#in that moment at the funeral when skinner says….but he’s NOT the last one….. | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

scullydubois · 4 years ago

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Only the Light: Ch. 15

After shooting Mulder to prevent him from implicating himself in his father's murder, Scully takes Mulder & Melissa on a road trip to Albert Hosteen's Navajo reservation in New Mexico.

TW for mentions of guns/shooting, death, funerals

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His eyes flutter open to some place like Heaven, which pisses him off cause that’s not supposed to exist, and if it does, then how in the hell did he make it here? A fiery-haired angel lays a gilded hand upon his chest, her touch made out of air. Tendrils of hair fall against her face, and Mulder wonders where one gets haircuts in Heaven.

He must be floating on a cloud, so close to the sun that it is stained an earthly golden-yellow. His sky accommodation is not as comfortable as all those Renaissance painters made it look, and for that he feels deceived. Is the soul so solid that it is weighed down, even in Heaven? And if it is, well, doesn’t that defeat the purpose of a soul?

He is fatigued, and it’s bullshit, in his opinion, that he could be dead and still feel anything but blissful numbness. He’s about to voice this particular grievance when he realizes where he is, and sure English is turning into a lingua franca of sorts, but something tells him that God isn’t spending his spare time teaching the angels the difference between too and to. So he keeps his mouth shut, unnerved by not knowing whether he’ll ever be able to speak his mind again.

“Hey,” a soft voice breathes, and he’s surprised to understand it, but not altogether upset. He tries to respond, but his tongue has tethered itself to the base of his mouth.

“Mulder…” the voice says, and it registers in his mind that it’s not an angel--not technically--but Dana Katherine Scully, and my god, what atrocity has dared to send her to Heaven so damn soon?

He coughs, then grumbles from deep in his throat. He’s got to be the most undignified person in this joint, and he can only hope his welcome dinner with God isn’t anytime soon. The angel’s hand that is actually his partner’s drifts over his forelock, her fingers guiding his hair back into its part.

“Mulder, can you hear me?”

He nods, hungry for some sense of things.

“You were shot, Mulder. By me. Because you were acting very stupid.”

She killed him?!? Maybe he shouldn’t be so shocked by this, but he can’t help himself. And she’s here too, so how did that happen? Murder-suicide?

Her hand sweeps his shoulder, and he looks down to see the space where her bullet must have pierced him. Patched up right above his heart. He didn’t expect to carry wounds into the afterlife.

Her eyes meet his, blue as ever. “I’ve been taking care of you, and you’ll be just fine.”

His lips form an O, but no sound follows.

“Let me get you some water.” Scully disappears from his line of sight, and he realizes that his cloud has a roof and an open door. You can’t see those from the ground.

Scully returns with a plastic water bottle. Deer Park, to be exact--another thing he didn’t expect to find in Heaven. She holds it to his lips, tilting the liquid gently into his mouth. He revels in it, vitality slowly being returned to him.

At last, his tongue functions as it should. “Where are we, Scully?” he asks, his voice creaky. He’s beginning to think it’s not Heaven after all, but the back of his partner’s Chevy. Which feels about as equally likely, if he’s honest.

“At a gas station In Texas, about two miles off I-40,” she answers, twisting the cap back on the bottle. “We’re headed to a Navajo reservation in New Mexico.”

Met with the realization that his life is not, in fact, over, Mulder tries to piece together the last moments he can remember. He squints, the sun outside the vehicle colliding with the darkness in his brain. He remembers a fever and a bed that was not his.

“Did I sleep in your bed?” he asks, fairly confident that more important things before and after have slipped his mind.

“You did indeed,” Scully replies. And before he can get to it--”Melissa and I shared.”

“Ah.” He pushes himself up, every muscle in his arms rebelling.

Scully pats his shoulder. “You should stay reclined.”

“I’m like a whale in a fish bowl back here,” he protests. And he’s not wrong, Scully knows this. To fit him in, she leaned his head against the driver’s side windowsill and let his bare feet push against the passenger side door, then said a silent prayer that there would be no potholes.

“Why can’t I come up front?” he whines. “I’ll lean the seat back.”

“Because Missy’s sitting there.”

Mulder glances into the front, his expectations of privacy shattered. Still, an empty passenger’s seat meets his gaze. “Well, where is she then?” he pesters, more pointed than intended.

Scully chuckles. You can put a hole in the man’s chest, but you can’t take the restlessness out of him. “She’s inside getting snacks.” Scully smiles at her partner, fondness flowing out in a way she rarely lets it. He’s been out for a couple days now--and while she was closely monitoring him and knew he was okay--she’s so glad that he has come back to her. “Do you want sunflower seeds?” she asks with a sparkle in her eyes.

He nods. “Sp--”

“Spitz.” The moments that have gotten them there, that have indebted her with that knowledge, flash through her mind. “I know.”

And it feels almost prophetic, to Mulder, that she does.

--------------------

The plains of North Texas roll past them, headlights and moonlight meeting in a demure embrace. The two-lane road bears a great resemblance to many they’ve gone down in days past. There’s no one else in sight.

Mulder has been relieved of his back seat duties, taking Melissa’s place at the passenger side so she could get some sleep. He’s slipped on the shirt Scully swiped from his apartment, a Knicks 1990 tee that she must have found in the corner of the living room where he throws his dirty clothes. He wonders if she even packed anything for herself before she hightailed it out of the city.

He couldn’t have imagined that punching Skinner would lead to his father dead, him shot by his partner, and them on the run across the country. And yet, there’s no place he’d rather be. The desert gifting them with a stunningly clear night, he’s opened the car’s sunroof and kicked back to stare up at the stars. The radio having long turned to static, quiet permeates the car.

“I’d gladly live in the middle of nowhere if I got this view every night,” Mulder remarks, drinking in the night sky.

Scully glances at him. There’s a rogue part of her brain that hoped he’d be looking back at her. Alas, the sky is his mistress.

They continue barreling down the highway, about seven hours out from their destination. The speedometer reads 87 mph...Scully is prone to speeding when she can get away with it.

“Keep it up and we’ll beat the sunrise,” Mulder jests.

“That’s the plan.”

Mulder pulls his seat back into place, popping suddenly into Scully’s peripheral vision. “Hey Scully, can I ask you a question?”

“If I said no, would that stop you?”

“Negative.”

“Go on, then.”

“Setting aside the why--though I’d be interested in that, too--how exactly did you decide that shooting me near the heart would be the safest bet?...Unless you wanted to kill me.”

“Well, I was pretty certain I’d be able to remove the bullet with what you had in your apartment, since the wound isn’t near a bone. That also makes it easier to prevent infection.”

“So you either have an insane amount of confidence in your shot, or you don’t value me very much,” he quips.

Scully smirks. “Lucky for you, I consider target practice a great stress reliever.”

“Does the Bureau psychologist know that?”

She bats his arm playfully, the car swerving as she does.

“Hey, that’s no way to treat a patient. Now I know why you’re not practicing.”

“Oh, did I forget to mention…? I’ve decided that I prefer Dr. Scully to Special Agent Scully, so this is the last you’ll be hearing from me.”

Mulder chuckles, though the very idea that there could be any truth to that gives him a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach. “There are millions of doctors out there,” he says, “and some of them aren’t even the cool type. Special Agent? That’s way sexier.”

“Oh, is that the metric we’re measuring at now?”

“That’s the metric I’m always measuring at,” he deadpans.

“Mmm.” Scully looks at the rearview mirror, her sister’s steady-breathed sleep reflecting back at her. Good. She’d never hear the end of it if Missy overheard this conversation.

Mulder rubs his eyes, the events prior to his blackout having flowed back to him through the waking hours. “I’m sure I’ll regret asking this,” he begins, “but am I a fugitive?”

Scully glances out the driver’s window, as if she were going to change lanes though there is nowhere to go and no one else around. “I took your weapon to ballistics and proved it wasn’t the one used in the murder.” She says it so casually, Mulder notices, distancing them from the fact that the victim was his father. “But you’re still the only one placed at the scene, and it doesn’t look good that you called the police then ran. Still, the evidence implies that it wasn’t you. Of course, there’ll be suspicion…”

“Especially since we’ve both disappeared…”

“Hey, we’re on FBI business,” Scully declares. “We didn’t go through the official channels, but this is related to the X-Files.”

“Maybe Skinner will believe that if he hears it from you.”

“That’s what I’m banking on.”

Mulder smiles. She’s using her reputation to pull off a ruse. And damn, does that turn him on.

He breathes in the scents of the car--the McDonalds fries they bought with Melissa’s credit card (just to be safe), his own eau de cologne from three days without a shower, but, above all, Scully’s sweetness. Her, just...her. A hint of strawberry, a swipe of gardenia perfume, and her honey-suckle skin. Smoke was never a fitting scent for her, and he is glad she has given it up.

“I’m guessing it’s safe to say you never caught up to Krycek,” Mulder mutters, balling up the fast-food straw paper and tossing it in the air. “Unless you’ve got him in the trunk.”

Scully shakes her head. “No stowaways besides you. He ran off after I shot and catching him wasn’t exactly my top priority.”

“So you do value my life…”

Scully flashes a brilliant but bashful smile. “You caught me.”

What a relationship they have. They are each other’s slayer and savior; a cut of the knife stitched by a meticulous hand. Hurt then healed on the other’s command.

“Fox…”

Mulder glances at the backseat. He finds Melissa sound asleep, snoring softly, and his gaze snaps back to the other Scully in the car. What glitch in the universe has led her to address him by his dreaded name?

He has never been so sure as in this moment---his partner is an otherworldly being, something supernatural. Not an alien, nothing so sinister...but perhaps the angel he imagined, or a fairy who has guided mankind for millennia, or a genie granting his wishes in freeze-frames. She looks through him...not in a way which makes him invisible, but one that takes the physical aspect out of it entirely. She sees his soul. He knows this.

“Fox,” she continues, layering on the vulnerability, “I’m sorry about your father. I know you loved him, above it all.”

Mulder pinches the bridge of his nose. “Something like that...I don’t know, honestly, that he ever loved me.” He looks at his lap. “He spent his last breath asking for forgiveness. You have to wonder what he’s done with his life to end up there.”

“It all becomes clear at the end,” Scully responds, not so much a hypothesis as a statement of fact, drawn from experience. “His regrets caught up to him, and he loathed some things he did while cursing himself for the things he left undone...And in that moment, an apology was all he could do to right some wrongs.”

Mulder looks at her through the corner of his eye, somewhat disturbed by the oracle she has become. “He asked me to forgive him,” Mulder replies. “That’s not the same as an apology.”

“Isn’t it, though?’

Mulder crosses his arms over his chest, the lumpy gauze of his wound rubbing him through his shirt. “Well, first of all, he didn’t even specify what I was supposed to forgive him for, so I don’t see how that can yield any sort of apology. And the very fact that was saying it at the end of his life means that it wasn’t actually about soothing my feelings, but lessening his guilt. Really, it didn’t have a damn thing to do with me.”

“So you’re saying it was a selfish apology, and that doesn’t count.”

“Exactly.”

“So do apologies only work if the recipient accepts them?” Scully interjects. “Is there no value in the attempt?”

Mulder bites his lip.

“I’m not trying to play devil’s advocate,” she clarifies. “I’m genuinely curious about what you think.”

He sighs. “I think...what matters is not necessarily if the apology is accepted, but the intent of it. Like in this case, it was ill-timed, and so I don’t accept it. Maybe if he had said it to me ten years ago, it would have mattered, even if I were too stubborn to accept it at the time.”

“So if your father had apologized to you ten years ago, you would accept it now that he’s dead…?”

Mulder shrugs. “I think I’d realize that he actually meant it, and so I should cut him some slack.”

“Interesting.” Scully says nothing else, keeping her attention straight ahead.

Mulder smirks. “You don’t agree with me, do you?”

She pulls her lips into a tightly-knitted line. “No, no, that makes sense. I just think there are instances when a poorly-timed apology is accepted, and what then? Is the inevitable misunderstanding that will result the recipient’s fault for being so naive? Or do they get to place all the blame on the dishonest person?”

“How about a little bit of both, ey? Spread the blame out nice and evenly. A sprinkle there, a pinch here...”

Scully cracks a smile. Of course he’d make this conversation dirty. “You know, you scare me sometimes, Mulder.”

And just like that, they’re back to his preferred name. He lets out a sideways smile. “Yeah? Why?”

“Because I think that maybe you’re truly crazy, you’re not just faking it.”

He laughs, deep and sudden. Pulled from the trenches of his being. “Glad to hear it,” he snickers. “Glad to hear it.”

-------------------------

As the motorcycle rumbles over the desert dust, Scully wonders how she could be so stupid. Barely out of psychosis and she sends Mulder to a burial ground. She didn’t intend for it to be his final resting place.

Eric had tried to warn him before the helicopter men, as he called them when describing the scene to Scully and Melissa, burned the place. But Mulder couldn’t hear him over the whirl of the blades--that’s what Eric suspected. As he recounted to the girls, the smoking man had threatened him, had laid a grotesque hand on him and forced him to show the way back to his house. They interrogated his father Albert and bruised and bloodied him. The conclusion, all around, was that nobody knew where Mulder was. Regardless of whether he had burned in that boxcar or somehow disappeared into the desert beforehand, he was gone.

Scully has a pretty clear idea of who’s responsible, and she wishes she had a helicopter she could ram into their dumb black helicopter to wipe them off the face of the Earth... and prevent them from wiping anyone else off the face of the Earth. Thwarting their ambitions will have to be enough.

But how? Desert heat mixes with smoldering ash as she stands over what’s left of the boxcar, making the moment unbearable. It is obvious to her that if Mulder was still in the boxcar when the ignitor went off, he is now dead. No human can survive that magnitude of burning--he would, in fact, be incinerated. Not a piece of him left behind, identifiable even to Scully’s trained eye.

And if he wasn’t in the boxcar, if he heard the helicopter and gave himself over to the desert? What then? Surely he would have found his way back to where she was standing by now. Surely she’d be able to see him, hear him, touch him. There’d be proof he was something more than ashes. Maybe even, he might have made it back to the motel. But Melissa is keeping watch, and she hasn’t said a word. Missy would not play games about this.

Logic prevailing, as it often does with her, Scully lets Eric drive her back to the motel. If he’s not here, then he’s there. And if he’s not there then--well, she knows. And isn’t it just like Mulder to leave her enough evidence to point one way without giving her the proof she needs to conclude? She imagines a funeral sans a body and shutters.

When they get back to the motel and Missy opens the door and she is alone in the room, Scully is not surprised. She is shattered. It’s like learning the day you’ll die, then waking up on that day and recoiling at the calendar. What will be cannot be stopped. Not by any power of persuasion. Any.

She wants to scream, cry, file a personal complaint with God. Instead, she walks through the door, thanks Eric for his help, then asks her sister what she wants for dinner. Scully’s not hungry--she rarely is these days, and how could she be at a time like this?--but Melissa, she’s human, and she’s been waiting around all day, and all they have in the room is a quarter-full bag of gummy worms, so yeah, Scully decides, Missy probably is hungry. And that’s something she can take care of.

Missy looks at her sister like--well, like she said she just saw an alien. “Dana, you’re not well.” Then, after getting no reaction--”It’s okay to be upset.”

Scully throws her blazer over a chair. ”I didn’t say I wasn’t upset.”

Missy sits down on the bed and pats the space next to her. “Come on, let’s talk about it.”

Scully throws her hands in the air. “He’s gone, Melissa, what else can I say?” She paces through the room. “If he was in the box car, he burned to death. And if he wasn’t, then shouldn’t we have found him by now?”

“Not necessarily,” Missy counters. “Albert told me about the Anasazi, a tribe that lived here hundreds of years ago.”

“I know, I know. They disappeared, historians have no explanation for it.”

‘“That’s what they say. But, honestly, Dana--nothing disappears without a trace. Mulder included.”

Scully shoots her a look. “So what is your explanation? That he was abducted, despite there being multiple witnesses who didn’t see a thing?”

“He called you, he said he saw something in the boxcar.”

Scully nods. “Bodies...lots of them. He said they didn’t look human. And they all had smallpox vaccination scars.”

“What do you make of that?”

Scully shrugs. “I don’t know, but I don’t think it has anything to do with the Anasazi.”

“So why did the men burn the boxcar?”

“It could have been because Mulder was in there, and they wanted to kill him. Or because what’s in there was damning to them.”

Missy bites her lip. “Did the boxcar blow up?”

“No, but it’s still smoldering.”

“Could you go in tomorrow and take a look? See what you can find?”

“Missy, I doubt there’s anything left. And besides, I’ve already ignored about thirty calls from Director Skinner. I need to get back to DC...I’m lucky if I’ll still have a job.”

“Fuck the job. Think of Mulder.”

“I need to consider both if I’m actually to uncover any of the conspiracies that Mulder--and his father and so many others--died as a result of.”

Melissa frowns. Dana’s already counting her partner out...that’s hard to come back from, being christened as a corpse. She sighs. ”Alright, I’m going to preface this by saying that I truly don’t believe that Mulder’s dead, and I know you will find him.”

Scully’s eyes narrow, intrigued by her sister’s shift in tone. “Okay…”

“There’s a technique that I learned from my therapist friend,” Missy begins, already setting off alarm bells in Scully’s head, “that is meant to help process complicated feelings about a person.”

Scully purses her lips as Missy continues--”It’s used to find clarity and--if it’s someone you’ve lost, literally or metaphorically--to give closure. I think it would help you establish a clear motivation to keep up your work on the X-Files.”

Scully’s forehead creases right between the eyebrows. “I just told you, I have one.”

“Yes, but if you go back to Washington, bureaucracy’s gonna get in the way of all of that. That’s why you drove out here in the first place, isn’t it? To avoid bureaucracy and push forward with the case?”

“I suppose,” Scully mumbles.

“And that’s exactly what Mulder would have done, and that’s what he would want you to do now.”

“This is beginning to sound like one of those ‘if x jumped off a bridge, would you?’ scenarios,” Scully retorts.

“But with the opposite sentiment,” Melissa clarifies. “You and Mulder have never been closer to finding the truth. Now do you want to hear my suggestion or not?”

Hands on her hips, Scully’s silence commands Missy to continue.

“Let me remind you that Mulder is not dead, and this is just an exercise.”

Scully nods, more to keep her moving than in agreement.

“I want you to write a eulogy for him.”

Scully’s mouth drops open in protest. “And this is going to advance the investigation how?”

“By giving you emotional clarity. Essentially, you’ll realize how much he means to you, and it will push you to do whatever you can to complete the investigation.”

Scully scoffs. “You act like I don’t even like him or something.”

“You like him, but you’re afraid of imitating him. There’s a lack of...respect for his methods. And they’re the only way this case is gonna get solved.”

Scully crosses her arms. “Gee, apparently you should have gone to Quantico in my place.” It’s not that she’s afraid, per say, but that she doesn’t think Mulder’s unconventional approach will work. Two plus years in and she still believes herself more than him. She wishes she didn’t.

“You don’t have to read the eulogy out loud,” Missy coos, knowing full well that she’ll be sneaking around during the night to get her hands on it when her sister refuses to share.

“Wow, thanks. That makes me feel a lot better,” Scully groans.

Melissa squeezes her sister’s shoulders. “It’s gonna be okay. You’ll find him, and this will help you know what to say when you do.”

