sisterspooky1013

[sisterspooky1013]

Doing an X-Files rewatch again, and I'm having so many thoughts about the pilot. It's so incredibly well done. And having just done a (very fast) rewatch recently with the last episodes fresh in mind, it's amazing to me to see how well these characters were formed right from the beginning. Their whole dynamic.

One thing I find interesting is how we're set up to believe that Mulder is the one who doesn't really give a crap about authority, but it's really Scully in the first episode who goes against everything they expect from her. She is supposed to invalidate Mulder's work. Instead she goes off with him to fight crime, sees things she can't explain, and decides that yes this guy is crazy, but she really wants to know what's going on.

I love how she isn't for a second intimidated or even put off by his initial attitude. She stands her ground at their first meeting, he immediately puts her to the test by showing her slides of weird marks on victims and asking her opinion, and then goes on about aliens, challenging her to tell him he's insane. And the really beautiful thing? When she argues her point, Mulder argues back, but from the start, there is respect between them. He knows she's been sent to spy on him. But there is no hostility there, not from either of them. We get such a clear idea of those two are right from the start. They're basically really nice people.

And then there is the motel, Scully finding those marks on her back... They took that moment that could have been used to merely objectify her while giving him reasons to exploit her fear and treat it as weakness -- and instead they used it to establish even further the respect and the first sparks of trust between them. He laughs initially until he realises that she was actually afraid, and then his laugh fades right away and he takes her seriously. More than that, she stays and they talk, and he tells her his story, in more personal detail than he probably needed to. And she listens. Trust is met with trust.

They work *together* throughout the whole episode and manage to use their individual beliefs to challenge each other. Not to be right on principle, but to get to the truth. I love how that's a thing right from the first episode. Their partnership develops so naturally. Through respect and through their willingness to listen. Not to agree, but to argue their points and push each other closer to the truth.

The chemistry between them is so off the charts, and to a large extent that's really due to all of this. They are willing to find a common ground, and they find each other fascinating enough to want to know more. I love that so much. It's such a good episode.

[sisterspooky1013]

Shine On (6/16)

Read on AO3 | Tagging @today-in-fic

Chapter 6: Aches and Pains

Outside the Harvest Moon Cafe Arlington, Virginia February 22, 2015 3 pm

Scully crosses the street, surveying the sidewalk in front of the cafe to try to spot Mulder arriving. He could already be sitting inside, although she doesn’t see him sitting at any of the little tables visible through the front window.

The wind gusts abruptly, and she shivers, digging her hands into the satin-lined pockets of her blue wool coat. She can’t help but notice her heart rate has picked up, and she’s not sure why she’s so nervous. This conversation with Mulder is probably going to end up being frustrating. Really she should be bracing herself for that.

She stands just outside the front door and lightly hops from foot to foot to keep warm, looking swiftly up and down the stretch of sidewalk again. Maybe she should just go inside. If he’s not in there, she can at least sit down, warm up, and get a latte while she waits.

She’s turning to go in when she hears her phone buzzing, and she pulls it anxiously out of her purse.

Mulder. Of course.

She lets out a preemptive sigh and answers.

“Mulder, where are you?”

“I’m a half block away. I can see you,” Mulder’s voice replies. “I’m going to pull up next to you and you’re going to get in the passenger side, okay?”

“No, that’s not okay,” she replies, annoyed, trying to see his car. “That’s not what we said. We were going to meet at the cafe.”

“We can’t. Listen, I can explain once you’re in the car. We have to talk somewhere more private.”

“Am I being kidnapped, Mulder?”

“No, of course not,” he says. “Well, benignly kidnapped. I’ll return you. I don’t think you’re going to regret this though, Scully.”

He hangs up.

She wonders if there’s any chance she was right—that this is a birthday surprise. He did sound excited, almost breathless—something she hadn’t heard in his voice in a long time.

His car, now visible, weaves its way through the traffic that always seems to choke the roads around the hospital, even on the weekends. She can see him waving manically at her through the windshield. She allows him a half-hearted wave in return, pressing her lips together disapprovingly.

She should have asked more questions about this.

