Note: This story originally appeared in June 1998 on the alt.tv.x-files.creative newsgroup and X-Files Fanfic Mailing list. Due to reader demand, a sequel seems likely. :) *** Among the Ashes *** AUTHOR'S BABBLE: Hi, all. Yep, I'm back with yet another Post- ep. Not much to say to explain this one, except that I *meant* to post it BEFORE the movie came out, but my news server died.:-p Anyhow, just so you know it was written without any knowledge of the movie. Also, I feel I should mention how VERY MUCH I love feedback...:) DISCLAIMER JAZZ: "The X-Files" and its characters are the creations and property of the fabled Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen Productions and Fox Broadcasting. I am, of course, using them without permission. No copyright infringement is intended. All other concepts or ideas herein are mine. SUMMARY: What might have happened the morning after "The End". TITLE: Among the Ashes AUTHOR: Elizabeth Rowandale RATING: (PG) CLASSIFICATIONS: (SA) KEYWORDS: UST, "The End" Post-ep SPOILERS: "The End", Tiny ones for "Redux I&II" ARCHIVE: Yes, Please, Everywhere!:) Just tell me, please, for anywhere but Gossamer. As always, this is for my husband, Peter. AMONG THE ASHES by Elizabeth Rowandale Copyright (c) 1998 She didn't know why she had come. To this place of blackness and destruction. This place of ashes and singed dreams. She and Mulder had arranged to meet later this morning, to sift through the rubble, save the few remaining scraps of a lifetime of effort. But she had lain awake most of the night, staring at the unfeeling digital clock as it glowed like eyes in the blackness, wondering, no, *knowing* Mulder was awake, too. Lying on his couch, staring like a zombie at the flashing television screen, seeking painless oblivion. She hadn't wanted to let him go last night, let him retreat into the darkness of his cave, wallow in his desolation. But she had been so tired...and there had been nothing more to say. She had left him at his apartment door, with a meaningful closing of her eyes, a silent moment leaning her forehead against his bony shoulder. Then silence, and a lethargic walk to the elevator. The sound of his deadbolt slipping into place behind her. Too much finality in that sound. At 6 a.m. she had forsaken the warmth of her bed for the harsh jolt of a hot shower. Now, she stood in what she could hardly recognize as the office that had served as her second home for the past five years. She had needed to come here alone. To sort through her own feelings when Mulder's weren't thrown into the jumble. To understand exactly what she had lost. The overhead lights cast eerie shadows across and around her, hiding in blackened crevices, sharpening the jagged edges of cold destruction. Outside was a sunny spring morning. In here, it was still winter, still the dead of night. The stench was nauseating. It had touched her even from the top of the stairs, pulling her into the dust below. The smoke would never leave those few papers that had survived the blaze. She stepped cautiously, picking her way through the rubble, grateful for any sign of bare floor. She couldn't bear the feel of crunching paper beneath her own shoes. Last night had been a blur. This morning brought cruel clarity. All she could see in the shadows around her, was the ghost of herself, stepping into this mysterious basement hideaway for the first time--so long ago--shaking the hand of the infamous Spooky Mulder, starting a new life. Finding something she believed in. Somewhere she was needed. Somewhere she belonged. She reached out and gently tugged on a blackened file drawer. The gliders creaked in protest, warped and distorted by the heat. She moved her fingers gently over the few files within. What files? She closed her eyes. The remnants of the smoke stung her eyes. Image of Mulder standing beside this very cabinet, gold rimmed glasses slipping down his nose, thoughts buried in the words before him. With a jolt that startled even her with its intensity, Dana Scully was smacked in the face with the full scope of what she had lost. Five years of pulling Mulder along, tempering his desperate dedication to his quest, steering him toward the truth. Fighting time to save his soul before his sanity lost the war. And now...seeing her beloved child's most precious doll smashed to bits beneath a merciless steam roller. And worst of all...the prospect of reassignment. Of The End. Of never again entering the office to Mulder's boyish enthusiasm and impish grin--and plane tickets to God knows where, to search for the Gila Monster. And maybe even save a life along the way. Her tears started before she came conscious of them. She couldn't remember the last time she had felt a desperate emptiness like this--yes she could <*My Emily...*>, but she couldn't let those thoughts surface. Not now. In her isolation and silence, she let herself cry. <*Just this once, just for a moment...