TITLE:  All Roads
AUTHOR:  A. Kelley Nolan
EMAIL:  akelleynolan@yahoo.com
DISTRIBUTION:  Wherever.  Just let me know.

RATING:  R
CATEGORIES:  SR
KEYWORDS:  Mulder/Scully romance

SPOILERS:  All Things, if one can be said to be spoiling a show that 
aired years ago.

SUMMARY:  Mulder ponders all things.

Disclaimer:  If I owned them, I wouldn't live in Boise.  Legally, 
Mulder and Scully belong to some combination of Chris Carter, Ten 
Thirteen, Fox, and The Man.  Spiritually, I like to think that they 
belong to the world.

Author's Notes at the end.

*******************

No question, this woman really pisses me off sometimes.

There are times when I want to shout at her, or shake her until 
something rattles loose and she sees things my way. This isn't one of 
those times. This is one of the ones where I try to keep my jaw from 
hanging open in wonder that I'm allowed to know her, to have her in my 
life. There are a lot more of those moments than the other kind, 
especially lately. We're sitting on my couch. She's kicked off her 
shoes, and her feet look tiny next to mine on the coffee table. She's 
getting sleepy. Chamomile always does that to her, but she likes it 
enough that I keep it on hand. I like it when Scully gets sleepy. It 
ups my chances of waking up next to her in the morning.

I've got a potentially debilitating case of jet lag sparking behind my 
eyes, but I'm way too wound up to sleep anytime soon. We've been 
talking for hours. Actually, mostly she's been talking, and I've been 
listening. It doesn't happen that often - her talking or me listening 
- and so I've been sitting as still as possible, wrapping myself in a 
cloak of cool, trying not to disturb the strange vibration in the air 
between us.

She's told me things tonight that almost made my heart stop. Not about 
Daniel, she told me about him a long time ago. A motel room in 
God-knows-where when a couple of beers had loosened our tongues enough 
to start sharing defining experiences of which we aren't very proud. I 
had considerably more than she did. But tonight as she described her 
vision, all the images of me and us, and the mysterious woman who 
turned out to be me... Granted I'm a narcissist, but I recognize 
"we're meant to be together" no matter how many metaphors you couch it 
in.

I swear I stopped breathing. And when I remembered to start again, my 
heart was pounding so hard I was glad she's a doctor. To cover my 
agitation, I took a long, slow sip of the tea, my hand hardly shaking 
at all. It seemed preferable to throwing myself at her feet and 
weeping with gratitude.

I've known it for a long time. For me, there's been no possibility of 
anyone else for years now, as either best friend or lover, and the 
only explanation I have for how improbably we've clung to each other 
is that it was inevitable. I told her that once, in what I thought was 
a wildly romantic moment, but even in a wildly romantic moment Scully 
is Scully. I remember she looked at me with a little frown of 
concentration like she was conjugating irregular German verbs in her 
head, then said softly, "I'll have to think about that." Which should 
have been a real mood killer, but the way she reached up and kissed me 
afterward more than made up for it.

Apparently she's thought about it and has, incredibly, come to the 
same conclusion I did all those months and months ago. I'm relieved. 
She's been...dissatisfied lately. Not with me, or at least not any 
more than usual. But she's been restless, and there's been an 
uncertainty in her that I haven't known how to deal with. Our MO at 
times likes this is to stare at each other meaningfully while 
attempting to engage in one-way telepathy and then just hope that the 
whole thing goes away. We could stand to work on the verbal 
communication.

That's what the trip to England was supposed to be about. There was an 
actual crop circle event predicted, but in all honesty I don't give a 
rat's ass about crop circles. I wanted to take Scully away for a few 
days, half-heartedly investigate the event, write it off as nothing 
after a day or so, and spend the rest of the time wandering around the 
English countryside with her and making love in quaint little B&Bs. I 
wanted us to have a chance to decompress and talk, about whatever. We 
haven't exactly been firing on all six cylinders lately, and I wanted 
us to reconnect. In an outbreak of irony that isn't lost on me, I 
didn't tell her any of that.

Instead, I cooked up the irresistible combination of technopop, visual 
aides, and Saturday in the office. She brought me a burrito made 
exactly the way I like it and wouldn't even look at me as she dealt 
some unexpected violence to her salad. I found myself trying to get 
her attention like the middle child in a large family. And when she 
declined what was never really an invitation, I hid my hurt feelings 
behind a layer of indifference and pissiness. I even left her to clean 
up the burrito. God, I'm such an asshole sometimes.

