"The Eighth Side of the Triangle"(17/?) by Susan Jameson
(DrBarnBarn@aol.com)
See part 1 for headers, archive info, etc.




~~~~~

As Scully Saw It

~~~~~

It was late, very late, when Mulder came back to the hospital.

Skinner had come by to see me, and Charlie, and I had long talks with
both of them, talks that made me feel a lot better about Mulder and
Daniel and Daniel's future in the Navy.

I started to call Mulder and tell him, but he'd promised to come back
and see me later, and I decided it was best to wait.

I had to wait a long time: It was nearly midnight when he arrived,
looking rumpled and weary to the bone. He kissed me and tried to
behave normally, but it was rapidly becoming apparent to me that
something was seriously wrong.

When I asked him about it, though, he brushed me off.

"It's nothing, Scully," he said, dismissively. "I'm tired, and Daniel
just left again, and there's still your brother to contend with ..."

"Not anymore," I said. "AD Skinner took care of that."

"He did what?" Mulder said, as if he hadn't heard me right.

"He talked to Bill," I said. "He came by here and told me about it,
although I'm sure he didn't tell me all of it."

"What the hell did he say?" Mulder asked, still looking absolutely
dumbfounded.

"He said he told Bill that any attempt on his part to make any quote,
'false statements,' unquote, about Daniel would result in Bill's
having serious trouble keeping his top-secret clearance," I said. "He
said Bill asked him why he cared so much, and that he told him it was
because he owed his life to Navy doctors like Daniel -- that they'd
saved him and put him back together after he was wounded in Viet Nam,
and that he was damned if he was going to let Bill's homophobia
deprive the Navy of an excellent physician."

"Jesus," Mulder said, shaking his head, and then he laughed. "I wish I
could have been a fly on the wall for that one."

"So do I," I said, smiling. "I wish I knew some way to let Daniel
know, too, so he wouldn't worry. Can you think of anything?"

At that, Mulder's smile faded and he got very quiet. 

"I don't think I'm going to be hearing from him anytime soon," he
said, a little brusquely.

"For pity's sake, why not?" I said, in surprise. "Is something wrong?"

"Yeah, you could say that," he said, bitterly. "I was walking out to
my car earlier today and I saw him ... with Jill."

"Doing what?" I said, slowly, but I was beginning to think I already
knew.

"Kissing," Mulder said, trying to sound more nonchalant. "And I do
mean kissing, as in wandering hands, tongues, etc. It was really
something."

"Mulder, I'm sure there's an explanation," I began, but he interrupted
me with a short, bitter laugh.

"Yeah, I'm sure of that, too, Scully," Mulder said. "And I know what
it is. Daniel's still in love with her. He always has been. And I
guess I knew it, too, from my own observation as well as ..."

And he stopped there, with a look that said he'd gone too far, said
too much.

Tough shit, Mulder. Since when do you get to clam up on me?

"Mulder," I said, warningly, "don't try to keep this from me. What
else makes you think that Daniel is still in love with Jill? Although
I promise you, if he is, it's still not anything like what he feels
for you."

"I think it because I've seen it," Mulder said, still bitter. "I also
think it because that was what my informant told me. You do know I had
an informant, don't you, Scully? Someone who knew this dynamic very
well."

"Just tell me, Mulder, don't beat around the bush," I said, a little
harshly. He was making me angry now. "Who is it and what did this
person say?"

"It's your doctor, Jon Zuckerman, also known as Daniel Reilly's former
inamorato," Mulder said. "He and Daniel apparently had a thing about
seven years ago that ended while Daniel was in Desert Storm. Zuckerman
said that Daniel would always go running back to Jill when things got
tough. I didn't believe him. I do now."

Zuckerman was gay? The things you don't know about people ... 

"Mulder, unless I miss my guess, that relationship was a long time
ago," I said. "Daniel was married to Jill then; it's only natural he'd
turn to her in bad times."

