Dreaming Omega
Spookey247 (spookey247@msn.com)

1/7

Archive - at Gossamer, anywhere else, please ask first!

Rating - NC -17 for profanity and strong sexual content

Classification - TRA Adventure/Romance/Angst (Mulder/Scully, Mulder/other)

Disclaimers - Mr. Carter, and folks at Fox, I'm just borrowing, it's all just for fun so don't sue me! Title for this section is borrowed from Robert Smith of the Cure.

Spoilers - Big big spoiler for Sein Und Zeit/Closure. Keywords - Mulder/Scully Romance, Mulder/other Romance

Summary - Sein Und Zeit/Closure post-episode. Mulder's having a nervous breakdown and taking a road trip to celebrate. Scully's in pursuit, but she may end up losing him forever (in more ways than one.) Thanks - To Kim for Beta assistance and Sister Sarah for editing and inspiration! Author's Note: This fic is totally season seven. I'm living in the past and not ashamed to admit it. PS It will enhance your enjoyment to listen to Massive Attack REALLY LOUD while you read this!

Derange and Disengage: One

I dreamed she was cutting my hair.

It was morning and I was sitting half-dressed in her kitchen. Sunlight streamed through the blinds like melted butter and, even in my dream state, I'm sure I could smell coffee brewing.

The scissors were a blur in her hands. Little hairs were flying everywhere like shards of marble from a sculptor's chisel. As if I were Michelangelo's statue, trapped in stone, and she was setting me free.

I don't know where I got so much hair, but she kept on cutting and the hairs kept flying. We were both laughing. It was our private joke, something only we would understand.

It's hard to imagine how those images could seem erotic, but somehow, in the dream world, that haircut was just as good as foreplay. I woke up wishing to have her beside me, longing to roll over and wake her with a kiss.

I'll never forget that morning. It was the first day I knew all she meant to me.

FBI HEADQUARTERS, WASHINGTON, DC 8:30 AM

"Scully! I heard you broke the La Pierre case. Nice work out there..."

Dammit. This is just what I need this morning: a pat on the back from the star of the Bureau Boys' club. I should have taken the stairs.

I shrug and check my watch. "It was a hunch that panned out."

"Always the modest one. Hey, do you want to get a drink sometime this week?"

"I'll have to get back to you on that, Morrison."

"Yeah, well, do that. Whoops, here's my floor. Have a pleasant day, Agent Scully."

I nod to Stanley Morrison politely, but what I really want to do is stamp my foot like a spoiled five-year- old. The entire workforce of the Bureau must have decided to use this elevator today. The basement seems miles away. It's maddening.

I have tried a dozen different ways of explaining it to myself over the last hour. His home phone ringing and ringing and ringing. No machine, no nothing. His cell phone ringing, and ringing, and ringing. After many, many tries, still no Mulder. I have the weirdest feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I shouldn't have left him alone. So much has happened. His mother's suicide, discovering Samantha's diary... to say that the events of the last few days have been overwhelming is to understate the situation entirely. Mulder doesn't know who or what to believe. Was his mother trying to tell him something? Was the diary we found real, or some kind of elaborate fabrication? We did find solid evidence that Samantha disappeared out of a locked room in a California hospital in 1979, but the trail ends there. That fact will never lead us to any concrete answers.

Mulder thinks he knows what happened to his sister, but I can't grasp it. It's beyond me how he could embrace all that talk about walk-in spirits and starlight and divine intervention by old souls. Even for Mulder, it's way, way out there.

I don't know what to believe, either. I don't know how to behave. Especially after what he said to me last night.

The elevator finally reaches the basement. I pray silently to find him sitting behind his desk like it's just another day.

Given the circumstances, I know that is a completely unreasonable request.

NATIONAL SEASHORE, HATTERAS ISLAND, NORTH CAROLINA 8:43 AM

A long bridge winds serpentine across the Oregon Inlet. My car is running on fumes and I've got the first bottle from a six pack of Newcastle between my knees. God, it's beautiful here. I'm glad I came. I've always known I would be.

