TITLE: Remember The Time
AUTHOR: Brynna
EMAIL ADDRESS: ingos_grrl@hotmail.com
DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT: anywhere you deem it worthy. If you’ve got a
second, I wouldn’t mind a note tho; I like to visit my ‘kids.’
FEEDBACK: What do I have to do?
SPOILERS: Through Trevor
RATING: Don’t rate. But I’d say . . . if you don’t know what ‘the ‘F’
word’ is, and have never used it, well . . . you might learn something.
CLASSIFICATION: A/M (check) S (check) R (was here, will be sometime
soon, Check)
SUMMARY: Mulder gets a turn to pour his heart out . . . to himself.

Disclaimer: Okay, I gotta know - Of course they’re mine.

Do you know how hard it is to lose the only person you’ve ever truly
loved? The only person who’s ever made you honest about the emotion of
love?

I didn’t either. Not until recently.

And boy, I lost her big time.

What makes it worse, of course, is the fact that I gave her up, I gave
her the out to leave me. Not that I hadn’t done it a thousand times
before, but those were to leave me professionally. This time, it was
personal, all around. From the moment I talked her into posing as a
married couple. That was the first step. I had hoped that it would bring
us closer together.

No such luck.

If anything, it drove the wedge that had been forming for months deeper,
and forced us further apart; further into our own little corners of
reality.

And I laid the final blow, the one that ensured that she was forever
gone from my arms and my bed. I said goodbye. And I said it in the most
intense and wrong way possible. I fucked her goodbye.

I think I’m the most insensitive bastard alive.

Think. Know. Whatever.

I was good, after that. For weeks. I didn’t touch her, I didn’t call her
at night, I barely went near her, if it was going to be for longer than
to drop a case file on her desk and leave. Only when I absolutely had
to.

Then I had the nightmare. I lied to her, when I finally did call her. I
told her it was about Samantha. It was about her. That she was the one
who was taken, and was begging me to save her.

I’ve had the same dream about Sam, so it wasn’t hard to transfer the
names.

But what came after, before I finally woke up, was Scully telling me
that it was my fault she was hurt. That =I= had hurt her.

And I did. In reality, anyway.

The first times, it was so unintentional. I mean, after I stopped trying
to chase her away. Once I realized that she was staying.

But she’s been punished because of me. Taken, hurt, subjected to more
hell than any living being should be forced to endure. Because of me.

Months of her life were taken from her. That’s the first time I really,
truly hurt her. She was taken. From her home. A place she was supposed
to be safe. And some psycho whom I had been given the task earlier of
talking down from a hostage crisis took her. Amazing job I did, wasn’t
it? I managed to make him take her. And he, in turn, allowed Them to get
their hands on her.

She almost died, after that. It was then that I realized how much I do
love her. I mean sure, that was something I knew - that I loved Scully.
But while she was gone, and the only part of her I could hang onto was
that damned cross of hers . . . I =knew= that I loved Dana Katherine
Scully.

It’s a totally different feeling, loving Scully, and loving Dana. They
really are two different people sometimes. Yet they’re always wrapped up
in the same beautiful package.

Scully, my partner, my friend, is always very logical, and usually a bit
standoffish. She’s strong, to a fault, and independent as all get-out.
She’s intense, and passionate about her work, and very . . . driven.

And Dana - when she actually comes out to play  - She’s vibrant. She
almost glows, sometimes. She too, is passionate, but on a whole other
level. It’s personal, unlike the Scully facet of her personality, that
makes it about something else. And when she smiles - my god, she makes
me feel like I’m the only man alive.

After They gave her back to me, I saw her internal struggle to reconcile
these two parts of who she is. Once she was back on her feet, she tried
for a while. And I think she just gave up, after a while. Because it
wasn’t working. Not in her eyes, anyway.

Mostly, I think it was that she couldn’t be the softer side that Dana
brings out, and continue to . . . well, function.

They hurt her, badly. Because of me. And whatever they did to her;
things neither of us knows about, they shot her confidence in herself
straight to hell.

I made a vow, once she walked out of that hospital, that I wouldn’t let
it happen again. I wouldn’t let her be hurt, because of me, or anyone
else, again.

And it lasted =so= long.

I don’t even let myself think of those times, for the most part. Even
now . . . there have just been too many times. I’ve left her, or I’ve
shut her out, and damn it, I’ve just - well, hurt her.

When she developed Cancer, I knew that was my fault too. Another
punishment she was meant to bear, because of me. Because she was
involved with me, and wouldn’t leave. They hurt her, simply because They
knew that it was the best, or rather the only way that I can be hurt.

She knew it, too -- and when she finally acknowledged it, and told me to
my face that she knew, it very nearly destroyed me.

