TITLE: TRUST SOMEONE, TRUST ME AUTHOR: Ewa E-mail: ewa@whatewa.com RATING: G CATEGORY: V SPOILER: Season 8,up to PER MANUM KEYWORDS: D/S D POV SUMMARY: Why is her trust so important? DISCLAIMER: Any characters you recognize belong to Mr. Carter & Co. Doesn't stop me messing with them though, purely for the fun of it, monetary gain has never been an issue here. ARCHIVES: You mean, I don't have to pay? Let me know where it's gone please! Please keep declaimer etc with it. AUTHOR'S NOTES: Just when I thought I'd never write again, the muse returned, a little rusty but it's here. Feedback is always valued Visit me and read my other x-phile stories at http://www.whatewa.com 07.08.02 TRUST SOMEONE, TRUST ME I'm shattered, both physically and emotionally, as I come in through my door and wearily climb the stairs to the bedroom and fall on to the bed, not even bothering to shuck off my shoes. The events of the past 24 hours events have been a revelation. Why? The question ricochets around my brain like a ball in a pinball machine, making no sense as it bounces off thought after thought. Why? Why is this so important? I lie in the darkness; thin shards of streetlight penetrate the blinds and cast ghostly shadows in the pitch-dark. Why now? When I should be feeling so elated, why do I feel such incredible melancholy? My mind skips back to the beginning, to that first time. Rumors about Agent Fox Mulder and his partner Agent Scully were endemic around the building and in the men's room and were offensive to say the least. So her partner had disappeared, so what was it to do with me? Plenty it seemed, as Deputy Director Kersh made clear to me. Shut the 'X-Files' shut down, discredit Mulder's work, and I would go far career-wise, the Deputy Director implied. I had been granted carte blanche to do this. Yes, I was annoyed to have been made to team up with the woman, but even more so at the prospect of being used. Still it was only to be for a short time, get in there, do the business and be out. Ice Queen, Mrs. Spooky, ferociously loyal partner, paranoid loser, these descriptions and more scrambled through my head at my first rather damp meeting of Special Agent Dana Katherine Scully MD. I thought I'd have a little fun while laying down the ground rules; show her who was going to be boss from now on. Baiting her should have been entertaining and there should have felt some pleasure at her stunned expression as she grappled with the fact that she didn't know her partner quite as well as she thought. She recovered well, dousing me with cold water for my temerity before she walked out of the room. Why did the look in her eyes made me feel like a complete ass-hole? My first assignment as leader of the FBI Task Force to find Mulder also gave me an opportunity to get to know Agent Scully. I found there was a bleak emptiness somewhere behind her blue eyes that reached inside me and drew me to her, an echo of what I felt inside myself, sadness I suspected most people didn't see. And why was getting another desk down into that dim office such a big deal? The name plate, what to call her, my diligence in going through all their files, why was this all so significant to her? Agent Scully did not want to let me into their world, I felt her bitter resistance, but step by painful step she had to concede some areas. Each time I felt I'd won the battle but lost the war. Once my re-assignment leaked out I seemed to get real popular with the guys, they were worst than the typing- pool for wanting to hear all the gossip. Had I embellished the facts, I'd be more popular still, though I found myself trying to avoid the guy's, especially if she was in the vicinity. She was so independent, yet every now and then there would be a spark of defenselessness in her eyes, vulnerability she would never admit to, and sadness, such sadness. She fought for her partner's work and beliefs every step of the way, for what he'd achieved, what she considered was now being eroded and devalued. A gray veil of anguish emanated from her, I could see it, feel it in the weight of the air, smell the leaden scent, taste the bitter pain. Their relationship was so much conjecture and rumor, so much I couldn't work out. There was a lot more to it all I felt, something indefinable, the cause of her pain. Once, I found her sleeping in Mulder's apartment. Curled up on his bed cuddling his shirt, she looked so small, almost childlike. Her eyes were puffy where she'd cried herself to sleep, traces of tears still not quite dry on her cheeks. In the moments she become aware of my presence there was such an air of fragility about her. I felt an overwhelming need to comfort her, except I knew she didn't want that from me. I gazed down at her for a long moment then finally turned away to give her the space she required and let her off the hook. My entire time in the Marines and NYPD did not prepare me for the sort of shit I saw over the next couple of months and I grew to respect and admire her; her tenacity, her professionalism and in those weeks, to my surprise, I had occasion to change my more traditional methods of investigation. When did things start turning around? When did I start wanting us to be part of the team? When did we become *us*? When did I start hearing what she said, seeing things from a different angle? As the cases we worked got weirder so did my need for her to trust me become of the essence to me. She was driven, encouraging me to open my mind to possibilities I would have previously found unconscionable. Every now and then I'd glimpse what our relationship could be like if only she would trust me. And the comprehension that I didn't want a sexual relationship with her threw me for a loop. I wanted her to be my friend, to know she could rely on me to be there for her. I wanted to take away that aura of sadness and despair hanging over her, to make her