Once upon a time, Diana and I were supposed to come here on vacation but instead she left me and I came by myself. I remember how right it felt to be here, lost between the ocean and the sky, like there was nothing more natural than being alone in the world.

I daydreamed about walking into the ocean without looking back, laughing at the thought of some middle- aged fisherman reeling in my corpse. It's the classic story: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy winds up as prizewinning catch in sport fishing tournament.

Ever since then I have fantasized about finishing it here.

I've been praying a lot lately, which is pretty funny since I don't believe in God. My prayer goes something like this: Let me be dead or like the dead...Let me be dead or like the dead... I've murmured these words incessantly since my mother's death, moving somnambulant through the events of the past days, giving my attention to whatever required it but all the while begging for my heart to be frozen.

I tried to tell Scully, but it was no good, an ill- considered decision. When women find out how crippled I am they always turn away. I thought things would be different with her, but now I know better. She will turn away; in fact, she already has. I don't know why I'm surprised. She's known what I am for years.

I arrive at my intended destination. At this time of day the parking lots are empty. With no houses nearby there is little danger of interruption by joggers or old folks with dogs. When I cut the motor the sudden hush is almost like a caress.

I drain my beer. The breeze is fresh and salty, rustling the grasses in the marsh across the highway. I take a minute to listen to the birds. Beyond the dunes to my left I can hear the roaring of the sea.

There's a backpack full of emergency supplies in the trunk of my car. I dump its contents and replace them with the rest of the Newcastles and my gun. I add my wallet to the heap of rubble in the trunk and remove my shirt and shoes. Even though it's late September and the air is far from warm, I'm hot. I've been hot for days. Smothered. Stifled and defeated like the air in mid-summer.

She'll have to come south to identify my body. I wonder if I should leave her a note. Yeah, right. A pathetic scrap of paper scrawled with lame excuses...that's a fitting ending to eight years of friendship. There's nothing I could possibly say that could make her understand.

I leave my keys on the front seat as a favor to the cops. The path through the dunes is hard work. My head aches. It seems like ages since the last time I slept or ate.

Somewhere inside me there is a voice shouting about the effects of exhaustion on my judgment. Screaming desperately for me to question my perceptions, which have obviously been co-opted by forces beyond my control. Take a break, it begs, think about this all again after you've had a chance to rest. She told me to rest, too. Scully did. That seems like a long time ago. Maybe she was right. Maybe I should re- think this.

But I'm here now. I've come this far. I've never been more ready.

ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA 9:45 AM

The floor lamp is completely mangled, its base rammed into the screen of the television. There is a faint smell of smoke in the air and I reach over and unplug the set. Who did this? Was it Mulder?

I know the answer to that question.

His living room is a wreck. Everything is shattered: the windows, the picture frames, the fish tank... oh god, the poor fish. I really need to sit down but there's nowhere to sit; a knife from the kitchen protrudes like a signpost from the shredded guts of the couch. I kneel down for a closer look but I know I shouldn't disturb it. A smear of blood covers the handle. I close my eyes. God, please don't let this be a crime scene.

I follow a trail of blood droplets to the bedroom door, which is closed. "Mulder, it's me," I say. My voice echoes through the quiet, sounding strained and bizarre. "Are you in there?" I knock gently, fighting to breathe, struggling to swallow. I draw my gun out of habit; it's something to hide behind, at least, something to make me brave.

I turn the knob.

His bedroom looks like the cleaning lady left five minutes ago. He has not slept in his bed. The bathroom door is ajar and I follow the trail of blood closer and closer, feeling more faint by the moment. My gun leads me forward, the hinges squeak slightly as the door swings open...

"Mulder?"

He's not here. There is blood, though, smeared on the door frame and dried in drops on the floor and the lavatory. It's not much blood, I tell myself. He cut himself when he was destroying his furniture...oh god, where is he?

The holster from his service revolver lies empty on his dresser. He has placed his watch and his cell phone beside it. In contrast to the chaos in the next room, these three objects are lined up with perfect symmetry exactly in the center of the rectangular surface, a still life of the despair I glimpsed last night. They speak to me, leaving no doubt; Mulder does not plan to return.

