Title: Morning After Thoughts Author: Foxie Meg Rating: PG Spoilers: Don't think so... Summary: Relationship already established; Scully tells Mulder something that breaks his heart. Disclaimer: They're not mine, but they spend a helluva lot of time at my house talking to me. Pretty amusing. I really do like the stories they tell me, but I don't think it's enough to sue over. Also, thanks to Mary MacGregor for her song Torn Between Two Lovers, the inspiration for this story. Feedback: Why do you think I write this stuff if not to get feedback? megan86@thexfiles.com - make my life worth living. Archive: Always. Just ask politely. *** "Torn Between Two Lovers" There are times when a woman Has to say what's on her mind Even though she knows How much it's gonna hurt But before I say another word Let me tell you I love you Let me hold you close And say these words as gently as I can There's been another man that I've needed And I've loved But that doesn't mean I love you less And he knows he can't possess me And he knows he never will There's just this empty place inside of me That only he can fill Torn between two lovers Feelin' like a fool Lovin' both of you Is breakin' all the rules Torn between two lovers Feelin' like a fool Loving you both Is breaking all the rules You mustn't think you've failed me Just because there's someone else You were the first real love I ever had And all the things I ever said I swear they still are true For no one else can have the part of me I gave to you I couldn't really blame you If you turned and walked away But with everything I feel inside I'm asking you to stay. *** "Mulder." Her voice is quiet, barely heard in the stillness of the morning. "Hm?" His reply is muffled, murmured into the down of his pillow. He is definitely not awake yet. "Mulder, wake up." Her tone of voice snatches all drowsiness from his brain more quickly than anything else he could think of. She sounds on the verge of tears. He pushes himself up off the mattress from where he has been sleeping on his stomach. "Scully? What is it?" His worry is more than evident; it's practically shattering his breast and pushing the edges of his words until they expand into something more than her name and a simple question. "Who is she?" "*What?*" To say that Mulder is shocked would be an understatement that surpasses even his most brilliant moments of subtlety. His surprise -- mixed with fear and maybe slight indignation -- blossoms with the same nuclear velocity as his earlier worry. "Who is she?" Scully repeats. Then she expounds a bit more. "The girl you dream about when you're asleep." It is becoming clear that Mulder has a deeper capacity for emotions than most, for his confusion and subsequent panic -- he utterly despises being confused -- replace all previous emotions with the opaque shadow of a total eclipse. He doesn't know what she means; for all he knows, he dreams of her, of Scully. His mouth opens to answer, but the torture of uncertainty is clear in his green eyes and the words can't make it past the choke-hold his desperate trepidation has on his trachea. She realizes this and mercifully explains, sacrificing her own comfort by speaking past her need for tears and silence. "The girl you seek refuge in when I'm not enough for you." This he knows how to answer. Relief shines brilliantly through the clouds in his eyes. He can offer reassurance for this. "You're always enough for me, Scully. You're all I've ever needed." "That can't be right, Mulder." She says it in the same tone she uses when she is dredging up scientific facts from the bottom of her memory, displaying them to him like magic charms to ward off his impossible ideas. He bites. "Why not?" "Because, I can't contain you. You're too much for me. You're... you're like space, infinite and ever-expanding... and I am only me, one little girl on the beach, with her telescope, trying to see all of you and miserably failing. I'm just not big enough to hold you, Mulder." He reaches for her, to hold her, and she doesn't resist, though she doesn't comply. "I don't agree with that, not at all," he murmurs into her hair, ignoring the fact that she has not moved from her resigned position, sitting up in their bed, arms draped loosely over her bent knees. "You consume me, completely." She doesn't move, doesn't speak. For all practical purposes, she could be an alabaster icon that materialized out of the pristine white sheets. He continues, undaunted. "But for the sake of argument... think about it, Scully. If one little girl on the beach with her telescope can't comprehend it all... what makes you think another girl on another beach could?" "Maybe she's not a little girl on the beach. Maybe she is a brilliant scientist in a laboratory with state-of-the-art equipment and can chart your depths. Or maybe she's even one of the ones who have stood on the surface of the moon, further into you than I can be on my lonely little beach." It strikes him with the power of the surf she is hearing in her parallel universe. It pounds on him with crushing infiltration, as if he is the sand beneath the feet of that lonely little girl. The one who dresses up in a white coat and plays scientist so that one day she can be. The one who will not relinquish her white coat and her scientific knowledge, because she hopes it will help her reach out and better comprehend the mysteries that hover before her. Momentarily he wonders if she is reaching through the quest to find him, or reaching through him to find the truth. "I don't need anything more than the loving curiosity that inspires that little girl to search the heavens with her telescope." She turns to him. "I need a fixed point, Mulder. You're too much, all at once. I'm lost in you; I'm drowning in you." He doesn't bother to tell her that she is mixing metaphors; that one can not drown in the infinite vacuum of open space, and that even the ocean has a bottom -- a place to stand. He suddenly forgets what he was going to say in response to that, because something else has occurred to him. A nasty little suspicion that grows with every breath he takes and shivers into further expansion with the expelling of that air. "Do you dream of another? Someone safe?" Her downcast eyes are more answer than he ever wanted. "Do you regret it?" It is time for her blue-tinted soul-windows to mirror the question that has been in his eyes until now. "Me. Do you