Title: NEW: Finding Happiness Author: Tess E-mail: tnv099@aol.com Distribution/Archives: Okay, but I'd like to know where Spoilers: Various, but mostly up to the confrontation between Mulder & Scully in One Son. Then it veers off into a la-la land of my own making. Rating: R or NC-17, you decide Category: S, A, R Summary: It's angsty, it's romance, I don't know what the heck it is. Disclaimer: They are not mine and I'm glad. These two are high maintenance. CC, Fox and 1013 can keep them, I just wanted to play for a little while. I'm making no money here guys. Finding Happiness "God," he thought. "Can this week get any worse?" Lying on his sofa, his mind was spinning with the events that had taken place over the last few days. Cassandra Spender's return, the news of an imminent alien invasion, men and women in biohazard suits dragging him and Scully off to a decontamination facility. Then, earlier this evening, his showdown with Scully at the Lone Gunmen's. "I'm so tired," he murmured and groaned at the intrusion of his ringing cell phone. "Mulder," he snapped into the mouthpiece. "You better get over here right away," Frohicke said. "I just got home. Why the hell do you want me to come back?" he growled into the receiver. "It's about your lovely partner." He rolled his eyes. "Look Frohicke," he began, "I really don't have time for this petty crap." Frohicke interrupted him. "Listen Mulder," he snarled "I think you better get your ass over here right away. Scully may be in a lot of trouble." Mulder swung his legs off the sofa and grabbed his jacket. Heading for the door he asked, "Why don't you just stop stalling and tell me what the hell is going on?" "Not over the phone. Just hurry." Frohicke disconnected the line. Mulder raced over to the Gunmen's place and rapped on the door. Instantly he heard the sound of dead bolts being thrown and suddenly the door was flung open. The sight of his three friends greeted him; all wearing tense looks on their faces. "What's going on?" Mulder demanded. They led him across the room. "She found the proof she was looking for," Byers began. "About Diana." "Oh, for God's sake." Mulder flung his hands up in disgust. Langley shoved his face into Mulder's. "Maybe you should take a look at what we found," he suggested in a deadly quiet voice. "What am I looking at?" he queried. The three men began laying out various computer printouts before him. "Detailed evidence that Diana has been working for Old Smokey since before you met her," Byers stated quietly. "She's known everything, all along, Mulder," Frohicke began. The little man stood before him clutching scads of computer printouts. He gestured toward them. "She's in it up to her eyeballs. And this... this is proof that she was involved in Scully's abduction - the tests performed on her and countless other women, her missing ova, the cancer, Emily, everything!" "Oh, my God," Mulder sank down to the floor, eyes rapidly moving over the pages evidencing Diana's betrayal. "Scully saw this?" he asked. "Scully found it," Langley replied. "How long ago did she leave?" he asked. "Do you have any idea where she was going?" "No, man, she just looked at the evidence, printed out a second set, thanked us and left. But she was white as a ghost and I've never seen eyes so dead before." Langley shook his head sorrowfully. "We've been trying to call her but she turned her cell phone off and she doesn't answer her phone at home." "I'm going after her," Mulder stated grimly. Throwing the papers to the floor, he strode to the door. *************************** Scully entered her apartment and walked to her bedroom without turning on any lights. After Emily's death, she had thought that she would never again experience anything as heartwrenchingly painful. She had been wrong. Mulder didn't trust her. Instead he seemed blinded by that treacherous witch. Exhaustion battled with a desperate need to take her service weapon and blow a hole through the bitch's head. But the truth was, she was quickly becoming too tired to care anymore. Mulder didn't trust her. She stumbled into her bedroom and stripped off her clothes. Grabbing an oversized T-shirt from her bureau she went into the bathroom. Flipping on the light she looked into the mirror and stared at her reflection, wondering... who is this woman? She looks so tired, so bitter, so beaten. She can't possibly be me. All I want to do is sleep. Sleep and maybe never wake up, she thought, but her mind was racing with everything she had learned and one thought overrode all others. Mulder doesn't trust me. She opened the medicine cabinet with shaking hands and withdrew a bottle of sleeping pills. Her doctor had prescribed them after Emily had died and she had been unable to sleep at night. Scully hadn't wanted to give in to taking medication to sleep and had never touched any of them. Tonight they would be her salvation... her escape. She filled a glass with water, took the pill bottle and glass into her room and settled on the bed. Opening the bottle, she shook the pills into her hand and quickly, before she could reconsider