DISCLAIMER:See the original Conquering the Demons (1/1) by Sarah Kiley Scully approached the heavy wooden door to Mulder`s apartment cautiously. Because of her small height, she always felt like she was four years old when she stood outside his apartment. The door were wide and tall, the doorknobs suspiciously high. She stared at the three newspapers piled unceremoniously outside his door. She picked them up, tucking them under her arm. She had neither seen nor heard from her partner in the past three days. Granted, that two were Saturday and Sunday, but rarely did more than two days go by before he called her. But considering the events of their last case, it seemed understandable that he would want to be alone. After all, even if Mulder hated Bill Patterson, it was a little much to wish him insane. And Mulder himself had gone a little crazy. She remembered walking into his apartment, dark as it was, and then turning on the lights and witnessing the horror that had become of his mind. The images still haunted her sometimes. Normally, she would not have been worried. After all, this case had been traumatic for Mulder. He had been on the edge, ready to skid over , threatening to become exactly like those he hunted. He didn`t want to see that monster that lurked inside him, to know that that evil could become a part of him. He hadn`t wanted to see it, and she could understand that. She could understand his pain, his fear of becoming like those he hunted. And she had understood his need to think. But two days was long enough. And so when he hadn`t shown up for work on Monday, she had called him numerous times, but she didn`t even get his machine. She suspected he had the phone unplugged. And there was no answer on his cellular. It must have been turned off. And so the only way she could talk to him, make sure he was all right, was to arrive at his doorstep. She checked her watch. It was close to five o`clock, but it was already dark, as it always was in January. She backed up against the wall opposite his door, and stared at the high window. It was closed, and all was dark inside from what she could tell. But she knew better than that. Mulder`s car was parked outside, and if he had gone out for a jog, he would find her waiting patiently for him when he returned. She moved up to the door again, and took her keys out of the pocket of her jacket. She was dressed down, in jeans and a sweatshirt, not wanting to be constricted by heels and skirts. She flipped to the key to his apartment on her ring. He had given it to her a long time ago, insisted on exchanging house keys with her. It had been after they had been separated. When the X-Files had been shut down, after Deep Throat`s mysterious death. The distance between them had only strengthened their partnership, their friendship. The higher-ups had thought that by separating her and Mulder, they would destroy the X-Files team. They would bring everything crashing down. How could They have known that by forcing her and Mulder away from each other, They were only strengthening the bond? How could They have known that the moment they shut down the project, they would be cementing two people together? She didn`t like to think about the days teaching at Quantico, starting to see things from Mulder`s point of view, trying to become the other half she missed. It was like she had an arm or a leg amputated. Although it was gone from her sight, she could still feel it. She could feel Mulder`s frustration, his anger at being assigned to a petty wire-tap job, denied the truth, separated from her. Irrevocably, he was a part of her. And so they had given each other house keys. Mulder had said it was "just in case something ever happens". And while his words had scared her, she also felt slighlty honored that he trusted her enough to give this to her. To give her this key that would let her in to his apartment. It gave her unlimited access to him. Over time, the key had come to symbolize their absolute trust of each other. But she didn`t feel that total access to him and all his thoughts and feelings. Even with the key, she didn`t feel it. He was closed up, hiding himself away from her, more than ever now. And she wanted to put a stop to it. She wanted it back to where they had been before, where they worked together instead of against each other. She wanted him to care as much as he used to, she wanted to care about him as much as she used to. She hated the thought that all the death and grief they had had disallowed any and all future chance to care about each other. She knew that she cared deeply about Mulder. It was just so frustrating lately. She felt angry all the time, sad all the time. A part of her knew that she was still grieving Melissa. She had lost her father, and it had been natural. She had lost three months of her life, but it had only strengthened her relationship to Mulder, given her the same passion he had for the truth. It had been okay, because she came back, and she was fine, and Mulder hadn`t gone insane, and she hadn`t gone insane. He had brought her back from the brink of death. Someplace in her heart, she knew that the only reason she had pulled out of that coma, the only reason she had come back, was for Mulder. Because she knew that he wouldn`t be able to live with himself. She knew he would blame himself, he would be miserable, and she didn`t want that. She had come back to be with him, to be by his side, not only for