#but it also just makes it sound like mulder is calling himself a girl

[gregmarriage]

x files 1x08 ‘ice’ was so fucking funny for having mulder make a joke about the size of his dick in front of two other men, and scully touch a woman’s chest as part of a medical exam, then immediately share a lesbian look with her, that has nothing to do with said medical exam

[baronessblixen]

Hi ! I have a prompt for you: Mulder asking to be kissed to heal faster :)

Hi! Look who’s back writing! Thank you for this prompt.

Here’s some fluff set in season 7. Tagging @today-in-fic

Healing Powers

There’s this look on Mulder’s face she knows all too well. A droopy grin and half-lidded eyes watch Scully’s every move as she reads his chart one last time before they check out of the hospital. They gave him the good stuff, of course. As difficult as Mulder can be as a patient, he can also be extremely charming. It didn’t take much today; Mulder, as the hero of the hour who threw himself in front of a car to push a child out of the way, didn’t even have to pout or ask nicely.

Scully pockets the rest of the painkillers and Mulder blinks slowly. There’s a sigh locked in her throat. His shoulder has barely healed since their New Year’s Eve escapades (“Zombies, Scully, we fought zombies,” he likes to remind her, awe in his voice, and a smile on his face), and now they’re here again. She wonders if it would have been better had he hurt the same shoulder again, but Mulder, subconsciously or not, is working on breaking every bone in his body.

At least he’s getting the good drugs.

“Let’s go home, hm?” She asks softly, touching his hand. He smiles at her instead of answering. She half carries, half drags him to the car where she buckles him in.

“Where we going?” He asks.

“Home,” she repeats. She’s taking him to her apartment this time. Last time she took him to his own place, only to receive calls from him every couple of hours, asking for help. This will be easier for both of them. And her bed is more comfortable, too.

“Scully, I think the painkillers are wearing off,” Mulder mumbles when they arrive at her building.

“Are you in pain?” She asks, helping him out of the car and up the stairs.

He nods. “I can feel my nose,” he explains. “Is that normal? Scully, do you feel your nose?”

“You can have another dose of med before bed, Mulder.”

“Your nose, Scully,” he says, touching his finger to her nose, booping it softly. “You have a cute nose. Do you feel it?”

“Yes, Mulder, I do,” she replies, trying not to smile and encourage him.

“Huh.” He touches his own nose, pinches it. “It hurts.”

“You probably hurt it, too,” she says, gently coaxing him towards her bedroom.  

“That kid is okay, right?” He asks once he sits on her bed, hands folded in his lap, waiting. His expression is serious; the drugs in his system must really be wearing off.

“Yes, the kid is all right,” she promises, helping him out of his clothes, glad for the distraction. “You saved the girl’s life.” Scully doesn’t want to relive the moment, but the scene replays in her mind as if it were a movie. She and Mulder had been on their way to lunch when it happened. Two girls, around five or six, had been playing, pushing each other around playfully. Until one girl stumbled backwards and right into the street. Someone screamed, and Mulder ran. He picked up the girl, flung her back onto the sidewalk, and was hit by a car himself a second later.

She glances at him, pets his hair as if he were a cat. When are his nine lives up? She can’t help but wonder, giving him a small, shaky smile, full of what ifs. What if it had been worse? If the car had been faster? Mulder, as so often, has been lucky. Incredibly lucky. He’ll have bruises all over his body and his shoulder will remain in a sling for a week or two. No broken bones, no head trauma, and not even a cracked rib.

“You look like I’m about to die, Scully.”

“You could have.”

He shrugs. “Better me than the kid, huh? How long will I be out of the game, Scully?”

“You heard what the doctor said.”

“You’re my doctor.”

“I concur with what the doctor at the hospital said, Mulder.”

He sighs dramatically. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. Your body needs time to heal. I’ll get you your meds and a glass of water. Do you need anything else?”

“Hmmm.”

“Hmmm, what?”

“You know what I think might make me heal faster?” He leans forward, a solid wall of warmth bursting into her personal space.

“Sleep and rest,” she says, her eyes firmly on his.

Mulder shakes his head, slowly. “I was thinking… a kiss.”

“A… kiss,” she parrots, taken aback by the mere suggestion.

“It worked last time, didn’t it?” He winks at her.

“There’s no correlation, Mulder. That was a coincidence.”

It’s true. They kissed at midnight on New Year’s Eve, and then again a few hours later, and another few hours after that, and Mulder was as good as new a week later. A mere coincidence, nothing else. Her cheeks, warm from Mulder’s proximity, and the memory of their first kisses, feel like they’re flaming red.

“What if it wasn’t? It’s not like you to let a theory go untested. Don’t you want… proof?” He’s grinning at her, hope evident on his face.

“What’s your theory?” she asks to buy herself time. It’s not that she doesn’t want to kiss him; she just wants to kiss him when they’re both healthy, uninjured, and of sound mind.

“My theory, Agent Scully, is that your kisses have healing powers.”

“That’s the cheesiest thing you’ve ever said.”

“Just one kiss, Scully. For science.”

“For science,” she agrees and presses her lips to his. They’re so warm, feel as soft as she remembers them. Why aren’t they doing this every day, she wonders as he deepens the kiss, sneaking his tongue past her doubts and worries.

[silhouetteofacedar]

Fox Mulder, Closet Romantic Ch. 10: One With Everything

Previous Chapter - AO3 - MSR, rated E

Thursday, April 30.

Mulder and Scully don’t often get to spend a day in court; it almost feels like a treat. An exhausting, headache-inducing, occasionally disheartening treat.

The only real upside is that they usually drive together.

They’re in Baltimore, and even though the drive back to the office is less than an hour, Mulder can feel his energy flagging.

“You hungry?” Mulder asks, sliding into the driver’s seat. “We can grab dinner before we head back.”

“Mulder, I’m wiped out,” Scully sighs.

“Alright,” he replies, subdued. He puts the keys in the ignition and starts the car.

They’ve gone two blocks when Scully speaks again. “I could go for pizza,” she says softly.

Mulder takes a steadying breath. This is progress.

It’s only been a week since the Great Mark Implosion, and things between Mulder and Scully have been thawing slowly. There’s residual awkwardness around them, like the last compacted piles of old snow in the shady places on the sides of the road. Slow to melt, but not a real impediment.

They find a little brick hole-in-the-wall pizza shop not far from the district courthouse. Scully took an appraising sniff when they walked in, declared the scent inside “pizza enough”, and they proceeded to make their order.

“So, how’ve you been?” Mulder asks. It’s a stupid question, but he’s hungry and tired and a little nervous, picking the mushrooms off of his slice of pizza before taking a bite. Scully always insists on ordering one with everything. Thank god she hates anchovies.

“You tell me,” she replies. “You’ve seen me practically every day for the past week.” She takes a first bite of pizza and moans softly. Mulder’s cheeks warm at the sound.

“I mean… in regards to what happened last Wednesday,” he clarifies. Broaching this subject feels suddenly dangerous, and he wants to take his words back.

“You can say break-up, Mulder,” she says gently. “It’s not a secret. And I’m fine,” she says, chewing, then raises a finger. “I know historically I say that when I’m not fine, but I mean it this time,” she explains. “I’m not hurt, just… disappointed. Tired. A little annoyed.”

“With him, or me, or both?” Mulder asks.

She shrugs. “Both,” she says candidly. “But you provided me with sustenance, so my annoyance with you is diminishing.” She takes a sip of diet Coke before she continues. “I’ve been thinking, and I’ve determined that the part of this that bothers me the most is the fact that Mark, or anyone, would base their summation of my character off my sexual history. I’m thirty-four years old, a fully-matured and capable human being, and yet I felt like I was stuck in a web of high school gossip. It’s insulting, being subjected to outdated moral codes by men who have no business passing judgement.”

“I have an impertinent question,” Mulder says. “You don’t have to answer.”

“I’m bracing myself,” she replies, taking another bite of pizza.

“From an outsider’s perspective, these outdated moral codes and judgment seem like a fundamental part of Catholicism. So I guess I’m wondering… why are you still Catholic?”

Her answering sigh is deep and slow. “That’s a big question, Mulder; one I ask myself all the time. I think it boils down to faith. I believe in God; everything else is just window dressing. My relationship with my faith, with religion, is complicated. But ultimately, that’s between me and God. Everyone else, namely Mark, can fuck off.”

He loves her so much in this moment, this tiny self-possessed scientist voraciously eating pizza. “Fair enough,” he says, removing another mushroom from his slice of pizza and putting on the edge of her plate. “So faith in God is intact; faith in men, however…”

Scully chuckles. “It’s at a low plateau,” she jokes, “and yet this may actually be the best break-up I’ve ever had.”

“Ouch,” Mulder says with a wince. “I’d hate to imagine the worst.”

“I egged a guy’s car once,” she says around a bite of pizza.

“No, really?” Mulder asks in surprise. “What’d he do?”

She swallows, wipes her fingers on a crumpled napkin. “Let me be clear, this was when I was in high school,” she says, “So all the emotions were heightened. My boyfriend cheated on me,” she explains. “I was seventeen and wanted to wait to have sex, and he didn’t. It was pretty traumatic for teenage Dana, so I reacted with criminal mischief.”

“Did you get caught?”

Scully shakes her head, picking up one of the stray mushrooms on her plate and popping it in her mouth. “No. I was stealthy,” she says. “And a good church girl. I think most people assumed it was a dumb teenage prank by some local boys.” She pauses. “In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone this,” she says in realization.

“Your secret is safe with me,” Mulder vows, passing her another mushroom.

“So what about you?” she asks, serving herself another slice of pizza. “What sort of romantic entanglements did you get into in high school? Any horror stories?”

“Not much,” Mulder says with a shrug. “Though I was pretty in love with a girl when I was sixteen or so. Her name was Laura and she was the older sister of one of my friends; I think she was probably 18? I was at their house all the time but I hardly ever talked to her.”

“Why not?”

“I was, uh, actually pretty shy back then,” he admits. “Especially with girls. She was really pretty and kind, but every time I opened my mouth to speak I’d get nervous and end up just saying nothing. Once I almost threw up.”

“That’s actually very sweet,” Scully assures him. “Trust me, she probably thought you were adorable.” She chews thoughtfully. “Did you ever tell her how you felt?”

Mulder shakes his head. “Not really. I wrote her a letter confessing my feelings and was halfway to their house to leave it in the mailbox when I chickened out. I took it home and burned it in the kitchen sink. Then she left for college.”

Scully hums in understanding. “A tale as old as time.”

“I looked her up once, after I finished at Oxford. She was married with a baby,” Mulder says, chewing a piece of crust. “Nothing would have happened if she weren’t, but part of me kind of wondered.”

Scully is silent, and when he looks up at her she’s got her cheek cradled in her hand, a soft smile on her lips, watching him.

“What?” he asks, suddenly self-conscious.

Her eyes are gleaming. “I don’t know why it never occurred to me before, but… you’re a romantic, Mulder.”

He swallows. “Is that... is that a bad thing?”

She drops her hand, shakes her head. “No, it’s not a bad thing at all,” she says softly.

Scully’s face is awash with blue and red from the neon sign in the window, and her eyes are deep and glimmering. He has to look away to steady himself before he says something he’s not ready for her to hear.

“I think I assumed you dislike romance,” he says, dipping a toe into shallower, yet unexplored waters. “It seems to me that science is somewhat at odds with the concept, when you can explain away all these feelings as chemical reactions with evolutionary precedent.”

“These feelings?” she asks, and he freezes.

“Romantic feelings in general,” he clarifies, recovering quickly. “The heart palpitations, fluttering stomach, desire for physical contact, all those things we felt as teenagers.” All those things I’m feeling right now.

“Some things aren’t meant to be examined through a purely scientific lens,” she counters. “I also firmly believe in instinct and trusting your gut in certain cases. Hell, that’s why I broke things off with Mark. No matter what he said, I knew things didn’t feel right.”

Mulder’s puzzled. “What he said?” he asks.

Scully licks her lip. “When I called him after work,” she explains. “I told him what you told me, and he claimed you twisted his words. A misunderstanding, coupled with manipulation born of jealousy,” Scully sighs.

Mulder’s heart stutters. “And you didn’t believe him?”

“No, I didn’t. It was his word against yours,” she says, voice gentle and firm. “There was no question.”

Mulder feels the weight of her words drape over his shoulders like a warm blanket. She trusts him, believes in him, chooses him.

He’s floored.

“Scully, that offer to elope still stands,” he says with a grin, and she smiles back.

Scully predictably falls asleep on the drive back to DC. Mulder glances over at her periodically, drinking in the sight of his partner curled up in the passenger seat. Her head is resting against the window, rosy cheek pillowed on a small hand.

Scully trusts him, rests in his presence, weighs his words. He doesn’t deserve what she gives him, but he realizes then what he needs to do anyway; fear and uncertainty be damned.

She deserves the truth; she is the truth.

[snickerl]

Of Miracle Births and Other Wonders

tagging @today-in-fic

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

The lady behind the reception desk sends Mulder and the two kids up to the fourth floor of the hospital. They find another reception area with another helpful nurse. She tells them a doctor will be with them very soon to give them an update on Scully's condition. The few minutes they have to wait tears every nerve in Mulder's body, putting his patience to a hard test. Then, to his great relief, a good-looking woman in her late thirties approaches them. "Hello Mr. Scully, my name is Dr. Hanson, I am taking care of your wife," she says, holding her hand out to shake his.

"Uh, nice to meet you, Doctor, but my name is Mulder. These are our children, Emily and William," Mulder says, nudging them both in front of him. "How is Scully? I mean, my wife? How is she?"

"Hello everybody," the doctor says good-naturedly. "Your wife is perfectly fine, Mr. Mulder. She is doing great with her breathing technique. Her cervix is at 5 centimeters, so we still have some way to go. The baby is in good shape, she is in good shape, so we believe we will have a smooth delivery in a couple of hours. Are you all coming to the delivery room?"

William is aghast, his eyes saucer-wide. "What? Ew, no way! Gross!" He shakes his head vehemently. "Never ever!"

Mulder looks at his daughter. "Em?"

Emily thinks for a moment but quickly decides against it. The thought of seeing her mother in pain, even if it was for a good cause, makes her uncomfortable. "I'd rather stay with Will. We don't want him sitting here all by himself," she says.

"I don't need a sitter," William snaps, "I'm not a baby."

"But you definitely behave like one," Emily fires back. "Now shut up and be nice so dad can look after mom and doesn't have to worry about us at each other's throats out here."

"Alright," Doctor Hanson says. "The waiting area is over there. There are magazines and a vending machine. If you need anything, ask the nurse at reception. Follow me, Mr. Scully...I mean Mr. Mulder, sorry...your wife will be happy to see you." She leads the way to the delivery room. Mulder presses a kiss on Emily's hair and waves at William who has already plummeted into a chair. "Okay, kids. See you later then," he says and hurries to follow the doctor.

"Say hello to mom from us," Emily shouts after him, "and good luck!" She looks after her father who disappears through a swinging door marked Deliveries, then trots toward the waiting area to join her brother. She places herself in a chair next to him, looks around, gets up again to leaf through a pile of magazines on one of the tables, finds nothing of interest, goes back to her chair, and lets herself fall onto it with a sigh.

"You could've gone with dad, if you wanted," William tells her without looking up from his phone.

"Nah, I'm good."

Both sit in silence for a while. William is totally absorbed in a game on his smartphone, Emily pulls a history book and some pencils out of her backpack and starts reading, writing notes on the pages in different colors here and there. William shakes his head when he sees her doing that. "That's so old school, sis."

"Well, it's good for me. This way, the information stays longer in my brain than when I read it on a screen. You may call it old school, bro, I call it efficient mnemonics."

"Whatever," he sighs, his eyes back on the screen.

"Hey, what you said in the car, that mom doesn't care about us anymore, what did you mean by that?"

"I meant what I said, whatever the baby needs comes first, and we will play second fiddle. Or maybe even third. But I don't care. If things get unbearable, I will ask to go to boarding school. They can play house with the new baby then and I won't be there to bother anyone with my presence."

"You're being ridiculous, Will. Mom and dad will never let you go to boarding school, and I can't believe it will be anything like you just said."

William only shrugs. The narrative in his head has solidified like concrete, and he can't imagine a worse place to be right now. The best he can do is immerse himself in this online game and forget about what is happening at the other side of the door his father vanished through. After some hours of playing (thank God he brought his charger) and a short nap with his head leaned back against the wall, his stomach grumbles. "Are you also hungry, Em?"

"Well, I could have a snack. How long have we been waiting?"

"We came here at 10:45 am, now it's almost 6," William tells her, looking at the big clock on the wall of the waiting area.

"Wow, seven hours already. Poor mom. I wonder why dad hasn't given us an update."

"Do you think something is going wrong and he doesn't want to tell us?" William says, his voice trembling a bit.

"I don't think so."

"It's not so unlikely at mom's age."

"And how do you know?"

"I read stuff."

"You read stuff. Where?" Emily has problems picturing her brother behind a pregnancy textbook.

"On the internet, where else? If you google 'late motherhood' you get thousands of hits. And they all tell you women should have babies in their twenties and thirties, not their fifties. There is a reason for that. Nature doesn't want you to have a baby when you're old."

"Mom's not old."

"For having babies she is. She should be a grandmother rather than giving birth."

"Well, if she was a grandmother, I would already have a baby," Emily points out pensively, then adds a determined, "no thanks!"

"I just can't believe they let this happen."

"Let what happen?"

"Getting mom pregnant. Why? How?"

"Well, I can tell you how..."

"Ew, don't!" William imitates a gagging sound. "But why?"

"I guess it just happened."

"There are ways to prevent getting pregnant, I hope you are aware of that, unlike our parents apparently. I don't want to be an uncle on top of this any time soon. How could they have been so dumb? I don't get it. For all the times mom lectured us about condoms and safe sex, she didn't follow her own words." He shakes his head showing his disapproval and lack of understanding quite clearly. "I will never have sex, that's for sure."

Emily gives a slight chuckle. At fourteen, her brother most certainly doesn't have any idea of the joy of it. When he gets older and starts fancying girls, he might rethink his attitude, but something else is hitting her the longer their conversation goes. "You've given this a lot of thought, haven't you?"

"Well, what else was I to do? It has been the main topic in our house for the longest time. I guess, sometimes they even forgot I was still living there."

"Bullshit."

William is done explaining his thoughts. His sister obviously isn't getting the point either, just like his parents. "Now are we getting something to eat, or what?"

"You hangry?" Emily asks with a smirk and he is glad she has taken the bait and they changed the topic.

"After seven hours of wasting my time in this stuffy waiting room, I think I am allowed to have a bite to eat. Do you have change for the machine?" The boy is inwardly fuming at his father for once again neglecting him by not giving him money for food.

Big sister overtakes Em again, "I am definitely getting us something more nutritious. There has to be a cafeteria somewhere with sandwiches and a drink with less sugar than what I see in that machine." The idea of having to deal with a cranky brother on a sugar-high isn't very appealing. She gets up from the chair, her mind set on improving her brother's mood with a tasty snack. Plus, the hunt for food will give her something to do instead of mulling over what her mother is enduring at this very moment in the delivery room. "Text me, if you hear something," she tells her brother before she leaves him alone.

He tries to distract himself with the game again, but his thoughts keep going back to six months ago when his world turned upside down. The situation was surreal. His parents had prepared one of their usual Sunday family dinners, Emily had come to join, and with the dessert they served them the news of the pregnancy. His sister's piercing shriek of surprised joy hurt his eardrums and he almost choked on the pie he had in his mouth. His mother annoyed him with science book citations about the finer points of late motherhood and male ongoing virility that made him want to cover his ears entirely and yell 'too much information' at her. The worst was his dad though. The puppy eyes with which he was looking at his mom and the silly petting of her still flat stomach caused a severe tickling in William's throat. To this very day, he hadn't gotten past the shock. He shakes his head to make the unpleasant memories disappear.

