Archive: Okay for Gossamer, others ask first, thanks!

Author's Notes: Boy, this one came out of no where. It took all night, but the idea wouldn't leave me alone. It may be a song fic, but please read it anyway. The words I give are my best interpretation from watching the video. I'm sorry if they aren't exactly right.

Disclaimer: Straight simple and to the point: Mulder and Scully, etc are property of FOX Television, 1013 Productions, Chris Carter, and probably a bunch of other people. If I owned them, I wouldn't need student loans. "You're Gone" belongs to Diamond Rio, and their record label. I think it's Arista. Yes, I found a way to work in a country song, but give it a chance anyway. You'll never even notice. :-) Oh, the movie Jerry Maguire is mentioned in passing, but I have no idea who owns it. Except that it's not me!

Dana Scully stood on the middle of the office she had shared with Fox Mulder for so many years, and looked around at the familiar features of the room. Posters and evidence, photographs and files. Sitting in her chair was a cardboard box holding the few personal possessions she had managed to collect during her stay in the X-Files office. Soon she would walk out of the door, probably for the last time.

Earlier that day she had turned in her resignation from the X-Files, for the time being she would continue on within the bureau working at Quantico. After that, she planned to examine her options when she came to it, after she cleared her mind some.

She walked over to where Mulder's I Want To Believe poster hung on the wall and contemplated, once again, what it was she was doing by leaving. Lowering her gaze, she shook her head. After nights of little sleep and searching her heart, she had made her decision. It was time to move on, Mulder had little need of her anymore, she had come to believe. She just wish she was as certain of her decision as she let on.

Fighting the tears she felt rushing to fill her eyes, she closed her eyes against the pain. It wasn't supposed to be this hard she had thought. Her heels clicked against the tile floor as she walked over and picked up the box she had packed only an hour before. Grabbing her keys and jacket she walked to the doorway. With one last look back into the office, she turned off the light and pulled the door shut behind her. Her time there had drawn to a close. The stillness of the hallway was broken by the repetitive click of her steps as she walked down the hall, and away from the life she had known.

***

Mulder slammed the door to his apartment shut and stalked across the small living room. He was not having a good day, to put it mildly. For weeks he and Scully had been having problems. When he forced himself to look back over the past few months with honest eyes, he could see the roller coaster their relationship had been on.

He tossed his leather jacket onto the couch and picked up his basketball. He didn't care if his downstairs neighbors complained, he was upset and needed an out. After a couple of moments he developed a rhythm of bouncing the ball off of the wall and onto the floor. He kept repeating the motion until the sounds became a constant blur of noise.

Giving up on exorcizing his demons through the basketball, he picked up his car keys from the coffee table and grabbed his jacket. Pulling the door shut behind him, he walked down the hall to the stairs on the way to his car. A few moments later he was pulling away from his apartment building and driving down the deserted suburb streets.

As he drove he struggled to not think of the thundering halt his world had smashed into that afternoon. It was sometime later, after aimlessly following one street to the next with no real destination in mind, that he stumbled onto a small bar. A flickering sign stood outside the bar announcing it's existence to those lost souls that might find their way to its door. There were only a few cars in the darkened parking lot when he pulled his car into an empty spot and killed the ignition.

He looked around the shadow-filled lot as he closed his car door, he almost laughed at his inability to shake his paranoid suspicions. He couldn't think of a reason not to anymore.

Finding his way into the dusky interior, his eyes scanned the almost empty room. A couple were huddled in a far corner, with eyes only for each other. A man wearing a cowboy hat sat at the distant end of the bar nursing a whiskey. A lone bartender moved back and forth behind the wooden bar drying glasses and straightening bottles.

Mulder walked up to the bar and requesting a screwdriver, heavy on the vodka. Taking his drink from the counter top, he walked to a booth along the wall nearest the door, and sank within the dimmed depths. He kept his eyes fixed on the glass before him, absentmindedly twirling the glass between his hands. His mind was far from the bar in which he now sat. His thoughts were centered around Scully, and the void his life was now facing.

He was unsure how long he had been tending to his drink, he only knew it was growing warm in his hands when he saw the cowboy walk over to the juke box. Looking back to his drink, he downed the remainder of the liquid in one gulp and motioned to the bartender for another. He rolled his eyes when he heard the notes of a distinctly depressing country song filter across the bar.

Trying to ignore the music, he sought to focus his thoughts solely on his drink. The best way of not remembering, or imagining a lonely future, was to attempt to create a haze to completely cloud his mind and memories. The music continued to play and Mulder continued to order drinks until the bartender grew wary of serving him anymore.

