Valiente Oscuridad
By CommodoreX
Rating: PG-13 for language
Summary: Scully has to face the consequences of denial. Mulder has to face the 
consequences of faith.


Part 1
Mulder was back, that was certain—but was he the same person? The uncertainty left her 
rigid with fear.

Dana Scully paced.
Her mind, which previously had been so full of solid emotions, was now completely 
empty of all—fear pervaded.
It had been six months. Six goddamn months of putting up with lonliness and questions 
and the concern of loving relatives. She * hated * loving – fucking - relatives. She would 
love to put those loving relatives out of their concerned misery with a well-placed, 
resounding answer.

Yes! I WAS screwing my partner! YES! THAT’S why I’m so upset.

Is that what they wanted?
Was that the truth? No.
Was she pregnant by him? Ha! The million dollar question.
Did she have an answer? No.

The door swung open. An orderly dressed in an institutional uniform removed his hat.
Scully got ready to do some heavy duty de-emotionalizing.
This time the news was good. Whew. Since when was luck her middle name?

Scully wandered down the familiarly lit hospital halls, feeling as if she should be happier 
than she actually was.
Ms. Scully? Your partner is doing fine. He wants to see you.
He doesn’t have answers, Ms. Scully. There will never be answers, Ms. Scully.
You should just give up, Ms. Scully. 
Bastards.
She stopped at a door, and leant her head against the wire-crosshatched window.

The time was, you really had to do some thinking.
Stop making it harder for yourself. Just paste a happy smile on your face, and walk in 
there.
He’s your goddamn partner, Dana.
He doesn’t have answers.
Who needs answers? 
I do.
You need your partner more.

The silence and sudden, static noise of the electroencephalograph was impossible. Her 
hand on the handle faltered, but she had already entered to far into the room to retreat.
Paste a happy smile on your face, Dana.
You’re happy to see him, Dana.
He looked unbearably young and vulnerable.
Her first response was to think that he was thin.
Her second response was to break down.

She knelt beside him, unable to do anything, resting her face on his palm, feeling her 
tears slip easily between his fingers.
Mulder’s eyes swiveled to look at her, though his head hardly moved. There were 
moments of silence that fell on Scully’s head like individual accusations. She knew what 
was coming.
He was going to blame her for not finding him sooner.

She was prepared for this. She was! In her mind she had prepared an apologetic, 
sympathetic, but apropriately acerbic script of the conversation to follow.
I’m sorry you feel that way, Mulder.
I tried Mulder.
Oh, Mulder.

Instead, Mulder just looked at her face and cried, as if nothing had ever seemed as wholly 
desired, as if her face were an unnatural blessing.
I thought I was going to die without you, Mulder.

Part 2
They had recovered sufficiently. 
More to the point, they had stopped their hysterical weeping and they had thought to 
engage in an embrace so torridly un-partnerlike and so refreshingly open that it spurned 
the years of carefully constructed restraint between them. 
Mulder clutched her back with a strength that was surprising from a man in his emaciated 
state. Scully buried her face in the darkness between his shoulder and the pillow.

‘Scully.’
‘Scully, I thought I was— ’

Mulder’s whispers dissolved into a muffled moan.
She had muffled it.
Now was not the time for what-ifs and speculations.
I thought you were too, Mulder.
But I’m never going to tell you.
And I never gave up.

‘You never were, Mulder. I never gave up.’

‘I know.’ He reached for her hand.

No you don’t. You’ll never know, Mulder.
I did things that would make your mouth hang open.
Maybe they would make you hate me, too.
And I don’t have any comforting thoughts for you either.
I never gave up, but you don’t have answers.
She felt the grip tighten, as Mulder struggled with his anguish.
‘Scully. I don’t remember— ’

‘Jesus, Mulder. I know you don’t. I didn’t either.’

‘But its—its neccesary.’ She laid a hand on his cheek.

‘The only thing that’s neccesary for you, Mulder, is to get well again.’

He was asleep.
Weak.
She went home and cried for hours.
Received ten phonecalls from concerned, loving relatives.
Shit. What a load to be dropped on your back, Dana.
When she woke up, she was already on the way to the hospital, to await the start of 
Mulder’s recovery.





