Disclaimer: Everyone knows who owns these characters, and that I'm obviously not trying to make any money off of them - otherwise, I wouldn't be publishing on the Net, would I ?

Rating - On the Torture Scale, I can only give this a one, because well, it's angsty, but not painful...

Spoilers - Detour, A Christmas Carol, Emily, various other season five episodes.

Summary - Scully finally breaks down, and Mulder contemplates what's best for both of them, and the possibility of life without her. Some 'shippy thoughts on Mulder's part, but practically speaking, just a little UST here.

Author's note - This was written a while ago, before the events revealed in All Souls. It was inspired by the author's opinion that anyone as stoic as Scully pretends to be is just hiding their stress a little better than the rest of us. This is my first fan fiction, so I am hungry for feedback - nothing is too negative.
You can reach me at : shammieth@yahoo.com

THE DEEP SILENCES
by samber tyler

He sat in his darkened apartment, remote in hand, flipping through the channels like he always did when he wanted to think . Sometimes he thought that cable tv was the only thing that kept him sane - the one thing that remained the same, no matter what town or city he was in, no matter what bed he slept in.
He snorted at himself derisively. It took him - what? Sixty seconds with the remote and he was already thinking about beds - specifically which one he *wasn't* sleeping in.
He sighed.
This cycle of thought had brought him obliquely, but none too slowly to what was really bothering him, and it wasn't that there was nothing on on cable.
It was Scully.
All of his training, all of his instincts, all of his personal knowlege of how her mind worked... They all told him that Scully was about to come to a boiling point in very short order. Recent events, specifically the Emily debacle (as he'd come to refer to that whole string of events), had added a heavy weight to the already ponderous burden of stress that Scully carried so uncomplainingly everyday.
And yet, she still came to work, still worked harder than anyone he knew. Her work wasn't suffering, either. She was performing brilliantly, as usual.
But he *knew* her - in some ways, he thought, better than she knew herself. And it didn't take a genius to see the darkness that hovered constantly in her eyes. He saw how her silent gaze lingered on children, how she seemed to be looking for something in their faces...
He saw also, how when she thought he wasn't looking,she would sometimes stare off into space, her hand clamped over her mouth as if it might betray her in an unguarded moment.
He saw that even with her cancer several months in remission, she had yet to regain much of the weight she'd lost.
There was no question that she was suffering, yet, as far as he knew, she had yet to turn to anyone for comfort. Perhaps she was developing a relationship with her priest, but somehow, he doubted it.
Mulder knew that Scully's cancer and her mother had conspired together to bring Scully back into the church. He was also aware that God was something that Scully desparately wanted to beleive in - something that for a time she might even convince her self that she *did* beleive in. But Scully wouldn't be a beleiver forever. It was against her nature to beleive in what she had no proof of.
And it was this which worried Mulder. When her faith failed her, what would keep Scully from tearing apart at the seams?
Mulder leaned forward and rubbed his eyes roughly. He couldn't stop worrying about her.
It was ironic, really. When she'd first been assigned to the x-files, he'd been prepared to dislike her - had, in fact, *wanted* to. But he hadn't been able to. Sometime in the first year, he'd stopped seeing her as a spy and had started to regard her as a friend. Sometime after that, as something more. She had turned out to be everything that anyone could hope for in a partner - ingenius, trustworthy, tenacious. She had saved his ass more times than he could count, more than he wanted to count.
