TITLE: The Deep Untangling AUTHOR: Rae Lynn (xraelynn@gmail.com) CLASSIFICATION/KEYWORDS: MSR, Scully POV TIMELINE/SPOILERS: Mid- to late 8th season SUMMARY: "Thus far, Mulder and his son have at least one thing in common: For several months this past year, they both slept like the dead." DISCLAIMER: All characters contained within are the property of Chris Carter and Ten Thirteen Productions. No profit will result from this story and no copyright infringement is intended. ARCHIVE: Inquire within. AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is a companion piece to a story I wrote recently called "This Life Is Not Yet Rated." You don't need to have read that story to understand this one, but for those of you who did, this is the same piece from Scully's perspective. If you'd prefer to read "This Life Is Not Yet Rated" first (or later!), it can be found here: http://www.geocities.com/ rae_lynn05/ThisLifeIsNotYetRated.txt Hurry back, I'll wait! * * * "People die sometimes so near you you feel them struggling to cross over, the deep untangling, of one body from another." --from "What Saves Us," by Bruce Weigl "Once you lose someone it is never exactly the same person who comes back." --from "Feared Drowned," by Sharon Olds * * * Mulder's screams wake me before William's. Once, it seemed that his screams were all I would have left of Mulder; it was months before I dreamt about anything other than fresh agony on Mulder's lips, before I could remember his voice as anything other than a plea for me to save him. I would wake with his screams still echoing inside of me, wondering if somehow they could reverberate through my body down to where the cells divided and slept, preparing to awaken. Our child. Mulder's and mine. Thus far, Mulder and his son have at least one thing in common: For several months this past year, they both slept like the dead. We are idly discussing what I privately think of as our safe-zone topics -- the weather, our lunch menu, whether or not William's toothless grin can be labeled gassy grimace or smile -- when it happens: Mulder drifts off. It happens gradually, his firm grip on William never loosens even as his gaze slackens and dims. Watching Mulder grow silent, something cold pours through me. Mulder may have risen from the dead, but he hasn't risen all the way. "Mulder?" He jerks, a little guiltily, as if he's dropped back into his old life and I've caught him with an issue of the Adult Video News. For a moment I picture him there in his office, flipping through photos of crop circles and munching on sunflower seeds, and an ache surges in my chest as the image crumbles and decays. "You're doing it again," I say, as gently as I can. Even so, Mulder flinches. Inexplicably, I find myself mesmerized by the movement, the small gesture that seems to resound in me as loudly as his screams once did, no longer a terrifying premonition but an alarm nonetheless: I am home. I am alive. I am safe. But just barely. He blinks and looks away, managing an unconvincing "Oh. Sorry." "Mulder..." I start to say, willing the ominous overtones to vanish from my voice; the last thing Mulder needs right now, I tell myself, is a lecture on conversational etiquette. "I'm working on it," he interrupts, quietly insistent. I have listened to enough of Mulder's denials over the years to detect the warning tones that swim beneath the surface of his words. But this isn't merely another case that got away from us. These days, Mulder still inhabits my apartment like the ghost he almost left behind. Reluctantly, his eyes meet mine, and my resolve collapses. Surely bearing witness to his rebirth is as startling as the event itself. It's still a wondrous thing to have him in front of me, holding our son in his arms and staring me down as fiercely as though he were still alive. He is still alive, I remind myself every morning, mouth dry, pulse pounding, willing Mulder to stir as I listen to the sound of his heart. He is still safe. He is still home. "I know you are, Mulder," I say quietly, reaching out for William; I have been seized suddenly by a longing to touch Mulder, to feel his pulse thrumming beneath my fingers. His skin is cold to the touch, these days, his body stiff and awkward next to mine, and I content myself with an armful of my sleeping son, whose veins are humming contentedly with the blood of his father. The bottom of William's overalls are sagging. "He needs a diaper change," I say without thinking, wishing I could take it back when it rings accusatorily in my ears. Mulder rises automatically to his feet, his arms outstretched. "I'll take care of it," he says, his voice wavering somewhere between hopeful and terrified. My own reflexes are not as in tune with Mulder as they once were, and it takes a split second to blink the doubt out of my eyes. There are very few things in this life that I am certain of any longer, but one of them is that fatherhood is not something Mulder ever planned for. When they are alone, Mulder studies William the way he once studied mysterious lights in the sky: with a kind of awe that is breathless and euphoric and tinged with just a hint of trepidation. Now, Mulder looks like he is rapidly losing his nerve, his tentative smile frozen uncomfortably on his face. "Mulder, are you sure..." I start to say, and the smile wavers. "He's my son," Mulder replies with practiced casualness. "Of course I'm sure." Suddenly I picture him in Oregon, so tender, so sure of himself. 