by Emma Brightman
Disclaimer: Not mine
Classification: VA, M/S
Spoilers: "DeadAlive"
Archival: Anywhere, just let me know
Website: http://brightman.envy.nu
Feedback: Yes, please. emmabrightman1013@yahoo.com
Rating: PG
Many thanks to alanna, Lilydale, and Pteropod for wonderful beta.
- - -
He dreams that he is twelve years old, furiously
pedaling his bike
past the docks in Menemsha. The salty sea wind whips his hair
into
his eyes, and the smell of motor oil and fish from nearby boats
fills
his flared nostrils as he pants, fighting to go faster. A few
grizzled fishermen wave to him as he flies by, scrawny legs pumping,
but he doesn't take the time to wave back, as he usually does.
His sister has vanished, but he knows where
she is. He has to get to
her, has to rescue her before they can pin her down, slice her
open,
and bury her in the cold, hard ground. He pedals and pedals,
but it's
like a cartoon, the kind he and Samantha watch on Saturday mornings.
The same background passes behind him, the same burly fishermen
wave
hello again and again and he never gets anywhere, never saves
her, or
Scully, or the child--
Mulder gasps, jerking awake so quickly that
he nearly loses the IV
taped to his hand. The graying, paneled ceiling above him seems
to
spin, and as his breathing slowly calms he reassures himself that
he's
still in the hospital. He could swear he tastes the briny Vineyard
air, until he realizes that what he's tasting are tears.
Lifting his free hand to dry his face takes
energy he doesn't have to
spare, so he lets his cheeks dry on their own, lets the sting
of salt
in his wounds remind him that he's alive.
Three months he's been dead and buried,
Scully said, and he kept
searching for some sign that she was joking, that her words were
just
some monumental prank. The blighted look on her face told him
that
she believed it, though. What she once would've dismissed outright
as
the worst kind of science fiction, she now accepts as truth.
It was
the first change he noticed in her, but certainly not the last,
or the
most surprising.
The familiar odor of hospital antiseptic
mingles with the crisp, clean
scent of Scully, but she's not in the room. Glancing around him
he
sees a black canvas totebag sitting on the floor beneath the bedside
chair, advertising the fact that she'll soon be back, that she
intends
to stay, and that at least $75 of her hard-earned government salary
was once donated to PBS.
He doesn't know what's inside the bag, but
he imagines it filled with
pastel-colored yarn and knitting needles, extra clips for her
service
revolver, travel size packets of Kleenex, for those hormonal moments,
and the latex gloves she always has with her. She is a mother,
or
soon will be, but she's Agent Scully, too.
Seeing his strong, competent partner weep
as she stood to show him her
round belly was the biggest shock he's received in either of his
lives. He doesn't understand how and isn't at all sure he wants
it,
but he's supposed to be happy. He's pretty sure of that.
A blur of red and black pauses in front
of the frosty window, peering
in. The door slowly opens, Scully's head appearing first as she
checks to see if he's asleep. When she sees that he isn't, she
smiles.
"You're really here." She walks
toward him, carefully lowering her
bulk into the chair and grasping his gray-skinned hand in hers.
Her
voice holds a note of wonder he's rarely heard before. Invisible
men,
visions in Buddhist temples, resurrected lovers -- Scully's a
tough
one to impress.
"You were expecting maybe Garry Shandling?"
he says. He tries to
smile, but it feels unnatural, his taut skin stretched uncomfortably
over his cheeks.
Scully tightens her grip on his hand. "I
never know what to expect
anymore, Mulder."
"Yeah, I know the feeling." Without
thinking, he lets his eyes drop
to her belly.
Scully's silent for a moment, her brows
drawn together. The worried
crease between them, the one he'd once dreamed of smoothing away
forever, is deeper than before -- a furrow dug with grief as deep
as
his grave. She bites her lower lip, scraping away her lipstick.
"Mulder, maybe we should talk about the ba--"
"I'm thirsty, Scully," he interrupts.
He can't handle this
conversation now, and besides, his throat is parched. He runs
his
tongue over dry, flaky lips. "Water?"
"Yes, of course," she says, apologetically.
Standing, Scully pours
him some water from a small plastic pitcher that appeared in the
room
while he was sleeping. She holds the cup for him, guiding the
straw
into his mouth to let him drink. Her mothering instinct has always
been strong, especially when it comes to him.
