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scullydubois · 4 years ago

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Only the Light Ch. 20

I now present to you a chapter that is filled with more angst than Chris Carter could ever dream of, and for that, I am truly sorry.

Scully and Mulder's foray into domesticity with Emily is interrupted by the past catching up to them. Faced with despair, they cling even tighter to each other.

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Scully is granted maternity leave, though it’s only for two weeks, which Missy let her know is “a piss-poor bargain.” And she knows this is true, but she also has more incentive to stay at her job than ever, so she’d like not to lose it. The fact that advocating for herself and her child would mean risking her job is a mess in itself, but one lone woman can’t be expected to take down the patriarchy, and besides, she’s already tried and failed.

As for she and Mulder, they hide their flirtation in plain sight. Mulder’s perpetually present in body or spirit, but his behavior never reveals anything more than it did before. Every morning he swings by to say hi, brings Scully coffee and a bagel with full-fat cream cheese, and checks if Emily’s picked up any new words. Personally, he’s working on “alien” and if you ask him, she’ll get it soon. She knows that it refers to her UFO stuffie, so sounding out the letters can’t be far behind, much to her mother’s dismay.

On Wednesday of the first week, he shows up at 6pm with takeout carbonara from a local Italian joint. His presence makes every Scully girl happy, but it makes one in particular the happiest, and Melissa realizes that there are definitely things her sister has failed to mention. She doesn’t question it, but watches with glee as the situation unfolds.

After that first night, Mulder keeps coming back with dinner and refuses to let either sister shoulder the cost. On Friday, he stays for a movie too and gets to participate in Emily’s nightly tucking-in ritual (a tickle on the left foot, a tickle on the right foot, and a big smooch on the forehead).

Saturday afternoon, he joins them for a stroller push through the park, earning some serious side-eye from Scully when he suggests that they stop at the playground because, according to the mama bear, “Em can only take six steps at a time, Mulder.” So instead they buy hotdogs from a vendor and eat them on a bench, Emily sandwiched between her mother, her aunt, and her...Mulder. They couldn’t ask for more.

That night, Mulder hangs around after dinner because what else is he gonna do? Go home and watch old baseball games until he falls asleep? A new leaf has been offered to him, and he’s gotta turn it.

He’s baffled when, upon announcing that it’s Emily’s bathtime, Scully goes to the kitchen and switches on the sink.

Scully raises an eyebrow at him. “What, your mother never washed you in the sink when you were a baby?”

“Not that I know of...I have a hard time envisioning myself ever fitting in a sink.”

Scully scoffs. “I forget. You were a Vineyard boy.”

Before he can come up with a smart response to that (as if there actually is one), Missy pipes up. “Oh, I bet you were the kid that took baths with your mother,” she teases. “Care to confirm or deny?”

“If I did I blocked it out of memory, thank god,” he testifies.

Having spread a towel on the counter, Scully strips Emily down and perches the girl on her hip. She sticks her hand under the faucet.

“That’s not too hot, do you think?” she asks Missy, who tests it as well.

“That should be fine.”

Mulder joins in too, and immediately regrets it. He shrinks away from the water, shaking droplets all over the room. “Jesus, Scully! Are you trying to boil her?”

“Babies lose heat quickly because of their body surface to weight ratio,” she says matter-of-factly. “They’re more susceptible to the cold.”

“I think the cold will be the least of her worries,” Mulder quips.

“If you really think it’s too hot, I’ll turn it down…” There’s a concerned crease beneath her eyes, and it makes Mulder feel bad about his joking.

“No, no, you know what you’re doing,” he assures her. “You’re her mother.”

As she lowers Em into the sink, Scully’s heart twinges. Her. A mother. How many times will she have to hear this before it stops feeling like news to her?

One week and bathtime has already become routine. Missy fills a plastic cup and pours it gently over her niece, the water cascading down Em like she is nature’s own. Scully soaps her palms, then glides over her daughter’s skin with such care that its memory may blight any future affection Em is graced with. And then another waterfall, and the gentle brush of a wash cloth against eyes and nose.

Scully squeezes a penny’s worth of baby shampoo into her hand, looks to Mulder. “Come on, get in here. You’re not afraid to get your hands dirty, are you?” she says with a smirk.

He smirks back and shakes his head as she lifts his open palm and shrinks her accumulation to a dime. “Although, technically I am getting my hands cleaner…”

She boops him right on the nose with a shampooed finger. He laughs.

Missy smiles. Oh, to see destiny play out right in front of you. “Someone’s cracking dad jokes,” she points out, unable to resist. This observation is much too on-the-nose for the pair (quite literally for Mulder), who simultaneously blush but say nothing.

