Title:  Silver Anniversary
Author:  Rebecca Bryan
Rating:  PG-13
Classification:  MSR/Vignette
Spoilers:  "The End", the movie
Archive:  Yes, just ask first.  I only want to know where it's
going.

Notes: In this universe, Mulder never met "Samantha" (I still don't
want to believe it was her) in Redux II.   Mulder and Scully are
lovers and have not gotten the X-Files back.  They have also been
separated at work, and Scully has been sent back to Quantico. This
is set prior to Season 6. 

More Notes: ;)  This is my first ever attempt at writing
fanfiction,
(actually it's my first time writing any fiction).  I welcome any
and all
feedback, but please make any criticism constructive.  I critique
my
students' essays all the time, and I have yet to resort to the
statement "This sucks."  Thanks! Also, thanks to Suzanne Schramm,
without whom this work would have never seen the light of day! 

Disclaimer:  The characters of Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are the
property of Chris Carter and 1013 Productions.  The author is
neither requesting nor receiving financial reward for this work of
fiction.  No copyright infringement is intended.  

"Silver Anniversary"
 by: Rebecca Bryan 

November 27, 1998
Dana Scully's Apartment
10:30 p.m.

She hung up the phone for what seemed like the hundredth time that
night.  After the standard four rings, she hadn't bothered to let
the machine pick up. She was tired of hearing "Fox Mulder. Leave a
message". She was also tired of hearing "The cellular customer is
not available at this time.  Please retry your call later."

Tiredly, she sighed and pushed her hair out of her face.  Her
exhaustion was more mental than physical.  She had no idea where
Mulder was.  Not that that was that unusual.  She hadn't been able
to find him at the Hoover Building, nor in her new office  at
Quantico. He hadn't been in his apartment.  He wasn't with the Lone
Gunmen.  He was nowhere that she could find him. He could have
ditched her again, nothing new.  He could be meeting with some new
informant she didn't know about.  He could be chasing
some new lead.  She had tried to rationalize his absence.  After
all,
rationalization was her stock and trade.

Unfortunately, the clicking machine of rationalization could not
drown out the low steady hum of intuition.  Scully had spent years
dismissing her intuition, relegating it to the backdoor of her
existence, only to have five years with Mulder open that capability
back up.  The river of awareness that ran between them, the one
that allowed her to see Mulder while he hovered between existences,
the one that allowed her to speak with certainty of his survival to
Mrs. Mulder, told her that she knew the reason he was gone.  Scully
glanced at the date on the calendar in her kitchen.
Mulder wasn't ditching her; he was trying to ditch himself.  

This realization opened up several doors of fear.  Mulder scared
Scully often--what he would do next, where he would take the both
of them, what sacrifice he would next make for the truth.  She
could typically handle those fears.  Nothing was as frightening as
when he shut himself off from her, leaving himself alone with the
memories, and with the guilt.  

He could be doing several things.  Mulder knew the paths to
forgetfulness as well as any one.  He could be trying to numb
himself with his video habit and just not (understandably)
answering the phone.  He could be following his father's stellar
example and drinking himself shit-faced in some D.C. bar.  Scully
frowned at that thought.  The irony of Mulder taking on his
father's actions and habits on this date was strong.  She could
handle a drinking binge, though. What panicked her was the other
end of his self-destruction spectrum.  Mulder had lost so much--his
sister, his
father, his mother, and recently this year, the X-files.   Scully
sometimes felt, and not egotistically, that she was the tie that
kept Mulder in this life.  And even her lifeline was bogged down
with the guilt of loved ones and time that could never be
reclaimed.  Added to his collection of millstones was this
anniversary.  Twenty-five years.  A quarter of a century that his
sister had been missing. Years of guilt and unkept promises in
Mulder's eyes. He had failed to find his sister, and had now failed
to maintain his access to the X-Files.  Would he now fail in the
struggle for self-preservation?

Resignedly, Scully picked up the phone.  One ring, two, three,
four.  She decided to leave a message.  "Mulder, it's not your
fault, you've done the best you can, Mulder, you were just a child
yourself, don't do this, Mulder, be careful, don't become your
father, don't harm yourself, Mulder, if you leave me, I don't know
what I'll do" all ran through her head. "Mulder, if you need me-"
was all that made it out of her mouth before the machine cut off.

2:30 am

Scully came awake at the sound of the key in the lock.  She didn't
jerk awake, but awoke expectantly, fully aware of who was at her
door.  It made sense he would visit her now.  He had passed the
date alone, denying himself comfort while in the throes of crisis.
Now, afterward, he would seek her comfort.  She didn't go to the
door, but propped up on one elbow, listening, straining to feel his
mood over the few yards that separated them. Wanting to leave him a
modicum of privacy, she stretched back out and closed her eyes in
mock sleep as he came down the hall. He would know she
was awake, but she had at least given him the option of pretending
she wasn't. 

