what_wings_dare | 🅧 Please explain to me the scientific nature of 'the whammy'

[ after three words, scene iv ]

It's an awkward silence. After everything, that isn't surprising, but it makes something twist in her chest nonetheless. Standing here close enough to touch, feeling like he's still miles away; it isn't right. But, God, getting to see him again-- real and whole and healthy-- she never could have imagined getting this chance. Miracles heaped on miracles.

She should be happy. She is-- happy isn't the word-- she's relieved, she's overjoyed, she's filled to bursting with gratitude. Like a cosmic wrong has been righted, but it's still just slightly out of focus. Half of her wants to shake him until he cheers the fuck up, because how can he not be awestruck and elated?

(But she knows that's irrational. It's a lot to take in. It's-- impossible, even for Mulder, who has always believed the impossible.)

Clearing her throat, she takes a deep breath, trying to center herself.

"I could--" she starts, but she isn't sure what she's about to offer. I could stay. I could leave. Either one, leaving it up to him, carries the terrifying weight that he'll ask her to go. It seems impossible that he would, but today she's not ruling anything out. So she swallows and tries again, tries to stack the deck in her favor.

"I'd like to stay for a while." Gentle, but less neutral. The if that's okay is implied, as is the fact that if he tells her to leave, she's not going to make it to the elevator before she breaks down. Does he understand-- can he guess that she's probably spent more time here than in her own apartment, since she lost him? Feeding his fish, changing his sheets, keeping the untouched clutter on his desk reasonably dust-free?

Trying to bring their son closer to his father?

(Their son. Doesn't that mean anything to him?)

The abduction, the casket, the hospital, the unnaturally clean - if not entirely tidy - apartment. The weight of surviving the impossible is an overwhelming one, and he's come home to a lot of questions. The biggest question is the baby she's carrying.

It's unbelievable to see her like this: She's glowing, exactly the way people always say pregnant women do. She does that thing where she touches her belly like she's rubbing a crystal ball, trying to see what kind of future the kid's going to have. She has everything she's always wanted, and who from, he can't say. Maybe she headed back to the sperm bank, or she met a guy after he was gone. At this point, she's far enough along that she must have conceived close to his disappearance; did she go out to the bar and do something stupid when he was abducted? Is this child the memory of a rebound?

Of course not, of course it isn't. Maybe she had one more chance with artificial insemination. Maybe she got to work with a turkey baster and it worked out. But that's between her and a stranger, and he hasn't resigned himself to it yet; every time he looks her way, he wants to touch her stomach and demand all the details, like he has any claim on her little family.

It's hard not to sound a little distracted as he answers, "Sure. We should order some dinner," if only because he's trying to decide just how long-term a stay she's thinking about. Is she going to clarify if he's supposed to take that ass I'm sticking around for the evening. "How does Chinese sound?"

There's a part of her-- insidious and fueled, no doubt, by the sometimes unstable cocktail of hormones flooding her body-- that wonders if he finds it repulsive, the way she's changed. For him, of course, it's sudden and extreme-- perhaps, in comparison to his recent memories, grotesque. (She doesn't really think that. But the careful, aloof way he's been since-- well, since she stood up and he saw-- it's shaken her confidence, and that's hard to recover when half the time she's on the verge of tears for no reason.)

"Worth a try," she says, with a soft smile that she hopes seems more normal than any of this feels. Half-reflexively she sets her hand on her belly, not that they need the reminder of his extra houseguest. "I-- uh, my appetite can be a little unpredictable. But fried rice sounds good and soup is usually a safe bet."

And if her stomach turns, it's not a bad idea for him to have leftovers on hand. She's not sure how long he'll let her stay and take care of him.

"Fried rice and egg drop soup for the mother," he says, because he can't stop himself. Ignore the baby while drawing attention to it. Good job, Fox. "I'll call it in. Uh - make yourself at home."

