Category: Story, M/S UST/PG-13 Spoilers: All of US Season Five/Up to PMP Disclaimer: These characters are the property of Chris Carter, 1013 Productions and Fox Television. No copyright infringement is intended and no money may be made from this story. Archive: Do NOT forward to ATXC. Archive anywhere. Summary: A terrifying specter comes back to haunt both Mulder and Scully. TITLE: ABDICATION Author: by syn Feedback: All comments, any type are welcome. Send to synnerx@yahoo.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Even in the grey light of a rainstorm, she was pale. With cheeks that were shining white, surprisingly so, as Mulder took another glance away from the road before him and over to his partner. Scully didn't meet his glance, but continued to stare straight ahead, through the sheets of water and metronome of the wipers. "You know, Scully," he said, taking another peek over at her. "I have to say that Elizabeth, New Jersey in the pouring rain isn't that much less attractive than in the sunlight." Scully merely nodded in reply, a tiny motion of her head up and down, her eyes still not meeting his. Mulder turned back to the road with a sigh and they drove on the rest of the way in silence, with splashes of water, thrown back from passing traffic, the only sound. It was early evening when they reached their destination, a small motel at the edge of a tiny town on the outskirts of an unknown city. Unknown to them, anyway. It was increasingly like this, Mulder noted, the long car rides to nowhere, discovering, sometimes, what amounted to nothing. He wondered if he was just starting to feel the frustration that he imagined Scully must have felt since the beginning of their partnership. Those leads that went nowhere, the cases that ended up with nothing to show for them, that empty-handed, thick-sculled feeling that permeated their work, along with the specter of something huge and terrifying lurking right behind them at all times, waiting for its own moment in the spotlight. That's what her silence is, Mulder thought sadly. She's just had enough, maybe more than enough. Perhaps he'd been pushing...pushing her too hard all these years, so thoughtlessly, always making the assumption that his search, his life, was hers as well. //It's not all about you, Mulder.// Even now, after her illness, her cancer, had just passed into remission, and they'd both escaped its tragedy by the proverbial skin of their teeth, he still wanted her to follow him into the forests and the seas and the unknown towns that he'd always searched, so carelessly, before. Mulder unconsciously shook his head as he lifted their bags from the trunk, the cold rain sliding down his fingers and rolling, freezing down the back of his neck. We have to re-group, prioritize...focus, he thought furiously. And then, maybe then, she'll be happy, he thought. Then we'll talk, really talk. Like we used to, easily... arguing without hesitation. She'll pick the next case, he said to himself as he saw her standing, alone in front of the motel office door, aimlessly kicking a small, plastic chipmunk with the toe of her shoe. He watched as she then wandered away from the door, to a small clearing on the side of the office. He stared, first with curiosity, then with wonder, as Scully walked slowly through the rain, and stretched her arms out before her and then to the side. She looked up into the pouring rain, its cold and wet drops sliding down her cheeks and it turned her hair darker as it grew wetter. There she stood for a long time, and Mulder was at a loss to her actions. He put the bags down and walked up to her. Swallowing hard, he tapped her shoulder, gently...hesitantly. But Scully neither moved, nor turned toward him, but continued to stare upwards to the heavens, her arms taut in the downpour as if she were stretched out on a rack. Mulder swallowed harshly before speaking. "Scully," he said softly. "The rooms have showers, you know." Slowly, Scully brought her arms down to her sides and turned to him with her pale cheeks and huge eyes. "We never want anything but what's right and fair," she said, her voice shallow...soft. "But life, this life Mulder, it's so unfair. So very unfair." And with that she walked away, leaving Mulder behind, in the rain, wondering at what she meant. ~~~~~~~~ "Scully?" She hadn't let him in her room once that evening, not even for their usual take-out dinner. Exhaustion, she claimed and he hadn't argued. But now, as he knocked for the fourth time in as many minutes, there was no answer, not even to the increasingly urgent tone of his voice. "Scully?" he repeated, rapping loudly on her door, trying to be calm, trying to be normal for once, but finally, he decided to be himself. Mulder drew his gun and kicked her door wide open. And there he saw Scully sitting on the edge of her bed, awake. Alive. Perfectly fine. Absolutely unchanged. Except for the mostly empty bottle of whiskey that was clutched in her right hand, and the blurred, pinched look of terror on her face. Mulder walked in slowly, placing his gun down on the bureau. He quietly he sat in the cheap and tiny motel room chair, watching Scully as she stared, not even at