TITLE: Heart’s Desire AUTHOR: Dawn Zemke EMAIL: sunrise@avenew.com ARCHIVE: After the Fact SPOILERS: Redux II, various through season four RATING: PG-13 for some minor language CLASSIFICATION: SA KEYWORDS: Mulder/Scully Friendship, Post-ep for Redux II SUMMARY: Mulder tells Scully about the smoking man’s deal, including the meeting with his sister. DISCLAIMER: Mulder and Scully belong to Chris Carter and 1013 Productions. No copyright infringement is intended. AUTHOR’S NOTES: I’ll admit it, Redux II gets to me every time I see it. The scene between Mulder and the supposed Samantha in the diner is heartbreaking, and I always wanted to see him tell Scully about it. Since Chris Carter wouldn’t do it, here’s my take on things. FEEDBACK: Is treasured. I love hearing your thoughts. Heart's Desire By Dawn Zemke Trinity Hospital 9:00 p.m. The heavy hand descending on his left shoulder brought Mulder back to consciousness with the finesse of a bucket of ice water. He bolted upright, a sound somewhere between a gasp and a moan escaping his lips, hand fumbling for his weapon. "Easy, Mulder, it's just me." Skinner's deep voice held an undercurrent Mulder would have recognized as worry if his brain had not been fogged with exhaustion. Using the palms of both hands, he dry-washed his face, hearing the rasp of stubble meeting flesh. He was suddenly aware of his disheveled appearance -- jacket discarded, tie knot loosened, the sleeves of his shirt rolled above the elbow. Skinner, on the other hand, remained as immaculately put together as he had that morning. *I must look like hell.* Mulder made a half-hearted attempt to tuck in his shirt, but the motion held no real conviction and he was too tired to care. His body rebelled as he dragged himself wearily to his feet and blinked owlishly at his boss, eyes gritty with fatigue and gummy with old tears. Skinner studied him, brow contracted in a frown, then looked ready to speak again. Mulder raced to head him off, certain he would not hold up under an articulation of concern. "Did you talk to her?" *Brilliant, Mulder, how do you come up with these great conversation starters? No, Skinner went in and just LOOKED at Scully.* Skinner's tight expression underwent a miraculous transformation, softening so that for a moment Mulder barely recognized the man before him as his hard-nosed boss. "We managed to work out a few...difficulties that had cropped up recently. She's looking pretty tired, but she asked me to send you in if you were still here." Something flickered across Mulder's face, so quick and elusive that Skinner wondered if he'd imagined it. Not fear, and not shame -- though it contained elements of both. And a wariness that remained even now. "What's wrong?" Mulder shrugged, his features taking on the blank, emotionless cast with which Skinner was all too familiar. It was the mask his agent donned whenever something hit a little too hard, cut a bit too deeply. Skinner could almost hear the clang of a door slamming, the click of a deadbolt sliding firmly into place. "Nothing. Are Scully's mom and brother still in there?" An innocuous question -- so why did Skinner feel as if his answer were crucial? "No. They left about fifteen minutes ago; Mrs. Scully was dead on her feet." Something inside Mulder uncoiled, though the physical signs were barely perceptible -- shoulders curving slightly, breathing slowing, forehead smoothing. Skinner pondered why his words would have had such an affect, then recalled his own visit with Scully and her family. While her mother had been warm and gracious, engaging him in easy conversation, Bill had remained noticeably aloof. Though the man said nothing aloud, Skinner had felt a distinct sense of disapproval emanating from him when Scully inquired about the aftermath of the fiasco at the Bureau. Perhaps Bill had not been so reticent about voicing his displeasure to Mulder. Mulder moved toward the open doorway, and Skinner abruptly was struck by the man’s gaunt appearance. The suit hung on his slim frame, indicating too many skipped meals and too much stress. "I don't want to see your face tomorrow, Mulder. We'll sort things out on Monday," he said, using a growl to hide his disquiet. Mulder paused and half turned as if to argue, then nodded and disappeared into Scully's room. Skinner sighed heavily and started back down the hallway toward the elevators. No sense worrying about Mulder, he was in good hands now. The fluorescent light above Scully's bed still glowed, but her eyes were closed. Mulder quietly crossed the room and sank into the chair closest to the bed, unable to tear his gaze from her face. So pale, so thin, with dark, bruised shadows beneath the lashes that lay against her cheeks. Hard to believe this woman was the same eager, fresh-faced rookie who had burst into his life and turned it upside down four years ago. Bill Scully was right -- his damn quest had reduced her to this. A quest now as empty and hollow as the pit of his stomach. His eyes burned and he clenched his jaw. *Not here, and not now. Scully needs me to be strong for her.