jowls | open post.

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.

He wants her to have everything he can give her, paltry as it is. To have this hope, even knowing how it turns out - it has to help, doesn't it? When she's going through the worst that the cancer can throw at her, she'll know that William's still on the horizon. Everything that happens to her, she survives. Not unchanged, but she survives...and sometimes, she's happy.

There's more he can say about William than Emily, at least. And he does, in a low, soothing voice, wrapped up with her in this sad little embrace. "You told me you named him after my father, but I think we both knew better than to believe that. He was a good baby - big eyes. Observant, just like you. Your mother was over the moon when you told her."

What else? All the things he's imagined but never done, all the things he missed. Abduction and death kept him from her, and then his own desire to lead their enemies' attention away from their vulnerable little family. He can't share that; he's never shaken his regrets about the time he missed, or the shame of having abandoned her for what amounted to no reason whatsoever. If he'd stayed, if he'd stayed and fought - maybe it would have been worse, he knows that. But sometimes, when he's been awake too long, he thinks he could have kept them safe.

"It was...a strange situation," he admits, his eyes on her hands. She strokes the picture like he might feel her caress. "I don't think we ever figured out what we were going to tell him. Why his mother's friend Mulder hung around so much."

It's profoundly strange to have any knowledge of the future; even this, as big and important as it is, is only a glimpse. There are a thousand questions she wants to ask, but doesn't know where to start; some of it, she thinks, she can probably guess. If Mulder didn't want to be on the birth certificate-- they wouldn't be able to work together, probably; it makes some sense, even if the idea makes her oddly uneasy.

"You don't really think we could've kept that a secret?"

From a child of theirs? His father's curiosity, his mother's hunger for proof? Surely he'd have figured it out.

Mulder shrugs. It's an intellectual argument at best, at this point, but it's another one he never actually got to discuss in any detail before now. Now that he has tacit permission to talk about it - about William, about everything - he can't stop.

"I'm sure it was an open secret at best," he answers, since that's the first concern. The work, how it would have affected the work, who would have seen it as an opening to get to him. Saving the world seemed so much more important before 2012 ended. "But making it official could have been...dangerous. I guess we both figured we had time to find a way to tell William."

And then it became a moot point. William knows nothing about either of them now; he's probably not even called William anymore. Mulder tries not to think about that, generally.

"Sometimes I thought I'd propose, once I knew it wouldn't put the two of you in more danger." Saying it aloud sounds absurd now. They never quite got that far. "Or that we'd tell him when he was old enough for school, if it seemed like he could keep a secret. But even if I spent his whole life living in Alexandria, being Mom's friend Mulder, I would have taken it. He needed you more than he needed me."

Edited (when you edit part of a post but never actually finish the job) 2024-09-24 22:30 (UTC)

For years, they've been mistaken at hotels and crime scenes and diners; she's known they call her Mrs. Spooky behind her back. Of course, if she were to have a baby without some very conspicuous other candidate, people would assume it was Mulder's. Honestly the only surprising thing is the notion that leaving it unsaid would be enough to get away with it.

And the rest-- she's still piecing bits of it together. Something happened, and William had to go-- somewhere? Adopted, probably. Mulder keeps alluding to danger, which isn't a total shock-- their lives have never been simple-- but there must have been something truly dire, if they decided to give up their child.

"I don't know if I believe that," she says softly, sliding her hand along his arm to thread their fingers together. She can't imagine a world where she'd have someone else's child-- she can't imagine a world where she wouldn't want Mulder to be a father, not just an undefined friend.

There's just enough plausible deniability - she's been trying, he was merely a convenient sperm donor - that they could have gotten away with it, provided they were subtle. Whether anyone actually believed them would have been immaterial, after a point; the possibility of a lawsuit over EEOC violations could have been a powerful deterrent regardless. Shining a spotlight on the X-Files in court wouldn't have benefited the Bureau, especially if they were retaliating against a working mother.

Scully's hand is gentle, reassuring. Mulder can't help the sensation that he doesn't deserve this affection, even though he can already hear her replying, I don't believe that, either. He sighs, leaning his cheek against her hair. "I couldn't be what either of you needed. When you get there, you'll understand."

It's barely lunchtime, and he feels overwhelmingly like he wants to crawl into bed and stay there. He's trying to stay on his best behavior, though; when he changes the subject, it's with the idea that he'll be exploring the wild world of Scully's couch. "Let's stay here tonight. It'll give us time to keep looking around, and you can take advantage of that bathtub. If she were here, I think she'd want you to have some time to relax."

He can't imagine Scully begrudging herself a bubble bath, especially knowing just what she just learned.

She can't imagine herself begrudging either of them a little respite. Granted-- as he points out, there are things she doesn't understand. There's a serious rift, here, though she still doesn't understand why. But unless she's become a person she doesn't recognize at all, she'd want to offer him shelter, safety, when he needed it.

And if she's become the kind of person who doesn't... well, to hell with herself. As the current resident Dana Scully she gets to make decisions.

So there.

"Good idea," she says, not quite keeping in a sigh. She feels wrung out-- and can't deny a long bath would do a lot to improve the world. This place feels like a luxury hotel, so why not treat it like one?

"It's... it's a nice house," she says, sounding a little perplexed in spite of the words.

"Nicer than mine," he says, and it's a half-assed attempt at a joke, but there's some levity in his voice. He gives her a little squeeze. "You upgraded, Scully."

And maybe she deserves that, too. Following him led her to heartbreak and desperation; it left her so drained that she couldn't look at him any longer. Why not live somewhere with neighbors? Fridges that leave their own notes? HOA squabbles and koi ponds and dramatic architecture - she should have the petty normalcy of a life surrounded by other lives, if that's what she wants.

All the evidence suggests she does. Seeing just where she's been living since she left is like being socked in the face with it: This is what she wanted, not the dark rooms and dark moods of Fox Mulder.

"Maybe," she says, doubtful. It's hard to look around this place and think that anyone lives here-- much less her. Granted, her apartment has always been pathologically neat, but this feels... She can't quite explain it. It's not merely the contrast between the clutter of Mulder's home and the neatness; it just feels....

Well, like a hotel. Like it could be temporary.

She almost tells him they should go back to his place out of sheer stubbornness-- but she thinks they both need the rest, and selfishly, she does want to try out that tub.

"We should come up with something to tell her job," she muses. It's a task she'd really rather not contemplate, which... probably means they should stop letting it slide.

"Well," he says, "you're the doctor. We need something that's serious enough that you can't come into work, but not so life-ruining that you'll never come back."

He pauses a moment, letting go of her solely so he can find the envelope and slip the photos back inside. She can keep hold of the picture of William as long as she wants to; he's half-tempted to get a copy made, just for while she's here. Just in case it's longer than either of them expects. And if it somehow goes back in time with her, an object that shouldn't exist, so much the better.

"Or we could admit that you disappeared, but I don't think we want any police involvement here." As though this isn't complicated enough.

"Car accident is too dramatic," she muses. "A really bad flu? Doesn't totally explain why she didn't call earlier... Wrong time of year to get snowed in on a weekend skiing trip."

Not that she's ever been the weekend skiing trip type, but how well do her coworkers really know her? She's betting not that well. And anything too medically intense will lead to follow-up questions.

"Do they know I was a Federal Agent? We could say she's in protective custody, someone with a grudge broke out of prison?"

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