Title : Doomed
Author : Shawne
E-Mail : shawne@shawnex.freeservers.com
Rating : PG-13
Category: SA
Spoilers : some for Drive
Keywords : post-episode fiction, Season Six
Summary : Mulder loses something that only Scully can give back to him.
Archive : Everywhere, but please tell me where that 'everywhere' is.
Disclaimers : Ultimately, everything belongs to a Greater Power. That, of
course, being Chris Carter... the characters in here obviously aren't mine.

Author's Notes : I wrote this after I watched Drive, to fill in the space at
the end of the episode before Mulder and Scully return to reality with A.D.
Kersh. Thanks must go to Toniann, who helped me beta-read this, and provided
a new twist to the ending of my story that I much prefer.

======================================================

The ocean waves slammed against the rocks, hard and fast, then spun dizzily
away. She watched them in mesmerised silence, bracing herself against the
cutting salt air that whirled around her, tugging insistently at her hair as
if it wanted to bring her out to sea as well.

He had not moved since she had walked to his side. Staring straight ahead,
his eyes seemed dull and lifeless, unfeeling. Lost in a tangle of thoughts
she couldn't even begin to penetrate. She couldn't tell what he was looking
at so intently, or if he was even looking at anything at all. He didn't seem
to notice the biting wind, or be bothered by the erratic flecks of briny
water that were flung off the crashing waves into their eyes.

Tearing her gaze reluctantly from the scene before her, she looked up at
him, his worn face, and sighed. He had not spoken since he had gotten out of
the car, and she hadn't felt right saying anything to him. She pulled her
jacket closer around her, and checked her watch. They had been standing side
by side, in stasis, for twenty minutes. The police cars and ambulances had
long since disappeared.

"Mulder," she began, then stopped. She had no idea what to say, because,
for the first time in a long time, she had no idea what he was feeling. "Are
you OK?"

She winced. That sounded so trite.

"I'm fine," he muttered unconvincingly, looking down at her for the
briefest of moments. Then he turned away, his shoulders stiffening. He had
turned away from her.

Confused, she kept staring at the rumpled material of the back of his
office shirt. He'd been driving in it for almost a day. She knew he was
shutting her out now, and she wanted to know why. But this wall he had so
suddenly thrown up between them was different from the ones that she knew
were ordinarily always there. This one was made of fear, something so
intangible she couldn't even begin to fathom its existence.

Something was wrong, but she couldn't tell what.

Not quite knowing how to begin, she too, turned from him, and picked her
way gingerly down the slope, across the sand, and over to the water's edge.
She watched as the waves roared up the beach, just barely reaching her shoes
before falling back into submission. The sea had always been some kind of
comfort to her, its regular rhythm lulling her into a state of peace she
could not find anywhere else. Here, she could allow herself to stop
thinking, to stop caring, and that was something so rare she treasured it
above all else. All she had to do was look into the waves, allow her mind to
float out with them... and she would remember that this was a phenomenon
that was as old as time.

She gained a lot of perspective from the sea. Stepping forward, she almost
smiled as the wave tried its energetic best to reach her, sending a swirl of
water dancing around her shoes, caressing them before it slid back into
oblivion.

"Scully," he began this time, his voice calling her back to reality. She
turned back to face him, the gusts of wind that blew in from the sea
whipping her hair into her eyes. Pulling her feet from where they had sunk
unconsciously into the sand, she started towards him.

"Don't bother, I'll come down to you." With an inherent grace, he jumped
easily down from the slightly elevated bank he had been standing on, and
moved over to her. His feet crunched comfortingly against the sand, and he
squinted into the cooling wind.

He joined her at last, standing so close they were almost touching. Another
wave, abated, snuck up onto the shore, having lost the force of its
predecessors. "It's beautiful here."

"It is," she confirmed, and looked up into his face again. It appeared less
strained now, less unapproachable. "I love the ocean."

"I sort of figured that." He half-smiled at the horizon, and she felt a
little better, thrilling to the reassurance that part of the wall he had
previously built was coming down.

They remained in companionable silence, one that was no longer pained and
uncertain. The sea continued its relentless motion, rushing up to them, then
taking some of the land they stood on back out with it.

"The sea's lived longer than we have," she finally pointed out, then
blushed, amazed at herself. She had not meant to say something that sounded
quite so... well, so impractical.

If he noticed, he made no indication of it. "It has," he agreed. "It's
probably seen the beginning and end of all this. Of civilisation as we know
it." He made a sound that passed for some kind of a cynical laugh. "What we
see must be so paltry... so insignificant, next to it."

He bent down and scooped up a sand-encrusted, broken shell in his left
hand. With his right, he dug up a half-buried stick, still moist with sea
water. Straightening up, he looked out calmly into the ocean. Then he wound
up his arm, and threw the stick with such an uncontrolled violence that she
was startled.

"Mulder, what happened back there?" she finally forced out. She didn't like
seeing him like this, swinging between such extreme emotions, crushed and
yet stonily strong. She had to know. Even if he had no desire to admit it,
she knew that the death of Patrick Crump had affected him a great deal more
than he cared to let on.

