Taming The Unicorn 8: Love

She's mad at me, Mulder thought. Really, really mad.

The tirade had begun with, "You stupid, thoughtless, reckless son of a bitch!" and had escalated from there to a level of profanity of which he had never imagined Scully was capable. It would have been interesting, even entertaining, if it hadn't been directed at him.

And it had continued all the way to the hospital emergency room, and for the thirty-five minutes that it had taken until the triage nurse on duty had deemed her injury worthy of note; even as the wheelchair bearing his beloved had disappeared into the treatment area, he'd still heard her cursing him and his lineage, utilizing her formidable vocabulary for maximum disparagement.

Now she was silent, and that was worse: withdrawn, cold and still on the passenger side of the car as he drove her back to the motel. A few times, he dared glance over at her, but each time his eyes darted quickly back to the road, fearful of what she might say if she did return his gaze.

I think I'm in real trouble, Mulder mused.

After he'd parked, he hurried around to open her door, to help her out -- she shoved him back, hard, with the crutches the hospital had so thoughtfully provided, and made her own way to her room. He hovered behind her, close enough to catch her if she stumbled, yet far enough that she wouldn't use it as an opportunity to renew the verbal barrage; he stayed there while she fumbled with her key, attempted to follow her into the room -- and was caught by surprise when she attempted to shove the door closed, nearly catching his fingers in the jamb.

"Scully, I'm, uh, I'm sorry?" he tried.

"SHUT UP!" she screamed in his face, and slammed the door.

With a sigh, he went to his own room, noted upon entering that she'd closed the connecting door -- he tested the knob: locked, as he'd expected. Mulder cast a glance at Scully's luggage, still sitting where she'd left it, in the corner of his room, and wondered just how angry she was... tentatively, he knocked on the door.

"LEAVE ME ALONE!" came the same furious shout, only barely attenuated by the intervening wood.

"You, uh, you left your stuff in here," he reminded her. The renting of two rooms had become a mere formality long ago; it had been ages since they'd actually slept in separate rooms. He could hardly remember what it was like to sleep alone...

He had the dismal feeling that he'd be becoming reacquainted with that sensation tonight.

From the adjoining room, he heard the cursing begin again, a steady stream of epithets, growing louder along with the ka-THUMP, ka-THUMP of her crutches as she made her way toward the door -- "That's quite a vocabulary you've got there," he said conversationally, as she opened it, and was instantly struck silent by the vicious gaze she turned upon him.

He stood by the door and watched her struggle with suitcase and crutches until he couldn't stand it any longer, then went over and took the bag out of her hands and carried it into her room for her -- not looking at her, lest her angry eyes turn him to stone.

And of course, once he'd set foot in her room, he wasn't about to leave; "Get out," she commanded, and he ignored her, settling himself into the single battered easy chair in the corner.

"Look," he began, "I realize that I screwed up..."

"I don't want to hear it," she cut him off, rummaging furiously through the suitcase he'd placed carefully on the bed.

"I should have listened to you," Mulder continued, with the uncomfortable awareness that he'd said those words too many times recently, without really paying attention to them, or modifying his behavior. "I shouldn't have been so quick to leave..."

"YOU RAN OVER MY FOOT!" she raged. "You were in such a GODDAMN HURRY to listen to a confirmed drug addict spin her hallucinatory fantasies of alien abduction that you nearly ran me over!"

"Yeah," he mumbled. "Scully, I really am sorry..."

"I DON'T CARE!" she shouted, snatching up a garment and storming off to the bathroom: an undignified retreat, ka-THUMP, ka-THUMP, all the way.

It took an unnaturally long time for her to emerge, so long that he knew it wasn't just the difficulty of her injured foot delaying her; he wondered if she was mad enough to sleep in there, rather than face him again... but eventually she came out, wearing a nightgown that was very definitely not meant for intimate nights: high-necked, shapeless and unflattering.

"You look beautiful," he said involuntarily, meaning it; and she glared at him again.

She pulled back the covers and flopped down onto the bed, wincing. "Get the lights on your way out," she directed, quite obviously a command, and he hesitated; would it be better to obey, and let her simmer, or to try to make amends...? With a sigh, he got up, moved toward the door -- then discovered that he couldn't leave; his legs wouldn't take him through the door.

"Scully," he said helplessly, not knowing what else to say, not knowing how to make it right.

"Mulder," she said, not looking at him, "go away."

"For how long? For now, for tonight..." and he couldn't finish the sentence, struck by sudden fear: just how angry was she? Angry enough to dissolve their partnership? Angry enough to call off the wedding?

Of their own accord, his eyes searched her hand, looking for the ring that she never, ever took off -- and the anxiety within him suddenly exploded into full-fledged terror, because she wasn't wearing it.

And suddenly it hit home, what he'd done to her, in a way that it hadn't, quite, before...