He pulls directly into a delivery zone in front of her, rolling down his window. “Come on,” he calls. “Hop in.” He’s surprisingly clean shaven and high energy. Something is definitely afoot.

“I’m not getting my latte?”

“I’ll stop and pick one up for you somewhere else. Come on, Scully.” He makes an urgent beckoning gesture with his hand.

She walks unhurriedly around the front of his car, feeling his eyes watching every leisurely step she takes. She opens the car door and slides into the pleasantly warm passenger seat. She throws Mulder a wary glare.

“Thank you,” Mulder says, exhaling, beginning to turn the wheel to steer them back onto the street. “Jesus, Scully.”

A movement in the back seat startles her, and she whirls her head around. There is a boy in sunglasses hunched down low in the seat, as though he’s avoiding the windows.

“Hello,” Scully says, uncertainly. She turns more fully to see him better. “I didn’t see you back there.”

“Hi,” the boy replies, his voice flat. He’s dressed in too-big clothes that seem to swallow up his slender frame. He’s dressed in Mulder’s old clothes, she realizes. Even the prized Yankees cap.

She turns to look questioningly at Mulder. He gives her a mysterious look before being required to devote his attention to the road again.

“What’s going on?” she asks. The boy’s presence causes her to speak more politely than she might otherwise. “Are we investigating an X-file, Mulder?”

“This is Jackson,” Mulder says, cryptic as ever. “Jackson came to me for help.”

“For help. Okay.” Scully twists around again to face the boy, who is uncomfortably adjusting his hat and sunglasses. “Jackson,” she says, “I’m Dana Scully.”

He lowers his sunglasses to look directly at her. “Yeah,” he says. “I know.”

When she sees his face, Scully’s breath catches.

“What?” Mulder says immediately. “What, Scully?”

She isn’t quite sure how to handle this. “I recognize him.”

“You do?” Mulder’s voice is sharp.

“From the news story,” Jackson’s voice cuts in. “She recognizes me from the news story.”

“He’s wanted by police for a serious crime.” She throws Mulder a significant look. “You know about this?”

“Yeah,” Mulder says, swallowing.

“I didn’t do it,” Jackson’s voice says quickly from the back seat. “I didn’t kill my parents. That’s what I need help with.”

What on earth has Mulder involved himself with? Scully thinks wearily. He’s not an FBI agent any more, and this is serious, a private citizen aiding and abetting someone accused of a crime, juvenile or not. She worries that Mulder is so depressed and rudderless that he could believe anyone with a compelling story. She certainly hopes he’s been alert enough to confirm the boy isn’t armed.

Scully turns around to look at Jackson directly again, adopting her placating, sensible doctor voice. “Did Mulder explain that sometimes the best, most practical thing to do is to turn yourself in?”

The boy only impassively stares back at her. It seems at first that he is unaffected by her question, but then his mouth begins trembling.

Scully scowls faintly. “Jackson, I’m only saying. Sometimes speaking with an attorney is the best… the most ...”

She loses her train of thought. A fat tear has sprung from the corner of his eye. Seeing it troubles her more than she expects.

“Okay, Scully, listen,” Mulder says. “Just back up for one second.”

But she’s stopped listening to Mulder, because she’s become preoccupied with the struggle happening on the boy’s face. The way he’s trying to set his jaw and harden his look. He’s trying to keep his expression indifferent—to look like he doesn’t care—but this only makes him look more vulnerable. Like what she’s said has badly hurt him, and like he’s scared she is about to do it again.

His expression reminds her of something. She stares at him openly, not bothering to hide her interest, trying to pinpoint it.

A part of her chest begins to tighten.

His wobbling bottom lip, which he’s now biting hard, is round. His eyes are green, the cool grayish green of sage. Not a common color, but one she knows well.

“I want to get us to a quiet spot. Let me drive out of Arlington,” Mulder continues. “Then we can talk. We need to talk.”

The boy abruptly breaks eye contact with her. He furiously wipes the moisture on his cheek with the back of his hand, scoots over to the window, and turns to look out.

“You’ll understand all of this once I have a chance to explain,” Mulder tells her. “I promise, Scully.”

