JUST A FAN of FAN ART & FANFIC, XFiles

‘Oh, Mulder, look at you,’ Scully said in horror as he emerged from the bathroom, his eye swollen and sore looking, his skin pallid and his hair a wet mess. 

‘Y’know, some women find scars sexy,’ he grumbled, pulling on the first t-shirt his fingers brushed from the pile beside his dresser. 

‘Those women aren’t usually doctors. It’s hard to find something sexy that could have caused internal bleeding, concussions, fractures. Plus, it just makes you look sad.’ 

‘That works, I feel sad, Scully.’ 

‘Join the club.’ 

‘Do we get badges? We already have the secret handshake.’ He joined her on the bed again and she turned to face him as his hand stroked her hip. 

‘What are we going to do, Mulder?’ Her tone was suddenly serious, and he swallowed nervously. 

‘Well, Scully, we could head to the Gunmen’s, or we could head to the hospital, or we could jump on a plane and head to the Bahamas. Hey, wouldn’t that be fun? Flying wherever you want without your passport, or needing to buy a ticket?’

The look she gave him told him that, no, that didn’t sound fun. 

‘I meant, what are we going to do?’ 

‘Oh, the big, do.’ He drew in a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

‘I… I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable, but I think I need to start trying something.’ 

‘Something?’ 

‘Some of these rituals, these… solutions we’ve found to getting you back into your body, Scully. They’re trying to bring you around, and I need to stop waiting for this all to magically resolve itself.’

‘Mulder, you cannot be serious.’ 

‘I am, deadly.’ 

‘Mulder, chanting over my body is not going to fix this.’ 

‘So, what is?’ he asked firmly, ‘Sorry, Scully, but we can’t just do nothing.’ 

‘I- We’re not doing nothing, Mulder, the doctors..’

‘The doctors have given up,’ he said, surprised at the harshness of his own words. 

‘If there is a single thing I can do to fix this, Scully, I’m going to do it. I don’t care how ridiculous it all seems. Something is going to work. There has to be a reason that you’re here, that you’re still with me. Because in a normal, run-of-the-mill coma, Scully, this doesn’t happen.’ 

She shook her head and shot him a disapproving look. 

‘Mulder…’ 

‘I love you, Scully. I love you, and I’m not going to give up.’ 

The words washed over her but left her feeling sick. It somehow loosened her grip on the hope they were holding together, like he was gearing up to say goodbye. 

She looked away and pulled free from his grasp, and he rolled onto his back to stare at the ceiling. 

They rode to the hospital in silence, save for the brief call he had with Frohike, putting his cell on speakerphone as the despondent man listed off a few articles they’d found overnight, apologising as they offered little hope. 

‘Is she there?’ Frohike had asked over the crackling line. 

‘She’s right here,’ Mulder answered with his hands tight on the wheel. 

‘Hey, Scully.’ 

She didn’t reply as she stared out of the window, and Mulder quickly ended the call, plunging them back into their silence together. 

They parted ways in the hallway again, and Mulder carried his bag of books guiltily into the room, hoping to find it empty but stopping just inside of the door as he saw Maggie Scully’s tired frame in front of Scully’s bed. 

The room was bursting with bouquets of flowers, and the sight sent another wave of guilt through him. None from him. He hadn’t cared to notice them yesterday as he stared down Bill’s fist, but now shame flickered in his chest as smiled limply at Maggie. 

She turned and quickly assessed him, looking down at the plastic bag that swung near his calf, and he tucked it behind his leg. 

‘Good morning, Maggie. I brought some books, I.. was going to read to her for a bit,’ he said quickly, hoping she wouldn’t ask any further questions. 

‘Fox,’ she said evenly, a calmness to her words that the tension in her face belied. ‘We didn’t expect to see you today.’ 

He tried not to think deeply about that statement and just nodded as he stepped closer. She looked away, fighting the urge to stare at his injured cheek.

He wondered if it made her glad, if some small part of her felt joy when she looked upon his face, the evidence of Bill’s defence of his sister splattered across it. He cleared his throat. 

‘How is she doing today?’ 

‘She’s on life support, Fox. She’s not ‘doing’ anything.’ 

