Salvation at a Cost (1/3) by ElizabethAnn Email: elizabethannfanfic@yahoo.com Rating: PG Timeline: post-The Truth Author's Note: This is set sometime after The Truth and before Mulder and Scully move to Virginia, as we find them in IWTB. This fic doesn't belong in my "Cursing Miracles" universe, since it shouldn't interrupt canon (as CM does). I haven't been inspired to write anything set after season 7 in a long time. This should have two chapters. ~ ~ ~ Chapter One It had been many months since she'd slept well or ate anything cooked by someone who wasn't wearing a hairnet. She stared at the food in front of her and contemplated the pain in the middle of her back. She knew logically that you had to eat to stay alive, but that didn't seem like much encouragement at the moment. What was the point? After all, it was all just about existing now. It wasn't living. Living until the next day the next month the next year. The purpose for all of this seemingly dried up months ago. Now it was just a sham, as far as she was concerned. Drive down the road. Ask questions of people who didn't know or weren't going to tell. Poke around looking for evidence of something. Watch in the rearview mirror as you drove away from another warehouse without answers or evidence. Rinse and repeat. Nothing had been solved. Nothing ever really was. Mulder still said the world was going to end. Seemingly there was nothing they could do about it one way or the other. She wondered if she was the only one who noticed that they hadn't been followed for several months now. That seemed to confirm to her that it was all pointless. No one was even bothering to stop them. Either their efforts were completely off base and didn't merit tracking or something had changed in the universe that they were as of yet uninformed about, making their little game of chase totally useless. Whatever the case, she didn't think they were of much importance anymore in the grand scheme of things. She certainly didn't feel important. She felt like an organism put on earth merely to eat, sleep, and ride in the car. If she stopped eating, the pointlessness might end. "Not hungry?" Mulder's voice brought her out of her trance and she looked up at him across the laminate table. He looked concerned. She hadn't taken care to compose her mask: he had probably glimpsed something that she had tried to hide from him. It was bad enough feeling as she did, she didn't want to have to live with his guilt should he know how empty she had become. "Are you alright?" he asked, his voice betraying a slight tremor. "I'm fine." She picked up her fork, trying to will herself to eat. Maybe it would help minimize the damage, if she could show him that she had an appetite. "We can go somewhere else," he said, as her fork hovered above her food. "If this isn't what you want." What she wanted? Since when did that matter? She set her fork back down and chastised herself: she was trying not to be embittered. Mulder was doing what he thought he had to do, and she'd promised to follow him and not admit defeat. If there was any chance of success, he would probably be in the right for continuing on. And he'd given up things too. They had a shared regret now. The thought of William made her stomach flip. "Where would we go?" She hadn't intended on sounding so resentful. 'Take a bite,' she said forcefully to herself, but she couldn't even pick up the fork now. He just kept looking at her. His gaze was so intense that she couldn't look away, although she wanted to go back to staring at her plate. "I'll just pay the check," he finally said, pushing away his plate. She knew she should protest, tell him to finish eating, but she couldn't make the words form. She might have lost the will to put food in her body, but that was no reason she should prevent Mulder from doing so. But, she wanted out of the diner and the promise of escape was too much to pass up. Of course, if they left, they'd just be headed back to the motel, which sounded as bad as the diner they were sitting in. There were no real options. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Mulder slammed the door of the truck and sat for a moment staring ahead. He had been engrossed in the chase, but not so engrossed as to ignore the signs that Scully was walling herself off. The more composed she became, the worse he knew it was getting. He was afraid what the outcome would ultimately be. And the more that potentiality troubled him, the more he felt the need to continue the chase. If there was some indication that they'd achieved something with all this running, there would be some justification of the wreck he'd made of their lives. There just hadn't been any hint that they'd made one iota of progress. Her composure had slipped in the diner, staring at her food like it was full of maggots. She had let it slip in her tone, in her looks, in her inability to put on a show for him. To say she had reached the end of her rope was no exaggeration. She was