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. RATING: NC-17 SPOILERS: Through US season 7 ARCHIVE: ONLY ON THE AUTHOR'S OWN WEBSITE (http://rowan_d.tripod.com/elizabethr.html) UNTIL STORY IS COMPLETED. This way I can mess with the early parts as later parts develop... WATER'S EDGE by Elizabeth Rowandale (aka Elizabeth Boyd-Tran) Copyright (c) 2001 CHAPTER 8a "It's colder than it looks outside." --Bare Naked Ladies, "Pinch Me" *I said something to you once upon a cold January. 'This isn't about you, Mulder. Or maybe it is indirectly, I don't know.' At the time I didn't fully understand the truth of that statement. Everything is about you, Mulder. Directly or indirectly. I don't know the exact day that became the truth. But I suspect it was shockingly close to the day we met.* "Where do you want to go?" She wasn't sure when they had started holding hands. Part of her was afraid of the significance of that step. But a bigger part of her couldn't face the cold that would set in if she let go. The question was loaded. They were walking the length of the busy street, blending with the crowds of upper crust diners at the restaurants and cafe's they passed, heading for the parking lot where they had left Daniel's Infiniti. The question was really--"your place or mine?" Or anyone's place at all? She wasn't ready for a definitive answer. She was in a dangerous place at the moment, still a little emotionally raw from their intimate conversation over dinner, feeling warmth and comfort in Daniel's presence. She chose safer middle ground. "There's a park across the way, isn't there?" she asked, nodding toward the far corner of the distant intersection. Daniel's gaze followed her direction. "It would seem so. I never really noticed." In silent agreement, they waited for the light to change, walked with the crowd across the main street, then across the side street, and through the brick archway onto the concrete path. Several paces down the path, Scully felt Daniel's eyes on her and she looked up. "I love this dress," he said with a feather touch to the material across her midriff. "Reminds me of one you owned...a long time ago." "Are you saying I'm ten years out of date?" "If you are, I might have a chance of keeping up with you." She frowned. "You're not so old." He closed his eyes and shrugged the subject away. Not far ahead, the path turned to a gently sloping bridge across a narrow stream. The evening breeze was turning cooler, and Scully pulled her coat closer around her body. "Cold?" Daniel let go of her hand and reached his arm around her shoulders. "Just a little," she said, folding her own arms across her chest and nestling comfortably into the curve of Daniel's arm. "This is a nice park," Daniel said, looking around. "I'm surprised I never noticed it, in all the times I've eaten near here." "You can be a bit...focused," Dana said with a dry smile. "Ah, I see. As opposed to you, the picture of relaxation and balance." "Of course." "You, who forgot your own birthday during your senior exams." "You remember that? How embarrassing." "I remember you." Dana closed her eyes, kept walking. They were coming to the bridge, stepping from the concrete onto the hollow wood planking. Scully steered them toward the railing, wanting to linger a while, watch the rippling water below. Daniel followed easily. His hand slid down her side as she settled her forearms on the wide top of the rail. His hand brushed against her thigh. "Are you armed?" Daniel asked, his hand moving back over the solid metal strapped tightly to her lower thigh. Scully lifted an eyebrow, inquisitive, watching his expression in the mixture of street lamps and moonlight. "Is that a problem?" she asked directly. Daniel shrugged. "Just surprises me, I guess. I'm not used to my date packing heat. Do you carry it all the time?" "I'm not required to. But most of the time...I've just learned to be safe over sorry. Over the years, my job has had a tendency to--" she searched for a delicate phrase, "- - to follow me home." Daniel's brow furrowed. "How bad?" Scully smiled, her lids heavy. "What say we cover that one later?" Daniel drew a long breath and turned to look out over the water. After a long silence, he said into the wind, "It doesn't have to be like that anymore, you know." "What?" Scully turned, but Daniel didn't. He kept her watching his profile. "Your life. Last spring, you told me you didn't know what you wanted anymore. I assume you've been working that out since we last spoke." Scully sighed heavily. "Well, trying to, yes. But things have been...distracting." Daniel nodded. "I know. I can see why, now. Your partner, your friend. Obviously he was a major motivation for you to stay with the Bureau. You were a team, you had so much invested..." "Daniel, what are you saying?" "Isn't that part of why you called me now? After all this time?? Losing Mulder. You were tied to him, loyal to him. But you don't have that reason anymore. And you're looking for satisfaction in the work alone, and its not there for you. Not now, anyway. So...you're looking elsewhere." Scully slid her tongue over her lips and pulled a half step away. "So, it still comes with the package? You and medicine? You're not interested in me as I am, only if I want to come back and follow you again?" Daniel cringed, annoyed, almost impatient. "I didn't say that and you know it, don't put words in my mouth." "No, Daniel, I don't know that. I never have. The way you see me has always been wrapped up in your passion for medicine and mine. I have always wondered what else you see in me." He looked shocked. "I see all of you, Dana. I always have. And what I may have missed, I *want* to see. But you have to let me. I have never tried to impose *my* desires on you--" "HA!" She pushed away from the railing and her hand moved onto her hip, her sarcastic smile lingering. "Dana...