And then, of course, what had to happen happens: Emily is gone for about fifteen minutes when Mulder appears in the waiting area with an ear-to-ear smile on his face. "Waiting time is over, the baby's here! It's a girl! A healthy, beautiful little girl," he announces, his voice full of pride and also relief. He looks around, surprised to find William alone. "Where is your sister?"

"Getting us a snack. Is mom alright?"

"She is. She did great. I am so amazed by that woman." Mulder's whole face lights up. "She sent me to get you guys. When will Em be back?"

"I don't know. She's been gone for about 20 minutes now, it shouldn't take her much longer. I mean only if she hasn't met a cute guy she needed to get into a conversation with." William rolls his eyes so hard he sees the back of his head, his voice high-pitched on 'cute guy'.

Mulder is still so high on adrenaline that he doesn't chime in, although he too has been annoyed more than once by his daughter's tardiness, and the reason has often enough been a 'cute guy'. "Okay, gotta go back to Scully, I don't want to leave her and the baby alone for too long," he says. He points toward a long gray hallway with several doors on each side. "We're in room 302 over there on the right. As soon as Em gets back, come and join us. Mom is waiting for you guys."

"But dad," William laments in vain, his father is already around the corner. "Great," he mumbles to himself. First, they drag him out here and make him wait endless hours in an uncomfortable chair only to be here when the baby is born, and now that it is born, they don't have a problem with him standing around for God knows how long until his tardy sister is back. Typical. He pulls his phone out of his pocket, types in 'get here asap', his fingers flying over the screen, and slams the send button.

Impatience gets the better of him soon. There is no more sitting in the chair and playing online games for him now, he is pacing the waiting area, glad that nobody else is there to see him in this state. If Emily isn't back soon, he'll explode, he thinks, but it takes another 20 minutes until he sees her leisurely strolling down the hallway. He sighs in relief when she finally stands in front of him, a cardboard tray in one hand filled with two drinks and something to eat he can't quite figure out, and some flowers wrapped in paper in the other. "It's about time!" he lets her know.

"Sorry," Emily says quite relaxed, "I was just standing in line to pay for the food when I got your text. This hospital complex is huge and a bit confusing to be honest. I'm not sure I took the shortest way on my way back. Healthy muffins, iced tea, and something for your sweet tooth," she says with a grin, holding the tray out to William. "What happened?"

"What happened? What do you think happened? The baby's here, of course, and mom wants to see us!"

Emily gives a girly shriek that hurts William's ears once again. "Yay! Great! You could've been a bit more specific in your text rather than simply summoning me back here. I thought you were just craving the food."

"Yeah, well, there was food right in front of our noses." William points to the vending machine, unable to keep his outstretched index finger steady. "But you had to go on a hunting trip for some salad leaves and made me stand around here alone wondering."

"Where are they?"

"In room 302. They are waiting for us. It's this way." William nods in the direction Mulder showed him.

"Okay, let's go then."

Side by side, Emily and William take long strides toward the room they were told. "Boy or girl?" Emily asks on the way.

"Girl."

"Yay again! Ah, that's wonderful. I have a little sister," she chants.

William isn't sharing an ounce of his sister's enthusiasm. If he had been given a choice, he would have passed on this experience as a whole, but now that they are standing in front of room 302, by opening that door what he has tried to deny will become real. If only his mom is alright, he will accept all that comes with it: sleepless nights because of the baby crying, smelly diapers, more Thai takeout, and an annoying younger sister on top of an annoying older one. If only his mom is alright. Emily knocks and he hears his mother's voice say "Come in!" It sounds weak, he thinks, and his heartbeat accelerates. When he follows his sister into the room, he braces himself for the worst.

[scullydubois]

What about a time when mulder meets up with scully to go for a walk with queequeg?

i may have gone overboard here, but how could i not? this prompt is so precious, thank you.

----------------

Friday Night with Queequeg, 2.4k--set in season three

“I can’t, Mulder,” his partner insists, her voice dialed up a few intervals for dramatic effect. “I’ve got Queequeg to worry about.”

Mulder drops his Washington Nationals tickets on the desk in disappointment. How lame to be overshadowed by a dog. “That fluffy little guy?” he whines. “Or girl, I'm not sure.”

“He’s a boy.”

“Okay well, he reminds me of one of those Tamagotchi things, have you seen the commercial?” Mulder rambles while shuffling various stray papers from his desk into a single incoherent stack. He’s careful not to sweep the tickets into it. “It’s a pocket pet--”

“I know what it is, Mulder. I have a godson.”

“And is Queequeg not just a glorified version of one of those?”

“Yes, I suppose you could say that. He needs food and attention and care. But, in case you didn’t know, he is also real and capable of giving much of that back to you.”

“Eh, reciprocated affection is overrated,” Mulder jokes, though life would be a lot damn easier if he believed that. “And it’s one of the few Fridays where we’re not traveling or jet-lagged or wholly tired of each other.”

Scully purses her lips. “I see significantly less of Queequeg per week than I do you,” she mutters, and Mulder wonders whether some of her feigned contempt might be genuine. He’s used to being subtly disliked, but the thought sure makes him sad.

Seeing the passion in his face dissolve, Scully realizes that he’s backing down. It’s not like him to back down, no matter how frivolous the issue is. She knows this about him if she knows anything. It’s as if he’s giving up, and that strikes her more than anything.

“Haven’t you ever had a dog, Mulder?” she asks, ignoring the chair in front of her to perch on the edge of his desk.

“Once. After Samantha.” He laughs out of pure scorn. “I think it was my parents’ way of trying to replace her.”

Scully frowns. She should know by now that any journey into his past will turn into a probe of his eternal wound, and that’s no fault of his own.

“What was its name? And were you fond of it?” Scully feels like a therapist--hopefully a kind and supportive one.

“Sparky. I’ve got no clue where the name came from, or the dog for that matter. He was just kinda there one day when I got home from school. And then in a few months, he was gone in the same way. Taken to my uncle’s cause my parents couldn’t stand all the upkeep.”

A thought pops into Scully’s head that is evidently shared by her partner. “No, he didn’t “go live on a farm’ or whatever, I was old enough not to fall for that,” Mulder insists. “He really did go live with my uncle. Lived like seven more years.”

Scully raises an eyebrow. “But did you like him? Were you sad when he was gone?”

“I was sad about a lot of things at the time, Scully.” He opens his desk drawer and pops a piece of gum in his mouth. He’s out of sunflower seeds. “But about the dog? Eh, he was fine to have around but it wasn’t a quintessential boy and his dog moment. He was already a couple years old and well into his grumpy old man phase, if I remember correctly. And he was a mutt, so I think my parents hated him because he didn’t match the furniture.”

“Mmm.” Scully rolls her tongue over the roof of her mouth. It would be a shame to put Mulder through this whole conversation only to insist that she can’t attend the game. But she wasn’t just making excuses. Queeqeug has been home alone all day. and she always takes him for a walk when she gets home from work. He’s used to their routine now, sitting there at the door when she unlocks it like he’s got an alarm set. He gets his dinner when they get back home and falls soundly asleep. Scully’s convinced this is the only thing keeping him from rebelling for being on his own for ten hours a day, and she doesn’t want to test that theory.

Mulder glances at the office clock. 5:46. First pitch is at 7:05.

“How about this...” He props his feet up on the desk to give himself the air of confidence that he’s lacking. “I’ll run over to your place, walk him, make sure he does his business...the whole shebang. You can finish up here then take a taxi to the park, and I’ll meet you there. Sound good?”

The edges of Scully’s lips turn downward. Mulder notes that today, they are brushed over with a very nice coral. Must be a new shade.

“Do you really care that much about me attending this game?”

Mulder shrugs. Yes he does, but he’ll be nonchalant about it. “I bought the tickets cheap through a newspaper ad. I just thought it would be nice for the two of us to do something that’s not chasing phantoms.”

“Phantoms?” Scully’s left eyebrow arches. “Have I finally broken your spirit?”

Mulder smirks. “Sorry, I thought flattery might get me somewhere here.”

Scully taps a heel against the ugly linoleum floor. He’s so adamant about this...boyhood loves stick, she supposes.

“If it means that much to you, go ahead. But don’t come crying to me when you’re late for the start of the game. Queequeg takes his time.”

Mulder claps his hands together. “That’s fine, that’s fine!” Surely he can hurry the canine up. “You take one ticket and head to the seats, and I’ll find you.”

Scully pulls her lips into a thin line, a hint of humor gleaming in her eyes. “Okay, Mulder. Do you have your key?”

He nods, pulls on his jacket, and edges toward the door. “See you there, Scully!”

“Bye.” Scully smiles at the empty office. Her partner’s enthusiasm is endlessly endearing.

---------------------

Mulder has no time to register that he has no clue where Queequeg’s leash is, or if he’s supposed to bring some sort of bag to pick up any...ehm, droppings, or if there’s some special trick to walking a dog that makes it look easy when it’s secretly hard. In fact, he can’t recall ever walking Sparky. Thirty years old and never walked a dog before...surely that qualifies him for the Guinness World Record books.

Queequeg is alert at the door when Mulder opens it, and he’s glad the thing is more teddy bear than canine--he doesn’t have to deal with any barking or biting. He checks the coat rack for a leash, then begins rummaging around in the front table when he comes up short. It’s all old issues of girly magazines he never would have expected Scully to subscribe to.

Begrudgingly, he looks into Queequeg’s beady eyes. “Where’s your leash, boy? You wanna go for a walk? Show me where your leash is.” He uses a baby voice he didn’t even know he had.

Queequeg does nothing but paw the ground in annoyance.

“I know the feeling,” Mulder quips. He pulls out his phone and chooses Scully’s name from the speed dial list.

It rings and rings, then goes to voicemail. Mulder ends the call, grumbles, then tries the office number instead. She picks up after one ring.

“Hello?” her dainty voice projects through the line.

“Scully, you haven’t left yet?”

“I was just locking up the desk. Is there a problem?” she asks like she knew there would be.

“I can’t find Queequeg’s leash.”

“It’s by the pantry, next to his treats.”

Mulder sighs, heads into the kitchen. “And I suppose I have to take his treats too?”

“Uh-huh. And there’s plastic grocery bags in there that you can use to clean up after him.”

Mulder opens the pantry, sees the hoard. “I feared so.”

“We always go left down the block,” Scully tells her partner. “There’s a patch of grass that way he likes to chew on.”

“And how much does he pay you for such indelible service?” Scully doesn’t listen to a word he says, but she’s at the dog’s beck and call apparently.

There’s a bit of silence as Scully decides not to reply with a smartass remark. Then--”I’m leaving the office now,” she murmurs into the phone. “Better hurry up or I’ll beat you there.”

During this teasing, Mulder attached Queequeg’s leash to his collar. Now, as he tries to lead him into the living room, the dog refuses to move.

“Uh, Scully?”

“Yes?”

“I put his leash on, but Queequeg won’t budge.”

“Do you have the treats?”

Mulder shakes the treat bag and makes kissy noises to encourage the canine. (How humiliating.) Still, nothing.

“He doesn’t want to come with me,” Mulder says. “Even the treats won’t lure him over.”

“Are you sure it’s the right treats?” Scully asks.

“Since when are dogs picky about their treats? Treats are treats. And these are the only ones in the pantry.”

“Huh.”

“If you’re rolling your eyes, I can’t see it,” Mulder mutters.

“I’m not rolling my eyes, I just--we’ve never had this problem.”

“Has anyone else walked him?” Mulder wiggles the leash, which does nothing.

“My mom.”

“Well, maybe he doesn’t like men,” Mulder remarks.

“He lived with Clyde Bruckman…”

“Exactly.”

Scully takes a quick exhale. He has a point. “I’ll head over, okay? But I doubt we’ll make the game.”

“We’ll see.” Mulder sighs. He’s being...well, cockblocked isn’t the right word for it--but something like that--by a dog.

-----------------

Scully arrives half an hour later to find Mulder crouched on the kitchen floor rubbing Queequeg’s belly.

“Am I interrupting something?” she teases. The dog rolls over and leaps into excitement at the sound of her voice, abandoning Mulder altogether.

“Hi buddy.” She scratches his ears and dodges his attempts to lick her face. “You ready to go for a walk?”

Queequeg whimpers and sits as if she commanded him to.

Scully looks to Mulder with a brilliant, taunting smile. “I think he’s ready.”

Mulder stands up, every disk in his back rebelling against him. “That thing--” Mulder jabs a finger in Queequeg’s direction--”has a Jekyll and Hyde situation going on.”

“Really, cause you seemed to be having a great time until I came in.”

“No, no, no, don’t spin this. I had to get down on the kitchen floor because he wouldn’t move! What was I supposed to do while we were waiting for you, ignore him?”

Scully shrugs, tries to hide her smirk. “Well, if you were so bothered by him…”

“Whatever, whatever. Let’s just go for the walk, okay? I don’t want to miss this game, it’s against the Red Sox. It should be good.”

Scully takes Queequeg’s leash from her partner, gestures for him to go ahead. “After you.”

------------------

It’s a beautiful spring night--the perfect occasion for a baseball game, Scully will give Mulder that. The sun is drifting down the cloudless horizon, and the chill that has hung in the air for months is finally admitting defeat. The sidewalk is crowded with other dogs and their humans, eager to end the week on such a lovely note.

Queequeg trots blissfully in the usual direction. Scully lengthens her stride to keep up with him--for once she and Mulder are walking at the same pace.

“So this is DC on a Friday night, huh?” Mulder says, glancing around at their fellow pedestrians and bicyclists.

Scully nods. “If you got out of the office before seven, you’d know.”

“Doubtful. My usual impression of DC on a Friday night is the traffic on the 14th Street bridge, and I’m pretty sure I can witness that at all hours.”

Scully allows herself a sidelong glance at her partner. She had never realized someone could be too dedicated until she met Mulder.

“Have you ever considered getting a pet?” she asks tentatively.

His gaze snaps to her. He chuckles and sticks his hands in his pockets. “My complex has a hefty monthly pet fee. Rent is already bad enough.”

“Well it’s not like you go out often…” Scully starts, knowing this is short of a compliment. “You’re not a big spender, surely you have the extra cash on hand.”

“Ha, thanks,” Mulder responds. “Should I put that on my resume?”

“I just mean that…” Queequeg finds his beloved patch of grass, and they pause to let him chomp at it. “...you could use the companionship of a dog. Or cat, if that strikes your fancy.”

“I have enough companionship, Scully. More than I know what to do with. Have you heard my answering machine?”

“A woman from an 800 line is not companionship, Mulder. And you never actually answer any of your messages. Friends don’t count if you never see them.”

“Ouch.” Queequeg finishes up, and they resume the walk. “And what are your plans this weekend, Scully?” he asks, hoping to catch her in her own hypocrisy.

“As a matter of fact, I’m going to visit my mother tomorrow afternoon.”

Mulder busts out laughing. “You’re a real party girl!”

She ignores him, focusing on Queequeg. “But you get my point, don’t you? It’s not good to be alone all the time.”

“I seem to recall being told that we spend more time together than you and your dog,” Mulder wisecracks.

“That’s different,” Scully swears. “That’s work.”

“That’s the bulk of modern life, my dear.” He delivers this statement in an old-timey mid-Atlantic accent like some leading man of the 40s. It makes Scully smile.

“I have an idea,” she says, her eyes sparkling.

“Oh boy.” Mulder glances at his watch. 6:51. Damn it. “We’re gonna miss the game.”

Scully nods. “Let’s go to the animal shelter instead.”

Mulder stops. It makes Queequeg, and therefore Scully, stop too. “What?”

“You could make some dog very happy, you know. And Queequeg would have a playmate...I think it would be really good for you, Mulder.”

“Come on, I can’t just adopt a dog on a whim.”

“I did.”

“Shit.”

Scully laughs. “You’re realizing there’s no way out of this, aren’t you?”

Mulder grins. “Yeah, I--” He looks down and sees Queequeg taking a dump in the middle of the sidewalk. Scully readies the plastic bag she brought, then bends down and scoops the pile up like it’s nothing.

Mulder screws up his face. “On second thought…”

“Nuh-uh.” Scully ties the bag and taps it against Mulder’s arm. “You’re empty-handed, take this. It’ll be good practice.”

Mulder frowns but takes the bag. His partner’s huge smile is not lost on him, and it makes him smile despite himself. She knows how to get what she wants, and he has a feeling this one will benefit him too.

[cecilysass]

Jackson Van de Kamp’s Not-So-Final Repose (3/3)

Read on AO3 | Previous chapter |@today-in-fic

A sudden shadow passes over Mulder’s face. He scowls. He picks up the menu again, tracing a finger along the text.

“Navajo,” he repeats to himself.

Abruptly standing up, a focused look on his features, he begins looking around the café as if searching for something. Jackson, confused, tries to follow the direction of his eyes.

“Platform 42,” Mulder points to a sign, suspended above them. He scowls again.

He walks towards a billboard lining the wall. It is advertising a planned community, with watercolor images of families standing in front of immaculate homes.

“The Falls at Arcadia,” he reads to Jackson.

He then walks along and finds another billboard farther along, that Jackson can’t see quite as clearly. “And look. Visit Beautiful Martha’s Vineyard. Done in a retro, seventies style.”

He walks back to sit down again at the table, facing Jackson. “I assume none of these details are from your book.”

“No,” Jackson shakes his head.

“Some of them seem like sort of American details for your subconscious mind to fill in for King’s Cross station, don’t they?”

“I don’t know,” Jackson shrugs, frustrated. “I just know I have never been to Martha’s Vineyard, and I don’t speak Navajo.”

“They aren’t details from your life. They are details from … mine,” Mulder says. He lifts up the glass of iced tea. “Right down to my favorite drink when I need to focus, mixed with the perfect amount of sugar, exactly the way I like it.”

Jackson is perplexed. “But … I didn’t know that. I didn’t know any of this. How could my mind have included your memories?”

Mulder scowls, takes a sip of his perfect glass of iced tea.

“The café chairs,” Jackson says, remembering. “Before, Bruckman said the pattern on the back of the chairs looked like a brain.”

Immediately interested, Mulder stands up again, circling around to examine the back of his chair.

“I don’t really see it,” Jackson says. The metal bars are shaped in an irregular, flower-like pattern. It is unusual, granted, but it doesn’t look especially like a brain to Jackson.

Mulder runs his hands along it. “Huh. I think it’s the shape of a brain being imaged, like an MRI,” he says softly.

“What?” Jackson shakes his head, staring at it. “Seriously? That’s so … freaking weird. Why?”

“I think it’s my brain, as a matter of fact,” Mulder says in wonder. He looks up. “I am starting to get this, I think.”

“Well, I’m definitely not,” Jackson says, indignantly.

“It isn’t details from my memories,” Mulder says. “Because I haven’t spent as much time, in my own life, looking at pictures of my brain. And my MRIs aren’t significant memories for me.”

“Huh?”

“I think these details are in your subconscious mind as a result of your connection to your mother,” Mulder says. “They are from Scully. They are little ... fragments of her memories of me. Impressions, pieces.”

Jackson looks around him slowly, taking this in.

“I think you created this dream space in your subconscious for a meeting with me,” Mulder continues. “Her memories helped you … well, decorate for it. Without realizing it.”

“You can’t be serious.” Jackson can’t imagine this is how it works.

“Right down to the drinks,” Mulder adds, softly, taking a sip of the iced tea with a smile.

Jackson doesn’t speak for a moment. Something about this doesn’t quite make sense to him.

“But … I didn’t come here expecting to meet with you,” he says. “I only decided to talk to you after I spoke with …”

He stops. “Clyde Bruckman.”

Mulder and Jackson look at one another. They seem to have the same thought at the same time.

