Something Wrong, Something Right
by Leigh Alexander
leigh_xf@geocities.com

First posted: September 6, 1998

RATING: PG
CATEGORY: VAR
SPOILERS: None
KEYWORDS: Mulder/Scully romance
SUMMARY: Mulder and Scully argue after she has a nosebleed.

DISCLAIMERS:
1) Dana and Fox belong to Chris and Ten Thirteen Productions
and the other Fox. Absolutely *no* copyright infringement is
intended - I'm not doing this for money, I'm doing it for
love. I *love* these characters, I wouldn't want to hurt
them! :)
2) OK to archive, but if it's going anywhere other than
Gossamer, please drop me a line just so I can keep track.
3) Feel free to distribute and discuss this, as long as my
name and addy remain attached.

INTRO:

It's happened again. I'm supposed to be working on two much
longer stories, but I got inspired to finish this one,
instead. Oh well, I guess I shouldn't complain as long as
*something's* getting written. :)

I freely classify myself as a 'shipper, but it seems
whenever I set about writing an MSR, there always has to be
an element of imperfection in their relationship. Blame it
on my persuasive noromo friends. <g> Anyway, this story is
no exception. You've been warned.

Thanks to Melissa for once again doing a great editing job.
I don't know what I'd do without her.

-----------------------------------------------------------
Something Wrong, Something Right
-----------------------------------------------------------

Something was wrong.

Scully knew it the instant she woke up, but for a few short
moments she couldn't figure out what it was. Her fingers
brushed against her upper lip, wiping away the dampness that
had gathered there on this hot night. Then she realised with
horror that it wasn't sweat that had been trailed across her
face. It was blood.

She sat up abruptly and reached hastily for the box of
tissues on her bedside table. Her hand knocked clumsily
against the glass of water she had placed there earlier and
it fell to the ground with a loud clunk, spraying water on
the edge of her bed.

"Damn."

She cursed automatically and then glanced guiltily at the
man lying beside her, silently hoping that neither noise had
woken him up. An impossible hope; within a few seconds the
body started to slowly shift under the sheets.

Scully turned her back to him and pulled the few remaining
tissues out of the box. By the time she'd pressed them to
her still-bleeding nose, the light on the other side of the
bed was casting its subtle illumination over the room.

"Scully, what's wrong?" He sounded tired, but unmistakably
worried.

Without looking in his direction she replied, "It's nothing.
Go back to sleep, Mulder." She didn't wait for him to
respond, getting out of bed and heading towards the bathroom
in one quick movement.

Mulder followed her progress with a frown. His eyes quickly
dropped to her side of the bed where the exact nature of
what was wrong immediately became evident. The blood smears
on the pillow told him all he needed to know. He pushed the
sheets away and strode towards the bathroom where he pushed
open the semi-shut door with complete disregard for her
privacy.

She stood at the sink with a bowed head, blood dripping
steadily into the basin. A wet facecloth was clasped in her
hand, ready to wipe away the last drops of blood when the
bleeding eventually came to an end. And although she knew
Mulder was there, she refused to look at him. With crossed
arms he stood in the doorway, staring persistently at her
reflection until she eventually felt the pressure of his
look and raised her head to meet his gaze.

She maintained eye contact for a split second before the
intensity of his expression caused her to avert her glance.
"It's a just a nose bleed, Mulder. Stop worrying about me."

Mulder felt his jaw tightening; her attempts to brush it off
provoking a hostile reaction from him. "Is this the first
one?" he asked angrily.

Scully's response was to sink deeper into herself. Her hands
toyed with the washcloth, folding it neatly into a square as
the blood continued to drip steadily next to it. Minutes
passed as Mulder waited for a reply, but she remained
distantly silent, her eyes clinging all the while to the
basin. When the bleeding had slowed, Scully lifted the
washcloth and began cleaning away the blood. The detachment
she demonstrated only aggravated him further.

