Title: "Never Too Late For Happiness"
Author: Gillian Taylor
E-Mail Address: USSTrustNo1@hotmail.com
Rating: PG for the mention of that evil Energizer bunny.
Category: S
Spoilers: Up to and including Season 6
Keywords: Mulder/Scully UST
Summary: Sometimes what we all need is a little help to find happiness, or at least a slap in the face.

Disclaimer: None of the following events are based in reality. If you think they are, get help. No, seriously. You need it. Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, et. Al. are property of Chris (All Hail the Holy Man!) Carter and Ten Thirteen Productions and Fox Broadcasting. Clarence is the intellectual brainchild of myself, The Lone Gunpersons and the USSTrustNo1. Anything that you recognize has been borrowed with the utmost respect. We would list them, but it would take too bloody long. Names have been changed to protect the guilty, which by the way belongs to Dragnet. Blah blah blah, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Author's Notes: I know I'm keeping you from reading the story, but I just wanted to thank the crew of the USSTrustNo1 for their help and support while I toiled over this piece of fiction that you are now reading on your computer screens. I am also not above begging for feedback, so this is me down on my knees. Please! Let me know what you think!

"Never Too Late For Happiness" by Gillian Taylor

They say that there are angels among us, that they're always there protecting and guiding us. In a way, I suppose, they're right. But then again, they speak too much. Perhaps I should say who I am, what I do. But I think that that should wait until after my story.

Have you ever seen someone with a bond to someone else, a bond stronger than titanium and more powerful than the cataclysmic forces that lurk under the ground beneath our feet? Have you ever seen anyone that was so blind to that fact, to the love that bonded him to another that he carelessly attempted to throw it all away? I have, but, in a way that differs from all my other clients, I'm proud of what I did for him. I led him to love.

Who am I to lay claims to such a feat? I'm a professional; I'm a fixer. Kind of like that guy in that TV show, Quantum Leap. The only difference is I don't become the person, I just, well let me just let the story explain it for me.

Its not often that I get a call from the big guy, but when you do, you jump first and ask questions later. Seemed someone had gotten it in his mind to kill himself, but if he did, not only would he destroy his work, he would kill the woman that loved him. That's where I come in.

------
Mulder's Apartment
Apartment 42
Richmond, VA
10:00 PM EST

Depression. There's no other word like it. It sounds dark, moody, emotional. Depression. The one phrase can sum up a fall that had taken a lifetime to build up to, and the subsequent crash at the bottom. Depression. That is where Fox Mulder stood alone against the world, and where he wondered if he would ever see the light of day again.

He had arrived home in a daze, performing his routine as always but without feeling. Something was different in his mind, his self-retreating deeper into the darker emotions. He had failed her again; his latest attempt to find the truth had led her into a coma. How could he live knowing what he had done had caused this? That was probably why grabbing the gun seemed to right to his depression clouded mind. 

Before he could pull the trigger, a sharp knock shattered his world. With a sigh, he lowered the weapon with a silent promise, 'Later.' 

------ 

'C'mon, Fox, hurry up,' I thought, unwilling to employ other methods to gain entrance to Apartment 42. 

The door opened a crack, and I could barely see the dim figure that was Fox Mulder, FBI. I put on my best smile, "Hi, my name's Clarence. Can I speak to you for a moment?" 

"Go away," Mulder said, moving to close the door. 

"Not so fast Fox," I snapped, moving my hand to stop the door's closing motion, "Yeah, I know who you are. *Now* can I talk to you?" 

"Who the hell are you?" Mulder asked, refusing to give the stranger access to his apartment. 

"No, the correct question is who the 'hell' are you? Come on Fox, you always were a stubborn boy. I'm not going to hurt you or anything. That would be stupid," I said irritably. 

Mulder only stood there, staring at me until I finally got fed up with the staring act and let myself in. 

"What the hell?" Mulder said, staring around him as he tried to spot where the stranger had gone. "He was just here..." 

"And I still am," my voice responded from behind him. 

Mulder pivoted, eyes widening as he saw that I had gotten inside the room. 

"Close the door, Fox. Or better yet, I'll do it for you," I motioned with my hand and the door closed and locked itself, "Now get in here and sit down." 

"Who *are* you?" Mulder asked, confused. 

"In good time, my boy. In good time. Now then, why are you behaving like such an idiot?" 

