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sisterspooky1013 · 2 years

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Night Divine

4640 words / Read it here on AO3

Written for the @xfilesfanficexchange for @kyouryokusenshi

Scully shuffles across the worn wooden floor in the kitchen, carefully avoiding the boards that have a reputation for creaking under pressure. Shivering, she pulls her robe tighter around her shoulders and then rubs her hands together to create warmth from the friction. She’d like to start a fire, but that’s more Mulder’s area of expertise, or at least he likes to maintain the facade that it is. He’s never been prone to unnecessary shows of masculinity with a few exceptions: starting fires, opening jars, and making sure she is the first to have an orgasm in any and all sexual encounters. She pretends to be irritated by all but the last one.

She carefully pulls open drawers and cupboards, making as little noise as possible as she starts a pot of coffee and retrieves a can of oven-ready cinnamon rolls from the fridge. As the refrigerator door swings closed, she startles when she finds Mulder standing behind it. She brings one hand to her chest as the can of cinnamon rolls falls to the floor with a soft crack.

“Jesus, Mulder, you scared me,” she says breathlessly, her heart working to slow from its unexpected pre-caffeine jolt.

“What exactly do you think you’re doing, ma’am?” he asks with performative sternness.

“Making breakfast, it would appear,” she answers flatly.

“You should be resting, Scully. Let me do that,” he replies, bending down to retrieve the dropped pastries.

She sighs in frustration.

“Mulder, I am perfectly capable of opening a can of cinnamon rolls and putting it in the oven. My mother always made cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning. It’s tradition.”

He steps forward, touching his palm gently to her cheek.

“I just don’t want you to overextend yourself,” he says much more softly.

“I’m over six weeks postpartum, Mulder,” she reasons. “My doctor cleared me to resume normal activity, and I’d say putting some cinnamon rolls in the oven meets that description.”

As irritated as she is by his hovering and treating her like she’s made of glass, she understands why he’s acting this way. After a stressful pregnancy deemed high-risk due to her age and a long and difficult labor, she’d started hemorrhaging immediately after the baby was delivered.

From her perspective, she lost consciousness as soon as she heard the first cries and woke several hours later to learn that she’d been the recipient of five units of blood, but that her baby girl was healthy and doing well. It wasn’t until after they’d been home for three weeks with Mulder relentlessly doting on her that she broke down and yelled at him to give her some space, and he finally told her what it had been like for him.

He told her how the doctor held up the baby, tiny and pink and screaming like a banshee, and the overwhelming sense of relief he had. They’d made it through, and here she was, finally. His relief was short-lived as he looked over to Scully to share the moment with her and saw her eyes roll to the back of her head, just as every doctor and nurse in the room started scrambling and shouting things he didn’t understand. Someone pulled him out into the hallway and then directed him to a recovery room, leaving him alone and afraid, not knowing what was happening or if she would be okay. A few minutes later, a nurse came in with a small bundle, his newborn daughter, and placed her in his arms. He begged her for information on what was happening with Scully, but all the nurse could say was that they were working on her, and would he like to help weigh and measure his baby?

It was thirty minutes that he waited, but felt like an eternity, looking into the baby’s squished little face and wondering if Scully was going to die. Could he raise this baby alone? He didn’t know the first thing about taking care of a baby. Save for the first week of William’s life in which he changed as many diapers as he could, he was completely inexperienced. He couldn’t do this without her. He didn’t want to.

Standing in their kitchen a little over six weeks later, her body still healing but mostly recovered, she understands that the emotional wounds he suffered will take much longer to heal than her physical ones, and she’s trying very hard to be patient with him.

She steps forward, pushing onto her toes and placing a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth.

“I promise that I’m being mindful. If anything feels off, I’ll stop and ask for help, okay?” she says gently, and he nods. “Will you please make a fire? I’m freezing,” she adds, and for that she gets a smile.

“I can do that,” he replies, returning her kiss and moving towards the fireplace.

“Turn on the lights on the tree while you’re over there, would you?” she adds over her shoulder as she peels the paper off the outside of the can and whacks it on the edge of the counter until it bursts at the seams. “The baby loves to look at them.”

The baby was given a name, of course, one that holds meaning to them both for different reasons, but they rarely call her by it. She is most often “peanut” to Mulder and “sweet pea” to Scully, or simply “the baby.”