slipping right over the precipice. He was losing her. He put the key in the ignition and turned the engine, gripping the wheel tightly with both hands. He waited for a moment--waiting to see if Scully would say something or make some kind of move. Something other than: I'm fine. But, she was so quietly composed again that with the engine on, he couldn't even hear her breathing. Only the smell of her shampoo and a slice of her in his peripheral vision confirmed her presence. There didn't seem to be any point in waiting. He threw the truck in gear and pulled out of the diner. It would be another silent ride. That's what they did nowadays: rode down desolate roads in silence together. They weren't chasing the monsters as partners; he was doing the chasing, and she was merely along for the ride. And at this point, he wasn't quite sure why she hadn't bailed. He closed the door behind them and watched her walk over to one of the twin beds and slump down on the orange bedspread. She had volunteered to go inside and book a room when they'd arrived that afternoon. When he'd opened the room and seen twin beds, he couldn't bring himself to ask if that's all they'd had left. It seemed more likely to him that she'd requested this situation, so she could wall herself more completely from him. Establish a physical boundary, in addition to the emotional one he felt growing between them. "You want to watch TV?" she asked, staring blankly ahead. "Do you?" he asked, still standing in the doorway. He got no response. He threw the car keys on the table and walked over to the other bed, flopping down in defeat. "Scully?" "Mmm?" she responded, still staring forward. "If we hadn't ever been partners, what would you have thought of me?" His question seemingly startled her, causing her to look back over her shoulder at him quizzically. It was dangerous, trying to get her to talk, but the act was beginning to wear on him. "I mean " he began, trying to explain the reason for his question. "I knew you by reputation," she interrupted. "You were an excellent agent. Incredibly skilled." He sat up, unlacing his shoes and kicking them off. He hadn't meant professionally. He didn't worry about whether she respected him professionally. "I didn't mean what you thought of me as an agent," he said leaning back and lacing his fingers behind his head. She turned on the bed so as to face him. "Personally?" He nodded slightly. "It's hard to know, Mulder. I think most people at the FBI found you a little difficult." "You think that's why they want me dead?" he asked with a smirk. "You are difficult," she affirmed. "Okay, but if we'd met somewhere else." Scully looked at him as if he'd grown a second head. "Where? A bar?" "Anywhere a bookstore an art museum. Where ever you'd prefer." "Mulder, it's hard to imagine something like that. It's hard to imagine not knowing you." He couldn't imagine it either. He didn't want to. But he was afraid that would be his reality soon enough. She wouldn't want to know him anymore. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Scully watched him from her tiny bed. He looked tired and worried. She thought for a moment what it would be like if she really had met Mulder in a bookstore. Would he have talked about aliens? Government conspiracies and mutants? Or been smooth and smiled and asked her for a date? Only to not show up, as she knew he used to do on a regular basis with the women he hounded? And even if he had shown up, wouldn't she eventually have been the victim of his quest? He could be charming and attentive, but there was always the quest. The beauty--if you wanted to call it that--of their partnership, is that she could go on the quest with him. Everyone else got left behind. What if they'd just never met. No FBI, no bookstore. No Mulder. The thought made her pulse begin to race. They were driving around the world on an endless quest, but they were together. She needed the man across from her. She loved him. That is why she stayed even when staying was causing her to fold inward upon herself. Scully stood up and stepped over to his bed, nudging his legs so she could perch on the edge of the mattress. She rested her hand on his thigh, swallowing. "I can't imagine not knowing you, Mulder, but I can tell you what I thought of you when I did meet you face-to-face." He raised his brow, looking as if he wasn't quite sure he wanted to know. "I thought you were more than a little bit crazy just as you intended and " she paused to chuckle and cover her eyes with her hand. "Oh, I thought you were cute, Mulder," she confessed quietly. He sat up and pulled her hand from her face. He was smirking. "I shouldn't have told you that." "You'll never hear the end of it," he conceded. He tucked a strand of her red hair behind her ear and leaned in to rest his head against hers. The heat of his breath against her neck raised bumps along her arms. "I thought you were cute too," he whispered huskily his lips brushing her temple. She