Scully leans into the hug. “For the record, I think this is insane, alright? I’m only doing it because it’s getting too late to search the desert.”

“Understood.” Missy stands up. “Oh, and to answer your question, Albert invited us over for a traditional tribal feast at his house.”

“What?”

“You asked what I wanted for dinner. Those are our plans.”

“Oh.” Scully looks at her lap. It seems unfair to have to face the world at a time like this. Especially when her head is plagued with thoughts about what she would--will?--say at her partner’s funeral. And still, she continues.

--------------------

Crowding around Albert’s dining table, the party finishes the last bites left on their plates. It has been a long day--or days, more accurately--and the desolate black sky outside makes Scully feel like it’s 4am, though the clock only reads 7. She blinks toward her company, trying to remain present.

“I am thankful we could share this meal,” Albert says, nodding to Scully and her sister. “It is not often we get outsiders here, and even less often that we’re able to indulge in the foods of our ancestors.”

Missy reaches for the final piece of fry bread, biting into it daintily.

“There’s not a lot here,” Albert tells them, eyes downcast. “Nowadays, we take what we can get, and that means eating to survive...your processed foods and non-perishables have become the staples of our diets.”

Scully tries not to frown. “Well, we’re very glad that you prepared this for us. It was delicious,” she says, trying to inject enthusiasm into her downtrodden heart.

“Yes, thank you very much,” Missy affirms.

Albert casts his eyes in Scully’s direction. A shadow falls over her. From where, she is not certain.

“You are hurting, but you do not need to be. What is yours will find you. There is no such thing as disappearance.”

Scully pulls her lips into a solemn smile. “That’s kind of you to say.”

“It is the truth. The desert acts in its own way, and it is never wrong.”

Scully nods, trying to believe him. Trying to have faith. “Thank you, Albert.”

From across the table, he extends his palms toward her. “Pray with me.”

She clasps his hands and closes her eyes. Prayer is not normally something she engages in with others around, but neither is grief.

Albert begins speaking in the language written on the Defense Department files. She doesn’t understand the words, but his sincerity transcends semantics. The spirit of faith--the spirit of God--is there.

She has been thinking lately of faith. The faith she has been feeling is not that of Sunday mornings and ‘forgive me Father for I have sinned.’ It’s something else entirely, something that has compelled her to do things she would never do... until she looked down at her hands and she was doing them.

So many transgressions to count, and yet she hesitates to even call them that. Injured her partner--a suspected fugitive--to keep him from implicating himself, tapped her sister as her sidekick to take him halfway across the country, and deserted her duties at the FBI, all in favor of the truth.

Maybe truth is faith that good will prevail.

--------------------------

When Scully sits down that night with the motel notepad and a pen, she becomes a conduit for everything she couldn’t say out loud. She copies the entire Mulder file from her brain, and it still doesn’t feel like enough. It doesn’t capture any of his essence, the unique flavor of humanity that he bravely faced the world with which made him so...him.

It is then that Scully realizes you can know all the details of someone’s life without ever really knowing them, and that scares her because she gets the inkling that she has never truly let Mulder in--though he has opened up to her--and what if he dies feeling like he never got further than the young woman whose physics thesis he read? That’s not fair, not when she knows him so well.

She takes a breath and puts the pen down. She can’t compose Mulder to life. Resurrection doesn’t work that way. What she can do--and what she realizes is what every person does in this situation, and there must be something wrong with her because it wasn’t her first instinct--is write about how the man she knows (knew?) made her feel. About the impact his life had on her life.

Her vision blurs as she works to consolidate her unauthorized biography of Fox William Mulder into a passage that suggests the joy their partnership brought into her life. Though Missy said she wouldn’t have to share, Scully can’t shake the feeling that she will need this at some point in time, that having a eulogy on call might not be such a bad idea. It’s a terrible thought, but a truth every agent knows. After all, she and Mulder witnessed each other writing their wills, and that was considered a customary work duty. Nothing is out of reach.

And so she wrote as if she’ll have to read it one day, letting her emotions flow within the confines of her finely tuned self-awareness. The end product turns out somewhat more sentimental than she envisioned, but she caps her pen and walks away, giving herself permission to take up space.

--Fox William Mulder--

As he despised being called by his first name, I must take the liberty of referring to my partner as Mulder one last time. I was lucky to know him. Not as Spooky or the alien-obsessed man in the basement, but for who he truly was. Nothing was more important to Mulder than the truth. And the truest truth I know about him is that he loved his sister, and he wanted justice for her. It’s what he spent his life on, and ultimately, what he sacrificed it for. I am honored to have played any role in his mission, and I hope to continue it in his memory.

If there’s one piece of Mulder that I hope to carry with me for the rest of my life, it’s his tenacity. Mulder never, never let any obstacle get in his way. I can’t tell you how many times I wasn’t sure where he was, only to learn that he had flown to the ends of the Earth to investigate whatever lead he found promising that day. I doubt that I’ll ever encounter anyone who lives up to the passion and determination he contained within him. And it’s a shame because the world needs that...The world needed him.

I needed him too. He challenged me in ways I never dreamed of. Sometimes I wanted to pull my hair out, but mostly, I just kept thinking about how boring my life would be if I never met him. And now...I don’t know what’s next. There were so many possible futures ahead for us and the X-Files. This isn’t just a eulogy for Mulder, it’s a eulogy for all that could have been. He was my best friend. There’s nothing more I can say.

When she reads it back the next morning, she falls to her knees in conversation with God, pleading for a miracle to bring the man she has finally realized she loves back into her life.

#this got tender as hell #truly a labor of love <3 #thank you for reading as always #only the light fic #missy and scully fic #the x-files #txf fanfic #txf #dana scully #fox mulder #melissa scully #mine

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mulderist · 4 years ago

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Wicked Game

Chapter 1 // Chapter 2 // read on AO3 // @today-in-fic

Washington, D.C - 1948. Fox Mulder is a detective on the top vice unit; scandal, corruption, and lies come with the territory. He is forced to investigate a fellow officer and finds the lies go much deeper than the truth.

CHAPTER 3

Arlington National Cemetery One week later 9:17 am

Leaves rustled in the trees overhead as the honor guard reloaded and repositioned their rifles. The sharp bang, like a hit on a snare drum, echoed through the eerie calm of the cemetery. I could feel it happening again. Everytime I thought I was past this nonsense it kept coming back. I wanted to close my eyes but it would have brought me back to the mud and rain of Wake Island. When you’ve been knee deep in death you never forget it. I could still smell the humid air, the burnt powder, the smoke.

I closed my eyes for a moment and balled my fist tighter as images clear as photographs flashed before me. Three years ago, I donned the dress blues and watched a soldier from my company laid to rest. It felt like I was having a heart attack as I listened to the twenty-one guns and the cries of his grieving widow. Fingers pressed hard creating a thick new line in my palm and my flashback dissolved.

Each shot up to this point was torture. My salute wavered with the final pop and I felt the elephant on my chest move aside, allowing me to breathe a little. A bead of sweat broke free from under my hatband and took a slow slide down my temple. The back of my neck prickled. I swallowed hard and moved to parade rest as the honor guard queued up and left the gravesite. My fingers slowly loosened their curl and I felt the circulation return to the tips. Once the ringing in my ears stopped I was able to appreciate the sound of silence.

It was a small group of mourners, mainly fellow Marines from Spender’s company and a few officers from the precinct. He had no wife, no kids, not sure if his mother was still alive. Seems that the only family representative was his father. Jeffrey had the distinction of a military funeral at Arlington due to his rank and heroics at Guadalcanal. At the drop of a hat he would tell the story about surviving hand-to-hand combat and rescuing a senior officer during a nighttime raid. I’m sure each time he retold it, that fish got a little bigger. At any rate, he’s now buried amongst other honorable men. His father was able to cut through any red tape like a hot knife through butter to make it happen. And almost as if on cue I spied the old man in his expensive dark striped suit accepting condolences. I recognized him through the smoke cloud that hung around like a bad party guest. I suppose he could feel my eyes on him because he headed my direction. He gestured to another older gentleman, who I assumed was his driver, and continued his approach. It was the first time I was able to truly observe him. He had all the obvious characteristics of old D.C. politics; dower demeanor, rigid walk, air of superiority.

“Sir, I’m sorry for your loss,” I said flatly as he approached. The scent of Morleys invaded my nose.

“Thank you, mister -?” He asked while offering a perfunctory handshake.

“Mulder,” I replied as I shook his hand then tugged at my uniform jacket.

“Ah yes,” he practically hissed, “You were Jeffrey’s partner in the vice unit. Keeping the city safe from crime and debauchery.” The cigarette smoking man took one more drag then let the stick hang on his lower lip. “My son had great potential. To be killed in the line of duty is a tragedy.”

I didn’t know what type of condolence to offer. I wasn’t great friends with his son in the first place, it was a professional relationship and not much more.

“The precinct lost a good detective,” I finally managed to say. Jesus, that felt bitter on my tongue. I licked my lips, hoping this conversation would soon be over; my pleasantries were skating on thin ice. The Smoking Man stubbed out his cigarette and rattled off something about his resources that could aid in our murder investigation. Apparently he and the commissioner were old chums and justice would be swift. Then he took the cue and left. I stole a deep breath and watched him head towards his driver then enter a large black Cadillac that was parked at the base of the knoll.

My feet hit the pathway just as I heard my name being called from over my shoulder. I paused and turned to see Captain Skinner walking my direction.

“Just had a conversation with Spender’s old man.” I said.

“Is that so?” He questioned as he removed his glasses.

“Turns out he has the district police in his pocket so my services might not be needed with this investigation,” I said sarcastically.

“Did he know your connection to the case?”

“He knows I was Spender’s partner, but not that I was at the scene.”

Skinner squared his jaw then continued to walk past me away from the thinning crowd. I followed.

“I’m awaiting the final report from the coroner. They found something of interest on the autopsy.”

“A different cause of death? Figured the gunshots were obvious,” I said.

“There was additional bloodwork. I’m not certain what the M.E. was looking for, which is why I want the final report.” He stopped and faced me. “Mulder, I don’t typically recommend this course of police action however this is a unique situation.”

“Sir?”

“I want you to use whatever channels you have available. Legal or -- otherwise. Use the boys in forensics to your advantage. See if you can get that report and keep this ‘eyes only.”

I raised an eyebrow at the request. It’s not everyday your boss asks you to operate in the gray. Then it clicked.

“You want to keep this hush-hush.”

“I want to keep the reputation of this precinct and my vice unit intact,” he replied cryptically. I could only nod and watch as he slowly left for his car. I took an opposite path. There was a humming in my head that I wanted to knock loose with a stroll.

Flanked by rows of white crosses on green hills I continued along the pathway and suddenly saw a familiar flash of red. She was standing at a simple headstone, adjusting a small arrangement of flowers. Out of respect I waited until she stepped away onto the path before I approached.

“Excuse me,” I called from behind with a casual wave of my hand. When she looked over her shoulder I knew it was her.

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry to bother you, miss,” I began but clammed up when I saw those pools of blue. In that instant, that split second, it’s like I forgot the damn English language. My feet kept moving and I tried to say something.

“It’s no bother,” she said, thankfully.

“Are you by chance a nurse at Washington General?” I finally sputtered as we stopped walking. She nodded then thought for a moment, her arms hugged her petite frame.

“You look familiar,” she said with a delicately pointed finger, “Have we met before?”

“We have,” I replied. She cautiously moved closer to size me up. She surveyed my uniform and I felt like I was back in the barracks.

“You were the -- detective, right? -- who worked on a last name basis?”

“That’s my calling card. The name’s Mulder,” I said, “Remind me yours?”

“Dana Scully,” she said with a hint of a polite smile.

Scully. There it was. The stray thread was pulled and unraveled the memory of her name, each and every letter. She continued,

“How’s your shoulder?”

“Almost back to my pitching prime.” I replied as I gave it a roll. I had to watch myself with this one. Memory like a steel trap. Her head tilted curiously to the side.

“You clean up nice.” There was a quick flush to her cheeks as she took a small step back, wishing that remark stayed to herself. I smiled and now it was my turn to shift gears.

“I saw you laying down some flowers.” I said, curiosity getting my proverbial cat. Her lips pressed together.

“My father,” she said, “He is - was - a captain in the Navy. It was six years ago; Midway. I like to keep his flowers fresh if I can.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I replied with the only thing I could muster. Her statement was simple but knocked the wind out of my sails. Scully dipped her head and nodded. She then asked,

“Do you have someone here?”

“I’ve got a couple guys from my company, though I don’t visit too often. But today was my partner.”

“Oh,” she said softly, “It’s a funny state of the world when you can have a conversation about who you lost as easy as asking ‘how’s the weather.’”

For a moment I had nothing to say. A thousand scenarios ran through my head. I wanted to know more, I wanted to know everything about her. There was a natural beauty of course but something about her mind reeled me in. I cleared my throat. This chat was on the verge of getting cozy but seemed out of place in the current setting.

“May I walk you to your car?”

“Thank you but I’ll be fine. My sister is waiting for me. Besides, we only just met.” A smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth.”

Playing coy, I liked that.

“Well then, good day Miss Scully.”

“Good day Mr. Mulder.” She shook my hand and lingered for a moment. “If you’re ever in Georgetown look me up. Hopefully we can meet again.”

“I sincerely hope so,” I said. She turned heel and left me on the path. The curve of her pencil skirt, a flutter of the hem, the lines of her smart blouse made the goodbye feel less permanent. I listened to a breeze sweep through the tree line then I backtracked to where I was parked.

I needed to get out of this uniform.

-------

Hegal Place Alexandria, VA

My apartment felt stale. I forced open a window to let in some fresh air. In the wardrobe hung one clean, pressed dress shirt along with my police dress blues. Of course the only shirt remaining was the one I wore the night Spender was killed. The good thing about an old jaded dry cleaner is you get quality work and little questions. I sipped my coffee and remembered I might have a vacation shirt stashed away in a drawer. As I donned the new shirt I heard the phone ring. I was waiting for a call from the boys in forensics who were a little too eager to give me a hand.

“Mulder? It’s Frohike.”

“What have you found?”

“As you know, Langley and I were able to fish out a casing from the bathroom stall door, the back wall and a sneaky little devil in the bar. Turns out these paired nicely with the one lodged in Spender’s abdomen.”

“Who’d the weapon belong to?”

“Carlo Lodi.” Frohike asked. I scanned through the mugshot portfolio in my head. There he was. A hulking brute nicknamed The Titan who was quick with a fist and a trigger.

“Yeah. He’s one of Vincenti’s favorite enforcers.”

“We’ve seen his handiwork before,” Frohike continued, “He leaves a real pretty signature, although he’s usually a little more precise. Execution style seems to be his forté.”

“That’s what I thought when I was at the scene. I still don’t know if he intended to take me out as well.”

“Just like you to get in the way, Mulder.” There was a chuckle in the other end of the phone.

“Hey Frohike, has the final report come in from the M.E.?”

“Ah, funny you should mention that. I have a preliminary copy and it shows that there was heroin in his system.”

“Shit,” I stated after a pause.

“What is it?”

“It means Krycek was right.”

#i wrote this #xf fanfic #mulder pov #historical au

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atths--twice · 4 years ago

Link

And now it’s time for their only visitor to see how they are doing and meet the baby.

The Ninth Month 6h/6

Chapter Eight

The Visitor

Scully gets an unexpected but most welcomed visitor.

October 31st- late afternoon

Scully was feeling a smidge more like an actual human. She had a shower and changed her gown again. She still ached and felt like a freight train had crashed into her lower half, but she was cleaner than she had been a couple of hours ago.

Faith had also had a bath. The day nurse, an older woman named Jill, had brought in a basin and helped them give her her first bath. Mulder had really been in charge of helping and Scully had taken some pictures with his phone. He had been so nervous and adorable, ill had already fallen in love with him, therefore he could do no wrong in her eyes.

He put Faith’s diaper on and put on a little onesie, extra careful and asking all kinds of questions. Jill had smiled and answered them all. She showed him how to swaddle the baby once she was dressed, then let him try on his own. When he got it right, he had grinned at Scully. She got another picture before Jill had helped her into the bathroom for her shower.

When she came out, Mulder was sitting on the couch with Faith. Her head resting on his chest, his hands resting on her head and her bottom, holding her securely. She could see his fingers slowly rubbing across her back, his eyes closed.

When he heard her shuffling around, he opened his eyes and smiled at her, his eyes so full of love. She got back in bed and laid down again, Jill making sure she was okay. Mulder got up and brought her the baby. He said he was going to go down to the cafeteria and get some coffee and a snack and he would be back in a few minutes. She nodded and he left the room.

She sat staring at the baby as she held her in her arms, marveling at the intricacy of her features. Her perfect eyebrows, her lips, the softness of her skin, the dark hair that seemed to have the smallest hint of red. She was perfect and so beautiful.

She moved in her sleep and her eyebrows went up, her face scrunched, and she wiggled her tiny body, before settling down again. Scully felt such happiness within her, it was like a drug coursing through her system. It had been worth it. All the pain and the worry, for this moment, and this person she was holding. She was so in love with her already.

The hospital room door opened slowly and she thought Mulder was back already. A pink balloon came through the door, then a shiny pink Mylar one saying “It’s a girl!,” and finally the person attached to the end of the strings. Skinner. Mulder must have called him.

She smiled at him and at the way he visibly relaxed, when he saw she was awake. He put the balloons in the chair by the bed and walked over to her.

He bent and kissed her cheek as he looked at the baby. Putting his hand on Scully’s shoulder, he lightly touched the baby’s head with the other. Scully watched him touch her, unable to tear her eyes away from the baby’s face.

“She’s perfect, Dana,” Skinner said in a whisper and Scully smiled. He stroked her small head and then stood up and back from the bed. Scully looked up at him and smiled.

“Would you like to hold her?” she asked him quietly.

She saw his moment of panic, but she nodded encouragingly at him as she started to shift around and move the baby. She waited until he put his hands out and then she passed her over. He cradled her head and pulled her in close. She smiled at the sight of him holding her second child. Skinner, the big tough man, losing his cool exterior when a baby was placed in his arms.

He kept his eyes on the baby before glancing at her with a smile. He moved the balloons and sat down on the edge of the chair. Scully moved around a little, seething when pain shot through her lower half.

Skinner looked over at her and she shook her head. She raised the head of the bed up a little to a more comfortable position. She smiled watching Skinner look at the baby. He smiled softly as he did, unaware that she was staring at him.

Tears filled her eyes at the beauty of the moment. The sweet way he held and murmured to her. He smiled at her and then looked back at Scully.

They smiled at each other and he sat back in the chair. He looked at the baby again and sighed.

“She is truly beautiful. I don’t know if this will sound good or bad, considering she’s a girl, but she looks a lot like Mulder,” Skinner said as he watched her sleep. Scully laughed and Skinner looked at her with a smile.

“Since I have always enjoyed looking at Mulder, I’ll take that as good news,” she said, still chuckling. Skinner nodded and smiled. He looked down at the baby again and then shook his head, rocking her a little.

“What’s her name?” he asked.

“Faith,” Scully said, watching his reaction to the name. “Faith Katherine Mulder.”

Skinner froze his small movements and looked at Scully. She saw that he understood the meaning behind the name, without her needing to say anything. He stared at her, his gaze falling to her necklace, then back to her face. He nodded and smiled, looking back at the baby and she closed her eyes.