Fuck. His gaze dropped again to his feet and the tiles and the chair legs as they always did when he was in this room. He didn’t know what to say, but as weary words fought to break through his hesitant lips, she cut him off. 

‘I have our family priest visiting today, and If you don’t mind, I’d like the room. I know you don’t believe, as Dana did.’ 

Does, he wanted to scream, Dana does believe. 

He wasn’t welcome when he was here, and he was despised when he left. His stomach twisted and he chewed at his lip, unsure of what to say. He left the room and closed the door so softly behind him that something fractured in his chest. Scully’s body was in that quiet little room, and he had no place in it. 

Why, why was she with him and not her family? Why, why could he see her even now, across the hall with her immaculate suit and her serious expression, yet the nurses flitted past her as though she wasn’t there at all. 

‘Hey,’ he said quietly from the corner of his lips as he pressed against her side.

‘No new bruises, I assume Bill wasn’t in there?’ 

He smirked and shook his head. ‘Just your mom. She asked for some privacy, though. Your priest is coming.’ 

Scully’s expression drew back into one of horror, her lips disappearing as her eyes glistened. 

‘What? What’s wrong?’ 

‘She’s, uh..’ Scully cleared her throat tightly and squeezed her jaw together. ‘She’s saying goodbye.’ 

He stared at her in disbelief. ‘Already?’ 

Scully nodded and stared over his shoulder at the closed door, a pull in her soul that tugged her forward. ‘He’ll be giving me my last rites.’ 

‘Scully..’ 

She was already moving and so he let her go. 

The two agents huddled around the motel's bathroom sink, Scully leaning over with her head in her hands, while Mulder did his best to tend to the wound. It wasn't a pretty sight, broken skin and blood--and while Scully was valiantly keeping quiet and saving face, Mulder knew it must have hurt.

When she hissed at the first pour of hydrogen peroxide, something in Mulder's heart twisted in response. The sight of the wound didn't bother him, nor did the act of cleaning it; that pained sound was what set him off-kilter, even as small as it was. The thing was: Scully was strong. She was brave, she'd been to hell and back--they both had, together. A scraped shoulder was nothing, on the scale of all that. But it never really got any easier to see her in pain, to watch her expression turn pale and pinched, just before she turned away to hide it. To know that his options to fix it were limited, always insufficient, because there was never any way to make the pain simply vanish.

Mulder hated helplessness in all its forms, hated that sickening feeling of inaction and uncertainty; but seeing Scully hurt was perhaps the worst of all.

"I know, I'm sorry," he murmured, voice low and tense, even as he tried to keep his tone comforting. He rested a steadying hand on her back--warm skin to warm skin, as Scully's ruined dress shirt had been abandoned in the corner of the room--and gave the disinfectant a moment to work.

"It's fine, Mulder," Scully replied, her own tone just slightly strained, but still genuinely confident as always; the discomfort was well-hidden away, and she sounded more annoyed by the ordeal than anything. She raised her head to meet his eyes in the mirror, hands falling to twist together as though in prayer. "It's just a scrape--I'd deal with it myself if I could reach it." That comment had Mulder leveling her with a long-suffering look, to which she returned a tight smile and unshakeable gaze. At least they were back on everyday ground, in that respect.

"Well, for not going to medical school, I think I'm doing alright," he said dryly, trying to move past that twist of anxiety that had shown up when Scully fell, and then never left. Mulder couldn't help his tone turning soft once again though, absentmindedly brushing his thumb over Scully's shoulder blade as he spoke. "Can you lean forward a little more? Just need to rinse it out, now." He really didn't need to narrate his actions-Scully knew the steps, she could tend to wounds like this in her sleep, and Mulder knew that--but he just couldn't fight back to urge to reassure her anyway. Maybe it wasn't so bad though, because the words seemed to make Scully untense a fraction, even as she leaned her shoulder closer to the sink.

Mulder carefully poured lukewarm water over the wound, glad to see that it had mostly stopped bleeding and was free of debris, while Scully tried to avoid knocking into the taps from the awkward position. He wasn't sure what compelled him to slip his free hand alongside Scully's temple, cradling her head to ease the strain while he worked--but neither of them mentioned it. Within a minute, Mulder was carefully patting the water away with a clean towel, and Scully straightened back up, gingerly rolling out her shoulder.