*> She sat back against the edge of the desk and the room waved and swam through her hot tears. She sniffed sharply, gulped back a sob, then surrendered and let it go, lifting a trembling hand to her face. <*Oh, Mulder. I can't bear to watch you face this loss.*> <*Missy...I tried to make it mean something...I did try...*> <*Emily...My Littlest Angel...*> * * * * * He had told Scully he would meet her at ten o'clock. She had looked so tired, he knew she needed to sleep. And he had let her think that he would sleep in, too. But he'd known, even as he spoke the words, that he would be awake before dawn, at the office by eight. What was left of it... He took the back hallway to the stairs, unwilling to endure the jeers and pitying smiles and silent stares of his fellow agents. He descended the stairs slowly, quietly, as if he felt he no longer belonged in this place, that he was trespassing on the route to his own office. Which was probably why she didn't hear him right away, didn't sense his approach. As he paused on the second to last step, startled by the light spilling into the hallway, he caught his first sight of her through the partially open door. <*Scully...*> She was so beautiful, even in the clinical, unforgiving light. A picture of vibrance and grace, draped across the lifeless chaos. Her new cream suit he liked so well, <*Why hadn't he ever told her?*> that clung to her curves like velvet. Her smooth red hair in soft, cool waves about her pale face. But she was crying. Not just biting her lip, or blinking back a shimmering glaze of tears as he had seen once too often these days. But really crying. Something he had seen from her only twice, two moments burned in his memory with the blaze of other fires. Only this sight--this single vision in all the world could pull him from his sea of self-pity and bitter anger, to pure and generous concern for another person. For her. <*Scully...What is it? What are you doing here? What hit you? What made you cry? Is my quest so much yours now? Who are your tears for?*> <*Do You Want Me Here?*> <*Should I go back up the stairs, descend again more loudly? Like the time I caught you stretching your neck and rubbing your temples, nursing that blinding headache you would barely admit to once I entered the room.*> <*Why don't we touch each other more often, Scully? Why don't I let you rub my shoulders when I'm tired? I know you would do it without question if I asked. Why don't you ask me to rub yours?*> Things were different these days. Things were changing. Some things needed to change. Some things. He took the last step down and walked toward the office. Carefully, timidly, pushing at the door..., "Scully?" She jumped too hard. He had tried to be gentle, but known in the end he would frighten her. "Mulder..." Deep breaths, a flash of color across her cheeks. He took a step forward, spoke ever so softly. "Scully..." A vocal caress. She looked at him for a moment--and almost snapped in her composure, almost brushed it off, shut him out--then she relinquished, closed her eyes and sank against the desk. She knew what he'd seen, *was seeing*. Even she saw the futility of the lie. Her gaze shied from his. She had closed off her tears for the moment, but they still hovered, threatened, a pin's drop away. Suddenly, he was terrified of being the pin. Stepping carefully across the cluttered floor, he moved up beside her. Her lavender perfume tempered the permeating stench. The world was a softer place, here in her aura. More home to him than anywhere he knew. "Hi," she said, her breath trembling. He couldn't stop looking at her. This woman he saw every day. The way her blue eyes could be so pale they were almost translucent, yet masque a world behind them. He was giving her all his attentions, all his years of psychological study, all his analytical skills...all his concern. She could feel him probing. He could see it in her posture. She knew his every move. Always. In a rush of impulsive confidence <*Remembering her time in the hospital when she had let him touch her, kiss her, caress her--and never flinched, never tensed, never pulled away. Was he horrible to miss that?*>, he reached out and smoothed her hair behind her ear. Beneath his fingers the silky strands still held a trace of dampness from her morning shower. Somehow this simple fact made him want to cry. "What are you thinking?" he said softly, seeing his own breath ruffle her hair. <*Please talk to me, Scully. Please don't leave me with a glimpse of such deep pain and nothing to help me understand. Please.*> She lifted her gaze to the deformed file cabinets with an expression of such profound and distant sadness it took all he had not to touch her. <*But the pin...