Yesterday as we were leaving the airport I had a strong feeling of foreboding. Mulder looked more tired than I had ever seen him, his face deeply lined and slightly swollen. During the flight from Sacramento he had not spoken, choosing instead a steady communion with the empty tray table before him. I had glanced his way from time to time, making offhand comments that garnered no response. He was suffering intensely. I'm sure I was the only one who could tell.

On the ground at National I offered to buy him dinner, but he turned me down. He needed to be alone, he said. His voice was uncharacteristically gentle, and he even put his arms around me to hug me good-bye, but it was a meaningless embrace. He was cold and distant; I could have been hugging a piece of granite wrapped in a trench coat. He lingered that way for a moment and I thought he might have more to say, but then he released me abruptly, grabbed his bag, and walked off in a hurry without looking back.

When I got home yesterday afternoon, I tried to take it easy. I needed to rest. I needed to escape. It was no use, though. The memory of his bleak expression would not leave my mind.

I finally gave up and drove to Alexandria. Whether he preferred to be alone or not, I really needed to know he was okay.

When I arrived at his apartment, his front door was ajar. I looked in and he was sitting in the glow of the fish tank, his face half-hidden in the lengthening shadows. He did not look up at me as I came into the room and sat down next to him, so I touched his knee lightly to get his attention. "Mulder? Are you alright?"

After a long time he spoke, but his voice sounded small, like a child describing a nightmare in the dark.

"Do you believe that we're never tested beyond what we can endure?"

I didn't have an answer.

My thoughts raced back to Mulder sitting in a deserted diner in Sacramento, his sister's diary resting delicately in his large, trembling hands. I felt so helpless, watching him as he read Samantha's last desperate words, his rigid expression barely masking his anguish.

I wanted to put my arms around him, but that night it wasn't an option. His stubborn insistence on working with that quack psychic, Harold Pillar, had put a wall between us. I know he thought I was closed- minded and unsympathetic to his pain, and I, for my part, was hurt that he couldn't see how much I cared, how much I wanted to help him.

I had accompanied Mulder to California because I was afraid for him. I could see that his emotional balance was listing dangerously and I wanted to keep him safe. The events of the trip, though, were a runaway train. I returned to Washington feeling betrayed, knowing it was not possible to protect him from whatever it was he sought. Knowing beyond the shadow of a doubt that he did not want to be protected.

I came back because I had information he desperately needed, but, in the end, Mulder wouldn't listen to most of what I had to say. He wouldn't trust my judgment, even when his own was so terribly out of kilter.

By the time he found Samantha's diary I felt like I barely knew him.

The distance between us then was painful; a sharp contrast to what we had shared so recently, on the night I had to tell Mulder the truth about his mother's suicide. I have never felt closer to Mulder than I did then. He did not try to hide his rage and grief as he did in Sacramento. He opened himself to me, accepting the physical comfort I offered him without question or reservation.

As I sat with Mulder on his couch last night, it occurred to me that I have always taken his strength for granted. He's been like a superhero to me: meeting all challenges with ironic wit and nerves of steel. I had never seen him so defeated: sitting stock-still with his body slumped inward, his voice trembling with suppressed rage.

"It's all been a waste, Scully. I don't know what to do."

Maybe sometimes we *are* tested beyond what we can endure.

He took my hand. His skin was hot. "This may not make much sense but I'm just going to say it."

"It's okay, Mulder. I'm listening."

"My life has been a lot of crap up to this point."

"You know that's not true."

His voice dropped to a whisper. "I'm sick of being set up. I don't belong to them. Scully, listen. It's coming to an end. Now only one thing is real."

I waited for him to continue, but instead he sat studying my hand, holding it gently, as if I was made of expensive crystal. I could see him laboring inside his mind, chipping words loose from ancient bedrock and dragging them to the surface. After several minutes of toil, he spoke softly.

"Scully, the only thing that's real is how I feel about you."

"Mulder, you're exhausted," I suggested gently.

At first I could not understand. Was this supposed to be some sort of confession? Did it mean what it seemed to mean?

He was spent, a starving animal dying of exposure in the climate of our harsh reality. I knew that it was possible to warm him, to give him sustenance as I have so many times before.