Other hospital visits flashed through her memory. Her cancer, Mulder’s journey back from the dead, Mulder’s mother taken ill, both of them wounded countless times in duty. Skinner had made an appearance at nearly all of them.

The memory presenting itself most, was him arriving to tell her Mulder had disappeared. The way his voice had broken had broken her heart as well.

She had news of her own that day. He was the first and only person who knew her secret for awhile. It was fitting he was their first visitor and the first to hold the baby besides the two of them.

She heard him sniff and she opened her eyes. He was watching the baby, but she heard another sniff. He tried to keep his face hidden, but she saw a tear. Leave it to a small bundle of happiness to bring the strong men she knew in her life to tears. Barely one day old and she already held so much power.

“That’s a fine name. Fitting. It’s a good choice,” he said, keeping his eyes on the baby. “Hello, Faith. It’s nice to meet you.”

Scully’s eyes filled and spilled over hearing him speak to her and continue his murmurings to her. Faith woke up and stared at him. Her big blue eyes seemingly taking him in.

“Wow,” he said, looking over at Scully as she wiped at her eyes. He smiled slightly. “She definitely has your eyes. Mulder is in serious trouble.”

She laughed out a sob and Skinner smiled. He stood up and brought her back to Scully. Placing Faith in her arms, he stood up again. He watched her situate the baby better before he cleared his throat. Scully looked up at him and he stepped back from the bed. He started to pace around the room, not looking at her, his hands in his pockets.

“When I was younger, my dad was a tough man. He was older when I was born, in his late forties. He was hard to get to know and he kept us all at a distance. I had two younger brothers and we all were brought up to be tough, to fight for what we wanted, stand up for ourselves,” he said as he paced. Scully watched him unsure where this was headed.

“My father did not tolerate lying, cheating, or any type of behavior that would cast himself or his sons in a bad light. He wanted us to have strong moral character." He stopped pacing and seemed to be in thought. Scully waited, saying nothing.

“When I left for Vietnam, he told me he was proud of me for my decision, to fight for my country. After I had almost died, and I came home, it was the only time my father hugged me as an adult. Honestly, probably the only time ever, that I can remember anyway. It meant more than I ever expressed to him. I was an adult by age, had fought for my country, but I was still like a child, craving the approval of my father." He paused again and then shook his head.

“After I was married and began working at the bureau, I didn’t see my father much. Phone calls, some holidays, but not much. He died in 1990 and I went home for his funeral. My mother had passed a year before from a stroke. My brothers and I spent a week getting the house ready to sell. None of us had overly fond memories of it and we all had our own lives we were living. Dealing with a house was not something we wanted. On the second to last day, when most everything else was done, we went down into the basement, where my father had spent most of his time. It was a finished room we had played in as kids. We each took a corner and started cleaning out the junk. My brother called us over to where he had been cleaning, by my father’s desk. He had found a box of letters. Letters addressed to each of us that my father never sent. We sat down, each with our letters and began to read the words he wrote, but could never say. There were letters going back years, and his words were beautiful. We sat there, the three men he raised to be tough and strong, crying over words we never heard, but could read and see plain as day. I was thirty eight years old when I learned for the first time that my father loved me." He paused and looked at Scully.

She had tears running down her face. Faith had fallen back to sleep and Scully held her as she cried for the man who was almost like a father to her. To not know love the way she had from her own father, it broke her heart.

She cried for both Mulder and Skinner. Two men who had yearned for their father’s approval and love. Neither had received exactly what they needed, but they had become good men. Honest, hardworking, moral, trustworthy, kind men.

“I know that you and Mulder will do better than my parents did and that is a comfort to me. She will not wonder if you love her, if she has fallen short in any regard, or what she can do to gain your trust and care. She will know it when she looks at you, feels your hand upon her back, lays her head on your chest, or when the day comes and she slams her door in anger but then seeks you out and all is forgiven,” he said, his eyes never leaving hers. “She will know, Dana, because she will see how you and Mulder care for each other and your love will be her example.”

Scully was openly weeping. She dropped her head and looked at the baby in her arms. The one she loved before she was born and would now die for without question. She would know she was loved and lived in a loving household. She would hear it every day and know it by the actions she would see.

Skinner walked close to the bed and waited, handing her a tissue to blow her nose and wipe her eyes. She sniffed and blew her nose once more.

Skinner placed his hand lightly on her shoulder. She took a deep breath and looked up at him, giving him a small smile.

“Thank you for telling me about your family. And you’re right, she will know she is loved. She will know how we love her and each other,” Scully said, stroking Faith's cheek.

Skinner cleared his throat again and asked if he could put the baby in her small bed. She was curious as to why, but she agreed. She handed her over to him and he put her down gently. He turned back toward Scully and reached in his inside jacket pocket. He took something out and held it in his hand before he looked at her.

“When my mother died, after the funeral, my father went down into his basement. He didn’t stay upstairs with the other mourners. He didn’t really speak to any of us, just stayed downstairs. To some, it may have seemed he didn’t care or was not grieving “properly.” I knew my father. He was grieving, but in his own way. When we were packing up the house, we found a card from my mother to my father. She told him how much she loved him and that she was thankful for spending her life with him. This was inside the envelope." He handed Scully what he had in his hand.

It was a small cloth bag with a drawstring. She untied the bag, opened it, and dumped the contents into her hand. On a silver chain was a blue stone that shone brightly in the light. Scully looked at it and then at Skinner.

“My mother’s birthday was in October, that was her birthstone, and the only piece of jewelry she wore besides her wedding ring. I don’t remember ever seeing her without it my entire life. My father bought it for her a year after they were married and she said on many occasions that aside from her children, it was her favorite thing in the world. After she died, my father must have kept it. A way to hold onto a piece of her,” Skinner said quietly.

He smiled at Scully as she cried looking again at the necklace. It was beautiful, but she could not accept something so personal and important to Skinner. She looked at him and started to try to hand the necklace back to him. He stopped her hand and held it in both of his own. He smiled again.

“I said that the name Faith was fitting. Not just because of what it means to you and to Mulder, but because of a memory I recalled when you told me her name. A memory about the necklace,” Skinner said letting go of her hand.

“She lost it once, my mother. The chain broke and she didn’t feel it slip from her neck. She cried when she noticed it was gone. No way to know where it was or when it had fallen off of her. A week it was gone. She said repeatedly she knew she would find it. She had faith that she would. My brothers and I were playing in the backyard, when I noticed something shining in the grass. It was her necklace. It must have fallen when she was hanging laundry on the clothesline outside. I brought it in to her and she cried as she held it in her hands, before she hugged me. She said she never lost faith and her necklace had been found." Skinner smiled at her and pointed to the necklace. “I don’t have, nor plan to have children of my own. When I found out you were having another baby, I planned on giving that to you. But now that I know she’s a girl, and I’ve heard her name, knowing what it means to you and Mulder, I know my mother would want Faith to have her necklace.”

Scully cried as he finished speaking. She leaned toward him and raised her arms out to him. He leaned in and held her for a minute.

“Thank you, Skinner- Walter. This necklace is a beautiful gift and the story behind it was lovely. You are right, it is fitting. I will keep it safe for her until she’s older,” she said as she grasped his hand. She looked at the necklace again. The blue of the stone was beautiful. She gently put it back in the bag. “Could you please put this in the backpack over there?

The baby gave a short cry as she handed him the necklace bag. “And then, would you mind handing me my girl? She needs to eat, and she tends to get crabby if she doesn’t get what she wants when she asks for it. She’s like her mama in that regard.”

They both laughed and he did as she asked. He scooped the baby up and handed her to Scully. He kissed her cheek again and said he would see her soon, to get some rest, and take care of that girl. He touched the baby’s head again and headed toward the door.

“Dana,” he said, his hand on the door handle. “She truly is a miracle and you chose a good name.”

She smiled at him. He opened the door and left. She kept her eyes on the door until the baby began to cry. Scully pulled her gown aside and brought the baby to her breast. She latched on and begin to nurse.

She closed her eyes and reveled in the feel of the baby nursing. Gaining what she needed to thrive.

She finished nursing her and laid her on her shoulder to gently burp her. She leaned the bed back and held the baby to her chest. She rubbed her hand up and down her tiny back.

Sleep was pulling at her as she sat with the baby. The past day catching up to her. She turned on her side, adjusting her gown. She laid the baby on the bed, cradling her in her arms. She closed her eyes and kissed her little head.

“Faith,” Scully whispered. “You are a miracle, little one, and you are so loved. So very loved.” She took a deep breath and fell asleep.

That was how Mulder found them fifteen minutes later. He looked at the balloons, wondering who had been there. He did not dwell on it too long, his gaze landing on the two people in the bed. The two women in his life who meant the world to him. He kissed both of them on the head, pulled up the chair, and sat down.

He watched them sleep before he felt his own eyes growing heavy. He leaned his head back on the seat, closed his eyes, crossed his arms, and was asleep within minutes.

Jill walked in to check on them. She stopped and smiled at the sight of them all asleep. She took out her cell phone and took a picture, slowly backed out of the room, and closed the door behind her. They needed their rest. It had been a long day for everyone in the room.

She looked at the picture of them as she walked away and she smiled. This was one of her favorite parts of her job, snapping the “first picture,” the real one, not a posing and smiling one. The one that showed the truth about birth- the exhaustion, happiness, and love.

She sent the photo to the printer and waited for it to print. She liked to slip in the picture with the file, so it was there with their discharge papers. She looked at it again when it had printed. She smiled as she walked to the nurses station. She found their file and added it to it, putting it back and heading off to the next patient, her phone ready to capture the love she knew she would always find.

________________________________________________

Ahh, Skinner. I love our FBI dad so much. He’s such a good guy, and he loves our favorite agents. He will be a great “Uncle Walter” for the baby. : )

#The X Files #XF Fanfic #Post MSIV #Pregnancy #New Baby #New Family #Happy #Love #Visitor #Sharing the love #Memories #Kindness #Family Fluff

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admiralty-xfd · 6 years ago

Text

Culmination

This is Chapter 12, to start at the beginning click here.

(Note: One of my biggest pet peeves with season 8 is Mulder’s inexplicable behavior towards Scully in “Three Words” and the shift we see from that to the pizza man banter in “Empedocles.” He’s clearly suffering from some form of PTSD but I truly believe there was so much story here, a truly wasted opportunity for character development. Missing scenes galore. So this is my attempt at making the inexplicable… explicable.)

CONFUSION

MULDER

(DeadAlive)

“Mulder?”

He opens his eyes and she is there.

He doesn’t know exactly where he is, but it looks like a hospital room. A familiar sight. He feels as if time has passed but he doesn’t know how much. He felt it when he was in the dark place, when they poked and prodded and tortured him endlessly.

He’d wanted to die. He felt dead. Then…. nothing.

He wasn’t sure how long he’d been in that place but it must have been a long time. He sees it in her face now, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Hi,” she greets him, a glow in her eyes that looks different, new. He can’t quite place it. It’s been so long since he’s seen her face, and the anguish he sees isn’t something he wants to remember. He wants to forget, he wants to forget all of this, so he cracks a joke.

“Who are you?”

Her smile disappears and her lower lip trembles. He knows she’s about to start explaining who she is, who he is, everything he would expect her to say. He’s not about to put her through that so he smiles at her, letting her know he’s kidding.

She chokes back a relieved sob. “Oh my god, don’t do that to me.”

She reaches out to touch his forehead, smoothes back his hair, something she always does. The intimacy comforts him.

“Do you know… do you have any idea what you’ve been through?” She says this to him as she cries, but he knows what she really means is does he have any idea what she’s been through. Her tears are of joy, of relief, of release. They are together again, somehow.

“Only what I see in your face.”

He can’t possibly understand anything at the moment. He doesn’t know where he is, how much time has passed, anything. But he sees her. He always sees her.

She gets as close to him as she physically can, her head on his chest. Soon the memories of what happened to him will come screaming back, he knows it. He tries to capture this moment so he has something pleasant to recall when they do. He breathes in the scent of her hair, and a hundred happy memories of her enter his mind.

“Anybody miss me?”

She laughs. Oh, how he’s missed that laugh. Maybe if he hears it enough he’ll be able to forget.

They stay together like that for a long time, holding each other. Eventually she gets up to check his vitals and the sight of her enormous pregnant belly hits him like a ton of bricks.

How…?

Suddenly he’s certain he must be dreaming. He must be, this is impossible. The in-vitro didn’t work, and Scully can’t conceive naturally. She can’t be pregnant.

This isn’t real. None of this is real. He isn’t here at all, and neither is she. He must still be stuck in the dark place. He can’t breathe.

The machines are going wild and Scully looks panicked. “Mulder?! What’s wrong?” The last thing he sees is her screaming for assistance and a team rushing in to help as the darkness takes him.

***

When he wakes again he is so tired. He doesn’t know which way is up. The disorientation is only compounded by the memories of his torture, slowly starting to seep in. He feels like a soldier returned from war.

“Mulder?” Scully is still there. “I’m here.”

“Scully…”

She takes his hand. “You had some kind of panic attack but everything seems to be okay now. How are you feeling?”

“Tell me.” His voice is practically pleading.

What the fuck is going on?

He tries to get a good look at her, tries to decide if he’s still dreaming or not. She’s sitting down again and he can’t see anything.

“You’re…” he trails off, not sure how to complete the sentence.

She looks at him, takes a deep breath. “I don’t know what you’re going to think about this.”

“Lay it on me, Scully.”

“When we found you, you were dead, Mulder. There were other abductees that had been returned and healed, and I tried to get you help but it was too late. As of three months ago, you were dead. I buried you in Raleigh, we had a funeral and everything.”

He tries to absorb this.

“Are you ready for more?”

He isn’t, but nods.

“A few days ago, Billy Miles’ body was found in the ocean. He’d been abducted and returned just like you, and he’d been dead for months. But his body hadn’t decomposed. He was still effectively alive.” She shakes her head, as if she can’t believe she’s actually telling him this. “Skinner found out about it and thought the same might happen to you. So he had your body exhumed. We don’t know how… but here you are, Mulder. I’m trying not to question it.”

“You? Trying not to question it?” he smiles, his first real smile since he woke up.

“I have you back,” she says simply.

For Scully, when it comes to matters of faith she’s far less of a skeptic. It makes no fucking sense to him but it only makes him love her more.

“Is there… anything else?” He’s fishing, and he feels like an idiot for having to ask about the elephant in the room, but he’s so unsure about what the hell is going on he’s not sure how to ask, what to say, or what to even expect.

Either she doesn’t pick up on what he’s really asking about or she doesn’t know how to start, either. Maybe she just assumes his own condition is more important.

“That’s all we know right now.”

“There’s something I have to tell you too, Scully,” he suddenly remembers. He knows he can’t hide his own secret from her any longer. “Back before… well, before… you and I…” he gestures between them and she smiles in understanding.

She already knows what he’s going to say. “I know about all the brain disease, Mulder. We obtained your medical records while we were searching for you.”

He closes his eyes, lays back on the pillow. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

She squeezes his hand. “That doesn’t matter, Mulder. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Did the doctors… say anything about that? Don’t tell me you resurrected a dead man for nothing.”

“We aren’t sure yet. They’re running some tests. We should know more in the morning.”

He looks at her face. He hasn’t seen anything so beautiful in forever and it’s like sustenance. “Can you do me a favor, Scully?”

“Yes. Anything.”

“Pinch me or something? Just humor me.”

She laughs. “I promise you this is all real, Mulder.” She doesn’t pinch him but she squeezes his hand tightly for emphasis.

She stands up. “I think you should get some rest.”

He watches her get up and sees her belly again. He turns away and squeezes his eyes shut.

Wake up, wake up. This is torture.

She must take his reaction as acquiescence to sleep because she lets go of his hand and starts to walk out of the room.

“We… have a lot to talk about, Mulder. I’ll be back later, okay?”

He keeps his eyes shut and doesn’t respond. Maybe she will think he’s trying to sleep. He hears the door close and turns his head, opening one eye. Through the window, in the hallway, he sees her with a man. He is a bit older than her, in a suit and tie with bright blue eyes. He puts his hand on her shoulder and smiles.

Mulder doesn’t know this man, he’s never seen him before. The bad thoughts he thought had disappeared after their first night together return, along with a sudden unexpected rush of jealousy.

That rush quickly transforms into something unbearable.

Of course she’s moved on. Of course she has.

He’s been gone for so long. And this guy, whoever he is, somehow gave her what he couldn’t. This must be why she hasn’t mentioned her pregnancy yet.

Everything now clicks into place. This isn’t a dream after all. It’s completely real, and it’s hell.

All the indecision and uncertainty weighing on his mind before he was abducted suddenly doesn’t matter anymore. He wants to panic. He doesn’t want to imagine his life without her, and for the first time ever he’s thinking about the very real possibility of her with some other man, raising some other man’s child, doing all the things she ever wanted to do with someone who is not him.

He can feel his heart breaking in two. When he made the decision to let her go, he hadn’t realized exactly how painful the consequences would be. He feels like a fool. She’s done exactly what he told her to do. She’s moving on and living her life, without him.

He’s lost her and there’s nothing he can do about it, nothing.

Scully and the other man walk out of his view and he turns away from the window, tears threatening to fall.

SCULLY

(Three Words)

He is alive.

This is literally all that matters, she tries to convince herself.

He’s back from the dead, unbelievably, and his mysterious brain disease has been miraculously cured. There will be plenty of time for them to figure everything out after he feels better, feels like himself again.

She’s pretty sure Mulder saw her belly in the hospital room, at nearly eight months pregnant he could hardly have missed it. So why hasn’t he said anything? Why hasn’t he smiled, or asked about it, or even made a joke? This isn’t how this is supposed to go.

Her instincts told her to deal with his recovery first, and broach this topic afterwards. Maybe that was a mistake. Now it feels like every conversation they have without mentioning it makes it harder and harder to bring up.

The last time they discussed her failed attempts at in-vitro was so long ago, before they even started sleeping together. He’d agreed to be her donor, and she assumed they’d both figure out the role he would be playing after they knew for sure he’d have a role to play. But it never happened, and neither did the discussion. They were both left completely in the dark on how they would have proceeded if it had.

She knows it’s her responsibility to say something, to start this conversation, but she doesn’t even know where to start. He’s probably confused about the how, but so is she. How will she tell him something even she doesn’t understand?

As they ascend the elevator to his apartment, he turns to her. “Why’d you keep the apartment?”

She sighs, looks up at him. She doesn’t want to tell him the real reason: because she’s been sleeping in his bed nearly every night since he left.

“I would have given it up eventually. I just… couldn’t let it go. It would have felt like losing you all over again.” They walk down the hallway. “It’s still full of all your stuff. I never went through it.”

They’ve reached his door and walk in.

“Something looks different.” He looks around, takes it in.

“It’s clean,” she says.

“That’s it.” He walks over to the tank, counts the fish. “Missing a molly,” he points out.

“She wasn’t as lucky as you.”

This isn’t right at all. He doesn’t sound like himself. What is wrong with him?

She knows he’s been through an ordeal, to say the least, but he’s acting so strangely. This isn’t how she imagined this reunion all the nights she sat with him in the hospital, holding his hand, praying desperately that he would somehow survive.

They stand there silently for a few moments, then she speaks.