"What?" 'Who is this guy to ask me something like that?' 

"You heard me, Mr. World's Against Me Again. You're so obsessed with assuming all the guilt in the world and torturing yourself you have no clue as to what you're doing to the one's you love." 

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever," he muttered, determined to return to the depressive state he was in before. 

I would have none of that. Grabbing his chin, I forced him to look at me, "Now listen to me, Fox William Mulder. You are not going to go back into that depressive funk you were in. Do I make myself clear?" 

"Who the hell are you to tell me that?" 

"You wanna know? Fine. I'll tell you. I'm an Angel." 

Mulder didn't know what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn't that, "Yeah, right. And I'm the Easter bunny." 

"Don't mock me, Fox. I'm telling the truth and you know it. You claim to believe in the paranormal, then why not Angels too?" 

"It's just...so..." 

"Unbelievable? Strange? *Spooky*? You believe so much, Fox. But you fail to believe in the one thing that Dana believes in with all her heart." 

Mulder didn't bother to respond. He only thought about Scully, HIS Scully, now in a coma because of HIM. 

"You are such an idiot, Mulder," I said softly, before sitting in front of him. "You keep assuming that life revolves around *you;* that everything happens is somehow because of you. Well, I'm here to give you a good dose of reality. You see, life doesn't revolve around you. Life revolves around everything and everyone. Life is something to be treasured, something to be enjoyed. And you, my dear Mulder, are doing none of that." 

"How can I enjoy something that I don't deserve? How can I enjoy it when I always end up hurting the people that I l...care about?" Mulder said bitterly. 

It is a rare thing for an angel to get angry, however I felt myself grow angry, angry at the man's blindness. I couldn't let him continue down this path of darkness that he had self-imposed upon himself. To do so would condemn him to death. 

So I did the only thing that I could think of, I slapped him. 

Mulder rubbed his face, grimacing as he rotated his jaw gingerly. He glared at the self-proclaimed angel before him. 

"Now are you willing to listen?" 

"That hurt." 

"Well, its in the past. It doesn't matter," I said, inwardly smiling, 'I think that I've seen the Lion King a little too much.' Oh, yeah. We do have access to television and movies up there. But it's not something that we really advertise. The big guy wants humans to imagine heaven as they wanted to. But I digress. 

"It still hurts," he mumbled. 

"Yeah. It does. But if you keep holding onto the past, it will only hurt for years to come. Let go Mulder. Let go of the pain. And start realizing what you have now, in the present." 

"Uh-huh. The only thing that I have is dying...because of me. It's all because of me," Mulder's voice broke as the first tears started to fall. 

I gathered him into my arms, holding him until he cried himself out and murmuring comforting nonsense into his ear, "Do you know what you're going to do?" 

"I have no idea," he said softly, pushing himself away from me. 

I shook my head, sometimes humans were far more stubborn than necessary, "Yes, you do. Tell me this. Tell me about Dana." 

"I...She's the most intelligent, beautiful, caring, loving person that I know. She is...everything to me. I...I..." 

"You love her." 

"Yes," the word was barely above the threshold of human hearing, "I love her so much..." 

"Then why haven't you told her?" I asked, just as softly. 

"I...I can't. She's my partner. She'd never...she deserves so much more than me." 

"Fox William Mulder, you are a fool. And you are so blind. However, it is not my place to tell you that. Why don't you tell her? Besides the usual departmental hoopla?" 

"I don't know." 

"Yes you do. You're scared. Realize something, Mulder. You will *never* know your answer unless you ask. Or until you lose that which you love the most." 

Mulder felt his depression lift ever so slightly as he thought about it, even though the fear was still there. He now knew that he wouldn't go through with his previous plan...at least not yet. 

"What happened to her?" I knew that sometimes in order to face your fear of losing someone, you had to confront it. And who better to confront it with, than an angel? 

"We...I got a message from someone. They said that the Consortium people had messed up, that they had left a large number of files in an unsecured location somewhere in a warehouse outside Washington DC. What I didn't know was that it was a trap." 

"I told her that I was going out for the night, I didn't want her to come with me. I didn't want her to get hurt. I know she hates it when I 'ditch' her, but I can't bear to have her killed on one of my stupid chases. So I went alone." 