"There have been others, haven't there?" He moved closer to
her. It was his body's attempt at reducing the distance that
separated them, but in his mind he knew the gulf was
insurmountable. This close, her expression fell into sharp
relief, and he knew the truth of his words. All he had to do
was look at her, and the facts that she was hiding became
evident. His eyes continued to latch onto her reflection,
even though she deliberately kept her own gaze focussed away
from him. "You haven't told me about the others..." His tone
of resignation was inlaid with crisp jewels of hurt, but he
remained bitterly antagonistic.

Her eyes persisted in avoiding his. She turned the faucet on
and began squeezing the blood out of the facewasher,
watching emotionless as the red-diluted water swirled around
the basin. In a tight voice she answered, "I didn't realise
that I was required to submit regular updates on my health."
She returned his anger back to him with twice the intensity.

Shock sliced through him. Her hurtful words were delivered
with visceral intensity and he felt the pain sear through
his flesh, before displaying itself openly on his face. His
voice echoed numbly, "Updates?" Again he took a step closer
to her, his arms dropping from their aggressive position, as
he reached out and touched her shoulder. "Is that all you
think I want?"

Reacting to his caress, Scully turned the faucet off and
swung around to face him For the first time, she made direct
eye contact, and Mulder could see the distinct and varied
emotions that hid within the shades of her eyes. Her
frustration at the continuing argument was the principle
feeling which shone through and Mulder recognised it
immediately. With parallel ease, he grasped the reason she
clung so tightly to the anger which fuelled her
exasperation: being angry was a hell of a lot better than
being scared.

In laborious terms, Scully repeated her reassurance from
earlier, "It is *just* a nosebleed, Mulder. People have
nosebleeds all the time." She drew closer to him, and
allowed her eyes to soften. "It doesn't mean the cancer has
returned."

Taking advantage of her yielding stance, Mulder lowered his
voice and asked gently, "Have you had it checked out?"

It broke the comfortable moment, and she was once again on
the defensive. "No, I haven't." She pushed past him and
returned to the bedroom, yanking the stained pillowcase off
and throwing it in the laundry basket, before sliding back
into bed and fixing him with a stubborn look. "There are no
other symptoms. If I had any reason to be concerned, I would
go to the doctor. But I don't, and neither should you."

Mulder struggled to remain dispassionate, but the battle was
quickly lost. She was dismissing him as if he were a child.
The intent behind her statement was clear and he knew he had
to get out of there before he lost his temper completely. He
stared at her with barely restrained fury and then, without
a word, began to gather his clothes from the floor. Scully
followed his movements with a furrowed brow. Her apparent
serenity was nothing more than a mask which hid her growing
incomprehension.

With hostility, she asked him the obvious. "What are you
doing?"

He replied without looking at her. "I'm leaving before I say
something I regret."

Her eyes studied him. If he were closer, he would have been
able to observe her expression, which was laced with
uncertainty. Instead, all he could judge were her words,
which she threw at him with bitterness. "I see. Ditching me
again, huh?"

The unfairness of her comment forced him to channel his
energy into the task of tying up his laces. If he didn't, he
knew that he'd lash out with unforgivable words. Words that
described emotions which were buried deeply within him;
feelings he was reluctant to acknowledge to himself when
swimming in the warm liquid of her love, but which hovered
persistently in the background, waiting for a moment like
this to unleash themselves. He straightened and left the
room without a backward glance.

Scully watched him go and refused to call him back. The cry
was there, but she gripped it tightly in her throat, knowing
that showing him her weakness would only prove him right.
Underneath the angry words they had exchanged, another
meaning had been hidden. It was a struggle of wills in which
Scully was determined to prove to him that just because she
allowed herself to love and be loved, didn't mean that she
was prepared to subjugate herself to him. Being her own
person was more important to her than being half of a whole,
and she needed him to understand that.

On the other hand, she had to admit that in one respect,
Mulder had been right. His underlying fear about her cancer
was one that she also shared.

Internally.

