TITLE: "Comparing Betrayals" (1/1) BY: Ten E-MAIL ADDRESS: kristena@ocean.com.au CATEGORY: V, A, UST RATING: PG-13 SUMMARY: A little Mulder and Scully talk after "Wetwired". TIMESPAN/SPOILER WARNING: Post "Wetwired", mentions "Anasazi" and "Pusher". NOTE: I left the red/green colourblind explanation in like they did on the show even though it would have called into question Mulder's field agent status. ARCHIVE INFO: It goes to Gossamer through xff. Can be archived anywhere as long as my name, addy and disclaimer stay intact. FEEDBACK: Love it. DISCLAIMER: The X-Files and the characters of Mulder and Scully belong to Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen Productions and Fox Broadcasting, and are used without permission. No copyright infringement is intended, no profit will be gained. The X-Files: "Comparing Betrayals" (1/1) By Ten, Written July 1997, Posted January 1998 She phoned and asked him to come over. She opened the door before he knocked. They sat. He on the sofa, she in an armchair. Distance. Neither wanted to look the other in the eye. But Mulder had to study her, to judge if she'd been released from the hospital too soon. Not that he was afraid she'd threaten him again. "How do you feel?" he asked gently. Scully's paler-than-normal face suffused with colour. "Awful," she blurted out. She finally faced him. "Mulder - I almost killed you! You're the only one II trust and I almost killed you! How could I think that you'd betray me? The things I said..." "It wasn't your fault, Scully." She shook her head emphatically and swiped at her leaking eyes, embarrassed by how easily the tears had come. He leapt up and went over to her. Mulder knelt down and took her hands in his. "How could you help it? I would have been affected too if I wasn't red/green colour blind. I'd hate to think what my fears would have manifested themselves as." He thought of the naked body in the morgue that he had to view and the terror before he realised it wasn't her, that she was still missing, possibly dead, of not being able to find her, then of Dana standing before him so sick and on the edge. His fears *had* come true, despite not being affected by the tapes. She wasn't mollified by his explanation. "Dana, you seem to be forgetting the time it was *my* turn." "Huh?" "Let's see if I can remember my exact words. It's all a bit hazy. 'You have my files and my gun - don't ask me for my trust'." /He's lied to me from the beginning, Mom.../ He saw her realisation and pressed on. "I believe I accused you of some pretty heavy things at the time, the least of which was spying on and betraying me." /He put that thing in my neck! He killed my sister!/ Scully squeezed his hands. "Mulder, you were sick, drugged. You didn't know what you were saying." /You don't know it but you're sick./ "And you didn't know what you were doing the other night either. It's no different, apart from the method they used to turn up our paranoia and alter our perceptions." He smiled bitterly, making more internal comparisons: he'd had to ID the body in a morgue; Scully had been 'spared' that ordeal, left with charred ashes from a burned-out boxcar. He gave a harsh chuckle. "The only other difference is that when I went off the deep end, you saved me. I didn't save you; your mother had to." His hands slipped out of hers. "Mulder -" She saw the shame in his eyes, how he felt he'd failed her. "That's not your fault. And I still feel like I failed you over the whole New Mexico thing. When I came to ask you about the DAT tape and your little boxing bout with Skinner, I could see you weren't well. You even told me you were running a temperature. And I walked out on you." "Scully -" But she overrode him. "Then when your father died, you came to me, so sick... I should have stayed with you that morning. Then I wouldn't have had to shoot you..." She hadn't even started about the whole boxcar part of the saga, about unwittingly leaving him there in the desert, helpless, when she had probably been within a few metres of his tunnel. "Dana..." He gently captured her face with his hands. "I was being a pain. You were naturally furious about me punching Skinner. Of course you had the right to walk out. Anyone else would have walked out long before... And you had to go into Headquarters that morning with my gun. You were trying to prove my innocence - and I'm glad you did take it away. In my state I could've shot someone - you. Then no one else would ever have noticed that soft water van at my apartment and made the right connections." "I would have shot you at Mom's house if she hadn't stepped in. You were able to resist Pusher when you were holding the gun at me, but..." "Different situation -" "I pulled the trigger! There's a hotel door with four rounds in it!" "You aimed high and you know it! You're a better shot than me - you deliberately aimed high to save me. And don't compare the experience to Pusher; I was so close to putting that bullet in your head... If it wasn't for you pulling that fire alarm..." He shook himself, not ready to open *that* can of worms. "Enough! You held off on me too - otherwise you would have plugged me as soon as you saw me at your Mom's. Thank God I didn't have to shoot you to stop you." "Well, when I shot you..." "To save me." "Any way you look at it, it still would have been better if Mom had stepped in and saved the day that time too, don't you think?" She gave a small but genuine smile. To which he responded with one of his own. "Even Krycek would have been welcome!" "I'm sorry," she whispered, leaning in to hug him. "So am I. For everything," he whispered back into her hair. "It wasn't our faults; we *do* trust each other." She nodded. Deep down they had known that and their reasons for what they had done, but it was good to air them and regroup. Reteam. There was a pause. "Now...have we cleared our consciences and our names?" She laughed, then drew back and lightly punched his left shoulder. "Ouch!" he mock-whined. "Let's not let it take up another minute of our time. Come on, let's go for a walk. I don't feel like watching a video." "For once, neither do I." THE END