He'll beat it to the kitchen fridge, to take a look at his takeout menus. Except they aren't haphazardly stuck to the freezer door anymore - they're piled up in his now-suspiciously-neat junk drawer. Which must have been Scully, and it's nice of her, he supposes, but it's baffling. Considering her circumstances, she must have had plenty of other items on her to-do list.

"I'd suggest we rent a movie," he tells her, coming over to the couch once the food's on its way, "but I don't know what's new on video anymore."

It's not unpleasant to hear it, but it's jarring-- unexpected. Funny, in a way, because it's not like she really adjusted to being without him, but having him here-- having, suddenly, the possibility of a future, is new and strange. (Having, too, the terrifying possibility that he'll want nothing to do with the baby, by choice. The only thing that could be worse than losing him to death.)

If she were brave she'd tease back-- what about dad? But she doesn't think he's ready to confront that so plainly.

She settles into her corner of the couch, almost automatically tucking the blanket over her shoulder-- though that's always been as much a half-futile effort to find some trace of his scent still on it as a guard against the cold. Of course she's at ease, here. Other than the suspicious level of cleanliness and organization there's little trace of her presence-- she doesn't keep clothing in his drawers, she packs her paperbacks up when she leaves-- but his apartment still feels like a second home.

"We can find a rerun of something, and worry about catching up some other time." All she wants is to be with him. Which, admittedly, might be asking too much-- but she'll settle for being in the same place if that's all he can handle right now. Even if it's desperately, terribly not enough; not when she wants to bury her face against his chest and cry until she's empty, when she never wants to wake up in an empty bed again.

"What are you in the mood for?"

When he sits down, it's just a little further from her than usual - a matter of fractions of an inch, something easy to wave away as concern for her. Pregnant women have a terrible time standing up, don't they? He doesn't want to crowd her. (And that's the true part, the part at the end: She and the baby are an island unto themselves. He doesn't want to make himself too much at home, not when it appears he's been downgraded to doting work partner.)

She looks so small, despite the fact that she's the size of a house right now, and it's impossible not to be drawn closer to her when she's there beside him. Her body is its own comfort, even with the little stranger inside it. Instincts tell him that he needs to be close to her, and then his arm's around her before he realizes it. He doesn't let himself slump into her side the way he'd like to, but her narrow shoulders and the nape of her neck are all his now.

"I don't know," he admits. TV in the hospital had been solitary tedium; TV with Scully feels like a way to make it easier to talk. All the distractions in the world focus around the idiot box, and his attention can settle on her. "Whatever's on, I guess."

Edited 2023-11-04 13:00 (UTC)

It's such a slight difference it should be imperceptible, but she's keenly aware of it. Maybe because Mulder's grasp of personal space with her has always been singular; maybe she's just becoming used to the gravity pregnant women exert on the world, drawing strangers' eyes and making their hands twitch towards the round swell of her.

But before she can worry too much he wraps his arm around her, and she's greedy enough to take the invitation he didn't wholly intend to offer. She can't gracefully scoot closer but she leans her head on him, eyes screwed shut for just a moment against the stinging threat of grateful tears. He's warm and whole, and beneath the sharp hospital soap and faint air of antiseptic he smells like home.

"You have to hand me the remote," she realizes. Drawbacks of carrying someone else around all day-- she doesn't quite bend at the middle.

The weight of her head on his shoulder creates some kind of shadow weight in his chest, hard and aching and filling his rib cage until he can barely breathe. He's missed her so much. In moments of delirium, in moments of lucidity, and all the moments when he thought he'd die out there - always, he'd thought of her. He has to scrub the heel of his hand across his eyes, pressing in against his face in one quick swipe.

"Oh -" He lets go of her, leaning forward to grab the remote off the coffee table. It's neatly organized, along with everything else in the apartment - but that just means the remote's easy to find. In a breath, he's back to where he was, his hand resting on her upper arm. "Here."