"Then what was he doing kissing her like that today?" Mulder said.
"Jesus Christ, Scully, he and I had just ..."

He stopped abruptly, but it didn't matter. I knew what he was going to
say. "Are you sure that what you saw meant something?" I said. "It
could just have been a goodbye kiss ..."

"It wasn't," Mulder said, emphatically. "Daniel was ... responding to
her, shall we say?"

"Oh," I said. For some reason, that hurt ... 

No, actually, I knew the reason. I was jealous. Daniel had never ...
well, you know, responded ... to me. Not really. Morning erections are
involuntary; they don't count.

So there we sat, Mulder and I, feeling hurt and jealous over the same
thing. If it weren't so ludicrous, it would have been tragic; or vice
versa, perhaps.

Mulder at least had a right to be hurt. Daniel was his lover, not
mine. I had no right whatsoever to care whether Daniel kissed Jill or
loved her or responded to her sexually ... none at all.

But I did. God help me, I did.

I was so busy analyzing the stinging pain in my heart that it took me
a minute to realize that Mulder was speaking to me.

"I'm sorry?" I said, dragging myself reluctantly back to the moment.
"I was taking a short mental side trip ..."

"I asked you if you knew what was bothering Daniel," Mulder said,
patiently. "Did he say anything to you before I got here?"

I shook my head. "No," I said. "But I do know that something's wrong.
He got a little distant when Mom mentioned his Navy and Marine Corps
Medal, and Charlie sort of hinted that it wasn't anything Daniel
really wanted to talk about."

"What medal?" Mulder asked, puzzled.

"The Navy and Marine Corps Medal," I said. "It's a significant award,
Mulder --it's given for the sort of heroism that could get someone the
Navy Cross or even the Medal of Honor if it happened under enemy
fire."

"Shit," Mulder said, and he actually seemed impressed. "He never
mentioned it. What was it for?"

"You remember reading in the Post about the F-14 crash on the
Washington?" I said, and Mulder nodded. "Daniel was involved in the
rescue, and apparently saved one aviator's life by going underwater to
treat him until he could be freed from the wreckage."

"Jesus, no wonder they gave him a medal," Mulder said. 

I nodded. "There's more, but Daniel wouldn't talk about it," I said.
"Charlie told me."

"Told you what?" he said, and his eyes had suddenly gone penetrating;
he was in all-out investigative personality-profiler mode, trying to
pick up clues from my speech, my posture, my facial expression, in
hopes of getting ahead of me in the discussion. He hates being at a
disadvantage.

I didn't feel like being put on the defensive, though. I wasn't one of
his criminal suspects; he was the one who'd come to me for help. I
just went on, with all the calmness and impassivity I could muster.

Need I remind anyone that I can muster quite a bit when I choose?

"What exactly do you know about what happened on the George
Washington?" I said.

"What happened?" Mulder repeated. "The crash, you mean?"

"I mean, do you know why Daniel got the Navy and Marine Corps Medal?"
I asked.

Mulder nodded. "You said he saved someone's life," he said. 

"That's the bare bones of it," I said. "No pun intended. But I think
there's a big chunk of that story that Daniel isn't telling."

"Which is what?" Mulder said. "This whole line of questioning implies
that there's a lot more to the story than you've told me, so why don't
you just tell me instead of playing Twenty Questions?"

He was getting annoyed. It was a side of him I hadn't seen lately, but
I suppose he thought he had reason. Still, he didn't need to mistake
me for someone else. I wasn't Jill and I wasn't Daniel, and ours
wasn't a relationship based entirely on friendship or romance.

I was his partner, and he was damn well going to listen to me, like it
or not.

And I was not going to lose my cool. There was far too much at stake
here, for Mulder, for Daniel, for Jill and for me.

"I can't say for certain," I said. "I can make an educated guess,
though. A crewman died in that wreck when the F-14 hit a tanker on the
flight deck."