And now, because of the very tenacity that he admired in her, she was paying the price.
Had, in fact, been paying the price almost from the beginning, since her abduction. Finally, the stress was beginning to show on her, and Mulder felt helpless in the face of it.
She never broached the gulf between them anymore. She couldn't seem to bring her self to lean on him, to depend on him the way that he depended on her. And therein lay the problem. He depended on her. Professionally? Without a doubt. But in a vastly more personal way as well. He'd had to acknowledge that fact some time ago, when he'd broken down and wept in her arms after his mother had had her stroke.
Scully had been there for him - no questions asked, no comfort witheld. She had asked nothing in return.
She expected so much more from herself than she did from him, it was almost insulting.
So, when he'd received her call from California last Christmas, about Emily and the custody hearing, he'd been *stunned* , to say the least. But he'd been pleased that she'd called on him in a time of need, at least until he'd realized how much she'd hated having to call him.
That had hurt.
But, he'd known that there had been a distance between the two of them for a long time...since Ed Jerse, in fact. After she'd been diagnosed with cancer, the two of them had abided by a tacit agreement not to speak about it, and Mulder had hoped the tension between them would die a natural death, but it hadn't happened.
While they were working, she kept her distance. Not that she hadn't always, but it wasn't hard to recognize how she constantly leaned away from him instead of subtly into him, as she once had done.
Now she was strictly professional.
Despite the growing gulf between them, he had continued in his habit of calling her at odd hours, only now, she often didn't answer.
He suspected she was screening, but could never bring himself to leave a message.
He remembered standing at Emily's coffin with her, wishing with every atom of his being that he could somehow alleviate just *some* of her suffering, wishing for the millionth time that he could find the bastards who were responsible, and *kill* them.
Even now, his hands clenched with pleasure at the thought.
But that would be in the future, if ever.
For now, there was Scully.
He wondered what she was doing right now. He imagined her asleep in her pristine and functional bedroom, or sprawled out on her sofa, flipping through the same channels he was. Or up to her neck in bubbles in that huge old bath-tub she had.
He looked at the clock. Nine forty five on a Saturday night.
Should he?
Of course not, but his fingers were already punching in the numbers.
Two rings, three.
The machine was going to pick up.
Then - "...Scully-"
She sounded like she was choking.
"Scully, are you sick?"
A pause. " ...Umm.. no, I was asleep." A sniffle. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong. I was just..." just what? I was just thinking about you? Worrying about you? Imagining you in the bathtub? "...just wondering if you wanted to get together - maybe order in some Thai, watch some ESPN - just hang out?"
An indrawn breath, a slightly shuddering sigh, then, "Not tonight, Mulder, ok? I - I just want to go back to sleep. I'll see you on Monday."
Click.
He sat there for a second, with the phone in his hand, before it hit him like a brick in the head.
She was at home, lying in her bed, or curled up on her sofa, crying. Alone.
He had a moment of indecision, knowing how she hated to be vulnerable. He wondered for the space of that moment whether it would be worse to go to her, or worse not to - weighing her certain displeasure against her certain need.