“Mulder… I don’t know if you’ll ever understand what it was like. First learning of your abduction, then searching for you and finding you dead, and now to have you back…” she trails off.

He sits on the desk. “You act like you’re surprised.”

He’s trying, she thinks. He’s trying to be Mulder again. Making jokes, diffusing awkwardness. But it’s not working today. Today they need to be serious.

“I prayed a lot,” she admits. “And my prayers have been answered.”

“In more ways than one,” he smiles, gesturing to the baby.

There it is.

She sighs with relief, and touches her belly. “Yeah.” She’s about to tell him everything she knows but he beats her to the punch.

“I’m happy for you,” he says. “I think I know how much that means to you.”

Her heart drops into her stomach.

...Happy... for me? Just me? What about us?

They stare at each other like strangers.

What the fuck is going on?

He says he’s happy, so why does he look so sad? This is wrong, all of it. She can’t take it and she feels the tears start to well up.

“Mulder-“

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be cold or ungrateful, I just… have no idea where I fit in right now. I’m having a little trouble processing ...everything.”

She nods, and looks at the ground. This is clearly not going at all the way she’d hoped. Of all the uncertainties in her life, he has always been the one thing that stayed consistent: her true north. Her constant. Her touchstone. He’s so far off course at the moment she has no idea what to do. She doesn’t know why he’s acting this way. She doesn’t know how to react to this Mulder.

She thinks of Billy Miles and what happened to him, how he returned… not quite right. She feared this might happen, and although God has already answered her prayers she silently sends out one more, that this man is truly her Mulder. That he’s come back to her fully. He just needs time, she thinks. Even more time.

Suddenly she feels a strong desire to leave. “Okay, well, I guess I’ll go.”

He’s looking anywhere but at her.

“Call me if you need anything,” she adds.

He finally looks up at her and smiles. “Okay, thanks.”

The door closes behind her, and she walks slowly down the hallway, more confused than ever. So much happened in this hallway, so many moments and conversations and meaningful events and even deaths, right here outside his apartment.

As she walks away from him she feels like she’s walking away from a stranger.

***

It’s only been a couple days, and Mulder is back to all his usual tricks. Chasing leads, breaking protocol, pissing off Deputy Director Kersh, the works. Scully would be utterly annoyed if some part of her wasn’t relieved that he was at least behaving like himself again.

Scully, if you know something that can get us moving forward again you need to tell me.

He had been referring to their work, but all she could hear was “get us moving forward again” and that’s all she wants to do. That was the last time they had spoken.

In the meantime, he’d broken into the Federal Statistics Center with the Lone Gunmen, gotten into a pissing contest with Agent Doggett, and they’d both escaped with their lives.

Business as usual, in other words.

She feels like maybe it’s a good time to talk to him, now that he’s gotten some of it out of his system. They’ve lost so much time already, and the baby is due soon. It’s time for a conversation. So she invites him over.

He arrives in jeans, a gray T-shirt and leather jacket.

Christ, he looks good. Why does he have to look so good?

She feels an involuntary flush and curses the gods for her third trimester horniness. It was easier before they’d gotten together, when regular sex wasn’t a part of her life. She'd been so wrapped up in her grief it wasn't something she was terribly focused on but having him here now in her apartment is bringing it all back. Being without him all this time has been miserable in other ways, she’s realizing.

“Hey.” He sounds… happy? Glad to see her? Things have been so fucking weird she doesn’t know what to expect.

“Hi.” She lets him in and closes the door. “Sit.”

“Oh boy,” he says nervously, but follows her instructions. She sits next to him on the couch. They just look at each other for a bit, then she takes a deep breath.

“I don’t want to talk about work. I need to talk about us right now.”

“Okay.” He’s listening.

“I’m just going to come out and say this because I feel thirteen months pregnant and my hormones are crazy and I don’t want to play any games with you. Okay?”

He nods. He looks uncomfortable.

“Mulder. What the hell is up with you? Why are you acting so strangely around me?”

He opens his mouth to speak, then closes it. He seems at a total loss for words.

“Ever since you got back you haven’t been yourself, I feel like we’re two people who have never met before. I don’t like it at all.”

He can’t speak for some reason so he stares at her belly.

“Yes!" she exclaims. "The baby! Please, let’s talk about it! You haven’t said anything, I thought… I thought you’d be happy.”

Finally, he speaks. “I am happy, Scully, I’m very happy for you.”

She’s so frustrated she wants to scream. “Yes, you said that. But what about you ? How do you feel about it?”

His mouth hangs open. “I … don’t know what else you want me to say.”

Her eyes go wild, and she stands up. “What I want you to say? I want you to say you’re happy for us, Mulder! For me and for you and for our baby!”

He looks confused. “Wait… what? How… the baby is mine?”

Her jaw drops and she stares at him, gobsmacked. “For fuck’s sake, Mulder, of course it’s yours! What is wrong with you?” She’s angry now. What did he think, she’d go off with some other guy right after he was abducted? Or right after she’d buried him?

“I’m sorry, Scully, please sit down, I’m sorry!” He grabs her hands and pulls her gently down next to him. “I… I got the wrong idea, I’m sorry.”

She looks him in the eyes and shakes her head. “Wrong idea how? What are you talking about?”

His eyes look apologetic, but the confusion on his face is palpable. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot, Scully, I have. I just... couldn’t figure how it could have been me. The in-vitro didn’t work, right? There’s no other way it could have happened, is there? I guess I just thought...”

He looks so, so confused, and upset. She finally begins to understand. He doesn’t know the baby is his. He thinks since the IVF didn’t work with him, she tried again with someone else. Or worse, was in a relationship with somebody else.

No wonder he’s been acting so strangely. It all makes sense now.

“I thought there must be… someone else.” He looks hurt, but catches himself. “I wouldn’t have blamed you, Scully. I mean… I was dead. And I all but told you to move on from me the last time we saw each other. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, Mulder.” She can’t take it anymore, she needs to hold him so badly. She throws her arms around him and pulls him to her as tightly as her stomach will allow. He returns the hug and they just sit there, breathing each other in. She laughs into his ear.

“When did you think I’d have time to go out looking for men, Mulder? Honestly.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry. I feel like an asshole.”

She pulls away. “Yeah, you kind of have been. I thought this was some kind of Invasion of the Body Snatchers situation.”

“Nice, Scully.” He looks impressed.

“I just don’t understand how you could think that, Mulder. It took us seven years to get together.”

“Well, that was only because I’m an idiot.” He breathes an audible sigh of relief. “I thought maybe… that Agent Doggett. I really did.”

She sits back a bit. “What? Are you kidding me?”

“No, I really did.”

“You think I’d ask the man who was helping me look for you for his sperm? Are you serious?”

She can tell he’s starting to feel the weight of her unspoken accusations of stupidity. “I don’t know, Scully. He has very piercingly blue eyes. I almost got lost in them myself. His sperm might have been the way to go.”

She looks at him pointedly. “Mulder. That is not why you shoved him in Skinner’s office.” It’s a statement, not a question.

“I would never admit to such a thing. Maybe a little bit.”

She playfully hits his shoulder, then flops back into the couch cushion, so relieved, eyes closed.

“I’m extremely territorial when it comes to you, Scully. What can I say?”

She rolls her eyes. She can’t believe that, as usual, they’ve managed to turn a simple misunderstanding into a huge problem. She loves everything about them together except their seemingly inescapable predilection to get in their own way.

She exhales loudly. “So. We should talk about this, then.”

“Yeah. Do you know how it happened? When?”

“I have no idea, Mulder.” It’s the truth. “I found out the same night you were abducted.”

“But… how?”

She shakes her head. “I’m just as shocked as you are. But there are definitely some things you need to know.”

She tells him everything she’s learned about Dr Parenti and the women involved in his experiments. How there was talk of alien babies and it had scared her.

“All of this feels so deeply connected to me and my own abduction, it would be remiss of me not to be at all concerned. But I’ve had so many tests done, Mulder. I’ve done tests myself. Everything checks out fine. The baby is normal and healthy.”

He thinks a moment. “I hate to even entertain this, Scully, but… do you think it’s possible the cancer man has something to do with this? I mean, you told me he may have drugged you. Could he have… done something to you?”

“I considered that,” she replies. “It would be irresponsible of me not to.”

“...And?”

She sighs. She isn’t stupid, she’d done the math. External involvement had been a concern of hers since the day she learned of her pregnancy. But she is still Scully, and she still deals with these things the way she always has. “I don’t know. I guess I’m actively deciding not to go there. That son of a bitch has done enough damage to both of us. I don’t want to give him another minute of my time.”

They are both quiet a moment, contemplating this.

“I hate this so much, Mulder,” she suddenly blurts out. “I’ve been given everything I ever dreamed of and I hate that I’m having to question it. And you’ve been gone… it’s just been so difficult. I’ve had to go through everything alone. It’s been impossible to enjoy.”

He squeezes her hand. “Well, I’m here now.”

She smiles at him.

He continues. “I’m just feeling this… insane mix of emotions right now. I’m so happy to have helped give you back a dream. It’s more than I could have hoped for. But I’m not gonna lie, Scully, I’m worried. For the first time I feel as skeptical as you can be.”

She’s so relieved to know she really has her Mulder back she allows him the familiar protectiveness she’s used to. “I know. But everything is okay, the baby is perfectly healthy.”

“And… you’re sure, absolutely sure it’s mine?”

“As sure as you’d expect me to be. I had an amnio and I ran the DNA against yours. It’s a match, Mulder.”

He sits back into the couch and exhales deeply. “Wow.”

They’re quiet for a moment. “You know," she says quietly, "they’re talking a lot at work. I hear things.”

“Like what?”

“Just talk. About you and me. And the baby. There’s a lot of it. I actually overheard Arlene talking about an office pool.”

He narrows his eyes. “What exactly are you implying, Scully? That everyone at the FBI thinks I knocked you up?”

She shrugs and grins. In the weeks leading up to his abduction the rumors had most certainly gone from bad to worse. “Can you blame them?”

He smiles, finally, the smile she’s been waiting to see. “Sure I can, because you and I just work together.”

“Right. We just work together.”

“We work really well together.”

She grins. “That, we do.”

“That’s my story and I’m sticking to it, Scully. And until this baby comes out, anyone is under suspicion. For all we know, it could be a mini-Kersh.”

She laughs. “It couldn’t be anyone else’s, anyway.” She runs her fingers along the nape of his neck, into his hair. “I wanted to be thorough with the testing. But… there hasn’t been anyone else.”

He tilts his head back into her hand and turns it to look at her, finally catching her eye in a very familiar way, a very specific way she’s missed.

“Well, this is excellent news, Scully. I’m very happy. For us.” He lets go of her hand in order to place his on her belly. “I’m worried about the kid though, to be honest. Half you and half me? How the hell will he get anything done?”

She raises an eyebrow. “Who said anything about a he?”

“What, it’s a girl?”

“I’ll never tell.” She gives him a playful smile. She knows the truth, of course. But for some reason she wants to keep it to herself, for now.

“Seriously, Scully? You’re not going to tell me?”

“Don’t you want to be surprised?”

“No. I hate surprises. You know this.”

She slowly moves her other hand along his thigh. “I do know.”

The relief she feels that Mulder is actually Mulder, and not a pod person, and not some alien replicant, and not behaving coldly or ungratefully anymore, has evolved. Now she just wants him back, all of him, the way they were before. Right now.

The pregnancy hormones are powerful.

His eyes narrow. “Are you trying to seduce me, Agent Scully?”

“Yes.”

He shifts in his seat. “Um… is that… allowed?”

“What, you’ve never had sex with a pregnant woman before?” she teases.

“Actually, no. But I just added it to my bucket list.”

“Well, it’s doctor-approved.”

“Really?”

She pushes his chest until he’s flat on the couch, and with great effort climbs onto his lap. “Yes, Mulder. I’m a doctor, and I approve.”

“Jesus. I really like Pregnant Scully.”

“Mulder. I’m in third trimester hell. Please put me out of my misery.” Her lips clamp down onto his with a fervor she doesn’t recognize. She can’t recall another time when she felt this hungry for him, for anyone, and as she feels his lips move beneath hers, tasting him, she feels whole again. Just a couple days ago he was dead. Now here he is, in the flesh, and she can’t wait anymore.

He sits up a bit as they kiss, allowing her to tear his jacket and shirt from his body, her lips then moving to his chest, covering every inch of him, verifying his mortality. She doesn’t think she’s ever been so turned on in her entire life. Some external force has taken over her body and she feels carnal, animalistic. She wants to do things to him she wouldn’t normally think about. She tries to blame the hormones but she knows it’s probably just him.

It all happens fast, so fast, and she unzips his jeans, pushing them down just enough to reveal verifiable evidence that he indeed missed this just as much as she did. She rises up onto her knees and maneuvers herself down onto him, extended foreplay utterly unnecessary this time.

The changes in her body have made everything feel different in a really good way, and she immediately decides they need to do this again as much as humanly possible before the baby comes. Life has been so awful and sad for so many months that she doesn’t even care that it’s all over much quicker than she would typically like it to be. It was everything she needed and more.

She tries to lay on top of him as she breathes heavily, sweating and shaking, but her enormous belly is in the way and after a minute he tries to lift her up.

“Scully…” he pants. “I’m sorry but you have to get up, I can’t breathe.”

She moves off him, laughing, and his arm goes around her as he tries to keep her from sliding off the couch.

“What’s funny?” he asks.

“I was just thinking about when you said you didn’t want this baby to come between us.”

He laughs. “Well, I obviously had no clue what the hell I was talking about.” He pulls her close, the couch far too small for her to feel as comfortable and content as she does.

Thanks for reading! See you back tomorrow with the next chapter.

#txf #msr #msr fanfic #fanfiction #deadalive #three words #what the fuck happened here

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lyndsaybones · 6 years ago

Note

To me you are the queen of S8 fic and there's that gifset of 3 Words floating so I have a prompt. I wish you would write...Mulder coming across evidence of Scully's suffering during his disappearance (maybe the tape of his room when she breaks down after seeing him in Deadalive/her medical files) after the 'I don't know where I fit in' conversation in his apartment in 3 Words. Thank you

Well, gosh, what a nice thing to say, and a great prompt to boot! Thanks! Here ya go!

Post 3 Words, tw: suicidal ideation

His muscles feel weak, shaky, like coming out of deep sleep. He cannot grip tightly enough, she keeps slipping away. Everything feels atrophied.

Time was he’d call her when he couldn’t sleep, but it doesn’t seem like the thing to do anymore. He goes for a run instead, heaving air in great gulps. His feet thwack against the pavement, his calves burn from disuse. It’s dark and save for the occasional passing car, he seems to be the only one out.

When he gets back to his building, there is a figure there to greet him. Skinner’s glasses catch the glint of the streetlight, his trench coat flaps a little in the breeze. He looks like he’s just come from the office, briefcase in hand.

“Here for my quarterly performance review?” Mulder says as he hikes up the stairs. “I know I’m a little behind.”

“I need you to see something,” Skinner says, jaw tight.

“I can explain what happened at the facility,” he begins.

“It’s not about work,” Skinner cuts him off. He tilts his head at the door, a subtle, let-me-in-jackass, in his eyes.

They ride up in silence, Skinner trailing behind him as they head down the fourth floor hallway.

“Not work…personal then?” Mulder asks, wheels turning.

Skinner nods. “It’s about her.”

His sweat soaked shirt clings to him and he feels a chill, so sudden and overwhelming that it sends a shudder chasing down his spine and out to his limbs like a bolt of lightning.

He is felled sideways into every worst case scenario: the baby is an alien or a cruel experiment, or Scully’s an unwilling test subject, or leveraged into compliance by the one thing she wanted so desperately, or by the chip that controls her health, or, or, or…

“The baby?” is all he can muster in reply.

“No, no. I don’t think so, not entirely anyway,” Skinner says, following him into his apartment.

“What is it?”

“I put her under surveillance,” he says, looking somewhat ashamed.

“You put Scully under surveillance? When? Why?” he says, disbelief evident.

“After…after we found you, she wasn’t well, Mulder. She hasn’t been well. I felt like I owed it to you to make sure that she was going to be alright. Keeping eyes on her was the only way I could do that.”

“I don’t understand,” he says sitting down on the couch. Skinner sets down his briefcase on the coffee table and sits beside him. He pulls off his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose.

“The day of the funeral, she gave everyone a different story. She told Doggett and I that she was going to go stay with her mother, told her mother that she was going to Martha’s Vineyard to settle your affairs, told the Gunmen that she was going home and to just let her be.”

“And? Where did she go?”

“Here. Right here. I got a call and found her curled up in your bathroom with an assortment of tranquilizers and pain killers spread out on the floor.”

It feels like a bucket of ice water. She would never, never.

“H-h-had she? I mean- she didn’t…”

“No, but she would have, I truly believe that.”

He opens his briefcase and produces a couple of casefiles, a pile of medical records and a stack of photos, all at long range, all of her.

“She’s been through hell, Mulder,” he says, flipping open the case files. Color photos of Scully beaten and bloody, cut and bruised. He points, the blunt tip of his index finger tapping against a photo of her wounded face as she lies in a hospital bed. “This whole time she’s been through hell.”

“How did this happen? Where was this partner of hers? Where were you?” he asks, indignant.

“We’ve been as close as she’ll let us get,” he says, jaw tight. “We’re not the ones she needs.”

He reaches out and tentatively begins sifting through everything in front of him. She’s on antidepressants, anti anxiety meds, weekly visits with her OB, twice-weekly with a therapist. Pictures of her and Mrs. Scully at the dinner table, walking around the block, crying alone at his grave.

“It took a lot, Mulder, to get her to this point. She took an extended leave of absence, stayed with her mom a while. Mrs. Scully informed me that she was losing weight, suffering almost daily anxiety attacks, she asked me not to let her come back to work at all. ”

He stares at the glossy photos, at her tear-streaked face, her hands over her swollen belly.

“I’m sure Scully was amenable to that proposal,” Mulder scoffed.

“She came back about six weeks ago and she seemed…better, more like herself.”

“And then I came waltzing back into the picture.”

Skinner is quiet a moment, looking as though he is choosing his words very carefully.

“She doesn’t tell us a lot, Doggett and me. But it doesn’t take much to see that she’s struggling,” he says, slowly, cautiously. “I don’t know what was said between you two in the last couple days, but I’m worried about her.”

He thinks about their exchange here, it feels like a long time ago, with everything that’s happened. She looked like she could crumble right in front of him. But she didn’t. She told him to get some rest and call if he needed anything, reassured him that she was there if he needed her and left her armor and composure fully intact. The surveillance picture in front of him clearly shows that she waited until she got in her car to fall apart. It makes his chest hurt and his eyes water.

“What if my being around does more harm than good?” Mulder asks, looking again at the pictures.

“Then be around until it doesn’t,” he says, gathering everything back up, sliding the files and pictures back into his briefcase. “She needs you.” He stands and claps a palm over Mulder’s upper arm, “and you need her.”

Part 2

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ghostbustermelanieking · 7 years ago

Text

here

s8 vignette: roadrunners, deadalive, empedocles, vienen, existence. disgusting baby fluff. part of my series that i write as i rewatch the x files.

