After The Love Is Gone

"After the love has gone
What used to be right is wrong
Can love that's lost be found?"
 -Atlanta Rhythm Section
 After The Love Has Gone
 
 

He's sleeping peacefully at least and I suppose that's something.  And he kept down supper tonight-first time since-

With only a small nightlight on, and without benefit of my glasses, I have to squint to make out the top of his head sticking out from the covers.  His hair is longer than it was when we lost him; scruffy, but, from what I've felt the couple of times he's let me touch it, still incredibly soft.  He's buried himself under the duvet, and curled up into a ball.  He's shivering, just a little, and I wonder if I should get up and find another blanket for him.

That's new, the cold.  I always teased him that it was a little like sleeping with a blast furnace.  Now, well, let's just say there're a lot more sweaters folded up in the bureau, and socks and sweats are a bedtime necessity.  He made some lame joke about it the first night, but his eyes were begging me not to laugh.  And I didn't.  Just touched his arm, ignored the flinch, and told him I loved him.

Another shiver, a little more intense, so I'll go get that blanket now, but I pause as he turns his head, and I catch sight of pure white strands of hair mingling with the dark brown just above his right eye.

He makes jokes about that, too, talking about his distinguished new look.  I tell him I think it looks sexy, and then we change the subject.

It only takes a minute to fetch a blanket from the linen closet.  He hasn't moved.  Doesn't move, in fact, as I tug the duvet back, but his shivering increases, and he makes a kind of whimpering noise when I tuck the blanket around his shoulders.  I pull my hands away quickly so as not to wake him.  I replace the duvet and tamp down the desire to kiss him.

As I walk around the bed and crawl into my side, I remind myself that this too, shall pass, that he's getting better every day.  I notice it more when he's awake, of course, but-

The last time I tried to touch him in his sleep, it wasn't even anything so dramatic as a kiss. I just touched the side of his face, softly of course, mindful of the scars there-

He cried in the bathroom for over an hour, and wouldn't let me in.  When he finally emerged, I saw the apology and self-loathing in his red eyes as he took to the couch without a word for the rest of the night.

I don't talk about it, and he can't.  We make a fine pair, the two of us, both tough guys in our way.  I know he talks to Scully-hell, even I talk to her once in a while.  As our professional relationship has grown and changed, so too has our personal one.  Especially now.

She's his doctor (one of them, anyway), as well as his partner and friend, and they are about as close as any two people can be. I know he's told her things that still remain a mystery to me, and I know that sometimes she is the only thing that can stand between him and a total descent into madness-I've seen it before…

I should be jealous, I suppose, but I'm not.  His need for her has nothing to do with me, and I understand it.  Sometimes I feel that need myself-the need to hear her clear forthright analysis of the situation.  She has a knack for cutting through bullshit that will put her in the director's chair someday, I'd wager.  Coupled with that is her rare gift of empathy that's even touched me.

Fox was adamant that Scully be made privy to our relationship from the start, and I reluctantly agreed, mostly because I knew he'd do it with or without my consent, and I wanted to be there for damage control if she couldn't handle it.

She was fine.

More than fine, she was totally supportive, surprising me with her trust-I suppose she was relying on Fox's judgement more than my actions, but I was grateful nevertheless.

My thoughts are interrupted by my lover's cry.  It's not loud; he's just warming up, if past night's actions are any indication, but the small sound is enough to pierce my heart like a rapier, and force a frustrated sigh past my lips.

I sit up, and punch the pillow a couple of times, and sigh again, trying not to look at him, staring instead at the ceiling and wondering at what's happened.  Happened to Scully, to me, most of all to him, and wondering if maybe he and I are through.  If maybe we aren't just going through the motions here, constantly denying the truth we both know, lying instead to each other, to ourselves, to our own hearts.  Part of me realizes that this is just so much three-in-the-morning, darkest-before-dawn depression and, that as daylight approaches, as it must, I'll remember everything I love about him, about us, and I'll be ready to fight the good fight again for another day.

He's quieting down again, and shivering less, and my thoughts turn back to Scully.  Not her so much as her pregnancy, the loss and the regeneration.  I talked to her tonight after Fox had gone to bed, and she told me that she's expecting more test results tomorrow, although all the doctors she's been to are as baffled about her spontaneous re-occurring pregnancy as they are about the scars and implants that now grace my lover's body.

More sounds from his side of the bed, which tonight lays miles away from my own, and my thoughts freeze up.  If he wakes up now, I know neither one of us will get any more sleep this night, just as I know how much more painful it all seems at night, in the dark…

Another cry, and I nearly groan aloud with frustration.  A lifetime ago, before-before all of this-all I would have had to do is scoop him up in my arms and hold him tight, and the night terrors, which have always been a part of him, would be vanquished, simple as that.  Usually, though, we'd go from hugs and kisses to incredibly hot sex, just to be on the safe side...

I smile bitterly in the dark, memories of kissing, and groping, of fucking and being fucked assailing my senses, burning my mind and my body, creating desires that I can't fulfill-that we can't fulfill…

Scully insists he's improving.  I tell myself that, too, and, hell, sometimes I even believe it.  I've gotten smiles, tentative pats, and even a kiss, paper dry and on the cheek like he's my maiden aunt, but still…I guess it's a start.  And it could be so much worse…

My mind insists on replaying our most animated couplings and I seem unable to shut it down.  My body aches with needs I've never had a problem with, until now…I'd never betray him, nor will I take what I want by force, ever, but…

I've resorted to jerking off in the bathroom, something I haven't done since I was a kid, for Christ's sake.  I always start out thinking of him, wanting him, wishing I could be with him in some way, any way, wanting to see that look in his eyes, that hunger that I know is for me and me alone.  But by the time I complete the act, I'm wondering if I'll ever see it again.  My orgasms are joyless and mechanical, and I usually finish up the grim chore with a good cry worthy of Fox Mulder himself.