As if hearing her name, a sharp cry sounds from the baby monitor on the counter and they turn to meet each other’s eye and smile.

“I’ll get her,” Scully declares, leaving Mulder to start the fire as she pads up the stairs to the nursery.

The room is modestly furnished and has no real theme. Until she was here, until breath filled her lungs and her APGAR score passed muster, they could not bring themselves to prepare for her beyond a single pack of diapers, a crib still in the box, and a car seat. As often as they heard the words “geriatric pregnancy,” as many specialists as Scully saw to monitor the health of her and the baby, as unlikely as it was that she should exist in the first place, preparing for her arrival seemed too audacious.

“Good morning, Sweet Pea,” she coos as she approaches the crib, the baby’s cries fading at the sound of her mother’s voice.

The baby is wrapped tightly in a swaddle, her shock of dark brown hair sticking up wildly. Mulder was greatly disappointed that the baby didn’t have red hair, but they hold out hope that her eyes might stay blue. Scully gently unwraps her, smiling as her arms shoot up above her head in a stretch, freed from the confines of the swaddle. After the baby has been changed, they venture downstairs for her morning feed to enjoy the warmth of the fire and the twinkle of the lights.

As Scully reaches the bottom of the stairs, she smiles at the crackling fire and the soft melody of Christmas music that Mulder put on. He is now in the kitchen, making breakfast after all, and she brings the baby to him for a good morning kiss before they get comfortable in an armchair, a pillow across Scully’s lap for support. Breastfeeding has been a relative breeze this go round, having worked through supply and latch issues with William that were exacerbated by her stress over Mulder leaving. In short order, the baby is happily suckling away, her soft grunts and contented sighs paired with the hormones of her milk letting down making Scully feel blissful and relaxed.

“Madame,” Mulder says as he sets a cup of coffee on the table beside her, as well as a glass of water, and drops a kiss to the crown of her head.

After the baby has had her breakfast, they enjoy their own before finally getting around to opening gifts, an order of operations that will surely change when she is old enough to understand what Christmas is all about. Forgoing gifts for one another, they instead decided to each buy gifts for the baby that would be a surprise to the other, given that the baby herself is too small to enjoy so much as tearing the wrapping paper. They gush over tiny shoes and decorative rattles, and books they each enjoyed as children that they look forward to sharing with her. The last box Scully sets in Mulder’s lap bears a label indicating it’s “to Daddy, from Peanut,” and he casts Scully a skeptical glance.

“I thought we agreed to no gifts for each other,” he chastises her, and she shrugs innocently.

“It’s not from me, it’s from the baby,” she defends, and he shakes his head as he tears off the paper.

He opens the small box to find a coffee mug featuring a cartoon baby alien wearing a diaper and proclaiming “my daddy is out of this world.” He keeps his head down, studying the mug, and Scully starts to wonder if he doesn’t like it, or doesn’t get the joke. When he finally lifts his head, his eyes are wet and he’s wearing a pained smile that is almost a grimace.

“Oh, Mulder,” she says affectionately, “it’s supposed to be funny.”

“It is,” he insists, his voice tight with emotion, “I love it, thank you.”

“It’s not from me,” she reminds him, pointing to the baby in her arms.

He leans forward to place a kiss to the sleeping baby’s forehead.

“Thank you, Peanut,” he says to the infant, and then lifts his head to kiss Scully softly on the lips. “I think Mommy may have had a hand in it, so thanks to her too.”

She smiles sweetly at him and then takes the baby upstairs to put her down in her crib while Mulder cleans up the wrapping paper mess. She returns to find him seated on the couch, and he extends his arm in invitation for her to join. She takes a seat beside him, tucking her legs up and leaning heavily against his torso while he slings an arm over her shoulder. They sit quietly for a few minutes, enjoying the twinkle of the tree and the crackle of the fire.

“Tell me about the Christmas you spent with William,” he requests, and she can tell it’s a question he’s been holding onto for a while. They’ve taken to referring to him as William when speaking to the time he spent in Scully’s care, and the years after where they didn’t know what became of him. When referring to the time after he re-entered their lives, he is Jackson.

