Title: Profile Author: RM >lebontrager@iname.com< Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully belong to CC, 1013, and Fox. No fringe is intended. SPOILER:: EVERY EPISODE, INCLUDING MILAGRO ~~~~ Profile ~~~~ --mulder-- ~~~~ I shouldn't have done it. I made this rule for myself a long time ago: No matter how much I'm curious, no matter how much I may hate someone, I will not psychoanalyze my co-workers. I will not. I did. It's a shame; I ought to be shot. I couldn't help myself. Scully is just too much of a puzzle, too much of a tantalizing mystery for me to not wonder. And after Padgett's startling images of a Scully that either doesn't exist, or does in some place I've never known before, I was feeling really left out. I analyzed her, and I found some things I hadn't thought of before, things about her that only the detailed probing of an intense search would reveal. This is how I did it. Last night, I replayed the first year of our partnership in my head, looking through her notes and mine, trying to glean those orignial, unbiased responses we'd had toward each other, and toward our work. I wrote things down very carefully, noting every tiny detail, and every small thing that happened. First, I made three columns: Scully's response to the case, My response to the case, and then Scully's response to Me. It was enlightening. I soon added columns. First case, Oregon. She told me she didn't think it was possible that extraterrestrial life was on our planet, given time and fuel and all. But I had asked her if she believed. Believed. She had evaded the question. Interesting. At that point, I had felt her not worth my time. I was going to go out there, spook her, make her run away from me. The radio fizzed, the engine died, and I ran out and drew an "X" on the ground, to mark the spot. She had talked about time, about science, refuting my out and out belief with her rationalism. Even then, she had been trying to *ground me* not write reports to debunk me. I was shocked. She had been given orders to make my work invalid, but she had taken this assignment as permanent, as something to *do*, not something to get her elsewhere. Maybe I knew that then. She came to me, trusted me to be a gentleman, and so I reciprocated that trust. She initiated it. I told her about my past, about Samantha. That was different. Just that first case made me pause, made me want to throw up my hands in defeat. She had initiated. Scully never, never reached out. She never pushed out of her limits and into mine. She had. The very first case, first time we were together, first time. Had I done something to make her withdraw? I shook my head and tried to ignore the questions pressing through. I went on, pulled out all the old case files from my own computer, and the pieces I had after the fire. Some things would be forever lost, but I had snitched one of Scully's disks, and found all of our first and second year together saved there. She'd given me some of her own files to reconstruct the X-Files as best as possible; I figured it was all right. I decided this: The first year Scully was responsive. She was caring and concerned. Not for me, about me, but about the world, about justice and the government. She wanted to change the world, and she thought we could do it. She put everything into it. Natural youthful enthusiasm. She had it and she had even given some of it to me. We were both young. I had just gotten into the X-Files, just found all those questions I'd been asking myself and never knew the words for. There went the first year. Most of the second too. I noticed she stopped asking me if I was okay, and she stopped touching me whenever she thought I was sick, stopped telling me to go sleep. She was learning, and I was pushing her from a green agent to an experienced agent. Then she was abducted. Things changed. She no longer had this amusement toward me in her eyes. She didn't have that softness to her hands whenever she touched me, or the gentleness that reminded me of how mothers should be. I went through all of our cases and we were hot, we were moving and shaking and discovering things, all at the expense of her sanity. I didn't know that. I hadn't known it. But going back through, knowing Scully's habbits and tendencies and behaviors, I understood what she was doing. She threw herself into work, ignored her losses, and concentrated on getting them back. She wanted to get over it. But I wasn't letting myself get close to her and she had no one to turn to, with her father being dead. I couldn't say it was entirely my fault, but I did have a part in her hardening. I realized, sitting in my darkening apartment with piles of papers around me, delving into her life, that Scully had been more hurt and more pained that I'd ever let myself see. I told myself she was doing this for her, and I told myself she didn't need my support. But she needed me, she needed me and I wasn't there for her. I cried. I cried for what we could have made out of those first two years, trying to struggle through our own separate pains, without each other. We could have. . .we could have been so . . . I don't know. I didn't want to think about it. Those first three years were all I got through last night. I quit about four this morning, my head swimming with my tears, my eyes sore and rubbed raw. Those yellow sheets with all their columns, the pen marks all over the legal pad as I doodled while trying to think, and the files and computer print-outs as I tried to analyze