TITLE: Dear Mulder AUTHOR: Elsie E-MAIL: elsiel@telusplanet.net RATING: G CATEGORY: VA DISTRIBUTION: Anywhere FEEDBACK: Welcome at elsiel@telusplanet.net SPOILERS: Nothing Important Happened Today SUMMARY: Scully writes to Mulder. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Thanks to Georgia for the helpful suggestions. DISCLAIMER: These characters are not mine. No infringement is intended. Dear Mulder, One year, maybe less. I missed you by a year. I think I was wrong. Maybe we aren't meant to be together after all. Don't blame yourself. I'm the only one that needs to feel guilty. I made you wait because I wasn't ready when you were. I mistakenly thought that another year wouldn't matter. Of course, how were we to know how horrible the Further Adventures of Mr. and Mrs. Spooky would be? Two months, maybe less. That's how much time we really had. I haven't had the nerve to ask you, but I can't help but wonder if you were just pretending. Had you given up on me? You tell me that you kept your illness from me to save me from suffering, but I don't know whether to believe you or not. I can only make up reasons for your actions in my head, since you won't supply any. You must've been tired of waiting. You don't know how much I regret not being able to catch up sooner. I won't even begin to imagine how it must've felt, having the woman you love finally ready to return it when you no longer have the time you always thought you'd have. Do you regret your patience? Because I certainly regret mine. You're out again. On one of what I call your "decompression sessions." It doesn't matter whether you're out playing basketball or chasing down a lead. All I know is that you need time away from us, from this stale relationship. I no longer dread the day that you won't return. I thought you were needy, but I never fathomed how needy I'd become. If I was fearful about pregnancy turning a strong, independent woman into a clingy mess, I should've been paranoid after you came back from the dead. Instead, I battled with my hormones so I could stay strong for you. You, whose experience had forever changed you into someone I wasn't sure I knew anymore. I guess I should be thankful that we tried. I knew there was no way we could continue as we had before your disappearance, but you humored me. Was it the obligation you felt to me and William, or the post-trauma gratitude you felt for living? In any case, I allowed it to happen when I knew what you were doing. I just wanted to be safe. And you had become my safety... ----- She wakes up before the letter is finished. She has been composing letters to him in her dreams for weeks now, always waking up before she gets to her name. At first, she couldn't understand why her mind would concoct reasons for breaking up with him when they weren't even together in real life. Then she realized that she was trying to justify her encouragement of him leaving, trying to make herself feel better about her decision. Things wouldn't have worked out anyway if he had stayed, so she had no need to feel guilty. The numbers on her alarm clock seem bright enough to hurt her eyes, "2:58" glowing at her from her nightstand. She's surprised that she's awake before William tonight. He'll be up within the next ten minutes, so she might as well get up now. She blinks her eyes a couple times, then pushes the covers away and sits up. William's cries start a second later. ----- Dear Mulder, Do you know that I used to dream about our life together? Visions of moving into a new house together, taking trips to amusement parks, growing old together, if not the simple wedding I'd wanted as a teenager. I imagined us a happy family, if nothing else. Are we happy now? People who don't know us well would think we were still adjusting to being a couple. It's sad. Especially since we've been at this for almost six months. I can't help but return again to the year I feel immense guilt over. We had barely started when you disappeared. I obsess over what-ifs, trying to make sense of what happened. Would our love have survived if you hadn't returned to Oregon? Maybe you didn't think you had anything to lose, but I was just stupid. Stupid for thinking that what we had would never die, when we hadn't even had enough time to let things blossom. We were unable to connect when you returned, but I ignored it, seeing only what I wanted to. My brain told me that you needed time; you were suffering from PTSD and needed to be supported. My heart just knew that you were back, and that I couldn't be alone again. Yes, I was selfish. All I could concentrate on was what I had been through, and you were the only person who could understand. I needed to let you know. Maybe it was the only way I could tell you the strength of my feelings. Unfortunately, you didn't have someone who had been through your ordeal to talk to. I tried my best to be there for you, but in the end, I can't say that I know what it's like to be buried alive for three months. I'm sorry I wasn't enough. I'm not