Note: This will make little sense unless you're seen Zero Sum and Redux II
Secrets Better Kept
by Sandy HereldThere are no secrets better kept than the secrets everybody guesses.
— George Bernard Shaw
Mulder had once said, "There is no boredom more deadly, no tiredness more pervasive than that felt at the closing banquet of a conference on law enforcement." Right now, Scully couldn't have agreed more. After three days of hotel air-conditioning and hotel food, her scalp itched and her stomach ached. The lukewarm chicken on her plate defied what little appetite she'd regained these days, and she'd long since forgotten the name of the man currently speaking. With the black humor that was her new companion, she muttered, "For this, I lived?"
It was the end of a long weekend of talks titled "Forensics and Evidence Gathering." In the last horrible year, she hadn't done anything to keep her in the minds of those who ran these dog and pony shows, so she'd been flattered to be invited to talk, and then surprised that Skinner was attending as well. She sighed, not looking at him next to her at the round banquet table. Better agents than she had tried to make sense of the enigma that was their AD.
He'd come to her speech and listened attentively as she exposed all of her techniques for tricking the truth out of the dead. She'd nearly been dead herself recently, but she defied anyone to make sense of that.
The wine glass was growing warm in her hand, so she downed the last sip and set it down, only to have Skinner refill it immediately.
She caught herself tapping the glass with her finger, and put her hands in her lap. When she couldn't stay still another minute, she started sliding her nylon-clad feet in and out of her sensible leather pumps, hiding the movement under the long tablecloth. Maybe she was fidgeting for Mulder in absentia? She felt the weight of Skinner's glances adding to her tension, and applauded vigorously at the end of the speech—grateful for the excuse to move, praying this was the last speaker of the evening.
Skinner leaned forward, mouth so close to her ear she could feel his breath, and murmured, "At least one more speech, Scully; Parker never would let one of these end without adding his own dose of platitudes."
Was he reading her mind? At least he'd leaned back in his chair, out of her space. She didn't dare sigh again, just pinned on an attentive look, and peered vaguely towards the speaker—between the flower arrangement and the matching bottles of red and white wine in the middle of the table, she could barely see the podium. Parker, she supposed; certainly no one she recognized. She missed Mulder more than ever at moments like this. He'd have been scribbling the speech on a napkin a full sentence ahead of the speaker, for all the world like a psychic teleprompter, or drawing caricatures of their tablemates, or at least knocking over her water glass just as someone important stopped by their table—irresistibly infuriating.
But instead, she had Skinner. Quiet, except when he wasn't. Stock-still most of the time, but with an energy under pressure feel about him that made him seem more vital than Mulder's fidgets. She'd spent his panel—Managing Interdepartmental Concerns in Large Manhunts—staring at him through the taller bodies in front of her. Towering, resolute, strong. Especially strong. She'd like to have shoulders like that, be armored like that. She felt dwarfed by him; it made her keep her shoulders back and her head up.
They hadn't spent any time alone, but he'd been remarkably good company throughout the weekend. A wonderful buffer. She hadn't known many people there, and most of the ones she did know, she wanted to avoid. Between the people trying to figure out how sick she was, and the ones trying to figure out how she and Mulder had managed to get Blevins taken out, she was sick of the stares. But she wasn't sick. Not now.
Applause broke out, the loudest of the evening. Skinner must have been right; this must be the end. Of course, given a choice between boring speeches, and enforced socializing...now she was wondering why she'd been so eager for the speeches to end. The line was already forming for the no-host bar, even though most of the agents were flying out first thing in the morning. Defiantly—defying whom, Scully?—she decided to try the red, and poured a new glass of wine. Some mix-up left her and Skinner flying back at 4pm the next day; even a hangover of Mulderian proportions could be under control by then.
She felt rather than saw Skinner stand, but looked when he picked up the bottle, and then her glass. "Sir?" He had his own wine glass as well, all in one large hand, and started to pull her chair back with the other.
"There's an anteroom off this banquet area with a beautiful view of Boston harbor. I don't know about you, but my 'make nice' quotient is just about full for the weekend. Would you care to join me?"
He could be surprisingly courtly when he stopped biting off each word, but she didn't even want to think about what he might want. All possibilities—from the most mundane to the completely paranoid—seemed equally unsafe. She started to shake her head 'no', and then ... "Sure."
### The wallpaper was different, but just as ugly as that in the main room, the chairs were just as uncomfortably high and underpadded as the banquet room chairs, but the smell of stale smoke was fainter, and he was right; the view of the harbor was gorgeous. Skinner pulled up a tiny table, just barely big enough for their glasses and the wine bottle, and set everything down.
"You're looking good, Scully."
"Thank you, sir." God knows she could go months without a compliment at work. She took a sip of her wine, suddenly remembered taking a bottle of wine and glasses into Mulder's hotel room. He'd taken one look and said, "Try any of that Tailhook stuff on me and I'll kick your ass." The memory fresh in her mind, she smiled up at Skinner, then flinched at his serious gaze. Oh. Not, 'You look nice, Scully,' but 'Hey, you don't look like you're dying any more, Scully.'
