Work Text:
The Capital Mall
Tuesday, 5:00 p.m.
“If I quit now, they win.” Scully always took a great deal of satisfaction in using Mulder’s very words to prove her own point.
The feeling of his hand in hers as they walked away from the Hoover Building was at once all too comfortable and far too dangerous. She shifted her hand up to his arm as she kept speaking. “I do plan to take some more time off, though. Only a few days. I’d like to monitor my vitals on my own and make sure it’s wise for me to continue working. Our job isn’t exactly risk-free.”
Mulder let out a rueful laugh. “I can’t imagine what you could be talking about,” he said, giving her a knowing look. He sighed. “How long?”
“I think I’ll take the rest of the week. If I consider myself well enough, I’ll come back after the weekend, on Monday.”
“So I have to go five whole days without you?!” he blurted out, clearly without any premeditation. It was so child-like, so raw and honest, that Scully couldn’t help smiling amusedly at him.
“Yes, Mulder, five whole days.” And while she privately shared his sorrow at missing his presence, certain things had recently occurred, and… well. It would probably be wise to take some time away from each other. Maybe the stress of the job had led them both temporarily to mistake the nature of their partnership for something else.
Temporarily. That was the key word. They just needed a bit of a reset.
“And I’d like to keep myself off the phone as well. Whenever we talk, we end up talking about work. We can’t help it. So I’m going to request that you refrain from calling me.”
She was afraid Mulder would look hurt, but, although he took a few moments to reply, he nodded in understanding.
“I can do that.” He shook himself a bit, blinking and looking at her as he paused their stroll and took her hand again. “I hadn’t thought about it, Scully. About you needing time off. I’m… sorry. Jesus. I just forget these things sometimes.” He ran his thumb over her knuckles. “Okay, so promise me: don’t think about this whole mess until you’re back at the office on Monday morning. Okay? You deserve a break from it. I’m sure I’ll be doing enough thinking for the both of us.”
A tall order, but she would do her best. “I promise.” She squeezed his hand. “Thank you,” she whispered. She briefly placed both of her hands on top of his, and then split off from him, heading to her car as he was left standing and staring into the reflecting pool.
Thursday
Sometimes the state of Scully’s refrigerator left her deeply chagrined. Given the unpredictable nature of her work, she’d almost entirely given up on keeping fresh meats and vegetables around, after watching them spoil so often as she gallivanted off to get kidnapped. She peeked inside and wrinkled her nose; her little trip to Antarctica had left her with several unappetizing containers of take-out food that were going moldy, and not much else.
Well. She was going to be home for five whole days, and she deserved to cook herself a few hot meals with fresh food. She drove to the nearest grocery store, a Safeway, and stocked up on the supplies for five decent dinners and four hearty breakfasts (for lunch, she’d probably wing it). Heirloom tomatoes, portobello mushrooms, chives, a juicy steak…
Wine, she already had. She would certainly be needing some.
She hadn’t been eating real ice cream lately, but as she passed the Ben and Jerry’s in the frozen aisle, she found her mouth watering at the Coffee Toffee Bar Crunch. Why the hell not. If anyone had ever deserved full-fat full-dairy ice cream, it was Dana Scully after being entombed at the bottom of the world.
She paused before she opened it, with her hand on the frigid door handle. Prepare yourself for the shock, Dana. The cold may activate a stress response.
But when she opened the door and let the frozen air wash over her, there was no fear. All she felt was safety and security, and the lingering sensation of Mulder placing his coat around her, warming her from the inside and out.
And not only that: she felt her own strength and resolve, for she had done the same for him, giving him life after seeing the… whatever they had seen.
Somehow, every deadly encounter they faced together left her stronger and more capable. And more cared for…
Smiling a secret smile to herself, she grabbed her ice cream and made her way to the check-out.
It tasted decadent with her Cabernet that night.
Wednesday
U.S. Botanic Garden
Scully watched the little girl staring intently at the Rumex sanguineus plant, also known as Bloody Dock, in the Medicinal and Economic Plants section of the gardens. The girl, who looked to be about eight years old, was frowning and cocking her head, squatting down to get a better look at it.