it, swallowed them. She lay down to wait for the blessed numbness she knew would come. Not having to think, not having to feel, it was so appealing. She felt her eyes grow heavy. Mulder, why don't you trust me? was her last despairing thought before losing consciousness. ********************************* He raced toward her apartment. I didn't want to believe her. Pulling into a parking space in front of her building, he ran up the front steps and inside. "Please be here," he prayed, "please, please, please". He knocked on the door. No answer. Fishing out his keys he let himself in. It was dark inside and he flicked on the lamp near the door. Soft light filled the room and he saw her coat flung over the sofa and the evidence she had gathered against Diana scattered across the floor. "Scully?" Again, there was no answer. He went into her bedroom and sighed in relief at the sight of her sprawled across the bed. He took a couple of steps into the room and froze in horror. Her left hand was flung over the comforter and held an empty pill bottle. He rushed across the room, shaking her, screaming her name. "Scully! Damnit, Scully wake up," he pleaded. He grabbed her by the shoulders and hauled her into a sitting position. Her head lolled back and then he heard a tiny moan escape her. She's alive, he thought and began to shake her again. Her head flopped back and forth and she murmured his name. He dragged her off the bed and into the bathroom. Setting her down in the bathtub he turned on the cold-water tap, flipped on the shower and directed the spray into her face. She began to cough and sputter and looked up at him groggily. "Wha...what the hell are you doing?" she asked. "Just stay there," he replied sharply as anger began to outweigh his fear. She tried to get up but could not control her limbs and collapsed back to the tub floor. After a few minutes, he dragged her out of the tub, stripped her wet clothes from her body and wrapped her in towel. He carried her back to the bed and tossed her down onto the mattress. She struggled to sit up and push her wet hair out of her face. She was having trouble focusing on him as he began rooting through her bureau drawers, pulling out clean clothes. "Mulder, what are you doing?" she demanded weakly. "Who the hell do you think you are?" he snarled. "I risked my life last summer following you up to that icy pit to save you and you think you can just pop a bunch of pills and kill yourself? Well I'll be damned if I let you!" "What are you talking about?" she asked groggily. Nothing he said was making any sense. He snatched up the empty bottle of pills. "This is what I'm talking about." He shook the bottle in her face. "I only took two pills...." she began. "THE BOTTLE IS EMPTY!" he roared. "I'm telling you, I only took two!" He grabbed her by the arms again. "Don't lie to me! How could you even think of killing yourself? God, I never knew you could be so selfish - such a coward! Did you ever stop to think about what it would do to your mother or to me? Or were you hoping to punish me?" He was out of control now, raging at her, his face inches from hers. "Were you hoping that I would be the one to find you dead tomorrow when you turned up missing?" He shook her harder with every word until her head was flopping back and forth like a rag doll's. Tears streamed down her face and she tried to pull away, but she was still fighting the lingering effects of the sleeping pills and he was too strong. "Mulder, I swear," she hiccuped. "I only took two!" "Scully, this bottle is empty. If you only took two then where the hell are the rest of the pills?" he asked disbelievingly "I... I don't know, they must have fallen out" and she began to look around the bedsheets, her hands searching for the tiny pills. Glancing over the side of the bed she saw them, scattered across the carpet. Yanking free of him, she leaned over the bed trying to reach the pills to show him, when she was suddenly hit by a wave of dizziness and tumbled off the bed onto the floor. Mulder gently lifted her back onto the bed and stared down at the dozen or so tiny pills standing out accusingly white against the blue carpet. He scooped them up in his hand, studying them for a long moment before pouring them back into the empty bottle. He set the bottle on the bedside table, drew a deep breath and turned to look at Scully. She was lying on her side, facing away from him, legs drawn up to her chest, rocking back and forth as tears slid slowly down her face and dripped off of her nose. "Scully..." he began and reaching out a tentative hand, stroked it down her back soothingly. She jerked her body away from his touch. "Why are you here?" she demanded in a low voice. He sighed. "The guys called to tell me what you had found. They were worried about you and the way you left. They weren't sure what you were planning so they called me." "What did you think I was going to do?" she asked. "I had no idea. At first, I was afraid you might go and confront Diana with what you had found." She snorted. "Afraid I was going to kill your