TITLE: One Sorry Son of a Bitch. AUTHOR: mad martha DISTRIBUTION: Please forward/archive/whatever. SPOILERS: Gethsemane/Redux/Redux II RATING: PG CLASSIFICATION: V,A SUMMARY: Mrs. Scully has her say. DISCLAIMER: "The X Files" and all the characters etc. associated with it are the property of 20th Century Fox and 1013 Productions. I am not making any profit from this story, and no infringement is intended. NOTES: I got my copy of "File 9: Redux" the day before yesterday (the combined Gethsemane/Redux/Redux II video), devoured it in one mammoth, awe-struck sitting, and then ... didn't feel inspired to write. But on the bus home last night, I had this sudden idea. I hope it works for you readers, but please let me know what you think. This occurs after the "one sorry son of a bitch" scene, hence the title. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX ONE SORRY SON OF A BITCH By mad martha XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Part 1/1 "You could have been more polite." They were the first words his mother had spoken since she got into the car, and Bill Scully jumped. He shot a quick, sideways glance at her, but she hadn't moved either; she had her arm propped up against the window and was staring out blindly, her chin resting on her hand. There was nothing to indicate how she was feeling, but he'd assumed she was too upset over Dana's condition to speak. He'd respected that silence. "I was polite," he said, at length. "No, you weren't. You were downright rude. I brought you up better than that." Always the same tone. Maggie Scully had never needed to raise her voice in anger; if anything, it got quieter. There was something remarkable about its quality - that she could seemingly speak in the same level tone, and yet impart such a great variation of emotions. Sometimes it became tight and intense, sometimes mellow, but it was always the same. But Bill had never mistaken her anger for what it was, and she was angry now. It gave him a most uncomfortable feeling; he didn't like being at odds with his mother, because he didn't know quite how to deal with it. He had fought once or twice with his father, back when he was a teenager, but that had been something he knew how to handle - one big blast of noise, and it was over. With his brother, it had usually ended up out in the back yard until he had the pest subdued; and with his sisters he simply stood firm while their anger washed over him. But not with his mother. She alone had the power to make him ill at ease. Nevertheless, it wasn't in his nature to back down. He was *right*. He shifted in his seat infinitesimally. "What did you expect me to say to him? "Thanks for all you've done for my sister"? I'm not wasting my time pretending to that jerk." He thought she might have glanced at him, but he wasn't sure; his eyes were on the road. "I expected you to be polite. You were there to see your sister and hear what the doctors had to say, not fight with her partner." "I didn't fight with him." "I'm not stupid, Bill Scully, and I wasn't born yesterday. When I came out of that room, I knew from the look on his face that you'd said something. I should have known what you were up to when you left Dana and I; you never could just let it go. Dana knew too - how do you think that made her feel?" Bill opened his mouth and shut it again. Anger sparked, and a strong sense of injustice. "Mom, if Dana wasn't involved with Fox Mulder, she wouldn't be lying in that hospital bed now! >From the moment she started working with him, he's brought her and our family nothing but grief. Melissa is *dead* because of him - " "Missy is dead because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time," Maggie interrupted sharply. "And the men who killed her intended to kill Dana - " "Yeah, thanks to her involvement with this guy," Bill leapt in. "And what difference does it make, in the end? She's going to be dead anyway in a matter of days! All because she *had* to work with Fox Mulder." "Dana makes her own choices, Bill. She's a grown woman; she knew the risks when she went into this. It's her life and her decision." "Yeah, I seem to remember her using that argument on Dad when she joined the FBI," he retorted. "If she'd listened to him then, none of this would have happened. But no! She had to go her own way just to spite him, and look what's come of it." Maggie leaned back against the head-rest wearily. "None of which is Fox's fault. She was assigned to work with him. What kind of a partner would she be, what kind of an agent, if she picked and chose what cases she would investigate because she *might* get hurt?" "Oh, come on, Mom! She didn't have to work with him - she could have transferred away from that nutcase any time in the last four years, and you know it." "But she *didn't*," Maggie pointed out curtly. "Her choice." "He could have had her transferred!" Bill said angrily. "He's