Work Text:
They strode to his car in a strange, unfamiliar silence.
“Where to for tea?” Mulder asked, unlocking the door of his car. Scully walked to her door and waited for him to unlock it from inside.
“Do you have tea at your place? It's closer,” Scully replied, sitting down beside him. He didn’t but he stopped at a nearby grocery store and she picked up a box of assorted tea.
The rest of the drive to his place was also made in silence. He could see that Scully was lost in her thoughts. He was pondering her strange offer. Tea. It wasn’t that he didn’t like tea, it was just that it was rarely their drink of choice. They drank a lot of coffee during their cases and when they took time off together to relax, they took out the Shiner Bock. Tea. Tea. Had they even drank tea together before?
And then the memory hit him like a truck. It was an old one, one that felt a thousand years old. Before Scully was even abducted.
"Mulder… I wouldn't put myself on the line for anyone but you," she'd said very seriously, to his consternation. He'd been touched beyond words at the sentiment.
At that moment, he had realized that for the first time in his life, he had someone by his side. And not just anyone. Scully by his side. And she wasn't leaving.
“If there’s an iced tea in that bag, it could be love,” he’d teased her. She’d reached into her bag.
“Must be fate Mulder,” she’d said, and his heart had begun racing. “Root beer.”
And so it hadn’t been meant to be back then. But here they were, all these years later, still driving together, grown and tired, but closer than ever. And she’d just offered him tea. He looked over to her, and his heart fluttered. He tried to shake off the idea of tea as something meaningful, a mere coincidence, but this time, something inside him was sure that he was right about the meaning. He was as sure about this as he was sure his name was Fox Mulder.
She was looking outside his window, an unreadable expression on her face. He was used to deciphering her. He spoke fluent Scully. But this Scully seemed to be lost somewhere deep within herself. He wasn’t sure if she wanted to be pulled back out, so he decided to wait. She had, after all, invited him for tea.
They walked to his apartment, him guiding her forward with his hand on her lower back. Once inside the apartment, Scully made her way to the kitchen and began boiling water.
“So, the trip really was a bust?” she asked him a few minutes later when she joined him on the couch, handing him a steaming cup of tea. He took a taste. He wasn’t a tea enthusiast, but Scully’s tea was excellent. He told her as much. Then:
“Maybe it wasn’t a total bust” he admitted. “As far as crop circles go, yeah, nothing to report,” he said sadly. “I guess going away for a while allowed me to spend some time thinking, processing… all that’s been happening recently.” He chose not to elaborate but he knew she could tell what he was referring to. “It was nice to go back.” But that was not really true. He still considered the trip a bust, mostly because she hadn’t been on it with him.
The odds of them having to work in England were low. He had never revisited since his Oxford days and following the resolution of Samantha’s disappearance, he had found himself wanting to go back. Go back to his sources, where Fox Mulder became himself, away from the family drama he’d left behind. And he had hoped she’d come with him. He’d almost told her the real reason behind his trip, but he had chickened out. She’d been completely uninterested about the trip, barely listening to him at all, and that had put a damper on his plans.
So he’d travelled alone and he’d yearned for her the entire trip. He hadn’t been able to refrain from calling her, sending her on fool’s errands, just to hear her voice. Hell, he had contacted her before he had even left the country! He had stopped after the second call; she had sounded a bit strange on the phone and he thought he was annoying her.
He had missed her presence at the airport. They had their little routine going on. He’d get coffee for both of them as she checked in at the boarding station. They’d sit in the lounge, sometimes reading their files, at others filling time with comfortable chatter. This time he’d sat alone in the lounge, the wait for the flight lasting forever and a half. He’d almost bought a second coffee by accident. And he could’ve sworn the coffee tasted worse than usual.
He had missed her on the plane. As the taller member of their duo, he was the one who took care of putting the luggage in the overhead storage. She was considerate enough to leave him the aisle seat for his long legs. He hadn’t been lucky on this trip; he’d ended up caught between a very large and sweaty man, and a very cheery and talkative grandmother who’d made sure Mulder knew her entire life story. Throw in the crying baby in the seat behind him and he’d nearly gone insane by the time the plane landed.
