jowls | open post.

Part of her has been expecting that-- based on his not having her address, on the way Skinner carefully avoided talking about anything-- but having it out plain makes her visibly startle. A year feels like an impossible time to be apart from Mulder, especially right now-- when she knows how worried he is about her, like if he turns away too long she might vanish.

And... it makes some sense, somehow. The lingering sadness around him, the way he keeps looking at her and not looking at her. What happened, she wants to ask; she's not sure she's more afraid of him answering or not answering. So she doesn't ask. Bites her tongue to keep for apologizing, when she doesn't know what it's for, whether she's even the one who needs to.

"Maybe there are others," she says finally. It feels like a cop-out, the idea that this could be some widespread, accidental phenomenon. Not when she ran into Skinner two minutes after arriving outside her office. It all feels too planned. But it's the safer theory, for now.

"I'm guessing you haven't seen a spike in time travelers lately?" The humor she tries to put into it goes missing, stuck on the lump she's pretending isn't in her throat.

She looks disappointed, and he can't blame her. Tell him back in the 90s that there'd come a time when Scully wouldn't even want to look at him, and he'd have laughed. Insist on it, and he'd have been angry - upset even. He wants so badly to reach across the table and touch her, to reassure her, but remembering how to be around her is harder than it sounds. Scully being here has to mean being here without any expectation on his part, and if he betrays the real depth of their relationship, that'll shift in an instant.

"You could be the first," he says, matching her tone only insofar as he, too, can't quite make himself sound like he's joking. "We'll watch out for more. And until then - Scully, I want you to know that you can stay as long as you want. You're not...unwelcome here. Mi casa es su casa."

Quite literally, in fact. He's never made any effort to try and buy her out. The idea of it means she's never coming back, really never coming back, and Mulder's pretty sure he might as well throw himself off the roof at that point. What the hell's the point of him when they aren't a team?

Mostly, she just can't wrap her mind around what could possibly have happened-- what could cause such a rift. And recent, too, evidently; he says it's been a year but a year is nothing when it's one of seventeen. No wonder he's so palpably uncomfortable around her.

(If anything, it's the pulling back that will let it slip. Their relationship is already deep enough in '97 that she wouldn't second-guess his touching her hand; the distance will seem stranger than anything else could.)

"I-- thanks," she says, her shoulders dropping a little as she forces some of the tension out of herself. "I mean it. It's-- I'm really glad, Mulder. I wouldn't want to try and figure this out without you, or with anyone else."

After all-- they are a team, still.

"I'd be insulted if you tried," and this time, he's able to summon up some amusement. The smile doesn't chase the sadness out of his eyes, but this much is true: When Scully's in trouble, he'll drop everything to help. Doesn't matter what's happening or how little she wants to see him. There's no one in the world who matters the way she does to him. "Until then, you can get a taste of the future."

Streaming television. Jackass presidents. Drone warfare. And maybe he'll show her around the yard. Actually - they can start with that, getting her familiar with the place. He'll give her the real bed, after he's changed the sheets, and he'll sleep on the fold-out in the office.

It doesn't banish the shadows, but he brightens up a little. Besides-- it's not as though he's light-hearted at home. It's not totally unfamiliar. (And again, she's the problem, weighing him down.)

"I'm a little disappointed on that front," she muses, crunching a crouton. "No flying cars? What have we even been doing?"

Small talk and jokes feel cowardly, but she can't ask him to explain. And she needs to feel... something approaching normal. Takeout and TV on a well-broken-in couch; she'll try not to think too hard about where Dana Scully might be, or might be meant to be. Off somewhere in Maryland, on her own.

"I wish I knew. They've barely managed to figure out how to make them run on electric." Not that he's investigated the possibilities there yet. Having experienced a big trunk for tents and ghillie suits, it's hard to imagine downsizing to a Prius. "It turns out all the money's in convincing people to buy phones from Apple."

He finds he's not all that hungry tonight, closing his takeout box with the plastic fork inside. Maybe when he inevitably finds himself awake at two AM, he'll finish it. "How are you feeling? Do we need to get you anything for the, uh -"

Cancer. Saying it feels like bringing a curse down on them both. He taps his nose, as though to say, you know, the tumor behind this.