"Nothing, Scully." She studied his eyes as he turned them to hers, and she
knew that he couldn't even delude himself into believing the lie he had just
told.

"I can't help you if you don't at least tell me what happened, Mulder." The
sun was beginning to dip lower in the sky, and the cool air was turning
chilly. She wasn't usually so forthright, she knew. But he wasn't usually so
reticent either.

"I told you, Scully. Nothing much." Once again, he turned from her, facing
back where they had come from. Then, bitterly, he added, "I screwed up.
Again. Like I always do."

"You didn't screw up, Mulder. You tried your best. There wasn't anything
anyone could do to help him." Speaking earnestly to the back of his head,
her hand itched to grab his, to turn him towards her, to make him talk to
her and tell her the truth.

"Scully, I don't need this kind of crap." The words were uncharacteristically
harsh, and she stepped back, stung. She could tell he was growling them out
through clenched teeth, and she looked down. His hands were curled into
painfully white fists, hard and unyielding. "I don't need you telling me
everything is OK, everything will be OK, I did my best, I'm God's gift to
America."

He whirled, his eyes blazing with a feverish animosity she had never seen
before. Taking one step forward, he leaned into her, almost menacingly, and
she drew back again. "It's not OK. It's never going to be OK. I stink, I
always have, and I don't think I'm making one bit of difference in this
goddamn hellhole!"

Stunned. She was stunned. Her mouth hung open, her eyes throbbed with the
threat of tears, and she was speechless. This wasn't Mulder. Not the Mulder
she knew, not the one she trusted to get her through all this. This was
wrong.

She struggled to find her voice. It became necessary to say something,
because she could feel his gaze boring into her hatefully, and she had to
get him to stop. She had to make him stop hurting her.

"Mulder, he was too far gone," she managed to get out. Her eyes blurred,
and she moved back another step. "His death wasn't your fault."

"Yes... it was, Scully." He looked remarkably self-assured, almost
confident, as he delivered his reply. "I could have saved that man's life,
somehow. But I didn't."

"You tried," she responded, and looked down at her feet. She didn't want to
look him in the eyes, or the face, again, until she could be sure that he no
longer wore the countenance of a stranger.

"I obviously didn't try hard enough." This time, his voice lost the punch
it had had, and she could feel him deflating, could feel the anger
dissipating... as suddenly as it had come.

"Maybe it was impossible, Mulder," she ventured, still pretending to look
at something interesting next to her sand-soaked shoes. "He was doomed from
the very beginning."

He didn't reply. Once again, he crouched down, looking out into the
distance, then began marking angry patterns in the sand with his fingers.
Swirling, pushing, beating at the sand, until finally he was on his knees,
pummeling the ground with a force he had never before exhibited. Just
punching, and slamming his fists against the cold wet sand, made him feel
better. It gave his mind some focus, made the empty feeling of loss go away.

"What's all this about, Mulder?" The question was quiet, measured. She had
finally regained most of her composure, after watching him lose his, and
knew that she had to get him through this. That this wasn't necessarily
about her, that she shouldn't allow herself to be so sensitive when he was
obviously facing some kind of internal crisis. "It's not just about Crump.
Is it?"

It was perfunctory, the last question mark she had placed at the end of her
sentence. He knew that as well as she did. Sending one last well-placed fist
into the gritty sand, he pulled himself back into a crouch, tucking himself
into a defensive ball.

"Looks like you didn't get that degree from Maryland for nothing." The
sarcasm flew out of his mouth before he even realised it. He was hurting
her, he didn't know why, hurting her because she was the only one around.
God, why did she keep taking all his shit? Why didn't she just give it to
him, deck him, throw him under the wheels of a bus? Why didn't she just go?
What made her think she had to put up with this?

If she was hurt, this time, she didn't let it show. "University degrees are
usually pretty useful, Mulder," she said dryly, then bent down next to him
before easing herself into a sitting position on the sand. "There's
something bigger here, isn't there?"

He didn't say anything for a full five minutes. He knew that that much time
had passed because he tracked the second hand on his watch as it swept five
times around the face. The regular drumming sound of the sea, the ticking of
his watch... he almost allowed himself to fall into a welcoming trance, then
caught himself. She was still waiting for an answer. Still waiting for his
answer.

"How many people do I not know about, Scully? How many other people have
been subjected to these experiments by their own government? How many other
people are doomed from the very beginning?" He used the last words as a kind
of challenge, knowing full well that she had used them herself, word for
word, just a while ago.

She paused, and he knew she was choosing her next words carefully, weighing
them against each other before she spoke. "We'll never know, Mulder. We
can't ever expect to know it all."

"Doesn't that make you feel sick, Scully?" He dropped dejectedly onto the
sand next to her. "Every day, we fight something we can't win, lose things
we can never have - and it still doesn't make a difference. We still can't
make anyone realise, can't save anyone's life. Doesn't that make you want to
give up?"

