Habitual by
Dasha K.
Website: http://dasha.simplenet.com
Rating: MSR, PG-13
Summary: Breaking patterns and setting new ones.
Comments: An amazing story, from an amazing author! Mulder POV, and definitely
well done... I love watching Scully from Mulder's eyes, and I love the discussion
that M&S have. Continuing from what GA wanted to happen (in terms of thinking
about Scully's past) the ep is tricky, but it's pulled off exceptionally well!
Again, I love seeing Scully, hearing more about her past, from Mulder's eyes
and ears, it just seems so appropriate somehow :-)
Habitual by Dasha K.
It's okay to archive this at the Spooky
site. If you'd
like to archive anywhere else, please ask first.
Summary: Breaking patterns and setting
new ones.
Classification: SRA
Keywords: Mulder/Scully romance
Rating: Clean as a whistle, this puppy is PG-13 (Sorry
smut-hounds, but you should read Scullysfan's terrific
"Tuesday Morning" <g>)
Spoilers: Watch out, spoilers for "all things" ahoy!
Feedback: I would appreciate hearing from you very much at
dashak@aol.com.
Disclaimer: In this case, I think they belong to Gillian
Anderson as much as Chris Carter. Either way, they
certainly don't belong to me.
For Tahirih and a beautiful young life cut too short. You
will not be forgotten.
speak to me baby
in the middle of the night
speak to me
hold your mouth to mine
'cause the sky is breaking
it's deeper than love
I know the way you feel
like the rains outside
speak to me
--Moby, "The Sky is Broken"
He's used to being alone with his thoughts at night. In
fact, he rather enjoys it. Living alone, being by himself
all of the time, means that when his thoughts get too close
to him, he can just get out of bed. He can brood on the
couch. He can go mess around on his computer or read.
Lately, he's been staring out the window by his desk,
watching the sleepy comings and goings of his street until
he feels tired enough to go back to bed. He's learned,
over the years, to get by on very little sleep.
There have been a lot of things for
him to think about
lately. Therefore, there have been a lot of late nights.
But tonight, when he feels his brain
spilling over with
thoughts and possibilities, he's not alone. He can feel
her presence, practically hear her breathing, even though
she's sleeping on the couch out in the living room.
Part of him, the selfish, stuck-in-his-ways
part, wants her
to be gone so that he can do his usual middle of the night
insomnia ritual.
And the other part wishes she would come to him.
Mulder figures that in a while she'll
wake up, spend a few
disoriented moments wondering just where the hell she is,
and then she'll clean up a little and go home.
Or, she may come to him.
He doesn't really know what she'll
do. They're so very new
at this, this thing that is growing and changing between
them with the speed of an Ice Age glacial mass, that
nothing is habit, nothing is expected.
They've only shared a bed a few times, after all.
The very first time was when he'd
comforted a shattered
Scully after she'd killed Donnie Pfaster. There had been
nothing sexual or romantic about that night. It had been
one good friend comforting another until she fell asleep in
his bed. It was a night when he tried to assure her that
she was still safe, still sane, was not a cold-blooded
killer.
There was the night he found out his
mother had killed
herself. Scully had taken him to bed after he'd cried
himself out, wrapped her soft arms around him and let him
fall asleep surrounded by the gentle sound of her breathing
and the smell of her sweet perfume.
And a few nights later, after he'd
somehow been reunited
with Samantha, she'd come to him again, touched him and
kissed him and made love to him until he'd dropped into an
exhausted slumber. When he'd awakened in the morning, shed
been gone, but at breakfast she'd squeezed his hand and her
eyes had let him know that she wasn't going to pretend that
that night hadn't happened. It was a part of their shared
history now.
But a few nights sharing a bed, one
night sharing their
bodies, do not a habit make.
Mulder is still musing over all of
this, when he finds
himself sliding back into sleep. He's at the stage when
he's aware that he's not quite conscious anymore, when his
thoughts are twisting and pulling like taffy but he can
still hear what's going on around him.
