TITLE: "The Fight"
AUTHOR: Kirsten Kerkhof * 
kirsten_xf@yahoo.com
RATING: R for strong language
CLASSIFICATION: Mulder Scully Romance
KEYWORDS: S R A
DISCLAIMER: Nope, they don't belong to me. Why 
should they ... No infringement is intended and no 
money is being made (bummer ...)
SUMMARY: A fight threatens to get horribly out of 
control.
SPOILERS: none

XxXxX
"The Fight"
XxXxX

It had come out of nowhere, a certain undefinable 
but overwhelming sensation that something was very 
wrong. I have these feelings now and then.

Our work had been very stressful lately and it had 
found its reflection in our partnership. I'd begun 
picking on Mulder's habits, his messiness and his 
unpredictability, as a result of which he'd taken my 
need for order and the urge to have tangible evidence 
where he'd find hunches sufficient, and started 
nitpicking on that. In a matter of a single week our 
occasional snaps had turned into a wall of fury that 
divided us and we hardly spoke a single word to each 
other. I doubt whether at any previous point in our 
working relationship our friendship had been this 
strained.
	
I had left early on Friday. I was getting sick with the 
thick silence that hung between us and which was 
only broken by just another crabby remark from 
either him or me, meant solely to hurt the other. If 
we'd been a married couple I would have filed for a 
divorce, that's how bad it had become. I don't know 
when Mulder had left the office, never having called 
him either at home or in the office. If there was one 
thing I absolutely did not need it was another 
argument to spoil my weekend.
	
I spent the Saturday furiously cleaning my apartment 
until I could see my reflection in the woodwork and 
the carpet audibly groaned under the vacuum 
cleaner's vicious attack. Whenever I'm depressed and 
angry my furniture has to suffer the consequences. 
After an easy supper I ran myself a bath and spent 
two hours slowly turning into a prune while enjoying 
a book and a good glass of wine.
	
And just when I was thinking that life wasn't so bad 
after all, the feeling hit me. A feeling that something 
was very very wrong.
	
Instinctively I knew it was Mulder, but I called Mom 
first just to be sure. She turned out to be perfectly 
fine, so that left only Mulder. But did I really want to 
see him, or even deal with him tonight? Logically, 
the answer was no, but somehow I was left no 
choice.
	
I phoned him but he didn't answer, nor did his 
answering machine pick up. That was weird.
	
I debated whether or not to go to his place, but in 
fact the decision had already been made and I just 
had to go and check up on him. I only hoped it 
wouldn't turn into just another fight because I didn't 
think I could handle that.
	
The drive over to his place was quick and easy. It 
was nearing eleven that night and there was little 
traffic on the roads. I spotted his car in the parking 
lot so I figured he'd probably be home. Well, there 
was only one way to find out.
	
I decided to take the stairs up to his apartment 
instead of the lift. I was still partly unsure of the 
wisdom of my decision to come over here and I 
needed the extra time. But I didn't turn round as I 
half and half expected I might have done.
	
I knocked on the door, but no one answered it, not 
even after knocking a second time. Maybe he wasn't 
home, maybe he'd left on foot. Well, why not, there 
were plenty of places he could go to on foot, the fact 
that his car was still parked in front of the building 
didn't mean anything. I decided to put his spare key 
to good use and let myself in.
	
His apartment was completely dark. The lamps were 
extinguished and the blinds were drawn, blocking 
out even the faint light of the street lights. I reached 
for the light switch next to the door, but was stopped 
by a voice that came from somewhere in the room.
	
"Leave the fucking lights off!"
	
So he was home after all. Not that I was anymore 
reassured now.
	
"Mulder?"
	
"What the fuck are you doing here?" he barked. 
"Didn't you have enough time to bitch at me in the 
office?"
	
My anger flared up but I tamped it down, 
remembering why I'd come here.
	
"I'm not here to bitch, I'm here to see whether you're 
all right."
	
His laugh sent a chill down my spine. "Oh yeah, 
Scully, I'm all right. Never been so all right in my 
fucking life! Can't you see?"
	
"I can't see anything at the moment," I said, but the 
joke wasn't received well.
	
"Don't you mock me! Just get the fuck out of here!"
	
So far he hadn't said a single line without the word 
'fuck' in it -- and Mulder never sweared. I wondered 
what was going on, what was happening to him.
	
I took a deep breath and addressed him in a soft 
voice, hoping to calm him down a little. "Mulder, 
can I please turn on a light? Please?"
	
He didn't answer so I took the gamble. I decided on 
the little light near the front door. It would still leave 
most of the room dark and probably not startle him.
	
Good God, I'd never seen him like this. He was 
sitting on the edge of the couch, dressed only in a 
pair of sweatpants. His hair was a mess and he'd 
obviously not shaved today. But what was the 
scariest and most alarming thing was the gun in his 
hands combined with the look on his face. And I 
knew instantly what the gun was for. Oh God please 
...
	
