Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully are the property of CC, 1013, and Fox. No infringement is intended. The Fighters By RocketMan lebontrager@Harding.edu Summary&Notes: Serious Angst ahead. Read at your own risk. Spoiler: All of the seasons to date (US5 included). ============== "And so you see I have come to doubt all that I once held as true I stand alone without beliefs The only truth I know is you." -- 'Kathy's Song' Simon & Garfunkel ============== Dana Scully was standing close to the file cabinet when he finally made it in that morning, her face coalesced into a frown that looked just about permanent these days. "Where've you been Mulder?" "Does it matter?" he said wearily, making her head snap back a bit with the tone of his words. "Yes." she answered, not willing to give up so soon. "You were supposed to be here for a meeting earlier." "So, I missed it." His shoulders shrugged as he sat down in his chair, the slight give of its padded seat a welcome comfort. "Mulder. It was on your performance as of late in this division." He shot her a tired, self-degrading smile. "Oh. Oops." Usually his self beating would cause her to back off, let him have his peace for awhile, but today it did not. "Mulder, this is bigger than oops. We're going to lose the X-Files if you don't pull yourself together." He almost shrugged again, but he could already see how afraid he was making her so he simply nodded gravely. "Well, maybe that's for the best." Her mouth fell open and he wondered why his words were such a surprise to her. Hadn't she been the one to reveal to him that his whole life was a lie? So surely she should understand that they no longer needed the X-Files. "Mulder!" "What?" he asked innocently, fingering a pencil left on his desk. "What the hell's wrong with you?" "Nothing!" he said, standing angrily, suddenly tired of her constant prodding and constant badgering. "Just leave it alone." Her hurt was not evident on her face, but he knew he had hurt her by the sudden stiffness of her shoulders and the cold look that iced her features. "Mulder --" "No, Scully. Shut up, okay? Just shut up." And he stood and fled out of the room before he could see her pain. ===== Fox Mulder paced his motel room out of anger and guilt, stepping in close to her then away, then close again. She reached out a hand as if to stop him, but he brushed right by, ignoring it and concentrating on the anger and the hurt building within him. "Scully, what do you want from me?" he finally burst out, standing dead still in the center of the room, eyes wide and furious and hands pleading with her to make him un-confused. She blinked and stood. "I don't know what you mean. All I want is for you to stop acting like nothing is important anymore." "It's not an *act*. Nothing is," he spat out, moving away from her again. These words hurt her more than any he had ever said and she crossed her arms in front of her and made her way to the door. "Just go to sleep, Mulder. I'll see you in the morning." She walked out and slammed the door behind her and he heard the connecting door on her side being locked. He sighed and slumped to his bed. He couldn't make sense of her anymore. It was like she had told him what he was doing wrong and when he attempted to do it right, she wanted him to be doing it wrong again! She was sort of shifting in the wind, denying him the strength in her he had always sought and refusing to see it. He growled and slammed his fist into the wall, hard. Harder. Harder. He had to beat the pain out of him. Slam the frustration into the wall. Crush the fear and rage and helplessness into one small bug-sized splat on the horribly tacky brown wall paper. He sat heaving on his bed as the echoes of his rage thundered away. Then he pulled off his dress shoes and laced his sneakers onto his feet. He had just opened the motel room door when the knock sounded from the connecting door. Scully. His blood raged in him and he dashed away into the darkness. ===== After the long silence she opened the door and found his room empty, his shoes carelessly tossed to the floor with his tie and dress shirt. She walked over to his bed and picked up the shirt, smoothing it out with a shaking hand, then placed it gingerly on top of his suitcase. She lifted the tie from its haphazard place on the carpet and then set it also on his luggage. A whiff of his cologne and sweat drifted up to her and she smelled her fingers with a hint of longing in her. She didn't know what was happening to them anymore. Things just didn't click between them. He was a stranger and she was teetering between belief and fear of belief and he wasn't there to steady her anymore. She felt alone. For the first time in six years with him she felt completely and utterly devoid of any hope for a return, any hope of him to save her, to laugh with her, to anger her, to rejoice in her. She was stranded on this island called belief and he was swimming away with the sharks. She shuddered and sat down on his bed, curling a hand around his pillow and bringing it up to her face. The linen reeked of his shampoo and hair and it made her think of times when she would come into the office and smell him because he'd slept there all night. She didn't know if she would ever have