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skelavender · 10 months ago

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“So,” Mulder says, breaking the silence, “West Virginia. You know what’s in West Virginia, Scully?” She sighs, “Please don’t say you want to detour to a nearby UFO crash site or something, Mulder.” He chuckles, “No. But we are in the same state as the Mothman legend originates.”

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Small talk, he drives

Coffee at midnight

The light reflects

The chain on your neck

He says, "Look up"

And your shoulders brush

No proof, one touch

But you felt enough

***

December 1996

The car hits a rumble strip, shaking Scully out of a sleepy stupor. She had been awake, but not listening closely to whatever Mulder had been going on about.

It was probably a poor idea to investigate out-of-state late in the day with a meeting planned first thing the following morning. On the bright side, the trip had been fruitful. The victim, a woman named Laura Gillyberg, washed up in the Potomac River, outside of DC. When they had visited her residence in West Virginia, they had found that the yard backed the river, giving them a likely dump site, potentially even a murder site. They had also discovered marks in the mud that appear to be from something being dragged to the riverfront. Scully collected dirt samples to test against what she would soon remove from the victim’s digestive tract, and ordered a forensic team to take casts of the drag marks and footprints in the morning. Unfortunately, they end up waiting until a specific coworker of the victim comes on shift at 10, and don’t start their three hour drive back home until nearing 11.

When Scully tunes back in, she finds that Mulder is still going on about Gillyberg’s coworker, whom they had interviewed two hours earlier. “Scully, I’m telling ya, she could have been Mariah Carey’s twin.”

“She looked nothing like her! She just had curly brown hair. You don’t say I look like Daphne from Scooby Doo just because I’m a redhead.”

Mulder drags his eyes down her purple suit and gives her a knowing look. “Red hair, purple suit, incredible investigative skills… I don’t know, Scully, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a du– uhh–“ he breaks off into a wide yawn.

“Tired, Mulder?”

“A little.”

“Do you want to switch off? We can stop for food and coffee.”

“Yeah, that’s a good idea.”

Luckily, a 24-hour diner appears in short order and Mulder pulls into the near-empty parking lot. Shockingly, a diner in the middle of West Virginia isn’t the most popular place at midnight on a Tuesday.

They put in their orders for their meals with the waitress, who presents them immediately with lukewarm coffee. It’s not the best stuff they’ve drank on the road, but it’s not the worst either. And more importantly, it’s caffeinated.

When the waitress flirts with Mulder, he makes a show of his wedding ring. Scully pretends not to find anything odd about the interaction, like it doesn’t turn her stomach and her territorial guard dog instincts kick in, like she has some kind of ownership over him, like he is something to be possessed. She tames the burning jealousy and ensuing satisfaction, shoving the sensations back down deep in her chest. He’s not hers, be he simultaneously is in every way that matters.

They’re quiet as they wait for their food, in the comfortable way Scully only ever feels with Mulder. They don’t need to fill the silence. Even though there are things both of them want to say, exhausted on the way back from a case isn’t the time to say them. Their ankles lay against each other, and they sip their coffee.

“There ya go, sugar!” The waitress winks as she sets Mulder’s burger down in front of him. She gives Scully a half-assed smile when she gives her the club sandwich she had ordered. Scully refrains from rolling her eyes, but just barely.

“So,” Mulder says, breaking the silence, “West Virginia. You know what’s in West Virginia, Scully?”

She sighs, “Please don’t say you want to detour to a nearby UFO crash site or something, Mulder.”

He chuckles, “No. But we are in the same state as the Mothman legend originates.”

Scully’s eyebrows shoot up. “Mothman?” She echoes incredulously.

“Yep. It’s a humanoid bird first spotted in 1966. He’s on the other side of the state, though.”

“Well, at least I’m saved from having to hunt for Mothman in the middle of the night.”

“Maybe we’ll investigate that after we figure out what happened to Laura Gillyberg.” He says. “We’re much closer to the Mystery Hole right now, though.”

Scully stares at her partner silently for a moment. “Alright, Mulder, I’ll bite. What, pray tell, is a mystery hole?”

“It’s a gravitational anomaly. It’s a tourist trap, but that doesn’t make it any more explainable. Some theorists say the roadside attraction was put there by the government to cover up a real gravitational anomaly or something. I can only imagine the inquisition you would give them, Scully.”

“Don’t tempt me,” She says flatly, pushes her now empty plate away from her, and downs the last swig of her coffee. “Let's head out.”

Mulder retrieves some bills to lay on the table and holds the diner door for her as they head out to the car. “There’s also an archive of haunted items farther north. We should come to West Virginia more often, Scully, they’ve got their share of X-Files.” He’s reaching into his pocket for the key, ready to hand it to Scully, when he stops in the middle of the parking lot and looks at the sky.

It’s not a surprise to anyone to say that Mulder’s been interested in space since he was a kid. Even before Samantha’s disappearance, he had watched Star Trek and found himself observing the heavens as often as possible, learning about the life of stars, of constellations, of the atmospheres of other planets. He had taken in as much information as possible. It wasn’t until after Samantha was taken that his interest had shifted from imagining the possibilities to proving what was reality.

He looks back down to Scully with equal adoration as he had the stars. The light from the diner sign glints off the chain on her neck, the one that holds her wedding ring. Yours, a voice within him says. Your wedding ring. Your love.