“What if Bruckman wasn’t really ever speaking with me at all? What if he was just … my dream based on my mother’s memory of him?” Jackson says.

His voice sounds very small, almost a whisper.

“Do you think that could be true?” Mulder says, watching him closely.

“He knew things,” Jackson says. “He knew you were having a baby.”

Neither of them speaks.

“Which …” Jackson finishes, realizing, “obviously my mom knew, too. So that could have come from her mind.”

“That doesn’t prove he wasn’t here,” Mulder says.

“He said you were my father,” Jackson says, his panic rising. “But I... also saw that in my own visions, and I think deep down my mom thinks it’s true, too, so I could have known that already. He said the baby was a girl, but that could just be … a guess.”

Jackson forces a deep breath before he goes on.

“He said the baby would be important to me, that I would become closer to you and Agent Scully, that I would grow up to be happy … but that could just be me wanting those things to be true.”

“Jackson, those things can be true, no matter what,” Mulder says softly.

“He knew I read Harry Potter when I was a kid,” Jackson whispers. “He knew I was bi. But of course he would. It’s my own head. He knows everything I know.”

“Do you remember anything else he said?” Mulder says gently. “Maybe you can think of something he said that is a real detail, something that would really come from him, not from Scully’s memories or from your own.”

“He said you believed he was a psychic, back in the day. He said that he, uh, sort of trolled you -- said you were going to have an embarrassing death? He said you and my mother weren’t having sex back then, but you were thinking about it.”

“All of that would easily be in Scully’s memories,” Mulder says, looking slightly sheepish.

Jackson is silent. “Did he eat cookies when you knew him? Like some kind of cookies that started with an H? And sounded like Hydra?”

“Hydox,” Mulder says. “They’re like Oreos. And … no, not that I remember. He liked pie.”

“He said he missed Hydrox cookies,” Jackson says quietly. “Maybe that was something real, from his real life.” It doesn’t seem like very much to hold on to.

“Yeah,” Mulder says, rubbing his mouth. “Yeah, it definitely could be.”

“I want to believe he was really here,” Jackson says.

“Me, too,” Mulder says. “But —it also doesn’t matter, Jackson. Everything good that came out of this conversation can come out whether he was here or not.”

Jackson looks at the FBI agent, blinking. Mulder’s eyes are on him, concerned. The boy is worried he might be close to tears, which would be embarrassing.

“I might have some of my notes from the case Bruckman was involved in,” Mulder adds, watching him closely. “We had a fire in our office a few years later and some were lost, but I have the old digital files. You can come over to our house and look, see if you see something that rings a bell. You can ask Scully if she knew about the cookies.”

“Yeah, okay,” Jackson says, nodding.

“You all right?”

“Yeah. I’m fine,” Jackson says, tightly.

For some reason, this response makes Mulder’s face bloom into a slow, weary smile. He shakes his head, sighing, as if resigned to not knowing more. Slowly, he begins to look around again at the surrounding train station, his eyes drifting to each detail.

“So you’ve never been to London, huh?”

“No,” Jackson shook his head.

“Maybe we could go,” Mulder suggests, fidgeting nervously with the corner of the menu. “If you want.”

“To … London?”

“Sure. We could all go. Me, you, your mom. We could take your sister when she is big enough. See the real King’s Cross station, although it’s not really very exciting, just a train station. We could visit Oxford, too. And there’s, you know, tons of other things to see. Scully would like it, too, I think.”

Jackson tries not to get too excited thinking about this. He looks up at Mulder, his face a mask now, shrugging. “I don’t have a passport. I’m officially dead.”

“It seems like a kid with your abilities probably can figure out ways to work that out.”

“That doesn’t seem like a very good federal agent answer,” says Jackson, raising his eyebrow.

“Well, I think many would say I’m not a very good federal agent.”

Jackson smiles despite himself, takes a sip of his own iced tea, cautiously. “I’d like to go to London.”

“Okay. Well, then ... good,” Mulder says, pleased, as if it’s settled. He shifts positions in his seat. “What about the Yankees? You ever see them play?”

“No,” Jackson says, rolling his eyes. “But I’m not really into--”

“Don’t say it,” Mulder says. “You’ll break my heart. Pretend you’ll go see the Yankees with me.”

Jackson smiles again, conceding. “All right, fine.”

“You’ll like it once you’re there,” Mulder says confidently.

Jackson isn’t so sure, but Mulder’s enthusiasm is hard to resist. “It would probably be good to take my sister, too. Buy her a bunch of snacks and souvenirs and stuff.”

“Now you’re getting it,” Mulder says. “I can definitely make sure she is a Yankees fan, huh?”

“Buy her enough cotton candy, and she’ll be yours,” Jackson says wryly.

Mulder laughs a little. He looks down at the menu, swallows. Jackson can see the anxiety written on his face. “When do you think we will see you again, Jackson? Not in a dream?”

“Soon,” Jackson promises. 

They make eye contact again.

“I won’t show up looking like me,” Jackson says. “Because of the danger. And because ... I’ll probably be a little nervous.”

“But you’ll show us it’s you, eventually?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” Mulder says softly. 

Father and son hold eye contact a moment more.

“And when I see you then,” Jackson says, in a voice that sounds much younger than he is, “will you say something right away to show me you remember this? So I know … this conversation wasn’t a dream, too?”

“I will say ‘iced tea,’” Mulder says. “Then you will know. All right?”

“Okay,” Jackson says.

“This conversation is happening, William,” Mulder says. 

He closes his eyes, shakes his head. “I’m so sorry. I meant Jackson.”

“It’s okay,” Jackson says. “In my mom’s mind — that’s what she calls me a lot, too.”

“I am sure she does,” Mulder says. “It’s hard for us. But it’s important that we really know the person you are now. Not just the baby we lost.”

“Yeah.” 

Jackson thinks about that. To the FBI agents, their long lost baby was something real that turned into their dream, the most important dream in their lives. Just like the mysterious red-headed birth mother was for him for a while. 

And one thing he knows about dreams, from experience, is that they are not always harmless. 

“Uh, Mulder?” he says to his father, calling him by his mother’s name for him without really noticing it. “I think … that I am about to wake up. I can sort of, uh, feel it coming. And when I wake up, I think you will probably wake up, too.”

“Okay,” Mulder nods, slowly, cautiously. 

Jackson runs his fingers, nervously, through his hair. “Will you tell my mom ... hi for me? Tell her everything I said?” he says. “Tell her I will come see you soon.”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Don’t forget,” Jackson says. “Iced tea. Right?"

"Iced tea."

They stare at each other one more time. Jackson blinks heavily, and he discovers his eyes are wet after all. 

His father, shiny-eyed, too, smiles at him, abruptly grabs his hand. He only holds it for a moment.

Then Jackson wakes up.

Read on AO3 | Previous chapter

Thank you so much for reading this, dear reader! I am fond of it, but I know it's an odd one. Your feedback is all the more precious for this. I'm a bit worried about anyone ever reading it, hahaha.

[bigfootwrites]

{escort fic}

This idea has been in my head for a while. People on the server seem to like it. I’ve gone back and forth on whether this is ooc or not but nobody has mentioned that it is so I’m gonna roll with it. It’s just a concept idea but if people are interested I’m happy to turn it into a full fic so please do let me know. Can also be read on ao3.

@today-in-fic @mypanicface  @improlificinsarcasm  @baronessblixen @foxscully @gillywitch @arboreta @agirlcallednarelle @starbuckthirteen @clarke-oswald

- - - 

He should go out and meet somebody. Get to know them, fall in love with them, build a relationship with them. Yet, relationships took time, he had been down this road multiple times and each one had ended just as badly as badly as the other, this recent relationship taking it to the next level.

He was divorced from somebody he once worshipped and the custody of their child on the line.

He wasn’t going to make a habit out of this. His hand and porn usually did the job but it didn’t always fill the void, fill that sense of loneliness that has been there since he was twelve. Sometimes he just wanted physical human companionship, sometimes he just wanted that too much.

Yet still even after swiping a leaflet that fell out of a magazine at the Lone Gunmen’s for an escort agency it took him a week to build up the courage to call them.

He chooses something called “A Girlfriend Experience”, picks someone somewhere within his age-range and tries not to feel guilty about the whole thing.

.:.:.:.:.:.

She was running late.

Tardiness never felt like an option with her yet Emily had refused to go to bed even after Dana told her she had to go to work. It had ended with Dana a few minutes behind and Emily asleep in her bed.

But it was time to push that life aside for now, to enter this restaurant as Danielle and Danielle doesn’t have a child named Emily or a pile of textbooks to study through.

The restaurant her client had chosen was nice enough; one of those business-y type places that not many wealthy people touched but it was still classy enough to be considered decent to use.

It was rare that she would be fed- food wasn’t often part of the price, after all, it was an extra expense. Besides, most of the men she had encountered just wanted a suck and a fuck and maybe the odd therapy session. Maybe around three of her requests were for this Girlfriend Experience and it wasn’t like she was rolling in requests that much anyway.

Dana had realised quickly the types of women men went for: blonde, tall, boobs. Short redheads who just about fitted into a B-cup never made the cut that often.

Yet, for whatever reason, she had be chosen. From the emails sent this man seemed nice enough of course from the stories she would hear that wasn’t something concrete to go off. People could carefully choose the words they typed, could portray themselves in a certain way online. The same could be said for in person interactions too but people were more likely to slip up during those.

For now, Dana is tucked away, she dons Danielle and approaches able 25 where her companion for the night waits for her.

When she gets there, it’s a gentle tap on the arm, a smile, and a simple “Hi, Mulder.”

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Mulder’s heart stops in his chest as he stares at her, struck with the thought of how breath-taking she is.

He wouldn’t say little redheads was his ‘type’ but as he was going through the countless lists of girls he hadn’t wanted somebody his type, he wanted no reminder of Diana and so he had chosen her; Danielle, 5’3, 26 years old and the complete opposite to Diana.

He hadn’t seen her face before, for whatever reason she had kept it off the page, Mulder hadn’t been expecting much in terms of looks because of it yet he can’t keep his eyes off her.

He realises she’s said his name and almost comically stumbles his way to standing up, bashing a leg against the table making the cutlery jump and a brief amount of pain to ripple length ways across his right tigh.

“Danielle,” he says wincing through the pain. Her professional name knowing full well it wasn’t her real name. He might be new to this escort world but 1-800 numbers and taught him enough about fake names, maybe he should have considered using one.

She looks to be smiling at his clumsiness, fighting it back, trying to hide it.

A shaky start Mulder thinks, as he pulls out her chair yet she’s sitting down before he gets a chance to show how much of a gentleman he is.

He’s looking through the drinks menu when he realises she’s staring at him, drinking him in. It makes him feel self-conscious.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

Danielle seems to have realised what she was doing, she quickly looks away from him.

“You’re just…different to who I usually meet with,” she says.

Mulder smiles wryly and cocks his head.

“Is that good or bad?” he asks unsure himself.

“That’s good,” she tells him. “Usually I get the…older men and they definitely don’t go out of their way to buy me food.” She lifts her head up and smiles waiting for his reply.

He has none other than how strange he must seem to her right now, how sad. He also tries not to feel jealous at the thought of her with other men. It’s a thought that comes out of nowhere, a thought he has no right in occupying.

“So do you come here often?” she’s asking.

The answer to was that no. It was a drive away from his apartment, away from any potential sightings of colleagues or people he sees on a daily basis.

“Never,” he says realising this could be chaotic.

But she’s laughing and it’s one of the nicest sounds his eyes have ever heard.

“I hope you didn’t come here just to try and impress me.”

“Try?” he counters. “So I take it you’re not so easily impressed?”

She shrugs. “I’ve been told as much.”

Mulder leans in, surprised at how comfortable he feels around her, how at ease he is.

“Well tell me,” he says. “Are you impressed?”

She looks around the establishment, pretending to think.

“Hmm…I think you could have done better.”

“Okay,” Mulder says leaning back and giving the room a once around himself. He would say he’s done pretty well but she’s laughing again, giggling actually, and the restaurant doesn’t matter.

They order food, not that he’s particularly hungry anymore, but for some reason he doesn’t want this to end. Spending $300 a night to talk seems better than spending $300 on an apology.

“So,” Mulder begins. “What do you do aside from…this.”

He wonders about the answer he will receive. She’s lied about her name, will she lie about this or will to follow the truth as much as she can, altering things here and there. He wonders how much of her true name is in her fake name.

“Well…through the day I study mostly,” she says and this perks his interest.

“What do you study?”

“Uh…” He sees she’s searching for an answer and it breaks his heart to know that he isn’t getting the truth though he had expected her to be a bit more prepared for these questions.

“Chemistry,” she finally says. “I wanted to be a scientist.” She says it almost shyly, tucking her head in and refusing to look at him. He amends his previous thought, perhaps there is a truth after all.

“Wanted?” Mulder asks. “Is that still not possible?”

“Well…I guess so. I’m just worried about somebody hiding out about…this.” She purses her lips and shrugs.

Mulder wonder if he’ll get to ask why she does this but then wonders if that’ll be rude to ask anyway even if did get the chance.

“Well, let me pose you a question,” he says just as their food arrives. “Do you believe in the existence of extraterrestrials?”

He watches as she processes his question, her eyebrows knitting together as she attempts to formulate an answer and Mulder is curious as to what that answer is.

“Logically, I would have to say no,” she says slowly. “Given the distances needed to travel from the far reaches of space, the energy requirements would exceed the spacecraft’s capabilities.”

Mulder finds himself impressed with her, the certainty in her answer, he wonders if he’s getting a glimpse of a real person beneath the professionalism, other character.

“Okay, conventional wisdom,” he says, he expected it. “But when convention and science fail us, should we not start looking to the fantastic as answers?”

He thinks he’s caught her, she takes a while to answer, thinking it over through mouthfuls of salads. Mulder is too preoccupied with her mind to worry about the food that goes cold beneath him.

She swallows her food, sitting back in her seat and Mulder waits for the mental foreplay.

“That’s only if convention and science actually fail us.”

He thinks he’s in love.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

There’s an easiness Dana feels around Mulder. He’s nothing like her previous clients who see nothing beyond her sexual capabilities. Mulder seems to be interested in her mind, in her and she worries she might have revealed too much of herself to him but it’s rare she finds somebody to match her intellect, her classmates can’t keep up with her, her professors shut her down in order to give other members of the class a chance. She feels intellectually frustrated at times.

“Why do you ask all this?” she inquires.

Mulder shrugs. “Oh, it’s just a hobby.”

“Talking about extraterrestrials is a hobby?”

He looks away and mumbles something she doesn’t quite catch.

“What was what?” she asks.

“I look for them.”

It’s endearing, how different he is from anyone else she’s ever met.

“Do you think you’ll ever find them?” It’s not to jest or to make fun of him.

“I’d like to,” Mulder says with an essence of hopefulness in his voice.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.

He makes the decision that he won’t fuck her.

He’ll pay $300 as a fee to access her amazing mind if he must.

They go away from the talk of aliens, something for which Mulder was glad. He has his own secrets locked away and if they continued on the subject anymore, he was worried they would tumble out of his mouth and he’d reveal how spooky he really was. They talk of other stuff, he throws conspiracy theories at her that he barely believes in himself just to hear her debunk them with finesse. She was the one who was right and he was wrong and Mulder is completely okay with that.

He stops when he reaches her hotel, this is the end of one of the best nights of his life. He’ll go home, think of her, perhaps rub one off to the thought of her, and that will be that. He’ll bin that leaflet and they’ll never talk again.

But she’s stopping when she realises he isn’t beside her anymore and turns with a puzzled look on her face.

“Tonight was great, Danielle,” he tells her. “I really enjoyed it.”

Her face almost seems to fall when she realises what he’s doing but she picks herself back up again, nodding.

“Well,” she says walking back towards him. “If we’re not doing that anymore at least let me give you this.”

Her lips touch his and fireworks go off behind him. Mulder feels as though he’s experiencing his first kiss all over again, new and exciting, and a fear that he’s doing something he’s not meant to do.

It doesn’t take long before he’s kissing her back, his tongue trying to gain access to her mouth and to her own tongue. She grants him permission, thank god, and he almost melts inside her mouth.

They fall against a wall, his head collides with the brick but he doesn’t care, there is nothing else on his mind other than the want to pick her up. He’s bent at an awkward angle because even in heels her forehead just about reaches his chin. He’s unsure what to do with his hands, on her hips, on her waist. She seems to become annoyed at his indecisiveness and takes his hands in her own, placing them against her ass all the while not breaking the kiss.

He grows impossibly hard as his senses go into overdrive. He wants her so bad when he said he wouldn’t.

“Danielle…” he moans coming up for air.

“Dana,” he hears her say and at first he’s confused wondering what she’s talking about. “Call me Dana.”

The penny drops. Her name!

“Dana.”

She’s back on him, kissing him harder this time and Mulder was kidding himself before; he’s going to make love to her.

[kyouryokusenshi]

Can you write a story where Scully has a difficult pregnancy but Mulder is there to support her through it?

I had an idea one night that I think will fulfill your prompt request. :) Enjoy! @today-in-fic @xffictober

Officially in her third trimester, Scully was growing restless. She couldn't get comfortable at night, which she primarily blamed on the aches and pains from being in her fifties, which were only exacerbated by the pregnancy. Of course, having to pee constantly didn't help and everything felt swollen.

She wouldn't have it any other way though. They wanted this child, desperately. The moment Scully had found out she was pregnant, she loved the tiny life growing inside more than anything and she knew Mulder did too. The way he protectively splayed his fingers over her abdomen at the news as he choked back a sob, she knew that he too was at mercy of the baby nestled inside. She smiled as she couldn't help but imagine their daughter having him wrapped around her little finger.

Still, a nagging feeling beckoned at her, and she wasn't sure if it was the mother's intuition or the doctor in her, but she knew something wasn't right. Until recently, her daughter would tumble and roll at the sound of her voice and sometimes Mulder's or Jackson's. As endearing as it was uncomfortable at times, the movement never failed to keep her worries at ease.

"What is going on, Baby Girl," she crooned. It was a pet name her mother always used for her and when she found out they were having a girl, she knew she would undoubtedly pass it on. As much as she scoffed as an irritable teenager, she only recently began to understand its significance.

"You will always be my baby girl, Dana. No matter how old you are."

Scully's eyes welled with tears as she suddenly yearned for her mother's presence. She knew she would be smitten with her granddaughter.

"Mom, I wish you were here. I wish you could see us now," she sniffled.

"Scully," Mulder's voice startled her from her reverie.

Scully flinched, sitting upright as much as she could before wiping the evidence from her eyes as she turned to face him.

"How long have you been standing there?"

"Long enough," he replied. As he drew forward, she was instantly transported back to the morgue with William's presumed dead body. She shook the thought away as quickly as it came.

"What's wrong?" He asked gently as he knelt next to her, cupping her face with one hand and resting the other on her belly.

"Something is wrong, Mulder. With the baby, I know it. She hasn't moved in days."

Mulder looked down for a moment as she took his hand in hers over their child. She knew he trusted in her judgment, not just as a mother, but as a doctor herself.

They made an appointment with her doctor the following day and she lay nervously on the exam table as the ultrasound tech moved the wand around her abdomen. Mulder gave her hand a gentle squeeze as they watched the screen, transfixed by the images and the sudden whooshing of the baby's heartbeat.

It was a sound that never failed to bring forth the tears. In all their years of pain, suffering, and heartbreak, that sound was a constant. The sound of life that brought light to all their years spent in the darkness. Only this time, as Scully listened tentatively, she knew the sound carried fewer beats than it should have been. The sound was low and drawn out as the technician spoke, but she could make out the faint wording that the doctor would be in with them shortly.

"Scully… Scully," Mulder called to her. Her anchor to the shore. That was when she realized she had been unresponsive for two whole minutes.

