Title: Unsinkable

Authors: Ann K and L'il Gusty

Classification: SAR

Keywords: Mulder/Scully UST

Rating: PG

Spoilers: Quagmire

Distribution: Go ahead, just let one of us know.

Feedback: Yes, to annhkus@yahoo.com or lil_gusty@hotmail.com.

Disclaimer: These characters don't belong to us. They belong to Chris Carter, 1013 and Fox. We just have way too much fun playing with them, but we'll put them back when we're done.

Summary: Scully gets a dog. Mulder wonders why. The answers they uncover reveal a truth, both about themselves and their relationship.

I.

The dog shifted in the back seat, moving to stick her head out the open window, and Scully heard Mulder chuckle. “You think I made a mistake,” she said rhetorically, giving him a quick glance from the passenger seat of their rental car. He looked over at her, and then turned his attention back to the road. She could see a hint of a smile on his face, and the slightly confused lift of his brow, and knew he was a little amused by the entire situation.

She felt the old dog rest her head on her shoulder. She absently reached behind her to scratch the dog's lopsided ear, thinking that she was much bigger than Queequeg, and after that disastrous stint as a dog owner, what the hell was she doing with this dog? “Actually, Scully,” Mulder said, spitting a sunflower seed out his open window, “I am not surprised. This is very much like you,” he continued, waving his hand vaguely in the direction of the back seat, “although you would never admit it.”

She opened her mouth to protest, and then closed it when she realized he was right. It was very much like her, at least a part of her that she kept hidden beneath her professional demeanor. She was troubled that Mulder even knew that part of her. She liked her role as trusted partner, agent of the law and rational thinker. What she did this afternoon was totally out of character for her, and that both thrilled and disappointed her.

Thrilled, that at this stage of her life, she could actually act out of character. Disappointed because she wasn’t so sure she wanted to be anyone but the persona she pulled out of her pocket at the same time as her badge.

“I’m not gullible, you know,” she finally said. Mulder gave a noncommittal grunt. “I’m really not,” she protested. “I knew what was happening. You knew it, too.” It was hard to be angry with Mulder when she wasn’t really angry with herself, and when a pure and innocent part of her heart, a part that at times she wasn’t even sure existed anymore, gave her a subtle reminder that it was still around.

The case had been long and grueling, and the conclusion was just as heartbreaking. They both suspected that the young girl was the victim of a cruel and unusually violent homicide. They knew her family was heartbroken, especially her brother, who was sheriff of the town and the one who had called them to make sense of the mysterious clues when local law enforcement turned up nothing. What they hadn’t expected was that the girl’s father was the murderer, and that they would be leaving town with the case solved, but with their hearts, at least her own, a little more battered than when they arrived.

Her father, the person who was supposed to protect her and take care of her. Although Scully tried not to impose her values on other people, to judge everyone on their own merits, she thought of her own father and how she loved and trusted him. And she was immensely saddened.

She had spent the last twenty miles trying to come up with an excuse, some reasonable explanation for an irrational action, and that was the best she could do. That the case had somehow affected her in a way she couldn’t define, and that she reacted out of the frustration of not being able to do anything for the young girl. For once, she wanted instantaneous gratification and the knowledge that she was doing the right thing at the right time.

It was with that burden that she had mumbled something to Mulder about waiting in the car while he ran into the gas station to grab a bag of sunflower seeds. She had closed her eyes, willed away the bad thoughts, and then jumped at a strange noise.

It was fate, and if Dana Scully believed in anything, it was science and right and wrong and fate. So be it.

The woman obviously lived a life Scully couldn’t even begin to understand. Her hair hung limply around her face in tangled clumps, and she could see a fading bruise on her right cheek. Scully looked down at her own pantsuit, the sharp crease still evident despite the long day, and felt guilty. Of all she had, that others did not. She fought against the image of the young girl’s battered body that flashed before her eyes.