Summary: Four times Mulder or Scully talked to their baby, and one time they both did.

note: this is a sort-of sequel to ashes and dust (it takes place before and after it, so), but it could just as easily be a standalone. it’s canon compliant, but i also like to imagine that season 9 never happens after the end of this fic. it makes me a happier person.

warning for the depictions of the events in these episodes, and fear of losing a pregnancy.

---

She wasn't thinking about the baby when she first went to Utah. She's barely thought about the baby at all since she found out she was pregnant; she didn't know how to, with Mulder gone and a new partner and all of it. She just wanted to find him, and that seemed to be all that mattered at the time. Guilt had hung over her like a low fog—finally, she'd gotten what she wanted, she was going to be a mother, and she barely even felt happy about it. When she'd woken up in the hospital after the ordeal in Arizona, she'd been relieved to find out that the baby was okay, fearing the worst after being thrown into a wall, but she hadn't been able to linger too long on it. She hadn't saved Mulder and she was stuck with Doggett and it hadn't seemed to matter.

Now. Now, Doggett has saved her life and she can't think about Mulder. She did, very briefly, when Doggett was carrying her away; she selfishly wished that it was him, that she wasn't going to wake up alone if she woke up at all. But when she was tied to the bed, all she could think about was the baby. How she could protect the baby. She screamed for help even though she didn't know if anyone could hear her; she just wanted to save the baby.

They do an ultrasound a few hours after she wakes up, the wound in her neck stitched up, and she cries when she hears the fluttering thump of the baby's heartbeat. She has no idea what the fuck the goddamn slug did to her, she'd been terrified of what it would do to the baby, and she couldn't fathom losing anyone else. Losing another child, Mulder's child… it was unimaginable. It is so hard to hold back with Mulder gone, when all she wants is to find him, to fill his place, but she has to. It isn't just her own life she's risking; she has to protect her baby.

There's very few people she'd do anything for. Her family, of course, and Mulder, but the living population of people that she would give her life for has grown slimmer and slimmer over time, all the people she's lost. But when she hears the heartbeat, knows that the baby is okay, she realizes that she has added another to the list.

She curls up on her side when the nurses leave her alone; it hurts to put pressure on the stitches. She reaches down and touches the spot where she knows the baby is, thinking of the diagram in her medical textbook from years and years ago. She's only a couple of months along, so her stomach is still flat, but she thinks she can still feel the baby. It's silly, but she feels connected to the baby in a way she's only ever felt connected to Mulder. Probably even more so.

“Hi,” she whispers to the baby, feeling even more silly. She knows that the baby can't hear her, but she can't help it. (Mulder would talk to the baby, she thinks. He’d be overjoyed.) “It's me. Your mom.”

The room is silent, the walls too white. Far off, she can hear the screech of a heart monitor.

“I’m sorry,” she blurts helplessly, and goddamnit, she is crying again. She's cold; she burrows under the blanket, but she keeps her hand over the baby. She wonders if the baby is cold. She wonders if the baby felt the slug burrowing up her spine. She shudders, wipes her eyes with her free hand. “I'm so sorry,” she whispers. “I never wanted you to be in danger. Never. I'm so sorry that this keeps happening.” She blinks back tears, lays her cheek flat against the pillow. Strokes the spot as if the baby can feel her.

“I am going to keep you safe,” she says. “I promise. I'm never going to let anyone hurt you. Ever.”

She sniffles, wiping her eyes and nose again. “And I'm going to find your daddy,” she adds, because it is important that she remember that. That the baby know that. “I promise that, too. He's going to love you so much.”

If she closes her eyes and concentrates hard enough, she can almost hear the phantom ka-thump of her baby's heartbeat. Your baby is just fine, the technician had said with a smile, handed her tissues as she burst into tears.

“I love you, too,” she murmurs. “I want you to know that, okay? I love you more than anything.”

ii.

The baby kicks for the first time the night of Mulder's wake.

The funeral is the next morning. She's here in North Carolina, in a too-fancy hotel because it's the only one that didn't make her think of Mulder. Snow is frozen on the window sill, not falling from the sky, almost brown with dirt in the parking lot. She wonders briefly how they will break the frozen ground open enough to lower Mulder into it, and promptly vomits in the bathroom sink.

Her mother tried to come into the hotel room with her, and she coldly responded that she needed time to herself. Closed the door in her face. She would feel bad if she didn't feel so numb inside. She sits alone in the room, curled into the corner of the flowery couch because the bed, with its huge mattress and fluffy comforter, looks too empty. She'll feel his loss, the empty space where he should be, too strongly if she sleeps there, and she still can't believe he's gone. In the soft space between sleep and awakeness, she's fooled herself into thinking she never lost him. And she doesn't want that, not tomorrow, so she sits on the couch alone. Tears smeared across her face, eyes swollen from tears she tried to hide.

People kept coming up all night and telling her that they were sorry. She hid in a corner, tried to stay out of sight, but they still found her. She wondered who had told them that she was his partner, mother of his child. She wondered if you could just see it on her face.

All these people she didn't recognize were there. People who never cared about him. A sample of the FBI’s finest, assorted Mulder relatives that Mulder had never mentioned in his life. Kersh, of all people. Doggett and Skinner and the Gunmen. Her mother hovered near her, holding her hand.

She avoided looking at the coffin. The government who had screwed him over again and again gave him a flag, like he was a hero. He was a hero, but the government didn't know it. Not enough people knew it. She knew it. She loved him so much.

Scully curls up numbly on the stiff hotel couch. She doesn't feel real. She doesn't have any idea how long she's been sitting there, how long until she has to get up and go bury the love of her life. She doesn't know how the hell she's going to do it without him. She just wishes it would stop, all of it. She wants a time machine, she wants to stop any of this from ever happening. She'll save Mulder, his sister, her sister, her daughter. She'd never let him leave. She'd never let him go. She wants it all to stop. She isn't thinking about the baby.

And then she feels a strange fluttering feeling.

She dismisses it at first; between bouts of morning sickness and grief, she's barely been able to keep any food down for the past few days. But it happens again and again, in an insistent sort of way. In a way she can't ignore. Almost like her baby wants her to know she's not alone.

Scully sobs, a sharp, broken sound. Mulder's child. She is having Mulder's child, a child he will never meet. He has left her, but he hasn't left her alone, and he will never know this. She touches her stomach and the baby kicks at her hand furiously. “Hi, baby,” she whispers, dissolving into hiccups. Tears roll down her cheeks and off of her chin, dotting her black dress. She wipes her face and takes steady breaths until she can speak again. “Hi,” she says, and the baby kicks again. “Hi, honey. I'm here.”

She can hear the heater rattling in the background and all the silence there to fill it. She can't remember what his voice sounds like anymore, but she knows he'd be over the moon. She can't remember the last thing she said to him. She hates that. She wants to go back to that moment where she said goodbye, wrap herself around him, never let go. Tell him, I'm pregnant, Mulder. Don't leave me. Don't leave us. This child of hers that will never know their father.

“I'm sorry,” she says, and she feels like she is always apologizing to her baby, but she means every word. “I'm so sorry you'll never get to meet him. He would've loved you. He would've been the best father in the world.” And then she's crying again, too hard to speak, and she presses her hand to the baby, and the baby is moving all the time as if to comfort her, to remind her that she is not alone.

She takes a few shaky breaths, doesn't move to wipe her face, and she rubs circles over the baby the entire time. When she can speak again, she does. “I'm here,” she tells the baby again, and thinks, Thank god you're here. She will get down on her knees and thank God for that. They've left her this, and that is something. She is not alone. “It's okay. It's gonna be okay. I'm here.”

She sleeps restlessly, quivering on the couch cushions, trapped in torrid dreams of Mulder that leave her waking up calling out for him helplessly. But she can feel the baby moving inside of her—quickening, her medical memory reminds her—and she is grateful. Thank you, she thinks, and hopes the baby can hear her.

iii.

When Mulder finds out he is a father, his first instinct is to find something to give the baby. Some apology for these months that he’s missed, how close he has come to never meeting this baby at all.

He digs into some boxes he'd retrieved the year before after his mother passed and finds the doll from his childhood. He'd carried it around for the first four years of his life until his sister was born and his father talked him into handing it over. Samantha had eventually gotten detached from the doll, when she was seven or eight or so, but it had been sitting on her bed when she was abducted, and it sat there until his mom moved out. It had belonged to both Mulder kids and now, cheesy as it is, he wants it to belong to his kid. If Scully wants it.

He drives over to Scully and finds her happy, waiting for a pizza. For one golden moment, he thinks everything might be okay, imagines a lazy day of movies and pizza and teasing each other and Mulder asking every single possible question about the baby. And then Scully bends over, gasping in pain, and all Mulder can feel is fear.

He kneels by the stretcher in the ambulance, gripping her hand. She's nearly unconscious, looking up at him with hazy affection, fear layered underneath. Her hand pressed to her stomach like she can physically shield the baby from harm. He kisses her forehead, reaching down and placing a tentative hand on the swell of her stomach. He offers up a prayer to no one that she is okay, that they are both okay.

---

They won't let him stay with Scully. Normally he'd wait out in the waiting room, but an Agent Reyes calls, asking for his help, and something in him can't say no. The distraction is welcome, but he feels horrible for leaving her alone. He never lets Scully wake up alone in the hospital if he can help it. He goes back as soon as he has an opportunity.

He is so incredibly relieved when Scully tells him that they're going to be fine. He touches her stomach again. They smile at each other like they can't believe it. He is a father, he thinks incredulously. A father.

---

He drives Scully home from the hospital. He doesn't leave her side. They take her down to the car in a wheelchair and he walks down beside her, helps her into the car, notes the doctor's insistence that she take it easy. He takes her home and orders another pizza to make up for the one she missed.

Scully is in love with the doll. She finds it creepy, she proclaims, which is fitting for two X-Files semi-retirees (or whatever the hell they are). “But creepy’s okay, I think. As long as it's not haunted or anything,” Scully adds firmly, smoothing the doll’s yarn hair before setting it down on the coffee table.

“If any family's doll would be haunted, it'd be this one,” says Mulder, completely serious. “Of course, I never experienced anything strange, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there. Have you ever heard of that possessed Raggedy Ann doll, Annabelle?”

Scully shoots him a sharp look before dissolving into giggles. “That's the last thing we need,” she says. “Let's not go there, Mulder.”

Mulder covers her hand with his in a tentative sort of way, and she intertwines their fingers warmly, letting her head fall against his chest. “Thanks for staying with me,” she whispers.

He strokes the side of her face with his free hand. “I wish I hadn't left,” he says softly. “But they wouldn't let me back because I wasn't the husband, and Agent Reyes called me in for help.”

“It's okay,” Scully says in a soft voice. “Although there was no reason not to let you back. I'll talk to Dr. Speake.”

He wraps his free arm around her in the tightest embrace they can manage. “I was worried about you,” he says in a choked voice. “Both of you. I was scared.”

“I was, too.” She tucks her face further against his chest and speaks into the fabric of his shirt. “But we're okay,” she says, and she sounds happy when she says it. He sniffs a little, tucking his nose into her hair, cupping the back of her head. “We're okay,” she says again, and he breathes out in relief.

He slips his hand down to touch her stomach again. He hates that he can count on one hand how many times he's done this. Every time feels like the first time, and it is stunning. The baby kicks under his hand, and he sucks in a stunned breath. “Hi, kid,” he whispers to the baby, and he feels Scully smiling against him. “You doing okay in there?”

The baby kicks again at the sound of his voice, and unexpected tears rise to his eyes. “I think… I think your mom disapproves of the haunted doll I've got for you,” he says, swallowing it back, and Scully laughs, shaking her head and drawing back from his embrace. He keeps one hand in hers and the other on her stomach. “But I think you can handle it,” he tells the baby seriously. “If you're half as brave as your mom is, you've got it covered.”

iv.

The helicopter that fishes Mulder and Agent Doggett out of the Gulf takes them to a facility in Texas. Scully has done a phone consultation with a doctor down there to instruct them what to look for to see if they are infected. Mulder is relieved—he doesn't want her to get infected, even though he doubts they are infected, and he knows she can't fly this late in her pregnancy—but standing there in soaking wet clothes, sore from jumping from so high and his head spinning from all of it, he wishes that she was here. He misses her.

They're cleared within a few hours and stuck on a plane home. Kersh is furious, Skinner reports over the phone. Scully has gone home to get some much needed rest, but she's offered to pick them up from the airport the next day. Mulder sleeps dreamlessly on the plane, exhausted.

They land in the morning. Doggett doesn't make much conversation, so neither does Mulder. They find Scully by the baggage claim, and relief washes over her face when she sees them. She gives Doggett a brief hug, and Mulder feels brief jealousy curdle in his stomach before she brushes past Doggett and comes to him. She takes his face in her hands and kisses him hard on the mouth, in an angry sort of way. “Next time, you tell me when you leave to go chase some dangerous alien virus,” she tells him sternly, her voice trembling almost inaudibly, and all he can do is nod. She kisses him again before turning to leave the airport. Mulder trails along behind her, awkwardly avoiding Doggett's eyes.

“Kersh is furious, as I'm sure you know,” Scully says as they exit the airport.

Doggett works his jaw back and forth irritably. “More or less what I figured,” he says.

“What else is new,” Mulder adds dryly.

“It's worse than you expect. I've never seen him this upset.” Scully lifts her face up to meet his eyes, and her own eyes serious. A sort of a warning: this may be the final straw.

Doggett thanks Scully for her help and exchanges an awkward goodbye with Mulder before going to find his car—he'd driven himself to the airport. Mulder has been taking cabs for the past month, since he hasn't been cleared to drive yet. Probably hasn't been cleared to jump off of oil rigs, either, but what the hell does that matter.

Scully is quiet on the walk back to her car, quiet on the drive home. She takes them back to her apartment, and Mulder is relieved; he half thought that she would drop him back at home. “Scully, I'm sorry,” he says as she parks the car. “You're right, I should've told you I was going. It was a shitty thing to do.”

Scully sighs, her shoulders tensing. “It's okay, Mulder,” she says, turning to look at him. “It's like you said. You needed to be out there. Who knows what would've happened to Agent Doggett if you hadn't gone out there? I was just… worried.”

“I know.” He reaches for her hand and she takes it. She rubs at her face with her other hand wearily. He kisses the side of her head gently. “If it helps,” he says softly, “it looks like I might have a lot of time off fairly soon. No more avenues to run off during.”

“Oh, Mulder, I don't know if they'll fire you. This seems so… minor compared to other things you've been reprimanded for.”

“Nah, they've been looking for an excuse.” He presses his lips against the spot above her ear, the console bearing into his stomach as he leans towards her. The idea of being fired terrifies him, but not as much as it once would've, he thinks. He feels as though there are more important things between them now. The baby that is due in a couple of weeks, for one. He wraps his arms around her, stretching the seatbelt around his chest, halfway on top of the console.

Scully hesitates for a moment before hugging him back. “Promise me you won't run off without telling me,” she mumbles. “That you'll be careful, Mulder.”

He nods. He kisses her cheek, her forehead. She leans into his chest briefly before climbing out of the car. They go up to her apartment together.

---

They take a nap in her bed, Scully more than exhausted and Mulder right on the cusp. He falls asleep dizzily, wrapped around Scully, and wakes up a few hours later. She's still asleep, wrapped in his arms, and he smiles, rests his cheek against the back of her shoulder.

The baby is kicking, and his earlier words come to him, unbidden: When he's old enough, tell the kid I went down swinging. He didn't mean it, not really, had only said it in case he really didn't make it back. He doesn't want to leave the baby. He doesn't want to lose his chance at a family.

“Hey, kiddo,” he whispers, mostly because he thinks Scully is asleep. But also because he wants to apologize, even if he knows the baby can't hear him. He palms Scully's stomach gingerly. “Hey. I, uh… I told your mom to tell you I went down swinging if… if I didn't make it back. But I didn't mean to, uh. I didn't want to… I wanted to get back to you, more than anything. And I wanted you to know that I tried if I didn't. But I did.” The baby kicks at his palm again and again, and he smiles, tucks his nose against the base of Scully's skull. “I made it back. I'm here,” he says.

There's a sniffle from in front of him, Scully's hand coming up to cover his. He snuggles into her from behind, puts his other hand next to hers. “I made it back to both of you,” he whispers.

She paces around her moonlit apartment with her son curled in her arms. She's already fed him and he's already stopped crying, but she doesn't want to put him back down yet. It doesn't feel real, any of it, and a smile rises to her lips as she holds William. She has a son. She and Mulder, they did this. It doesn't feel real, after everything that happened, all the times she thought she'd lose him, lose them both, all the times she'd thought it impossible. But he's here, her little miracle.

She's rocking William back and forth as he nestles into her, wrapped in a blanket her mom had picked out with his eyes half closed, and all at once she feels Mulder's arms come around her from behind, his warm palms on her stomach below where she cradles Will. His nose presses into her neck, her hair and the goosebumped skin beneath; she shivers. “Hey,” she whispers sweetly. “Thought you were asleep.”

“I woke up.” He's holding her against his chest, gently; he reaches up with one hand to touch William's little fist. “Wanted to see you two,” he says happily; she can’t remember the last time she heard him this happy.

She's smiling so hard her face hurts; she sways back and forth unconsciously and Mulder sways with her, tightening his arms around her in a desperate sort of way. Will makes small sounds and Mulder shushes him, his chin on her shoulder as he whispers to the baby. “Hey, buddy, it's okay,” he says softly, touching the top of his head.

William keeps whimpering anyway, eventually escalating into full-blown wails. Scully tries to shush him as she rocks him back and forth. “Oh, honey, it's okay,” she whispers. “It's all right, you're okay.”

“Here,” Mulder murmurs, nudging her side as he rounds her to face them. Understanding, Scully lifts William and sets him down in the cradle of his father's arms. Mulder makes small soothing sounds as he bounces the baby up and down. Watching them together makes a lump rise in Scully's throat; he's here, they're together, and she can't believe it.

She steps closer to them, leans down and kisses her son's forehead gently. “It's okay, sweetie,” she whispers. She reaches up to soothe her son and William curls his tiny hand around her pointer finger. “We're here,” she says, tears welling in her eyes. She leans into Mulder's side where he's not holding the baby, and runs a finger down William's little nose. “We've got you, Will. We're here.”

#this is a mess but i rly like some parts of this and anyways i'm just trying to get to s10/11 #so i can write my casefile and the apparent weird ass this au that i had an idea for last night #xf fanfic #i wrote this #xf rewatch

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heartslogos · 6 years ago

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newfragile yellows [391]

“She’s old,” Mahanon says. Evelyn stares at him blankly. “What? She was a million years old. The fact that she hadn’t died sooner was, frankly, unnatural and probably some sort of sinister magic.”

“Tell me you didn’t say that to the grieving family.”

“Who in their right mind would put me near a grieving family?” Mahanon replies.

He has a good point.

“Then why were you there?”

Mahanon just stares at her.

“Well. She was an old bat, Evelyn, an old bat who was practically dust made mobile and sentient, but she was my old bat. You’re being a touch insensitive.”

Evelyn stares at him. Mahanon stares back.

“Elaborate on what you mean by my old bat, because right now I can only think of…salacious things that don’t match you.”

Mahanon makes a horrified face at her, “Evelyn. She was my great aunt. No, I did not have some sort of twisted sexual affair with the woman. She was my great aunt from some distant family tree branch and I had just happened to be present when she passed because that’s how things work in our family. Someone’s about to croak? The entire family assembles for those last moments in case any new drama pops up. Speaking of family, my younger sister is in town and she’s been dying to meet you for years. I expect her to turn up any second.”