It was a fit of pique that would have been much better suited to a 
much younger man. Like someone who only has to shave every other day 
or so. I was embarrassed before I was fully out the door. By the time 
I got home I was well and truly ashamed. I tried to mend fences a 
little later. I called her while I was packing to ask her to do me a 
favor. I'm not sure why I thought this would be appealing to her right 
at that moment, but Mulder In Need has gotten her attention when she 
didn't want to give it to me before. She sounded distracted. I 
couldn't think of anything to do but keep talking, so I plowed ahead 
and asked her to drop by the hospital all the way across town and pick 
up some important crop circle data. I was actually hoping she'd decide 
there was plenty of time to throw a bag together and meet me at the 
airport. That wouldn't be without precedent. But she just told me she 
was out for the evening.

A cold fist of fear clutched my stomach, and I distinctly remember 
that my only coherent thought was "What the fuck?" She was ditching 
me, at least metaphysically. She'd complained dozens of times about my 
more corporeal ditchings, but I realized something in that moment that 
I never had before: being ditched sucks. It was like that freak punch 
that killed Houdini. That fist continued to clench in my innards, 
until I felt like I was going to throw up. She didn't want me with 
her. She didn't even want me in her head. Something in me whimpered.

Of course, I didn't tell her that. I didn't point out that she was 
breaking my heart, which represented quite a bit more melodrama than I 
was prepared to inject into the situation. I didn't even demand to 
know what the hell was going on or tell her to stay put, that I was 
coming over and we were going to talk about this, damn it. No, I 
shoved down the fear cresting in me until it transformed into 
indignation and betrayal. "Well, why didn't you just say so in the 
first place?" I asked tightly.

"Look, um...why don't you leave that address on my answering machine 
and, uh, I'll try for you."

And she hung up, gently. I took a lot of very deep breaths and forced 
myself to think. I fell back on the Socratic method. I find it works 
best with myself. What do I know for certain? I asked myself. Scully 
is dealing with something she doesn't want to share with me. Doesn't 
want to share? Maybe isn't ready to share, I allowed. Do I have any 
way of knowing what that something is? No. See above under "not ready 
to share." (My inner Socrates is a bit of a pedant, and I tend to get 
snippy with him.) Is she in danger?

I hesitated at that one. My Scully danger radar is pretty finely 
tuned. After considering it, tweaking the knobs a little, I decided 
that there was no danger I could detect, which loosened up the tension 
in my spine infinitesimally.

What about us? Are we in danger? Ah. Much trickier question. 
Realistically, the answer is no. It was too hard to get here, and 
neither one of us could leave. We're in this until the end, whether 
sweet or bitter. A little soliloquy of panic sailed through my mind, 
but I managed to gag my internal drama queen pretty quickly. I mean, I 
knew this wasn't really fatal. If I was reading things right, this 
wasn't even really about us, it was something Scully was trying to 
deal with. But from dissatisfaction to restlessness to shutting me out 
was a definite progression up the seriousness scale, and that worried 
me a little. I knew that eventually she would talk to me, but there 
was no guarantee she would do that before she did something else, 
possibly something inexplicable. The last time she experienced this 
kind of psychic malaise she wound up with a tattoo on her ass.

I considered my available options. They were pretty limited. I could 
flounce off to England in a snit, which at best would lead to an 
escalation when I got home and at worst would lead to an extended 
silent treatment. I could hover solicitously, but that would just 
annoy her. I could go to England as planned but make a valiant effort 
at pretending that everything was okay and that I wasn't hurt that she 
wasn't going with me. The third option, denial, seemed most in keeping 
with the character of our relationship.

So I went to the airport. I called her from the lobby and laid on the 
banter a little bit. She even gave me a vocal half-smile, so I knew I 
must have made the right decision. I called her when I got to my hotel 
in England to let her know the information I had omitted so that I 
would have something that I "forgot" to tell her. I got her answering 
machine, and even to me my voice sounded a little desperate. I 
remember thinking grimly that it was time to lay off the phone for a 
while.

I sat in my hotel room in Avebury and literally twiddled my thumbs. 
The place was absurdly charming. Wood floors that glowed like honey, 
big, soft bed, fireplace, flowers on the dresser, bizarre ceiling 
angles, window looking out on the market square. It would have been a 
great room to share with Scully. I could picture her leaning out the 
window with her elbows on the sill, watching the action on market day 
with a small smile on her face. I could picture her lying on the bed, 
flashing me one of her playful eyebrow wiggles. Shit. I should have 
canceled the room and gone to a Travel Inn.