Mulder wipes the shampoo from his nose and plants it on Emily’s head, joining his partner in making soapy circles over the girl’s tuft of strawberry hair. Scully’s full attention is directed toward her daughter. As soon as the lather is sufficient, she dons the lifted lilt of motherhood. “Okay, time to rinse! Missy, will you do the honors?”

Missy turns the faucet, fills the cup, and lets it flow over Emily. Mulder and Scully wash their hands off in the stream.

And as Scully leans for the towel, a splash of red dirties its fresh white surface. Mulder notices it first. He points at his partner’s porcelain face. “Scully, you’re bleeding.”

Her hand shoots to her nose. Sure enough, it stains her fingers. “Shit.” She turns away, goes for a tissue. “I haven’t had nosebleeds since I was fourteen,” she tells them, as if that invalidates this one. She wipes away a glob of blood, her stomach turning. “Missy--” her voice shakes involuntarily, “--will you dry Em off?”

“Uh-huh.” She nudges Mulder. “Will you grab a new towel from the linen closet?” she whispers, not wanting to further upset her sister.

Mulder goes off without a word, and Missy squeezes out Em’s hair as best she can. “What a pretty girl!” she gushes. “All clean!”

“Yee!” Emily throws her little fists in the air, injecting joy back into the room.

“Time to put your PJs on, and get a tickle, tickle, smooch.”

Mulder scrambles back in with a new towel, skirting around Scully, who remains occupied with her own situation. He slides the soiled towel away and helps Missy swaddle Em. Mulder ruffles the little girl’s hair, and she laughs like a music box.

“Mol-dy.” She spits it out in halves, as if she’s been rehearsing.

Mulder’s eyes water with recognition. “Mulder? Mul-der? Is that what you’re trying to say?”

“Moldy,” the girl declares again, certain of herself.

Missy adjusts Em on her hip, smiles at Mulder. “Looks like you’re Moldy now.”

Mulder bites his lip to hide his overwhelming delight. “Yeah, I...I never thought I'd be so happy to be called moldy.”

Next thing he knows, Scully is at his shoulder with a tissue stuffed up her nostrils. “Wait, what’s going on?”

“Em called me Moldy,” he tells her, full of satisfaction.

“Oh.” It comes out relatively unimpressed, but really, she’s just distracted. “Missy, will you get a diaper on her before there’s an accident? I would but I’m still--” She gestures to her nose.

“Yeah, yeah.” Missy smiles at the baby in her arms. “PJ time, Em!” They go off toward the bedroom, a happy pair.

As soon as Em is out of sight, Mulder spirals toward his partner, panic-stricken. The glee of moments ago has evaporated.

“Are you okay?” He touches her hair, shoulders, and the familiar small of her back, unsure of where he should land.

“I’m fine, it’s fine.” Her grip on his elbows--keeping his hands firmly placed on her waistline--suggests otherwise.

“You’ve got to see a doctor,” he pleads. “This could be...”

“This could be what, Mulder?” The steel in her blue eyes is a death grip. She’s never liked being told the obvious.

“Scully…” He sighs, rubs his neck, wills her to say what they both know. When she doesn’t, he takes his hands off her and wrings them together. “The Mufon women...they said it would happen to all of them eventually.” He’s careful not to lump Scully in with their group.

“And what do they know?” she retorts. “One of them was sick. One.”

“Okay, well, don’t you think it’s better to be safe than sorry?” he reasons. “You have Emily to look out for now.”

Scully rolls her eyes. “Don’t guilt trip me. It’s a nosebleed. Those happen all the time for completely benign reasons.”

“Yeah, but they don’t happen to you. You just said--you haven’t had one since you were fourteen.”

She clenches her jaw. He’s right, and she’s playing the fool. His position is the one she would take if this were anyone other than herself. She’s gonna have to lose this fight with as much grace as possible.

“Fine. I’ll get it checked out, but they’re gonna think I’m insane for coming in because of one nosebleed.”

“That’s a nice change of pace--you being the insane one for once.”

“Well, you’re the one who wants me to go, so you’re not out of the woods.”

“Good, I’ve finally got some company!”

Scully smiles in spite of herself. “Yes, yes you do.”

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It happens very quickly, as most calamities of life can be said to. This gives it the unreal quality of a nightmare that might soon be woken up from, if there is any justice in the world.

Scully snags a doctor’s appointment for three days after the initial nosebleed. By the time she walks into the waiting room, one nosebleed has quadrupled into four, and her minor concern has snowballed into abject terror.

