jowls | open post.

They look beautifully, brilliantly happy-- a big, healthy family. Her mom must be over the moon. Scully can't figure out what to say-- which is fine, because the knot of feelings in her throat would keep her from saying it, anyway.

There aren't many others-- an old one of her parents, a blurry snapshot of Melissa. Nothing of her or of Mulder-- which tracks, if she's right in her vague imaginings, but is still somehow sad to confirm. Other than the kids, they're all photos she could see herself having in her apartment now, though oddly even the old pictures aren't ones she recalls owning. It's a little sad, somehow, that there's apparently nothing new.

She sets the photo back and tries another drawer-- casual stuff, sweatpants and ratty t-shirts stacked neatly, incongruous in this polished atmosphere. (None of them stick out to her-- at least one of them, though, is definitely a faded Knicks shirt.) The next is, at last, the underwear drawer-- she doesn't spend too much time there, embarrassed more for herself than for Mulder. Most of it is practical, but some of it is-- certainly designed to be seen by others. (Mulder, if he looks, will recognize nearly all of it; she hasn't been on a lingerie shopping spree.)

"I don't think there's anything here," she admits, eyes fixed on Bill and his family again. It doesn't totally surprise her that they're coming up empty-handed; there's no logical reason to imagine her older self caused this.

The last thing to try is the closet, which is... large, but that fits with the general luxury of this place. The uncanny half-familiarity of being surrounded by things that are and aren't hers is starting to get on her nerves, but she's mildly entertained to spot a double of one of the blouses Mulder picked out hanging in there.

She does spot a small lockbox on a shelf-- the kind of thing they sell for valuables, more portable than a safe. It's the only thing that sticks out as at all unusual, and she points at it.

"Should we try that...?"

Mulder does look. He takes in all of it: the clothing he recognizes, the shirt she stole from him. It's simultaneously gratifying and reassuring, especially the shirt - she left, but she's still willing to walk around in something so obviously his in origin. You don't do that if you have a new boyfriend in the mix.

He wonders, as they walk toward the closet, where Scully's put her photos of William and Emily. It's no surprise that they aren't on display - he knows how it'd tear her up to see their faces every morning - but their absence is still notable. Convenient, for the sake of the timeline, he can't deny that, but sometimes he wonders if seeing them might make it feel less like the black hole at the center of their lives.

And then Scully pulls a box from the shelves, and he knows where they are. Them, and who knows what else - photos of the two of them together, possibly. Little mementos from the places they've been together. Proof of a life he's halfway tried to keep from this Scully, resting silent in her hands.

"We can," he says, after a moment, his expression shuttered even by Mulder standards. "But it might raise more questions for you than me."

There's a pause as he gathers his thoughts, pulling the little lock-picking kit out of his pocket as he walks back over to Scully's bed and sits down. If she decides she wants to do it, they'll do it here. "If you went back to 1993 - that first day, while you were in the elevator going down to the basement - and you told yourself what would happen to you, she'd be terrified. But, and I don't think I'm overstepping here when I say this, hearing abduction and cancer wouldn't tell the whole story. If the benefits didn't outweigh the cost, you would've split years ago - and you haven't.

"Some of what's in there...it's going to need context." His gaze on her is steady, undeniably sad; he's fidgeting with the bag of tools without looking at it, his thumb rolling over a pick through the fabric. But despite that, he's hoping she'll agree. Tell me, Mulder, we'll talk about it - that hasn't been what she's needed in the present time, but it might be what he needs. "I don't want you to be afraid of the future."

It's an odd dilemma, trying to decide whether it's a violation of her own privacy to open this box. Mulder seems certain of what they'll find-- which means she can venture at least a vague guess.

The thing is... this isn't going to explain why his Scully is gone, or why she's here. Of that, she's nearly certain-- because it's not going to contain the remote control for a time machine, or a notarized deal with the devil, or anything like that. What is here, probably, is a record of a life she left. And for that-- she could just ask. Maybe that's what she should have done.

But they're here, the box in hand, and it feels like there's only one possible answer.

"I didn't think I had a future, Mulder," she says quietly, keenly aware of the space between her eyes, the time bomb still ticking away. "I think-- we should look," she says decisively.

It might spare her some pain - or it might just give her more. He's hoping for the former, but ultimately, it doesn't really matter what her reaction is. If she wants to know, she deserves to know. Especially at this moment, when she had every reason to believe she'd die without seeing any of her hopes realized.

Maybe in her future, when things go wrong, she can remember what's coming and take some hope from it. There were good times. There are probably still good times, for Scully on her own - he just doesn't know what they are.

"Okay," he says, and reaches for the box. He's practiced his lock-picking relatively recently - it's not a terrible way to distract himself, when he's up too late and has no hope of getting some rest. It still takes him a bit, but he gets it open within a minute or two. And then he sets the box on the bedspread, letting Scully be the one to lift the lid and sift through her life.