With a sigh, Scully turned off the light. When the darkness
was complete, she rolled over to the other side of the bed
and breathed in his scent, taking strength from it in lieu
of his presence. When the first nosebleed had happened
nearly a month ago, her thoughts had immediately sprung to
the blackest of conclusions. Like Mulder, she had assumed
that it was a sign that the reprieve she'd been granted was
about to be brutally hauled back, setting her once more slap-
bang on the path to death.

It was a possibility that terrified her. More than anything
else she'd had to endure in her life, those weeks spent in
the hospital two years ago had devastated her. Fear and bile
filled her throat simultaneously when she contemplated being
forced to return to that nightmare. For her, the worst
aspect of cancer was the sickness that preceded the
inevitable death. Neediness and dependency weren't words
that she associated with her healthy self, but in the
cancerous state, they were the principles that defined her.
The image of Mulder and her family weeping over her disease-
ravaged body was not the one she wanted to carry with her to
the grave and she knew that if she was faced with that
prospect, she would have no hesitation in finding another
alternative.

Wetness trickled against her skin and for a split second she
thought that her nose had started bleeding again. Her hand
leapt to her face and brushed the dampness away. Examining
her fingers she saw that it was just a tear, but the
realisation did nothing to reassure her. Panic subsided,
only to be replaced by self-loathing. Scully squeezed her
eyes shut and wiped away the tears that continued to fall.
With the strongest of wills, she forced herself to stop
crying, knowing that it could only open the gateway to the
black thoughts that she had fervently pushed down ever since
she'd first seen the blood. She reminded herself of the
argument she'd used on Mulder: just because she'd had a nose
bleed didn't automatically mean the cancer had returned. All
she was doing with these thoughts of self-pity was indulging
in pointless speculation.

Speculation that drove fear through her heart with an ice-
cold force. It was because of this fear that she hadn't
confided in Mulder. She'd known that he'd insist on her
seeing a doctor and to her, that would be the first step
towards learning she had the disease. An end result that she
wanted to avoid at all costs. Mulder knew that. He had to
know that. Scully counted on that fact to reassure her that
their argument would soon be resolved. With Mulder, some
things just didn't need to be verbalised and with any luck,
he was going through the same motion of thoughts himself,
right now.

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

In through the nose. Out through the mouth.

Mulder concentrated on his breathing, finding it a welcome
distraction from the highly charged emotions that dominated
his mind. Jogging had always been his preferred coping
mechanism when his head was in the kind of mess it was in
tonight, and so far it wasn't letting him down; as his feet
thumped against the sidewalk, he could feel a noticeable
easing of his anger. In rigid rhythms, he inhaled and
exhaled. In with the good thoughts, out with the bad. That
was his method and for the moment it appeared to be working.

Now that he was away from her, he was able to recognise that
where Scully was concerned, he was inclined to react with
intensity, and tonight had been no exception. As he pounded
through the dimly-lit streets, he reflected on the argument
and its deeper significance.

The verbal barbs they'd thrown at each other had been
superficial weapons; the real meaning behind their argument
being buried much deeper than the exposed surface. Mulder
knew that the root of the argument had been the long-
standing difficulties that were never far from the surface
in their relationship. Problems that had been present from
the beginning. Even when they had been purely platonic
partners he'd found Scully's internalisation an infuriating
characteristic. From the very start, she'd been reluctant to
share her feelings with him, unable to acknowledge when
something was wrong and had basically refused to let him in
on her pain. Over the years, the situation had ameliorated
slightly but even as lovers, it was a fault that persisted.
Mulder believed that if there was going to be any one
element that would destroy their relationship, it was
Scully's distance.

There was no doubt in Mulder's mind that he loved her. It
was a given that he had stopped questioning somewhere in the
third year of their partnership. But he also knew that in
many respects he hated her. Hated the barriers she put up
against him, hated her closed-off mind which continued to
deny the truths he believed were unquestionable. Hated her
self-righteousness that stubbornly precluded her from
believing she was wrong.

