Title: Yesterday
Author: Maria Nicole
E-Mail: marianicole29@yahoo.com
Distribution: Anywhere this goes automatically is fine. Others, please
let me know where it's going. Thanks.
Spoilers: Tithonus, Triangle
Rating: PG
Classification: S
Keywords: Mulder/Scully UST
Summary: A sequel to my story Maybe Today, from Mulder's POV.

Disclaimer: Characters in the story are not mine. They belong to Fox
and 1013.

Author's Notes: Thank you to all the people who were kind enough to 
respond to Maybe Today. It made my day. :) And thanks especially to
those people who suggested a sequel. I hadn't been intending on
writing one, but...plans change.

Yesterday
Maria Nicole

So I lie here, on yet another hotel bed, on the side away from the 
telephone, because the mattress is always better on this side. I lie
on this bed, in yet another nondescript hotel room, in yet another 
forgettable town, in the moments before yet another off-white plastic 
telephone will ring to wake me up. I lie here and know that you are 
again in the room next door, lying on the side of your bed that is 
away from the telephone, because the mattress sags less on that side. 
(Oh. That's going to be a problem, isn't it, Scully?). I lie here and,
for the first time, do not have to fight the urge to walk softly over 
to the connecting door and open it carefully, to make sure that you're
still there.

I already know that you're still there.

You told me that you would be, yesterday.

***

I'm not quite as psychologically fucked up as people think that I am.
I may be paranoid, I may have abandonment issues, I may have a need
to make everyone believe me, but I'm not actually delusional. I know
that this image that I have each morning, that I will knock on the 
connecting door and you will not answer, that I will enter to find
that you have packed and gone away, leaving me a note on the hotel 
stationary that says, "I don't want to do this anymore" (an unsigned
note, because Scully is an FBI agent and Dana is a stranger to me)...I
know that this very clear image is just a paranoid anti-fantasy from 
the mind of a man who has been left too often. I know that if you were
to leave me, you wouldn't do it so cruelly, and you wouldn't do it 
without warning.

But every morning that I wake up in a hotel, I always have to fight 
the urge to check your room and make sure you haven't left me with 
the scent of your perfume, a rumpled bed, and seven neatly written 
words. 

***

But I am glad that we're on the road again, even if it is for
more manure checks. I've missed flying; I've missed the sensation
of escape and freedom that I always get when the plane takes off.
On a plane, I know we aren't being watched, or followed. It's 
safe, and separate, and a far way away from the real world. I've
missed that.

I've missed you. 

Ever since you were shot in New York, you've been quiet, and in
the bullpen we can only discuss the work. I don't know what's 
going on with you, and that worries me. It makes me wonder if
you're wishing that the New York case had gone well, so that
you could resume your climb up the career ladder. It makes me
wonder how long you'll be willing to work on background checks. It
makes me wonder if you're still in pain from the gunshot wound.

On the plane, you relaxed, and softened, and teased me about
my insomniac tendencies when I woke up from a cat nap. And we
talked about nothing in particular--crop circles, and Bigfoot,
and lost luggage stories, and the Lone Gunmen's latest information
about the aquatic robots from France that are banked off
the coast of California, waiting to attack. "The *what?*" you 
asked, with your I-don't-believe-it smile starting to appear. 
I nodded. Yep, you heard right. "Mulder, that's the most
ridiculous thing I've ever *heard.* Well, perhaps not quite
as ridiculous as your latest theory on Bigfoot..."

And then you went on to point out every assumption and leap
of logic that I'd made, with the zest that told me that you
were enjoying it immensely.

I've missed that. 

***  

When Kersh sent you New York with the intention of rehabilitating
you into the FBI mainstream, I didn't sabotage your chances for 
moving up the ladder. I can be proud of that. I didn't beg you to 
stay, to sabotage your own chances. Not that you would have; you 
have too much integrity as an investigator. But I didn't ask,
and I can be proud of that.

This summer, I asked. This summer, I begged, when you said you
were quitting. This summer, I told you why I needed you to stay.

You chose to stay, that time.

In January, I waited, for you to make the choice again. I didn't
ask you to stay, that time. You knew where I stood. I waited
for you to call me and tell me your decision. And I got
a phone call instead, telling me that you were in the hospital.

