Chapter Text
Title: After Sense
Author: sidespace
Feedback: [email protected], or at AO3
Rating: NC-17
Keywords: Orison post-ep; MSR
Spoilers: Season 7 to Orison, at which point we swerve.
Disclaimer, for old times’ sake: Kisses to 1013.
Archive: Anywhere
“We patch and tinker more than we renew.” - William James
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In her youth, Dana Scully was not an It Girl. High school and college students striving for eccentricity took one look at her - the red-headed know-it-all in hand knit sweaters and a gold cross - and decided she wasn’t worth knowing. It didn’t help that she never bothered to whitewash her interests with drugs and sex, arcane knowledge of trendy local bands, or late night viewings of Werner Herzog films. Eventually, she became adept at countering their disdain with her own. So what if she wasn’t one of the invited ones? She put the work in. She didn’t need subtitles.
In the end, she didn’t really learn about social hierarchies, nor her place within them, until med school, where she was quickly sized up and adopted into the fold. Her new friends baked walnut brownies for Saturday night study sessions and dragged her to Talbots sales.
But shoulder pads and baking couldn’t mask a growing set of rumors, and she was eventually confronted about her troublesome relationship with Professor Waterston. Even now, she feels an echo of discomfort when she remembers accusing faces around a cheap oak table and a vase of silk sunflowers. “Come on. We know something’s going on. And he’s *married*, Dana.”
If nothing else, she’d learned she was a piss-poor liar.
After the invites to study sessions and G-rated parties tapered off, she could have sought out the cool, sulky ones who would have found her transgressions charming, or at least fodder for a decent weekend conversation. But she didn’t. Instead, she spent a lot of time alone, falling further into Daniel’s late-night visits to her one-bedroom apartment.
Now, seven years after meeting Fox Mulder, she has transformed into a rebel with dark clothing, short hair, and a poisonous tattoo. Talbots is confined to the darkest part of her closet. But stylish cuts do not entirely mask her secular sacrilege: she still hasn’t forgotten her God. She is never more aware of Mulder’s otherness than when she ventures to speak of her beliefs. She hates every moment of this - trying to find precise, clean phrases that can cut through his careful smile and patronizing eyes. And after seven years, she still comes away from those conversations feeling like the poseur who doesn’t quite get it.
In her living room, an assistant ME is zipping Donald Pfaster’s body into a fluid-proof body bag. She has been avoiding Mulder’s face all morning, with its profound mix of disappointment and worry and the trapped look of a lovesick man who knows he can no longer just walk away.
“If you want to pack some things, we can get out of here.”
She absently picks up her Bible, still thinking of fake sunflowers.
“You can’t judge yourself.” His voice is pitched low. She’s amazed that after all these years, he still doesn’t know it’s his judgment she’s most worried about.
“Maybe I don’t have to.”
“The Bible allows for vengeance.”
“But the law doesn’t.” She wants to take these words back as soon as they leave her mouth. She is not attempting to secure his allegiance.
“The way I see it, he didn’t give you a choice. And my report will reflect that, in case you’re worried. Donnie Pfaster would’ve surely killed again given the chance.”
He speaks quietly, in case other voices are listening. She has seen Mulder break into homes without cause, hit evil men and threaten common ones, but she has never seen him bury the truth. It is profoundly unsettling.
She needs to paste some kind of narrative on the horrific events of the past few days, so she goes on, even though he suspects he would prefer not to talk about this. “He was evil, Mulder. I’m sure about that, without a doubt. But there’s one thing that I’m not sure of.”
“What’s that?”
“Who was at work in me. Or what. What made me...what made me pull the trigger.”
If he notices her foible - she can’t say, “What made me kill him”, and most likely never will - he ignores it.
“You mean if it was God?”
“I mean, what if it wasn’t?”
She looks at him, knowing that he hasn’t yet grasped the contradiction here. He doesn’t believe in a God that could have been at work within her, and will not believe that she murdered someone in cold blood. He looks blankly to the floor and shakes his head. “Let’s talk about this later Scully. We should get out of here.”
She stands. “I’ll get my things.”