I had to stop and think, though: were we different now, because of the words he had just spoken? Was comfort still just comfort? Or had it become something more?

I knew that Mulder was saying he was in love with me. It was typical of him not to confess his feelings outright, couching them in what I sometimes think of as Mulder-speak, an allusion to emotions that may or may not exist, a riddle of the heart that always leaves the ball in my court.

I will never, never forget what happened next.

I knew I should have been thinking more clearly, but that moment was so rich with potential that the literal world ceased to exist for me. There was no past to reconcile, no future to consider; in fact, it seemed possible that actions would no longer have any consequences at all. It had never seemed more simple; Mulder and I could be together, free from grief, unhindered by the darkness of our circumstances. Unable to stop myself, I reached toward Mulder's face, slowly tracing the line of his jaw with a single finger.

He gathered my palm to his mouth, his eyes never leaving my face. The moment slowly unfolded; a tremor ran through my body as his breath blossomed upon my skin.

"Scully." I felt myself floating as he pulled me close. I wanted to close my eyes and give myself to him completely, as I have so often in fantasy, but instead I could not help but watch him, a witness to his agony as he brought his mouth to mine. Something was terribly wrong.

Our lips came together, and my body responded instantly to the pleasure of his kiss. I pressed against him, breathless, but even as I felt my body mold to his, even as his arm circled my back to draw me closer, misgivings clamored for my attention. Suddenly I willed my lips not to part. I needed time to think things through. But my lips weren't listening to the doubts in my mind. There was nothing I could do. His tongue dived into my mouth, filling it, filling me.

My god, he tasted good...

He murmured, hushed, his mouth brushing mine. "Scully, stay with me. Be with me tonight."

My nerve endings were standing on end. Yes, Mulder. Oh, yes.

Last night slowly vanishes from my mind and I am standing in the rubble of Mulder's apartment wondering what to do.

Last night I tore away from him and moved quickly to the other side of the room. The raw passion in his kiss was what drove me away. All at once, I realized just how hot and cold our relationship has always been. As recently as yesterday afternoon he had been closed and remote, like a total stranger, but last night, when I went to check on him, the unexpected fervency of his desire took my breath away. What would it be next?

It was almost impossible to deny my body what it had wanted for so long. My blood raced in my veins and pounded in my head as I held myself back from him. In my rational mind, I knew I was doing the right thing, but I felt like I was having a heart attack.

"Scully, what's wrong?" Mulder had asked hoarsely. He spoke with his eyes cast downward; I think he already knew what my answer would be.

"I don't know if we should do this," I gasped.

Mulder spun on his heel and stalked to a window, flinging it open, sucking in the cool air of evening. He stood with his back to me, bloodless fingers wrapped around the windowsill, ready to rip it right out of the wall.

I wanted to reassure him, but I didn't know how. His need was like a vortex and I was terrified to step too close. I wish I could have put my arms around him. If only I could have felt him relaxing into me, then I could have mustered the clarity of mind to speak without hurting him again. But he didn't want to be held, not for comfort, anyway, that much was clear.

"Mulder, try to understand. Tonight...the last few days...you're in shock. You're not yourself and that scares me. I need some time to think. I need to know that we're doing this for the right reasons."

My words shot through him like venom. His voice was choked and savage. "I can't believe you said that. God, Scully, what is there to think about?"

I went to him despite my uncertainty, laying my hands on his shoulders.

He shuddered with rage and moaned when I touched him, "Dammit, Scully. Goddammit. You have no idea...Why can't you just..." He pulled from me roughly and paced across the room, his body drawn up tight, his breathing convulsive and ragged.

"Maybe I should go. Mulder, you need to get some rest. I do want to talk about this tomorrow."

He did not answer.

"I'll call you in the morning."

He nodded almost imperceptibly, staring at the floor, pale as death. Then his hand brushed against a framed picture on his desk. Without looking to see what it was, he snatched it up and hurled it against the wall.

The superhero façade splintered before my eyes last night and I did not recognize the person who stood behind it. It was shocking to sense so much violence in someone I thought I knew so well.

I wish I hadn't left him alone, but I did. I had to. It was not safe to stay.

End of Part One