TITLE: "Disconnection" BY: Ten E-MAIL ADDRESS: kristena@ocean.com.au CATEGORY: V; Angst; MSR (but not as 'overt' as I usually do) RATING: PG-13 SUMMARY: The Dakota Indians say that when you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount. After Linda Bowman's revenge in "Kitsunegari", Mulder decides it's time to get out of the saddle. TIMESPAN/SPOILER WARNING: "Kitsunegari", "Pusher", smaller references to: "Christmas Carol/Emily", the "Redux" Trilogy, "Detours", "Post Modern Prometheus", "Never Again", "One Breath". ARCHIVE INFO: It goes to Gossamer through xff. Can be archived anywhere as long as my name, addy and disclaimer stay intact. FEEDBACK: Very welcome, especially since I haven't written something this heavy for a while. THANKS TO: Suzanne, Debbie, Judie, Sally, Suzi, Gerry, Mac and Nessy. My website for all my X-Files fanfiction, thanks to the wonderful Skyfox, is now at http://tenxffic.iwarp.com DISCLAIMER: The X-Files, the episodes referred to, Mulder and Scully and all other characters from the show 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. Characters not recognised from the show are mine. The X-Files: "Disconnection" By Ten, February 2000 xXx FBI Headquarters Washington D.C. Thursday, 3.20 pm Scully watched as Skinner signed her report on Robert Modell and Linda Bowman. The meeting was over. She and Mulder stood and headed for the door. "Mulder, a moment please?" Scully halted, her hand on the door handle. /Then again, perhaps not./ She turned to look at her partner. Mulder nodded to her. No matter how much she wanted to stay with him, there was nothing she could do but exit. Out in Kim's office, Scully sat down to wait. Events replayed in her mind. She had shot Linda Bowman Tuesday night. The woman was dead on arrival at the hospital. Mulder had been taken to hospital too, in a state of shock and uncommunicative for several hours after 'seeing' Scully kill herself. He had come out of it and been discharged yesterday at noon, but Scully was still worried. If Mulder's normal personality could be rated at a ten, and if Mulder-in-shock was zero on the scale, then the man that sat beside her in the meeting was barely scoring a two. /If even that./ He was together enough for the doctor at the hospital and Scully to agree about him being released, but Mulder was walking around as if someone had drastically turned his personality down or hit the 'mute' button. When he spoke, it was rarely on his own initiative - it was usually in reply to a comment or question. He had not fidgeted or shifted in his seat once during the meeting to give their report. When Skinner had first ushered them into his office, he handed Mulder back his gun. It had been the first opportunity their AD had to do so. Mulder had looked at it as if their boss was giving him a tissue or a pen, then nodded and put it away. /Dana, the man is trying to deal with quite a shock. Not even two days ago Mulder thought he saw you kill yourself. Then he turned the gun on you, thinking you were Bowman./ The look on his face... Devastation and rage. /It's going to take time. Remember how shaken up he was after he shot Modell./ That had been two years ago, but the repercussions went on for months afterwards. Nightmares, memories of the showdown in the hospital room. /And that was just for me. Seeing him pull the trigger on himself... It would have been even worse for him. It was certainly a long while before I saw a bounce back in his step./ Mulder had a mandatory appointment with a Bureau psychologist at 4 pm. The results of the meeting and the psychologist's recommendations would help Skinner decide whether Mulder could come back to the X-files full-time tomorrow, or be on desk duty for a week, or take some time off. Normally Mulder would be fighting the need to see a shrink. Today he just seemed to be going with the flow. Scully had thought that she would have an uphill battle on her hands to get him to take time off, especially since she hadn't taken any after returning from San Diego and all that had happened there over Christmas and New Year. However, he just said, "A break sounds good." Because Scully had fired her gun and mortally wounded Linda Bowman, she was on standard suspension while the investigation went on. She was here today to hand in her report and then planned to stay on in the building while Mulder had his session. She didn't have to, but she knew she would feel better in doing so. Her appointment with the counsellor was tomorrow, and the hearing into the shooting was slated for next week. Scully barely had time to sit before Skinner's office door opened and Mulder emerged. He waited while she stood, then he held the door open for her and they went out into the hallway. She studied him, but Mulder's face was