Unable to resist, Scully crouched down next to her. “You like this one?”
The girl nodded. “Yeah. I think so. I like that it’s a medicinal plant, but it’s got this gory nickname. Like me. I’m Livia, named after a notorious Roman murderess. But I’m going to be a doctor someday, and save people’s lives.” She looked up. “What exactly does this plant do, anyway?”
Scully felt tickled and pleased that this girl seemed to understand, instinctively, that Scully held expertise in the area of medicine. “Well,” Scully said, “for one thing, it can be used as an astringent. An astringent is something that can stop the bleeding or—”
“Oh, I know what it means.”
Scully nodded. “Of course. It can help with minor burns, rashes, boils, insect bites…”
“But only in an emergency, right?” Livia asked. “You should use real medicine if you have it.”
“Well,” Scully said, considering the question. “It really depends on the situation. In a hospital setting, I would say yes. But in some studies, certain types of traditional medicine have been shown to—”
“Could Bloody Dock help you with your face?” Livia asked bluntly, staring up at Scully’s frostbitten skin and cracked lips, on which she was strictly forbidden from using makeup at the moment. “What happened to it?”
“Well,” Scully said, “Interestingly enough, it started with a bee sting, so… maybe, at first, it could have helped.”
“But you said insect bites, not stings. That doesn’t count.”
Scully grinned at her. “You’re right, Livia. It doesn’t count. And this redness and blistering is the result of frostbite anyway, so I’m not sure if this particular plant could help.”
Livia peered up at her curiously. “How did you get from a bee sting to frostbite?”
Scully chuckled. “It’s a long story, Livia. But I like your questions. Keep asking them, okay? And never stop.”
Livia nodded, then looked down at the ground, where a Bloody Dock leaf had fallen off its stem. “Here,” she said, retrieving it and handing it to Scully. “Maybe it’ll help your face.”
Scully wanted to hug the child, who was so blithely unaware of such matters as tact and propriety, much less of global murderous conspiracies. Instead, she nodded and took the leaf. “Thank you,” she said. “Maybe it will.”
Livia stood up and ran her hand through her hair. “See ya,” she said, skipping off to return to her dad and her baby sibling. Scully stood up self-consciously. She didn’t really care what her face looked like; she was alive, after all. But it was a stark reminder of all that had happened to her, and that it was still profoundly affecting her.
She made her way through the rest of the Medicinal Plants exhibit slowly and methodically; she liked to come here when she had some time available (hence, rarely). It tended to soothe her, and today was no exception.
As she left the greenhouse, she noticed a bee buzzing around the paphiopedilum orchid — a newer hybrid that had been given the name “Song of Love.”
Song of love…
She closed her eyes and, for the first time, allowed herself to travel back to that moment. The moment before the sting.
Just for a second.
Her body leapt into alertness, and she quickly opened her eyes.
Not yet.
She pushed the door open firmly and allowed the bee to follow her out, then watched it go on its merry way, dancing away from her.
Friday
Scully’s palms met, and she thought guiltily that it had been quite a while since she had prayed with intentionality. She knew that, in theory, God would forgive her for this lapse, but privately, she felt that this was too permissive of Him. Maybe she’d be more disciplined if His rules were more strictly enforced.
But that was none of her business, and she elected not to mention this to Him as she began her prayer, closing her eyes and kneeling in deference next to her bed.
“Dear Heavenly Father,” she began, and then found that she had no idea how to continue.
Her eyes popped open and she looked at nothing in particular, letting the room go out of focus.
“Thank you,” she tried, and it felt right. “Thank you for keeping me safe in my time of need. Thank you for keeping my partner safe. Thank you for my family, my job, and my health.”
