From: Mchandler33 Date: 17 Nov 1999 19:39:16 GMT Subject: NEW: Renewal (1/1) Title: Renewal (1/1) Author: Megan Chandler Classification: V/UST Rating: PG-13 Distribution: Archive anywhere, just keep my name and e-mail attached. Disclaimer: The characters of Mulder and Scully are the property of Chris Carter and 1013 Productions. I like to think they also belong to David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. They are not mine and no copyright infringement is intended. Summary: A late night in a motel. A conversation ensues. Author Notes: This story is set smack in the middle of Season 6, before "Trevor." I always thought our agents were a little angry with one another (with good reason) throughout most of these episodes. I think a change occurred after "Alpha." This is my attempt at an explanation. Feedback: Is welcomed at mchandler33@aol.com * * * The room was dim with candlelight, and Dana Scully huddled beneath the thin spare blanket the motel had provided. Her partner was sprawled next to her on the rickety queen sized mattress. They had been discussing their case when the power had gone out thanks to the raging storm outside. Neither had made any move to get up, though, except for Scully's quick retrieval of the blanket. A rare moment of peace surrounded them, and both were loath to break the spell. Her partner settled himself more firmly against the headboard and continued talking. "I thought I would marry my ninth grade English teacher, Grace Morris." Scully's lips curved in a half smile. "*Miss* Morris." An answering grin. "Oh, yeah. Just plausible enough. I would stay after school with her and she would read my stories. I was really into writing at the time." "I'm sure those extra hours were a pretty good incentive," she said dryly. Mulder's smile faded a little. "I'm sure she probably felt sorry for me. Not a lot of friends. A lot of angsty teenage writings." "What did she look like?" Scully tried to banish the notion of an unhappy fourteen-year old boy with little success. After all, the image leapt too easily to mind. "Blonde. She had long, straight blond hair that parted down the middle," his voice grew dreamy again. "She was tan--even in the winter she seemed tan. Her eyes were blue, but really pale--almost like a gray. You know how your eyes are sort of more cornflower blue. Hers were a gray." "I have cornflower blue eyes?" Scully thought incredulously. She voiced her next thought, "Well-endowed?" "Nah. I think that would have terrified me at thirteen. Very slim. Wore a lot of long skirts." Scully was fixated on his earlier remark. "Thirteen?" "I skipped a grade--well actually two, but I missed a lot of ninth the first time around so I repeated. That's when she started teaching." For the umpteenth time in their partnership, Scully felt anger at his parents. Did they comprehend the social pressures skipping grades could have on a young boy no matter how high his IQ? She forgot that Mulder's sometimes anti-social behavior was actually minor compared to how he might of turned out. She focused again on the conversation. "What happened to her?" "She got married that summer," now the voice was rueful. But carefully rueful. "I was devastated. I thought she was just waiting for me to grow old enough too." "Who'd she marry?" "Some guy she had gone to college with. He played football there. He wasn't real smart. I gather she helped him a lot with his papers," he grinned. "I guess she preferred brawn over brains." "Must've hurt." "Yeah, well. It made me practice my jump shot all summer and go out for basketball next year. Figured I could be a jock too." "No more after school writing seminars." "Nah, I joined all the sports teams. I wasn't real big until my senior year, but I apparently played with a lot of intensity." "You, intense?" she teased. "I'm shocked." He laughed. They sat in a companionable silence. "So whatever happened to Miss Morris-or whatever her name ended up being?" "Grace? She got divorced. I saw her once when I was home from England, visiting my dad. She wasn't very happy with Mr. Football," his voice was carefully nonchalant. But Dana Scully had known him for almost seven years. "You didn't!" She was rewarded with the Mulder blank face. "Didn't what?" "Did you?" He sighed heavily. "Yeah, and it wasn't a good idea. Trying to recapture the past. She was still married at the time, although I think he wasn't living at home anymore. Had some woman on the side." "Not the fulfillment of a teenage fantasy?" "No. She was really sad-kind of broken. I remember wondering how a man could take away that kind of spirit-zest for life--in a woman," he grimaced. Scully refused to go down *that* road. "Did you help her?" "No. I think we were both lonely. Things weren't great with my dad and I. It was the first time I had been home since the divorce. I think I was probably glad to get out of the house. Of course, sex for me at that time was still a novelty," he smiled. "So she wasn't your first?" Scully couldn't believe she voiced the thought. She and Mulder *never* discussed their sex lives, or lack thereof. Still, the atmosphere seemed right for sharing secrets. Kind of like another darkened motel room nearly seven years ago. She wondered if he felt the same thing because he actually answered her question. "No, not my first. That would have probably been an even worse idea." She felt him turn towards her. "So, Scully..." She held her breath. He wouldn't ask, would he? And would she answer? "Tell me about your first kiss," the smug look on his face was enough to let her know that the pause had been intentional. She frowned in concentration. "My first *real* kiss was Michael Thompson. He was a friend of my sister's. I was fourteen. He was sixteen" "Bill didn't kick his ass?" "I don't think he ever knew. There was no return engagement." Mulder chuckled. "That bad?" "In retrospect, I think I must of been his first. It was very bad. Lots of saliva. I was repulsed. Didn't do it again 'til I was sixteen," she smiled indulgently. "Yours?" "Angela Roper. She was very nice." "How old?" "I was twelve. It was autumn, and I still remember how the wind stung my face. Angela was very nice." "You were an early bloomer." "That'd be Angela. Not me. She was thirteen. It was *not* her first kiss." "Was there a return engagement?" "No," she