****************************

Of course, it had to be raining.
He shifted from foot to foot, and banged on her door again.
"C'mon, Scully," he said under his breath. "I'm freezing."
Just as he was about to use his key, he saw the peephole in the door light up as she looked out.
A pause, then, "Go home, Mulder, I'm tired!"
"C'mon, Scully. Let me in." He gave the peephole his best puppy eyes.
Silence.
Time for the big guns, then.
He leaned toward the door as if he were speaking in her ear. "If you don't let me in, I'm calling your mom, Scully. I mean it, I have my cell right here in my - '
The door swung open.
He wasn't too shocked at the anger he saw on her face, after all, threatening to call her mom wasn't exactly playing fair. What startled him was her state of disarray. In comparison to the buttoned-up, strait-laced, every-hair-in-place Scully he saw every day, she looked...haggard. Her eyes were swollen, and her hair was wild, as if she'd been pulling it out when he arrived.
"Scully.."
Wordlessly, she turned and walked into the living room, leaving him to close and lock the door behind him.
He found her in front of the fireplace, in the other-wise darkened room.
"Scully..." he said again, putting his hand on her shoulder.
""Mulder. Would you go away of I told you that's what I *really* wanted?" she asked tonelessly.
"No."
She looked at him then, over her shoulder, tears welling in her eyes, and he felt something in his chest that dimly reminded him of the sound of cracking ice. For a moment, he thought she might say something more, but then her hand came up in that familier gesture, to clamp over her mouth.
She turned back to the fire, wrestling, he knew, for control. She shoved her hands deep into the pockets of her heavy bathrobe she wore, before turning to face him fully.
"Why don't you just leave me alone?" she asked coolly.
For an instant, Mulder felt as if she'd kicked him in the stomach, breathless and nauseous at once. But he forced himself to respond.
"Because I'm your friend, Scully."
Silence, and the two of them staring each other down.
Finally, she broke.
"What do you want from me?" she asked patiently, too patiently, as if she were indulging a spoiled child.
He made his voice as gentle as he knew how.
"I just want to help you," he said, "I just want to know if you're okay. And if you're not, I want to know what I can do."
"Oh, Mulder.." Suddenly, her tears fell, unchecked. "I can't... I can't talk about this..."
She refused to let her eyes lower from his, and he knew what it cost her to let him see her lose control like that.
Of their own will, his hands reached for her, to pull her into his arms, but they stopped short of their goal. He wouldn't force her.
"Let me get you a glass of water," he said inanely, dropping his hands.
She nodded stiffly, and shuffled to the sofa where he'd pictured her earlier, imagining that she was okay. He shook his head at his own stupidity as he filled a glass from the tap. Things should have never gotten so bad - he should have done something.
When he returned to her side a few minutes later, he was shocked anew at how awful she looked.
Not that she ever looked *unattractive*. He remembered how beautiful she'd been even in the throes of cancer, as if it had eaten her down to the essence of her beauty, to the very bones of it, leaving her looking like a fragile, perfect shadow of herself. He'd been horrified at the beauty of her bones then, and he felt an echo of that horror now.
He sat close to her on the sofa, close enough to imagine that he felt heat coming off her on waves. When he offered her the glass of water, she took it from him wordlessly, not meeting his gaze.
When she finally did look up, Mulder thought his heart would break. He had seen Scully through some awful circumstances in the past, events that had scarred them both indelibly. But he had never seen the desolation in her eyes that he saw now, not even after her father had died.
Her voice, when it finally came, was low, and he had to lean even closer to hear what she was saying.
"How can I miss her? I never even had her...how can I miss her, Mulder?"
Against his own better judgement, he gathered her against him, and she came without a struggle, sobbing in her painful, silent way.
For once, he found himself without words. The part of him that beleived in the power of words to comfort despaired of finding itself. Instead, he tightened his arms around her, as if by holding her more tightly he would allow no room for sorrow between them.
With his jaw resting on the crown of her head, he wondered bleakly how he would let her go.
He would ask her to request reassignment. He should have done it years ago, because after she'd been taken by Duane Barry, he'd known that working with him had put her in harm's way. That abduction he'd forgiven himself for, years ago. But what about all the things that had happened to her since? What about the loss of her sister, her ability to have children, and the loss of the child Emily?
What about the innocence she had sacrificed ?
All of these things were his fault, he knew, because after the first incident, he could have prevented it all, simply by demanding a new partner. He could have claimed incompatibility.
And yet, he hadn't done it.
His releif at having her back had been too great, along with his desire to be with her, to continue basking in the brilliance of her sharp mind and her warm heart.
At the time, he'd told himself that by keeping her at his side, he would be more able to protect her, but deep down, he'd known he was lying to himself. What would she have needed protecting from once she was off the x-files?
Aside from which, Scully would be offended at the very idea of being protected. She was quite capable of protecting herself.
But now, holding her in his arms, he felt how small she was, how frail. And now, he *would* protect her. He would get her to ask for reassignment, and if she refused, he would beg Skinner to reassign her.
Scully would be away from the things that were destroying her life - that were destroying *her*.

*************************************

At some point, Mulder realized that Scully had cried herself to sleep against him, and that he was also lightly dozing as his mind skipped over the possibilities of life without her.
What the hell, he thought. Tomorrow is another day.
He turned her slightly in his arms, stretched out on the couch, and pulled her back against him. He caught his breath as she wriggled her bottem snugly into his groin, feeling a warmth there that he instantly willed away.
Then, despite his grim thoughts,he couldn't help a tired smile as he slid into a warm, dreamless sleep.

*****************************

He awakened the instant he felt her stir against him.
He felt her stretch slightly, and then freeze as she realized where she was, and with whom.
He almost laughed when she raised a hand to her face and groaned softly. Instead, he leaned forward until his lips almost brushed her ear, and though he meant for his voice to sound more normal, it came out in a husky whisper.
" Aw, come on, Scully. It's not that bad."
For an instant, he thought she might laugh, or elbow him in the ribs, but instead, she just tried to pull away from him.