It all sounded so dry and empty. She stood up and went to the window, staring out at the street below, and allowed her left hand to rest at the cross upon her neck. “Mulder told me he found this after they took me. It just keeps coming back to me, and I can only imagine that you’ve got something to do with that. I know that your plan is mysterious, and one day it may not be within your plan to keep me on this earth. But for now…” She gazed out at the humming traffic, the familiar and unremarkable sights, and smiled. “For now, I thank you for letting me be a part of this life, this earth. For allowing me to do this work that is so important, and for keeping me alive in order to continue it. God…”
She held the windowsill and leaned her head on the glass. “God, I’m not sure he could go on without me at this point. And so for his sake, and the sake of my family, I give you such gratitude.”
She felt, as she occasionally did, a distinct presence of the divine within her and around her. “I’m truly happy, God, in this life. And I humbly beseech you to allow me to continue it for as long as possible. Amen.” She quickly crossed herself and turned back to her room. She’d vowed to give herself a day of total rest, so she climbed back into bed with a copy of Capote’s Music for Chameleons.
Every instinct in her body told her to get up and do things, important things! But she took deep breaths and managed to remain horizontal for as much of the day as was reasonable (except, of course, for the cooking of her risotto).
That evening, when she lay in her bubble bath with her glass of wine, she thought again about her prayer. While she knew that God could hear all of her thoughts, she couldn’t help feeling that there was a state of mind available to her in which her thoughts were wholly her own, and within this mentality she allowed a query to bubble to the surface:
Is it purely God who is responsible for our improbable escapes? Or do Mulder and I owe more to each other than to Him?
It was blasphemous, irreverent, and irresistible. And that was all right; God would forgive her, after all, if he’d heard her.
Saturday
It was around 10 a.m when Scully had exhausted her patience for the New York Times crossword puzzle and its infuriating cleverness, and she pulled out her briefcase and clicked it open. It was a great relief to investigate its contents; she hadn’t brought home anything of great importance, of course, but there was something profoundly satisfying about catching up on FD-302 forms that had gotten swept aside by various dramatic and all-consuming cases.
It was all right, she told herself. She could still do work while on her medical leave. The point was to relax and rejuvenate, and catching up on necessary paperwork was genuinely soothing to her soul. She worked through it methodically until nothing remained in the briefcase… except the bee.
She stared at it, aching to get back to studying it. But she had promised him, and herself, that she would wait.
2 p.m. now. She should eat lunch, probably. She found herself wondering if Mulder had managed to keep himself out of the office this weekend. Then she laughed immediately: of course he was there, probably trying to restore their lost files. Unless he was off in Saskatchewan pursuing a half-unicorn-half-leprechaun.
She also wondered how on earth he was keeping himself from calling her.
Indeed, she was wondering the same thing about herself.
Despite her promise to him, she was itching to return to the comfort of the lab to analyze the damn bee. How could anyone have a more fascinating job than she did?
She thought, with a sudden pang, of how close she’d been to quitting the FBI, leaving everything. Leaving Mulder…
She shook her head. Could she really have ever done that? Even if they were separated as partners, even if the X-Files were closed for good, how could she have considered trying to distance herself from him? She could have fought the transfer… Lobbied hard to stay in D.C…. And she could have gotten back to him…
Their lives were intertwined now. If she closed her eyes, she could feel his frenzied energy radiating at her from across the city, reaching her and begging her to work with him — now, always, until the end of time.
To work with me, or… more than that?
Again, she thought of that moment in his hallway. Her lips burned, her gut tightened, she felt the weight of his strong hands on her… the heat of his mouth as it nearly enveloped hers…
“Goddammit,” she muttered. Then she looked up. “Sorry,” she said, and crossed herself.
She missed work. She missed him. And the questions that had been raised on their adventure were beginning to become impossible to ignore: the conspiracy, the nature of scientific reality, and the status of their own feelings for each other.
She secured the bee carefully back into its little compartment inside her briefcase and willed herself to wait.
Scully, you’ll do a better job at answering all of those questions if you take care of yourself right now.
And she did, for the rest of the day. Or at least, she did her very best. Her vital signs remained stable, although she couldn’t help noticing that her heart rate had increased since the morning.
Sunday
“Mom! Hi,” she said into her phone. “What’s up? Why aren’t you at church?”
“Why aren’t you?” Maggie retorted.