Scully continues to stare, knowing she’s making the boy feel self-conscious. He hunches down lower, adjusting the baseball cap over his eyes.

He’s wearing Mulder’s hat. Mulder’s given him his Yankees cap.

She can hear the steady build of her heart pounding in her ears.

“She already knows,” Jackson announces gruffly to the window, almost like he’s talking to himself. “She’s figured it out. She doesn’t want to let herself believe it.”

Scully can only shake her head wordlessly.

Mulder’s eyes are now rapidly bouncing between Scully, the rearview mirror, and the road. “Is he right? Did you?”

“It’s … true?” Scully manages, her voice broken. Her eyes don’t leave the boy.

She feels Mulder’s hand rest on her leg for a beat, warm and steady. “Yeah,” he says. “It’s true.”

There is a pause. Scully’s eyes fall on Jackson’s attire.

Jackson looks down at the sweater he’s wearing, pulling it out in front of him to examine it. “She’s wondering if you gave me this sweater to wear on purpose,” he says to the back of Mulder’s head. “Because it was the shirt you were wearing when you held me for the first time.”

Scully can’t quite process how he’s knowing all of this. She finds herself gripping the edge of the car seat as though it’s going to keep her from falling. She tries to pull her thoughts together.

“Did you?” he asks, arching his body to see Mulder better. “Give it to me on purpose?”

“No,” Mulder says. His voice seems so bizarrely calm. “God, no, I didn’t. I remember that moment well, but I honestly wouldn’t have remembered what shirt I was wearing.

“Well, she does,” Jackson says. He slumps back down in his seat, stealing fast, furtive glances at Scully.

Scully sifts through all of the questions and holds on to the one that is currently most important to her.

“You’re sure?” she says to Mulder in a low voice. “You’re sure that it’s him?”

“Yes,” Mulder says. “I’m sure. I asked Skinner to run the DNA through the FBI labs.”

“I’m sure, too,” Jackson says. “In case you were wondering.”

She turns back to him, and she’s met by those burning resentful eyes so much like Mulder’s.

Startled, she tries to think of something meaningful to say to him.

But all she wants to do is look at him. She wants to drink every single detail of him in. She can’t help comparing him to what she remembers. That hair, so dark now, had been lighter and redder as a baby. His eyes had been bluer. His face had been so much rounder. Now it has the early adolescent beginnings of a pronounced jawline, one a little like Mulder’s.

And yet it is him. It’s him. The corners of her eyes burn and prickle.

“I recognize you now…” she says, unable to marshal the right words into a sentence. “Your face is …. I recognize your face.”

Jackson’s eyes meet hers for a moment, then shift to look back out the window again.

“How long have you…” She stops, trying to think what she’s trying to say. “How long has he been here?” she asks Mulder.

“Since right after you left on Friday. He came right after that.”

“That long,” she says, stunned. “You didn’t call.”

“I know. We were trying to figure it out. I wanted to be sure,” Mulder says. “I thought it would be… well. I just wanted to be sure, Scully.”

Scully nods robotically, more shocked than angry. Something occurs to her.

“He’s like Gibson Praise,” Scully murmurs to Mulder. “That’s how he …. knows what I am thinking. He’s a telepath.”

“Yeah,” Mulder agrees heavily.

“Gibson Praise?” repeats Jackson in the back.

Scully doesn’t answer, but leans back on her seat again, thinking in a panic of the considerable trouble Gibson had in his young life. Were Jackson’s parents murdered because of his ability? So someone could get to Jackson? How many people already are aware of what he can do?

Behind her she hears the sound of the boy restlessly squirming around. “You knew another kid with my abilities?”

“I told you we knew other people with your abilities, Jackson,” Mulder says gently.

“A kid. Younger than me. A chess champion. Who was in danger constantly?” he asks. “Where is he now? Were his parents murdered? Was he?”

“We can explain it all, but let’s just try to calm down,” Mulder replies.

Jackson’s head thumps back against the seat. He places the heels of his hands on his forehead.

“I can’t,” Jackson says tightly. “I can’t calm down. It’s not that easy.”

“Everything is going to be fine,” Mulder begins. “Just be—”

“No, no, you don’t understand. It’s coming at me so much… I can’t do anything, and it hurts.”