him, but somewhere far beyond the door, her knuckles stark white against the whiskey bottle's neck. Mulder folded his hands neatly on his lap and took turns looking at the floor, then the wall and then back to his partner. The slight splash of liquid and the deep pop of lips leaving glass sounded through the room, as Scully took another drink, her eyes becoming larger as she swallowed. To Mulder, she looked caged, an animal in a corner or a trap, or even a zoo cage that was one size too small. He could see the trembling in her fingers, the shake of the bottle in her hand, but still he said nothing, waiting for her to speak or to not speak, whichever was her choice. It was nearly an hour before she did. "I knew that life wasn't fair," she whispered, her voice a cracking slur. "But I always expected more from myself." Mulder nodded and slid closer to her, his hands still folded loosely on his lap. "Why do you say that, Scully?" he asked, trying to remember the soothing tones he was taught to use in his internships, at Oxford, so many years before. "I expect betrayal, as I should, from sources outside of myself," she said, struggling with the words. "But not this time. I've been betrayed, and perfectly so. By my own body and I have no one else to blame." She suddenly slammed down the bottle and began to take off her shirt. "Yes, Mulder," she hissed, clumsily pulling off the thin material. "It's the ultimate betrayal." Mulder rose quickly, but before he could stop her, the shirt was off. She sat, swaying in her clean, white bra, her thin torso heaving with heavy breaths. He watched in shock as she lifted her right arm, straight into the air, her face contorting with tears. "Look," she said, pointing to her underarm, her voice now thick with misery. "And tell me if life is fair." Mulder crept closer and sat on the side of the bed. He gently pulled Scully's arm up higher and ran his fingers gingerly over her underarm, as she turned her head and began to sob. It was then that he felt it. A lump. In her armpit. Hard and slightly reddened, perhaps with constant self-examination or perhaps just on its own. Scully's tears grew louder when he touched it again, and the fear, that had only lurked around the edge of his conscious mind, became a full-blown whirlwind of pricking terror, waves of it running down his back, making his hair stand straight, his stomach churn. The room was growing an ugly and frightening shade of white, but he refused to acknowledge it. I will not crumble. I will not fall. "What is it?" he asked calmly. He would stay calm, he swore, because their lives depended on it, just as if they'd tumbled off a cliff or down a particularly endless well. "I don't know," she said dully, her tears suddenly ceasing, her face shifting and changing with the effects of booze, misery and fear. "No idea?" "I don't know everything, Mulder," she hissed angrily, yanking her arm away from him. "Doctors can't treat themselves anyway." She reached down and grabbed the bottle once more, bringing it to her lips with a furious, defiant gesture. Mulder ran his hands through his hair. "Well, we'll just have to go and get it checked out. I'll call now and find the best local hospital. All right?" Scully didn't answer him. "All right?" he repeated, leaning in toward her, and then backing away when he saw her eyes, filled with a terrible rage. "No," she said vehemently. Bitterly. "I'm not going to the doctor. Never again. I refuse." Mulder stared at her in confusion. "Scully, but..." "I refuse, Mulder. Never again. I'm not going. I've decided this morning that I'm no longer interested in keeping up my end of this ridiculous bargain with life. Let it have me. I'm through." He looked at her for a long moment, at the pale, thin specter of his partner, sitting without a shirt, without hope, a huge bottle in clutched tightly in one tiny hand. And his heart nearly broke at the sight. I will not crumble, he swore again. She's been strong, ever strong, it's time to take turns, he thought. This is her truth, her mountain to climb and I'll follow her up it, as she's followed me so many times before. How strange it is to be the responsible one...how strange to be the sensible one. And how very hard it is. Mulder went over to Scully's dresser drawer and after a short search, he pulled out a large sweatshirt. As one would dress a child, he slipped it over her head, and pulled each arm through, one at a time, even taking the tightly clutched bottle from her hand and then replacing it when he was done. Flipping on the TV, he motioned her to scoot back onto the bed, and when she'd finally reached there, after much sliding and drunken effort, he crawled in next to her and pulled her to his chest. She looked up at him, surprised, but slowly, she acquiesced, leaning into his warmth, the bottle still tightly hugged to her own chest. Mulder could feel her heart begin to slow, slow down from the pounding, trembling rhythm it had maintained from when he first drew her to him. For a long time, they sat silently as the mindless, flickering images in front of them lighted the room. Suddenly, Scully looked up. "I'm still not going," she said shakily. "I mean that." Mulder shrugged