The Keeping of Secrets
by Amal Nahurriyeh

Email: amalnahurriyeh@gmail.com
Summary: The thing about Dana is she knows how to keep a secret.
Pairing: Scully & Ellen, BFFs.
Rating: PG-13 for language

Timeline/Spoilers: This is one scene per season, and one for I Want
to Believe.  Contains vague spoilers for the whole damn thing, but
more in the sense that it helps to know canon to make sense of this. 
Specific timeline: Season One: during The Jersey Devil.  Two:
Between 3 and One Breath.  Three: After Wetwired, before Talitha
Cumi.  Four: After Memento Mori, before Demons.  Five: Shortly
after Emily.  Six: post-ep, How The Ghosts Stole Christmas.  Seven:
I'll be canon-compliant and say after all things.  Eight: immediately
before DeadAlive.  Nine: During The Truth.  IWTB: A few weeks
after the main action, probably before the credits sequence

Disclaimer: Intellectual property is a capitalist fiction designed to
oppress the working fic-writer.  That said, I don't own them either.

Written for galpalficathon, from wendelah1's prompt: Scully and
Ellen, Season One: "What about that guy you work with?"


Season One:

"What about that guy you work with?"  It had been a stupid question,
she admitted to herself that evening, in the quiet of her house. Dana
was smarter than that.  She'd done the workplace romance once,
been bitten like crazy, decided never again.  Just because this new
guy was cute--and he was, she could see it in Dana's blush--didn't
mean he wasn't off limits.  

She turned off the hall light as she walked away from her Justin's
bedroom.  And maybe Dana had the right idea in general.  There
were days when she wishes she could take it back.  She loved
Michael, she loved the boys, but Dana carried a gun, Dana stayed
out late on weeknights, Dana had four commendations in her file after
only two and a half years.  Ellen has laundry to do, a garden to keep
up, a volunteer position on the library board.  Dana might not have a
family, but she had a life, despite her protests to the contrary. Ellen
missed having that sort of life.

Not that she wanted a gun.  

Season Two:

In high school, Mama Scully had been everyone's favorite mom. 
There were always homemade cookies in her kitchen, and everyone
knew where they were.  When hungover kids crashed on her floor on
weekends, she called parents to let them know "everyone was safe,"
made eggs for breakfast and delivered patient lectures on
overindulgence and not driving "in that condition."  She remembered
everyone's name, and had a manner that led itself to confessions of
parental drama, lost loves, struggles to find oneself, muttered out
across the kitchen table, while Mama Scully nodded compassionately
and spoke soothing words of comfort.  This same kitchen table
where Ellen was sitting now, watching how Mama Scully's hands
trembled on her coffee cup.  They had sat here before, but now the
empty chair all but had a sign on it: Dana Should Be Here.  It had
been six weeks.

"They say not to give up," Mama Scully said.

"It's very true."  Ellen still couldn't believe it herself, hadn't told the
boys anything.  Aunt Dana can't come over for a while.  She's very
busy with her important job.  You know she loves both of you.  

"It's not worth spending all my time worrying over.  Worry never
solved anything."  She shifts the cup back and forth between her
hands, looks like she wants to start unraveling her sweater.  Mama
Scully always knew how to hold still.  Ellen thinks possibly she is
meeting Maggie for the first time.  "How are the boys doing?  And
Michael?"

So Ellen tells family stories--a role in the third grade play, a soccer
victory, Michael's promotion--until the phone rings.  Mama Scully
startles, gets up to answer as if either disaster or blessing awaits and
she's not sure which.  "Hello?"  She tenses momentarily, then relaxes.
"Oh, Fox, it's good to hear from you."  She nods and mmm-hmms
through the conversation.  It's Mama, not Maggie, who's on the
phone, projecting out her air of calm and compassion across the
wires.  Ellen wonders if this is comfort for her too. Maybe she needs
someone to take care of, so she doesn't have to acknowledge how
seriously wrong everything is.  

Mama hangs up.  "That was Fox.  Dana's partner."  She sighs, pours
herself another cup of coffee before she sits down.  "He's doing
everything he can.  More, really.  I worry about him sometimes."