her department head; he knew what kind of risks he was exposing her to, and if he cared for her half as much as you keep telling me he does, he would have done it. But the truth is he doesn't care - all he cares about are his Goddamned conspiracies and little green men, and he doesn't give a damn about who gets caught in the crossfire." "Oh Bill, shut up," Maggie sighed, closing her eyes. "You don't know the first thing about him." "I don't need to. I can tell what kind of a guy he is. What I can't get over is him visiting Dana in hospital like an old friend, when he was the one who put her there in the first place! I can't believe he's got the nerve to look her in the face after all he's done to her." Maggie's eyes opened briefly as she studied her son's face; then they closed again and she turned her head away. "Has it occurred to you," she said quietly, "that your sister might actually have wanted him there?" Bill let out a spurt of mirthless laughter. "You know, that's the worst part of this," he said conversationally. "It's .... it's degrading to watch Dana, who I was always thought was a sensible woman, behaving like an abused wife who goes crawling back to her husband every time he apologises for beating her. For Christ's sake, Mom! How can you stand by and watch this happening? All he has to do is turn on the charm, turn on the guilt, and she rolls over in front of him." "I can't talk to you!" Maggie snapped. "You don't know the first thing about your sister if you can say that! And you certainly know nothing about Fox Mulder." "You're right," Bill agreed coolly, "so maybe you can explain it to me. Maybe you can explain what my smart little sister finds worth bothering about in him, because I sure as hell can't see it." Maggie's eyes opened again, raking over him briefly. "Maybe it's because he respects her." Bill looked at her speechlessly. "You have *got* to be kidding me," he managed after a moment. Something akin to disgust flickered in Maggie's eyes, but it was gone before he noticed it. "He respects her ability to know her own mind, Bill. He respects her enough to let her make her own decisions, to know her own limits. He respects her enough to let her be her own person. And he respects her intelligence." He was perceptive enough to catch the tiny note of censure in his mother's voice, and was goaded by it. "Oh, and I don't?" "No," she replied flatly. "That was always your problem, with Dana *and* Melissa. You were always so convinced that you knew best what was good for them, that you never listened to what they were saying." Bill went slightly pale. "I always respected their intelligence. I was proud of both of them - " "You might have been proud of Dana's intelligence, Bill, but you never trusted her to use it. You've never respected her judgement. Why do you think she wouldn't tell you about the cancer? Because she knew a scene like today's would happen." Maggie sighed, and tried to get more comfortable in her seat. "Fox respects her. And despite what you think, he genuinely cares about her." A sudden sharp note of anger entered her voice. "My God, Bill, I've been watching this going on for four years - do you honestly think I could have just stood by and said nothing if I thought he didn't care what happened to her? I got to know him when she went missing, and I watched it nearly destroy him. But he never gave up hope, Bill, even when I did, and he never stopped looking for her. So much for the man you say doesn't care." Silence. Maggie shut her eyes again, and hoped that was the end of the matter. But Bill still had something on his mind. "Anyone would think he was her lover, not her work partner, the way she follows him around and defends his crackpot behaviour," he said eventually. Maggie's hands, lying loosely in her lap, clenched into fists for a moment. "Is that the point of this conversation after all?" she enquired coolly. He twitched defensively. "Well, is he?" he demanded. "What difference does it make if he is?" "It might explain some of her behaviour," he ground out, "nauseous as the idea makes me feel." "I think it's none of your damned business." "That's not an answer to my question." "Well if you want a better one, you'll have to ask Dana," Maggie said. "You must have some idea," Bill persisted. She gritted her teeth for a moment. "No, I don't think they're involved," she said finally, "but I think that's only because of circumstances and lack of opportunity." Bill slowed down and drew the car to a halt outside his mother's house. "Thank Christ for that," he muttered. "I don't think I could stomach that sorry son of a bitch as a brother-in- law." Maggie fumbled her seatbelt undone and opened her door. Then she paused and looked back at him, her expression contemptuous. "We see ourselves reflected in others, Bill," she stated grimly, and got out of the car, slamming the door behind her. Finis