“Scully.”

“Yes?”

“Look up.”

She does. Half of her face is bathed in the neon red of the diner’s sign, and she’s glowing. The diner, the expanse of space, and the whole damn world fade into the background as Mulder watches Scully observe the heavens.

“I don’t see any UFOs up there, Mulder.”

“Nope.” His eyes don’t leave her face, taking the image of her in and hoping to etch it into his memory so that she exists like this forever. “Just us.”

She tilts her head, just slightly, to look up at him with the same look she had given the sky, with the exact same reverence. Like looking into his eyes was just as glorious as the infinity of space.

The moment oozes, arriving and departing in slow motion. It seems to last forever. She’ll exist like this for an eternity, in his mind, soaked in red light and gazing at him with the same admiration she had for the night sky. He just watches her blinking up at the sky, eyes dancing between stars like they’re whispering their secrets directly to her, sharing what they’ve seen in their millions of years of life. Like they can tell her stories.

Then, he realizes that they can.

“How much do you know about the stars?” He asks.

“I read an article a couple weeks ago about HD140283, the oldest star in the universe. It provides evidence that the universe has repeatedly crunched and expanded, but it’s surprisingly close–”

“Constellations, Scully.” He cuts her off unceremoniously, “Myths and legends.”

The smile that blooms across her face does so slowly, creeping along the lower half of her face like she understands what he’s getting at. “Probably not as much as you could tell me.”

He grins back and opens the passenger door for her. “Agent Scully.” He almost fucking bows. She gives him an inquisitive look, but slides into the seat nevertheless.

He drives a couple of miles out to a field with short enough grass for his purposes and retrieves a blanket from the trunk. He tucks it under an arm, and offers the opposite elbow to Scully, who tucks her hand right into place like it belongs there. Mulder would like to argue that it does.

When they lay the blanket out and settle in onto it, Mulder ends up close enough to her that his shoulder is pressed against hers. The touch is electric, warming her skin against the cool night.

“Wow,” Scully breathes, in awe.

“What do you see?”

“There are just… so many of them. I can’t remember the last time I bothered to look up with the intent of looking for the stars, especially not outside the city. There are so many more of them.”

“Do you see any constellations you know?”

She points. “The Big Dipper.”

“The Little Dipper, actually, but yes.”

“That’s the only one I can identify off the top of my head.”

“Well, Pisces is right there.” Mulder points up to the sky, and Scully’s eyes follow. “That’s your star sign.”

Scully scoffs. “I can’t be surprised that you believe in astrology, of all things.”

Mulder laughs. “I actually don’t, not entirely. I know Pisces because of the Greek myth about Aphrodite and Eros.”

“I don’t think I know that one.”

Mulder turns his head and effectively whispers in her ear. “Aphrodite, Goddess of love and beauty, and Eros, God of sex, were trying to escape Typhon, so they jumped into the Euphrates River, and depending on which version of the myth you follow, they either turned into or rode on the back of two fish. Hence the symbol for Pisces.”

“Interesting.” She turns her head to look at him, misjudging how close he is. Their noses brush. “What others do know?”

He tells her. He spills out the tale of Posiedon’s advent of the Pegasus, of Cassiopeia’s vanity leading to her demise at his hands, and Draco’s at the hands of Athena. For almost an hour, he is but a conduit for the stories painted across the sky.

When he finally turns his head to look at her again, he can’t identify the expression on her face. But there certainly is something there, something unexpressed. “What?” He asks with a laugh.

“We look at the sky and see very similar things, Mulder, just in different ways. I see dying stars, the past. A quantifiable means of knowledge. You see potential, possibilities. You see the light from dead stars hurtling towards us like the future, and the meaning we have ascribed to them.” When she shifts her head to look at him, his eyes are already on her. “You see the beauty in it. You see the poetry in the stars that I can’t. That’s beautiful.”

There’s a depth to Mulder’s gaze that she can’t read, and a beat passes where he is unsure how to respond. He leans face closer to her and her eyes flutter closed, she’s so sure he’s finally going to kiss her–

And his lips land on her nose.

Somehow, it’s more tender, more intimate, than a kiss on her lips would have been. It fills her to the brim, with a threat to overflow. She just about shatters, letting out a breath that trips in her chest and comes out in two bits.

She loves him. In this moment as much as any other, she loves him.

And she has no clue what to do with that.

It shouldn’t be so destabilizing, but it is. She’s loved him for years, since she’s known him. But every time he makes something she’s always considered mundane into artwork, or every time he makes her feel safe when the world is falling down around them, or every time he remembers the smallest habit or fact about her — that love increases tenfold, and she stumbles over it.

“We should get going.” Scully manages through the knot of adoration in her throat. Mulder nods, and they stand to gather the blanket. Mulder bunches it up to toss in the trunk again, but Scully snatches it off of him and rolls it precisely before tucking it under her arm.

As they walk side by side to the car, Scully lets her left hand, the one closer to Mulder and not holding the blanket, drift towards her husband’s. Gently, casually, she hooks her pinkie finger around his. They walk like that all the way back through the field, only their two fingers touching. Separate and independent, but still undeniably intertwined.

They don’t let go until they reach the car, ready to continue on their way home together.

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