It was only lunchtime on Sunday. That meant at least 30 hours until 
the crop circle was supposed to appear. What the hell do you do in a 
romantic foreign country for 30 hours when your romantic partner of 
choice is on another continent? I could have gone and talked to the 
local UFO folks, but I suddenly couldn't stand the idea of another 
crystal clutching new ager or neopagan or dazed hayseed or whatever 
the hell they would turn out to be. I went out and wandered around the 
henge. It had been a long time since I'd been there, and I thought 
maybe I'd have a new appreciation for it given my greater 
understanding of the arc of human history, etc. Nope. It was just as 
cold and rainy as the last time I'd been there, and while the henge is 
no doubt impressive and significant, I just didn't care that much. 
Been there, done that, didn't want the t-shirt.

That reminded me that I'd seen a picture in a magazine of a Stonehenge 
t-shirt that showed a "druid" being unmasked as an alien. It had 
cracked me up, so I decided to hop in the car and go for a drive. 
Coming back with a cool shirt might save the trip from being a 
complete waste. Maybe I'd find something really overpriced and unique 
to give Scully.

Stonehenge never fails to depress me. It's not just that it's right 
next to a major highway, although that clearly takes away quite a bit 
of the aura of mystery. It's not even that it really is much more 
impressive in photographs than in person. It's some combination of the 
tourists being herded through that tunnel like cattle on their way to 
the slaughter and the tumuli that dot the fields all around. Every one 
of those tumuli covers somebody who was important enough in their day 
to warrant all the effort. Now sheep graze off the grass they've 
helped fertilize. I get an overwhelming sense of futility every time I 
visit the place.

I didn't even bother to buy a ticket, just went into the conveniently 
located gift shop and browsed around. The selection of tchotchkes was 
certainly top-notch, but they were out of the t-shirt I wanted. On 
impulse I bought a truly ugly cap that said "Stonehenge Rocks" because 
I thought it was a nice companion piece to the coffee mug Scully 
picked up in New Hampshire that says "I feel like schist." If nothing 
else, I looked bad enough in it that it would probably make her laugh.

Two major prehistoric sites down, and I still had at least 24 hours to 
kill. I allowed myself a flicker of annoyance at Scully for not coming 
with me. This would have been fun with her along. For one thing, I 
wouldn't have been laying on the bed fully clothed, staring at the 
ceiling and trying to turn its weird shape inside out in my mind. I 
toyed with the idea of driving over to Oxford or Bath the next day, 
but those were both trips I wanted to take with Scully. I couldn't 
think of any reason to go by myself.

I just went to sleep instead and woke up, still fully clothed, around 
two in the morning, knowing there was no chance I'd be able to go back 
to sleep until it was light out. I almost called her. It was only nine 
back home. But I was seized with a sudden fear that she wouldn't be 
there, and then I'd be freaking out from 3700 miles away. I got up, 
got ready like I was afraid I was going to wake up somebody's father, 
and drove to the field that was supposed to host the big event.

It turns out almost nothing happens in a cornfield in the middle of 
the night. I can now say this with complete confidence. I'm not sure 
what I expected, since the circle was supposed to appear the next 
night, but I had hoped there'd be something going on. A little astral 
glow, at the very least. Something besides a slightly cool, very 
quiet, very dark night. In college I'd have had a joint with me, and 
that would at least have made this more interesting, but what I really 
wanted with me was Scully. She would have sat next to me on the hood 
of the car, her shoulder leaning against mine, and looked up at that 
velvety night sky and said something profound or witty or just plain 
goofy, and I would have grinned or kissed her or snugged her closer to 
me. Maybe all three.

I remember sighing and looking around to see if there was anybody I 
needed to keep this performance going for. The simple fact was that I 
didn't care. I realized with some surprise that my curiosity is linked 
to Scully, at least to some extent. Without her there to question me, 
redirect me, make suggestions, propose plausible explanations, I just 
couldn't keep my thoughts focused on the task at hand. Mostly our job 
isn't fun. In fact, mostly it's either dull or horrifying. The fun 
parts come exclusively from our intellects rubbing up against each 
other like a couple of horny teenagers. Thrust, parry, counterthrust, 
score...and that's only a slightly mixed metaphor. If someone had told 
me in my sexually desperate youth that there would come a day when I 
thought the coolest thing about a woman was inside her head, I never 
would have believed it, unless I'd thought they were talking about a 
really rocking fantasy life. But Scully...head to toe, inside and out, 
she amazes me.