"Little did I know, but she suspected that I wasn't telling her everything. So she followed me. I was inside...and they set the place on fire," Mulder's voice shook with the remembered terror. 

I knew about Mulder's fears, and nodded encouragingly. 

"She came in after me. I was frozen. I shouldn't have been, but I was frozen. And she...she got me out, somehow. But she got hit as she pushed me out with a falling beam. I was on the ground...the mud leaking into my mouth...when I realized SHE wasn't with me. Oh my God, I was so scared. I got up and went back in there, and I got her out. But she wouldn't wake up. She wouldn't wake up..." 

I grabbed Mulder's hand, squeezing it tightly, "Mulder, there was nothing that you could have done differently. She would have come after you anyway. And even if you never went, this would have happened sometime." 

"I'm going to lose her, aren't I?" 

"Not if you choose now," I responded, sensing that Mulder was coming to the right decision. It was time for me to leave. There was only so much that I could do for any human, and I had done more than enough for Fox William Mulder. 

Mulder nodded thoughtfully, and while his gaze was not on me, I left. Raising his head, he started when he noticed that his guest had disappeared. 'Now that was strange...' 

------
George Washington Hospital
Washington, DC
Intensive Care Ward
Room 161
11:00 PM EST

Mulder waved at one of the nurses as he marched into the ICU, recognizing her from one of his frequent stays at this particular hospital. Thankfully, because of that familiarity, the hospital staff didn't mind if he entered the ward well past visiting hours. They knew that nothing short of God could pull either him or his partner away from the other when one was in the hospital. 

As he walked past room after room of seriously injured and ill patients, Mulder tried to work up the strength that he needed to share his true feelings with the woman that had come to mean more to him than life itself. He was so scared that he would lose her this time, before he could tell her? 

He paused outside of her room, a single tear trekking a perilous course down his cheek. It was time. Pushing open the door gently, Mulder moved to his accustomed chair next to Scully's bed. Settling his lanky form into the plastic cushion, he gripped her hand tightly as he worked through how to say what he needed. 

Double checking that she was still unconscious, a fact that pushed more fear for her through his heart, he began, "You know, Scully. There are so many things that I haven't told you about me. So many things that you should know. God, you are my best friend, the only person that knows me better than myself. I miss you partner," Mulder brushed a strand of fiery hair from her face, allowing himself the luxury of lingering for far longer than he would if she were awake. 

"I never told you how much you mean to me. I never *really* told you. I came close that one time in the hallway?damn that bee, if that hadn't happened you would've known. You keep thinking that my search is for Samantha, that my truth lies in her. My truth, my Scully, the truth that I have been searching for?for so long is YOU. You are my truth; you are the goal for my search. Oh Dana, I wish I could tell you this while you were awake. I wish I could see your beautiful eyes one more time. God, I miss you." 

The tears were pouring down his face as he stared at his Scully, working towards his climactic finish, "You're probably wondering why I'm saying this to you. I love you Dana Katherine Scully. I've loved you for so long, yet I haven't been able to tell you. God, I wish I had told you long ago...before I got you injured. Before you died on me...You hear me? You're not allowed to die, Dana. You can't. If you do, you'll take me with you. I love you..." his voice cracked and he buried his head in his arms next to her prone body. 

Mulder's sobs threatened to break his body, and that was what made him not notice for a few seconds someone stroking his hair. Thin fingers weaved their trail through his hair, the quieter sounds of crying echoing through the room. Mulder raised his head quickly, not daring to believe that it could be possible. But it was?she was alive. And awake. 

The next words that she uttered shattered his depression forever, "I love you too, Mulder." 

------ 

I know, I know. I shouldn't have watched what was obviously a private moment, but I couldn't help it. Even as I am restating what happened, I'm crying. Seldom have I ever felt as proud of one of my charges as I did that moment. Mulder had found his happiness, and had found true love.

Their path won't be the easiest by no means, but at least now they have each other. 

Forever. 

THE END 

------ 

For now, that is...Mwahahahahahaha. Should I do a sequel? Let me know! Like it? Love it? Hate it? Questions? Comments? Sonnets? Concerns? David Duchovny on the 6th floor carrying roses? Email me! 

USSTrustNo1@hotmail.com

If you're still looking for the Evil Energizer Bunny...Mwahaha! It ain't here! It's all part of the conspiracy!