She sits on the edge of the bed to watch, feeling... surprisingly little, actually. Curious, more than anything; her unease has subsided a little because whatever's in here, it's at least an answer.

(There must be, she suspects, a journal somewhere; she knows her own inclinations, and if she were leaving Mulder she would have written about it. She knows, because she is writing him now, letters about the inevitable way she'll leave, sooner or later. Weeks, months. But maybe not-- maybe years. Will she ever show him that notebook, the things that crossed her mind as she lay dying? For all she knows it's tucked into this little box.)

But when she opens it, the first things she finds are unremarkable. A passport-- hers-- and a stack of cash, maybe a thousand in varying denominations. A little paranoid, but comprehensible. A ring of unidentifiable keys, maybe for file cabinets or safety deposit boxes-- and then...

Her brow furrows. There's a driver's license, out-of-state, but it's not hers-- no? The picture, she realizes, is herself-- with bleached hair and a fake name, and under it a stack of others, mostly expired-- fake names and disguised photos.

She looks up at him, obviously bewildered.

Mulder's not surprised by anything he sees. If there's an emergency and she has to leave fast, the vital stuff's on top. Cash, passport, keys to all the places she's stashed more cash and more identities. Everything necessary to become a new person, all at once.

His smile's a little melancholy, but it's there, and it's genuine. On some level, he knows she's going to know. After this, she's going to know everything, and he'll have to live with it. For now, he can enjoy the moment. "Never saw yourself as a blonde, did you?"

"I never saw myself living in Kansas," she murmurs, flipping through the IDs, an eyebrow arched. Here she's a brunette, here she has a pixie cut; on one her face looks too thin, on another the makeup is ridiculous.

"Was I in Witness Protection or something?" she asks with a laugh, trying to cover a vague sense of dread.

"If it's any comfort, you didn't stay in Kansas all that long," he answers, watching her face instead of her hands. All those damn IDs - their contacts really came through for them, at a time when it felt like the whole world was closing in. Maybe he'll let her see his, later, the buzz cut and the bleached tips and the awful slicked-back hair that made him look like he dipped his head in oil. "It was an 'or something' - not witness protection."

She's not sure if that's comforting or not. But clearly, whatever the something was, it made her fairly nomadic-- there's no obvious rhyme or reason to the collection of false identities in her hands, but the dates overlap enough that she can piece together that the moves must have been frequent, covering.... maybe a decade? It's hard to say, not knowing the details on the forgeries.

Beneath that are passports, other bits and pieces of forged lives-- apparently she's got a lot to catch up on. And at the bottom, tucked neatly below everything else, is a thick manila envelope with a clasp. Completely unmarked. She fishes it out carefully, looking questioningly at Mulder. She's not sure if she ought to be afraid of what's inside.

"I don't know," he admits, in response to her questioning look. Anticipation is running up his spine; he's nearly certain, and he's certain it's going to be a hard thing for her. Scully carries her pain so silently, left to her own devices. She walls it up and leaves it to fester, and somehow she walks around despite the fact that part of her heart is rotted by grief. "If it's what I think it is...if you want to look, I'll be here with you. And if you don't, we can put it away."

He knows her. He knows she's going to open the envelope, out of sheer dogged curiosity, and he knows she's going to sob. If he could spare her this, he would, but they've been moving toward it since he first saw her photo online, out of time and utterly lost. The best he can do is make sure it's a gentle landing.

"Or," he adds, clearly uncertain about the merit of the idea, "I can tell you. And then you can decide if you want to see."

Bold of him to assume that Dana Scully has ever had any real idea of what she wants.

She sits considering it for a moment, silent, the envelope feeling heavy in her hands. Is this-- could it be the answer to the question, not of why she's here, but why her elder self is here, and not in Farr's Corner? Hidden away in a locked box in a closet. That, she has to admit, feels about right.

With a sharp breath, she makes her decision-- opens the envelope, pours out a small stack of photos. She spreads them out across the bed, not quite managing to smother a soft, sad gasp. Of all the things she expected--

There's a little girl, and ironically this time she makes the connection immediately that this must be her daughter. Seventeen years is a long time-- but that doesn't make it any less of a surprise; after everything, after the cancer, she wouldn't have thought her body could bear children.

She looks just like Melissa, she thinks. An unmistakable Scully with fat little cheeks and bright hair. And she can't even enjoy the rushing well of awe and affection, because beside the photograph is a memorial card.

"Oh my God," she whispers, punched in the gut. Her hand is shaking as she reaches for the sonogram. How horribly unfair, to only learn this when it's too late.

She can't-- she screws her eyes shut, tries to hold back a sob.