"No," she replied almost immediately. Her warmer hand moved deliberately to
cover his colder one, and he could feel her strength flowing through their
touch. "It makes me want to fight harder."

"Easy for you to say." He knew he sounded bitter. Worse, he knew that he
wasn't even speaking the truth. She had gone through so much because of his
beliefs, and she had never surrendered. He only wished he knew how she did
it, so he could do the same.

"I'll pretend I didn't hear you say that," she said, and sent him a tiny
smile. "I know you didn't mean it."

He nodded gratefully. "I don't know what I'm thinking anymore, Scully. I
don't understand why I have to stick through all this. I don't know why I
keep letting people slip away."

They sat in silence, and then he bolted upright, shocked. The words had
come so easily, flowing out of him, that he hadn't realised what he had been
saying. He hadn't meant to let that out; he had no intention of letting her
know the real reason for his pain.

She remained quiet, and he darted a surreptitious glance at her from the
corner of his eye. He hoped she had not understood the full impact of the
last sentence, even though he knew it was too much to hope for.

"You know what, Mulder?" Suddenly, she looked at him, almost cheerfully.
"You're wrong. That's the one thing you haven't done."

"What?" He had hoped she would misunderstand him, but this wasn't what he
had expected at all. "Are we in the same conversation here?"

He knew what he meant by 'slip away'. He meant that he could never hold on
to the people he cared the most for, because they were always either taken
away from him... or doomed because of him. Samantha had been taken,
brutally, changing him for life. His father had been killed, leaving him
unsure and angry, scarring him for life. And Scully had been mistreated,
tortured, hurt past repair... destroying him beyond life. He had watched his
sister disappear, had seen his father go, had witnessed every one of
Scully's avenues of happiness closing up and slipping away. That was what he
meant.

"I think so." She smiled again, and his heart quickened, as it always did
when she smiled. "You haven't let anyone slip away, Mulder. You haven't let
Samantha, or your dad, or Patrick Crump, or me, down."

"Ha ha, Scully," he returned automatically. "I haven't found Sam. I'll
never know what my dad really was to me. Crump's dead. And you... you..."
His voice trailed off. <You lost a lifetime with me, Scully.> he wanted to
yell. <You lost a sister, a daughter, a chance at living a normal life. You
lost everything.>

"I haven't slipped away, Mulder. I'm still here, I'll always be here. With
or without the X-Files."

"But you don't need to be." His voice was anguished now, as he released the
fears with which he had built a wall between them earlier. "You're wrong to
stay with me. Sam got taken when she was with me. Crump died when he was in
the same car as me. And you've lived so many nightmares because of me...
that you're used to them."

"Nothing that I can say will change your mind, Mulder, if it's made up on
this. I know that. But I can tell you that I think you're wrong." She
stopped, gauged his non-existent reaction, then continued. "I've never known
you to give up till the end. And sometimes, you fight on even when it's
useless. I think we all know that. Sam, Patrick Crump, your dad... me. You
don't let us go even when you have to, Mulder. It's your passion that keeps
you going."

Passion. Scully said that it was his passion that kept him going. Now he
knew what he had been about to lose. It wasn't Crump. It hadn't been
Scully - she would have stayed with him as long as he needed her. It wasn't
the loss of the X-Files, though that was a contributory factor. It was his
passion.

Patrick Crump had only been the last straw on an already breaking back. He
had seen so many people lost in the maelstrom he was fighting against that
his desire to find the truth was beginning to dull at the edges. When Crump
had died - and Mulder could still remember the force of his head exploding
even from the front of the car - it had almost driven him off the edge. He
had almost entirely lost his passion, then and there, horrified by a fate he
could not change, daunted by a doomed stranger he could not save.

When he had stepped out of that car he had been driving for almost a day,
he had felt himself wanting to stop caring. He had wanted to hurt Scully,
hurt her so badly that she would leave him... because he knew that she could
get him to care again. But she had stayed, he hadn't been able to resist
her, and she had made him realise something. In an odd way, Crump had both
disillusioned him... and allowed him to go on. He knew now that, if he
allowed himself to forget about what had happened to Patrick Crump, he would
lose it completely. He would stop caring, because it would no longer matter.

And if nobody gave a shit, then they really would be doomed.

Scully had shown him his reason to care. She had given it back to him, when
he felt he didn't need it anymore. Even if he never got anyone else to
believe him, even if his words fell on deaf ears around the world... he
still had one thing that kept him safe.

He jumped to his feet, abruptly, sending a shower of sand over Scully. "We
found our way into this," he said cryptically. "Doomed or not, we'll have to
find our way out." He offered her a hand, and pulled her to her feet.

Without hesitating, he released her and walked back across the beach,
towards the car parked up near the bank. He could sense her puzzled gaze
following him before she did so physically.

"Mulder," she called, her voice slightly distorted from the wind that was
still blowing in. "Mulder, you lost me."

"No, Scully." He paused, turned, but continued to walk backward.
"Thankfully, that's the one thing I haven't done yet."

======================================================

Added March 25, 1999