* Scully made a noise in the back of her throat, like the purr of a kitten, and her eyes drifted open. Turning her head, she regarded Mulder solemnly, blue eyes weary but clear. "Hey, you." Her voice sounded wispy, insubstantial, but her lips curved into a smile. "You need your rest, Scully. I should go and let you get some sleep." His mouth said the words even as his brain registered the fact that his own apartment was probably still a crime scene. "What about you?" She stretched her right hand toward him and he leaned forward to enfold it in his own. "Have you gotten any sleep at all, Mulder? You look like hell." "Said the pot," Mulder replied, one corner of his mouth turning up. "I'm all right, Scully. I crashed at the Gunmen's place the night before last. My apartment is still sealed off." "What about last night?" To her surprise, his eyes cut away to stare out the window, though his thumb never ceased its gentle stroking of her hand. "Mulder?" "I was here last night." His voice dropped, turned husky, and she could barely make out the words. "You were asleep and I didn't want to wake you. I guess I dozed off, because the next thing I knew the sun was coming up." Scully considered this while scrutinizing his face. Then, as if just spoken, she recalled his words early that morning. *I was lost last night. But as I stood here I thought I'd found my way.* The memory acted like sunlight pouring into a dark room after a shade is raised, illuminating everything in a single burst of light. Now she could see all the nuances of his emotional state that his physical condition previously had masked. This was so much more than just the repercussions of his nearly obsessive drive to find a cure for her cancer. Whatever had occurred in her partner's life over the past forty-eight hours had changed him. Profoundly. "Why did you come by last night, Mulder?" Her tone the gentlest of caresses. "Why did you need to see me?" He hesitated only briefly before smiling. "Just checking up on you, Scully. Making sure you were still *fine.*" Scully raised an eyebrow, prepared to retort, until she recognized the good-natured dig for what it was -- a smokescreen. "You told me you were lost. What did you mean? What exactly was this deal that the smoking man offered you?" Her hand had suddenly become a source of great fascination for him, one fingertip tracing the fine bones with a feather-light touch. Finally he lifted his eyes to meet hers. "It doesn't matter, Scully. All that matters is that I didn't take it." But it did matter. Despite Mulder's casual dismissal, Scully could read the pain lurking behind it -- etched into every line and plane of his face, communicated in the subtle body language she'd learned to interpret so well. Mulder was grieving, and it was a grief deeper and blacker than any she'd seen. A revelation both simple and profound when it concerned a man who had experienced far more than his share of heartbreak. "You said you almost accepted." She turned her wrist so that now his hand was cradled in hers, her fingers stroking the palm. "Tell me, Mulder." So much conflict within him, it was nearly tangible. He wanted to tell her; didn't want to burden her. He craved her comfort, yet feared the inevitable loss of his precious control. Scully perceived all this but kept silent, knowing that the slightest misstep would only result in fortification of walls now crumbling. He laughed, a soulless chuckle, devoid of life as well as humor that never touched his eyes -- eyes gone nearly black in the dim lighting. "He offered me everything, Scully. My heart's desire, if I would only quit the FBI and go work for him. The truth about extraterrestrial life. The cure for your cancer. My sister..." Scully sucked in a sharp breath. "Samantha? Mulder, he offered you *Samantha?* How? What did he say? Did..." Mulder broke the link between their eyes to stare at the wall behind her bed, face empty and blank. "He told me to meet him at a diner, and he brought her to me. She looked just like...like the others." Scully struggled to a more upright position, her mind reeling with images of a woman on a bridge, plunging over the guardrail into icy waters. "Are you certain it was really her, that it wasn't another clone?" An odd sense of deja vu swept over her and she felt divided, past and present colliding. *Are you sure that it's your sister?* *Why would you even question me on that?