Title:  Commiseration
Author:  Jemirah
Archive:  You want it-you got it.  Just please let me know!
Spoilers:  Emily, Christmas Carol
Rating:  G
Category:  Angst
Summary:  I think the title says it all.
Feedback:  jemirah@hotmail.com
Disclaimer:   Not mine.
Author's Note:  This is not my best work, which does not say
much for it.
Special Thanks:  To Laynie for archiving all my work, and
Kelly for not telling me how bad this is.


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Commiseration
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Mulder looked up from his glorified scribble of a Tiffany
lamp to see his partner working on her computer while
silently crying.  He was shocked, completely, to say the
least.  This case was getting to her, and no wonder.
Mothers killing their newborn infants.  He was crazy for
letting Skinner talk him into taking this one.  Scully was
not a woman given to public displays of emotion, even in
their tiny, hidden basement office.  He didn't know what to
do.  There were times she seemed to want anything other than
consolations or commiseration.  He didn't know how to tell
the difference.  Still he couldn't sit idly by.  If it
happened to be one of the few times she wanted his shoulder
to cry on, how could he let her sit and cry alone?  It was
worth the risk.

She was sitting with her back partially to him, so it wasn't
too hard to stand quietly and move around behind her without
her noticing until he was placing his hands on her
shoulders.  She started a little, but didn't shake his hands
away; that was a good sign.  He began to softly massage her
shoulders, and she still sat unmoving.  Except for letting
her hands drop to her lap from the keyboard, and the
occasional sniffle, he would have thought she was asleep.

It broke his heart to see her hurting.  He knew she would
just chastise him for it if she knew of it, but he felt like
he was the cause of her pain. He was the cause of everything
that was bad in her life, actually.

Her hand on his hand shook him from his self-recrimination,
and he released what he now knew must have become a painful
grip on her shoulders.  Damn him, he couldn't even comfort
her right.

She stood now, and he prepared himself for the blow, but it
never came.  She just stood; head bent over the autopsy
photos of an eight-month-old boy.  Then she turned to him,
fresh tears filling her eyes, and put her knees in her desk
chair, which he was still standing behind.  This brought her
up almost to his eye-level.  He was surprised when she
reached up and wiped tears he hadn't been aware of crying
off of his cheeks, then put her arms around him and cried
into his chest.  Now he felt the tears that sprung to his
eyes, and as he put his arms around her, he felt his heart
breaking into a million pieces right under where she was
crying her eyes out.

"I'm sorry, Scully.  I'm so sorry."

"Stop it Mulder.  Just shut up."

"But I know how you feel, and it's killing me."  At this he
got the response he'd expected earlier.  She drew back from
him, almost pushing him down.  Her eyes were now flashing at
him in anger.

"Wha--  "

"Don't even begin to think you know how I feel.  You have no
idea.  You have no idea how it feels to want the one thing
in the world you have the least chance of getting."  Now it
was his turn to be angry.

"As if my whole life couldn't be defined by that very
statement.  You have no right to say that.  You--" At this
she had burst into tears again.  His anger melted away, as
he felt new tears of his own at the sight of hers.

"I'm sorry.  I never say the right thing.  I'm so sorry."

"No, you're right.  If anyone knows what I'm going through,
it's you.  I'm sorry."  She came back to her desk chair and
hugged him as she had before.  They stayed like that for
minutes, each giving the other what comfort they could.

Mulder was quiet as long as he could be.  He had to tell
her, he had to explain.

"Don't you know, Scully?"  He was almost whispered.  "Don't
you know that if you never have children, I don't either?"
He heard a small gasp, then felt her shudder in his arms.
Then she was still for what seemed like a million years.
He'd done it again.  He'd said the wrong thing again, damn
him.  But then she drew him into her embrace even tighter.

"I know, Mulder, I know."  She whispered back, and they both
wept anew.