"Is that what Skinner's phone was? It seemed complicated. Mine is a brick, I guess it's too old for a signal." She shrugs. Who's she going to call, anyway? The whole thing is kind of mystifying-- the phones are the one thing that feel truly science-fiction about what she's seen so far.

And then he changes the subject. She can't help a slight grimace.

"I don't think there's much we can do. If I try to find treatment it's going to involve... questions, insurance, documentation I don't have. I think we just try to get me home before things get worse."

"You're still in the 2g era," he says, and for a moment, he's given over to a sense of nostalgia. "Thick as a brick, can't do anything except call people. Here, you can look at mine. Passcode's 0-1-2-2."

Pulling it out of his back pocket, he hands it over to her and gets up to put his remaining food in the fridge. There's more in there than there used to be, but it's all designed to be eaten using the least amount of energy possible. Bagels, deli meat, pre-sliced cheese, a bag of lettuce that he occasionally pulls random handfuls out of. And even then, it's not a lot.

He's mildly curious to see what Scully makes of the phone, to be honest. How quickly she figures it out. The idea of touchscreen technology at a time when AOL still rules the web must be incredible to imagine. Wait until she sees high-definition television.

"And if things get worse..." He swallows, coming back to his chair. There's no solution. Her chip is already inside her, and she's someplace else. But he can't say that to her, not when it means she's at the mercy of the changes others made to her body. "I know how we saved you last time. I'll make sure it happens again."

What that looks like, he doesn't know, but he'll find a way.

Edited (LMAO I FORGOT THE OTHER HALF OF THE TAG this is what i get for thinking about the duchovs) 2024-09-01 22:37 (UTC)

She wonders idly what a phone should do, other than make calls. She accepts his device with a raised eyebrow, the sleek brick making her think of A Space Odyssey. She can see her exhausted reflection in it's screen before she figures out how to turn it on, or wake it up, or whatever. The future, apparently, doesn't care for buttons.

The email icon is pretty self- explanatory; she doesn't want to pry there, so she doesn't. There's a little blue bird, which turns into a screen full of chaos-- mostly angry, disjointed sentences about things that mean nothing to her. After some fumbling she gets out of that, and discovers exactly why she didn't see anyone with a camera: apparently cameras are obsolete.

An accidental press yields a little grid of what must be his previous photos: a number of blurry flies floors and fingers, a cut off view of his face, some pictures of trees and sunsets outside. She thinks about scrolling down-- but she's not sure she wants to know.

He comes back to the table; she looks up.

"I can't ask how," she hedges. It feels wrong, to get too deep into her own future. "But... you mean remission?"

Seventeen years later, is she actually okay? It seems impossible. She can't dare hope.

He grins, the way he hasn't in what feels like years. She can't ask how, but he already knows it's going to happen. He knew then - he had to believe, couldn't accept anything less than Scully's life and happiness - and he doesn't see any reason not to share now. She deserves a little hope for the future.

"It never came back." He wants to see her face, wants to feel that moment of oh, God, Mulder and know that it's a positive thing here. It's been so long since it felt like Scully was happy to hear anything that came out of his mouth. "Once we figured out what to do - that was it. You're as healthy as anyone."

It takes a moment for that to really sink in. (Maybe she's dying, actually dying, right now. Maybe this is a comforting fantasy her brain is using to ease the pain. She isn't sure she wants it to stop, if it is.)

"God," she murmurs, drawing a sharp breath, awestruck. Her eyes sting with the threat of relieved tears, but she manages to blink it back.

"Mulder, that's... it's incredible." But for once, she's the one who wants to believe. She looks up at him, open and awestruck and relieved and a little bewildered.

"It shouldn't be possible," she whispers. Much as she tries to hide it, she knows her prognosis-- anything less than a miracle would be wasted.

Her fingers flex and clench on the table; instinctively she wants to reach for him, but she's not sure how he'd take it, now.

She's alone here, but for him. He could get her to her family, but they wouldn't understand; neither would her friends, whoever her friends are now. Didn't she say something about a book club last year? Maybe she's met people. (She should meet people. She deserves to meet people. But hell if he knows any of them.) The only person in her world is Fox Mulder, and now she knows her cancer isn't a death sentence?