Scully. I woke again at ten o'clock this evening, my head blurry and my ribs aching from a spring in my couch. I started in on our last three years, determined to keep unemotional about it, to find the truth behind my partner. I found more than I wanted to. Fourth year: her sister dies and I push her away. I think that was the fourth year anyway, I got so immersed in everything I messed up what went where. I had lists and I had guilt riding through me, but nothing made any sense once I got to this last year. She went wild on me. It made me laugh, in my desperation and grief. She didn't act like she should have, based on my careful, detailed profile. She didn't respond to anything like I would have expected. She didn't reach for me when she should have, or ask for me at the usual times. She didn't move away at other times, and I found that I was feeling her differences subconsciously. She tried to assimilate herself in my world, in this new order of hurt and grief and revenge. My little partner was trying to push her way through my world, show me that she could do things, that she was competent and tough. I let her prove herself to me and never told her she was important. I let her exhaust herself with the work and never gave her any reason to think I was paying attention. I wasn't paying attention. I meant to, and I really wanted to, but things happened so fast. Then Antarctica and Diana and that messed up our already precarious situation. I wanted her back. I wanted our easiness back, where she initiated our trust and I fed her innocence. I wanted that symbiotic softness between us where I was attuned to her griefs, and she to my demons. We healed each other then, and we blessed each other. I think we can get back to that. Sitting here now, my body exhausted and my mind overworked, I want to run over to her, to find her asleep and take her up in my arms and let her know, by osmosis, everything that I discovered, all the things about her that I know now. I want to reaffirm her life. Reaffirm our connection. I can't though. Not looking crazed like this. I'll sleep for a bit, just sleep for now. The papers crinkle under me, and my hypothesis rests against my chest. I clutch it like a talisman. ~~~~ --scully-- ~~~~ I walk into his apartment when he doesn't answer my knocks, worried because he was supposed to have come over at eight to talk about a case. And he was the one who had asked to come. So when he didn't arrive, I knew something was wrong. He's asleep. Amid miles and miles of paper, but asleep. I creep over to him, smiling at his slack jaw and limp body. It is all legal pad yellow paper, with writing scratched over it, as if he was in a furious attempt to discover something. It looks like one of his profiles, where he tries to develop lists and make judgments based on behavior. I wonder if this is our new case he was talking about. Leaning forward, I pull some of the papers from the coffee table, sifting them in my grip to get a better look. There's my name. My name. What was Mulder doing all day? Rifling through more of the papers, I notice that he's got columns of information, dating back to our first year, with my responses and notes to each case and to him. He had marked down that I had started carrying my gun all the time after Melissa died, and then all the changes and shifts in behavior over the years. He was wrong. I started packing the day Melissa got shot in my place. I'd been warned, and so I kept my gun with me, frightened. It was a bitter memory, and standing here, looking at all the things that have happened in my life with Mulder, I feel betrayed. Betrayed because he was trying to figure me out. Maybe he doesn't. I see a slip of yellow under his arms, clutched like a teddy bear by a frightened child. Carefully, I pull it from his slack arms, biting my lip when he stirs slightly. Its his conclusion. All neatly written with a black pen, the ink smeared a bit by my wrestle to get it from his slick fingers, and it pierced into me. Dana Scully: Year One: Concerned about the truth, for its own sake, wants to please, wishes to prove herself, initiates trust Year Two: Attempts to assimilate, does more than needed to gain trust, overt gestures to establish communication Year Three: Abduction changes, no longer listens to innocence, creates boundaries and seeks to reestablish lost life Year Four: Carries gun always, attempts to close off from any ovations, no longer seeks company, will not allow emotions And then it stops. Is this as far as he got, or was he so depressed by his findings that he couldn't continue? I shake my head and slump to the couch, forgetting for a moment that he's asleep there. My weight shifts the cushions and he mumbles, then opens his eyes. "Scully?" I watch him wake up, rubbing his eyes and trying to recognize his surroundings. When he sees the yellow paper in my hands, his face drops and he sits up slowly, like he knows he's been caught and is ashamed. "Mulder." He nods and then takes the yellow sheet from me, his hands shaking just a bit. "This your great insight?" I say, feeling angry. He's silent, his head down. I sit back in the couch, not looking at him, trying to ignore his obvious contrition. "I was afraid I didn't know you anymore." Glancing to him, I sigh. "Mulder, you of all people know me the most." He shakes his head. "I wanted to make sure, to understand how this had all happened to us." I want to reassure him that all these little notations he has, all these guilt stricken words that