felt him tense next to her. "I was...sick for a little while after that. I think Angela moved on and found herself a new boyfriend." No wonder everything in his life revolved around finding his sister. It was an event that had obviously altered his every childhood experience. Scully forgot, sometimes, because they never talked about their respective childhoods-just how devastating the loss must have been to an young boy. Usually, she saw him as a man who had lost someone, not a boy. She was exasperated with herself for not showing more patience with him. Sick was a euphemism for the catatonia that had kept him in a hospital for two weeks after Samantha's abduction. Then, the repeated visits to the hospital in the six months that had followed because he couldn't keep food down, wasn't sleeping. Mulder had never mentioned that time to her other in euphemistic ways. She knew because she had access to his early medical history during the Alaska horror. Scully was fairly sure that he knew that she knew, but like so many things in their partnership, it was something they never spoke of. In the spirit of giving, she offered up another secret. "My next kiss was Bill's friend Marcus. Bill was *most* unhappy when we started dating." "Why?" Mulder relaxed. He liked stories that focused on Bill's irritating qualities, she knew. "Bill's four years older than I am. Marcus was three. Marcus was very experienced with girls. Bill knew that." "So was Marcus more proficient than poor Michael?" Scully grinned. "Oh, yeah. Of course, the relationship had a certain forbidden quality to it because my father was almost as unhappy as Bill." "Relationship?" he teased. "So there was a return engagement?" "Many," it was her turn to become dreamy. "When I was a senior in high school, I was certain we would be married." Mulder raised his eyebrows, but it was becoming harder to see his face, even with the candles lit. "Scully! A major love affair while still in high school! You shock me." She laughed lightly, feeling like she was eighteen again instead of a burdened woman of thirty five. "He was my first," she shared as if Mulder were a college girlfriend instead of her very male partner. He smiled with delight. She could almost read his thoughts, "Scullysecrets! Do I get details?" "After graduation-it was supposed to be after prom, but that's a different story. There were reservations at a hotel, I think, but it was kind of spontaneous. Ended up in the backseat of the car." "Whose car? His?" "Yeah," she grinned. "Not a lot of leg room." He nodded solemnly. "I myself think the whole backseat thing can leave one with a bad set of leg cramps." She raised her eyebrows. "Mulder! Do you have a story to share?" "In a minute. What happened to old Marcus?" "Oh, we drifted apart when I got to college. We didn't really have much in common-he was ready to get married and I was just beginning to figure out all the things I wanted to do in my life. I learned how much I liked science, and I wanted to pursue it. I could no longer picture myself as a businessman's wife." "He didn't want you to work?" Mulder was shocked. "I don't think he cared that I worked. I think he thought I was a little obsessive about it. All work and no play," she grew thoughtful. "I guess I haven't really changed as much as I sometimes think I have." He patted her hand lightly. "Is that a bad thing?" "No," she said honestly. "I think I sometimes persuade myself into believing that I want certain things out of life-socially acceptable things-that are denied to me because of something external. Then, I realize that I'm the one who has never really pursued those things." "Like a normal life?" he said soflty. She smiled with self-deprecation. "I'm sorry about that. It wasn't fair of me." "And I'm always fair to you?" he laughed again. His laugh was without bitterness for the first time in months though. And her voice lacked sarcasm for the first time in months as she told him, "I think we both forget how much we can hurt each other. We haven't been very careful lately." Now he squeezed her hand. "Maybe we've been wanting to lash out at each other." "Why?" "Maybe you blame me-even if only a little-for the things that have been taken from you, opportunities denied to you," he said hesitantly. Trust Mulder to skirt around the delicate issue of her infertility and dependence on a metal chip in her neck. "You think I blame you?" "Hold me responsible?" he tried. "Look, Scully, take that chip. If we believe that it saved you-that I helped to save you-then we also have to believe that it is the cause of you ending on that bridge in Pennsylvania. That I helped send you there. We need to acknowledge that." She swallowed. "I feel disloyal when I think that. It's not fair to you." "Far or not, you can't pretend those feelings don't exist. I think pretending only makes things worse." Silence reigned in the room as she considered that. "Why do you lash out at me?" "Why do you think?" She touched his face gently. "Because I don't tell you what's going on in my head. I don't...share...easily. I demand that you only trust me, but I don't give you a reason to stay with me." He smiled gently. "You're the reason I stay. It's enough." "But you gave me your reasons...you told me what I mean to you. And I gave you nothing in return," she confessed. "In that hallway, in...the hospital." He dropped his head to his chest. "I didn't mean to put pressure on you. I shouldn't....it wasn't fair." "We can't pretend you never said it though. I think pretending only makes things worse," she chided him with his own words. She took a deep breath, "I love you too." Mulder exhaled so forcefully that she wondered absently how long he had been holding his breath. "What do we do with this?" She tipped his chin so she could look in his eyes. It was a move that mimicked one that he had performed on her in a darkened house a long time ago. He blinked the tears out of his eyes, and met her gaze. They hadn't really looked each other in the eye since the incident in his hallway, she realized. No wonder they were tense. "This is enough for me right now," she said seiously. "I'm not sure I'm ready for more." He smiled. "That's honest. You're back, Scully." "We're back," she said solemnly. And, for the first time in months, she felt hopeful about the future.