Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully are the property of CC, 1013, and Fox. No infringement is intended. Flowers Of Ophelia By RocketMan lebontrager@Harding.edu Rating: Very Angsty Notes: To understand here is some background: Violets are the symbol of faithfulness, rue the symbol of repentance, and daisy the symbol of concealing one's real motives. Flowers Of Ophelia in three chapters ================== Chapter One: Daisy ================== "There's rosemary, that's for rememberance. Pray you, love, remember. And there is pansies, that's for thoughts . . . O, you must wear your rue with difference. There's a daisy. I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died." -- Ophelia: Act IV, scene v: "Hamlet" ================== That hurt more than I'd like to admit. Too much to even think about at the moment. His eyes were completely dead as he sat there and told me to my face that I was not needed in his world. Not needed by him or his search or his truth. He told me straight to my face and then left me here. The bench is too cold for a wonderful warm day like this. Too cold for the bitterness leeching into my skin and staining a soul grown world-weary. I can't get my mind around his words, his voice, his dead, dead eyes. "I don't need you here anymore Scully." Those were the consonants and vowels of my destruction, the nouns and verbs of my release and yet, here I am, sitting on a cold bench and marveling at the ludicricy of it. I mean . . . yeah right. Mulder doesn't need me just like he doesn't need air and conspiracies. But he told me and then he asked me to leave before he got too caught up in petty things like fights and worries and attachments. I shiver and feel the madness descend like a swarm of small pox carrying bees, intent on their deadly mission. Only, these scars and vaccinations aren't going to get me through the disease of this. Mulder . . . Mulder what's going on? ===== "Agent Mulder suggested this, Agent Scully?" I swallow hard and nod, not trusting the slight quivering that runs all over my body to keep in check if I start speaking. Amazingly, Skinner says nothing. Nothing. I had expected a frown, a promise to talk to Mulder, a threat or curse issued from this formidable man that reminds me so much of my father. He simply signs my execution and hands it back. "But --" "You're dismissed Agent Scully." I stare at him, uncomprehending what has just happened. I am out of the X-Files. Out. ===== I shiver and run faster, harder through the course I made a while ago when I thought I needed to be in better shape for running after fleeing suspects. I don't need that now. But I work out anyway, trying to keep the threatening haze of pain and hurt from my scattered mind. I can feel it just on the edges, taunting me with a kind of eternal escape - despair. I feel like I've been discarded, royally screwed over by the Oxford grad with the crazy theories. I believed in you, Mulder! I believed in you! Why now . . . why now? I just got better, I just came back to you . . . why now? I run harder, pound my feet into the pavement, slam my body into the cold wind rising from the Potomac and shove my hands angrily through my hair to keep it from falling in my face. The pony tail was hasty today; I was too worked up to do it properly and now I'm paying for it. I'm paying for allowing Mulder's search to mean something to me. For allowing Mulder to mean something to me. I scream and run harder, faster, angrier, madder, farther. Each step I slam my shoe into is Mulder's face, each crack I crush is Mulder's words, each image that greets my glare is Mulder's cold, dead, fish eyes. I hate him. I hate him. Never Again. Never Again. ========== "Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia! O heavens, is't possible a young maid's wits Should be as mortal as an old man's life?" --Laertes: Act IV scene v: "Hamlet" ========== "Dr. Scully, would you . . .?" "Sure, give me a moment?" I say softly to the girl who has asked for my opinion so many times I wonder if she cheated her way through med school and now has no idea what to do. She nods and walks out of the office. I bite the inside of my cheek and look around at the clearly lit, open spaced office that has my name on the door and my desk in it's confines. It's no match for the dank, cramped basement office I had once shared with a man I had also once shared my life with. He hasn't called. It's been two months and he hasn't called. It's my birthday. Oh, God, why did I lose him? *How* did I lose him? Why was it suddenly so important that I not have any connection with him whatsoever? I mean, I could possibly understand if he ended up taking the deal or something similiar, but he didn't. I would have been just as upset in the beginning, but I would have at least found it rational. Being without him is like aching every day and not being able to take Tylenol to clear away the cobwebs. "Dr. Scully?" "Yeah, Shelly, I'm coming." "No, this is some thing different. There's someone here to see you." My heart surges like I've suddenly been shocked back to life with the ER paddles. Clear. Mulder. It has to be him. It's my birthday, it's got to be him . . . I stand hurriedly and sprint to the hallway, running almost and hating that I would fall so easily back into that life. It is not him. "Hey Dana!" "Bill." "Happy Birthday!" "Yeah . . ." Oh, God, no, please. I can't have this now. I can't. I can't. "Bill, go away." "Dana!" "Leave me alone." "Mom told me you were pretty upset and I --" "Came to say 'I was right'? Well, you were. Mulder reamed me. He screwed me over and then casually dismissed me. Is that what you wanted to hear?!" I am probably hysterical, but I don't care. Mulder left and my brother is coming to rub it in my face. "Dana, you're crazy! What's wrong with you?" "My fu --" I stop, sigh, take a deep breath. "Nothing." "Dana, this isn't some kind of game. You're so messed up right now that you can't even speak nicely to Mom on the phone. She says she tries to call and you tell her off!" "Like I'm doing to you? Yeah. Now leave before I get security to do it for you." "Dana Katherine Sc --" "YOU are NOT my father, William Scully. You may have his name, but at least he understood me!" "Just like you said you understood Mulder?" I slapped him. I just now realize I've done it. I have just slapped him right across the face. In Mulder's defense. "You're still taking up for him, Dana. Still his. It's sickening to see my little sister, my strong, stubborn little sister