This is a Three Words fix-it fic.
tw: pregnancy, depression, season 8
She was running as though in a bad dream, as though through water. She could not move fast enough; she didnât. Doggett found her screaming on her knees and when he helped her up, she could not keep her balance. Her legs tingled, and her speech was slurred. The second time heâd carried her someplace. Heâd sat her in his passenger seatâthey could follow Mulderâs body to the hospitalâwhen heâd said âMulderâs body,â sheâd moanedâand she could get checked out there too. She had wanted to tell him, Itâs a fight or flight response. Itâs a panic attack. All my blood is going to my heart. That is why I canât feel my legs. That is why I am sweating. That is why I am slurring and breathing hard.
Her mother comes to get her. Mulderâs body, pronounced DOA, is behind an ER curtain, and soon someone will come to take him to the morgue.Â
âI have to go,â she tells her, when they roll him out.
âNo, Dana,â her mother says, holding on to her arm, because she cannot really get up from her seat, because the attending nurse had insisted she take a sedative. (Pregnant, sheâd told the nurse. Itâs safe for you, the nurse had told her, as she knew already. Still, she hadnât wanted to risk it. If Mulder was parenting a baby, carrying a baby, heâd do it like a hippie, a homeopath, like her sister. Like if he wanted the baby he might try to sell her on some big, inflatable in-home birthing tub and its potential for multiple uses, and she would look at him fake-annoyed and say No, Mulder.
She hadnât want to risk the sedative because she had not protected Mulder properly. She had not protected their family properly. And she could not afford another mistake. But when someone handed her a bag of Mulderâs âbelongingsââthe blanket heâd had wrapped around him in the ambulanceâsheâd wailed. And Doggett had said, Dana. And the nurse had offered again, and sheâd accepted the pill because her hands were shaking too hard to hold the blanket in its large Ziploc baggie.)
She watches Mulder on the gurney, down the hall, through the doors, feeling like a deserter.Â
âI donât want him down there alone,â she cries into her motherâs shoulder. She thinks of their basement and how desperately, madly he is wanted. Needed beyond want.
âHeâs here with you, Dana.â
âMyâ" she chokes. My husband, she thinks. How when they told her she was pregnant, before they told her he was gone, sheâd imagined them together forever. My partner. âMy baby,â she says instead, low and keening, holding her stomach.
Later, when the medicine wears off, when her nervous system is no longer depressed, when her mother drives her home, she will cling to Maggieâs shoulders on her sofa. âI canât do this, Mom,â she will weep, hyperventilating. âI canât, I canât, I canâtâŚâÂ
Maggie rocks her like a child. She reminds Dana that sheâd taken home a prescription for panic attacks as needed. After the first dose Doggett had talked to Maggie in hushed tones. Mrs. Scully⌠after she saw him, she was just layinâ on the ground.
Dana takes it to go to sleep. Dana takes it for the funeral. Dana takes it to reduce the premature urge to nest, to reduce her conviction that she is already an inadequate mother.Â
The best day of her life, she thinks: when Mulder comes back. She argues and argues to treat him and to save him, as though running slow, through water.
âWho are you?â he jokes when he wakes up, and she is so grateful. She wants to tell him Go easy, I am barely off the sauce, and Please only be exactly yourself.
She leaves him at the hospital to pick up her car and his change of clothes, and when she returns, she is barely holding it together. She wants to take something, but if he sees her, she thinks he will disapprove, and regardless, she needs to drive him home.
It makes her heart beat fast and fearful to even think of leaving him alone. To even think of being apart.Â
âWhatever neurological disorder you were suffering from, itâs no longer detectable,â she assures him. He eyes her suspiciously, as though he is confused as to why she is not furious with him for not telling her of the aforementioned. Maybe when their family is together and whole and safe in her arms, she will worry about trivialities like his lies, or his long betrayal.
She goes on, âThe scars on your face⌠on your hands, on your feet, on your chest⌠they seem to be repairing themselves.â He touches his face, and she wonders if anyone has yet given him a mirror.Â
She tells him he is in perfect health. She means, I will always take care of you. I will never let this happen to you again. You have always been perfect.