A cramp seized in his leg, and he had to stop, wincing as he
applied pressure to the sensitive spot. His breathing was
laboured and he took the opportunity to drop onto the curb's
edge and catch his breath.

Hate.

The word swirled around his head, leaving an ugly trail in
its wake. He had allowed it in too easily and with a
conscious effort, he pushed its negative message back down.
Its companion quickly rose in its wake. It was fear that was
driving him away from Scully. The fear they both felt.
Between the two of them, it was a powerful double act.

Although she had kept her eyes shielded from him throughout
the argument, Mulder had seen the dread that flowed from her
gaze. Fear had clung to every one of her retorts and he knew
he'd been unfair in pushing her closer to her anxieties. Her
terror of the disease that had nearly destroyed her was
something that she never admitted to him, but that he knew
all the same. Like so many of her emotions, it was something
that he read from everything she didn't say. And as she had
remained taciturn, so had he. What he could never tell her
was that he shared her horror of the remission's end. If,
God forbid, the cancer had come back, Mulder didn't know if
he'd be able to face it.

He knew that he was being selfish. Not just with regards to
Scully, but also to all the other people in the world who'd
had to deal with a fatal disease attacking either
themselves, or their loved ones. He was aware of wantonly
claiming grief as his own personal belonging: something that
no-one else could possibly understand, or have dealt with.
Already he could hear the platitudes of those who believed
that they comprehended the meaning of suffering, and already
the thought of needing to struggle through the rest of his
life without Scully sent him hurtling into a state of anger
and denial.

But he didn't give a damn about what other people felt.
Before Scully, he'd had nothing. He'd been nothing. Now, he
was whole.

If she died...

He couldn't - didn't - continue the thought.

Pushing up from the ground, he began to slowly walk back to
his car.

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

The apartment's silence tangled his thoughts. He didn't know
what else he'd been expecting - the muffled sound of her
tears, the distorted tones of the television? - but the
quiet jumped through his nerves and left him feeling
inexplicably on-edge. He had left on the wave of shouts, so
returning into tranquility was unsettling rather than
reassuring.

After a moment's pause, Mulder pushed on towards the
bedroom. If she was awake, he knew she would be alert to his
presence by his muffled steps, but if she was asleep he
hoped that his was being quiet enough not to disturb her. He
half-hoped to find her buried in dreams, but knew that he'd
prefer her to be awake. The things he wanted to say couldn't
wait until morning.

With trepidation, Mulder stood in the doorway and looked at
her. He was momentarily surprised to see that she had moved
over to his side of the bed - the side furthest from the
door. But the observation was soon washed away by other,
more important, details. The moon's muted light was enough
for him to see that her eyes returned his gaze with a steady
intensity. Though it was shadowed in darkness, her face was
clear to him; its expression eminently readable. Her
emotions replicated his own.

He couldn't move. He was scared that if he did, the
connection between their eyes would be broken, cutting off
the silent exchange with all its hidden meaning. The rage
he'd felt towards her had swiftly departed the moment he'd
glimpsed her curled form on the bed, and now all he could
feel was weakness. His knees were unsteady as he slowly
approached her, his gaze never wavering from her face. He
knelt by the bed and continued to study her across the
distance that separated them.

She didn't move, but her eyes had followed him all the way.
Her lips lifted into a tiny smile as he grazed his fingers
against hers. They held hands as Mulder murmured, "I'm
sorry."

Scully slid closer to him and in unison they leaned forward,
placing gentle kisses on each other's mouths. Pulling back,
Scully smiled again and said with the same softness that had
imbued his voice, "I'll go to the doctor tomorrow."

Silently, smoothly, Mulder shed his clothes and slipped into
bed. Her skin was warm against his as she nestled into him.
Murmured words were passed between them as the stillness
wrapped them together. It was transient resolution, but
sufficient for now.

In darkness, they found each other.

Something was right.

~ THE END ~

-----------------------------------------------------------

Thanks for reading. Comments are welcome.

leigh_xf@geocities.com