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Hi all. =). This is one of those really
random stories that I came up with in about a half-hour during Winter Break.
(What the heck else do I have to do while stuck in Montana?!). It's mostly from
personal experience, so yeah, extremely unrealistic for Scully. But for me, at
least, the image is a little funny.
Synopsis: After months of drifting
apart because of Melissa and Mulder's father's death, Scully's frustration
catches up to her. Rated PG-13 to *maybe* a soft R for language... nothing you
haven't heard in the school hallways, though. =)
Disclaimer: (All
together now) The X-files and everything therein is the brainchild of Chris
Carter. He didn't let me use his characters, and I doubt he'd like what I'm
doing with them, but I feel like playing a little. I don't have anything of any
value, so CC, if you need reimbursement, I'll send you a bag of Hershey's
Kisses. . . =)
Stressby Melissa Kent (mkent@bu.edu/Measi2@aol.com)
completed Jan.
11, 1996 (happy 21st to
me!!!)
--------------------------------------------------
Sometimes Dana Scully wondered exactly how much it would take
for her to crack. More than once, she had sworn she was within two steps of it.
Tonight, a half step was a better estimate.
Arriving home,
Scully tossed her briefcase on the cloth-covered armchair and let her coat fall
into a lump in the corner. Her first order of business was not her answering
machine, but rather a chilled bottle of wine from the fridge... poured into a
Pilsner glass. Wine glasses were for wimps.
For months, she and Mulder
had been at odds, and not just over the logical explanations of their cases.
Their personal relationship was strained. They walked on eggshells around one
another, careful not to bring up any discussion relating to the MJ files or the
deaths surrounding that blasted tape. Both of them had built a personal wall out
of self-preservation and fear of being hurt again.
Scully had wondered
recently if the search for the Truth was worth it. How many more people had to
die? Who would betray them next? Scometimes she wished to God that they'd never
met Deep Throat, never been involved in that Purity Control scandal. That's when
everything started getting ugly. She could handle "us verses them." It was the
revised version that included the X-Files, the "us with no chance in hell verses
the entire government underground" that burned her.
She gulped down the
wine, eyes smarting at the tartness, before setting it upon the counter. She
needed a stress relief. One that didn't involve alcohol or getting all upset,
but something that would allow her to get everything out. To wear herself out.
A run would do the trick-she'd run herself into exhaustion. She chewed
on her lip for a moment, considering the safety of running alone at night, but
quickly changed into her sweats and grabbed a couple old tapes and her walkman
before heading into the dimly lit streets. She was going to let herself go
refreshingly out of control and scare as many people as she could, blasting old
metal rock music from her early years of college while she sang along in as
hideous a voice as she could muster.
-----------------------------------
Fox Mulder was on
his normal insomniac run by the reflecting pool around midnight. He preferred
running during night and early morning hours-the city was relatively silent. He
could run while completely emersed in his thoughts.
He ran, his breath
fogging before him, in the cold November air. He was frustrated about how he and
Scully were getting along. He knew their relationship was deteriorating, but he
didn't know where to start and how he should go about fixing what was wrong. So
much had happened between them lately, and the rift that had been opened when he
had thrown that punch at Skinner last April was only the opening of the crack.
Now he felt like a divider the size of the San Andreas fault lay between
them-and the relationship was no sturdier than that fault line, either. One more
small tremor, and he feared he'd be in the middle of a catastrophe.
Suddenly a woman's voice in the trees grabbed his attention. It was
scratchy from overuse and overextention. The woman was practically screaming the
voices of the song she was listening to. He frowned, seeing a pair of legs and
bare feet dangling from a tree branch well over ten feet from the ground.
"We're fightin' for the Gods of War.... but what the hell we fightin'
for? We're fighting with the Gods of War... But I'm a rebel, and I ain't gonna
fight no more..."
"Now that's one I haven't heard in a while," Mulder
muttered to himself, shaking his head.
He was curious, though, and
decided to see what the woman was doing, other than screaming, in the tree. He
tiptoed through the grass, using his FBI training to the best of his ability. He
reached the base of the tree and looked up as the refrain started again...
...and nearly fell over in surprise.
Dana Scully perched on the
branch, clad only in a short-sleeved T-shirt and a pair of sweats staring
directly toward... the FBI building. And scream-singing an old Def Leppard tune
about the hypocrasy of war.
"Scully?" he whispered in shock. <>
She didn't notice him, though he
wasn't surprised. *He* could clearly hear the words from her headphones.
Mulder scanned the trunk of the tree for good footholes. He was going to
have to climb up there if he wanted to get her attention.
<>
The tree trunk didn't have any
decent-sized knots to grab onto from what he could tell. He stepped back from
the tree and tried leaping onto it, hoping he'd be able to get some sort of heat
start. But he couldn't hang on and wound up sliding down to the base of the
tree. He tried again, but had the same results.
Frustrated, he stared
straight ahead at the bark. "This might be funny in other circumstances," he
muttered.
"Need help, Mulder?"
Mulder looked up to find his
partner watching him with an amused smirk. During his attempts to jump onto the
tree, she had turned off the music to watch the commotion.
<> he figured silently. "Um, yeah, actually," he replied.
He felt a tinge of embarassment creep up his neck.