He had missed his travel buddy, the one who grasped his hand roughly during turbulence, her nails digging into his skin. The one who would often fall asleep as soon as they reached the sky and who would lean on his shoulder, occasionally leaving behind a trail of saliva, much to her embarrassment and his amusement. She always apologized profusely for leaning on his shoulder, but the truth is that he rarely felt more at peace than when a sleeping Scully rested her head on his shoulder.
He had missed her when he got off the plane. He had stayed at baggage claim a little too long after retrieving his bag because he was used to waiting for their two luggage while she handled the car location at the Lariat desk.
He had missed her when he checked in at the seedy motel and she wasn’t in the next room over for him to disturb. Maybe watch a movie with. And again when he ate his Kung Pao chicken alone on his bed, without anyone to tell him it was gross and that he should eat over the desk.
He had missed how she popped in to say good night, maybe still dressed, maybe after showering and changing into her flannel pajamas.
He had missed her more than ever as he stood alone at night in the fields, waiting for crop circles that never appeared. He’d kept looking back over his shoulder, only to find nobody standing there. He’d cut his outing short, bored out of his mind. It had finally dawned on him that sharing these experiences with Scully was what had kept him going during all those years.
He used the other day of his trip to wander around Oxford, lost in his thoughts. The trip was not a total waste of time. The distance allowed him to process a few important events. The confirmation of Samantha’s death. His mother’s death. The kiss.
He’d left England in relative peace, but with the urgent need to see her.
When he turned around to find her standing, looking as beautiful as ever, he’d wanted to pull her into a tight hug. But he hadn’t dared.
“What about you? Solve any case while I was away? Do anything exciting over the weekend?” he asked her. He was curious. She’s sounded off on the phone and he had written it off to him calling her over the weekend and asking her to do extracurriculars, but now that she was sitting beside him, he could tell something else was at play.
She looked at him for a beat, then lowered her gaze. Sipped her tea. At last, she inhaled and exhaled loudly.
“This weekend has been strange for me, Mulder,” she confessed, not meeting his eye. Mulder put his teacup on the coffee table and tentatively took her free hand between his.
“Do you… want to talk about it?” he asked nervously. They did not talk, they didn’t do that, but Mulder was more curious than ever. He could see that something plagued her beautiful mind.
“I think it’s time,” she replied. “I probably should have told you earlier. Please, just… hear me out before you judge me,” she’d replied, peering up at him nervously.
His interest was piqued.
“I don’t think anything could change the way I feel about you, Scully,” he told her earnestly. And this was true. His mind briefly flashed back to Donnie Pfaster, how he’d seen her shoot him when it was completely unnecessary to do so. He had understood immediately why she’d done it; hell, he would have done it himself. And he would have been ready to testify at a hypothetical trial and to perjure himself for her.
“You say that now, but…”
“No, I’m serious,” he said, cutting her off. “I’ve known you for 7 years. I understand you. Everything about you just… makes sense to me. So, please tell me what is eating you up. It’ll just add another piece to the puzzle of the… enigmatic Doctor Scully,” his last few words said in a playful tone.
He could tell she was comforted by this declaration. As though a part of the burden had already been lifted off her shoulders.
“After you left for England, I went back to the hospital to get the file on Ms. Szczesny. Only the nurse mixed up the files and I ended up another patient’s test results. It was the medical chart of Dr. Daniel Waterson,” she said, lowering her gaze as she mentioned the name. “He was my professor in Medical school,” she added. She paused, breathing in and out.
“I suppose there’s more to this guy than just being your professor?” Mulder suggested. He had an inkling of where this story was going and he wanted to encourage her, but without scaring her off.
She nodded, an awkward laugh escaping her. “That would be an understatement,” she said. She stayed silent and Mulder did not push her to talk, but he began caressing her hand, in a movement he meant to be soothing.
“I don’t understand what was going through my mind. I’ve looked back upon my behaviour in an attempt to understand. It was so unlike me…”, she said, shaking her head.