bland. She wanted to ask him what had just happened, but curbed that desire until they exited the elevator at basement level and were alone. Neither of them had spoken in the interim. "Mulder, if you don't mind me asking, what did Skinner want?" "Just to talk about games. That's all." As they entered the basement office, Scully wondered for the thousandth time whether she should apologise again for siding with their boss on this case. When Mulder had come out of shock and she was driving him home from hospital, she had said she was sorry for doubting him about Linda Bowman and for the humiliating confiscation of his gun. Mulder just kept looking at the passing scenery and replied that he understood, that they had been right to doubt his judgement since he had been pushed and therefore couldn't be relied upon for sure. /But is it really okay? He heard my apology, but did he hear how sorry I really am?/ Perhaps tonight she would invite him to her place for some pizza and a video. First they had to survive this psychologist. /Who knows? Perhaps he'll be of some help./ Mulder went to his desk and fired up his computer. He looked lost in thought. Scully glanced at the clock. He was probably going to while away fifteen minutes playing solitaire. /Should I say something? What can I say? See what happens with the shrink first./ She sat at her desk and pulled out a medical journal. She was going to resume research on another article she was writing. A few minutes later she was making notes on a legal pad while reading. Her solitaire theory seemed to be correct, as all she could hear from Mulder's direction were mouse clicks, then a few brief keyboard taps. Another click. Then he picked up the phone and dialled an internal number. The laser printer on his desk whirred into life as he said, "This is Agent Mulder. Would I be able to come up and see him as soon as possible? It won't take long." There was a brief pause as he listened. "Fine, thanks. See you in ten." Scully looked at him, then at the clock. As her partner took the lone piece of paper from the laser printer, she said, "Mulder, you've got your appointment very soon." He signed the piece of paper. He met her gaze, looking purposeful. "I know. I'll cancel it on the way to see Skinner." "Cancel?" A dawning suspicion grew in her, but she pushed it aside. "Mulder, it's compulsory. Or do you want to change it to another day? And you've just seen Skinner. Why would you -" She stopped. Her attention focused on the sheet of paper that Mulder was folding. The single sheet. One that he must have had saved on the hard drive. He got up and came across to stand in front of her desk. He was holding the folded sheet and his face was resolute. "I'm sorry to tell you like this..." He looked at the floor, then met her eyes. "But I'm not going to need to see a Bureau shrink because I'm resigning from the Bureau. Effective immediately." Scully felt her vocal chords and the remnants of her heart plummet down her spine like it was a waste disposal chute. There they could settle with other things she couldn't use, like her ovaries, womb, chances of a normal life and joy. She blinked. That motion was all her body seemed capable of doing. She just sat there, her pencil still poised over the pad. Mulder shifted his feet and said, "I didn't tell you sooner because I knew you'd try to talk me out of it. I should have said something when Skinner gave me my gun back. Spared him the trouble." After a few false starts, she reclaimed her voice from the depths. "But why? I know that Linda Bowman -" "It's not just Linda Bowman. It's..." He struggled for the right words while putting his resignation in the inner breast pocket of his suit jacket. "I've been thinking about it for a while. The Dakota Indians say that when you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount. Well, my steed isn't just dead, it's down to skeletal remains. It's time I stopped flogging it. The horse can't take it anymore and I've realised that neither can I." "But -" /Don't panic, Dana! He's been here before. So have you. You just need to remind him of the important things./ "What about your sister?" She was stunned to see his eyes suddenly brim with tears. He quickly dropped his gaze to the floor. "She doesn't want anything to do with me." Scully stared at him. She had been ready to refute the expected despondent 'I'll never find her' argument, but his reply indicated that... "I met her." "When?" /And why didn't you tell me?