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Title: Land Summary: A peek at the psyche's of both characters at the series' end. Some exorcising of demons, if you will, that Chris Carter just sort of swept under the rug. Author's notes: Don't look for story in this, just internal stuff and conversation. It may seem to end a little abruptly, but I really didn't want to go any further with it. The end of The Truth was beautiful, but neglectful in some ways, I felt. All that this story ever wanted to do was bring up issues that had been disregarded, not
"seems as if we're circling
Scully awoke with a chill. She was in her clothes from the day before, lying in a fetal position on top of the still-made motel bed. Alone. Slowly, she lifted her head off the mattress to look around the small room. Mulder was nowhere. The bathroom door was shut with a square of light leaking around its edges. Her head fell back to the bed as she rolled slowly to her other side, staring lazily at the faint glow.
Heavy eyelids move upward with great effort and then soft closed ones enter my vision. My hand is still tangled up in her hair, my leg still thrown over hers. This is what I've been missing. Beautiful. A sudden flash of searing pain in the roof of my mouth. An image of a small drill tearing into the smooth flesh of her forehead. I'm a guilty man. Thoughts all tangled. William. Most of me wants to put her in a time capsule with sweet-smelling things and music and everything man ever knew and didn't regret. A very small part of me wants to hit her hard enough that it stings for weeks, the red of my print on her flesh reminding her of her weakness each time she looks in the mirror. I should be the one to protect him. I protected Gibson for all that time. I'm his father. I'm his fucking father. It's been so long I'm not even sure if I remember what it's like to hold him or if I just imagine it to myself every so often. If only he was just a figment of my imagination. Figments don't die when the world ends and they're only eleven years old. At least Samantha made it to 14. Jumbled. I slowly extricate myself from Scully as my stomach tightens with now-familiar fear and something behind my eyes softens to harbor the grief that comes with it. I need to take a deep breath. Again. Again. Dizziness as the world crashes down around me. Anxiety tears at my chest and silent streams travel down my face. Everything's spinning and yet still. The stillness, the normalcy of the reality around me only exacerbates it all -- reality isn't real. It has a set date of expiration. The real reality is everything I've believed for so long but never really *believed*. Not like you believe the bed you're sitting on; or the florescent lights that come on with one little flicker, blinding you momentarily and turning every little crevice of your face into a canyon; or the water that your hands, acting on their own and without conscious thought, splash onto that face in hopes of distracting you from the thought that the water itself isn't really *real*. And it does distract a little. I sit on the closed toilet with the intent of collecting myself. Which apparently begins with sobs and a raw throat. I fight to make myself quiet; Scully sleeps light. Another image of an alien drill -- this one peeling into the softness of her belly. Another wracking, whispered sob. There is a stone pounding at my eyes from the inside of my skull and all I want to do is push it through my tear ducts. I slide off the porcelain and onto linoleum. The smell of clean toilet near my face makes me nauseous but I can't even make myself dry heave. My face slowly dries and forms a salty crust. Muscles relax out of exhaustion. The silent acceptance of a mental patient injected with sedatives against his will. I don't know how long I just sit and stare at the glass shower stall. "Mulder?" Mild concern. She didn't hear me crying. I'm convincing. "I'm okay." I hear the bed creak softly.
I end up watching CNN with the captions on while I wait for him to come out of the bathroom. I have to sit on the end of the bed to read the TV without my glasses, but I don't want to break the silence of the morning just yet. A slight economic downturn and a plane crash in Wyoming seem hardly significant after the last few days' revelations. Wyoming. William could have been on that plane. What am I saying? He could be on any plane. For all I know, he died of a fever a month ago. Don't think like that. I unzip my suitcase and dig out a bathrobe. Mulder finally walks into the room just as I'm tying it around myself. He looks tired. "How long have you been up?" He couldn't have slept much in prison. He must be exhausted. He runs a sloppy hand through disheveled hair and sits at the foot of the bed. "'Bout an hour or so." "Are you having problems sleeping?" He doesn't answer, just stares off. I run my own hand through his hair. "I was about to take a shower. You want to join me?" Slowly, he raises his head to look up into my eyes and gives a small smile. And then... sadness. Our eyes are locked but without real connection -- each pair studying the other, not sinking in. "I'll be in, in a minute," he finally says, offering up another attempt at a smile. Feeling a little awkward, I lean down and kiss the top of his head, meaning it to be a passing gesture. His arms go around my waist and he clings to me like a small child to his mother. I can suddenly feel him choking sobs into my stomach. "Shhh," I whisper, confused by the sudden outburst. My hands find the back of his head and try to be comforting. "Mulder?" He continues to cry into my bathrobe. I finally pull away and crouch down to look him in the eye. He avoids eye contact until I grab his face and force him to look at me. "Mulder, what's wrong?" My voice is more urgent than compassionate. His eyes catch mine and the tears stop for a moment. He looks away rapidly. "Get away from me." The words are softly spoken. I can't read the emotion in them. My hands fall from his face. "Mulder?" He starts to cry again. "I mean it." I stand, not knowing what else to do. "Go take your shower. I'll be in, in a minute." I go into the bathroom wordlessly and know he won't follow.