'There's so much more you need to do with your life,' he says. 'There's so much more than this.' At the time, feeling dizzy and weak with William already burgeoning inside of me, I scarcely gave his words any thought; it was just Mulder asking me to leave him for the hundredth time when both of us knew there was no longer any going back. But maybe Mulder wasn't asking me to leave. Maybe Mulder was saying goodbye. I let him go to Oregon, I can let him change a diaper, I tell myself as I lift William to Mulder's chest. Suddenly my own arms are around him, pretending I don't feel the way he stiffens, the sound of his breath rigid and shallow in my ear. "You just need some time," I hear myself say, although my voice sounds like it belongs to someone else; another Dana Scully, one who hasn't yet buried a partner and birthed a son. Mulder's low murmur is reassuring against the sound of William's happy coos, and I relax into the couch when I hear the rustle of diaper Velcro. Then in an instant the noises of the changing table slide ominously into silence before William's wails are flung into the air like a scarlet flag suddenly unfurled against the sky. Before I am even aware that I have moved, I find myself on the floor with him, my hands grabbing for his. "Mulder? Mulder!" My voice is high and tight with panic and I will myself to calm down. Mulder's eyes are wide and blank as he wrenches away from me. "Mulder," I say commandingly. He shudders once, some of the awareness seeping back into his eyes even as he takes a half-hearted swipe at my hand on his forehead; I've forgotten that our old roles no longer seem to apply, and the man who once couldn't let me walk through a doorway without personally guiding me with his hands now seems to flinch at any intimation of human contact. "There was nothing," he mumbles, pulling himself into a sitting position without further explanation. Still shaking inside from the past few terrifying minutes, I find myself growing inexplicably angry. In our old lives, Mulder and I perfected the science of pretending nothing was wrong; he disregarded my frequent and vocal objections to his outlandish theories, I overlooked the bad jokes he made at crime scenes. We studiously ignored each other, Mulder and I, for a good seven years. "Mulder, that was not nothing," I say sharply. I'm just beginning to steel myself for the debate that will inevitably follow -- God, there was a time when I thought I would never have this argument again -- when Mulder jerks suddenly away from me, his eyes staring past me like a stranger's. William whimpers pitifully as Mulder's chest gives a panicked heave, and then his body goes as still and silent as it had gone into his grave. Instinctively I am lunging for him, my hands pounding at his chest, unsure if the pulse throbbing in my fingers belongs to Mulder or myself. It is several seconds before I can safely convince myself that Mulder is still here -- still alive, still home, but most assuredly not safe, not if the desperate fluttering of his eyes beneath closed lids is any indication. William's miserable sob is very nearly my undoing; for an instant I have to fight the temptation to join in. I always knew it was impossible to bargain with God, but when Mulder was missing, I tried anyway. Lord, let me find him. Return him to me, and I will do the rest. My faith in God was strong, but my faith in Mulder was stronger. Except that I never nailed down a crucial aspect of our deal. I never specified that I wanted God to help me find Mulder *alive*. It's said that God works in mysterious ways. Then again, so does Mulder. Before I can change my mind, I shift William to my other hip and grab the cordless phone, hitting #7 to connect me directly to Skinner's office. Mulder would die if he knew I had Skinner on speed dial, I think sourly, before the thought explodes in my chest like a grenade. Mulder would die. Is this what it's like for him, every minute of the day? A thousand meaningless figures of speech planted like land mines in the dark corners of his brain, ready to strike at any moment? I glance over at him, still out cold on the floor of William's nursery. Perhaps death feels safer than the horror he has left behind. I'm so preoccupied with my thoughts I haven't even had time to compose an explanation for Skinner, something to strike the right balance between "Perhaps you'd like to swing by and say hi to Mulder and the baby on your lunch break" and "Mulder has gone crazy and I need your help immediately." I settle for the truth, my voice quaking far too much to conceal what I might otherwise try to deny. I'm frightened for him. * * * Skinner breaks land speed records and several traffic laws to get to my apartment, but Mulder never stirs. Maybe the truth is that I don't have the heart to try to rouse him; sprawled there on the floor, one hand flung underneath William's crib, Mulder looks more peaceful in sleep than he has since he's come home. "Come home" is the way I've always mentioned it out loud, the way I've always phrased it in my head. After all, that's what it must be like for Mulder, I tell myself -- go to Oregon with Skinner, come home to Washington. He couldn't have been aware of the passage of time, of the birth of his son, of his death and rebirth. He couldn't have memories of being missing, of being in a grave. He couldn't, because it might destroy him. It is destroying him. No. Our denial is what's destroying him. Skinner, bless him, asks no questions other