*> "You've lost so much...," she said. "So many years of work, thought, time...So much given to a cause. Everything we've ever documented or correlated or proven..." Her voice caught. Barely audible. She smoothed over the glitch with a shaky breath through her moist lips. "You've lost it, too. It's *our* work, Scully. Not just mine. It's your work." For a long time she didn't respond, didn't move. His heart thumped in his chest, and the seconds felt like hours. Scully could do that--pause time while she considered what to say. She never lifted her gaze when she spoke. "You've never said that before." He frowned, a prescientient knot twisting at the center of his stomach. "Said what?" "*My* work. In the end it's always been yours. Even to Skinner. And you let him believe that." Mulder nodded. He was accustomed to her directness. What others could see as coldness, he knew to be merely unfettered honesty. He folded his long arms across his chest. "I know, I *do* do that. I suppose it's always been my half-assed attempt at protecting you." She looked up at him. Startled. Eyebrow raised. "Protecting me? From what?" He shrugged. "Anything. Everything. The danger and ridicule that these investigations bring. *This*," he said, motioning at the destruction surrounding them. "I guess I thought as long as I never let you fully take an equal part in the work, especially in the eyes of others in the Bureau, you'd never take the full brunt of the downside. You'd always have that narrow margin for life after the basement, a way up into the light. And from a somewhat selfish side, I wanted the freedom to sacrifice all for my obsessive quest for the truth. I didn't want to have to be responsible for your stake in the game, to have to speak for your life and safety as well when I make the choices I make. But you're right, Scully. This is your work now, ready or not, and it should be acknowledged as such. I'm sorry. You've lost more to our cause now than I ever have. And maybe that's something else that's hard for me to admit. My part in that." Scully held his gaze a long time in silence, her cool blue eyes tickling his soul. Then to his surprise, her lips trembled softly and her eyebrow tensed just so much. "I'm gonna miss you, Mulder," she whispered. She tightened her jaw, fought to hold onto her tears. Her gaze faltered. And all he could see was the layers and layers of hurt and loss buried beneath her near impenetrable armor. <*Do you cry at night, Scully? Do you wake up desolate from dreams of your lost little girl? Does your sister speak to you? Are you as alone in all of this as I am?*> He smiled kindly. "Hey...I'm not going anywhere." But his words seemed not to reach her. <*My God, Scully, don't make me think of not seeing your face every day...being without your smile for weeks, months at a time. I need you in all of this. Please, Scully...Not now...Not yet...*> "We did okay the last time the X-Files were shut down. You went on with your work at Quantico. We kept in touch." She kept her gaze on the floor. Her cheek line was so smooth. So soft to touch. He slipped his hand in his pocket to keep it in place. "That was a long time ago, Mulder. Very long time..." <*Since then she'd lost her innocence, her sense of safety, her sister, her ability to conceive, her child.*> Scully sniffed sharply, straightened her blazer--and he could see Dana slipping away, literally *see* it, and Agent Scully moving in beside him. He hadn't the power, the knowledge, to try to stop it, though he would have killed for one more moment with Dana. "How's Diana?" Scully asked with a glance his direction. He shrugged. "Same. Not good." She sighed softly. "I'm sorry." He nodded. And if he let this moment get away, if he went on speaking one agent to another, the moment would vanish from their reality, become as if it had never existed. Too many things had been lost, denied, hidden by forces beyond his control. Some things shouldn't be forgotten. He reached out to her. He cupped his hand ever so gently to Scully's cheek. Her skin was even softer than he had remembered. Still damp from her tears. Her jaw was too tight. He had intended to speak, but the question in his eyes seemed to be enough for her. She cringed, leaned into his hand anyway. He felt a pang of guilt, knowing that if he hadn't touched her she wouldn't be fighting tears again, knowing she had been counting on him to respect her distance as he always had. But he simply couldn't, not this time. "I'm sorry..." he said softly, never expecting the words. But he *was* sorry. And for more than the neglect of professional acknowledgement. He had known on some instinctive level all week that Scully had needed him, that she had been soft, vulnerable. Hiding her thoughts more than was her custom. But he had been too buried in struggles against the powers that be, in cat-and-mouse games and memories and nervousness with Diana, too busy to take the time to know *why* she needed him. With Scully it was never easy, never a brief exchange or a moment