smiled, tucking her face closer to his. "But not my type," he added. Scully rolled her eyes. He looped his arms around her middle, pulling her into his lap. He began tracing patterns with his fingers on her lower back. She drooped against his chest, so she could feel his chest rise and fall. It suddenly seemed unfair to him that she was lying to him and wearing a mask. "I'm sorry," he mumbled into her hair. Scully could imagine all of the things Mulder was sorry for. There was a running catalog. She didn't really need to hear them though, because she was sorry too. She was sorry that he'd spent a year away from them, when she should have demanded he stay with her with William. She was sorry that she had thousands of memories of their son and he had maybe ten. She was sorry she had given William away to be raised by strangers and that Mulder hadn't been given a choice or been able to say goodbye. She was sorry that she couldn't continue to fight with him. She needed it to be over. "Mulder, I can't do this anymore," she said with a sigh. She felt him tighten around her. Every muscle tensing with anxiety from her pronouncement or perhaps a desire to lock her down should she attempt to bolt. She sat upright and his arms fell away from her stiff and lifeless. "Mulder, I'm sorry, but I can't. This is meaningless to me now." His eyes danced in his head, swimming with fear. She grabbed his hand and squeezed. "I need to be doing something that matters. I need to give my life meaning. I need to stay in one place. Chasing phantoms isn't going to cut it for me anymore. It's too dark." He continued to watch her wordlessly. "No one is following us at this point, Mulder. I don't think anyone cares. We're as pointless to them as I am to you." He shook his head. "Scully," he said pleadingly. "Mulder, we need a home. We need to stop running," she vehemently asserted. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Mulder wasn't sure he'd heard her right. She'd been telling him why she had to leave him. It was what he'd feared for several months. But then she'd said 'we'. He was almost certain that she'd said that 'we' needed a home. "I'm a wanted man," he said, trying to determine if what he thought he'd heard was correct. "We'll live somewhere isolated. We'll be careful." There it was again we we we. It suddenly became the most beautiful word in the English language. She was offering him salvation at a cost. "I just can't run anymore, Mulder. I can't run away and I can't chase." He nodded, biting his lower lip. A vision had appeared to him in the desert. Three men that had been his friends had urged him to turn back. He'd been asked: why risk perfect happiness? He wanted to change the future maybe even die trying, so he wouldn't be a complete failure to help assuage some of his guilt to save the world like superman. But maybe they'd been right. Maybe he couldn't change the future. At this moment the only future he saw was right in front of him, asking him to sacrifice his quest. It was the only time she'd ever asked it of him. She'd told him that it was his inability to give up that inspired her to follow him, maybe even fall in love with him. Now she needed him to follow her. "I'm being honest, here, Mulder. We don't even know " she trailed off. Mulder realized that she must have seen the frustration flit across his face. She still didn't believe. Not really. Or she didn't want to. Maybe the truth wouldn't crush her spirit as long as she could live in denial. "I need to make a difference where I can, like the next day could be the last. That's what we all should be doing anyway whether it's because the heavens are going to rain alien space ships or something much more mundane. This " she said gesturing around the tired room, "this running around isn't making any kind of difference." "I know," he affirmed. It was all he could manage. He agreed. It was just intensely painful to admit defeat. "Come with me, Mulder. I need you with me," she said softly. He nodded again in affirmation. He wouldn't willingly be separated from her again. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Scully felt her breath come more quickly as she realized that Mulder had agreed to stop running with her. The relief washed over her in waves and she began to shake with the release of tension that had built over the intervening months. Mulder watched her sympathetically for a moment before pulling her to his chest once more. She pressed a kiss on his suprasternal notch or the hollow of his neck--the only flesh she could reach in his tight embrace. She could feel his adam's apple bob against her forehead and he made a muffled noise in the back of his throat. He pressed a kiss along her hairline before quietly saying her name: "Scully." When he spoke in this tone, it sounded to her like a prayer. "I want to make love to you." "In this tiny bed, Mulder?" she asked with a slow smile. "I'm more than willing to take the challenge." "Well, it was all they had left."