She looked into his worried gaze and struggled to form the words, but something told her that he knew.

Never once letting go of her hand, he stood up and leaned over to press his lips against her forehead. She closed her eyes, allowing herself to draw upon the strength he offered to get through whatever came next.

The doctor had come in about a minute later, exchanging the usual pleasantries, but Scully was keen on getting to the point where their daughter was concerned.

"Something is wrong isn't it," she blurted out immediately and she could feel Mulder's anxious gaze.

The blonde doctor, a longtime friend, and colleague of Scully's hesitated before placing a gentle hand on Scully's arm. "Doctor Scully… Dana. Overall your baby girl is doing just fine."

"But," Scully interrupted. A part of her knew this wasn't easy coming from a friend.

"As I'm sure you already knew a doctor yourself, the baby's heart rate seems to be lower than we'd like. With that comes its own set of risks and potential complications I know you're ready aware of."

Scully felt Mulder's grasp on her hand tighten just slightly and she couldn't bear to look at him as they received the news.

"However, I don't think there is a need for immediate concern, but I'd like to start monitoring you more closely and have you come in weekly. I'd also like to do a nonstress test in the next few days to get a better picture."

Scully couldn't stop the tears from welling, she gave a quick nod. "Of course."

"Again," her friend emphasized, "I don't think there is a need for immediate concern, so please take it easy and try not to worry."

Scully simply nodded.

"We'll get that appointment set up for you right away. See you soon, Dana."

Once the door closed, Scully felt the dam give way. Everything had been fine up until that point and although they were overly precautious knowing her pregnancy was high risk, they became optimistic as everything progressed smoothly.

Mulder was on his feet immediately, gathering her into his arms and allowing her to cry into his chest. The sound was muffled, but he could feel her pain surging through him. Resting his chin on the crown of her head, he closed his eyes and whispered.

“It’s going to be alright, Scully. It has to be.”

He moved his left arm and settled it next to Scully’s on the expanse of their child. She took his hand and clasped it gently against her stomach with her own as if willing their collective strength unto the child inside.

They drove home in silence as Mulder looked over at his wife from time to time, his heart hurting as he watched her palm her swollen abdomen.

They had discussed the possibilities of a special needs child earlier on, the odds being stacked against them with Scully's advanced maternal age. More and more men were becoming fathers in their fifties. Even though sperm quality does decline, it was still unusual for a woman of Scully's age to become pregnant without assistance, though most women didn't have active alien DNA. It was without question that they wanted this child, come what may. But there's no way to fully prepare yourself should something go wrong.

Once they arrived home, Scully's eyes widened at the sight of Jackson's car in the driveway, a much-needed distraction from their current predicament.

Scully practically rushed up the stairs and pushed the door open, Mulder right on her heels.

Jackson looked up from the cereal bowl he helped himself to, startled.

"Oh hi," he said nervously.

"Jackson," Scully whispered in greeting as Mulder palmed her shoulders from behind.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you, I should have called first."

"Nonsense," Mulder replied, moving to close the door behind him.

"You're welcome here anytime, I want you to know that," Scully insisted.

Jackson nodded before looking down to take another bite of unsweetened cheerios, the only cereal Scully allowed in the house.

"I'll make some sandwiches," Mulder offered.

Scully nodded, though not particularly hungry even though she knew she needed to eat, for the baby.

Jackson watched as Scully eased herself into the chair next to him and as she set a folder onto the table, he knew something was off. He knew something had been off since yesterday. It was one of the reasons he decided to pay a visit today.

He stared at the folder for a moment, seeing the address of Scully's obstetrician in bolded lettering across the front, and put two and two together.

"Doctor's appointment?" He asked casually.

Scully nodded and he could tell the smile on her face was surface level, at best. Something wasn't right and while he was hesitant to ask, it was also what he came here for.

"Is everything… okay?" He asked as he tapped his spoon lightly against the porcelain bowl, averting his gaze. "With the baby?"

A pause and then a sigh.

"For the most part," Scully said, appearing nonchalant. "But… they're concerned about her heart rate. It's a little on the slower side."

So that's what it was. He watched as she stared straight ahead, no doubt trying to hold everything together.

"I see," he responded, wanting to kick himself for being unable to be more empathetic.

Jackson watched as Mulder fumbled around in the kitchen before he heard Scully take a sharp inhale.

"Ah!"

"You okay?" He asked suddenly.

"Yeah," she said, wincing as she shifted her newfound girth in the chair. Her hand pressed tightly against her belly.

"I just… she just kicked. Hard. It startled me. She hasn't moved much in days, we've been so worried."

Jackson watched as she pressed against the spot and he couldn't help but smile at the relief evident in her features.

Scully met his gaze, which begged a question he had yet to verbalize. He wasn't sure if it was because of their connection or mother's intuition, but she seemed to know exactly what was going through his mind.

She reached for his hand and brought it to the swell of her belly, pressing his fingers against it and that's when he felt a tumbling just beneath the surface. His eyes widened as he looked at the spot his hand rested and he could feel his birth mother's gaze on him.

"Wow," he whispered in astonishment. He felt a slight pulsing at the base of his skull. Not quite painful, but it was a sensation unlike he'd ever experienced before.

The baby. His sister.

He felt a sudden indescribable urge to protect and at that moment, he wished hard for the tiny life inside to be born healthy and happy.

A minute or so passed before he pulled his hand back, still in awe.

"I've never felt a pregnant belly before," he said awkwardly. "Does it hurt?" He asked.

Scully shook her head with a smile. "Most of the time, not really."

He took another bite of cereal. "Was I like that too?"

"You were quite active and it kept me going, always knowing you were there," she said, thinking about Mulder's death.

As she looked into her son's eyes, she could tell he felt the memory too.

------

Scully tossed and turned, shifting her pregnancy pillow under her knees for the umpteenth time.

"I can feel you thinking."

Scully smiled wistfully. "Can't sleep. And this time it isn't because of some animal tranquilizer being used on humans."

The baby had been performing a variety of gymnastics for the last several hours and she couldn't get comfortable.

Mulder smiled as he shifted, spooning her from behind. His hand came to rest on the swell of her abdomen and immediately identified the cause of her restlessness. "Wow, we got a future soccer player in there."

"She inherited her father's insomnia, apparently," she quipped. "Though I know I shouldn't be complaining. I feel a bit… relieved somehow."

Splaying his hand over her belly, he moved to place a gentle kiss on her lips.

"She's a Scully-Mulder. It's literally in her DNA to be extraordinary."

Scully scoffed, yet couldn't help but smile despite herself.

------

When Scully returned for the Nonstress test, she was apprehensive. Afraid of the results as she lay there having her blood pressure taken more times than she cared to count.

The test itself took about 20 minutes as a sensor was moved around her abdomen.

Once it was complete it didn't take long to receive the results. Scully had explained to Mulder the difference between reactive and nonreactive results and a nonreactive result might necessitate a biophysical profile that evaluated the baby's breathing and body movements or a contraction stress test that assesses the heart rate than the uterus contracts. The baby's heart would need to meet certain criteria to be considered reactive.

"Everything looks exactly as it should be," the doctor expressed with a degree of elatement. "I'd like to continue to monitor you, but there is a considerable increase in activity in addition to her heart rate leading to the reactive results."

Scully felt the tears fall suddenly and the doctor excused herself from the room to give them a moment. It seemed such a simple thing, but she had been terrified of losing her daughter. She wouldn't bear another loss.

Then another thought suddenly crossed her mind. The look in William's eyes when she told him the news, the way the warmth permeated from his hand on her belly. William.

"Mulder," Scully said suddenly. "It was William. It had to be."

"What?" He said, startled.

"When I told William about the baby, I felt the strangest sensation. I think he did something to make sure she would be okay."

"And they called me Spooky."

"I know it, Mulder. Everything felt so different immediately after. The baby's movements… everything."

Mulder placed a kiss into the crown of Scully's hair and she sobbed happily.

"What did I tell you, Scully? The Mulder-Scully specimens are egg-exceptional."

A pause, then a sniffle. "I see what you did there, Mulder."

#scullyandmulder #mystruggleiv #pregnantscully

[dreamingofscully]

Grey Canyon 6/?

Rating: Current Chapter: PG, Series: up to Mature Categories: Western AU / MSR / WIP WC: 1870 / Total WC:  5868

Updated on Mondays and Fridays.

Thank you to @ceruleanmilieu​ for the beta ❤️ Tagging: @impulsive-astrophile​ @baronessblixen​ @suitablyaggrieved​ @gillywitch​ @today-in-fic​ (let me know if you want to be tagged when I post!)

all chapters in order: ao3 / tumblr

CH 1 / CH 2 / CH 3 / CH 4 / CH 5

CHAPTER 6: “A gift”

Grey Canyon, Colorado 1885

He tapped on her door, trying to ignore his sweaty palms and pounding heart. Before tonight, he’d kept himself in her company only at midday. He adjusted the plate he held, silently repeated the flimsy excuse he meant to give her, and patted the papers he’d brought in his jacket pocket.

When she opened the door, his words scattered and he stood there, mute. She’s lovely, was his only thought.

“Mr. Mulder?” She smiled at him, and if he squinted perhaps he could pretend she was glad to see him as well.

“Uhh... “

“Did you want to join me for dinner?” She opened the door wider, allowed him to brush past her, then shut and locked it behind her, blanketing them both in the shadows of her room. Beyond the oil lamp on the table, only a few small candles provided illumination.

The table she’d been sitting at didn’t seem to have room for him: papers neatly stacked next to her fountain pen and inkwell, a variety of ribbons hanging from a stack of books. He had no doubt, though, that she could locate anything in a second. When he thought of his own messy desk in his room, which always looked like a whirlwind had passed through it, he envied her neatness.

He set his plate down on her empty dresser, wiped his hands on his trousers and removed his hat. She stood by the door, watching him, a question in her eyes. She's busy, of course she is. How could he have thought she would want him here?

“It’s inappropriate for me to be here, a lady’s room alone at such an hour. I--” he started.

“Sit, Mr. Mulder,” she interrupted, gesturing to the chair on the opposite end of the table. “I don’t mind your company. Besides, there is no one else here that would know of our impropriety.”

She smiled one of her small, mysterious smiles at him. He wasn’t sure what went on inside her mind most times, but one of those looks from her and he felt instantly sure of himself. She moved her things to a desk in the corner, retrieving an extra glass as well as a pitcher of water for them to share.

“I’m afraid this is all I can offer you to drink. I don’t keep any alcohol in my room.”

“This is great. I, uh, I don’t drink anyway.”

“No?”

“I tend to do foolish things when I drink,” he said.

“From what I’ve seen, you still do foolish things, Mr. Mulder.” She sat, then looked up at him, still standing in the middle of her room, twisting the brim of his hat in his hands. “Now, sit. Join me.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He hung his hat on the back of his chair, removed his jacket, and sat with her. They ate together, the golden glow from the lamp on her table cocooning them in its warmth. He could believe they were the only ones for miles, if he tuned out the faint sounds of raucous laughter and music coming from beyond her chamber.

As he’d known it would be, the incident from last week had been all but forgotten. The girls whispered and stared awestruck at Dana as she performed her duties. Dana herself went on as if nothing had happened, but he saw a sadness in her eyes when she thought he wasn’t looking. Before the shooting, he wondered if she’d been on the verge of sharing part of herself with him, but now she looked away and politely changed the subject when he asked questions about herself. Perhaps it was too much to hope that she was interested in him as a friend, as anything more than good conversation during lunchtime. Well, she's allowing me to be here in her rooms now, isn't she?

The silence continued for a while, and he shifted in his seat restlessly, searching for something to speak about, to earn his right to be here.

“Did you know that there was another group, a few weeks after the Donner Party, who fell victim to the same gruesome fate?” he said, through a mouthful of pot pie.

“Oh?” she said, watching him curiously.

He ate a few more bites, knowing she would find the tale interesting, if nothing else. He didn’t kid himself that she would be convinced; she was the most stubborn doubter he’d ever met. For some reason, though, it made him even more determined to find the story that would change her mind.

“They were also forced to…” he waved his hands, not sure he should speak the words aloud while they ate.

“Consume each other,” she filled in for him, lowering her eyes briefly to take a bite of her meal, then returning her steady gaze to his own.

He nodded, then winced and set down his fork, continuing with his story. “It is unknown whether Armbruster Pike, the leader of the group, was killed first or his legs removed and eaten before his death, but witnesses have seen him in the area several times over the past few decades, his spirit appearing with ragged long white hair and... no legs.”

She bit her lip, but didn’t interrupt.

“Heedless of these horrifying sights…” he said, watching her roll her eyes and shake her head at his embellishments. Despite her feigned annoyance, there was a twinkle in her eyes and the hint of a smile, telling him that she was enjoying herself. His heart skipped a beat at the thought, and he struggled to get back to his story. “Uh... mining towns have been springing up in the region. And…”

He paused. She raised her eyebrows.

“Miners have been going missing,” he finished, grinning at her.

“Mr. Mulder,” she said, then waited.

Here it comes, he thought. He enjoyed the way she listened to him carefully, even if she didn’t believe his tales, and fought back against his claims systematically and logically, rather than just dismissing him outright.

“You don’t really believe such things, do you?” Her eyebrow quirked upwards.

“I have heard of many such sightings - apparitions, ghasts. People have even seen their loved ones just before learning about their passing on.”

She merely looked at him, her smile growing wider as his heart thumped in his chest. Another reason, he thought, to amuse her with strange tales: he somehow managed to make her smile.

“We don’t know what happens when we die, Dana. These spirits, mostly passed on due to violent circumstances, well… perhaps they have some reason to hold on to the places where they died.”

Dana laughed aloud. “And just how many of these witnesses were drunk? Or people who want to see such things.”

“I’ve never seen a ghast.”

“Of course you haven’t.” She patted his hand, kept it there. Her thumb grazed over his knuckles in a gesture he thought was meant to soothe, but he felt quite the opposite; he leant towards her, gooseflesh rising on his arms.

She smiled softly. “Perhaps there is a reason your sleep is so terrible, if you think such things are real. It’s just not supported by any evidence. I have read about investigations into similar claims, and in each case they were unable to repeat the results you speak about. Those miners who went missing? It is very easy to disappear if you do not want to be found, or perhaps they fell off of a cliff in a desolate part of the mountains. People see what they wish to see, and believe what they wish to believe, Mr. Mulder.”

“You can call me ‘Mulder’, you know. Just Mulder,” he murmured, his quiet voice nearly swallowed by shadows of her room. He turned his hand over, grasping hers and trailing a finger along the soft skin of her wrist.

She stared at their entwined hands, and even with the low light he saw a flush creeping into her cheeks. “Not Fox?”

“I hate my name.”

“Why don’t you tell everyone not to call you that?”

“There doesn’t seem to be a point to it, I’ve found most don’t care to listen.”

“Alright... Mulder,” she smiled again, a dimple appearing in her right cheek. She squeezed his hand. “I will listen. About ghasts, however… I believe I was punching holes in all of your ideas, or did you not want to continue with that?”

He chuckled, shaking his head.

“Oh! I forgot,” Mulder withdrew his hand from hers and reached into his pocket to pull out the papers he’d picked up earlier that day. “I got these for you.”

He handed over the manuscripts, their ragged edges and stained pages showing how little their former owner had appreciated them. Their fingers touched once more as she took them, and he watched her closely to see whether his instincts had been correct.

“The New England Journal of Medicine?” Her fingers traced over the title and her mouth dropped open in surprise. Her husky voice lit a spark in his chest that spread outward, warming his face. “How did you manage to find this?”

Seeing her eyes shine with excitement, he was very glad he spotted them in the physician's office, sitting underneath some bloodied papers while he waited for John to pick up supplies.

She reached forward again, and grasped his hand. “Thank you. You have no idea what this means to me.”

Mulder felt lighter, the burden of his guilt shifting slightly at her words, and he wondered if he’d be able to float out of her room like the spirits in the story he’d been telling. Their eyes connected, and for once, he thought he could really see her, the woman who she was before she’d found herself in this lonely place, hiding away in her darkened room. Overwhelmed, his nerves gave way under her scrutiny. What had possessed him to think he could love this woman, and that she could love him?

“Well, you and Dr. Hodge seem like kindred spirits,” Mulder joked, tearing his eyes away and withdrawing his hand, hoping she wouldn’t take the comparison of her to the filthy, offensive, and balding town physician too seriously. She ignored his jest and shifted her attention back to the journal, running her fingers along the words as if to reassure herself that it was real. He watched as she perched her glasses onto her nose, her mouth moving as she read, shifting the pages closer to the lamp and turning up the flame. She was lost, and so was he.

“I think I’ll leave you to that.” He stood, donning his hat and resting his jacket on his arm, taking his empty plate in hand.

She barely looked up, but nodded her acknowledgement.

“Good night, Dana,” he said.

He opened the door, letting the sounds and light from the outside invade her space. When he turned back once more, she was watching him, smiling. “Good night, Mulder. I hope you do sleep well -- just remember that ghasts aren’t real.”

He chuckled and tipped his hat at her before leaving. Tucking her words and the look on her face inside himself, he thought that, perhaps, good dreams weren’t entirely impossible tonight.

[alexa-crowe]

And Then They Were Three

“We saved her life. That has to mean something.” Scully paces the hallway outside the judge’s office, one hand on her hip, the other by her mouth so she can anxiously bite her nail.

“It should mean something, but...” Mulder isn’t the pragmatic one in this situation by any stretch of the imagination, though. He’s bouncing his leg and popping sunflower seeds into his mouth like the country’s on the verge of a shortage.

“I know,” she sighs, sitting next to him on the bench. “I’ve just missed so much of her life already. I don’t want to miss more.” The world is still but for the sound of Mulder cracking sunflower seeds and spitting them into Scully’s empty cup of cheap coffee. “I’ll give it all up for her if I have to, Mulder.” Their eyes meet, one of her eyebrows slightly raised like it always does when she’s trying to keep herself composed in the face of great emotion. “I don’t want to go back into the darkness. Not when my baby needs me.”

Mulder sets down the spit cup and packet of seeds, sitting up straight. “I know,” he says. “I’d never ask you to.” He tucks her hair behind her ear, taking her hand in his. “I’ll do whatever I can to keep both of you safe. If that means...” He swallows heavily, Adam’s apple bobbing. “If that means letting you go, then I won’t fight it.”

Scully slowly embraces him, pressing her face into his shoulder. “Thank you,” she whispers, and he knows there’s tears in her eyes.

As soon as Scully exits the room a few hours later, hand in hand with Emily, Mulder stands up, walking over to them. “What’d he say?” He find himself breathless in anticipation.

Scully looks down at Emily, who averts her gaze to Mulder’s shiny shoes and kneels down to investigate them. “Mr. Woodson says I’m going to live with Dana now. I told him I like her. She smells like home, Mr. Mulder.” The little girl twirls the laces of his dress shoe around with her pudgy forefinger.

He looks back up at Scully, who’s smiling so widely that she’s looslely covered her lips with her hand. Tears have also sprung into her eyes, making them glisten. The same eyes Emily has. “You can just call me Mulder if you’d like, Emily. Do you like my shoes?” She nods in answer to both his sentences, a small smile on her face.

“Judge Woodson compromised,” Scully tells him softy after she takes a moment to collect herself. “He hasn’t agreed to a full adoption because of my ‘track record’ of no long-term boyfriend and the switching career fields.” She scoffs at that, but it’s a little congested. Mulder offers her a tissue from the small packet he’s taken to keeping in his pocket for Emily, who seems to have a bit of a seasonal allergy. “Thank you,” Scully murmurs. “Judge Woodson also acknowledged that it takes a lot of time and patience to go through med school. I think that and the fact that we saved her convinced him. His final decision was a three-parter: I have to reside in a place that CPS deems suitable for Emily in order to have her at all; CPS will check in once a week to make sure that she’s doing well; and at the end of six months, if everything goes well... He said he’ll agree to a full adoption.”

“Oh, Scully, that’s wonderful! I’m sure you’ll pass with flying colors.” Scully laughs and averts her gaze, a gentle blush traveling up her cheeks. “I can help you look for apartments if you’d like. What’s the time frame?”

“I... Thank you, Mulder, but I’ve already got my eye on one. The apartment above mine has an extra room that I can furnish as a bedroom for Emily. The woman who lives there already said she’d be willing to switch with me. It’s—it’s a bit of a funny story, actually.” Scully laughs softly, gazing down at Emily for a moment. “She’s on the older side—grandchildren in school and everything—and we were passing each other in the hallway the day after I moved back in after my remission. And she just...told me that if I ever had a baby of my own, her apartment had a spare room.”

They’re both silent for a moment as he lets it all sink in, two pairs of eyes trained on Emily as she unties the laces of his shoe. “Wow,” Mulder eventually says.

“I know. Um, Judge Woodson also said that he wants to speak to you tomorrow. He said that he doesn’t want turmoil in her life, and wants to know...” Scully swallows, forcing herself to meet his gaze. “He wants to know what role you plan to play in Emily’s life. And, in no uncertain terms, asked if we were planning to raise her together, considering that she wouldn’t be here if not for you. And, um, just so you know, I think she’s rather attached to you, if that influences any decision. The choice is yours, though—whether or not you want to be a part of our lives.”

“Ah, Scully...” Mulder murmurs, tears gathering in his eyes. “I couldn’t leave the two of you if I tried. Redheads are my greatest weakness.” He grasps her hand, leaving no room for doubt. “My apartment lease is almost up anyways. I think it’s time for a move... That is, if you have space for one more person in that second-floor apartment?”

Scully laughs, a happy sound straight from her heart, and Emily looks up. She stands up and raises her arms towards Mulder, and he picks her up, holding the young girl to his side. “I don’t know what a lease is but I wanna go to the second-floor apar-ment with Mulder! You smell like home, too.” Emily rests her head on Mulder’s shoulder and yawns.

“Looks like it’s a special girl’s bedtime...” he whispers as she closes her eyes and snuggles into him.

Scully checks her watch and nods. “It is pretty late. We should take her back to the children’s home. I’ll finish the arrangements for the apartment as soon as I can. It shouldn’t take more than a week or two if we’re lucky.” She gazes at the two of them for a moment, watching Mulder stroke Emily’s back as she falls asleep in his arms. Scully leans up and presses a gentle kiss to his lips, grinning as she leans back down to her feet.

It’s certainly a new chapter of her story.

[maraudersandlily20]

Grimmauld Place, Number 12

He had grown significantly, he noticed as he stood alone on the platform. He felt frustrated at the fact. He knew that being 13 would eventually lead to this happening, but he was hoping he’d be a late bloomer so he could remain in his clothes for just a little bit longer. But the gap between the bottom of his pant leg and the top of his shoe was too noticeable to argue. He’d have to ask Miss Mulder for new pants. Which was the worst thing he would have to do after returning from the school year.

The woman in question was nowhere in sight. He was doing what he had always done, sitting under the platform 9 sign, atop of his trunk so as to not take up too much room. That was his way of things; making himself as small as possible, trying his best to remain out of sight. His lengthening height was beginning to make that impossible, but that didn’t stop him from trying. He checked the clock hung on the wall, the one he had glanced at too many times to count, and noticed the time was still 5:34. 34 minutes past the expected meeting time. He shook his head. Miss Mulder had forgotten him.

Again.

Meaning he’d have to find a telephone and dig for a coin, though he wasn’t sure he had one.

It was no secret that he would rather crawl into a hole than to return to the orphanage in west London. Not many of his classmates knew of his perpetual homelessness and he didn’t like to bring it up. The Headmaster had made a deal with Miss Mulder, promising that he would have food, clothing, and a roof over his head. And, her favorite part, the orphanage would pay for none of it.

When asked about his family, he always shrugged and said they lived far away. Which was true. Because they were dead. Or maybe they weren’t. They simply didn’t exist for him, not in the way that other people’s families did.

He sighed and wrapped his thin long arms around himself. He was not going to cry. Not about this. Not again.

A voice sounded in front of him, loud and boisterous, and familiar. He looked up and saw one of the Gryffindor Prefects and her best friend. They were a noticeable duo, as she had thick, bright blue hair, and they only ever signed together.

Elle, which was her name, was known for her vibrant nature and her loud voice. She was loud and funny and seemed to be capable of turning every bad situation into a joke. She was wicked smart, as was the beater on the Gryffindor team. It was also common knowledge that she signed as she spoke, making her stick out quite a bit. Everyone knew her. He knew her, but he was sure she didn’t know him.

Her best friend, Muhammad, was one of the seven Deaf wizards at Hogwarts and he excelled at everything. It was almost like they were a superhero duo, fighting prejudice and cruelty at every turn. The young boy looked up to them immensely, hoping that one day he’d be able to feel as secure and brave as they were.

He must have looked quite a sight, huddled on his trunk, waiting for Miss Mulder. He should have known he’d draw attention. Elle’s eyes locked on him and her curiosity was clear on her face. She signed something to Muhammad and the two of them made their way over to him. “Hello there. Wells, right?”

Wells looked up in surprise. She knew his name? He wasn’t even in her house.

“Uh... yeah.” He said softly.

Elle smiled and looked over at Muhammad as he signed something quickly. She nodded, acknowledging Muhammad’s question with a noise of agreement before turning back to look at Wells. “I’m Elle and this is Muhammad. Are you waiting for someone?”

Wells nodded.

“Your parents?”

Wells shook his head.

Muhammad’s eyebrows rose and he made a gesture to Elle who shrugged. The older boy reached his hand down and helped Wells to his feet. He signed something to him, and Elle quickly supplied his voice. “He’s asking who you’re waiting for.”

Wells cleared his throat. “The... uh... the woman from the orphanage. She should be here soon.”

A look of surprise passed between the two teenagers quickly.

“Is she late?”

Wells nodded. “She usually is. This isn’t the first time I’ve been forgotten here. I’ll probably head over to the payphone in a bit, I was just... debating on if I had a spare coin or if I would have to ask someone.”

He looked up and saw the quick, flurried movements of sign language between the two before him. He could hardly guess what they were saying to each other before Elle turned to him. “Does McGonagall know?” He nodded.

Muhammad rolled his eyes and signed at Elle again, gesturing vaguely to Wells. Elle laughed and shrugged before turning back to the young boy.

“Wells, would you like to come and spend the summer with us?”

He perked up immediately, his eyes glimmering with hope at the proposition. “Really?” It seemed almost too good to be true, but he had never known Elle or Muhammad to be cruel. “I could do that?”

“Yeah, of course. Our ride is on their way and we can always write or call the woman at the orphanage and let her know you’ve come with us for the summer. It’s no worries. We always have the room.”

“At your house, you mean?”

“Well... Not exactly.” Muhammad and Elle smiled consqiratorally at each other. “Come on,” Elle encouraged, picking up his trunk from the ground and ushering the boys out into the stale sunshine leftover from the sun that was setting in the west.

To Wells’ surprise, there was a large group of Hogwarts students, kids he recognized, of all ages standing in a big circle and talking quickly to each other. They had all changed from their robes into normal clothes, showing off a variety of personalities amongst themselves. Wells recognized members of every house standing around, looking kind of what he imagined a family would look like. Their luggage was strewn about them and almost all of their animals were softly snoozing.

He wasn’t sure what to make of them.

Cassie, his head of house in Hufflepuff, lit up when she saw him. “Wells! Hello! I didn’t know you were coming. Are you planning to spend the summer with us?”

“I suppose,” he said softly. “Wait, you mean... all of you spend the summer together?”

Devin, an older slytherin boy, laughed before throwing his arm around Cassie. “Yeah, it’s like Hogwarts 2.0 here. Except without a dress code and you don’t have to do homework.”

“Not like you’re good in either place,” Alfie countered, a Ravenclaw with strange tattoos running up his arm of all shapes and sizes.

Elle rolled her eyes and wrapped her arm around Muhammad’s neck. “You don’t have to be good at school to stay with us. I mean, Devin is clear proof of that.”

Muhammad giggled and signed his agreement, which made everyone around them laugh, despite Devin’s protesting.

Wells cleared his throat, trying to draw attention to himself again. He still didn’t know what was happening. “Where is it, exactly, that we’re staying?”

As he spoke, a large white van pulled up along the curb and honked at the kids. They all jumped or laughed in surprise. The bus was simple and old, with the words “For the homeless and helpless, but not the faint of heart.” The writing looked as if it had been spray painted on. There was rust on the corners of the van, suggesting its true age. A few of the boys moved forward and gave the bus an affectionate pat. Wells felt a wave of confusion come over him and one of the students pulled up what looked like a secret compartment and began shoving trunks and animals in, one after the other. Someone gestured for him to push his trunk over, and he did so with a bit of trepidation. When his luggage was safely tucked away, Elle came up and grabbed his wrist, pulling him toward the front of the bus.

Muhammad was signing with one of the older girls, but he was pointing to the front of the bus in an exaggerated manner. She was laughing loudly, and called out, “Here comes the hero of the wizarding world!” And, to Wells’ amazement, from the driverseat of the car, came the legendary Harry Potter. The actual boy you lived.

“Woah,” Wells whispered quietly, starstruck. Muhammad noted his awe and grinned, rubbing his head affectionately.

“You know,” Harry Potter said, with a kind look in his eyes, “I was hoping to never have to see you lot again.” He was met with laughs and greetings from every side as the kids entered the big van. They filed in, one after the other, fifteen or sixteen different kids, a jumble that no one at school would have expected to get along, let alone spend the entire summer together.

Elle wrapped a supportive arm around Wells’ shoulder as they came to the door of the van. Harry looked curiously at Elle and Muhammad, signing quickly in question.

“Harry, this is Wells. The woman from the orphanage seems to be a little late in picking him up. So Muhammad and I thought maybe there’d be some room with us.”

Harry smiled “Of course. There’s always room. Come on in Wells.”

Wells grinned, feeling his heart soar and the expression of acceptance. He settled into the bus, finding a seat near the back. He gazed at the people around him, and wondered where they were going.

“WELLS!” A voice screeched beside him. He jumped and saw a Gryffindor girl named Gene who was in his year that he had spoken to quite a few times, sitting a few seats away in their history course. “I can’t believe you’re coming with us! If I had known you needed a place to stay, I would have told you about it weeks ago.”

“It’s alright,” Wells murmured. “It was a last minute decision anyway. Also, where is it exactly that we’re going?”

“Oh,” Elle suddenly appeared, her face above the bench in front of him. “I forgot to actually tell you. We all live, in the summer, in Harry’s place.”

“In his house?” Wells asked, startled.

“No, no.” This response came from Cassie. “Harry has multiple properties, of course. The advantage of being rich. We just stay at one of them.”

“I can hear you, you know,” Harry said, sliding back in behind the wheel. “You make it sound like I’m some wealthy benefactor, taking you all in from the goodness of my heart.”

“Is that not what you are, Mr. Harry Potter sir?” Devin replied sarcastically.

Harry rolled his eyes. “You know, Devin, I keep hoping that you’ll come back from school less of a prat, but it seems you’re just getting worse and worse.”

“I have permission,” Devin countered. “Your husband said I could.”

This sent a wave of confusion over Wells. A husband? Harry Potter had a husband? He knew that he didn’t receive much news from the wizarding world, but he doubted that no one would have talked about it at school.

“Future husband, Devin. And he has no power over you, so please disregard everything he says.”

“I’ll pass,” Devin said, crossing his arms and ignoring Cassie as she smacked him upside the head.

“It’s called Grimmauld Place,” Elle informed Wells, steering the conversation back to Wells’ question. “It belongs to Harry, and he lets us stay there over the summer. Most of us don’t have anywhere else to go. But some, like Cassie or Gene don’t have safe homes to go back to over the summer.”

“It’s better for us with Harry,” Cassie said, smiling.

“And there’s room for all of us?” Wells clarified, sounding unsure.

“Grimmauld Place belonged to my Godfather, before he died. He left it, and all of his possessions, to me. But luckily, the house in and of itself, is full of magic. With some little adjustments to the rooms, we’ve been able to expand.” Harry said.

It seemed too good to be true, but Wells decided to wait and see what they meant when they got there. The ride was brief but full of loud happy chatter, which was a pleasant surprise considering how the orphanage often was. Finally, after what could have been no more than 40 minutes, the van pulled in front of a complex of apartments. His fellow students filed out of the van and began pulling their luggage from the compartment. When everyone had settled and gotten their possessions in order, Harry stepped forward and raised his wand in front of him. With a whisper and a wave, Wells watched with awe as the building seemed to split apart, forcing a new section of building to the light. And suddenly, there was a new section of house that had been hidden with magic.

The group of teenagers walked toward the door, hauling their luggage and animals with them, discussing what they wanted to do first and how rooms were being sorted. Wells stayed behind, unsure of himself and where he should go.

Muhammad tapped his shoulder and gestured him forward, but Wells shook his head and motioned for the older boy to go first. Muhammad looked behind him and shrugged before entering into the house.

“You know,” a soft voice said from behind him, “I get what you’re feeling.” Wells looked up and met the green eyes of Harry Potter, a person he never expected to talk to, let alone meet at all.

“What do you mean?”

“I remember the feeling of leaving Hogwarts after my first year. Well, and every year, to be honest. I felt lost and alone, worried about the home I was going back to. I hated summer break. I wanted to stay at Hogwarts year round.”

“Really?” Wells asked, his eyes wide. “That’s how I feel!”

Harry nodded. “I dedicated Grimmauld Place as a place for children like me, and you. Children without good places to go to, without safe families to return to. And it isn’t perfect, I know that. It takes a lot of work and dedication, but if I can make someone, anyone, feel a little more safe during the summer, then I want to try. That includes you, if you want.”

“But why? Why me? I have a place to stay.”

There was a pause as Harry buried his hands in his pockets. “I don’t know, Wells. And if you want to go back there, you can. I won’t make you stay. But I promise, if you do decide to stay, that this house will be a safe haven for you. You never have to be scared of going hungry, of being cold, or being abandoned ever again.” He smiled. “If you want.”

Wells looked up at the house, watching as lights flickered on as the students found their places to stay and settled into their rooms.

“Also, you get your own room. If that influences your decision at all.”

Wells laughed. He couldn’t help himself as he was filled with excitement he had never experienced and he launched himself at the older man. Harry stepped back in surprise, attempting to catch Wells with whatever balance he could muster, before chuckling and wrapping him up in a warm embrace. Wells felt, for the first time, like he was home.

The door opened behind them.

“Darling, what’s taking you so long?”

Harry released Wells and they turned toward the front door where a tall, thin man was standing. His hair was pale blonde and his skin was nicely tan in places, suggesting he spent a great deal out of doors. He was incredibly handsome, Wells noticed. But the kind of handsome that seemed effortless. He was wearing kakhis and a dark blue shirt that brought out the vibrancy of his eyes. Wells assumed that this was the “future husband” everyone had been discussing earlier.

“Sorry love. I was just trying to convince Wells here that this is a good place to stay.” Harry called. Wells watched his face light up, the signs of love clear in his expression. He started moving toward the nameless man and Wells watched as he wrapped his arms around him and placed a kiss on his lips. Wells felt, for a moment, overwhelmed at the simple display of affection. Affection was not something we was used to seeing in adults.

The man blushed and swatted at him before turning to Wells. “So, Wells? Was he successful?”

Wells looked up again at the house that he hoped to call his home from now on whenever he returned from Hogwarts. He felt safe, accepted, and most importantly, wanted. And that was something he was unfamiliar with.

“Yeah, I think I’ll stay.”

The two men grinned in unison and the blonde men stepped down and picked up Wells’ trunk by its handle. “Well then, I’m Draco. Harry’s fiance. Welcome to Grimmauld place. I have just the room for you.”

And Wells didn’t hesitate to follow.

[scullysexual]

And Agent Mulder Became Fox

I know what I said about posting two fics at once but also sometimes you watch episodes with people and you get ideas. This came from watching Ascension with my fellow beans yesterday but we noticed how Mulder was Agent Mulder in this episode and Fox in One Breath and I thought I’d write a fic about it. Also @baronessblixen came up with the headcanon that Maggie fed Mulder so I borrowed that and put it in the fic.

Gonna tag literally all my rewatch friends @tinglingworld @mypanicface @foxscully @impulsive-astrophile @ariverofsongs @agirlcallednarelle @knowleitall-super-soldier @baronessblixen and also @today-in-fic

- - - 

He has no idea how often Scully would go around to her mother’s. There was the odd phone call in the office or on the road but the first time Mulder had ever met Mrs Scully in person was when her daughter was missing.

(and wow, what a meeting that was, showing up with Dana’s blood on his fingertips)

“Have you eaten?” Mrs Scully asks.

He’s sat on the worn couch, surrounded by wallpaper that has a floral pattern, and photographs of the various Scully children- two boys, two girls.

Mulder shrugs in answer to the older woman’s question.

In truth, he hasn’t, not really. Coffee, the odd bagel. Time spent not looking for Scully, not thinking about Scully was time wasted.

“I’ll make you something,” she says smiling and exiting the room.

It became a thing after that. Every weekend Mulder would make the drive to Mrs Scully’s, she would make him dinner and they would talk.

About Scully most times. Stories of when she was younger, of telling them she was going to be a nurse originally and then nurse paved way for doctor when somebody told her that nurse was a female profession and a doctor male- she wanted to smash that stereotype and prove them wrong. Mulder smiles at that, expecting nothing less.

He learned about Scully through her mother, through the photographs on the walls and mantel pieces, a timeline of her life from baby to adult. Maybe he was intruding, if Scully had wanted him to know about this stuff she would have told him herself.

But Scully- Dana- was very closed off, he began to learn. Even as a child she kept things to herself, never trusted anyone enough to carry those thoughts and feelings closest to her. Only her father had ever got that near and he had almost ruined it by not agreeing with her decision to join the FBI.

Their conversations sometimes where about Mulder and his life and family. He kept it short, not divulging too much information at once because this woman had the perfect life and perfect children, how could she ever understand someone so imperfect?

“Fox,” she says. There a month into this arraignment and it’s the first time she’s called him by his name. Agent Mulder is how she referred to him, Fox is so alien yet so soothing emitting from her mouth, the same way it is when Dana called him that.

So he doesn’t go off on his usual mantra, no ‘Please, call me Mulder’, it is simply a look.

“No, I was just sounding it out,” she says. “It’s…unusual.”

Maybe she sees him tense, prepares himself for the ridicule that has often accompanied his name- the teasing in school, Oxford professors and higher agents of the Bureau telling him he’ll never get far with a name like Fox.

“I wish I had the courage to name my children something like that.”

Mulder looks to the photographs on top of the fire. Three out of four first names he doesn’t know.

Maybe what you called them was for the best, he thinks.

“I’m still having that dream.”

His attention to brought back to Mrs Scully and how she looks at him with hope in her eyes. What was it that he said to her? It’s probably scarier when you stop having the dream. Don’t you think?

“That’s good,” he says looking out of the window. It’s dark out now, where did the time go? He looks up and he can see the stars. Ascending…ascending to the stars.

“It means she’s still out there.”

[myownsuperintendent]

Fic: “Red Roots Black Tips”

After the colonization, Mulder, in his quest to reunite with Scully, finds a much-changed Emily instead. Rated T for violence/darkness. Also here at Ao3.

.....

He thinks it’s her for a minute, when the girl darts up and looks him in the face. He knows he’s wrong almost right away, and yes, he’d grasp at anything at this point, but she really is like Scully, he thinks, when he takes a second look at her. Something about her face. And her hair is mostly black, but he can see the red at the roots. No one has the time or ability to keep up with hair dying now, he’d imagine. He hasn’t shaved since this started.

Of course she’s too young to be Scully. She’s in her late teens, he thinks. She’s not even like Scully when he first knew her. He remembers her in those first days, eager to work, with a kind of open confidence that, at some point, they didn’t have any more. This girl doesn’t look open. She doesn’t look like she was happy, even before everything.

But she doesn’t run away from him either, which makes for a change. He thinks it’s been two weeks since he really saw another person. He’s caught glimpses, but everyone’s hid. He doesn’t blame them. He would hide himself, if he didn’t have to find Scully. He will hide, as soon as he finds her. They’ll hide together, somewhere this can’t find them.

This girl isn’t hiding: she’s staring at him, her arms crossed over her chest. “Who’re you?” she asks. And the voice is alike too, like Scully’s. Or maybe it’s just that he can’t stop thinking about Scully.

He knows you can’t trust everyone, and maybe the reason she’s not running and hiding is that she doesn’t have any reason to run and hide. Maybe she’s not under threat. Maybe she is the threat. But if she is the threat, why is she like Scully, somewhere around the mouth, around the eyes?

“I’m a friend,” he says, because he would like to be. “My name’s Fox Mulder. I’m just…I’m looking for someone who’s important to me.”

“Ohhhh,” she says, as if that explains everything, and maybe it does. She keeps staring.

“Will you tell me your name?” he asks, after a moment.

She sounds proud when she says it, almost defiant. “Emily.”

He thinks he begins to understand.

.....

She knows how to get into the empty houses: it’s easy. Most of the houses are empty now. The house they go into is nice inside. It looks like the people have just gone out for a little bit, not like they’re never coming back.

It’s big too, and that’s different: all of this space just for her. And Mulder. But she wouldn’t ever have to see him if she didn’t want to. That’s how much space there is. She thinks she sees one of the others for a minute, behind a closet door, and she tenses up, but then the other one tenses up too and she sees that it’s just a big mirror. She looks into it for a long time. Pushes her hair back. There’s her face.

She sees him staring at her face too, when she goes back down to the living room again. He stares at her for a long time. “Where have you been?” he finally asks.

“You wouldn’t understand,” she tells him, and he wouldn’t, either. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she says, when he keeps looking at her.

“Okay,” he says. “That’s okay, Emily.” She likes hearing him call her that, just Emily. She’s always thought that everyone should call her that, because even if there are a lot of them she’s the first one. Well, the first one that worked, anyway. “I’m just glad you’re safe,” he says, and he puts his hand on her shoulder, so softly. “Scully…your mom…she’ll be so happy too. When we find her.”

“Let’s eat something,” she says. There’s a big refrigerator here too, and they won’t have to share.

She lines up the ice cream containers on the rug in front of her, one two three four. And she eats and eats and eats.

.....

He wants to talk to her, but he doesn’t know where to start. She says she doesn’t want to talk about where she’s been, and he’s afraid of what that might mean. He remembers her as a little girl, picking her up, the weight of her head against his shoulder. He’d hated seeing her hurting. He doesn’t want to think about her hurting worse.

“Do you want to hear about your mom?” he asks her, finally. He’s not sure if this is more for her or for himself. If he can’t be with Scully, talking about her to Emily seems like the next best thing.

She looks up from the ice cream, which she’s been eating systematically. He doesn’t always make the best nutritional choices, but even to him it looks like a bit much. Still, she doesn’t seem to be experiencing any ill effects. Maybe it’s different for her.

She licks the spoon. “Sure,” she says. “If you want to tell me.”

“Do you remember her at all?” he asks.

She squints her eyes. “Maybe,” she says. “A little. She had red hair, didn’t she?”

“She did,” he says. “Does. You look a lot like her, actually.” She smiles at that. He hasn’t seen her smile before.

So he tells her all about Scully, and she sits and listens. She doesn’t smile again, just watches him while he talks. He doesn’t blame her for not smiling; he doesn’t feel much like it himself. Scully should be here. She should be here to meet Emily again, to see how she’s grown up, to give her a long, long hug. He knows how much she’d want to do that, even if they’ve never talked about it much.

“She didn’t know…we thought you were gone,” he says.

Emily nods. “I know.”

“But we will see her,” he says. “Soon.” He wants that to be a promise. “And she’ll be…she’ll be so surprised, Emily. I was really surprised.” Emily nods again. “But she’ll be so glad.”

Emily stretches. “Where is she?” she asks.

“She’s…I don’t know,” he says. He remembers that last day, when they promised to meet. He’s tried to keep track of how long it’s been, but he’s not sure anymore. It feels like he’s always been waiting. “But we won’t give up on her.”

Emily’s face is still. “Is she alive?”

“Of course,” he says quickly. “Of course she is.”

“I think you’re right,” Emily says, after a moment, and he wonders how she knows. If she knows. If there’s some sort of thread between the two of them, holding them tight, and if she might know how to find her mother.

.....

He keeps talking to her. She should let him, she guesses, even though she’s tired of it. “How long have you been out here?” he asks. “By yourself.”

“A while,” she says.

“And you’ve been…getting by?” he asks. He doesn’t look in her face for very long, but she can tell he really wants to know. That it would make him sad, if she hadn’t been.

So she doesn’t know how to answer. What’s the right answer, that will make him feel all right about it. She can’t tell him the truth. Can’t tell him about the other night, in a house like this one, the bread that man shared with her and then his throat between her hands. (Not the first time. Not the only time. They’ve been preparing for this for years, and she was ready. She was always the best one out of all of them. The first, best, most special Emily.) He might run away, if she tells him that, and she can’t let him run away. But if he thinks she hasn’t been getting by, like he says, then he might worry more and keep asking questions.

Eventually, she says, “It hasn’t been easy. But there are a lot of houses like this one. I’ve been staying out of the way.”

“I know it’s been hard,” he says, and he puts an arm around her, and she lets him. “We’ll look out for each other for now, okay? The two of us. And then we’ll find your mom, and we can all look out for each other. We’ll keep each other safe.”

She doesn’t know why she should care when he talks about Dana Scully, the woman he calls her mom. She remembers her, but only a little, and it’s not like she was really her mom, like she really has a mom, like people have. She never needed a mom. Still, somehow she likes it when he says it. She was the only one who ever met Dana, after all. And maybe if she hears more about her, she’ll remember more, and it’ll feel more like it actually happened. Those first days, before they started training her with all the rest of them.

“Yes,” she says. “We can do that.”

“Do you want to sleep for a while?” he asks her. “I can keep watch, if you do.”

She’s not tired, but she smiles at him and says, “Thank you so much,” and of course he smiles back. There’s a shawl on the couch and he puts it over her. She opens her eyes a little to watch him when he’s not looking. He’s mostly watching her.

.....

He doesn’t know what he’s doing, right now. They should be moving on: they’re not likely to find Scully sitting still, and it’s not like this place is really safe. Nowhere is really safe. But somehow he feels like he’s guarding Emily, if they stay here. That this is some kind of a home, even if it’s inadequate, even if they broke into it. And he wants to watch over her. He feels like he’s doing something for Scully, if he does.

He seeks out the moments when Emily makes him think of her. It’s not always easy, because of how closed off she is when he tries to ask her anything. He doesn’t blame her. He’s sure she’s scared. But he can’t get a handle on what she’s thinking, most of the time.

Sometimes it’s easier when they’re not talking. The faces are so alike.

.....

When she sees him looking at her, sometimes she looks back and smiles. Because then he’ll like her. Because then he’ll trust her. People will like you and trust you if you smile. They told her that, because she wasn’t being subtle. She tried to hurt Emily 95 but she wasn’t able to, because they figured out she was going to do it, because she never acted nice to Emily 95. But she learned from it. After that she was a lot more subtle.

She thinks Mulder does like her, because he always smiles back when she smiles. And he always talks to her, about her mom, and about how they’re going to be okay. She knows she’s going to be okay, because she’ll make herself be okay, but she smiles when he says that too. And she knows he likes Dana, and she thinks that means he likes her too.

Sometimes she asks him questions. About Dana, about him and Dana, about her and Dana, the kind of things she thinks he wants to hear. He always wants to talk about it. He could talk about Dana all day and night, she thinks. When she gets tired of it, she lies down like she’s sleepy. He always lets her sleep whenever she wants to, and he keeps watch, or he watches her. Sometimes she lets him sleep, to be nice. Sometimes she pats his hair, because he did that to her once.

Sometimes when he looks at her, she pretends she doesn’t see, and then he looks at her for a long time.

.....

He found a radio in the kitchen the first day, and he’s been trying to make it work. So far, no dice.

Emily watches him. “Let me try,” she says, eventually, and he hands her the radio. It seems to start the second she touches it, coming to life with a crackle.

“How did you do that?” he asks, but she doesn’t say anything. Instead, they listen to the announcer.

“…broadcasting from a new location,” she says, “due to increased alien activity. We hope we can continue bringing you the news.” A pause. “We’ve witnessed numerous fatalities in the past twenty-four hours.”

Emily sits hugging her knees. Her head is bent towards the radio, listening. Mulder wonders what she’s thinking. If she’s thinking, like him, about who might be among those fatalities.

“Increasing information has been coming in about the government cloning programs. The products of these programs appear to be resistant to the virus. Furthermore, they—” The radio splutters out.

“Can you get it back?” Mulder asks Emily.

She picks it up and looks at it. “No,” she says. “No, I don’t think so.” They sit in silence. “Don’t you think we should move?” she asks him. “I thought you wanted to find her. Dana.”

“Of course I do,” he says. “But we have to be sure we can move safely. I don’t want to risk you.” If it were just him, sure, he’d have been out of here ages ago, but he needs to put Emily first. He can’t imagine finding Scully and then telling her that he’d lost Emily. That something had happened to one of her loved ones, again.

“We can go tonight,” Emily says. His concerns don’t seem to touch her. “Once it gets dark.”

“We should see if there are any flashlights or candles,” Mulder says. “Or anything else we can take with us.” He feels kind of bad about it, though, even as he’s saying it. He’s not out here to be looting. He knows it’s not the worst thing anyone’s done recently, but still. If you let something like this change you…

“Of course,” Emily says. She gets up then and starts opening the kitchen cabinets, and after a moment he joins her.

.....

She could be moving so much faster than this, if she didn’t have Mulder with her. She wouldn’t need the flashlights or any of that; she could find her way in the dark without anybody seeing her, and by now she could be halfway across the state. Getting everything she deserves to have.

In moments like this one, when he’s stumbling through the trees with his flashlight beam going everywhere in a way that’s probably going to bring people down on them any minute, she thinks about just ditching him. And really, ditching him is one of the nicer things she could do. She could leave him here to die, or she could make sure he’s dead before she goes.

She doesn’t know why she doesn’t do those things. She hasn’t ruled them out entirely, or anything like that. But for right now, he’s not bothering her or anything. He tries to help her, even though she doesn’t need help. He looks at her like he likes her, and he smiles at her a lot of the time.

Of course, he’s supposed to be her enemy; everyone is, who wasn’t part of the program or who isn’t one of the invaders. That’s what they learned every day in their training. You can use an enemy for as long as you need them, but in the end, you can’t let them live. She remembers that.

She doesn’t really need Mulder now—she doesn’t need anyone—but he helps her pass the time, and he doesn’t act like an enemy. But when she hears steps coming from behind them, she goes on the alert, because that could be an enemy, very easily. Two men step into the beam of the flashlight; they have guns, and they’re pointing them in their direction. “This is our land,” one of them says. “Give us whatever you have.”

Just ordinary people, Emily thinks, out for whatever they can get. She’s not afraid of them.

“Emily,” Mulder says. “Emily, run!” He tries to get in front of her, which is beyond stupid.

She pushes in front instead, advancing on the men. They don’t try to shoot at her. She expected that. That’s one of her advantages, which is another thing they used to tell them: you’re pretty little girls, you don’t look like a threat. You don’t look like you’re going to reach out and choke two men simultaneously, one hand on each of their necks.

Her grip is strong. Everything is like she practiced so many times.

When the men are slumped on the ground, not breathing, she turns back to Mulder. “We can keep going,” she says. He doesn’t say anything. He stares at her, but he’s not looking into her eyes. “I said we can keep going.”

“Emily…” he says softly. “You…why did you…why would you…how…”

“It doesn’t matter,” she says. And then when he keeps gaping, “It doesn’t matter. If you don’t want something like that to happen again, we shouldn’t stay out in the open.”

When he doesn’t move, she thinks again about ending it here. Maybe they can’t keep what they have going, anymore. But at the last minute, he turns and starts walking again.

She follows him. He glances back at her. The expression on his face when he looks at her is not like it used to be.

She remembers him trying to get in front of her, only a few minutes ago.

.....

He doesn’t want to judge her. He doesn’t. He has no idea what she’s been through. If she’s been traumatized to the point where she sees this as her only option, then it’s not her fault. If they could have saved her…

They don’t speak until she points to a house among the trees. “We should go into that one,” she says. “They still have internet.”

“How do you know?” Mulder asks.

“I do know,” Emily says. He trusts her on that. He’s beginning to think that there’s a lot that he, himself, doesn’t know.

“Do they still have…people?” he asks. He doesn’t want to judge her, but he doesn’t want to see a repeat of what happened with the two men. He really, really doesn’t want to see that.

She takes a few steps closer, cocks her head. “No,” she says. “No people.”

So they go inside, where they’re silent again. They arrange the things they’ve brought with them. He wants to talk to her, but he has no idea how at this point.

Maybe he wouldn’t be so bothered by what had happened if she seemed…moved. But when he looks at her, out of the corner of his eye and as quickly as possible, she doesn’t seem any different from how she seemed yesterday. He doesn’t know whether he should question her behavior or his own perceptions.

She reminded him so much of Scully.

Now he keeps thinking about how strong her hands must be.

That night he dreams about lost little girls.

.....

She still can’t decide what to do. If she got rid of him, she wouldn’t have to deal with him looking at her in this way, like he’s really really sad, like he had a puppy and she threw it off the roof. She didn’t do anything to him. She helped him.

But if she doesn’t get rid of him, maybe she can make him stop looking like that.

She decides to talk to him, for now. About Dana, because that’s what he likes to talk about the most. She scoots over to where he’s sitting. “Tell me more about her,” she says. And then, when he doesn’t say anything right away, “My mom.” She’s never used that word before, because she doesn’t think of it that way. But it’s what he says.

That makes him look up; he even looks her in the face for a minute, but not that long. “What do you want to know?” he asks.

She thinks. “Tell me about something you did together,” she says. “Not something…not when you were working. Something…ordinary.” That was another thing they used to do. Learn how to act like people who were ordinary.

He’s quiet for a minute, and then he says, “For a few years, your mom and I were on the run together.”

That doesn’t sound ordinary, but she’ll let him talk about what he wants to talk about. Get back his trust. “Oh,” she says. “Like us now?”

He looks startled, but then he nods. “A little,” he says. “But…I know it sounds like that would have been a bad time, but really it wasn’t. We’d been apart for a while, and just being together, that meant so much.” Emily watches his face. “So the first year of that, we were somewhere in Colorado, and I wanted to do something special for your mom’s birthday. I wanted to surprise her. So I decided to make her a cake. Which I’d never done before. I’m sure you can see where this is going.”

She makes an oh my gosh face, covering her mouth. Like she knows all about it, about baking a cake when you’ve never done it before.

“We were in a motel with just a kitchenette, so that didn’t help. I tried to do it while she was taking a bath…There was batter and frosting everywhere. But when she came out of the bathroom, she just laughed, and we cleaned everything up. And I’d gotten ice cream, so I had that to give her, at least. And then…it turned out there was a little bar near the hotel, and we went dancing there.” He’s quiet, staring again, this time at something that’s not there. He’s not thinking about Emily.

“You love her,” Emily says, “don’t you?”

“Yeah,” he says. “So much.”

“And she’s my mom,” Emily says. She doesn’t know why she says it, exactly. Maybe to remind him.

“Yes,” he says, “of course.”

“Do you think I’m like her?” Emily asks.

“You look like her,” he says. “A lot like her.” He doesn’t say anything else. Maybe he doesn’t think she can be like Dana, now that he’s changed the way he looks at her.

“I could be like her,” Emily says. “I really could.” She’s still not sure what she means. From the look on his face, he isn’t either. She’s not used to being not sure.

.....

They drift back into their old ways, after a while, the way it was at the first house. You can’t really help it—it’s too hard to avoid someone when you might as well be the only two people in the world. And even though thinking about what happened in the woods makes Mulder uneasy, he still feels protective of Emily too. He almost laughs at himself for that, because at least in terms of physical danger it seems like she doesn’t need any protection, but then he can’t forget that three-year-old girl. He can’t push aside how he thinks Scully would feel, what she would want him to do.

They have internet now, although it’s kind of patchy. A lot of the news sites seem to go down as soon as he clicks on them. Still, he makes what use of it he can, to try to find clues to where Scully might have gone.

Emily watches him. “Did you have a plan?” she asks. “For where you were supposed to meet.” He nods, and she asks, “What happened?”

“It was gone,” he says, trying not to think about the destroyed building, trying even harder not to think about the bodies.

“Do you think she’s looking for us?” Emily asks.

He wonders why she says us, if she thinks Scully could sense her presence. “Yeah,” he says. “Definitely.” Neither of them is going to give up on the other. That’s always been their promise.

“Will she like me?” Emily asks.

“Oh, Emily,” he says. “Of course she will. The two of you, you’ll love each other.” There’s no way that Scully, with her fierce capacity for love, isn’t going to embrace her daughter. No matter what’s happened.

“I’m glad,” Emily says. He thinks there’s something false in her voice. He wonders if he would have thought that, before what happened in the woods.

He tries to think back to those first days again. He remembers something she said. “Didn’t you say you thought she was alive?” he asks.

“What?” Emily says.

“You asked me if she was alive,” he says, “and I said she was, and you said you thought I was right. Emily…is there something you know? Do you have a way to tell if she’s out there?” He looks at her, hoping. Obviously they knew from the start, all those years ago, that Emily wasn’t exactly like other people, but that only made him see her as a kid who needed protecting. Now he knows that she’s able to fend for herself, and he wonders if there are other things she can do too.

Emily looks back at him. “I don’t know anything, exactly,” she says. “I just feel like…I think she is. I think I’d know if she wasn’t.”

“Why?” he asks. He doesn’t know what he expects her to tell him. He doesn’t know if any of this is fair. But he can’t let this chance pass, if it is a chance.

“Because,” she says, “I don’t feel any different. From how I did before. I think I…I think I would feel different if she were dead.”

He isn’t sure he understands, but he wants to. “Do you mean you can feel her?” he asks. “Like you know what she’s doing?”

Emily shakes her head. “It’s not like that,” she says. She sounds a little peeved, as if she shouldn’t have to explain this to him. “Usually I know if people are alive or not, that’s all.”

“What people?” he asks.

“People like me,” Emily says. He doesn’t know what that means either, and he’s about to ask a follow up question when she cuts him off. “You wouldn’t understand at all.” Her voice is final and a little bit fierce.

It’s a strong warning to drop it. He probably would, if she didn’t remind him of her mother, giving him the same kind of warning, times when he tried to ask after her, find out if she was okay. That’s what makes him ask the question. “Do you think you could find more out? Where she is or anything?” She gives him a blank look. “Just try? I know you wouldn’t be promising anything.”

When she speaks, her voice is soft. “Do you really, really want me to?”

There’s only one answer to that. “I do.”

She nods her head, jerkily. Her roots have grown out by now; he can see a lot more of the red, still with the black at the ends. “Then I will.”

“Thank you,” he says. He hugs her; he tried to do it once before, in the first days, but she didn’t seem receptive. Now she leans in. She holds herself stiffly at first, and then more loosely.

.....

Emily knows she can do it. She doesn’t know if she wants to.

It seems like it would mean explaining a lot of things. She doesn’t want to explain them, because Mulder’s already different with her now that he knows even some of the things she can do, and she thinks that would just make him more different. Dana will probably be the same, if they find her. And besides, she shouldn’t have to explain. Even if Dana’s her mom, the two of them are just ordinary people. In the end, this planet isn’t going to be for ordinary people. That’s one of the first things she ever learned.

But when she asked Mulder if he really, really wanted her to, he said he did. That’s why she said she would do it. If nothing else, it will buy her his goodwill, it will buy her his trust, and those things are very important. There’s no reason she can’t keep buying his goodwill and trust for as long as she wants to. They’re not on a deadline here. Things will end when they end.

So she sits and concentrates. It’s not that easy to feel Dana’s presence, because she’s never tried to do it before. There was always something hovering in the back of her mind, but she never really paid attention to it or thought about what it was until Mulder started telling her about Dana and asking her questions. It’s always been behind a lot of noise, from the other Emilys. Their 117 minds all pushing at her.

She tries to push them aside. They trained them all the same way, but she knows she’s better than the other ones. She was the first. She bets none of them can feel Dana. How could they, when they’ve never met her?

She can’t feel all of them. She tries to pick out what’s different. Something’s happened to Emily 47, and to Emily 70, and to Emily 102. She shakes her head. They trained for years for this situation, and they shouldn’t have been stupid enough to get killed. This was supposed to be their time, when they got to go outside and do what they were made for, and have all the ice cream they ever wanted.

Still, it’s only three. They have a good survival rate. She thinks their teachers would be proud.

She tries to get past them, but just then there’s a big surge of adrenaline. Emily 12, she thinks, killing someone. She can see Emily 12 in her mind, for a moment; even though they all look alike, and they’re all supposed to be the same, they never really were. They knew it even if nobody else did. Emily 12 was one of the best with an ax. And she always smiled when she was wielding it.

They were always there, the rest of the Emilys, for almost as long as she can remember. She doesn’t exactly miss them. But even though she’s always wanted to be more special, and maybe meeting Dana will mean that she really is, it’s hard in ways that she doesn’t think any of the rest of them could understand.

She slows her breathing so she can concentrate. She can tell Emily 12 is doing the same, coming down from her high. She tries to breathe with her. Good job, Emily 12, she thinks, and she feels a little flare of warmth, like Emily 12 has heard her, like she’s saying Thanks. It helps her push on.

And then she feels something different, behind all the other Emilys and whatever they’re doing. It’s harder to reach it and at the same time it’s stronger, more intense; it doesn’t blend into noise the way all the Emilys tend to do. It feels more real.

Dana, she thinks, and she concentrates as hard as she can. At first, it’s disembodied; she can’t tell where Dana is or what she’s doing. But she’s alive, Emily can tell that, and she’s all right. She’s worried, tense, on the alert, but she’s not hurt or in immediate danger. She wants to find Mulder, Emily thinks, when she pays close attention, just in the same way Mulder wants to find her. Emily wishes Dana wanted to find her too. She knows Dana doesn’t know she’s here. That Dana is more or less an ordinary person, even if she’s sort of Emily’s mom, and she hasn’t been trained to feel these things, and even if she were trained she probably never could anyway. But Emily wishes she could, for a minute.

As she keeps concentrating, she can see that Dana’s in a room by herself. There’s nothing special about it; it might be another abandoned house, like the one where they are now. She tries to figure out if Dana has a phone or the internet. She can feel her presence now, but that’s the only way Dana will be able to see them back. Then she sees there’s a computer, and she concentrates as hard as she can, and yes, there is internet, and she’ll be able to get in touch with Dana, if she hurries back to their own computer before she loses the feeling.

She slips back through the Emilys into the house. “Mulder!” she calls, and he appears in the doorway. She’d told him to give her some space, but she doesn’t think he can have been very far away.

“Did you find her?” he asks. He looks so hopeful. It makes her almost glad.

“Come quickly,” she says, and she leads him to the computer. She opens the video chat program, and she concentrates. She can hear it start to ring.

She steps back then. She lets Mulder sit in the chair, in front of the screen, even though he’s still looking at her with confusion. Now, in this moment, she doesn’t want to talk to Dana first.

And Dana’s face appears on the screen. “Hello?” she says. “Who is it?” Her eyes widen. “Mulder?”

“It’s me,” he says. Emily steps back further. Maybe this would be a good time to go, to get out of all this. She can tell they’re not paying any attention to her. She could let him live, and go, and never tell anyone about all this. “God, Scully, it’s so good to see you. I was so worried…”

“Me too,” Dana says, softly. She looks like the little bit Emily remembers, just older, that’s all. Emily sees her reach out a hand towards the screen, as if she could touch Mulder through it. “I’ve missed you so much. Where are you?”

“Somewhere in North Carolina,” Mulder says. “What about you?”

“Ohio, I think,” Dana says. “But I don’t understand. How did you know where to call me?”

He’s smiling. “Actually, there’s quite a story behind that,” he says. “Scully, I found someone. Come here,” he calls to Emily. She waits a second, and then she steps forward, even though everything in her is screaming that she’s making a mistake.

When Dana sees her, she looks surprised. And it’s not a good kind of surprised. Emily thinks she remembers her smiling, but she’s not smiling now. Mulder’s still talking. “It’s Emily,” he says, and that makes her mad, somehow. Because she went through her whole mind to find Dana, just to be nice which she didn’t have to do, which she shouldn’t even have done, and now Dana doesn’t even know who she is and she’s not smiling at her like she was smiling at Mulder.

“Mulder,” Dana says, softly. “Have you seen the news?”

“What news?” Mulder asks.

“About the Emilys,” Dana says. Her voice sounds like nothing Emily’s ever heard, but she can tell it’s pain. “They’ve been…they’ve been killing people, Mulder.” Of course he hasn’t heard that news; Emily’s been blocking it every time it comes up.

“They?” Mulder asks.

“There are a lot of them,” Dana says. “They must have created them for this.” She’s still staring at Emily.

“We’ve been together for weeks,” Mulder says, his voice uncertain. “She hasn’t…”

They sound like they’re afraid. People are supposed to be afraid of them—of all of the Emilys. She’s always known that, so she wonders why she’s not happy about it. She pushes Mulder aside so she can get closer to the screen. “I’m different from the rest of the Emilys,” she says. “I’m the first one. I met you and you held me and you gave me your necklace.” She remembers things she never remembered before, while she’s saying it. “I’m the first one. I’m the special one.”

Dana’s face looks softer. “Emily,” she says, “I didn’t mean…I just wanted Mulder to know what was happening. I didn’t mean you weren’t special to me.” Her voice is careful, but maybe there’s something tender in it. “If you knew how much I’ve thought about you…how I’ve wished I could have kept you safe…”

Maybe there’s something tender in it, but it’s too late. Dana’s still upset about what the Emilys can do. And Emily’s no different from the rest of them in that. She’s not special there. When Dana says she wishes she could have kept her safe, Emily knows she’s imagining something, but it’s something so different from what Emily’s ever known that she can’t wrap her head around it, no matter how hard she tries.

She moves back again. “I keep myself safe,” she says.

Dana nods. She doesn’t say she’s proud or anything, which Emily thinks a mother is supposed to do, if her daughter can keep herself safe. “I just wish we could have…”

“We keep ourselves safe,” Emily says. Her and the other Emilys. They’re in the front of her mind for a reason. Dana starts to say something else, she thinks, but she doesn’t know what it’s going to be, because she makes the call cut out.

Then it’s just her and Mulder. He’s watching her, maybe thinking about what Dana told him. “You knew,” she says to him. “Don’t pretend you didn’t know.”

“Emily,” he says. “We’re here together now. Whatever you might have done before, you don’t have to—”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” she says, and she steps towards him. Grabs his shoulders. Her hands are so close to his throat. He doesn’t try to pull away.

She pulls back at the last minute. She doesn’t look at him as she leaves the house.

[sunflowerseedsandscience]

Continuing the “We dated in high school and now you’ve moved back to town” AU. No title yet. (Part One is here; Part Two is here.)

By ten o’clock at night, a little over twelve hours after running into Melissa Scully at the cafe near his office, Mulder has firmly convinced himself that his phone will not be ringing tonight, and that he should stop staring at it, stop pacing around his house, and go do something productive.

Melissa had promised she would call and tell him if Dana decided she didn’t want to talk to him, so either way, he’s not going to be left wondering. But Melissa had also warned him-- as if he didn’t know already-- that Dana might need some time to decide. He wonders, in hindsight, if it would have sounded too desperate if he’d asked Melissa to call him after she’d talked to Dana so that at least he’d know when the actual waiting would start.

Relax, he tells himself firmly. Either she’ll call or Melissa will, and there’s nothing you can do to make it happen any faster. He slides into his desk chair in his study, intending to go over case notes to prepare for next week’s sessions... but instead, his mind drifts, remembering Dana as she’d been when he’d met her. Most of his classmates had looked at her askance-- what was this tiny, freckle-faced freshman girl doing in their honors calculus class?-- and while a number of the boys had been put off when she’d put her hand up with the correct answer to every question, Mulder had been intrigued. She’d shown up in his physics, class, as well, just as knowledgeable, just as unafraid to put her hand up for every question.

On Friday of the first week of school, Mulder took the seat next to hers in calculus. “Hey,” he said, trying to sound casual.

Dana didn’t even look up. “I’m not doing your homework for you.”

“I don’t... wait, what?”

“That’s what you’re going to ask, isn’t it?” She locked her ice-blue gaze on him. “The last two guys who tried to talk to me offered me a seat at the ‘cool kids’ lunch table and a ride in his older brother’s Camaro, respectively, if I did their homework for them.”

“No, I-- I don’t-- I can do my own homework, I just--”

“So you want to know why a freshman is in your class?” Her expression didn’t soften any.

“I just wanted to say hi! Jesus!” This wasn’t going the way Mulder had hoped. “Are you always so defensive?”

For a moment, Dana looked like she was about to let Mulder have it... but then, she deflated with an exhausted sigh. “I’m sorry. This week has been rough. Guess I just expect everyone to demand something from me, since everyone here has so far.”

“I’m sorry,” Mulder said. “I can tell you up front that I get straight A’s without help, and I don’t have an older brother with a Camaro. Or any older brother at all, actually.” He smiled, and tentatively, she smiled back. “I promise, I really did just want to introduce myself.”

She was so cautious with him, at first. But he didn’t take that personally once he knew she was from a Navy family. The school-- and Arlington on the whole-- was full of military kids, kids who showed up in class partway through the school year and disappeared just as suddenly, their fathers or mothers sent off to a new destination at the whim of their superiors. Dana, by her own admission, had attended five different schools before moving to Arlington, and Mulder understood why she was hesitant to get close to people.

But once they had gotten close, there had been no separating them... at least not from outside forces.

The decision to break up before college had been mutual. Dana, no longer a year behind Mulder academically, had been accepted to every college she’d applied to, and one night, she drove over to his place, looking troubled, and asked him to go for a walk with her. Earlier that day she’d listened to her friend Ellen, who was Mulder’s age, talking about how she hadn’t applied to any schools more than a few hours’ drive from Arlington because she didn’t think she could stand living away from her boyfriend.

“That can’t be us,” Dana had told Mulder firmly. “I know you’re hesitating about going to Oxford, and I know it’s because you think you should go to Stanford with me. But honestly, Mulder... do you really want to go to Stanford because you think it’s the best fit for you, or is it just to be close to me?”

He thought for half a second about lying to her, but he knew how useless that would be. “No,” he sighed. “I know it’s not where I should go.” 

“And I can’t let you ignore that,” Dana said. “I can’t let you throw away the chance to go to your dream school.”

“And I could never ask that of you, either,” agreed Mulder. “So... what's that mean for us, then?”

“I guess that’s up to both of us,” Dana said. “We could give the long distance thing a try... or we can enjoy the time we have together until we leave for school in August, part as friends, and see what the future holds for us.”

So they had agreed. They would go off to their separate schools, keep in touch, and remain the closest of friends... but that would be all, at least until they’d finished with school. If the feelings were still there, they could take a look at where their lives were headed and find out if there was room on the road for both of them together.

Of course, they were free to see other people in the meantime, though they both agreed: neither wanted to hear about it.

The first months had been torture for Mulder. They’d written letters weekly, but phone calls were rare. Scully couldn’t afford the long-distance rates and didn’t like letting Mulder pay every time they spoke. He spent the entire fall looking forward to his Christmas holidays, when he and Scully would both be back in Arlington, and maybe they could continue as they had, if only for a few weeks.

And then in November, the word had come down from Naval command. Captain Scully, his wife, and his one child still living at home had packed up and headed off to his new posting in Oregon. Dana was long gone by the time Mulder flew home for Christmas.

They’d still written. Even when Mulder had fallen under Phoebe’s spell, he’d still sent Scully a letter every single week, though he’d been careful to keep that a secret from Phoebe. The fallout would likely have been nuclear.

But then, in March of Mulder’s senior year, a week had gone by with no letter from Scully... and then two... and then a whole month... until finally, during his last few weeks as an undergrad, he’d received the two-line missive that had shattered his heart:

“I want you to know that you will always be on my mind and in my heart, but I can’t write to you any more. I wish you all the happiness in the world.”

The rest of his letters had come back undeliverable. 

The ringing of his desk phone startled Mulder out of his thoughts and he grabbed for it frantically. “Hello?”

“Mulder?” The voice was a little deeper, a little richer than he remembered, but still, he’d know it anywhere. “It’s me.”

[danadeservesadrink]

Do You Believe in Fate?

Chapters 1 and 2 available on AO3 Do You Believe In Fate (2750 words) by Samwritess

Posting both chapters 1 and 2 together here! Hoping to make this a longer series with tons of fun prompts and cute fluff!

Words: 4k

Rating: T for now

Tagging @today-in-fic

“Dana Scully speaking”

“Hi, um, I think I have your pants”

“Excuse me”

“I’m sorry that came out wrong…”

“Who is this?”

“Um, sorry, this is Fox Mulder, I live in the Guardian apartment complex on Columbia St. I think I keep getting your mail”

“Oh. Are you in apartment 52? I used to live there.”

“Yes. That makes sense, actually, but um I’ve gotten some letters and today I got a package with some pants”

“You opened my mail?”

“I only opened it because I thought the shipping information would have a phone number.”

“I see. You know you probably could have looked me up before you rifled through my Loft purchases”

“Didn’t think of that. Anyway, I have your pants.”

“Thank you for letting me know. Are you planning on returning them or are you also a size 0?”

“No, no right, I’m sorry. Where would you like me to meet you?”

“I’m actually in D.C to pick up some supplies from my office on Tuesday. Would the coffee place on the corner of 11th work?”

“Yea that’s perfect actually. What time?”

“Let’s say noon?”

“Great. I’ll see you then Fox”

“See you then Dana”

He knew it was her before she even walked into the shop. He saw a glimpse of red hair about a block down and got to spend the entire block watching her small figure push through the pedestrians on the sidewalk and he felt like he knew her in seconds. She was wearing probably exactly the same pants he had in the box sitting next to him. Probably ordered them as backups for her backups. Navy goes with everything. She walked with her head down, and even with her small frame she seemed to get people to move out of her way with no effort. Dana Scully was a no fuss, no frills, independent woman. And god damn if that wasn’t his kind of woman.

When he figured out she had lived in his apartment, he knocked on the door next to him to get the inside scoop. The gunmen had lived in the apartment for a few years longer than he had, so maybe they had seen this woman around before. It took three seconds after he mentioned her name for Frohike to start gushing about her. “She’s got these blue eyes that stare right into your soul Mulder, red hair like fire, and God her voice...” he hadn’t shut up about her until Langley interrupted. It seems like Frohike’s adoration was more of the ‘we met in the laundry room once and I think I’m in love with her’ type. And with Frohike, you never really know if the woman will live up to his fantastical expectations. Apparently the last they saw of her was about two months before he moved in she packed up and left in quite the hurry. “God we were disappointed when you moved in after she moved out”. So far she fit the description.

She walked in the shop and before the twinkling of the bells had ceased to announce her presence she had spotted him and begun her march over to his table.

“How did you know it was me?” he smirked as she came to a halt next to his little table in the corner.

“How many other people sit in a coffee shop with a week's worth of letters and a Loft package?”

She takes off her sunglasses and he gets to take in all of her face for the first time and it almost knocks the wind out of him. Those blue eyes looked right through him. He had to tell Frohike he was right later. She wrinkled her brow when he spent too long staring so he started to shove the package in her face before she thought he was too much a creep.

“Can I buy you some coffee?” he tried to stand but it was awkward and he got way too close to her as he clamored his way up. He could smell her perfume and he swore he would never forget it. She stepped back.

“It’s no problem. I should be going anyway.” She started to back away from him and he felt a little piece of him move with her.

“No please I insist” He reached out to her and she backed up again, fumbling with the packages she was now holding. “At least let me help bring the packages to your car”  

She huffed and shifted to packages again, clearly fully capable of carrying them back herself.

“Listen, Fox. I’ve got an office to drag back to Annapolis and I really don't need your help. What I do need is to get going” She turned and walked back out of the shop and someone must have slipped something into his coffee that morning because he found himself slipping through the door behind her, abandoning his half finished decaf in the bin on the way out.

Maybe it was because Mulder had never felt as much connection as when she looked at him with those baby blue eyes. He had been with more women than he cared to admit, been in love with a fair few, but Miss Dana Scully with her navy blue Loft pants that she probably owned six pairs of had stolen his heart entirely. He felt this infatuation overtake him and every cell in him was screaming not to let her go. So he followed her out onto the busy street and walked next to her as she practically sprinted through the afternoon foot traffic.

“Why are you following me?” She huffed as she tried picking up the pace, but his long legs easily kept up with her tiny strides.

“Do you believe in fate Dana?” She turned to look at him as if he had grown a second head, and at that moment a passerby jostled her shoulder, causing her to trip forward, losing her balance and crossing her feet over, bumping right into his side. He grabbed her elbow to steady her and for the second time met those ice blue eyes. He thought time stood still. If the hard corner of the cardboard package hadn't been poking him in the ribs it would have been the most romantic moment of his life. Fuck, it was still the most romantic moment of his life, with her breathing heavy and the two of them staring at each other on a crowded sidewalk, pressed together by circumstance and fate.

“Logically I’d have to say no.” She breathed out, but the blush on her cheeks told him he wasn’t the only one who felt this.

It took another shoulder to hers from an old woman with an umbrella and too much perfume to knock her back into herself. She stepped back from him clutching the package into her chest like it was Kevlar.

“I have to go. Please don't follow me again.” He watched as she walked away into the crowd, her red hair enveloped into the mob of civilians like a balloon into the sky. Never to come back.

I’ll see her again, he thought. I have to.

---

“Dana Scully speaking”

“Hi, it's me again.”

“What do you want?”

“You got another package. I didn't open it this time”

“Oh. Thank you.”

“When would you like me to return it? I don’t know if you’ll be in town any time soon…”

“I have a friend’s wedding in a week on Tuesday in Alexandria. I can pick it up then.”

“Ok sure I should be home. What time should I expect you?”

“I’ll probably come earlier in the morning on my way to the ceremony if that's alright”

“Of course.”

“Thank you. I’ll see you then.”

“See you then.”

---

He was sweating. This isn’t even a date and he was practically sweating through his shirt at the idea of Dana Scully showing up at his apartment door. He hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind and he’d seen her for maybe 20 minutes tops. He had come home that day and pounded a beer like his life depended on it. The gunmen called his apartment not long after to check on him because apparently Frohike thought “he might have suffered a stroke when he saw her”. He walked into their apartment and was handed a glass of whiskey and an invitation to spill it all about the girl he was now undoubtedly infatuated with. Maybe it was love or maybe just obsession but he was stuck with the image of only her in his head. And she was going to be at his door any minute forcing him to have to look into those beautiful eyes and not have an absolute breakdown.

He was busy deciding between continuing to stare at the clock waiting for her arrival and calling her again when the wrap of knuckles on his door sounded through the apartment. He sprinted to the door, took a second to compose himself and opened it to greet his fate.

“Wow”

She was in a little navy dress that hugged her hips and cut deep down her chest, revealing freckled collarbones to match freckled knees. Was it bad that those knees almost brought him to his? Of course Miss Dana Scully didn't wear little black dresses. She had a little navy dress that matched all of her navy pants and was just as sexy and somehow even more alluring. His eyes followed her freckles from her clavicle to her shoulder and up her neck like connect-the-dots and yet again he looked into the eyes of an angle, noting how the deep blue of her dress made them look even more piercing. She broke his gaze to stare down at herself with an embarrassed blush and smooth the front of her dress.

“Come in. Please.” He stepped aside and her strappy heels clicked into his apartment. He fought every brain cell telling him to drink in her figure from behind. He was a selfish bastard but later tonight he’ll remember her walking through his door in that little navy dress and dream that it was just for him, not for some high-school friend’s wedding 20 minutes away in Alexandria.  

“So…” She took a careful look at the room and he suddenly remembered she used to live here. She touched the counter top like she was familiar with the dust that had settled there. Something in her eyes looked almost sad, like she was reconnecting with an old friend. “I like what you've done with the place.”

“Thanks. It’s a great apartment. I was lucky to get it.” She grimaced and it dawned on him why he happened to be so lucky, her having moved out halfway through her lease with the landlord practically begging him to pick it up. He shoved his hands in his pockets like maybe that would stop him from saying something stupid. She hummed and looked up at him expectantly.

“Oh right. Package.” He almost forgot why she was actually in his apartment.

He heard her chuckle as he walked into the kitchen to grab the box from behind the counter. It was significantly heavier than the last time. If it was clothes it was some diamond studded platform boots by the weight of it. He found her staring at the fish when he returned.

“This is heavy. You want my help with taking it down to your car?” He couldn’t help himself.

“Actually, under normal circumstances I would say I can handle it, but these heels aren’t exactly made for transporting boxes of baby food.” She laughed again and he tried to hide his shocked expression.

“Baby food?” She recognized his confused gaze and explained.

“It’s for my sister. She likes to order her baby food in bulk because apparently they don’t sell it in non-organic grocery stores. She must have used my account by accident and they sent it here.”

He really was a lucky son of a bitch.

He gestured towards the door and she walked first, him following her with the package in his arms. They boarded the elevator together and it was just goddamn unfair how those heels made her the perfect height so that if he glanced over he could see straight down that little navy dress of hers. Unfair.

She clicked her way off the elevator and dutifully he followed her to the parking deck. She popped her trunk open and he plopped the case of organic baby food in.

“Well, I think I finally changed all my accounts to my new address, so hopefully this problem gets solved” She must have seen his face fall because she blushed again. “Thank you for all your help Fox.”

“Mulder. I even made my parents call me Mulder. Hated my first name. Hope that's not too strange” He doesn’t know why he was telling her, if she was going to exit his life after today. Maybe the dress had truth-inducing powers.

“Mulder.” She tasted his name like a cherry on top of a sunday, the way that would leave a red stain on her lips like the lipstick she had on now. The way that dress was cut made him think that she was the kind of girl that could secretly tie a cherry stem into a knot with her tongue. “It’s certainly not weird. Being a doctor I get called Scully most hours of the day.”

Dr. Dana Scully . It fit her perfectly.

“Well Dr. Scully, Dr. Mulder is always ready to be your personal mailman.” Her eyebrow quirked up, obviously impressed with the title.

“M.D?” she questioned like a judge running a trial.

“PhD in Psychology. Oxford University.” He stood up a little taller. She smirked.

“Impressive. Although I would be careful calling yourself a doctor unless you can complete a surgery with a Myers-Brigs test” Her eyes lit up when she challenged him. He was more than willing to submit to her.

“Nah I’ll leave the surgeries to your…” He grabbed her wrist and her eyes widened, “capable hands”. If pedestrians were not there to bump them together, he figured fate wouldn’t mind if he gave it a helping hand. The energy between them was palpable.  

Psychology may not complete surgeries, but it did give him the ability to peg Dr. Dana Scully down to a tee. If he had to guess, she went to undergrad somewhere close to home, but went far away for medical school, probably the best school she could get into. She gets the buttoned up look and her quick pace from a military background, probably her father. A gold cross like the moon in a sky of stars on her chest said she was religious, likely from childhood. But that low-cut dress and strappy heels made him think there were many many layers under the stiff exterior.

“Where did you go to school?” he released her hand and tried to inhale without giving away the fact that he’d barely taken a breath while she was in his grip.

“University of Maryland for my bachelors, then Stanford for medical school. Impressed?”

She licked her lips and he wanted to peel back every layer of her, including that tantalizing dress of hers.

“Very.”

“Well Dr. Mulder, I need to head to the ceremony.” It was goodbye again and he hated every second of it. Now or never.  

“Listen, Dr. Scully . If you're ever in D.C again, you should give me a call. I would really like to take you to dinner some time.”

He wanted to bottle the grin she shot back at him. The color of her blush should be sold on every makeup counter because it was the perfect shade. Everything about her made him fall harder and faster.

“I just might take you up on that. It’s been a while since I’ve gone to some of the good restaurants around here.”

“I’ll take you to your favorite” He’d take her to a dumpster behind a pizzeria if that's what she wanted. Just to get to see her again.

Her phone rang and she answered, a voice through the phone likely asking her where she was, as she responded with “I’m just leaving, I’ll be there in 20.” She sighed and hung up, then looked back up at him again with a small smile.

“Enjoy your wedding.”

“I will. Goodbye Mulder.”

“Bye Scully.”

He walked on air back to his apartment.

[slippinmickeys]

The Next Week

TUESDAY The whole bank thing from the day before had him feeling cross and out of sorts. Déjà vu was never his favorite metaphysical phenomenon. Scully seems out of it, too. On edge and jumpy. Just as he was about to suggest they call it a day, she pushes back her chair and stands. “I’m going home,” she says, not making eye contact. “Okay,” he says lightly, and she pauses in the doorway, turning back to him. “Do you want—“ she starts, but cuts herself off. He raises his eyebrows at her expectantly. He suspects she’s feeling the same thing he is – off, like maybe if they separate they may not see each other again. Residual mental innervation, he once heard Chuck Burks call it. “Never mind,” she says, and turns back toward the hallway, though she doesn’t leave. “Go get some sleep,” he says gently, “It’ll pass.” She gives him a half smile and drifts off toward the elevator. The room feels empty and stretched out. He grabs his coat and leaves, too. XxXxXxXxX WEDNESDAY She awakens with a pang in her abdomen, can feel the path that Peyton Ritter’s bullet took through her torso, though she’s been healed for weeks, surprising her doctors and herself. She barely even has a scar. She tries to forget the look of pleased surprise on Alfred Fellig’s face as he died in front of her. Her alarm clock informs her that it’s 5:07am, and she swings her legs over the side of the bed, knowing she won’t be able to fall back asleep. She may as well get ready for work and get in early. Mulder is already there when she arrives. They both look at each other in surprise. There are two Starbucks coffees sitting on his desktop, and he slides one over to her without a word. His thoughtfulness surprises her for some reason, making her feel lightly guilty and she smiles at him to make up for it. He returns her smile and holds it for longer than normal. She notices the file in his hands then and nudges her chin towards it, sitting across from him, holding the coffee with two hands. “What’s that?” she asks. “Skinner sent it down,” he says, still smiling. “Undercover assignment in California.” “Undercover?” She feels her eyebrows reaching for the sky. “Married couple,” Mulder says, closing the file and lightly tossing it in her direction. “We don’t leave yet. It’s going to take about a week to set up. An advance team from the LA field office is working on it.” He’s not doing or saying anything suggestive, but his smile coupled with the thought of posing as a married couple is sending her mind to places she’s not entirely comfortable with. There’s a tightening low in her belly and she takes a sip of coffee—it burns all the way down.

XxXxXxXxX THURSDAY She’d been in his apartment a week ago, had gotten cold – she was always cold—and had reached for his suit coat. It smelled like her now, just a touch. A hint of her perfume on the edge of his senses, like a memory. He misses her suddenly, though he saw her only hours ago, an ache opening up inside of him, and he reaches for his phone. “Mulder, what’s wrong?” She says after a ring and a half. There’s a hesitant quality to her voice, a sleep-touched breathiness. “I woke you,” he says, feeling like an asshole. He hadn’t even glanced at the time. “Are you okay?” She asks, sounding only slightly more awake. “Yeah,” he says, “go back to sleep.” “Mulder—“ “Go back to sleep.” But she doesn’t hang up and neither does he. He pictures her in her bed, head on her pillow, phone to her ear, connected to him by the soft hiss of cellular technology. He thinks of a thread running from cell tower to cell tower, stitching them together, the needle piercing his heart. They don’t hang up for a long time. XxXxXxXxX FRIDAY He has somehow caught his elbow on the sharp edge of a filing cabinet in their office, and her chest clutches in sympathetic affection, even as his colorful swearing fills the air. He falls heavily into his chair and clamps his other hand over his injured joint. “Oh, Mulder,” she says tenderly, reaching out to run her hands lightly through his hair. He has such thick, wonderful hair, and his current cut makes it look buzzy and stuck up in places like a hedgehog. It works on him, it really, really works. He raises his eyes to her, his lip in a child-like pout. “Ouch.” She runs her hands through his hair maybe three more times than is advisable and then reaches down a hand to help him up. “Come on,” she says, “let me buy your elbow dinner.” They end up ordering take-out  and eating it at his place. It’s a Friday night, so she lets him talk her into a couple of beers and a movie, and he even lets her pick. She goes with something light hearted, a rom-com she can’t even remember the name of, and after 90 minutes, she finds herself warm and brain-muddled from honey lager and somehow her feet are in his lap and he’s rubbing them and she doesn’t remember how either of those things started. The guy gets the girl and the credits roll and she reluctantly pulls her feet out of his grasp and tucks them under herself. “I should go,” she says, though she makes no move to leave. “You okay to drive?” He asks softly. She nods and he stands, clearing plates and the couple of empty bottles into his kitchen. When he returns she’s still sitting on his couch, and against her better judgment, or maybe because of it, she reaches out and grabs his hand. His hand is warm in hers, dry, dusty-soft. He gives her fingers a quick squeeze. “Want to double-feature it?” He asks softly. She shakes her head and stands, still holding onto him. “I should go,” she says again. He takes a half-step towards her. “Stay,” he whispers.

XxXxXxXxX SATURDAY He comes awake slowly, comfortable and impossibly warm. He’s still fully dressed. Scully drifted over in the night, is tucked into his side, still deeply asleep, also fully clothed. They slept under the duvet but not the sheet, like that somehow negated the fact that they were sharing his bed.

They tiptoe and tiptoe around this thing between them, a pirouette of feeling, of unresolved sexual tension. He’s almost lost her – how many times? – and why hasn’t he done anything, why hasn’t he? He remembers finding out she was in remission--the relief that ripped through him, from the top of his head to the tips of his toes, like a net -- catching everything inside him, even the strength to stand. He had fallen to the floor. She would live. They both had. But he is tired of the dance.

Her lips are parted in sleep, glistening like she just licked them. It feels like the most natural thing in the world to lean in and kiss them, so he does. He finally does.

The next thing he knows, Sleep Scully is kissing him back. Without even a breath of wakefulness she’s there too, and it feels so good to be kissing someone. To be kissing Scully. He’s a tactile person, a touchy person, but he denies himself those things out of some self-punishment thing that he refuses to analyze in himself but probably has to do with Samantha. To touch and be touched feels amazing and Scully is touching him now, is sort of awake and has somehow not decked him for the osculational indiscretion but instead is clutching his shirt and sucking at his bottom lip and he takes a moment to ensure himself that he’s not actually still asleep and dreaming. She senses his lull and pulls back, looking into his eyes, hers a sleepy aquamarine. “Sorry,” he says, smiling, not really sorry at all. “Don’t be,” she says, her voice sleep-choked and rumbly.

He expected her to be shy for some reason, but she’s not. They’re not teenagers, he reminds himself. There’s a real-life grown-ass woman in his bed, and she’s still clutching at his shirt. He reaches around her and grabs her backside, pulling her to him, tight. “I…” He starts, but how do you tell your partner of almost 7 years that that you’re insanely in love with them and have been since almost day one and would they mind terribly if you fucked their brains out because that’s all you want to do whenever they’re within a foot of you?

“Me too,” Scully says with a kicky smile, like she heard everything he was thinking.

She probably did, he thinks. There’s something ethereally otherworldly about Dana Scully. She heals fast and she can’t die and she’s a deadeye marksman.

“With an ass that won’t quit,” he whispers and she’s about to give him a look, but he leans in and starts kissing her neck and she sighs instead.

He peels off his shirt, then undresses her slowly, mapping out the soft planes of her body with fingers, with lips. She is uncharted country and he an explorer, intent on discovery.

She’s placid in his bed. Warm, willing. She has a sleepy smile on her face and the morning sunlight coming through the window catches on her carmine hair, practically burns his eyes.

She reaches up tenderly when he pauses to look at her, brushes her hand along his raspy jaw, pulls him down to kiss her. He marvels at the pillows of her lips, the way her tongue dances with his. He will never get enough of this, not ever, but there are other places to explore.

He works his way down her body, pausing at her breasts, lavishing them with the attention they’re due.

When he moves to the triangle of soft curls at her center, he’s taken with the color. He’s always known she was a natural redhead—she’s always careful in the sun, curses the MC1R gene (it’s just like her to curse a gene)—but the fact that the carpet matches the drapes delights him. And just like that, he’s developed another Dana Scully-specific kink.

Scully is fully awake now and hungry, hungry for him. He can see it in her eyes, in the way she’s pulling at his his jeans, pushing them down.

He had planned to make slow, reverential love to her, but she has other plans, pushes him back toward the mattress and climbs atop him. This is more than he had ever even dreamed and he’s having trouble processing. When she grabs him and guides him home, he’s certain his brain will short-circuit.

She is riding him hard and has her fingers in his mouth and when she looks at him, connects eyes with him, her hair swaying rhythmically into her eyes, all he can say is,

“Yeah, yeah.”

It’s been so long, he’s not sure how much longer he can hold out when Scully grabs his shoulder with one hand, reaches between them with the other and within seconds is clamped down on him, he can feel her orgasm around him and he’s gone too, lights bursting behind his eyes, flashpoint.

Later, when they’re laying there, a little sweaty, breaths coming in ever-slowing puffs, he feels a wetness on his chest where her head is resting. He tilts her chin up, canting her face to his own. There are tears in her eyes, but she’s smiling, and he feels the exact same way, he knows he does. There’s an ocean of feeling inside of him, and Scully the only spit of land.

XxXxXxXxX SUNDAY She could have laid around in his bed with him all day, drinking coffee, reading the paper, but she had lunch plans with her mother and dinner with a friend, had no clothes at his apartment. She kissed him lingeringly at his door, slow to leave, and he held her hand, only dropping it when she was in his hallway and he stood there watching her, leaning against the doorframe and he was still there when the elevator doors closed.

She rolls her face into her pillow smiling, thinking of where she was, what she was doing just 24 hours ago.

She thinks she hears something and stills. There it is again, a light knocking at her door, she’s certain.

Donning a robe, she approaches the door, looks through the peephole.

She swings the door open, the air differential puffing her hair up around her face.

“Mulder,” she says, “it’s not even 8:00.”

He bites his lip.

“Can I come in?”

She nods, tucking in a smile as she opens the door to him, a sudden feeling like estrus washing over her. She feels like a nymphet, like Lolita. The low throb of want in her womb suddenly shorting out all other circuits. She couldn’t stop thinking about him yesterday, of them. She channels her partner for a moment, thinking maybe some psychic connection, some siren paphian call brought him to her this morning.

“I’m sorry,” he says, stepping inside, “I… I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

She steps into him, close, steps right on top of his feet and scrunches her toes around his shoelaces. Her face is inches below his.

“Fuck,” he whispers.

And all she does is nod, and his lips are crushing into hers, finally, finally.

They stumble their way to her bed, shedding clothing, leaving no space between them.

The backs of her knees hit the bed and she leans back, pulling him to her and she wonders if there is any feeling quite so delicious as the heavy, warm, hard planes of a man’s body atop your own, but he starts kissing his way down her torso, and yes, yes there are.

And then he’s nudging her, asking if it’s okay to go down on her and she has this sudden realization that as well as she knows him—and she knows him pretty well—she has no idea of his sexual proclivities, and the fact that he’s practically begging to eat her out is just so perfectly him that it takes everything she has to not laugh out loud at the absurdity of the moment. He takes her silence as hesitancy and his brows crease. “Scully?” He says, pulling back a fraction of an inch and she can’t have that, so she practically bucks her groin into his face. Luckily, that’s all the encouragement he needs, and he grabs her by the hips, and his tongue is there—holy shit, right there, and she doesn’t think anymore, she just feels.

Supernova. There’s no other word for it. In no time at all she’s coming apart at an atomic level. It’s almost too much, but it’s never enough, and then slack, her whole body, slack.

He gives a rumbly chuckle, planting a firm kiss just under her belly button, and she comes back to herself as he works his way back up her body. He pauses at her necklace, taking the delicate chain into his mouth and tugging on it gently. It’s somehow incredibly erotic, and she bites her bottom lip. If Father McCue could see her now…

And then his face is even with hers and his mouth is back and she’s tasting the warm tang of herself on his lips.

“I want…” she hears herself say.

“Anything,” he whispers.

“You,” she says, and he’s there, right there again, and she’s filled to the hilt, and it’s all she wants to feel.

Five thrusts, ten, and she hooks her leg up, wraps an ankle over his hip, and they’re both gone again. How , she thinks, how is this possible?

He rolls off of her after a minute and she misses the crush of his weight, but he takes her hand and holds it to his lips.

“Is it always going to feel like this?” Mulder asks, dumbstruck and uncertain; a hint of awe in his voice.

She presses a kiss to his temple. She’s pretty sure it will.

XxXxXxXxX MONDAY They have to be at work in an hour, but this has been the best weekend of his life and he’s loath to let it end. He has his hands around her rib cage, his thumbs nearly touching, and she reminds him of a bird—all hollow bones and soft feathers, and he wonders at how this small sprite of a woman contains such strength.

“Satyriasis,” Scully says, contemplatively.

Med school word, Mulder thinks.

“It’s going to be hard to work today,” she says in explanation.

“It’s going to be hard to work everyday.”

“No funny business at the office,” she says then, stern, like she’s trying to convince herself.

“Funny business?” He parrots back, teasing.

“I’m serious, Mulder,” she says.

You’re always serious , he thinks.

“Not in the field, either,” she says.

He lets go of her, groans and falls back against the mattress dramatically.

“We can’t play the part next week in Arcadia?” He asks the ceiling.

“Mulder,” she says, her tone a warning.

“No, you’re right,” he relents. As if those who want to shut them down need another excuse.

There’s silence for a moment, then her voice comes to him low, quiet.

“But we’re not in the office yet,” she says, standing.

She takes his hand, pulls him toward her bathroom, her shower. She pulls him with her, to her, away from himself, away from the earth.

The office is twenty minutes away, but he’s lightyears beyond it, soaring into the heavens, up, up and away.

XxXxXxXxXxX

The End