"Tell me where you're going with this, Scully," Mulder said. He seemed
perfectly calm, but I doubted he felt that way.

"All right," I said. "According to Charlie, the citation for Daniel's
medal says that when Daniel realized the man couldn't survive, he
administered, and I quote, 'pain-relieving drugs.' That would
typically be either morphine or fentanyl under the circumstances."

"I know what morphine is," Mulder said. "I assume fentanyl is similar,
a narcotic that would typically be given to people in terminal pain."

"Yes," I said. "It is. Shorter acting, but more potent. But which drug
he gave isn't what I'm wondering about. It's how much."

Mulder was silent for a moment.

"Scully," he said, finally, "I see what you're getting at, but that
can't be all there is to it. If Daniel did anything, he shortened the
guy's life, and by minutes at most. I know him -- I can't imagine any
other possibility."

"I'm sure you're right, and I'm sure that intellectually, at least,
Daniel knows that," I said. "But you know Daniel. In his mind, if he
gave that man a drug and the drug was the proximal cause of death,
he's committed murder. You know what his conscience is like. "

"Even if that were true, they'd never prosecute him, Scully," Mulder
said, shaking his head. "You and I both know that there's not a jury
in the land that would convict him."

"Mulder, this has nothing to do with the law," I said, as gently as I
could. "But it has everything to do with you."

"Me?" he said, startled. "What the hell do you mean, me?"

"If I know Daniel, what he's worried about is how this would look to
you if you found out," I said. "He could stand almost anything except
to think that he'd failed in your eyes."

"That couldn't happen," Mulder said, firmly. "You're off base, Scully.
What he did took a hell of a lot of courage. There's no way I'd ever
see that as a failure. He knows me better than that."

"He doesn't know how you'd react if he tried to tell you what had
happened and he started crying," I said. 

Well. You would have thought I'd slapped him, Mulder looked so
shocked. He was literally speechless.

"What, you think that can't happen?" I said, maybe a little too
harshly.

"Of course I know it can happen," Mulder snapped back. "Daniel's only
human. He's just as capable of crying as anyone else on earth."

"But he won't, no matter how badly he wants to," I said. "Not if he
can help it. And that's the other part of why he won't tell you -- not
only does he think he's done wrong, he doesn't think he can get
through the story without losing control of his emotions."

"You're assuming he wants to tell me," Mulder said, tightly. "And I
think you're assuming too much. That's a male-female relational model,
Scully, and it doesn't apply here."

"Really?" I said. "Then maybe he really does need Jill to comfort him.
Maybe Daniel just needs a woman in his life, someone he can talk to,
and you just need to accept it. What do you think -- maybe Jill should
get him on Tuesdays and Thursdays and you get him the rest of the
time?"

"I think maybe this conversation should be over," Mulder said, coldly,
"because there are only two possibilities here: You're serious, or
you're being cruel in a way that doesn't suit you. Either way, I don't
want to stick around and be the victim. I don't know why you're angry
at me, Scully, but I don't think I've done anything to deserve it."

"I'm upset, not angry," I said, although I'm not sure that was the
truth. "Maybe not even at you. But I'm beginning to think there's a
lot Daniel hasn't told you, things that he desperately needs for you
to know. He's just afraid of your reaction."

"I don't think I want to do this with you," Mulder said, getting up.
"This is getting into things that might best be left unsaid."

"They won't stay unsaid forever, Mulder," I said. "You have to listen
to me. If I'm right, then Daniel is coming apart at the seams and this
thing, horrible as it was, isn't the only reason. I'm sure of it. It's
just the last straw. He's been carrying on for years, trying to take
care of everyone around him and now he's worn out. He needs someone to
take care of him."

"That's your take on it," Mulder said. "Maybe what he wants is some
time alone to sort it out."