"There's some bandages in that bag, could you-" she began, sentence breaking off when she turned around to find Mulder already holding up the bandages with a shrug and faint smile. "Oh."

"Figured this would probably be easier with a partner, unless you'd rather do it," he offered, leaving her a way out, just in case. But that tense spot in his chest unwound slightly when Scully nodded after a second, taking a seat on the bathroom stool.

"Thank you, for all this." Scully glanced over her shoulder slightly, catching sight of Mulder from the corner of her eye, as he leaned over to daub some ointment onto her shoulder and began wrapping it. He kept his gaze mostly focused on the task, but spared a glance up at her, offering another one of those small smiles. Their eyes seemed to lock for a moment too long, like usual, a silent conversation rushing between them like lines of code on a screen.

"It's no problem, Scully," Mulder said easily, looking back down as he focused on keeping the touch gentle, motions hovering somewhere between clinical and cherishing as he wrapped the bandages, hands brushing over her skin. There was a moment of quiet then, only broken by Mulder's quiet "ta-da" as he taped the corner of the bandage in place. Scully stood and made her way to the bathroom mirror, turning to look at his handiwork and giving a pleased hum of approval.

"Not bad--maybe we'll make a doctor of you yet," she teased, which elicited a fond sort of eye roll from Mulder, who had set about returning the first aid kit to rights. Scully took a moment to examine her partner from afar, cataloguing the determined sort of precision his actions held, the undercurrent of tension that was just as puzzling as it was endearing.

"Har-har," Mulder intoned, having to lean slightly on the first aid kit to close it properly, and then straightening with a couple protesting pops from his back. "You don't fall down any more hills, and we'll call it even, how's that?" He raised his eyebrows and put his hands on his hips, trying to match the teasing. But some of his worry must have shown through, because Scully's expression softened as their eyes met, and she took a small step forward into his space.

"I'll do my best," she promised, voice gentle and unbearably fond, and Mulder's heart leapt when she rested a hand on his arm. Then Scully was standing up on her tiptoes, and pressing a soft kiss to his cheek--it was only a brush of her lips, but she lingered there, and Mulder thought he might have done anything for her in that moment, even as he stood frozen. Warm skin and warm skin. When Scully pulled away, it finally broke the spell, and Mulder took a quick breath that he tried to hide, resisting the urge to chase after the touch. "Besides," Scully continued softly, turning to shrug on a t-shirt, being careful of the bandages. "At least I know you'll be there to catch me."

"I will," Mulder returned the sentiment immediately, not capable of denying, even if he had wanted to. He reached out to rest a hand on her uninjured shoulder, close and in each other's space once more, as though they couldn't bear anything else. "Anytime."

She offered him another one of those gentle smiles, and they both knew it was true. Anywhere, anytime, they would be there for each other. That was what partners were for.

Something felt wrong, Scully turned over and clutched a hand to her hallow chest, feeling a fluttering of unease. She pulled herself free from Mulder’s arm, and he rolled onto his other side with a grunt of displeasure.

She scrambled to her feet and ran her hands firmly down her clothes, as though brushing the sleep from them would right her body. Something fluttered again, then swam in her veins until she felt an icy sensation travel up her arms.

‘Mulder,’ she called out with fear loud in her voice. 

‘Mmmh,’ he huffed, rolling his head back to stare blearily up at her.

Light poured all around her, cracking in through the blinds around her frame but her movements were unsteady, jerky, and the sight pulled him fully awake with a start.

‘Scully?’

‘Something feels… wrong.’ She gasped shakily as her fingers began to tingle and sting. She held them up and studied them as they began to tremble.

‘What?’ He shot up out of bed and rushed to her, grasping her hands and feeling the skin there, uncomfortably cold.

‘I don’t feel.. well.’

He opened his mouth to ask another question, but the shrill sound of his phone ringing halted them both and their eyes widened in panic.

He nearly tripped over his jeans as he rushed into the living room, grabbing the phone frantically and pressing it to his ear.

‘Mulder,’ he barked into the handset. 

‘..Mr Mulder, it’s Sally here from Dana Scully’s care team. The doctor has asked that you come in today for an update on your wife’s condition.’ Her words were clean and polite, but carried an undertone of judgement that twisted in Mulder’s gut.