Worry about your daughter, Ellen thinks.  "That's good to hear," she
says instead.

Season Three:

"That motherfucker."  

Ellen tries not to laugh, but it's always funny when Dana starts cursing. 
Honestly, she's such a little, innocent-looking thing, that when she gets
really angry she looks like a leprechaun.  Just a little. And she's only
told her that once.  "No, no, he's a secretary-fucker."

"That's worse."  Dana pours Ellen another glass of wine. "If he were
fucking his mother, at least you'd never wonder if it was because of
your thighs, right?"

Ellen gives up the battle and laughs.  "You haven't seen his secretary." 


"You want me to arrest him? I could probably make it happen."  

She leans her head back against the couch and closes her eyes.  "I
love him.  Or loved.  I haven't decided yet."

"I know."

"He's the father of my children."  

"I know."  Dana reaches across the couch and takes her hand. 

"I just can't believe he'd do this to me.  I trusted him with everything. 
And he just took that away from me."

"I know," Dana says, and there's something darker in her voice now. 
Ellen turns to look at her.  Dana is staring at her glass, lost
somewhere.  "Sometimes that betrayal of confidence is the worst
thing you can imagine."  She snaps back, and turns back to Ellen.  "I
could shoot him.  It's worked before for me, in a pinch."  

Season Four:

Dana is picking at her soup.  It's not like her to pick, Ellen thinks. 
Dana is the one woman she knows who is totally uninterested in
pretending not to like food.  Food is good in Dana's book. She is full
of bones today, skin stretched like paper, and the list of cliches could
continue but Ellen's too worried.  

"No, work is good," Dana says quietly.  "Busy.  It keeps me moving." 
She smiles.  "The nice thing is, most days, I feel like I've done some
good.  Like I've made a difference in the world."  She pushes a carrot
through the soup with her spoon.  The cracker packet has been
reduced to crumbs.  "What about you?  How is it, working again?"

Ellen huffs.  "Not bad, I suppose.  It's good having something to do. 
Keeps me from planning elaborate revenge against Michael."

"Yeah, revenge can get tiring after a while."  Dana laughs, and it is
only a little hollow.

"And the good thing about working for the school district is that I
have the same schedule as Justin and Mikey.  It's not like it's fulfilling
or something, but so many divorced women end up with such terrible
jobs."  All that's left on her plate is the pickle, and she wants to eat it,
but the comparison between her empty plate and Dana's half-full
bowl makes her too sad.  "Seriously, Dana, is everything OK?  You
know, if you need anything--"

"I know."  She looked away.  A Dana who doesn't make eye contact
is a Dana who is lying.  "I'll admit, things have been a little...stressful
lately.  But I'll be fine again soon, I'm sure."  She eats a spoonful of
soup, looks up, smiles, and for just that second her face is alive again. 
"So, is Justin still taking ballet lessons?"

"Oh my God."  Ellen rested her head in her hands.  "I don't even
know where to start with that one."  She looks up, prepared to tell
the endless ballet class saga, and Dana's nose is bleeding.  Just a little,
just the tiniest bit.  "Um.  Dana. Your nose."

Dana blushes immediately.  "Oh, dammit."  She rustles in her pocket,
pulls out a men's linen handkerchief.  "Sorry.  All the time on
airplanes.  I've been getting them a lot lately."  

The handkerchief has rusty stains on it.  Something is wrong, and
Dana won't tell her.

Season Five:

Ellen checks her watch again.  The curtain goes up on the dance
recital in ten minutes, and she is standing outside on the steps to the
auditorium in the late-January cold.  "Michael, I swear, if you say
again that ballet is 'gay' in front of your brother, you're grounded for a
week."

"Whatever.  He's the one wearing tights."  Mikey keeps fiddling with
the game boy his father bought him.  Standard divorced father
bribery.  Ellen grits her teeth.