/ He scuffed his feet. "Cancerman brought her to me when you were in hospital, after I found the chip at the Pentagon. Apparently he helped raise her. She says that he's her real father. Sam's married. I'm an uncle, Scully." He flashed a 'how about that, hey' smile with no heart in it, then sobered. "She's never called back. She won't." "Mulder, how can you be sure that it was her? He probably set the whole thing up..." He shook his head and walked back and forth in front of the desk. "I used my Scully-side." Another feeble grin. "When I hugged her, I made sure that I got some strands of her hair. She still has long hair. She always liked to wear it that way. And we were in a cafe. She had a few sips of cola, so when she left I took the cup and straw and the fork. She didn't really eat anything, but she toyed with it." Mulder stopped and ran his thumb along the edge of Scully's desk, gazing at his hand. "The Gunmen got friends to do the DNA testing. She's a sibling match for me." He swallowed and continued, "So either Cancerman lied about being her father or he's my father too..." Mulder stumbled over the words, and looked like he wanted to crawl out of his own skin and disown it. Scully realised how much this would have shaken him up at the time and how it must have been eating away at him in the intervening months. She had been distracted by her own problems, but now that she thought about it, just how long was it since Mulder had reached and sustained a 'ten' on her mental scale of his personality? During her cancer he was subdued, or putting on an act to bolster her own spirits. There had been moments of pure joy, like her remission... Mulder's voice pulled her back to the present. "So, that's that. I know now what happened to her. All that time wasted..." She opened her mouth to protest, but he beat her to it. "Yes, she could be a clone. Or a shapeshifter, even though you don't believe in them. There was no evidence of abnormalities in the tests. But we don't really know what to look for. And clones are supposed to be identical, right? So even DNA evidence doesn't mean that much. So what's the point of searching? I'll never know for sure. I have to accept that." His voice became even more quiet. "And no matter who she is or isn't, I can't do this anymore." Scully held panic at bay with one hand and reached for her logic with the other. "Mulder, first and foremost, you need some time off. You can't make a decision this important as you are now. You've been through a lot." He smiled and shook his head. "I knew this would happen. No one believes me. I was going to hold off on resigning a few days, so that you and Skinner wouldn't think I was still in shock, but when I got here today, I knew I just had to get out." "Linda Bowman could have put a suggestion in your mind to make you even consider this -" "I told you, Scully. This is not just a new idea that I've had." He tapped his breast pocket. "I only had to add the date." Stricken, she looked down at her hands. How long had that file been on his hard drive? Just when had he decided to resign? When she and Skinner stood against him, when her partner thought he was kneeling beside her dead body in the warehouse, when he realised that he had almost shot her himself, when he woke up in the hospital? Earlier? Later? Sitting in Skinner's office? Scully stood, pushing her chair back with deliberation. But she kept the desk between them. "What about the truth?" "The truth is that there is no truth. Be proud of me, Scully, or at least be relieved that I've finally seen the light and realised that it isn't issuing from the underside of a UFO. Truth is an illusion. We'll never find it. Did you know that there are as many variations on just how the Titanic sank as there were eyewitnesses? Even if we do find 'the truth', what could we - two lone FBI agents - DO about it? We've been trying for five years, and where has it gotten us? It's given us nothing but pain. And as for what its taken..." He swallowed and looked over at his 'I want to believe' poster. He pointed to it. "I never noticed before that 'believe' has the word 'lie' in it. Makes sense now. All my beliefs are nothing. What I saw in the Pentagon... How I'd been used. No one believes me, no one ever has, and after what I saw there, no wonder. There are no aliens. The Government just used me to further the myth, to provide a smokescreen. How can I keep working for them after that? I can't keep trying to hold the ocean back with a teaspoon. Once upon a time I really thought I could." He ran his fingers through his hair. Scully saw that his hand was shaking. Here was the 'mature' Mulder, who had finally accepted the fruitlessness of his endeavours and the ridiculousness of UFOs. Scully felt no satisfaction or relief at this. "What about me?" She swallowed, her voice wavering, not sure if she wanted the answer. "What about us?" He met her eyes again, and said with simple, devastating honesty, "There is no 'us'." His face was sad. "There hasn't been an us for a long time." Scully sat down again. She stared