girlfriend, Mulder?" she asked nastily. There was a long pause and then - "How do you know I didn't go there first?" she queried in a cold, detached voice. "Because I went to see her," he replied. "Well, then you know she's alive and well - healthy and whole - which is more than can be said about me," Scully murmured bitterly. "Did she wonder why you dropped by or are you a frequent visitor?" Mulder told her briefly about finding CGB Spender at Diana's and what he had revealed during that brief conversation. "...then he left. A few minutes later, Diana showed up. I told her about the evidence you found. I told her that she'd be wise to pack up and leave. I gave her the address that Spender gave me and told her to get out and never come back." "I'm sure she was quaking with fear," came her sarcastic reply. "What did you want me to do, Scully, pull out my gun and shoot her through the heart?" he asked heatedly. She stared off at the far wall. "You told me once, that you would not allow the people who did this to me to go unpunished. That you would not permit this treason to stand. I just didn't realize there was a silent 'unless' at the end of that sentence." "What do you mean?" he asked. "That you would not allow them to go unpunished, UNLESS they turn out to be someone you used to sleep with, then you'll just hustle them outta town to protect them," she murmured caustically. "Actually, I'm surprised you even bothered to tell her to leave, I'm sure Diana denied it all. And you believe everything she says, right?" "Look," he began "why don't you tell me what you think I should have done." "You know," she said conversationally, as if she hadn't even heard his question, "she stole everything, and I mean everything, from me. And up until last spring, I never even knew she existed. She didn't even know me..." Her voice trailed off for a moment. Scully took a long, quavering breath and continued. "Now, it's all gone, and I have nothing, not even the satisfaction of knowing that she paid for what she's done. It's all over, there's nothing left for me. Not even revenge. No way to find relief, no peace. Maybe I should have found it in that pill bottle." She sank tiredly into the pillows. "Don't say that Scully!" he cried. "It's not true, you haven't lost everything." "What do I have left Mulder?" she asked. "Do you even remember who I was 6 years ago? I was so young... so eager to work with you. And you didn't trust me. You made me beg and work and scrape for every ounce of trust I earned from you. Then one day I realized that your quest was mine and I stayed because I thought you needed me, that it was just the two of us against the world. We were best friends at that point and I had hoped, someday we would be more to each other. That's what sustained me through all of the horrors..." Her voice trailed off to a whisper and she swallowed hard before continuing. "I always thought that no matter what was taken away from me, they couldn't take away our partnership, our friendship, our trust... but I was wrong. I didn't realize that your faith in me was so fragile. I don't know when it happened, but you stopped trusting me." "Scully..." "So now it's all gone." She began to count on her fingers, "my sister, three months of my life, any chance of having a family... I almost died of cancer! I find Emily only to have her ripped away from me just when I was starting to know her, to love her. But I still had my work. I still had you. Now the X-Files are gone, and you obviously think that I am some shrew who is so consumed with jealousy over your old girlfriend, that I am incapable of seeing straight or thinking clearly... that my judgment is somehow impaired or lacking in credibility..." Her voice trailed off again and she sighed, nestling her hot cheek into the pillow. Mulder sank to the floor, resting his back against the side of the bed. Their postures mimicked that first night of their partnership, so long ago when he had told her about his quest, about his sister and accused her of being a spy. That night when she had pleaded with him to believe that she was just as dedicated to finding the truth as he was, begging him to trust her. She saw this and remembered and thought, I'm done begging. Mulder raised his knees and rested his forehead against them. "I didn't want to believe that she was capable of such treachery." His voice was muffled against his jeans. He kept his face hidden from her. "You rarely believe in anything I say, but I never accuse you of not trusting me," he started. "Why aren't I afforded the same luxury?" "Because even though I might not share your beliefs, Mulder, I always worked with you to get the answers. Sometimes our work proved you wrong and sometimes it proved you right and sometimes we were unable to prove it one way or another." She took a deep breath. "But we worked together to find out and I don't think I ever flung up my hands, told you that you were just being overly emotional and too personally involved and refused to listen to what you had to say." "I don't understand why you do that," she continued. "Last year