"What he wants is you," I said. "Mulder, he needs someone to take care
of him. He wants it to be you. He needs it to be you. But everything
about you is screaming at him that you can't and you won't, that you
need him, that he's got to go on taking care of you, so he does. He'll
do it or he'll die trying."

"Is that what you think of me?" Mulder asked, sounding both shocked
and hurt. "You think I'm that infantile, that incapable of dealing
with life?"

"No," I said, shaking my head firmly. "I don't think that at all. I
owe you my life too many times over to even begin to entertain that
thought. What I do think is that Daniel's taken care of you for so
long that you take that for granted and you don't even wonder whether
the source of all that caring could ever run dry."

Mulder fell silent for a moment. I waited, folding my hands in my lap,
giving him time to absorb what I'd just said.

"Is that what happened between us, Scully?" Mulder said, finally. "Did
I demand so much from you that you ran dry?"

I thought for a minute, then I shook my head. "I don't know what
happened, Mulder," I said. "I know that even before I knew I had
cancer, you and I were drifting apart. We'd connect again here and
there, but then the distance would come back."

"Is it still there?" Mulder asked, in a nearly level tone.

"Sometimes," I admitted, looking up at him. "Maybe even a lot of the
time. I don't know how to fix it. Maybe it can't be fixed. Maybe the
time has come that you and Daniel have become so much of a couple that
there is no room for me anymore."

"No," Mulder said, sharply, as he sat back down in the chair. "Don't
even think that. Never. What you are to me and what Daniel is to me
are two separate things, Scully. You have your own place in my life,
and it's just as important to me in its own way as is Daniel's place
in my life."

"Mulder," I said, softly, and I reached out to him, laid my hand
gently on his face. "Mulder, don't you understand? Daniel feels the
same way about Jill ... I'd say he feels exactly the same, except that
we both know that's not true."


"The difference being that he's sexually attracted to her in a way I'm
not..." Mulder began, and then stopped himself, looking at me
guiltily.

"In a way you're not attracted to me," I finished for him. "Yes."

"Scully, I'm ..." Mulder began, but I raised my hand and stopped him.

"Don't apologize," I said. "It's hardly insulting, under the
circumstances. It's just a statement of fact. But yes, that's it. They
have a past together, and it hasn't vanished entirely. Daniel and Jill
were lovers for a long time, during their marriage and for a few years
before. For almost 20 years, they loved each other and comforted each
other through sexual contact. For Daniel to want to touch Jill is
almost reflexive, I'd imagine, and maybe not even really sexual, for
either of them. No, he probably shouldn't have, but what he did is not
one bit worse than what you and I did that night in Mystic."

"Scully," Mulder said, uncomfortably, but I wouldn't let him go on.

"You know it's the truth, Mulder," I said. "You didn't want that
because you wanted sex. You wanted it because you wanted -- you needed
-- to be close to me. I wanted it for the same reason, because it was
something I could give. For me, yes, there was more -- I've always
wanted to know what it would be like to be that close to you, to touch
you that way ... and that, too, was part of why I let it happen."

"What are you saying, Scully?" Mulder said, still not quite making eye
contact.

"That you're not wrong," I said, gently. "That Daniel still loves
Jill, that he likes to touch her, that it comforts him to have her in
his arms ... but that doesn't make him so different from you, and it
doesn't make Jill any different from me. We both want what we can't
have."

"And Daniel wants what he can't have?" Mulder said, bitterly. "He
wants me to comfort him but he knows I won't? Is that what you're
suggesting?"

"No," I said. "He wants you to comfort him, but he doesn't know how to
tell you that. So he tries to deal with it himself, but he can't do
that either. It just hurts too much. So somewhere inside him, he's
remembering how he used to lie next to Jill at night and tell her what
was wrong, and he didn't have to worry that she'd think less of him
for it. You should be able to understand that, Mulder. It's very much
that way with you and me, I think."

Mulder fell silent again, biting on his lower lip.