He nods and stands up, looking out her shuttered window and rubbing a hand over his face.
She is halfway to her chest of drawers when she remembers that Pfaster’s hands have searched through them. Dropping the idea of clean underwear, she walks to the closet instead, ignoring the shoes scattered across the floor by her desperate movements a few hours before. Her best black suit and most expensive heels go into a suit bag, along with a couple of sweaters, a camisole, and some black lounge pants. She changes quickly, casting her torn, bloodied pajamas on the floor. The crime scene techs will probably want them; if not, the cleaners will know what to do.
When she walks back out, Mulder is shifting his shoes back and forth through the shards of glass on the floor, absently making little piles at the foot of her bed.
She pulls a toiletry bag from her carry on, but leaves her badge and gun on the dresser.
“I’m ready if you are.”
He has a glazed look but recovers enough to touch her back as they walk to the bedroom door, dodging books and pictures and larger plates of shattered mirror. In the living room, one of the techs is pulling a slug out of her ceiling. He looks down at her curiously as they pass. Mulder nods at someone and they walk out of the apartment.
The drive back is silent aside from the soft click of the turn signal and a nearly inaudible baseball announcer; she can’t make out who’s playing, or where. Mulder doesn’t look at her or ask where she wants to go. That’s good, because she doesn’t know that she’d say. She thinks of the heavy thud of Pfaster’s body as it hit her wooden floor. Mulder’s shocked eyes. And then, practical things: whether her rental insurance will cover the floorboards in the living room; who she can hire to rip up and replace them.
When they arrive at his apartment, it smells like dust and something dank. Old garbage. Mulder immediately dodges into the kitchen to make it acceptable, throwing her overnight bag on the sofa. She wonders where she should put things and herself. She has never slept in his bed, never really been here without a file in her hand or a Serious Thing to say.
He drops a garbage bag in his hallway without a word and then returns to the kitchen. A few moments later he stands in the doorway, backlit, slowly drying his hands with a striped towel. She still hasn’t put her suit bag down or turned on a light.
“Scully.”
His voice is raspy, and she knows she should look up, but instead she just stares at the scuffed baseboards in his entryway, breathing evenly and trying to keep her mouth from trembling.
He walks towards her and drops the towel on the table, takes the suit bag and drapes it over the couch. Then he wraps his arms around her, a warm and simple thing. Her head comes to rest on his chest and she breathes him in.
“Dr. Scully usually prescribes a shower, some ibuprofen, and sleep.” His voice is low and rumbly through his chest. She chuckles weakly as he slowly moves his hands up and down her arms. “I’ll make some food.”
She doesn’t tease him about having food in a cheeky voice, or tell him she’s fine in a strong one, just breathes out and lets her head fall forward to his chest. He gently turns her and leads her towards his bathroom. She stands in the doorway and looks down at Mulder’s tattered toothbrush as he leans over to open a cabinet, keeping a hand on her arm. She has told him more than once not to brush so hard, but now it is inexplicably comforting to see the wayward fibers, pressed too hard to snap back.
He places his hand under her chin and gently angles her head back so that she meets his gaze. Her throat is beginning to hurt and she knows she will have bruising around her neck.
“Are you okay?”
She is anything but okay, but he knows this. She nods and he runs his hands down to her shoulders. “The EMT said you have mild concussive symptoms. Can you shower?”
“I have a moderate headache, but no dizziness or nausea.”
He looks at her for a moment, then dips his head. He rubs his arms once more up and down her sides and then pushes away from the counter.
“Call me if you need anything.”
She watches him walk out of the bathroom, wondering what that something might be.
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Scully keeps her eyes off of her body as she undresses. As soon as she’s under the spray she realizes that she’s left her toiletries in the other room and curses softly. She pulls a gray bottle from the rim of the tub and rubs Mulder’s shampoo through her short hair, gingerly going over the new bumps on the back of her head and teasing out little tangles fused with blood. It hadn’t hurt when Pfaster threw her into the mirror; she was scared and fighting. But her entire body hurts like hell now. She thinks of his eyes alive and crazed, then turning cloudy on her apartment floor. After her hair and body are cleaned of blood and sweat she stands in the shower for a few minutes, letting the water run down her upper back.