The doorbell rings.

“That might be her, or it might be one of her entourage."

“Your sister has an entourage?”

“Should I use the word coterie? It seems a touch old fashioned,” Mahanon says. “A gang? A murder? A flock? A pod? A shiver?”

“Are you…going to answer for her…flock?”

“She only rings once,” Mahanon replies and goes to get the door. Evelyn follows after, not quite sure what to expect from Mahanon Lavellan’s sister. She can’t picture there being two of him. The idea of more than one Lavellan existing in the world is baffling. Logically she knows it’s true - Mahanon has family. But in her mind she just can’t wrap her head around it.

Wouldn’t the world have…imploded? Exploded? Erased itself out of sheer inability to grasp the Lavellan brand of eccentric and worrisome?

“Evelyn, meet my sister, Ellana. Ellana, this is Evelyn. Tell Evelyn I’m not crazy for thinking our great aunt should be dead because she’s a thousand years old.”

“Oh man, we were all glad she finally kicked it. Honestly it was no way to live at that point,” a woman’s voice says, Mahanon steps to the side and reveals a woman the same height he is. She doesn’t have Mahanon’s light hair but she has his eyes and the same mouth - except where Mahanon’s mouth is usually flat or frowning, Ellana’s beams.

Ellana hold her hand out, “Pleasure to finally meet my brother’s best friend after so long. It’s like he’s been hiding you from me, weird.”

“I was not.”

“Were too.”

“Was not.”

“Were too.”

“Hello,” Evelyn cuts in before this can become something, and shakes Ellana’s hand. “Nice to meet you. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Again, I don’t know why you’d be sorry,” Mahanon says. “We’re happy she died.”

“No, really,” Ellana says, nodding solemnly, “Don’t be sorry. She was incredibly old and…well. She hasn’t been doing well for the past few years. The good thing is just that it was painless and at home. She’s, hopefully, in a better place now. Right. Well. I hope you don’t mind, but I’m staying here while arrangements are being made for her funeral.”

“And your entourage?” Mahanon asks, peering around outside the front door suspiciously.

“I don’t know why you say it like that,” Ellana says over her shoulder to him before shaking her head and shrugging at Evelyn. “I don’t know how you put up living with this one’s drama.”

Mahanon stares at the back of his sister’s head like she’s insane. “My drama? Have you met yourself?”

Ellana rolls her eyes.

Evelyn is not quite sure about what’s going on here.

“Anyway, I’m by myself,” Ellana says. “Don’t worry about my entourage.”

“Well. Now I’m worried that they’ll burn your house down and come to mine,” Mahanon says, and then to Evelyn, “She surrounds herself in crazy meatheads.”

“That’s very rude and judgmental of you, Mahanon.”

“The last time I visited I saw one of your friends dragging a tractor tire behind them in your back yard for fun. A tractor tire that - when asked - they informed me had been specifically purchased for such a task. Pulling it back and forth across part of your back yard.”

“Krem really wanted to work on his strength training,” Ellana says. “And besides. You can’t call Stitches or Grim a meathead. They’re very smart. All of them are very smart.”

“Rocky caused such a big explosion that the bomb squad was called to your house. The only thing that saved you was your boyfriends diplomatic something something.”

“It was an accident! Mostly!” Ellana snaps, and then reassures Evelyn, “No one was hurt.”

“Do you want to come inside the house and have something to drink?” Evelyn says, defaulting back to hostess manners her mother taught her and were further refined in her all girls private school.

Ellana nods, “I would love to. See, Mahanon? That’s hospitality. Mother would be so disappointed in you. As soon as the door it’s twenty questions, not even a come inside. So rude.”

“I fully expect one of your people to show up any second now,” Mahanon says, “And summarily take over this house and my life.”

“They won’t,” Ellana insists, following Evelyn into the kitchen. “Bull’s gone on a trip with Krem and Skinner, Rocky’s doing something for work, Stitches has a few shifts at the hospital, and Dalish is fully capable of keeping a house by herself.”

“What about Grim?”

Ellana pauses mid-step.

“Ellana. Where’s Grim?”

“Um.”

There’s a knock on the door.

Mahanon scowls and turns around, throwing it open. A blonde man with a stubble is standing there holding three large take out bags.

“Grim,” Mahanon intones.

The man, Grim, holds up the bags like a peace offering.

“You’re lucky it’s you,” Mahanon says, gesturing for Grim to come inside, “I actually tolerate you.”

Grim quietly enters and walks over to Ellana, bending a little to whisper in her ear.

“Grim’s shy,” Mahanon explains to Evelyn, “He usually texts or signs.”

Ellana sighs loudly, “Okay. So. Bull’s back from his trip and he broke an arm. I’ve got to go. The take out is yours, its a peace offering.”

Ellana frowns, “And I just got to meet you, too. Mahanon, give Evelyn my phone number. Come on, Grim. We have to stop by my uncle’s house before we drive out. I’ve got to tell him that I’m not helping with the cooking after all.”

The two walk out of the house leaving Evelyn feeling like she just got hit by a whirlwind.

As soon as the door clicks shut Mahanon says, “Well?”

“She seems nice.”

“I’ll give you her number and you’ll quickly retract that statement. Watch, she’s going to be back here in two days with her boyfriend.”

“Bull?” Evelyn asks tentatively, “Is that his name?”

“It’s what he told us to call him. So probably no. And yup. That’s the one.”

#heartsfic #gather your party and venture forth

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greekowl87 · 7 years ago

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Dialogue Workshop Pieces

Courtesy of @frangipanidownunder and @just-fic-already .Thanks for running this!

P.S. @baronessblixen :D

Prompts in italics.

Mulder meeting William for the first time.

Scully telling Mulder she’s in remission.

Skinner visiting Season 10 Mulder at the Unremarkable House Now write the story of that conversation, but do so only using dialogue. No set-up, no “he said” or “she said”. Just pure, unadorned conversation.

Think about how you can use the words spoken to develop a sense of character. What are their vocal tics and crutches? How do their choice of words and the way they use them suggest motivation and background? On a more basic level, how can you make it obviously clear who’s speaking at any given moment? How do you deal with pauses, interjections, hesitations? Perhaps most importantly: what does the dialogue sound like when spoken aloud?

"Hey. How you feeling? I noticed that everyone was gone. Did, uh, you send them away because you knew Spooky Mulder was coming?"

"No. I, uh, I have some news, Mulder. Important news."

"What...news?"

"It worked."

"What...worked? A few Hail Mulders?"

"Hmmm, and then some. Mulder, it worked. The chip worked. Is working. Works. Mulder, do you understand what I'm telling you?"

"I'm trying, believe me. The chip worked? Does that mean..."

"Remission, Mulder. No cancer. Not a single sign. My blood is clear. The tumor is gone."

"Oh, Jesus. Are you serious, Scully? You're sure?"

"As sure as my faith in you and whatever unexplained science is in my neck. I wanted you to be the first to know."

"You know magic is just unexplained science, Scully."

"So are miracles, Mulder. Thank you."

"For what? I did nothing."

"You didn't give up on me when everyone already had. They already had my funeral planned. I've already been giving my last rites but you still didn't give up on me. You...you don't know how much that means to me, Mulder."

"Just don't going around telling anyone, Scully and keep this between us. I have a reputation to protect, for both of us."

.For this exercise, I want you to write dialogue that reveals character. Think about the words you use, the tone of their conversation, the body language to convey non-verbal communication, the things they don’t say or skirt around. They’re all part of the dialogue.

Pick one of these three scenarios.

Season 1: it’s an early case and Mulder still doesn’t trust Scully fully. She’s the one who gets the case and he wants to know all about it.

Season 5: they’re falling for each other but they won’t admit it. It’s the FBI ball coming up. Scully is trying to drop hints that she’d like to go with him, but he’s playing dumb.

Season 8: Mulder’s back from the dead, Scully’s pregnant. She goes to his apartment to invite him to Lamaze classes but he’s got TLG there and is ‘showing off’.

Mulder had been distant and Scully worried what they had before, before the death, before everyone was gone. He treated a her...their child like a joke. A basketball under her shirt? Really.

Without notice, she took a cab over to the apartment with the plan to invite him to the Lamaze class in the next 90 minutes so it forced him into it, forced him to address the situation. As she approached his apartment and withdrew his key, she heard Mulder talking and the muffled voices of Frohike and Langley.

"How do you know that Agent Scully isn't really holding out for me?"

"Shut it, Romeo. We all know Mulder's been getting some for what? Two years now?"

"It isn't our place to pry."

"Doesn't matter, Melvin? She's carrying my child...my son! I hope it is my son. Or a daughter. I wouldn't mind if it's a daughter. But we've finally gotten our miracle. Miracles," he corrected.

"Oh, yes. Pulling the Jesus zombie thing was a real turn on, Mulder."

"Shut up, Langley." He had been pacing. "I just...I just don't know how to let her know if she wants me back in. I want to be there for her and the baby, our baby, but I feel so lost."

Frohike. "Don't do put her through anything else, man. She's had enough. Do you know how much she mourned you?"

"Stop it, Frohike."

"No. You've treated her like shit since you've gotten back and she doesn't deserve it. Man up and be a father."

"I am. I will be!" Scully heard a distinct 'BAM!' which indicated knuckled meeting wall. "I want to be. I just don't know if she'll take me back, after everything. With everything. I mean, what the hell does she want with a sorry sonofabitch like me anyway?"

Scully took that moment to raise her knuckles and knock. Silence ensued the apartment as she heard Mulder's distinctive footsteps towards the door, the sliding of the chain lock, and his sigh of anguish. "Hi."

"Hi."

He watched her, trying to gauge Scully. "You heard?"

Her eyes glanced down to his bloody knuckle. "The punch was kind of a hint." She reached for his hand. "I came...I wanted...I want you to come to Lamaze with me tonight."

Mulder titled his head in surprise. "You...you want me with you?"

"Of course." She arched her head slightly, nodding towards the Gunmen. "Just us. I heard you showing off. Mulder, I want you to be a part of this. I want us to have a chance."

He smiled slightly, stepping closer, his hand rested on her pregnant belly. "Give me a minute to get ready. Do you want me to drive?"

3. Rewrite each of the following scenes, using dialogue and simple tags where appropriate. Think about how description, action, mannerisms or character quirks or narrative can help with the flow of the scene, rather than overly descriptive tags and weak adverbs.

Scene 1

“Come with me, Mulder. You’re making a scene,” Skinner begged profusely.

“Leave me alone,” Mulder shouted loudly.

“Scully won’t like you yelling like that,” Skinner soothed.

Scene 2

“You are a horrible person,” Scully told Krycek.

“I love you too, Scully,” Krycek smarmed.

“Get him out of here,” Scully spat at the guard.

Scene 3

“Open your mind to the possibilities, Scully,” Mulder preached.

“There are no aliens in Walmart, Mulder,” Scully sighed, tiredly.

“Well, what’s that green glowing light over there with the little grey man levitating above the ground?” Mulder deadpanned.

Scene 1: Everyone was staring as Mulder pushed past Skinner. “Come with me, Mulder. You’re making a scene,” Skinner hissed.

"Leave me alone," he spat. He shoved Skinner against the wall, his elbow at Skinner's trachea.

"Scully won't like you yelling that," Skinner teased with a wheeze. "Let me go or you'll never see William again."

Scene 2: “You are a horrible person,” Scully hissed.

“I love you too, Scully,” Krycek mocked.

She gave him a swift kick in the chest. “Get him out of here,” Scully commanded.

Scene 3: “Open your mind to the possibilities, Scully,” Mulder teased pushing the shopping cart.

“There are no aliens in Walmart, Mulder,” Scully groaned. "Not here. Not ever. Not at three a.m. in the morning. Why are we here again?""

“Well, what’s that green glowing light over there with the little grey man levitating above the ground?” Mulder questioned. "They is a special on flannel sleepwear."

"Shut up, Mulder."

4. Go back to your first piece of work.

Now add in some setting and action to the scene – where are they? What’s hanging on the wall? What sounds are in the background? What can they smell, see? Where are they going/sitting/lying?

How does it change the scene?

"Hey. How you feeling?" He shut the door cautiously behind him, leaning against it as if to subconsciously reinforce their privacy. His voice was warm and welcoming. "I noticed that everyone was gone. Did, uh, you send them away because you knew Spooky Mulder was coming?"

She tried to sit up in bed as much as her frail body would allow. Although Scully was feeling better, her body was still refusing to cooperate. "No. I, uh, I have some news, Mulder. Important news."

"What...news?" He held his breath as he slid into the overly plump plastic chair and took her hand.

"It worked."

She let go of her breath like she had been holding it forever.

"What...worked? A few Hail Mulders?" Dare he hope?

"Hmmm, and then some." She drew in a deep breath and brought her arms around her like a hug tightly. Mulder nuzzled her neck and enveloped in an embrace. She brought her lips next to his ear, resisitng to kiss him with the spark of her new life. "Mulder, it worked. The chip worked. Is working. Works. Mulder, do you understand what I'm telling you?"

He pulled back slightly. There were tears in his eyes as he framed her face within his hands. "I'm trying, believe me. The chip worked? Does that mean..."

"Remission, Mulder." She smiled, showing her own tears of joy. "No cancer. Not a single sign. My blood is clear. The tumor is gone. You can't get rid of me that easily."

"Oh, Jesus. Are you serious, Scully? You're sure?"

"As sure as my faith in you and whatever unexplained science is in my neck." She hugged him close, her hands raking across his back. "I wanted you to be the first to know."

"You know magic is just unexplained science, Scully."

"So are miracles, Mulder. Thank you."

"For what? I did nothing."

"Just don't going around telling anyone, Scully and keep this between us." He kissed her tenderly. "I have our reputation to protect."

#workshop #writing workshop #xfiles #xf fic #txf #txf fic #msr #msr fic #prompt

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tatooedlaura-blog · 4 years ago

Text

End of the Road

post-Redux/Redux 2

... their moments ... from now on ... Our Moments: Chapter 1: Five Words (post-Leonard Betts) Chapter 2: Sidebar Nonsense (post-Memento Mori) Chapter 3: Interim (floating somewhere around Unrequited) Chapter 4: Max 2.0 (post-Tempus Fugit/Max) Chapter 5: Shadowed Grey Eyes Chapter 6: The Warmest Thing I Own Chapter 7: Fancy Paper Napkins Chapter 8: End of the Road (post-Redux/Redux 2)

@today-in-fic

&&&&&&&&&&

He put her through hell the next two weeks and finally, seeing her on the other side of the hospital window, he splintered, leaning forward, unable to breath, overwhelming sorrow manifesting in yelled demands of people who couldn’t answer his pleas.

He thought he was quiet at her bedside that night, the world bearing down on both of them, but as he sobbed into her sheets, he felt her hand drift though his hair, nails lightly scratching scalp, “it might be a little tight, but I think we’ll both fit if we try.”

Mess that he was, he stood, dragged his hands over his face to clear away at least some of the nonsense before disappearing to blow his nose on some toilet paper from the bathroom. Coming back in, he shuffled towards her, whispering, “I snuck in. What if I fall asleep and can’t sneak back out?”

“I’m dying, Mulder. I can do what I want and right now, I want you in here with me.”

Deep breath of acceptance at her now-undeniable retort, he did as ordered, wedging himself behind her, back to front, arm hesitant over her belly, full length curl around her. He could feel her ribs against his forearm, her bony hip under his elbow, sharp shoulder blades pressing his chest, “we need to get you a milkshake.”

“If I could keep one down, I’d send you right now but puking up ice cream will just ruin it.”

“I see your point.” Sniffing latent snot back up his nose, he apologized, then, “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

Soaking up his warmth like a sponge, “I’m not sleeping that well these days anyway, and …” running off into oblivion, she finished the sentence a moment later, “well, I’d rather spend all the time I can with you, even if it’s at whatever the hell time it is and in a hospital bed.”

“A good cuddle does have its merits.”

That got a smile from her, “thank you.”

“For what?”

This time she found the words she couldn’t after he made her dinner, “for doing all those things that a partner would do; that a husband, a best friend, that family would do.”

Well, that made his heart break for the hundredth time that day, and mouth to neck yet again, his words rustled her hair and vibrated her soul, “well, you are my partner and my best friend, which makes us family and I think I fit the category of work husband so I’ve got all the bases covered.”

Reaching for his hand, she pulled it up to her face, kissing his knuckles before tucking it under her cheek, “we need to talk about a few things.”

“No, we really don’t.”

“Yes, we do. Let me take the fall, please? I need to know you’re okay once I’m gone.”

Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!

“We can have that argument tomorrow. Right now, just let me enjoy this, all right?”

She heard his mental screams of ‘Stop It!’ and she did, nodding against his hand, “all right but tomorrow, you’re listening to me.”

Wanting to cocoon her, tuck her inside himself, hide her away so the cancer and the fear and the reality of it all couldn’t find her, he hugged her closer, spooned behind her tight, “maybe.” That’s as good as she would get tonight and accepting it, she did her best to forget everything but the moment. A pleasant ‘hmm’ purred out a minute later and, hearing it as well as feeling it against his chest, “what was that for?”

Not realizing she’d made the sound until it was too late, “living in my moment, Mulder.”

“Our moment.”

For half a second, she wanted to cry, “You’re right. Our moment.”

&&&&&&&&&

He was gone when she woke up, the nurse checking on her telling her quietly, “he snuck out about 20 minutes ago.” Seeing her still sleepy look of disappointment, she smiled, “I’ve seen the way he looks at you; he’ll be back.”

Alone a moment later, she tried to work herself into a rage because he left without saying good-bye and without talking to her like she’d asked but, in the end, it was Mulder and she really should have expected it. Returning to her side, facing the door, she shut her eyes, imagining he was still behind her.

&&&&&&&&&&

He appeared the next day, glass vial offering a last-ditch effort in his fight to save her. He watched her argue with her family, fight her doctors, grasp onto a fading hope without which, she would be forced to make him sit, discuss funeral arrangements, ask him to give up while holding her hand.

&&&&&&&&&&

First Skinner left her room, then her brother, then, finally, Maggie, who gave him a hug and told him, without words but the slightest of head nods, that Scully was inside waiting for him. He gave it another minute, still processing, still gripping the bloody picture, still marveling at the news that was, indeed, real.

Opening her door slowly, the first thing he saw was not a smile but her piercing gaze that ranged in interpretation, over the years, from raging irritation to unbridled happiness. Todays was more of a confused relief bordering on reserved elation, “Mom says you’ve been sitting in the hallway.”

“Your mother deserved the first hug.”

“Are you going to be my third?”

“Patience, woman. I give you a hug now, we’ll both be crying for the next hour.” Shooting her his first mischievous grin in months, “I am breaking all kinds of rules still being here. Three people have asked me to leave already.”

She’d been prepared to talk for a few minutes, then go to sleep but suddenly, that wasn’t cutting it anymore, “You want to go for a drive?”

Finally approaching her, he pressed his thighs against the edge of the bed, leaning just enough forward but keeping his hands in his pockets, schoolboy asking a question of his favorite girl, “your place or mine?”

She hadn’t even thought that far ahead in the discussion but now that it was out there, hanging in the air, she gave him a smile, “your place. We haven’t been there in awhile.”