The crosshatched doorway stood open, and Mulder was propped up against his pillow, 
reading a magazine, sideways.

‘Well, that’s one way of recovering your strength, Mulder.’ She smiled as the centerfold 
fluttered shut and he flung it aside.
He smiled broadly, looking younger and healthier. But still vulnerable.
You could poke a knife in and twist it, before he could even begin to react.
Jesus, Mulder, what more can they do to your life before you just give up.

‘Frohike brought them by. I guess in six months I’ve gotten quite a backlog.’ His voice 
faltered and dropped on the mention of the time span.
Why can’t we just have a normal conversation?

‘Well, you can catch up on Candi Cayne and her frolicky twin sisters later, Mulder.’ He 
didn’t smile. 
I should tell you that it won’t stop hurting, Mulder.
It still hurts. It’ll hurt even more for you.
Scully suddenly felt nausea creep through her belly, tightening her throat.
Sweet Jesus. Not now.
Mulder was looking at her. Not at her face, but at the belly that her hand was leaning on.

She saw the darkness of his eyes, and braced herself for it.
She was prepared for this one too. And, like the other reproach that her mind had relied 
on, this one never came. He closed his eyes, and, in a moment, slept.
If only she could reclaim that peaceful sleep that was taken from her.
Oh, Mulder, you wouldn’t believe it now, but it gets worse.
And it never stops hurting.

Part 3
Mulder’s not fine.
And neither am I.

He played at being fine for days. She visited him at the hospital. He was all smiles. He 
hid that brooding, searching look until her back was turned. She was happily surprised.
But that didn’t keep her from being wary.

In the days that followed her own abduction, she would wake up screaming in the night. 
She had vague memories of drilling pain and a heavy pressing on her abdomen.
What did they do to me? 
She knew nothing but the side effects.
The side effects that had almost led to a pathetic suicide and a small note on a table, 
explaining where her belongings were going. But she felt herself drawn back from it.
Mulder had god damn strings attached to her heart.

But words failed her when she tried to explain to him how he had jerked her back from 
the precipice just in time to keep her from damning her soul.
I might just get into heaven now. And, with a little help, you might be there too. With a 
little help.
Please, just a little help.

And when Mulder checked himself out of the hospital days later, she took him out to 
celebrate. They danced at a small, cramped and stylish little club, and Mulder held her so 
tightly that she thought she would asphyxiate. 
He pushed his face into her shoulder, and they danced, and he sobbed, and they danced, 
until Scully flushed with heat and tight longing, and Mulder got very very drunk, and 
didn’t make it home before staggering out of the taxi and kneeling, ashen faced and 
weeping, at the side of the road.
Scully held him for a long time, before banishing him to sleep on the couch, and curling 
up tightly in bed, holding her stomach and trying to staunch the sudden welling of fear 
that overtook her.

I’m fine, Scully.
Who would have ever thought that that phrase would come back to kick her in the ass?
He denied it, but she saw it every time she saw him.
It was chipping away at his defenses.
Don’t you ever call him Spooky again, you bastards.
See what it has done to him?
Sometimes his hands would shake arthritically, and, powerless to stop them, he would 
stare at them detachedly, until the shaking, or she went away.
She never, ever caught him staring at her back, never caught the glances of pure agony 
that he shot her when she bent over to file, just beginning to show.
It would never occur to her that he felt so completely without hope.

He looks. . .better.
More rested, more healthy, less. . .eaten up.
You’re lying to yourself.
His eyes are clear for the first time in two months.
You never actually look at his eyes, just around them, above them, skirting glances over 
them.
He looks better. Better.

His eyes.
His eyes were,
They were so. . .
God. How could she have missed it. 
One day he just didn’t show up for work.
Dana. Coward. Fucking godamn self-liar.
She missed it because she had wanted to believe.
Maybe this was what he’d been going on about all those years.
And the same consequences to.