that smell again. It made her want to beg him to stay, to beg him to not leave her alone with the horrible truths they had discovered. But he already had. She could see it in his eyes every time he looked at a witness or at a survivor or abductee. Every time he looked at her, because she was all three of those things. He seemed to think for some reason, that because his own personal truth was null and void, that others did not have personal truths that were just as important. He was not big enough to be able to take on someone else's quest. Why couldn't he? She had willingly followed him in his search, why could he now not do the same for her -- regardless of his own beliefs? She was angry again now. Angry at him for abandoning her at the time she so desperately needed him. Angry at him for switching sides in a battle that was too important to lose. She had fought with him and he was running off and hiding! Boiling, she yanked herself away from her pathetic longing and back into her room. She had her own strength to cultivate now, her own belief to fall back on. Mulder had nothing. She would finally, truly, be the strong one. ===== He realized when he had gotten about four miles away that his lack of belief in the X-Files really wasn't her fault. Sure, she had told him the horrible truth, but she had told him exactly what he had always begged her to tell him. The cold, undeniable, hard facts. She had done exactly as he'd said and now he was blaming her for it. He felt a little like a coackroach. Scum of the earth with no one but a scientist to understand him. Scully understood him most of the time, but lately he hadn't been very understanding. He turned and made his way back to the motel, thinking of good ways to say he was sorry for yelling at her, maybe even talk to her about what was going on, about this change happening between them. It began to rain as soon as he reached the parking lot and he sprinted across the slick tarmac to her room, pounding painfully on the door with a wet fist. She opened it and let him in and he shivered and crossed into his own room, grateful that one of them had a door that wasn't directly in the weather. After slipping on some sweat pants and another shirt, he went back in her room and sat in the little chair the motel offered. "Look, Scully. I didn't mean to yell at you or get so upset --" "No, Mulder. It's okay. Just forget it." Her face was closed and from the hardness in her eyes, he knew she had been doing some thinking too. That scared him. He didn't want her leaving or anything. "Scully?" "Mulder, go to bed. It's okay." She didn't sound very convincing and he stood and went over to where she sat on the bed. He leaned in close, invading her personal space; it was a signal that he was trying to apologize, trying to be close to her again. She backed away and stood up. He felt his heart crush. "Mulder, we're okay. Seriously." He shook his head. "Seriously, we're not." "Mulder, I suggest you go away." Her voice was shaking just a bit and he wanted to hold her but he couldn't. "Scully. I'm not leaving now. We're all messed up. We're not right anymore. We don't click like we used to." "That's not my fault," she said icily. He was stung and rocked back on his heels. "I didn't say it was. I just meant that --" "Mulder, it doesn't matter anymore." He felt the panic crawl into him. "Why?" "Because I can stand on my own now, if I have to. I don't need you anymore." He frowned. "When did you ever need me?" She was shocked, hurt again and he hadn't even meant to this time. She wanted to hurtle curses at him that would make him hurt just as much as her. She wanted to punch him right in the gut until he stopped saying such stupid and painful things to her. She didn't. She just drew in and relied on her own strength this time. "It doesn't matter anymore, I --" He strident voice cut through hers. "*When did you ever need me*?" She threw him a dirty look. "Plenty of times, you idiot. You are so freaking dense, do you know that? Mulder, your beliefs saved me! You can't even . . ." She trailed away, her anger spent on exhaustion and mindless hurt that meant nothing now. "Never mind. It doesn't matter." "It does matter, Scully. You left me alone. You left me alone that night and you didn't *ever* believe me. Don't you understand? This isn't anything I've done -- it's you!" "This is my fault?! My fault!" "Yes. It's your fault. But it's only the truth, Scully. It's only the truth you told me. And so how can it be wrong?" "My fault? I told you --" "Shut up, Scully, and listen to me. I'm not blaming you for pain or unhappiness or anything. I'm just saying you were the one to tell me the truth, to point out my problems, my 'idiocy', and now you can't handle it. You gave this to me and now you don't want me to have it. Don't you see?" She was struck silent and dumb by his confession. "I don't want it like this," she finally whispered. He stared at her disgustedly and walked back to his own room, slamming the door with a loud reverberation that shook the walls. She slumped into her bed. She had made this monster. She had poisoned her prince. Oh, God, what was she going to do? How could she get him back? ===== Another day, another fight, he thought grimly. Would this ever end? She was his best