That's why he immediately hears Scully's
footsteps on his
creaking wood floor. And he can hear those steps heading
towards his bedroom and through the open door.
He rushes back to full consciousness
when he hears her
steps pause at the end of the bed.
He's not going to say anything. He's
not. Let this be her
move.
In the dark of the room, Mulder blinks,
waiting. He can
feel her eyes on him.
Scully doesn't say anything. Instead,
he hears the top
drawer of his dresser open and the soft sound of her hands
rummaging around in there. He supposes he could be
offended at this invasion of his personal space, but he's
not. He likes the familiar sound of it. It sounds like
it's a habitual thing for her to go into his t-shirt and
underwear drawer.
Her steps head off to the bathroom
and he hears water
running and the sound of brushing. Interesting, when you
consider that he only had one toothbrush in there. Of
course, Scully is the kind of woman who probably carries
her own toothbrush in her purse, but still...
The steps return and Scully pauses
at the end of the bed
again, as if waiting for permission to enter his space.
He sits up with a small groan and
runs his fingers through
his hair. "Couch not too comfortable?"
"It was okay," she says
in a soft voice. "But after a
while, I couldn't sleep anymore. I suppose I could just go
home..."
Yeah, that's why you changed into
my t-shirt and brushed
your teeth, he thinks. And then he realizes she does need
his assurance that being together tonight is okay. The
other times were in periods of great crisis. And while
Scully went through some life-changing stuff while he was
in England, it's not a state of emergency.
If only they were two normal people
who could admit they
needed to be with each other. Oh well, this is probably as
close as they're ever going to get.
"No, don't. Come on in."
He pulls aside the comforter and
pats the bare spot on the sheet.
Scully climbs in bed and settles on
her back, drawing up
the covers over her body. "I've been thinking about
something," she whispers.
He rolls onto his side to face her. "What's that?"
"When I was young, I thought
that when I finally grew up
and became an adult, I wouldn't change any longer. I
looked at the people around me, my parents, their friends,
our neighbors, and they always seemed to be the same. They
all had their firmly-held beliefs: America was number one,
God was the all-powerful ruler of us all, children were not
to speak until spoken to, watching football was as holy as
going to church and every man and woman had a God-given
right to play golf on the weekends."
Mulder laughs at that and she joins
him. It's good to hear
her laughter.
Scully's voice turns serious again.
"I've gone for years
believing in the same things, believing in God and Science.
I still believe in them, Mulder, but I've realized that
despite the fact that I'm a fully-grown woman, my beliefs
are changing." She reaches out and takes his hand, gives
it a squeeze. "I've never consciously stopped to examine
what I believe in these days, but maybe I should."
"I know it's been confusing for you."
He can tell she's shrugging her shoulders
by the rustle the
sheets make.
"I've always been threatened
by something that challenges
my firm convictions. But I now know that instead of
dismissing them, perhaps I need to keep my mind open. You
and I have seen so many things that defy a rational
explanation, and I've been quick to dismiss them and try to
assign something reasonable that will label them. Maybe
that's been the wrong tactic all along."
"Or maybe not. I think it's a
good thing for you to open
your mind to new ideas, Scully, but on the other hand, if
you start agreeing with every odd theory of mine, we won't
be able to work together and solve the mysteries we come
across."
He would be lying if he said there
weren't times when her
stubbornness completely frustrated him, when he was certain
that she was being contrary merely for the sake of being
contrary. But he's also aware that her cool rationalism is
exactly the kind of restraint he needs. Most of the time,
she's his opposite but it somehow works.
She rolls over in bed and is now facing
him, too. "I know.
I don't think that I could ever so fundamentally change
that I became just like you, but I also can't deny what
I've seen and experienced, either." He hears her sigh.
"It was just so odd, standing in Daniel's hospital room
while the healer was working on him. I would have laughed
at you if a year ago you'd told me I'd actually ask an
alternative healer to come see a sick friend."
Mulder closes his eyes and pictures,
for a fleeting
instant, another hospital room, seemingly decades ago, even
if it was only five years before. "I did the same thing
when Melissa was standing over you with a crystal when you
were in a coma."