*you* were the one with the real passion for medicine. For understanding life. For helping people." Scully narrowed her eyes and locked gazes with Daniel for several beats. The wind was much colder now. "I *have* a passion for medicine, Daniel. I *am* a doctor. And I *do* help people. Every day." Daniel's eyes were dark before her stoic challenge. "I don't see the passion in you, Dana. Not like when you were in school." "Yeah, well, I'm older now." "I just want to see you happy. That's all I ever wanted. As did your father. He knew you, Dana. That's why he thought your leaving medicine was a mistake." Dana looked down at her shoes, felt her jaw hardening and the walls rising around her like battlements. She tipped one shoe back onto the heel. "Yeah. Well. Thank you for dinner, Daniel. It's been fun." And without the courtesy of eye contact, Scully brushed past him and started back across the bridge. She heard the footsteps close behind her. "Dana, wait!" She kept walking. "Dana!" His voice was further behind now. "Dana, don't be ridiculous. Where are you going? You don't even have a car." "I'm not 12. I can manage a cab." She was peripherally aware of one or two people glancing her way, wondering who the strange lady was who seemed to be talking to herself, leaving the handsome doctor alone on the pathway. She was too numb to care. Too long a day. Too many emotions. Too much crumbling ground. She needed to lie down and warm up and make the world hold still. As always, it was easier to be angry and cold than it was to talk. *Damn*. Dana stopped dead in her track, no longer aware of how far behind Daniel might or might not be. She was doing it again. Shutting out Daniel at the first and easiest excuse, the way she had invented a hundred reasons over the past month not to meet her mother for lunch. The way she had kept Agent Michaels at arms length through every effort at friendship and comfort. The way she had all but told Mulder to go to hell when she was dying of cancer and he wasn't there at night to hold her. *Damn*. But the anger and exhaustion and frustration were still burning in her veins like a fire. So, when Daniel's hand met with her shoulder, she whirled on him, temper ablaze. "This is what I do Daniel, it is a part of what and who I am." She was struggling to hold her voice down, maintaining a heavily controlled stage whisper. "*This*, Daniel." Scully pulled up the skirt of her dress just enough to give Daniel a good solid flash of her Sig and any lucky passersby a good flash of her thigh. "This is part and parcel of my life, Daniel, whether you like it or not. I am an FBI agent. I help people. With my investigative skills and with my medical knowledge. I keep people from dying and I comfort people who have lost loved ones." "Dana, I'm not doubting that you--" "I'm not finished. Nothing you say can assure me of your support. Nothing. Because I believed in you once, more than anyone in my life, and you blew it. Do you have any idea how that felt?" Daniel had gone quiet now, his hair ruffling in the crosswind, backlit by the moonlight. Scully's breath was shallow, her skin tight from the cold. "I went to my father--the person I loved more than anything, and the person whose opinion I had most respected my entire *life*--I went to him with the biggest decision of my life--And he was *disappointed* in me. And he did NOT support me. And I left there, devastated...and I went to *you*...my friend, my lover, my adult *family*...I went to you for support, for *comfort*--" her voice slipped just a bit, a whisper of vulnerability sliding through the anger, and she saw Daniel flinch, "--and you reacted - Exactly - Like - My Father. You talked down to me. You denied me any measure of the respect I deserved, and had every right to *expect* from you." She paused a moment, drew a trembling breath. She was dizzy. Caught up in a memory and struggling to process where she was now and what any of this meant to her in the moment. In the end all she knew was the pain was far fresher than she had realized. "Nothing you say can make me forget that." Daniel cleared his throat, lowered his gaze. The deep creases across his brow brought a quick flash of regret through her stomach, but she had to hold her ground. These words had waited inside her for eleven years. And nothing could move forward until they were dealt with. Daniel's next words surprised her. "Where did you go...after you left my office that day?" She answered on reflex, her angry tone mismatched with her words. "Into the woods off University Place to throw up." Daniel winced, looked away for a moment. "No, I mean, where were you living? You left your apartment, your phone was disconnected... You dropped my class." "I didn't need it to graduate." "*Dana*..." He met her eyes this time, and the hurt was a mirror of her own. She softened a fraction. "I stayed at Missy's apartment." Daniel just watched her, hands in his coat pockets, waiting for her to go on. Scully couldn't meet his gaze anymore, started talking to his coat tail instead. "I left a trail. You could have reached me if you really needed to." Daniel's sigh was almost inaudible. "I did come back to say goodbye," her words were just a whisper. ***** (End Chapter 8a. Continued in Chapter 8b...) Feedback is the sweetest treat.:) bstrbabs@earthlink.net