Chapter 6: Mulder’s Head
For as long as I can remember the only thing that mattered to me was finding my sister. I didn’t see when things changed. The first time I was aware of it I was standing on top of a cable car in a mountain gorge. I knew that if I didn’t get there in time *she* could be hurt, maybe even killed. What I didn’t know was that it would be *much* worse than that.
I can’t say when I fell in love with her – maybe it was the moment we met. Her presence in the room hit me like a pressure wave. Usually my act gets rid of people quickly – but she didn’t fall for it. It was disturbing but it fascinated me, which is probably why I kept pushing it so hard. I loved to see her reactions – I still do. Sometimes I think that I go overboard on my theories just to see her reactions to them – in the hope of receiving one of her smiles. I also discovered early on that I couldn’t lie to her – she could see straight through me. Nobody had ever reacted to me the way she did. She didn’t take any of my crap. I respected her for it – I’ve never really respected anyone before.
We’ve been through so much together. She’s saved my life more times than I can count – yet the one time she needed me I was too late. I nearly lost my mind then. Without her even the self imposed task of finding my sister lost it’s urgency. Death would have been a good thing at that time. I think it was that sense of fatality which drew me to Kristen – she was the same. Doom followed us both around like a cloud. It was one moment in time when we needed each other. It was good to feel needed – as if I still had a purpose. When Kristen died all I felt was jealous, because she found her way out and I was still in my private hell.
I never expected her to be returned. I thought that – like my sister – she was lost to me forever. I don’t remember any of the time between getting the call and finding myself in that hospital. All I remember is her face – covered in tubes and wires – she looked so pale and ill. I wanted revenge then. Pure and simple. I wanted to kill the people responsible. If it hadn’t of been for Melissa I would have had my revenge. I can’t hate Melissa for stopping me.
I felt worse then than I had when I thought I would never see her again. I hated the thought that the last time I would look on her *would* be the last time. I wanted to sit beside her holding her hand for the rest of my life. Leaving that hospital was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. Even then I didn’t let myself think that I loved her. I blotted it out by not thinking at all. When I saw the state of my apartment – everything I had broken and torn to shreds, my whole world literally turned upside down – I felt more desolate and lonely than I had through the years when I believed that Sam’s disappearance was my fault and that my parents blamed me for it.
That second call…how can I describe the feeling…how can I say what can’t be put into words? She was alive – euphoria. Then another thought – which had been surpressed along with the rest of them – it was my fault she had been in that situation to begin with. That was what stopped me from running to her bedside and pulling her into my arms as I had wanted to. It stopped all thoughts of love before they even had a chance to form. Instead I swallowed my emotions – a trick which I have been practising all my life with varying degrees of success. I was friendly, but when I touched her I knew things were different. We were close and affectionate in a way we had never been before. It was enough, or so I told myself. I may even have believed it. She’s always told me that I believe too easily.
Then there were the X-files again and I could bury myself in them and ignore my feelings as I’d always done. My search for Sam became a convenient excuse for distancing myself from her. Then I found Sam – or thought that I did – and my excuse evaporated. My feelings were so confused again – about her, about Sam, about my parents. I acted on impulse when she was kidnapped. I didn’t think twice about putting my sister into a position of danger. All I knew was that I needed to save *her*. I couldn’t lose her again. Instead I sacrificed my sister. I felt so much guilt about Sam, even after I found out that the woman was not really my sister. If it *had* been Sam I would have done no different. To make up for that I nearly killed myself going to the Arctic after the assassin. I would have died if she hadn’t come after me. Then our situations were reversed and I was the one in the hospital bed. Again we were affectionate – she smiled at me so sweetly – and we were truly a team. If there was any more to it than that then neither of us wanted to jeopardise our friendship by changing things. She was my best friend.