From the day they were reunited in Mulder’s jail cell until the night Scully walked out the doors of their unremarkable home for the last time, he asked her very little about those ten months she got to be William’s mother. Scully had taken this as a sign of apathy, or anger, or denial. Regardless of the cause, it was painful for her, and she most often sought solace in her mother, who loved to reminisce about her lost grandson. After Scully left, when Mulder finally sought the therapy she’d been begging him to for years, he came to understand that his avoidance of talking about William was not the merciful move he’d intended it to be. Just as remembering the eight short years he spent with Samantha was cathartic to him, remembering the ten short months Scully spent mothering William was a balm on her broken heart. This, along with hundreds of other tiny things, and a few big ones, was something he’d resolved to do differently if she ever gave him another chance.

Scully pulls a deep breath as though preparing herself.

“It was kind of awful, honestly,” she admits with some regret. “I was so miserable and I missed you so much that day. I think William picked up on my mood and he was fussy from the moment he woke up.”

Mulder gives her shoulder a squeeze and rests his cheek on the top of her head. He tries not to think too much about how things might have been different if he’d never left. It hurts too much to consider the possibility that they could have stayed together, that she never would have had to give William up.

“We went over to my mom’s and it was just the three of us. William wouldn’t stop crying no matter what I did, and I was so stressed out. Mom was trying so hard to be helpful, but when she took him from me he just cried harder. He only wanted me. And Mom said ‘I bet you miss your daddy, don’t you, Will?’ and I just totally lost it. I mean sobbing, snotty, ugly crying. And my poor mom, she was so helpless. I took William up to the nursery she set up for him and we sat in an old rocking chair and cried together for a while, because we missed you so much.”

Her voice catches, and she stops talking for a moment. Mulder reaches over and takes her hand, squeezing it softly. This is one of the big things he needs to do, he knows. Make space for her pain, not try to solve it or minimize it or wish it away. He wasn’t there, and he can’t ever change that. The least he can do is let her lay some of it on him. To feel it with her, their shared loss. After a few moments and some soft sniffs, she continues.

“I decided to tell him a story about you, about a Christmas when you were there. So I started talking about the Christmas Eve we spent at that abandoned house, and he stopped crying and listened so raptly, as though he understood. And I told him all the things that happened that didn’t make any sense, the people under the floorboards and how you shot me-”

“I hope you also told him you shot me,” Mulder interjects, and she elbows him softly.

“I told him about later, at your apartment, and the watch you gave me with the inscription on the back. How I was just starting to realize at that time how in love with you I was, but that I was too afraid to admit it to myself. And I told him that I hope he has the courage to tell people he loves them, because if there were anything in my life I could change, it would be telling you years before I did. Letting myself love you as soon as I knew I felt it.”

Mulder heaves a sigh.

“I need to make an addendum to that inscription,” he says regretfully, and she lifts her head to give him a quizzical look. He sees her damp eyes and feels bad for making a joke in the middle of her emotional story. “It’s seven billion now,” he explains, and she rolls her eyes at him, then falls back into place against his side.

“William finally calmed down after that, and I was able to have Mom take him for a bit so I could go cry and be miserable by myself. When I came back downstairs, Mom was singing ‘Oh Holy Night’ to him. That was her favorite Christmas song.”

Her words catch again on a swell of emotion, the holidays being a stark reminder of the loss of her mother. Mulder wraps his free arm around her, brushing it up and down her arm.

“Thank you for telling me about that,” he says tenderly. “I’ve always wondered. I’m sorry it was such a hard day. And if it’s any consolation, I was over in New Mexico having an awful, miserable day too. Missing you so much I thought I might actually die from how much it hurt.”

Scully sits up, wiping her eyes on her shirtsleeves.

“I don't want to be sad anymore,” she declares. “We’re together now, and we have that sweet baby sleeping upstairs. We have a lot to be happy about today.”

He nods in agreement.

“How about a nap? That baby is sweet, but she sleeps like shit when it’s dark out. And I don’t know if you know this, Scully, but we’re old as hell to be taking care of a baby.”

She laughs, the image of her red eyes and nose against the brightness of her smile one that clutches at his heart.

“A nap sounds perfect.”

The day is deliciously lazy, full of Christmas movies playing on the TV in the background as they pass the baby back and forth and tell stories of Christmases past. Mulder attempts to make a ham for dinner, another Maggie Scully tradition, and while it turns out a little on the tough side, his effort touches her. After dinner for them and a nursing session for the baby, he orders her to take some time to herself while he cleans up and gets the baby ready for bed.