“Okay, fair enough. But what’s going on? Is everything okay?”
Maggie let out a long sigh. “Dana, don’t you know that’s my line?”
Scully almost laughed, but then grew a knot in the pit of her stomach. “Um… why do you ask, Mom?”
“I don’t know, Dana. Has anything happened recently? Anything you’d like to tell me?” Her voice almost had an edge to it, but her mom was never passive-aggressive… or at least, almost never..
Scully tucked her feet up under her on the couch. “Well,” she said. She had elected not to tell her mom about the most recent adventure; it was just too much. Not only had it been the stuff of nightmares, but it defied believability in so many ways, and she just didn’t know where to begin. But her silence was long enough that she heard an impatient, knowing cough from the other end of the line, and she knew that she’d have to tell at least part of the story.
“Well… I guess I should tell you that I almost left the Bureau.”
Maggie gasped audibly. “But why?”
Scully wondered exactly how to go about this. It was always tricky to discuss her partnership with Mulder without causing her mom to get that look on her face or that tone in her voice that implied that she wanted more from her daughter’s relationship with her partner. “Mom, you know they closed the X-Files.”
“Yes, but you’re still working with Fox, aren’t you?”
“Mom, that’s not the—” Scully couldn’t even try to lie about her feelings on that point, because she knew she’d contradict herself soon enough anyway. “Well, I was — I mean, I am — but there was a week or so when they were about to transfer me to Salt Lake City.”
She felt her mom’s sympathetic nod. “Without him?”
“Yes, mom. Without him. But that wasn’t the only reason I considered quitting… I mean, my whole life is here, and…” Her voice trailed off. “Well. Anyway. It just didn’t hold any appeal to me. So I almost called it quits.”
“And what changed? Why did they reopen the X-Files?”
Scully straightened up and looked down at the phone. “How did you know that they did?”
Maggie’s exasperation suddenly showed through. “Dana, I really wish I didn’t have to hear about your life-threatening encounters from Fox. He didn’t tell me about your almost quitting, but frankly, that’s minor news compared with the fact that you were hospitalized again recently.”
Scully sat up straighter. “He called you?”
“No, I called him. Last night. I wanted to ask him if he’d had time to track down his mother’s pimento and leek casserole recipe.” She sighed again. “What happened, exactly? Fox didn’t want to give me the details, once he realized you hadn’t told me yet. So tell me, Dana: what landed you in the hospital this time?”
Scully shook her head; conversations like this, with Maggie, were the only things that ever made her sincerely question her choice of career. She wanted to be honest with her, but couldn’t stand the amount of stress and fear her honesty could bring to her mother.
“I was stung by a bee that was infected with a virus, after which I was transported to a location where I suffered a certain degree of frostbite. Luckily, I was with Mulder at his apartment at the time of the bee sting; he caught me as I fell, he helped me get the bee out of my collar, he called the hospital…” Scully was leaving out details left and right, but she was doing the best she could to be honest without being provocatively so. “...and he was the one who gave me the antidote to the virus. He was there for me, Mom, just like I’m always there for him. We take good care of each other, and I’m fine now. Really, I am.”
“The number of times I’ve heard that,” Maggie said, her voice weary. “What was this… ‘location’ you mentioned? Where you got frostbite?”
“Um…” Scully considered lying, but couldn’t bring herself to do it. When it came to Margaret Scully, only lies of omission were acceptable to her daughter’s moral compass. “I was taken to… Antarctica.”
There was a thud as though Maggie had dropped something heavy. “Antarctica? As in… the continent? That’s not the name of a town or something?”
“Yeah, Mom. The continent. With the penguins. Although I didn’t exactly get to see any penguins.”
“When you say ‘taken,' you mean… abducted. Again.”
Scully felt a lump in her throat. “I’m sorry, Mom.”
Maggie sighed in exasperation. “Dana! Don’t be sorry for what happened, I just really need to be kept in the loop about all these things. Okay? I know your job is dangerous, and I know it’s pointless to ask you to get a different one. Just please, keep me posted. Okay?”
“Okay, Mom.”