"All right," he said, finally. "I can see that. I don't like it, but I
can see how he would feel that way, and how Jill would respond to it.
What are you suggesting that I do about it?"

"Straight to the point?" I said. "You two need to talk -- or write, I
suppose, since he's headed back to sea. You need to tell him that it's
okay to talk to you, that you're not going to think less of him if he
needs to cry to be able to tell you what's wrong."

"You're still confusing what we have here with some version of a
heterosexual relationship," Mulder said. "Well, it's not like that.
Whatever else this may be, it's a relationship between two men. If he
thinks it's going to upset him that much, I promise you, he doesn't
want me to talk to him about it."

"Oh, Jesus," I said, in exasperation. "You're both so damn scared of
looking like less than a man that you won't admit that sometimes it's
not so damn different. Or am I the only one here who's noticed that
you two aren't just pool-playing buddies?"

"No, I'd say Jill's fully aware of it," Mulder said, evenly. "So is
your brother."

He had me there. I nodded my agreement.

"Scully," Mulder said after a moment, "there's one more thing I need
to know."

"What?" I said.

"Let me preface it by saying that I believe Daniel and I will survive
this, whatever it is," he said, much more quietly. "I appreciate your
insight, and I think it is going to be helpful, but I'm sensing in you
some fear that this is going to break us up and I want you to know
that it won't happen. Not over this or anything else."

I have to tell you, I was astoundingly relieved by those words; so
much so that I think it must have showed on my face, because Mulder
reached out to me and stroked my face, and his hand felt cool against
my flushed skin.

"What I want to know, Scully," Mulder said, "is whether you brought up
Mystic because that's still standing between us, if I've created a
barrier between us that we can't breach now. I'm tired of this
distance between us; I want it to end."

"So do I," I whispered, and laid my hand over his. 

"So what do we do?" he said, more gently. "Where do we go, Dana?"

There it was ... the clearest Mulder signal on earth: My first name.
Pay attention, it said. This is important. This comes from my soul.

I thought for a moment before I answered him.

"I don't know where we go, Mulder," I said. "I know one thing: There
was a time, early in your relationship with Daniel, that I thought he
was going to come between us and I was going to lose you to him
forever."

"You know better," Mulder said, his voice gently chiding.

I smiled, kissed his hand and then let it go. "I do now," I said.
"Everything the two of you have said or done over the last ... I guess
it's almost three years now ... has proved that to me. But there's
something else I've discovered, Mulder."

"What's that?" he asked, taking my hand in his.

"That when you and Daniel are on the outs, so are you and I," I said.
"So much of the security you get from Daniel spills over onto me that
when you don't have it with him, you don't have it with me, either."

"That's not true," Mulder said, emphatically. "You were here first,
Scully, and anyway, our partnership -- our friendship -- is based on
entirely different situations and feelings."

"I know," I said, and I squeezed his hand. "But that doesn't mean I'm
wrong, Mulder. Think back ... the times when you and I have been
having trouble are the times you and Daniel were having trouble, too.
There is a connection."

"Maybe," Mulder acknowledged with a slight shrug. "But there's every
possibility that you're getting it backwards. Maybe I have trouble
with Daniel when I'm really worried about what's going on with us.
Maybe that's what's happening now."

"Maybe what's happening now," I said, bringing his hand to my face,
"is that in one way or another, you, Daniel and I have been in grave
danger of late, and we nearly lost our lives, in one way or another.
No one comes out of that unscathed."

"But we didn't lose our lives," Mulder said, more gently, his thumb
stroking softly across my cheek. "We're all still alive, Scully, and
still going on with our work."

"I know," I said, leaning into his hand. "But it was so close, Mulder
... so very close. I think we're all still reeling around from the
shock."

"I know that's as close as I ever want to come to losing you, Scully,"
Mulder said quietly. "And I suppose I came close to losing Daniel,
too, if I'd known it."

