Date: 31 Mar 1998 02:30:07 GMT From: TCN YT Subject: Painful To Love By McCord (1/1) Title: Painful to Love Author: McCord Email: TCNYT@aol.com Rating: PG-13 for language Category: Pre-XF, Vignette Spoilers: Travellers, Unusual Suspects, Small Potatoes Keywords: Mulder/Other, Mulder/Scully romance, Ring story Summary: Possible explanation for the "Ring" Disclaimer: The characters (except Patricia and her family) aren't mine, and are instead the property of CC, Fox, and 1013. Please don't hurt me, I'll give them back. Author's Note: I know I should be working on "Starbuck," but this just came to me and I had to do it. Hope you enjoy. ****************** Painful to Love by McCord *************************************************** Basement Office J. Edgar Hoover Building Washington DC Friday, April 3, 1998 5:45 P.M. Fox Mulder watched silently as his partner of five years closed the door behind her. Had it really been five years? And seven years since... Mulder's thought trailed off as he took the wedding ring out of the hiding place in his desk. It took him several minutes, but finally got it out. After Skinner easily finding the DAT tape, he wasn't taking any chances. Mulder twirled the ring in his fingers, letting his thoughts drift. He had shared things with Scully, almost everything about himself. Yet he hadn't told her about his four years of marriage. Why not? Why had he not told the most important person in his life about the person who used to be the most important person in his life? He didn't know, though he had warned Scully of what had destroyed that happiness: his obsession with the so-called 'Truth.' ******************************************************** He had met her at a party in 1984. He was still trying to get over the hurt from Phoebe, the scheming little bitch. He was standing quietly in a corner, nursing a iced tea when he saw her. She was shorter than Phoebe, but only by what he guessed to be just a few inches. She had her dirty blonde hair down, which cascaded past her shoulders to brush along her lower back. Her eyes sparkled with an intensity and intelligence that he had never seen in anyone. She was standing with a few friends, laughing and joking as the music played in the background. He didn't think he'd have a chance with her when she looked over at him and caught his stare. She smiled, and moved over to him. "Hi," she said, "My name's Patricia. Patricia Talvert. What's yours?" "Mulder." "That's different. What's your last name?" "That is my last name." She chuckled and smiled at him again. "I figured as much. Do you have a first name, Mr. Mulder?" Mulder grimaced, then gave in. "Fox." She smiled brighter, then grinned a little, moving her eyes up and down his form. "Well, I must admit your parents named you aptly." This comment brought a smile from Mulder, something he hadn't really done in a long time. "What brings a sociable, gorgeous woman like yourself over to speak to me?" "Just wondering who the unsociable, gorgeous man in the corner was." She glanced at his drink, then back up at him. "Tea?" "Yeah, I tend not to drink often." He shuddered inwardly, remembering his father in his drunken rages. He rarely truly beat him, but when he did, it was not forgotten. Patricia noticed the shudder, and a frown of concern crossed her features. "Are you okay, Fox?" Mulder started at the use of his first name, since very few people ever used it. He nodded. "Unpleasant memories." She took his hand and led him out to the dance floor. "We'll just have to make some better ones, won't we?" Mulder and Patricia had a great time that night together. She seemed to understand him like no one else had before. They agreed to get together again, then began dating regularly. He soon was recruited by the FBI, and went to Quantico. He continued to see Patricia, and they both grew extremely close. She seemed to understand his fears and anxieties from the little he told her of his childhood. And in late 1985, a little over a year after they met, Fox Mulder asked Patricia Talvert to be his wife, and she agreed. ****************************************************** When Mulder started working for the FBI, they moved to Alexandria, Virginia. They got an apartment in a decent building, at least it was then; apartment number 42. They moved in and were married shortly after. It was a small ceremony, with none of Mulder's family attending. Patricia's family, on the other hand, greeted Mulder with open arms into the family. Patricia's father was a retired construction foreman, and a kindly man with a big heart. Her mother was the same way, and Patricia's sister and brother immediately took a liking to Mulder. They all seemed to understand Mulder and not judge him from his brooding personality. Instead, they judged him by his sincerity and love for them, for he truly did love them. They were the first people to ever treat him as family. Patricia worked at a restaurant near the Hoover building, so she and Mulder would ride into DC together everyday. They had a wonderful life together, even through the times when Mulder's caseload overwhelmed him and he sunk into his own dark world. At these times, Patricia would cradle him softly and reassure him everything would be all right. Until Mulder's paranoia came to the front, and he met three computer/conspiracy nerds: Langley, Byers, and Frohike. ********************************************************** Mulder was never sure why he wanted the Susanne Modeski case. He just knew deep down that he was supposed to take it. So he did, and met three people who would become great friends. They took to calling themselves the Lone Gunmen, and were convinced of a governmental conspiracy to try and control the lives of the American public. Mulder really didn't remember exactly what took place in that warehouse, but he knew something did, and he believed the Gunmen. Patricia, on the other hand, wasn't quite so convinced. "Are you sure that chemical is still not effecting you, Fox?" She stood defianantly with her hands on her hips, glaring at him. "Yes, I'm sure. Something's going on that cannont be explained, I just don't know what." Patricia didn't like it, but didn't bring the subject up again until the file on Edward Skur showed up one night. She was cleaning up the living room when she noticed it sitting on the coffee table. She saw the 'X' in the file number, and knew that Fox had been showing an increasing interest in them. When she pressed Fox about it a few days later, he explained the meeting with Agent Dales and what he had been told. She kicked him out of the bedroom for the night in fury. He didn't sleep that much anyway, but it was the act of doing it that mattered to her. His was starting to become obsessive about these 'X-files' as he called them, and she feared what it might do to his and her life. He seemed okay about though, at least for awhile. Then he went and had the hypno-regression therapy. When Mulder told her about what he remembered, she couldn't take it anymore. Over the past two years, she had seen the man she had fallen in love with turn into a paranoia freak, and believer in government conspiracies and aliens, and obsessive about what he referred to as a Quest: to find the sister that he lost when he was twelve. She left him, taking the bed from the bedroom along with other things, and walked out of his life. From that moment on, Fox Mulder vowed not to let anyone close again. He regretfully cut himself off from her family, though he cared for her and them a lot, and withdrew within himself. He migrated to the basement, where he could study the X-files undisturbed. And that's how he planned to live the rest of his life: a lonely, pathetic martyr to a quest for a sister long thought gone. ******************************************************************* After the divorce was finalized in '91, Mulder threw himself into his work. A year later, when he would tell a young, petite redhead that nothing mattered to him but the search, it was true at the time. Except that Dana Katherine Scully would slowly but surely integrate herself into every fiber of his being. Mulder sat there looking at the ring and thinking, letting his mind just go with the thoughts. He was so lost in them that he didn't notice when Scully returned to the office. "Mulder, I left..." She trailed off as she saw the ring in his hand. "Wha?" Mulder snapped out of his reverie and saw Scully looking at the ring in his hand. He had been hoping he'd never have to bring this up. It was still too painful, even 7 years after. He averted his eyes and tucked the ring back in its hiding place in the desk. "Mulder." Mulder looked up at that tone of voice. Scully was determined to know, and nothing stood in the way of a determined Scully. He sighed, and looked at the wall silently. "It was seven years ago, a week from tomorrow, that I was divorced from my wife of six years, Patricia Talvert. She left because of this," he said, waving at the office, "my so-called quest. And what has it brought me? Pain, sorrow, suffering, and the loss of a woman I had loved. I threw myself into my work after that, forcing myself to believe it didn't matter; that it didn't hurt. I was so good at it, I usually forgot I was ever married. Except around this time of year. I cared for her, and her family. They were the first people to ever treat me like a person, like someone who mattered. And because of my damn 'quest,' I lost all that." Mulder closed his eyes then felt and hand on his shoulder. He looked up, and into Scully's eyes. "Do you wish you could do it all over again?" she asked, echoing the question Eddie Van Blundht had asked her. "No, because then I might never have met you." He reached up and squeezed her hand. Scully smiled softly and squeezed back. "I thought I had learned something from that time with Patricia and the divorce. I thought I had learned that nothing good comes from love, from emotional attachment except pain. You changed that, Dana. I once again learned the joy of love and being loved, even if it isn't a romance. You mean more to me than anyone, ever." Scully turned his chair around and leaned in close to him. "Who says it isn't a romance?" she whispered quietly before gently brushing her lips against his. Patricia Talvet went to her mail box and pulled out her mail. She picked out a lacy envelope with an Alexandria, VA return address. She opened it, and smiled when she saw an invitation for her and her family to the wedding of Fox Willaim Mulder and Dana Katherine Scully. The End. ************************************************************* Feedback? Anyone? Please? I've been a good boy, I pwomise.