He wasn't aware of moving, but suddenly he was kneeling at her bedside, reaching for her hand, the unnaturally bare hand that wore no ring, babbling desperately: "Scully, I'm sorry, I am so sorry, I didn't mean to, I'll never do it again, I swear to you; Scully, please..."

And she rolled over toward him, so that for just a moment he thought that she was going to forgive him; but there was blazing fury in her eyes, and the volume of her voice deafened him: "LEAVE ME ALONE!"

Stunned beyond rational thought, he did as he'd been told; retreating into his own room by instinct alone, since his eyes wouldn't focus well enough to see where he was going -- ka-THUMP, ka-THUMP behind him, bringing the faintest ghost of hope to his despairing soul, until the final indictment as the door clicked 'locked' behind him.

His heart was hammering in his chest, and his eyes burned as if with tears, but the pain was too great for so simple a release. This is it, came to him, with dreadful clarity, this is it, this is the end, I've finally pushed her too far...

The quest, always the same damned quest for the Truth; and in the end, it was as he'd always known it would be -- the only Truth was that he was alone. Would always be alone, because of the damned quest. Always searching for the answer to the old pain... and was there ever an answer? No.

Why had he been in such a hurry, anyway? Because this abduction story seemed like such a promising lead? Bullshit: not with medical records like those, of chronic drug abuse and pathological lying. His own instincts told him that this was a dead end, but still he'd been so anxious to check it out... And of course it would lead him to another brick wall, just like they all did; it seemed to be his destiny to be eternally stymied.

And this time, oh, this time he'd screwed up royally, all because he'd been so wrapped up in the Quest that he hadn't bothered to check the rear-view mirror. No... because he hadn't bothered to wait ten whole seconds for Scully to get into the car. A moment's more thought, and it never would have happened -- but he'd been in such a hurry, he'd forgotten about her. About her -- the woman who was a part of his soul, the way no one had ever been. About her -- his partner, his best friend, his fiancee.

No, he couldn't blame this one on his Quest: this one was his fault, his fault, for being more self-centered than any being had a right to be and still exist.

She deserves better, he thought miserably. If this is the end... maybe it's for the best. Not for me, certainly, but for Scully...

Automatically, he stripped down to underwear and slid into bed, knowing that there would be no pleasant dreams for him that night; wondering why he bothered. Maybe things will be better in the morning, he thought, but didn't believe it. Not this time...

It was a long night.

Every time he managed to drift off, after a prolonged period of wakefulness, there was another nightmare; every time he managed to shake off the nightmare, there was the bleakness of the empty room, the empty bed, reminding him of what he'd done. Sometime around dawn, he gave up entirely, threw on clothes and went out for a run.

The morning was cold, mist and frost forming a haze over the world -- kind of like the ice he felt encroaching on his soul. What would it be like for him, living in a world without Scully? He didn't want to think about it, and yet he couldn't help himself -- like probing an abscessed tooth with one's tongue, there was something in him that couldn't leave the painful spot alone.

Cold. It would be cold, like the chill air that seemed to spread a layer of frost over his throat on its way to his lungs. Hard and unyielding, like the pavement under his feet. An endless, pointless journey to nowhere, like jogging in a giant circle around a motel...

Running was too damn depressing; he headed back to his room.

And noticed the light on next door, in Scully's window.

He knocked hesitantly on her door, hoping against hope that he might find the words, this time, to eradicate the fury in her eyes... but something in him died when he noticed that she was dressed, and appeared to be packing.

"You're leaving," he said, not as a question.

"Yes," she said, her voice too measured, far too even.

"Why?" It hurt, it hurt beyond belief; she was leaving, leaving him...

"There isn't much I can do here with a broken foot," she responded, in that so-logical voice that infuriated him sometimes.

Now, though, all he could find was despondence. "I'm sorry," he said, almost a moan, almost a plea.

"It doesn't make much difference right now whether you're sorry or not," said Scully, "in any case, I'm incapable of doing my job."

That was true enough, he had to admit, but still... "Don't go," he heard himself say, and this time he was pleading; "don't go, Scully, don't leave me..."

She sighed softly, turned away from the suitcase she was packing to face him. "I'm not leaving you, Mulder," she said. "I'm going back to D.C. so that I won't leave you."

He tried to make sense of that, failed. "I don't get it."

"It's going to take me awhile to forget how angry I am with you, Mulder," she told him, in a patient tone like one she might use toward a child. "If I stay here, with you, I won't have the chance to forget; because you'll just keep on doing the same stupid things that make me so angry. I don't like you very much right now, Mulder -- but I do love you, and I don't want anything to damage that."

She loves me. She still loves me. The news should have elated him, left him with a feeling of relief.

Somehow... it didn't.

"But I don't want you to forget," he heard himself say, and wondered why he was saying such a foolish thing.

