Title: A Moment’s Thought
Author: Gwoman
Feedback: Required! Gooddog@in4web.com
Rating: PG
Category: MSR, vignette
Spoilers: FTF, Emily, Milagro
Keywords: MSR

Summary: Scully’s late night lamentations and contemplations

Disclaimer: Nope, they are still not mine. Merely borrowing them. No infringement intended.

Author’s note: I started with a little piece of fanfic called One Moment. People kinda liked it, so I decided to write a sequel called To Have This Moment. They still liked it, so I am trying desperately to finish it up with a third and final chapter. However, I am creeping towards the resolution, and in the interim, Scully decided to think about the position that I have gotten her to. Consider this part 2 ½ of a 3 parter. I am working on the ending, I swear!!
Thanks again to Zuffy for patiently and painstaking reading all my drivel and brushing it into something more presentable. Thank you also to all the people who have emailed me and pressured me to continue this story. I hope you like this part as well.




A Moment’s Thought


It’s late. A pale light filters into the bedroom window and falls across the foot of my bed. I should be asleep, but I can only lie here and listen to my thoughts echo through my mind over and over. How many times have we walked away from each other? How many more times have we wanted to, yet moved in quickly to rescue, or console, or back up the other? Our relationship, sometimes fragile, other times strong, has been an integral part of my life for a long time, even longer than I can readily admit.

Though I can’t remember all the events of that summer, I do recall an icy landscape. My body was beyond chilled, and Mulder was passed out next to me on the ice. At that moment, I must have realized how much, and how far he went this time to find me. He risked it all, not just the FBI officials, or a black mark in his file, but he risked his life to save mine. I remember pulling him close and just for a moment, I let myself think of how close I had come to dying. He must care deeply to risk so much. There are other moments too that stand out. The hearing for Emily, where against his own judgement, he spoke on my behalf. The time when--

This is pointless. We know how we feel about each other. We are the other’s partner, back up, soulmate. As decisively as I am trying to sound right now, I’m shaking my head. No, not soulmate. I don’t think that people are destined to join souls as if they are incomplete alone. I think the right person would complement, rather than complete. Partner should say it all. It wasn’t always this way. I remember the day we were assigned each other. I didn’t think "partner" would ever describe our working relationship. He was always off on his own tangents, leaving me to feel as if I was tagging along.

No longer lying flat on the bed pretending sleep, I’ve scooted up on the bed, and piled the pillows up to lean against them. I hate this self-effacing crap. That was a long time ago. In the last six years he has really stopped running off as if he worked alone. Now he needs me along. Maybe need is too strong a word. Sometimes I don’t think that Mulder needs much of anyone or anything, but I do think that maybe he wants me along.

I guess you could say that I have started to allow myself to notice he was there. It seems like I have always kept people at a distance, particularly at work. I am not exactly sure why. Maybe I can blame it on my childhood, and being a military brat, never having a friend for longer than it took to get to know them before Dad was transferred. Maybe I should remember this whole one-sided conversation and tell it to Dr. Kosseff. How did I even get on this subject anyway? Yes, Mulder is my partner, in some ways much more. But how much? Do I need to know this?

Why must we try to put titles or definitions on things? Feelings are not tangible, and people have a way of getting hurt when we try to label them.

But still.

He told me he loved me. He was angry that I couldn’t accept the words. That is what has me lying here tonight, not sleeping, and not relaxing. Why can’t I accept his words? His actions have been saying that for years. Even when he told me to get away from him, to go be a doctor, I know that it was a statement made from love. He was trying to protect me. He was scared to see how close he came to losing me for good. All right, so I do accept deep down that he does love me. But why do I fight this so strongly? What has me almost in a cold panic when he tries to close the gap that has kept us apart for so long? What has me running this over and over again in my head, tossing and turning in the covers so badly that I need to make the bed before I can sleep so that the blankets can be put back on the bed? It makes me want to scream. Or strike out. I feel so frustrated, like my muscles are about to jump right out of my body and take my soul with it.

I give up. Even sitting here at the table, stirring a cup of tea automatically, I think only now I am comfortably at the kitchen table where I can’t thrash about in bedsheets. Damn. This is where we were sitting and he told me how he could never have gotten this far without me, and we had our hands together and then he—Then the phone rang.

This thinking is just as bad in the kitchen.

So now I am folded up on the sofa, teacup in hand, trying to find out if a change of scenery will stop these rambling thoughts. Hmmm. I guess not.

He told me that he loved me and I turned him away. I thought we had come to an easy truce about that subject, but months later, when Padgett tried to…well, during that investigation, Mulder seemed distraught. I know, I was too, but he was really shaken up and he wanted to talk.

So I left.

Why is it that any time we get too close to our feelings, I dash off like a rabbit? What exactly am I afraid of?

Six years we have been there for each other. We are in some ways, the only steady thing in each other’s lives. I have to make a decision here. I know that this has come to a point where we must decide what is going to change. We can’t keep pushing and pulling and hope to keep the status quo. Life has to evolve and change, and though it seems like we have evolved and changed in innumerable ways, we have kept the relationship stagnant. At first we went from wary individuals trying to just get along, to two people intent on keeping the partnership together. But there has always been this awareness between us. An awareness that we have been too steadfast in ignoring. This awareness, though, is like a small flame. And being discounted like we have done, it has begun burning away at the relationship.

What is my decision? Do we keep trying to ignore this awareness? Mulder has already been trying to bring it out in the open. Do we let it out, and see what happens? Can we live with it in the light? Will it destroy our friendship, or make it better? Will it destroy us if we keep ignoring it?

All right. The very next time the opportunity presents itself, I will not run. I will stay and discuss this all out with Mulder. He says he loves me. Do I love him? I guess I will know what to say, when he asks me. I hope I will, because God knows I don’t know what to say now.