you told me I was too personally involved when I told you that Emily had come to me in a vision and I was trying to help those poor girls... and earlier tonight you told me I was too personally involved. Of course it's personal! This whole quest of yours is based on personal issues. Why do I always have to be the stoic, professional one who doesn't let personal issues affect her judgment?" Her voice was soaked with bitterness. He turned his head and his eyes were brimming with unshed tears. "You're right," he whispered. "I didn't want to believe you about Diana. I didn't want to know that once again I could be so wrong about someone I cared about." "She came into my life, just after I began to believe that Samantha had been abducted and she didn't think I was crazy when I talked about aliens and government conspiracies, like everyone else does." He looked at her pointedly. "So, what Mulder? Are you saying that if I had just told you that I believed in aliens, I would have had your complete trust?" "No, God! Scully, that's not what I'm saying. I don't know how to make you understand. I'm just trying to explain why I didn't want to believe you." "I don't think you can ever say anything to make me understand how you could choose her over me. Where has she been all these years when you've been hurt or frightened? Where has she been when your enemies have paraded one false Samantha after another before you? What has she done to validate your work? What sacrifices has she made for your cause?" Mulder took a deep breath and paused as he tried to gather his thoughts in one more desperate attempt to make her understand. "First of all, I was not choosing her over you, Scully. And I am so sorry that I didn't listen to you. But what you have to understand is that it was never a trust issue for me. Please, just listen to what I am saying now and if you want me to get out when I'm finished... I'll leave. It's not that I didn't trust you, but more that I didn't want to hear what you had to say. I didn't want proof that Diana was capable of such duplicity. She once meant a great deal to me and I thought I owed her my loyalty." "More than you owed me?" she asked in a small voice. "Never!" he cried vehemently. "Never," he repeated in a softer voice. "I was wrong to place such faith in her... in who I thought she was." He sighed, "I didn't want to know that she was my enemy, when I've always thought of her as a friend. I don't have many friends and I... I," he paused for a moment to draw a deep lungful of air. "I just didn't want you to be right about her," he said simply. "I guess I thought..." Scully's voice trailed off. "Thought what?" he asked "Thought... that I... I... that what we meant to each other... that I could heal all those hurt places inside of you...." He rose to his knees and loomed over her, brushing her still damp hair away from her face. He whispered softly "You have been my best friend for six years and I think I've loved you for most of those six years. And I'm so afraid to love you. What if it all goes wrong and I lose my friend and the woman I love? I could never recover from that." "I would never hurt you like that," she looked at him with eyes full of misgiving and accusation. "And it hurts me that you think that I would." "Everyone who was supposed to love me and never leave me... they all have, Scully. How can I believe otherwise?" "Because I have stayed!" she said fiercely. "No matter what - even through all of the pain and suffering - I've never left you." "Until now," he said. "Until you chose someone else," she replied. "I'd never choose someone else over you. I thought you knew that... I've always counted on you simply knowing that." "I always thought I did know, but your refusals to even hear me out... well, I thought you had made your choice." He closed his eyes tiredly and opened them again. Staring directly into her eyes he told her, "I love you, Scully. And I hope that someday you can forgive me for not believing you and for letting Diana go." And she saw the honesty and the fear and the truth in his gaze. Hot tears trickled down her cheeks again until it seemed that all she had done for the last two days was cry or scream in anger and she was so tired of it. She sighed and took a deep breath. "I love you, Mulder. I can't remember a time when I didn't love you. But I'm afraid to love you, because it gives you so much power over me. You can hurt me badly. You have hurt me." Mulder ran a thumb across her cheek, swiping away her tears and smiled softly at her. He climbed onto the mattress beside her and wrapped his arms around her tightly, forcing her body to arch against his. "I'm so sorry that I hurt you. What I told you in the hallway outside of my apartment is still true. You make me a whole person. And when I told you that I couldn't keep doing this alone, I didn't just mean the work... I meant my whole life. I'm tired of denying myself any happiness, I'm tired of feeling guilty about Samantha and my relationship or lack of one with my parents, I'm tired of feeling guilty about not being able to prevent