Title: Backhand Author: Meredith Category: V,A Summary: Scully fears her damaged relationship with Mulder will cause him to abandon her when she needs him most. Spoilers: Yes. Never Again, Leonard Betts, Memento Mori. Completed: February 1997. Disclaimer: Chris Carter gave birth to Mulder and Scully, but as all creatures do, they grow up and get lives of their own. In this particular event, I am their chaperone. No copyright infringement is intended. Note: This is my first story... feedback would be appreciated. ********************* Dana Scully regretted very few choices she had made in life, and she did not regret Philadelphia. That's how she would always remember the incident -- Philadelphia. Not "when she got the tattoo," not "Ed Jerse." Philadelphia. Regret was for people who couldn't take responsibility for their decisions, who couldn't learn from mistakes. No, Philadelphia wasn't a mistake. She had learned something about herself, and it stung like a slap in the face. Scully had been lying to herself, lying to Mulder. But it was all about him. His beliefs, his thoughts, aches and loves, his fucking *soul* permeated every thought she made, conscious or unconscious. Bound together by some exquisitely torturous connection, neither had ever been able to walk away when the pain got too strong. Barbs and slings were part of their foreplay, how they kept from getting too close to the line protocol had drawn. Because despite their distaste for the rules, that line was all that kept them from destroying their carefully crafted partnership. But for some reason, and for the first time, he had gotten personal. *But its my life, too. Did I take the words right out of your mouth? God damn it, Mulder. You know as well as I do that your life is mine as much as mine is yours. But you didn't have the fucking courage to say it.* She knew that to be the truth, and she clung to it. Problem was, she wondered if he still did. ***************** The stillness of her apartment bordered on the unbearable. She left a small light on in the kitchen, and another in the bathroom. Her living room, where she sat immovable on the couch, spine erect, was bathed in black. It suited her. She knew. The results weren't in yet -- no numbers, no white blood cell counts, no images -- but it didn't matter. The clock was ticking. She had pursued the answers the day before Mulder had drug her out of bed to meet some cartoon-crazed illegal immigrant, and had been preparing herself ever since. Until the phone call she expected soon, she had been tempting fate. Counting the hours. She didn't tell Mulder. She told no one. As usual, she wanted to fully arm herself with the facts before setting events in motion. What she did in Philadelphia was like smoking at 13 all over again -- tempting fate. Part of her wanted to get caught, then and now. She wanted him to know what she was capable of. *I'm not a little girl anymore, Dad.* *Mulder, there is so much about me you don't know.* Would he ever know? Against all odds she had caught his spirit of hopefulness and had prayed that he was right, that Samantha would be found, that the distorters of history and truth would be brought to justice, that the strange and twisted world she had stumbled into would right itself again. And most of all, she prayed that she could someday teach a wounded man to trust her with his heart as well as his soul. Tomorrow was the day of reckoning. Her life sentence would be meted out in a straightforward diagnosis, for she would have it no other way. What. Where. How long. Then she would know the physical truth and be able to tell him. The truth, she laughed harshly. Would he be able to handle this truth -- a fact-filled dose of the pain of life, the inevitability of death? Chasing after the unknown and the ghostly tracks of a missing sister was easy -- they so rarely ran across the indisputable. When you find no clear answers it becomes acutely easy to believe in extreme possibilities. Facing cold reality was the hard part. At one time she knew what his reaction would be, the exact times and order in which he would experience anger, denial, fear and despair. But what scared her most was that she wasn't sure anymore. How far would he go? How deep would he feel? Would he still stretch his hand over the growing chasm between them to bring her back to him? For no lesion, no tumor, no death sentence had the power to tear her apart as much as he did. XXXXXX Allentown, PA 8:30 a.m. Fox Mulder hadn't gone to the bathroom in more than 14 hours, and his bladder was getting annoyed. Even though he knew the futility of talking to one's own body parts, he told it to go to hell. He wasn't moving until 10 a.m., when he promised Scully he'd wake her up and get her checked out. Then he'd take her home. Until then, he would sit in the rickety hospital chair scooted to within millimeters of her bed. He was going nowhere. Mulder had finally convinced her at 6:00 that morning to get some sleep after her all-night vigil at Penny Northern's bedside. She only conceded on the grounds that they drive back to D.C. later that day; he had given in. She had fallen asleep immediately. He had not. XXXXXX Earlier that morning, about 3:12 a.m., the tears had finally come. He didn't really notice at first; one minute the barely audible Muzak was playing the Beatles' "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" and the next he could barely keep from choking aloud on his own agony. He was sitting back in Scully's room holding the journal she had begun -- as an open letter to him -- like a lifeline. Her elegant words, so achingly honest, had struck him physically, violently. <...so that you will know my heart...my memory and experience belong to you -- are you...