âHow do you feel?â the doctor asks.Â
Mulder is glib. He borrows her deadpan humor. âLike Austin Powers.â She has missed, missed, missed him.
At Hegel Place, she insists that she carry his bag. He is distracted by the familiar and does not argue, which makes her feel displaced, like sheâs out of line for needing tenderness, specifically his. Inside his apartment, her chest gets tight. A lump comes to her throat.
She wants him to smile at her for preserving this space, here, for them. She wants him to say Remember the last time we were on that couch, Scully? and waggle his eyebrows. She wants his approval, his assurance that she has done enough because here they are, together.
She fights, failingly, for control of her breath. Her palms begin to sweat. She digs her nails into the skin.Â
âSomething looks different,â he says. She twists her fingers, his perusal making her nervous.
âItâs clean.â Her arms are numb, her legs are numb. Her tongue feels thick in her mouth.
âAh, thatâs it.â And then, âMissing a molly.â
âYeah,â she whispers. âShe wasnât as lucky as you.â Stay positive, she tells herself, be positive, make him comfortable, itâs all on you. If she fails to make his return to Earth run smooth, she will fail this baby, their baby, again.
She wonders at his grimace if she deserves to be a mother, to be entrusted with his child. If she is worthy of his love. Sheâs wanted him back, but sheâs wanted him for her.
âMulder,â she says, trailing off at the second syllable because her voice sounds unnatural to her ears. She knows she is dissociating for self-preservation, feels her soul leave her body like a snake from old skin.
âI donât know if youâll ever understand what it was like.â
âFirst learning of your abduction, and then finding you deadâŚâ
Her flat affect is a poor ruse. She has wanted nothing more than for him to be there for her for months, but she canât ask it of him, she wonât, not yet. She panics that he can smell it on her, the desperation, and resents it.
It is still her turn to be strong. Everything still depends on her.Â
â⌠And now, to have you backâŚâ her voice rises and cracks.
âWell, you act like youâre surprised.â He Vanna White-s himself. The strength to stay positive leaves her.
âI prayed a lot,â she tells him. âAnd my prayers have been answered.â Her vision blurs. She always cries.
âIn more ways than one.â His first acknowledgement of their child. All sheâs ever wanted, and now it is up to her to make it work, save them all.
âIâm happy for you.â His nodding is so fucking⌠fake. âI think I know⌠how much that means to you.â It ruins her composure.
She thinks, This isnât how itâs supposed to be. And, still, even with him in front of her, Oh my god, I canât do it.
Her lips tremble; she can feel her face crumple; she can feel it go numb; she looks like a little girl. âMulderââ
Heâs saying something to make her stop cryingââI donât mean to be cold or ungratefulââbut she should be the one doing all the work, and then the zinger: âI just, I have no idea where I fit in⌠right now. I just⌠Iâm having a little trouble⌠processing everything.â
She offers to give him a little space. She leaves his apartment building and crosses the street and realizes she cannot drive home when her hands shake so badly that she struggles to find her keys in her purse. In the driverâs seat, she watches them tremble on the wheel.
And she hears it again: I donât really know where I fit in.
And she feels it: the paralyzing fear that if she leaves him alone, he will not be here when she gets back.
The baby moves. She has to protect them both. He would never forgive her if she didnât protect them both; already he hasnât forgiven her; you act like youâre surprised.
She had wanted to run from Mulderâs apartment, to make him comfortable, to give him space, but she canât leave, she has to protect them, what if something happens to Mulder while she is gone, what would she tell her baby then. Sheâd thought of himâMy husband, because none of her claims to him felt adequateâsheâd thought: what will we do without him. They couldnât do anything without him. After they found him, she hadnât left her apartment for a week, not until Maggie implored her to take out the trash otherwise sheâd never return to Baltimore. (She hadnât even wanted Maggie to leave. She hadnât even been capable of caring for herself alone.)
And now heâs back, but he doesnât know where he fits in. And she doesnât know where she fits in if he doesnât know, because sheâd always assumed it would beâshe canât even think it, only: what if something happens if I drive away.