Scully just looked at him, perplexed.

"I don't want to forget," he amended, beginning to sort out the tangle of conflicting feelings that were assaulting him.

She stared at him for another moment, shook her head. "Explain," she said softly.

"Why should the same things keep happening again and again?" Mulder asked her, asked himself, not certain where his train of thought was going, but willing to follow it to the end of the track. "Why should you have to leave me, just so that you can continue to love me? It isn't right, Scully. This isn't the way things should be between us."

"Agreed," she murmured, "but I know better than to think I can change you, Mulder."

"Maybe you should," he mused. "Maybe I need to change." An old, old psychiatrist's joke came to him, the one about the burned-out lightbulb -- One, but it has to want to change.

"Maybe I want to change," he whispered.

Scully's gaze lingered on him; then she sat down on the edge of the bed, and -- miracle! -- patted the space beside her, inviting him to occupy it. So he sat beside her, let her take his hand, saw the gleam of diamonds and emeralds on her left hand and felt something within him unclench and relax... "I ran over your foot, Scully," he said, "and I feel like total human garbage."

Almost, she laughed. "Don't," she told him, "it'll just make it harder for you the next time you do something stupid and hurtful to me."

"I don't want there to be a next time!" in a voice that was nearly a shout. "But I don't know how to prevent it..." He slumped forward, defeated; his free hand rose to rub at his forehead, for he had the beginning of a headache that promised to be the mother of all headaches; not enough sleep and too much misery can do that, he thought bleakly. "I get caught up in these things, and I lose sight of everything else. Even you. And I don't ever want to lose sight of you, Scully!"

"So don't," she said reasonably.

"How?" Addictive behavior, he realized, addictive and obsessive, but all his knowledge of psychology couldn't help him, because breaking the patterns of behavior meant giving up his quest for the Truth -- for Samantha -- and how could he do that?

"Come back to D.C. with me," Scully said.

His turn to stare at her, now. "Now? When there's a potential alien abductee who might hold the key to Samantha's disappearance and whereabouts; you want me to leave without even investigating..." and his voice trailed off. Oh.

"Or stay, if you want," she added, without the slightest trace of recrimination in her voice. "I won't be upset with you."

But I will have done it again, Mulder thought.

It wasn't even that good a lead, he knew. All signs pointed to a drug-induced hallucination; the woman wasn't what you would term a reliable witness. Logic told him so, and his instincts agreed -- but still...

Oh, hell, he thought miserably. I really am hopeless, am I?

"I know who you are, Mulder," said Scully -- his partner, his lover, his fiancee -- "I knew who you were when I fell in love with you. I don't expect you to change," and was there the slightest trace of sadness in her voice? "I need to go back," she continued. "I'm not any use to you here, and besides that, my foot hurts. What you do... is up to you; and I won't think less of you, no matter what you choose."

He gazed at her, and wanted to embrace her, to kiss her, to tell her how much he loved her, how much he cherished her and valued her -- and he couldn't. Didn't feel that he had the right.

A horn beeped outside; "That's my taxi," she said, "do me a favor, go outside and tell him I'll be out in a few minutes? I need to finish packing," and Mulder swallowed and nodded.

He didn't go back to her room afterwards, went to his own instead, sat cross-legged in the middle of the bed staring at the wall. Images of Samantha swam before his vision -- Samantha as a little girl; he'd been shown what she might have looked like as an adult, but he didn't know, not really. Images of Scully: laughing Scully, grim-faced serious Scully; Scully bruised and bleeding, Scully-the-FBI-agent with her gun and badge, Scully in wisps of lace and satin beckoning him closer... Scully as she had looked in that terrible moment after the car's tire had rolled over her foot, startled and shocked, as the scream wrenched itself from her throat...

What matters most? he wondered. What is the Truth, exactly?

It had always seemed to him that his search for the Truth was a higher purpose; now, suddenly, it seemed like a cop-out. Devote your life to unraveling the inexplicable, and you can ignore the mundane realities around you. Spend your time chasing rainbows, and you can safely disregard the pot of gold sitting on your doorstep. Become engrossed in a quest for some unknown goal, and you can avoid getting entangled in anything more personal -- you have an excuse not to care, not to get involved, so what if you hurt the one you love; you have a higher purpose, and that makes everything all right. Doesn't it?

Samantha, cried one part of his mind, and, Scully, howled another, and he wondered how it had happened that it had come to a choice between them. Certainly, Scully hadn't forced the issue; Scully understood, no matter how much effort she devoted to shooting holes in his single-minded intensity on the subject. That was just her way of injecting reason into his flights of fancy; he relied on her for that, unconsciously and instinctively. Above and beyond that, she understood what it meant to him, to find an answer if not Samantha herself: to have that eternal question resolved.