smile and to be part of that special relationship she appeared to have with Skinner, and which to my shame I felt a little jealous of. My need to protect her when that slug-like creature was implanted in her stunned me. I couldn't get what had happened to her out of my head, and it was more than guilt, more than a futile desire to help her and salve my conscience. I became aware then that there was more involved, that Skinner knew, but I wasn't to be told, I wasn't to be trusted with the secret. I should have known better than to be haunted by a woman with frightened eyes who needed a champion, a knight in shining armor and however foolish, it seemed I needed to be that knight. Although she had an air of sorrow about her, but she was far from impotent when it came to work. I've seen men who towered over her; shrivel at the sound of her commanding voice or the sight of he flashing blue eyes. You do not mess with Agent Scully. She would watch my back just as rigorously as I watched hers and I believe her intervention stopped me killing myself during my experiences with the phenomenon of Via Negativa when I believe a madman invaded my dreams. I'd have rather done that than harm her, no big macho thing, just our relationship changing. When did she start letting me in, when did we start trusting one another in our odd, guarded way? When did I begin to read between the lines? For some reason, she cried off some of the cases, with it seemed, the full backing of Assistant Director Skinner. In some instances he'd partner me and it was on one such case that Agent Scully arranged I met and worked with Mulder's wacky friends, the Lone Gunmen. Inadvertently I discovered she'd been hospitalized for abdominal pains. I was never told, never given an explanation, but then I didn't need an explanation and the need in me to protect her, to guard her well being suddenly become paramount. In my thorough studies of the X-Files I'd come across two folders that related to her specifically. I didn't imagine Agent Scully, with her air of dignity and vulnerability, being comfortable with me knowing about them or with my need to be there for her. My gut feeling told me that Agent Dana Scully had a lot of secrets, those that caused the bleak wasteland in her gaze and those that caused the aura of danger surrounding her. She hadn't lied to me, but she hadn't told me the entire truth, but then, she knew next to nothing about me. I was not a man that the faint-of-heart could exist alongside. As a man who'd lived through his own personal hell and had survived I felt her need for privacy and would back off, letting her share with me as much as she felt capable of. I hadn't been open with her over many things including Luke but sometimes there is empathy between us, without reason or explanation. We built up a sort of rapport, where each of us had permission to read between the lines, so long as nothing was ever said. I developed a certain sixth sense where she was concerned, so when she asked me to be her eyes and ears on a case I didn't question her motives, supporting her decision not to go down with me into the tunnels. I wouldn't have let her go down there in any case. "Let's go home." Such a short little sentence, except hearing it from her when she came to spring me from hospital that time meant more to me than could be expressed She tried so hard to walk in Mulder's footsteps, to think as he 'd done, to make the same leaps of logic and when she thought she'd failed she was consumed with self- reproach. I hate seeing women cry, and the single tear escaping and making its way down her cheek was almost more than I could bear. I felt my gut twisting with my inability to help her, to comfort her. I wanted to hold her, to tell her it would be okay, not to beat herself up like that. Instead, I kept my hands firmly in my pocket. This was not what she needed, she had to remain in control, that was the only way she could cope alone; and she was alone, for neither Skinner nor I could ever come anywhere near to Mulder. For all the progress we'd made I still didn't know, couldn't understand, So much finagling and obfuscating, until tonight that is. Suddenly everything is clear. I sat at her bedside waiting for her to wake up, her cinnamon hair fanning out on the white pillow, the only splash of color in this aseptic room. My mind is in turmoil. How many other people knew? She's fourteen weeks pregnant! It explains so much. How could I have been so blind? On the sterile hospital bed she seems so small, so vulnerable like a fine porcelain cup that you see in antique shops, the kind a guy is afraid to pick up because it might break if he held it too tight, but that in itself is a delusion. I know her now, she is like a willow, strong and pliant and no matter what, she will bend but they won't break her. I watched as she roused, trying to focus on whoever is keeping vigil over her. Fleetingly her eyes shone with love and longing before fully conscious, she saw I was not the one she needed at her bedside and the joy flickered and died in her azure eyes. She looked so crushed when I told her I knew, momentarily I thought she would crumble before my eyes, but Dana Scully is made of stronger stuff than that! She looked at me, moisture shimmering in her eyes and at that moment I knew our relationship altered. I feel her trust in me and I believe she knows now that I will never betray that trust, no matter what. I feel privileged to be so trusted and extraordinarily shy and self-conscious. The only comforting gesture I can make is to reassuringly squeeze her shoulder as I reaffirm the promise I've made myself, but this time to her. I'll find Mulder for her. I *will* protect this woman and her unborn child no matter what, until the time Mulder returns. She's got me now to add to her ragged band of knights. She has someone to trust, she has me. FIN 08.11.02