***
I said "Hello, I think I'm broken"
And though I was only joking
It took me by surprise when you agreed.
***

Mulder's inebriated mind heard the words of the song coming from the juke box and wanted to do anything to not be forced to endure another country song. He contemplated shooting the irritating box, only to discover that he had left his service revolver at home.

Even through the alcohol, he could picture the day's events as if he were living them again. He had noticed Scully growing more distant over the past few weeks. He had hoped she would talk to him about what was wrong, but had grown suspicious that what was bothering her was because she knew she would have to tell him eventually. He didn't know where the gut feeling had come from, and he hated when she had proven it true.

They had been working in silence for an hour or two that morning when he attempted to break the heavy air with one of his flat humor remarks. He hadn't even thought about what he would say, as usual he said the first thing that popped into his head. Someday he hoped to learn not to do that.

"Come on, Scully, talk to me. The way you've been sneaking around, you'd think you wanted out of our four star department." He pushed his glasses up further on his nose and popped a sunflower seed into his mouth waiting on a typical Scully response. He expected a checkmate to his check, but had been brought up short when she took off her own glasses and stood.

"Mulder, we need to talk . . . "

***
I was trying to be clever
For the life of me I never
Could have guessed how far the simple truth could lead.
***

He thought if he remembered hard enough, he could place the exact moment his world had screeched to a halt. His heart faltered for an instant, and he felt unable to breathe. It was later that he had discovered she had spoked to A.D. Skinner previously that morning about her desire for a transfer. He attempted to avoid the sledgehammer blow he could feel coming with more dry wit.

"Oh, Scully. You mean you're finally going to admit that I was right about our dear sheriff down in Vampireville? You were hot for the bubba, huh?"

***
You knew all my lies, you knew all my tricks.
***

His humor hadn't worked. He knew it wouldn't, and he was simply staving off the inevitable. She shook her head sadly and leaned on the corner of his desk pausing before she continued the speech she had practiced the evening before at home.

While she outlined her reasons for leaving, his mind simply shut down, instead of acknowledging her attempts to explain her need to get as far away from "Spooky" Mulder as possible. He knew it was best not only for her professionally but personally as well. He couldn't fault her for self-preservation. He could only recall all the times she had been the light in his world and the guide in his life. He had no doubt that he would have died at any number of occasions had it not been for her presence.

***
You knew how to heal the pain no medicine could fix.
***

Anyone interested in the lone figure hidden away in a booth would have been able to tell that his drink, and anything else near, was long forgotten in favor of his world of the past. His eyes would have appeared haunted, had someone stopped to look.

In an attempt to avoid the tears that had filled his tormented hazel eyes, he thought back to other times. The moments that had defined the relationship they shared. In a bittersweet moment, he recalled when a young and eager agent had walked into his personal and solitary domain. He hadn't wanted the intrusion, it was one time of an uncountable number of occasions his instincts would be proven wrong by Agent Dana Scully.

For so long they had stood side by side, guarding each other against pains and burdens too painful and great to ever be bore alone. While he took responsibility for many of the horrors she endured while a part of his life and thus his quest, she had rarely spoken ill of him. Nor he of her. He couldn't imagine his life without having had her presence in it, even if for such a limited amount of time. She had made a burdened and miserable man want to live again. He was truly a better man with her by his side. Sitting in an isolated bar with a drink for a companion, he hesitated to envision his life after she left.

***
And I bless the day I met you
And I thank God that he let you stay beside me for a moment that lives on
And the good news is I'm better for the time we spent together
And the bad news is
You're gone.
***

Mulder had occasionally stopped to consider his belief in God. He had not found much use for believing in an all-powerful protector ever since Samantha had been allowed to be taken from him. He had found faith to be a strain difficult to bear. He had wondered if there was a God and if he indeed cared so much, how could he let so much happen to innocents such as his beloved sister.

In the years that he had been blessed with the presence of Dana Scully in his life, he had been convinced that for the first time that he could remember, God had granted him a gift. For all the things he had suffered in his life, he had been bestowed with a light to help guide him through the shadows.

They were complete opposites, who meshed perfectly together. She was yen to his yang, and much to the dismay of many of those in the chain of command, it brought them together. In contrast they had found compliment. Each had soared to heights that neither could have reached alone. He shook his head in thought, still uncertain of when it was that they had began to move apart. The differences that once highlighted the partnership began acting more as a deterrent against it.