A Taurus pulls up going much faster than it should and skids to a stop
on the snow.  The door pops open, and Dana jumps out. She turns,
says something quickly to the driver, who hands her a bouquet of
flowers.  She takes it, and her long black trench coat, and slams the
door behind her.  "Hey!  I made it!"  She bounds up the steps, nearly
slipping on the parts that are insufficiently de-iced.  "Are the flowers
too girly?  I didn't have much choice at the airport flower kiosk."  She
leaned over, kissed Ellen on the cheek.  "Hey, Mikey."

"Hey, Aunt Dana," Mikey said, working hard at being sullen.  Ellen
rolls her eyes, and Dana nods sagely back.

They find their seats.  The first performance is the little-kids ballet
class, all three and four year old girls.  Ellen chuckles to herself.  She
would have liked a daughter.  At least Justin dances, she thinks, and
then mentally kicks herself.

Each little girl comes forward to do a pli‚, supported by the teacher. 
A particularly cute one comes forward, all strawberry-blond hair and
shy pleasure at being applauded.  She skitters away to the edge of
the stage.  Ellen turns to Dana, to whisper something about the
costumes, and finds that she has crushed her program in her hands. 
Her eyes are fixed on the little girl, who is twirling her flower-prop in
her hand and looking into the distance.  Ellen remembers Dana
mentioning something, recently, about bad news from her
gynecologist, and puts two and two together.  She reaches out, takes
her hand.  Dana is startled, moves to pull away, but Ellen hangs on. 
Dana closes her eyes, takes a deep breath.  "I'm fine," she whispers.

"Whatever you say," Ellen says, and keeps holding her hand.

Season Six:

Michael has just pulled away with the boys for their second
Christmas of the day.  They're at the point where they can speak in
complete sentences without her wanting to punch him, which is good,
for the boys at least.  She sighs and turns back to her empty house. 
Time to make the holiday calls.  

Her mother is solicitous but occupied with Melody's six kids, who
appear to be trying to set the tree on fire.  Her other sister, Rebecca,
had gone to Jamaica with her newest boy toy, and is inaccessible. 
Finally, she called Mama Scully's house.  It was after noon, Dana
should be there by now.

"Oh, she's still on the way," Mama Scully says. "Got called in to
work, last night of all nights.  Can you believe it?  She really loves her
work, which is a good thing, I suppose.  Give her a call on her cell
phone, I'm sure she'd love to hear from you." 

Dana picks up the cell phone on the third ring.  "Ellen!  Hi!  Merry
Christmas!"

"You're chipper for someone who's six hours late to Mama Scully's
Christmas Extravaganza."  Ellen peels the plastic wrap off her tub of
cookies from the block party cookie exchange.  Mmm, cherries.

"Oh, I don't know.  Somehow, having missed being mobbed by the
under-seven set at six o'clock, being nagged by both my brothers for
whatever they can come up with by nine, and having my mother give
a maudlin speech about the blessings of the season when I just know
she's going to burst into tears about my dad in the kitchen later has its
appeal."

"Mmn," Ellen says around a mouthful of cookie.  "I can understand
that."

"I don't know, El. Sometimes, don't you just want it to be about what
you want?  Not what other people drag you into, not what you're
required to do by custom or tradition, but, seriously, just have some
fun?"

"Wait, your mom said you were working."  Ellen picks through the
box.  "Dana Katherine Scully.  Are you lying to your mother about
where you were last night?"

"God, I sound fifteen when you put it that way."  Dana laughs, a
bright sound like sun on snow.  "No, I was working, in a sense.  It's
just...look, this is my life.  I should get to enjoy it the way I want to.  I
don't have to be shackled to my family like the maiden aunt in a
Victorian novel.  You know?"

Ellen thinks about the empty day in front of her, in an empty house. 
"Go you. I'll just sit here, feeling inadequately independent."

"No, that's not it.  It's not like I don't have ties to people.  My family. 
Other people.  It's just that we should get to make decisions about
how to sort those commitments out."

"That sounds right."  It really does.

"Anyway.  What are you doing today?  I bet Mom's got extra pork
roast, if you're up for it."

Ellen laughed, and tried not to hear how it echoed.  "Let me see if I've
got any deep-seated need to enjoy myself on the schedule, and I'll get
back to you."