She takes it gratefully, and hopes he'll write off her little sniffle as nothing. It's nothing. By now it's obvious she's at the stage where sudden crying doesn't need a cause or explanation, and this has been an emotional day for both of them.

Leaning back into his grasp she turns on the television, idly flipping channels; not lingering on anything that's too serious or tinged with current events. The truth is she doesn't care, either, and lands on some sitcom that seems at least momentarily satisfactory. They can always try again when the food gets here.

"There's no food in the kitchen," she says after a moment, craning her neck to glance at him. "But everything else-- everything else should be here, still."

Maybe minus a shirt or two, stolen from his drawers, but what's that between-- whatever they are.

"There's never any food in the kitchen," he says wryly. It's hard to look at her straight on, to take in her beautiful round face without being drawn straight to her belly, and so he tries to take her in sidelong. And he tries to make it look natural, not like he's avoiding her gaze, because staring at her stomach feels like crossing some invisible line. There's Scully, and then there's Scully's new little project, and he's only really a part of one of those things. "The, uh, place looks good."

He's not a stammerer, no fan of junk words and hesitation. Everything he says, he says with certainty - mostly thanks to Socratic debate at Oxford and the need to control witness questioning. But being back here, nearly a year gone and an utter stranger, has knocked him on his ass.

It gets a little laugh out of her-- and in spite of how awkward and odd everything is, the genuine joy suffusing her at his being here bubbles up through it.

"Okay, but there's nothing that used to be food, either," she teases. The apartment doesn't feel lived in, but it's certainly well-kept. She can't help but feel something like self-conscious about it. All these months she'd never been able to articulate why she was keeping it, a strange and silent mausoleum. It wasn't because any part of her expected to see him again. It's not as though it made sense to keep it for the baby; what was she going to do, bring him over to play? Say your father lived here, as though it were a link?

"I don't know why I wasn't able to let it go," she admits, curling her hands into loose, anxious fists. It worked out, clearly. Had there been some part of her that knew-- that imagined? No; it wasn't a wish she'd let herself wish.

I missed you so much. The words catch in her throat, but every cell in her body practically shouts it.

His mouth twitches, the closest she's going to get to a smile right about now, and lets his eyes range over the clean living room. It's something he could get used to, even if he's not convinced he can actually keep it up.

"I'm glad you didn't," he says, his attention drawn down not to her middle but to her hands settled on either side of it, the agitation with which they've balled up. "I'd be sleeping on your couch if you'd stopped the rent."

The reason she'd made sure his bills stayed paid seems obvious to him: she came back, and she knew he would, too. And there was no one left to take care of his estate, such as it was, besides her. For the first time, he's grateful his mother's dead. His abduction, not to mention his return, probably would have killed her.

There's something faintly puzzled in her expression-- of course he'd be welcome at hers, but he wouldn't have to sleep on the couch. They might not have figured out quite where they stood, before he was taken, but it's not as though he's a stranger to her bed. And rationally she knows they should take everything slowly, but she's had months to miss being safely wrapped in his arms-- it seems the most natural thing in the world, that he could stay with her. That she'll stay with him.

(Maybe, she tells herself, he's worried about having nightmares. He's never slept easily as long as she's known him, and she remembers the aftermath of her own abduction--)

(Maybe he doesn't want to touch her. But then, he's touching her now. Uncertain, uneasy, but he's here.)

"I did downgrade the cable package," she says, leaning on teasing again because she's not sure how to broach anything serious. But the longer they don't, the less reasonable it feels.

"Mulder-- I know it's... There's a lot you've missed, and it must be so overwhelming. We can take things as slowly as you need. But when you're ready-- I guess, I just want to say I'm here to help. Whatever you need."

It sounds so trite she can't help wincing.

Any thought of dinner is forgotten in that moment; the TV's a dull background sound, canned laughter as Mulder turns his head toward Scully. She means it, he can see that much. It sounds like a line in a movie of the week, but the sentiment under it is true. I'm here to help.