than "What would be the best way to move him?" It's only once Mulder is settled on the couch and William is sleeping in his crib that Skinner expectantly looks me in the eye. "What happened?" he says gravely. It isn't the first time Skinner has asked me to explain my partner to him. But as much as things have changed between Mulder and me, things have changed between Skinner and me as well. Once I would have lied to Skinner to protect my partner. Now I feel I must confess to Skinner in order to save him. "I think they're flashbacks," I say quietly, moving away from Mulder toward the door. "But he refuses to discuss them, so I can't be sure." Skinner takes a moment to digest this, as if he has trouble believing that Mulder -- the original Comeback Kid -- could be felled by something as insignificant as dying. Mulder once held this man at gunpoint and announced his own resurrection without blinking. I think Skinner and I both realize that was a long time ago. "I need to pick something up," I say quickly. "Will you...can you stay with them?" Skinner surveys me impassively before nodding, and his voice stops me before I can hurry out the door. "Dana," he begins, my first name stiff and awkward on his lips. "I'm glad you called me." I nod, avoiding his gaze, and I close the door behind me. * * * The pharmacy is stocked full of cards for Father's Day, an irony I am sure Mulder would have appreciated in another life. I walk briskly past them, willing myself not to look, as I head to the back of the store. The prescription pad in my pocket feels like a betrayal. Mulder intensely dislikes feeling powerless, and the surest way to render him powerless is to drug him. Under the influence of drugs, Mulder has been strapped down and held against his will. He has experienced powerful hallucinations that nearly drove him to suicide. He has told me he loves me. I understand Mulder's resistance. But he can't live like this, I tell myself. Something has to give. Reluctantly, I pull the prescription pad out of my pocket. I'm moving to the counter to grab a pen when I see them -- red bags with yellow flowers on them hanging neatly by the cash register. Sunflower seeds. Mulder once told me that in his childhood, the sound of his father -- his father, for whom I named our son -- crunching on sunflower seeds was what comforted him after a nightmare. After that, I would wake in the middle of the night in hotel rooms in small towns all across America, listening for the sound of my partner crunching on sunflower seeds. I don't hear Mulder in the night anymore. Not unless he's screaming. Impulsively I grab three bags and step to the register, leaving the pen behind. * * * I can hear voices as I approach my apartment door, and something clenches in my chest, steeling for what's ahead. Mulder is standing in the hallway. I can't stop my eyes from roaming the length of his body. I'm not sure what I expect to find. Mulder has never worn his scars where anyone can see them. "You're awake," I say unnecessarily, glancing at Skinner. "How long...?" "About five minutes after you left," Skinner reports. Mulder flashes me his best attempt at the kind of grin he hasn't actually sported since 1994. "Presents for me?" he says caustically, nodding toward the white bag in my hand; in his mind it's surely full of Zoloft or Klonopin. "Scully, you shouldn't have." Something shudders down my spine, inexplicable rage mixed with incredible relief -- not an uncommon blend of emotions to direct towards Mulder. "You're right, I shouldn't have," I hear myself say. I glance away from him and an uncomfortable silence settles around us, broken only when Skinner tactfully announces his departure. I follow Skinner into the hallway, where he shrugs on his trenchcoat before looking me in the eye. "He's going to be fine, Dana," he says. "You have to believe that." I don't have to believe anything, I want to tell him, still clutching the bag of sunflower seeds like a shield. Not anymore. "Thank you for coming," I say formally, trying to ignore the panic swelling in my chest. I became a pathologist because I knew I couldn't fix everything, because I was practical enough to understand that the best thing I could do with my medical degree was dissect a body in search of the secrets it could tell. I could diagnose Mulder if he were dead, put scalpel to bone and calculate where and when things had gone wrong. But Mulder has already survived things that are worse than death, and for all my prayers I don't know now how to help him. Skinner puts a hand on my arm as he prepares to leave. "If you need anything," he says, "let me know." I nod in reply, but my thoughts are already in the next room. Mulder and I have never been the poster children for effective communication, but something needs to change. "Mulder, we need to talk," I say as I walk into the living room, unable to meet his eyes. "This isn't working." I've rehearsed the speech in my head for weeks, but seeing him there in front of me, my resolve almost crumbles. Mulder is home. He is alive. He is safe. Return him to me, I had said, and I will deal with the rest. But can I deal with it if Mulder doesn't want to? "I know this hasn't been easy for you," I say carefully around the growing lump in my throat. "You've been through so much. And if this isn't what you want..." Mulder's hands hang limply at his sides, his gaze narrowly focused on the floor. "What makes you think this isn't what I want?" he says dully. "The nightmares, the