But now he had a choice to make, because he knew -- he knew -- that no matter how well Scully understood, sooner or later he would drive her away, if he continued on this course. Not because of what I believe. Because I don't know when to believe... and when to believe in Scully.

He heard a door open and close, heard a car engine race, heard it retreat... it took him a moment to understand what he'd heard, what it meant; and he sprang to his feet, stunned and shocked, flung open the connecting door and tore into her room... empty, now, save for a hastily scrawled note awaiting him on the dresser.

I thought I'd spare you the necessity of saying the words. It's all right. I love you, and I'll see you when you get back. Good luck.

Mulder stared at the note, feeling the emptiness of the room like a void in his heart. She knew what I'd do, and the knowledge brought no comfort, only a slow, deep ache like the morning chill seeping into his bones.

For so many years that he'd lost track, the X-Files had consumed his life. A natural progression from the endless questioning, the eternal 'why?' of his lonely childhood, until finally he'd been old enough to do something about it: to find the answers. He'd tried to find happiness elsewhere, tried to build a normal life, but that search had been futile, and in the end he'd settled for the quest; it was his life's work, the only thing he'd ever really cared enough about to actively pursue...

Until now.

He left the rental car half-parked at the side of the curb, snatched up his bag and tossed the car keys onto the seat, and raced into the terminal, desperately scanning the departure listing... there it was: Scully's flight. Boarding. And only a few minutes from leaving.

Silently, Mulder thanked the gods for electronic ticketing, and sprinted for the gate.

He was the last one aboard, and he moved up the aisle, eyes rapidly flickering from one side to the other along the rows -- is this the wrong flight? did I make a mistake? where is she???

And then he saw her, huddled into a window seat, her face showing the pain and the sadness she hadn't let him see... and he thanked the gods again, for giving him the one instant's worth of wisdom it had taken him to realize that there was a Truth more important to him than alien abduction or government conspiracy or anything else.

The Truth was out there... just a few rows back, with tired eyes and tousled red hair, more beautiful in her fatigue and rumpled suit than any porn-star had ever been to him.

He ignored the number on his boarding pass and plopped down in the empty seat beside her; she glanced at him sideways, the sort of casual brief look that one would direct toward a stranger who happened to be sitting in an adjacent seat -- then registered his identity, and stared.

"Hi," he said, trying not to sound too breathless from his sprint for the plane.

"Hi," she returned automatically; then, "What are you doing here?"

Mulder shrugged, shoved his bag underneath the seat in front of him, kicked at it until it fit.

"What about the case?" and her eyes were perplexed, confused. "Did you... you couldn't have wrapped it up, not so soon..."

Again, he shrugged, feeling curiously lighthearted. "It'll still be there in a couple of weeks," he said. "Or not. Whatever." For the first time in memory, it didn't matter to him.

Samantha mattered, would always matter -- but as for the rest... no. Not in the same way. Never again.

"Mulder..." she began, and he placed one fingertip on her lips gently, silencing her.

For so long, he'd struggled with this, but now he knew; and the certainty lifted a burden from his soul that he hadn't known was there, until after it was gone. "This is where I want to be," he said. "Right here. With you."

At first, she didn't believe it; he gazed into her startled eyes and willed her to believe, until finally he saw the glimmering of hope dawning... Scully blinked, hard. "Damn it, Mulder, you're messing up my makeup," she complained, in a voice that only trembled a little bit.

Very carefully, he drew a fingertip along the tender skin under her tired eyes, wiping away the teardrops and errant eyeliner. "I love you, Scully," he said, as if that explained everything.

Which it did, really.

She pulled his head down and kissed him, as passionately as if they were in bed together, and joy spiraled through him in an endless, dizzying torrent, as all-consuming as an orgasm but purely emotional; and in that moment, he knew that he'd done the right thing. He'd stood at a crossroads, unaware, and somehow he'd chosen the right path... the one that would lead to a future worth living.

Everything would be all right now, everything. He knew it, as surely as he'd ever known anything.

"I'm glad you're here," she said, when she'd finished kissing him -- which wasn't for some time.

"I know," said Mulder, and yawned -- his own fatigue was catching up to him, now; the adrenaline rush that had propelled him at top speed to the airport was fading, and the effects of his sleepless, troubled night were beginning to set in with a vengeance. "Me, too."

"We can come back later and finish the investigation," Scully added, snuggling against him, as the plane began to move away from the gate.

"When you're feeling better," was his answer, as he settled into the embrace, rested his cheek against the top of her head.

He couldn't see her face, but he could feel her smile. "I feel better already," she said.

A roar of engines, as the plane taxied toward the runway, not yet airborne -- but Mulder was already flying: soaring, propelled by a wonderful new certainty.

The Truth was out there -- and the Truth was love; a truth that nothing could ever touch, or destroy.

He took that knowledge with him into his dreams.

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