"Can I come into the room, Mulder?" I asked softly. 
He'd obviously gone mad, or very close to it, and I 
had no intention of falling victim to his delusions. 
And yet I had a feeling he could still be helped if 
he'd let me. A feeling that was confirmed when he 
nodded just once.
	
Slowly I approached him, keeping my eyes fixed on 
his face and the weapon. I was fully aware that he 
could choose to use it and I needed to be prepared for 
that.
	
I stopped the moment I saw him raising his hand 
and pointing the gun at me.
	
"What the fuck are you doing here?" he asked again.
	
"I came to check up on you. I was concerned."
	
He laughed a scary little laugh. "You mean you were 
concerned about *me*?"
	
I nodded.
	
"Don't fucking lie to me!" he spat. "You'd have to 
care about me to be concerned!"
	
"I'm not lying to you!" I shot back, harder than I 
wanted. Immediately I softened my voice. I needed to 
be so careful now. "And I do care about you ..."
	
He rolled his eyes. "Oh yeah, I'm sure you do," he 
answered, apparently dismissing my feelings 
entirely. In a matter of moments I was absolutely 
steaming with anger. To hell with the carefulness, I 
couldn't let him insult my feelings just like that.
	
"So, what now, Mulder? You figured no one cared 
and what?" I shot at him. "You're gonna take that 
gun and just shoot yourself in pity? Yeah, why not, 
right?"
	
He turned his head towards me and, my God, smiled 
at me in a way I'll never forget. His smile was 
downright evil. I never thought my partner was 
capable of something so diabolical as that 
expression.
	
"So that is why you came over, isn't it?" he said in a 
voice that was terrifying in its calmness. "My my, 
here I thought for a moment that you had indeed 
come over to help me, but what a fool I've been. No, 
Dana Scully's come over to witness her partner shoot 
his brains out so she can be sure she's gotten fully rid 
of him!"
	
Horrorstruck I watched him raise the gun to his 
temple, his finger flexed around the trigger.
	
"I should be ashamed of myself; even now I can't 
refuse you anything," he said. "It's pitiful really. 
Downright pathetic."
	
I turned my head away and closed my eyes as tightly 
as I could, waiting for the inevitable earsplitting 
sound that would end my partner's life -- but it didn't 
come. Eventually I very carefully opened my eyes -- 
the bastard was grinning at me, obviously enjoying 
my terror!
	
"I thought you'd want to watch," he said maliciously. 
"It won't be half as much fun for you if you keep 
your eyes shut!"
	
"Fun?!" I screamed. "What the fuck are you talking 
about?!"
	
"You want me dead!" he shouted back. "I thought 
you cared about me, but you don't! No one cares 
about me, no one ever has and no one ever will, so 
who the fuck would notice if I'd just die?!"
	
"No one wants you dead, except you yourself!" I 
screamed. "You're always wallowing in self-pity and 
you can't even notice what's going on around you! So 
what do you want from me now? You want me to 
take my gun and just shoot you right here?"
	
"Well, I doubt you'd have much of a problem with 
that, would you?" he said angrily. "At least you'd get 
rid of that spooky pesky partner of yours!"
	
My anger had just kept on building, the tone in his 
voice so demeaning and heavy with comptempt I was 
quite literally seeing red. And if it had to be done, 
then so be it.
	
"Take your gun!" I said.
	
He was holding the weapon loosely in his hands.
	
"Take the fucking gun!" I yelled at him. He frowned 
but did what I told him to do.
	
"Cock it! Come on, what are you? Chicken?! I can 
think of quite a few things, Mulder, but I never 
thought you were chicken!!"
	
He was hesitating and I quite literally screamed. 
"Cock the FUCKING gun!! Are you deaf?!"
	
It didn't register with me at the time but I later 
realised he was really confused at my fury. It hadn't 
been what he'd been expecting at all.
	
"Now do it!" I shouted. "Come on, ass-hole, you 
need me to do it for you, or what?!"
	
He didn't move which only enraged me further, even 
when I didn't think it was possible. I was choking on 
my words and could barely speak. "Come on, 
bastard, what are you waiting for?! Shoot yourself!! 
Destroy our lives, what do you fucking care 
anyway?!"
	
He had the gun about halfway up towards his head, 
but his eyes were fixed on my face.
	
"Scully, you're scaring me."
	
I couldn't believe my ears. "*I'm* scaring *you*?!" I 
yelled, almost letting out an incredulous laugh. I 
couldn't believe it! But at least he seemed to have 
come to his senses more or less. Now I had to do the 
same and I was quite literally steaming with anger. I 
saw him bow his head, apparently in defeat.
	
"Oh, Scully, what's happening here?" he asked very 
softly. The soft uncertain tone in his voice was 
enough to deflate my anger entirely. Instead it turned 
me into a tearful heap of misery. And I started 
crying. Hard.
	
