I posted my first XF story ten years ago. This one is for Malik, who's been my friend all this time.

Thanks again to Michelle for her mad beta skillz.

Keep those comments coming: [email protected]
 
 
 

SLOW PROMISES
by: Jennifer Maurer
 

I close my eyes, but I can still see it.

<Mulder...>

If I could stop seeing it, I might be able to sleep.

<Scully...what are you doing here?>

This time the push had come with visions. Vivid ones. But they were only visions, I remind myself.

<You were right about her, Mulder.>

Scully is fine.

<She's making me do this.>

I didn't really see her shoot herself in the head.

<She's here. Mulder, make her stop.>

She is safe at home, probably sleeping, right now.

<I can't help myself.>

Without a gaping hole in her head.

<Linda Bowman!>

There is no spreading pool of blood on the floor.

<Mulder, make her stop!>

Linda Bowman's game is over.

<Show yourself!>

I just need to shut my thoughts off.

<Mulder!>

Just close my eyes and relax.

<No! No!>

I close my eyes, but I can still see it.

~*~*~

I had heard the gunshot as I walked in the warehouse. I heard Mulder scream and realized from the anguish in his voice that it wasn't him that had been shot. I pulled out my own gun and approached him as quietly as I could. I rounded the corner and saw him kneeling on the floor next to Linda Bowman's body. He was stroking her hair and wincing in pain.

In that instant I knew what she had made him see: me with a gun to my head.

Maybe Linda Bowman knew the details of our encounter with Modell. Maybe she thought to torture Mulder twice over: once by pushing him to watch me commit suicide, then again by tricking him into killing me himself. It would have destroyed him; she knew that, just as her brother did.

I hated her for it. Even more than I hated Modell. When she rose up behind Mulder, I didn't hesitate to shoot her. I resisted the temptation to shoot to kill, but just barely.

In the chaos afterwards, Mulder slipped away. I had insisted he let the paramedics check him out, as he seemed to be suffering from mild shock. One minute I could see him sitting on the tail gate of an ambulance, wrapped in a blanket, and the next he was gone.

I called him several times, but he didn't pick up. I wasn't sure if he had left because he was still angry with me for not believing him. I decided in the end to give him some time alone to decompress, hoping he would understand why I had doubted him. I gave my statement to the police and went home.

Mulder wasn't there, either.

Later that night, I awoke suddenly. I felt that someone was in the room with me; a second later I relaxed, because I could tell it was Mulder.

I opened my eyes, the quality of the darkness leading me to believe it was still well before dawn. I was curled up on my side, and Mulder was kneeling next to my bed staring at me.

"Mulder?" I said sleepily, propping myself up on one elbow.

No answer.

"Mulder, are you all right?"

"I couldn't sleep. I had to make sure it didn't happen." He reached out and brushed my hair from my face.

"It didn't happen. I didn't shoot myself."

He withdrew his hand.

"How did you know?"

"When I saw you, kneeling next to her on the floor...I just knew."

"It was you, Scully. You pointed your gun at me, and then you..."

"I know." I reached out, and Mulder grabbed my hand. "I saw the same thing once, only it was real."

"Tell me you would never do that."

"Come up off the floor, Mulder," I said, as I tugged on his hand and moved over to make room for him. He climbed onto the bed and sat next to me. When I put my arm around him I could feel him shaking, and I rubbed his back to try and soothe him a little.

"Do you want to talk about what you saw?" I asked him. I was sure he would refuse, but he surprised me.

"I walked into the warehouse. I heard you calling me, so I ran over to you. I was afraid you'd be angry with me for going to meet Bowman without any backup, but I couldn't understand how you had gotten there first. As soon as I saw the look on your face when you said I was right, I knew she was pushing you. I knew there wouldn't be just one bullet in the gun this time. You begged me to make her stop. I called for Bowman to show herself. Then you turned the gun on yourself. I knew even as I ran towards you I would be too late. You shot yourself in the head. Your blood was everywhere, Scully, God, and I couldn't..." His words choked off and he pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, leaning forward.