“As soon as I joined his class, I knew it would be special. He was extremely charismatic, knowledgeable and encouraging. Med school was a stressful place to be, the competition was cut-throat, the schedules crazy. I was determined to succeed but… as much as I’d always been sure I wanted to be a doctor, I was doubting myself too. His classes, however, were just… fun. I was passionate about the subject and if I may say so myself, I kicked ass in his class,” she said, sounding proud, her face breaking into a genuine smile for a second. Mulder could imagine her, a young but just as determined version of herself, throwing herself at the work with an unmatched drive and curiosity. Spending long, coffee-fuelled nights studying at the library. His Scully, kicking ass. ‘As always’ he thought to himself, smiling back at her.
“But it took a lot of work,” she continued. “I’d frequently stay behind after class to ask some questions or clarifications, religiously writing down every additional piece of knowledge he’d share with me. I’d argue back sometimes, asking questions and getting into interesting debates with him.”
Mulder could see it very well. He could also see how it may lead to... wanting more.
She breathed in and out loudly, then took another sip of her tea before continuing. “As the semester progressed, I found myself really looking forward to these chats. They were the highlight of my week. I did not really have discussions like these with other teachers or with my peers. Everyone was so busy with studying or too tired to get into it. And there was something special about keeping up with a smart, well-respected professor…I’d prepare myself ahead of them, doing extra research just to keep the conversation going. Naturally, this impressed him…”
“Which validated you and reinforced your behaviour,” Mulder hypothesized, and she nodded.
“I don’t know how to explain how thrilling and stimulating these chats were for me. I guess before med school, I’d always been known as the 'smart' Scully sibling," she said, mimicking brackets with her fingers, a disgusted expression on her face, "so my good grades and success in school were nothing new to celebrate. In med school, I was nothing special, a good student among many good students,” she said, shaking her head.
“Talking with Daniel changed that. It felt as though he…” she stopped, weighing her words, “as though he cast a light on me that made me shine like a diamond. He made me feel so smart. He began sharing some of his experiences from his residency and from his work in the hospital, at times quizzing me on what I’d do, at others just sharing to contextualize an explanation. It made me feel special, like an equal,” she said, her voice wavering a little.
“Soon enough, I noticed him briefly pausing to look at me when he glanced over the class. His eyes would stop on me, linger just a bit too long,” she said, her eyes looking in the distance. He could tell that mentally, she was back there, back in that classroom.
“I, myself, was already smitten,” she admitted in a small voice. “He was not the sexiest man I’d ever seen,” she said, her eyes momentarily flicking back to him. “But he was a smart, accomplished man. Confident. To a 20-something woman trying to navigate the world, let me tell you: confidence is sexy,” she said, laughing awkwardly.
“I didn’t date much in med school. I’d had a boyfriend in high school and dated a bit in undergrad, but my experiences had been… underwhelming. You’d believe pre-med students would be better at anatomy” she muttered under her breath. They both chuckled.
Mulder smirked, thinking back to his early experiences. “I think bad, inexperienced sex is part of being young, I’m afraid.”
Scully turned to him, lifting an eyebrow. When she saw he was not going to elaborate:
“Okay, you can’t just say that and leave me hanging,” she said, looking at him expectantly.
“Alright, alright,” he relented. “God, this is embarrassing, he said, momentarily hiding his face behind his hand. “Okay. Well, as you know, I met Phoebe in Oxford,” he said. He saw her face twitch at the mention of his British ex-girlfriend. “She was… well… my first. And I… let’s just say I didn’t have a lot of stamina.” In his mind’s eye, he could still see Phoebe’s baffled expression. "I barely lasted 10 seconds," he confessed.
"I hope you didn't leave her… high and dry," she said, trying but not succeeding to hide her giggles.
"Of course not. There's more than one way to skin a cat," he replied. "Phoebe and I ended badly, but she sure knew what she wanted and she wasn’t afraid to tell me, to... choreograph what she wanted. She left satisfied,” he said, an enigmatic smile on his face. “And I, more knowledgeable.”