all of the horrible things that have happened to you. I'm tired of thinking that your life would be so much better without me in it. I know I'm selfish, I should have let you go a long time ago, but I can't. She sighed. "You're telling me again that you trust me... that you need me. If I let myself believe it this time and you turn around and shut me out again, I don't think I can survive it. I want more than just our work partnership, Mulder, and if you can't give me that... then you should just go home now and I'll put in for a transfer and we won't have to see each other ever again. But I can't just be your friend and partner. I want to be free to love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to hear all your theories. I want to argue with you over them. I want to help you bring these people to justice. I don't want to leave the work, but I don't want our entire lives to be about just the work. It's important, but we aren't happy. I think we can make each other happy, but are you really willing to try?" He lifted his hands to her cheeks, brushing the tangle of damp coppery hair away from her face, tucking the strands behind her ear. He rubbed his thumb over the place on the back of her neck where the implant was hidden and then tugged her forward. He brushed his lips across hers softly once, then twice. "I would like to try, Scully. But I need you to help me. I don't remember how to be happy. I don't think that I ever knew how." She sighed and lowered her forehead to his. "I'm not promising that all of our troubles will be swept away, that we will never fight, that we will never hurt each other, that we will never have cause to worry, but I do promise to help you carry your burden, if you will help me carry mine." "I promise," he whispered. She lifted her head and smiled tremulously at him and then their lips met, brushed and clung for a sweet minute. They broke apart and her smile turned into a grin and she lowered her mouth to his for another kiss. She cupped his unshaven cheeks with her small hands and nibbled at the corners of his mouth. She traced the outline of his lips with her tongue and pressed the softest of kisses to his lips. His eyes were closed and he tried to capture her mouth in a deep kiss, but she continued to tease him, her lips grazing his ever so softly before lifting and then settling again for the barest fraction of a moment. He moaned as she caught his lower lip between her teeth and ran her tongue across the satiny lining before lifting away again. Frustrated, he growled and captured her head between his hands, holding her still as he slanted his lips across hers in a passionate kiss. He forced her lips to part and thrust his tongue hungrily into her mouth while at the same time lifting his hips against hers. Now she was the one moaning as his mouth devoured hers, changing angles, but never breaking contact. Her lungs were burning and finally he broke away. They were both breathing hard, trying to fill their starved lungs with air. He stared at her and lowered his hand to the towel that she wore. He wrapped his fingers around the top of the towel, knuckles brushing against her breasts and continued to stare at her, silently asking permission. She nodded and he smiled. A quick tug of his fingers loosened the towel and she lifted herself away to allow it to fall free. He swept an appreciative hand and gaze down her body. Scully drew him to her for another kiss. She smiled and sighed against his lips as he quickly undressed and slipped inside of her. They moved together to find release and hopefully a path to happiness. ************ Mulder awoke sometime later as memories of the night past flooded his mind. A glance toward the windows confirmed that it was still dark. He was lying on his stomach and Scully was sprawled over his back, her cheek resting between his shoulder blades, one thigh pressed intimately between his. She had one hand tangled in his hair and the other was pressed against his stomach, trapped between the mattress and his body. He smiled, nestling his head deeper into the pillows as he drifted back to sleep. Scully murmured and began to stir against his back. "Mulder," she sighed as she flexed her hand against his belly and drew her thigh up into closer contact with his rapidly growing erection. Mulder opened his eyes again as Scully began to awaken. The bathroom light had been left on and the light spilled into the bedroom from the half- closed door, softly illuminating the room. Mulder lifted his head slightly from the pillow, intent on turning to see Scully when he caught sight of their reflection in the full-length mirror standing in the corner of the room. He froze and his breath caught in his throat as he watched Scully stretch and languidly begin to rub her breasts against his back. He settled his head back into the pillow and continued to watch in the mirror as Scully woke up. She slid off his back and he groaned at the loss of contact until she lowered her lips to the back of his neck. She licked and nibbled his neck and shoulders, then ran her pointed tongue