Mulder, but for herself. She needed him as much as he needed her, and she had done everything to fulfill both their needs. But losing Melissa hadn`t been so easy to brush off. Melissa wasn`t involved in their work, she hadn`t known the consequences, she hadn`t been told. Melissa had died for her, and she hadn`t been with her sister until three hours before she died. And Mulder had lost his father. She wondered if, somehow, he was angry at her deep down. Angry because he knew that what little he had left of happy childhood memories were shattered in the realization that his father had been an evil man. And her family had been almost picture-perfect. If he resented her for having what he never had. But no matter how much he resented her, and whatever tensions and petty trivialities came between them, she cared about him. He was a part of her, and she was a part of him, and she knew that without Mulder she could never aspire to be anything but half of a person. And she cared about him. Which was why she was unlocking his door with her very own private key. With her fingers trembling slightly, she inserted the key and turned the lock. It clicked, and she opened the door, gently gliding into his apartment. She didn`t want to disturb him if he was sleeping. But as soon as she entered the apartment, she knew he wasn`t. She could feel the pent-up energy radiating throughout the house. She shut the door behind her, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the shadows. She heard a grunt and heavy breathing from somewhere in the apartment. She hoped she hadn`t walked in on him while he was enjoying some of his ‘adult entertainment`. She didn`t even want to contemplate that there was another woman in his apartment. That was an impossibility. She didn`t want to think about Angela White, and what had happened the last time she had walked into his room unannounced to see him and the local detective on his bed in a fit of passion. She hated remembering the lustful gleam in his eye as he stared at Bambi Berenbaum, sauntering away with her soon-to- be-fiancé. And then the look of deflation when he realized that he had been passed up for a man who no longer had a voice and was bound to a wheelchair. And then there was Phoebe Green. The jealousy still raged inside her when she thought of that woman, and how she had toyed with Mulder`s heart. And how much she would have loved to have been in Phoebe`s shoes. She would have taken good care of Mulder. She would have loved him well the first time around. She wanted Mulder`s attentions and affections all to herself, as she had had them before, right after she had come back. When he had hovered carefully over her, concern evident in his eyes as he did what needed to be done. He had given up a woman he thought was his sister for her, and knowing how important Samantha was to him, how he had driven himself mad searching for her day in and day out, she had loved it. She loved being the center of his world, the person he looked to for support and understanding and care. She wanted to be the center again, in the spotlight of his life. She set the papers down on his kitchen table, her eyes now accustomed to the darkness that shrouded the apartment. She followed the sound of the breathing and grunts to the living room ahead of her. She paused in the doorway, something in her shaken to her very core. An enormous hunk of clay sat on Mulder`s coffee table. The man in question had no shirt, but only jeans, as he used his hands and what looked like a spoon to carve a face out of the clay. He was working furiously, almost as if he were possessed. She looked around the rest of the living room. The pictures of the gargoyles stared back at her, their eyes demonic among their twisted features. She leaned against the doorway, watching his arm muscles ripple as he strained to get one evil eyebrow arched perfectly. She recognized the gargoyle`s face and shape. He didn`t even notice she was standing there. She removed her jacket, setting it in one of his chairs. Quietly, she went around the living room, taking down the pictures one by one. There were hundreds of them, each taped to his wall. She felt a deep ache inside when she stared at their haunted images. Mulder wasn`t a demon like them. He wasn`t evil, like these things. How could he stare at them and see himself? He wasn`t ugly and twisted like them. He wasn`t devoid of all emotions but fear and hate. Fox Mulder was a man of great passion, and she saw that exhibited every day she worked with him. She admired it, and strived to have that same desire for the truth. She stacked the pictures into a pile and brought them into his bathtub. She searched through his kitchen junk drawer until she found the box of matches she was looking for. Mulder was still hard at work in the living room, not seeing or hearing her. She went into the bathroom and lit the match. She let it fall to the pile of papers, which sprang up with flames. She turend off the smoke detector, and turned on the cold water of his bathtub to wash away the ashes. She washed her hands, more out of a need to be rid of the memory of touching those psychotic drawings rather than dirt. When she reentered the living room, Mulder was still carving out hunks of clay. She looked at him intently, watching his every move as he smoothed the clay over with his long, tapered fingers, caressing the clay as if it were a cat to be petted. He was sweating, moving