Margaret Scully drove into the city to watch Emily so Missy could join her sister. Scully insisted that she would go alone, but Missy wouldn’t accept this. She threatened to tell Mulder the details of the appointment if Dana didn’t let her go, and that was enough to earn her a spot in the passenger seat. Scully can’t take the thought of Mulder witnessing the worst--let alone her reaction to the worst.

And so it goes something like this: they are taken to an exam room, at which point Scully explains her situation to a nurse, including that she has recently learned she is at high risk for cancer. The nurse assures her that such a diagnosis is highly unlikely, but makes a note for the doctor. The doctor comes in with knitted eyebrows and listens to Scully describe the aftermath of her abduction experience with a heavy emphasis on the convoluted but substantial claims of the Mufon women. She asks if Scully has had any other symptoms, to which Scully replies that it’s hard to tell because she has an infant in the house and thus, a marked lack of sleep.

The doctor laughs, but it’s not a haha laugh, more of an I feel your pain. She agrees that the women’s claims are concerning, but tells her patient not to fret. They’ll take all the precautions, run any test that might assuage her worries. There’s a quip about how it’ll be on the government’s dime since it covers Scully’s insurance, and then the doctor leaves to order an MRI.

A full body MRI, which Scully has never had, and which she hoped she would never require. There’s no deeper sickness than one that cannot be pinpointed, and no greater fear than of the unknown turning into the worst case scenario.

The MRI is completed that same day. As she slides into the machine, Scully thinks of Betsy Hagopian and wonders how she’s doing. It has been many months since she stood outside an exam room and watched Betsy enter one of these. Has fate been kind to her?

For a few minutes, her world is limited to the mere inches between her face and this life-saving yet life-ruining contraption. It is noisy and sometimes bright and altogether disorientating. She is glad when it’s over.

The images return almost immediately, and maybe it would all have been okay if Scully weren’t trained in radiology herself, if she wasn’t able to recognize the glaring speck of light in her nasal cavity for what it is. But that one glance is all she needs to know that waiting by the phone isn’t an option.

“It’s a tumor, isn’t it?” she blurts as the radiologist tries to escort her and Melissa from the room. “In the nasal cavity. I have a M.D. I saw.”

“Your doctor will call with the results,” the radiologist insists, standing by the open doorway.

“No, no, you can’t do this to me,” Scully sputters. “I know what I saw, and I don’t have any time to waste.” Her eye twitches in a combination of stress and anger. “I have an infant daughter.”

The radiologist sighs, pity on top of pity. “Perhaps your doctor will talk it through with you now.”

“Yes. Please.”

And it is talked through, though there’s no need to make it complicated: nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Inoperable, and just barely in the realm of treatable. That’s the kicker, the coyote in the pasture, the cloud covering the sun. In the words of Scully’s doctor, it is auspiciously rare. And in Scully’s brain, it is the bottom she’s been expecting to drop out from under since she held her daughter in her arms.

Melissa drives home. The sisters cannot fathom how they will tell their mother. Cannot fathom ruining her blissful time with the granddaughter she’s just met. When they turn onto their street, Scully swallows hard and coughs on her own spit. “Will you do something for me?”

Missy looks over, eager to do anything she can, yet terrified by the possibility of the request.

“Will you take me to Mulder’s?” Scully mumbles. “I would just take the car but...I can’t face mom right now. I don’t want to risk it.”

Missy bites her lip. “And what am I supposed to tell mom when she asks where you are?”

“The truth,” Scully says curtly. “She doesn’t need the backstory.”

Missy drives past their building, though she’s not completely sold on her sister’s reasoning. “Don’t you think she might wonder why you aren’t coming home to your daughter?”

“I know she’ll wonder, Melissa, I know all of this,” Scully snaps because she needs to. “I don’t care.”

“Okay.” Missy’s voice is barely perceptible. I don’t care; she knows how low her sister has to be to say those words.

They complete the drive in silence, Scully biting her nails--a habit which she has never possessed, and perhaps just acquired. The car idles as Missy pulls up to the curb of Mulder’s building.

“I can pick you up when you need it,” she tells her sister as she pulls herself out of the car. “I’ll bring Em.”

“I’ll figure it out,” Scully says, closing the passenger door and edging toward the building. Missy hears a thanks float toward the car, then her sister is gone like a teenage girl embarrassed by her mother.

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They sit on Mulder’s couch, muted. Words cannot fathom the injustice of this situation, nor can they suffice as empathy. Their hands are clasped together, a throughline of strength between them. This is what they need now; the most primitive language of all.