She draws a hot, brimming bath and sinks into the water up to her chin with a contented sigh. As she soaks, she runs her palms over her breasts and belly, considering the new shape of her body. She had bounced back rather quickly after William was born, though at the time she agonized over the saggy pooch of her belly until it disappeared by his second month of life. She knew that her body at fifty four would likely not behave at all the way it did when she was thirty seven, but she’s been pleasantly surprised at its continual return towards her form prior to becoming pregnant. She’s certainly not there yet, but she has hope that she might eventually be. She touches the deep red stretch marks marring her lower belly and wonders if they will fade to silver like they did after William. She almost hopes they don’t, these bits of evidence of yet another miracle in her life.

Slipping her hand lower, she touches her vulva, which has also been changed by the birth of her daughter. Despite her traumatic delivery, there was minimal tearing and the tenderness subsided more quickly than it did after William. She gently trails her finger around her clit and feels her body respond. It’s been a long time since she and Mulder made love. Their shared worry over pregnancy complications made them both hesitant, even as her hormones raged during the second trimester and inspired all kinds of wicked thoughts in her mind. Experimentally, she slips a finger into her vagina and moans, shifting her hips. She feels ready, but she’s not sure Mulder will agree. She considers just getting herself off now, but on the off chance that he's willing, she decides to wait. When the water begins to cool, she pulls the plug and climbs out of the tub.

After donning an oversized sweater and fleece pajama pants, she walks down the hall towards the baby’s room, stopping in her tracks when she hears Mulder’s voice emanating from the room. She loves to listen to him singing to the baby, his singing voice quite lovely and unexpected. She creeps quietly to the open doorway until she can see him in the antique rocking chair, the baby laying against his chest as he serenades her.

Oh holy night, the stars are brightly shining

It is the night of our dear savior’s birth

Long lay the world in sin and error pining

‘Til he appeared and the soul felt its worth

Love and loss pit painfully in her chest, the memory of her mother singing to William like this in Mulder’s absence flashing before her. Tears well in her eyes and silently fall down her cheeks. He is here now, and her mother and William are gone, and she feels concurrently so incredibly lucky and devastated beyond belief. Quietly, she creeps back to their bedroom to wait for him.

He enters twenty minutes later, finding her curled up on her side on top of the comforter. She lifts her arm, holding it out to him in invitation. He lays down facing her, scooting close until their foreheads touch, and she pushes her leg between his.

“She go down okay?” she asks quietly, scraping her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck.

“Hmhm,” he affirms with a contented sigh.

She moves her hand to his jaw, brushing her thumb over his stubbled cheek.

“Mulder?”

“Mmm?” he hums.

“Kiss me,” she requests in a low register.

He lifts his head to give her a questioning look.

“I’m ready, Mulder. You aren’t going to hurt me,” she reassures him, flexing her pelvis gently towards his. She can feel him growing hard under his sweats.

“Are you sure?” he asks with an expression that is an agonizing mix of arousal and concern.

She nods, lifting her chin and parting her lips as he bends forward to press his lips to hers, a relieved sigh streaming out of his nose, though he has not yet found relief.

They move slowly, as slow as the trickle of water in the stream that borders one side of their property, as slow as the melt of the snow on the eaves of the house when the sun rises in the morning, as slow as their love that blossomed over years in rental cars and motel rooms. As usual, he will wait for as long as she needs him to, but she is done waiting. Life is far too short and loss far too prevalent to wait when you can reach right out and touch what is sitting before you.

The slip of his tongue against hers sets off a throb between her legs, equal parts memory and anticipation. She slides her palm down his chest and belly, slipping it under the waist of his pants to wrap her fingers around his erection. He whimpers, panting into her mouth as his hips move of their own volition, sliding his cock in and out of her fist.

“I’ve missed you,” he admits, and she understands the meaning. She’s been right here the whole time, but their physical connection was always an intensifier of their emotional one.

“Please,” she asks breathlessly, “now.”