blankly at her pencil holder. Events replayed in her mind: Philadelphia, the cancer, fear, the shutouts, the arguments, misunderstandings, discontent, the bowling alley case, resentment at the disease and the X-Files' role in it, San Diego... Each word condensed down a multitude of incidents and hurt. /No, don't feel. Stay in the numbness. It doesn't hurt so much./ "There were a few moments where we ALMOST had it back," Mulder said. He looked at her wistfully. She knew exactly the moments he was referring to: the hug and forehead kiss in the hospital hallway, the handholds and kisses on her deathbed, remission, holding an injured Mulder in the forest, dancing to Cher... His face hardened. "But whatever we had left, whatever we might have built on, I sure shot it right between the eyes with what happened at Christmas." Scully clasped her hands together more tightly. The revelations of what Mulder had found in the fertility clinic when she was first diagnosed with the cancer. Revelations forced into the open by the discovery of Emily. He had lied by omission. And neither of them had been able to save the little girl. He pushed his shaking hands into his suit jacket pockets. "I killed us. Didn't I? After that, you don't trust me anymore. This case proved it, and I understand. We can't go on like this. Someone has to make the first move, and I am." Anger flared in her. "So you're quitting. That's your solution? And you're just going to leave me to carry on your work?" "No. I'd love to tell you to get the hell out and run, but you'd never listen to that. It'd just make you more determined to stay, to go down with the sinking ship or the decaying horse or whatever other metaphor you choose. Your future has to be your decision. I hope you consider carefully and come to the same conclusions that I did, then transfer to another section or leave the Bureau. It's your life, Scully. I've hampered it long enough." There was a long pause. He sighed and moved towards the door. Her voice stopped him. "Where will you go? What will you do?" "Anything but this," he said. He sounded choked. "Anything but what this has become." After a brief pause, he elaborated. "Travel for a while. Maybe get a practice, put that doctorate of mine to use in the real world instead of chasing after ghosts." Scully just sat there. She was trying to process all that he had just told her, but the pain and feelings it was bringing up... It was too much. She forced it all down. He looked at her for a long moment, then glanced at his watch. "I have to..." He indicated upstairs. "Yeah, okay." Mulder walked to the door. "Skinner had better not try pulling another Vietnam story on me." Then he exited. She let him go. xXx Scully remained sitting in her chair. She was still in the exact same position fifteen minutes later when Mulder returned. She had not noticed the time pass. With an unreadable expression, he walked over to his computer and switched it off. "What did he say?" "Wouldn't take my resignation. Told me I was on three weeks leave, and if I still felt the same way when I came back, then he'd accept it." Mulder walked past her and took his trenchcoat off the stand. "I'm going home. If I decide to go off anywhere, I'll let you know, okay?" "Okay. Sure." He stopped in the doorway. "I'm sorry I dumped it all on you like this, without warning. I just didn't know how to tell you." She nodded. He left. For a long time she sat there. /Mulder is leaving. He's leaving me./ She felt around the edges of her emotions, testing the corners, debating about opening the lid on them. She raised it a little, and the pain was so great that she retreated immediately. /I can't stop him from leaving. He HAS to. He's on the verge of a breakdown, and he knows it,/ she realised with alarm. She thought back to the first year of partnership, when Reverend Hartley was talking about his adopted son, the miracle man. The teenager felt pain differently to others. "To Samuel, a pinprick is like a gaping wound." That was Mulder too. He not only had his pain and guilt, he took hers on as his own, blaming himself. Her abduction, the cancer. Every time she got hurt or was put in danger. Emily. The upheaval to his belief system that Samantha and the Pentagon had put him through. /No, I put him through that. He went in there to find a cure for me. I rediscovered my faith, but at the cost of his./ If Mulder had been talking in metaphors earlier, she had her own now. He knew they were in the abyss. He could feel it. He knew how far down they were, the danger, the despair. She had closed herself off so she couldn't. She had tried to change her behaviour when she went into remission, but after Emily's funeral she had retreated into numbness again, to not let herself fully experience her emotions. It