"I thought about that, too. At
one point, I hoped she was
watching me from the other side, shaking her head and
saying, 'Dana, I told you so...'"
"Both of us are going through
a lot right now. But I'm
glad we're not alone for it."
Her hand smoothes the top of his head,
where he's certain
his hair is sticking up in its usual middle-of-the-night
unruly mess. "Me, too. That's another thing I was
thinking about in the last few days. About my
relationships with men over the years."
Earlier in the night, she'd told him
a little about Daniel,
but couched it in the vaguest terms-- her former professor,
an older, married man, it was brief and intense and then
she left because of her tremendous guilt.
The two of them haven't done a whole
lot of talking about
their romantic pasts. Scully knows about Diana and Phoebe
and a few of the others, but nothing specific. He has
heard a little about Jack and now Daniel.
He'd love to be wonderfully mature
and be able to hear
about Scully with another man without twinges of jealousy,
but the last time Mulder checked, he wasn't wonderfully
mature. Still, if Scully wants to talk, he'll listen.
"I've always had this...habit...of
falling for men who are
older than I am, who are powerful. I don't think it's a
Daddy thing. I loved my father a great deal and was very
close to him, but I'm never searching for a father figure.
At least, I don't think so. I think it's something else, a
need to, at least for a while, give up control.
"Since I was very young, I've
tried to be in control of my
life, tried to be the best and the smartest. Being with
those men was a time when I could let someone else take
over. Not that they treated me badly. Instead, I would
have a man in my life who had something to teach me, who
knew more than I did, who I could look up to. But in the
end, it was never enough."
Mulder sits up for a moment and takes
a sip from the glass
of water he habitually keeps at the bedside table. Hearing
Scully discuss this side of her life makes his throat dry.
He slides back down to the mattress. "In what way was it
not enough?"
"This is going to make me look
bad," she says in a tight
voice.
He reaches out to touch her cool cheek.
"You should know
by now that you can tell me anything, Scully."
"I know, I know. Okay, how do
I put this into words?" She
abruptly sits up and in the dark he can see the outline of
her body and how she hugs her knees with her arms. "There
would always come a day with my lovers when I'd realize
that I wasn't in awe anymore, that I wasn't under their
spell. I'd see them for the men they were, older men who
were dealing with their mortality by being with a young
woman whom they could impress. And I usually wasn't
impressed anymore, or in the mood to follow him around as
his devoted little girlfriend. Yet, I'd do it over and
over again. I never learned my lesson.
"In Daniel's case, one day I
woke up and realized that I
was thoroughly entangled with a married man, a man who had
a wife and a daughter and a whole life I wasn't a part of.
And I knew that we didn't have enough to build a life
together. So, I left him. It was hard and I felt guilty,
but I also knew that if I'd destroyed his family, I would
never be able to forgive myself."
When Scully sniffles, he knows she's
crying. She's not
someone who cries a lot in front of others, so her tears
have that much more impact. The mere sound makes his chest
tighten.
"The worst part about seeing
Daniel again," she continues,
"is knowing that I did wreck his family, after all, even
though I left."
Mulder struggles to sit up and touches
her arm. "You did
the best you could."
"But I shouldn't have been there in the first place."
"We all make mistakes, Scully.
You're not perfect and
neither was he. These things happen." They're all cliches,
he realizes, but he hopes they'll have some meaning for her
anyhow.
"I know. After Daniel, I vowed
I would never let that kind
of thing happen again. But shortly after I left him, I got
involved with Jack, and there I was again, with my older
man. When Jack and I broke up, I told myself I needed to
take a break from men, get myself together and figure out
what I wanted. And then I met you."
There's a question Mulder needs to
ask, something that's
been nagging at the back of his brain since she began
telling him these things. "Do you think I fit into that
pattern?"
It's a long moment before she answers
him. "You know, a
few years ago, I might have said yes to that. You can have
your controlling moments, but on the other hand you're not
that much older than I am. But I think I now know that
what you and I have is a true partnership, that ultimately,
we're equals. And I value that."