The stranger stood near their car in the parking lot. In one hand, she held tightly onto a young child, a little boy no older than four or five. He picked at the ground with his worn tennis shoe, but never attempted to escape from his mother’s firm grasp. In the woman’s other hand, she clutched a nylon rope, loosely hanging from the neck of a dog that seemed to be melting in the afternoon heat. The dog lay listlessly on the ground, also making no attempt to stray from the woman’s side.

And, resting against the side of the building near the ragged group, was a crudely hand painted sign that crumbled what little remained of Scully’s resolve.

“Full Breed German Shepard. $100.”

Scully was a human doctor, not a veterinarian. She appreciated all things neat and orderly, not the disheveled home of an inside dog. She knew without looking that the dog was no more a purebred than Mulder was capable of agreeing with a rational scientific theory. She didn’t care, and was out of the car door before she had a chance to think, fumbling in her purse for the money and ignoring Mulder’s questions as he walked out of the gas station.

She couldn’t meet the woman’s gaze as she wordlessly handed over the hundred-dollar bill, and felt the sharp sting of tears as the little boy kissed the dog on the head, and stood stupidly watching the mother and child walk away, and looked down at the simple expression of the dog staring back up at her. Her dog.

Which is why she and Mulder were riding back to Washington, DC with a mutt of indeterminate pedigree and age in the back seat of their Taurus.

“You know, Scully, you could have just given her the money.”

She thought of that already. “I know. But that didn’t seem right.”

“Why not?”

She looked at Mulder sharply. “Even if I knew that dog was not a purebred anything, and she knew that I knew, I wasn’t giving her a handout, Mulder. I bought her dog. She needed the money. We both got what we wanted.”

“You wanted a dog, Scully?” Mulder’s voice was quiet, and she let his words wash over her. Mulder knew exactly what had just happened, and was trying to help her voice the truth for herself. She smiled, and then carefully answered him.

“No,” she said, hanging her hand out the open window and feeling the breeze rush over her fingers. It was a feeling of being alive, and she closed her eyes momentarily to capture the sensation. “I wanted to do the right thing. A dog just came along with the deal.”

II.

Mulder figured that Scully was a natural dog owner, the trip with Queequeg being an exception, of course. How could she have known that a man (and dog) eating alligator lay lurking in the woods? He still felt guilt over his lack of sympathy with her that night. He supposed that guilt could explain the bag full of dog treats he carried clutched in one hand on his way up to Scully’s apartment.

The last case had taken something away from Scully. Almost all their cases were emotionally trying in one way or another, but this one had taken a toll on her, something he hadn’t really seen before. He saw the light dim in her eyes moment by moment as they figured out who had been responsible for the death of that young girl. He was powerless to stop it, and he felt it suffocate them both. He was glad to leave the city limits behind them that day.

He never expected a dog to accompany them on their drive back to DC, but Scully was always capable of surprises. In this case, he figured she had surprised even herself.

“Hey,” she said, opening the door wide to let him inside. The dog stood close beside her, holding something in her mouth, and its tail thumped softly against the wall at Mulder’s arrival. Seemed as if he wouldn’t need to do much to win the dog’s affections. “I brought some things for Molly,” he announced, holding the Petco bag in front of him and feeling a bit silly. “I wasn’t sure how much stuff you had been able to get for her.” Scully had announced a few miles out of DC that the dog’s new name was Molly.

Turning to put down the bag, he saw Scully’s table piled high with dog treats, a leash, a few bags of dog food, and an oversized dog bed. “But I see you have already got that taken care of,” he added, and he smiled at her laugh. He loved to see her happy, and if having a dog made Scully happy, he figured it was the most wonderful thing in the world.

“The pizza man just left, and I pulled those reports we wanted to go over,” she said, walking to sit down by the coffee table in the den. Molly followed Scully, and curled up next to her, her head in Scully’s lap. Mulder could understand why the dog never wanted to leave Scully’s side. He didn’t either.

He couldn’t help teasing her. “The pizza man, huh? Hopefully I didn’t interrupt anything.” She playfully swatted him on the leg as he walked by. “Molly looks good,” he commented, settling next to the pair on the floor and opening the pizza box.

