#i feel like i channeled the fountain for the entirety of this i could've written so much more

[ghostbustermelanieking]

5 headcanon AU, if you feel so inclined. Mulder takes the deal with Cancer Man to save Scully during Redux.

1. He takes the deal. He signs his life away for her, telling himself it’s worth it, telling himself he can poison them from the inside out, that he can finally find out what they did to his sister.

He goes to see her one more time, where she’s sleeping in her hospital bed. He breaks down at her bedside, sobbing so loud he’s shocked he doesn’t wake her, but he’s glad she stays asleep. He doesn’t think he could do this if he talked to her again.

He swallows back his tears, stands over her bed and kisses her forehead softly. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, knowing she’d hate him if she knew what he was doing. “I’m so sorry.”

And then he leaves, a shadow figure against the wall of her dark hospital room.

2. Scully cries when she gets the news: she is not dying anymore. She is going to live. She cries with her mother clutching her hands and sobbing right along with her. She hugs her brother, her mother, wipes her eyes on the corner of her blanket. And then she says, “I need to call Mulder. I need to tell him.”

Bill gives her his cell phone and she dials Mulder’s number almost without thinking. She’s so eager to tell him, to hear his voice, that every ring seems like a prolonging. She’s nearly holding her breath. But Mulder doesn’t answer.

She tries again and again throughout the day, throughout the cycle of doctors and tests and overjoyed visitors. No answer. For a few hours, she’s so terrified he’s been arrested she can hardly breathe, and when Skinner comes to visit, she growls, “Where is he?” with animosity so fierce she nearly comes out of her hospital bed to get to him. (She’s still not sure she can trust Skinner.) But Skinner has no idea, either. He seems as concerned as she does. And that’s when Scully really starts to worry.

She keeps trying his cell phone long after everyone else has left. She’s exhausted, but all she can do is curl up in her horrible hospital bed and dial his number again and again. She shuts her eyes in defeat when it goes to voicemail.

3. She starts looking as soon as she gets home. Not a second later. She has to sneak around her mother—which is absolutely ridiculous, she is a grown women, but her mother is stiflingly protective—but she does it anyway. She calls the Gunmen, who argue with her and tell her she should rest, and reassure her that they are looking for him. (They sent her several huge bouquets of flowers in the hospital.) She ignores them, drives right over to their apartment and demands to know what they’ve found.

The answer seems to be nothing. His apartment is still a crime scene. They have no idea where he was staying. They can’t trace his movements on that day. They’re monitoring police reports for any signs of him and coming up with nothing. Scully tries his mother, tries every associate she can think of, tries to find a way to get in touch with that contact of his. No luck. She’s frustrated, worried, and she wants to see him so badly.

She’s firmly believed that Mulder had been abducted or something or the sort that day. She refuses to consider the possibility that he’s dead, and she knows he wouldn’t have left her on purpose. Or at least she thinks she knows. But one night, after a failed meeting with Mulder’s contact, she finds herself being dragged into an alley, an annoying familiar face in front of hers. “You’re barking up the wrong tree, Scully,” Krycek hisses, letting her of her as soon as she sees his face.

Scully takes a swing without thinking, hitting him straight in the nose. He flinches hard, but makes no move to strike back. “Fuck you,” she hisses. “Where is he? What have you done with him?”

He laughs, smug enough that Scully wants to sock him again. “I haven’t done a damn thing, Scully. He did it himself. He doesn’t want you looking for him.”

She freezes, suddenly cold. “What the hell are you talking about,” she says softly.

Krycek shrugs. “Your partner went over to the dark side,” he says dryly, and Scully’s breath falters. “He made a deal with the smoker to save your life.”

She gasps a little for air in astonishment, stumbling back from him. Her knuckles sting. “He didn’t,” she says dumbly.

He nods, almost bluntly. “I’m just surprised he didn’t tell you,” he says, turning and walking away.

Scully’s shoulder hits the wall too hard. She rubs at her bruised knuckles with a dumbfounded sort of horror, breathing too hard. She knew he wouldn’t leave her. She never really thought he’d leave her.

4. It makes more sense as she walks back to her car, her hands cold. Mulder has always been stupidly self-sacrificing. He faked his death to try and find her cure. He wouldn’t let her take the fall for the dead man in his apartment, looked down at her with the softest fucking eyes and said that he wouldn’t do that because he couldn’t live with it.

(So how, she wants to know, could he live with this? Leaving her like this? Joining the people who took his sister when they could’ve been lying? She’s almost sure that it was the chip that cured her, so what good would joining them do? How could he do this to her?)

She’s furious, that first night. Angry, raving, ferociously sad. She swears she’s done. She’s going to quit the X-Files, transfer to Quantico, and never think about him again. She drinks half a bottle of wine and passes out on her couch, cold and shivering. When she wakes up, she has a tremendous headache, and she’s mostly just sad. She buries her face in a throw pillow and shuts her eyes.

She doesn’t stop looking for him. She doesn’t think she could stop looking for him, and anyhow, he’s never stopped looking for her. When she tells the Gunmen, a look of dismay passes over their faces briefly before Frohike says grimly, “I’m not surprised.” You should’ve seen him when you were on the hospital, he says. He was so worried, he would’ve done anything. Scully swallows and nods, pretends she doesn’t want to cry.

