His Guilt (PG)

He watched her through slitted eyes as she moved quietly around the apartment straightening up, making herself useful.  He wanted to laugh at that, Scully thinking she needed to do something to be useful.  She did everything.

God he was tired.  His body felt too heavy to move and his emotions were dead, as dead as . . .

He’d thought he had been at his lowest before.  When he’d lost Samantha, when his father had been murdered while he dozed on the couch in the next room, when he’d learned that he was the true cause of Scully’s cancer, but this . . .

Scully didn’t know he was awake, but as far as he knew he hadn’t slept at all.  He’d zoned out, but not what you’d call sleep.

He’d lost it at one point last night, becoming violent in his guilt and his grief.  He was a big man, he knew that.  He’d used his size to intimidate more than once rather than draw his gun.  It hadn’t fazed her, she had shown no fear, just taking him into her arms, sinking with him to the floor and basically holding him together.  That was good; she knew he would never hurt her.  She had brought back a semblance of sanity.

Suicide.  For the rest of his life he would know somewhere in the back of his mind that he hadn’t called her when she needed him.  Like the others in his family, he hadn’t been there for his mother, he hadn’t helped . . . he hadn’t been able to save her either.

Scully was watching him; he could feel it even though he wouldn’t open his eyes.  He could feel her concern not only for his physical health, but his mental health as well.  He couldn’t blame her for that.  She’d seen him low before, from profiling, from his father’s murder . . . from her near death, but she hadn’t been present at those occasions.  In those cases she had found him later and lured him back to the living. 

She’d been front and center for this and it was in the back of his mind that if this display hadn’t driven her away maybe she really was in his life, with him ‘for better or worse’.  He sure as hell knew how to supply the worst.

He couldn’t figure out what she saw in him, but he was grateful for it.  He was a little aghast at himself that he had asked, no demanded, that she perform the autopsy on his mother.  She’d been appalled, but for him; she did it for him.  He’d had to ask.  There was no one else he could possibly trust with such a thing.  He’d even doubted her findings for a moment.  But she would never lie to him; she hadn’t even in the beginning when he had thought she was working for ‘them’.  He hadn’t been sure back then, not at the time.  Now he knew.

What would he do; what would he be without Scully now?  She hadn’t left his side since giving him the news.  She wouldn’t either; if she thought he needed her, she’d be here.  And he would always need her.

Scully.  She was his sanity, his reality.  He wanted to hear her voice, just a word, his name maybe.  That always soothed him.

He felt her take a seat on the coffee table, close to him, and take his hand.  “Mulder.”