Title: Unintended Consequences Author: Sarah Segretti Summary: Just when you think you know how you'd react to a horrific event, life steps up to surprise you. Scully and Mulder deal with the aftermath of the Pfaster shooting. Category: S, A, UST Spoilers: Post-Orison Feedback: mrsblome@aol.com Website: http://members.aol.com/mrsblome Disclaimer: Not mine. Just playing. Real life brand names, media personalities and newscasts used in a fictional manner Author's note: Artistic license taken with the details of haircuts, furnishings and apartment layouts. Mulder lives on the top floor now. Beta by haphazard method and EPurSeMouve. Unintended Consequences By Sarah Segretti March 2000 Part I: Midnight The nights were the worst, but not for the reason everyone assumed. Mulder's bed faced the wrong way. His blankets were too thick. The clock and the phone were on his side of the bed. And Mulder himself had the annoying habit of somehow stealing only the topsheet, leaving the wool blanket and duvet in place to brush against her satin pajamas. She hated the way her pajamas clung to her body now, from the static electricity. The wind howled past the building again, as it had been doing for the past two nights, rattling the cheap storm windows in their frames. My windows don't do that, Scully thought resentfully, watching the blinds puff gently in and out from the draft. So familiar, his apartment was, but not familiar at all. Like him. For as long as she'd known him, for as well as she thought she knew him, she was shocked to find out how little she knew about what he actually did with his time. She'd had a vague notion of TV and videos that weren't his and phone calls she'd just as soon not overhear, interspersed with a lot of reading of casefiles. The regularly scheduled basketball games with actual human beings, complete with postgame trash talk at a local pub, not to mention the more than adequate cooking at home, had floored her. Something scraped against the roof, and Scully flattened herself against the mattress, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling. Last night Mulder had assured her it was just one of the ancient neighborhood trees, and that the squeaking noise she was now listening to came from the building's air conditioning unit, which was above the public hallway near his bedroom and needed to be better anchored. He'd personally gone up to the roof to check it out. Trees. A/C units. That's all. She shivered, and closed her eyes, willing terror away. In her world now, terror was to be relived during the day, over and over again. It had become her job to tell her story, to Skinner, to the DC police, to OPR, to her therapist and her priest, to her attorney, to a host of people who heard stories like hers for a living. Telling it had become nearly rote, she'd done it so often. In my closet, against the mirror, on the floor, run you a bath -- Only afterwards, in the nearest ladies' room, could she sit in a stall and hide and let the shakes come till they hurt, and aching come out to face another round of re-education, FBI style. Oh, God, she had an *attorney.* Next to her, Mulder sighed in his sleep and rolled over, taking another couple of inches of topsheet with him. She considered yanking it back, but didn't want to wake him, didn't feel like even that much interaction. He was a puzzle lately, as outwardly supportive as he usually was after any horror show that starred Dana Scully, but inexplicably angry, too. Snarling at Skinner after his turn before OPR was one thing; Mulder and OPR were never a good mix. But she'd also seen him snap at the Starbucks clerk who'd forgotten his cream, and the things he'd said to Karla from accounting when she called about their latest expense report had been downright mean, even if Karla *was* a bean counter. Delayed reaction to the Pfaster thing, she assumed. She didn't really want to know. Her own emotions were overwhelming enough without taking his on as well. She turned on her side, facing him, watching him. Only the top of his spiky haircut was visible; he'd burrowed under the covers. Another thing that had surprised her: he slept like the dead. Every time they'd had to share a motel room on the road, he'd tossed and turned and gotten up in the middle of the night to read casefiles in the bathroom to the point where she'd nearly written off ever sleeping in the same bed with him as an option. And now she was. And all she could think about was how much she disliked feather pillows. Fluffy soft bedding. From Mulder, connoisseur of the cheap motel. Go figure. The storm windows rattled again. Scully brought her knees to her chest and hugged them, still watching Mulder's back. What would he do if she reached out and touched the gray cotton of his T-shirt, let her fingers rest along his long spine? He was sleeping in the bed with her only because she'd forced him to. He'd insisted on spending the first night on the couch, a sentry through which an intruder would have to pass to get to her. She still hadn't been able to sleep. And she'd been unable to stand watching him grimace and crack his back the next day when he thought she wasn't looking. She'd tried the couch the next night, to be fair, but after an hour had crept frightened and ashamed into his bed. They slept at arm's