“I just feel so much better knowing that you and Fox look out for each other the way you do. It’s one of the most special things I’ve seen in my life, Dana, and I hope you appreciate everything you do for each other. So he… he went all the way to Antarctica? To save you?”
Spoken out loud like that, Scully was bowled over by the significance of what Mulder had done. The phrase “I’d go to the ends of the earth for you” had never been so true in human history. She found her pulse quickening and her lips parting, wanting suddenly to clasp his hand and squeeze it and never let him go.
But he’s not here. I haven’t seen him in days.
I miss him… I miss him so much it hurts…
“Dana…” Maggie’s voice interrupted her train of thought, and the tone of her voice had changed from motherly fretting to motherly inquisitiveness. “...What were you doing when the bee stung you?”
Scully let out a long breath and picked at a fingernail. “What do you mean?”
“You said Fox caught you as you fell, he got the bee out of your collar… You were at his apartment…” Maggie’s tone was far too sharp and incisive. How does she know?! “So… what were you doing?”
Scully started a few separate phrases and retracted them all. Eventually, she refocused and said, “Um. Well. We were in his hallway, just standing and talking about my decision to quit.”
“And how did he feel about it?”
“He implored me not to. He told me…” She felt her throat growing tight. “He told me that he didn’t want to do it without me. That… that maybe he couldn’t do it without me. That I…” She closed her eyes and tried to remember all the words, tried to cement them in her mind so she’d never, ever forget them. “That I keep him honest… I make him a whole person… He owes me everything, and I…” She nearly couldn’t continue as a tear slipped from her eye. She felt full to the brim with his appreciation of her, as though nothing else could possibly be necessary for sustenance in this world again.
“Oh, Dana,” Maggie said. “Did you kiss him?”
She wanted to tell her mom everything, to pour out her soul, to tell her all of the thoughts and hopes and fears and wild fantasies that she’d had over the past five years and try to make sense of them together. But she couldn’t quite get there.
“No, Mom. I didn’t.”
She felt another nod from the other end of the phone. “But you almost did.”
“Jesus Christ, Mom, how are you so psychic?”
“It’s a mom thing, honey. And take care of the Lord’s name there.”
“I know, sorry.” Scully snuggled into the couch cushions again and spoke before she could think about it too hard. “I think he’s in love with me.”
Maggie tried to suppress a snort of laughter.
“What, Mom? Why are you laughing at that?”
“Oh, baby. The fact that you seem to just now be realizing this, coupled with the fact that you seem to think it’s one-sided. They’re both very, very funny to me.”
“What do you mean, I think it’s one-sided?”
Maggie clicked her tongue and Scully could hear the shuffling sounds that indicated Maggie had tucked her legs up under her, on her own couch. “Think about it, dear. I’m sure you can figure it out.”
Scully clasped her throw pillow as though she were wrapping her arms around her mother and resting her head against her chest. “Tell me what to do, Mom,” she said. “I have no idea.”
“Honey, I really can’t tell you what to do. Only your heart can tell you that. Do you think this is the right time to ask him about it?”
Scully shook her head in an emphatic no. “Not at all. I’ve taken a few days off, but we could be on the brink of a momentous discovery here, in terms of our work. I know that that’s the only thing he’s thinking about, and when I get back to work tomorrow, it’s all I need to be thinking about, too. I can’t distract us with interpersonal matters.”
“Well, I beg to differ: I’m sure he’s thinking about you, too, and not just this big investigation. But I defer to you, Dana, of course you know him best.”
Scully put her thumb and forefinger to her brow; her brain suddenly felt sluggish, like the synapses were reluctant to transmit signals between her neurons.
“I’m tired, Mom. Can you tell me a Matthew story? I need to hear about the cutest baby in the world right now.”
So Maggie obliged, because of course Bill told her more of the baby stories than he told his sister. Apparently Matthew had said something that Bill was convinced was “Barbarella,” and Maggie had gently tried to convince him that it couldn’t be what he had said, but it was so charming that Scully was left with a wide grin on her face.
For the rest of the day, Scully did her best to focus entirely on her final day of rest, and not on the revelation she’d had while talking to her mom.