aside to touch base. It was hours or days of watching her breathe, listening to the words she chose, feeling the tenderness or distance in her touch, hearing her sigh. So all he knew this time was that she had needed him, and he had failed to be there. He closed his eyes. "God, Scully, why would they do this? What possible purpose could be served by taking this away from us? They've blocked us at every turn already. What in those files could do any harm?" Scully shook her head. "I don't know," she whispered. And when she spoke she was trying so hard not to cry, he could hardly breathe. A soft breath. A finger against her quivering lips. A barely audible sound that touched his soul. Such quiet dignity in this woman. Such beautiful tragedy. He slipped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her toward him, knowing that maybe it wasn't his comment about the files...maybe it was his belated apology that had made her cry. But unable to face the fact aloud. "Come here," he said softly. She resisted him for a moment, because she was Scully. But he wouldn't let go of her, because she was Scully. And she gradually leaned her weight against him. She wouldn't cry. Not this time. Not in his arms. But she would close her eyes, and she would let him hold her. If only for a few brief moments he would burn into his memory to temper the darker sides of his dreams. <*What to say?*> For now it just felt good to have his arms solidly around her. He had needed this, perhaps more than she. The last thing he had wanted last night had been to shut her out. She was all he had left. He had been incapable of outwardly responding to her offers of comfort, but her touch in that moment had kept him alive. He needed her to know. He told himself she knew. Scully pulled away. She leaned back to look at him. Pulled her body back an inch. Kept her fingers against his suitcoat. She met his gaze with such firmness, such strength and resolve, he felt tired. And wordlessly thankful. Her skin was alabaster-pale. She was watching him, studying him, with those blue eyes he saw each time he looked at the sky. "We weren't wrong to do what we've done," she said softly, resolve of steel. If he had said it to her, the statement would have harbored a question. Hers stood alone. He nodded slowly. "I have to believe that. But the only way I can, is when I know that you do." She regarded him in silence. And he would have taken a year from his life to hear her thoughts. Something Gibson Praise did every day. *"Did you love her?"* Her voice was so soft, so unexpected, he could hardly believe she had spoken. Her words took a heartbeat to take shape in his mind. Blood rushed his ears, drowning out all sound. Reality slipped away. "What?...Diana?" This woman before him had never been so beautiful. A sharp rap on the door. Someone pushing it open. Without a breath Scully was lost from his arms. The acrid stench surrounded him without her scent for protection. Agent Scully, standing a few feet ahead of him. Director Skinner behind. "Agents Mulder, Scully." The large man nodded to each of them, his customary bland expression, hand resting on the metal doorknob. "Sir," Scully said, her voice natural, solid. Mulder could hardly tear his eyes away from her to face his superior. He gave a cursory glance in Skinner's direction. "Sir?" "I'm glad I caught you," Skinner said. <*She's standing behind me. Her soft red hair, draped across the edge of her forehead.*> "I hope you have a moment. There's someone upstairs I need you to speak with. He's on a tight schedule, so if you wouldn't mind coming with me now..." Scully nodded, "Yes, sir, of course." Mulder was looking at her, and she was avoiding his gaze, pulling away. Inch by inch. Word by word. But the incomplete exchange hung in the office air, thicker than the lingering smoke. <*Why did you ask me that?*> "Agent Mulder?" Skinner. A delay in response. But he didn't know a moment had passed. "Yes, sir. I--Yes, sir, Agent Scully and I are available." <*Scully...*> The briefest pause from Skinner. *Did he sense something? He could never know...* He nodded. Short, business like. Just as his knock had been. "Good. Let's go." Scully's heels clicked on the tile floor. She passed through the doorway ahead of Mulder, like a wave of pastel flowers. He touched her back as she moved past him, but then she was a step ahead, out of touch. He fell into step behind her, not feeling the floor beneath his feet, not remembering why they were going this way. She looked back at him for a moment, the vaguest of glances over her shoulder on the shadowy stairwell, then back to Skinner. ************* Well? Feedback?? Please??:) Anyone interested in a sequel? If so, please let me know... bstrbabs@yahoo.com ---------- M: "What is that look Scully?" S: "I would have thought that after four years you'd know exactly what that look was." --The X-Files, "Elegy"