Our lives have never exactly been dull but things were different after that. Sometimes it felt as if we had a psychic link, as if we could each tell what the other was thinking. She still gave me hell about my weird ideas and I still gave her hell for not believing me when I am right so much of the time. We were partners – we pulled each other out of the fire when we needed to. She was willing to risk her life for me on board that ship by giving me that ‘water’ – “sardine juice, half a dozen lemons and the water from a snow globe”. My heart nearly stopped when I saw that axe raised above her head – I’ve never been so unsure of my aim. This time I wasn’t hiding from my feelings instead I was channelling them into our friendship. You have to be willing to kill or die for your partner – I was and I am.
Then things went bad – I know now that it was a drug in my water which made me more paranoid than I usually am. I found the Holy Grail and I lost my father (not that I ever really knew him). She was so strong and I fell apart. Despite all the bad things I said to her, she never left me. She shot me, but she never left me. She is much stronger than I could ever be – I could never shoot her and keep my sanity, regardless of the circumstances. I don’t know how she felt when I disappeared – but I remember her face when I busted into my apartment and found her and Skinner facing off. I wanted to grin at her incredulous expression – I wanted to sweep her off her feet and hug her as hard as I could without breaking her spine. She always has the power to surprise me but her surety that I was alive sent me on a real curve. Our hug in the elevator was nothing like what I wanted but it went some way to assuaging my need of her. I don’t mean sexually – that’s another matter altogether – I mean that I need her, without her I have nothing at all. Even the X-Files mean nothing without her.
We went to hell together after that. All those medical files, the knowledge of my father’s deceit, my mother’s pain in knowing, Melissa dying, the knowledge that it was supposed to have been her lying dead with a bullet in her skull. It was when we were sat in that cafe with Skinner that I knew that she and I were tied together for all time, no matter what happened. I let her decide the future but I already knew what her decision would be and I understood it. I wanted that tape but none of information on it would matter if we ended up dead. I’d have risked my own life for it, but I wouldn’t want to risk hers any more than I already had. Melissa Scully’s death brought that home to me. I felt sorrow – she helped me a great deal in the past – but I still feel very guilty because I am glad that it was her and not her sister who died. I hope that Melissa understands that, wherever she is now.
For a moment, sitting by Melissa’s now empty bed, we were closer than friends and closer than lovers. Then the moment passed and I began running scared again. I acted as if I blamed her for losing the tape – in a way I did. With hindsight I can see that I was blaming myself for being weak, for allowing myself to care so much about another person that I would allow it to get in the way of my finding the truth. I retreated back into my search for Samantha – to the point of obsession. I know that I went overboard on occasions. She tried to drag me out of it, but I treated her with resentment rather than thanks. I *wanted* to be obsessed again – to have that as my sole purpose. I pushed myself to the limits as I have in the past. I acted without thinking about her feelings, something which I had promised myself that I would never do again. I did it for her as much as for Sam and myself. I told her that I had to do it – but what I had to find out was what had happened to her much more than what had happened to Sam. From the moment when she told that she knew where she had seen that Japanese man before nothing would have stopped me from getting on that train. How was I supposed to react to the news that she might be dying because of what they did to her? Why didn’t I take her into my arms as I wanted to when I saw her frightened expression? Why did I brush over it and move on? I was scared – more so than she was I suspect. It was easier to act than to think, easier than telling her what I felt. Melissa wasn’t around to tell me off this time.
I was sure that I was going to die in that train car (I think I now have a pathological fear of boxcars after nearly being set fire to and nearly blown up in them), but she was there for me again. Her desperation came through on the phone and it made my heart glad that she cared for me that much. As I always do, I retreated into humour instead of telling her the truth of my feelings. She saved my life again. She’s *always* saving my life, but I don’t think I’ve ever thanked her for that. All I’ve given her is grief and pain – no wonder she wont believe that I love her.
After that she went weird on me. I don’t know, maybe it was because I didn’t believe her about that boy – Kevin Kryder. I doubted her faith, so she returned the favour by doubting mine. Since then we’ve been talking but not really saying anything and things just got worse with each case. She’s been strange and secretive, hiding things from me. She’s reacted weirdly to people we’ve met on cases – Bambi, Detective White. Maybe she had reason on that one – considering that she found us in my motel room with her on top of me. She still over-reacted (I like to think that she was jealous). Okay, I’ll admit she had reason with Bambi too – I did find her attractive. Is there a problem with me finding a beautiful and intelligent woman attractive? She’s not a patch on Scully, but a man has needs.
