The place where his soul was ripped >from mine in the time before our bodies came into being, that place would have pained me forever. In this moment, the wounds heal and no scars are visible. "Mulder?" I ask again. "I'm here, Scully," he tells me. I revel in his voice, saying "Scully". There is so much I want to tell him, so much I have to say. I pray for the strength to say it and the time in which to express myself. I will need about 75 years to get it just right. I hope he will understand this beginning. I hope he will meet me on this path, a path we never intended to go down together, yet here we are. I can no longer deny that it is one we must walk together. I can think of no other traveling companion I wish to have. The walls I built so well melt away. "I love you, Mulder." The End Feedback welcome - mtknigh@ibm.net