length. She'd never imagined it this way. After he'd kissed her at New Year's, not so long ago, she'd let herself imagine nights where they couldn't sleep from the pure nearness of one another, where each absent, half-asleep gesture was interpreted as an invitation. Nights with his big hands on her hips, guiding her into position -- But there'd been no time to follow through on his unspoken promise before they were sent on their next case. This case. Scully squeezed her eyes shut and rolled over so that her back was to him. No point in thinking about that. If Mulder touched her now, she'd shatter like the mirror she still needed to replace. Her brand new mirror. She'd spent the last year redecorating, replacing the furniture she'd had since graduating from Quantico piece by piece. The couch Duane Barry had used as a springboard to jump her, gone. The rug that Krycek and Cardinale had probably stood on to inspect her sister's body, gone. The bed in which she'd discovered the first signs of her cancer, long gone. She'd been nearly done shedding her old trappings, creating something new, something warmer. Less girlish. More adult. A home solely for her, but with room for -- Scully curled up even tighter. Her face slipped under the covers. How was she ever -- she gulped. Glass in her makeup. Her pretty knickknacks, some from Melissa, ruined. Her mind ran unbound over the vision of the crime scene her bedroom had become, picturing the trajectory of the flying glass, the tumbling books, the blood -- Oh. The bathroom was ruined for her, she knew that already. She could barely even say the word without feeling her chest constrict. She'd tried to reclaim it earlier tonight, when Mulder had been off playing basketball. The experiment had failed. Before the tub had even filled, she'd panicked, and in trying to blow out the candles, knocked over a few, spilling wax everywhere. She'd stuffed them all in the trash and fled to the gym, where Mulder, the son of a bitch, had looked annoyed that she'd shown up. Scully realized she was curled up so tightly that her forehead was nearly touching her knees. Mulder was acting strangely, even for him, and she couldn't take a bath, and now her bedroom ... her bedroom ... She felt herself begin to shiver, then to shake, and she hugged herself more tightly, trying to stop before she woke Mulder. Mulder. The sob slipped out before she could control it, and instantly she felt the blankets shift as he sat up. Can't, mustn't, don't, no -- "Scully?" And he did it, he put a soft hand on her shoulder, and just as she knew she would, she broke into a million pieces. "I'm fine," she choked out, swallowing the sobs that wanted desperately to follow. "I'm fine." "Shhh." He was beside her, against her, his arms trying to gather the pieces of her together. Automatically, she stiffened, even as a small part of her mind begged her to accept the comfort. "Shhh. I know." "I'm fine," she repeated, because it was what she was supposed to say. "I know," he whispered. "I know. It's okay. I'm here." She could hear the fear in his voice, the same fear she felt in her heart, that nothing would ever be the same again, that this was one horror show too many. She was going to lose her job and go to jail and be forced to leave -- The words escaped before she could stop them. "I want to go home." His arms tightened around her inert body, and she felt his lips brush against her hair. "I know," he said, and she thought he understood. The wind crashed against the windows, then calmed. Part II: Morning Mulder stood in the doorway of his tiny bathroom, wearing his dress slacks and nothing else, and sighed. There was one small upside to this whole Pfaster thing, he thought; at least he wouldn't have to worry about tripping over a stinky candle the next time he had to use Scully's bathroom. Stinky? Did he think that? Nooooo. He loved Scully's candles, really he did. Really and truly. As long as they were far away from him. He picked up his razor, brought it to his face, and blinked at what he saw in the mirror. The blades were covered in wax. Candle wax. What the -- He glanced down at his wastebasket, and saw the thick end of a vanilla candle poking out from under the wadded-up tissues and used floss. Damn it, he thought she'd left them all behind. He didn't care how deep into therapy she was at the moment; they were going to have to have a talk. The sonorous tones of Bob Edwards drifted in from the living room, and Mulder made a face in the mirror. The only thing ever worth listening to on NPR, as far as he was concerned, had been Red Barber, and Red had been dead since 1992. It didn't matter how many cups of coffee he'd had in the morning, one hit of "Morning Edition" negated the effect instantly. Diane Sawyer, he thought, pawing around his medicine cabinet for a disposable razor and growing more annoyed by the second. That's what a guy needs in the morning. His newest television habit had been pre-empted one too many times in the last few days, as far as he was concerned. He wanted his Diane Sawyer fix, dammit. And a razor blade refill wouldn't be bad either, he thought, brandishing a headless silver Sensor at his reflection, then dropping to his knees to search the cabinet under the sink. If Scully had moved them, too, the way she'd