* Mulder shrugged, still staring vacantly over her left shoulder. "She seemed to be. If she was a fake, she was a hell of an actress." Scully frowned at the monotone voice. The ice beneath her feet had grown dangerously thin; she could feel it cracking. Feel him cracking. Though her initial impulse was to regard this supposed Samantha with skepticism, Mulder's face told a different story. "What was she doing with *him*, Mulder? Did she explain that?" No change in expression, but the hand she clasped trembled and his breathing sped up. "She told me he raised her." A long pause, and she watched his throat work to form the words. "She calls him her father." Scully's mouth dropped open, then snapped shut when her fumbling brain could come up with no adequate response. She knew that Mulder had questioned his own paternity, opening a rift between himself and his mother that had yet to be bridged. If those doubts had extended to Samantha, he'd never vocalized them. "Oh, Mulder," she whispered, sliding her hand up his arm and over to cup his cheek. He blinked, sucking the corner of his lip into his mouth as the trembling spread throughout his body and his breath hitched. He tried to speak, but only managed to shake his head as tears flooded his eyes. Scully's thumb caressed his cheek as she waited. "She doesn't remember much -- doesn't want to. She believes him, believes the...the lies he's told her. She wouldn't let me take her to see Mom, and she wouldn't tell me where she lives." Mulder's voice broke, taking Scully's heart with it. His tears evaded all efforts to deny them and spilled freely down his cheeks. "I'm sure it was a shock for her." Scully's own voice was thick with emotion. "She may just need time..." "I'd like to believe that, Scully. But the fact remains that she's willing to trust anything that black-lunged bastard tells her." Mulder scrubbed at his eyes with the heel of his hand. "She practically ran from me to him. Do you know how that made me feel? To have her reject me and then watch *him* reach over and brush the tears from her cheeks?" Without even pausing to consider her action, Scully tugged on his hand until she'd managed to coax him from the chair to the bed. As she had when his mother lay near death in a hospital bed, she slipped one hand around the back of his neck and drew his head down onto her shoulder. "It's okay, let it go," she murmured as the shudders turned to sobs. "Let it go, Mulder. I'm here." She couldn't have said how long they remained that way, Mulder's ragged breaths and her own soothing patter of reassurances the only sounds to break the stillness. Eventually, they wound up stretched side by side on the narrow bed, his head pillowed on her right shoulder, their hands linked and lying across his chest. "I'm so sorry, Mulder." Scully tightened her grip on the fingers laced between her own. "Sorrier than I can say." "For twenty-five years I've imagined what it would be like to find my sister." Mulder's words slurred with fatigue. "I never pictured it this way, though. Not even close. I've been a fool, Scully. Nothing is how I thought it would be. Remember that old saying? 'Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.'" Scully leaned her cheek against the top of his head. "You've waited twenty-five years, Mulder. If she's really your sister, you can afford to wait a little bit longer." "And if she's not?" The question was so soft she might have imagined it. "Then we keep looking. And we don't stop until we know the truth." Mulder squeezed her hand, moved by the conviction in her voice. "That's one heart's desire the cigarette smoking man couldn't cheat me out of, Scully. Whether he intended to or not, he's given you back to me -- twice. For that I'm almost grateful to the son of a bitch." "Let's not get carried away." Scully was pleased to feel the curve of his smile and a puff of laughter against her neck. "Gotta go and let you...sleep." A yawn punctuated the statement. "You can't drive in this condition, you're exhausted." Her stern reprimand lost impact when she caught his infectious yawn and repeated it. "Call Frohike to pick you up." "Mmm 'kay. 'S a good idea. In a minute." But he didn't move, and his breathing slowed, deepened. Though she was beyond tired, Scully continued to turn his words over in her mind like shiny coins, inspecting them from all angles. His search for the truth -- to discover what had happened to his sister, to find irrefutable proof of the existence of extraterrestrial life -- had always been the driving force in Mulder's life. The deepest desire of his heart. Hadn't he once told her that nothing else mattered? *"That's one heart's desire the cigarette smoking man couldn't cheat me out of, Scully. Whether he intended to or not, he's given you back to me -- twice."* The corners of her mouth turned up. Samantha, aliens, and herself. She'd have sworn she ranked third on that list but for a terrible night on a bridge. And the events of the last few days. Was the chip in her neck responsible for her remission? Did it really matter? Mulder had pushed himself beyond the point of exhaustion, nearly sacrificing everything for the mere possibility of a cure. And whether the result of faith, medicine, or the smoking man's schemes, she would now live to hunt aliens and expose government conspiracies another day. With Mulder. Ironically enough, that had become her heart's desire. Scully carefully reached up to turn off the light, plunging the room into darkness. Mulder didn't stir, his warmth and weight a comfort in the sterile surroundings. With a small sigh of contentment, she closed her eyes and joined him in slumber. The End.