They didn’t know, they didn’t know that she was right here by his side and they were working together to bring her back.

‘Uhm, of course, thank you. I can be in by.. nine,’ he said and his eyes locked onto Scully’s with an apologetic expression.

‘The doctor will do his best to be with you at nine, but you may have to wait while he finishes up with other patients.’

‘That will be fine, I can wait,’ Mulder said, almost sheepishly. ‘I’ll wait.’

‘Ok. We’ll see you soon, Mr Mulder.’

‘Uh- sorry, is everything ok?’

There was a tense pause where words were bitten down. He could tell that she wanted to say something stern, something true, but she held back. The line crackled between them.

‘The doctor would just like to see you in person.’

She hung up promptly, and he tried not to dwell on the judgement of a stranger, one who could never understand their situation.

‘What is it?’ Scully asked breathlessly.

‘The doctor wants to see me, for an update..’

He studied her expression carefully, watching the twitch of her eyes as she bit her lower lip and nodded.

‘What does that mean?’

‘Well, I don’t know, Mulder,’ she said sternly. ‘We need to go down there and find out.’

Thoughts clouded her mind, ugly, final things she refused to share with him. They could at least drive to the hospital in some state of blissful ignorance. They could have that.

The journey was over too quickly though, and Mulder was leading her out of the parking lot and through the double doors. Scully felt afraid, the dread of having no presence in a busy building, now all-consuming.

She could tell that he was avoiding touching her too much, as they were free to do in private but not here, where eyes would see him grasping at the air.

‘You coming in?’ he asked in a low murmur with a brush of their pinky fingers as they got to her floor.

She shook her head slowly and he nodded in understanding.

She wasn’t ready to see herself, to see her cold and lifeless body again, so they parted ways at the reception desk and she let herself drift down the familiar, comfortable halls of a busy hospital.

She hovered at the nurses station for a few moments, listening to the clacking of computer keys and the squeak of sneakers against a well-worn floor.

Charts were flipped closed and busily shoved into boxes right in front of her eyes and she ached to flip them back open again. To read, to scan the pages and diagnose, to see patterns and clues fall neatly into place. She ached to contribute something to the commotion, but a flare of frustration drowned it all out and she drifted again, passing through a door without a thought about where it might lead.

‘Did you see that piece-of-shit husband showed up finally?’ a nurse muttered with a mug of coffee held up in front of her mouth.

Scully froze and turned to face the pair, leaning against the counter in scrubs, in a cramped little break room. She recognised the scene so well.

‘Oh, that tall guy? He’s finally back?’

‘Yeah, let’s see if he stays for a full hour this time,’ the first nurse said with a roll of her eyes between sips.

‘Her poor mother has been here every single day, but him? Not a peep. And yet he won’t let them honour her DNR order.’

Scully felt a hot pit of anger in her stomach, watching them discuss Mulder as though he wasn’t willing to go to the ends of the earth for her. They didn’t know him, and this moment felt suddenly cruel. She wished her voice would work in rooms like this.

‘If she wakes up, I hope she divorces him.’

‘Oh, hon, she’s not waking up,’ she replied sadly before turning to rinse her mug out.

Scully shut her eyes and blinked back the tears that ached to spill. She turned and fled blindly through the walls, unnoticed.

‘Jeez, did they print out the entire internet?’ Scully whispered, though she wasn’t sure why she’d bothered.

Mulder couldn’t suppress a grin as her shoulder nudged his and the contact sent a thrill through him.

‘Hey, no, no no! You don’t get our free grunt work and get to talk behind our backs. If she’s making jokes, share them with the class!’

Scully rolled her eyes and twisted her fingers at her lips, flinging the imaginary key over her shoulder.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, there’s nobody there,’ Mulder said smugly.

‘Jerk..’ Frohike muttered as he hefted up another ream of paper and dropped it in front of them.

‘So.. not to sound ungrateful, but what exactly am I looking at?’ Mulder asked with wide eyes.

‘This is… everything,’ Langly said seriously, his hands on his hips as they all took a moment to stare at the mammoth task ahead.

‘Everything..?’

‘We ran a programme, it trawled the net and pulled up anything, medical journals, personal blogs, any page that mentioned a specific set of keywords. Then, we just hit print, it was going all night. No stone unturned,’ he said with a shrug.

