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Title: Sarah Companion: Just Sittin' and Thinkin' Summary: A companion piece to Sarah 21: Stroke. Some thoughts from Mulder as he maintains vigil at Scully's bedside. It's surprising just how noisy a place a hospital can be, even in the early hours of the morning, like now. The nurse comes in every so often to check on Scully, then records her observations on the clipboard at the bottom of the bed. As soon as she leaves the room, I take a peek at what she's written, but it's beyond me. It's all medical speak. Maybe I'm better off not knowing. It's odd, me sitting here, holding Scully's hand, keeping vigil. I've only ever done that for her once before. Usually it's the other way around - I've lost count of the number of times I've woken in a hospital bed, and found her smiling at me, her expression one of relief that I managed to survive another day. The semi quiet, and its attendant half light, gives me plenty of time to think. I've thought about all sorts of things over the past few days, while sitting here with Scully. My thoughts have ranged far and wide, encompassing every subject under the sun, both serious and frivolous. I've laughed and I've cried as the memories of various events have come back in their dozens, to entertain or to haunt me. I've had plenty of time to ponder on the great mysteries of life. I guess it was inevitable that the time would come for me to consider perhaps the most puzzling question of all: What would my life have been like if it had taken a different turn, if I had never met Scully, or if Sarah had never been born? It's difficult to put myself in the place of that lonely, obsessed and paranoid young man that I used to be. Once you have a wife and a family, it's as if they've been with you forever - you can't recall a time when there was just you. But there was a time when there was just me. I suppose it's easiest if I start at the beginning. I was always very much the lone wolf, even when I was young. I never had many friends while I was at school - I was thought of as 'weird' by my peers. The fact that I always came top in everything didn't help, either. My intellect did me no favours. I longed to be 'ordinary' - I just wanted to fit in with everyone else. Being successful with my schoolwork was the be all and end all, as far as my father was concerned. I had no time to spend on frivolous activities such as playing out with friends after school as soon as school was out every day, it was straight home to get on with the homework I had been set, unless I had sports practice. Instead, I used to watch enviously from my window as the kids played out on the street. I think that's why Samantha and I had such a close bond. We relied on one another for comfort and support, and when she was taken, I was left with nothing. Nothing but the haunting sound of her calling for me, and an indescribable guilt that I hadn't been able to help her. After Sam was taken, I decided that I would never rely on anyone for anything again in my life - that it was better to be truly alone. My time at Oxford was a reprise of my schooldays, with the exception of my time with Phoebe, and when I look back on it now, that was hardly a high spot. She took what she wanted from me, then left me as a swarm of locusts leaves a field of crops after it has feasted on them - stripped bare. I joined the Bureau on my return from Oxford. With the qualifications, and the ability that I had to get inside the heads of others, they snapped me up. Again, I was very much the loner - I think my abilities as a profiler scared some of the other agents. I often wondered if they were scared of me because they thought I could get inside their heads as well as the heads of the criminals. My obsessions and my paranoia were so much stronger then. Over the years, they have been tempered, replaced by more important things, a change in priorities. Back then, I only had myself to think of. I was used to travelling light, going off at a moment's notice. There was a part of me that liked being the renegade, that liked having a disrespect for authority. The psychologist in me will say that was a reaction against the strictness and boundaries imposed by my father in my early years, and who am I to argue with that? I imagine myself on a road. I come to a fork in the road, and if I take the left path, I live the life that I am living now. If I take the right fork, I'd never meet Sarah's mother, I'd never have Scully assigned to work with me. I'd never have married Scully, and Stephanie and Josh would not exist. Or think of it as a parallel universe, with another Fox Mulder. Our lives follow the same course from birth except he chooses to remain alone. So where does that leave the other Mulder - the one in the parallel universe, the one who took the right fork instead of the left? The lonely life wouldn't have bothered him to begin with - he would have had other things to think about, like the search for his sister. He would have left no stone unturned in his efforts to find her, although I think that the search would have had the same end result. He still wouldn't have known who took her and why, or what happened to her after she was taken. The answers, along with Samantha, would remain as elusive as they ever had. In the meantime, if he was still alive, life would have passed him by, leaving him lost, lonely and bitter. His search for the truth would have become before everything, including his personal happiness - a commodity that he was sure he wasn't entitled to. Perhaps he might have ended up an alcoholic - Lord knows, there were times in my life, before Sarah, before Scully, when I drowned my sorrows in the bottom of a glass. Would the other Mulder even have made it this far? His quest for the truth would have led him into countless dangerous situations, any one of which might have been his last. One sloppy or careless move on his part, one wild goose chase too many... an early grave would have been a distinct probability, with no-one to miss him or mourn his passing. Not even a one line obit in the newspaper. A tragic waste of life... a life that had had such potential in its younger days. I'd like to think that the other Mulder would envy me, and what I have. It's difficult to pinpoint the exact moment our lives diverged, mine and that other Mulder's. I guess it would be when that article on alleged UFO abductions came across my desk, with a byline by one Annie Page. That was a pivotal moment in my life, along with the day Scully was assigned to work with me. When all is said and done, I'm glad I chose the left fork. I would have hated to become that other Mulder, consumed by bitterness, starved of love and affection, missing out on the warmth and companionship that comes with a loving family. What would I have done without Scully to keep me on the straight and narrow? How would I have learned about unconditional love without Sarah? What would have I laughed at without the antics of Josh? How would I have experienced the birth of my own child without Stephanie? Another hour has passed without me noticing - I've been so engrossed in my own thoughts. Scully's hand rests in mine, so small, so soft and warm. I bring it to my lips and kiss it and as I do so, I think of the empty, barren life of that other Mulder, and I want to weep, because it could so easily have been me. The End
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