He saw her squirm in her seat. Her smile vanished, and she was looking all serious again. Intense, even. He met her eyes, and they were the darkest blue he’d ever seen. Her eyes scrutinized his face, lingering on his mouth.
They sat still in silence for a little while. At last, she cleared her throat, and began telling her story again:
“I started dropping by his office to see him during office hours so that we could continue our conversations. Then after his office hours. Maybe I needed help with homework. Maybe even homework for another med class.” She exhaled loudly. "Maybe we just talked about completely unrelated topics, well into the night."
"Then it happened at last. It was late one night and we'd spent the evening poring over one of my homework for another class. I was stressed about the upcoming exams and unusually short-tempered. He was tired. We got into a heated argument. Out of the blue, he kissed me," she said, looking up to Mulder, as though to assess his reaction. When she saw he wasn’t disgusted or even surprised, she continued.
"I was shocked. I knew we had this thing...this special bond between us. But a professor!” she said, sounding half shocked, half angry at herself. “I had already dismissed it as an unrequited crush. I kissed him back at first, but I quickly pulled away and practically ran out of the room,” she said, sounding almost upset. He squeezed her hand and she looked up at him. He smiled at her, encouraging her on.
“I went home for Christmas without seeing him. I got home, feeling like I was carrying this huge secret. I was more confused than ever, I didn’t know what to do. I knew it was wrong and frowned upon. I knew I would never bring him over for Thanksgiving,” she said. He had to swallow a laugh, as Bill Junior’s face, a vein pulsing on his forehead, came to mind. “Missy knew something was up, perceptive as she was, but I didn’t even tell her, not then. I told her after.”
“I returned on campus after Christmas. I tried to avoid him, but I still had a class with him. That first class back,” she said, “I couldn’t focus on anything. And he couldn’t stop looking at me, with those sad, tired eyes.”
Mulder was listening to her story, drawing little circles on her hand, and he couldn't help but dislike the guy more and more.
“I rushed out of the room when the class ended, but the truth is I missed him. I’d gotten very attached to him. So… I went to see him in his office,” she said, enunciating each word slowly as she lowered her head. “We talked, but it did not take long for things to get…physical.”
Mulder cringed inwardly. He was eager to learn about her and he respected her past, but the thought of another man loving his Scully was not a pleasant one.
“Looking back, he wasn’t…much better than the pre-med students. Very focused on his own pleasure,” she sighed. ‘What an idiot,’ Mulder thought to himself. “We’d meet up at his office. Never anywhere else, except for that one holiday getaway on Easter weekend. And we didn't even travel together. I didn’t question it. I was blinded by my feelings. I thought I was happy with… what we had. And I was not going to bring him back to my dorm! This is so embarrassing,” she said, putting her face in her hands.
“Hey, it’s okay, you don’t need to tell me everything. And only if you want.” She looked at him, thinking, and covered her mouth to hide a yawn. The sun had set and the lighting in the apartment had changed, making it look warm and cozy. This was usually when she’d call it a night when they spent an evening together.
"One day, late in the semester, I was walking down the hall to his office. He was talking to a fellow teacher. About his wife and daughter," she said in a small voice.
Mulder’s heart broke for her.
"The next time I saw him, I broke things off. It was very hard. So hard. I was infatuated. And he said he was in love with me. That he'd leave his wife for me. That we could be together. I could see myself. The life we’d live. I wanted to believe. But I held my ground. I avoided him, though I still had to attend his classes for the remainder of the semester. He kept trying to find excuses to talk to me. He wrote that he wanted to see me on my final paper,” she sighed, disgusted. “I had full marks so there was no reason.”
“As you know, at the end of the semester, I was recruited by the FBI. I’d already been questioning my choice to continue in medicine. The idea of working for the FBI, being out in the field, helping people, giving them back a voice from beyond the grave… that really thrilled me. It felt so right. A challenge, sure, but one that would take me out of my comfort zone. So I accepted,” she said, smiling again.