Instinctively, his arms tightened around her when her bottem pressed into his groin this time, for what he had willed away only a few hours before, was back. With a vengeance.
When she felt him pressed against her, she froze, and he savored the moment as long as he could.
"Mulder," she hissed. "Let me up!"
"Do I have to?" sleepily.
Threateningly - "Mulder..."
"Okay, okay..." His arms opened, making his leather jacket creak slightly, and she shot off the sofa like a Thoroughbred from the gate.

Even though he tried to muffle it, he was pretty sure she heard him laugh before her bathroom door slammed.
*******************************

Mulder awakened an undetermined amount of time later, slightly disoriented, and more than a little worried. He knew Scully, and knew without a doubt that she would not be any happier this morning than she'd been the night before, but just better armored.
He helped himself to the facilities. He could tell from the peachy smell that Scully had been there, too, had had a bath, in fact.
He tried not to think about it, as he surveyed the colorful array of bottles lined up on the edge of her tub, but he was suddenly seized by the urge to unscrew and sniff every concoction, as if that would somehow get him maybe one inch further past the walls she so assiduously kept between them.
He resisted the temptation, knowing how offended Scully would be by even that subtle invasion of her privacy.
Instead, he washed his face, noting that despite the fact that he'd spent the night curled up on a sofa that really wasn't long enough to suit his lanky frame, he looked pretty well rested. Maybe a little disreputable, but surprisingly alert.
Maybe sleeping with Scully suited him. He couldn't help the smirk that arose at that thought, but squelched it to the best of his ability as he followed the scent of fresh-brewed coffee to her kitchen.
He found her sitting at the small table that graced the breakfast nook, muted gray light from the window giving her firey hair a certain glow despite the grayness outside. A glance out the window told Mulder that it would probably rain all day, as it had rained all the night before.
She was working a crossword, bare feet pulled up in the wooden chair she sat in, her brow furrowed in concentration. Even though she had to be aware of his presence, she did not look up as Mulder helped himself to a cup of coffee.
Scully finally looked at him when he seated himself across the table from her.
"So, how did you sleep?" he asked, not willing to pretend that nothing had happened. He wasn't going to let her deny herself into a nervous breakdown.
Her cheeks tinged pink, but otherwise unaffected, she replied cooly, "Fine. And you?"
Not to be outdone in what was apparently going to be a war of nerves, he said, "Great, actually. I don't
think I've slept better in recent history."
Scully focussed on the middle distance between the two of them like she often did while she weighed and measured his words.Then her eyes met his, cool and frank.
"I don't suppose that you can just forget what happened last night, can you?"
Wordlessly, he shook his head.
She sighed.
"And, I suppose you'll think it neccessary to discuss it as well?"
He shrugged and sipped his coffee.
She waited for a moment, to see if he would reply. He simply looked at her, his face unreadable.
Obviously unnerved, Scully turned back to her crossword, taking comfort in the distraction. As she studied the puzzle, her slim fingers explored the pencil, turning it up on one end, sliding her fingers down it, turning it up on the opposite end, sliding her fingers down..
Mulder found himself becoming hypnotized by the rhythm of her fingers on the pencil, actually found himself becoming aroused.
He shook his head, wondering dumbly if she did these things on purpose, then deciding for the thousandth time that it wasn't possible... was it?
Before he knew what he meant to do, his hand shot out and imprisoned hers around the pencil.
She looked up, surprised.
"Scully, I..." Words deserted him. Again.
She looked - he wasn't sure. Concerned? Worried?
"What is it, Mulder?" she asked.
He felt pinned by her eyes, so he looked down at their hands, which though he had not meant them to be, were now entwined.
He found himself gripping her hand, tight, tighter - until he almost saw her wince at the pressure, then he blurted out, "I want you to put in for reassignment, Scully."
For a second, it didn't register, what he'd said. Her attention was on the immenent pain in her hand.
But he saw the instant it sank in, felt her nails, suddenly digging into *his* hand as her narrowed eyes flew up to meet his.
In the next instant, she was pushing away from the table, trying violently to pull her hand from his, but he hung on to her, rising to his feet and somehow coming around the small table without letting her go.
"Scully - Scully - " He realized that he didn't know what to say, wasn't sure why she was so angry. Abruptly, he realized that she was fighting him in earnest now, and he let go of her without warning.
She stumbled back a step, rubbing her wrist, where he'd latched onto her.
She looked... dangerous.
The low, hissing quality of her voice almost frightened him. He'd never imagined that Scully could sound so venemous.
"Did you just say you want me off the x-files?"
He felt a flicker of anger, blossoming in the pit of his stomach. "No, I did not say I *wanted* you off the x-files. What I said was, that I wanted you to put in for reassignment."
She started toward him, checked herself.
He wondered for a split second if she might slap him, and if she did, what he would do. Would he crumple right here at her feet and beg her forgiveness, like he already wanted to do? Or would he slap her back?