I squinted at my watch, a decision made. Not even five. That left 
plenty of time to get my stuff, brave the morning commuter traffic 
into London, and get on a plane that would get me home by that night. 
The crop circles would just have to happen, or not, without me.

I called her from the airport as soon as I landed in DC.  "Hey, what 
are you doing?"

"Hi," she said, and I heard a hint of a smile in her voice.  That 
pleased me immensely.  "I'm just going into the hospital."

"Working?"

"No."  She hesitated just a fraction of a second.  "Visiting a 
friend."

"Oh."  I shifted my bag to a slightly less uncomfortable position on 
my shoulder.  "Doctor or patient?"

"Both, at the moment," she replied in a carefully neutral voice.  
Interesting.  "What's up?"

"Nothing.  I just wanted to hear your voice."

That earned me a full blown smile that I could hear through the line.  
"Miss me already?"

"Yes," I said honestly.

There was a slight pause, though not of the hesitating variety.  "I 
miss you, too," she admitted.  "How's it going?  Any sign of little 
gray men?"

"Uh, I'll tell you about it later.  So what hospital are you at?"  I 
made it sound convincingly casual.

"Washington National," she said automatically.  "Listen, I'm headed 
into the cardiac unit - no cell phones allowed.  Can I talk to you 
later?"

Yeah, of course, Scully.  Anything you want.  Hopefully that involves 
me showing up unexpectedly at the hospital where you're visiting some 
heart-diseased friend I've never heard of, because I'm on my way.

I didn't say that, of course, but I did go looking for her.  She 
wasn't in the cardiac unit, had left about 15 minutes before.  There 
were a dozen other places she could have been, many of which I 
probably couldn't have charmed my way into.  I'd seen her car in the 
lot, though, so I knew she was still around.  I decided to take my 
chances outside and find a perch where I could watch her likely exit.  
She found me instead.  In spite of the fact that she practically 
tackled me, Scully wasn't expecting me. Her face squinched up with 
surprise and confusion, and she said blankly, "But you're supposed to 
be in England."

I'd alternately slept and zoned out through most of the flight home, 
so I hadn't managed to come up with any good reason why I wasn't still 
there. "I'm back," I said. It sounded like an apology, and her eyes 
got a little soft, so I think that's how she took it, too.

"What happened?"

"Nothing. There was no event. No crop circles. Big waste of time." 
That was all true, and I'd tell her the rest later, when I'd had a 
chance to figure things out a little better.

"Maybe sometimes nothing happens for a reason, Mulder."

I squinted at her.  "What's that supposed to mean?" I asked for the 
second time in three days.  She looked different than when I left.  
Softer.  Not as tightly wound.

"Nothing," she smiled.  "Come on, I'll make you some tea."

We started walking, slowly, and I looked down at her as she slipped 
her arm through mine.  "What's changed?" I asked softly.

Scully looked up at me with her big blue eyes, and it looked like 
she'd lived a thousand years in there.  Not tired, not like I've seen 
her so many times, at the brink of exhaustion.  Just mellowed out and 
peaceful and...ancient.  Timeless, like one of those wise men on a 
mountain.  "Me," she said simply.

"Is that a good thing?"

A smile curved the corners of her mouth.  "I'll tell you all about it 
when we get home."  She squeezed my arm gently.  "I'm glad you're 
back."

I let myself notice that she was driving us to my apartment.  God 
willing, we'd make love tonight.  We have sort of a system. Work 
nights are always at my place, and she always slips out before dawn 
like it's never ever occurred to her that she could just bring a 
change of clothes and a toothbrush.  She needs that bit of control 
over it, I guess, and it's a concession I'm willing to make, for now.  
We never go to her place during the week, and she's told me flat out 
that it's because I would never leave, and then we might as well take 
out an ad in the Post that we're shacking up.  Weekends, though...  
Weekends happen at her place, and I get to indulge my fantasy of a 
life with Scully in which scrambled eggs and reruns are more common 
than flukemen and alien abductions.

She stood very close to me in front of the door to my apartment.  If 
I'd lifted my arm, she would have slid into the crook of it.  As I 
slipped the key into the lock, her hand came to rest on my wrist, 
softly, and I glanced over at her.  I went to Lake Tahoe once.  I 
leaned over the rail of a boat in the middle of the lake, staring down 
into the blue so clear it was like the sky until the light just gave 
up in its impossible depths.  Looking into Scully's eyes is like that 
sometimes.  You could drown in there, but it would be worth it to be 
part of that beauty forever.

