#in their respective fics and whatnot and I just *drinks all that milk*

[scullydubois]

Only the Light (ch. 3)

Description: Missy moves in with Scully post-One Breath/Scully’s abduction. In this chapter, Scully goes through her morning routine and gets a surprise...

part 1 here. part 2 here. tagging @today-in-fic​.

“Only the Light” won the poll, so it’s now the official title! Yay! Thank you for voting and thanks for all the feedback--I love your comments. This part is the longest yet (and the best imo)--enjoy!! 

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She floats outstretched through the sky as if it were the community pool she and Missy used to frequent as children. She tilts her face toward the sun, feels the warmth of it washing over her. Her eyes reflect the brilliant blue sky, mini-oceans in themselves. Her back is to the city, and she’s so high up she can’t hear one bit of the noise on the ground. She hopes this is what heaven is like. If this is heaven, she has nothing to fear. 

And then she’s falling, a casualty of gravity. Hell has found her. It always does. This is an unfortunate truth she must live with. The sky races past her and there’s a pit in her stomach so deep she thinks she must be breaking the laws of physics, her body stretching like a rubber band about to snap. Surely she is not a human being anymore. Surely she won’t be by the end of this.

The ground hurdles toward her. She can’t see it, but she knows. She wonders what shape they will find her in, or if she will even be found. She hopes for her family’s sake that she’s in so many pieces they can’t put her back together. It’s easier, she thinks, when the body doesn’t look human. Burying a radiant-looking thirty year old is sad. Burying a mangled mess of a corpse is a relief. 

As if on cue, her alarm chirps. She awakes in one piece and punches the alarm, reality whisking away the horror of her dreams. Sweat saturates her silk pajamas, leaving a morning dew of sorts on her sheets. The blankets were thrown off at some point during the night. She does not remember doing this, so she can only assume it was the work of the demonic force in her brain.

Waking up in a puddle of her own sweat has become commonplace since she was returned. The first time the heat was so stifling she thought she must have had a fever that broke, but the mercury thermometer in her bathroom said otherwise. Her body seems to have a mind of itself these days. 

For the time being, her mind is still functioning, so she pulls herself out of bed to get ready for work. This routine part of her day is a privilege she relishes. Very rarely does she get to function on autopilot.

It goes like this: first, she slips off her pajamas and changes her underwear. It is at this point without fail that she realizes she hasn’t bought a new pantyset in years, and wouldn’t it be nice if she did? This mental note slips away by the time she buttons her suit jacket and tucks her undershirt into her slacks.

Next, she switches on the bathroom light and performs the typical tasks of self-care--brushing her teeth, washing her face, and whatnot-- that some might find tedious or annoying. For Scully, they are soothing. She spends too much time thinking about aliens and not enough thinking about herself. She’s not sure she believes in either, but god, it would be nice to try. 

Veering close to the latest possible time at which she could still expect to beat DC traffic to the office, she brushes her hair (no time for a hundred strokes), dabs some concealer under her eyes, and swipes on her favorite lipstick. No need to go all out; she knows where she stands.

Finally, she opens her closet and stares at the rack of heels. They’re uncomfortable and damn inconvenient for an FBI agent, but Mulder’s tall and she is not. She had a fraction of her current pairs before she met Mulder. No coincidence. 

She chooses the tallest pair she owns because she needs the confidence boost. They’re headed to a nursing home in Massachusetts today, so hopefully there will be no running in the woods involved. 

She click-click-clicks down the hallway. The scent of strong coffee permeates the air. She turns the corner, and there’s her sister with a pot of coffee and two plates of scrambled eggs. It is seven o’clock in the morning, and they were up at 3am last night. The last thing Scully expects is for her sister to be cognizant, let alone to have cooked. 

“Good morning sunshine.” Missy slides a plate over to Scully’s usual spot at the table and pours the piping hot coffee into a ‘Kiss Me, I’m A Doctor’ mug. 

Scully pinches herself. No, she’s not dreaming. This is too happy to be one of her dreams anyways.

“This is a surprise,” she says as she takes a seat at the table.

“Well, I fell asleep on the couch and woke up at 5:30. I figured it’s been awhile since someone’s cooked you breakfast.”

Scully takes a sip of the coffee. 

“I don’t even cook myself breakfast.”

“Exactly.”

Melissa tops off Scully’s mug. 

“Is it strong enough? I couldn’t drink mine without adding about a half a cup of milk, so I figured I must be doing something right.”

Scully is so grateful to be waited on that it could be a milkshake and she wouldn’t complain. It is strong enough though, stronger than the milk and sugar mixture someone calls coffee at the FBI. 

“It’s perfect,” she says, meaning it.