I nodded, kissed his hand and took it between my own two smaller
hands, and laid it in my lap. For a long time we just sat there in
silence, until finally Mulder cleared his throat and spoke.

"Scully, have you thought about what you're going to do when you get
out of here?" he asked. 

"Go to my mother's house and recuperate, I suppose," I said. "Why? Did
you have other ideas?"

"Not staying with me, if that's where you're going," Mulder said, with
a laugh. "You'd be dead in a week with me as a nurse."

"How about Jill?" I said, quietly, but Mulder flinched as if I'd
shouted.

"Are you serious?" he said, his eyes narrowing. "With everything
that's just happened ..."

"With everything that's just happened, I need a nurse," I said,
firmly. "Jill Reilly just happens to be a fully qualified oncological
nurse, and I trust her. I wouldn't trust just anyone, Mulder."

"I thought I was the only one you trusted," he said, with a slight
smile. "What happened to change that?"

I shrugged. "I trust Daniel," I said, "and Daniel trusts Jill. Isn't
that enough?"

"It would be, except that I don't trust her," Mulder said, grimly.
"Not with my boyfriend, anyway."

"And now we're back to it, Mulder," I said, simply. "You don't trust
Jill with Daniel, but you're overlooking the fact that Daniel does
trust me with you and he shouldn't."

That got to him. Mulder made a strangled noise in his throat and
averted his eyes.

"It is going to come between us, isn't it?" he said, looking out the
window instead of at me. "I can't undo it, Scully. I'm sorry. I'd give
anything if I could ..."

"I wouldn't," I said, softly. "I'm going to treasure that night in my
memory as long as I live. All I'm saying is that you need to forgive
Daniel --and Jill --if we're all going to go on together. And you have
to face it, Mulder -- you can't have Daniel without Jill in the
picture somewhere. He dealt with that with you and me; now it's your
turn to deal with it with him and Jill."

"How the hell do I do that?" Mulder demanded, turning his gaze back to
me again. "How do I deal with my lover's ex-lovers?"

"I don't think you need to deal with Dr. Zuckerman, if that's what
you're asking," I said. "That was over a long time ago, and Daniel's
in love with you now. Jill is here to stay, one way or another."

"So what are you suggesting?" Mulder said.

"Make friends with her," I said. "Talk to her. Get to know her. Find a
way to make room for her in your life. If you need guidelines, just
think back to what Daniel did to make me welcome in his life, and
you'll have it."

"Jesus, give me a tough assignment next time, why don't you?" Mulder
said, scowling. "Anything else you want me to do? Raise the Titanic,
maybe, or put Humpty Dumpty back together again?"

"Sarcasm doesn't become you," I said, making a face at him. "I'm
serious, Mulder. Daniel never asked you to choose between me and him.
Don't ask him to choose between you and Jill."

Mulder fell silent again.

"I'll try," he said, after a moment. "That's all I can promise you.
I'll try. I'm not going to lose Daniel for anyone ..."

And he stopped there, abruptly, and looked at me uneasily.

"It's all right, Mulder," I said, although in truth, my throat hurt
from the pressure of too many tears not shed. "I know Daniel comes
first. That's as it should be."

"I'm not sure it is, Scully," Mulder said, softly. "I heard myself
saying that, and I suddenly wondered ... what if Daniel had asked me
to choose? What would I have done?"

"Well, he didn't, so don't trouble yourself wondering," I said, and I
kissed him softly on the mouth. "You and I are still partners, you and
Daniel are still lovers ..."

"And Jill and Daniel are still husband and wife," Mulder said, flatly.
"Not legally, maybe, but in some transcendent sense, and certainly in
Daniel's conscience."

"You're underestimating him," I said. 

Mulder shook his head. "No," he said. "You're underestimating Jill,
and that's a mistake. I made that mistake once. I won't do it again."



END "The Eighth Side of the Triangle"(17/?) by Susan Jameson
(DrBarnBarn@aol.com)