Of course he comes back over, kneeling down beside her with a little creak, and opening his arms. She's alive, and she'll stay alive. That, and the tears threatening to spill over in her big eyes, is all that matters.

It's not as though she'd know who to go to. Her mother-- she can't show up on Maggie's doorstep like this. Even in '97 she barely talks to her friends; she can't imagine any of them will stick around another decade or two. Mulder may have had some falling out with Scully, but he seems-- mostly-- not to be holding that against her.

She leans into his embrace without a second thought, face pressed against his shoulder; if it's tear-damp when she pulls away he won't say anything, she knows. He feels... not the same, but the same. Her Mulder is in great shape, but he's somehow grown into himself; broad-shouldered and strong, maybe a little softer around the middle. She can't stop wondering about everything she's missed.

"God," she murmurs again, muffled. "I can't believe it."

But it's not a denial; it's deep, weary gratitude.

His eyes are closed, his face buried in her hair, and aside from the fact that his joints don't really love this position, he could be thirty-six all over again. Holding her makes him feel like himself, like something in the world is right. She's going to live, and - for a little while, at least - they'll be happy. There's so much for her to look forward to, and it won't all be heartache.

"Believe it," he replies, rubbing her back. If he could kiss her, he would. "You're gonna live forever, Scully."

This, more than anything else, feels real. Familiar. The weight and warmth of his presence. Even the way he smells is more right than wrong; new laundry detergent, but still the same Mulder. Her heart feels like it could burst.

And she laughs, because she thinks it must be a joke, but it's true enough. She'll live, and that's what matters: whatever happens-- happened-- will happen here, she'll make it this far, and a couple of days ago she was looking at weeks, months, if she was lucky.

Her arms are tight around him, and she can't make herself pull away. She barely knows him, in a way, but she couldn't imagine feeling closer to him than she does in this moment.

"No matter what happens," he mumbles into her ear, "don't give up. It'll seem like you aren't going to make it - but you will, Scully. I don't think Bill'd ever been so happy to eat his words."

Don't make it about her brother, Fox. Too late, though. He gives her an extra squeeze, a hand moving over her hair.

Bill, gruff and combative, has only ever wanted to protect her; she knows it's fear that drives his bursts of anger, that he'd take his grief out on Mulder-- some strange, shared burden of neither of them being able to change her fate-- if she let him. She's done her best not to let him, but God, she gets so tired.

Eventually she does pull away with a little sniffle; she doesn't really look like she's crying, at least. Small mercies. His shirt may tell a different story.

"Thank you," she says softly, because she knows he must have been involved. She knows, too, that Mulder-- any Mulder-- would do anything, in that moment, to save her.

He reaches up to cup her cheek, swiping away the patchy tearstains with his thumb. She's the most beautiful woman in the world, and crying doesn't do a thing to change that. Especially not when she's looking at him like he hung the moon.

He's missed this. Selfish bastard that he is, he'd do anything to hang onto this feeling, the sensation that she wants to be here with him. It's all he can do to keep from leaning in and pecking her on the mouth.

"All in a day's work." He wants to take her outside, show her the garden and the sunset, convince her of the beauty of this little house in its big old lot, but he knows it needs work. Mowing, weeding, neatening the place up - maybe some of that could happen tomorrow. Tonight, they should stay in. "C'mon, let's move over to the couch. We'll watch whatever you want."

All these years and so little has changed; here he is, comforting her through what may not be an end after all. She gives him a smile-- a little watery, but radiant; filled with hope, because all she's got to go on his is word, but that's enough.

There's probably a part of her that knows. That recognized something in this house she's never seen-- won't see, for who knows how many years. A part of her that can guess why the flatware was where she expected it to be, and what might have happened a year or so ago to cast this shadow on him. But this is the first moment, looking in his eyes, where the thought occurs to her consciously-- maybe. It's not the first time she's considered the possibility-- but considering the possibility, potentially, far after the fact is a different matter.

It's too big, too much to examine. She reaches for his hand and squeezes it.

"What would I know that's still on the air?" she laughs, but it doesn't really matter. She wants it anyway-- to sit on the couch with him in a future she shouldn't have, and try not to wonder at his past.