was safer. Her own mute button had been operating for a while. /And instead of reaching out to Mulder, I stayed behind my desk./ She reached for the phone, then withdrew her hand. A fragment of a poem came to her: "In your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, or which I cannot touch because they are too near." And now he was leaving. /He's leaving me in the abyss! No - he thinks that he IS my abyss./ He had to get out. It was crushing him. He knew he couldn't save her - that he had to pull the veil back, force her to face their situation, but her salvation lay in her own hands, in her own understanding and psyche. Could she follow him? She followed him everywhere else, including into the darkness in the first place. But to get out of the abyss, she would have to feel again, leaving her comfort zone. Pain was the ladder. Could she climb it? xXx Alexandria 6.03pm She knocked on the wood just below the numbers four and two. There was a shuffling, then Mulder opened the door. She immediately dropped her gaze, afraid she would lose her nerve, and went past him. Scully halted when she saw the bags. There were four large bags sitting on the floor. None were his overnight bag. /He's leaving. He's really leaving./ The numbness washed out like a retreating wave, and a surge of panic pounded into the gap it had left. She looked around the room and into the living room and kitchen, but there were no cardboard boxes or newspaper-wrapped possessions in sight. Everything looked the same. /He's probably just going away for the weekend, since we've got the hearing, but what about after that? Then there will be nothing keeping him here in D.C. and he'll really go for good. He could be planning to move everything into his father's home in the Vineyard, that's why there's so many bags.../ She had stopped so fast that Mulder bumped into the back of her. "I was just about to call you, to tell you that I'm going to -" Scully turned around and kept her eyes on his sneakers. "Take me with you," she blurted out. "What?" "Wherever you're going, and for however long, take me with you. I'll take time off or resign too." "Scully..." His feet shifted, as if his whole frame was rocked by her words. She took a deep breath. "I didn't realise how bad it was between us, and for us. I should have realised, but I kept myself locked away. That's not because of you, Mulder. I've been like that for a very long time." She could feel the pain well up in her chest now, but she thought of the pain his absence would cause and knew she had to keep going. "Scully -" He stepped forward, but she stepped back. His feet halted, obedient to her wishes, but straining to move again. "When I was a little girl, only five years old, I found a baby rabbit in the woods. I wanted to keep it. Bill said the Navy didn't allow pets in base housing, but I smuggled it home. He guessed and kept threatening to turn it into stew or to tell Mom about it. But I wanted that rabbit, it was something that was all mine, a secret, so I hid it away." Opening up her past, she could feel the abyss around her. How deep she was in it terrified her. She could hear it hissing. There was no light above. She could feel Mulder's hands on her upper arms. She went to pull away, but stopped herself. /You're here because you don't want to keep pulling back from him!/ She kept staring at his feet though. "Unfortunately I hid it in a little school case that didn't have any airholes and it...it died. I'd kept it too close. My love had killed it -" "Scully, no. You were young -" She gave a short, bitter laugh. "So you think I would have learned my lesson then, don't you? But when I was ten, the boys and I were shooting with BB guns. Only cans, Dad had said. But one day we found a garter snake. We shot it." She couldn't go on. His voice was quiet. His hands were gently rubbing her arms. "Your mom told me about that once." "Again, I'd caused death. I couldn't bring it back. Perhaps I went into medicine telling myself I could try and 'make it all better', to make amends, but then the real reason drew me into pathology without me consciously acknowledging it: I wanted to understand death, to find reasons for it, perhaps even keep punishing myself for the snake and the rabbit by having to face corpses all the time. Or to do penance or make myself face my fears." Mulder's hands had come down to hold hers now, a reversal of their roles in Modell's hospital room two years ago. Her hands remained limp in his. "There was also the fact that I wouldn't have to deal with live people, to run the risk of not saving them. Failing." This time her gaze got all the way to his knees before she lost her resolve and dropped it down again. "Scully, you have saved me so many times. And with your work, you've