“What’s coming at you so much?” Scully asks sharply. “What hurts?”

“You,” Jackson says in a low voice. He covers his face with his hands, as if trying to block out daylight.

“Are you okay?” Mulder’s eyeing him.

“I need a second,” mumbles Jackson from beneath his hands.

Scully sends Mulder a quick, desperate look. Please help me understand.

“He can tune into everyone’s thoughts,” Mulder explains to her, his voice still maddeningly steady. “And usually he can control it. More than Gibson could, I think. But he seems to tune into you especially … clearly. It’s like an extra loud, powerful frequency. He, uh, noticed it the other day when he saw you leaving the house.”

“He saw me leave the house?” And he was listening to my thoughts? Scully tries to remember all she had been thinking. She had been so upset, so angry. She could have been thinking any number of nasty things in the heat of the moment, things she didn’t mean.

“Yeah, you were,” answers Jackson’s muffled voice. “All kinds of things. All kinds of feelings. Every kind of feeling out there. And everything you could feel, I could feel, too. But it’s even worse right now.”

Scully feels her chest tighten further. How is she supposed to think anything knowing he can hear everything? If her feelings hurt him physically, how is she supposed to stop herself from feeling them?

“What can I do to make this easier?” she asks, practically begging. “Can I shield my thoughts in some way?”

“Even if you could, it wouldn’t stop the feelings,” Jackson’s voice replies raggedly. “Maybe you could just try to stop your memories?”

“How do I do that?” Scully asks Mulder anxiously.

“Your memories are … “ Jackson gasps abruptly. “They are just so … Like there’s the baby. I keep seeing the baby. And Mulder. It’s… Oh. Fuck.” Jackson’s face seems to change color, and he begins to pitch forward and back. “It’s too much. I’m going to—” He taps urgently on Mulder’s shoulder. “Can we… can we pull over? Like really quick?”

Mulder nods grimly, starts to steer the car into the parking lot of a shopping area.

“What’s wrong, Jackson?” Scully asks him. “I’m a doctor. I might be able to help.” He just shakes his head, pressing a palm over his mouth.

Mulder finds a spot and pulls in. Immediately Jackson throws open the door and staggers out. He stumbles a few steps away, taking off the Yankees hat and bending over at the waist, his hands on his knees. Mulder and Scully exchange bewildered looks. Scully scoots to the door of the car, considering whether to go out after him.

Jackson throws up explosively on the pavement.

Mulder leaps out of the car and is at his side at once, placing a hand on his back. “Okay, all right,” he says gently. Finished, Jackson coughs, and his body seems to wrack with something like a sob. Mulder’s hand pats his shoulder soothingly. “You’re all right. We’re going to figure this out.”

He’s so good with him, Scully thinks before she can stop herself, her feelings mutinously ambivalent. She had always believed Mulder would make a good father, she wanted him to be a good father, but her fantasies about getting William back had always centered on her. Her reunion with her baby. She’d been the one who’d known William as an infant. Yet here Jackson and Mulder are, seemingly already in some kind of simpatico. She knows it’s wonderful, a miracle, but it also makes some part of her ache.

“Is this making your head hurt?” Mulder questions Jackson, trying to meet his eyes. “Is that what’s happening?”

She wonders if Mulder is remembering when the crushing weight of other people’s thoughts made his own head hurt. Jackson looks so pale, so overwhelmed. Right now, he reminds her eerily of Mulder in those days, back when she thought she might lose Mulder to his telepathic ability.

The boy doesn’t answer Mulder’s question, but instead slowly rotates over towards Scully. Too late she remembers. He can hear what I think.

Jackson blinks at her, his eyes rimmed with red. He then turns back to Mulder. “You were telepathic, too,” Jackson accuses him in a dull, scratchy voice.

“Yeah,” Mulder agrees, glancing over at Scully, too. “For a short while.”

“She’s remembering it now.” Jackson gestures to Scully. “You touched some old artifact. Then you could read minds.”

Mulder and Scully meet eyes for a moment from over Jackson’s shoulder. Mulder looks pained. “That’s right. It didn’t last. But I remember what it was like.”