She looked out into the harbor, getting caught up in the blinking lights as her vision blurred a little, trying to contain the bite of tears. God, she was tired of all the coded language; her mother, priest, Bill, and Mulder, worst of all. Fuck it; let's try some truth for once. She stared him in the face and said, "I understand I may have you to thank for my recovery."
To his credit, he didn't even try to evade the subject. "When did you...?
"After Mulder 'shot himself—'" her voice quavered and she didn't care if he heard it, "—a perfectly misleading anonymous note arrived. You remember—my first day of testimony? Found it in my inbox during lunch. Just enough truth to be dangerous." To have been so weak, and so angry at him, and not to be able to say a word at the hearing, and Mulder ignoring her concerns about Skinner, saying, "no, he's ok—we can trust him," without a word of explanation. Even now, her breath came fast. And then it'd all been a lie. Again.
"They don't miss a trick, do they?" Skinner looked angry. At her? Was he still mad she hadn't trusted him? There was enough anger to go around; if he wanted some, she wasn't going to begrudge him any.
"But Mulder eventually filled in the correct details." Her voice was low and deep against the roar of voices from the main room, and the clinking of silverware and dishes from the waitstaff clearing the tables. But it was the best she could do; each word felt squeezed out of her throat as if from a tube. "I've been meaning to say thank you." Saying thanks for gifts unasked for had always been hard. But this...this was...
"Even though you wish I'd done no such thing?"
"Yes! How could you—could either of you think that I would want such a thing? That anything could be worth such a cost?" She pulled her mouth shut with a snap, horrified how close she'd come; she'd been afraid now for weeks that if she started yelling about it she'd never stop.
He opened his mouth—
### "Assistant Director Skinner, is that you hiding back there?" Parker, man of the hour—in his own mind, anyway—was walking toward them.
Skinner rose and shook hands, not sure how to make it look like they didn't want to be interrupted without making it worse. "You remember Special Agent Scully." He put an arm out to steady her as she rose as well.
"Yes, yes, Mulder's partner, right? I've gotta say, great speech on field autopsies; you do a lot of rough work, don't you?" Skinner looked at her; he'd swear they both heard the "for a woman" clear as day, but Scully's face was calm, almost serene. "Skinner speaks highly of you, you know—insisted we invite you this year."
Oh, that did it. Her calm facade cracked just a hair. Skinner smiled, or tried to, and said, "Parker, you put on a good conference; glad that I could put you onto a good speaker." His back ached, his stomach rumbled. He kept secrets from the entire nation seven days a week, but having Scully catch him at this was...marginally better than having Mulder catch him, he supposed.
Parker either got bored with trying for a rise, or suddenly realized the position he was in. He smiled widely and said, "Well, really, it was our pleasure. Like I said, fine talk," then to Skinner said, "So, you headed back first thing?"
Skinner didn't flinch, but he did flash back on the blank look on Kim's face when he'd asked her to quietly arrange for them to get a late return. Kim's was another loyalty he'd have to if...
"No, some sort of screw-up; we don't get out of here until after lunch." Scully's voice was perfectly even. Skinner would never have to worry about her behaving inappropriately. In exchange, he'd never know anything unless she wanted him to know. Her well-mannered reserve, already strong, had hardened once she'd become ill and showed no signs of easing now that she was better.
"Well, have a nice flight."
After a few classically awkward moments of 'to shake or not to shake,' Parker wandered back into the main banquet room, leaving silence between them.
Scully sat back down, staring after Parker back at the party. The schmoozing and drinking had begun to die down, but there were still probably sixty people in sight, smoozing and milling around, seeming from another world altogether.
"We could go upstairs? No," he answered himself. They couldn't. Scully gave him a chiding little moue for even thinking about it. Bureau politics—someday, with a lot of luck, Scully could make a great AD herself, have her own inexpiable sins to hide behind.
But this conference seemed like a chance to talk to her without either of them on their home ground, and tonight was his last chance. He had to know, and if he understood Scully half as well as he thought, she might be glad to have someone to tell. Without giving himself another chance to chicken out, he said, "They've been calling you 'Mrs. Spooky' since the first year you two worked together. You've got the name, why not the game?" He avoided her eyes, fixing on her red hair in the dim light.
To his surprise, she laughed. "You know, sir, you're the first person to come right out and ask. Everywhere I just get hints and innuendoes—Mulder's gay or impotent, or I'm gay or frigid—or they imply perhaps I'm sleeping with you instead." She chortled at the look on his face—or the unlikelihood of the idea. She had a wonderful laugh, all the more precious for being rarely heard, he thought.
"I'm honestly the first person to ask? In all this time?"
"Well, sir, don't tell anyone, but there are times when I think we're no longer hiring the cream of the crop."
He laughed with her, but it was weak. He swung his head around in a tension-relieving circle before looking back at her, and they were both silent for a moment.
"No offense, sir," she said, "but I don't think you've thought it through. If you needed a friend to go to Vegas with you, would you ask the one in Gamblers Anonymous?" She looked disgusted at herself, but continued, "Would you throw a drowning man a rope that was almost frayed through?"