condemn himself aren't me. Maybe that wouldn't reassure him. "Nothing happened to us, Mulder. We're the same people, but with new experiences." He nods but he doesn't believe it. I don't either. His hands caress his paper and then he crumples it tightly in his fist, furious at himself. "I shouldn't have done this, Scully." I shrug, not quite as hurt as I was, knowing that he'd done it out of desperation, even glad that he had figured out that something was wrong. But he still didn't know I had fallen in love with him. Even after everything he hadn't found me. It was amazing that the man could be such a spooky profiler, and not know his own partner. "You didn't finish." "I couldn't write it." I look at him, wondering, thinking maybe he did know and was embarassed. "What?" "I. . ." He shakes his head and looks at his feet, his words stuck. I just wish he'd say it, get it over with. His T-shirt is dingy white and his jeans are loose and comfortable looking, worn-in. I take his hand and rub my thumb over his knuckles, hoping to reestablish that contact we've lost. "Scully. . .Just tell me I haven't disappointed you too much over the years." I smile and nudge his shoulder. "You haven't disappointed me too much, Mulder." He raises his eyebrow at me and leans back. "Yes, I have." I shrug. "You have. It hasn't hurt-" "Yes it has." I sigh and look at the ceiling, ignoring his wounded pout. "We've both messed up, Mulder. But some things are worth it." "You think we're worth it?" "Of course." I love you, stupid. I can't believe you don't know it. He sighs. "There has to be something more. . ." He's talking to himself, still trying to figure out my motives. The hardest part they say. "Something more?" He nods and I know he's almost forgotten I'm here, with his mind so deep in my profile. It's strange, knowing he's unfolding the layers of my mind even while I'm here. "There has to be something. Why the hell would Scully put up with me?" I roll my eyes and poke him. He jerks and looks over at me, dumbfounded. "I'm right here Mulder." "I. . .I thought I was dreaming. . .dreaming you." "Do you normally dream me?" He shrugs. "And is this all I do in your dreams, Mulder?" He laughs and rubs his hand over his chin. "Uh, well, no." I grin at him and shove him over, trying to find a better seat on his couch. "So, did you figure out why I put up with you?" He grins. "Maybe." I go still, trying to read his eyes. He couldn't possibly have figured it out. Mulder is Mr. Dense. "Maybe I have. I think so." "What then?" "You like me," he says, grinning like a Cheshire cat, his lips pulled back, teeth shiny and white in the darkness. "Really?" I say, with exaggerated incredulity. He frowns at me and plays his fingers along my thigh, making me just a bit unbalanced. "You like me, and that's why you stick around." "Okay, Sherlock." He picks up my hand and traces my fingers along his own thighs, across his stomach for a moment, the tips of my nails lightly rubbing his skin. He's doing this on purpose. It's like a thunderbolt from a blue cloudless sky. He's doing this on purpose -- he knows. "Guess what?" he says, placing my hand on his chest so that I feel every heartbeat. The action is strangely comforting, and I have a flash of burying my sobs into his shoulder after I almost lost my own heart. Lost my heart. I lost my heart a long time ago. I just don't quite know when exactly. "What?" I say, and my breath rushes out. His eyes are dark and dark and so dark, with all that black brownness pulling me down. I can't think with his hand tracing circles over me. "I like you too, Scully." I can't even remember what we were talking about, but I think what he's said is important. His palm lays heavy on my knee, then moves to slide up my inner thigh with a soft soft touch. "You like me?" I say, my voice breathy and softly surprised. "Didn't you know that?" "No. . .no, yeah?" My yes turned into a kind of sigh, as his other hand trailed up my neck, and now it brushes along my jaw, a slow caress. His hands are exploring my skin, as if he has decided this long ago, mapped the route he would take and now does it with careful deliberation. "I do, Scully. I wish I had told you a long time ago. I wish you knew a long time ago." His hand travels from my thigh to my stomach, and I reach for it, clutching tightly. "Mulder, Mulder what are you doing?" He shakes his head and pulls his hands away, kissing my chin gently. The television is turned on before I can say anything else, and some NATO dinner is about to start, with the different prime ministers and regents and such walking up red carpets, the Army, Navy, and Marines all saluting them. It's weird. It's midnight and they're having a dinner for NATO officials at the White House North Portico. And Mulder's arms sneaks around my shoulders and pulls me down into him. I resist at first, but he's insistent, so I lay my head against his chest, thinking. I like you? What kind of declaration is that? His own kind, I suppose. The President begins to greet people, each introduced with 'His Excellency' and handshakes all around. It's a dumb thing to watch. No one watches this. No one says to his partner of six years, 'I like you' either. "Mulder?" He glances down at me, then places a soft hand to my shoulder, as if to reassure me. Suddenly it is not that important. "It's worth it, Mulder, it is." He smiles and shushes me, pointing to the television. The important men file in to shake hands and we watch it. Because we can. ~~~~ end adios RM