His eyes were so. . .
Sick leave. In retrospect she almost laughed. Mulder?
Sick leave? Not unless he was dead.
The thought was laughable, and yet perfectly. . 
Sane. Believable. Something to grapple with.
Coward. Coward. Coward.
I don’t want to believe. No, I can’t believe. No.
And then he just wasn’t there anymore.
Days without Mulder, without end, without any word.
She just arrived at his apartment one night.

I have to see him.
He doesn’t want to see you.
There you go again Dana.
Cowardly. Coward thoughts. Coward.
The sound of someone being violently sick almost startled her.
Almost. Lying to youself is easy enough,
But you almost never believe it.
I want to believe.

She stood in the doorway, stunned beyond words.
Bottles. Bottles. Bottled up emotions.
The thought was almost too symbolic for her to contemplate.
The fear arrived just after she realized that they were all empty.
There must have been fifty.
Oh. Shit.
Mulder.

Part 4
Don’t kill yourself over this.
I tried, believe me. Its not worth the pain.
She found him in the bathroom. Collapsed against the wall. He was too pain-riddled to 
look at. But she had to. No more denial.
His eyes. They were filmed over with haze, they widened.
Filled with hate.
He doesn’t want your help, Dana.
Cowardly thoughts, Dana.
Hate was the wrong emotion. Please. Make it the wrong emotion.
It was. It wasn’t hate there, but something more potent.
Oh, poor Mulder.
Betrayal? His eyes were so betrayed.
Oh, Dana you coward piece of shit.
You should have faced it.

Mulder heaved again, and Scully raced towards him.
He fended her off.

‘Go.’ His voice was thick and unrecognizable.

‘Mulder, please. You’re suffering from alcohol poisoning.’ Scully heard herself pleading. 
Even her pleas seemed detached. Her mind blankly ran through her medical textbook.
Alcohol poisoning: in case of extreme consumption of alcohol, the abuser’s liver will 
reject the toxins. The first things to note are the abuser’s pupils. If dialated. . .
The abuser.
Mulder.

He laughed. It seemed an impossible thing for him to do.
Even after he laughed, it still seemed impossible.

‘Not just alcohol, Scully. Everything I could fucking find.’ Scully felt hot, unfortunate 
tears rolling down her cheeks. She lifted his chin, checking his pupils almost 
automatically. He jerked away, and his eyes rolled lazily.
He’s losing motor functions rapidly.
His consiousness will go next.

‘Like what, Mulder?’ She grasped his arms, and started pulling. He made no more 
motions to resist. She noted around a weeks worth of stuble on his chin.
There was no food in his apartment either.
A week of living on alcohol, and his gnawing, annihilating anger.
He passed out shortly after she called the ambulance.

On the ride back to the hospital, they pumped his stomach. Scully turned away and wept. 
She wept to hard that the orderlies thought she was having a seizure.
Her body was wracked by huge emotions trying to escape all together.
Fear. She was so afraid. So alone. So cowardly. So responsible. So afraid.
If Mulder died. . .
There was no continuing that thought.
She didn’t stop sobbing until well after they wheeled his gurney into a room for the night.

It’s touch-and-go, Miss Scully.
He’s got a half-and-half chance, Miss Scully.
Sterno, alcohol, and morphine are a potent combination, Miss Scully.
She felt like she was being accused.
What kind of a friend lets her best friend poison himself? What kind of friend doesn’t see 
the signals of suicidal depression.
Its not my fucking fault.
It is your fucking fault.

And then it was morning. And suddenly the room was alive with motion.
Her mother, Skinner, and a nurse talked quietly.
Mulder’s heart monitor was fast and too erratic.
But it was still sounding.
There is some hope.
Jesus, Dana. If he ever lives, what gives you the idea that he’ll come near you again. He 
thinks that you lied to him.
Mulder. Mulder. I didn’t lie.
But I almost killed you by negligence.
I’m no friend.

Her mother placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.
No comfort. There is no comfort.

‘He’s going to live, Dana.’ The words lifted her out of the murky water she was drowning 
in. There must be some mistake. My partner is going to live?
No, you’ve got it wrong. I just killed him, you see.
‘He’s going to be fine. Just give it time.’ Her mother offered her a smile.
Oh, mom. Look, they’ve lied to you.
Oh. Oh. I want to believe.
She started sobbing again. And this time she didn’t stop.