"It's all right," I whispered, "It's all right now. It's over."

"It's not," he moaned, "Every time I close my eyes, I see it. Bowman walked up to me, and I was going to kill her for what she pushed you into, but she was also you, and I would have shot you, Scully, just like the first time, I would have killed you myself...oh, my God..."

Mulder started rocking back and forth and I held on to him tighter, not trying to stop him, but moving with him. I put my lips close to his ear.

"Mulder, listen to me carefully. Linda Bowman was pushing you to see those things, but I was the one to whom you really listened. I know how difficult it must have been. You held back long enough to hear me. You had the strength to do that. I don't know that I would have."

He turned towards me then and wrapped his arms around me. I stroked his head with one hand and with the other continued rubbing gentle circles on his back.

"You wouldn't have played her game in the first place," he said.

"It was beyond your control. However they did it, both Bowman and Modell got into your head; they made you do things against your nature and see things that weren't there. You can't blame yourself for that. I'm the one who should be sorry, Mulder."

"No."

I let go to look at him.

"Yes. If I had listened to you the same way you listened to me, all this might have been avoided."

"You were right to doubt me. I let Modell walk away."

"But you were right about Bowman. I was so worried about Modell I never stopped to consider that it might be her doing the pushing."

He was quiet for a moment, letting all that sink in.

"You never answered me before. Tell me you would never kill yourself, Scully. Promise me."

I couldn't meet his gaze any more, and I looked down at our hands, still joined. Mulder tugged on mine to get me to look at him.

"You have to promise. Look at me and say it!"

He was getting so frantic I was afraid I couldn't avoid the topic much longer, as much as I wanted to.

"Mulder, don't. We don't have to talk about this now."

"Yes, we do," he insisted, "Why won't you promise?"

"Would you promise me the same?"

"We're not talking about me now. We're talking about you. What aren't you telling me?"

I looked up at him then and saw the terror in his face. I regretted trying to evade his questions, berating myself for not realizing I would scare him this much. I hugged him again and he squeezed me in a convulsive grip.

"I'm not keeping anything from you. I promise."

"Then why not the other?" he whispered into my shoulder, "Why, Scully?"

I leaned back again and looked into his eyes.

"I would never make you a promise that I wasn't absolutely sure I could keep," I said to him, "If I was terminally ill, if the cancer came back, I would consider ending my own life. I have to be honest with you."

"Did you think about it, back then? About killing yourself?"

I closed my eyes, unable to look at him. I had never wanted to have this conversation with Mulder. I had not only thought about it, but prepared to go through with it. When it had become clear that I was starting to deteriorate, I began to sort my belongings. The first thing I had put in Mulder's box was an envelope containing a letter to him, and my cross necklace.

"Tell me," he insisted, shaking me a little and bringing me out of my reverie.

"Yes, I thought about it."

"How were you going to do it?"

"Mulder..."

"How?"

"I-I had pills. My painkillers."

I hoped he wouldn't make the next leap, but he did. I could see the realization dawning in his face.

"That's why you wouldn't go with me to Canada," he breathed, "You thought about doing it then. Didn't you?"

"Yes," I whispered.

"But you wouldn't really have," he insisted, reassuring himself. "You're Catholic."

"I don't believe God would want anyone to suffer like that. I believed He would understand, and forgive me."

"But you said to me, in Allentown, that you were going to fight. That you had things to finish, to prove to yourself."

"I was out of time. I wanted to die on my own terms."

"You really would have left me like that?"

"I didn't know how to say goodbye to you," I admitted, wiping my tears away.

"This wasn't just an idea, was it, Scully." he said dully. It wasn't a question. "You sent me away on purpose. That was your plan."

"I didn't refuse to go with you specifically for that purpose, Mulder. I was too sick to go. But I had been making plans to end my life, yes."

"I wasted time chasing proof of extra-terrestrial life when I should have been concentrating on finding a cure for your cancer. If you had killed yourself before I got back and found the chip..."

His voice trailed off. He couldn't continue. He didn't have to. It wasn't hard for me to imagine what he would have done to himself.