“Luckily I just changed the sheets a few days ago.”

Holding eye contact, swearing for one second she could actually see into his soul, she found herself moving her legs, bumping into Mulder as she sat upright, slid off the bed, “go find me my clothes.”

They didn’t so much sneak from the hospital as walk out, quietly, Scully’s bag in Mulder’s one hand, Mulder’s other on her back, pressed to muscle and bone, fingers loose-gripping the back of her shirt. No one said a word, elevator their immediate destination, anywhere else in the world their quest. The air was balmy, the breeze light, and Scully stopped the moment the automatic doors shut behind her, inhaling deep.

Mulder, nearly knocking her over, suddenly panicked, “what? What’s wrong?”

Her head spun, giddy and light, “just … overwhelmed for a minute.”

“Do you need to go back inside?”

Shaking her head vehemently, “no … no, I just … your place, please.”

“Food first?”

“No. I … that’s too much right now.” Looking up at her partner, suddenly exhausted, “a bed would be nice and some drugs when we get to your place.”

“Home it is, then.” He valeted the car, tucked her inside, and drove away, aiming towards his apartment. She was dozing by the second turn and fully asleep by the time he pulled up to the curb. Crouching beside her open passenger door, hand on thigh, voice low, he began coaxing her in a soft voice reserved for just such occasions, “hey, Scully? Wake up. We’re here and you’ve gotta stay awake long enough to deal with the front steps and the elevator.”

Blinking her eyes open, they rolled around for a moment before focusing, “okay. Don’t let me fall down.”

“Never.”

He wanted to laugh at her swaying walk, likening it to her drunken trek a year ago at her mother’s surprise birthday party. Not saying that aloud, however, he steered her to his door then inside.

He set her bag down, then took her coat, hanging it before heading toward the kitchen for a glass of water so she could take her meds and lay down. Asking over his shoulder what type of pain killer she wanted, he glanced back when she didn’t answer. Finding her still rooted to her spot beside the hat rack, he stopped, took in the tears already rolling, then held out his hand, waving her towards him, “come here.” She did, shuffling, leaving shoes behind and walking into him, the collision backing him up a few steps. Accepting the momentum, he continued moving, sitting down on the arm of the couch, level with her now, arms tight around her neck, her face hidden in his shirt, “what’s wrong?”

“It can’t be real, Mulder. It can’t. It shouldn’t have worked.”

“But it did. You saw the scans.”

“But what if I go to sleep tonight and wake up tomorrow and it’s back?”

Shifting her away, he settled hands on cheeks, thumbs against eyebrows, painting over them lightly, absently, as he tilted her head to meet her tear-y gaze, “it won’t be but if it is, but it won’t be, we will figure it out … together … all right? We got here once and we can do it again … but we won’t have to, so don’t worry about it.”

Her hands were around his wrists, “I think you just gave me a headache.”

“I’ve been giving you headaches for four years now. What’s new?”

“This.” Leaning in, she kissed him, barely brushing his lips but setting his world on fire in the process, “I’ve got, to sound trite, a new lease on life and I’m not wasting it.” Kissing him again, before swaying dangerously to one side, “but I am going to ask that we sleep through a little bit of it because if I don’t lay down soon, I’m going to end up on your floor.”

He wiped the few remaining tears from her cheeks before he kissed her back, light but claiming, “do you mind some company?”

“I have never minded your company.” Yawning, she turned white, an immediate sweat beading on her upper lip, “but I need to lay down … now.”

Walking her to the bed, he gave her a shirt and some shorts, some drugs and a glass of water, then, “I’ll be back in a minute.”

Returning with a second blanket, he found her curled, body imprint stamped on ‘her’ side of the bed forevermore. His giddiness in the moment nearly made him laugh but containing it, he settled beside her, spare blanket at their feet. His hand went to her forehead, thumb in gentle circles between her eyebrows.

It was gone.

He had her back.

And he wasn’t going to waste a minute of the time they had left.

Which was a lot longer than they’d had mere hours earlier.

He didn’t fall asleep for hours.

Watching her breathe.

&&&&&&&&&&

Neither should have been awake but when Mulder opened his eyes, he found himself staring at an empty pillow and equally empty bed. Squinting towards the dawn-grey living room and the darkened bathroom, he looked over his shoulder, finding his target standing by the open window, leaning on the frame.

Rolling over, he tucked the pillow under his head, yawning, then watching her for a minute before she felt his eyes on her and turned towards him, quiet.

His mind was open and slow, filters off, walls down, and in that very moment, the only thing he had left in the world to say was “I love you.”

Her slow spreading smile lit up the darkening room, thunder rumbling as a storm moved in. It stopped just shy of a full-on grin, then dropped back to slightly upturn lip curl, sigh deep, eyes closing for a moment to collect the proper words from the universe, before sending them drifting across to him slow and steady, “and I … finally have the time … to love you back.”

Mulder’s smile spread at the same speed hers did, pushing into the pillow, squashing face glowing, “is this another one of our moments?”

“They are all our moments from now on, Mulder. All of them.”

#msr #my writing #Our Moments series #post-Redux #cancer arc #xfiles #xf fanfic #xfiles fanfic #and i finally have time #for all our moments

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skullsmuldon · 7 years ago

Note

can you write something sad around s10? with scully leaving mulder?

Okay I tried sth and I hope you like it but be warned no beta or editing is included :D

She had to leave. She had tried. Tried talking, tried yelling, tried being silent, tried living her life besides him. She promised herself she wouldn’t quit on him, on them. On what they had and fought so hard for.

She slept alone in their bed, ate alone at their table and read books alone on their couch while he was in his office still looking, still hoping and drifting away from her.

She wanted to believe that they would make it in the end. That he would get help to help himself and save both of them in the process. It was the only thing she believed in-held onto.

Until that one evening when she came home from a double shift at the hospital to find a note on the table.

Following up a lead. M

She starred at the note. Four words. Four simple words that broke the promise he gave her. To never ditch her again. Four words that broke the promise that they would try and move on. Four words she hoped she never had to read on a note again. And four words that showed her he wasn’t getting better.

She fell into bed exhausted into a dreamless sleep. He wasn’t home when she woke up the next morning and took her coffee out onto the porch overlooking the rural fields surrounding her house. She cleaned the whole house, put new sheets on the bed, mowed the lawn and cooked dinner.

Waking up the next morning to immaculate but still silent house was the final straw. She pulled out her suitcase and started packing. Everything she needed was packed and loaded into her car within a couple hours.

Before leaving the house she put a note against his office door.

Dinner is in the fridge

With a heavy heart and watery eyes she turned away from his door. Walking out of their house felt like she lost not just a battle but the war against what ever it was that kept him drifting away where she couldn't follow him.

Numb fingers turned the key and locked the door for good. Putting the key in the mailbox was the last chapter in their book. She didn’t know if she was ready to start her own chapter. The only thing she knew was that she could live with the ghost of him.

Months later when an agent with a gun shot wound was brought in it was the first time she met Skinner again. It was one of his agents and he was trying to get news on his agents conditions at the nurse desk when she saw him. It was also Skinner who informed her that Mulder had been consulting on various cases over the last 2 months.

It felt awkward talking about Mulder. And saying she was surprised was putting it mildly. Skinner told that the FBI asked him to profile on a missing boys case. Mulders profile was spot on and saved the boy. Hearing Skinners words made her proud but also miss him even more. She was sad, angry and hurt. She knew she gave up the right to know what was going on in his life the day she closed the door behind her and put the key in the mailbox.

That however never stopped her from thinking and worrying about her. It never stopped the aching hope in her soul that Mulder would come after her. That he would finally be better and try to built that future with her.

She worried that working now as a profiler again was his way of punishing himself. She worried what it would do to his already damaged soul. Who was looking out for him when she wasn’t around. As if skinner could read her mind he told her that he would keep an eye on him and that if she had time she could always come by his office to talk that she didn’t need to be a stranger and that she still had friends at the bureau.

She didn’t come by. She didn’t contact Mulder. She kept her distance and her sanity. Her therapist had told her once she couldn’t force someone to heal and that with distance and time things had a chance to get better.

Weeks later, the ringing of her phone woke her up at 11pm. Skinners short instructions for her to come as fast as she could to the GWUH made her race through the night traffic.

Rushing through the hospital she saw Skinner waiting on the floor of the ICU.

His clenching jaw and the lines of worry looming over his face made her heart beat faster. Holding her by her shoulders Skinner tried to explain to her what had happened.The rushing in her ears and the rapid beating of her heart made her deaf to most of his words. Kidnapping…ambush… saved the girl… three bullets…chest…

Her knees went weak and skinner helped her to sit in one of the plastic chairs. Minutes of waiting grew into hours with only the same words from which ever nurse came through the operation room doors. Be patient the doctors are still working on him, trying to save his life. Several cups of coffee, pacing the floor up and down for a million times didn’t help to ease her nervousness.

The minute the doctor came out the door Scullys world stopped to rotate. I am sorry the damaged done by the bullets was just to severe. We really did everything we could. I am sorry.

Demanding to let her see him was costing her all her strength. Later she wouldn't remember the way to the operation room he was in or even skinner walking behind her. All she would remember was the mess surrounding him in the O.R, bloodied swaps on the floor, his cut of sweater, an FBI jacket laying in the corner and bullets in a tray on the other side of his chest.

There he was pale with his eyes closed smears of blood covering his hands and parts of his cheek. A green blanket draped over his chest. She couldn’t breath. She stopped in her tracks right next to his shoulder. Shaking hands smoothing back the hair from his forehead, tracing over his cheek to his slightly parted lips. Silent tears were streaming down her face.

With the realization hitting her that their story ended here Scully toppled over Mulders chest and buried her face in his neck. Trying desperately to memorize his scent, the feel of his skin and to be close to him this one last time.

She barley remembers Skinner peeling her away from Mulder and only succeeding when he promised her he wouldn’t let them do an autopsy on Mulder. The first thing she remembers is Skinner handing her Mulders items in a hospital bag which held his name on the front.

His badge, his wallet, his key and a chain. It took her numb fingers serval minutes to untangle the chain from the keys. When she finally had it untangled she looked at it and tried to remember if she had ever seen it before. But she couldn't remember seeing it before much less Mulder wearing a necklace with a small key on it. Helplessly starring at Skinner he quietly told her that when he asked Mulder once about the key, Mulders only answer had been that it was his key to the truth and that one day soon he would be ready to use it.

It took Skinner 4 days to find out Mulder owned a safe deposit box at a bank. With this information and the chain around her neck Scully made her way to the bank. After a short talk with a clerk she was led to the boxes. The key from her neck fit smoothly in the box 091093. She opened the box and took the box within home with her.

She put the wooden box on her coffee table and sat down. It took her several minutes before she could her hands work and open the box. Right on top was a plain white envelope which she took in her hands and opened it cautiously.

Mulders hand-writing greeted her from the white paper she had unfolded:

You yelled, you cried you remained silent. Neither your words nor your tears made me listen. Made me stop to think or to just take a second and read in your eyes. I don’t know if I can ever explain to you what made me do the things I did to you, what made me shut you out, but the one thing I know for sure is it wasn’t your fault. You fought, you stayed and you cared, I always knew that. And most importantly you always loved me even though I didn’t care.

And what a fool I have been. I didn’t care for the one thing that always made everything worth it, the one thing that made me really complete. That wasn’t a lie I always meant that and I hope that you will-if you stop believing in everything else-always believe in my love for you.

I promised you a lot of things and I know I broke a lot of those promises. The only promise I may ever be able to keep is to be always yours even when you don’t want me.

By leaving you, you gave me a chance you gave us a future. The feeling of Despair ,the Choking sobs wrecking me when I realized you wouldn’t come home, I needed the clouds to drift in, to feel the pain of being a man without a soul.

I knew the honesty was the knife to heal me. Cutting open old wounds to make them heal again and to let love instead of sorrow and despair grow within of me.

No more betrayal of your trust, no more ditching, no matter what the circumstance are.

I am working on being a man worthy. Being someone you listens when you yell, who puts a smile on your face instead of tears, and who puts his arms around you instead of turning his back on you. I want you to have all of me because you truly are the best of everything.

You always have and always will be.

One day soon I will ask you the only question that matters to me and the answer is the only truth I will ever seek again.

Through the tears streaming down her face she took the box who had been hidden under the envelope into her hands and opened it. Inside was the most delicate white gold ring with a small diamond. Wiping away her tears she tried to read what was engraved inside the ring.

My only Truth My Love

His funeral was a blur. Afterwards she asked Skinner to help her and get her bags and things back to the house. Skinner didn’t ask her for her reasons or if she was sure, he just did as asked.

She told him to leave the things on the porch and that she was okay and with the promise of calling him the next day he went back to his car and left.

Opening the door to the house with his key, she closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. As she took the first step back into their house she took the small item hidden in her coat pocket out and put it on her finger. taking a look at the ring on her finger she closed her eyes and said a quietly: Yes I do

She had to write that new chapter, she owed it to Mulder. She still had a part of him left and so she promised to find what would always be the best parts of the both of them- their son William.

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untttitled · 7 years ago

Text

You are Mine

My very first msr fic! I always wished we’d get to see Maggie’s funeral and obviously Mulder comforting Scully so I had to write a little something.

Her hands were shaking way before she started shaking hands with long lost relatives who offered half assed condolences. The door continued to swing open and closed causing Scully to shiver even more in her elbow length black dress with the Fall breeze. Bill was next to her, a bit more welcoming than his sister. Charlie was here too, meandering somewhere with guilty tears welled in his eyes.

“Dana, I’m so sorry.” The older woman hugged her too long and too tight. It was Aunt Patricia, her mother’s kid sister. Aunt Patricia pulled back and held Scully’s cheek, her matching blue eyes reflecting with tears. “You must be so heartbroken, as am I. I wish I was there with Maggie, it was so sudden though, huh?”

“It was,” Scully cleared her throat, “so sudden.”

Aunt Patricia smiled in sympathy. “I’ll take my seat now, we can catch up later.”

After that, it was a blur of greetings and struggling to remember everyone’s name. She glared at Bill, hating his very presence even at this moment of supposed togetherness. Mulder had been there when he wasn’t, how dare he speak to him like that?

“Can’t you just leave my family alone? There is no reason for you to be here, you’re not even family.”

It was a blow to Mulder’s face. Bill wasn’t wrong, he wasn’t family. He wasn’t Scully’s husband or Maggie’s son no matter how much he wished it were true. At the beginning of the day, Mulder had been by Scully’s side, aiding to every need, comforting every heartbreak.

It was driving Bill mad.

This is his mother’s funeral, Mulder had muttered in the dim hallway to Scully who was hanging onto his wrist. Her eyes were wide with fear that he would leave, that he would abandon her just like she did a few months ago. With a kiss on her forehead and a promise to stay close, Mulder had disappeared leaving her alone to hold down the fort.

The last few stragglers shuffled in as ten o’clock rolled around. Scully’s eyes wandered around the usual, comfortable church that she and her mother attended every Sunday. The stain glass window of Christ hovered above her, His eyes peering into her guilty conscience. The Virgin Mary stood in all her glory with her child clinging to her. It was a dark irony, Madonna and child as Scully stood there childless.

“We should go in,” Bill cupped her elbow, “Mass is starting soon.”

Scully yanked her elbow back. “I need to find Mulder.”

Bill scoffed in disbelief. “We’re at our mother’s funeral and all you can think about is him.”

She turned away before throwing a nasty glare at her eldest brother. Her hands began to shake again, half from sadness of the loss of her mother and half from the worry that Mulder had not fulfilled his promise. Her heels clicked against the marble floor as she practically ran around the church like a madwoman.

And there he was, slouched on the plastic covered couch with his head in his hands. She breathed a sigh of relief, loud enough to catch his attention. His gentle smile was all it took for her to fall into his arms, falling into his lap, awkwardly.

“I thought you left.” She whispered into the collar of his crisp suit. She didn’t recognize her voice. It was all too desperate, all too weak, all too vulnerable.

“Never.” His voice was deep and comforting in her ear. She was perched on his knee like a child and Santa Claus. If only that were true, she’d ask for her mother back for this Christmas.

And then she’d ask for her son back too.

“Mass is about to start.” She stated plainly, sitting up and wiping a stray tear.

Mulder held her damp cheek. “Scully, you know I want to be there. And I want to be there for you, but Bill was right-”

“No, Mulder, stop.” She finally found her voice. “He was not right. Mom loved you just as much as she loved him, maybe even more.”

The chuckle that rumbled in his chest vibrated against her shoulder. He sobered up and held her impossibly small waist tighter with his arm.

“She’d want you up there. I want you up there.” Scully stroked his cheek, the stubble familiar on her fingers.

Mulder swallowed thickly. “Well then we should get going then.”

There were times where Mulder missed his G-man job. He missed the rush of investigation, the victory of profiling, the banter with Scully. Hell, he even missed Skinner. But then he’s reminded of the bliss that the future brought. He can kiss Scully in public and take her to dinner like a normal couple. She gripped his hand and leaned her head on his shoulder as they made their way back up to the Church where the crowd was slowly quieting.

They took their seats in the front pew, away from Bill’s irritated eyes. The pictures of her mother from various stages of her life were displayed at the alter. It brought a fresh onslaught of tears to Scully’s eyes. Mulder glanced down at his weeping partner and felt his heart fall ten stories high. Without thinking, he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her flush against his side. He placed his other hand on her knee so she could draw strength from him, what little strength he did have left.

“Good morning friends and family,” Father McCue began his liturgy with a solemn face for the loss of his friend.

Throughout the vigil, Scully seeked refuge in the strong, enveloping arms of Mulder. He could feel the unease radiating off her about her speech.

“Calm down, you’re going to do great up there.” He whispered against her hair.

Scully closed her eyes momentarily, the Homily fading away, the only sound was Mulder’s steady breath. She laid her hand atop of his on her knee, his much warmer than hers.

The announcement of family speeches came out and Scully took a shaky breath. Bill glanced down at her from the opposite pew, one eyebrow up asking who would go first. Scully took a moment to look up at the photos of her mother. There was one from high school that caught Scully’s eyes, she looked so young and beautiful. She smiled so bright in the picture with her sweater matching the color of Scully’s hair. There was another one of a family portrait that Mulder couldn’t keep his eyes off of. Scully looked to be about four or five with her hair in pigtails and bangs. He wondered if their daughter would have looked like that.

Scully reached for the papers in her pocket, her hands moist as she crinkled it slightly. Mulder kissed the side of her head before releasing his hold on her.

“Thank you all for coming,” Scully gripped the side of the podium, “for those of you who don’t know me, I’m Dana, Maggie’s youngest daughter.”

Mulder smiled up at her encouragingly, his eyes twinkling with pride seeing her up there. She looked so frail, beautiful, but frail. She met his eyes and felt her heart flutter.

He’s here. Of course, he’d be here.

“My mom was the strongest woman I know. And I’m sure everyone says that about their mother, but she truly was. Having dad away at sea all the time, she was the one who took care of us. She cooked, the best meals by the way, she sewed our clothes, acted as our own personal chauffeur and so much more. One year, I begged her to let us wear store bought costumes and guess what happened? Missy and I were nuns while everyone else was the ghostbusters or Madonna.” The crowd erupted in quiet chuckles and Scully breathed a sigh in relief.