When she woke she was alone again. Alone with Mulder.
Fear sent sharp spikes down her spine.
Accusations from everything. The heart monitor’s rhythm was steady.
No thanks to you. Coward.
Mulder’s hand lay limply against the railing.
She took a leap. She took it, and laced her finger’s through it.
The simple touch send huge feelings spiraling though her systems.
His touch was exactly what she craved.
Paranoia tried to creep its way back, but their hands wouldn’t let it.
Mulder, she breathed. Love, strong enough to mend even the most shattered of hearts 
started relacing the strings in hers.
It wasn’t my fault.
She slept next to him.

Part 5
Mrs. Scully didn’t find anything wrong with her daughter the next day.
The pain, the self-inflicted torment which had wrung out her soul seemed gone. She 
wondered what had happened.
It was none of her business.
Her daughter told her everything.
She cried, and she cried, and Mrs. Scully cried too.

‘It wasn’t your fault, Dana. Honey. You just have to explain it to him.’ Confronted by 
this simple and healing benediction, Scully couldn’t talk.

‘You have no idea how much I’ve wanted to hear that, Mom.’ She choked out.
Skinner dozed quietly in a chair opposite them.
Stillness pervaded the hospital room.

And suddenly, Mulder was awake.
Suddenly, he was awake and screaming and clawing at the tubes attached to him.
Skinner and Scully restrained him, and he calmed down.
He could only open his eyes half way.

‘I fucked up.’ He said to Skinner. ‘They took me, and I tried to remember. But it was too 
painful. I can’t. I just can’t’ He broked down, crying miserable, weak tears. He was too 
weak even to sob. He turned his gaze on Scully.
The look he gave her was so completely anguished that her own tears mimicked his.

‘I can’t believe it.’ He said to her. ‘I love you. And I thought. . .’ his eyes dropped to her 
belly, and new tears resurged. ‘you told me.’ His voice grew hoarse and desparate. ‘I 
almost killed myself over it.’

And she was running.
She couldn’t see. She couldn’t breathe. The truth.
I don’t want the truth.
She pushed her way through innumerable doors, down stairs.
Outside.
It was dark. She didn’t even know what time it was.
Coward. Her mind screamed at her.
Your fault. You fault. Your fault!
Stop! She screamed to herself, aloud. Her breath was inconceivably tight in her chest.
Her feet pounded over grass, asphalt, grass, pavement.
She ran blindly towards anything that would stop her.

Coward.
You’re no friend. He almost died.
Pathetic. You said you loved him. You lied.
You coward piece of shit.
Tears streaked ribbons sideways and caught the ground at an angle.
Mulder. Mulder. Mulder.
She ran towards anything that would take her away from him.

She fell.

She fell. She fell, and she choked angry bile at the ground.
Suddenly she wanted to tear the undorn baby from her womb.
You. She wanted to scream at it. Your fault. Your fault.
Its not my fault. She vomited again, tasting pain. She was on her knees.
She wrenched her hands back and forth across the ground, ripping her nails.
The tears mixed in with the bile. She could taste them too.
Mulder. Mulder.

Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
There was a voice. Someone. Calling her.
They kingdom come, thy will be done.
She was dimly aware that she was praying. 
Calling her, a voice, closer still.
On earth as it is in Heaven.
She felt a strange, powerful sensation.

Mulder caught up to her and jerked her off her feet.
He was clutching her to him, crying her name, lifting her off the ground.
He was grasping her face in both hands and kissing the filth off of her face.
She clung to him, and they wept each other’s names over and over.
They embraced so tightly that she couldn’t feel anywhere that was not completely him.
As she sobbed into his neck, harsh gasping noises,
Mulder. Mulder. Mulder,
He buried his hands in her hair and repeated her name.
Oh Scully. I’m so sorry.
Oh Mulder, I’m so sorry.

The rain delivered a final absolution as they faced, penitant, the walk back to Eden. 
*		*		*		*
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