As soon as he face starts to crumple, he's moving, sliding the mementos together again as easily as a deck of cards and sliding over until their legs touch. Mulder sets everything behind her for the moment, wrapping his arms around her thin frame.

He missed so much of this, the first time around. When he was there, he couldn't be everything she needed; when he wasn't, he'd been able to do nothing but imagine her suffering from miles away. He's never going to forgive himself everything he couldn't do, or didn't do - but here and now, he can comfort her.

She's going to know, if she didn't already, and he doesn't care. If she's going to see the worst pieces of the future, she needs to know they aren't the only parts. She can't be alone for this.

Mulder gives her a squeeze, his cheek pressed against her hair. His own eyes are squeezed tight. His chest is threatening to collapse in on itself, but he's not going to let it. This isn't his pain right now. "I know. I've got you."

All she can do is weep. Taken by surprise, she doesn't have the strength of will to be self-conscious about it; and maybe it's just Mulder finally letting himself come close to her that truly opens the floodgates. She crumples against him, crying over things she doesn't fully understand-- grieving the loss of a child she doesn't know, couldn't anticipate.

It's a story that makes some kind of sense, at least. They had a little girl, they lost her, and it broke them. It's terrible-- but it's understandable; and, admittedly, there's a bit of horrid relief to think that she didn't leave him on a whim.

She couldn't say how long she cried; it leaves her feeling wrung-out, lighter and heavier at the same time.

"When did she die?" she manages to ask eventually, somewhat muffled.

She could have asked anything, but she asks that. Something in him shudders, his arms tightening around her.

You don't want to know, he wants to say, but he knows what he means is I don't want to see your face when I tell you, and he'd never accept that for himself. He can't bar her from knowledge of her children, however much he might want to spare her the possibility of having to lose them twice.

Instead, he reaches for the stack of pictures and cards, all the little pieces of their children's lives, and he brings them around so they can both look at Emily's birthday smile. He hasn't seen this photo in years; looking at it now feels worse, somehow. More like her death was his to carry, too.

"What if..." He takes a moment, swallowing back a wave of emotion beyond anything he's ever let himself feel about this. "We could start with when she was alive. Her name was Emily. You thought she looked just like Melissa."

"She really does." It's barely above a whisper, a mixture of grief and awe. She doesn't pull away when he moves to grab the photographs; she stays curled against his chest. Maybe they're making up for lost time, the careful way he's kept apart from her. Maybe it's just that she can't bear this along.

(Maybe neither of them can. If they couldn't bear it together.)

"If there weren't--" her throat closes up, she can't refer to the ultrasounds. "I almost thought it was Melissa, for a second."

He lets her stay snuggled in close, keeping an arm around her as they look down at Emily's smiling face. Maybe there was a moment, back when it happened, when Emily looked that happy, but all he can remember is the sickly, serious little girl and the smell of hospital hallways. He's never begrudged Scully the desire to be alone in those final moments, but he's wished more than once that she hadn't felt the need to send him away.

You have your chance now, he can't help but think. Make it good.

"You loved her," he says, because the tragedy of Emily is that there's not much to say about her. They'd barely known her, and yet they'd both loved her desperately. Even if it was for what she could have meant, the future that could have happened, they'd loved her. "Even if you'd only known her for an hour, you would have loved her. And I...have to believe, Scully, that she knew it."

As he talks, he slowly moves through the stack of objects Scully's kept in that envelope. The secret heart of a secret box, the things that pain her more than anything else could. He lingers on the few photos; he moves past the funeral card more quickly. Telling her that her daughter is dead is bad enough. Telling her it's going to happen in less than a year is going to crush her.

When he reaches the sonograms, his grip on the stack tightens for a moment. He could let her believe it's all one child, but that, too, seems cruel. To whom, he's not sure - but he can't lie about their son's existence. After everything he failed to do for him, the least he can do is acknowledge him. "And this is William."

Part of her feels guilty for not comforting him in turn-- she can't imagine a world where she had a child that wasn't his-- but she doesn't have the wherewithal. All she can do is stay slumped against him and look at her daughter and listen to his explanation.

And it's... not much of an explanation; but perhaps that's inevitable. She should know better than to think she can change the future, sitting here where the future is the past. But it's a strange thin to say, she thinks; of course she would have loved her. Of course.

But before she can ask for more--

"Oh," she gasps, wide-eyed, looking closer at the grainy image. A son. She stares in awe at the scan, the graceful curve of his little body; the smudged shape of a tiny hand. Automatically, she looks up at the top to glean what information she can-- early 2001; only a few years from now.

"Mulder, oh my God," she whispers, curling her fingers urgently in his shirt. "William," she echoes, trying it out, equal parts delighted and terrified at the prospect. Two children-- two lost children?

