HEAVY PETTING

BY

AllyinthekeyofX

Summery - Scully brings her new dog home...but not for long.

I arrived home a couple of hours ago after dropping Scully and her new four legged friend off at her apartment building and although I had offered to carry the wire cage containing the scruffy looking little terrier upstairs for her she had refused my offer, planting a kiss on my cheek and allowing the palm of her hand to rest briefly on my chest. Her eyes holding on to mine for just a few seconds as she silently apologised for her refusal; that she wasn't yet quite ready yet to allow me to just do things for her in the way I used to before everything went to hell for us both.

And I understood her reluctance; God knows I had let her down often enough in the past that I had no real right to expect her to admit to any sort of reliance on me now; even with regards to basic trivialities such as carrying for her, because if I'm honest, the burdens I had heaped upon her over the last two decades had been largely hers to carry alone and mostly I had been oblivious to them. Emotional burdens that slowly ate her up from the inside out and which dulled the spark that had once burned so brightly for us both; a gradual decline that I barely noticed, wrapped up as I was in my own misery I failed to really acknowledge hers until one day it was too late and she was just gone.

To coin an almost forgotten phrase from my time misspending my youth in Oxford, her leaving gave me the kick up the arse I needed and the choices I was left with became starkly simplistic - fight to get her back or give up completely.

I don't mean I bombarded her with flowers and hollow declarations of love; because I know Scully and for her, actions had always spoken louder than words and there had been far too many times when I promised things would be different only to quickly fall back in to the habits formed so long ago and which had shaped the very fabric of my life. Denial, loathing, guilt, a stubborn belief that my way was the right way regardless of how much I hurt myself and those around me. But without her to prop me up, to give her own unique and unwavering validation that I was worth saving I was left with no other option than to attempt to save myself.

I started running again. Twice a day without fail I pounded the dirt paths that surrounded the house and which stretched for miles in all directions, forcing myself to start keeping regular hours again, to get my erratic sleeping and eating patterns under control; dragging myself away from the computer by 6pm every evening and forcing myself to just be still. I listened to endless CDs playing softly in the background as I lay prone on the sofa and just watched the golden flames dancing and twirling behind the smoky glass of the old wood burning stove; for the first time in years allowing my mind to empty of thoughts; to rest myself in a way I don't think I ever have.

I won't say it was easy. I had some very dark days where I fluctuated between needing her so badly it was like a physical ache inside me and hating her with an intensity that blotted everything else out because she had actually abandoned me when I was so reliant on her to make me feel worthy as a human being. I contemplated suicide many times during the initial weeks without her, but even when I found myself holding the cold hard steel of the old revolver I had managed to procure when we were still running, turning it over and over in my hands and wondering what the bullet tearing in to my skull would feel like for the split second before my brains splattered on the wall behind, something always held me back; because I knew that it would be Scully who would have to live with what I had done and as far gone as I was at that point, the knowledge that I had hurt her enough already to last several lifetimes always somehow returned me from the brink.

I began to see a counsellor on a regular basis; swallowing my stubborn pride and facing up to my past transgressions. Laying myself bare as the raw emotion I had suppressed for so long was brought painfully to the fore and as much as the sessions left me a sweating shaking mess that could barely function on the most basic level, sending me crawling to bed where I curled myself around the pillow she had once rested her head upon and cried until I felt hollow inside, I quickly discovered that without fail I would awaken the next morning feeling just a little bit stronger; a little bit lighter.

Until finally I didn't need the emotional crutch the sessions offered and while I could never say I am completely cured, I am certainly armed with the mechanisms required to cope with my past on the occasions it rears its ugly head again and threatens to destroy all I have achieved in the two years since Scully left to try to salvage her own life.

We didn't speak for almost a year – my choice not hers – because I knew it was something I had to do alone and that if I allowed myself to falter I wouldn't be able to find the strength to start again. So I cut her out of my life and even though I think she understands my reasons there is a part of her that still holds on to the hurt my total denial of her caused.

Which is why now, even though we have been in each other's lives – initially on the outskirts but later as the friends we once were – for well over a year, she is reluctant to express any kind of need to me; afraid maybe that I will let her down once more.

Slowly though it's becoming okay because since we have been working together again, seeing each other on an almost daily basis I have felt a subtle shift in the way we are beginning to view each other; the easy relationship we once shared is slowly pushing its way through the walls we have both hidden behind for so long and in some ways, it's almost like the last decade or so didn't happen at all. But the one thing we can't hide from each other is the loneliness – because as much as I think we both try to deny it, even though we are now once again surrounded by people, the fact that we are separate from each other leaves a void inside us that nothing can fill.

I think that's maybe why she stole the dog. Although why she had to steal one I have no idea because it was such an un-Scully-like thing to do I spent a few minutes just flapping my mouth like a suffocating guppy before finally managing to remind her that we are Federal Agents and the procuring of canines through illegal means was probably frowned upon, even if they were scruffy unwanted canines with uneven ears and stumpy legs.

She told me to shut up, softening her words with an impish smile that sliced years off her and instantly made my stomach flip lazily and so I said no more; just started the car and pointed it in the direction of home.

The drive home was an easy one and after dropping Scully off I took a quick detour to pick up supplies, mentally cataloguing the meagre contents of my fridge and quickly realising that if I wanted to eat something other than rancid vegetables tonight I had better drop off at the nearest K-Mart. I also stocked up on an assortment of cat and dog food.

Yes, I have a cat.

Not by choice though I have to say; because my idea of a pet has always been one that requires very little interaction from me and which, at the point of its demise I can wrap in toilet paper and send it off to the great sewer system in the sky. I've had fish for as long as I can remember and I stopped naming them years ago ever since I found myself shedding actual tears to find a beautiful specimen I'd named after my partner floating belly up one morning. It had seemed like a bad omen and had prevented me from daring to personalise them to that degree ever again.