"See that stub?" she
asked, pointing to a small bump almost directly below her.
"Yeah."
"Push yourself up on it, and then grab onto this branch at pull yourself
up."
He raised an eyebrow. "You gotta be kidding."
"Nope."
Mulder folded his arms in front of his chest. "You're telling me that's
how *you* got up there?"
"Yup. And you're taller, so if I can reach it,
you better be able to."
He slipped the first time, sending Scully into a
fit of giggles. She nearly fell off the branch. But the second time, Mulder
figured how to alter his balance and pulled himself onto the branch and into a
sitting position next to Scully.
He took in the view of the reflecting
pool for a minute in silence. From only ten feet up, he could feel a personal
separation from the world. There was a peaceful silence within the tree
branches. A silence that could be used to collect one's thoughts.
"Do
you come here often, Scully?" he asked quietly.
She shrugged. "I come to
the reflecting pool all the time, Mulder. You know that."
"No," he said.
"I mean up *here.*"
She smiled. "Oh. Not a lot anymore. I used to all
the time during med school."
He laughed at an image of Scully, perched
up in a tree with her med school books.
"What?" she asked.
Mulder shook his head. "Nothing. Just trying to picture you sitting up
in trees all the time. Why?"
She shrugged again. "I used to climb up in
trees all the time when I was little to escape my brothers. And when I got
older, I found it to be a good stress relief."
Mulder knew that Scully
wouldn't normally go to such an extreme for a stress relief. She usually just
went for a run or grabbed some ice cream and plopped in front of the TV. She
didn't go climbing trees barefoot in the middle of November singing along to Def
Leppard's "Hysteria" album.
"What's wrong, Scully?" he asked.
Scully frowned. "I don't know, exactly. Something's just not *right.*
Something between us."
He knew what she meant. "Did I do anything?"
"Nothing specific. It just seems that you're shutting me out a lot,
Mulder," she replied softly, keeping her tone even and non-accusatory. "It's
like I am being tossed aside for something I did wrong, but I don't know what
that something *is.* And it's making me keep my distance so I don't keep feeling
upset."
He stared down at his feet, knowing she was right. He *had* shut
her out too much recently. He wasn't just ignoring her, but instead had been
occasionally out-of-line, teasing her for her ideas and just being downright
cruel. But why? He honestly didn't know for sure, but he had an idea. One that
sounded pretty logical, at least.
"I think. . ." he began. "that I was
trying to give you some space when Melissa died. But I guess I went a little too
far."
She didn't say anything.
"I'm sorry, Scully. I didn't mean
to," he finished, placing a hand on her shoulder.
Scully reacted by
putting her hand on top of his. "I guess we should have talked about this
earlier."
"Yeah." He looked at her, marvelling in how beautiful she was
without any makeup or dressy clothes. *That* was the reason, he realized. He was
afraid of her. Afraid because he loved her-a love that was deeper than any lust
or sexual attraction. He'd read somewhere that only a few lucky people ever
found their soulmate. He knew Scully was his. He'd known that for a year now.
When she'd been gone, he had nearly fallen aaprt. Four years ago, he would have
laughed if anyone had suggested that he needed someone else in his life. Now. .
. now he couldn't imagine going on without Scully. She provided the stability
and grounding that he'd never be able to produce for himself. And he'd kept her
from becoming too close-minded. He'd opened her mind over the past three years,
and her heart along the way, allowing the Dana Scully who didn't go by Bureau
standards shine through.
Mulder realized he had to talk to her about
this. That his explanation wasn't good enough. And he needed to talk to her
about this *tonight.* "I have some leftover Chinese at home, Scully," he
suggested. "Wanna get out of the cold?"
"Definitely." She watched him
drop to the ground. When he stood back up, she handed him her walkman. Then she
crawled onto her stomach and kicked her feet off the branch, hanging for a
moment before dropping to the ground. She slipped on her shoes and pulled her
sweatshirt back on.
"Ready?"
She nodded. "Let's go."
He
instinctively placed a hand on her shoulder blade as they began walking back
toward his place.
"Hey Scully?"
"Yeah?"
"Where'd you get
your taste in music? I thought Navy brats were raised with strict moral values.
. ."
She rolled her eyes. "Mulder. . ."
He broke out into
laughter as she threw a handful of leaves at him.
He dodged the first
group, but not the second one that was stuffed into his face.
Mulder
grabbed her and lifted her off the ground sideways as she let out a surprised
scream. "Payback time. . ." He started carrying her toward the reflecting pool.
"Mulder. . ." she screamed, laughing. "Don't you *dare!*"
He
grinned at her wickedly, then repeated part of the lyrics of the song she'd been
singing earlier. "What the hell you fighting for, Scully?"
She stared at
him in shock. "Mulder. . . you wouldn't!"
He put her down, still
grinning. "No, I wouldn't. Because A-you'd probably catch your death of a cold
if you haven't already from walking around barefoot out here. And B-because
you'd get me back somehow."
"You got that right. Now let's eat."
"Race you. . ." Mulder sprinted down the sidewalk before she could
react.
She laughed and chased after him. Maybe she was further from
cracking than she thought. Or if not, at least Mulder was right along with her.
* * * * * * * * THE END * * * * * * * *
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