friend at one point; now it was just annoying and repulsive. He didn't want to see her or touch her or even talk to her. "Would you just stop hounding me!" he yelled and it seemed to make the entire Hoover Building pause. Her face took back its ice mask and he wondered if she ever cried at home over this like he sometimes did. He had trouble imagining it. "Mulder, pay attention then, all right. I'm trying to get some work done here and you won't even listen to me." She sounded hurt but also frustrated and he stood as she did. They circled like boxers in the ring and she came in close, ready to jab. "I'm working fine with our memo system idea," he snorted. She paled. "That's so childish Mulder. We can't work if we only talk through memos. You don't even read half the memos I give you." "And you don't read any of mine," he retorted. "So listen to me and we can get out of here." His voice sounded threatening when he spoke. "If you want to leave, then go ahead, I'm not stopping you. In fact, I'm encouraging you to." He realized the instant he said it that he really didn't mean it, but he was furious and ready to slap her if it made her stop being so petty and selfish all the time. She knew the double meaning to that and she wanted to hurt him. "Maybe I will, Mulder. Then what will you do? Mope around the basement for a day until you lose yourself in an oblivion of alcohol and porn?" That bit deeply into him and he swaggered forward, backing her against the file cabinets because he needed to reassert some kind of control. "No, I'd have a party and then lose myself in the joy of alcohol and porn and then maybe I'd go find the first red head I saw and knock her up, how about that?" She glared at him, pushing at his chest with both her hands. "You're revolting Mulder. I'll make sure to keep as far away from you as possible. You're a cold bastard anyway." He sneered at her and wagged his head. "I think that would be your rightfully earned nickname, Your Highness. You wouldn't even know the first thing about making love, would you?" She pushed at him again, desperate to escape the room and let herself cry, but also furious at him for being so . . . so . . . cruel. "You are a loser, Mulder, you know it? You are. And I wouldn't make love to anyone that was so completely in love with his own sister. I believe that's called incest, you pervert." Anger boiled over and he slammed his fist into the wall beside her head, for one brief second enjoying the instant flash of fear that crossed her face and resided in her eyes. And then reality came back and he stared at her for a moment, fear etched in both of them, his own horror at what he had done making his stomach retch. He reeled away from her and crashed over the trash can and into his desk, panting as if he had just run a thousand miles. She stared at him. "You . . . you wouldn't have hit me, Mulder," she said, but her voice was a question that begged him to answer. His hands wrung and he shoved a lock of hair from his forehead. "I . . . I don't know," he admitted and looked at her with such fear and loathing for what he had done that she could not be angry. She skitted closer to him, putting out a hand cautiously. "Maybe you'd better leave," he said. "No, I always end up leaving." She sat down next to him and took his battered and now bleeding hand. "This must hurt," she said. "It does." He wasn't talking about his hand. "I hate that this is happening, but you can't understand why I don't believe and I can't understand why you want me to believe." "Mulder, I want you to believe because that's who you are. That's the Mulder I love." "You don't love this Mulder?" The question shocked her and she ran her thumb down his. "I do. I think I do, and I guess that's why I'm still here." "I'm glad you're still here. But it's not fair to you or to me to have to put up with all this." "You don't think it's worth it?" she asked. It was his turn to become speechless, shocked. He simply stared down at her small hand in his and blinked away the tears that wanted to come. "It used to be worth it," he said, choosing his words carefully. "If I thought it would go back to the way it was, it would most definitely be worth it. But things have changed too much for us to be the same." "Couldn't that new thing be worth it? Couldn't we save this and make it something entirely new?" "Like what? Me the Skeptic, you the Believer? No, I don't think it would work. I don't know how to be a skeptic and you don't know how to be a believer." She shook her head. "No, it could just be you and me. Nothing attached to it." "We've been trying that, haven't we?" "I don't know about you, but I haven't really been trying." He grinned at her sheepishly. "Yeah, me either. But this is better than before, though, wouldn't you say?" She looked at him with a glint of sarcasm. "You had to almost hit me before this happened Mulder." He winced and she squeezed his hand, meaning no harm done. They still had that unspoken communication. "So that means any time I need your attention, all I have to do is go nuts on you?" "That, and say you're going to knock up the first red head you see." He grimaced. "That was pretty tasteless, I must admit." She gave him a smile. "Yes, it was. But it worked." He waggled his eyebrows at