So all in all I had been less than pleased to return from a run one frigid November afternoon to discover a barely alive scrap of ginger fur pressed up against my porch steps and to my shame I had actually considered ignoring it and allowing nature to take its course. But of course I hadn't; instead I had spent the evening cradling it against my chest, taking Scully's advice that I should place it directly on my skin to give maximum warmth and somehow, by the time I woke up to find two startlingly golden eyes peering at me from that tiny kitten face, I was completely hooked.

I called him Tooms as a nod to those amazing eyes and even though some weeks later I discovered that not only was he a her but that liver made her spread the contents of her feline digestive system in every room of the house, the name had stuck and I've discovered since then that actually, ginger tabbies with golden eyes are not the norm in the cat community and by the way Tooms struts around the place and drapes herself possessively over my shoulder at every opportunity, I think she knows somehow that she is special; not only to me but to Scully also. Because she opened a door for us both that might have remained closed for ever – she allowed me to finally pick up the phone and bridge the chasm that I had blasted between my partner and I; calling her to garner advice I didn't really need. It had been a start, albeit pretty rocky to begin with, but Scully became a regular visitor to the house she had once filled so completely and when things got awkward between us, when conversation became stilted and when the silence stretched thinly, that little cat worked her magic and found just the right moment to entertain us with a sideways flip off the sofa to make us laugh, to ease the moment.

I think maybe it's part of the reason Scully wanted the dog; to have something to fill the silence, to give us both safe territory when somehow the words don't want to flow between us even though we want them to. The healing power an animal brings that I had never considered before. So I bought dog food; stacking it carefully at the opposite side of the cupboard where Tooms' array of goodies reside because somehow I know that Scully and her dog will now become a double act where visiting is concerned. Quite how Tooms will react to a canine interloper on her patch remains to be seen though.

As it turned out in fact, I didn't have to wait long to find out the answer to that particular question because I had quite literally only been home for a couple of hours when the sight and sound of Scully's ridiculously large SUV coming up the dirt track that led from the road brought me up from where I had been enjoying a post dinner relax with a certain ginger cat who had refused to leave my side since she had come thudding down the stairs with all the enthusiasm of a five year old who had got in to the Mountain Dew; shinning up my leg which for the hundredth time made me regret ever teaching her the trick. As a kitten it had seemed cute; as a fully grown well nourished adult cat it was just fucking painful and I'd lost count as to how many puncture wounds I'd poured iodine in to over the last six months. Luckily though, this level of enthusiastic greeting was reserved only for when there had been a prolonged absence – which in Tooms' universe meant thirty six hours or more.

She had given me a look when I tipped her gently off my lap that kind of reminded me of the way Scully looks at me when I've really pissed her off, and then proceeded to studiously ignore me as she began to delicately clean her paws, allowing me to turn my attention to Scully as she made her way from the car to the porch steps and I was unsurprised to see the little white terrier who trotted obediently beside her on the end of his brand new leash.

What did surprise me though was the look on Scully's face because as she slowly walked up the steps and her face became easier to see in the gathering dusk that surrounded us it was obvious that she had been recently crying and even though no tears were in evidence right now, after knowing her for so long I can easily recognise the signs especially since a good proportion of the times she has wept have been as a result of either something I did or something I didn't do.

"Hey Scully...you okay?"

She shrugs miserably and drops her gaze to the dog who right now is eyeballing Tooms from where she is sitting on my recently vacated chair and whining thinly.

"I can't keep him Mulder. I never thought to check but it turns out there is an exclusion clause regarding pets on my building...and I know it's a lot to ask but I don't want to bother my Mom and I wondered if...just for a while until I can find him somewhere..."

"You want me to keep the dog here." I finish for her and smile as her expression suddenly lightens. It's like flicking a switch and I find a lump forming inexplicably in my throat; knowing how hard it must have been for her to finally ask something of me and frankly she could ask me to find room for the entire contents of the Point Defiance Zoo and I wouldn't bat an eyelid if it made her happy.

"Sure. More the merrier I guess...and besides..." I grin as I incline my head towards Tooms who has dropped off the chair and padded over to the dog, completely without fear as she proceeds to raise a paw and with claws safely sheathed she bats his muzzle just once as if to warn him in advance that this is her turf. "I think she likes him."

Scully returns my grin and I think maybe it's the first time in years that she has unleashed her own unique version on me and right then and there I am transported back twenty-odd years to a rain soaked night where she stood and grinned at me in the pouring rain. An expression that told me plainly that she thought I was fucking crazy, but that she kind of liked me nonetheless. And I can't help myself; can't just stand there and do nothing in the way I have done nothing for too many years, not when she is standing there before me and smiling that smile that I know she has always reserved just for me. So I bring my hand up to gently smooth the hair away from where it has fallen forwards, tucking it behind her ear as my fingers find the soft skin at the base of her slender white neck and begin to caress her gently, tracing patterns learned long ago when we finally allowed our minds to acknowledge a truth our hearts had always known. And I rejoice inwardly when, instead of pulling away from me she simply sighs and leans her head in to my palm, increasing the contact between us whilst all the time she keeps smiling at me.

"Oh yeah" she whispers, "I think she definitely likes him"

Continued Part 2

Notes – Ahhhhh fluff. I love fluff and always feel the need when I have wrestled with the darkness that is 'Painting by numbers'. It soothes my soul and lessens the guilt for putting them through the ringer lol.

Please review if you get chance. Might even make me get part 2 done tomorrow. ;)