regret..." he trails off, wondering if his phrasing will sound conceited. He decides not, since she said it first. "...getting lost in me?" Tears shimmer in her eyes. Her mouth opens and her lips move for eternal moments before her voice shudders its way from deep in her throat. "Not exactly." He wonders what she means, and his pain is hers, although the sound echoes peculiarly off the walls of his cavern, flavoring it with his own cadence. She knows he is waiting for her to explain her non- answer to him, and draws into herself momentarily, moving around her collection of word-pictures and memories that she keeps in her most secret heart, picking them up one at a time and rejecting them. None are adequate to tell him this painful truth. A whole dictionary wouldn't be enough. "I... don't regret loving you. I just sometimes regret... losing my footing." He almost-laughs. "I think that's why it's called 'falling in love'." She smiles humorlessly. "I need something... someone to hold on to." She takes a deep breath. "I need him." The words are a cold stone, dropping through his stomach and crashing all his vital organs onto the floor, his heart falling and shattering on top of the heap. She continues, which is just as well because his faculty for speech is mixed up somewhere in the bloody pile at his feet. "He... he is what I hold on to when your current is too strong for me. He is my refuge." He is sure he would cry if he could only find his tears somewhere in the mess that her words have made of his soul. She sees this, but doesn't stop. She is determined to cut herself open, despite the fact that she knows Mulder will take every slice of the scalpel on himself. "He..." "Stop," he chokes out. "Please, stop." "I went to him last night, while you were asleep. I woke up thinking about him, and went to him... I kissed him... I..." she doesn't finish, and he is grateful. "Then I came back here... and I've been thinking about him all morning." "Scully..." his voice is cracking. "I need him, Mulder. I can't live without him anymore." And then he knows. He knows, and it nearly kills him how clearly he understands the depth of his love for her. "Then go to him." "I can't leave you." Her voice is tiny. She says it with the same guilt and shame that a young child would tell her mother that -- despite continued warnings not to touch it -- she had broken the most valuable vase in the house. And despite -- or maybe because of -- his love for her, his anger explodes. "Damn it, Scully, you can't have both of us!" A tear slides down her face as she breaks open, her chalcedony shell cracking open delicately and all the mess of her emotions flowing out over the jagged lines. "I know," she whispers, and his heart breaks for her. He does not stop to think how it is that her pain is breaking his heart and not his own. "Who is he?" "Oh... I've known him... for awhile." "How long?" His voice is dead, unfeeling. He is autopsying his own heart, and must remained as detached as she does when she is slicing open children to find what has hurt them so. "Our first case. Yours and mine. I met him in Oregon." "Oh?" He tries to sound disinterested. "He was the only one who could calm me after what we saw. It was the first time I realized how much I needed him, and that I could love him." He does not like this thought, that she has known him -- loved him -- this long. He followed me back to Washington... sometimes he follows me on cases, is there when I need him. Comfort. When I realized I couldn't live without him... was after Donnie Pfaster. He was... my only solace." No! He can hear the word echo as his heart shatters to pieces. "...my only solace..." her words haunt him. It is the last straw. On cases... not on cases. This is when she belongs to him alone, not some imaginary "fixed point" she met on the west coast. He cannot stand this any longer. He has been betrayed, and he cannot bear it. "You do have to choose. Choose him. You need him, Scully. You said so." "But you own me." He doesn't know how to answer that. He doesn't have to. "Do you think I should choose him, then?" He can't tell if she is asking his permission, his release... or if she is asking him not to let her go. He takes his chances. "Yes." The word is a hoarse mockery of his voice, and the taste is bitter in his mouth. She looks at him then, her eyes drilling deep into his own, hard as diamonds and unrelenting. He feels the pain swelling in his heart, and tries to look away. She will not let him. "Then I do. I choose him right now. I choose the safest place I've ever known." She falls forward into his arms, wrapping her arms around his waist. "I choose my comforting angel, not my avenging one. I choose the man who loves me, not the man who needs me as an afterthought to his quest." It takes a moment for him to react, but he gingerly puts his arms around her as she lifts her face to his, kissing him lightly on the lips. "I'm telling him right now that I need him, and that when he's asleep, I sit awake to watch him. The one who will slow down to look at me, to hold me. The one who will comfort my fears of mosquito bites without taking advantage of my strategic near-nudity. The one who erased all memories of a demon with his embrace." She kisses him again, deeper now. "Mulder... I choose you." He is reeling. He thought he'd lost her... what is she saying? "Agent Mulder, the FBI agent, the passionate, obsessed man who lives for the truth... this is the man who owns me. I can no more break away from him than I can stop breathing. But you... *you*... the Mulder who lets me breathe his air... who would give me his own blood to pump through my veins... I love him. I need him." He holds her closely, gasping for air. "Scully, Scully..." "I'm sorry," she whispers. "I'm sorry... I had..." He understands. She knows she broke his heart... but somehow, she's put it back together, stronger than ever. She has told him that he is all she needs, by telling him she needs all of who he is. And for that, despite his pain, he is extremely grateful. "I love you." "I know." ~Finis~ Author's Notes: Was I intentionally cruel to my readers and to Mulder? You bet. I was trying to give everyone a heart-attack. But I'm such a hopeful romantic myself, I couldn't carry through with a *real* Scully/other theme. A big Shout-Out to the Slap Happy's Ten (which are really the Slap Happy's Twelve by now...) - love you lushes!