#blame work

Inspired by this photoset and the fact that I spent half my morning writing about baby clothes. Just a short AU for “Per Manum”. 

Tagging at @today-in-fic

"It didn't take, did it?"

Mulder has spent hours trying to come up with the right words for each outcome. He walked through her kitchen as if taking inventory. As if the fact that she owned three sizes of coffee cups meant anything at all, made any kind of difference. The last hour he spent here, on her couch. A familiar spot. The lumps and indentions fitting his body perfectly as if he belonged there. So he stayed. Stayed and let his thoughts run wild. There were only two outcomes. Two. It's either one or the other; success or failure. Whatever news she carried with her, though, he knew he needed to be prepared. He fell asleep halfway through thinking up his speech for when it didn't take. He didn't even get the chance to consider the idea that it might have worked. Still, Mulder dreamed of blue-eyed babies with auburn hair that laughingly called him daddy when he heard the click of the door, the rattle of the lock.

He's barely awake, his thoughts trying to cling to the child in his dreams. It waves, runs away. Mulder gets up, tries to put on a smile. His heart beats far too quickly, but he knows he can't get his hopes up. Hopes that shatter the moment his eyes find Scully's. Tears. It's all he sees. It's all he can think about.

"It didn't take, did it?" He's never wanted to be wrong this badly. Tell me I'm wrong, Scully. Tell me, tell me, tell me. He blinks, hopes there are no tears. Not yet. This is about her. This was her dream first. Scully sniffs once, glances at him. All the words he came up with earlier, right before he fell asleep, they're gone. Vanished like the little blue-eyed child.

"It worked." So lost in his own disappointment, in his quest to find the right words to comfort her, he doesn't hear it at first.

"What?"

"It did take, Mulder. I'm pregnant." The tears remain, but her lips curl upwards. She's not crying because she's sad. She's crying because she's happy. She is pregnant. There's a child growing inside her, part her and part him. The words register slowly in his brain. The child runs back to him, giggles, calls him a silly daddy and he grins at Scully. He didn't have time to come up with anything to say if it did take. There is nothing to say. Who is able to put joy into words, anyway? Instead he engulfs her in his arms and she squeaks; a sound he's never heard before and that he instantly falls in love with. He holds her so tightly against him that there's no telling where she ends, where he begins. Her tears dry against his neck, against his shirt and she clings to him just as desperately.

"There are still so many things that could go wrong, Mulder-" As much as he doesn't want to, he loosens his grip on her so he can look into her eyes.

"We already beat the odds, Scully. We already beat them."

"We?" The word doesn't materialize, remains silently waiting on her lips. Mulder doesn't repeat it, decides to make her understand in a new way, a better way. He kisses her. Takes the question from her mouth and turns it into an answer.

"Oh, I almost forgot," he reluctantly lets go of her lips and nearly forgets again when he sees her mouth still half open, waiting, glistening with want and need, "I, uhm, have something for you." He lets go of her to run over to his coat. He searches through it; how it fit inside his coat pocket at all is a mystery to him. The tiny plastic bag rustles and he smiles.

"This is for you. Well, for the baby."

"Mulder, what if…"

"Nothing is going to go wrong, Scully." He assures her, but she's his Scully. She wants to see it, wants to look inside the bag, but she's skeptical, and scared. Mulder, the grin on his face a permanent fixture, reaches inside and takes out a small piece of clothing.

"Oh my god." Scully whispers when she sees what it is.

"I had to buy it. I didn't know – I mean I hoped. I don't know what I would have done with it had it not… but look, Scully." Mulder hands her the tiny baby garment. Scully touches it as if it were made out of glass, ready to break any second. He watches as her finger follows the contours of the comic UFO that takes up half the front.

"Mulder." She whispers, laughs. At least he hopes it's a laugh.

"I knew he had to have it."

"He?"

MENTIONS :  Elam Grave, Nabi Kharlu (@afreesworn), Anchor Saltborn (@anchor-management).

Every time that Elam Grave had called upon her in recent weeks, Ghoa had found herself more nervous than the last. Since the fire that had illuminated the fact of just how dangerous and ruthless her new business partner’s dealings truly were, there had been a voice in the back of her mind whispering doubts to her. Doubts that caused her to question herself while nurturing the fear taking root in her chest. Fear that told her to run but kept her planted firmly right where she was, doing just as she was bid, to keep that dangerous wrath from turning on herself.

This meeting had been no different. Though she had met with him in the Hostelry in the same calm and buoyant mood she carefully cultivated around him, she felt no small amount of unease on the inside. After all, she hadn’t been entirely obedient to his orders. Careful though she had tried to be, and though the message she sent had clearly been received, there was still a part of her that still worried that – somehow, some way – Elam had learned of the package she had sent to Hisanobu Mifune. Yet more than the letter itself, she worried that he knew that she had offered to a potential competitor the formula for one of the drugs she had been making for him in exchange for an assurance of protection.

Send ⏳❤️ and I’ll write a glimpse of a happy future I can see between our muses.

There never seemed to be a dull day on the Forbidden Mountain. Brash, arrogant young warriors, eager to prove themselves, seemed to find their way up to the mountain nearly once a week. They would ride up, their bright, untested armor gleaming, a banner flying in the wind, and they would call out to the wicked witch to face them.

It seemed like a stupid way to try and prove one's self, to go looking for a fight instead of finding something more useful to do. But if the warriors were hoping to find some wicked enchantress or dragon to slay, they were surprised each time to see an ordinary young woman in dark armor approach across the drawbridge instead.

Every time she gave them their chance. "Turn around and I'll let you leave in peace."

They never did listen. Every time the brash young men and women would run at her, weapons ready. And every time the woman in dark armor met them with her own sword. The battles never lasted too long. More often than not, the seasoned fighter proved too much for the fresh young would-be-heroes, and she sent them riding away bruised and bloodied. Better to escape with some scars and live to learn better, she thought.

Not all were wise enough to give up. Some didn't stop until they met their end at her blade. Some even managed to break past her defenses and rush into the castle. Those were the ones she pitied. When they made it that far, nothing awaited them but a fiery death.

Whatever the outcome, Cassandra would always give a soft sigh as she cleaned her blade and returned inside. And every time she found bandages and warm water waiting, the very dragon her enemies sought to destroy waiting to tend her wounds.

"They never learn," Cassandra would say with a shake of her head.

"They never learn," Maleficent agreed with a soft nod. "But never mind that, dear. Get out of that armor and sit down so I can clean that gash on your arm."