After all… she couldn’t possibly be right about that. Could she?
Sunday 4:30 p.m.
At a certain point in the afternoon, Scully felt that Sunday could reasonably be considered “over” and she opened her briefcase again, reviewing materials and drawing up a lab request to study the viral material contained within the bee.
At around 4:55, while changing her trash, she picked up her cell phone, without thinking much, and called Mulder’s cell number.
“Mulder, it’s me. The lab doesn’t open until 9 tomorrow, so I’m hoping to get some work done in the office between 8 and 8:45. Are you going to be there then, or are you getting in at 9? I’d like to get a detailed second-by-second timeline from you in terms of the bee sting. My memory’s a bit muddled and it will help me interpret the results if you can help me understand how long it took me to lose my balance.” Then she remembered that he’d promised him she wouldn’t think about work until Monday morning. “Um… I mean… well. You can disregard this if you want to. See you in the morning, Mulder.”
She had the old trash bag in her hand and, as she clicked off the phone, she opened the door to take it to the garbage disposal… only to be met by the wide-eyed face and ready-to-knock knuckles of Fox Mulder.
“It’s been five days, technically,” he said apologetically, looking at his watch. “Five p.m. That’s when you left me on Tuesday. So, uh… I hope it’s okay that I’m here.”
Scully felt a sweeping rush of relief flood her body. She hadn’t realized how restless she’d been without him, how much her body had been fidgeting being out of his proximity. Now, even though she knew that his arrival meant the intrusion of thoughts about conspiracies and aliens and viruses (and death, so much death), she felt whole again.
“Well, if you check your messages,” she said, “you’ll see that I literally just called you. So I’d say my medical leave can be reasonably considered… concluded.”
Mulder whipped out his phone and a look of genuine pain crossed his face at the fact that he had missed her call. “Your lobby has crappy reception,” he said dejectedly. “I would’ve answered and talked to you on the way up.”
She stared at him, trying to process what she’d said to Maggie earlier. I think he’s in love with me. It could be true, it really could.
But that wasn’t her business, really. It was only her business if the feeling was reciprocated.
Which Mom implied it was.
But surely I don’t…
“What is it, Scully? You’re looking at me like I’m a ghoul wearing a bowler hat.” But he didn’t wait for an answer; he strolled into her apartment and positioned himself in the middle of the room, rubbing his hands together. “So we’ve got another OPR hearing lined up for Wednesday. I’m hoping we can get that bee into the lab bright and early tomorrow, and then go from there. I’ve got some plans with the Gunmen tonight, and they’re giving me some intel on—”
“Mulder, I’ve already got a plan for the lab. Really. Everything will be taken care of.”
Mulder looked at her quizzically. “But you weren’t supposed to be working, or thinking about this stuff at all.”
She shrugged. “I couldn’t help it. Just a few times. Don’t worry, I got enough rest.”
He peered into her face, his eyes softening. “Your skin is looking almost back to normal. That’s good. Except for…” He brought his thumb up to the back of her jawline. “...right here.” He caressed it tenderly. “Still a little raw there.”
“Yeah. Well. I’m okay.” She cleared her throat. “Um… well, my message to you was to ask about…”
“Oh! Don’t tell me. I’ll just listen to it. It’ll be a surprise.” Mulder plopped himself on her couch, lying down, and pressed the phone to his ear.
Suddenly, Scully realized exactly what she was asking of him in that message. For a precise recounting of what had been happening right before the bee sting. And that included…
I mean, maybe it wasn’t going to be a kiss after all. Our lips never met. Maybe they never would have…
Mulder’s face went through an interesting evolution as he listened to the message. With his eyebrows raised, he clicked off the phone and sat up slowly, folding his hands on his knees.
“So. You want a play-by-play of the bee sting? During, after, and… before?” His jaw was set and his eyes were steady. There was no mistaking what he was thinking about.
She tried to deflect, sitting down in a chair opposite him. “Well, yes, Mulder. I’ll need to have the timing down as accurately as possible. It’ll help me narrow down the number of potential interpretations of the test results if I properly understand the physical effects.”