The dog did look better than she did when Scully first got her. She had obviously been bathed, and it looked as if her shaggy coat had been trimmed. Mulder tried to picture Scully in her bathroom with trimming shears, quickly deciding that she must have taken her to a groomer.

“I took her to the vet, and they cleaned her up and gave her some shots.”

“Did they find any problems?” He prayed the answer was no. Scully was already attached to the dog, and he couldn’t bear the thought of her sadness if something happened to be wrong.

“Nothing unusual. Just that Molly is a very old dog and has lived a hard life.” Scully was quiet, and a little sad.

“Until now,” Mulder added, his hand grazing against Scully’s as they both reached for a slice of pizza. She met his startled gaze with a grin. “Until now,” she confirmed, patting Molly on the head as they opened the case file in front of him. “I have also discovered that she has a fetish.”

“You’ve adopted a dog with a fetish?” he asked, trying to imagine what kind of fetish the dog could have.

“Get your mind out of the gutter, Mulder. Molly has an obsession with tennis balls. If you are not throwing them for her, she is sleeping with one or walking around with one. Who knows, but bring over tennis balls when you get a chance.”

The cheese had congealed in the bottom of the pizza box by the time they finished their last report. Molly lay between them, snoring with a loud and constant rhythm. “You don’t think our work kept her up, do you?” he asked, leaning back against the couch and stretching his legs out in front of him.

“Molly can sleep anywhere, Mulder. I think there have been a few times she was dozing when we were out for a walk.”

“How have you adjusted to early morning walks?”

She snorted derisively. “Okay, thanks to you. Years of investigating cases with you, Mulder, have knocked my internal clock off balance. In more ways than one,” she added.

He mulled over her remark as she leaned back next to him, and he took comfort in the warmth of her shoulder pressing against his. If things were different, if their lives were different, this moment could have been painted by Rockwell: the lazy weekend evening, the companionship, the snoring dog, Scully’s neat and orderly apartment.

But things weren’t different.

“You know, Mulder, when I think about Molly’s life, I am sad. I think she has been through some hard times.”

“Haven’t we all, Scully?” he asked, reaching out to stroke the sleeping dog’s fur. “In our own way, I suppose we all survive the worst life brings to us. Some of us have a harder time than others, some of us have a stronger will than others.”

Scully was quiet for a long time before she spoke. “I worry, Mulder, that my will isn’t strong enough sometimes. That all we have seen, and all we do, it will break me one day.”

III.

"Did you ever have any pets when you were a kid, Mulder?"

She was sitting on one of the hotly contested benches in the mall, enjoying the breeze that ruffled her hair, watching Molly chase after a tennis ball that Mulder kept throwing. He had initially thought that, due to the heat, Molly would easily tire of the game.  But it had been almost an hour and a half and, as long as Mulder's arm stayed attached, Molly would keep chasing the ratty tennis ball.

Mulder looked off into the distance, at some kids playing soccer on the far side of the field, and thought back to his childhood.  Molly approached him and put her muzzle on his lap, looking at him with her round, black doggy eyes, silently asking him why their game of fetch had paused. "Yeah,” he finally answered. “I had a dog."

"What kind of dog?"

"My father said he was a Golden Retriever, but I wouldn't have known the difference."

Scully nodded and urged him to continue. "What was his name?"

"Boo."

"Boo?"

"Yeah, as in 'Me and You and a Dog Named Boo'.  But Samantha was afraid of him."

Molly whimpered and nuzzled Mulder's leg a little more, and he obligingly threw the ball.  "I got him when he was a puppy. Some woman was giving them away outside the grocery store and I begged my mother to let me have one."  He shook his head wistfully.  "My mother loved him, too, but she was afraid of what my father would say."

"What did he say?"

"Nothing. He was excited, but Samantha would scream every time Boo approached her. I wanted him to live inside the house, but my mother said absolutely not, so I build him a house of his own. Sometimes, during the summer, I would go and sleep with him in his house."

Scully laughed. "Must've been a big house."

