From: akelleynolan@yahoo.com   
      
   TITLE:  All Roads   
   AUTHOR:  A. Kelley Nolan   
   EMAIL:  akelleynolan@yahoo.com   
   DISTRIBUTION:  Gossamer and Ephemeral have it.  Anywhere else would   
   thrill me to pieces.  Just let me know.   
      
   RATING:  R   
   CATEGORIES:  SR   
   KEYWORDS:  Mulder/Scully romance   
   SPOILERS:  All Things, if one can be said to be spoiling a show that   
   aired years ago.   
      
   SUMMARY:  Mulder ponders all things.   
      
   Disclaimer:  If I owned them, would I live in Idaho?  Legally,   
   Mulder and Scully belong to some combination of Chris Carter, Ten   
   Thirteen, Fox, and The Man.  Spiritually, I like to think that they   
   belong to the world.   
      
   Author's Notes at the end.   
      
   *******************   
      
   No question, this woman really pisses me off sometimes.   
      
   There are times when I want to shout at her, or shake her until   
   something rattles loose and she sees things my way. This isn't one of   
   those times. This is one of the ones where I try to keep my jaw from   
   hanging open in wonder that I'm allowed to know her, to have her in my   
   life. There are a lot more of those moments than the other kind,   
   especially lately.   
   We're sitting on my couch. She's kicked off her shoes, and her feet   
   look tiny next to mine on the coffee table. She's getting sleepy.   
   Chamomile always does that to her, but she likes it enough that I keep   
   it on hand. I like it when Scully gets sleepy. It ups my chances of   
   waking up next to her in the morning.   
      
   I've got a potentially debilitating case of jet lag sparking behind my   
   eyes, but I'm way too wound up to sleep anytime soon. We've been   
   talking for hours. Actually, mostly she's been talking, and I've been   
   listening. It doesn't happen that often - her talking or me listening   
   - and so I've been sitting as still as possible, wrapping myself in a   
   cloak of cool, trying not to disturb the strange vibration in the air   
   between us.   
      
   She's told me things tonight that almost made my heart stop. Not about   
   Daniel, she told me about him a long time ago. A motel room in   
   God-knows-where when a couple of beers had loosened our tongues enough   
   to start sharing defining experiences of which we aren't very proud. I   
   had considerably more than she did. But tonight as she described her   
   vision, all the images of me and us, and the mysterious woman who   
   turned out to be me... Granted I'm a narcissist, but I recognize   
   "we're meant to be together" no matter how many metaphors you couch it   
   in.   
      
   I swear I stopped breathing. And when I remembered to start again, my   
   heart was pounding so hard I was glad she's a doctor. To cover my   
   agitation, I took a long, slow sip of the tea, my hand hardly shaking   
   at all. It seemed preferable to throwing myself at her feet and   
   weeping with gratitude.   
      
   I've known it for a long time. For me, there's been no possibility of   
   anyone else for years now, as either best friend or lover, and the   
   only explanation I have for how improbably we've clung to each other   
   is that it was inevitable. I told her that once, in what I thought was   
   a wildly romantic moment, but even in a wildly romantic moment Scully   
   is Scully. I remember she looked at me with a little frown of   
   concentration like she was conjugating irregular German verbs in her   
   head, then said softly, "I'll have to think about that." Which should   
   have been a real mood killer, but the way she reached up and kissed me   
   afterward more than made up for it.   
      
   Apparently she's thought about it and has, incredibly, come to the   
   same conclusion I did all those months and months ago. I'm relieved.   
   She's been...dissatisfied lately. Not with me, or at least not any   
   more than usual. But she's been restless, and there's been an   
   uncertainty in her that I haven't known how to deal with. Our MO at   
   times likes this is to stare at each other meaningfully while   
   attempting to engage in one-way telepathy and then just hope that the   
   whole thing goes away. We could stand to work on the verbal   
   communication.   
      
   That's what the trip to England was supposed to be about. There was an   
   actual crop circle event predicted, but in all honesty I don't give a   
   rat's ass about crop circles. I wanted to take Scully away for a few   
   days, half-heartedly investigate the event, write it off as nothing   
   after a day or so, and spend the rest of the time wandering around the   
   English countryside with her and making love in quaint little B&Bs. I   
   wanted us to have a chance to decompress and talk, about whatever. We   
   haven't exactly been firing on all six cylinders lately, and I wanted   
   us to reconnect. In an outbreak of irony that isn't lost on me, I   
   didn't tell her any of that.   
      
   Instead, I cooked up the irresistible combination of technopop, visual   
   aides, and Saturday in the office. She brought me a burrito made   
   exactly the way I like it and wouldn't even look at me as she dealt   
   some unexpected violence to her salad. I found myself trying to get   
   her attention like the middle child in a large family. And when she   
   declined what was never really an invitation, I hid my hurt feelings   
   behind a layer of indifference and pissiness. I even left her to clean   
   up the burrito. God, I'm such an asshole sometimes.   
      
   It was a fit of pique that would have been much better suited to a   
   much younger man. Like someone who only has to shave every other day   
   or so. I was embarrassed before I was fully out the door. By the time   
   I got home I was well and truly ashamed. I tried to mend fences a   
   little later. I called her while I was packing to ask her to do me a   
   favor. I'm not sure why I thought this would be appealing to her right   
   at that moment, but Mulder In Need has gotten her attention when she   
   didn't want to give it to me before. She sounded distracted. I   
   couldn't think of anything to do but keep talking, so I plowed ahead   
   and asked her to drop by the hospital all the way across town and pick   
   up some important crop circle data. I was actually hoping she'd decide   
   there was plenty of time to throw a bag together and meet me at the   
   airport. That wouldn't be without precedent. But she just told me she   
   was out for the evening.   
      
   A cold fist of fear clutched my stomach, and I distinctly remember   
   that my only coherent thought was "What the fuck?" She was ditching   
   me, at least metaphysically. She'd complained dozens of times about my   
   more corporeal ditchings, but I realized something in that moment that   
   I never had before: being ditched sucks. It was like that freak punch   
   that killed Houdini. That fist continued to clench in my innards,   
   until I felt like I was going to throw up. She didn't want me with   
   her. She didn't even want me in her head. Something in me whimpered.   
      
   Of course, I didn't tell her that. I didn't point out that she was   
   breaking my heart, which represented quite a bit more melodrama than I   
   was prepared to inject into the situation. I didn't even demand to   
   know what the hell was going on or tell her to stay put, that I was   
   coming over and we were going to talk about this, damn it. No, I   
   shoved down the fear cresting in me until it transformed into   
   indignation and betrayal. "Well, why didn't you just say so in the   
   first place?" I asked tightly.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)