The whimpers and moans coming from across that grand canyon that our bed has become are being repeated at regular intervals now, sounding pained and terrified, and I find myself crying a little, too, fists clenched tightly at my sides, trying by sheer force of will to drive his demons away.  For a moment I wish I was Robert Modell, or Linda Bowman-both dead now, both undeniably nuts, but both had at one time or another had more control over my lover and his thoughts and deeds than I do right now.  I feel helpless, and I hate it, and in that moment, when I hear him crying out "No! NO!" I hate him, too.  For making me doubt myself-for making me feel weak and confused and unable to help him.

I know that if I reach over and touch him, he'll wake up immediately.  But then his fear, his terror, whatever it is that's possessing him, will be directed at me instead, and I just can't take that.  Not tonight, not when I'm lying here feeling exposed and vulnerable, like one of Scully's autopsy cadavers, tore open and raw.  So I lie here on my edge of the chasm and I keep thinking as he thrashes now, a low keening noise coming from somewhere deep inside him, then more begging: "No, no, please, no…"

"Please, no," I whisper back.

It has to end some time, I think, remembering what Scully told me just after he'd been taken. And that time is now…

"Please, no," I say it a little louder, and from somewhere inside me suddenly comes a hidden reserve of strength, and I feel my jaw clench instinctively.  It does not have to end.  We will work this out.  We both have so much invested in this relationship, as hard as it's been, as hard as it's going to be, I have to believe it's worth it.  I want to believe.

I don't think he wants it to be over either.  I know how much he wanted this from the beginning, only because he was the one brave enough to initiate it all, not knowing how I felt, but doing it anyway, taking a chance, risking it all so that we could have each other.

And now I've got him back, when Scully and I had all but given up hope of his ever being returned to us.  We thought he was gone forever.  What we did to find him, to save him, what we gave…

I'm not giving up.  I won't…I can't…

I still love him, and I think he loves me, and I also think that this time it's going to be me who has to make that first move, take that leap of faith.  I'm going to have to show him some of that kick-ass Marine bravery that he thinks I have.  Maybe the key to opening him up is to let him see inside me first.  Give a little, get a little and all that crap.  I wince at that thought, knowing whose words I'm paraphrasing, but I quickly derail that particular train of thought before it can go any further.

"Scully?"  His voice is husky with fear and need and I glance over, thinking he must be awake, but his eyes are still tightly shut.  He says her name again, louder this time, and his face contorts, as if in pain.  I think I should risk waking him, maybe scaring him a little, but nothing like what it looks like he's facing in his dreams.  And when he pulls away from me, we can start to talk about why.  About what was done to him and what I am physically reminding him of.  And then we can start to get back to that place where my body was not alien to him, not threatening, but rather welcoming, safe and comfortable.

I watch my arm reach over to him, I watch my hand open from it's tight fist into a flat open palm and questing fingers that are already searching out his scruffy hair, fingers that memorized the textures of Fox Mulder years ago, and now seem to cry out of their own volition for a reminder.

"Walter?"

I draw back as if stung, frozen in place.  He has never called my name from wherever it is he goes in his dreams.  Not even before-before-when he dreamed of a sister long gone as often as he did of his partner.

I wait in what feels like an eternity of silence, listening too hard, already rationalizing that I only heard what I wanted to hear.  The bedsheets rustle, sounding startling loud in all that silence, and I watch tensely as Fox uncurls himself and flings his body out full length.  Followed by a moan, then a cough, then another moment of that perfect stillness.  I notice that his shivering has stopped completely, but whether this is because of the extra blanket, or just more wishful thinking on my part, I have no idea. However, I am not about to question it.

Suddenly, with a wail, Fox comes rolling across the bed, all hundred and not-nearly-enough pounds of him, to land, sprawled in my arms, hanging on to me like he's Kate Winslet and I'm a makeshift raft.  I can feel the muscles in his arms tensing and flexing.  His legs begin to twitch too, as though he's trying to run, to push his way through me like a football tackle dummy.  I can only lie here, too stunned to move, watching with something approaching awe as his torso twists and he calls out my name again and again.

"Walter…Walter, please, please, no, Walter…?" The words trail off, he heaves a great sigh, and almost completely relaxes, head nestled in the curve of where my arm and shoulder are joined, one arm tight across my chest, his fingers digging almost painfully into my side, and the other pulled close to his body, that hand curled into a loose fist at his jaw.

I'm flummoxed.  I don't know what to do.  I'm afraid to move.  I realize that this is some sort of miracle, but I've learned not to trust in miracles, as well as a lot of other things, and frankly, I'm not taking any chances with whatever this is.

My hands have other ideas, however, and it is with something like horror that I realize that my fingers are moving towards his hair, seemingly of their own volition, and I can't seem to stop them.  Or maybe I just don't want to.

But, when I finally feel the soft strands of hair on my fingertips, and I decide that I am about to have some sort of major coronary event here, all he does is sigh again, exhaling a gust of warm breath across my chest that I feel all the way to my toes.  His grip on me doesn't loosen, and I think I will have bruises in the morning.  I don't care.

This may be the starting point for him and I.  The new beginning, where we can start to talk about it all. His fears, and mine.  What happened to him up there, and what happened to me down here.  I won't tell him about Doggett, yet, about what we had to do to get him back.  I don't think he's strong enough yet, and I think Scully would agree with me.

So I just rest my hand on the back of his head, let the tears fall, and whisper "I love you, Fox."