Horrified that such a thought would even cross his mind, he backed away from her.
He tried to explain. " Scully, it's taken too much from you - *I've* taken too much.. You could have an outstanding career in any one of a half dozen units -" Just the thought of Scully partnered with someone else was enough to make him sick to his stomach.
Her hands clenched into fists, she advanced on him as he backed away, afraid of the fury he saw in her eyes, afraid of the tension building inside his own head.
She raised her hand, obviously meaning to hit him. Then, it was as if she suddenly remembered who she was, who *he* was, and though she stopped her hand, her mouth moved on.
"You and your guilt always have to be center-stage, don't you? How dare you decide what's best for me." Her voice dropped, and she turned away.
"...Scully ?"
"What, Mulder?"
"You don't have to stay with me. I worked the x-files for a while before you came. By myself. I can
do it again."
His voice was gentle, tentative.
Her bitter laughter stopped him.
"You just don't get it, Mulder." She turned back to him, tears streaking her cheeks, and he felt like the selfish bastard he was.
"What don't I get?"
"I'm in this as deep as you are, Mulder, maybe deeper. Don't you see that? "

He felt his helplessness and anger mixing in his chest, a dangerous, potentially explosive mixture. He tried to put a damper on it, tried to speak to her in a normal tone of voice, but it still came out angry.
"So what else do you have to lose, Scully? A limb? Your life? What is it that keeps you on the x-files, if it's not my ego or my guilt? What is it?"
Unlike hers, his voice became quieter, tighter, the angrier he got, and he realized that he had advanced on her, had actually gripped her upper arms - but she didn't look afraid. She looked like she wanted to kick his ass.
"How you can be such an intuitive genius, and still not be able to see what's right in front of your face amazes me, Mulder."
"Then tell me what it is that I'm missing."
When she spoke, her voice was full of tears.
"Mulder," she said, and the anger was gone, leaving a weariness in it's place, and a dull sense of horror. "If they made Emily...how many more did they make? One more? Ten? A hundred? I have to know. I *have* to know."
And then she dropped her head forward, resting her forehead lightly on his chest.
He was stunned.
It took all of his willpower not to fall on his knees right then .
Not for the first time, Mulder despised himself for the reaming he'd given Scully during the Harold Spuller case, about refraining *for whatever reason* from telling him the complete truth, because even as he'd said that to her, he'd already known about her harvested ova, and had said nothing...
He'd justified not telling her at the time by telling himself that she was too sick, too depressed to hear any more bad news... but why hadn't he told her later? For the same reason he hadn't told her about the fetus he'd seen in a jar with *her* name on it.
He was too weak - he couldn't bear to tell her. And, yet, he never hesitated to demand that she give him her all.
And she always did.
After a moment of stunned silence, Mulder forced himself to respond. "What will you do if you find more of them?" he asked her. "Adopt them all?"
"I don't know!" she cried. "But, Mulder," her eyes pleaded with him for understanding, "I *have* to know." She began to cry again. "Despite everything I've been through, everything I've lost," she said, "I might have given up. A few months ago, I might have let you talk me into putting in for reassignment - but now..." She shook her head for emphasis. "I have to know. I don't know what I'll do with the knowlege, but Mulder ..." her eyes feverishly searched his for understanding, "I know now how you feel about Samantha. I know. And the need I have now to know what they did to me - it's burning me up inside."
Abruptly, she pulled away from the loose grip he still had on her upper arms, and walked to the window behind them. As she looked out on the gray morning, she absently wiped tears from her face before she turned back to him.
Her voice was so low when she finally spoke that he could hardly hear her, but the words tore through him like bullets.
"Not knowing is so much worse than dying of cancer, Mulder." She looked over her shoulder at him, the rain-streaked glass framing her to perfection. "It is so much worse."
For a long moment, they just looked at one another, and it was during that moment that Mulder divined that it was *this* which was driving them apart. That this need to know was consuming Scully, that it hadn't blossomed within her over the years as had his need to know what had happened to Samantha. His life had been shaped by his growing obsession since childhood, and had become a part of him, his way of life.