It's so much tragedy to hand to her. Too much, but if she's going to hear it, he needs her to hear it all. Living with lies and half-truths isn't fair to either of them, and given the opportunity to talk about this - to the only person he's ever wanted to talk about it with, no less - he's powerless to keep any of it to himself. The pain isn't yet lodged in her bones; she won't shut it all away, letting months or years go by without breathing either of these names aloud.

"It's okay," he answers, voice low, knowing it's not okay except in the most relative terms. But it matters, that he's still out there. It means the door isn't completely shut to the possibility of his return. He's one more mystery in the world, and Mulder would give his right arm to solve it. "He's alive. It...wasn't safe, for him to stay with you. You did the bravest thing you've ever done - and you kept him alive. And when he's eighteen -"

His voice cracks. He sets his jaw, knowing he's not going to be able to finish that sentence. It's a fantasy he's never let himself dwell on too long, too fragile to stand up to all the cruelty they've faced since then.

Again, her eyes well up; coherence has deserted her, and she makes a low, inchoate sound of... everything. Awe and sorrow and longing and affection and shock. It's an undignified, awful sound, and she can't bring herself to care-- in front of anyone else it would be hideously embarrassing, but this is Mulder-- she trusts him in a way she didn't know she could.

"We have a son?" she asks. It isn't a question and it is. He keeps saying you, as though he had no part in any of it-- but she can't imagine having anyone else's child. Children. Children!

Finally she rouses herself enough to move, to look up at him. It has to be Mulder-- it couldn't be anyone else.

(Right?)

The look on his face probably answers it before he says anything: heartbroken, and yet he can't help smiling. They have a son. A person exists in the world because long ago, a couple of old men thought Scully would be the perfect narc. No matter what else happens, he'll take that miracle to the grave with him. William is out there somewhere, and he's theirs.

"Legally speaking," he says, his throat tight, "I didn't have anything to do with it. But let's just say the Vatican didn't think it sounded like a miracle."

To Dana Scully-- with death growing behind her eyes, with her knowledge of what medicine will do to her body to try to stop it, with a history of alarming test results since she was taken away-- a miracle is exactly what it sounds like.

"Oh my God," she whispers, and she throws herself back against him, wrapping her arms around him, face pressed into his shoulder. This time it's not for her own sake. How he could have kept this secret to protect her-- good God! Mulder, losing a little girl. Mulder knowing his son is out there. There are nearly two decades of context she's missing, but she knows him well enough to guess what that must mean for him.

She can't give him much. Not answers, certainly. But maybe she can offer back a little comfort.

He doesn't assume it's comfort for him, only that she's still overwhelmed by the news. You'll live, but you'll lose everything - but some of it, you won't regret. It's nothing he can say to her right now. He hugs her back, pressing a kiss to her head. "It's okay."

Mulder pats her back, trying to think of something, anything, that'd be a comfort. When she's no longer clinging to him - no longer sobbing, just hugging him tight - maybe he'll get the picture out of his wallet. She deserves to see his face.

It takes her a little while to get herself under control; there's just a lot to take in, and she'll be trying to make sense of it... probably until it all comes to pass.

She wants to say something-- something like I'm sorry you've had to hold all that back but it doesn't feel right, it crumbles to dust in her mouth, so she just holds him and lets him hold her until both of them are breathing evenly.

And when she pulls away-- not far, but enough to scrub at her face with the cuff of her sleeve-- she gives him a watery smile. Tinged with inevitable sadness, but genuinely glad, too.

"I'm glad you told me," she says earnestly.

He smiles back at her, and if a few tears sneaked out while her face was pressed up against his shoulder, so be it. It's not like they've never talked about William or Emily before, but it's never quite felt like this. Somehow, it leaves him feeling relieved, baffling as that is.

"You're going to need some Gatorade to replenish your electrolytes if I keep making you cry," he says wryly, as he pulls his wallet out of his pocket, "but you don't have to picture a sonogram."

Sliding William's photograph out of its slot, he hands it over to Scully. After this, they're taking a break from the future-past, but this is the one and only chance he's ever had to show off his son's picture. That it's to his mother is immaterial.

Again, words desert her entirely; she makes a soft sound of surprise and joy and grief, all rolled into one. The baby-- William-- their son-- is just a baby in the picture; tiny fat cheeks and long lashes and perfect. She holds the photograph delicately, like the treasure it is-- without having to be told she understands that this must be it, this collection of little images; the only trace they have of their babies.

"He's perfect," she says, which is what you say about babies but she has the conviction of maternal faith. She's certain of it. "Oh, Mulder," she murmurs, grabbing at his arm-- seized by a wild desire to get out of here, to get in the car and go find him now, with nothing at all to guide her, just desperation to see her impossible future.

She shuts her eyes again, but doesn't cry this time. They deserve better than this grief-- all of them. But she's still too stunned to do more than cling to him, tracing the edge of the photo with her thumb.

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