> Her life was his as much as his was hers. And she was waiting to tell him until after she was dead. Two and a half days of nonstop searching and five hours in a variety of uncomfortable chairs had brought him to his knees. He had been moving so fast for so long that the reality of the situation hadn't sunk in; his brain had been processing the facts nonstop since Scully's call back in D.C., but his heart hadn't been able to keep up. He knew immediately. He asked no questions on the phone, just drove as fast as possible. *I should have known... God, Scully, I should have known... forgive me.* Why is it that everything is so clear in retrospect? He was certain now. She knew in the car after she killed Leonard Betts. She knew when he was making an ass of himself before he shoved her off to Philadelphia like an errant schoolgirl. She knew when he couldn't choke out the words that she had so gracefully written for him. He just couldn't figure out why *he* hadn't known. *Please forgive me* He had had seven hours to get his heart up to speed in that damned hall, this empty room, the hushed corridors, and it hurt worse than anything he'd ever imagined. Anything. Even the piercing, primal fear of losing her in the line of duty, a fear he'd faced too many times. But one look at her face as she left Penny's room told him to hang on a bit longer -- he would have to be strong for just a bit more. *There's so much about you I don't know...I *want* to know your heart, Scully... I need you to know* The few moments before she was in his arms were nearly unbearable. Something peculiar was haunting her; he almost swore he saw a look of hesitation in her eyes. Or was it fear? What could she have to fear from him? Stupid question. He knew the answer. He had been unconsciously backing away from her, afraid of getting so impossibly close that he would lose sight of their respective roles. But in the end, he had kept himself out of her reach when she needed him the most. *Scully, don't step back from me now... whatever is between us doesn't matter. We've not been separate souls for a long time...* He reached out to her. She walked into his embrace and he had prayed that time would stop, just this once. But of course, the clock kept ticking. XXXXX They drove back to Washington in a quiet, cold rain. Mulder frequently held her hand in his as she dozed lightly. An incomparable peace had settled between them, one he had never quite felt before. It was an utter calm -- he could almost compare it to joy, perhaps under other circumstances. Mulder thought Scully felt it too; when she was awake she held his glances with complete trust and had bestowed upon him two beautiful smiles for no reason whatsoever. For once she let him carry her luggage up to her apartment. She didn't even seem to mind when he drew the blinds against the night and turned on low lights, effectively warming her personal space. Scully shrugged her coat off and took a step toward him, stopping his movement with a hand on his arm. "Thank you, Mulder." He sighed. "Scully, we need to talk about what I learned at the clinic and research facility, but not tonight. Tomorrow." He made a move toward the door, but stopped himself. *Now.* He turned to face her again and placed his left hand on her cheek. "Scully, do you have any idea how simple my life is? It's the sum total of you, me, and the truths we are trying to reveal. Someday, Scully, I... someday I believe that our lives will become something else -- you, me, and the *answers.* I don't see that day as the end; it will be the *beginning.* The truth will set us both free. That's what I believe." Her eyes were downcast, and Mulder suddenly panicked. *Christ. Let her know what I'm saying...* She tipped her face up, finally meeting his gaze. The naked need in her eyes stopped his breathing. She spoke slowly, each word deliberate with meaning. "Mulder, until then, I'm going to depend on the strength of those beliefs," she whispered. With agonized relief, his right hand shakily came up to frame her face. In a deliberate repeat of his actions the night before, Mulder placed a soft kiss on her forehead, but slowly added another on her right eye. Her left eye. The bridge of her nose. As his lips met hers in the barest of touches, he whispered, "Always, Scully, always." XXXXX As Mulder walked to his car in the night's chilling rain, he tried to ignore the feeling that time was riding the backs of his heels. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX End. Thanks very much for reading. Comments lovingly received at: meredith40@juno.com or meredith_elsewhere@yahoo.com Author's note: Is it safe to assume that everyone's minds fill in the words when they hear a song they like on Muzak? Well, mine does, whether I like it or not. I assumed that Mulder's mind filled in these words when he heard the Beatles song mentioned earlier: Here I stand, head in hand, turn my face to the wall If she's gone, I can't go on, feeling two feet small Everywhere people stare, each and every day I can see them laugh at me, and I hear them say Hey, you've got to hide your love away Hey, you've got to hide your love away.