moved his magazines off the coffee table and his ketchup into the refrigerator door and -- ack. He snatched his hand away from the pink box he'd accidentally touched. Those were definitely *not* his. "Scully!" he shouted. "Have you seen the razor blade refills?" No answer. He creaked back to his feet and leaned against the edge of his sink. Probably sitting in the kitchen staring at the Washington Post again, pretending to read the paper but really dwelling on ... something. He didn't know what she thought about. He wasn't privy. He guessed she was still reliving the shooting -- it popped into his waking reveries every so often and he was grateful when he could finally chase the images away -- but she wouldn't say. Even shaking in her sleep, obviously frightened, she wouldn't reach for him, wouldn't relax into his arms, wouldn't tell him what was in her head. Probably does the same thing to her counselors, too, he thought bitterly. Sits in Kosseff's office for an hour every day and insists she's fine and gets away with it. My tax dollars at work. She was remarkably distant, even by her standards, moving around his apartment like a ghost, saying little, staring a lot, hardly noticing him at all. Paralyzed, almost. She just shrugged when he'd suggested calling a professional cleaner for her apartment. Her frantic mother was beginning to take her frustration out on him, since Scully wouldn't talk to her. Shit, he thought. If I want grief, I can get it from my own mother. What worried Mulder most was that every time Scully had shut him out before -- the cancer, Emily, even after their fight at the Gunmen's last year, over Diana -- he could tell she was at least trying to work the aftermath through in her head. Not this time. Watching his touchstone slowly sink, unable to find a way to pull her back to safety, was more unnerving than he liked to think about. This wasn't the way he'd expected things to turn out. After kissing her on New Year's Eve -- God, barely two weeks ago -- he'd imagined the gradual introduction of toothbrushes and extra clothes into each others' apartments, mindless conversations featuring pet names, long weekends in bed, the slow and comfortable evolution of a partnership into a relationship. Instead, he'd become an emergency Red Cross shelter for the mute survivor of a horrible disaster, a high school gym used to house victims when there were basketball games to be played. He didn't want her to be like this. He wanted his resilient partner, the one who bounced back from abduction and cancer and loss without effort. He felt robbed, and he resented it. A light knock sounded on his open bathroom door, and he jumped. Scully stood there, wrapped in her thick robe, her new haircut limp and tucked behind her ears. The shadows under her eyes could have hidden a dozen informants. "Did you call me?" she asked. Did I -- oh, yeah. "Razor blades," he said. "Where are they?" For a second, she seemed to go blank, to not see him, and he felt an inexplicable shudder of fear go through him "I used the last one last night," she finally said. The unnatural intimacy of the situation, combined with the lingering fear, struck him hard. No doubt millions of couples had this conversation or one like it every morning. Except that they weren't a couple, they'd been pushed together before they were really ready, and he wanted her to go home, he wanted to start over, he wanted to grab her and shake her and slap her and scream Scully I know you're in there I know it come out come back to me *now*-- Jesus, Fox, get a grip, he told himself, shaken by the unexpected rage. You're tired. You're frustrated. You're a little scared. You just need a break from this. "Mulder?" Scully came back into focus. "Are you okay? What's wrong?" "Nothing," he said, resigning himself to a quick shave at the gym. These were not thoughts she needed to hear. "I'm fine." Part III: Midday She had no idea where he went after they arrived at work. Once they'd been cleared through the employee entrance, he'd vanished into the dry, overheated air of the Hoover Building as if he'd gotten a hot lead on an alien encounter. Didn't matter. She wasn't so detached from reality that she hadn't noticed his mood this morning. Better he was somewhere else today than here in the office, staring moon-eyed at her, fear and anger written in his expression, directed at her. I'm fine, he'd said. Right. She understood the code. She'd written it herself. She flopped down in Mulder's chair and booted up the computer. Might as well check my email while I still have access to it, she thought darkly. Nothing unusual: a few postings from her forensic pathologists lists, notes on various FBI benefits changes and staff meetings ... Damn it. Karen was having car trouble and wanted to cancel their morning session. And her afternoon in-service weapons training at Quantico had been cancelled because the instructor was sick. Scully stared at these unwelcome messages for a few seconds. Now what was she going to do with her day? She'd rather talk about it than think about it. Talking involved narrative, facts. Clinical description. Impersonal things. Thinking ... Thinking was what she was doing now. Sunday, shot him. Monday, dealt with local cops. Tuesday, met with Skinner. Wednesday, OPR. Thursday, OPR. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, how long to a decision? They took two weeks to throw us off the X-files. How long to an indictment? How long before I know? How long? How long? How -- Stop it, she told herself, and realized that she was angry. Her emotions were demanding attention she didn't want to give, not yet. What she needed was something to do, and with no cases, no classes, no counseling sessions, she was at a loss. Gym? Filing? Food? Food. Okay. She could stand some food, even if it meant going to the cafeteria where people would either ask her how she was or avoid her so her life wouldn't rub off on them. On the way back from the cafeteria, outside the office, she ran into Mulder. His hair was damp, and he smelled faintly of the antibacterial soap she knew the FBI bought for the men's locker room. Hiding from me in the gym again, she guessed. His gaze drifted down to the cranberry muffin she held in her hand, and she thought she saw his face relax just a little. Yeah, I'm eating, she thought, I'm sooo glad you approve. Their eyes met for the first time in days. She found herself studying his face, wanting to put a hand on his cheek. He'd remembered to shave, at least. Suddenly nervous, she ran her free hand over her bare neck, underneath the short hair she still wasn't used to, a mop-up operation after her unwanted haircut at Pfaster's hands. One finger lingered a little on the exposed scar. No. No more of this. "Mulder," she said. "Take me home." He actually took a step backwards, his tired eyes widening. But he covered his panic quickly, darting away without a word, the way he often did when they were about to start a difficult and confounding case she wasn't sure she was interested in. And just as she did at the start of those cases, she grabbed her coat and followed him. Mulder drove, of course, and said nothing the entire way. His fingers tapped against the steering wheel, more restless than usual. Staring past the squeaking wipers as they scraped away the half-hearted winter drizzle, Scully decided she didn't really care what he thought, whether he was in overprotective mode or had silently decided this was a bad idea or if he was angry again about heaven knew what. All she knew was that she couldn't spend another night like last night, terrified of her own shadow, of trees scraping across the roof and cheap windows rattling in the cold wind. He hovered and jittered behind her as she tried to put the key in her lock. He was getting on her nerves. Maybe that was a good sign. "Scully, uh -- have you considered moving?" She stood up straight, not believing what she'd heard, then turned and froze him with her iciest stare. "No. Have you?" He fell silent, chastened. The door swung open and at first everything looked the same. Out of habit, she tossed her keys on the little table near the door, the clunk of metal against wood unnaturally loud. The message light on her answering machine blinked steadily at her, but she ignored it. She began the circular route through her apartment, through the kitchen where her poultry shears still lay on the counter, into the hallway where she'd tried to escape, not the bathroom, forget that, past the bedroom but not inside, later ... She found herself taking inventory, making lists: clean carpet, pick up glass, replace mirror, replace shelf, new utensils, throw out everything in the bathroom, new stereo, everything must go ... When she circled back to the living room, she felt better, felt a measure of control. Until she saw Mulder, who hadn't budged from the entryway, staring at the faint blood stains still marking the wooden floor. Have floor resanded, she thought, her partner off her radar for a second. There goes what's left of my security deposit. "Did you know I was here?" he asked, so quietly she thought she'd heard him wrong. But when his words penetrated, she had to think about it. Her silence gave him his answer. "I didn't quite have him," Mulder said, almost to himself. He was still looking at the floor, and Scully realized they were standing in the same position they'd been in when she shot Pfaster. With only a little effort, she could imagine his body, skull partially blown away, crumpled on the floor between them. She hugged herself tightly, feeling the floodgates rise around her heart, protecting it. I did not come here to relive this -- "And he turned, and I saw you, and your nose was bleeding..." It was? She had no memory of that. Of all things not to remember. Mulder's face had gone white, and he was still talking. "...light fixture exploded, and I thought, what the hell are you doing, and oh, please God, don't miss, and oh my God, she shot him... And then he was dead, and I looked at you, and it was like you were coming back from somewhere else and it scared me to death, Scully. You scared me. I remember thinking, I can't believe you just shot him." Which had been precisely what she had been thinking at that moment, but that didn't matter. She tightened her hold on herself. "--remember the last time you even fired your gun." Didn't he ever shut up? "El Rico, I guess? At the train? But not at a person. That's not your way. Usually you get us out of trouble without getting us into trouble -- " "Why are you telling me this, Mulder?" He faltered. "I -- I don't know," he admitted. "Watching you empty your clip into the guy, even if he deserved it ... it threw me." "So what's your point?" The tone of her voice chilled even her. Mulder sighed. "It wasn't like you, that's all." Now she was angry. She ignored the fact that what he was saying put words to the thoughts that had been pushing at the edge of her consciousness for days. Without a word, she turned and went to her bedroom. Glass crunched under her feet, and she kicked away a few books. I'm sorry I failed to live up to your unbelievably high standards for me, Mulder, I'm sorry you feel that way, she thought. Her heart unexpectedly added, I'm sorry *I* feel that way. She sank onto her bed, hooking her heels on the frame. The blanket the paramedics had wrapped her in lay in a heap where she'd abandoned it, and she shoved it off the other side of the bed. I didn't come here to relive this, she thought again, even as she glanced around, measuring the damage, remembering how it was done. Her back began to ache, although the bruises and cuts were mostly healed. The emotions were threatening to bubble up, and she tried to organize them, give them a focus. What kept rising to the top, though, were Mulder's words, and she kept seeing his strained face, spattered with Pfaster's blood, the first thing she'd registered after she'd stopped shooting. I could have killed him, she realized with alarm. I had no idea he was there. I can't believe I'm upset about broken furniture, when I could have killed him... Eventually, she felt Mulder at the door, hesitant. She lifted her chin briefly, letting him know it was okay to come in. He sat down beside her, so close that his hip would have brushed against her gun, had she been wearing it. He let his clasped hands dangle between his open knees. She realized they were both still wearing their heavy coats. "Scully, I --" he began. "Don't." She cut off the apology she could hear in his voice. "You have every right to be angry. I'm angry." He shook his head, clearly miserable. "But that's not what's been bothering me, Scully. I can't even explain. The stupidest things set me off. Petty stuff, like wanting to watch TV in the morning. I feel like an idiot for letting it get to me, after something so --" He couldn't finish. At the guilt that washed over his face, she reached over and took his hand. "Did you notice my new furniture?" He frowned at her, not understanding. "Some of it. I knew you were shopping. There were days I was afraid you were going to quit and open a Pottery Barn outlet." There. There you are. She squeezed his hand, grateful for the first wisecrack she'd heard since the shooting. "Well, most of it's going to have to go. I don't want anything in here that his hands have touched. And that's what makes me angry. I worked hard to make this a real home over the last year, and he stole that from me." Mulder stared at her, his eyes suddenly liquid. "Scully," he whispered. The moment grew too intense, and she had to look away. If the mirror had been intact, she could have watched his reflection. Her voice dropped to the same low whisper. "I wanted to make love to you in this bed." She heard his sharp intake of breath, felt his fingers tighten around hers. "He stole the little things," she finished. Mulder made a small, strangled noise, and she turned to face him. "Not so little," she admitted. "But you understand." He was quiet for so long that she feared that he didn't. "Yeah," he finally said. "Yeah, I do. I feel like I should be worrying about the big picture, like the fate of your eternal soul or something, but ..." With a wince, she closed her eyes briefly. She felt the same way, that some pictures were too big to see all at once. This one would hang over her for years. "We're human, Mulder. We deserve to react like normal humans would. Sometimes --" Her voice caught, and she wasn't sure why. "Sometimes we get hit hardest by the little things." "Sometimes we don't bounce back as quickly as we'd like," he said, and suddenly she understood how badly she'd scared him. "I told you I was fine, Mulder. Didn't you believe me?" Luckily, he caught the joke, and pulled her close. She ducked her head, resting it against his chest, welcome comfort. "Can we get a do-over on the last couple of weeks?" he wondered. I wish, she thought. "Life is not a game of Horse, Mulder. You pick up, and you go on." "The little things, Scully." He sighed into her hair. "I always wanted you to spend the night, but not because you had nowhere else to go. You at least deserve flowers, or dinner, or something, first." She could hear the hurt in his voice, and wondered what dreams had been derailed by this, and it made her want to cry. But she just let him hug her instead. Nothing was resolved, not her legal status, not her job, not her fate in the afterlife. But for a moment, just a moment, she felt human again. She felt at home. -30- Acknowledgements: To the ladies and gentlemen of scullyfic, who graciously helped me talk out my POV problems; To the folks on atxc who pointed me in the right direction on some old canon fodder; And to hap -- the preceding dash was for you. Listen to "Morning Edition" at www.npr.org. For more on Diane Sawyer and "Good Morning America," check out www.abcnews.com. You make the call.