Title: A Ride
Author: Dana Quell
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Post-ep for Momento Mori (with some spoilers for Never Again, 
too, I suppose).
Summary: A ride from the hospital and the thoughts it brings.
Disclaimer: Not mine.  They belong to CC, 1013, and all the rest of 
them.
Dedication: Everyone can blame Laini for this one: this is dedicated to 
her.

***

He picks me up from the hospital promptly on the dot.  Strange, for 
Mulder to be on time, but I suppose this is just one of the things that
will change with the news.  I have cancer.  

Terminal cancer.

It was only four years ago when I truly began to live, when I came to 
work with "Spooky" Mulder and saw all these frightening and beautiful 
things that defy all logic.  Four years seems like a such a short 
amount of time to have lived, though a lot can happen in that 
particular span of time.  How much have I experienced with him?  Enough 
to shake down the very foundations of my beliefs, enough to drive any 
sane person mad with his bewildering theories and even more bewildering 
personality.  And yet, I want to cry out with the unfairness of it all: 
I have not yet had enough!

And now, the quest that started out as his and became mine as well will 
be terminated so abruptly.  The most ironic thing of all is Mulder 
believes my impending death to be caused by himself.  What a contrast 
of a man -- he appears to be arrogant, and believe me, he is 
self-concerned most times.  But on the inside, he is only a little boy, 
one who blames himself for everything that's gone wrong in his life.  

"I'm sorry, Scully," he says five minutes into the drive, proving my 
analysis to be correct.  I sigh and lean my head -- the headquarters of 
this new invader -- against the window.  I don't want to have this 
conversation now.

"Mulder, don't be."

"I have to be.  It's all my fault.  If you had never been assigned to 
the X-Files -- "

I sit up straight.  "I never would have gotten to know you," I cut in, 
hoping to evade this conversation of his self-guilt altogether with 
assurances of my loyalty and devotion to him.  Suddenly I am tired of 
his egocentric culpability, and something inside me snaps.  "Mulder, 
you can't be sure that this cancer wouldn't have developed within me 
whether I was assigned to the X-Files or not.  You can't blame yourself 
for something that might have happened anyway.  Why do you always make 
it about you, anyway?"

He takes his eyes off the road for a second so I can see the expression 
his face wears.  Complete deadpan.  At least that won't change with the 
cancer.

But then something in his eyes stops me from whatever I might've said 
next.  And there it is; the same thing in his eyes that was there when 
I came back from Philadelphia.

"I can see the tattoo in your eyes, Mulder.  Better keep them on the 
road."

***
Finis