‘No stone,’ Mulder exhaled slowly, then pushed it into a low whistle.

‘We’re gonna charge you for the paper though,’ Frohike added as he elbowed past.

‘What about Scully?’ Mulder asked, his voice sounding whinier than he would have liked.

‘For her, it’s on the house, you’ve used up more than your share of our free stuff.’

‘You’re just pissed you can’t see her,’ he grumbled in return and Scully shoved him.

‘You can do it the old-fashioned way, too, Mulder, we won’t judge.’ Byers cut in, gesturing towards a pile of dusty old books they’d stacked in the corner.

‘Thanks. I’ll hit the books and you guys start skimming the mountain. You know what you’re looking for?’

‘Coma patient, apparitions, miracles?’

‘What are we waiting for?’ He asked, smacking his hand on his thigh and standing.

‘And what will the lovely lady be doing?’

‘She, uh, can’t touch anything..’ Mulder said, an apology on his lips as he shot her a look.

‘Nothing?’ Frohike asked.

Mulder didn’t feel like explaining that she could touch precisely one thing and it was his body, so he just shook his head tightly.

‘Scully…’ Frohike blindly addressed the room, his voice a little loud.

‘She can hear you, man, she’s in a coma, not deaf,’ Mulder said with a scoff.

‘Tell him I said thanks,’ Scully said.

‘She says thanks,’ Mulder repeated and they all shared a small smile before taking up their own stations.

Stacks of paper shifted between sides of tired bodies and Mulder sifted through a pile of books until some title seemed vaguely helpful.

Scully watched Mulder carefully as she tired of waiting for him to turn pages that he was still studying, his thumb brushing at the corners as he muttered under his breath.

Her head rolled from side to side, trying to clear the frustration and impatience away with a familiar movement.

His lips were moving silently and the plump lower one glistened as his tongue occasionally darted out to run along it. His forehead was pulled taut and she could see tension running in little lines underneath his skin, beneath stubble that she had never observed this closely before. She was sure that she had never stared at anyone’s skin like this before and she felt herself lean even closer under the guise of reading more of the book rested on his bent knees.

‘You never wear your glasses anymore,’ she said softly without thinking, then quickly straightened up when she heard the rasp of her voice.

‘I, uh.. my eyes are pretty tired.’ He went to reach for them self consciously and she stilled him, the tips of her fingers buzzing against his hand.

He tugged away and pulled his glasses off so he could rub at his eyes, as though he had forgotten about the discomfort until she had brought it up. He groaned quietly as his head pressed back against the wall.

‘What are you two whispering about over there?’ A grumble came from across the room behind stacks of research that were still towering stubbornly above all their heads.

Mulder chuckled but ignored the comment and reached across the grab Scully’s hand.

‘Scully are you ok? Do you feel tired?’

She looked at him for a drawn out moment, squinting as she considered his question. It shouldn’t be difficult to answer, it was normally a yes or no question, but all of her insides felt murky, clouded and unsettled.

‘It’s not…’ She shook her head, searching her brain for how she really felt. ‘It’s not a tiredness per say, it’s more of a.. there’s an ache,’ she said, hovering a hand over the centre of her chest and his eyes flicked down with a frown.

‘Y’know, if this situation wasn’t so gut-wrenchingly frightening, it would be fascinating,’ he said with a little awe in his voice, eyes tracking slowly back up to her face.

‘I suppose. And I suppose it happened to the two people who spend their life chasing this sort of thing,’ she said with a weak attempt at a laugh.

The thought of her partner had her turning, making her way to the door of their adjoining rooms and knocking softly, before carefully turning the handle. They were both no strangers to letting themselves into the other's room, by now--travelling and working side-by-side tended to do that. When Scully opened the door and cast a brief glance around the room, she found a sight that warmed her heart more than she'd admit to anyone. Mulder was laying on the bed, halfway curled around one of the many throw pillows, and apparently fast asleep; he was still wearing day clothes (a long-sleeve tee and sweatpants), but didn't seem bothered by that fact, expression peaceful and breaths soft.