her, then sobered. "Does it really matter what we believe or no longer believe? Does that have to be something our relationship and our strength is built on?" She cocked her head and frowned. "Well, we tried to ignore it, and look what happened." He nodded. "Yeah, I suppose so." "Can we try to work it out?" she asked. "Do you really want to?" He sounded hopeless. "I think I've said this before but, I'd consider your leaving more than a professsional loss." "Oh, that's wonderfully vague, Agent Scully." "Mulder," she warned. He sighed. "I don't want this to end. I really want this to be something good again." She sighed. "We sound like a married couple." "Well, we practically are." She smiled. "What do we need, marriage counseling?" "Might not be bad," he said thoughtfully. "Mulder, that was a joke." "No really, Scully --" "Mulder no. I'm not going in marriage counseling with you." He smiled. "That sounded more like the old Scully." She ran her fingers down his palm. "So, we agree to try?" He watched her hand for a long time. "We agree to try." Oh, God, please let this work. ============== "In the clearing stands a boxer and a fighter by his trade And he carries the reminders of every glove that Laid him down or Cut him Till he cried out In his anger and his shame 'I am leaving, I am leaving But the fighter still remains'." 'The Boxer' Simon & Garfunkel =============== They just couldn't seem to stop. He stared at her over the rim of his glass and tried to keep his voice down, but anger boiled within him like hot acid and he wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake her. "Scully, how can you *think* that?" She sighed and shook her head, once again letting her walls speak for her. "Mulder, I swear, if you don't shut up about it --" "Scully, we're getting nowhere. This isn't working and you know it." "I am NOT going to marriage counseling!" she hissed. He grabbed her hand and squeezed hard; it hurt her but it was better than him yanking her up and dashing her against the wall. The people in the restaurant turned as she made a noise of protest or maybe fear, and he smiled politely and squeezed harder. "Mulder! Stop." "We need to work this out, and this is the only way to do it." "It's ridiculous. I've never needed counseling and I certainly don't need marriage counseling since we're not been married!" "Scully, please," he groaned and caused the patrons to raise their heads and stare again. "I don't want to lose this!" She sat back, feeling as if he had slapped her in the face. But he was right. They were losing each other to the constant bickering and the strained silences. "Okay, Mulder. Okay. We'll see how it goes." He sighed. "I'll pay for it. No problem." She took her hand away from his and picked up her fork, as if closing the discussion. He stared at her for a long time, watching her irritated movements, her jerky chewing, and frustrated fingers. "Is this worth it to you, Scully?" he whispered, suddenly overcome with the idea that she didn't want this to be fixed. She looked straight into his eyes and stared long and hard so that he would never forget just what she said. "We're worth this, Mulder. We are." ===== The woman interviewed them separately and Scully was a bit nervous about it. She had assumed they'd be doing it together and now, she was a bit unsure of herself. The entire thing consisted of explaining to the woman what had happened recently (within her ability to do so per FBI regulations) and trying to rationalize each of their actions. It actually made her even more angry and she couldn't understand why this would ever work. Then Mulder went and she sat in the anteroom stewing, remembering all the pain, reliving the hurts, and delving back into the madness. When the psychologist called her back in, she could see the same anger and resentment on Mulder's face and she realized the woman had provoked it. In less than two minutes she and Mulder were quietly insulting each other and demeaning the other, without even realizing it. The woman stopped them after a few minutes, noting the dejected looks on their faces and the shame of what they had said. She found it interesting to see that they seemed to still reach out to each other even afterwards and that their eyes constantly stayed locked, straying only when neccessary. Scully apologized first and took his hand, squeezing it and trying to forget he words he had said. The woman stopped her. "No, no, no. Be angry at him. Keep it, feel it. You shut it out too fast, Dana. You need to let everything go if you hope to expel it. And Mulder, you just sit there and keep it in and push it and push it until you explode and hurt everyone." "No kidding," he said bitterly. "Keep fighting," she said. They stared at her. "Go on now. Start fighting again." They glanced at each other. She nodded encouragement and they faced each other. Mulder opened his mouth and shut it, then Sculy opened hers for a moment and close it too. They couldn't. The fight was gone. They had nothing to fight about yet. They were still too ashamed of the earlier one to start up again. "Look, this is your problem. You fight and forget about it. Not that forgiving isn't wonderful, but see, you never forgive. You just become self-absorbed and mortified that you're fighting and