***
Looking back it's still surprising
I was sinking, you were rising
With a look you caught me in midair.
***

An empty glass sat in front of Mulder, but he hadn't touched the glass in what seemed like hours. Glancing up and around the bar, he realized that the couple had left. It was of no importance as he began to fiddle with glass absently. After Scully had finished talking to him that morning, he had found himself at a loss for words. There was nothing that could be said in response to her declaration. He had felt betrayed, but what made it even more oppressive was that he understood her reasoning for leaving. There was truly nothing he could say.

He had often feared that a day such as this was impossible to avoid. Sometimes, late at night after being wrenched from sleep by one nightmare or another, his mind would drift over to the topic of how long she would continue to endure the hellish life they had forced upon them. If her entrance into his life was a sign that maybe God hadn't forsaken him, the loss of her from his life might be the sign that he was again on shaky ground.

***
Now I know God has his reasons, but sometimes it's hard to see them
And I awake and find that you're not there.
***

The work which had once defined his life, seemed less important anymore. His quest seemed more like an endless road without her companionship. He imagined the days and years to come, getting up and going to work, only to face an empty office. He wondered how long it would be before he didn't open the office door expecting her to be there. He briefly thought how long would it be before he gave up on his consuming quest all together.

It had been Scully who had made the ridicule of fellow agents a little more bearable. While he would never let those who mocked him know it, the constant barrages of insults cut deeper than his wisecracking wit could ever allow him to show. Having her by his side had not only slowed the endless harassment. It had given him an allay whose mere presence was a reminder that maybe it wasn't necessarily true.

The chaos that had been his life calmed somewhat when taken under her scientific gaze. The facets of her personality that should have driven them to all ends trying to kill the other one, were the very ones that cemented the partnership. She could calm his nerves with a look of her expressive blue eyes.

***
You found hope in hopeless
You made crazy sane
You became the missing link that helped me break my chains.
***

He recalled one evening when they watched videos together at her apartment. Somehow they had ended up with Jerry Maguire. Although some of the sap had been lost on him, he had found truth in one statement especially. When the main character had told his wife that she completed him, he couldn't help but think of Scully.

But that night was long ago, another lifetime ago. He wanted to go to Scully, to beg and plead for her to reconsider. Still, he knew that was too great a guilt to place on her to only make his life easier. Memories continued to play across his mind while the seemingly unending country songs continued to fall onto his ears.

***
And I bless the day I met you
And I thank God that he let you stay beside me for a moment that lives on
And the good news is I'm better for the time we spent together
And the bad news is
You're gone.
***

Standing and testing his feet, he slowly walked over to the bar and paid his tab with the bartender and walked out into the brisk night air. The cool slap against his face helped to wake him up some and he crossed over to where he had parked his car earlier that night. Getting behind the wheel he started the car and drove toward his apartment.

He pulled up into the parking spot he had left hours before and hurried across the parking lot toward his apartment building. In hurry he failed to notice a familiar car parked in the other corner of the crowded parking lot.

When he finally reached his apartment, he only wanted to fall onto the couch and give into the sleep he could feel creeping into the corners of his eyes. The last thing he expected was to find his door unlocked and someone sitting on his couch. He entered the room cautiously, and was taken aback by the identity of the intruder.

"I've been waiting for you to get home." He stood motionless, unable to grasp a reason for his former partner to be sitting in his living room. He closed the door behind him, hung up his coat and cleared his throat uneasily.

Keeping a safe distance from the person who had occupied his every thought for the past twelve hours, he sat on the chair by his computer. "Scully? What are you doing here?" His voice was rough with the emotions that had encompassed him so completely that day.

She lowered her head, "I had to see you. I've been thinking, for days. Maybe months." She paused, standing, and walked over to look out of the window. "I had decided that the only way I could go on was to get away. Get some air and a clearer perspective. Things just weren't working."

Mulder closed his eyes, the last thing his heart could take was rehashing the conversation that had crushed his heart in the first place. "Scully, you don't have to explain to me . . . " he interrupted.

Looking him directly in the eyes she continued. "Yes, I do." He could read emotions swimming in her eyes similar to those he knew were visible in his. "I began to think maybe I had been wrong, hasty in my decision." Mulder's head shot up, from where he had lowered his gaze to stare at his shoes.

"What?" His voice was a whisper full of hope and despair. Conflicting emotions mirroring the contrasting feelings in his soul.

"I was wrong." She lowered her eye lids, breaking the gaze they had shared. "I shouldn't have left you, and our work. I shouldn't have left us."

He stood, taking her hands in his own. "Are you sure?"

She nodded, "I changed my mind. We belong together. No one can stop us, as long as we don't let them. Can you forgive me?"

"Nothing to forgive." He pulled her to him in a warm hug.

***
The bad news is
You're gone.
***

Maybe . . . But maybe not.

fin

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