"Thanks," he says as she sets
the cup on the bedside table. "You know
you've been dead a long time when D.C. tap water starts tasting
good."
This comment draws another moment of silence
from her. She looks like
she might cry again, and Mulder feels a twinge of guilt.
"Maryland," she finally says.
The searching look she's giving him
makes him a little nervous.
"What?"
"Maryland tap water. We're in Bethseda."
"Oh," he says, wondering if that's
something she already told him.
Mulder exhales slowly, searching for something safe to say. A
hundred
smartass nearly-dead-guy remarks come to mind, but he's afraid
of
getting her weepy again. "Did you make your calls?"
Scully nods and sits back down with a sigh.
"Yeah. My cell phone
battery died and I had to scrounge around for coins. I should've
used
my credit card, I guess, but I wasn't thinking."
"Oh," he says again. Talk of
credit cards and pay phones feels as
surreal as everything else he's heard in the past few hours.
He tries
to relax against the pillows as the ceiling resumes its twirling.
"The guys say hello, and welcome home.
I've never heard them sound
that happy in my life, Mulder. I think Langly might even have
fainted."
"Really?" he manages, hoping he sounds interested.
"Yeah," she says, chuffing a quiet
laugh. "I heard a definite thud in
the background."
Mulder nods and closes his eyes. He can't
imagine what it'll be like
to face those guys again. To face everyone who went to his funeral,
cried at his grave, and got on with their lives. He should be
grateful to be back, he knows, but there's too damn much to deal
with.
Part of him thinks oblivion sounds pretty good right about now.
"My mother will be here in the morning,"
she says. "And Skinner said
he'd drop by some time tomorrow."
His eyes fly back open at that. He doesn't
want to see Skinner, the
last person he talked to before this whole nightmare began, and
the
thought of seeing the questions in Margaret Scully's eyes while
her
hugely pregnant daughter watches over them is something he could
definitely do without.
"You know, I don't think I'm quite
pretty enough for company just yet,
Scully," he says. He tries to keep the panic out of his
voice, but
she knows him too well, and reaches for his hand.
"Mulder, you don't have to see anyone,
or do anything you don't feel
up to. Mom's coming mostly to fuss over me, and Skinner...well,
he
feels responsible for what happened to you. He just wants to
make
sure you're okay. Besides, the doctors probably won't let you
have
visitors yet, even if you want them."
"_You're_ here," he says, and
she flinches a little at the implication
that she's simply another visitor. He's afraid he can't do anything
but hurt and disappoint her. She's undaunted, though, as she
always
is.
"Do you really think they could keep
me away?" she asks, laying her
head on him as she had earlier. She kisses him through the thin
cotton of his hospital gown and is silent, her ear pressed to
his
chest as she listens to his heart beating.
Suddenly she lifts her head, looking at
him sadly, as if she's
realized something important. "Unless you want me to leave.
Would
you rather be alone?"
"No," he says quickly, lifting
his heavy hand to stroke her baby-soft
hair. The alarm he feels at the thought of being without her
is
stronger than the need to hide from a world that has changed in
his
absence. A woman who has changed in his absence.
Scully sighs and lowers her head back to
his chest, and he lets his
hand smooth over her hair until he's too tired to continue.
He closes his eyes, and when at last he
falls asleep the dream is
different. He's grown now, and somehow it's himself he's searching
for, himself he has to rescue before it's too late. The Gunmen
wave
again and again from the dock as he pedals by, but he can't take
the
time to wave back. He needs to find Scully, that's his only thought.
When he finally catches sight of her in
the distance, her hair tossing
in the sharp sea breeze, he's overwhelmed with relief and joy,
certain
she's the only one who can save him.
As she turns and smiles, though, he sees
that she's not alone. In her
arms there's a small, wriggling baby wrapped in a knitted pastel-
colored blanket, and her eyes quickly return to the child when
it
starts to cry.
He tries to tell her that they have to go,
but she shakes her head.
"We can't," she says, rocking the baby back and forth.
"We have the
baby to consider."
How can she think of the baby, he wonders,
while he's still out there
somewhere, so far away from home.
She reads his mind, as she can in dreams.
"You _are_ home," she says.
"Stop looking, Mulder. You're safe now."
But he doesn't know how to stop, and he's
not sure he wants to, so he
climbs back on his bike and turns around, pumping madly against
the
chill ocean wind, leaving them behind.
end