"I wasn't allowed to use the saw, so yeah, the house was huge, but Boo liked it. He was my best friend. My only friend, for a long time. After Samantha disappeared, I kind of...crawled inside myself. I didn't want to be around anyone and I'd sit in my room alone for hours at a time just...thinking. Boo always knew, though, that I was lonely." He looked over at Scully then, who was watching him intently, as Molly trotted after her ball.

"He would stand at the back door and make this noise. It wasn't a bark and it wasn't a bay; I think it was somewhere in between, but it was my sound. He was letting me know that he missed me, that he wanted to play, and that he wasn't gonna let me wallow in my self-pity anymore." He smiled sadly. "My mom used to yell at him to stop, then, when he wouldn't she would yell at me to make him stop." He paused, thinking.

"You know my parents divorced when I was sixteen, right?" Scully nodded.  "Well, my dad actually moved out of the house in Chilmark and into the one in West Tisbury when I was fourteen. After that, mom was kind of...numb to everything. I used to think that if I just ran away, if I just didn't come home from school, she wouldn't notice. I had it all planned out one time. I packed my bookbag before I left that morning - clothes and food and stuff - and I was ready to never look back. But then I remembered Boo, and thought about how, if I left, he would starve to death or he would look for me and get lost...and that kept me from leaving. He kept me sane, Scully. He gave me a reason to come home everyday and to get up the next morning.”

"He never once abandoned me. He was a good dog."  Mulder faded out at the end as Molly come waddling back, tennis ball in her mouth, for another round.

For a moment, they were silent as Mulder turned the soggy ball round and round in his hands. "What happened to him?" she hesitantly asked.

"When I was fifteen, he was hit by a car one day while I was at school. Right in front of our house, and the person just left him there. I saw him lying on the curb when I got home. He was still alive, and I went and got my mother and we took him to the vet, but the vet said that Boo needed surgery. He had internal bleeding and both of his hind legs were broken. When my father got there, he told me to take Boo out to the car and wait for him. He thought it was absurd to spend money like that on an animal.”

"I sat with Boo in the back seat, trying to make him as comfortable as possible. I was crying and yelling at my father for not letting the vet help him. When we got home, my father told me to go upstairs and change out of my bloody clothes, that he would put Boo in his house. So I went inside and a few minutes later I heard a gun shot..."

"Your father shot him?"

"He said he put Boo out of his misery."  Mulder focused on Molly, then, scratching her ears and underneath her muzzle. "I never forgave him for that. The least he could've done is let me say goodbye."

Scully nodded and joined him in scratching Molly’s ear. "I'm so sorry, Mulder."

He nodded. "It's been fish since then. Less maintenance, but less affection." He grinned at Scully and then refocused his attention to the dog sitting obediently at his feet. "It's getting late, Scully. We better get going."

IV.

"You know, I really thought she'd be a holy terror, but she's actually well behaved."

Molly was sleeping soundly on Mulder's couch while the humans sat in front of it, alternately watching old movies on television and talking about nothing in particular.

"She's had a good teacher, Scully. You're so organized. Everything has to be on a perfect schedule, so she naturally picked up on that."

Scully nodded with chagrin. "I guess it's a lot like raising a child. You just have to get them adjusted to your personality, let them know what they can and what they can't get away with, and hope that they turn out all right." She looked down at her hands, tightly clasped in her lap. "Is it weird that I think of her like a child, Mulder?"

"No. As long as you don't start dressing her in clothes and sunglasses, I think you're okay." They laughed, and Mulder looked over his shoulder at Molly, oblivious to the conversation and to the love that her owner bestowed on her. "Although she is starting to look like you..."

"Mulder!" She punched him in the arm and turned to look at her dog. "I love her."

"I know. I do, too."

They sat in silence for another minute, both gazing at Molly. She had come into their lives suddenly and, to be honest, Mulder thought, only temporarily. Now, though, he wondered how she could come to mean so much to him in such a short amount of time. And to Scully. It was obvious that she cared for the dog, not just as a pet, but also as a companion, a slayer of loneliness, and a playmate to cheer her up on rainy afternoons.