My neck knows exactly how far to bend to meet her halfway.  She 
reached up, her fingers light on my wrist, and kissed me, deep and 
soft and slow.  And I knew that instead of "I'm glad you're back" this 
was "I'm glad you're here," an entirely different thing.  We drew 
apart as slowly as we'd come together.  I dropped my arm from the 
doorknob, and gravity made her fingers trail delicately down to my 
hand, where I caught them and twined them lightly with mine.

My voice came out so quiet and smooth that anyone else would have been 
deeply impressed by my cool, but Scully and I both knew better.  "In 
case you're wondering, I love you."

She smiled, and I saw the little bit of mischief that had been missing 
for weeks.  "I wasn't wondering."

And now we're sitting on my couch, and her shoulder is leaning against 
mine, and she's saying profound things about choices.  I'm listening, 
and wondering what the hell took her so long, because God knows I've 
worried for years about the choices that have kept her with me.  In my 
better moments I wish that she'd made different choices, that she'd 
left me back when it was still possible, that she had a normal life 
and not the grotesque parody of life with me.  Those are my better 
moments, but in my truer moments I'm just so unbelievably grateful.  
There's no sting as she wonders out loud about what might have been.  
I need this to be about more than just fate or accident.  She's not 
done with fate, though.  She poses it as a question for my benefit, 
but what she means is, "This is the only choice, Mulder.  This is 
where everything was leading to.  This moment is the only right one."

My heart flips in my chest, because that thought chills me to the 
bone.  I know only too well that if fate or God or the universe or 
whatever had just blinked once, then we wouldn't be here together, 
that this tug on my soul would still be yearning after phantoms.  
She's starting to fade, and I don't want to make any declarations she 
won't even hear, so I try to keep it light.  When I look at her, she's 
asleep, her face soft, her hair falling over her cheek.  I feel fire 
rising in my stomach and creeping through my veins.  The way I feel at 
this moment is as great a mystery as any I've ever seen.  My world 
narrows to this place, this instant, this woman, and I think that if 
there were never anything else, this would be enough.  I reach out to 
tuck her hair behind her ear, feel it like flame on my skin, and move 
the blanket gently to cover her.

Later I'm lying in bed, not sleeping, not really even thinking, when 
she comes to me.  She knows I'm awake.  She lets her clothes fall to 
the floor and slides in next to me.  She is shadows and moonlight as 
she moves above me, her hands braced on my shoulders, her eyes 
glittering softly.  I don't want to look away, ever, and I wrap my 
hands around her arms to pull her down to me.  Her kiss is hungry now, 
dark, her mouth glides over me like hot silk even as her hips move 
against me, and I know that she is claiming me with her body.  "I 
would choose this life again," she whispers against my throat.  "I 
would choose you again."  Her eyes find mine in the darkness.  "I love 
you," she breathes.  "I love you."

Much later I awaken as I feel the mattress shift, feel the cool place 
on my chest where her cheek had been a moment ago.  "Are you leaving?" 
I ask, and my voice is rough with sleep.

She comes over to me, and I feel her fingers soothing over my forehead 
tenderly.  "Yeah.  Gotta go get ready."

I kiss her fingertips as they move over my lips.  She had been 
watching the path her hand took, but now she looks into my eyes.  "I 
wish you'd stay."

"I know."  I think I drift off for a second, because her hand has 
shifted to my chest when I hear her voice next.  "Mulder?"  I open my 
eyes with some effort and look a question at her.  She is watching me, 
memorizing my features by this light, although I know she knows them 
by heart in any light.  I think she's going to say something, but then 
she leans down and kisses me very softly instead.  It must have given 
her the courage she wanted, because when she raises her head she has 
the slightest smile on her lips.  "Bring a change of clothes today, 
okay?"

I'm a little sleep-addled, so I just nod and ask, almost as an 
afterthought, "Are we going somewhere?"

"Yeah," she says.  "My place."  She smiles for real, leans down to sip 
another kiss from my lips, and then goes to get dressed.

I let my eyes slide shut.  A few minutes later I hear her leave, the 
quiet sounds registering dimly in the back of my consciousness.  This 
is our choice, I think, catching her scent on the sheets and on my 
skin.  All roads led here.  But this is not the end.

-Fin-

Author's Notes:  It was thoughtful of Mulder to get lost while Scully 
was having her epiphanies, but I wanted to know what was going on in 
his head.  I don't think it's absolutely necessary for them to have 
been lovers before the events of this episode, but I happen to think 
they were.  And, sadly, there is no hotel room that charming in 
Avebury, although you wouldn't have to go too far to find one.

Feedback is good and happily accepted at akelleynolan@yahoo.com.