He came into the room, proceeded only by the stench of alcohol and
second-hand smoke.  She stole a glance between eyelashes.  He was
staggering only slightly.  Of the lottery of choices, Mulder had
chosen the middle ground of self-destruction.  

Mulder kicked off his shoes clumsily and then crept into Scully's
bed fully clothed.  He wore black from head to toe, topped off with
his familiar black leather jacket. She smelled alcohol and the
subtler aroma of coffee on his breath as he wrapped himself around
her.  

Scully sensed he didn't want her to be asleep, but that a good
heart-to-heart wasn't high on his list either.  She returned the
embrace and slipped one arm around him.  She unwittingly steered
his head towards her chest Her other hand ruffled his head, as if
she were comforting one of her nephews.  In a way, she was
comforting a child tonight.  A child that had lost his sister, a
child that did not understand, even after twenty-five years that he
was not to blame for the actions of others. Something in Mulder
brought out the maternal in Scully and she found herself crooning
and shushing him.  

Suddenly Scully felt her body, and the bedsprings, shaking.  It
took her a moment to comprehend that Mulder's silent,gulping sobs
were the source of the movement.  Scully tightened her embrace and
silently shed tears of sympathy into Mulder's hair.   

Scully felt his arm shift in her embrace and his hand came to rest
in her hair.  His shaking slowed, and soon he was bracing himself
with long deep gasps.  Mulder began to twist and twirl a lock of
her hair in a way that reminded Scully of her sleepy, frustrated
nephews in years past.  

"Mulder?" Scully began, wary of pushing him to talk.

"I'm sorry Scully" came the ragged whisper, "I shouldn't have come,
I shouldn't have woke you up, I shouldn't have-

"Mulder-" Scully cut of the list of recriminations, "I wasn't
asleep, and I wouldn't want you to go anywhere else tonight.  I've
been trying to find you all day-"

"I wanted to be alone -- well at first I did", Mulder corrected. He
spoke more steadily this time, allowing Scully to observe that the
effects of the alcohol were waning. "I wanted to be alone, to be as
alone and miserable as Samantha must have been after she was taken.
I let her down Scully, I couldn't help her that night and I haven't
been a whole hell of a lot of help to her since then.  I let her
down-"

"You were a child Mulder, you had nothing to do with it", Scully
began, but this time Mulder cut her off.

"I wanted to be alone, he continued, "because I-" his voice drifted
off. "I- I don't know how to say this, Scully.  I felt like I owed
to her to be miserable because I had forgotten the anniversary. 
For the fist time in twenty-five years I forgot about Samantha."
His voice rose with emotion.

Scully drew in her breath shakily, not knowing how to respond to
this new confession. 

"I nearly let the anniversary slip.  Before, I would have known for
months the anniversary was coming.  Today, I woke up with one
thought--to get through work today so I could come over to see you
tonight.  Work was crappy, as usual,today, and it wasn't until I
was reading a memo today that I noticed the date."  Mulder paused,
wiping his face.

"Scully, I thought that I had lost everything when I lost Samantha.
 I shut down, went on auto-pilot for years.  Then I got the X-files
and started to feel like I was doing something to help her, to
bring her back.  Then I got you, and I began to feel that I wasn't
alone in my search-" unconsciously, he squeezed her closer during
this confession.  

"-but over the years, Scully, I've drifted in my focus, and I
didn't
realize how much. I've started to live for other reasons than
Samantha, and I feel guilty as hell for it.  I have you now,
Scully-and--

"And how dare you be happy when she can't be here," Scully finished
for him, causing Mulder for the first time to glance up at her, his
old-soul eyes troubled.  "Mulder, you know that I know how you
feel.  I hate that every day I live, I live because Missy died for
me.  I hate it that my child, hell, possibly my children face a
fate worse than death, and I can do precious little to help it."
Her voice quivered, and Scully sat up,pulling Mulder's head and
shoulders into her lap. 

She was quiet for some time.  It was hard to comfort Mulder.  He
was way too smart to buy the "the sun'll come out tomorrow" crap
that was the basic ingredient in most comfort recipes.  And she had
grown way too cynical to deliver it.  

"How do you handle it?" asked the sincere, small voice from her
lap.

"Well, she sighed, continuing to play with his dark hair, "I live
for the future.  I live for the fact that we might just bring the
bastards to
justice.  I live for the fact that we've found a way to make
ourselves
happy together, and that our sisters would collectively approve."

The remark brought a wistful chuckle to Mulder's throat.

"Anything else?" he queried.

"If we quit now, they win."

The End


My mailbox is hungry!  Feed me at virginiagirl23@yahoo.com