"I don't know," I sobbed as I crumpled onto the floor, 
covering my face with my hands. Then my Scully-
devil made one last return. "So, what are you waiting 
for? Just shoot yourself, go ahead, do it!" A deep sob 
interrupted my words, torturing my diaphragm. It 
hurt like a bitch. "See if I care ..." I whispered very 
softly behind my hands.
	
From between my fingers I saw him put the gun on 
the table and come up to me. He hesitated for a 
moment, but I took the initiative and absolutely 
crushed him to me.
	
"Oh God, you do care about me," he said very softly. 
It seemed to be a revelation of sorts. "Oh my God ..."
	
"Of course I care about you, you insensitive bastard, 
hadn't you noticed?" I said angrily as I tried to hold 
him even tighter.
	
I felt him shake his head. "I ... I don't know ... I don't 
know anything anymore ..."
	
"Why are you doing this to me, Mulder?" I said, 
burying my face in his neck. His hand was stroking 
the base of my head and my neck.
	
"What are we doing to each other here?" he said. 
"What is going on here?"
	
"We can't go on like this," I replied. I couldn't let go 
of him, now that we finally dared to be good to each 
other. I started crying all over again. "Oh God, 
Mulder, what have we done?"
	
He didn't answer immediately, but his voice was 
strangely soft when he did, "Thanks to you, nothing 
truly horrific." With his face in my hair he kept 
pressing soft butterfly kisses all over my head. It 
seemed as if, now that we'd finally let ourselves be 
together again, we felt an overwhelming need to seal 
it, to make up for all we'd missed over the course of 
the past two terrible weeks. I never ever wanted to go 
through this again, it just wasn't worth it.
	
"You almost shot yourself, I nearly made you shoot 
yourself," I sobbed. I kept my hands on both sides of 
his head, my cheek against his. The stubble of his 
day-old beard rasped my skin, but other places 
within me were hurting too much for such trivialities 
to make any impression on me. "We can't go on like 
this, Mulder."
	
He shook his head slightly. "We gotta stop this fight. 
It's destroying more than we can bear."
	
I nodded. I felt how my tears, running over my face, 
mingled with his. Oh God, I loved him so much, I 
never knew I was able to love a man this much, but I 
knew it at that moment. With dead certainty. And 
that was why I'd come over here, against all wisdom 
and reason, to check up on him, because I 
instictively knew what life-shattering things were 
about to happen. And we couldn't afford to have our 
connection broken.
	
I lifted my face away from his a bit and looked at 
him. And without another thought I slanted my 
mouth across his. Later, much later, I'd try to figure 
out the logic behind what was happening here 
tonight, but right now I only needed to feel him and 
to know that, no matter what, we still belonged to 
each other.
	
I almost couldn't believe we'd found each other 
again. Frankly I'd already given up hope that we'd 
ever get out of this fight and end up together. I'd 
been fully prepared to see our partnership and 
friendship crash over this, but once again we'd 
survived. Against all the odds we were together.
	
With his thumbs Mulder wiped away the tears on my 
face. He smiled, the first real smile I'd seen in weeks.
	
"You okay a little?" he asked softly and I smiled 
back at him.
	
"As good as can be expected, I guess," I replied.
	
"We need to talk this out, Scully. This has gone too 
deep," he said softly and I nodded.
	
"We need to do it now, too," I added. I smacked my 
lips a couple of times. The tears had left a disgusting 
taste in my mouth. On top of that Mulder didn't seem 
to have brushed his teeth that day so that, as 
wonderful as it was to be back together again, the 
kiss hadn't exactly been pure bliss. We needed to do 
something about that before we could go on.
	
"You know what," I said, smiling at him, "before we 
talk I think you ought to take a shower and we both 
need to brush our teeth. And while you're at it, I'll fix 
us something easy to eat, okay?"
	
He nodded, letting me go. I stepped away and 
towards the bathroom, but before I got there he 
addressed me again.
	
"Hey, Scully?"
	
I turned around. "Yes?"
	
He grinned. "You're fantastic."
	
I smiled. "One of a kind, Mulder. One of a kind."
	
"Yeah, and I'm really glad I've got you."
	
"Same here, partner." Then I went into the bathroom 
and went in search of a tooth brush I could use.
	
We seemed to be all right again. Thank God for that. 
This fight had really not been worth the risks we'd 
taken.
	
I looked at myself in the mirror. I looked haggard, 
wild and restless. I felt it, too. With a deep sigh I 
squeezed some tooth paste on the spare tooth brush 
I'd found in the cupboard next to the showerstall and 
began scrubbing my teeth. We had a long night 
ahead of us and it wasn't going to be easy. But for 
now, at least, we were safe.

THE END

Kirsten Kerkhof
The Netherlands, 19 April 2002 (c)