along his spine. Her hands were busy now too, one still lightly caressing his stomach, the other pressing and kneading the strong muscles of his buttocks and thighs. She sat up and moved away from him for a moment, reaching out to the bedside table to grab something. He watched as she raised her hands over her head to gather the tumbled mass of coppery tresses together and bind it in place. Her movements lifted her breasts and he ached to roll over and capture one flushed peak between his lips. Instead he watched as she turned back to him and stretched herself out along his back, her hands sliding up his arms to tangle with his fingers. She rested her cheek against his and followed his gaze to the mirror. Scully's eyes widened at their reflection and then she smiled. She pressed a kiss to his cheek and moved so that she could bite down gently on his earlobe. She tugged on his shoulder and he rolled onto his back. She moved over him, settling down on his stomach, her knees braced on either side of his ribs, bearing most of her weight. Mulder's gaze shifted to her face and she smiled again. "It's okay if you want to watch," she reassured him. He nodded once, and turned his attention back to the couple in the mirror. Scully lowered her lips to his face and began to trace a path across his brow and then down his cheek. She kissed his nose, ran her tongue across his bottom lip, trailed a line of wet kisses along his jaw and down to the sensitive flesh on the underside of his chin. Mulder shivered as she continued to cover his body with soft kisses, across his shoulders, down his arms, swirling her tongue around the hard, flat nipples that she found hidden in the sparse hair covering his chest. She scooted backwards so that she rested on his upper thighs and lowered her head again, her breath hot against his stomach, lips and teeth and tongue learning the contours of the hardness of the muscles there, the softness of the skin. Mulder raised his hands to her head and she batted them away, pushing them back down onto the mattress. Looking at him in the reflection of the mirror she shook her head no. Mulder swallowed hard as Scully's lips and tongue blazed a path over his stomach and beyond. Mulder quivered and arched his hips to meet her seeking lips. He groaned as she continued her gentle assault and then tugged her away. She sat up and flicked her tongue out against her lower lip, savoring the taste of him. Mulder wrapped one hand around her neck and pulled her down to him. He kept his grip on her neck firm as he devoured her lips. Panting, he rolled over so that she was beneath him. He wasn't looking in the mirror any longer. Nothing was more erotic to him than the sight of this woman, whom he loved more than anything or anyone, lying beneath him. Her head was thrown back on the pillows and he scraped his teeth along the line of her throat, sucking tenderly on the pulse point. Scully moaned and arched against his belly, seeking relief. Mulder settled into the cradle of her thighs and kept his gaze firmly on her face as he eased himself inside of her. Taking her hands, he guided them above her head to wrap around the spindles of the headboard. The difference in their heights was more pronounced than ever as he stretched out full length above her so that her face was buried in his throat. Mulder slid a pillow beneath Scully's hips to change the angle and depth of his thrusts and braced his weight on his forearms. The room was filled with the sounds of their quiet moans and whispers. Scully wrapped her legs around Mulder, resting the soles of her feet on the backs of his calves and began to move faster. Mulder reached out to wrap his fingers around hers where they still gripped the headboard and using it for leverage, pulled himself ever deeper within her. Finally he felt her stiffen and she gave a quiet gasp against his throat before falling back against the pillows. Seconds later he was following her, chanting her name, collapsing onto her quivering body. Several minutes passed before he was able to prop himself up and look at her. Scully's eyes were closed and her head was tilted to one side. Her face was flushed, her breaths were even and Mulder thought she had fallen asleep. The clip that had been holding her hair in place had long since come loose and her hair was a tumbled mess of red against the white of the pillows. Several strands were pasted to the moist skin of her face and neck. He reached out and stroked the damp strands away from her face and she stirred at his touch. Rolling her head on the pillow, she groaned quietly and opened her eyes. Her sleepy blue gaze met his as he intently studied her face. He lifted himself off her slightly and moved so that his face was nestled into her throat and he flung his arm across her waist, tugging her close and pressed one leg between hers. "I think I can," he whispered into her ear. "You think you can what?" "I think I can learn how to be happy," he replied sleepily. The End If you've made it this far, I'm curious what you think. Please send feedback to tnv099@aol.com. Thanks.