Was that really how she saw herself? Skinner answered, startled, "No, of course not, but you wouldn't just let the man drown, either, would you?"
"But if the only other option was to let yourself get pulled in too—what good would that do?" she asked.
"Damn it, Scully, you underestimate yourself." Watching her maintain such tight control was exhausting him. He wanted to help, and he didn't know how. He remembered nearly dying—the soul-deep realization that your life is pointless and ridiculous, and the shattering need to have your life back exactly how it was before. Though it had been twenty-five years for him, watching her brought it all back. But knowing how it felt didn't seem to help at all.
"No, sir, I don't. I think I know my strengths and weaknesses pretty well by now."
He watched her swallow, waiting her out.
Finally she continued. "I know what I can give, and it's not what Mulder needs. And frankly, I know what I need, and I don't think Mulder can give me that, either. Maybe I'm still too much Daddy's girl, but I tend to avoid things I know are bad for me. On my birthday, I go out for a slice of cake; I don't take the whole thing home. My eyes are wide open. If I went anyway, if we went anyway, I would have no one to blame but myself."
Skinner scratched his fringe of hair, glad beyond words that no one else had come to join them. He resisted looking at his watch, not wanting to give her any excuse to leave. In six years, they'd never talked like this, and part of him still wondered what the price of all this frankness would be. "You two have been through so much together, much more than most partners. In some ways, more than Sharon and I made it through."
Scully's face froze as it always did when Sharon was mentioned. Skinner wished to hell he knew what it meant, but he had to pick his battles, and tonight, he wanted her to talk about Mulder.
"Yes we have, sir. But over time, we've also built lines saying 'do not cross.' And sir, not all of the lines are mine. At some level he knows what he wants, and it isn't me. The office picture of the ice princess girding herself against Mulder's wiles, well...."
"Ice princess?"
She smiled, just a little, inviting him in. "Admit it, you've heard it, sir."
She used "sir" like a weapon: Come close, but no closer. "So what does he want?"
Scully's eyes narrowed, the door clanged shut. "And that information would be relevant to you because...?"
Her voice was cold, and bloodless and sad like someone who'd cried herself all out of tears. Could he have been wrong? He spoke automatically, his thoughts still whirling. "Let's just say I have a reason—" an involuntary swallow "—a personal reason for wanting to know." Her price?
"Fuck what he wants."
The profanity hit like a clap, like something breaking. Then, in less than a heartbeat, she'd pulled everything back under control, everything but her eyes, deep and luminous...
"One of us needs something strong we can hold on to. There's a limit to what two broken reeds can accomplish by leaning on each other."
He almost said, "We're all broken," but it sounded fatuous in his head. He grabbed the wine bottle and poured the last inch, splitting it painstakingly between their glasses.
"Bet you had siblings," she said. "Only children never really learn to share."
That was Scully for you—a second of emotion, a day of distraction. "You had brothers and sisters," he said. "You must have had to fight for anything that really mattered."
She held the wine glass up to the light, hiding behind it, perhaps. "Mulder matters, sir. Don't think he doesn't."
Their speech—and he was as guilty as she was—had become so guarded and careful that he was no longer sure if they were talking about the same thing. "Mulder?" he asked.
She banged the wine glass down on the table, the glass "ting" muffled immediately in the stuffy little room. "Damn it, sir, I don't have time for this. Here's the real analogy. Yeah, he's in over his head, his arms are tired, he may be about to drown, and of course I can't let that happen." He watched as her eyes closed, just for a second. "But I don't have anything to throw to him, and if I try and pull him out, I may get pulled in too. So I just lie there on the shore, and he holds onto my hand from the water, and we're both tethered there. And I'm getting tired, and my arm is getting sore, and I can't leave, but I can't get him out. And I nearly died. And I still. Can't. Leave."
"Scully..." He started to reach for her.
"Don't you dare, sir." Her spine was stiff; she was completely back under control but her lower lip was trembling, just a little. Just the littlest bit. "You made your decision." Her voice was low again, almost swallowed by the foghorn rising from the harbor below.
He had to consciously unclench his teeth. One more reason he hoped Cancerman was currently frying in hell. "It wasn't just for Mulder, Scully. I kept him from doing it, but I'd have done it without Mulder involved at all."
"I don't want to know, sir. I just don't want to know." She rose from the chair, smoothing her suit-jacket automatically. "Just take care—"
Of him. Unsaid, unsayable.
"I think I'm going to try to sleep in tomorrow; let's just meet in the lobby before our flight, all right?"
He nodded yes, his own throat tight, and watched her walk away.
Don't let your feedback be a secret, eh? Thanks!This story would be shorter, rougher and even more confusing without the help of Brie, Rachael Sabotini, Comrade Rosa Westphalen, Gwyneth Rhys, Blackbird, Shoshanna Green, Vivienne Nichols. and DanaS.
Thank you all, ladies!
. whaddya think? | main page | pros stories | eroica story | sentinel story | rants | jewels . Finished November 20, 1998 -- Posted May 5, 2000
.
.
.