The Return (4/12) by charvill Email: charityharvill@yahoo.com Genre: MSR Spoilers: Post-IWTB Summary: There are some things you just can't escape. "What were you going to say, Scully?" I ask to force her to quit stalling. Suddenly, her eyes are mere inches from mine as I kneel before her, and she is looking at me like...like her whole future has been sucked into oblivion. Hopeless. But, she doesn't say a word, instead her hand moves at an agonizingly slow pace until it rests below my skull. Her fingers reach out and she touches a spot of skin on my neck just above the top of my spine. Our eyes never break their gaze, but as her skin makes contact with mine her face completely crumples and my heart lurches. *Oh God, no! Please, please, no...* Instantly, my hand takes the same path, only now it's on her body. Just before I find the spot I'm looking for, she tries to push my hand away --- it only makes me seek that much harder. With the pad of my middle finger, I desperately search out a specific patch of skin - -- praying that I'm wrong. Finally, my finger runs along the abnormal patch...and I don't feel anything moving under my touch as I press. "Mulder..." Her voice is tight; pleading. I can't believe---no, it has to be here! "Mulder, stop." She tries again to force my hand to stop and I pull my hand away, using it instead to grab her by the shoulders. "What did you do?" I growl, shaking her roughly. Her breath hitches as the sobs build in her chest. I watch her fight for control of her emotions and it enrages me further. "Where's the chip, Scully?" "I...," she stops and shakes her head. "It's gone." No. Please, God...please, tell me this is a joke. "Mulder!" she cries, startling me enough to notice that I am now sprawled awkwardly on the floor. Her hand pulls my numb body up and onto the couch. My mind is flooded with images: Scully standing in a hospital hallway letting me kiss her for the very first time, her body lying behind a sheet of glass in a hospital bed, CGB Spender offering me a deal for her life, a room full of women being experimented on, her family standing around her hospital bed, Scully again --- her face awash in tears --- as she hugs me and says that she's going to be okay. A cool cloth on my forehead abruptly draws me out of my trance. I can't help but think her tending has less to do with her concern for me and more to do with not wanting to talk about my recent discovery. I push the rag from my face. "Tell me." She sighs deeply and her attempt at composure makes me want to grab the first thing I see and throw it across the room; I clamp my fists around the couch cushion beneath me. "I thought it was the only way..." Her eyes stare through me into a past memory I see her replaying in her mind. "He was in constant danger and I couldn't...I didn't know how long it would be before I heard from you again." My stomach clenches as her words echo in my head. "Just before he was abducted --- when Kersh showed me the rubbings from the spacecraft...I started thinking, "what if they came back?"" "They?" She blinks as if she suddenly remembered I was in the room. "The shape-shifters," she says, simply. "And the rebels. What if I was summoned again?" Her tone is so sure, so matter-of-fact that if the situation weren't so dire it would actually be hysterical in its irony: Dana Scully, believer in all things extra-terrestrial. "Then, William's life was threatened by a man in the FBI. I tried to contact you again, but...the Agent..." She stops, shaking her head to try and erase whatever her mind assaulted her with just now. I reach for her hands. "They told me you were dead." My jaw falls open at this revelation. In six years on the run, we had confessed so much...told each other everything that happened in the time that I was gone after William was born. But this was a new part of the story, one that I'd never heard. She sniffs, her composure failing, and swipes at a tear that escapes down her cheek. "I was so afraid that --- if I went on the run as I planned to at that point --- I might be compromised and William would be left all alone...that he'd have no one to protect him.... So I cut the chip from my neck and destroyed it." She laughs, bitterly. "I was so paranoid that I didn't even want to risk storing it somewhere." Her sniffs have turned into gut-wrenching sobs and she is shaking with every breath. I immediately pull her into my arms, not being able to bear watching her suffer alone any longer. "Shhh," I whisper. "It's okay." She jerks away from me. "How can you say that? Mulder, how can you continue to even look at me after everything I've done to hurt you?" "Scully..." "No. No, Mulder!" she shouts, retreating to the opposite end of the room. Watching as she paces a circle on the rug, I notice her eyes darting around the room --- again and again towards the door, looking for a way to escape. I move --- slowly, cautiously --- to stand beside her, placing myself between her and the front door. "Scully," I say and there is no fight left when I pull her towards me again, securing her against my chest. "I'm so sorry, Mulder. I'm sorry..." The words are nearly inaudible, coming out in between sobs and muffled by my chest. My heart breaks for this woman, and I am suddenly filled with the need to look into her eyes. Pulling her away from me, I tilt her face up with my index finger. "You did the right thing, Scully. You protected my son. I can't be mad at you for that." She shakes her head, ever the skeptic it seems. I have to make her understand. "Scully, I still love you. And, nothing you do or say will keep me from helping you fight that cancer however I can" "Mulder..." "You said it yourself, Scully. I can't help what I am." The next words are so painful to think that I can only whisper, "I can't watch you go through that again. I won't." I watch as the blood drains from her face and realize I should have phrased that differently. "I'm not leaving you, Scully. I will never do that again." Her breath hitches again, though in relief now. "If there's a cure out there --- and I believe there has to be --- then we will find it. But first..." Scully's eyebrow shoots up towards her hairline. "I need you to answer some questions." END PART 4/?