They begin monitoring records for signs of Mulder’s popular alliases. It’s slow going, of course, but Scully helps as much as she can. Drives straight to their apartment after work and crowds on a laptop between Langly and Frohike to search for her best friend. She can’t decide if she’s furious or worried. She isn’t sure. All she knows is that she has to find him. She has to see him, even if it’s the last time.

It’s been months. Months. She’s newly back at work off medical leave, and it’s strange, so strange to be there without Mulder. There’s a partnership seminar that she misses because she has no partner. Skinner starts to talk of assigning her a new partner. She staunchly refuses. She knows she might never work with Mulder again, but she doesn’t want another partner. She has a partner. She takes a few cases to keep up appearances, but her mind keeps returning to the case that takes precedence over all. She gets distracted, lost in her thoughts, constantly looking to her side only to find nothing there.

It’s when she’s on a case, in Connecticut, when she gets the call. It’s Frohike, his voice some strange combination of excited and concerned. “We found him. Scully, we found him. He’s renting an apartment in Boston. It’s an old alias, but it’s him. We’re almost positive.”

It’s all she needs. She gets the address and thanks them three times before hanging up. She doesn’t stop to think about whether or not it’s a good idea. She doesn’t care. She drives straight to Boston without hesitation. She wants only what she has wanted ever since she found out she was in remission: to see Mulder.

5. Scully finds his apartment and breaks in. She learned to pick locks in high school, some absent habit of Missy’s they learned on a boring snow day. She still has the key to his old apartment on her key ring, despite the fact that she hasn’t been using it. She holds it curled in the palm of her hand when she gets into the apartment, clutching the key hard as she stands against the counter. The toothy part cuts into her palm. This apartment is shittier than the one in Alexandria, much shittier. No leather couch, no fish tank. She stares at the tiled floor in the dim kitchen.

She only looks up when she hears the sound of the door opening, the key in the lock. His head is turned away from her, towards the door, but it’s him. It’s him. A lump rises in her throat. She can’t decide if she wants to punch him or kiss him. “Mulder,” she says softly.

But not so softly that he can’t hear. He turns towards her, a look of shock on his face, and that’s when she sees it. The split lip, the black eye. She gasps. “Scully?” he says, confused. “Wh-what are you doing here?” He laughs astonishedly, nervously.

She doesn’t move. She’s clutching his key too hard and just staring. “What happened to you,” she whispers, and she’s startled to find that she’s on the verge of tears.

He blinks. He shrugs, sheepishly. “Moral disagreement. Collateral damage. Whatever you wanna call it.”

She takes a shaky breath, another. She is moving towards him before she knows it, crashing into him and clinging hard. “You ass,” she hisses into his chest, her fingers digging into his jacket. “I was so scared. I was so worried, Mulder. I thought they’d taken you.”

He holds her tentatively, like she’s going to pull away: one hand on her back, one hand tangled in her hair. “I’m sorry,” he chokes out. “I’m so sorry. I-I thought I was helping you.” He’s rocking her back and forth, rocking her back and forth. “I didn’t wanna lose you,” he whispers.

“So you left me,” she says, her voice rough and accusatory. But she doesn’t let go of him. She thought he was dead.

“I didn’t want to.” He kisses her temple. “I didn’t want to. I missed you so much.”

“I thought you were dead,” she murmurs, hugging him hard. “I looked for you. I thought I’d never see you again.”

He strokes her hair, cupping the back of her head. “You shouldn’t be here,” he chides in a soft voice. “I think they’re watching me.”

She draws back to look at his face, touching the spot below his swelled eye with the pads of her fingers. “What did they do to you?” she whispers.

He winces as she touches the bruise, yanking back. “I told you. Moral disagreement.”

“Jesus Christ.” She kisses his cheek on an impulse, her eyes wide and wet. “You’ve got to get out of here, Mulder,” she whispers, gathering his hands in hers.

He shakes his head. His eyes are dark, haunted. “I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.” An angry pit is forming in her stomach, hard and painful. She wants to kill whoever did this to him, put a gun right between the smoker’s eyes.

“No, I can’t.” He swallows, covers her hand with his. “Scully, the things I’ve seen… what I know now… they’d kill me before they’d let me leave.”

“Oh, Mulder.” She strokes his knuckles with one thumb. “How many times have they threatened something like that? They won’t go through with it.”

“This time is different,” he whispers. “This time, they have nothing to lose. They’ll kill me… and then there’s nothing stopping them from getting to you.” He blinks slowly, thumbing her hair behind her ear. His eyes are as wet as hers. “I can’t lose you, Scully,” he whispers.

“You won’t lose me,” she says, almost sternly. “You saved me. I’m still here because of you.”

He shakes his head. “You should go,” he says, but his voice breaks. Shows his bluff.

She shakes her head right back. “You saved me,” she says. “Now it’s my turn, Mulder.”

He shakes his head again, but it’s weaker this time. He shuts his eyes.

She palms the side of his face, careful to avoid the bruises. She says, as strict as she has ever sounded, “I’m not leaving you here.”