Timeline: 4x13 "Never Again"

Category: Post-episode

Scully had seen the ugly side of her partner before. Fox Mulder could be petty, unfair, childish, and downright cruel. He could be nasty in fights. Snotty and judgmental. He could make her want to curl up in her bed and scream into her pillow. In fact, there was a freshly fluffed pillow at home just waiting to be abused in that way. When Mulder made her feel like she wanted to lose control that was one of the ways she allowed herself to vent off a little steam.

"It's good to lose control."

Ed Jerse's words haunted her. She didn't normally let herself lose control; and just when she had been about to, it went and bit her in the ass. Lying in the hospital she had continuously chided herself—that'll teach you, Dana. But now that she was back in front of her selfish, domineering, arrogant partner, she wished she did have the courage to lose control a little more often. Maybe right now. Maybe she could just scream at him until she turned blue in the face. Maybe then she would feel better. Because whatever she had tried to accomplish in that vein during her trip to Philly had failed miserably.

She could hear him swallowing. It was either that quiet in their office or the action was a big fucking effort on his part, because it sounded like he was two inches away from her swallowing chunks of cement. He seemed too damn close. If she could climb out of the basement well window, she just might have. But she would sit at her little table. Her little table in his office. Her little table where she did all the paperwork, while he played secret agent over at his desk with ridiculous leads and covert contacts. She made a mental note to start collecting her own covert contacts about which he would know nothing.

He had no right. No right to make those damn loud swallowing noises. Swallowing might be a biological necessity, but she was certain that he was doing it in order to get her to look up at him. He probably wanted reassurance. Mulder always wanted her assurance. Yes, I've acted like an ass, but now I'd like you to say it's alright…not with words, mind you. No, she knew that she and Mulder said very little verbally about the important things. Those things all hung in the air unsaid. Trust it to be—why don't I have a desk—to be the thing she finally voiced. Weren't there a million other more important things that she could have said to him? Of course, to her the desk said it all. But she knew Mulder wouldn't grasp that. Her profiling partner seemed hopelessly dense about what she wanted or needed. He was too caught up in his own shit…his own angst…to see what was right in front of him.

She didn't want to cut out early. She didn't want him to see any chink in her armor, and cutting out would seem to betray a weakness. It would show him that his actions had gotten the best of her. But they had. She almost managed to make it to the end of the day without accomplishing anything, when she felt as if she needed to get home immediately. She hadn't eaten anything and she was beginning to get the shakes. Trust Mulder to think that her low glucose levels were about him too.

"Fuck." Mulder said it loud enough so that he was reasonably certain that she heard him as her ever more distant heels echoed down the hallway. He shoved the files on his desk away from himself. "Fuck," he repeated more loudly. He could really make a shit situation worse. It was no wonder she was running away from him as fast as she could. He was fairly confident that one day it would be for good. And then he'd…well, he wasn't sure what he would do. Probably go completely bat shit crazy.

Mulder stood and walked to the file cabinet to retrieve the new x-file on Scully. He pulled it out and tossed it over onto his desk. His insides began to twist and he faintly liked the sensation. "Egotistical masochistic bastard," he whispered to himself as he flipped the file open. Because, as much as he tried to believe Scully that this wasn't about him, he felt certain that it was. He no longer viewed the world in terms of his life and Dana Scully's life. He believed them to be one in the same. Sick, no? Sick to think that your beautiful, intelligent, and sane partner has nothing better to do than to be your other half.

Because apparently she did. Apparently she had a life. Apparently it included Ed Jerse. Well, at least it had for a moment, which was more than he could ever hope for. Maybe it included all sorts of people he didn't know about. The thought made his insides twist again and he glanced over at the waste bin: 'it'd be poetic, if I actually got sick, rather than just being a sick fuck.' She had a life and it did not include him. He was just the annoying guy at work, who didn't understand her professional needs. Her needs apparently included a desk. That's how blind he was. He hadn't noticed that she wanted a goddamn desk.

Somewhere in the past few years he had gone from—intrigued by Dana Scully—to full on infatuated with Dana Scully. He drew an imaginary line under Ed Jerse's name with his fingertip. This bastard had probably found her attractive and had been instantly infatuated with her. So, maybe infatuation wasn't the right word. Except, Mulder didn't have a very wide vocabulary for human interaction. His experiences with the opposite sex had either been brief or semi-disastrous. And over the past few years he had become more familiar with cinematic flesh than the real variety. All he knew was the feeling that had stolen over him when he'd lost her. When she had been taken from him. He had felt vacant before, but those empty months had been a new depth for him. Whatever produced that feeling was what he felt for Scully. His Scully. Except maybe not.

He hadn't been with a woman since…since 1994. Over two years. That's not a dry spell, that's monastic. And the last time the circumstances had been…not the best: Scully was gone and he was to blame. He'd lost his tether. He'd needed something to ground himself to this earth. Something real. Except it hadn't been. And then nothing since. It hadn't been a conscious decision: stop sex, period. No, but there hadn't seemed to be a point.

Now he wondered what he'd thought he was saving himself for. Scully apparently had a life. Scully apparently could be a free spirit outside of the Hoover Building. He was the nut job who was in a fake fucking relationship with no one but himself. He wasn't so far gone as to think they were involved in a romantic relationship. No, Dana Scully did not and would never want his demented self for those kinds of purposes. But he'd come to delude himself into thinking that they were on the same page about the work. The work was everything. And their partnership was everything. The partnership confirmed the work and the work confirmed the partnership. Or some shit like that. He didn't need anything but her partnership and the work. Obviously they weren't on the same page.