hanging on the coattails of a man who has clearly shaken her off and thrown her in the dirt." "You leave me alone. You leave me alone." "Go home, sissy, and take a hard look at your drawn, pale, cancer face and tell me again." "I don't have to. Leave me alone." He shakes his head and then tenses his jaw. His eyes are the same cold I saw in Mulder's. He leaves without another word. I need to go home. ===== "Agent Scully?" "Yes, this is she." "We have a Bill Scully here who says you're his sister?" "Uh . . . yeah?" "Could you come pick him up, Agent Scully?" "Where?" "Hoover Building, ma'am." "Why? What happened?" "He . . . he attacked another agent." Oh . . . screw it. "Yeah, I'm on my way." ================ Chapter Two: Rue ================ "A sister driven into desp'rate terms, Whose worth, if praises may go back again, Stood challenger on mount of all the age For her perfections. But my revenge will come." -- Laertes: Act IV, scene vii: "Hamlet" ================ "He deserved it, Dana. You should be glad I creamed him." "Bill, shut up." "Why? I socked him one and he looked all horrifed and then I sucker punched him. I held back though." "What? Should I say thank you, you idiot? You just beat-up my partner!" "He's not your partner." I feel cold all over and I think I'm going to throw up. "Didn't Mom teach you not to fight?" "Didn't Mom teach you not to kill another man?" "That's not fair, Bill. Line of duty." "Then that's what you need to call this." "Line of duty?" I snort and peer into the rearview mirror at the car following us discreetly. Probably an agent sent to make sure Bill doesn't try to attack any other agents. "Yes. I'm your older brother. It's my job." "I don't recall ever signing an employment contract for that one." "Oh, shut up, Dana. Admit it. You're glad I beat him down." I shake my head and pull into his motel, letting him make it to his room without me. I don't need this now. "I'm not sorry for what I did, Dana," he says, looking me straight in the eye with a dead, cold, Mulder look. "I know you're not. And that's what scares me." I drive off. The unmarked car is still behind me. ====================== Chapter Three: Violets ====================== "I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers Could not with all their quantity of love Make up my sum." --Hamlet: Act V, scene i: "Hamlet" ====================== I stop pacing and sink exhausted into the chair, knowing that if Mulder hadn't hated me before, he certainly does now. I hope he doesn't think I asked Bill to do that . . . A knock comes and I ignore it. The only person knocking would be Mom or Bill or a neighbor. No one I want to talk to. I curl up in the chair and ignore the knock, ignore the hard beating of my ripped up heart. I close my eyes and let a sob escape softly, but only one. I will not cry over Mulder. It was his decision and I must deal with it. Obviously our work, our partnership meant absolutely nothing. I will have to simply make it mean nothing to me too. I freeze as the door slips open and I hear footsteps. I don't have a gun anymore. I don't have a gun . . . I knew I should have applied for one . . . I knew I should have. Creeping feet inch to me and I wonder if I can take the person by surprise. My eyes are closed and as relaxed as I can get them while my heart crashes around in my chest. I feel the presence and it's a *big* man, towering over me, leaning right over me, breathing on me. I shiver involuntarily and hope he has not seen it. As soon as he leaves I will simply sneak out . . . run like hell. "I'm so sorry . . ." It's an agonized whisper of defeat and good intentions. It's Mulder. My eyes pop open and I stare at him, he stares right back. I let my eyes go cold. I will not let my heart be sucked back into the black hole of him. "Scully . . ." "Get the hell out of my house." "Scully. I couldn't do it. I couldn't keep doing it. I thought I could, but I need to know you know . . ." "Leave now." I say and scramble up from my very vulnerable position. "You have to let me explain." "I don't have to let you do anything." "Please, oh, Scully, please." I bite fiercely into my lip and shake my head, but he can see I've already been sucked right down into the depths of the darkness. He crushes me to him and holds on so tightly I can't even breathe, but I don't care, because I think maybe he means it this time. I pull away, shaking. "Please, please don't do this unless it's real. I can't do it again. I can't." His entire body seems to collapse and he lets out a sort of keeing that makes my body feel cold everywhere. "I didn't want to. I had to. I didn't want to cut you off, I didn't want to even let you out of my sight." "Tell me what happened. Tell me why you hated me." "I didn't. I don't. I had to." "Stop it! Tell me why I had to hurt for nothing!" His hands drop and his eyes cast about on the floor for an anchor. "Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt my love." I blink. "What?" "Hamlet. Hamlet. Oh, Scully, I didn't mean for this to happen. I had to get you away for awhile, safe for awhile. Skinner agreed. Skinner set this up for us. They were after you, after us. Both of us. They threatened things. I had to make it seem like I was agreeing. I wanted to tell you but I was afraid it'd get us both killed." "Mulder!" I am so incredibly fed up with his stupid protective role, the sentiment echoed in his words, his actions, all intended to leave me out of it. "Scully. Please, please. When your brother came, I realized. He said I had hurt you, that I didn't deserve to have you . . . have you love me like this. I don't. I don't deserve this at all. But I need it anyway. I need you." "Then why did you tell me you didn't?" Mentioning my brother's altercation took the steam from my fire. "I had to get you away." "Mulder, you could have come to me, explained before hurting me what you had to do. I might not have agreed, but at least it wouldn't be like this." I shake my head and sigh. "You and your perceived threats . . ." "I'm sorry." he says and it is very soft and it catches me and slaps me. He's back and I'm driving him away. "I -- I'm sorry, Scully." He says it again and reaches out to me. "We'll get through this together, Mulder. Not apart, not ever apart. I thought you had learned that by now." He reaches out further, grabbing me. I let him. "I forgive you, Mulder." He gathers me up like a child picking flowers to give to his mother and I stay still, allowing my embrace to perfume his restored faith. ===== end adios RM