Scully’s watery eyes brush Mulder’s face. His own eyes, more pained than usual, look into hers. Without a word, she drapes an arm around her partner’s shoulders and scoots into his lap. He is surprised but not distressed. What else is left for them, now?

She is tiny, so tiny. And she is his.

Their eyes meet once again, speaking in tongues. Scully nods, and then Mulder does too. This is it. This is it.

Permission granted at last, Scully’s lips travel to her partner’s jawline. The first time her lips have touched his body, and this is where they go. She is a constant box of wonders, a fortune he can never predict. Her lips are much like he has fantasized they would be: wondrously soft and silky, stroking him like they have always meant to be there. Yet he couldn’t have imagined the urgency with which they burrow into his skin. As if she’s making a mental map of his bone structure. He never expected that she would want him this much.

His hands find her hips and grip the cotton of her shirt between his fingers. It is enough to tear her away from his flesh. Mission accomplished. His breath travels past her ear, hitting her neck. It is shallow and warm as he breathes her name. Her real name, the one her family calls her. She breathes his own back to him, like a bird responding to a mating call.

She feels his lips on her neck, wet and aching. It feels like God. This is the most blasphemous thought she has ever had. She throws her head back, exposing the whole of her skin to him. What is holiness, if not this moment?

He showers her in tattoo kisses, and she lets him, she lets him, she lets him. This is not just what she wants, but what she needs. No one will save her now, she knows this. So she has decided not to be saved.

Her shirt ripples as he clutches it. “May I?” He is breathy, awe-struck.

“Only if I can do the same.” Always about equality, his Scully is. He lifts his arms, lets her strip him first. He is fraught with the temptation to feel insecure, inadequate, but this is not about him--this is all for her. There is no time to dwell on this anyway. Scully takes in the sight, then puts her own arms up with a hint of impatience. He pulls her shirt over her head, and goosebumps adorn her as the air hits her bare stomach.

It is unimaginable, the significance of this moment. All Mulder can do is keep going, lest the emotion hit him and he find himself blubbering all over her. His hands travel her body...it is slender and white, but so solid, so strong. Cartilage forming ligaments forming joints connecting bones. And her skin, stretching over her hips and framing it all. The masterpiece that is Dana Katherine Scully.

He fears for the day she will cave in on herself. Already, one of his hands covers her whole rib cage. Right now he can cradle her body comfortably against his own, but the day will come when a single cautious touch will crush her, and his heart along with it. He wants her as she is now forever.

Seeing that he wants to pamper her, Scully lets herself be pampered. He showers the taut length of her collar bone in kisses. The vibration resonates throughout her bone structure, and already she can feel him in places she’s only fantasized about having him. He is going to heal me, she thinks. If anyone could heal her in any way, it would be him doing this.

She shows her gratitude by kneading circles into his soft tissues, so tense from all their days chasing ghosts. The sinew relaxes beneath the pads of her fingers, and she feels like she has solved the most important X-File of all.

Mulder traces his way along her spine. He has never touched her here, nor ever even fantasized about it, and there is an erotic tension--like a needle about to drop on a record--that neither one of them could have seen coming. Inevitably, his hands converge at the hooks of her bra. She arches her back in approval. He slides the hooks away from each other, and both of them feel the release. She shimmies off the garment before he can pull it out of the way. No secrets, not anymore.

Mulder didn’t expect to cry and is aware that most women wouldn’t take that as a positive sign, but seeing her, like this, knowing what they both know, tears feel like the least he could offer up. She is...beautiful is too weak a word to describe it. He needs to invent a new word to capture the essence of his emotions, the reverence with which he views her. He is not a religious man, but he will worship her until the end of time.

He has known this, intuitively, for a while, and now he’s putting it into practice. He wants to do everything he can for her, give her everything she wants. Yet he doesn’t know how to, and this scares him. She has always slipped through his fingers, always turned on a dime just when he thought he figured her out. Tonight is no exception. How was he to know that he’d be on his couch with a half-naked Scully in his lap?

He fears the tears will offend her, so he nuzzles into her heartspace, his nose pressed against the heart that is--by the grace of that God she worships--still beating. His lips meet the plush of her left breast.

Where does he go from here? The dusty routine he’s used with other women--the few who have given themselves to him or let him hand himself over--is not worthy enough for Scully. He could never touch Scully in the ways he’s touched the women before because she is not like the women before. There is no mere giving or taking here, no detached exchange of commodities or pleasure for the sake of pleasure. This is survival. They are symbiotically keeping each other alive.

A drop of water hits Scully’s skin, slides down the curvature of her breast. She shudders. A tear. That’s what it is, she realizes. Mulder is crying. It’s a baptism of unfortunate proportions.