“Daniel heard about it and was really disappointed. He thought I was wasting my potential. He didn’t get it. He thought I was doing this to get away from him,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“Were you?” Mulder asked tentatively. Scully’s decision to join the FBI had never been too clear to him. He loved having her on board and he considered the FBI better off for having her as an agent, but from a personal standpoint, he thought Scully could be a lot more successful doing something else. ‘And safer, too’ the little voice inside his head chimed in.
Scully thought long and hard before answering.
“I think my relationship with Daniel has something to do with it, though not directly. I could have left to do my residency anywhere else in the country if I’d really wanted to practice medicine and get away from him. That would have been the ‘right’ thing to do,” she said, rolling her eyes. “But I guess Daniel was the little push I needed to make things happen. For the first time in my life, I dared to follow my instinct, to go do what I wanted to do. All my life, I’d been seeking my parents’ approval. Teachers’. Daniel’s. This time, I listened to Dana,” she said, sounding proud.
“So this weekend you saw him again for the first time?” he asked her, getting back to the weekend.
“Yes. A total accident. I hadn’t seen him since. Had the nurse not mixed up the files, I never would have known. He had heart problems. His daughter was there,” she said, the thought clearly unpleasant.
“This guy, this fucking guy…” she said, barely containing her rage. Mulder knew then this guy fucked up. Rarely had he ever seen Scully swear, and never when referring to someone.
“He wanted us to get back together.”
“You’re kidding,” Mulder said. He really did not like that guy.
“No. That’s not the worst part.” She loudly breathed in and out. “Back then, his wife found out, somehow. I don’t know how. Anyway, they ended up divorcing.”
“You know this isn’t your fault, right? He cheated on his wife with you. And… from your point of view, he cheated on you, too.”
“I know that now. But for a long time… I was the other woman. His daughter blamed me. I blamed myself for not knowing. It was so obvious afterwards. If he’d been available, we could have gone back to his place. His cabin. Wherever he goes back to. He was brilliant and not too ugly to look at. Of course he would be married! He destroyed his marriage and his daughter,” she said in a disapproving tone.
“And he moved to DC," she added. "Not recently. 10 years ago. To follow me.”
“No way,” Mulder said. He made a mental note to look him up, just to be on the safe side. 'This guy is a little unhinged' he thought to himself. Though Mulder wondered what he would do if Scully were to walk out of his life. He found that line of thought too painful to think of and vowed to do everything in his power to avoid that.
“Seeing him… it made me go into self-reflection. Not unlike the confusion I was going through while in med school. It made me think about where my life was now. 'What am I doing, am I doing the right thing, am I where I should be?' this kind of thing. Strange things happened too. I nearly got into a car accident.”
“What? Are you okay?” he asked, immediately appalled.
“Yes, don’t worry. I also kept seeing this blonde woman running from me, teasing me,” she said tentatively.
“Who was she?”
“I don’t know. I could never catch up to her.”
“What do you mean? She was running away from you?” Scully’s tale had taken a surprising turn. An X-File worthy turn. He was intrigued.
“No. More like she was guiding me places. She guided me to a Buddhist temple,” she said. “I got in, sat in front of the Buddha and… I had a vision.”
Mulder nearly choked on the last sip of his tea. He set the cup on the coffee table, lay back, put his feet up and looked at her. She imitated him, having finished her tea a while ago.
“You had a what?” he asked, flabbergasted. “Who are you and what did you do with Dana Scully?” he asked. She blushed.
“I had a vision. From God,” she said, scrutinizing his face, expecting to see skepticism there. “Of my life. Of Daniel. Of my life on the X-Files. Emily. My cancer. All the stuff that’s happened to us. Our first meeting.”
“Was there a point to this vision?”
“I… well, it put my life in perspective. At that point, I felt as though my life had been turned upside-down. I went to see Daniel one final time after that, and I realized that I no longer was the same person. That I did not want the life that I abandoned.”
"And the blonde lady, did you see her again?" he asked her, sounding completely fascinated.
"Yes. She took me to you."
Both of them paused, looking away from each other, mulling over her words. Pondering their significance.
At last, Mulder was the one to break the silence:
"I just find it hard to believe."
"Which part?"
"The part where I go away for two days and your whole life changes."