So she doesnât. She heaves big breaths. She hopes she will stop sweating. She wraps her arms around herself because weight on the chest depresses the nervous system, like burial, like a grave. She cannot take one of the pills in her purse because, though she wonât be driving, she must stay alert.
She sits across the street from Hegel Place in the driverâs seat, watching his window. She cries herself to sleep.
When she comes to, itâs dark out. Someone is yelling and knocking at her window. âScully! Scully!â
She jolts awake, but still feels sluggish. Her eyes go wide, she blushes; itâs Mulder. He looks confused and horrified. A hand goes to her stomach, checking the babyâwhat the fuck was she thinking, falling asleep like thatâthe other to the door. âOpen the door, Scully, Jesus Christ,â heâs saying, and heâs looking at her like sheâs crazy, and sheâs shaking her head.
The moment it clicks for him that she is not totally with it, perhaps hasnât been for weeks or months, she sees it in his eyes.
She has failed, because she was supposed to stay awake to protect them. She remembers all her previous failuresâall day today, and every day, for months. He is mad at her, she thinks. She is scared. He is going to leave her. She hasnât even told him: I canât do it. She needs some air. She needs to beg, she realizes. She unlocks the door.Â
In a second, he yanks it open. His hands on her face. She sighs; it is such a relief to feel him. âScully?â Feeling all around, fingers to her neck, checking her vital signs, checking the baby. âYou okay, Scully?â
Him. Touching her. She begins to cry. She holds her stomach. âIâm sorry,â she weeps. âIâm so sorry, Mulderââ
Mulder brushing the hair from her face, Mulder looking confused.Â
Mulder feeling like he has no idea where he fits in right now, but sure as hell knowing how to play her hero.Â
âIâm sorry,â sheâs choking, and heâs crouching by her to get a better angle, pulling her legs out of the car so her shoes dangle just above the pavement, just by his legs. âI canât do it.â
âShh,â he tells her, âShh, youâre shaking. Take a deep breath. Take a deep breath.âÂ
She shakes her head. âI canât.â Tears leak from her eyes but she is silent except for when she inhales, tries to inhale.
âScully,â he tells her, sternly, but soft, like in a good dream, and he smells like himself, and heâs saying her name.
She hurts. âMy chest,â she tells him.Â
âWhatâs wrong? Scully, whatâs wrong, why are you in here? Have you been in here this whole time?â
âIâm sorry,â she cries.Â
âWhat are you doing here, Scully?â heâs asking, but his voice is tender, like heâs worried, not angry.
âIâm sorry, Mulder, I didnât mean to fall asleep, I wasâI wasâI was going toâIâŚâ her mouth is open but she doesnât know what to say, and she cannot breathe, she canât.
âAlright,â he whispers. âItâs alright. Come here.â And then he is taking her hands, pulling her out of the car, pulling her close. The compression of her chest slows her nervous system.
âWhat are you doing out here, Scully?â he asks again, rocking her back and forth and back and forth. âItâs late.â
âI⌠I couldnât leave.â It is easier to talk into his sweater, the one she had left the hospital to retrieve from her own apartment.Â
âSâthat why the pajamas under my pillow smell like you?â
She is embarrassed. âIâm sorry. I was just⌠keeping watch. If you⌠if something happened I-I couldnât go on, Mulder.â She canât perform a moment longer, and he has always seen right through her.
âOh, ScullyâŚâ he pulls back to look at her, as if to say, finally, Baby, you are eight months pregnant, who the fuck do you think you need to protect?
Her chin wobbles. âIâmââ
âShh,â he tells her. âDonât be sorry.â And then: âItâs okay. Itâs alright. Iâm here.â
She nods. She cries a little more, and says âYeah.â After a minute, she speaks again. Her voice is high and thready. âI havenât been⌠doing well, Mulder.â
He looks into her eyes and nods very seriously, comprehending.
She feels the burden leave her body. She feels partnership, at once foreign and dear.
âCome on,â he says. The first time since waking up that he has not felt helpless. âLetâs go to bed.â She nods. She is so small.
In bed, she tells him, âWeâve missed you so much,â and puts his hands on her stomach. And the night moves like water, like all her fatherâs slow returns from war.
