Title: Coffee Author: RRRobine Category: Vignette / Post -series / Former MSR Rating: no sex or violence just super angst! Spoilers: Through William Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully belonged to 1013 productions. Having witnessed both characters being assassinated over the past two seasons, I do what I see fit with the remains! Summary: A chance meeting, many years in the future. Author's note: Man, was I enjoying William; right up until the appalling ending. My hopes for a happy ending are dashed. This was what came to me. It is my first fan fic, please excuse formatting flaws! Feedback: Bring it on! Coffee In sappy songs or in romance novels, a person away from home might well meet their former lover unexpectedly, in a public place. A plot device, a cliche. The world is a larger place than such stories would have you think. The statistical probability of such a chance meeting is unlikely in the extreme. I have spent many painful years building a life in which extreme possibilties are no longer welcome. ************** It was a crisp spring Midwest evening, barely getting dark, when I left the convention center. My hotel was a block away, and the sidewalks were still lively with people as I stopped at the new kiosk to buy a diet soda and a magazine to bring to my room. I almost walked by it unaware. Almost... He was facing away from me, at the girlie rack, flipping pages. I don't really know what caught my eye, but I was instantly trasfixed. I would have thought that, after all these years, even his face might be unrecognizable -- instead it was unneccessary. I knew him by his back, his stance, something I still cannot name. The long omnipresent gun bulge was absent; but Mulder was not a man defined by his gun, no more than I was. Perhaps quite a bit less than I was. I wanted to run away; to cry; to grab on to him for dear life. Somehow, bizarrely, I did none of these things; my emotions caused me to involuntarily start to laugh aloud. That was all it took. He turned toward me, knowing me also before seeing my face. Staring at me with those eyes, those eyes. His face was lined: his hairline receding and starting to really gray, there was a slight paunch which I would not have suspected from the back view, but the eyes were the same as ever, more Mulderish than in memories, than in pictures, intense and kind. "Scully?" The inappropriate laughter became tears. "Scully." Softer now. "Hi. Oh, God" "It's ok. Here--" He handed me a hankerchief. I got myself under control and tried to think of what to do next, or what to say. He rescued me. "Buy you a cup of coffee?" He indicated a Starbucks around the corner. I nodded. As we walked, he reached out with his hand. To hold mine? To guide me from the small of my back? I'll never know. The reaching out was an unconcious gesture. The withdrawal of his hand before it touched me was a deliberate choice. We continued down the sidewalk next to each other and not touching. "What brings you here?" I asked him as we went. "I live here. Well not here", motioning at the business district that we passed through, "But I work downtown. You?" "Well, the Meeting; you know" At his questioning look, I elaborated. "The American College of Pathology Annual Meeting. This is the third day." Any thought I might have harbored, that he had positioned himself outside the convention center in hopes of just such a meeting, died a quick death. His expression -- quickly supressed and deflected with a downwhard glance -- spoke volumes. Pathology meetings don't make headlines. Had he known, he would have stayed far away; taken the week off, gone out of town, called in sick. He looked back up and smiled sadly. The last few yards were passed in silence. Mulder's photographic memory hasn't faded; without a flaw, he recited to the barrista our standard coffee orders of days gone by. Then he hesitated, held a pausing finger to the girl and looked at me in question: perhaps I had different preferences now? I never go to coffee shops now. I never drink hot tea or iced tea either. I nodded to him, and the drinks were made. He paid; I carried them to the table. We picked the most remote corner table we could manage in the small shop, and sat down, and stared. "I never thought you would leave the East Coast. I always imagined you on Martha's vineyard, in your old house." "I could never have lived there. I did stay in New England for a couple of years but..." He faded off. "There was nothing there for me. Nothing to hold me; nothing good. I looked for job opportunities in the Midwest. It was a relief to leave, to start over. How about you? Did you stay in DC?" "I sold my apartment in Georgetown aways back, but I'm nearby more or less, in Virginia. Actually, I live with my mother now." His look expressed his shock. "She broke her hip a year ago -- she's doing really well, but it seemed like the best solution generally." "I'm really glad the two of you patched things up." "Patched up, patched over; not healed." "Blood makes a good patch. Family." Mulder, of course, has no family at all. No one to shock, and disappoint, and reconcile with. Blood. Well DNA anyway. But who has more shared blood -- spilled, not identical -- than Mulder and I? I fall quiet. "I spoke to a lawyer, once." I don't understand what he is getting at, and raise my eyebrows. "About a year or two after...well, after...anyway, I consulted with a lawyer; a fairly big name East Coast family and custody attorney about, well..." he hesitates and I stare at him. "After all, I never signed anything so I thought, maybe," "You weren't on the birth certificate", we had both thought that this was the safest thing to do at the time, I have no idea why. We were waiting, maybe, for that dreamed of day in which we could tell all, live our lives openly and normally. "Yeah, but DNA...anyway he seemed to think there was little chance -- my story was pretty improbable; by any conventional interpretation of events I had abandoned him and you less than a week after birth; I had never supported him. My resurfacing was hardly voluntary. The er legal problems that I facd; my firing from the FBI; my whole damn life..." He began to quaver, paused, resumed calmly."It was pretty clear that the prospects of regaining parental rights, much less being granted custody by either a judge or jury was beyond remote. And the lawyer reminded me of the trauma and disruption such an attempt would cause, win or lose. I couldn't do it." I continued to stare at him. This was a possibility I had't entertained. Had it been tried, had it suceeded - - unless it had become highly publicized, I would never have even known. "Mulder" He looked up, still lost in memory and might- have-beens. "I wish..." "You wish?" "I wish you could forgive me." "Oh, Scully." He winced. "Scully." I stared into my coffee. "Scully I don't blame you, or hate you. I can't possibly know what that time was like for you. We were both in danger, both under enourmous stress. But I only had to protect myself. I didn't have to decide who to trust because there was no one to trust." "By the end, I didn't really trust anyone, Mulder." He looked so sad. It was like looking in a mirror. Hearing my own thoughts. "It had to have been terrible. I know that you weren't crazy, or evil, or stupid. I know that you loved William so much. Probably more than I did -- he was just an idea to me. He was a person to you. The main person in your life. I never thought about wanting to have a child at all until you asked me to father yours. You ached and yearned for one. I know you so well. I know your character. I know that you did the one and only thing you could think of to do." He hesitates. "Kersh told you that I was in danger, and you believed him. You loved me, so you sent him away. Spender told you that William was in danger, that he was beyond your capacity to protect and you believed him. You loved him, so you did what you did. I could never hate you, Scully." He paused. I almost smiled at him. Thanked him. Took his hand. Even more softly now, he spoke again. "But I will never be able to forgive you." We sat in silence. And finished the coffee.