When Scully emerged from the bathroom, still wearing her bathrobe, now with wet hair, Mulder had calmed down and was sitting up against the headboard of the bed, watching basketball on TV. She looked shaken, her eyes the faint pink hue that accompanies crying, though she seemed to have taken measures to fix her appearance before opening the bathroom door. She sat slowly on the foot of the opposite side of the bed, staying out of his line of sight. "How was your shower?" he asked, completely monotone. She paused for several moments. "Are you angry with me?" she asked. "About William?" There was a long silence. Scully stayed facing forward, staring at the damn basketball game. "Sometimes..." she began, choking on the tears she was holding back, forced to start her sentence over. "Sometimes I just wonder if I was too selfish to want him in the first place." Mulder wasn't sure what he felt or what to say to that. "What do you mean?" "I mean..." She closed her eyes for a moment to compose herself. "After Emily, I just wanted a child so badly. I never stopped to think of the reason they wouldn't let me adopt her in the first place." Some eight-foot-tall twenty-something slam-dunked the ball and a huge cheer came from the TV screen. "What kind of person would choose to bring a child into this life?" "The kind of person who knew she could protect that child," Mulder said without thinking. Scully smirked and finally turned to face him. "That's just it, Mulder. I couldn't protect him. I couldn't protect Emily, I couldn't protect William..." Mulder stared at the TV and clenched his jaw. "*I* could have protected him." Scully didn't respond for some time, then suddenly stood and turned to face him. "Mulder, how many people have you and I lost?" He stared at the television, his jaw still tightened. "My sister, your father -- how many people have neither one of us been able to 'protect'?" He clenched a fist. His voice was quiet, but venemous. "I was protecting Gibson." She barely let him finish. "Oh gee, one life spared and that makes you fit to be a parent?" She quickly took a step towards the TV and pressed the power button angrily. "The odds are five to one, so at least there's a *chance* the baby could make it out alive?" He stared her coldly in the face. "Make it out of *what* alive, Scully? Infancy? Pre-pubescence? Sorry to tell you he'll barely hit the second one no matter what you and I do." Neither one of them had actually voiced it before. Scully felt like she'd had the wind knocked out of her. Mulder took a deep breath and stared at the door. Scully sat back down. She looked down at her hands, and after some time, asked quietly, "You really think that's true?" He bit the inside of his cheek. "Invasion starts in 2012. He'll be eleven then." There was a long silence. "Scully," Mulder began, his voice calm now, a little more caring. She turned to look at him and he looked right back. "Whether or not he was meant to be, whether or not it was selfish of us to bring him into this world, he is alive, and he's ours," he leaned forward and touched her hand, which was lying on the bedspread behind her. "Ours." Her face twisted slightly as more tears fought their way to her eyes. Mulder scooted forward and put a hand to her back, drawing light circles. "Our child. Not someone else's. I understand why you did what you did, but don't you want him back? Don't you think we should be the ones to raise him for as long as we can?" Scully turned her face to him and her expression was wounded but strong. "No, Mulder. I don't." She swallowed and looked back down at her hands. "I care too much about him." Mulder took his hand back and sat still for a moment, obviously set off by her comment but attempting to control himself. He got up off the bed slowly, every motion labored. After he had paced to the door and back once, he let himself erupt. "Damn it, Scully! Are you saying I don't?" He stared daggers at her. "Because I actually want to be his *father*?" She looked up at him calmly. "You are his father. No one can take that away from you. Not even me." His face was full of rage. "Biology means nothing." He looked out the window, trying to still his fury. "Do you think that cigarette-smoking sack of shit out there" -- he pointed toward the door for emphasis -- "is my father?" He stared down at her, waiting until she let her eyes meet his. "My father died years ago, Scully. My father is the man who raised me. My father is not that sick fuck whose DNA I happen to share." Scully looked him square in the face, not the least shaken by this argument. "And what would have happened if he had raised you, Mulder? Would you have turned out for the better, simply because of that DNA you share? I highly doubt you believe that. So if biology means nothing, what gives you the right to raise our son when that very DNA would do nothing but endanger him?" Mulder was at the very edge now, trying to contain himself from throwing things. "Because he's *our son*! You just said it yourself! I'm not arguing fucking logic, Scully -- don't you have feelings?" At this Scully stood up, crossed her arms, and walked towards the bathroom. She was trying to find an adequate response but anger and frustration clouded her mind. She stopped with her back to him and spoke in low, measured tones. "Who the hell are you to talk, Mulder? You have absolutely no idea what I have been through. You have absolutely no idea what it feels like when your child is taken from you." She turned back to face him, her arms still crossed. "You don't know what it feels like to have to realize that you, his parent, his protector, cannot provide any sort of safety for this vulnerable little person. I stand firmly behind my decision. And you know what? It really was and is my decision. Because you weren't there." "I couldn't help that-" "And neither could I." She looked him over for a moment. "And I would never have chosen to have to make that decision on my own. But that's the way it was. And without experiencing everything that I have experienced over the past 2 years, I don't feel you have the right to judge me or my choices." Mulder chewed on his lip for a moment. "And what about everything I've been through, Scully? What about the fact that the thought of seeing him and you has been the only thing driving me for the past nine months? Understand that it's hard, when you're only living for two things and just when you think you have them back, you're told one of them will never be yours again." "I never said it wasn't hard. I just said it was what had to be done." He took a few controlled breaths. "I think I need to take a walk." She stared at him blankly. "Take as much time as you need. I'll be here." With that, she went into the bathroom and closed the door. He couldn't hear what she was doing inside. ~finis~
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