It occurs to him that she's never
told him that she loves
him. He'd like to believe that she shows it in the way she
sticks with him through all the bad times, the way she's
quietly devoted to him, but still, he'd like to hear the
words.
She leans into him and lays her head
on his shoulder. It's
the perfect image of the two of them, Mulder thinks, the
weary soldiers at rest with each other.
"I think that scares me a little,
Mulder," she says. "What
you and I have is outside of any pattern I've ever known or
experienced. I don't know how to act."
He strokes her soft hair. "You
don't need to act in any
special way."
"I try not to be standoffish
around you, but I'm a little
frightened. Intensity scares me. But I want to be with
you, whatever that means."
"What do you want it to mean?"
His heart is beating so
hard inside his ribcage he's sure that not only can Scully
hear it, but it's probably waking the neighbors on the
other side of the wall.
"I'm not sure. But I want to
be able to come over, or you
to stop by my place, and have it be about spending time
together, not because there's a big crisis that needs
dealing with. I want to see what it feels like to be with
a man who is my partner, not my superior. I want to know
what I'm like in a relationship like that."
He can feel the smile growing on his
face. Funny how,
despite their incredibly opposite natures, they want the
same thing, after all.
Somehow, he feels a little humor is
called for here. "I
want to know what you're like in a relationship like that,
too."
Mulder is rewarded with a chuckle
and a playful squeeze of
his arm.
They slide down into bed together
and he kisses her. She
responds with sleepy languor.
"Tired?" he says.
"Yeah, I'm sorry," she says.
"I don't know if I'm up to
anything more tonight."
"Bummer, because my memory of
that night we were together
is starting to fade a little bit."
She kisses him again and this time
it's full of the
potential of things to come.
"Believe me, Mulder, you want me to be well-rested."
Still smiling, he pulls her into his
arms and lets her rest
her head on his chest. Normally, he hates sleeping while
touching another body, but this night is different. He
doesn't care if he gets any sleep, jet lag or no jet lag.
He's just glad she's with him.
Just as his eyes are starting to droop,
she says it:
"Mulder, I do love you, you know."
"I know," he echoes, feeling
the warm glow of satisfaction,
and they're the magic words that allow him to sleep.
Later, he's awakened by the sound
of her getting out of bed
and gathering her clothes off the chair.
He sits up. "Where you going?"
he asks in a half-asleep
voice. He was counting on a nice morning together, some
breakfast, maybe some lovemaking, before they had to go to
work.
It's just light enough in the bedroom
that he can see her
expression and it's a sheepish one. "I have to go," she
says. "I have an appointment."
Don't do this, he thinks, don't withdraw
from me now, not
after last night. "What kind of appointment?"
"You know, Colleen, the woman
you had me see? I'm meeting
her for breakfast. I need to go home and shower and change
first."
"You're kidding me." Scully
and a Taoist healer, what an
interesting mix.
"We have a lot in common. Did
you know she had cancer a
few years ago? I enjoyed talking to her and decided she
was someone I wanted to get to know."
He yawns. "Sounds like fun."
She walks over and lightly kisses
him on the lips. "Thanks
for last night, Mulder. It meant a lot to me. I'll see
you at work and then afterwards..."
He starts grinning. "What about afterwards?"
"Remember what I said the other
day about staying still?
Do you think that we could pretend, just for one night,
that we were somewhat normal and maybe go see a movie or
something?"
"I think we could definitely
do that. How do you feel
about martial arts movies?"
Scully snorts derisively and heads
off to clean up in the
bathroom.
While drifting off to sleep again,
he thinks, this is going
to work, this could even become natural and habitual.
He's sleeping so heavily he doesn't
even hear her leave.
He doesn't need to. He knows he'll see her later and
everything will be different and yet comfortingly the same.
END
All thanks and the highest praise
to my wonderful beta
readers, Gwen, Plausible Deniability and Shari. You guys
saved me from the pit of writer's block. And thanks to L.
for making me feel very loved, indeed.
Feedback would really make me a happy girl:
