#look at Scully she is so tiny and so fierce

[gingerteaonthetardis]

not kidding, that lost/x files gifset has actually made me giddy. yesssssssss. what a concept. you are so right about all of it. eheh im so glad you tagged me 💕💥😍

akdhdksjd of course!! i just had to tag you as a thank you for being my lost/txf mutual!! also, in another brainwave, i wrote 2k words of mulder and scully being in the lost pilot today and here is a tiny snippet of them meeting in that universe, for your reading pleasure...

"We need a doctor over here!" A man's voice. "Is anybody—?"

The words are cut off by a fresh swell of engine noise, but she makes out the source in the shape of two bodies, hunched together. A man in a torn-up chambray button-down, and a woman, her hand cradled over her bulging stomach.

Ignoring the stitch in her side and the pulse of her own wound, Dana pushes herself into a run, ducking under an outstretched hunk of plane wing—leaping over detritus, scattered seats and luggage. She is more agile in this moment than she thinks she's ever been in her life. 

At the pregnant woman's side, she falls to her knees.

"Please, help, I'm—I think I'm having contractions."

Scanning the woman for injury, she asks, "How many months are you?"

"Eight," the woman gasps out in between sharp, labored breaths. "Please—oh, God."

"How far apart are the contractions?"

"I don't… I don't know, they're just—"

"Somebody help! Somebody!" There's a fresh round of screaming from not far off, and Dana's head snaps up, looking around for an origin. But a hand clamps down on hers—the woman's, slick with sweat—pulling back her attention.

"Please."

Across the protrusion of her belly, the woman's other hand is wrapped fiercely around the arm of the man beside her, nails leaving half moons in his skin.

When she looks into his face, his eyes are strangely calm behind his cracked glasses. Green, her mind distantly registers, flickering with vague recognition. "Stay with her," she orders. "Keep her breathing normally."

He nods once, jaw tensing. "Where are you going?"

"Somebody help, my leg—my leg is—" The cry unfolds into a keen of agony that makes the blood drain from her face.

"To help," she replies grimly, pushing up to her feet. It takes more effort than it should, the blood rush making her wobble on the too-giving sand. "You're going to be fine," she tells the woman calmly. "This man—"

"Mulder."

She doesn't have time to contemplate the strangeness of the name. She's already backing away as she says, "Mulder. He's going to stay with you, okay? Just keep breathing." And with that final command, she takes off across the beach.

[cecilysass]

How to Eat Pleasant Holiday Meals With Co-Workers (5/5)

Read on AO3 | Rated M | Tagging @today-in-fic

Thanksgiving Day 2023

He originally started calling the kid Mick because she bore a certain resemblance to Mick Jagger as a baby, and it stuck.

At first this drove Scully crazy, and she would beg him to please try using the name they carefully selected for their daughter at birth. But as in all other things, he wore her down, and now he smiles triumphantly when he hears Scully using the nickname, too. Truthfully, no one in their family regularly uses the name carefully selected for them at birth – not Mick’s parents, not Mick’s brother – so Mulder doesn’t see why Mick should be any different.

Mick bears a certain coloring book outline resemblance to Scully: the shape of her body, her size, the texture of her hair. In all other details and in the substance of her personality she is a carbon copy of Mulder, a circumstance that both delights and concerns her mother.

When it was time for Mick to start kindergarten, Mulder’s anxiety spiked alarmingly. Not only because there was still a pandemic, not only because he was a paranoid sixtysomething stay-at-home parent with a laundry list of traumas, but because he was simply very attached to Mick. He liked having her around. She was his focus, his new work, his best and ultimate X-file.

When he floated the idea that he might homeschool her, Scully was sincerely appalled. Mulder and Mick already had hours-long conversations in the kitchen about evolutionary adaptations and Eastern spirituality, and she had begun to worry what Mick would be like as a ten-year old. As a 16-year old. As a 30-year old.

Actually, she worried she knew exactly what Mick would be like as a 30-year old. She worried she had already met that person, in the basement of the Hoover building thirty years before. She loves that person unthinkingly, fiercely, with every cell in her body. But she is also ambivalent about replicating him so precisely in the form of her small daughter.

In the end they agreed to send Mick to kindergarten at the local public elementary school in West Tisbury.

Now, everyday, Mulder waits for her bus out at the end of their drive with some sort of handmade snack, a domestic detail Scully honestly just can’t quite wrap her mind around. She can’t reconcile the Mulder she remembers from their earlier life — the one who never ate anything but a limited selection of takeout and diner food —with the Mulder who now painstakingly bakes banana bread for Mick.

Mick steps off the bus, takes off her mask, kisses him, accepts her slice of banana bread, and begins talking a blue streak about what happened at school or some idea she thought about on the bus ride home.

Scully works from home since they moved to the Vineyard. She sits at her wide office window and watches them walk up the drive together, talking intensely. This man and this child she loves so much, absorbed together in their own oddball world.

If her heart could create a resilient invisible bubble to hover around them and protect them, she would. Because she is also a paranoid soon-to-be-sixty-something parent with a laundry list of traumas. She remembers what it is to lose children, and she remembers what it is to lose him, too, in several significant ways.

This Thanksgiving, Mulder is teaching Mick how to make cranberries the Right Way, according to him. In the pot, with grated orange and cinnamon sticks.

Mick listens to him with a serious intent expression as he lectures her about cranberry consistency. She looks exactly like him, Scully thinks for the umpteenth time. The way her light green eyes lock on him as he talks, the way she has given him her complete focus, the round purse of her bottom lip, the tiny furrow in her brow.

After they have gotten the pot simmering, Mick and Daggoo run to play outside. Scully sets to work pouring the sweet potato filling into the pie crust, inhaling the nutmeg scent appreciatively. Mulder washes up the dishes, keeping an eye out the window.

Their house faces woods on one side, and on the other, there is a short walk down to the beach, which Scully loves. She loves having Mick growing up on an island, as Mulder did, and she loves being within earshot of the ocean herself. She belongs to the sea, and so does Mulder. Now, so does Mick.

The pie is ready to go in the oven— at least, she hopes it is, if it’s not overfilled. Scully regards it thoughtfully, licking a dollop of sweet potato off her thumb. Sweet potato pie isn’t her favorite, but she has made it now for years, as Mulder adores it. She admits to a certain pride now in her expertise.

“Hey Scully,” Mulder says in a quiet voice to her from the sink. “Come over here, will you?”

“Hold on,” she says. “Let me just put this in.”

She positions the pie, surface wobbling, on the top rack, then looks in at it, satisfied. She sets the timer for an hour and then scoots next to Mulder at the sink, nudging his hip flirtatiously. She’s surprised when he doesn’t respond, but his eyes are fixed out the window on Mick, who is chanting something in the tiny yard outside. Daggoo runs in excited circles around her.

“Watch her with me for a second,” he says in a subdued voice, his eyes not leaving the yard. “Just watch.”

Side by side they watch as Mick picks up a handful of crumbling leaves, and then she turns and says something, offhand, to an invisible playmate to her right. She offers the playmate one of the leaves, and then, shrugging, turns to her left to laugh uproariously at something another invisible playmate has said.

Scully chuckles fondly. She turns to Mulder to share in the mutual joy of their eccentric child, but stops short.

He is not smiling; his face is stone.

“What’s wrong?” She touches his cheek with her knuckle. “What’s worrying you?”

“She’s been talking to invisible people like this for so long,” he says in a whisper. “The whole time I’ve been washing dishes.”

“That’s upsetting you?” Scully asks.

“She never looks away. They have her full attention.”

“Mulder, this kind of imaginative play is a completely normal developmental stage for this age,” Scully says. “You know that. She’s above average imaginative. You don’t have to worry about schizophrenia or mental health problems when you see a child talking to imaginary playmates.”

“I’m not worried about schizophrenia or mental health problems,” he says, his pitch dropping. His eyes cut to hers.

Scully draws in a breath, understanding his implication. She turns to watch Mick more carefully, because she has seen too much to be a knee-jerk skeptic now.

Mick looks up at someone standing on one side of her and makes a face, and then turns and says something with animated passion to someone sitting next to her on the ground.

“What exactly are you thinking, Mulder?”

He looks at her. “What if she sees … things we don’t see? What if she’s like Jackson?”

“Jackson doesn’t see invisible people,” Scully says, studying his face like a map.

“What if Mick sees ghosts?”

In tandem they both turn back again to watch their small daughter. She has a stick and a leaf in each hand, and she is gesturing with them, making some kind of point to a group of unseen people.

“She could be surrounded by ghosts, Scully,” whispers Mulder. “So many ghosts.”

Oh Mulder, she thinks, turning back towards him and reaching out with her fingertips to trace his face. She’s not the only one.

“We’ll ask her,” Scully says, letting her fingers trail down his cheek and watching him closely. “If she’s seeing anything, she’ll tell you.”

With both hands she directs his mouth to hers and kisses him, because she knows her kisses can soothe him, calm him down.

She would say her kisses always soothe him and calm him down, but that’s not strictly true. They know now that it needs to be her kisses and 20 milligrams of citalopram a day, plus some regular therapy, fresh air, and exercise, ideally a run on the beach. Purposeful work doesn’t hurt either.

Still, as her hands stroke his face, her lips play lightly at his, she can feel it making the difference. He relaxes, kisses her back. His hands sneak around to her cup her backside.

“Want to stuff a turkey?” he whispers.

“We’re not stuffing our turkey,” Scully tells him seriously. “For reasons of food safety.”

“Was it not clear that was a come-on line?”

She stands on her tiptoes and speaks softly in his ear. “How about you peel my potatoes, Mulder?”

“That wasn’t a come-on line, was it?”

“As a matter of fact, no,” she says, smiling, pulling away to grab the bag of potatoes and place them in his hands.

***

Last year, Mick and Mulder made a paper turkey centerpiece for the table, stapling together strips of brown and red and yellow construction paper to make an awkward little bird, a googly-eyed objet d’art.

This year the decoration is a little battered and bent, but Scully pulls it out anyway and props it up in the center of the table, next to the small orange pumpkin and the decorative gourd.

It reminds her of another Thanksgiving years and years ago, when she and Mulder were in quarantine together, right after she had been returned from her abduction. He drew a sad little paper turkey centerpiece for their lonely dinner to make her laugh, cheer her up. Those two young agents, still tentative with the defenses around each other, seem in some ways like strangers to her now. Yet in other ways she also feels like exactly the same person.

The three of them work together to set the table and carry out the food. Mick carries the special Mulder-style cranberries and a basket of rolls, Mulder the platter of the healthy roasted asparagus Scully insists on plus the mashed potatoes and gravy, and Scully cradles the stuffing and a compact little turkey that will feed all three of them and still generate leftovers.

Once they sit down, Scully thinks fleetingly of a blessing or of sharing what they’re grateful for, but Mick starts grabbing for the rolls and Scully begins to serve her, and Mulder belatedly remembers to pour some wine, and they are distracted.

A few minutes later, Mick is finishing a long-winded explanation of marsupial traits when Scully and Mulder make significant eye contact across the table.

“Hey,” Mulder says casually. “Mick, I was curious if there was someone you were talking to before.”

Mick, who is mixing her cranberries and her mashed potatoes up methodically, looks up at him in surprise. “I was talking to you and Mommy.”

“No, I meant outside, when you were playing in the leaves.” He keeps his voice impressively calm, pouring gravy as he glances at her.

“Ohhhh,” Mick says, smiling a tiny knowing smile. “Outside, yeah.”

“You were talking to somebody?”

“My friends,” Mick says. “Can I have another roll?”

“Eat some of the rest of your dinner first,” Scully says briskly, leaning over to cut up slices of turkey on Mick’s plate. “What friends?”

“My friend Sib and my friend Sem and my friend Samantha,” Mick announces, cramming a spoonful of cranberries in her mouth.

Mulder drops the asparagus platter down on the table, and it lands a little too loudly. His hands are visibly shaking. His eyes meet Scully’s, and she tries to transmit a message to him: stay calm, g-man.

Her attention shifts back to Mick. “What do they look like? What do they talk about?” asks Scully with an encouraging smile.

“We play,” says Mick, matter-of-fact. “We like to play zoo. We built a whole wombat habitat today. Did you know that wombats poop in cubes, Mommy? They typically live in mountains and shrublands throughout Australia.”

“One of your friends has the same name as Daddy’s sister,” comments Scully, watching Mick’s face carefully.

Mick nods. “She has brown braids like the picture on Daddy’s desk, too.” She gestures with her hands to mimic braids and tosses her head from side to side playfully.

Abruptly Mulder stands up. His chair knocks backwards with a clatter. Mick startles, but he doesn’t seem to register her reaction at all.

“What about the other friends, Mick?” he insists in a low voice, fixing his attention on her, his eyes burning. “What do they look like?”

His daughter stares at him, wide-eyed. For her entire lifetime, her father has been easygoing and joking and gentle, a playmate and teacher. She has no memory of him being any other way. Her expression is one of shock.

“Sib is tall and skinny and has black sort-of spiky hair,” Mick says in an uncertain voice. “Sem is little and has short gold hair.”

“Mulder,” cautions Scully. He doesn’t even look at her. He doesn’t even seem to hear her.

“What does Samantha say to you, Mick? What does she say?”

“Mulder, enough.” Scully is out of her chair now.

“Does she say anything to you, Mick? It’s important. It’s really important. What does she say?”

“I don’t know, Daddy,” she whispers, her expression frozen.

“Does she tell you to do anything? Does she say anything about me?”

Scully is gripping his arm now, tugging, speaking firmly to him. “That’s enough.”

Mulder finally registers her, his expression desperate. “Scully, we have to—“

“Mulder.”

He turns back to Mick. “Just a few more—”

Scully sees no way around this. She twists back towards Mick, smiling as calmly as she can. “Mick, it’s okay. Daddy’s okay, just a little wound up. I’m just going to talk to him one minute, sweetie. Don’t be worried. We’ll be right in the other room.”

She drags him into the kitchen, her stomach a mass of nerves, hating leaving the child in there alone and frightened. “What is wrong with you?” she hisses. “You’re scaring her. You have to pull it together.”

“She’s seeing Samantha. What does it mean, Scully?“ His voice cracks. She can see from the wild look in his eyes that he’s terrified. She wonders about his medication.

“Mulder.” She puts her hands on his cheeks, forcing him to look her in the eyes. “Agent Mulder. Listen to me. Are you listening?”

“Yeah,” he whispers, his eyes settling on hers.

“She’s seen the photo of Samantha a thousand times. She knows the story by heart. To her it’s history, myth, legend.”

He nods rapidly, as though he is clinging to her every word.

“She probably just gave her imaginary friend that name because it’s in her mind, in her psyche. The other names sound made up, but that one — she could have just given her that name and imagined her looking like the photo. That’s typical imaginative kid behavior.”

“Scully,” he whispers. “You don’t think when she says Sem, and she says little with gold hair, you don’t think she means Emily?”

For a moment Scully’s chest seizes. She stares back at Mulder, feeling her eyes widen. This is how together they can sometimes enter a feedback loop, can frighten and disturb one another like no one else in the world can. But she hears Mick’s chair squeak in the other room, and it reminds her: they only have so much time left with her, their precious fresh start.

“No,” she says. “I don’t.”

His formative trauma was losing a little girl. No amount of therapy, no amount of medication, no passing of time, was ever going to keep him from being deathly afraid of losing Mick. She knows this. He does, too.

“Yeah,” he says, after a beat, sounding shell-shocked. “You’re right, Scully. Of course you are.”

“We have to go back right now,” she whispers. “Remember our number one parenting goal. She’s supposed to be the least traumatized of us.”

He nods again, and then it seems to hit him, what happened with the little girl in the other room. “Oh shit,” he says softly. “Oh shit, shit, shit.”

He immediately sprints back into the dining room and swoops his arms around Mick, and Scully hears him saying, “I’m so sorry, kid,” in his warm and loving voice, and giving his most empathetic explanation.

Scully takes a moment longer. She is still trembling. His distress has long been more personally arduous for her than her own; she can’t even remember now when this wasn’t true. Now it is true of Mick, too, and also of Jackson, although he usually goes to considerable pains to hide his troubles from her.

When she comes back to the table they are both smiling, and Scully feels relief wash over her.

“Why don’t we do the thing, Scully— the thing where we say what we’re grateful for?” Mulder suggests.

The idea makes her miss her mother so very much. How she longs to have her mom with her now, sitting across the table, smiling at Mick, this precocious, miraculous granddaughter she never got to meet. For that matter, Scully misses all the trappings of family Thanksgiving of younger years—her father standing over the turkey with the carving knife, Melissa peeling potatoes with a glass of red wine, Charlie setting the table wrong, Bill grumbling about putting the leaf in the table for their mother.

Mick’s Thanksgiving dinner seems very lonely and small compared to all of that. No wonder she makes up ghostly family members, thinks Scully.

“All right,” Scully agrees softly. She reaches out and takes each of their hands. Even at such a small table, even with so many ghosts haunting them, it won’t be hard to think of what she is grateful for.

***

“Do you remember the novel Remains of the Day, Scully?”

They’re letting their heads rest on the back of the leather couch in the study, drowsy and full of sweet potato pie, gazing out the large picture window with the view of the sea. Their legs stretch out before them, Mulder’s extending further than hers, of course. Their hands are both folded over their abdomens.

Mick, who had been on her iPad watching YouTube videos about wombats on the floor nearby, has curled up with a throw pillow and a quilt and fallen asleep, Daggoo slumbering happily up against her. So far, Mick sleeps flexibly and anywhere: more like Scully than like Mulder. Something for parents in their 50s and 60s to be grateful for indeed.

“I think I do,” Scully says. She is very relaxed. “I remember that you read it to try to impress me early in our partnership, didn’t you?”

He tilts his head further backward over the top of the couch and laughs. “Yeah,” he says. “I think that’s probably an accurate interpretation of my behavior. I read it that one Thanksgiving when we were in quarantine.”

“I was just thinking about that Thanksgiving today,” she murmurs. “You were trying to cheer me up, and I was so grumpy.”

Outside the window evening is falling. The sky over the sea is turning darker shades of plum, and the temperature is dropping. She reaches over Mulder for the quilt on the other side of the couch, and he immediately helps her pull it over them, draping it over their shoulders and laps. She folds her legs up and curls against him, resting her head against his shoulder, and he draws his arm around her without even thinking about it.

“Isn’t that what we’re in now?” Mulder asks, his voice soft and contemplative. “You and me. The remains of our day?”

He gestures to the sky painted with the colors of a fading sun, the beach gradually being drained of its vitality, swallowed in shade.

“Are you suggesting that our lives are almost over? Seems a little premature,” Scully says. “We have a five-year old I want to see grow up.”

“Me too, yeah,” he agrees. “But we’ve got a decent chunk of the day behind us already. Don’t we?”

Scully says nothing for a moment.

“The character in that novel has some significant regrets.” Scully shifts her head and glances up to examine his profile. “He’s dedicated his whole life to his work. He’s sacrificed happiness, made choices that caused him to miss opportunities. His relationship with the woman he loved. Are you comparing yourself to him?”

“Well, I’m not a butler, Scully.”

“Do you have regrets?”

Mulder twists his head and kisses the top of her forehead very softly. “Some. Of course.”

He rests his face against hers. They don’t speak for a moment. There’s no point discussing his regrets. Some she can easily guess; some she’s sure she shares. The choices that led up to the deaths of people they cared about. The choices that led up to having to give their son up. The choices that led to their separation.

“But there’s no good in looking back,” Mulder says, “and besides, how can I be dissatisfied with what I do have now? I have things in my life I never thought I would.”

Both of their eyes shift involuntarily to Mick, curled tranquilly with the dog on the floor.

“Things you never thought you’d want,” Scully says. She thinks of that lonely man in the basement working through Thanksgiving, who only had dinner with his new partner that first year because he felt sorry for her.

“I don’t know,” Mulder says with a sly smile. “I always sort of wanted you.”

She pokes him in the ribs. He playfully twists a little away from her finger, but then turns to her again to speak in a low, serious voice.

“You know, I know there are ways I’m broken that won’t ever be fixed,” he says. “I know I’m scared and haunted. And you, too, g-woman. But shit, Scully, I’m so grateful for this, for the remains of my day, because you and I could so easily have missed it. In so many times and so many ways.”

“Yeah,” she agrees, her voice barely more than breath.

“And … because it’s so beautiful. Such a fucking beautiful time of the day.” His voice breaks a little. “The absolute best time.”

She turns her head and kisses him gently, running her finger over his round lip. “You’re such a cornball in your advanced age, Mulder.”

“You’ll stay with me for all of it, right?” he whispers, sounding suddenly much younger. “All the other Thanksgivings we have?”

“Every one,” she murmurs. “Every single one. They’re ours.” Her promise becomes another kiss. And then another. Twilight turns into night.

[liddell-alien]

I was writing the third chapter of my fanfiction when the dynamic between Izzy and my oc felt way too familiar.

I stared at the lines, re-read the words.

Then it hit me like a fucking ton of bricks.

They’re Mulder and Scully.

My oc is looking for this imaginary place nobody has ever heard of. She doesn’t even know if it’s real. She believes in it tho. She will die for it.

He’s so fucking skeptical but will follow her to the end of the world because she’s gonna end up dead otherwise.

Does he believe in this place? Not exactly. Does he believe she believes in this place? Absolutely yes.

She’s filled his head with soooo many stories about this place and he’s so tired…

Not going to spoil anything but there are more similarities between them and- ugh I can’t.

Also, Izzy is tiny, fierce and hot. Just like Dana Scully.

Maggie is socially awkward, weirdly cute and with a sharp sense of humour. Fox Mulder.

Fuck. Me.

[baronessblixen]

I absolutely loved your day 25 fictober fic!! Would you want to write a follow up for Mulder meeting his son for the first time in a while, entertaining all his crying and talking to him about all the things he has to look forward to in life? Tysm <3

A follow-up to "Every Morning, Every Night" that can also be read as a stand-alone. Thank you so much for the prompt, Bryony! Tagging @today-in-fic and @xffictober2021

Wc: 986

Fictober Day 28

Father and Son

He's not counting or anything but 32 minutes after he and Scully untangle their various limbs from each other, shower, and get dressed, there's a knock at the door. He startles briefly, fear still deep embedded in his system. Scully squeezes his bicep and smiles at him.

"It's okay, Mulder."

Easy for her to say. When she opens the door, there is Agent Dogget with narrowed, suspicious eyes, Agent Reyes with a sympathetic smile, and in her arms, a chubby little boy with a soft tuft of auburn hair on his head.

His son.

He's so big. And yet still so tiny.

"Hi," he says in awe, no longer seeing anyone else. William, his life still determined by reflexes, just kicks his small legs. Mulder touches one, amazed how alive he is, how real. Three weeks. He has missed so much. He has missed everything.

"He's hungry," Reyes says, handing the squirming infant to Scully. Doggett clears his throat and gives him another look. Mulder gets it. They're her friends and he's the guy who up and left.

"You stayin'?" Doggett asks, scrutinizing him.

"I am," Mulder says, looking him square in the eye. "I'm not leaving again. Thank you for helping Scully out while I was gone."

The look the other man gives him speaks volumes: don't hurt her again. Mulder nods, understanding him. He will do his damnedest to never cause Scully - or their son - another moment of pain.

"Do you want me to leave you alone, or?" Mulder asks five minutes later after Doggett and Reyes have left. Scully has taken off her shirt and William is happily nursing.

"Stay," Scully says wistfully, smiling at him.

"I don't want to... stare." Mulder blushes but he's unable to look away.

"They're just breasts, Mulder. You've seen them plenty of times. You saw them an hour ago."

"I know, I know. He's really going at it, huh?"

"He's a good eater. I wonder who he gets that from." Pride washes over him, along with love and the fierce sense of protection. How could he have ever left them? Leave them to fight on their own? Scully puts a hand on his thigh.

"Don't beat yourself up, Mulder. I can see it on your face. I asked you to leave, remember?" He nods. "I was wrong. We were both wrong. I've never been so thankful that you just don't stick to the rules." He leans over to kiss her, needing to taste and feel her again. He presses a soft kiss to William's head, too. The baby is unimpressed and too hungry to be distracted.

He watches mother and son in awe and fascination, just happy to be a part of their daily ritual. Eventually, William gets tired and doesn't drink anymore.

"Can you take him?" Scully asks quietly.

"I- do you think he'll... what if he cries?"

She merely smiles at him, touching his cheek. She smells like milk and something soft and warm. Home. He stares at William and isn't this what he wanted?

"Come here, big guy." He takes the baby from her and William opens his eyes, still as blue as ever, and stares at him. Mulder has read all the books and he should know but he doesn't know what William sees. If he sees anything at all.

"I'm going to go get cleaned up."

Scully leaves the room, leaving father and son alone.

"Your mom really trusts me," he says, swaying gently. He puts William on his shoulder, knowing he needs to burp. At least he remembers that much. He pats the small back, blown away by the solid weight in his arms and against his shoulder.

Will starts whimpering; he knew this would happen.

"Hey, it's okay. Your mommy will be right back. I know you prefer her." William sniffles as if to confirm his father's words. Mulder keeps rubbing the boy's back in circular motions, walking around the bedroom.

"I missed you so much," he mumbles against the boy's warm, silky head. "Every night I wondered what you were doing. You and your mom. I already missed so much, hm? You're heavier than when I first held you. I know I wasn't there for the first few weeks of your life, buddy. But I'm going to be here for the rest of it, okay? Your first step, your first words, your first tooth. I will teach you baseball. Or basketball. Whichever you prefer."

William's whimpering subsides, but he's still kicking his legs every now and then.

"You like moving your legs, hm? If you want to take dancing lessons, I will take you to every single one of them. You're my son." Now he's the one who's crying. Some tears land on the baby's head, making him squirm. "Sorry, buddy. There's so much we're going to do, you and I. And your mom. Do you know how great your mom is? Of course you do. There's just one thing I'm better at than she is, Will."

Mulder looks at the closed bathroom door before he leans down to the boy's small ear.

"Singing," he whispers. "I'm the better singer."

"Oh, are you?" Scully appears by his side, smelling like toothpaste and something sweet. She puts her hand over his on William's back. They're swaying in sync to music neither of them can hear but that they feel.

"Scully, you know I'm right."

"Hmm, so far William hasn't complained."

"He will. I can feel it. It's a father and son thing."

"Is it now?" She raises an eyebrow but there's nothing but joy in her expression.

"Let's ask him. Hey Will, do you think your mom is a good singer?" For a moment there's nothing. Mulder and Scully look at each other, sharing a smile. He will never tired of looking at her. Never.

Then, finally, William burps loudly and sighs.

"I think there's your answer, Mulder."

[mldrgrl]

Broken Things 24/24

by: mldrgrl Rating: varies by chapter, rated R overall  See Chapter 1 for summary and notes**

**Additional notes to follow in a separate post

Epilogue

There’s a bookcase in their room built by Luke Doggett that Mulder has filled with books of all kinds.  He’s glad they decided to extend the bedroom out when they did the expansion because it takes up a lot of space.  He’s also glad for the extra room because it means, while Katherine paces back and forth, he can follow behind and not bump into too many things.

Katherine stops suddenly and leans onto the bookcase.  She moans deeply and Mulder holds her from behind and rubs her hips.

“You’re doing wonderfully,” Monica says.  “Just breathe through it.  Keep breathing.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to lie down?” Mulder asks.  “Just for a little while.”

Katherine hisses through her teeth and shakes her head.  Her forehead wrinkles and she moans again and clutches Mulder’s hand so tightly he’s sure it might break.  Monica comes over and puts her hand on Katherine’s belly.

“I think having a lie down might be a good idea about now,” Monica says.

Mulder puts his arm around Katherine and moves her to the bed.  He helps her to sit while Monica stacks the pillows up at the head of the bed.

“You’re the first husband I’ve had at a birth,” Monica says.

“I’m not leaving.”

“It’s fine by me if it’s fine by Katherine.”

“Don’t go,” Katherine whispers to him.  

“I won’t,” he tells her.

“I need him here,” Katherine says to Monica.

“Whatever you need, you’ll have.”  Monica nods and then she helps move Katherine up to the pillows and she tells her to shift down a bit and bring her knees up so she can check the baby’s progress.

The miraculous arrival of the twin fillies is the only birth that Mulder has attended in his life.  He skimmed through one of Katherine’s textbooks on obstetrics to have an idea of what he might be in for, but he found it to be so terrifying he had to stop reading.  It doesn’t seem possible, even though he knows it has to be.

He’s never seen his wife as scared as she’s been throughout this pregnancy.  She’s been terrified of losing the baby and he understands her fears.  Every night he’s gently caressed her growing belly and whispered to the baby how wonderful the world will be when he or she arrives.  You’ll have your own cradle made especially for you by Luke Doggett.  You’ll have your own horses to play with and one day I’ll buy you a pony with a little cart, would you like that?  You’ll have all the picture books I can find and I’ll read to you every night.  You’ll have the very best, most brave, most wonderful, most beautiful, most special, most loving, most fierce, most smartest Mama in all of the world.  But, you just stay nice and cozy where you’re at for now.  Stay until the time is right, okay?

Katherine grits her teeth and then comes up away from the pillows onto her hands and whimpers pathetically.  Mulder looks at Monica who is nodding encouragingly and rubbing Katherine’s belly.

“When it grips you again like before, you go ahead and push,” Monica says.  “Mulder, why don’t you give her a nice place to lean into to help.”

Mulder scoots closer so that Katherine can lean back into his chest.  She’s breathing hard and there’s sweat beading across her hairline.  He holds her hands and then her body grows stiff and she squeezes her eyes shut.

“Push, Katherine,” Monica says.  “That’s it.”

Katherine groans and then she falls limp in Mulder’s arms.  He feels the same helpless panic he felt when he was trying to help the horse drop her foal.  He knows he’s utterly useless and he can’t stand to be.  When Katherine’s body goes stiff again, he drops his head and starts to whisper the same things he whispered to Mary.

“You’re the only one that can do this,” he says.  “But, you’re strong and you’re brave and I believe in you.  You can do it.”

“Just a little more,” Monica says.  “You’re doing great.”

“Almost,” Mulder whispers.  “You can do it.”

Katherine lolls a little against Mulder’s chest and then she takes a deep breath and pushes again.  Her face grows red with exertion and she cries out before she deflates.  A different kind of shivery little cry fills the room.  Monica laughs and begins toweling off the squalling infant as quickly as possible and then passes the little bundle into Katherine’s arms.

“Looks like we’ve got ourselves a new little filly,” Mulder whispers.

Katherine starts crying and brings the baby up to kiss her head.  She has little wispy blonde curls that Mulder runs his hand over.  The baby looks at him and he swears one of her eyebrows lifts inquisitively just like her mother’s.

“Look at those blue eyes,” he says.

“All babies have blue eyes,” Katherine murmurs.

“This blue?  They look like the ocean.”

“Well, what are you gonna call her?” Monica asks.

“I want to name her after Mulder’s aunt,” Katherine answers.

“Oh that’s sweet.  What was your aunt’s name?”

“Hortense,” Mulder answers, and then laughs at the look on Monica’s face.  “Emeline was her name.  But, I think we agreed on Emily Eliza if it was a girl.”

Katherine nods.

“Hey…”  Mulder eases out from behind Katherine.  “What day is it?”

“I heard the clock in the hall chime at midnight a little while ago,” Monica answers.  “September 9th, 1888.  She’s a seven.  She’s going to be very contemplative.”

“It’s two years to the day from when we first met,” Mulder says.  

“Only two years?” Katherine wonders.  “It feels as though we’ve been together forever.”

“Forever is ahead of us, not behind.”  Mulder smiles as the baby yawns and reaches out to touch her tiny hand.  She curls her fingers around his with a tight grip.  

↭

The year before Emily was born they took a trip to Boston with a stop in New York City to see the electrical lightbulbs that Katherine had wanted to see.  She was definitely impressed by the invention, but will always prefer the softness of lamplight to the glow of a bulb.  Of all people, she will be the most reluctant to modernize their home while it’s Mulder that will marvel at the on and off switches that bring light and darkness and later, he will never get enough of the telephone, sometimes simply picking up the handset to chat with the switchboard operator in town just because he can.

Three years after Emily is born, William Abbott, known by all as Liam, will come along.  By then, Emily’s blonde hair will have turned dark, like her father’s, but she’ll keep her deep blue eyes.  Mulder will often turn and think he sees the ghost of his sister running towards him as she grows.  Liam inherits his mother’s red hair and freckles, but his father’s hazel eyes and mischievous sense of humor that keeps everyone on their toes.

Doctor Black makes Katherine an offer that Mulder tells her she’d be crazy to refuse.  He sponsors an apprenticeship for her in lieu of formal schooling and after five years time, she receives her medical certificate.  When he retires, Katherine takes over the practice and the lady doctor that drives her own carriage through town becomes the pride of the town.

Emily will follow in her mother’s footsteps in some ways, her interest in science and medicine apparent from a very young age, but her love of animals pulls her in a different direction.  She studies to become a veterinarian.  When her husband is taken in World War I, she will come back to the ranch with her own young daughter in tow, seeking the peace and comfort of her childhood.

Liam takes a keen interest in literature and tears through all the books on his mother’s bookshelf before he’s eight years of age.  His favorite thing to do is to listen to the stories his father tells, ones he can’t quite determine are real or exaggerated, but that are always about how brave and strong and magical his mother is.

“Kids,” Mulder will say as they sit on the porch.  “Did I ever tell you about the time your mother shot a panther?”

“There aren’t any panthers in Texas, Daddy,” Emily will tell him.

“That’s because they got wind of your mother’s aim and they all packed up and moved to Mexico.”

“Mulder, you weren’t even there.”  Katherine will roll her eyes when he starts his tales.

“I had gone to Fort Worth to pick up some horses and your mother stayed behind with Pappy Melvin…”

Liam will take these stories and write them down and turn them into Fawkes Publishing House’s number one bestselling children’s series of the 1920s called Amazing Kate, about a young girl living on a ranch in the Texas plains who can do anything and everything.  He marries a suffragette he meets while tending to family business in Boston. One of their sons will pen a biography of his E. M. Abbott, sending shockwaves through the literary community and winning a Pulitzer.

When the children are small, Katherine will often wonder about her sister’s and where they are and if they’ve married and if they have children of their own.  Mulder will offer time and time again to track them down, but ultimately, Katherine decides against it.  She has made her own family here and Monica and Susannah are close enough to her to feel like the sisters she lost.  Mary Katherine Scully was her past and she has put it behind her.  She is and will forever now be Kate Mulder.

The ranch is only ever moderately successful and the need for trained horses dies out with the expansion of the railroad and the popularity of the automobile.  It suits Mulder fine and they simply become a haven for abused and neglected animals.  

Ranch hands come and go.  Trevor discovers a talent for building furniture through Luke Doggett.  Mulder sponsors their talents by starting them up with a business in Fort Worth where they form a successful partnership and their furniture is sold world-wide.  Richard announces one day that he thinks it’s about time he moves on, and then he just disappears.  Jesse and Jimmy are offered positions as lead trainers in a traveling rodeo that they hesitate to accept, but Mulder tells them they’d be crazy not to take the opportunity to travel the country.  Melvin stays with them until he passes on and they bury him beneath the magnolia tree that in twenty years time, has reached an impressive height of forty feet and blooms pink at the start of every summer.  

The years go by and Mulder and Katherine will be alone on their porch sometimes, sitting side by side watching the sunset.  Mulder will reach out and Katherine will take his hand and he’ll give it a squeeze.

“Just think where we might have ended up if Faithful Jenny hadn’t thrown that shoe that day,” he’ll say to her, for maybe the hundredth time since they’ve been married.  “The day that changed my life forever.”

Katherine will roll her eyes at him, also for the hundredth time.  “Any number of things had already changed your life forever,” she’ll say.

“But, specifically, if Faithful Jenny hadn’t thrown that shoe…”

“And if you didn’t leave Massachusetts, and if your father hadn’t sent you to live with your aunt, and if your aunt never bought you that pony for your birthday…”

“So, you agree, A leads to B, leads to C, leads to Jenny throwing that shoe.”

“I think we’d still be right here on this porch.  That’s what I think.”

“Kate, are you admitting you believe in fate?”

“I’m admitting nothing.”

Mulder will smile and squeeze her hand as she twists her wedding ring around her finger with her thumb.

The End

[monikafilefan]

Love your writing so much! Can you write a New Year’s fic set in season 6 where they actually kiss? No Fowley angst if you can? Thank you

Thanks so much. This turned out longer than I hoped so I’m a little late, but I hope you enjoy. Takes place just before Tithonus.

——

10:02 PM: Mulder swallows another mouthful of Shiner Bock, letting the alcohol warm him from the inside out. He sets the beer bottle next to the other empty ones with a clink and the beat of the music vibrates along the golden table cloth beneath him. Laughter and muffled conversations of fellow agents fill the silence of isolation he’s purposely surrounded himself in.

He doesn’t want to be here. Not at this New Years Eve bureau mandated banquet, sticking out like a black sheep among the herd of Kersh-loving ass-kissers, and certainly not forced to appease the Deputy Director in the name of another successful year of wielding justice. He sure as hell doesn’t want to celebrate the loss of his life’s work to his ex-wife and Kersh’s errand boy he’s currently hiding in a dark corner from. Wielding justice…

What a crock of shit.

But Scully is here, and the loss of his near constant contact with her is something he will never celebrate acknowledgement of. Not ever. He feels their absence on the files like a missing puzzle piece, teasing him with its existence lingering just out of his reach. Yet as he stares longingly at her across the room in her black satin dress, drinking wine as red as her lips, and smiling with their peers from the bullpen, Mulder can’t help but smile in return.

10:38 PM: Scully turns his way and scans the room, her big blue eyes flickering from person to person. She’s searching for him, he thinks. He knows. He’d told her hours earlier he decided to forgo following rules forcing him to be social. And still she looks for him, hopeful, unable to accept he can truly leave her partnerless for even one night. She’s right. As he sips at another Shiner, Mulder knows the heat of the beer isn’t the only thing warming his chest tonight.

A slow song begins to play as the lights dim. His pulse quickens at the thought of asking her to dance. Of holding her petite body close to his. Of kissing her at the stroke of midnight. He stands, unable to resist the pull of her proximity a moment longer, when another man swoops into his eye-line and offers Scully his hand.

Mulder’s fists clench as an agent from the lab arrogantly claims her bare back with his meaty hand, sloppily twirling her around the dance floor. Her surprised laughter is as loud as it is fake, but she doesn’t pull away. She accepts his hand with a tight-lipped smile and promptly stares at her three inch stilettos instead of at the man attempting to woo her.

Mulder does the same while his nostrils flare with every indignant breath.

Turning away, he picks at the yellow label on the bottle until only the brown glass reflecting his scowl is showing.

10:55 PM: He hears Scully laugh again. Then again and again. He doesn’t know what she’s chuckling about or who with, but it doesn’t matter when she’s enjoying her last remaining hours of 1998. She’s having fun drinking and dancing, he tells himself. She deserves this. He wants her to be happy, always. He just refuses to watch someone else make her that way.

This time, when a high-pitched, unScully-like laughter slices through the sound of his heart thudding against his eardrums, his gut clenches along with his fists.

11:02 PM: One hour and four - no five - beers later, Mulder is ready to leave. To flee, more like it, when a thick hand slaps at his back.

“Agent Mulder,” Skinner’s voice booms over the music. “Glad to see you decided to show up.”

He scoffs, “I was summoned.”

Skinner glances at him, his heavy hand squeezing the meat of Mulder’s shoulder; hard. “You mean she asked or you wouldn’t be here,” he corrects, nodding towards Scully draining yet another glass of wine. “She wants you here, Mulder. I suggest you remember that.”

11:32 PM: Mulder does remember that. In fact, that’s all he’s been thinking about for the past half hour when he lost sight of Scully within the crowd. After dodging both Diana and Spender, three agents requesting a dance, and one persistent secretary’s offer for much more than that, Mulder halts his search for his partner and ducks into the restroom to break the seal.

He glances at his cell phone. No service. Goddammit.

The entire time he’s been looking for Scully, the sickening thought of her having left with someone else has weighed heavily in the back of his mind. He should’ve taken Frohike up on his offer of Mexican and movies and saved himself the heartache.

11:44 PM: “Yes, I do know I’m leaving before the ball drops, and no, I don’t have a date I’m waiting for,” Mulder repeats to Agent Matthews at the coat check.

“You want one?” he asks, smirking. “Because I’m outta here in ten.”

“Oh uh,” Mulder can’t help but smile. “Thanks, but I’ll have to pass.”

“I knew it. But hey, a guy can dream.” The man shrugs and hands Mulder his jacket. “Agent Scully is one lucky woman.”

“You’ve seen her?” Mulder questions, ready to interrogate the poor guy. “Did she leave?”

“Maybe,” Matthews says, chuckling at Mulder’s unabashed desperation. “But I’ve seen her walk by looking for someone special a couple times earlier, though. I guess that someone was you.”

“Yeah, thanks. Have a good night,” Mulder groans as he walks away, feeling more and more like an asshole as the minutes tick by.

11:50 PM: Mulder makes his way down the side stairwell and shuffles past the ladies room tucked away in an alcove at the end of the hall. Fireworks spark outside the window next to him and he can’t help but wonder if Scully is looking at them, too.

He sighs, takes three steps, and stumbles when a flash of red catches his eye.

“Scully?”

“Mulder, you’re here!” she praises, her cheeks flushed with wine. Her eyes flick down to his coat slung over his arm and her smile fades. “You’re leaving.”

He falters, shifting in his Wingtip Oxfords he’d worn just for her. “You know me, Scully,” he feigns nonchalance. “I’d rather pull out my hair than kiss the asses of the ‘powers that be’ more than I’m forced.”

Scully shakes her head and is quiet a moment before boldly brushing a lock of hair from his brow. “Can’t have that now, can we?”

He stifles a moan. The familiar feeling of her touch lulls him where they stand. “A full head of hair means that much to you, does it, Scully?”

“Mm…” She nods while his hand covers hers sliding gently across his scalp. “You do have great hair.”

“Melvin will be crushed.”

She laughs - this it’s time for him - and Mulder swears it’s the most beautiful sound echoing through the hall. They continue to stand in the hallway, staring at one another as her fingers dance through his hair, letting the soft melody of the muffled music fill the silence.

“So why show up then?” she finally asks, her fingers trailing over the shell of his ear, down to his cheek, hovering there. “Why come at all?”

The alcohol that flows through her veins, leaving her open and vulnerable deserves only honesty from him. “Because you’re here,” Mulder confesses.

“I am.” Her eyes hone in on his fingers twining through hers. “And you were about to leave without saying goodbye?” She arches a brow, pins him with an accusatory stare. “Or hello, for that matter?”

“I-you were enjoying yourself out there. You were…” he sighs, guilt washing over him for not being a better partner to her. For not walking out on that dance floor and showing her exactly how much he appreciates her. How much he loves her. “Scully…”

“Mulder, it’s okay. I get it, really.” She rolls her eyes, tapping his tie with a manicured nail. “Plus, Skinner told me that if you’re as smart as your IQ says you are, you’d be here to ring the new year with me.”

“Ha!” It’s Mulder’s turn to roll his eyes, imagining the AD just itching to dance with his beautiful partner. “I’ll bet he did.”

“I told him you were smarter.”

Mulder’s heart began to race at the husk in her voice. “And if I hadn’t shown up?” he wonders. “I have a feeling Skinner and every other person in that ballroom would give anything to dance with you tonight.”

“They asked to dance with me, Mulder, not date me.”

Mulder’s jaw clenches at that, his free hand dipping down to settle gently at the base of her spine.

“And besides,” she arches into him, amused and emboldened. “There’s only one person I wanted to dance with tonight.”

“Scully.” His voice catches when her sapphire eyes snap up to lock onto his, imploring him to say more. “I-you looked… you look...” The liquid courage swirling though his mind gives him the nudge he needs. He touches her face, softly tracing the slope of her jawline from her ear to her chin. She hums and he melts. "...Stunning, Scully. You look stunning.”

Her half-grin twitches higher. "Bet you say that to all the girls, Mulder."

“No,” he denies in earnest. “Only you.”

She nods slowly, unblinking, as if she’s always known. Her eyes are large and luminous in their dimly lit corner, the deep blue sea of them beckoning him into dangerous waters. Lashes fluttering under his gaze, she leans into him like a feral kitten, fierce and unyielding in her affection. And it’s a good thing, Mulder thinks as he leans in too, that he’s an excellent swimmer.

“You showed up, Mulder,” she whispers. Her tiny hands skim down to his waist and tug his body flush to hers. “Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me for that,” he begs. “Don’t thank me for anything.”

He palms her neck and she allows his hand to wander up into her hair, tangling the silky waves through his fingers. He watches her eyelids flutter half shut, her lips parting.

“And why did you come, Scully?” he blurts, curious.

“Why do you think?” she retorts, challenging him. Suddenly, Mulder knows exactly why she came. Why she’s still here, staring up at him with dark eyes and rocking against him with hardened nipples.

He forgets to breathe.

“Tell me,” he says, cradling the base of her skull and letting his forehead fall forward against hers.

“No,” she breathes while stroking the curve of his ribcage, nudging the tip of his nose with her own. “I’ll show you.”

Her eyes flutter shut and a gush of warm breath tickles his cheek. As he leans down, her cushy lips press softly to his and his heart threatens to burst from his chest.

Her mouth tastes of red wine and sugar - a tart sweet-filled sin laced with a hint of blush-colored lipstick. She tastes more satisfying than any dessert. She tastes like raw desire.

Reluctantly, he pulls his hips away from her soft belly when his rock hard want for her becomes impossible to ignore.

She whimpers with her arms now wrapped around his neck, tugging him down for more.

Mulder gulps and kisses her nose, her cheek, inhales the fruity scent of her shampoo. He breathes her in while keeping a lung full of her essence within his chest. The warmth of her baby soft skin beneath his lips makes him wonder if he’s having an out of body experience: an erotic X-File, as his soul quite possibly ascends into the unknown.

A sudden cacophony of cheers bursts through the cracks of the heavy ballroom doors. Mulder jumps while Scully clutches at his back, keeping him close. Their heavy breathing mingles with the chorus of Auld Lang Syne playing in the background as fireworks boom outside the window pane. Bursts of copper and cerulean stream across the ink-black sky and it rumbles the carpet beneath their feet, reminding him that, yes, his feet are still on solid ground.

Two hours, two minutes, and one kiss from Dana Scully are all it takes for his world to tilt on its axis.

“Wow. Wha… what was that?” he gasps dumbly.

Scully arches brow. "I would have thought that's fairly obvious," she purrs. "You asked me why I came here, so I kissed you."

"Yeah, I know that, Scully, believe me. But...” Fuck, he berates himself. Why does his conscience hate him so damn much?

“Shh, just shut up and kiss me again,” she slurs.

His eyes flutter shut. He wants this - wants her - more than his next breath, but she’s been drinking, he remembers. They both have. “Shit, I want to, badly. But I think,” he hesitates, no more than a whisper, “I should hail us a cab.”

“Mulder…”

“In case you don’t remember these last few minutes when you wake up in the morning,” Mulder explains further. “Or worse, you regret them when you do.”

“But…” Scully frowns, hiccuping as she sways within his arms. “Okay…” she sighs, rolling her forehead against his sternum and mumbles to herself, “Fine, but the cab’s on you.”

“Deal,” he chuckles, his love for her growing with each passing second. His lips brush against the crown of her head, his palms smoothing over her hair and down to the lithe bare blades of her shoulders. “I can do that.”

“Happy New Year, Mulder.”

12:10 PM: This year, Mulder thinks as he waves down a cab. This year will be different. When Scully’s pinky loops through his, he squeezes it in promise. This year, he will do better.

“Happy New Year, Scully.”

And next time, when he looks into her eyes and tells her he loves her again, Scully will finally believe.

Tagging @today-in-fic

[aloysiavirgata]

Hot prompt: Mulder washes Scully's back.

And also for @fashionbooksboozefeminism who asked about 40th birthdays on the run. NSFW

***

Night, cash, Sonia and James. Mulder leads her down the faded carpet and wood-paneled halls of the old Poconos resort, nearly empty nine days past Valentine’s. Everything they own that isn’t in their bag is in the car outside. They stop in front of room 314.

Scully, a bobbed brunette in yoga pants and a hoodie, slouches against the wall. “If this turns out to be a reboot of The Shining, Mulder, I’m going to be really pissed.”

He works the key into the scuffed lock. “The Haunted Murder package wasn’t in my budget, don’t worry.”

They head inside, Mulder shutting the door behind them. The room is a perfectly preserved 70’s time capsule, amber-hued with shag carpet and velour club chairs. There’s a zigzag bedspread and a macramé plant hanger with a dusty silk fern on it.

“Groovy.” Mulder sets their duffel on the floor.

“Wow,” Scully says, peering around. Her mother would have killed for this room back when she hosted fondue parties and wore hostess pajamas. “Mulder, I feel like I’m in high school again. I’m going to need some blue eyeshadow, then we can play a few rounds of Mystery Date.”

Mulder examines a small porcelain shepherdess on the lamp stand. “Forty is the new sixteen. Go look around the corner.”

Scully picks her way past the walnut dresser and a floral folding screen. A yelp of laughter escapes her. “Mulder!”

The tub is glossy and red, heart shaped, with veined mirrored walls behind. It’s piled with bubbles, steam rising from the surface. A bottle of something called Sham-Pagne sits on the tiled rim. Her chest squeezes at the thought of him putting this together. She’s been remote since the New Year, prickly and self-contained as a spore.

He appears behind her, grinning. “James. Only the classiest for you, Sonia.”

She sits on the ledge, pats the bubbles with curious fingers. “Champagne glasses would have been classy, James.”

Mulder studies the bottle. “It’s got a screw top, so I think this is more a red Solo cup affair. Or straight from the bottle.“

Their joys are very small these days and she clings to them. “It’s absolutely awful, I love it.”

Mulder, beaming, squeezes her shoulder. “Go ahead and get in, I wanted it all ready for you so you could relax right off the bat.”

Scully stands, her back to the large mirrors. She undresses quickly, trying not to catch her reflection in the small mirror over the sink. She doesn’t want to see her choppy dark hair, the purple smudges under her eyes, her sallow skin and WalMart lingerie. A year and nine months and each glance at her reflection feels like watching a Dana who dropped out of med school to follow a band or wait tables at a truck stop. But she can’t tell her not to do it, she can’t wish it all away, it’s just... she is not suited for life in the bardo.

She climbs over the wide ledge, into one of the curves of the heart, and lowers herself into the bath. The steaming water is decadent after so many cramped showers, and this immersion feels baptismal. Perhaps she can come out fully cleansed, grocery store dye gone, Aphrodite on a bed of foam. The bubbles come up past her chin, making her sneeze. 

Mulder sits next to her, opening the wine. “Oh, whoa, whoa, she's a lady,” he sings, holding the bottle like a microphone.

Scully scowls at him from the tub. “No need for that, thank you.”

“Tom Jones, Scully!”

She puffs bubbles at him, and they stick to his shirt. “Do you have any cups?”

“I was serious about the bottle, I think.” He passes it to her.

She takes a long swig. It’s sickly sweet and too fizzy. She could easily finish it herself. “Get in.”

He looks surprised. “Really?”

“It’s my birthday, you have to do what I say.” Another swallow.

He’s already undressing. “No, no, I don’t mind. I just figured you’d want to marinate alone.”

Mulder, never self conscious, has no concerns about the mirrors. He gets in the other bend of the heart and water overflows onto the carpet. “Oops.”

Scully, already buzzy, passes him the wine.

He takes a long drink, winces. “Good lord.”

“Mm,” she agrees, settling low in the water. It seeps up her chin length hair, making a sleek dark cap around her face.

Mulder puts the bottle down and fishes around in a wicker basket. He retrieves a pink pouf and a tiny bottle of cherry blossom body wash. “Scoot over here.”

She hunches into the corner. “No I’m comfable. ComFORTable.”

Mulder laughs. “How hard did you hit that bottle?” He reaches around to take her by the shoulders and pull her through the water until she’s settled between his knees like a cranky mermaid. He squeezes a pearly dollop of soap on the pouf and begins to wash her back.

“This is soapy water already,” she observes.

“Well, it so happens I just like touching you, so don’t be pedantic.”

She lets her head fall forward as he makes circles on her back, tries not to feel embarrassed about her bony spine and the furrowed landscape of her ribs. She hasn’t been this thin since the cancer hollowed her out, and she never let him see her this way back then.

Back then.

“Got you a little cake, it’s in the fridge,” Mulder says, like he can read her thoughts again.

“Maybe I’ll save you a piece,” she replies. She wants to be cheery for him, a brave little sailor. The body wash makes her think of spring in DC and she sniffs at it.

He drops the pouf to massage her slick skin with his hands. They’re a little calloused now from the kind of rough work he was never bred for. He works his thumbs beneath her scapulae and she wonders if he can unfurl them like wings, let her fly away.

She takes another gulp of wine. “Mulder.”

“Hmm?” His fingers knead her neck, each tight trapezius.

Scully turns in the water to face him, catches a flash of her reflection as she does. Her hair is kelpy, the heavy black eyeliner she wears now smudged about her eyes like Theda Bara.

She kneels between his bent knees. “Nothing.”

Mulder sighs. “I didn’t want it like this either.” He holds his arms out and she rests against his chest. The water sloshes gently around them as he enfolds her, his heart thrumming at her cheek. She imagines this is what the last moments in the womb are like.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbles into the wet dark of his body. “This is a really good present.”

His hands are skating over her back again with a washcloth this time. The texture feels good, centering her back into her bones. Sometimes she feels adrift from herself, dissociated, following her own body like a kite.

Mulder strokes her hair and she burrows her face up into his neck, her forearms pressed against his chest. She hopes he won’t sing Happy Birthday like he used to because it will undo her.

He doesn’t, just nuzzles in, whispering sweet nonsense into her ear. “I love you,” he says, in a voice like hot tea on a cold morning. He nibbles her unadorned earlobe.

Scully, who hasn’t wanted sex in over a month (or has it been two?), who has barely wanted to be touched, feels her body stirring. She turns her head, her earlobe chilled, and catches his lips with her own. She tugs at his longish hair, wanting to absorb him and his infinite love and his careworn soul. She nips his tongue.

His response against her thigh is instant and, bless him, he apologizes like a teenager on prom night. All this time and he’s still such a gentleman it might break her heart.

She pulls back, takes his face in her hands. How she loves his face, his autumn woods eyes and his mouth like a Botticelli angel. “Look at me,” she says.

He does, worry in his gaze. “Scully, it’s fine, I know y-“

“Shut up,” she says, with aching fondness. “Please shut up.” She thumbs his bottom lip.

He furrows his brow, uncertain.

Scully lets her legs float up off the bottom of the tub, twists so that she’s straddling his lap, her arms about his neck. “It’s my birthday. You have to do what I say.”

He swallows, still watching her. “As you wish.”

Scully tips her hips forward and he’s inside her, hot and hard and familiar.

Mulder’s eyes close and he murmurs some wordless hindbrain prayer.

There’s almost no leverage, but he’s holding her hips as she rotates them, groaning when she tightens her pelvic floor. She’s wrapped in warmth from the inside out, liquid heat, her breasts crushed to his chest. Water splashes to the floor.

Mulder slides his hands up so that his thumbs are at her waist, his fingers spanning her back. She sighs and leans into the brace of him, her chin tipped up.

He takes her left nipple into his mouth and her shoulders roll back, hands trailing in the water. She exhales hard through her nose. A memory comes to her, Mulder in the tub in Rhode Island, and she recalls even then the fierceness of the unnameable thing she felt for him. Love is such an inadequate word for this.

He’s slowly taken over their rhythm now, pulling her down harder, and she falls away into the dopamine surge. Panting now, belly dipping and rising. Tingling at her sacral spine.

Scully groans in disappointment when he turns his head from her breast. Her areola contracts in the cold, and Mulder runs a hand from her throat to the hot junction of their bodies. She is not long disappointed.

She sees then that he’s looking at the mirror wall, watching, and she’s afraid to do the same but cannot help her curiosity.

Her arched body is a full sail, held up by the mast of Mulder’s arm, rising and falling on an unquiet sea. Even with the glass veined and fogged she sees the slackness of desire in her mouth, her dilated eyes.

In the mirror, Mulder’s eyes are on hers, the face of a mystic in ecstasy. In the mirror she watches his jaw clench and his head roll back. Watches him grind his hips up into hers. He calls out to her god.

She’s dazed, visually overloaded. Scully leans forward to his neck again, biting at it as his fingers continue their steady work between her thighs. The hand that was on her back is on her ass now, and gripping hard.

“You liked watching,” he says at her temple and it isn’t a question, just an observation, but somehow the intimacy of him knowing it trips her over the edge. She’s lightning-struck after so long, her nerves overfiring, and she shudders back into his arms, gulping air.

He traces endless figure eights on her back, or maybe they’re infinity signs. He tells her about a raccoon he saw in the bakery parking lot, eating an entire raisin bread by itself. “It hissed at me when I got out of the car, Scully, and I don’t even like raisins.”

“You’re so brave,” she says. “Just to get my cake.”

“I’d fight a raccoon for you any day.”

When the water gets cold they emerge, ectoplasmic wafts of bubbles trailing behind them to the bed. They can shower later.

Scully, chilly now, wraps herself in the bedspread. She sits cross-legged on the bed like a wise old oracle. “Where’s my cake, please?”

Mulder opens the mini fridge and removes a perfect miniature birthday cake, sprinkles and fudge frosting and a vivid maraschino cherry. She might not save him a piece after all.

He brings her the cake and two plastic forks. A small white box.

“Mulder!” she exclaims. “I thought this was my present, I hope you didn’t really get me anything else.”

He sits next to her on the bed and rubs her back through the heavy comforter. Clears his throat. “It’s, um, it’s not from me, actually. I didn’t just run into a raccoon at the bakery.”

She looks at him in utter bewilderment. “What are you talking about?”

“Open it.”

A strange fear creeps over her as she fumbles with the tape holding the lid on the box. Her fingers are clumsy, numb, but she gets it off at last. Inside is a cheap cell phone, a burner. There’s a Post-It stuck to the front.

“Many happy returns of the day, Scully.

- Walter Skinner”

[lepus-arcticus]

43.

He studies the artefact of her voice on his machine, cataloguing each inflection, mentally charting each subtle flux of her pitch. He replays her empty missive over and over, hunting for distress signals, visualizing the choreography of her lips and teeth and tongue as they conspire to lie to him. Her apartment is empty, her cell phone turned off. 

He can’t help but conjure impressions of her in distress; the barrel of a gun shoved into her warm, yielding temple, her slim, vein-mapped wrists rubbed raw, bleeding into knotted jute. He pores over emails signed with her name, finding no trace of her mellow cadence. 

He sweats and he paces, his skin feels too tight. It’s happening all over again. It’s Duane Barry howling at the peak of Skyland Mountain, the lung-scraping cold of Antarctica ice.  

-

The Scully he knows is not prone to fantasy. She is not easily manipulated. She does not play games, even when fate seems bent on maneuvering her like a queen on a chessboard. The Scully he knows is scrappy and canny and proud, and that’s what makes it all the worse. 

All she has to show for her foolishness is a clutch of vacant wood-paneled offices and a blank CD. Disgust and devastation and relief gnash fiercely at each other within his chest. He can barely stand to look at her. 

- 

“I took an oath,” she pleads, pacing the shadowy perimeter of his apartment, the fray of her opium-poppy hair tangling with lamplight. Her mouth is set in a femme fatale snarl, her voice is low and thick. Mulder leans against the door frame, avoiding her eyes, knowing that the righteous blaze he’ll encounter there will burn him all the way down. 

“It was my responsibility as a physician,” she continues. “If there was even the slightest possibility—”

Her hand comes to her forehead, like she’s had a revelation. “You know what? Fuck you, Mulder. I don’t need to explain myself.”

She turns on her heel and stalks to the door, yanking it open, sloshing light into the room. 

A full-body swell of possessive wrath propels Mulder forward, and he lunges for her, clamps a hand around her wrist. He wrenches her back to him and slams the door closed, backing her up against it, pinning her captured hand to the wood beside her head. His pulse drones in his ears. He still can’t meet her eyes, but the defiant set of her jaw makes him ache to claim her, makes him so angry that for a moment, he thinks he might break down and cry, the way little boys rage in the face of playground injustice. 

He crowds himself into her space, determined to bully her into submission, ducking his head to feel her quickening breath mingle with his. The tendons of her wrist flex under his palm. Her small, impertinent breasts rise and fall against his chest. “Mul—”

“Shut up.”

Kissing her isn’t fair, he knows, so he does it harder and better than ever before, gripping her jaw with his free hand, invading her mouth with arrogant, calculating lust. 

See why you need me, Scully? He transmits the thought to her, rutting his growing erection against her belly while he kisses her senseless, secure in the knowledge that she likes him like this, that it gets her hot when he’s cruel and hard and selfish. 

At least he has this. At least he knows that even at their worst, their most discordant, her body will listen to his, absorbing everything he hurls at it. 

Scully knows it too, and she rips herself out of his grip with a frustrated gasp. She manages two frantic paces before he catches her from behind, an arm locked across her ribs, the other hand fumbling with the button at her fly. 

“You gonna do to me what you did after Ed?” She pants, clawing at his forearm. 

He nips her ear in retaliation. “Depends. You gonna ask me to stop this time?” 

She struggles against him, but he can tell it’s not her best effort. He manages the button, gets her zipper down—

“He drugged me,” she says. 

The oxygen leaves the room.

“The smoking man. He drugged me, undressed me while I was unconscious. Took my bra off. My panties. Probably did it nice and slow.” 

Mulder loosens his hold, releasing her slowly, choking on a flood of horror and bile. 

Scully turns to face him, and he finally musters the courage to meet her eyes, finding something like victory in their dark, acidic blue. “He made me wear this… this tight, tiny black dress. He stared at my tits with his mouth watering. He stank, Mulder. I had to breathe through my mouth.” 

“Scully. Scully, what are you telling me?” 

She stares him down, a hook at the corner of her mouth. “I would have done anything, you know. If he’d asked it of me.” “But... he didn’t,” Mulder says carefully, searching her face for confirmation. “And you… you wouldn’t have.”

“I would have,” she hisses back at him. “One night for the cure to all human disease? One night? How would it be any worse, any different, than what he’s done to my body already? He gave me cancer! Or did you forget? He controls this goddamned chip in my neck! He--he made children from me, Mulder, he stole my ova and used them to breed sick, doomed babies, my babies, babies I’ll never hold, never know, never get to say goodbye to. Seriously, what do you think the chances are that Emily was the only one? How many more do you think are out there?” 

“Scully, stop it.” 

“Might as well make the most of it, right? I would have let him use me in any way he wanted if it meant that I could save just one person—” 

“—But it was a lie, Scully, a lie like all of his other lies! You would have thrown away your—”

“—It’s just a body, for Christ’s sake,” she snarls, and as if to demonstrate, she starts to strip, tearing impatiently at herself. “It’s meat and bone and—and, and tendon, and nerve. That’s it. That’s all it is. Look at it,” she says, throwing her shirt to the floor, tossing her arms up. “It’s nothing!” Her belly is muscular, pale, bullet-scarred. Her hip bones rise from her waistband like a challenge. 

It’s not nothing. It’s his altar. It’s his mania, his confessional, his asylum. 

His. 

“He did this to get to me.” He knows it’s the wrong thing to say before it leaves his mouth, knows it sounds pathetic, knows he’s really pissed her off, even before the colour rises in her cheeks and her lips spring open to reveal her sharp little teeth.

“I’m not an extension of you, Mulder. You don’t own me.” 

All the worst parts of him conspire to decide that it’s a challenge. 

He crosses the fissure of energy and space that separates them, once again laying claim to her furious lips, swallowing her cry of objection. The neglected dining room table is only a few feet behind her, and he backs her up until there’s a clatter of resistance. He reaches blindly, shoving mail, newspapers, a stack of files to the floor, where they scatter like dead leaves in an autumn storm. 

He knows she can’t hold out forever, and he’s right—and when he feels her soften and submit, when she goes slack and puts her arms around him and moans into his mouth, a dark whim like a restless spirit possesses him, body and soul. 

He breaks his kiss and jerks her around, halving her over the table. Unclips her bra, pulls it from beneath her to fling across the room, scrapes his nails down her back. If the splintery, weathered thrift store wood is chafing her cheek, abrading her sensitive nipples, all the better. 

One hand between her shoulder blades keeps her pinned, and he uses the other to rip her trousers and panties over her firm, sweet ass. He’s so hard now that he can feel every ridge and vein of his cock straining against his jeans, pulsing angrily, demanding attention. He wants to punish her, wants to make her beg. He wants to make her come so hard that she’ll never think of leaving him again. 

His hand flies through the air. The resounding crack as it meets her ass is so, so good, just as good as her anguished yelp, her following whimper. The victimized patch of her skin pinks up, and he strokes it tenderly, making soothing sounds in the back of his throat. 

Scully stretches her arms forward to grip the edge of the table. He wishes he was wearing a tie, so that he could rip it off and bind her wrists with it, spread her out and tie her to the table leg and leave her trembling and begging and cursing him out while he puts his feet up beside her face and finishes off a beer. He could do it with his belt, he supposes, but he’s a selfish, selfish man, and more than anything, he wants to fuck her.

He smacks her harder. 

While she’s vocalizing her approval, he dips his fingers lower to slick through her hot, slippery pussy. He groans, then brings his hand up and wipes his fingers on her cheek, catching the corner of her mouth. “Wet,” he accuses her hoarsely. 

Her eyelashes flicker, and she nods her confession. 

She stays still while he frees himself from his jeans, his socks, his shirt. His cock bobs against her ass and his balls flex tight up to his shaft, but he wants to see her face, wants to make her look at him while he fucks himself back into her. 

He hauls her off the table by her hips and turns her around. She’s ragdoll compliant, letting him strip her pants all the way off and lift her back up so that she’s sitting on the edge, facing him, her thighs spread wide and her plump, pretty, glistening cunt on display. 

Simmering with greed, he sidles up close, his cock brushing the seam of her labia. She wraps her legs around him and crosses her ankles at his back, trying to pull him closer, but he doesn’t move an inch, his swollen, pulsing head just barely touching her, just barely grazing the peak of her clitoris. She’s wet and she’s hot and every nerve in his body is screaming at him to fuck, fuck, fuck, but he’s got a point to make, and goddamnit, he’s going to get it through to her. 

He gathers a fistful of her hair and forces her head back, leaning over her, planting his other hand on the table behind her for balance. He locks her into his eyes.

“You’ll never go with him again,” he commands. “Never.” He pushes forward and slides the underside of his dick through her folds, grinding hard against her clit, because if he can just make her need him enough, surely he’ll never have to feel the soul-sickening panic of her absence again. 

“I’ll do whatever I want,” she retorts, articulating every word, her chin jutting proudly, her pupils a black and dangerous chasm. 

He tightens his fist in her hair and stabs himself into her. 

The sound that rips up from her chest is short and shrill, and god, even her pussy feels defiant, strong and grippy and tight as hell. He fucks her in brutal, relentless strokes, punishing her, pleading with her. His eyes burn with unshed tears of humiliating rage as he reclaims her body, this perfect and inviolable body that she chooses again and again to share with him. 

It’s not long before he forces an orgasm from her, steals it from her, biting her neck while she writhes and cries out for her god, to witness it, maybe, or to save her sinner’s soul. And while she’s calling on heaven, he falls harder than Lucifer, jerking and spilling inside of her, pumping her so full that at least for a short while, she can’t possibly claim to be only herself. 

And then it’s done.

The world rights itself. The hush of traffic returns, the tick of his antique mantle clock. 

She wraps her arms around him in silent forgiveness, and then he really does start to cry, hard and hopelessly, because how could he ever truly hope to keep her safe?

-

Incrementum

[sigritandtheelves]

(III) Three Iterations of a Birth (and Death)

Part Three: Fantasy

PG-13 | 2.2k wds | s8 AU (diverges after “Alone”)

Summary: This time he gets it right.

A/N: It’s finally done! Part One, Tragedy, is here but you don’t need to read it if you hate pain (character death warning) and Part Two is here, which is angsty but ends well. This one is happy, but I hope not tooth-achingly sweet. Just a better version of things, and fulfilling this (very old) prompt:

I hope you like it, anon!

_+_

“Mulder, you should know something.”

She sat on his couch with hands on her round belly, wore a tank dress and complained of the heat. Her feet, white-sneakered, rested on his coffee table. He handed her a glass of water and sat beside her.

“What’s that?” He turned to her, elbow propped on the back of the couch and watched her sip. She’d been smiling for much of today, tucked beside him and flirting gently at Layla Harrison’s bedside, demanding they stop for Mexican food on their ride back from the hospital. He sensed, though, a seriousness in her tone now. A small fold appeared between her brows.

“Not long before we found you, I had a procedure done by doctors that I thought I couldn’t trust.” She glanced at him briefly. “An amniocentesis.” Her fingers twitched against the side of her sweating glass, and she leaned forward to set it on the table. When she struggled to reach, Mulder took it from her and placed it on a coaster. “Thank you,” she said.

He nodded, but his heart was pounding, his face stilled and pinched in that look of panic. “An amniocentesis?”

“Yeah,” she said, not meeting his eyes. “I wanted to run a PCR on the baby.”

So it was time, then. He’d waited for this conversation, felt it hovering like a thundercloud around them for weeks while they tiptoed around every mention of her pregnancy. Mulder swallowed hard. “And did you?”

She hesitated, eyes fixed on her knees. “I didn’t run it myself.” He watched her fingers fidget at the apex of her belly.

“But someone did.”

“Yeah.”

Mulder felt like yelling, like plugging his ears or running into another room. He didn’t think he wanted to know this, but he was also desperate for the information. “And?”

Scully took a deep breath. “Entirely human,” she said, then lower so he almost couldn’t hear, “and yours.”

Mulder chewed at his bottom lip and stared at her hands, still grazing the taut fabric over her belly. His child. He thought of her holding that baby in Oregon, of tiny Matthew’s fuzz-covered head in San Diego. His mind touched on the thought of an infant in his own arms, then shied away. He’d already watched one child of hers sicken and die; neither of them could bear that again.

But she’d also said entirely human.

“The results were clear?”

“99.9%,” she said. “But like I said, I didn’t run it myself, and I was so scared.” Her eyes lifted to meet his now, and they were round, wet. “I wanted to believe it, but how could I be sure? How could I trust anyone, Mulder?”

He saw her small and afraid, facing months of uncertainty. He saw these same wide and tearful eyes wanting to believe the results of a PCR test. He saw how much she needed him to believe with her: that this was only a normal child and theirs alone. He reached out a hand to take hers and she squeezed it hard.

“Why would they lie about that?” He whispered. He ran a thumb over her tense knuckles while a tear slipped away from the corner of her eye to trail down the side of her face.

She shook her head. “What if they want me complacent? What if they’re in the hospital when it’s time… when he’s born?”

He again. Their son.

Scully was staring at the ceiling now, willing her tears back into her eyes, trying to steel herself against these possibilities, as she must have done for months. Mulder sensed there was more she wasn’t telling him, so he lifted her fingers to kiss them. “What changed? You said you thought you couldn’t trust it, but you believe the test now?”

She held her breath for a moment’s hesitation before she whispered, “Yes.”

“Why?”

She looked at him. “I did another one. I mean I… I worked with my doctor and I ran the tests myself.”

“Scully.” Not quite chastising, but there was worry in his voice: a risky procedure, now run twice in an already complicated pregnancy. When had she done this?

“The results were the same.” There was something desperate in her eyes now. “He’s yours, Mulder.” Quickly she amended, “If you want him to be.”

—

It wasn’t because of what she’d told him, he thought, but because they’d finally talked about it at all. He kissed her on his couch and she clung to him, fierce and needy, arms tight around his back and face buried in his chest.

He pressed a palm to her belly between them and said, “Stay.”

She nodded, hot breath on his collarbone.

The earth and flower smell of her scalp under his nose made him think of their last night in Bellefleur: regret and sadness, but also the depth of love he’d felt while wrapped around her then. This, right now, was the so much more. Her body on his mattress, her cheek on his shoulder, marked the first time he thought to himself that maybe he was healing, that they both were.

Before she fell asleep she ran a finger down the center scar of his chest and whispered, “You said stay,” then kissed the thickened skin of it. “But Mulder you need to stay.” Her eyes were two small pricks of light in the darkened room that spoke to him of a deep uncertainty, of real fear.

He gathered her whole self to him in both arms, knee hooked over her hip, and said, “I know.” He held his lips to the crown of her head and whispered, “Scully I’m not going anywhere.”

—

“You’re really sure?” She asked him, face in that half-crumpled furrow of disbelief. She wore maternity jeans and what must have been one of his own pilfered button-downs.

“Yes!” He said. “Now watch out!”

She stepped aside as he carried a cardboard box—seven books and roughly fifteen t-shirts (he wasn’t good at packing)—through her doorway.

It made sense. She had that second bedroom already.

—

A different night and very late, after two, he sensed her tension: a strained quickness to her breathing beside him. She was facing away, trying to hide it. Mulder curled his palm over her hip and asked low, “What is it?”

She stiffened. “I’m okay,” she said, but he knew her. He tapped two knuckles on her hip bone.

“Scully.”

A long sigh: a concession, an opening up because they were doing this right, now. “I’m worried.”

He nodded, careful. “About me?”

She shook her head and was quiet for a moment. Then, “I spent my whole life thinking medicine was good, that its whole purpose was to make lives better, safer, longer…” She shifted so her back pressed against his chest and he slipped his left arm fully around her. “But after everything we’ve seen, everything that’s happened to me… I just don’t know that I can trust doctors anymore.”

Mulder tucked his nose in that place between her neck and shoulder. They had taken her faith even in this, shucked her convictions in the good of medicine. The meddling hands of whatever forces they were up against reached down and out into every institution she’d once trusted. “Even your new doctor?”

She shrugged.

He let his hand slip down, covering as much of her round abdomen as he could. He loved touching her this way now, feeling the little knees and feet press outward, the subtle hiccups that came in the evenings. “What can we do?”

She covered his hand with her own and guided it to a place where some small limb pushed toward the outside world. He drew a small circle around it with his index finger and kissed her ear.

“What if we went away? Maybe…” She swallowed. “Maybe some little town in West Virginia or Ohio with a birth center? We could use different names and maybe my mom could come with us and we could just… disappear for a little bit? Until he’s born.”

“You’ve been thinking about this.”

“Since the first amnio. Since I realized Parenti was bad.” Her voice wavered—there were tears in it now. “I thought I’d have to do it alone.”

Mulder shook his head, heart breaking for her—that this was her secret, her worst fear. “You won’t be alone, Scully, I promise. We can do that. We can go. Let’s do that.”

—

In the mountains of West Virginia, a place called Willowdale that sounded beautiful and safe, they were Kate and Richard Mulvey for two and a half weeks. They made quiet preparations in a rented vacation cottage, paid for in cash to a widow named Ruth. Maggie took no pseudonym, put her name on nothing, and stayed with them in the second small bedroom. She was a steadying maternal presence bearing folded blankets and cloth diapers, years of accumulated knowledge, and endless gratitude for being asked to come.

Scully had been having little contractions off and on for days until, on a Sunday afternoon in late May, they gripped her hard, forcing her to bend over the kitchen table and bite her lips together. “Mulder,” she whimpered, voice high, and he was beside her in a second.

“Okay,” he said. “We’re ready. We’re ready,” he told them both, willing it to be true.

The birth center was small and quiet, more like a house, and it kept its medical secrets hidden: beeping machines inside cabinets, monitors and needles and IV bags tucked away in drawers and closets, just in case.

Their baby was born in what looked like a farmhouse bedroom: soft light and calm music, yellow flowers on the curtains. Maggie took photos and offered her daughter sips of water, encouraging smiles. Mulder, who had killed with his own hands, who had chased monsters through dark streets with a gun, felt a different kind of wild adrenaline now, watching his partner rock her hips to some rhythm he couldn’t know. It was the anxiety of powerlessness: her body did this. It was she who had to make it happen. He could only wait and hold her hand.

There was a tub. Of course Scully wanted a tub. She sank into the warm water and groaned a sound older than time. When the intensity passed she said, “It feels good. The water feels good,” and then after that she couldn’t speak.

Blood in the water worried him, but the midwife assured him it was fine. “Your baby’s coming,” she said. In a mirror angled between Scully’s knees, he saw the baby’s head emerge.

Scully held him first, lifted him herself from her own body through the water and into her arms, sobbing with relief while he turned from purple to pink and the midwife helped her cover him in a blanket. When the umbilical cord went soft and white, Mulder, still dazed, still not quite believing, separated mother and child at last.

“That’s good,” the midwife said. “Now you can hold him.”

The infant, wrapped and red, was pressed into his arms so Dana could stand, pass the placenta, dry off. Mulder looked down at the impossible face of his son and realized that something, for once, had gone terribly right. They had done this. In spite of everything, he found himself part of a family.

“Let me see.” He heard Maggie’s voice and she was smiling. She took their picture, he with the baby—a nervous father’s first moments—and came to touch her grandchild. “He’s perfect.”

“Yeah,” Mulder croaked.

Scully appeared beside him in the terrycloth robe she’d brought from home, eyes wild with euphoric relief, smiling like he hadn’t seen in far too long. She put one hand on the baby’s head, the other on his shoulder. “You’re both here,” she sniffled.

Mulder, catching her euphoria, bent and kissed her hard and open-mouthed, right in front of her mother.

—

Back in their apartment (theirs now), the Gunmen brought gifts and marveled at the boy child who was ordinary, yet no less miraculous. Mulder showed him off, chest puffed out in fatherly pride. William, they called him, who weighed nearly ten pounds already and had no hair to speak of.

“You are one lucky sonofabitch,” Frohike told him, wiggling his fingers in front of the child’s eyes.

Luck was part of it, Mulder knew. Things could have been so different, both better and worse. There was a universe of infinite variations in path, in outcome, in seemingly fated misstep. What if there was only one choice? Scully had asked him once, and he’d contemplated all the possible errors that might have held them apart. He wanted to believe it were fate or luck, but he knew there was also choice. He would need to choose this path, not just now, but every day. It seemed so clear, so easy.

Mulder kissed the invisible fuzz on William’s head and nodded. “More than lucky,” he said.

When the boys left, he bounced his son into the kitchen where Scully was pouring iced tea into two tall glasses. She smiled at them, bright as sunshine.

“I’ll make you a deal,” he said to her. “You give this guy some lunch, and I’ll make some for you, hmm?”

Her smile widened and she reached her arms out for the baby, who fussed when he sensed an approaching meal. “Sounds good,” she told him, tugging already at the neckline of her shirt. “Get in there and make me a sandwich.”

Mulder laughed. He felt suddenly whole and warm, taken by a need to touch her. Before they were out of reach, he threw one arm around Scully’s shoulders and bent to kiss her neck: a noisy smack just below her ear. “Yes ma’am,” he murmured. He let her go and watched them settle on the couch.

— end —

[starbuck09256]

Furball

Season 3 

What if Mulder ended up not hating Queequeg Tagging @today-in-fic 

He won’t admit it at least not in front of her, but as the night rolls on he finds himself scratching behind the ears of her annoying little furball. He never had a dog as a kid. Something he always wanted, a big black lab to chase around the yard, or maybe a collie who could follow him on a bike. Now with cases and hospital stays keeping him from even having anything edible in his fridge he finds that the time escapes the dreams he had as a boy. Sure he wanted a yard with a dog and a cool job. Most days his job is pretty cool, and if the day should be full of paperwork and stale coffee it does have a cool redhead that laughs at his jokes and always smells nice. Queequeg smells nice too, as he rolls on his back so Mulder can rub his belly while Scully finishes typing up her last few sentences of her report. His original disdain for the little fluff ball was mostly about his eating habits, people not being the most ideal food group. Now though the dog is fed regular old dog food and a few treats. Queequeg has also stopped barking at him when he comes over, Mulder thinks it might just be because he smuggled him in some real ham but likes to think the dog is warming up to him. Scully finally finishes the report and sits next to Mulder on her small blue striped couch. Queequeg is almost taking up an entire cushion laying sideways on his back, paws in the air snoring. Mulder rubs his belly back and forth, a file sits perched on his lap as Scully squeezes in on the other side. She would rather sit practically on top of Mulder than move her precious pup, and a large part of him is happy to oblige. He lets his arm wrap around the back of the couch to give her a little more room. She takes the extra space and cuddles closer to him. Tapping on a picture as her brows knit in confusion. He smiles softly looking at the grainy photo that seems to capture a man dancing in thin air. 

“He snores pretty loud” She mutters as a yawn escapes her lips. 

“Looks like he has the right idea.” Mulder mutters yawning as well. 

The flight being delayed and the terrible weather had them hunkered down to finish up the reports at her house before two blissful days off. He thinks about driving up the vineyard tomorrow, his apartment is being fumigated and part of him wants to check out some mysterious lights up in the sky. Scully snuggles in a little closer her warm breath on top of his t-shirt as she leans on his shoulder. 

“Hey sleepyhead,” he says, letting his arms wrap around her to stroke her arm up and down. 

She mumbles a bit and he doesn’t even bother to decipher it. He looks at her as his hand rubs his eyes, her soft smile, the dog's loud snores, the rain and ice beating on her windows that lulls his head to rest against hers. The smell of her shampoo and the warmth of her tiny dog on the other side of him cause him to smile as sleep captures them both. 

He wakes hours later with a bad crimp in his shoulder, a warm Scully wrapped in his arms, her dog asleep in the small space left on his chest. He can’t help but grin the pain being worth it. He rubs queequeg's fur and the dog seems to sense that a bed would be a better choice and hops down, wagging his tail and dancing around to go to the soft big bed in the other room. Mulder shifts and picks Scully up. She is tiny and fierce but waking her is almost impossible. He would rather deal with a well rested Scully then one that he jolted awake in the middle of the night. Queequeg happily leads the way as Mulder carries his prize through the hallway. He turns off a light or two. Pulls back the covers and slides Scully in as queequeg hops to the other side. He moves the covers up to protect her from the chill but she grabs his arm, he turns to her, a shy smile hoping that she will forgive him moving her for her own good. 

“Didn’t you say your apartment was ..” she gestures into the air as another yawn takes over. He nods, whispers as he leans down and gives her a soft kiss on the cheek. 

“It’s fine, I can check into the Marriot.” He feels her tug on him as her head moves back and forth on the pillow. 

“No Mulder the weather and you are already tired just come to bed there is plenty of room.”

 She moves back almost squishing the furball as he moves from his precious pillow. Queequeg's small eyes narrowed at him, and he is now sure if it wasn’t for the ham and hour long belly rub this dog would be barking his head off until Mulder was chased from her apartment. But Mulder did bring him ham and belly rubs and sneaks him better treats than the redheaded lady. So he moves over easily let’s the big man slide next to his human friend. In the morning when Mulder and Scully are snuggled together sharing one small pillow he will still have half the bed, which is secretly what both his human friends wanted anyway. 

Mulder ends up spending the entire next day with Scully and queequeg walking through some local parks and gardens. When Scully takes his hand and links their fingers together he forgets about the lights he wanted to check out. As the day runs down the twinkling lights come on they are still walking arm and arm and when he finally gets enough courage to kiss her, queequeg doesn’t make a peep. 

The next morning as he brews them coffee and makes her pancakes, he slips the dog some bacon. Scully swats at Mulder but the dog just wags his tail happily. Mulders arm snakes around her, pulling her to his lips in a certainly not chaste kiss. She tastes like syrup and her hands find their way under his shirt. He can’t help but lift her on the counter as he tosses another piece of bacon to the dog before having his fingers cup her face and deepening their kisses. 

He never makes it to Massachusetts; he spends the whole weekend walking a dog and being an everyday person. It’s not nearly as boring as he thought it would be. When he goes home late Sunday night he has to kiss her at least 3 more times before she is forced to shut the door in his face. 

On Monday when she comes in with a smile and her face already blushing he can’t help but grin and bite his lip to keep it cool. They work just like before only now she touches him more, her fingers lingering on his skin. On Friday night when he brings a nice bottle of red and a pack of dog treats, queequeg jumps up on him the second he is barely through the door. He barks happily and Mulder leans down to get a face full of slobbery kisses. 

Scully comes in drying her hands on a dish towel looking bemused. “More fumencation?” her eyebrow raised. “Well, I umm just wanted to bring over a nice bottle of wine as a thank you for you know putting up with me last weekend.” He looks down, they kept things mostly professional this week. It’s like a silent agreement that this was private and not to be known at the Bureau. She reaches out for the wine, as he opens up the dog treats for queequeg. Giving him a big one and rubbing his little head. She looks over the bottle and looks at him, chuckles as he sits on the couch with an eager queequeg already in his lap rolling onto his back for a belly rub. 

“You won’t be able to move for the rest of the night you know?” she says from the kitchen, grabbing some wine glasses. He looks up at her rubbing queequeg's belly in circles. 

“I’m kind of ok with that, if you are.” His eyes find hers asking the question, can I stay? Or was it all just a one time thing. 

She smiles that big adorable scully smile hands him his glass, he grabs her wrist to tug her down beside him. She comes with a plop and as he is kissing her before he even tastes the wine.

[frangipanidownunder]

A prompt: AU where Mulder isn't abducted but Diana returns (not dead) with an enticing new investigation during the Season 8 timeline

1

The light is so strong, magnetic, that he is physically pulled towards it. There are familiar faces smiling at him, it feels good to see them. They look happy, they look like they want him to be happy, all part of the same club. It would be only natural to step inside the circle. The light has a warmth to it, casting all doubts aside, bar one. Scully. Her hold over his heart is stronger than the compelling beam glowing before him. Skinner’s voice calling his name snaps his attention away for a second and by the time he turns around again, the light, the people, the urge has gone.

2

Scully’s news is a thunderbolt. That the impossible truth of their quest is revealed as a collection of growing cells in her uterus. It is both absurd and entirely right. The tears he cries with her are hard to quantify. Relief, happiness, fear, confusion. And profound love. They guard their secret like a precious pearl, hiding it away, only prising the clam shell open when they’re nestled together. His love for her, for this miracle is dramatic, overwhelming.

“I feel the same way,” she whispers to him, burrowed as she is in his embrace. They are tightly wound around each other. To hear her confession is utterly astonishing.

So, when Diana makes an appearance at the basement, it’s like the door to their secret world is blown off, leaving them exposed.

3

She slinks into the room with a half-apology and the promise of a new case. From his periphery, he sees Scully’s eyes narrowing, her arms pressing tighter across her chest. There is more than just her job to protect now. He listens to Diana, tries to recall the intelligent, proud, fierce woman she was all those years ago. She was a trailblazer in many ways. A woman in a man’s world, unapologetic, unafraid to stand out. Scully came a few years later and illuminated his life in a different way.

In the light of recent events, his view of Diana has focused to pinpoints of suspicion and intrigue. Why was she still here? To make amends? Her redemption was hardly impressive enough to grant an open audience with him. Yet there is something about her, the way she is standing before them, the way her eyes are almost pleading. Perhaps it speaks more to the absolute certainty of his place by Scully’s side, that he nods to the seat and she sits.

“There’s a case I’d like your input on,” she says, flicking her gaze to Scully every so often during her brief. Diana tells them about an organisation, Zeus Genetics, that, she claims, is involved with experiments on foetuses to create alien-human hybrids. Blood pulses in his ears. His automatic response to believe is subdued these days. Diana hasn’t quite picked up on the change. Scully gets up and leaves the office.

“Is everything okay between you two?” The way Diana says ‘you two’ makes his skin stipple. Is it that obvious?

He doesn’t answer her. “How do you think we can help you?”

“I’d like you to talk to someone. Someone I’m sure will convince more than I can.” She hooks her jacket over her shoulder, and adds a hopeful, “Fox.”

4

Someone turns out to be Duffy Haskell. Haskell claims his wife was murdered after giving birth to an alien baby. He has a grainy ultrasound and a wildly desperate look as his proof.

“Kath was a multiple abductee,” Diana says and looks at Scully a beat too long. Mulder watches Scully’s hands slide over her abdomen. “There are certain similarities to…events that you have first-hand knowledge of and I thought it pertinent to get your perspective.”

Scully looks at Duffy. “I’m sorry for your loss, Mr Haskell. But I’m not sure what more we can offer that Agent Fowley hasn’t already gone through with you.” The look that Scully shoots at Diana is scorching. “Mulder?” Scully nods for them to leave.

He’s inclined to go but there’s something catching in his throat and he moves his arm out, holding onto Scully’s jacket sleeve. “Wait,” he says. “Mr Haskell, perhaps you’d be so kind as to leave the ultrasound and other information with us for a while. So that we can go over it. I’m sure you’ve provided Agent Fowley with your contact details.”

Haskell nods, leaves.

“There’s another group of people I’d like you to meet,” Diana says. “I’ll meet you in the car park.”

“Are you okay with this, Scully,” Mulder asks after Diana walks away. “Because if you’re not, just say the word.”

“I’m fine. What does she want, Mulder? I don’t understand her motivation. And I still don’t…”

“I know,” he says. “Neither do I.”

 5

At a table sits a number of people. A woman with red hair and kind eyes introduces herself as Lizzie Gill. A scientist, Lizzie explains she’s been working on human-alien cloning.

“What do you mean?” Scully asks. “How can that be?”

“Our efforts were funded by the Government. Most were unsuccessful, but recently, there have been live births.”

Scully rubs the bridge of her nose and blows out an exasperated sigh.

“Why are we here?” Mulder asks Diana.

Diana stands, pulls out a file from a drawer. Holds the Manila folder up. “This is a contact list of all the women who have been, and who will be, used as hosts for the experiment. They are all patients of the same pair of doctors. Lev and Parenti.”

There’s a sharp silence in the room. Lizzie Gill spreads her fingers flat on the desk. Scully presses a finger under her nose.

“I know about the IVF,” Diana says and Scully scrapes her chair back across the floor. The door slams behind her.

Mulder inhales, grasping for a reason not to follow her. “What the fuck is going on, Diana?” His fist smashes the desk and the file flips up, scattering papers across the surface and floor.

Lizzie swallows, bends to collect them. “Your partner’s name is on this list.”

“Fox…”

He swings to face Diana. “What have you done?” He begins to pace, tugging at the buttons on his cuffs, rolling the sleeves up.

“Fox,” she starts again, casting her eyes over to Lizzie, then finally back to Mulder, when he stops by the door. “Fox, please. It’s more about what I’ve been trying to undo.”

Lizzie nods kindly at him. “Your partner might do well to hear this.”

He can’t put Scully through any more trauma. Her emotional wellbeing is paramount. He’ll filter what he needs to. He’s about to sit in a chair when the door opens.

Chin up, eyes blazing, Scully speaks. “Tell me everything.”

A flash of guilty relief crosses Diana’s face. Her account of CSM’s interference with donations supplied from innocent husbands; of cloning with alien DNA from the Roswell crash; of speculation about an alien invasion are sobering, repulsive.

 Later, curled together in her bed, she whispers, “those other women, Mulder. The ones whose IVF treatments worked, what will happen to them?”

His fingers traces around her navel, flattens against the soft skin of her belly. He wants to tell her they’re not important, that he doesn’t care. But he can’t. He brushes a kiss against her cheek, tasting the briny track of her tears. “I don’t know.” She wriggles closer to him so that her head is under his chin, body half across his. “But I do know our baby will be safe.”

“Because Agent Fowley told us about Parenti?” She sniffs and lets out a bitter chuckle.

But it’s not that. It’s something resonant in his bones. A humming of certainty. A knowledge borne of some instinctual place.

Diana and Lizzie did not know about this pregnancy, its natural origins. “If you continue the IVF, you must find a new doctor. We can help,” Diana had said and there was something about the solemn tone in her voice that made him feel that she could be trusted.

“Nothing will happen to our baby, Scully. I’ll make sure of that.” He kisses her hair. “He’s gonna be fine.”

“He?” A tiny murmur of surprise. “How do you know that?”

“I just know.”

“He’s going to be special,” she says after a moment.

“He already is.”

[ghostbustermelanieking]

snippets from an msr historical au

cleaning out my 2019 fic closet lol. this is excerpts of a historical au i did, based on a short au prompt i wrote in june here. it takes place in 1850s new york where scully and emily are irish immigrants who befriend mulder when he offers to tutor emily. i wrote these snippets months ago and it'll probably go unfinished, but i liked it too much to not share. so here is my scattered sense of world building. 

---

Melissa had been the one to suggest the name. She had been there in the birthing room, the only one left after her mother had traveled to America with Bill and her father was gone and Charlie was in England. Daniel had been elsewhere, of course, it wasn't proper for husbands to be in the birthing room, and he upheld tradition stronger than she did, so it was Melissa and her friend the midwife, Melissa holding her hand, Melissa handing her the squalling babe. She had passed out from the pain and felt a rush of relief when she woke up again; she had feared she wouldn't wake up again after it was all over. She knew many women who had never met their children. Melissa had brought the baby back, the tiny child with their mother's eyes and a patch of bright hair, and Dana had filled with relief. If she had no one else in this marriage, which had long grown sour, she would have her daughter. 

Melissa had suggested Emily because she loved Wuthering Heights, recently republished under the true name of its author. "It's a beautiful name, Dana, and perhaps, if she's lucky, she'll receive even an ounce of the creativity that comes with it," she had said, clutching the tiny hand in hers. "What a wonderful thing that would be." 

That had been enough to convince her. Emily Margaret, she'd said, for her mother, far away in the heartlands of a country she would never see, and for her stepdaughter, who hated her fiercely, though she didn't live with them anymore. The girl hated her, for taking the place of her mother, but Dana saw it as a chance to make peace with the both of them. It did not work, though; Maggie had not had any interest in her sister, or in her stepmother, and Dana had long given up trying. Given up on the whole family, her husband included: he took little interest in her or his daughter, and when he did, it was in a possessive sort of manner that made her skin crawl. The medical lessons she'd received as a young woman were long gone, and he saw her only as the keeper of the house and of his child. He wanted more, but she refused. 

When he'd died on the voyage over, a small, shameful part of her had been relieved. She would not have to pretend to love him anymore, to feel the same way as she had all those years before. But she had feared so greatly for her daughter, that the illness would take one of them, too. She knew life would be hard without a husband, as was the cruel and unfair way of the world (her mother had told her as a little girl as she braided her hair), but it would be impossible for Emily without her. She would end up alone in some horrible orphanage, neglected and abandoned. And Dana could not imagine life without her daughter now, imagine being alone in the city she'd heard so much about. She could not go out west alone, and she could not survive alone. She remembered lying in her small, cold, hard bunk, holding Emily's small figure close, her lips to her hot forehead and murmuring a prayer. And God had heard her prayers. Her daughter had lived, and she looked more and more like Melissa every day. 

Emily often has questions about this, the family she will never know. When the two of them are lying in their bed, behind the makeshifts wall John had built to separate their tiny space from the rest of the equally tiny apartment (he and Barbara sleep in a bed on the other side, adjacent to the stove, and their boy Luke sleeps in a pallet on the floor), she will whisper questions about her father, her half sister, her aunt and her uncles and her grandparents. But it is often Daniel and Maggie, the family she will never know. "Did they love me?" she whispers. "Was Papa kind? Was Maggie beautiful?"

Dana offers some truths and some falsehoods, knowing she will never see either of them again, and therefore her stories will never be contradicted. Yes, Maggie was beautiful, although she mostly remembers a girl not ten years younger than her calling her a whore and a witch and a false mother. Yes, they loved her. No, Emily will never know her sister, because though she did love Emily (although Dana does not know if this is true), she did not feel the same for Dana. There is a picture that Daniel had made before they went, of Maggie, her hair combed nearly and gathered up, wearing her best dress, her cheeks thin, and Emily sitting on her lap, her face twisted with displeasure at having to sit still for quite so long. Emily loves to look at it, and of the faded portrait of the two of them on their wedding day, though Dana does not feel the same. But she allows Emily these frivolities. She cannot give her much more than that. 

---

She meets him by accident one Sunday, her one and only day off from the factory. She and Emily go to Mass every Sunday, of course, and then she spends much of the day helping Barbara to clean, cook, do the laundry (she always does hers and Emily's, at least; though Barbara has the time in the day to do it, she will not accept the favor). She takes a rest, sometimes, or she spends time with Emily, playing jacks or cards (Luke Doggett taught her to gamble, and she cannot shake the habit), or with the worn rag doll she and Melissa had made for her in Ireland, or reading to her. Her favorite is a newer one by a man named Melville. Dana relishes the time alone with her daughter, as she is often too tired to do anything like this after work. She has meant to teach Emily to read and write herself, considering that she's too young to start school yet, and John claims that most children already know a bit before they begin school, but she's barely had the time to teach her more than a few words. Sometimes on Sundays, they have a brief lesson, but there is so little time in the week. 

One Sunday, after Dana has hung the laundry, and scrubbed the floor, and washed the dishes, she decides to go and find Emily, thinking they can read another chapter of Melville, perhaps. (She likes the book, she will admit; it reminds her of her father and his stories of the sea.) She expects to find Emily on the tail of Luke and his friends—they are much older than her, but her lonely girl still follows her around like he is the brother she'll never have—but Luke claims he has not seen her. She finds her, finally, on the steps of the building, an old reader Luke had kept open on her lap, squinting furiously at the page. A man is sitting beside her, pointing out the words on the page, speaking in a calm and patient voice. Dana recognizes the man immediately as their neighbor, Mr. Mulder, a schoolteacher who she has spoken to in the hall before. She's seen him occasionally playing with the young boys in the building, or talking with the men and women about books, plays, politics, scientific discoveries. She'd had a particular long discussion with him once on the effects of anesthesia in medicine, which Daniel had commented on several times.

"Emily," she says, and Emily scrambles to her feet and runs to her side, beaming with excitement. "Mama, this is Mr. Mulder, the schoolteacher," she says in a rush, tugging at her skirt. "He saw me trying to read and he offered to help!" 

"He did?" She strokes the top of her daughter's head, messy from where she's taken it out of her braids, stealing a look at the man. 

"My apologies, Miss Scully," Mr. Mulder offers, getting to his feet. "I didn't mean to intrude… I only wanted to help, if I could."

"It's not an intrusion," Dana says, but she is still wary. "I have been trying to teach her, but I often cannot find the time, and she's so desperate to learn. She's still too young for school yet." And privately, Dana worries about what Emily will go through when she enters school, considering the anger New Yorkers have for immigrants. There is a Catholic school she's looking at, simply because it seems like the best option, but it still is too easy to worry. 

"Mama," Emily whispers, tugging her skirt again as if she finds her embarrassing. 

Mr. Mulder smiles a bit. "Your daughter is very intelligent. She should have no trouble catching up."

"I'm six years old," Emily informs Mr. Mulder, her back automatically straightening as if to look older. "In a year's time, Mama says she can put me in school."

"I'm sure you're very excited," Mr. Mulder says, without even a hint of indulgence in his voice. Emily nods, a little shyly. Mr. Mulder seems to be thinking a bit on the subject, but he speaks soon after. "Perhaps if your mother permits it," he says, speaking as much to Dana as to Emily, "I could tutor you in my spare time. Teach you your letters and give you a head start on reading."

Emily's eyes light up, shyness forgotten, and she tugs pleadingly on Dana's skirt. "That would be wonderful!" she breathes. "Please, Mama, can't I do it?"

"I don't know, Em… I wouldn't want to impose on Mr. Mulder's time." The man certainly seems smart enough to educate her daughter, but it seems too large a favor to ask of a complete stranger. It is also worth noting that she doesn't know the man very well outside of polite conversations in the hallway. She offers Mr. Mulder an apologetic smile. 

"It's not an imposition at all," he says. "I would be glad to do it."

Dana bites her lower lip, her hand on her daughter's boney shoulder. "I-I could not afford to pay you anything," she says softly, although that may be obvious. None of them are wealthy—that is why they live here. But she may be a step down from the rest, staying in the corner of a friend's apartment with a screen instead of a wall, using her meager earnings to buy unsubstantial meals and pay a portion of the rent. If she had the money, she would get Emily and herself their own place, but she's got something of a disadvantage in that area. There isn't much she can do to rectify it. 

Mr. Mulder shakes his head immediately. "No money is required," he says, his voice full of sincerity. "I would be glad to do it as a favor."

"I could not ask that of you…" she tries, but he halts her protests quickly. "Do not worry about it," he says. "When I was younger, my little sister was not allowed to go to school as I was, and she wanted to learn as badly as Emily. I tried to teach her, but I wasn't very good at it." He offers a rueful little smile. "I would be glad to be able to give someone else the opportunity where I couldn't give it to her."

Emily tugs at her skirt again and whispers, "Please." 

Dana chews her lower lip again and sighs. "If you are absolutely sure it would not be a problem, Mr. Mulder," she says. "I know Emily would appreciate that very much." 

Overjoyed, Emily bounces up and down on her toes with excitement. Mr. Mulder smiles at the both of them widely. "I can assure you it won't be a problem, Miss Scully," he tells her. "It will be my pleasure."

---

They practice reading each night, at least for a little while. Even when Dana is so tired she can scarcely keep her eyes open, they spend a few minutes going over Mr. Mulder's lessons, if nothing else. Emily has always been a fast learner, and within a couple of months, she is able to stumble through a page or two of Moby-Dick. Dana is incredibly proud. She can remember her own lessons in reading and other forms of education: her father had taught her often when she was younger, alongside Billy and Melissa, but the lessons had more or less stopped at a certain point. Past that, she had more or less taught herself with books of her father's, watching Bill and her father as they worked, more books still from Daniel's vast library. She never wanted that lapse in education for her daughter; it may be inevitable at some point, but she'll do what she can to prevent it. 

Emily seems to adore Mr. Mulder as much as she does the lessons. "He is funny, Mama," she tells her in the second week, after she's retrieved her and thanked Mr. Mulder profusely. "And kind, just like John is. Much kinder than the other men in the building. Luke says he's the best schoolteacher he's ever had, and he's very smart and fair to the other children."

"He sounds very nice," says Dana, swinging their hands between them. 

"He is." She looks up at her with Missy's eyes. "Was Papa like that?" she asks. 

Her voice is so high and innocent, it makes Dana want to cry. No, she thinks, biting her lower lip. She says out loud, "I-I could not say, Em. I don't know Mr. Mulder well enough to make a comparison between him and your father."

Emily nods, her face serious. She looks down at her shoes, almost self-consciously. "I would like to believe that Papa was like Mr. Mulder," she says softly, and Dana squeezes her daughter's hand tightly. "I-I imagine him reading to me some nights, and helping me read. Y-you could take turns. And he could buy me pretty things, perhaps, and teach me all that he knows, like John does for Luke. Do you think he would have, Mama?"

"I know he would have," says Dana. It may be a bit of a lie, but that hardly seems to matter as much as her daughter's happiness. 

---

Mulder had done it, originally, because Emily Scully reminded her of his sister. He'd seen her as often as the other children in the apartment building, sometimes hovering after Luke Doggett the way that Samantha had followed him. But more often, he'd seen her by herself, playing alone on the front steps with a ragged doll in hand, or trying desperately to read, hunched over a ragged old reader and struggling out loud to sound out words, dress muddy, pigtails unraveling. And he had thought of Samantha, sneaking reading lessons in the back of their immaculate library, trying to climb up a tree and ripping a hole in her stockings. It had been enough to cause him to offer up free tutoring, on an impulse, remembering his sister and how frustrated she used to get whenever he would leave for school and she would have to stay home. He hadn't been lying about that. 

But a part of it was because of his admiration for her mother, Miss Dana Scully, who he'd seen in the halls often beforehand. She is beautiful, and intelligent, and there is something about her that simply draws Mulder to her, in a way he cannot explain. He is sure it won't go anywhere past friendship—Emily has reported that her father died only a few years before, on their trip over from Ireland, and Mulder himself has never particularly expected to be married—but he still enjoys any opportunity to spend time in her company. Particularly the talks they have when she drops by to retrieve Emily after shifts at the factory; they often last long, while they discuss books or plays or scientific theories, anything of the sort. Sometimes, he will ask Emily and Miss Scully to stay and share in his supper, sparse as it is; other times, Miss Scully will invite him to share leftovers of John Doggett's, or whatever cooking she has done herself. Sometimes, he fears he is bothering her, but other times, it seems as if she might like him a bit, too. He cannot tell for sure. 

He tells himself it does not matter. He is here mostly to save money, so that he can travel. He hears there is opportunity in the west, but he would be fooling himself if he cited that as the reason. It does not matter to him where he ends up; all that matters is that he finds his sister and brings her home, after all of these years. 

But still, he enjoys tutoring Emily. She's a bright young girl, a quick learner, and sweet. He does not know anything of her father aside from his death, but she still undeniably resembles her mother in every way he can see. He teaches her a bit of mathematics after she's gained some talent in reading and writing, and she enjoys that immensely. She has a load of questions for him every time she sees him: about stars, about history, about how things work and why they happen and where places are. Sometimes, Miss Scully will answer her before he can even open his mouth, blushing a little after and looking at him as if to see if he minds. He never does.

---

She shows up at his door after midnight, her face white, shaking. Emily at her side, curled into her with a blanket wrapped around her shoulder, her face hidden in Miss Scully's skirt, crying softly. For a second, Mulder doesn't know what to do, what to say. "Miss Scully, is… is everything okay?" he stammers, clutching his door in one hand. He sees a sudden splotch of red on her dress, alarming and bright. "Are you hurt?" he stammers. 

She's shaking her head. "No, no, Mr. Mulder, it's not that, it's just…" She swallows hard, her eyes wide and helpless. "I-I need you to take care of Emily. I need to leave her here. Please."

Emily seems to clutch Miss Scully's skirt harder at that, shaking her head and crying more frantically. She mumbles something that sounds a bit like, "Don't leave me, Mama, don't leave me."

Mulder takes a sharp breath and opens the door wider. "Come in, come in," he says, and Miss Scully does, stroking Emily's mussed hair with quivering fingers. "W-what has happened, Miss Scully? Perhaps I can help."

Miss Scully clenches her chin and shakes her head, her face turned down towards her daughter. "I-I cannot… I do not have time for this, Mr. Mulder. I… Please. Please, Mr. Mulder, I have to leave, they will be coming for me."

"Who?" On an impulse, he reaches out and takes her free hand. It is cold and soft, and as he draws it closer, he sees the same glimpses of red, red crescents under her fingernails. "Who is it, Miss Scully? Who is coming for you?"

Emily's sobs are heart wrenching, even muffled by Miss Scully's skirt. Miss Scully looks to be on the verge of tears herself. She does not pull her hand away. "The… the police," she whispers. 

"The police?" Mulder's mind tightens in fear as he remembers something suddenly, something he has often forgotten: the Irish are not well liked here. He wonders if these prejudices have somehow found the Scullys. "What has happened?"

Miss Scully bites her lower lip before lifting her chin so that her clear, blue eyes meet his. "There… there was a fight at a bar," she says tentatively. "John's son was involved, and so he intervened, and was injured. They followed him home. I… intervened, and I… harmed a man in an attempt to protect the Doggetts and my daughter." Her chin quivers once, steadies. She presses a hand over her daughter's head, spreading her fingers over her scalp. "He's dead," she whispers. "And he… he was police. So they'll be coming for me, to arrest me, and I… I will not find mercy here. I have learned that much."

His mind racing, he stammers, "But that… that is not murder, Miss Scully… that is self defense. A-any jury would see that."

She laughs bitterly. "But who can prove it? Emily did not see, and Barbara and John had already slipped down the fire escape. The only witnesses are the men who would have me arrested. And I will be convicted. Americans do not have any sympathy for women of my background." She swallows again, her pale white throat, a bruise blooming underneath her jaw. The sight of it makes Mulder furious. He is still clutching her limp hand. "S-so I am begging you, please take my daughter," she whispers. "She adores you. Take her, a-and take the money I have saved, and you can send her west, to my brother's house… I have to go. If they catch me, I can't let them get her. And if I escape…"

"Please, Mama, please don't go," Emily whimpers, drawing back, her cheeks smeared her tears. "Don't leave me alone, Mama, please."

"I have to, sweetheart." Miss Scully leans down to kiss her daughter's hair. Mulder can see her tears falling, glistening in the candlelight. "I must. But you will be safe here…"

"I cannot do this," says Mulder, speaking abruptly, almost without thinking. 

Miss Scully's eyes widen with horror, and she pulls back her hand as she looks up at him. "You… you will not help me?" she whispers furiously. "After everything, I-I thought you cared for my daughter… cared for me, as a friend…"

"N-no, Miss Scully, y-you misunderstand," he stammers, his eyes wide. "I will protect Emily, of course I will protect Emily, but I… I will not leave you to be arrested."

Her eyes widen in surprise. "You are foolish to offer this," she whispers. "If they catch me… you cannot hide me here, Mr. Mulder."

"I cannot," he agrees. "But I can get you out of the city. You and your daughter both." His mind is racing, full of ideas. "I-I have friends I trust, a house I could take you to tonight. And tomorrow, we-we could go to my mother's house, in Massachusetts, for the time being. The two of you could stay there until… until we figure out a way to get you to your brother's."

Miss Scully is quiet, her eyes wide. Emily, leaning into her mother, is looking between the two of them curiously, like she is hopeful that this will happen. "You will be safe," Mulder adds. "Both of you. I promise you that."

"I could not ask that of you, Mr. Mulder," Miss Scully whispers. "It is too much."

"It's not." Mulder thinks of the money, put aside to search for Samantha. Enough for three train tickets north at least, if not a little left over after to fund a trip to wherever Miss Scully's brother is. A part of him is reluctant to spend the money he has been saving for so long—part of him feels like he is abandoning his sister, his family—but the rest of him is remembering Samantha at seven, at eight, more caring and compassionate than anyone in his family. She rescued animals (kittens, baby birds, piglets from the barn), knitted things with their mother to send to the local orphanage, shared her food with the servants on occasion and stole food from the pantry for the family down the road who never had enough food. She would want him to help them; he can still picture her wide, teary eyes, her weepy voice prodding him to help them, help them, Fox. And he wants to. He looks at Dana Scully and her daughter, the best companions he's found in the past few months, and he knows immediately that he must help them. He has no choice. 

"I have money," he says out loud. "I can get you out of the city. I can help you. Both of you."

"Please, Mama, you must come with us. We can't leave you all alone." Emily hugs her mother hard around the waist, sniffling loudly. "I need you, Mama, please."

Miss Scully looks to her daughter, and then back to Mulder. Her eyes are still wide with fear. She sighs a little, tensely, and whispers, "I'll need to pack some things. My savings…" 

"If you tell me what you need, I'll go and get it. You should not have to go back there."

Miss Scully rattles off a list in a quivering voice: clothes for the both of them, a knife that her father gave her, her bundle of coins underneath the bed. Emily tugs on his sleeve and adds softly, "And my dolly, please. And the picture of my sister Maggie, and of Mama's family. There's two of them."

Mulder slips out of his apartment and into theirs and finds it all, bundling it into a ragged carpet bag. He grabs their coats, too, and the family Bible under the bed, and a pistol he finds in John Doggett's part of the apartment. He tucks the pistol into his waistband and goes back to his apartment, where he finds the girls sitting on his bed, Emily curled up asleep in her mother's lap. "There is no need to wake her," he says when he sees Miss Scully moving to do just that. "I can carry her. It may be easier if she is asleep." 

She nods, taking the carpet bag from his hands. "I… I cannot begin to thank you, Mr. Mulder," she whispers, shifting Emily off of her lap and standing. 

He's begun to gather his own things, shoving his feet into his boots, retrieving his own savings. He puts a few books he cannot bear to part with into his bag, and a drawing he's held onto for years now, a portrait his father commissioned of Samantha. Photography was not in fashion when he and his sister were growing up, and so this drawing is the only memory he has as to what she looked like. "There is no need for thanks."

"You've done too much for us," Miss Scully whispers. She's put on her coat, and Emily's coat, and now she is tying a piece of cloth over her head—he assumes, to hide her bright hair. Her voice, soft as it's been all night, sounds a little different, as if she's trying to sand off the edges of the accent, attempting to sound different. "I… will find a way someday to repay you."

"It is not at all necessary." He shoulders his bag, grabs his hat and pulls it onto his head, before leaning down and scooping up Emily. She is a bit tall to be carried, but much lighter than he expected, barely weighing anything in his arms. She stays asleep, her coat and the blanket hanging off of her lightly. He shifts her in his arms and turns back to Miss Scully. "Shall we go?"

Miss Scully nods, her fingers rushing to button her coat. She grabs her carpet bag, clutching it to her chest, and trails out of the apartment after him. 

 ---

She was twenty-one the first time she was married, at the end of the famine that had plagued her teenage years. She remembered being frightened, if only a little bit. She'd met Daniel a few times beforehand, and though at the time he'd seemed kind and honorable, she found it bizarre that his young daughter was only seven years younger than her. Practically the right age enough to court her younger brother. She hadn't wanted it for herself, it was the last thing she'd wanted in a way, and yet she could not protest. She could feel her mother watching Melissa as she helped her to get ready, and knew she was thinking about the disappointment Melissa had given her by refusing to marry, even driving away potential suitors. Her sister was going to have the life she wanted, and Dana was going to take her place as the honorable daughter, the one who did what she was supposed to do and did not argue. She wasn't marrying Daniel Waterston for herself, but for her father, because it was what he wanted, and she could not stand to let him or her mother down. Her father walked her down the aisle, and she wore the veil her mother had worn when she'd gotten married, and she'd wished to be somewhere else. 

Now here she is again, in front of an altar with a man, but her father is dead, and she hasn't seen her mother or sister in years, and her daughter sleeps in the room upstairs, and she is twenty-eight and grimy and dressed in a dress that is too large for her because her own dress has bloodstains on it. She does not feel like a bride. The only good difference, she thinks, is that she knows her husband-to-be better than she perhaps ever knew Daniel. She knows he is intelligent and kind, and willing to protect herself and her daughter. And no matter the reason for this impromptu, inconvenient marriage, she is glad for at least that. 

Mr. Mulder is holding her hands, so gently in his, and he's not quite meeting her eyes, but she can still see kindness in his face. She doesn't quite have the courage to look at him, either, and so she looks down at her boots. Mr. Frohike, their witness, stands in the corner. The preacher, a friend of Mr. Frohike, stands before them without asking questions. He simply opens the Bible and says the words, all the right ones. Dana and Mr. Mulder say what they are meant to, too, and then it is done. They do not kiss, not even chastely. There is no music or flowers or white dresses. Dana could not care less. 

Just before the ceremony, Mr. Mulder leaned down to whisper in her ear, saying, "I promise you I will be a gentleman, Miss Scully. This marriage is for the safety of you and your daughter. It doesn’t have to mean a thing." 

She blushed immediately, heat rising on her cheeks, and looked to the ground. "I cannot thank you enough, Mr. Mulder," she had said softly. "And you need not worry. I trust you." 

When she looked back at him, he was smiling. "Perhaps we should do away with the formalities, Miss Scully."

"Perhaps," she had agreed, a bit amused. "I won't be a Miss anymore, after all." She offered him a small smile back, still unbelieving that he was helping her so much, that he was willing to hide and marry a murderess. A man she barely knew. "Shall I call you Fox?" she asks. 

Mr. Mulder had flinched, just a bit, and shook his head. "Perhaps… just Mulder, if you do not mind. I have never liked my first name, and most people I know call me Mulder."

It's unusual, but it's no more unusual than the rest of this situation. Dana smiles and nods. "Well, you may call me Dana or Scully, I suppose," she said lightly, unsure of why except that he has always called her Miss Scully, like she has always called him Mr. Mulder. "Whichever appeals to you."

"Which appeals to you more, Miss Scully?" he'd asked, teasing, and then the preacher had been ready, and now here they are. 

Once, she had believed she would never get married again. Now, she is married, and she has no idea whether or not it counts. 

Mr. Mulder—Mulder—keeps hold of her hand as they go back upstairs to Emily. It's the first time anyone has held her hand in years, and she is surprised by how nice it feels, his warm and callused fingers wrapped around hers. Daniel's hands had been cool, his touch unyielding, his voice the same faux-polite sound it always was as he talked to everyone but her. Mulder's hands are gentle, holding her hand carefully—not as if it is fragile and may break, but as if it is something precious, something he cares for. She knows this is not quite the case, it cannot be, but it is nice to pretend, for just a moment, that this is a true marriage, that she and Mulder love each other as a husband and wife should. 

[admiralty-xfd]

rendezvous: la passion (i.e. first time in the office)

Thanks to everyone who’s been following along with Culmination, I’m taking a quick break to give you a little smutty reward from a story I co-wrote with my love @gaycrouton (i.e. the smut mogul). This is Chapter 2, it stands alone, but to read the entire story click here. Enjoy!

ii. la passion

“Hey, Scully.”

Mulder watched as she looked up from across the desk, questions in her eyes. It was late. They’d been in the basement working all day long, and neither of them had acknowledged the fact that they would typically have gone home at least two hours ago.

But it wasn’t work keeping them down here, it was tension. Avoidance. The inevitable fast approaching. All they’d needed was a push, and Scully had done that for them last night when she roused him from his sleep and pressed her lips to his, for the first time ever in a most decidedly non-New-Years-non-platonic fashion. It had been fast and furious. It had finally happened.

The morning after turned into the afternoon after, which turned into the evening after. Now he could hardly contain himself.

“Do you… want to come over?” he asked. It was the most direct he’d ever been with her. The questions in her eyes turned to a single answer in a millisecond.

“Yes,” she said. It really was that simple. Maybe it had been for years.

Then he was up, out of his chair, and so was she, as they met beside the desk kissing fiercely, cupping each other’s faces with both hands. It was as if they’d never waited at all, as if a thousand averted glances hadn’t occurred in this very space over the past seven years.

She let him drive and he did, walking her backwards across the worn carpet and pressing her against the door to the office, locking it. This wasn’t going to wait until they got back to his apartment. This was going to happen, and it was going to happen right the fuck now.

They kissed with abandon, tongues hungry, and she moaned his name into his mouth, a sound so filled with relief. Mulder. It was as if she had a million things to say to him but only one word with which she could articulate any of it.

His intentions were clear and so were hers, their clothes coming off piece by piece, piling up in the corner of the basement that had never seen so much of either of them before. Soon they were on the floor, her skirt and heels the only remaining articles of clothing still clinging to her perfect body. And she was perfect, more perfect than even in his dreams.

He hovered over her, red hair serpentine in tiny tendrils around her face, as she watched him in wonder. And he watched her, too. Aliens, UFOs, monsters: all possible. But this, right now? She was his. He couldn’t believe it.

He could feel her trembling in his arms, but whether it was with fear or desire he didn’t know. Maybe both? She’d left him alone in his bed last night. He wasn’t prepared to assume this would be an ongoing engagement, as much as he’d have liked it to be. They hadn’t said much to each other either; it had been a blur of heat and energy. She had let him in, figuratively and literally, but when he woke up in the morning she was gone. He wasn’t sure if it would ever happen again.

Now that it was, in fact, happening again, he felt an overwhelming urge to make it count. They were about to have sex in their office, something he’d fantasized about countless times. He wouldn’t take one second for granted. This had to be perfect.

Suddenly the floor wasn’t good enough. Not for her, not for the two of them. He sat up, then stood, taking her hand, pulling her to her feet. His hands went to her ass and she took his cue, leaping up into his arms as he carried her over to the desk, still kissing her with fervor, sitting her on top of it.

He planted his arms on the desk on either side of her and moved his mouth around to the side of her face, hearing her softly panting into his ear as he spoke into hers. “Do you have any idea how many times I’ve thought about this, Scully?” he whispered. He wasn’t used to having his ultimate fantasies coming to life. Maybe he felt like he never deserved it, never deserved her. Could she actually love him? Could it be true?

She took his tie in her hand, its stubborn knot having rendered it the only remaining article of clothing he still wore other than his underwear, and pulled him into her until their foreheads touched, smiles mirroring one another. It was so incredibly sexy, he wondered if there was any other possible purpose for a tie. He couldn’t think of a damn thing.

“I think I might,” she replied huskily.

His fingers grazed her skin just beneath the edge of her skirt, pushing it up a bit, tracing lines along the inside of her thigh, and she quivered beneath his touch. “Did you think about this?”

“Yes,” she admitted, as he lightly kissed her neck, moving downward, along her collarbone. He could feel her subtly arching towards his hand.

“Did you think about us… while you were down here in the office?” he asked her.

The basement was their hideaway, their sacred space. No one ever came down here.

Until now, he thought with a smirk.

“Every day,” she admitted. She tilted her head to look him in the eyes, wanton and willing. He’d seen a similar look for months- ever since their lips touched at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s he suspected she wanted more from the way she would look at him. But he’d never seen Scully’s eyes quite this way, drunk with desire for him, and he would have come in his pants immediately if he wasn’t so determined to get this right.

Releasing his tie, she pulled his face into hers, devouring him, nibbling hungrily on his bottom lip, as she squeezed her thighs together in an effort to get him to touch her where she wanted.

“Touch me, Mulder…” she said, her head tilting backwards, moaning as his fingers circled tantalizingly close. They were so near to where he wanted to touch her he could already feel the slickness between her thighs. He could smell her arousal and it was driving him absolutely crazy.

“Tell me first, Scully,” he mumbled into her neck. “Tell me what you thought about.”

She groaned softly and he wondered if he was talking too much. Talking had always been a turn on for him; he’d dialed enough 900 numbers to be keenly aware of that fact. And the sensual quality of her voice and the things it did to him had been a given for years. But would Scully like it? He didn’t know yet what she liked or didn’t like.

“I… oh, Mulder …” She took his free hand and placed it on one of her breasts. Her nipple was hard against his warm palm and he moved his thumb across it slowly, back and forth, and she shuddered beneath his touch as she clutched at the muscles of his shoulders. Not that he expected otherwise, but her breasts were perfect. He’d gotten glimpses over the years but not like this; not while she wanted him to see her this way, to see her hardened peaks at attention only for him. He began to knead softly, his other fingers still teasing her beneath her skirt. Her eyes closed as she moaned and he still couldn’t believe any of this was happening, that Dana Scully was letting him in like this in the middle of their office.

“I thought about this, right now, exactly this,” she said. “Right here on the desk.”

He’d probably thought of the same thing about a million times. A million ways, a million scenarios. When he was working, when he wasn’t. Convenient moments and extremely inconvenient moments. They’d both been waiting to act upon their physical urges for so long but he never really knew why, or for what.

He was just about to enter her with the tip of his finger when he discovered something to his great delight.

“Scully, please tell me you don’t typically go commando at work,” he said. “I consider myself a man with a strong constitution but I don’t know if I can handle that bit of information.”

She shook her head. “I had to take them off a few hours ago.”

“Why?”

“Thinking about you has become an occupational hazard, Mulder.” She grinned, widening her thighs.

“Fuck,” he groaned. He chose not to reveal how many occupational hazards he’d dealt with on her account.  

His fingers finally entered her easily, two of them, and she gasped, arching again into his hand. He couldn’t believe how wet she was and his cock twitched inside his boxers, aching for contact. He did this to her. He was the one who made her this wet and he could hardly believe his good fortune.

His fingers moved deftly, exploring her depths in a way he hadn’t been able to the night before. Almost as if in retaliation, she reached over to feel him through his boxers. Her warm hand against his rock hard length was such a welcome sensation he groaned.

“Now… you tell me, Mulder,” she breathed, her fingers tracing the waistband of his boxers, slowly dipping inside. He grunted with the realization the tables had turned. He couldn’t believe how hard he was and she was certainly aware it was she who did this to him.

“Yes,” was the only word he could form. Yes. More. This. Now. Anything. All possibilities but he could only say “yes.”

“What did you think about… when you thought about you and me… down here?” she prodded, her hand fully gripping him now. She began to circle his leaking tip with her thumb, spreading his arousal as she teased him. His brain shifted into overdrive. This is Scully saying this, this is Scully touching me like this.

“Did you touch yourself, Mulder? When you thought about… us?” The word us had been uttered so softly, with reverence, as she leaned in close to his ear.

Us. It nearly left him breathless. Nothing in the world could supplant the very notion.

"More times than I’d care to admit, Scully,” he replied honestly.

“Me too,” she said quickly, and he lurched in her hand. Oh, fuck.

“Really? Down here? In the office?” He looked at her in amazement. This was a new Scully, a very sexual Scully he was only just learning about. Maybe she was his final frontier.

She nodded as she removed her hand from his shorts, brought her thumb to her mouth and sucked on it gently. His jaw went completely slack and he gaped at her.

“Masturbation is healthy, Mulder,” she smiled. “And nothing to be ashamed of. When there’s enough sexual stimulation to cause vasodilation…” he groaned. Whenever she spouted science it made him harder than he’d ever care to admit. Her hand returned to stroke him, and he kept fingering her, and he thought his eyes might roll back into his head from just this. “...There’s really little... choice, but to… take care of it,” she was saying.

He knew this only too well, but hearing it come out of Scully’s mouth was next level.

“Want me to show you how I’d do it?” she asked. “When I fantasized about us?” His head began nodding, bobbing wildly of its own accord, and he’d find it humorous if he wasn’t so deeply aroused by everything that was happening.

She brought her hand down and covered his own. Interlacing their fingers, she began touching herself, his fingers and her fingers becoming a single entity.

He couldn’t speak, he was so turned on. He just looked her in the eyes and groaned, and she smiled, knowing the power she held over him, the power she probably now realized she’d always held over him. Their hands moved together inside her and her voice hitched, her head lolling back to stare at the fluorescent lights above them. After a few moments of thoroughly coating their fingers with her arousal, she moved their hands away from her and slowly pushed his boxers down with her other hand, freeing his throbbing cock, standing proudly at attention.

She let her eyes break free from his gaze and looked down, resting her eyes upon him. It occurred to him that in all the times over the years she’d seen him naked, she had never seen him quite this way before, hard as a rock because of her, underneath the office lights in all his glory. And neither of them had much of an opportunity to fully appreciate each other’s bodies last night in the dark.

“You’re so beautiful, Mulder,” she breathed as she looked down, and it was for all the world as if she’d never seen anything in her life so wonderful. His truth, his feelings for her, finally on plain display for her to see with her own eyes.

“No, you, Scully…” he said. He wanted to tell her how beautiful she was but words couldn’t quite capture his feelings. This was all so new, this ability to admire each other so openly. “Look at you.”

She wrapped both their fingers around him at the same time, stroking firmly, up and down. He pressed his lips to hers again in the kiss he was starting to suspect he’d never get enough of. He was addicted to her already, he knew it. He hoped they could keep whatever this was going, because going back to the way they were before seemed unfathomable now.

As they stroked him together, she reached for his free hand and interlaced those fingers together as well. He was certain he’d never been so turned on in his life and the dual sensations of feeling himself and her soft hand together was bringing him closer and closer to the brink. He wanted to be inside her, badly, but he had an overwhelming urge to slow down, prolong the inevitable.

Separating their hands, he moved his own back down between her legs, flicking and sliding up and down, emboldened by her impossible wetness. She gripped and pulled him closer with her thighs, gasping and moaning ohmygodMulderyes as if she’d never been touched this way in her life before. He knew that couldn’t possibly be the case and wondered if he was doing anything unique that was making her react this way.

Or maybe it was just… him.

He smiled inside their kiss, giddy in this knowledge, this possibility that he alone could do this to her, that he alone was the subject of her fantasies. He wasn’t the type to indulge in this kind of narcissism but here and now, looking into the eyes he knew so well he let himself believe it.

“I’m ready, okay, Mulder?” Her voice came out in short, panting breaths. He could tell she’d been ready for a while now. Her eyes looked almost completely dilated and he knew she was already very, very close to the edge.

“Wait,” he said softly, holding her chin tenderly as he kissed her. He had no idea what their future held. He wanted this to last. He wanted her to remember this, remember him, some far off night in her future when she was with some other man, far away from him, far away from all of this.

“No, no more waiting, Mulder,” she whispered. “I’m so tired of waiting.”

“I want to give you what you want, Scully,” he whispered into her ear, leaning in to suckle at the sweet flesh of her neck. His thumb found her clit and she gasped again. “Anything and everything you want.”

He didn’t know what she wanted. But what he wanted was to keep her around. What he wanted was to make her stay.

“I only want you,” she said, her fingers grasping the back of his neck. “Just you, now, Mulder. That’s all.”

Her fingernails scratched the sensitive spot at his nape and his entire body reacted in a way he’d never felt before. It almost scared him, what she could do to him, and his cock ached for release. Scully’s calves pulled him in closer until he was flush against her sex, and snaked her arms around his back, stroking his shoulder blades, softly gyrating against him.

“Mulder, please …” she said.

Why was he prolonging this, why was he torturing them both? He thought at once of that feeling he experienced last night when she’d slid down onto him, finally, the sweet relief of truth crashing down all around them.

He wanted to find that truth again.

With both hands he reached behind her to bring her all the way to the edge of the desk. She was at the perfect height for his entry, and she looked into his eyes and waited, prepared.

He gripped his cock, heavy and almost painful with want. He could feel it thrumming as he guided it to brush up against her primed entrance. He then looked her in the eyes and she nodded, and with one swift motion he pushed into her completely, sliding all the way, as far as he could into her tight glossy depths.

She gasped and clutched the back of his neck, her heels digging into his lower back, cursing loudly.

“Jesus fuck, Mulder!”

“Are you okay?” he immediately asked. He wasn’t suffering from false arrogance; he was large and he knew it. But Scully rarely cursed. A small part of him was ashamed her profanity turned him on so much.

“God-” she scratched his shoulder blades deeply. “Fuck. Yes. Sorry, just… Yes. I’m more than okay.”

He withdrew his pulsating length almost all the way and plunged back inside her. She cried out his name god, yes and he kept going, emboldened by her cries, a piston engine in his prime. She screamed out his name over and over don’t stop, don’t ever stop. He never, ever wanted to.

It was absolute perfection, and he looked into her beautiful aquamarine eyes knowing this was it, he was fucking Scully in the X files office and there was absolutely nowhere to go from here but down. He’d never felt such pure unadulterated pleasure before in his entire life.

Her nails dug deeply into his back as she screamed, his name bouncing around within the walls of the office, audible evidence of what he could do to her.

“M-Mulder…” she said as she gripped the back of his neck tightly.

He loved hearing her say his name this way. The effect her voice had on him had always been a particular source of excitement but now he could revel in it; her saying his name like this.

His hand drifted down her leg behind him to her foot and he realized she was still wearing her pumps. He groaned audibly as the more voyeuristic part of him pictured the scene; him fucking her on the desk beneath her hitched up skirt, her spiky heels wrapped around his back, her fist clutching his tie as it dangled between them.

It was sexier than any one of his fantasies.

Her lips found his again and he marveled at how perfect, how in sync, how amazing they were at this… just like they were together in every other way. He wasn’t surprised, just delighted.

Suddenly her grip on him tightened and he heard her gasping oh, god, Mulder and her walls clenched around him as she rode out the pounding waves of her pleasure. He watched her face as she came and it was better than any UFO he’d ever seen, or not seen. Fuck, this was as real as it got. As he watched her he couldn’t hold off any more himself. They crashed into each other and when it was over she held the back of his neck with one hand, his tie with the other, their foreheads meeting in the middle, breathing, breathing.

After a while he noticed how tired his legs were. He gathered her in his arms, kissing her shoulder, and pulled her off the desk, sinking down until they were both lying spent on the floor.

He looked up at the pencils stuck in the ceiling above them and thought about yesterday’s Mulder, the Mulder who hadn’t yet made love to Dana Scully twice. The Mulder who threw pencils into the ceiling out of sexual frustration, now lying next to her, sated and spent.

She leaned into him, kissing his temple, and he pulled her close until she was lying on his chest.

“So… did it live up to your fantasy, Scully?”

“It was better than I imagined,” she informed him. “You?”

“No comparison whatsoever.”

They laughed for a minute and he felt like something had changed. This didn’t feel awkward anymore. He’d asked her to come over, and maybe she still would.

Maybe tonight she would stay.

Thanks for reading! Ilu @gaycrouton!

[baronessblixen]

Prompt: If Requiem never happened, and they found out about the pregnancy a couple of weeks later, how do you think they would've told Maggie? Did Mulder come up with something original to surprise her?

A sequel to day 11! You can read it without reading the other first though. Tagging @today-in-fic and @xffictober

Fictober Day 12

“Whendo you want to do it?” Mulder’s mouth is pressed against her bare, still flat stomach, hisnew favorite place.

“Dowhat?” She asks sleepily, running her fingers through his hair almost as anafterthought. She hasn’t stopped touching him ever since they’ve gone home from the hospital. Notthat he minds.

“Tellpeople.”

“Mulder,there’s time.” Hesitation drips from her voice. What happened to being ready?He turns his head and rests his chin on her stomach.

“Nothingis going to go wrong, Scully,” he says.

“Itmight.”

“It won’t.”

“I don’twant to fight about this.”

“But we’restill telling your mom, right?” Last night on the phone with Skinner, when hisboss asked about Scully’s health, Mulder had to bite his lip so hard that italmost started bleeding. He needs to tell someone before he spontaneously combusts.

“Yes, we’retelling her this Sunday. Why are you grinning, Mulder? What are you planning?”

“Oh,nothing.”

“Mulder,”she warns.

“Justyou wait and see,” he presses another kiss against her stomach. “Your mommy isso skeptical, little one.”

“It’sbecause I know you.”

“Trustme, Scully. You’ll love it, too.”

*

He letsScully drive to her mother’s house, sensing that she needs to distract herself.He squeezes her knee to let her know he’s there with her, all the way. They’rein this together.

“How doyou want to do it?” Mulder asks, unable to keep quiet any longer. She parks thecar and looks at him.

“We’llhave dinner and then… I guess we’ll tell her then.”

Hisface falls and Scully smiles at him, touching his cheek. “Patience, Mulder, isa virtue.”

“One Ido not possess. Oh look, your mom’s already waiting for us.”

“Let’sdo this.”

MaggieScully hugs them both, her daughter a moment longer than him. She’s all smilesand Mulder feels right at home. The house is warm, inviting. The few times he’sbeen here, it was for less joyous reasons. He tries not to think about the timeScully was convinced he had betrayed her. Or when he showed up drunk, afterreturning from California, with Scully still missing, trying to return her necklace to her mother, feelinglike he no longer deserved to keep it. Today, he will make happy memories inMrs. Scully’s house.

“I hopeyou’re hungry,” she says, touching Mulder’s arm.

“I am,”he assures her. “I feel like I could eat for two.” Scully glares at him and he givesher a sweet, sugary smile in return.

The twowomen make easy conversation while Mulder stuffs himself with potatoes. It’snot only because Mrs. Scully is an excellent cook. He just isn’t sure he cankeep their news in any longer. Just as he’s about to bring another forkful offood to his mouth, Scully squeezes his knee under the table.

It’s time.

“Mom,there’s something we need to tell you.” She picked the perfect moment, knowinghe would be busy chewing and trying not to choke on potatoes.

“Oh?”The older woman is smiling knowingly. “I know you and Fox are more than justfriends, Dear. But thank you for telling me.”

“That’snot- wait, you knew?” Mulder uses Scully’s confusion to dash out of the dining roomand get his little surprise out of his coat pocket.

“Dana,of course I knew,” Mrs. Scully says upon his return. He isn’t sure they even noticedhe was gone.

Heclears his throat and two sets of Scully eyes land on him. “There’s somethingelse Dana and I want to tell you… we, um… we’re not just a couple. There’sgoing to be, well, there’s going to be someone who fits into this.”

Mulder’shand shake as he unfolds the smallest garment he’s ever touched. It’s the softesttoo. The tiny dark blue onesie is adorned with the stars and the moon, theplanets and rockets. When Mulder saw it on a grocery run, buying crackers forScully, he stopped dead in his tracks. His arms full of food that threatened toslip, he stared at it, overwhelmed. 

In the hospital, Scully asked him if he wasready. He had said yes, not even thinking about it. Looking at that onesie, though,he realized the full impact of what was happening. They were going to beparents. There was going to be a baby, half Mulder and half Scully. A person intheir own right, fitting into this tiny space onesie, occupying Mulder’s whole heart. 

Hecouldn’t wait to meet the little human they’d created.

Now, heputs the soft garment on the table and Mrs. Scully gasps, squeaks, before sheand Dana are hugging fiercely, both crying happy tears. He watches, not feelingleft out, knowing what it means to Scully.

“I’m sohappy for you, Dana,” he hears and smiles.