And then you came back to work, and I waited for Kersh to call
you again, to make another offer, and for you to have to choose
again. I waited for you to simply leave one day, and not come
back.

But you've stayed.

***

We went to see our farmers of the day, today. Nice people. I
said as much to you on the way back to the hotel. That those
were the kind of people who make a normal life look good. They
made me want their life, for a moment. (Okay, not exactly
their lives. I really can't picture myself with a pitchfork,
baling hay, or you in over-large overalls with a bandanna on 
your head, feeding chickens. And besides, you know that our
alfalfa fields would be the ones that the UFO would choose to
crash land in). "You asked me once if I ever wanted to stop the
damn car and get out and live a normal life...people like that
almost make me want to," I said. I looked over at you, to
where you were gazing out the window, your face as pensive
and distant as it was in the bullpen.

And I waited, for you to tell me that yes, in fact, you did
want a normal life.

"They make me want to keep driving," you said instead. 

"Hmmm?"

"Those people, Mulder. They're worth sacrificing for. They're
worth protecting. I can keep driving if I know that there's a 
reason for it." 

God, Scully. And you mean that. You really do do this for the
most unselfish of reasons, because it needs to be done.

God, Scully. You humble me.

***

We went for a run after we got back, and then ordered a pizza.
We ate it in your room, with you sitting on the bed and me
in a chair pulled up beside it so that I could reach the box. We'd 
both taken showers while we waited for the pizza to arrive, and 
your hair was still wet, darkening the blue silk of your pajama 
top where it brushed across your shoulders. When the pizza was done
and the box discarded, you sighed with contentment and leaned back 
on your propped up pillows, and we watched the news. After a while, 
I reached out for your feet--you have really sexy feet, Scully--and 
pulled them into my lap to give you a foot rub. 

"And I wasn't even standing all day at the autopsy bay. You know
how to spoil a girl, Mulder," you said.

"Foot rubs and pizza always get the girl."

"It's the extra cheese that got me."

"Damn. You've discovered my secret formula." Your toenails were
painted a dark purple color. "Cute," I said, tapping the nail
on your big toe. 

You smiled and raised your eyebrow. "Cute?"

"Even the toughest G-woman is allowed to have cute toes," I said, and
wiggled them.

You didn't answer for a moment, and then you sat up abruptly, pulling
your feet away and crossing your legs. I stared at you,
wondering when exactly I had crossed one of your lines. But you 
reached out and patted my knee, and smiled at me, a really big smile,
and then said, "Do you know something, Mulder? I like you."

"What?"

"I was thinking about this, earlier today. How lucky I was to work
with someone whom I like. Whom I respect. To work with you." 

I think I kept staring at you, although I may have said something. I 
don't remember. Your face softened, gentled, and as you spoke again
I realized that this wasn't a spontaneous outburst, that this was
something that you had been thinking about, that you were a little
shy about saying.

"I'm sorry, Mulder. I probably don't say that enough. But I want you
to know that...you're a good man. A good friend. And I'm glad that
I work with you, that you're there to give me foot rubs, and crack 
jokes, and surprise me with how much you know about obscure topics,
and challenge me, and look at me as if I'm sexy, and make me feel
alive again." You looked down, as if embarrassed, and then coughed.
"Anyway. I just want you to know that I'm glad I'm here with
you. As your friend. As your partner. Both your work partner and...
well. As your partner."

I was blindsided, lost. I wanted to run out in the hallway and yell to
everyone who would listen that you thought I was a good person; I 
wanted to crawl onto the bed with you and hold you so tightly that the
blue of your pajamas bled into my skin, that the red of your hair left
imprints where I'd buried my face in it. I wanted you to hold me 
until you'd left your pattern on me so deeply that I could be the
person you respected, the one you thought I was capable of being.

You looked up again after a moment, as if waiting for a response. I 
reached out and touched your knee, as lightly as you'd touched mine,
to reassure you, and waited until I could speak again.

And then, still overwhelmed, holding your eyes with mine so that
you could see what I might not be able to put into words, I opened my
mouth and croaked out what I could. "Oh, brother."

