#xfwc week eighty | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sportsnightnut · 6 years ago

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because this is yours

Once upon a time, I was really good at keeping up with the XF Writing Challenge prompts from @leiascully. And then grad school happened, and I lost all interest in reading and writing for fun. But now that I’m getting back into it, I want to return to these awesome prompts. So, having said that, here’s my work for XFWC prompt #68, forgiveness.

This story takes place pre-revival, shortly before Season 10, in the same personal headcanon as “rivers and roads” and “i can’t do this alone.” You don’t need to read either of those for this one to make sense, but they give a little more backstory that you might enjoy. Y’all remember wifegate and ringgate? That was a good time. ;)

I am a little nervous about this one because I don’t usually write in first person, but I felt that it worked well for Scully to tell this story.

Last but not least, tagging @fictober and a few lovely folks: @i-gaze-at-scully (who gave me some terrific advice re: this fic yesterday--thank you!), @baronessblixen, @scully-eats-sushi, @because-they-dont-exist, & @megk18.

I didn’t mean to take this from you.

You might have forgotten it. Accidentally left in the cupholder in my car. Maybe I brought it to the hospital one morning and kept it in my locker without thinking about it.

It’s most likely that I grabbed it from the cupboard when I was packing other things and neglected to consider that it was technically yours. Before I reached for it, touched it, held it, put it in a box, it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter what was yours or what was mine. Everything in that kitchen cabinet was ours.

But now there is a delineation. A boundary. My things versus your things.

I took what is mine and left behind what is yours. I left behind many of the things I’ve come to think of as ours.

A separation of our belongings along with the separation of ourselves.

Temporary as I hope it is.

Wednesday morning. 5:51 am. Nine minutes before my shift begins and I’m staring at this object in my hands, trying so very desperately not to let something as trivial as a coffee cup be my undoing.

But as soon as I realize what I’m holding, I can’t stop staring at it. This isn’t an inexpensive, indistinguishable cup. It’s a titanium tumbler, double-walled, with your initials engraved on the bottom. Practically indestructible. You could drop it off a cliff and it would survive the fall. I gave this to you. I spent fifty-something dollars on this piece of metal for you.

It wasn’t about how much it cost. It was about what I wanted it to represent. I wanted it to represent the fact that I knew you needed to be out there. Driving down dimly lit Midwestern highways at eighty miles per hour. Searching for answers. Clinging to every shred of evidence, every small piece of information that might bring you closer to the truth. And as foolish as it seemed, I wanted you to have this because I knew it could endure all of that alongside you.

What I didn’t know at the time is that I wouldn’t be able to.

I didn’t know that despite everything we had survived together, this diagnosis would break me.

Except it wasn’t the diagnosis. It was your reaction to it. Your unwillingness to accept it. To treat it. To do something about it.

I don’t discount the fact that I shouldn’t have been the one to do it. To diagnose you, that is. It was acceptable for me to serve as your physician for the simple things like cold remedies and flu shots. It was even fine for the more serious ailments that required stitches or bedrest.

Being the physician who diagnosed you with clinical depression was not acceptable. I should have known better. I’m just not certain you would have taken it any more seriously had it come from another doctor. It was more of a nuisance to you than anything else. A distraction. It took you away from your work.

It also took you away from me.

I urged you to seek treatment. I begged you to, and I so rarely beg anyone for anything. I don't think you heard me. I don’t think you could.

Some nights, you came to bed at three, four in the morning. Other nights, you didn’t come to bed at all. I would be waking for an early shift at the hospital and you would just be climbing into bed. Sleeping during the day and working long into the night.

We lived together, but we weren’t living together. You were immersed in your search. Paralyzed by your obsession. So isolated from the world that I could barely get you to sit at the kitchen table and have dinner with me.

I made the decision to leave not because I wanted to, but because I felt I needed to. Because I believe the physical distance is necessary for us to heal. You need to work this out by yourself, at least for now. You need to find yourself again before I have any real chance of helping you.

But I am also frightened by the thought that I may not have made this clear: it isn’t just you who needs to get better. I am broken, too.

We have to heal for each other.

I turn the mug over in my hands, feeling the cool surface against my fingertips. Titanium is known for its strength despite the fact that it’s a lightweight metal. You once pulled this mug from the shelf and told me I was the personification of titanium. “Lightweight but strong, Scully,” you said, smiling. "That’s you.”

Then you kissed me on the cheek and reached for the pot of coffee.

It’s also why your wedding band is made of titanium. The wedding band that now hangs on a chain around my neck, tucked neatly underneath my scrubs. The night I left, you removed it from your finger and placed it in the palm of my hand, folded my fingers around it, and let go.

The way you removed it with such ease and precision told me you’d practiced that maneuver already. It was, in some way, a confirmation that I, too, had failed. Because you anticipated it. You knew that I was going to leave.

“Take it,” you told me. “When I deserve to wear it again, you can bring it back to me.”

I grasp the chain and pull it out from underneath my top so I can hold the ring between my fingers. The metal has been warmed by my skin, as the chain is long and the band rests somewhere near my heart.

These objects make me miss you because they are yours.

This mug is yours, and the hands that hold it are yours.

This ring is yours, and the heart that beats near it is yours.

Because I am yours.

I take my phone out of my pocket and stare at it for just a few seconds because I think perhaps I should call you, just to hear your voice and know that you’re alright.

But I decide against it. It’s 5:57. I have to start rounds in three minutes, scrub in for surgery after that. I haven’t talked to you in over three weeks. Three minutes isn’t going to be enough, because I know you’re not alright. And neither am I.

I tuck the ring back underneath my scrubs and set the mug in my locker before closing it gently.

I didn’t mean to take something of yours.

I hope you know that, Mulder.

And I hope you’ll forgive me.

#xfwritingchallenge #xfwc prompt: forgiveness #fictober #octoberficfest #xf fic #my fic

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