Season Seven:

Dana finishes her diet coke and dumps the cup in the trash can as
they leave the theater.  "I forgot how much I hate watching movies
with subtitles.  I want to like them, but I just end up with a headache."

"You know what I love about you, Danes?  That you're secretly such
an anti-intellectual."  Ellen throws out the popcorn bag and wipes her
hands on her pants.

"Just make sure it stays a secret.  I've got a super genius ice queen
reputation to maintain at work."  She pulls out her cell phone and
turns it on.  "If they find out I like Farrelly Brothers comedies and eat
Cheetos I'm going to have to shoot someone or cure AIDS to get the
universe back in balance."  

Ellen checks her watch.  "I've got another half an hour before I have
to head home.  There's that cupcake place around the corner."  

"Excellent.  I haven't gained enough weight this evening yet."  Dana's
phone beeps.  She pulls it out, dials her voicemail.  "Let me just
check this."  

Ellen goes to the water fountain.  As she turns around, Dana is
looking down and smiling.  Her cheeks are pink. She pulls the phone
away, hits a button, puts it back to her ear.  Her smile widens this
time, and she actually chuckles at the end.  Then she hangs up.

"OK, who is he?"  Ellen asks when she comes back over.

"What?  There's no he."  Dana's cheeks are still pink, and she won't
make eye contact, which means she's seriously lying.

Still, there is nothing worse than trying to pry a secret from Dana
Scully.  "Fine.  Don't tell me.  Whatever you say."

"I say cupcakes," Dana says.  They go, and Ellen pretends not to
notice when Dana buys an extra, a Snickers one, 'to take home.'

Season Eight:

Ellen is sitting on the tile floor of the bathroom of the funeral home,
holding Dana's hands as she is perched on the closed toilet.  They are
both dry-eyed, though Dana gives the impression of someone who
can't cry any more.  She is wearing black, and it hangs on her.  "I
can't do it.  I can't go back out there."

"It's OK.  You don't have to."  Ellen strokes her hands.

"I know I should.  I know...but the way they're looking at me."  She
is bloodless and drained, but still sharp and capable of causing pain.  

"I know."

"They don't know anything.  They can't even begin to understand." 
She hisses the words out as if being angry is all she has left.

"No, they can't." Ellen has no idea what Dana is talking about, but it
doesn't matter.  She walked into the funeral home and knew
something was deeply, deeply wrong.  Dana had been sitting in the
front row, by the flag-draped coffin, staring at it with dead eyes. 
People kept coming up to her, saying soft things, and she had just
stared back at them, sharp and silent, accusatory, almost. Sometimes
she nodded.  Ellen had stolen her away, locked her in the bathroom.
Something was wrong.

"I can't be his fucking widow."  Dana's hands began to shake.  She
closes her eyes.

"It's OK, Dana.  It's OK."  

"He didn't know."  It's a bare whisper.  Dana bows her head,
clutches her hands to her belly.  "I didn't know, I never told him, and
he can't, he doesn't, I can't--"  Ellen is suddenly, violently nauseous. 
Dana just keeps moving her hands, circularly, as if drawing something
in to her abdomen.  "I can't, I can't--

Ellen swallows her surprise, and grabs Dana's hands. "It's OK.  You
can.  I promise.  You can."

Dana puts her head down on Ellen's shoulder, and manages to cry
again.

Season Nine:

She nearly dropped the groceries coming in the door.  "Mikey!" she
yelled.  "Why is your skateboard in the middle of the front hall?"

"Sorry, Mom," came a quiet voice from the living room.

She stumbled into the kitchen and dropped the bags on the counter. 
The machine was blinking, one message.  