“She’s wondering if that has anything to do with what I can do. It happened not that long before I was born.” Jackson stands up again, tugging at his oversized shirt. Scully can’t help but notice as he straightens up that he’s lean and tall, already taller than her. “Do you think it might?”

“I don’t know,” Mulder says. “I don’t know what exactly you can see in Scully’s mind. But there are a few reasons you could have these abilities. Both Scully and I were exposed to artifacts with… some kind of potency shortly before you were conceived. That could be it. But we also both had been infected with a virus that is probably extraterrestrial in origin. Hell, we had been exposed to a giant fungus that caused us to have a telepathic link within the year. It could have been several things.”

“Okay,” Jackson says wearily. “Yeah.” He puts his hands on his face.

“Are you good?”

“Yeah. No. Of course not. I mean … for one, I’m wondering what the hell your life is,” mumbles Jackson. “You just brought up so much crazy shit.”

“That’s something I do,” Mulder says. He smiles at Scully. “Ask her.”

Jackson doesn’t smile. “When you were telepathic, you were … sick. In the hospital. In a white room.” He swallows, gesturing again at Scully. “She was really scared.”

“Yeah,” Mulder agrees somberly. “I didn’t know how to control it. It was like tuning into every radio station from everyone’s mind at once. It wasn’t anything like what you can do right now.”

“Are you sure? Because I don’t know how to control it right now.”

“You’re going to be fine,” Mulder says emphatically. “You’re just getting used to something new.”

Jackson again runs his hands through his hair, in what is maybe a self-soothing habit. “Okay,” he says. “Okay.” He takes a few steps back and forth, then turns back to Mulder. “But I think I need a break. Please. Can I have a break before we drive again? Just a few minutes?”

Scully can see Mulder’s indecision in his body language, on his face. She grips her own leg in anxiety, wishing she could contribute to the conversation, but she doesn’t want to make things worse for Jackson.

“Whatever we do, you definitely need to get back in the car,” Mulder says to Jackson. He looks around, setting his jaw. They’re standing in a small parking lot along a busy road, within eyesight of a shopping center with a phone store, Chinese takeout, a pharmacy, a bakery. It’s mid-afternoon and there are other people walking to and from their cars, although the three of them seem to have avoided direct attention for the moment. “I don’t want you to be noticed,” he adds quietly. “I’m already worried about security cameras in the lot. You don’t think you could make it if we just drove back to my house? You could have a break there.”

“Maybe.” Jackson’s tongue darts out and nervously licks his lip. “But maybe I could lie down in the car for like fifteen minutes and you guys could go somewhere else, maybe get coffee or something? I just need to be away from all the feelings … for little while.”

His eyes snap over Scully again, and it hits her like a swift slap: she is “all the feelings.” It’s her he needs a break from.

Mulder dips his head up and down in a slow nod. “Okay,” he says in a measured voice. “That seems reasonable. In the car.” He looks over towards her. “We can go see if the bakery has lattes. Right, Scully?”

She hesitates. “All right.”

“The bakery is … far enough?” Mulder asks carefully.

Jackson looks around the shopping center, squinting at the store fronts. “Yeah,” he says. “I think so. Enough to make it easier. I haven’t really had this happen before.” He avoids Scully’s gaze. “But I think even a little farther is better.”

She tries not to react to that. She draws upon every bit of the professional armor she’s amassed over the years, and she slides out of the car, smoothing her pants and coat with a stoic expression.

Jackson watches her, then, pausing to pick up the Yankee hat, climbs into the back seat of the car again.

“All right,” Mulder says. “Just be careful.”

Jackson scrambles over the seat and immediately lies on his side, curling up, folding his arms over his chest in a too-familiar way that makes Scully’s heart ache again. He looks exhausted.

She spins around abruptly and begins walking quickly and determinedly through the parking lot. It will give them both relief, she realizes, if she moves herself away sooner rather than later.

Mulder lingers behind to say a few more words to Jackson, then jogs to catch up with her.

“Scully?” he says as he reaches her, cupping her elbow. “You okay?”

She throws him an incredulous look. “I don’t know … how I could possibly answer that question.”