***

Yeah, well, you don't have much room to talk, Scully. Pot, kettle, 
apparently both of us turn into shaken, drowning idiots when faced 
with declarations of love.

***

I didn't join you on your bed. I stayed in my chair, with my hand on
your knee, and we watched the rest of the local news together, talking
about the local basketball team. You started to yawn while we 
watched Letterman, and about halfway through you leaned back on your
pillows again and fell promptly to sleep. You've tired out more easily
since New York. I turned off the TV, and then the room light,
returning to the chair to watch you sleep for a moment.

You started, and twisted, and awoke. "What? Huh? Oh."

Your pajama top had ridden up, and I placed my hand on the exposed
flesh, feeling your warmth, feeling your stomach muscles contract 
and then relax. We sat in silence and darkness for a moment.

"Mulder? What is it?" you asked after a moment, quietly.

"Do you think aliens have belly buttons?" I asked, brushing my thumb
over yours.

Your stomach muscles contracted again with your chuff of laughter. 
And then...and this is why I love you...you actually thought about it.
"Well, Mulder, assuming that what you saw in Antarctica was indeed 
aliens and not a government hoax, they seem to have rather different 
gestation methods. I suppose, however, that there could be some sort
of equivalent of an umbilical cord, although whether it leaves an
equivalent of a belly button remains unanswered."

I sat there for another moment, feeling the roughness of scars, the
pattern of my involvement in your life etched in your flesh, feeling
the flatness of your stomach. 

"Mulder, what is it?" you asked again.

"Do you believe in alternate universes?" I asked, imagining another
Scully, another Dana, lying in bed with a rounded belly, the only
marks on her stomach those of stretch marks, and a faceless man
who might place her hand where mine is now.

"No, Mulder, I don't. And even if there were, I don't want to know."
You placed your hand over mine. "I'm okay with my life in this 
universe."

We sat in stillness for another moment, and then you yawned and said,
"Mulder, it's late. Come to bed."

"What?"

Your body jerked a little, as if you had only just realized what
you'd said. "Come to bed, go to bed, whichever. It's late. Get some
sleep."

Come to bed; go to bed. Wake up alone; wake up with you. Wake up
alone; wake up in your bed, but not as your lover.

I stood up, taking your hand with me as I went. "Mulder?" you asked,
in a small voice.

"Not yet," I said, bending to kiss the palm of your hand. "Soon."

"Soon." I saw you smile even in the darkness.

I moved to the door. "Mulder?" you said from behind me, and I turned
to see that you had propped yourself up on your elbow.

"Yeah?"

"I was thinking earlier today, about scars. I was thinking that to
a lot of men, the scars on my stomach would make me much less
attractive."

I froze. Jesus, you hadn't thought that that was why... "Scully, that
isn't...any man who would think that would be an idiot. The scars
don't matter, they..."

"Of course they matter. They'll always matter." Your voice held the
depth of the ocean, the strength of the current, and I realized
that you were giving reassurance, not seeking it.

"But they don't make you less attractive," I said, bewildered.

"I know," you said. "What I'm saying is, we're both damaged. And the
damage matters, how could it not, but...it's okay. It's not...it's 
okay. We're both damaged; I know that. It's okay."

I stood in the middle of the room, again reduced to speechlessness.

Your voice was impossibly tender as you finished, "Go to bed, Mulder.
Get some sleep. I'll be here in the morning.

***

So I lie here, on yet another hotel bed, on the side away from 
the telephone, because the mattress is always better on this side. I 
lie on this bed, in yet another nondescript hotel room, in yet another
forgettable town, in the moments before yet another off-white plastic 
telephone will ring to wake me up. I lie here and know that you are 
again in the room next door, lying on the side of your bed that is 
away from the telephone, because the mattress sags less on that side. 
(Oh. That's going to be a problem, isn't it, Scully?) I lie here and,
for the first time, do not have to fight the urge to walk softly over 
to the connecting door and open it carefully, to make sure that you're
still there.

I already know that you're still there.

You told me that you would be, yesterday.

And I roll over to the other side of the mattress, the side near the
telephone, the side that sags. Because...I guess I'd better get 
used to sleeping on that side of the bed, shouldn't I?


End
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