push away the pain. Then it builds up again and comes out." "How do we fix it?" he muttered. "When the anger comes, go with it. Don't physically hurt each other, but let yourself feel your anger and don't be ashamed." "So, we fight and keep fighting?" Scully said, an eyebrow raised. "Yes. Keep fighting until everything's been cleared up." They glanced at each other. What a load of crock. ===== He exploded first. She exploded next. They hid it away and did not face it. Then she exploded again and he got hurt and said things back and wouldn't let her leave. He kept talking until everything was gone and he had nothing to say and she was sitting in the corner, stunned and shaking and wishing she could leave. He looked up after his tirade and stood there, shaking as she shook. She started crying, very softly so that her tears couldn't be heard, nor really seen, except by Mulder. "I didn't know," she whispered in an agonized voice. "I just told you what I thought was another version of the truth. I didn't want to hurt you or make you think I wasn't behind you." He nodded and sank into his chair, no longer feeling the incredible blackness that had always risen in him after hurting her. She stood weakly and gathered her things and shoved papers into a briefcase, pausing to wipe her eyes. She headed for the door. He panicked. "Scully!" She turned and he did not see any emotion there, nothing. Wasn't she supposed to purge on him too? Wasn't that how it worked? "Are you coming back?" he said. She looked at him for a long time. "Yes. Yes, I'll be here." It was her life too. ===== He felt better that day. He didn't want to make her mad anymore. He didn't carelessly dismiss anything anymore. He was back. She was not. She was silent and moody and she kept everything internalized. He tried to provoke her into a kind of catharsis, but she never rose to the bait and he got sick of trying to make her. She quit the counseling and drew away from him. He was better -- why couldn't she find that healing? All she had in her was guilt. Guilt because this was all her fault, and his lack of belief was because of her angry words that night in the warehouse. So she had no right to be angry with him, and no right to fight or be upset by his seeming indifference. She stayed quiet and managed to avoid any fights. ===== He was sick and tired of her silence. He could deal with the anger, but not with this coldness. He drove to her own apartment instead of his that night and let himself in while she was taking a shower. The water stopped while he settled himself into the chair and when she came out, towel wrapped around her, she jolted and stared at him. "Mulder? What the hell are you doing in my living room in the dark?" He smiled with the similarity of it and stood. "Waiting for you. Go get dressed." Wordlessly she did and joined him on the couch after a few minutes. "Look, Scully. I want you to tell me something." She nodded reluctantly and twisted in her seat. "Is this worth it to you?" She nodded and looked up at him with fear. "Do you want what we had before, or something different?" "We can't be the people we were before, Mulder." "Okay then. We'll be different. Different this time, Scully. I wasted too much of my life endangering yours. I'm not going to keep --" "Mulder," she said and her voice was twisted. "Please don't leave now. Please. I know you think your quest is over, but mine just began. Like you said, I don't know how to be the Believer." He smiled. "I wasn't going to leave. I was going to do this." He leaned forward and pressed close to her, breathing the same air as she until he couldn't even focus his eyes on hers anymore. She shivered as his lips danced across hers in a delightful ballet of passion and fear. He leaned away. "We're going to be different this time, Scully. I'm not letting this slip away from me." She felt her body melting and she slid her eyes shut. "Mulder, how can you possibly think this will work? If we can't even --" "Shh. It will. Isn't it worth it?" She watched his lips move and the way his chin jerked around like he was excited or maybe afraid. "It's worth it," she murmured and let him kiss her again. "So we agree to try?" he whispered. She shook her head. "No, we agree to work. We will work out, Mulder. No more trying." He smiled. "Okay, we'll work. That's optimism for you." She curled up around him but couldn't stay calm. "Mulder?" "Yeah?" he asked, through her hair. "I'm sorry that I blamed you for the cancer. I don't. I never really did. I just was afraid that you'd get hurt trying to save me." He shifted and cleared his throat. "I don't really blame you for anything, Scully. I was just confused. I was being told I should act one way and then I was told that was wrong. I don't know, I was --" "I know, Mulder. I know. But no more. I need you to believe in something Mulder. I need that strength to know that you'll always be here." "We have something else to put our strength in, Scully. Us. Not belief in aliens or God or science, but us. And I think it's stronger and more unshakable than anything." She nodded. "It's worth it, Mulder. It is." He still didn't know if he was a Believer anymore and neither did she, but he did know he still had her. The only truth he knew was her. ===== end adios RM