Vital Statistics by Judy Gayle 12-09-98 Summary: What will happen when Scully finds out about the ring? Rating: PG for a few bad words. Classification: V A Spoilers: Travelers, Fire Keywords: RingFic...sort of. Archive: Anywhere Distribution: EMXC and XFF. I'll send it to atxc. Feedback is appreciated. Please send comments to JKGayle@aol.com Thanks to Kristine for beta reading. Disclaimer: Mulder, Scully, and the other characters in this story belong to Chris Carter, the Fox Network, and Ten Thirteen Productions. I'm just borrowing them. No copyright infringement is intended. * * * * * * * * * * Vital Statistics by Judy Gayle 12-09-98 * * * * * * * * * * Fox Mulder picked up the yellow Post-It note that was stuck to his desktop. It was in Scully's handwriting. "Arthur Dales Watergate Rm 217 935-2300" "What's this?" he asked. "Said he was an old friend of yours," Scully replied without looking up from the file she was reading. "He's going to be in town for a few days and would like to see you." "Oh." Mulder sat down and leaned forward, elbows on his desk, holding the note in both hands. Remembering. It had been eight years ago -- an eternity. "He asked about your wife." "Wh....what?" Mulder stared, wide-eyed, at his partner. "He asked ...about ...your...wife," she said, still without looking up. Then she slowly raised her head and skewered him with a steely glare. "M....My...." "Wife." "Scu..." "He said," she interrupted, "that you must have been a newlywed. That he could hardly keep from laughing -- the way you kept flashing that shiny new ring around." Mulder was speechless. He could almost feel the wheels in his head spinning in neutral, refusing to connect noun to verb in some sort of logical order. Without uttering another word, Scully closed the file, put it back into the filing cabinet, picked up her purse, and headed for the door. "Goodbye, Mulder" "Scully...Scully! Where are you going?" "It's five o'clock. I'm going home." "Wait, Scully." When her pace failed to slacken, Mulder rushed over and grabbed her arm before she reached the door. "Wait a minute, Scully. Can we talk about this?" "Talk about what?" "About this...this...ring thing." "No. There's no need for that, Mulder," Scully replied with deadly calm. "Your personal life is your concern. It's certainly none of MY business." She shook his hand off her arm and reached for the doorknob. "Scully, please. I'd like to try to explain." A hard edge crept into her voice. "There's nothing to explain, Mulder. If you had wanted me to know about this, you could have told me any time in the last six -- count 'em, SIX years. So, obviously, you DIDN'T want me to know about it. Therefore, I don't WANT to know about it. END OF CONVERSATION!" ********** They stood in front of the elevator, Scully tapping her foot, arms crossed tightly across her chest. With every tap, her expression grew darker. Mulder had the sensation of watching a rapidly burning fuse. "All that bullshit about it taking you ten years to get over Phoebe Green. You got out of Oxford in '86 and you've been working with me since '92. Looks like SOMETHING have taken your mind off of Phoebe in those intervening years." "I'm trying to explain..." "Forget it, Mulder!" ********** In her apartment, she turned on him. "Dammit, Mulder. I thought that you...I thought that we.... Oh, never mind. Clearly, I was wrong." "If you'll just let me expl..." "No! You had your reasons for keeping it a secret all these years." "I wasn't trying to keep it a secret, Scully. I just try not to think about it. And there never seemed to be a good time to tell you." "Never a good time? A previous marriage comes under the heading of vital statistics, Mulder. It's the kind of thing that people tell each other on their first or second date." "We've never had a date." "Yes, and now I know why. I've been a fool not to have seen it before. All these years I've followed you! I let you become a huge part of my life. At some point I even realized that I loved you. Want to hear something funny, Mulder? I even thought you loved me! Even if it was in your own unique, paranoid, egocentric way. What a joke! And all the time I was just someone you had to work with -- not someone you wanted to be a part of your life. For the last six years we've spent practically every waking moment together. And you want me to believe that in all that time there was never a moment when you could have mentioned the fact that you'd been married?" "Give me a chance, Scully! At first I didn't tell you because...well, because it was none of your business. You were just someone they sent to spy on me. Someone -- like you said -- that I HAD to work with. And later, I just didn't want to talk about it. It was still too painful. And then, I...I just COULDN'T, Scully. I couldn't find a way to tell you. I was afraid you'd react...just like you're reacting now." "You just don't get it, do you, Mulder? I could have accepted the fact that you were married. It would have surprised the hell out of me, but I could have handled it. What I can't accept is the fact that you kept it from me...for all these years. That's what really hurts, Mulder. Such an important event in your life, and you didn't trust me enough to tell me! Why did I have to find out about it from a complete stranger?" Mulder watched in detached fascination as tears of rage and hurt streamed freely and unabashedly down her face. Hoping to stem her fury, he reached out to put his hand on her shoulder. But she swatted his hand away and shoved him away from her. "Were you EVER going to tell me, Mulder?" she snarled at him. Suddenly, she lashed out at him, her fist pounding into his shoulder. "WHEN were you going to tell me?" Again and again she pummeled him, as she screamed, "WHEN?...WHEN?...WHEN?..." ********** "Mulder! Mulder!" As the fog slowly dispersed, Mulder realized that Scully was shaking his shoulder. "Wake up, Mulder. You're having a nightmare." He was back in his office, at his desk. Slowly he sat back in his chair. He was soaked with sweat and breathing hard. His pulse was pounding in his ears, in synchrony with the fading visions of Scully hitting him. Scully was leaning over him. Gently, she brushed a lock of hair back off his forehead, concern evident on her face. "What was it, Mulder? Samantha?" "No. No. Nothing like that. I'm okay." Reluctantly, Scully straightened up and returned to her desk. She watched him for a few moments as his breathing slowly returned to normal. Then she picked up a file and returned her attention to it. Mulder, still shaken by the vivid nightmare, watched his partner. He couldn't remember anything happening that might have precipitated that dreadful dream. He wondered if she knew. At last he came to a decision. "Scully?" "Hmmm?" With some trepidation, Mulder got up and walked over to her desk, dragging his chair with him. He sat down next to his partner and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, eyes downcast. "Scully, there's...something I have to... that I need to..." Taking a deep breath, he straightened up in his chair and looked directly into her eyes. Then he reached out and took her hand. "There's something I want to tell you about." * * * * * * * * * * END