“Mulderhelped,” is the mumbled, half-hiccuped answer.

“Comehere, Fox.”

“I’mokay, Mrs. Scully,”

“Nomore of that, Fox. I’m Maggie. Now get over here.” He does as he’s told, scaredof her tone. He’s engulfed in love, in warmth and closes his eyes, letting it was over him.

“Goodsurprise?” he asks Scully, whispering it into her ear.

“Thebest surprise,” she replies.

[gaycrouton]

Wonderful

Words of Love 23/27 [They rarely got to indulge in things like this]

Wonderful: (adjective) inspiring delight, pleasure, or admiration; extremely good; marvelous.

For as long as Scully had worked there, the FBI had held an extravagant annual banquet in December to honor achievements from the past year. In normal Mulder-fashion, he had managed to find a way for them to conveniently be away on a case for the past six years. This time was different. Skinner was being recognized for twenty years of service, and Scully insisted they go to support him. After all, in a weird way, he was their friend and one of the few people who respected their work, even if he didn’t understand it.

She could tell this was the last thing in the world Mulder wanted to do, but he would never say no to her. He did specify that he would only go if they went together, quickly clarifying just to keep each other company, and she had readily agreed. As if she’d ever want to go with anyone else.

She knew this was going to be uncomfortable for him, he didn’t even like venturing above the basement due to the snickers and glances of the other agents, let alone spend four hours at a banquet with them. The fact he was still willing to endure it, just for her, was extremely touching.

To be honest, the reality of how close to a date this was didn’t set in until she was trying on her third dress. The first was too matronly, the second didn’t fit her right, but the third was flattering to every curve of her body. It was a floor length, black dress with a high slit on her right leg, reaching her upper thigh. The upper bodice was snug, off the shoulder, and made her modest cleavage look fantastic. She looked fantastic. It may have been a little revealing, compared to her normal attire, but she knew Mulder would love it.

She paused in the mirror and looked at herself in shock. Everytime she put on a new dress, she imagined what Mulder’s reaction would be. That was how she was making her decisions. She let out a nervous breath as she contemplated the implications of them doing this together. It was bold, arriving together to a work function, arm in arm, dressed up to the nines. No matter what they called it, it was a date, and everyone would know it.

Normally, she would just say it didn’t matter that people were obsessing about the status of her relationship, but normally she wasn’t right alongside them doing the same thing. She had to admit, when Mulder said he would only go if she would be with him the whole night, her mind was filled with unpartnerly thoughts. It was beyond flattering. If she was being completely honest with herself, she always loved being the center of Mulder’s unyielding attention.

Speaking of which, he was going to be here at anytime now and she still had to do her makeup and hair. He offered to come pick her up, and she was never one to turn down extra time with Mulder. Plus driving in heels is a bitch.

She had just finished setting her hair with hairspray, her hair was so short trying to do anything fancy was a fruitless effort, when she heard Mulder knocking at her door. He was usually never early to anything, so this spoke to his excitement. On bare feet, she padded to the front door and swung it open in a grand sweep.

“Hey Scu-holy shit.” He didn’t even try to hide his appreciation as his eyes did a generous sweep of her body, eyes practically bulging out of his head. His response filled her with a sense of pride, and something else, and her body felt hot under his gaze.

She took his moment of distraction to take a glance at his apparel. Mulder was always a well-dressed man, but wow , she couldn’t remember a time he had ever looked this good. He broke the silence first with breathless admiration, "Scully, you look radiant."

“You don’t look so bad yourself,” she laughed as she turned around, beckoning him to follow. She wasn’t done getting ready yet, but she also just wanted to show off how good her ass looked in this dress. The whistle under his breath was enough to let her know he noticed too.

He closed the door when he came in and continued to follow her. “I just have to finish my makeup and then I’ll be good to go. You could wait with me and keep me company, or you could wait on the couch, whatever you prefer.” There wasn’t even a tiny falter in his step, but she hadn’t expected there to be. When presented with the option of being with her or away from her, there never any questioning what he’d choose.

She sat down in front of the big vanity in her bedroom as he awkwardly stood in the doorway, his eyes dancing between watching her and wanting to commit every aspect of her room to his memory. He’d been in here before, more than once, but it was usually under circumstances that didn’t allow him to enjoy the rarely explored intimacy of being in her personal space.

She picked up her eyeshadow and started coating her lids, but still watching his reflection. “Mulder, I promise I don’t bite. You can sit on the bed if you want. I’ll only be like five minutes,” she teased. Apparently an invitation is all he needed because he eagerly walked passed the doorframe and did a, not so subtle, sweep of the room, looking at the small details of the ‘Life of Scully’ he rarely saw. She started working on her eyeliner by the time he finally sat on her bed, he was trying to be discreet, but she saw him run his hands over where she slept at night. Funny, she’d imagined his hands there many times before.

“Thank you for agreeing to come with me, I know this is going to be a drag, but I’m happy I’m with you,” she told him as she lined her waterline, creating a subtle cat-eye. She could see in her peripheral that he was watching her in fascination.

“Scully, I’d follow you into the depths of hell if it meant I could see you in a dress like that,” his tone was joking, but she knew he was anything but. She smiled coyly in response, knowing he could see it, as she applied a coat of dark mascara.

“That’s amazing,” Mulder said out of nowhere.

“What is?” She asked putting her eye makeup away, and applying a tiny bit of blush.

“You’re so talented. You still look totally like Scully, but you look, for lack of a better word, fierce. Not that you don’t always, but you’re really good at that,” he laughed, clearly embarrassed by his lack of eloquence, but wanting to compliment her nonetheless.

She laughed and he was clearly relieved she appreciated his words. She didn’t know what prompted her next action, but she pulled three lipsticks out of her bag; a very neutral pink that she wore frequently, her favorite deep red, and a deep plumb. Turning to face him, she held the three out, color sides facing him and stated, “Pick one.”

His eyebrows shot up a little bit, “Me?”

She nodded and he looked at the lipsticks being offered to him as if it was the biggest responsibility she had ever placed on him. He stared at each tube before flitting his gaze to her lips, clearly imagining the color on her. After a moment he pointed to the red one, “This one always looks really nice on you.”

She was secretly ecstatic about the fact he clearly paid enough attention to her lips to recognize the shade, but outwardly she just smiled and thanked him before delicately applying the shade to her lips. Having him choose her lipstick was strikingly intimate, as if he was kissing her vicariously through the action. Her eyes flitted to his reflection in the mirror and she saw he was watching intently, she also noticed his tongue dart out to wet his lips. It was always astounding how they were always on the same wavelength.

She placed he cap back on the tube without taking her eyes off him and he met her gaze, offering a coy smile at having been caught staring. “I’m ready if you are,” she exclaimed. He got off hr bed, helped her up, and led her to the car, arm in arm.

When they made their way into the ballroom, as usual when they entered a room, all eyes focused on them. However, instead of pure scrutiny, there seemed to be an unbridled curiosity and admiration. As predetermined in the car, they quickly made their way to the bar, trying to ignore the murmurs around them.

“ Wow, the Spooky’s really clean up well. Damn.”

“Did they come together?”

“Of course they came together, they got married a few years back, I mean, obviously.”

The rumors just got more and more outrageous with each passing year, but they weren’t bothered. They made their way to the bar and staked claim on two barstools, intending to stay there the whole night.

Of course, luck was never on their side. They had each had one drink, enjoying some small chit chat and banter when a pair of agents they had worked with before came up and interrupted them. Agent Davenport and Agent Holtz were partnered up around the same time as Mulder and Scully, however, they did not have the close relationship she treasured with Mulder. Agent Davenport was a mixture of Barbie and a blowup doll while Agent Holtz was about as interesting as watching paint dry.

Scully had never been a fan of Agent Davenport. Last time they worked together, she just ogled Mulder the entire time; Mulder was oblivious, Scully was irritated. However, the entire time it was happening, Scully had to listen to Holtz drone on and on about his favorite channel changing the lineup, and now Leave it to Beaver was on at eight instead of nine or something. She couldn’t fully remember, her mind had been preoccupied at the time.

“Fox! Long time no see. Don’t you look sexy?” Davenport cooed extravagantly. Oh yeah, I forgot she has the subtlety of a chainsaw to the face.

“Hello Kathryn, long time no see.I still go by Mulder, by the way. You look well,” he replied politely, standing up to greet her. Mulder’s chivalry towards women was one of Scully’s favorite aspects of him, but she preferred when it was focused on her.

She stood up as well, solidarity and all, and smiled at the man in front of her. “Nice to see you again Agent Holtz.” The aforementioned man took her hand and placed a cold, chapped kiss to the back of her hand and she had to repress a shutter.

“Please, call me Kate. Did you guys see there was a dancefloor? Come on Fox, dance with me while we catch up.” Mulder didn’t seem to have a choice in the matter as Kate dragged him away. He cast an apologetic look over his shoulder as he followed the storm, leaving Scully alone with the Crypt Keeper.

“Well, what do you say Dana? If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em?” He joked, offering his hand. With a polite smile, she accepted and followed him to the dancefloor. There were maybe ten pairs out on the dancefloor, and nine of them were just swaying gently to the song playing. The exception being her partner and Davenport, the latter was somehow trying to turn ‘Africa’ by Toto into a grinding experience.

She kept about a foots distance in between her and Holtz, he placed his hands around her shoulders and she, slightly confused, placed her hands on his non existent hips. She didn’t fully care about the awkward position they were dancing in, instead, she was just focused on her partner dancing with that woman.

She didn’t mean to sound be so territorial, she just couldn’t shake that familiar pit gnawing at her stomach. Mulder was always so kind and attentive. He would never do anything to purposefully hurt someone's feelings. So here he was awkwardly trying to keep distance between him and his dancing partner. She could gauge him better than she used to in the past. She used to think his kindness was flirtation and she would get so agitated with jealousy that it would blind her. Now, after seeing the way he looked at her when they were close, she knew what Mulder’s face looked like when he was actually enamoured.

She could hear Holtz’s ramblings in the back of her mind, but she was too busy formulating her plan to break them up. As soon as the song ended, she turned to him, interrupting him, and said “I’m so sorry Holtz, I promised Mulder I’d dance with him.”

Her abruptness didn’t faze him at all. “Go ahead little lady. It’s only natural you’d want to dance with your husband.” The earnesty in his voice was beyond amusing.

“Thanks for understanding,” she replied with a straight face. She quickly made her way over to Mulder and inserted herself practically in between them. “I’m sorry Kathryn, I told Mulder he had to dance with me when this song played.”

She honestly didn’t even know what song was playing, she vaguely recognized the introduction, but the woman’s reaction made her realize what it was. She just said she wanted Mulder to dance with her to ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love with You’ by Elvis Presley. She knew her face was bright red and Mulder was grinning at her in amusement. “Awww, that’s so romantic! I didn’t know you guys were together! Here,” the woman grabbed Mulder and Scully and practically shoved them into each other’s arms. “I’ll leave ya be!”

Finally left alone again, she glanced up to look at Mulder and saw he was looking at her with a shiteating grin. “You know, I don’t remember you making this dance request to me, but I’m more than happy to oblige.” He raised his hands and rested his palms on her hips, pulling her to him. She draped her arms over his neck and rested her head against his shoulder. She was too shy for the intimacy of eye contact right now, she needed a moment to recover from her flush.

The romantic words of the song rang out in the ballroom and she knew this was going to be a moment she remembered for the rest of her life and she was enjoying every second. It was all overwhelmingly wonderful. After a few measures, she felt a vibration against her ear and breath against her scalp and she realized he was softly singing to her.

Mulder had sung on occasion, mostly in the car when he thought she was asleep or when he was taking a shower in a motel and he underestimated how thin the walls are. She knew he had a good voice, and having him sing so full of passion to her, was overwhelmingly sweet.

She pulled her head back to look up at him and he looked straight into her eyes while he finished the song, drawing out the last few words, “ And I can’t help falling in love with you.” She knew she had a goofy grin on her face, but it was probably the exact same as the one he wore.

They continued to dance for she didn’t even know how long, gently swaying against each other, relishing in the contact. Eventually she had laid her head back on his shoulder, smelling the spot he had sprayed his cologne, the one he only used for special occasions. In a voice so soft, she wasn’t sure he’d be able to hear, she whispered into his skin “I love you too.” She felt him squeeze her tighter and she swore in that moment they became one.

[monikafilefan]

#32 for the drabble prompts

I’m fully admitting to cheating and using my very, very old fic I wrote not long after I started writing for this one because the line fit perfectly. I hope a little angst and lots of fluff okay with you. Not to mention, I was NEW to writing.

“I locked the keys in the car.”

Tagging @today-in-fic and @baronessblixen @kyouryokusenshi @cultureisdarkbeer for the fluff aspect.

——

The freshly fallen autumn leaves crunched under her black leather boots, breaking the silence as she slowed her pace. She knew her way almost without looking. The memories of past visits throughout the last twenty-four years here were ingrained in her mind. The guilt filled, emotional and sorrowful past occasions that brought Dana Scully to visit this place back then were very different now. This was a visit that would never be looked back on with pain attached. This a memory she won’t want to forget.

Scully hadn’t been back to visit this very spot since 2014, when she found herself here on her hands and knees sobbing. She was heartbroken and distraught with guilt and regret after walking out of her home she shared with the only man she will ever love. Leaving to save themselves from the darkness that was eating them both from the inside out, even if it was temporary, was completely devastating. An all consuming pain that she prayed never to feel again. She remembered wishing she could fast-forward time to know if she would return to the home they shared together, if they could let the light back in.

Never would she wish the pain of separating from your soulmate, your other half, on her worst enemy. Seeking comfort and praying that her thoughts would be heard in this quiet place is what she needed at the time. One of the only places she felt closest to the one person that, at a point in the past, had known her best.

Winding through the trees she let the warm gentle breeze blow through her hair while she fingered her gold cross that rested on her chest.

Now—now it was all different.

There was no more darkness to chase away in her life. Pain remained only in the few memories she pushed away for her sanity and his. Her life is amazingly full of happiness now. Even after the events that took place that night out on the cold pier, when they thought Jackson had died and couldn’t even stop it from happening. That was completely devastating. They had thought their son was dead for days after, even though he wasn’t. Yes, their son. Neither of them chose to really believe what Skinner had told her that night about Jackson’s conception.

To live the lie you had to believe it; and neither of them wanted to believe this time.

Soon Scully realized she could feel Jackson again, as soon as she pushed her sorrow down in order for the new life growing in her belly, to continue to grow. She tamped down her all too familiar pain of loss and agony she felt for her son to protect their unborn baby. While doing so, she had unintentionally invited him back into her mind. She felt his presence and life line like her own beating heart.

Another miracle.

Utter relief, incredible love, and unwavering joy are the only emotions she has felt since that day.

Seeing her usual spot where she had always sat, she came to a stop and lowered her body down in the grass and took a cleansing breath. Staring at the familiar words written along the stone, she began to talk about what was on her mind. Just like she always had.

But this time is now; and it’s far different from then.

“Oh Missy, I have so much to tell you. But you already know that don’t you? After all these years of witnessing the paranormal, I’m thinking that you really were clairvoyant.”

Closing her eyes, she thinks back to what Mulder had told her about the time that he and Melissa spent at her hospital bedside together. Her open-minded sister called her partner out on his negative energy and repressed feelings for her made her smile now. Melissa had tracked him down to his apartment to remind him, in her own way, that his best friend needed him by her side in order to come back to him.

She opened her eyes also remembering what Missy told her about Mulder and shook her head. Not so subtly, she told her that her then, platonic partner was bound to her in a cosmic way that could only be shared by mated souls destined to connect.

Smirking, she spoke, “You always were the wise one. The only person who would ever know how much of my emotions I kept to myself. If I did share them, I shared them with you. And so much has happened since I’ve visited last. But I do know Mom is there with you now, watching just as you have been all these years.”

A pang of longing struck her heart with the thought of her mother. For a brief moment she allowed herself to it imagine her mom’s wry smile lighting up her face, as if she were talking to her in person over a cup of coffee.

The thought doesn’t sadden her in a way that it might have back then. Now, she can accept the memories and treasure them.

Scully huffed out a laugh. “I know you’d laugh at me and tell me, ‘Dana you should know by now my spirit is not with my body.’” But you know me, having a tangible place to visit and talk to you brings me comfort when I really need you. And this time, I don’t need my sister to unload my burdens on. This time I want to tell you only good news in person. Today’s a special day.”

She reached out running her finger along each letter, spelling out the word, Melissa.

“You wouldn’t be surprised that Mulder and I are happy together. We’ve been back living in our home again for almost two years now, and of course I know you would have said, ‘I told you so’. And you shouldn’t be surprised that our son William, known as Jackson now, is out there doing remarkable things in this world, surviving. He’s a survivor.” Her last words came out as a whisper.

Looking down while picking a few weeds, a bigger smile graced her face. “I also know that you’d be so excited to find out that you’re an Aunt again. She’s absolutely perfect, Missy. She’s our miracle. And she reminds me so much of Mulder it’s, well… spooky. With the exception of the red Scully hair and fierce temper, of course. She shares that with you and I.

“Did you say spooky?” Scully jerked and swung her head around to look up at Mulder standing near the tree directly behind her.

“Mulder, you sneak! I see the beautiful birthday girl finally awoke from her nap.”

Scully smirked at Mulder bending down at an obscene angle for his daughters tiny hand to wrap around his finger. “Yes, and she woke up happy! The first thing she said was, Mama. So after I gave you some more time alone, we came over to join you.” He looked down with the biggest grin on his face at the little green-eyed, copper-haired one old-year-old with a pouty bottom lip, holding a single pink rose. “You want to put your flower by the big stone, sweetie?”

Mulder gently pulled her hand, watching her toddle over next to Scully where she ended up tossing the flower on the grass. She clapped her little hands together with a big open-mouthed smile showing off her two top teeth. Her tiny, little red pigtails shone in the sun and bounced up and down on the top of her head from her claps, making her parents laugh blissfully.

Scully watched Mulder step over and kneel next to her on the ground while placing a bouquet of pink and white flowers next to the single rose.

Reaching over, he covered her hand with his while pressing a long kiss to her forehead. She leaned back and locked eyes with him while whispering, “Thank you, Mulder. Thank you for it all.” The weight and meaning of it was not just for his presence now, but for his presence in her past and future.

She had cried tears of suffering for what her life had become the last time she spoke to her sister here, but now, tears of joy spilled down her cheeks instead. Mulder kissed her softly and soothingly wiped her tears away. They looked up to find their daughter toddling off after a butterfly in her long sleeved pink romper, showing off the little green alien head design on her bottom that said, “Daddy Believes In Me!”

Scully slowly stood up eyeing the tiny miracle in front of her and said in a sing-song voice, “Margaret Mulder, come on sweetie.”

Mulder gasped and patted his pockets while his panic face washed over him. “I think...”

“You did it again, didn’t you?”

He grimaced. “I locked the keys in the car. Yes, again. Sorry, let me just call—”

Shaking her head, she reached into her pocket and dangled her set in the air. “It’s fine, Mulder. I’ve learned to keep a spare on me.”

”You always keep me guessing.” Mulder smiled and walked up next to Scully, palming her with his hand on her lower back. “Ready to go home now?”

She slowly nodded her head and said, “Yes, now is perfect.”

Scully reached her left hand down and clutched onto Maggie’s small fingers as the sun shone down on the gleaming diamonds wreathed around her ring finger, sending colorful rays into the sky.

“Let’s go eat some of that birthday cake now, Mrs. Spooky.” Mulder winked at her while rubbing his spot on her back.

The three of them started to walk back to the the car when Scully stopped and turned slightly toward her sisters head stone. With a small smile she whispered, “Happy Birthday, Missy.”

——