He thought she was similarly monastic. Now he wasn't so sure. But he wasn't sure he could handle the truth. Had he put his arms around her? Mulder squeezed his eyes closed tight, trying to block out the visual that danced in front of him. Had he kissed her? Mulder flipped the file closed. Maybe he wasn't as big of a masochist as he thought: right now he wanted to burn the damn thing just so it would cease to exist. Had he…? Mulder stood up and stuffed the file roughly back in its proper location in the filing cabinet. 'Don't go there,' he thought to himself.

He'd wanted to hurt her. "Congratulations for making a personal appearance in the x-files for the second time." 'The first time nearly killed me. At the moment I wish it had.' "It's a world record." 'Do you get it, Scully? You will never be normal. No matter how many men you seduce on off hours. You're a goddamn x-file.' "Traces of ergot were found in his bloodstream as in yours, but not to the degree that should cause hallucinogenic ergotism." 'So, you fucked a homicidal maniac. Didn't you. Did you? Forget it, I don't want to know.' "Case closed on Boris Badenov, which is really a shame because I was thinking of having an "N.Y." tattooed on my ass to commemorate the Yankees' World Series victory." 'Your little trials are nothing but a joke to me. A big fucking joke that feels like a knife in my back.'

Yeah, he'd wanted to hurt her and he did a damn fine job of it from the look on her face. But she could give what she got.

"Not everything is about you, Mulder. This is my life."

'Congratulations. Message received. This partnership ends when you walk out the door for the evening. I'm the sucker who's left alone on the couch.'

He wished he had put a smile on her face instead.

Tears began to roll down Dana's cheeks, but she faced into the stream of the shower, trying to convince herself that they were nothing more than hot water. She hated the sight of the damn thing. How much would it cost to have it removed? It didn't matter: she had to have it removed, because she knew it would make her sick every time she looked at it. Why couldn't she just embrace the spontaneity of it? Why couldn't she revel in her ability to lose control if only for a moment? Because he'd been a homicidal maniac. And it was ugly.

Why did he make her feel this way? Like a tramp. He had no right to make inquiries into her personal life. He had no right to judge her. She was doing enough of that as it was. She was not his goddamn little sister—not some sorry replacement for Samantha, whom he got to keep locked up like a little school girl. She could be with whomever she wanted whenever she wanted. Except, when it came down to it, she hadn't been able to. She hadn't slept with Ed Jerse, and she had to admit that it was a good thing she hadn't. She felt dirty enough as it was. She had to congratulate herself on her rotten judgment. You don't sleep with anyone for years and then you almost jump in the sack with an ergot poisoned stranger. 'I am an x-file.'

She wanted to tell him the truth, if only to get him to stop judging her. But she also wanted to tell him a lie. 'It was the best sex I've ever had. I don't regret a minute of it. I'd do it again, if I could.' She'd like to watch his face contort over that. She rolled her eyes at herself—'why do you worry about what he thinks, anyway.' She shut off the water and leaned out of the shower, reaching for the fluffy white towel. She caught sight of it again in the steamy mirror as she was toweling off and sighed. Yes, she was definitely going to have to get the thing removed. Thank God for laser technology. Science to save the day.

As she stepped out of the bathroom into the cool of her apartment the phone rang in the living room. She stood still, mindlessly running her hands through her wet hair, detangling it. 'Let the machine get it,' she thought after the third ring. She finally heard the click of her machine picking up.

"Scully, it's me."

She took half a step forward and then stopped.

"Scully, could you pick up?"

'She's probably out. Apparently she does that. You're an idiot.' "Okay, I guess you're not home, but…"

"Mulder?"

"You're home."

"Yes. I was in the shower."

Mulder clenched his jaw, preventing himself forcibly from making an innuendo.

"Mulder?"

"Yeah?"

"Mulder, you called me."

"Right. I wanted to check on you." Mulder scrubbed his face. He couldn't make himself say he was sorry.

"Check on me, hmm? Well, I'm fine."

"I mean…well, I'm glad you're doing better. I am."

"Okay."

She sounded somewhat annoyed with him. He had to rescue this conversation, if it was going to be worth the dime.

"Mulder, have you been drinking?"

He must have sounded as bad as he felt if she'd already jumped to that conclusion. Or maybe he just wasn't making sense.

"Does whiskey count?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure it does. Maybe you should get some sleep."

He was going to start keeping tabs on how many times she instructed him to get some sleep—if it was only that easy, he would do it more often.

"Wait, this isn't just a drunken crank call. I'm trying to tell you something."

Scully was silent on the other end. Apparently she wasn't going to make this any easier on him.

"I just wanted to tell you that I want you to be careful…when you're out, you know, living your life. Be careful, because I don't like it when things happen to you."

She half-smiled in spite of herself. Mulder didn't like it when life happened to her. He wanted to keep her bottled up on his desk, where he could observe her and keep her safe.

"I think I was out of practice," she said in a softened tone.

"Hmm?"

"You know, I've always got my partner watching my back. That's why they team us up, you know."

"You and me?" He sounded sort of pathetically hopeful.

"In the FBI—that's why they team us agents up."

"Right." Yes, a little pathetic and a little disappointed in her clarification.

Damn it all. "You know, Mulder. Nothing happened. Nothing but a little ergot poisoning."

Mulder snorted. "That's something you don't hear every day."

"Thankfully."

"Scully?"

"Yeah?"

"I think I am drunk."

"Yeah, I think you are. Why don't you go to sleep, Mulder? I'll see you at the office."

Mulder hung up the phone. Was she really trying to tell him something about what had happened…or hadn't happened…between her and Ed Jerse? Ed Jerse—he wanted to scrub the name from his memory bank. Maybe the whiskey would accomplish that for him. He pushed the bottle away from him, sloshing some of its contents onto the floor. He really should have apologized. He should have said more.