“Good. I saw the end of that movie, by the way. You were right, it’s a real snoozefest.”

Scully laughs. “I actually like that movie. That’s why it helps me fall asleep.”

Missy scoffs. “They spend the entire movie pining over each other just for one chaste kiss at the end! Where’s the fun in that?”

“Probably shortly after that chaste kiss.”

Missy smirks, pleased that she’s gotten her sister to make a sex joke at seven o’clock in the morning. She softens her voice-- 

“I did want to talk to you, though.”

Scully finishes chewing the forkful of scrambled eggs in her mouth. 

“I have to leave soon or I’ll be late.”

“Late for what? One of Mulder’s slideshows?”

Scully sits back. Maybe Missy has a point.

“I’m sure you’re tired of my questioning,” Missy says, “so I won’t ask you another thing. Say what you need to say.”

Say what you need to say. So simple, yet so powerful. It occurs to Scully that no one ever gives her this type of shameless permission. They shouldn’t have to, but she’s never been one to talk out of turn. What a relief to have the freedom to speak plainly. 

She exhales. She has spent the past weeks playing back the few memories she has of her disappearance--she won’t call it the other word--and trying to decipher what happened to her. She is no closer to figuring it out than she was when Mulder gave her necklace back, but it might help to share what she does remember.

She launches into it, her memories flowing out in one long stream.

“You know, when I was in the hospital, I kept having this vision that I was in a lifeboat. There was a rope tying it to the dock and on the dock were all the people I loved, the people that were around me. You and mom and Mulder and the nurses.”

Melissa listens sympathetically, shocked and relieved that her sister is opening up.

“But I couldn’t move, I couldn’t do anything but sit there in that boat and hope that somehow, the tether wouldn’t snap.”

This is the most vulnerable Missy can remember seeing her sister since the passing of their father. There are a respected few who have witnessed Dana Scully reveal the inner workings of her mind. It’s a rare honor to witness Dana Scully reveal the inner workings of her heart. 

Scully continues.

“And then it did snap, and I had...I can only describe it as a near-death experience. Dad was there...He was in his uniform with all his medals and he told me that he loved me and—that we would be together again, but not yet.”

Missy nods along.

“So I guess...that kept me from going. That’s how I knew I had to stay.”

“Wow,” Missy breathes.

“From then on, I could hear everything you guys were saying. I heard you and mom telling me that I was below the criteria of my living will and I was trying to give you a sign…”

Her voice breaks. 

“I was so scared you would pull the plug on me.”

“Oh my god, Dana.” Missy engulfs her in a hug. “I am so sorry.”

Scully breathes into her sister’s neck. Her hair smells like the strawberry shampoo they used when they were children. She wonders if Missy still uses it, decides that now is not the time to bring that up. Instead, she lets go of the hug first.

“I started thinking, if I am below the criteria of my living will, maybe that’s the right thing to do. Maybe if I ever truly wake up, I’ll be so damaged I won’t be able to work for the FBI or have anything resembling a happy life.”

She sighs. “And you and mom said your goodbyes, and I was thankful, actually, that I got to hear them because so many people don’t and you just...never know with my profession.”

She bites her lip to keep from crying.

“And then sometime later I heard Mulder come in, and his wasn’t a goodbye. He touched my hand—I could feel it but I couldn’t respond—and he told me he was there. And I could feel his sadness, but I could also feel his hope. And that was all I needed, was hope.”

“He gave you the strength to wake up,” Missy says, partly as a question. 

“Or the courage to.”

Melissa considers this. She remembers how solemn she felt going to Fox’s apartment that night, delivering the news that her sister was weakening. This must be how nurses feel when they tell loved ones to say their goodbyes, she thought at the time. When he said he wasn’t able to go see Dana in the hospital, she was furious. How can you be so naive? she thought. Are you so afraid of pain you refuse to feel your own feelings? She realizes now this sounds like something she might say to her sister. 

Melissa decides not to mention her involvement in any of this. After all, she hadn’t succeeded in convincing Fox to go to the hospital. That was his own choice. Instead, she says--

“He was really looking out for you, you know. He was a soldier for your cause.”

The edges of Scully’s lips turn up the slightest bit.

“I don’t doubt it. Mulder is nothing if not a good soldier.”

Melissa thinks back on meeting Fox. She said that Dana had talked to her, that her soul was there. He didn’t believe her.

“Fox was exactly what you said he would be,” she tells her sister, “and somehow I was still surprised by the sheer force of his determination.”

Scully chuckles. 

“Well, I don’t exaggerate these things. If anything, I downplay them.”

“No kidding.”

Melissa wets her lips, letting silence rest comfortably at the table with them.

“You’re really lucky you know, to have him as a partner.”

Scully nods. 

“I know.”

And she does.