Waking up in hospital this last time to find her sitting next to me was no surprise. I’ve come to except her to be there, looking out for me. I can’t guarantee that I wont run off pursuing a case without her again, but I wish I could explain to her that I’m not ditching her because of anything she’s done but because that’s just the way I am. I’ve never had anyone who really cared about me – I don’t know how to react to it. There’s never been anyone for me to talk to about my feelings before. I’ve always tried to deny that I have feelings. Melissa was too close to home when she asked why it was easier for me to run around getting revenge rather than just telling Scully how I feel. I’ve never had to answer to anyone. It’s always been just me against the world. Most of the time I just want to protect her but the situations we get into aren’t safe and I would die before I let anyone hurt her again.
I can’t even say her name – it’s as if by calling her Scully all the time I can pretend that she doesn’t mean anything to me, that’s she’s just my partner. That’s just so much BS – other partners call each other by their first names. The last time I said her first name, before I admitted to myself that I love her, was years ago. She’d been kidnapped by her ex-boyfriend – although I thought that it was actually someone else in his body – and he was holding her for ransom. I remember clearly, I was on the phone to him and he let me speak to her. I choked on her name and the desperation in my voice startled me. Since then I haven’t said it out loud. I’ve thought it a million times and, for some strange reason, I made it the password on my computer. I analyzed my actions and I didn’t like what I saw but somehow I couldn’t make myself change it. At least it means that she’ll never crack the password.
I can’t believe that I slept with her cousin just because she looked like her. Still, if it wasn’t for Amanda I wouldn’t have admitted it at all. Strange after all that we’ve been through it was such a little thing which made me admit it to her. I didn’t mean to – it kind of slipped out. I just want her to need me as much as I need her. Amanda needed me and I saw what I had so longed for in a face so similar to the one that I long for.
So I took the risk and said the words to the right woman – but she ran from me. She shut me out again. I tried to bury it again, but now that I had admitted it to myself it would not be repressed. I know I pushed her during the last few days. I teased her unmercifully in her bedroom when she was giving me the sedative, but it was fun and I think that she enjoyed it too.
She protects me too much sometimes. I know that she has kept something from me about the last case. Something important to do with the woman claiming to be called Samantha Mulder. Everyone buzzed around me as if I was very important but I can’t figure out why. She knows why and she wont tell me. I also clearly remember the woman – who claims to be an alien but has told us no more about herself or about her ‘group’ – saying that she should get in touch with Samantha Mulder and ‘her father’. I tried to find out what the woman meant but my devious little partner rushed the conversation in a different direction – but I *will* find out.
Through all of this I’ve been trying to ignore *that* video tape, but every moment of what I saw on that TV screen is burnt into my mind (the curse of a photographic memory). For so long I’ve wanted to touch her, to kiss her, to make love to her. Then I finally admit to myself that I’m in love with her. I start to believe that such a thing may one day happen – then I discover that it already has but I have no memory of it. She stared at the screen as if she was horrified at what she was seeing. I can understand her shock – it shocked me, and turned me on more than any tape I’ve ever watched. I wonder if she was turned on by it?
Meanwhile I can’t shake the thought that there is something familiar about that tape. I’ve dreamt about it often enough, it’s probably just…..That’s it! *I’ve dreamt about it*. That exact same thing. The same room. The same moment with us admitting our love. Could it be that the answer is in my head somewhere? Is it possible that I wasn’t fantasising at all – that I was *remembering!* She’s scared of going for regression hypnosis but I’m not. We don’t need that file – if the answer is inside my head.
I love her so much. This time I’ll protect her – I wont tell her until after it’s done. Then I can spare her from as much of the horror as I can.