#like. memento mori deleted kiss my beloved.

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

how to bend, not how to break

(shoutout to @alittlemorelight for suggesting Jon Foreman's "Learning How To Die" as a cancer arc song!!)

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1. Her best friend kisses her under glaring flourescent lights in a hospital hallway, or maybe she kisses him, or maybe it's both of them at once that does it; her seeking refuge in him, feeling safer in his arms than she has since her diagnosis, him needing to convey and confess something he can't put into words. They don't talk about it, but she doesn't push him away, even when she sees how hard it is for him to watch her slip away. Her nose bleeds and she lets him hand her tissues he keeps in his pockets nowadays. They don't talk about that, either, but she doesn't push him away.

2. She doesn't kiss him when he sees her slight shudder, the shiver she can't quite hide after the cryobiology case in Massachusetts, and puts his coat around her shoulders. She has a hard time staying warm these days, even under her usual layers; even at home, curled under extra blankets with her knees pulled up to her chest. Turning up the thermostat in her apartment would be like admiting defeat, and she is not ready to concede that yet. Mulder sees her shiver, standing beside the car as they finish giving their statements, and silently slips out of his coat and tucks it around her. She tries to protest, tells him like always that she's fine, the memory of Dr. Yonechi bursting into flames just bothers her, but he offers a tiny smile, his head leaned close to her, and just says "it's alright." He means her weakness, but he won't say it, and that is enough to make her stop talking and slide her arms into the too-long sleeves. Mulder's hands rest on her shoulders for a little too long to be normal, and she does not push him away. She doesn't kiss him again, like she suddenly wants to, but she doesn't push him away, either.

3. She does not kiss her best friend when she is wine drunk on her own couch and feeling warmer than she has in weeks; she doesn't, because it's not her partner. The real Mulder wears a vaguely stricken look for the rest of the evening and won't move from his place at her shoulder as she speaks with the police officers who come to take Eddie van Blundht away. She doesn't give him a disapproving look or sigh that she's alright, he doesn't need to hover like this, like she's something fragile (she is). She doesn't push him away. Maybe it's the lingering effects of the wine, in vino veritas and such, but the truth is, she wants him close.

4. She does not kiss him in the back stairwell of a mental hospital after she has seen a ghost. This time, she does push him away. She cannot believe, refuses to. It's the same as the Boggs case, back in the first year of their partnership: she is afraid to believe. She confesses, tells him what she's seen so that it is not kept to her, and she sees the desperation light in his eyes when he snaps at her; he only does that when he's afraid. She wants him to kiss her when he says that he is, that he's scared of the same thing she is, but she is frightened and frustrated, and she pushes him away. They still haven't talked about Philadelphia or why it happened.

5. She finally kisses her partner again, this time in a hospital in Rhode Island because he can't stop apologizing; she is not angry with him, just frustrated and afraid, because if he'll go to such lengths with her arguing against it every step of the way, put himself in that danger with her fighting to keep him safe, she doesn't want to think about what he'll do once she's gone. He can't stop apologizing, avoids touching her even though she can see how deeply he craves comfort; she can't stop remembering how small and broken he looked on the floor of that house. She kisses him while they wait for the doctors to discharge him, and she can taste his tears.

"Scully," he whispers unsteadily, after, "I'm so-"

She kisses him again so that he knows she will not push him away. They cannot lose each other any earlier than they must. He doesn't push her away, either.

6. They still don't talk about it, but he kisses her at her dining room table with her for once taller than him. She leans down, kisses him back. It happens just before another nosebleed starts, and then she is standing, shaky, in front of the sink, and Mulder looks like he wants to hold her tight enough that even cancer can't take her. She wishes he could; she asks him to turn up the thermostat and does not kiss him again before he leaves. He is faking his own death, and she is approaching hers. She doesn't push him away, in fact she'd give nearly anything to hold him close, not let him walk out her apartment door and leave her alone, but she doesn't kiss him.

7. She does not kiss her best friend and partner when she is lying on what will be her deathbed. He comes to her, aggravates the nurses and her brother, and kisses just about every part of her but her lips. There is a boundary, just now, and the boundary is death. He stares into her eyes when he presses his lips to her knuckles, then whispers her name, barely audible because her mother and brother are standing in the doorway.

"Scully," he breathes, "I-"

She shakes her head. "Don't," she pleads. She cannot let him say it and then lose her.

She doesn't let him tell her what she already knows; she doesn't tell him her part either. But she doesn't push him away, instead clings to him when he leaves. She does not have a thermostat to turn up, here, and she doesn't know if she will ever be warm again. She wants him close.

8. She does not kiss him when she tells him the cancer is in remission and he falls to his knees in shock and ecstasy, but she does let him tell her he loves her. He says it again and again into her hair and the crook of her neck, until she takes his face in her hands and he goes still, reverent. She smiles a watery smile, and then she does kiss him, soft and slow and salty with tears, even though her mother is about to walk into the room and see.

"I love you too," she says, and now they are both crying. This is the first time they've talked about it.