We looked at each other for a long moment, and then we were holding each other again. We sat like that for a long time.

When we let go of each other I slid back on the bed to lean against the headboard, and Mulder did the same, sitting close enough that our sides were touching. He draped his arm over my shoulders and I leaned against him, drained. He kept reaching up to stroke my hair back from my face. He didn't seem to be aware he was doing it.

There was still something I needed to know.

"Mulder, have you ever thought about killing yourself?"

It was an obvious question; I knew that even as I was asking it. I'd helped him fake his own suicide, for God's sake. Of course he had thought about it, but I wasn't sure how seriously. I wanted to hear what he would say.

He turned to look at me out of eyes that were incredibly weary.

"The night you told me they had given you cancer to make me believe...I wanted to blow my brains out. Kritschgau called as I was checking the clip in my gun."

"What?" I gasped.

"After I talked to him I found the surveillance camera, killed Scott Ostlehoff...and the rest you know."

"If Kritschgau hadn't called when he did..." Now I was the one that couldn't continue. I looked my question at him. He shrugged and looked away, letting his head fall back against the headboard. I turned and leaned closer so I could look into his face.

"Mulder, look at me," I said. He shook his head. I put my hands on his shoulders and pulled him forward until our faces were almost touching. "Open your eyes and look at me."

"Scully, don't do this. I never meant to tell you that. Just forget I did."

I let go and sat back, horrified. I'd worried about Mulder many times, in many ways. I'd feared for his life and his sanity. I had never imagined that I could lose him by his own hand.

And if I had, it would have been my fault.

I remembered the body the floor of his apartment, shot in the face, and identifying it as his. I had been able to get through that only because I knew it wasn't him, but even then just barely. If it had turned out to be true...

As these thoughts started to sink in, I could feel the blood draining from my face. My hands went numb. God, I thought, I'm going into shock.

<Agent Mulder died late last night from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.>

I gasped and my eyes flew open. Mulder heard my distress and reached for me. Before he could touch me I was scrambling across the bed, my hand over my mouth. I barely made it to the bathroom before I threw up.

Images of Mulder holding a gun to his head, both real and imagined, flashed through my mind. If Modell had pushed Mulder to fire at me first, that third shot would have put a bullet in Mulder's brain. I had been so afraid for him that day -- and every day on the Bowman case as well. Now I realized that Mulder wouldn't need a pusher to put a gun to his head -- I had almost caused him to do the same thing.

My dry heaves finally subsided into sobbing. I didn't want this knowledge. I didn't want to believe I had the ability to inflict that kind of damage on him. Whatever the next crisis to befall us, would I always have to worry that I could send him over the edge again?

"Scully, I'm so sorry," he whispered. I hadn't heard him come after me. He rubbed my back while I struggled to get myself under control.

"Oh, Mulder," I moaned, shifting from my knees to sit on the floor and lean back against the wall. I couldn't find any other words. I buried my face in my hands, letting my hair hang down like a curtain.

"Don't cry," he murmured.

I lowered my hands from my face and turned towards his voice without opening my eyes. Tears still leaked down my cheeks. I reached for him, and he took me in his arms, tucking my head under his chin. I wrapped my arms around him and clutched handfuls of his shirt, unable to bear the thought of losing him.

"I did that to you," I said, "You would have killed yourself because of what I said about my cancer. Mulder, God, don't ever do anything like that. If you ever feel that way again, for any reason, I want you to talk to me. Promise me."

His fingers slipped under my chin and he tipped my face up to look into his eyes. It was not lost on me that I was now asking him to make me a promise I had been unwilling to make myself.

"I will," he said, "If you promise me something in return. If, God forbid, you were sick and you felt it was necessary to end your own life, promise me that you would talk to me. You know I would respect your wishes. But don't make a decision like that alone."

"I promise."

"I promise, too."

Mulder dipped his head and kissed the tears from my cheeks.

"To seal it," he said solemnly.

I slid my hand behind his neck and guided his head back down, pressing my lips against his.
 
 

~*End*~
 

"Promise me you'll always remember: you're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think."
     --A.A. Milne