against the headboard. "Okay. Now, Leno or Letterman?" he asked, feeling around the nightstand for the remote. "Mulder, are you sure you understand what I'm saying here?" asked Scully again, a slight note of incredulousness creeping into her voice. Mulder nodded. "Yes, I do. And if that's your decision, I'll support it completely, even if I don't agree." "So, you don't agree?" replied Scully, with a blurry tone of accusation. Mulder looked at her, trying to ignore the misery in the eyes that shone beneath him. "No. But was that ever a requirement for our partnership? You've disagreed with me many a time, but ultimately you've always supported me. Always, in ways that I couldn't have ever expected anyone to have supported me, even when I've done the stupidest of things. So, why should this be any different? I'm here, Scully, and if you don't want to take any action in this matter, then I'll stand by your side." "But," he continued, carefully, pulling her tightly to him. "If you want my advice and my help, I'm also there for you. In short, Scully, if you want me to take the burden from you, I'm more than willing to do so. All you have to do is say the word." Scully sat up and shook her head. "Mulder, you don't understand. I just can't go back into those waiting rooms all by myself. I can't sit there any more, staring at the walls, waiting to be told if I'm going to die this week or next week." "I can't drive to doctor after doctor any more, just to see the pity in their eyes. And I don't want to be strong and responsible and noble and good in the face of this illness any more." she finished, her hand twisting through her hair, her eyes filling with tears again. "Don't you see, I'm sick of fighting *the good fight*. Of being the good patient." Mulder smiled down at her, and gently, he kissed her forehead. "Then be a bad one," he whispered. "I'll make the appointments, you can not show up if you like, I'll come and get you, and then we'll argue and scream all the way there. You can slap the nurses, kick the doctors and break the thermometers." At this, a small smile curled Scully's lips. "If you need treatment, I'll be there, and you can blame it all on me if you like, or conversely, you can not go at all, and instead grab a bottle and I'll grab my own, and we can sit and drink ourselves to death in the best motel rooms that this fine country has to offer. *At* the Bureau's expense, mind you." Scully harumphed drunkenly, a quiet, laughing sound. "Or we can just go to the hospital tomorrow morning, see the local radiology guy and make our plans from there," finished Mulder slowly, his lips against Scully's hair. "But, it's completely up to you, Scully. Totally. And whatever you decide, I'm with you a thousand percent. Okay?" Scully raised her eyes, and Mulder saw a grudging light filling them. "Can I still break the thermometers?" she asked, with a raised eyebrow. "And the EKG's," he replied, with a smile. "I can throw in an X-ray machine if you'd like." Scully smiled in return, but slowly, her expression turned serious. "You know," she began hesitantly. "It could be the cancer, Mulder. I honestly don't know, but it's a definite possibility." Mulder felt his stomach tighten, but ignored it. "If that's the case, we'll deal with like we did the last time. Together. But, this time, I defer to you, Scully. If you honestly don't want the burden of the struggle..." "I hereby abdicate it to you, Mulder," she replied, leaning back and putting the bottle on the nightstand with a sigh. She turned back to him and then embraced him tightly, her eyes closed against his chest. "Because I'm so tired," she whispered. "Then sleep. And forget," he whispered back. "I'll do the rest." "You'll do the rest," she repeated, as the TV was clicked off and darkness filled the room. "Everything else?" "Everything else," he replied, and soon, all that could be heard was the sound of quiet breathing, and rain, beating against glass. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The next morning, in Elizabeth General Hospital, Dana Scully lie dozing on a large, not exactly comfortable, not exactly uncomfortable, couch. She'd lazily lie there, still hungover, but rather happy in the haziness. Silently, she'd submitted to the battery of tests, with Mulder, waving thermometers at her behind the technician's back as she grinned in reply. Scully had actually declined to go into the doctor's office for the results, instead letting Mulder live up to his promise, and leaving her not to debate her fate or plan her future, but instead, letting her have some serenity in the face of life's twists and turns. She was still dozing, sleeping actually when she heard the voice in her ear. "Swollen gland. Probable minor secondary infection. Everything else is normal and A-OK." Without opening her eyes, Dana Scully smiled. "And to think," she said, as Mulder's fingers wove their way through her hair. "All this time, I thought it was a Reticulan virus..." And when she felt him tug her hair in reply, she just laughed. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End. Feedback is to authors what lemurs are to Hollandaise sauce. Send all comments to synnerx@yahoo.com