They tried to hurt me. It didn’t work. Then it became clear that Scully
was the way to get to me. And presto! Every time she turned around,
something was being done to her, or someone she cared about.

It’s absolutely painful to look at her sometimes. The depth of anguish
that I see deep in her eyes, in places that only I know to look . . . my
god, it all but kills me.

I found that journal she was writing me, while she was in the hospital -
pouring her heart out to me. I didn’t deserve it. I’ve never deserved to
have someone care like that. But I have to admit, it felt good, to know
that she did.

I could feel that same emotional turmoil coming off her in waves, in
that hotel room last week. An internal struggle, that I’m familiar with
- that of do I give in to my heart, or listen to my head.

Head usually wins. Because heart - well, it’s just not rational enough
to control everyday lives. We as humans haven’t figured out how to
combine the two yet.

I’ve watched her struggle through so much, my Scully. Her Cancer took
too much from her though. It almost killed her, in more ways than one.
Sure, the obvious, but it took something from her, something infinitely
precious, and something that she’s never fully gotten back. I don’t know
what exactly, but I’ve seen, and felt the energy shift in her body, over
time.

You can only make love to someone so many times, before you get a handle
on who they are, inside and out. And with Scully and I . . . we made
love many more times than we actually had sex.

Whatever it was that she lost during that time in the hospital, when she
almost died, again . . . she never fully recovered from it, before she
got hit with Emily.

Was Emily my fault? Probably not. But I still blame myself.

How can I not? If I hadn’t drug her into my life, into my insane quest
it never would have happened.

And I certainly can, and do, blame myself for not telling her that she
can’t have children. She really didn’t need that one-two punch that I
delivered to her. I dashed hopes, I crushed dreams, and I killed her
spirit, in one little conversation.

I really expected to lose her after that. I had expected her to leave,
and never look back. But instead, she came to me that night.

Just like she had after she kicked me out of ‘our’ room while we were
playing house.

She came to me, she crawled under the covers of my bed with me, and she
lost herself inside me. I’m familiar with the sensation; I’ve done it
with her enough times.

But she usually then would leave, would pull away. She didn’t. Instead
she stayed. She curled herself up next to me on the bed, and she slept.

Have I mentioned that I’m an insensitive bastard?

I kicked her out of my bed the next morning. Well, basically. I woke up,
and rather pointedly told her that she might not want to still be there
when anyone else got up. She had, after all, insisted that I stayed at
her brother’s, and . . . well, it seemed like it was a bad idea for her
to still be in my bed.

She cried, and then she agreed. And before I could pull her back down
with me, she left. She didn’t even take the time to put her clothes back
on, just wrapped her robe around herself, clothes under one arm, and
left.

I hate it when I make her cry. I hate it more than anything else. Her
tears just rip my heart out of my chest, and hold it up in front of me
so that I can watch as it slowly, painfully, slows and stops.

I’ve made her cry a lot lately. Made her cry, and made her jealous.

She’s been so insanely jealous over Diana. I never thought I’d actually
see that emotion from the steely persona that is Scully. But hey, Dana’s
a tiger, and she’s very reactive.

I’ve done some stupid things in this lifetime, and in my time with
Scully, but siding with Diana over her . . . well, I’ve mentioned what I
think of myself.

I don’t even have a justification for that. I wish I did. Something I
could just throw at the voice that taunts me, that tells me how she’ll
never forgive me for that, even as she continues to work with me.

And why should she? God knows I don’t forgive myself.

But I can’t bring myself to just explain it away, either. Which means
that somewhere, deep down, I must have had reason. I just don’t really
want to know what it is. I want it to go away, instead. I want Diana to
go away.

There were enough problems with her to begin with.

I just don’t even want to take the time to think about her anymore.
She’s . . . not Scully, and therefore she’s not who I want on my mind.

But I’ve seen how much Diana hurts Scully, and therefore, I’m forced to
think about her. Diana, a past connection to me, hurting the woman I
love. Me, again.

There has to be a point to chronicling all this pain I’ve inflicted. I
guess, I’m hoping to make some sense out of everything.

Maybe, just maybe, I’m just looking for a second chance. Maybe Pinker
had the right idea, even if it was bad execution.

My couch is looking really inviting right about now. I haven’t slept in
days. The only problem with that idea is that it’s the first place we
ever had sex. And maybe it’s just in my own head, but I swear it still
smells like her.

I finally stop pacing in front of the window. Moving slowly, I lay down
on the couch. Automatically, I pick up the pillow that she’s used many
times to sleep on, and I wedge is under my head, where I can smell it.
It has to be me. There’s no way her scent is still lingering.

As my eyes finally drift shut, I realize that even after all of this, I
still don’t have any answers.

Because all the answers are in her corner.

And she’s locked me out.