Dana's voice came through, quiet and slightly metallic.  "Ellen.  Hi." 
She took a deep breath, exhaled raggedly.  "I'm glad I got the
machine, actually.  There's so much...listen, I don't blame you if
you're confused.  And I'm sorry--I'm sorry that things have happened
the way they have.  But you need to know..."  The pause was long
enough that Ellen was worried it had cut her off.  "You just need to
know that I never regretted any of it.  No matter how bad it got.  No
one made me, and people are going to tell you he did, and he never
did.  That matters to me.  And you should know--" her voice broke
slightly-- "how much I have valued your friendship.  How much I love
the boys.  And how proud I am to have known you, all these years." 
The tears hovered at the edge of her voice, but there was that
toughness again, the one that undercut everything Dana had every felt. 
"I don't know how soon I'll be able to talk.  But, I promise you, as
soon as I can, I'll write, or call or...I don't know.  I love you.  I'll see
you soon, I hope."  And there was a click.

Something was wrong, Ellen thought.  Really wrong.  She would call
her tomorrow.

I Want To Believe:

The directions are hard to follow, at least in part because she doesn't
want to follow them.  No, that's not it.  She does want to see Dana. 
It had been years, and then a quick email in 2005--I'm sorry it's been
so long.  Things have changed a lot.  I don't think I'll be able to get up
to DC to see you, but I wanted to say hello, and see how the boys
are.  Then the occasional phone call, notes, Christmas presents for
the boys.  Dana was different: more guarded, less willing to open up. 
Ellen only got her work number out of her, and all the packages were
sent with her office return address.  Then, finally, just a few months
ago, something seemed to relax in her, and she finally said she wanted
to see them.  "I'm in the middle of this clinical trial now," she had said
on the phone, "and I don't think I can get away, but you could bring
the boys down.  It's only like an hour and a half.  We even have a
guest room, and we're near the climbing rocks in the state park if
they'd be into that."

So here they were, headed for an overnight trip to visit Aunt Dana,
whose life was a mystery clouded in an enigma obscured by giant
flashing lights saying don't look over here.  They were going rock
climbing in the morning.  Ellen just hoped, desperately, that they
would have something to talk about between now and then. Justin
had homework, and Mikey his SAT study books, so at least they
could hole up.  She had nothing but a twenty-year friendship, with a
six year hiatus.

She finally found the turn off.  The road was dirt when they got to the
gate.  It was more frightening than Ellen had expected, that gate: it
looked like the entryway to a compound, like there were survivalists
with machine guns behind it.  Next to the frighteningly sophisticated
electric lockbox, a hand-painted sign read:

FBI*, CIA, GLOBAL CONSPIRATORS, SUPERSOLDIERS,
ALIEN CLONES, JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES, AND MORMON
MISSIONARIES BY APPOINTMENT ONLY.

ALL OTHERS, RING BELL.

*EXCEPT WALTER SKINNER. MAYBE.

"Wow," Justin said from the back seat.  "Aunt Dana's boyfriend's
crazy, isn't he."

"We don't know that," Ellen said, and hoped to God that Dana hadn't
written the sign.  She pulled out her cell phone and called Dana's.

Dana picked up on the third ring.  "Hey!  How close are you?"

"We're here, actually."  Ellen could see someone moving in the early
evening light, off by the house. Please don't shoot us, she thought.

"Oh, no."  A horn honked.  "I'm running late from work.  I'm still, um,
about twenty minutes away?  Sorry, I just got this NIH grant and the
paperwork, ugh, you would not believe--"

The figure is getting closer, looks like a man in jeans and a
long-sleeved shirt, heading purposefully towards them.  "Um, hold on,
it looks like someone's coming out of the house?"

"Oh, great.  Yeah, Mulder will let you in."  Dana chucked softly.  "Be
nice to him.  He's got the social skills of a bat.  Emits lots of
earsplitting noises until he figures out where you are."  

"Um.  Will do."  Ellen finds herself smiling.  This, at least, sounds like
Dana.

"See you soon.  Can't wait."   

"Yup, soon," Ellen says, and hangs up.  The man is at the gate now,
opening it with some sort of elaborate code, his hand wrapped in
some sort of cast.  Ellen pulls the car through.  He locks it behind her
and comes up to the driver's window.  She rolls it down.

"Hey," he says, leaning down.  "You must be Ellen.  I'm Fox Mulder." 
He holds out his hand.  "I've heard a lot about you."

"Me too," she says, and shakes it.  Goddamn.  He really is cute.