When she’s done, she runs the towel through her hair listlessly, with none of the energy required to fight the temperamental new cut into submission. It is already starting to frizz in the moist bathroom air. She smoothes it down absently and walks to the bathroom door in her towel.
“Mulder? Could you bring my bag?” She cranes just her head out, not wanting him to see the bruises that are blooming across her arms, shoulders, and upper back.
He brings the bag over and his eyes briefly rove over the area exposed by the towel, checking for damage. She allows this.
“Thanks.” She smells hot food. “Something smells good.”
He nods. “Eggs, and naan left over from the other night.”
“I’ll be right out.”
It’s been a long time since she’s worn pajamas in the middle of the day. She tries to pull her camisole back on, but her back is a maze of bruises and scratches. The sweaters are too tight and rub her sensitive skin. Suddenly, nothing seems right, and she sits on the toilet, overwhelmed. Mulder approaches the door.
“You ready, Scully?” She absently notes it’s the voice he uses with children and the emotionally distraught.
“Sorry. I’m, uh, looking for something that won’t rub against my back.”
He is silent for a long moment. “I have an old shirt. Will that work?”
She stares at her toes against his slightly dirty bathroom floor, as if they can tell her how to deal with this godawful situation. “Yeah.”
He walks away from the door and she hears things shifting around in his bedroom closet. She’s about to call out and tell him that it doesn’t matter, but then he returns, holding an old plaid shirt that she vaguely remembers from the first years of their partnership. The raw interior of her wrists pulls uncomfortably as she buttons the front, but the fabric is soft against her chest.
She finally faces the mirror. Her eyeliner is smearing below her eyes and she rubs it up towards her lash line. She has a large red bruise on her cheek, some pink blotches around her throat, and a bruise below her collarbone that’s exposed by the loose shirt. Her hair is already waving back from her face. She finds a creme in her bag that will keep the frizz down as it dries.
Special Agent Scully has gone to seed. She supposes he’s seen her looking worse, but not by much.
Mulder is sitting on the couch writing on a legal pad when she comes out. He looks up at her, then down at her bare feet, and manages a wisp of a smile. Tea is steaming next to him and she takes it carefully, breathing in the clean smell.
“You want naan?”
She nods and he walks to the kitchen, returning with a couple of plates stacked with eggs and warm bread. She is surprisingly hungry, and downs the meds afterwards, murmuring her gratitude. She doesn’t ask Mulder what he was writing. Eventually, she gets up to put the dishes away. He immediately shuts her down - “Scully,” drawing her name out at the end - and she wavers. The drugs are beginning to kick in.
“Why don’t you get some rest? I can work out here.”
She thinks about fighting him on this - sleeping in his bed feels like crossing a line, even though he slept in hers years ago. But she is exhausted and the soft light of the apartment makes her wearier still.
“Aren’t you tired? You’ve been up all night too.”
“I’m fine. Go get some sleep.”
“Wake me later.”
He nods and watches her as she pads carefully into his bedroom. She leaves the door cracked; he will not wake her.
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“At approximately 10:15 PM on February 25, 1997, I attempted to reach Agent Scully at her home to inform her of a conference call I had scheduled with USMS field operations for 9:30 AM the next morning, and to discuss a series of unusual coincidences related to Donald Pfaster’s disappearance. At the time of my call, I had not spoken to Agent Scully since leaving the Marion Country crime scene at approximately 5:30 PM. Agent Scully did not answer her home line or her mobile phone. Because of the assailant’s prior assault on Agent Scully (case file X-00892231), I became concerned for her welfare.”
