World
By Justin Glasser
The universe is vast. I remember the first case Mulder and I worked, so many years ago. He asked if I believed in the existence of extra- terrestrials, and I mumbled something about the distances required making it impossible. The universe, by its mere existence, almost precludes the possibility of space travel. I say "almost" because six years with Mulder has taught me not to hold too tightly to "always" and "never."
It has taught me only to hold on to Mulder, like I did earlier today.
Mulder, surprised, held me back. I grabbed for him with desperation so real I could taste it, and I felt his hands on my back, uncertain, nervous. And then, after a moment, his arms tightened and his neck pressed against mine and I could hear myself crying like a loon, and all I wanted to do was stay there.
It's hard between us. There are so many things that aren't said. They lie beneath the surface of our relationship; the way fault lines lie beneath the surface of the ground only waiting for the right amount of pressure to reveal their locations. Mulder and I rub against each other like tectonic plates, shifting and grinding against one another, scraping our edges raw. We insist on doing it this way, because it's easier to endure the shifting than it is to talk. It's easier to weather the occasional quakes.
Phillip Padgett was an earthquake.
He didn't do anything, not really. He followed me, he gave me a cheap pewter charm, he told me things about myself that anyone could have told me had they cared enough to look. Phillip Padgett just turned in the elevator and tried to take me in. He said "we're alike in that way," but it's not true. Padgett and I aren't alike. Phillip Padgett lived his life by investigating the motives of other people, by looking, really looking at them. I don't look at anyone.
In particular, I don't look to closely at myself. I do what I need to do, I say what I need to say, and the rest I keep to myself. I like it better that way. Phillip Padgett took one look at me and thought he knew me. He didn't know anything. I heard his voice in that interrogation room: "Agent Scully is already in love" as if I didn't know that, as if Mulder had no idea. We keep things buried, Mulder and I, but that doesn't mean we don't know they're there.
We don't talk about them, though, not even now, not even when Mulder stands in the doorway holding a t-shirt in one hand and a towel in the other. I can't say to him "Mulder, I love you" not because it wouldn't be true, but because it would be and he would know it, just like I knew it when I leaned over his bed rail and longed to smooth the hair back from his forehead. "I love you," he said. I scoffed. I was allowed to, because he was still a bit delirious and under some severe medication and had the fresh wrinkle of the pillowcase on his cheek. I, on the other hand, have blood on my shirt and fingerprints on my heart. This isn't the time to start an earthquake.
He hands me the shirt and the towel. I hold them away from my body a little to keep them away from the rusty thick stains on my shirt, and as I brush past him toward the bathroom, he puts out his arm stopping me.
"Scully?" he says.
I make sure to meet his eyes. "I'm fine, Mulder." He continues to look at me, head turned and inclined toward my face. I can feel his palm on my stomach: it is a whole embrace to me. "I will be," I say.
He smiles a little and lets me go.
Standing in Mulder's surprisingly clean bathroom, I strip off my shirt and bra and pass the damp washcloth over my chest. In the mirror, I can see the smooth planes of my face, unchanged, calm. This partnership has become my whole world. I can't pinpoint when it happened, or how it happened; the only thing I know is that this afternoon, when I was lying on the floor smelling blood, my blood, all I wanted was to see Mulder once more. And then I did. The universe is vast, but my world is small.
*****The End*****