She cups her hand against his chin, tilts it up so his bleary eyes meet hers. She rests her forehead against his. “Shh, shh, it’s okay.” She kisses each eye closed, his lids fluttering beneath her lips. “It’s okay.”

His breathing steadies. He is quite certain that it is not okay, that it never will be, but he listens to her, lets himself pretend.

Hands still on his chin, she careens their lips together. His mouth on hers; a godsend. They caress each other for a moment, then Scully opens wide, and Mulder does too. They are reflecting.

If Scully could compress herself, pushing every particle of air out of her lungs and into his, she would. As a sort of thank you, for everything. For what he has done, what is doing, what he will do...She will never have to live without him. She knows this now, and it makes this easier. But he will have to live without her, and so she must make sure he gets the memories he needs to carry on. This is how grief works, she’s acquainted with it. These moments, these feelings, these bated breaths and tender touches, will be his survival mechanism for awhile. Until the day when he can throw them off and go on without her ghost. It will happen one day, and she will be glad that he made it.

She feels him pressing against her stomach, which is certainly not where she wants him. “Fox…” Her hands hover above his belt. She unzips his fly first, her hand warm against him. He is dizzy with want as her fingers curl against his belt buckle, loosening it with confidence. In a sweeping gesture, she pushes his jeans off his hips, exposing him. The thrill she feels, seeing him big and bare in front of her, is a new kind of livelihood. She’s overcome with the desire to take him in her mouth--and that has never, never been her first instinct. She ducks down, but he stops her.

“Dana, no. You.”

She doesn’t need to hear it twice. She sucks in a breath, arches her back, and slides onto him. Slowly, gasping as they go.

“Am I hurting you?”

Scully shakes her head, lips parted. It has been nothing like this before...nothing so fulfilling. She crosses her ankles, binding them completely together at last.

Unity triumphs against the self, their union abolishing the world’s insistence on the solitude of the individual. This is what it’s about, isn’t it? Being joined, not only in spirit, but in body? Knowing that whatever horrors are to come, he will feel them as she does. Her dwindling will be his too, her losses an equally empty space within him.

She is teetering on the edge of something she can never come back from. She is not afraid.

She careens her fingernails into his back as the pressure builds. If it doesn’t come to a head, she’ll die right here, she thinks.

She barely registers the cathartic noises coming out of her, though they give Mulder great delight. He thought she would be quiet, and the fact that she’s not trying to hold anything in--after holding everything in for so goddamn long--is the most moving part of the experience.

And they want this to go on forever, but they want the release. Mulder swivels his hips into her, bringing them both closer to climax. Scully curls against him.

“I’m sorry,” she cries into his ear.

“What?” He nearly pulls out of her, fearing that she’s hurt.

“No, no--” She scrambles to stay with him. “This--” she pants “--is so good.” She lowers her lips onto his as confirmation, then speaks into his open mouth. “I’m just sorry to be the one to go.”

He frames her ribcage, thumbs arching toward her belly button. “Fuck, honey...don’t say that, don’t even think that…”

They won’t linger on the choice of pet name, the tenderness with which it settles over her, nor the absolute devastation of her words. There is simply no time.

Scully hides her face in his neck as the wave breaks over both of them. There is no world anymore, only the two of them on this couch. They have forsaken the physical realm, ascending to heaven in time with their heartbeats.

Mulder understands then what his reciprocal means when she says she needs proof to believe. Now that he’s been there and felt it, he knows that heaven exists, and holy shit, what does that mean for the life he has lived and the time he has left? What did it mean for Samantha?...What will it mean for Scully?

They collapse into each other, a melted mass of skin and bone. Two becoming one, becoming two again. Mulder strokes the back of his partner’s head, presses his lips to her temple. Her chest rises against him in jagged breaths.

“You are the only proof I’ll ever need that this life is worth it,” he murmurs. “Just you.”

Scully looks up at him, tears running down her cheeks. He kisses them away and wraps his arms around her. “I don’t know if you got the memo, but I love you, Dana Scully.”

She rests her cheek against his. “I love you too, F--Mulder.”

Mulder chuckles, his amusement shaking both of them. Scully closes her eyes and snuggles into him. He puts his hand over her heart, feels it beating steadily into his palm, and longs for it to stay like that forever.

#i have been working on that last scene since uhhh...october #i apologize for any emotional distress this and the following chapters will cause lmao #probably only two or three chapters left!!!#thank you for reading <3 #only the light fic #missy and scully fic #txf #txf fic #the x-files #fox mulder #dana scully #melissa scully #mine

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