Tittle : Brigde over troubled water Summary : not very good at this, so the lyrics will help me : When you're weary, feeling small, Thanks : for help from my dear friend Lisa, my beta
reader. BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER When Dana Scully went to the office on monday morning, her partner Fox Mulder was already behind his desk, his glasses perched upon his nose. He was calmy typing on his keyboard. "Hi, Mulder. Already doing the paperwork ?" He raised his head and gave her a sad smile. "Hi Scully. I have to finished this report or Skinner will have my ass in a sling." "Do you want some help ? I know that you hate to do this." "I’ve almost finished. But thanks, Scully." She looked at him more closely. He seemed tired and his eyes had this smokey quality she recognized from when he was upset or depressed. Even if he was clearly freshly shaven and wearing a clean shirt, he seemed to wear the burden of the world upon his slumped shoulders. She approached him and and rested her hand lightly on his soft brown hair. "Are you okay, Mulder ? You seem a bit under the weather." He gave her a quick glance, but she could see that he was on the verge of tears. She could read him so well and she recognized from his heavy breathing that something worried him. She also knew that her partner was a very private person and she didn't want to press him. "Mulder ? You know you can talk to me." He looked at her deep blue eyes and saw nothing but compassion and concern. "I went to my parent's grave yesterday." "Oh... Are you okay with this ?" "Yes... No... I don't know." His voice was a whisper and tears were in his eyes so she reached him and gave him a tender hug. He leaned against her, feeling small and weary. He tried to hold his sobs in check, but failed. Miserably. She wrapped her arms tightly around him and felt the wetness of his tears on her blouse. "I felt... so alo... so alone, Scully." She wrapped her fingers in his hair and stroked them soothingly as he calmed himself. "I am sorry, Scully. I don't want to bother you with my self-pity." "You don't bother me, Mulder. You are my friend, my best friend, and I don't want you to suffer like this. You didn't have to do this alone. You should have called me." She offered him a tissue and he blew his nose and wiped at his teary eyes. "Why can't we take the day off and talk about this far away our office, Mulder ? It's a gorgeous sunny day outside, we could go out and grab a sandwich in a park, take a nice long walk. How does it sound ?" "Sounds good, Scully. In any case, my mind isn't at work. I’d get very little done the way I’m feeling." He offered her a sad smile and grabbed his jacket while they exited their office. His hand gravitating to its ordained place on the small of her back. ************* "I felt it was the right thing to do. You know, I haven't gone there ; couldn’t face it since my mother's funeral. I felt a bit guilty and yesterday was my mother's birthday. So I went." He was figeting about on the park seat as his spoke. She knew that what he was saying went deeper on so many layers than what she could detect on the surface. He sighed noisily and took his head into his hands, elbows digging painfully into his thighs. He didn't want to burst into tears like this morning. Despite the shared closeness their friendship aforded, he felt ashamed to have let Scully see his vulnerabily. Scully rubbed his back with tenderness. "It's okay, Mulder. Tell me about your feelings." He rose a little and looked far away. "My family was never a loving one, Scully. Even before Sam's abduction, I don't remember having hugs and kisses from my father, nor my mother. After Sam's birth, it was like I ceased to exist before theirs eyes. She was their little princess, and I was the annoying teen boy, to bright for my young age, always asking questions... Dad reprimanded me often, not very hard in my early years but the abuse increased when I grew up. And after Sam's abduction... it was worse. My father was most often drunk when he was at home, and mom was drugged up with Valium." Scully frowned at his last comments. Her gut twisted at his revelation and felt his pain along with him in empathy. She had never suspected that Mulder had endured physical abuse from his father. Psychological yes, but the thought of a very young and very vulnerable boy disciplined so brutally by a drunken father made her heart break. "But despite the beatings and the coldness, I loved them, Scully. They were my parents. Just before my father died, I had the feeling that he was proud of me, of my quest. It was the first and only time that I felt that from him. But it was too late..." His voice broke a little and despite the warm sunny day, he shuddered a bit, suddenly feeling bone cold inside. "Mom was another story. I was angry with her for a long time, for not supporting or protecting me when my father meted out his brand of discipline. I was angry with her when she never came during my brushes with death and sickness. Did she ever come to see me during the time I was recovering from the retrovirus after the fiasco in Alaska ?" Scully shook her head. It was a crime for his beautiful eyes to hold such grief and bitterness all at the same time. They looked swollen, bursting with a million emotions all fighting to take a single tiny facet of his soul. "No, Mulder, she never came. Nor during any of your various hospitalisations." "Your mother came, Scully. The guys came. Shit, even Skinner came to visit me. But not my own mother." He paused a minute to gather his thoughs, and took a deep breath. The action sending a single tear down his face, burning hotly into his cheek like a brand "So when I went yesterday on their graves, it was to say goodbye, to tell them that I’d given up on their lack of love and tenderness. That I hate them. But I couln't, Scully. I couldn't. I burst into tears and knelt on their graves, telling them that I loved them despite all the things they did to me. All the things my mind wanted to say but my heart couldn’t…..wouldn’t let me." He began to sob in earnest now, wrenching sobs which shook him head to toes, while Scully wrapped her arms around his quivering body and drew him to her warmth. Her body she used like a bandage ; her words a salve for his devastated heart. "And I felt... I felt realy alone, Scully... Alone and ashamed to cry for my uncaring family. I stayed for hours like this, unable to stop crying. I told them my anguish and my sadness, my love and my hopes. Oh Scully I cried so much..." "It's okay, Mulder. ssshh... it's okay. I am here now, and I care about you. I care very much, and you are not alone..." "Hold me, Scully, please, hold me..." She tightened her embrace around him and tenderly kissed his wet cheeks and his forehead, his bloodshot eyes and his full lips, telling him with soft words and touches that he was not alone, wondering how he became the beautiful sensitive man he was with his history of abuse and neglect, this caring, brillant, wonderful human being he was, who she cradled in her arms. Together they experienced the silent epithany of
feeling..of being, hearts in sync. The sun’s
brightness the only witness to humanity at its best. End This story was inspired by the Paul Simon's lyrics : Bridge over troubled water When you're weary, feeling small, I'm on your side. When times get rough Like a brigde over troubled water When you're down and out, Sail on silvergirl, 1969 - Paul Simon |