"Hey, Scully?"

"Yeah?"

"Why did you name your dog Molly? I know it's not a character from 'Moby Dick'."

She smiled slightly. "After the unsinkable Molly Brown. Despite all the hardships in both their lives, they fought them off and emerged better than who they were before." Scully reached back and flipped Molly's ear over, rubbing the velvety underside. "Why didn't you ever get another dog, Mulder?"

"I don't know. I guess I never thought anyone could replace Boo. Or maybe I just didn't want to put so much of myself into something that was only temporary."

"Everything's temporary, Mulder, even the things you think will last forever. They never do. So, by your reasoning, nothing is worth investing yourself in."

"No, I didn't say that. I just meant that, barring any unforeseen circumstances, dogs don't live anywhere near as long as people. And I would rather invest myself in a person, given that fact."

Scully removed her hand from her dog and looked at her partner who was busying himself staring at his worn carpet. "I was angry at my father for what he did, Scully, but I was angry at Boo, too. He knew that he shouldn't get too close to the street. When he was a puppy, I had to keep him tied up in the backyard when no one was home, but when he got older, he had learned that he wasn't supposed to go near the street, so I didn't tie him up anymore. And then, one day, he just ran out..."

"And you felt guilty, I'm sure."

Mulder nodded. "After Samantha, I felt guilty for everything. In a way, I felt responsible for Boo. I was responsible for what happened. But I was still angry at him, more than I was angry at myself." He took his turn petting Molly then, not looking at Scully. "Just like I was angry with you when you were so sick with the cancer."

Scully cocked her head, waiting for him to elaborate.

"I knew that it was my fault that you were sick, but I thought that you were giving up. That you didn't want to fight or to live anymore. And I was angry at you for that...for wanting to leave me."

"I never knew that."

"Well, it's not something I'm proud of."

Scully let out an exaggerated sigh. "Mulder, I wasn't giving up. Yes, I was tired of fighting, but I never would've stopped. I didn't want to die - "

"I know. I know, but...I put so much of myself into you and I felt like I was losing myself all over again."

He looked at her then with tears in his eyes. Only the flickering television and the bubbling aquarium lit his apartment, but he could see that she was struggling not to cry as well. This simple dog had brought out so many emotions in them both and had allowed him to confess to Scully, in a roundabout way, the depth of his feeling towards her.

He was suddenly very glad that she had paid a hundred dollars for a scraggily mutt. But, then again, if she hadn't, he probably would have.

"So, if she sleeps here, where are you gonna sleep?" he asked, trying to change the subject.

"You always let me sleep in your bed anyway, so the question is, where are *you* going to sleep?"

He nodded ruefully. "I guess I'll have to sleep on the floor then."

Scully rose to her feet and extended her hand towards Mulder. "No," she said quietly, "I think your bed is big enough for both of us."

Without a word, Mulder took her hand and followed her into his bedroom, leaving Molly sleeping soundly on his couch. 

It wasn't a perfect semblance of a family, Scully thought, as she lay next to Mulder in the cool night air, but it might pass. She knew that Mulder was right about getting too attached to an animal that would likely be gone in a few years, but she couldn't help her feelings.

She had fallen in love with Emily almost immediately, though she knew the little girl didn't have long to live. It was dangerous, but in hindsight, Scully was glad that she had gotten the opportunity to love her daughter briefly, just as she was glad to be able to love this dog for however long they were together.

V.

The call came on a Saturday afternoon.

He barely remembered the drive to Scully’s apartment, the words from their brief conversation playing on a continuous loop in his mind. “It’s me,” she had managed to whisper when he answered the phone, and he had felt his stomach lurch. The anguish was audible in her voice, and Scully was never this emotional. Never. He had waited for her to catch her breath, and then his heart broke at her words.

“Molly’s dead, Mulder.”

He used his key to open her front door, not even bothering to knock, and then stopped in the entryway, floored by the rush of emotions. Scully sat by the fireplace, her hair pulled loosely at the base of her neck, her legs tucked underneath her. Her hands were tangled in Molly’s thick fur, and she was repeating a soft, comforting lullaby.