But Scully was inundated, she was drowning in her need because no room had been shaped in her mind over intervening years in which it could be housed.
He was devastated to know that it was her association with *him* which had brought her to this pass.
"Scully-"
Looking out the window again, she interupted, saying simply, "I won't do it."
"Scully-"
She turned back to him, advanced on him until he felt her breath on him when she spoke.
"If you try to get me thrown off the x-files, I'll fight you, but in the end, we'll both lose, Mulder. If you get what you want, you'll be unprotected and inefficient. And I won't have the resources I need in order to find out what those bastards did to me and what they did to Emily - what they could be doing right now to an army of Emilys.
"Mulder, if your guilt about getting me involved in this is even half of what you imply that it is, then I want you to know - there is nothing you could do that would be more cruel than forcing me to leave the x-files. I need to work. And I need..." Her voice trailed off as she turned back to the window behind her. She stared out at the rain for a second , before saying, "I'm not sure what else I need."
Lightly, gently, his hand descended to the back of her neck. Over her shoulder, he saw her eyes close as she leaned like a cat into his light caress and the look on her face almost made his voice fail him.
"Scully, " his voice was husky, " whatever you need, you know I'm here for you. As your partner, your friend... whatever. You know that, right?"
She looked up at him over her shoulder, her hands gripping the windowsill so tightly that her knuckles showed white, but no tension showed in her eyes. Her eyes were liquid, full of all the unspoken words and dark silences that hovered there between them, but all she said was, "I know."
And then she turned back to the the rain splashed window.
There had been a time, not too long ago, when he'd thought that soon one of them would breach that silence.
That hope had been born sometime after he'd met a woman who'd claimed to be his sister in a small cafe just outside of Washington, while that cigarette-smoking devil looked on from his car outside. Mulder had beleived that woman's story - her fear and her sorrow had convinced him. She hadn't been the beautiful little girl he'd remembered... but he'd seen her in the woman's eyes. And he had felt that someday, she might come to him, now that she knew she was missed.
His goal of finding Samantha had, to his mind, been achieved.
So, all his glass towers lying in shards at his feet, he had returned to Scully's side, had found her, unbeleivably in remission. Had absorbed the equally unbeleivable news that the cancerman was dead ...
Mulder had gone home to his empty apartment that night, and wept. Partially in releif that Scully's cancer had, in the final hour, gone into remission. Partially in fear that Samantha would never contact him now that their only link, her *father* was dead. He had also wept for the things he feared would never be - that he might never know Samantha's children, that his own mother might never be healed by the knowlege that her daughter lived, after all. And, he had wept for himself, for all the years he had wasted, all the time he had suffered.
He had awakened the next morning determined not to waste another second. However, the work had intruded, as it always did, and the time had never seemed right ....
So he had waited discuss just what always seemed to hover there between them without acknowlegement.
The moment had come and gone while they were in Florida, avoiding an FBI teamwork seminar, and chasing "mothmen".
He winced now to think how he'd shied away from her the night she'd brought wine and cheese to his motel room - how he'd lost his nerve and run out on her like a frightened schoolboy.
The moment hadn't reoccurred.
And now, since Emily, he knew with a certain finality,that it might never come again.
But never was a long time, and he was a patient man.
He realized that she had long ago turned away from his searching gaze, had fixed her attention on the world outside.
"Look," she said, softly. " It looks like the sun is going to come out today, after all."
He watched the burgeoning light limn her profile and spark her hair to fire, then glanced out the window.
The sun *had* come out, but then light was always bound to follow darkness.
Wasn't it?
FIN