from side to side as he worked. There was so much hate in what he was doing, so much frustration and anger. Hate and death ruled his artwork, and she couldn`t stand to see it. He had already expereinced so much death and so much hate, why was he putting himself through more torture? "Mulder," she said softly. He didn`t look at her. She spoke louder, her voice almost a yell. "Mulder!" His head snapped to her, his normally hazel eyes flashing to a gray color. She saw the sadness there. The sadnress and the death and the hate. "Don`t do this to yourself, Scully," he said softly. "Just go. Let me do what I have to do. You`ll end up like me, and I don`t want you to do that." He wasn`t just talking about her leaving his apartment, she realized. He was talking long-term. Leaving the X-Files. Leaving him. "I`ve made your life a living hell, and I`m sorry. I`m sorry for putting you through all I have been. If I could go back and do everything over again, I would. I would be at your apartment when Duane Barry comes for you, I would make sure that rat bastard Krycek was nowhere near you or your sister. I would do it for you," he said truthfully. "But I can`t go back. And if you stay with me, you`ll end up just as I am." He turned back to his sculpture, stroking it absentmindedly. "Demented," he whispered. She stood, coming over to him. "I`m not going anywhere, Fox Mulder," she said, her words rock- hard. "I won`t leave you, I won`t drift away from you. I care about you," she said. She bit her lip. Care wasn`t the right word. It was such a low word. There were so many different levels of caring. But love . . . Love? "You`ve become a part of me, don`t you know that? And I know you`re hurting. And you have all this anger and death and pain and fear, and hatred. And it`s coming out through these damn gargoyles!" she said, anger rising. "You can beat the hatred and the death. You and I- we can do it together. We can do anything together, don`t you remember that?" she questioned. He bowed his head, pushing at the clay. "You can`t help me. I`m beyond help now, Scully." She shook her head, moving towards him purposefully. She grabbed his clay-stained hands within her own tightly, and stared up into his eyes. "We can help each other. Love and life can do anything. Don`t make this another object of hate, Mulder," she said, indicating the lump of clay on his coffee table. "It`s not going to be something of death and hate. You`re driving yourself farther and farther away. And I won`t let you do it." She rolled up the sleeves of her sweatshirt, and dipped her fingers in the bowl of water by his side. Carefully, she reachd out and touched the clay face of the gargoyle he had been making. she smoothed the features out into a plain line, and then began fashioning the clay. Mulder took a position on the other side of the clay, and they worked together, neither sure what they were making, only certain it had to be done to heal them both. Sweat covered her forehead, as she wiped it away relentlessly. Four hours later, they sat on his couch side-by-side, covered in clay. It was on her face, her sweatshirt, jeans, in her hair. Mulder had clay-lined streaks all over his sweaty chest. They were panting from the exertion of the artform they`d created. Scully leaned against her partner. He put his arm around her shoulders. Neither one spoke for a long time, watching the clay dry. Finally, she sat up, looking at him in the darkness. "It`s the most beautiful thing I think I`ve ever seen in my entire life, Mulder. How did we do it?" He shook his head. "I don`t know." He swallowed, suddenly uncomfortable. "What do you think it means? We did it all subconsciously. I don`t even remember sculpting it. It was done by our collective subconscious." She leaned into him, putting her arms around his waist. "It shows love and life, Mulder." She stood, to examine their sculpture more closely. Then she gavre him a wide grin. "Think we could sell it as modern art?" "Just don`t let your mom know we made this." She laughed. "My mom would probably buy me a pottery wheel and a copy of ‘Ghost` for my birthday. And she`d give you the clay." He smiled suddenly. It was genuine smile. Their sculpture had cleaned out the death and the hate. And it had made him reexamine life and love. And Scully had helped him. He came to her, and took her hands in his own, gently rubbing them. He stared deeply into her eyes, remembering what he had lost there. He had accused her of being a spy, he had denied her access to his heart again. He had tuned her out, left her behind, and destroyed her family. And they had had a lot of tough times with each other recently. Mulder felt warm inside as he looked at her. It was coming. He could feel it surfacing like a submarine, the feeling coming. The forgiveness. Of what transgression, he wasn`t sure. But soon, very soon, this tension they`d had as of late would be gone. And it would be replaced by the forgiveness and the healing process would take over, cementing them together. Mulder swore he would embrace that forgiveness, as soon as she gave it, and give her his own. Whatever had been going wrong between them lately was all about to turn out right. He could feel it. He opened his arms and embraced her gently, softly kissing the top of her head. And at the same time, her arms came around him, and held him close, clutching him to her forcefully. "We`re going to be all right, Scully. You and me. Together."