I arrived at Agent Scully’s apartment building at approximately 10:40 PM. From the hallway, I could hear unusually loud music inside the apartment. No lights were on. These circumstances led me to believe that the perpetrator may have entered the residence and turned on music to mask noise. Upon forcing the door, I observed the assailant in the living room, and Agent Scully in immediate pursuit. Her hands and throat were partially bound. She fired one round into the assailant’s chest from a standing position at a range of 3 to 4 feet (Appendix 2a). The assailant was facing her at the time. She held her gun unsteadily, and without a support hand, most likely because of bruising and loss of circulation associated with ligature restriction. It is my opinion that Agent Scully, who had been subjected to considerable violence before being bound by the assailant (injuries documented in Appendix 1b), was not aware of my position in the room at the time she fired her weapon.
Agent Scully’s round impacted the assailant’s chest. She subsequently called emergency services (10:44 PM), while I stayed with the assailant. EMTs arrived at 10:53 PM and attempted to revive Pfaster for approximately 40 minutes. He was declared deceased at 11:51PM.
Inspection of the crime scene suggested that the assailant searched the kitchen and closet drawers for implements of torture/assault and had begun preparing the bathroom in a manner consistent with prior crimes (e.g., PID: Sullivan, Veronica, X-00892231). A large kitchen knife and a pair of kitchen shears were found on the bathroom counter (Appendix 2b). In past assaults, the assailant used found objects to remove victim hair, fingers, and toes. Appendix 2c documents other evidence of ritualistic preparation. The ligatures used to bind Agent Scully’s hands, legs, and mouth were constructed by women’s hose found by the assailant at the scene, suggesting that he was in the apartment for some time prior to the attack.
After providing my crime scene statement, I learned that U.S. Marshall Joe Daddo called my home phone at 8:37 PM on the 25th of February to request assistance in interpreting Pfaster’s state of mind during an assault that took place on the evening of February 24th (PID: Matthews, Karen, X-00998244). Daddo left a message indicating that Pfaster became enraged after discovering that the victim, who wore a wig at the time of the assault, was not a natural redhead. I did not receive this message until the morning after the assault on Agent Scully. The victim’s statement strongly suggests that the assailant’s actions were premeditated, fueled by an obsession with Agent Scully that began during his previous (1994) assault on her life and persisted throughout his incarceration. In an interview subsequent to the present assault, Agent Scully stated that the assailant showed no remorse for his past and present crimes. Because of the perversity of his crimes, and his brazen targeting of law enforcement personnel post-incarceration, Donald Pfaster represented a significant threat to the public at the time of his death.”
Mulder leans back from his laptop, pulls off his glasses, and rubs his hands across his face. He reads through the summary account once more and decides this is a truth he can live with. He is certain that the internal review will be perfunctory. After seeing how Donnie Pfaster lived, no one will care how he died.
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Scully wakes up gradually, to dusky light. She can’t remember where she is until makes out a cluttered box and smells Mulder’s sheets. When she stretches, pain shoots down her back and arms.
By the time she manages a sitting position, he is tapping at the bedroom door.
“Yeah. I’m awake.” Her voice is rusty.
He passes her a glass of water and the bottle of pills. “It’s been four hours.” She gratefully accepts, wondering when he became someone who could remember his own pill schedule, much less hers.
“How are you feeling?”
He is looking down at her, and it hurts to crane her neck up. She pats the bed beside her and puts the glass on the floor so that she can tuck her wavy hair behind her ears.
“I’ve felt better.”
“I bet.” He sits carefully on the bed, looking over her face and neck. Something flickers there but he just says, “Nice hair.”
She rolls her eyes and bumps him on the knee. She is off balance, but relaxed, her mind cloudy from afternoon sleep. She hears soft music coming from the living room and a late afternoon breeze lazily shifts the branches of a tree outside his window.
“Skinner sent us an email. Your review isn’t scheduled until Friday. He also said that you’re being recommended for a commendation.”
She looks up, shocked. “You’re kidding.” He smiles a bit at her look of dismay, and some of the tension eases out of her.
He shakes his head. “I am not. Our esteemed boss knows how to play the game, Scully, and the tide of public opinion is in your favor. Let me show you.”
He gets up and returns with his laptop. “Check it out. The Post just put tomorrow’s front page article up online.” The top half of the page is taken up by a picture of crime scene tape in front of her apartment building. She groans; not again. Further down, Pfaster’s mugshot, next to her official FBI portrait.