Molly was clearly gone, her eyes glassy and unfocused, and her large paws stiff against Scully’s lap. A chewed up yellow tennis ball lay next to her on the carpet.

“Oh, Mulder,” she whispered as he rounded the couch. Scully was struggling to hide her tears, and he was so touched by her depth of emotion and the loss of her companion that he felt the tears spring to his own eyes. He knelt beside her, pulling her against him and holding her as soft sobs shook her body.

“She was fine this morning. We went for a long walk, and then I came back to take a shower and she took her tennis ball and went to sleep in front of the fireplace. I was talking to her when I was in the kitchen, and she was so quiet. But I didn’t know, Mulder, I didn’t know until I came into the room and saw her there. I didn’t know…” Her voice trailed off and he continued to hold her, rocking her gently back and forth 

It occurred to him that Scully had accepted his comfort a very few times in their relationship. It wasn’t that she didn’t need it. It was more that he had learned how to be there for her in a way that went beyond just physical. But being able to hold her like this was something special. Scully was an incredibly strong woman, and it was just one of the many things he loved about her.

He smiled as he rested his chin atop Scully’s head. Yes, he did love her. “You gave her so much in the last few months of her life, Scully,” he murmured. “I think she knew that she was loved.” Her sigh was barely audible against his chest.

They sat in silence for what seemed like hours, Scully’s soft sniffles the only sound in the living room. Mulder’s feet were asleep and tingly by the time she pulled away from her and sheepishly looked him in the eyes. “How about I make you some tea?” he offered, pulling her to her feet.

Mulder watched in rapt silence as Scully nodded once, then turned to grab a blanket from the couch, laying it over Molly’s body and hesitating for a moment more before pulling it over the dog’s head. “Okay,” she finally said, more to herself than to him.

Scully was quiet, her eyes swollen and red, as he pushed the mug of tea across the table and sat down next to her. “I was reading this story the other day, Mulder, about this lioness,” she said. He was startled by her abrupt change of conversation. “Arguably one of the most aggressive and fierce creatures in the animal kingdom. The lion is focused on its own survival, and does whatever it needs to do to ensure its place in the food chain. Even the female members of the clan never accept outsiders, doing whatever they need to do to protect the other lions. ”

“And?” he prompted, curious to see where this was going.

“And,” she answered, taking a long sip of the tea, “this one particular lioness adopted an antelope. A baby antelope at that, a tiny creature only a few weeks old. Every instinctual response of this lioness should have been to kill the antelope and bring it to the clan. Instead, she took care of it, nursed it, even fought members of her own family to protect it.”

“Maybe her mothering instincts were stronger than her natural instincts to kill,” he offered.

“Maybe,” she shrugged. “But maybe she moved beyond the primal instinct of self-preservation to do the right thing. Arguably not a natural trait for lions, but…” Her voice trailed off again as she glanced over at Molly’s body.

He was unsure of what to say. “You know, Scully, you did that for Molly. You protected her, gave her a home, you were there for her when she needed you to be.”

She grinned, and then startled him by reaching over to grab his hand. “I know, Mulder. But being with Molly also helped me realize that I feel that way for you. My family, the Bureau, every compelling voice in my life said to walk away from you and the X-Files.” He held his breath as she continued. The moment was surreal, and he wanted to etch every second of it into his memory.

“Not that you ever needed my help, Mulder, but you bring that out in me. I’ve always been willing to protect you, for so many complicated reasons. I am proud to be your partner. I just wanted you to know.”

Scully looked as stunned by her admission as he did hearing it. They just weren’t like that, giving voice to intricate feelings and emotions they could never fully explain. But maybe they should start.

“You once told me that you wouldn’t put yourself on the line for anyone but me. I should have said it then, but it’s the same for me, Scully.”

“I know,” she simply answered, holding tightly onto his hand in the fading afternoon sunlight. He felt peace, and contentment, and he swore he could see Molly standing by the front door, waiting for one more tennis ball to be thrown her way.

FINIS  

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