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

"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.

He suspects he's wounded her, a guess from the way she closes her eyes. She's trying not to respond with whatever instinctive response came to her first, trying to find the right words for whatever's waiting to be said.

And of everything she could say, he doesn't expect the question he gets. Mulder goes very still, staring at her while an ad for Ponderosa Steakhouse plays in the background. The implication is obvious, but the timing - well, it barely works, if it works at all.

But it could be. It'd be a miracle, but maybe -

"Whose baby are you having, Scully?" he asks gruffly, his throat already going tight. He needs to hear it from her. He needs to know, in no uncertain terms.

"I don't understand how." It's barely more than a whisper-- like if she's too loud she's going to wake up and none of it will be true; Mulder will still be gone, and she'll be alone, without even a piece of him to hang onto.

"That's why I was sick-- before you left. You were already-- gone." Taken. Lost. "By the time I got the results."

By now, tears are streaming down her face. It's not worth trying to hold it back; she sniffles, lifts the back of her hand to scrub at her face.

"How could there be anyone else?" Even the idea of it is too terrible to consider.

Mulder sets his food down on the coffee table, chopsticks sticking straight up inside a noodle nest. There's no thought to it, all his attention on reaching to cup her cheeks in his hands, trying to swipe away the tears. What kind of a jerk makes a pregnant woman weep? The kind who impregnated her, apparently.

"A year's a long time," he murmurs, a lump in his throat. For the first time, he really lets his gaze settle on her stomach, a hand twitching like he can't decide whether he has any right to touch. "And you're your own woman, Scully, I couldn't ask you to wait for me."

Except that he had, somehow. The child growing inside her ended up being the messenger. Part of me is still here. No matter what else happens, I'll never truly leave you. She'd waited, wanting to believe, and she's here now - and he is a colossal jackass.

As much as she appreciates his efforts, it'll take a while to stem this flood of tears; it's a broken dam, the sweep of everything she's held back. She's always kept her feelings on a tight leash, but she's lost hold of it now.

"I missed you so much," she gasps, the words soaked with raw grief. Blindly she reaches for his arm, fingers closing around his wrist to drag his hand down to her belly.

"I thought he was all I'd ever have of you."

"He," Mulder repeats, looking down at his hand with a sickening sense of awe. Something under her skin moves, maybe a kick or maybe just the shift of a small body in an increasingly smaller space. Maybe it shifted, and that was its shoulder. Maybe its hand, pressing out through layers of flesh to try and match his father's. "He's a - he's a he?"

He's real, is what he means. He's a real child in there, who really belongs to a sobbing woman and her wet-eyed, staring lover, a child born of miracles. He's the closest Mulder's ever gotten to believing in God - this very moment, feeling the vague outline of baby underneath what he assumes is the latest in stylish maternity wear. I did this. I made this happen. I'm sorry your mother's crying so hard - I didn't mean to do that. You can feel the vibrations, can't you? Has she cried like this the whole time? Promise me she hasn't cried like this the whole time.

Every moment, every milestone of this pregnancy is surreal-- a gift she was sure she'd never get, an experience she'd taught herself not to wait for. But this more than all others-- Mulder's broad hand on her, and the baby stirring within.

"Our son," she affirms. It's smaller and desperate than she wants it to sound, her fingers still wrapped around his arm like she's afraid he'll pull away.

Please want this as much as I do, she prays silently. As if she has the right to ask for more than the myriad gifts she's been given-- but she wants so badly for it to be true. When she'd asked him to help her have a baby, she hadn't asked him to be a father, not exactly; but she'd always hoped deep down--

Not even so deep down, really.

"Your son," she repeats, just a whisper. It's half a secret-- though she expects most people have guessed it, even if she won't say. But he deserves to hear it said aloud.

He couldn't pull away now. The creature inside her - your son, your son, your son - has a hold on him; it might not be physical, but it keeps his hand splayed flat on her, palm resting against the hard shape of torso or leg or head. He doesn't know what he's feeling, only that he's feeling it, and that's alive, and that it's his.

With effort, he looks up at her again, and he can't bring himself to do anything about the tears that have made paths down his cheeks. He's never been ashamed of crying in front of Scully, and he's not about to start now. "Who knows?"

Everyone knows about the baby, at this point; it's unavoidable. But the baby's origins, its unwitting father, is something else. Has she told people? How much of a secret is he?

Finally, the flood of tears is starting to dry; her face crumples uncertainly, a graceless map of too many emotions, too long spent trying to deny them. Things she couldn't have faced on her own, but had no one else to help her carry.

The baby stirs and shifts, indistinct but unquestionably present. Someday she'll tell him how she tried to keep him present-- playing old, saved voicemails so the baby could hear the echo of his father; telling stories late at night when she couldn't sleep. But for now this is enough. It's everything.

"I expect a lot have guessed. No one's dared to ask."

"Not even -" The end of the sentence could go any number of ways. She's not at the center of some kind of HR crisis, at least; it sounds like the Bureau couldn't care less, provided she doesn't make it a problem for them.

He tries again, pulling her closer in a one-armed hug. He's not letting go of the baby, or the beginnings of the baby; his hand's restless on her stomach, though, shifting between resting flat and his palm lifting unconsciously, until only his fingertips are touching her. Some instinctive part of him is ready to dribble. I'm going to buy you a basketball. And a ball and glove for catch. A football, a baseball bat, a tennis racket - we're going to try out everything, just to see what you like. I'm going to teach you to swim. We'll go running - "What does your mother think of all of this?"

Mrs. Scully must know; he remembers a look she gave him, years ago now, when Scully was comatose and the doctors didn't have much hope, even if Melissa swore up and down she could feel her soul in there. She's a smart woman, Scully's mother, and she saw it even then. When her daughter came home, partnerless and pregnant, she must have guessed how half of it happened.

Which makes her smarter than me. But it leaves him uncertain still, wondering whether he's going to be welcomed back with open arms or an accusatory glare. He couldn't blame anyone for the latter.

[ 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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