flashbacks, are getting worse," I say quietly. "You flinch every time I touch you. You look at William like..." Before -- before he vanished into the Oregon forest in front of Skinner's eyes, before his violated body went into the North Carolina ground -- Mulder used to gaze at me with such passion and intensity in his eyes that I had to look away. Now I look at his eyes and see nothing. "Like what?" he says flatly, and I can feel the bile rise in the back of my throat. He wants to make me say it. "Like you're afraid of him," I finish. I expect an instant flash of rage, of denial, but it never comes; Mulder just gapes at me. His silence is infinitely worse than a protest. "You *are* afraid of him," I say dumbly, and for the first time in weeks something animates in Mulder's face. "God, Scully, I'm not afraid of Will," he says, agonized. His voice drops to a low murmur, so low I can hardly hear him. "I'm afraid of what I might do to him." His statement hangs in the air between us, assaulting me with the sheer dread in it. "I don't understand," I say slowly. "Mulder, you -- I know you. You would never hurt William." You would die before you hurt your son, I nearly add. You would die for us. Mulder draws himself up to his full height, his thin frame quivering with the force of his words. "Scully, I was missing for six months and in the ground for three," he hisses, as if either of us needs to be reminded. "We have no way of knowing what was done to me, other than that it takes a truckload of sedatives to get over. "Aren't you at all concerned that I might hurt the baby? Or..." He swallows convulsively and looks away. "Or you?" Mulder once told me that it was my rationalism and my science that had saved him. But today it is my gut that gives me the answer. "No," I say firmly. "Mulder, when you were in the hospital, your body was examined for evidence of microchips -- " "They don't need a microchip anymore to control a man's brain," Mulder interrupts. " -- and even if you *had* been implanted," I plow forward, ignoring him, "Mulder, I know you. You would die before you hurt me or the baby." There it is. You would die. The sentence I swore I would never speak out loud. "It's not just that," Mulder says tightly, words tumbling out of him that he has been damming up for weeks. "It's...Scully, I look at Will and I remember when my father went from all-around American dad to someone I didn't know anymore. He had a family and he stumbled into a conspiracy that destroyed everything he had worked for. Scully, my father...My father went in blindly. He had no idea what his actions would cause. But I can't say the same for myself. How can I be a part of Will's life when we both know what the consequences might be?" For a moment I can only stare at him, startled into silence. Is that what Mulder fears -- that his own relentless pursuit of the truth will place his child at the mercy of a global conspiracy? That I had never considered the consequences of my own actions? "Then why did you ever agree to this in the first place?" I ask, stunned. When Mulder doesn't answer, I keep going, the words pouring out of me and threatening to bleed into each other. "And what did you expect me to do?" I say. "That I would just leave behind all the work we've done all these years? That I would just leave *you* behind?" Abruptly Mulder's anger resurfaces, his eyes flashing dangerously. "Then what *were* you thinking?" he explodes. "Scully, how many times...how many times have you talked about getting out of the car, building a normal life? I thought...that this could be your chance." "Without you," I say disbelievingly. I choose my words carefully, hoping to make him understand. "I was thinking that there are other people out there who can help," I say quietly. "I was thinking that you and I aren't the only two people in the world who can be entrusted with the task of saving it. I was thinking that we both deserved a chance at happiness." He merely stares at me uncomprehendingly; happiness is a concept with which Mulder has never been intimately acquainted. Does he think that all I ever wanted or needed from him was his genetic material? Risking rejection, I move closer to him and take his hand. "Mulder," I say softly, unsure of how to make the words come out right, "when the in vitro didn't take, I realized something. I realized that asking you to help me conceive a child was a mistake." I regret the words as soon as I've said them; the last time Mulder looked at me like this, I had just shot him. "Please, hear me out," I say quickly. "I realized that I was wrong to think that I could get back what was taken from me by having a child. And I realized that I was only presenting myself with an impossible choice. That one day...one day I would have to choose between you and my child." But now I don't have to choose, I remind myself, tightening my grip on Mulder's hand as if to assure myself that he is still here. "But then I did get pregnant," I continue. "After I stopped believing it was possible, after I had come to terms with my choice. And suddenly you were gone, Mulder, and I didn't know where to start. It was almost as if..." Mulder has always had the mind of an investigator but the soul of a poet, and he intuitively grasps the heart of the dilemma. "As if God had chosen for you," he finishes in a low voice. No, I think, looking at him in dismay. I don't know what God had to do with Mulder's disappearance, but it certainly wasn't the