He pushes up onto his knees, hooking his fingers into the waist of her pants and pulling them slowly down her legs, watching intently as though he might be about to see something new. She sits up and discards her sweater, lying back with him nestled fully clothed between her thighs as he absorbs her. Of course, he’s seen her naked on many occasions since the baby was born, but not like this. He intentionally avoided looking at her like this.

He reverently trails his fingertips over her breasts, his pupils dilating as her nipples pucker under his touch. He leans down and places soft kisses around each nipple, flicking his tongue experimentally against the hardened bud to see how she responds, unsure whether they are off limits given their current role in feeding the baby. Her hips buck up at the contact and he cracks a small smile, continuing to trail kisses down her belly. He licks at the angry red stretch marks, running his nose up each one as though thanking it for making space for his child. He kisses the insides of her thighs, then stops to look at her vulva with curiosity and desire.

“Doesn’t look any different,” he says, flicking his eyes up briefly to meet hers.

“Liar,” she replies good-naturedly.

He smiles again, then dips his head to place soft kisses to her increasingly slickening lips, finally darting out his tongue to lap at her entrance, and she flexes her hips toward him with a low moan.

“Still tastes great,” he remarks with a smirk.

“Thank you,” she retorts as though he complimented her shoes.

He crawls back up her body, hovering over her. She pushes her hands up under his T-shirt, feeling the flex of his muscles as he holds himself up. They are both aging, there is no doubt about that, but he is still so strong. He is her strength, in so many ways. He sits up long enough to remove his shirt, returning to kiss her with more urgency than he did before. He is still nervous, but he’s also excited. Her hands find the waist of his pants, pushing them down and off his hips. He doesn’t seem to bother with underwear most days, a fact that she hasn’t thought to question. His erection breaks free, brushing against the skin of her belly, and desire floods through her like the tide. She wants him so much.

He wriggles free of his pants and she carefully lifts her legs to cradle his hips, her own shifting impatiently.

“Are you ready?” he asks, and she lets out a little groan.

“Very much so,” she replies, touching his hips and pulling them gently towards her.

He reaches down to take hold of his erection, brushing it over her lips and coating the head with her wetness. He then presses gently against her entrance, watching her face raptly. As he slowly pushes inside, her mouth falls open and her eyebrows knit in relief. She closes her eyes.

“Okay?” he asks, his voice tight with his own restraint.

“So good,” she replies, waiting patiently while he keeps an agonizingly slow pace.

When he is fully submerged, he lets out a heaving breath and drops his forehead against hers.

“You feel so fucking good,” he says as though admitting something he knows is wrong.

“You do, too,” she replies, again shifting her hips impatiently.

He obliges, beginning a slow withdrawal, though not quite as slow as before. Each stroke in and out seems to assuage his fears that he is hurting her, and at last he reaches a pace that scratches the long held itch.

“Just a little bit faster, it’s okay,” she tells him, knowing that he’s still holding back.

He gently grabs hold of one of her calves, tucking it up against his side.

“Is this okay?” he asks, watching her face.

“Yes,” she breathes out, enjoying the new angle as he speeds up.

Finally he loses himself, confident that she is not in pain, and rocks firmly against her while they kiss desperately, panting and whimpering. When her breath quickens in a familiar way, one he has heard countless times, he holds a steady rhythm and waits for her.

“Oh, god,” she moans before she begins to pulse around him, her fingernails digging into the back of his neck in a way that would be painful if he could be bothered to care.

“Fuck,” he says through gritted teeth, then follows her over the edge, tucking his face against her neck as he empties into her.

As both of their orgasms slow and then subside, he slowly withdraws and moves to lie beside her. She rolls to her side and they resume the position they started in, face to face with her leg tucked between his.

“I missed that,” she says softly, scratching her fingernails over his bare back.

“Me too,” he agrees, brushing her hair off her face.

“We should do it again,” she suggests hopefully, and he chuckles.

“I’m an old man, Scully. Gone are the days of three times in a night.”

“Hmm, those were some good times though, huh?” she says wistfully.

“That they were,” he agrees.

They take a few minutes to get cleaned up and find pajamas, then pull back the covers on the bed and snuggle up underneath.

“Merry Christmas,” he whispers against her ear as they begin to drift off. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” she replies with a yawn. “Merry Christmas.”

Tagging @today-in-fic

#the x files #txf #dana scully #fox mulder #x files #x files fanfic #XFSecretSanta2021

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