prevented people FROM dying." She heard his words, but she could not accept the truth of them. Not yet. She still had more to force out of herself. "With pathology, others keep a distance from you, and that was fine with me. I didn't want anyone to get too close and vice versa. I wouldn't have to deal with the social side of things like in a lot of other jobs. I could exist, I could even pretend to have a normal life, going out and dating, but no one would ever have all of me. Not even myself." Her head ached. The abyss just seemed to be swallowing her words, feeding off her pain and revelations instead of retreating. /I'll never get out of here. I was foolish to think I could./ One of Mulder's hands let go of hers, and she was staggered by the strength of her impulse to seize it. /It's not a need. I *want* to. There's a difference,/ she realised. The feeling was so strong that she didn't actually act on it, just experiencing it instead, without censoring it or fleeing. She absorbed and started to accept at last what it was telling her. Mulder's hand reappeared under her chin, gently trying to raise her head. Habit and fear made her resist, but as she was battling them, a drop of water landed on his right shoelace. She looked up, startled. Tears were running down his face. /I came here for a reason. And no one is going to stop me. Not even myself./ She raised her hand to rest it against his own. "You didn't do this to me, Mulder. I did it to me." She looked him square in the eyes. "I don't blame you for Christmas. I can understand why you kept what you discovered from me. You were trying to protect me. That's what I was doing too when I sided with Skinner. I was terrified that Pusher would kill you. I can still picture him making you play Russian Roulette, even though that was two years ago." She glanced at the packed cases, then lifted her eyes, weighted with feeling, to his again. "Mulder, you can do whatever you want, as long as I can come with you. I'll sweep floors or become a waitress if necessary." He opened his mouth and she placed her index finger over his lips. "I want us to be together. I want there to be an us again. More than what was there, even before it decayed." She was crying now too, her fingers linking in with his. "If you left... You wanted me to choose my future, Mulder. It's you. Us." She hoped her eyes were showing him all of her feelings. She saw the look in Mulder's eyes, the emotions that he couldn't verbalise either at this second because they were overwhelming him. She was as much his world as he was hers. But, despite this, there was something she had to ask. She had to know if his desire to leave was to get away from *her* as well as the X-Files, which meant that she had just made a mistake by chasing after him and opening herself up. Pain welled in her. "Mulder, DO you want me to come with you? Is that what you want too?" He nodded emphatically, more tears spilling with the motion. His voice was hoarse. "I want that. I want that so much." There was a pause. Simultaneously they stepped forward that little bit more, traversing the gap that had seemed so huge, and then they were embracing. Scully wrapped her arms around his waist and let her cheek press against his chest. She was not shying away from their feelings by doing this. She was revelling in them. /I thought I'd hurt him or get hurt if I got too close, but look what keeping my distance did. God, this feels good./ After a time, Mulder said unsteadily, without raising his head, "I saw you dying slowly with the cancer and then quickly because of Linda Bowman... And I couldn't - I couldn't stand -" His hand weaved through her hair, touching her skull as if to reassure himself it was whole. "There was so much blood..." She moved her hands up and down his back, stroking. "I know. It's okay. I'm here." She felt his breath hitch. She kept speaking, "We may come back to the X-files in time. But, for the moment, we need to get out. At least for a break. We have to save ourselves before we can save the world." She took another deep breath. "There's so much I want to tell you, to explain, to ask... But let's just feel for the moment." He nodded in her hair. Soon, they would say the words. They would be ready then. Scully realised that though her previous words had fallen into the abyss, they hadn't vanished like she had feared. They had built up under her and Mulder, a foundation for them, shoaling up the hole. /Or binding us together. We didn't have to try to climb out, we had to come together. Deconstruct the darkness. Create a new, better horse. Whatever./ She pressed her ear closer to his heart, and restored hers to its rightful place. She was not going to let fear take up another minute of their time. THE END. Quote is by E.E. Cummings