answer to any of my prayers. Return him to me, I had asked when Mulder was missing. And now Mulder sits in front of me, gaunt and shaken, but with something so familiar lurking beneath the surface. I have to believe that that was God's choice. "Mulder," I say softly, "I told you that I prayed a lot, and that my prayers had been answered. I don't know what hand God played in this, but I believe He heard my prayer. For both of us." I squeeze his hand, still unwilling to let go. To ever let go. "You're not alone in this, Mulder. Please don't ever think that you are." Reluctantly I pull away from him, rising to my feet. I have made my choice, and God has made His; the rest, I realize with apprehension, is up to Mulder. The choice to panic, or the choice to be brave; the choice to retreat, or the choice to move forward. Perhaps it is the choice that anchors him to the past. Perhaps, I think, it is a choice that will propel him forward. "You're not your father," I tell him, and Mulder looks up at me in surprise. "But you're the only one who can decide if you want to be William's." "Is that what you think this is about?" Mulder says derisively. "That I'm having flashbacks because I'm subconsciously rejecting the idea of fatherhood?" I find myself closing my eyes briefly, just to avoid his piercing gaze. "I don't know what to think," I admit. When William's cry shatters the silence in the living room, I'm almost grateful for the interruption. Numb from what has just transpired, I move on autopilot into William's room, slipping easily into the routine of the past few months: Flip light switch, grab diaper, worry about Mulder. William's face is puffy and red from screaming. It looked the same way the day that I met him, just weeks after I stood with Skinner in the cemetery and watched Mulder's body go into the ground. William didn't look at all like him, not then, but that day I imagined that I felt Mulder with me, standing behind me in the delivery room and whispering in my ear. I felt him so strongly that when William was placed in my arms, waving his tiny hand and screaming his head off, my first instinct as a mother was to comfort him in a way I had never reassured anyone besides his father. "Joy to the world..." It was toneless and tinged with sadness, but it was something tangible, something that reminded me that Mulder had once been here with me, with William, though neither of us had realized it at the time. "All the boys and girls," I murmur, tickling his stomach, and William's cries begin to fade away. "Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea," I tell William solemnly, and he regards me with unabashed delight. I almost miss overhearing the muffled sound of a sob in the living room as I concentrate on lifting William out of his crib. A sound makes me turn, my hand still pressed to Will's head. Mulder fills the doorway, the expression in his eyes so familiar I can hardly believe I once thought I might never see it again. Longing. And life. "I'll take your pills," he says in a low voice, before I can open my mouth to speak. "I'll learn to meditate if I have to, I'll even eat yogurt mixed with bee pollen if you think it'll help." He takes a step closer to us, the sound of his breath filling the space between us and all the spaces in between. "But this is what I want," he concludes hoarsely, his eyes locked fiercely on mine. Sometimes the truth seems unbearable, poised like a bullet to destroy us. And sometimes, I think as William's hand lunges for Mulder's, the truth is a beacon, guiding us home. * * * END. "I have set before you this day life and death, blessing and curse; therefore, choose life, that both you and your children shall live." -- Deuteronomy 30:20 * * * Feedback. It's what's for dinner: xraelynn@gmail.com ADDITIONAL AUTHOR'S NOTE: Bruce Weigl's "What Saves Us," from which this story borrows its title, has is a gorgeous poem about the Vietnam War that has nothing to do with The X-Files. But when I was stealing a line from it for the title of this story, I found it especially touching in light of the belief held by many people that Mulder was wearing Scully's cross when he was taken in "Requiem," so I've reprinted it here (warning: it's a little PG-13): "We are wrapped around each other in the back of my father's car parked in the empty lot of the high school of our failures, the sweat on her neck like oil. The next morning I would leave for the war and I thought I had something coming for that, I thought to myself that I would not die never having been inside her long body. I pulled her skirt above her waist like an umbrella inside out by the storm. I pulled her cotton panties up as high as she could stand. I was on fire. Heaven was in sight. We were drowning on our tongues and I tried to tear my pants off when she stopped so suddenly we were surrounded only by my shuddering and by the school bells grinding in the empty halls. She reached to find something, a silver crucifix on a silver chain, the tiny savior's head hanging and stakes through his hands and his feet. She put it around my neck and held me so long the black wings of my heart were calmed. We are not always right about what we think will save us. I thought that dragging the angel down would save me, but instead I carried the crucifix in my pocket and rubbed it on my face and lips nights the rockets roared in. People die sometimes so near you you feel them struggling to cross over, the deep untangling, of one body from another."