Help me, he wants to say. Tell me that the abduction didn't change anything that mattered. He swallows, reaching up to touch her cheek. She's still soft, softer, even - pregnancy has taken away some of the sharpness of her face's angles. She reminds him of the years before her cancer, how round her cheeks were then.

"Tell me everything." He can't keep a strange sort of grief out of his voice. "How you got to...this point."

Every time he touches her-- every time he shows that he wants to-- it heals something in her, a twisted wound that's barely had time to scab over. Losing a limb might have been easier than losing Mulder.

"By the time I realized you were in danger in Oregon it was too late," she says, because to her it seems the obvious place to start. "Those first days are a bit of a blur. There was a task force-- Agent Doggett was assigned to lead. I, uh. Didn't trust him at first. Skinner and I followed some leads on our own but--"

She swallows hard. "Obviously it wasn't you. The Bureau decided, after finding out about your neurological issue, the matter was as good as closed."

"Oh."

Those first few days are a bit of a blur, she says, and now he understands. She was upset - understandably, he remembers how manic he was after her abduction - and things went some kind of way with Agent Doggett, and now she's going to have a baby. Mulder will play the role of my friend, Mulder, the way he had for Emily, and that'll have to be enough for him.

She hasn't said it, of course, but he doesn't think Scully would. He's only recently back from the dead, and whatever else they aren't, they're still friends. She wouldn't want to hurt him. Explaining through euphemism and allusion is somehow a Scully thing, for all she's plainspoken about science; when feelings get involved, she guards every word a little more carefully.

There's something strangely comforting about the fact that it might have been his little swimmers that were the problem, not her ova. He hopes she's taken some solace from it; infertility had been such a crushing blow for her.

"Tell me about Agent Doggett," he says, and the doorbell rings. That's the food, probably, and a great excuse to distance himself from the pain that the truth's brought with it. He gets up to pay, then to bring the brown paper bag over to the coffee table. He doesn't believe in standing on ceremony - and isn't in the mood to wash dishes - but it feels like he should give her something nicer to eat out of than a takeout carton. Blame the fact that she's pregnant. "I don't remember his name. Want a plate? Or a bowl?"

Since he gets up, he's probably going to miss the way her eyebrows lift. Not that he's had much time with John, but Mulder usually isn't exactly open to meeting people. And he's territorial about the work. (About her.) This is a remarkably even- keeled reaction.

"John," she supplies, shifting to sit up a little more so she stands a chance of reaching the table. "He's a good agent. Ah-- after the task force he was assigned to the X-Files. I thought it was the best chance I had to keep looking for you. To keep working."

Of course she'd had moments of doubt and despair but in those months she always believed they'd find him.

And then they did-- one of the worst moments of her life.

"I'm fine with the carton. Are there dumplings?" No, she didn't order those, but stealing Mulder's food is a small pleasure she'd never thought she'd have again.

"It's been... different. John isn't always open to... unusual explanations. I find myself trying to figure out what you'd think of the cases we're called in on."

"John," he mutters, as though it's not his own fault that she doesn't call him Fox. She's on first-name basis with the man, which feels like proof positive of all his suspicions. "Dumplings are right here - steamed, not fried."

Ordering them had been second nature, a long-ingrained habit along with his beef lo mein. Scully likes them, but won't ask for them, and if he gets them fried, she doesn't like them as much; his private theory is that she thinks the frying oil will make her fat, as though she's not the most beautiful woman in the world exactly the way she is. Her diets have never made any sense to him, but he still finds himself deferring to the principles behind them occasionally, like ordering the steamed dumplings because he knows on some level that they'll share. They might be silly diets, but they belong to Scully, and it's starting to look like that kind of thoughtfulness is all that's left now.

He pulls out a pair of chopsticks and starts picking at his food, unsure how to take the idea of cases we're called in on. What's his place on the X-files going to look like now? He doesn't really have one, under the circumstances; she has a new partner. "Any good ones?"