“The physical effects,” Mulder said, very low and deliberate. “I can tell you about those. All about them. If you want me to.”
Something electric ripped through the air between them and she could hear her own heart pounding in her chest, and perhaps his as well.
This is the moment. We could talk about it: genuinely and openly. We could tell each other how we feel… I could finally admit to myself that I… that I…
But Mulder’s heel tapped on the ground three times, and she sensed his impatience.
He’s still thinking about the case. He wants me. But if we do this now, it would be rushed. We’d kiss, we’d fuck, and then it’d be back to the grind, and who knows if we’d ever talk about it with any significance.
This isn’t the time.
So she narrowed her eyes, set her shoulders, and chose her words with care.
“Beginning with the moment of the bee sting, I would like to pin down a thorough timeline, to the best of your memory.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Beginning with the moment of the bee sting. Not before.”
She nodded and sat up straighter. “That’s what will be the most helpful to our cause.”
He laughed a bit, a shrewd, knowing laugh, and dropped his head into his hands. And he kept it there, for five seconds… ten seconds… Scully was about to ask him what on earth he was doing when he lifted his head again. When he did, his expression had changed and there were… oh. There were tears in his eyes.
“Scully, you know how scared I was when you were taken. Right?”
She could only nod; she would have felt the same way. “I do.”
“Whatever we end up talking about or not talking about, I just want to make sure you’re okay. You’re really well enough to be doing this work now? You’re good? I know that I’m too far gone to stop, but you… I really don’t want to pressure you to come back to work if you’re not ready.”
Scully smiled, touched and relieved that he wasn’t about to press the pre-bee issue. “I really am ready. Work helps me. And this work in particular is as vital to me as it is to you. I need to understand what was done to me, and what could be done to others. I’m in it with you, Mulder. Till the end.”
Mulder crawled off the couch and fell into her lap, melting into her, clutching her legs. She ran her hands through his hair, telling herself that this was a perfectly normal position for two work colleagues to find themselves in. When he looked up at her again, his eyes were dry, and there was only gratitude on his face.
“Thank you, Scully. Thank you for doing all of this with me. I know I seem single-minded, and I’m probably about to start talking about work again within the next forty-five seconds. But please, never forget that I’m not actually single-minded. Not anymore, at least.”
“So… double-minded?”
He reached up, raising up on his knees, and brushed her hair out of her face. “Yeah. Double-minded. I’ll never stop thinking about…” He stopped short of the ‘you’, and their faces were tantalizingly close again.
Scully pressed a kiss to the top of his head, and lifted him up, leading them both to sit on the couch together. She swished a notepad and a pen closer to him.
“Now,” she said, gently. “Ready to begin?”
Mulder nodded. “I’m ready.”
The second-by-second timeline had almost certainly been a pipe dream. But Mulder did his best, and she felt as prepared for tomorrow (and for Wednesday’s hearing) as she feasibly could be.
And then they were talking about other things: Frohike’s supposed new lady friend, Scully’s encounter with Livia, Teena Mulder’s pimento and leek casserole. Before Scully realized quite how it had happened, it was dinnertime, and there was a home-cooked meal sitting between them. The two of them had an uncanny ability to make time slip away. They laughed, they ate, and for an incandescent moment in time, the chaos and foreboding fell away and they were simply them. Just Mulder and Scully, existing together.
“Get some sleep,” he said, finally, as he noticed her yawning, and she didn’t resist. She nodded and stood, and they pondered each other’s faces for quite a long moment. Scully knew that tomorrow would be different: the stress would weigh them down again, and their situation would be just as precarious as it had been at Scully’s last hearing. But they had this moment, right now, and she could return to it any time she needed to.
They stared into each other’s eyes, trading insightful glances, before Mulder turned to leave. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Scully,” he said, and he left for the Gunmen’s lair.
Whatever she might now know about the nature of their relationship, and however difficult that made things, Scully tried to focus on the simpler takeaway.
She never wanted to go that long without speaking to Mulder, ever again.