“I miss her so much-” Scully’s throat tightened and her wet eyes were glued to the floor. That simple phrase tore through her body, it was painfully true. “I miss our Sunday brunches after Mass, I miss her smile and her jokes. But sometimes it’s hard to miss her when I see her in everything I do. I see her in the birds that sing. I see her in beautiful days where the sun shines down warmly on me.”

Mulder shifts in his seat, knowing what was coming next. She’d practiced countless

times in front of him, asking if her voice was too quiet or the words were too depressing.

“I see her in her grandchildren.” He saw her swallow thickly, wiping her tears with the bunched up tissue in her right hand. Only a few knew how difficult this part was for her and Mulder’s heart broke. All he wanted to do was run up there and take her home, wrap her in a cocoon of blankets and cook her favorite soup.

Scully looked at Mulder, searching for strength in his eyes. He mouthed, it’s okay, with his eyes anchoring her to this moment.

“I saw her in my son,” she began again softly, “I saw her in his eyes and his smile. Mom loved William with every ounce of herself. Mom was his best friend and partner in crime. There was nothing Mom enjoyed more than being with her grandchildren.”

With a few last anecdotes, Scully had successfully finished her speech and wobbly knees, she left the altar and bowed like the good Catholic she was. She felt like she was betraying someone, giving thanks to the Lord. There was nothing thankful about this situation. No one won here. Scully lost her mother and Mulder lost the only woman who was nurturing enough to be his mother.

Scully resumed her position against Mulder and shed a few more tears when she felt Mulder’s kiss on the top of her head. No matter how many times she had hurt him, left him, he would always be here. He was always present when she needed him the most.

The piano began to play Maggie Scully’s favorite hymn. It was beautiful, really. The song encaptured what it meant to pass, what it meant to die. There was hope in this song. Scully knew it by heart from Sunday school and Mass choir.

Do not be afraid, I am with you

I have called you each by name

Come and follow Me

I will bring you home

I love you and you are mine

With those words being sung by the crowd, something in Scully snapped. It felt like her heart had finally shattered and everything flowed in like a broken dam. Suddenly, Mulder’s arms felt constricting and she had to be released to catch her breath. Mulder never underestimated Scully’s strength but was caught off guard at her shoving his hands away from her.

She could feel everyone’s eyes on her as she scurried down between the pews. The tears were openly flowing and it felt like there was an elephant pouncing on her chest. As if to hide away from prying eyes, she ducked her head and pushed the heavy oak doors, relieving her off the suffocating air back there.

Mulder was behind her in seconds, his presence being made known by his gentle Scully and a hand on her shoulder.

“She’s gone, Mulder, she’s never coming back! I won’t see her ever again, I can’t call her and ask her how her day was or ask her for dinner because I’m just too tired to cook. I miss her, god, I miss her so much and it’s not fair! It’s not fair!” She shouted through her tears. Mulder stood there silently, his hand holding her arm lightly.

“And she’ll never see William again, she’ll never see how great and beautiful and wonderful her grandson grew up to be.” There was a desperation in her voice that he had never heard before. She hiccupped through her sobs and started again. “He will never know her either. He was too young for him to remember how much she loved him and spoiled him. That’s my fault, it’s my fault. She hated me for giving him up, she’d never admit it but I knew she did. She despised me for giving up on him. She never understood.”

“Scully, stop-”

“We’ll never see him again. He’ll never know me.” Her breathing became steady, but the tears remained.

Mulder was at a loss of words. She was right after all.

“I never understood how you can look at me like that when you know that I left our son.” Her tone gentled a little. Her eyes bore into his, begging for him to hurt her, to make her feel something.

“Because I love you. Because I know you did the right thing. Because how we lived at that time was not safe for him. If he would have stayed with us, he could’ve died. He wasn’t safe with us.” His voice was stern and tried it’s best to be convincing.

Scully nodded with closed eyes. She leaned her head against his chest and wrapped her arms around his middle, hugging him tight like a teddy bear. “I just want to see him. I need to know he’s happy and safe and taken care of.”

Mulder hugged her tight to commiserate with the loss of their son. Old wounds are still wounds after all. “He is. He’s not a kid anymore. He’s fifteen and a grouchy teenager.”

She chuckled softly, imagining her baby boy a lanky teen with a smart mouth like his father. “Did I make a scene running out like that?”

“Maybe, but who cares?”

Scully pulled back and craned her neck up to look at the love of her life. “This is an impossible situation, but I’m very happy that you are here.” She smiled when his much larger hands held her face.

“I’m happy to ease your pain, G-woman.” He leaned down to kiss her softly. Her lips were cold and salty from her tears but nonetheless sweet. Her small fingers clawed desperately at his hair, pulling him closer, closer, needing to feel him all over. If it weren’t for the fact that they were standing in a church, she would have taken him on this marble floor.

Falling off her tip toes, Scully pulled away from the kiss with a smacking sound. His arms were still around her waist when she spoke up.

“There are some amazing sandwiches downstairs and a slideshow of mom throughout her life done by Steven Spielberg himself, Charlie Scully.” She joked, eliciting a warm smile from Mulder.

“Aw shucks, Scully, you remembered Spielberg is my favorite.”

#msr #the x files #the x files fanfic #dana scully #fox mulder

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scullys-right-eyebrow-txf · 7 years ago

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Chapter 37: ...Two Steps Back

Thanks for putting up with all the angst! We'll get through this!

Takes place after the events of 'This Is Not Happening.' For this little story, Mulder was buried close by, not NC. Also, I know the timeline doesn't make a lot of sense. CC's timeline is so screwed up that I'm just doing the best I can!

Thanks so much for reading!!

Scully had only been back at work for two weeks when she was forced to take a couple of days off for Thanksgiving. Truthfully the holiday had snuck up on her. She and Mulder always seemed to be on a case during Turkey day. She lost count of how many times they ate dry, cold turkey in road side diners in Podunk towns. Actually, the more she thought about it, it was kind of nice.

With half of the family being on the other side of the country, the Scullys never went big on Thanksgiving, and since her husband’s death, Maggie Scully had taken to gathering with a small group of friends to celebrate the day. They cooked more than they could ever eat, leftovers always made their way into Mulder and Scully’s refrigerators, and they spent the rest of their evening watching favorite old movies.

Scully was invited every year and every year she declined, this year being no different. Maggie had argued that she shouldn’t be alone, but Scully convinced her that she really just needed the day to rest after her return to work. She’d be fine.

Skinner, unsurprisingly, also worried about her and actually invited her along to his yearly meet up with some old army buddies and their families, but she convinced him as well that she’d be fine.

The Gunmen had plans to eat loads of tacos, drink a lot of alcohol, and play Dungeons and Dragons until the wee hours of the morning. Scully was welcome to join them, minus the drinking of course, but she was quick to decline. She told them that all she wanted was her bed and a good book. She’d be fine.

Doggett was traveling to upstate New York to visit his mother, and thankfully did not try to invite her along, but he did inquire about her plans, if she’d be alone. She assured him that she was good, she’d be fine.

But when Thanksgiving came, Dana Scully was not fine.

She wasn’t even sure how she ended up at the cemetery.

It wasn’t planned. Her intentions were true; she just wanted a low key day alone to relax, but it wasn’t to be. Scully woke with tears in her eyes and sorrow nestled in her soul. Her heart literally felt heavy. She felt a weight on her chest that made it hard to breath.

She didn’t know how she was back in this state. Things had been going relatively well. She still cried, she still mourned, but suddenly she was feeling like she had in the days right after his death. Like there was no hope. Nothing to live for. Like she had died too.

Scully barely remembered putting on yesterday’s clothes and driving to the cemetery, but here she was collapsed to the ground in front of his headstone, heaving sobs emitting from throat. It was her first time to return since the funeral and all she wanted was to lay on the damp grass and cry, to sink into the ground with him.

She wrapped her arms around her belly as feelings of guilt joined her despair. How could she think these things? She had their child to consider, but for the moment all she wanted was to be with him. She needed to be strong, she needed to pull herself off the ground, but her sorrow was paralyzing.

How was she supposed to live in this world without him by her side? How could she be both mother and father to this child? How could she continue to exist without the other half of her heart?

Scully, so lost in her grief that she no longer had the ability to sit upright, crumbled against the headstone, her face pressed against its cool surface. Her fingers covered the letters of his name, clawing uselessly against them as if she could hold them, hold him in her grasp.

After what could be minutes or hours, her sobs finally dissipated and her tears were no longer constant, but she had no strength to stand. She felt a presence beside her and a hand tentatively touch her shoulder.

“Dear child, are you alright?”

Scully slowly turned her head to see a tiny, white haired woman beside her. This woman was much older than her own mother, but she could tell from her touch that this woman was a mother herself. She saw a sadness in her eyes that she could see in her mother’s eyes, in her own eyes. This woman was a widow as well. It was funny, she had never thought of herself as a widow until that moment.

“I’m okay,” Scully said, wiping her eyes with her coat sleeves. She took the old woman’s offered hand and carefully stood up. “I’m okay, I just…” she didn’t know how to finish the sentence as another tear made its way down her cheek. Her grief couldn’t be put into words, but she had a feeling that this woman understood all too well.

“You’re sure?” the woman asked, her hand still on Scully’s elbow in support.

Scully noticed that in her other hand, the woman held three perfect sunflowers. In the middle of November. There had to be a story about that.

Scully nodded. “Yes, thank you for checking on me but I’m okay. I’m just going to go home.”

The woman smiled sadly and rubbed Scully’s arm. “I know that if feels like you won’t get through this, but you will.” With one more smile, she turned and made her way further into the cemetery.

Scully looked to Mulder’s grave and touched it one last time before sighing and making her way slowly to her car. She got behind the wheel and wiped away her remaining tears as she caught sight of the old woman in the distance, placing her sunflowers reverently on a gravestone.

***************************************************

Scully seemed to drive on autopilot to Mulder’s apartment. She hadn’t been there since the memorial, but it seemed like the right place to be. She was shocked to find the place spotless. It didn’t take her long to discover the card from a cleaning service on the kitchen table and she had no doubt that it was the doing of her mother.

She walked aimlessly from room to room before finding herself in front of the answering machine. She hadn’t heard his voice in a month, so she pressed play. She laid on the worn leather couch and continued to press play for an hour, drowning in the sound of the voice she longed to hear more than anything in the world.

The apartment was paid up for two more months, but as she wallowed in her despair, she decided no more. The additional rent was already a strain on her finances, and no matter how much she prayed it would, keeping this apartment would not bring him back.

Determined, she strode into the bedroom and threw open the closet door. Her goal was to pack up the contents, but instead she found herself haphazardly pulling clothes off the racks and throwing them to the floor. His clothes, her clothes, nothing survived her rage. Next was the dresser. With a sound somewhere between a sob and a scream, Scully emptied them all onto the floor as well. His blankets and pillows went next and she was about to take her destruction out on an innocent lamp when she broke.

With a wail, she slid to the floor, a discarded comforter softening her descent. She once again lost track of time as she wept on the cold hardwood, surrounded by Mulder’s belongings. She was beginning to wonder how it was humanly possible for a person to cry that much. How did she have any tears left in her?

Eventually Scully heard noises from the other room and a sharp gasp from the doorway. “Dana,” her mother whispered and was by her side in an instant. “Oh, sweetheart,” she simply said, pulling her into an embrace.

Scully, relieved to realize that she was no longer crying, melted into her mother’s protective arms.

“Dana, you worried me. I went by your apartment and you weren’t there and you didn’t answer your phone. Sweetie, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left you on your own.”

“It’s not your fault,” Scully assured her. “I had a bad day,” she admitted with a hitch in her voice.

Maggie held her daughter on the floor for some time before her body began to protest. “Let’s get you home,” she said, kissing her forehead.

Scully didn’t put up a fight and allowed her mother to help her downstairs to the car. The ride was mostly silent until Scully had the courage to ask a question that she’d had for several months now.

“Mom,” she asked hesitantly, “do you remember the last conversation you had with Daddy?”

Maggie looked at her sadly before turning her eyes back to the road. “No,” she said softly. “It was just a normal night. We did our normal nightly routine and went to bed. And then he was gone. It was nothing special.”

Scully nodded, unsurprised to find her eyes once again filled with tears. “I wish it had been like that for us,” she said softly. “I wish that it had just been a normal night. But it wasn’t. We had been fighting. We were both pretty mad. We put it aside when we said goodbye at the airport, and I told him that I loved him. And he said it back, but I can’t get over the fact that the last time we were together, we were mad at each other. I wish I couldn’t remember,” she said with a sigh.

Her mother reached over and held her hand the rest of the car ride home. There was nothing she could say that would take away her daughter’s pain.

The next day, Scully returned to Mulder’s apartment and put everything back where it belonged.

#my fic #sorry for all the pain #msr fanfic

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jennfairkiss · 8 years ago

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A Mother’s Grief

Title: A mother’s grief

Summary: Right after “The Truth” Maggie hears the news report about Scully & Mulder.

Rating: umm PG but Angst… Mostly Maggie but Skinner is here too

Side bar: I wrote this because CC is an asshole to never explain how Maggie handle her daughter being on the run/missing. As a mother whose daughter was officially missing for 2.5 hours I could only imagine what Maggie went through all those years… so this is an attempt to make it right. Also, no beta... so my bad for any grammatical errors.

“Breaking news tonight. Two former FBI agents, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are currently wanted by the FBI due to…” stated the nondescript anchorman on Baltimore’s WJZ-13 CBS.

There are times in a mother’s life where time has lost all meaning and the very thought of breathing is too powerful to comprehend. The weight of the world has crashed onto her chest and she is no longer whole when she realizes her child is in danger. As Maggie Scully stared in dismay at her television, the local newstation was reporting national headlines, she could barely understand nor grasp how her daughter was now a felon for helping her partner escape from a military prison. The anchorman went on to state that Fox Mulder had killed a military official, had been sentenced to death, and since his escape was now considered armed and dangerous. Maggie started shaking her head at the television, “No! That’s not it… he’s a good man…he’s Will’s father. He would never…” she stammered.

Feeling the tightening in her throat, she took a short intake of breath and began pacing her living room looking for divine guidance. Upset that she hadn’t thought of it sooner, Maggie reached for her telephone and dialed her daughter’s cellphone number, but all she heard was “the wireless caller you are trying to reach, is no longer in service. Please check the number and try again.” After trying the number four more times, Maggie threw the phone against the couch in frustration. She couldn’t call Fox because he had been gone for the last year and didn’t have any means to get in contact with him. He stated it was for her daughter’s and grandson’s protection, but there were times over the last year, Maggie looked back wondering if he was trying to protect them from his own self-destructive ways.

“Dana is gone…William is gone…Fox is gone too.” The thoughts kept spiraling in her head over and over causing her mind to race to each unbearable, imaginable, outcome and in that moment it became too much. Screaming to the heavens, Maggie dropped to her knees in a disheveled heap as gut-wrenching sobs consumed her whole being. She knew she couldn’t call the police, her son Bill JR would just blame Fox, and she just didn’t have the strength to handle the emotional battles with him at the moment. Right now, even if Dana was okay, Maggie needed her daughter. Maggie needed to know everything would be okay. She had so many questions and felt that time had took away all chance of finding any answers.

Huddled on floor, curled in a fetal position, her body overcome with grief and despair, as the onslaught of sobs and tears fell from her face memories over the years flashed through her mind. Dana, 8 years-old, wearing her confirmation dress in front of her family. Dana, walking across the stage graduating from medical school. Dana, trying to be so strong at her father’s funeral. The look of hopelessness in her eyes as cancer slowly ate away her beautiful mind and spirit. The heartwarming moment when Dana told Maggie she was going to be a mother. Dana holding William as they gave him a sink bath while Dana cooed at her son. The unimaginable burden of going to the adoption center together to give William a better life.

In one swift moment, she looked angrily at her ceiling as if she could see the face God, “what have I done to deserve this? What did Dana do? Or Fox? How could you?!” Maggie slammed her hands into the ground, demanding answers from her faith in exasperation. “I just don’t understand!!!” she wailed to the unforgiving Fates as a fresh onslaught of pain pierced her heart and tears flowed rapidly down her cheeks.

Hours later, she was startled awake by a strong pounding on the front door. Rushing to the door, thinking it was Dana or Fox and the last few hours was a horrible nightmare, Maggie flung the door open only to have her hopes crash to the floor as she realized it was Dana and Fox’s supervisor Mr. Skinner at the door.

Skinner had seen hell on Earth in the eyes of many in his years from not only in Vietnam, but also at the FBI. Maggie had swollen, puffy, red eyes from a night of crying. She was skittish and already building her defenses up. “Like mother, like daughter,” he thought sadly. If Skinner was a betting man, Maggie screamed her grief to the heavens. It was a wonder that none of her neighbors called the cops, though with the news reporting about her daughter, Maggie would soon become the town’s version of the Scarlet letter. However, what was most disturbing to Skinner was the sense that Maggie had given up and was allowing the grief to take everything from her.

A mother’s grief was a tangible, distinct, darkness that swallows a woman whole. Its only objective is to crush all light and hope from the mother’s soul before it goes to find the next unfortunate mother. There is no rhyme or reason when it attacks or why it skips some mothers. Seeing Maggie standing as everyone she loved was slowly ripped from her, and yet she looked him in the eyes with her daughter’s resolve radiating from her own anguished soul. Walter was determined to not allow Maggie become another victim to the eternal darkness. Enough Scully women were already within the grips of the darkness and very little hope of ever seeing the light again.

“I don’t know where she is, Mr. Skinner, and even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.” Maggie stated angrily as she started to shut the door.

Putting his foot down to stop the door from closing in his face, “but I do, Mrs. Scully,” he said reverently. Staring at him with a mixture of fear and hope, Maggie, stood aside as she allowed Skinner to come inside, but only allowed him in the foyer. Folding her arms as a means to protect herself, “alright go ahead and tell me, but don’t you dare lie to me. I can’t take it anymore.”

“I don’t have much to say, but-“Skinner started…

“I knew it. Just leave please.” Maggie nearly screamed in frustration as she started reaching for the door.

“I have a letter from your daughter.” Skinner continued as if Maggie never interrupted him.

“You… What? You have a letter from Dana?” she stammered as the first full breath started filling her lungs since this nightmare began.

Reaching into his pocket, Skinner pulled out the letter. “I want you to know. I was with them and I helped them escape. I am going to do everything I can to bring her back to you,” he stated softly as he placed the letter in her trembling hands.

Walking to the couch, Maggie turn on the light, and began to read. As Skinner watched her, he saw the darkness begin to fade away from Maggie and watch as her spirit began to rebuild again. Maggie wouldn’t succumb to the darkness; she would raise like the mighty Phoenix again and again. Maggie was Dana’s mother after all and Dana had a lot of her mother’s strength within her.

After reading her daughter’s precious words three times, wiped the tears of joy that fell from her face, walked over to Skinner and placed her hand on his arm. “Thank you, Mr. Skinner. This meant everything to me.”

“It was nothing, Mrs. Scully” as he clasped her hand.

“Call me Maggie. Now would you like a coffee?” she smiled for what felt like the first time in ages.

“I’d like that very much.” Skinner stated as the two walked back towards Maggie’s kitchen ready to face the future.

#txf fanfic #my work #my fanfic #angst fanfic #maggie scully #Walter Skinner #i wrote this #the x files

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