"I'm not sure I'd say good."

He probably won't like how dangerous some of it has been. The people of that little town trying to put their parasitic God into her spine. John following Mulder's trail to the soul eater.

"I'll try to get some files for you, when you're ready." When he's ready to come back. If he wants to come back. If they can figure out the paperwork.

She leans over to take a dumpling, the familiar act less graceful with her stomach in the way.

He'll want to get back to the work, won't he? Maybe it's too much to hope he can work with John a while-- she'll need to take leave for the baby.

"I can't-- you're going to have to ask Skinner about finding you." His body. She can't even say that. "And the rest you know, I think," she rushes to add, before memories of Mulder, lifeless and lost, take away any slim chance she'll be able to eat.

"Oh, I don't think I know all of it," he says, the words like acid on his tongue. He's trying to keep his voice light, but everything feels like it's fallen into place: nearly a year of experiences with John, the stories apparently unrepeatable, and the awareness that once he gets back to the Bureau, three's going to be a crowd. "This is new."

This, of course, is a mimed outline of her belly on his own lean frame. The elephant in the room. The thing they've been talking around ever since he woke up in the hospital.

New, but not new at all. If she'd had a chance to tell him, if she'd learned a little sooner-- would it have been enough to keep him from going to Oregon?

She stops short a moment, unsure of his tone, but fortunately has the excuse of chewing a dumpling to buy a moment to answer.

"How are you feeling about it?"

The question is quiet, a little hesitant.

"I'm happy for you." It's even true. He wants to start with the truth, the vulnerable reality that etches tiny drooping edges into his face. Someone else might not see the sadness with which he says it, but Scully knows him too well. "I know how much you wanted this."

She'll have a little Doggett to love and raise, and he'll be a doting uncle on the sidelines. It's more than he can stand to think about, but asking questions that hurt him is an especial talent of his. "Have you thought about marriage? Or are you going to do things the modern way?"

She believes him, that he's happy for her; but that's not what she's really asking, and she thinks he ought to know that.

It's not until he asks about marriage that it occurs to her-- possibly-- that they've been having two separate conversations.

(It wouldn't be completely shocking if he was asking to marry her on the spot. But that's not the way he's asking-- he's asking what she thought before he came back, when it's self evident to her that she'd been thinking of herself as a widow, in every way that matters.)

"Are... you thinking about marriage?"

This is not the gentlest way she could respond, but honestly she's too bemused to know what to say.

It's rubbing salt in the wound, asking that right now.

Mulder's chewing on a particularly stringy piece of beef, and for a brief, idiotic moment, he wonders if there are still holes in his molars. He's going to have to hit the dentist at some point, it's been more than six months, and maybe their X-rays could pick up the spots where he was drilled. It'd be nice to have some proof left from his ordeal, something that shows he didn't spend nearly a year hallucinating the most physically painful experiences he's ever survived. And then Scully answers his question with a question, and his chest aches with it, pulled back from mental tangents to the reality of her situation.

"Who would I marry?" he asks, unable to keep a morose edge out of his words.

There's a not-insignificant bit of relief at the fact that she isn't currently being subjected to the world's worst proposal. It's followed up with annoyance, and a little bit of guilt; it's unfair to expect him to take hints, when she isn't pushing. Mulder has plenty of reason to think it's impossible for her to be pregnant.

She shuts her eyes and lifts her chin, taking a calming breath, hand over her belly in an unconsciously protective way.

"Mulder, whose baby do you think I'm having?"

She had a whole speech half on the tip of her tongue-- I don't want you to feel pressured, I know this isn't what you agreed to, but you're the one who told me not to give up on miracles. I wanted to believe you'd be happy about it for yourself.

But all of that follows on the assumption that he realizes he's the father.

[ n a m e ; ]	Dana Katherine Scully
[ c a n o n ; ]	The X-Files
[ g a m e ; ]	spicy times in noctiumrp

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