She believes, and that's the only thing that really matters. If he can give her back her life, then maybe it's not such a bad thing that she's here. They'll get her home, he'll miss two Scullys instead of one, and maybe the days of electronic monitors and hospital visits to come won't be as difficult for her. Because she'll know Mulder's going to come through for her.

Back then, he was capable of that.

He squeezes back, then gets up from the floor, knees creaking - he needs to go for a run, he's in better shape than this. "The nightly news. And some of it's good, actually. But we're not going to be watching broadcast television. I sprang for streaming. Hundreds of movies and TV shows, at your fingertips, Scully - we can watch whatever you want."

Over to the couch, where there's a pretty decent TV - not huge, but thin in a way she's probably never seen before. He takes a seat, careful to sit over to the side slightly, not directly in the middle. If she doesn't want to curl up with him, she won't have to.

When he turns the TV on, instead of a channel, there's several options available - it's yet another computer. Netflix, a DVD player, broadcast news...and PornHub. Netflix it is.

"I'm not sure I want to watch the future news," she points out. Definitely a danger there of polluting the timeline-- especially if everything needs a long history explanation-- and all it would do is leave her dreading things, no doubt.

She takes the other end of the couch-- she'd sit closer if it was her Mulder, but perhaps not so close as he'd like-- and watches the screen snap to life. It looks very crisp-- not unlike his little computer phone-- and she can't help notice the last option, casting a sidelong glance at him and mostly smothering a huff of laughter. It's comforting to know some things never change.

"What if I don't know what I want?"

Fortunately, he has no interest in news, either. He gets his from the internet, ninety percent of the time - and when he doesn't, it's probably because someone brought up Obama in their amateur porn. Speaking of which, he hears her and can't help but give her a sheepish look.

"The future comes with its perks," is all he says about it. For someone who can't even imagine YouTube yet, it's hard to explain just what a game-changer broadband has been. She comes from a time when they've never done so much as kiss; he's not about to try. Passing the remote to her, he answers, "Then you spend a couple hours clicking through the options, complaining about them, and eventually falling asleep."

It takes up a lot less space than his drawers or shelves of video tapes, at least. Possibly she's desensitized to his habits; it doesn't merit more than that fleeting laugh. He's an adult, and apparently here on his own.

(Whether that was always the case is a different question.)

Humming thoughtfully she takes the remote-- even that feels futuristic, small and rounded rather than big and boxy-- and inspects it. Not that it has many answers.

She uses the arrows to navigate the rows-- documentaries, which feel uniformly too heavy-- shows she's never heard of; something about a woman in prison, something that looks like a horror movie. She pauses and a preview starts playing, startlingly sharp.

"Choice paralysis," she mutters. Worse than cable. How does anyone get anything done, with this much distraction? She leans over to poke him in the arm with the remote.

"Find us an action movie or something," she demands, with a little smile. It feels normal.

He watches her, not the TV, and can't help but grin as she gives up. "All these channels, and nothing on."

Isn't that what people used to say about cable? Not that he'd really bothered with it - rabbit ears and a steady supply of videotapes were good enough. (All those videos live on, squirreled away in boxes - while plenty of his collection has disappeared over the years, he's not about to give up the creme de la creme of adult film.) The sensation, of too much all at once, is at once familiar to him - so he takes the remote, mutes the TV, and starts scrolling.

He finally settles on The Fast & The Furious, since Taken feels like it'd hit too close to home. And then he remembers she has no idea about William, and something heavy settles in his stomach at the thought. That's one subject he can't bear to hint at. You get everything you want, Scully. You just can't keep it. "Here - you'll like this one."

He's the expert here; and honestly her day's been so overwhelming she couldn't even decide what to watch if she were at home, with a normal amount of options. It's not really about the show, or the movie; it's just nice to have something to focus on other than the myriad problems at hand. Time travel, the ticking timebomb in her skull, the possible solutions to the mystery of Mulder's sadness.

(Is that why he thinks she likes it? Maybe he knows. Have they watched it before, on this couch? Together, not like this but together?)

"We'll see," she says, mock-haughty, though she thinks he's right. If he hasn't seen her in a year that still gives him some twenty years of knowing her; and he already knows her better than anyone else, when she's from.

She settles in to watch, leaning against the armrest.

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