Scully paused for a moment at the scene. Mulder sleeping at all was a thing to celebrate on its own, with how the man generally avoided it; but moreover, it was... Good, perhaps was the word for it--pleasant, maybe? The thing was, Mulder always had that constant guardedness about him, the look of always waiting for something to happen. But now, for once, he simply looked peaceful; something about that made Scully feel peaceful in turn, knowing her partner was safe and sound and resting (for once in his life). Maybe that wasn't a normal feeling to have towards someone who was technically supposed to only be her colleague--but she and Mulder had left normal behind a long time ago. Non-normal was the job description, after all.

Scully stole forward on silent feet, careful to avoid the squeaky floorboards such an old house was sure to have. She didn't want to risk waking Mulder, but he'd managed to fall asleep without any blanket, and it just didn't feel right to leave him without one on a night like this. So she gathered up the quilt that lay at the end of the bed--a soft and worn old nine-patch--and gently draped it over her partner, pausing just a moment to smooth it over his shoulder and remember that peaceful expression. Her task complete, Scully turned to go back to her room, not wanting to overstay her welcome or risk waking Mulder; but as she took half a step away, she felt a gentle hand on her wrist, and quickly turned back around.

Mulder was looking up at her through half-lidded eyes, clearly still mostly asleep, but his voice was certain as it was soft when he asked: "Stay?" And there was something trusting in it, and something pleading, and something warm. In another time, Scully would have said no, would have thought herself ridiculous for even considering it. They were supposed to be colleagues, after all; nothing more.

But she and Mulder had left normal behind a long time ago.

"Alright," Scully murmured back into the quiet of the room, and Mulder offered her one of those soft and genuine smiles that it seemed she alone could summon. She left her slippers by the side of the bed, and slid under the quilt next to him. They were separate for a moment, keeping their distance; then Mulder moved an arm to circle Scully's waist--careful, questioning, waiting for permission. She gave it by curling closer to him, and they moved until there was no space between them. There was a moment where their eyes met, and it was just as charged as it always seemed to be between them, a silent conversation running just beneath the surface; but this time it was quiet, and gentle, and trusting. Mulder offered one of those soft smiles again, and then he was looking away, laying his head back down--this time, to rest just beneath Scully's chin. She closed her eyes, heart fluttering for a moment, and allowed her hand to drift upwards, landing to rest in soft brown hair. In that moment, Scully knew that there was nowhere else she'd rather be.

"Goodnight, Mulder," she whispered, voice curling around the syllables like a song.

"Night, Scully," he murmured back, embrace tightening for just a moment in acknowledgement of the unspoken words beneath.

Frost fell over the cold landscape outside, turning the world to silver-grey. But inside, together beneath the quilt, Scully and Mulder were warm.

Scully was pacing, and though he tried his best to keep his weary gaze ahead, it kept drifting to the sharp snap of her heels. She was making him nervous, and each time his eyes darted to meet Skinner’s, he worried that the man would see it.

‘Agent Mulder, I understand you’re probably anxious to be at the hospital,’ he said evenly, his attention pulled briefly to the twisted fists in his lap.

‘I’m sorry, sir, I’m just feeling a little distracted,’ he shot Scully another look, begging her to stand still.

‘More than understandable, Mulder,' Skinner said with a calm authority. ‘I just wanted to touch base with you, to get any updates on agent Scully’s condition, and on when you may feel ready to return to work.’

‘And to make sure that I haven’t gone after the shit-for-brains agent that did this to her?’ Mulder said, only half-joking.

Skinner huffed, and stared down at the pencil between his thumb and finger. ‘And that,’ he agreed with a nearly-concealed smirk. ‘It wouldn’t help anyone right now.’

‘I know that, sir,’ Mulder said evenly, avoiding Scully’s stare that he could feel burning into his temple. ‘I can be patient.’

‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that, agent.’

‘Mulder!’ Scully cut in, anger flaring in her veins. ‘Don’t even joke about that.’

‘So.. how is she?’ Skinner asked cautiously, all humour draining from his face.

Mulder wanted to reach out and slide his arm around her hips, pull her flush to his body as proof. Sometimes she felt so real that other people not noticing her made him anxious. He swallowed tightly and looked up to her.

Her expression faltered as she looked down at him, suddenly seeming so small beneath her. His eyes were wide and wore the weight of an unbearable sadness.

‘Not much change,’ he said simply.