“Damn it.” She reaches for her phone on the floor. No missed calls, but they would be coming soon. “I have to call my mother. And Bill.”
He nods and turns back to the file. “Give my best to your brother.”
Scully gives him a look and punches out her mother’s number. Maggie is predictably worried, but happy to have been notified before she received the news from the media.
“Where are you staying tonight, Dana?”
“At Mulder’s. We’re still finishing up some of the details.” Scully keeps her voice neutral. She knows what her mother must be thinking, but decides silence is easier than trying to explain her whereabouts while Mulder can overhear. She’s not sure she can explain it to herself, much less to her, or him.
Surprisingly, her mother does not try and cajole her into coming over. Instead, she just sighs. “You should be resting, Dana.”
“I am, Mom.”
Luckily, her mother leaves it at that. Luckier still, Bill is at sea, and she gets away with leaving a brief message.
-----------------
Later that night they sit on Mulder’s couch, watching one of the Lethal Weapons on TNT. Her feet are wrapped in his oversized socks and stretched out on the coffee table. She is too sore to curl up.
They have experienced many lifetimes worth of trauma, and he knows she would like to get back to her routine. That’s impossible as long as her apartment is off limits, so he lets her slip into his. Earlier, they read side by side on their laptops -- he, “Creative, Paranormal, and Delusional Thought: A Consequence of Right Hemisphere Semantic Activation?” and she, “Investigation of Nocturnal Oviposition by Necrophilous Flies.” But she was uncharacteristically restless, or troubled, or both, and after her third sigh, he turned on the TV.
“Kroner was really bad.” She picks up the thread of an earlier conversation. Over dinner, they’d talked about some of their worst cases.
He nods and absently scratches his chin. “Yeah, you were in a particular mood. But I still think that hurricane-sea-monster-combo in Florida might take the cake.”
“God, I was wet for 16 hours --”
“Ah-hem.”
She rolls her eyes. “I was in a bad mood for good reason in Kroner.”
“You just don’t play high school well, do you Scully?”
“No, I don’t play Kansas well. And as I recall, I had a reason to get back.”
He looks over, head tilted back on the worn leather couch. “The plot thickens.”
“Mmm.” She watches his eyes. He is smirking, but there is something too-composed in his expression.
“Let me guess: a dashing young gentleman? A well-financed divorcee of a certain age?” His voice is a bit raspy, his eyes hooded.
That gets him a look. “We were set up by a friend from med school.” As he opens his mouth to ask: “Analyst. Divorced, no kids.”
His eyebrows raise for a split second, and she knows this confession has caught him off guard. “One time thing?”
She returns her eyes to the television, wondering how this came up today, of all days. “A two or three time thing.”
“So secretive, Scully. What happened? Did he get tired of the constant excuses? ‘I’m sorry, hon, but tonight’s just not going to work. I’m exhausted and covered in bile.’”
She looks over and makes a dismissive noise. “It wasn’t really going anywhere. And then...”
He looks down at her abdomen and taps his hand there, softly. She sucks in a breath.
“Yes. After New York I think it rapidly became clear that I had other priorities.” She pauses mid-sentence, trying to find an appropriately neutral expression, but Mulder doesn’t press her. Instead, he just looks at her for a beat before removing his hand, then turns back at the television. Mel Gibson is comparing scars with another cop. Scully idly thinks that she and Mulder have never done this.
He insists that she take the bed that night. For a time, she avoids thinking about Pfaster by trying to picture the analyst. He’d had grey eyes and a serious expression, and was charmingly curious about her and her work. It had been such an infuriating time; Mulder seemed resentful after they’d gotten back from Antarctica. Fed up, really. He’d ditched her during that goddamned Queen Anne imbroglio, and there were long days in the basement when it seemed as though all the fun had gone out of their bickering. If she was honest with herself, it hadn’t helped that Diana was slinking around the halls.
Predictably, in the midst of tragedy, they seemed to have righted themselves. But this thought leads her back to Pfaster, and to other lives she has ended. She doesn’t sleep well.