No name (literally)
An unfinished draft
Ann K
I’m not sure where I might have taken this story..........
He was murdered on a Wednesday, when the grass was beginning to turn green and the winter chill was finally dissipating from the air. Contrary to what Scully and the others believed, he had been hovering over the earth for some time, although he had no idea where. He could see nothing beyond the cold steel of the room where he was held, restrained, drifting in and out of consciousness. He could not have known how Scully and the others still searched for him, nor how his name escaped from Scully’s lips in her sleep.
He knew little beyond his own despair, the aching pain that ravaged his body, and a single memory that kept him alive. It was of Scully, right before he was taken. They were together in a motel room in Oregon, and her body was so warm and inviting that he nearly wept tears at her closeness, although he couldn’t understand why. Though they had been lovers for some time now, he never ceased to be amazed by the way her large eyes held all her secrets, and the fact that he was the only one allowed inside.
When that moment happened, one moment in the thousands that marked their partnership together, he could not have known that it would be his last memory. It was what he held close to his heart as it finally, agonizingly, stopped beating. It was a slow process. Even in the throes of his pain, he felt the numbness begin just below his knees, like a light touch caressing his legs. As the numbness traveled up his body, finally stilling his heart, he was aware of what was happening. His instinct to fight was quelled by the relief that he felt as the pain finally ceased, his life dissipating with it.
Death was deceiving. He remembered reading a book on death, what it felt like to have your spirit leave your body. He remembered a late-night television show about white lights and angels emerging from smoky clouds to lead you into heaven. He remembered the truth about Samantha. Maybe it was because he never believed in a god, and the last few weeks had only proven him right. Maybe it was because he silently cursed every deity he could remember from his alternative religion class at Oxford as the torture continued unabated. Maybe he was punished.
But Mulder simply escaped his body, and sat watching it from some time, the way the grays hovered over it, pushing and prodding. He forced himself to look at the bruises which streaked across his ribcage, the dried blood marring his face, and the way his eyes stared vacantly into space. It wasn’t a body he recognized, even thought he had spent nearly forty years in its confines. When a lone gray stepped forward to close his eyelids, Mulder felt a perverse sense of gratitude. He didn’t want his body to spend eternity staring into nothingness.
******************
He wasn’t sure what to do, now that he was dead. In fact, for a long time, he wasn’t even sure he was dead. He saw his body on the table, but it didn’t seem to be real. Surely he was still inside his body, reaching down to touch his arm, the ribs protruding from his chest. He felt alive. The grays didn’t even bother to cover his corpse, or even turn out the lights as they filed silently from the room. Which meant Mulder had all the time in the world to look at the body, just as he would into a mirror, and come to terms with the fact that he was indeed dead. The relief he so craved, the screams which were laced with Scully’s name, pleading for help, had finally worked. At a price he would never have imagined.
Scully.
And as suddenly as he thought her name, he was standing in her street, in front of her apartment building. It took him a moment to realize the ship was gone, the room where his torture had continued unabated for weeks, months, all of it had vanished. He was free. Dead, but free. He wondered about that for a moment. The tradeoff wasn’t exact. Scully returned from her abduction all those years ago, even though there were moments in the nightmarish years that followed, with her cancer and the godforsaken chip in her neck, that he suspected she wished differently. He had never given up hope for her, or for himself. Perhaps hope gave up on him.
It took him longer than it should have to recognize Scully. She came walking down the sidewalk, next to an unfamiliar man. Mulder looked at the man first. He was tall, thin, with a sharp nose. His hand rested protectively on Scully’s back. Mulder fought the surge of jealousy even when he realized it was not the protective touch of a lover, but a partner. He had perfected the difference between the two in his tenure with Scully. In their last few months together, after they deliriously crossed the line, he was startled to find his arm wrapped around Scully’s waist at a crime scene, drawing her in with a comfortable intimacy that they had never publicly demonstrated.
So, he thought. Scully’s new partner. He wondered if she drove him crazy, too.
As they drew closer, the streetlights illuminating the two with increasing clarity, he looked at Scully’s face. Her hair was different from the last time he saw her, softer somehow. Truthfully, he had never paid much attention to Scully’s hair, although he tried to remember compliments when it seemed she had gotten it cut. He wasn’t very good at any of that. The realization made him sad. Scully deserved better. She deserved someone who recognized the woman behind the persona she so fiercely created.
Not for the first time in his life, he felt regret for what he didn’t do.
The weather was cold, although he couldn’t feel it. He was neither hot nor cold. He just was. But judging from Scully’s overcoat, and the way her partner’s scarf was tugging in the wind, it was cold in DC this time of year. He wondered what time of year it was. For that matter, he wondered what year it was. He had no idea how long he had been gone. He had no idea what Scully’s life had been life since his disappearance, and that thought saddened him. Scully was one of the most interesting people he knew.
When they approached him, standing only a few feet away, time slowed down to a deliberate standstill, and he realized what Scully had been up to in his absence.
While he had never been the most observant partner, it was hard to miss Scully’s hand resting comfortably on her swollen belly.