‘Give me something here, Mulder,’ Skinner said seriously.

Scully watched, suddenly feeling like she was intruding. She saw the raw emotion on her ex-boss’s face, and she knew it wasn’t meant for her eyes. The whole thing made her feel sick, staring at the expressions of people who thought they were never going to see her again.

Secretly watching the pity, the concern, the pain, the regret, the fear. And she had to watch it all silently, clawing at the universe to let her be real. She sniffled and felt Mulder’s attention snap to her.

Not here, she thought fiercely. Even though skinner couldn’t see or hear her, she still wouldn’t let herself crumble in this office. She hurried from the room, slipping through the door and tightening her jaw as she turned sharply in the hall and headed instinctively down to the safety of their basement office.

*

‘Scully?’ He whispered as he softly pushed the door open, knowing exactly where he’d find her.

It was thankfully empty, and he watched her carefully as he stepped inside. Her arms were crossed tightly in front of her body and her shoulders were so stiff that he could almost feel the waves of stress coming from them across the room.

‘Hey,’ she replied, turning finally to look at him.

‘Are you ok? You ran out of there pretty fast. Well, you kinda ran through a door, Scully, it was badass.’

She scoffed, a tired laugh struggled from her throat. He stepped towards her with a boyish glint in his eye, and here, surrounded by these four familiar walls, it was like stepping back in time.

‘It was not “badass.”’

‘Do you know how hard it was not to say something with Skinner staring right at me? You ran through a door, Scully. I..’ He shook his head, grinning.

‘I… I just can’t stand it, Mulder. It’s like watching people talk about me like I’m already gone.’

‘Scully, I’m sorry. I can’t even imagine-‘

‘-And you! With your childish jokes about going after Ritter. You think that makes me feel any better?’

‘No,’ he admitted. ‘No, I don’t imagine it makes you feel any better at all.’

‘So, just stop it, alright?’

‘Ok, you’ve got enough to worry about right now, I understand.’

‘It’s not even that, Mulder, it’s just.. god, you wouldn’t do something that reckless and… vengeful. It’s not.. I can’t…’ Her voice was climbing, tense with worry and anger.

She looked around at the remnants of the life they’d shared down here, now changed and shifted and claimed, and sighed.

‘While we’re down here, I’m gonna look through the files, just skim them for anything that sounds helpful, alright?’

He was still so handsome even in death. She didn’t have enough photographs of him to last the lifetime she was now condemned to living without him. She wondered if the baby would take after him or after her. She couldn’t decide whether or not the idea that she would spend her rest of her life searching for crumbs of Fox Mulder in the countenance of their child was heaven or hell.

She picked up his hand, heavy, cold and stiff and rested it against the swell of her stomach. The baby kicked and Scully could almost spy on Mulder’s face the ghost of a smile.

Rictus sardonicas, perhaps.

She had wanted for so long— they had wanted for so long— to reach this moment together and here they were, the three of them, one entering the world, one just having left it, and her, the thin frayed living thread joining the two.

She thought briefly of laying down on the slab next to him, like it was the other half of his bed and letting herself die of despair. It wouldn’t even take the drama of a suicide— so great was her despair that it threatened to engulf her if she would only get still enough to allow it.

She nudged him over on his slab and sat next to him, the baby weight threatening to send the three of them sprawling onto the ground. His head lolled to the side and his mouth fell open as though some half formed jape was about to tumble out. Scully adjusted his head and jaw to give him an element of dignity once more. Her fingers lingered on his stubble, which was exactly as she remembered it had been the morning of his abduction. Whatever had happened to him, it had involved a replication of his shave.

She cautiously removed his sheet and made a more thorough study of him. They had forgone the autopsy Montana state authorities had demanded before allowing the body that had once been Fox Mulder across state lines. It paid to know people that could spare his corpse that indignity. She ran her finger down the scar tissue on his chest. It was thick. Evidently he had lived through what must have been vivisection long enough to heal only to die from something else altogether. She wondered how the months had been for him. If death was sudden or if he had known he was going to die. If he had been dreading it or if it was a welcome relief.

The funeral home would be coming for in the morning but tonight he was still hers, so tonight she washed him as tenderly as she would their baby in just a few months, drying him carefully, swaddling him for his final rest.