unhappy, I don't want you to think that. But I need to be more than just satisfied. Things used to be incredible between us and now things are just okay. You don't want to talk about it, but I know you regret this arrangement. We're basically best friends living together. I thought that we'd surpassed that. And I'm afraid of losing your friendship the longer we stay in this farce. I always want us to stay best friends. I would've liked to tell you in person, but that would've meant waiting until I got up the nerve, which might've been never, and I am tired. Tired of waiting for one of us to own up to the fact that things have passed the salvageable point. I know that you love me. I know that you love our son. But I know that you are not in love with me, not any more. Thank you for trying. I want us to start again. Can we do that? Let's just press the rewind button, and go back to the time when we got along wonderfully. You won't come home to find me gone one day and I know I can expect the same from you. We need to talk. We need to do something about this situation, this arrangement. It's not working. Not acknowledging this fact is the problem and the source of my distress. Let's end this. No more pretending... ----- She surfaces from the dream with tear trails on her cheeks. She swipes her fingers over the wetness and looks to the right. Her alarm clock reads "4:06." It's too early to get up, but she doesn't want to do anymore writing in her sleep. She turns her back from the bright display and tries to relax. I'll just rest a bit, then get up in a minute, she thinks. ----- Dear Mulder, I never thought that I'd been fooling myself. I look back now and realize that it never would've worked. I had settled but refused to believe it. I wasn't the kind of woman that would ever just settle. I wouldn't marry until I found the right person and it would be for love. I never thought that I wouldn't find Mr. Right. I told myself that you must be the one, the one I was fated to end up with, the one that I was in love with. But it was a lie, a lie I had created so as to avoid disappointment. I wasn't disappointed in you; how could I be? You were my best friend. I was disappointed in myself. I covered up by hiding my true feelings from myself and ended up hurting us both. What I am trying to say is, it's my fault, all of it. I had settled and I didn't even know it! I can't believe my mind was able to trick me so easily! Perhaps I was worn down from all the years of disappointment. I had become blind to my true feelings. I really thought I loved you, that I was in love with you. But the truth is, you were there when I needed someone, and I was tired of waiting. You were my best bet, my constant, and I took advantage of your friendship, your loyalty. Words can not begin to express the amount of guilt I feel. I know that saying sorry will never be enough. Do you think that you'll be able to forgive me someday? Knowing you, you will recover quickly on the outside, but on the inside, a part of you will be lost forever--because of me. Believe me, I feel much worse than I look. You know I'm the queen of hiding my emotions, but it's never been this hard for me. This time, I want to die. I feel so horrible, so wretched, so lost. I don't deserve your forgiveness, but I can't help but ask anyway. I need to know that you'll be okay, that we will both survive this. I can't go on if you aren't going to make it through this. Please... ----- A car that needs a new muffler wakes her up this time. Her clock tells her it is 5:18. She can sleep for another hour if William doesn't wake up early this morning, but decides to give herself a minute to forget the dream before getting out of bed. Minutes later, she is still in bed. Her pillows are fluffed, her sheets are comfortable, and the apartment is quiet, but she is tense. She isn't able to shake her dream. She doesn't want to get out of bed and face the day with it still on her mind, but she also can't fall back asleep because she's scared of the next letter she'll be writing to him if she dreams. William will be cranky all day if she doesn't rid herself of the awful feeling she has. "We're not even married. Why would I tell him I want a divorce by writing him a goodbye letter? I don't want him to leave..." she whispers aloud. She reluctantly looks over at her clock. It is only 5:32 in the morning. She wants to scream at it until it displays an appropriate time to get up, but her frustration remains an internal one. It is 5:37 when she can't stand it anymore. She sits up in bed and pulls open the drawer on her bedside table. She hasn't written in her journal for months, and she finds it at the bottom of the drawer. Placing the journal on her lap, she reaches in again and pulls out a pen. It is dusty, and she rolls it on the duvet cover to clean it. She scrawls the date on a fresh page, the black ink smearing a bit. She ignores it. "Dear Mulder, I miss you so much," she begins. THE END Comments are welcome at elsiel@telusplanet.net