“I know,” Mulder says. “I know that his not being able to be near you … is painful. We’re going to fix it. I know we are.”

She turns to face Mulder. She knows the signs of when he is excited, energized, and she sees them now. His eyes are intensely bright; his mouth is moving, twitching, like it is searching out a sunflower seed to latch on to. Mulder is so unbelievably happy, she realizes with a sharp shock. She can’t remember the last time she has seen him so unequivocally ebullient. It may have been the time he wore the shirt Jackson is wearing and held his newborn son.

Suddenly, Scully feels churlish. Mulder’s reaction is probably much more appropriate here than her own self-centered hurt feelings.

“It’s a dream come true to see him,” she acknowledges quietly, beginning to walk again.

“I know,” he exclaims quickly, keeping pace with her. “I know! Isn’t it? He’s great, too, Scully. He’s so smart. He’s a math guy. And when he was organizing my books for me—he reminded me so much of you. He sounded exactly like you.” He shakes his head. “I just wish he hadn’t had this shit happen to him. With his parents.”

“Mulder, I–” They are standing in front of the bakery now, and she turns to stare back across the lot at the car, wondering how well Jackson can read their thoughts from here. “Mulder, do you think it’s wise to leave him in the car like this? Is it possible he would try to run?”

Mulder follows her gaze. “No. No way,” he says. “Not possible.”

“He seemed rattled,” Scully points out. “He might not be thinking clearly. I clearly distressed him. You don’t think he might … be overwhelmed and decide to go?”

“He wasn’t considering running at all, Scully. He wants to get to know you. Or actually, he wants you to know him. He wants it really, really badly,” Mulder says.

Scully makes a little exasperated hiss. “Mulder,” she says. “I appreciate you putting a nice spin on things, but I don’t think the evidence points that direction. And it’s fine. He’s a young teen, and they’re not always rational or empathetic. I don’t need him to like me. We just have to protect him.”

Mulder sighs heavily, and looks around the parking lot as if carefully weighing his next words. “Scully,” he says. “I’m not putting a nice spin on things.”

“Mulder, I don’t know what you—”

“I know he wants to get to know you. With certainty.”

“He told you?”

“Not exactly.”

Scully blinks at Mulder, losing her patience.

“Let’s go in and have some coffee,” Mulder suggests. “Because there are a few more things I need to fill you in on.”

***

[sisterspooky1013]

Shine On (5/16)

Read on AO3 | Tagging @today-in-fic

Chapter 5: Lady of Sorrows

Our Lady of Sorrows Hospital Arlington, Virginia February 22, 2015

She’s preparing for a conference call that starts in twenty minutes when she hears the buzz of her phone. When she sees his name, she presses her eyes shut and ignores it.

She knows he’ll call back, and of course he does.

What do you want, Mulder? she texts him in frustration.

He responds right away, which surprises her. He has fewer reasons to use his phone than she does, so he is sometimes still a little baffled by texts. Which is one reason she sends them when she wants to put him off.

We need to talk. It’s important.

She shakes her head with huffy disbelief. Puts down her phone. Takes a drink of her coffee. Picks up her phone again.

I don’t think that’s a very good idea.

His response once again comes fast.

It’s important.

There’s still so much for her to do before this conference call. She wanted to go through yesterday’s results again and make more annotations. She wanted to crosscheck with the Amsterdam study. She doesn’t have time for this.

Fine. I’ll call you this afternoon.

There. Done. She should get back to work now, but instead she stares at the phone, waiting for his response.

Needs to be in person. Can you come to the house?

He has so much nerve. As much arrogance as ever, expecting her to be at his beck and call. She can feel her jaw clenching.

I’m busy, Mulder. I’m at work.

Sorry, it’s Sunday, didn’t realize.

Why do we need to talk?

The three dots appear, then disappear. He seems to be grappling with an answer.

After a moment, she adds: If this is about apologizing - not necessary.

The three dots pop up again on her screen.

Not an apology. Not about the other day. Something else. Important.

He adds a second message: Can I come to you? This afternoon?

She lets out a long, extended exhale, putting her head in her hands. After the conference call, she had been hoping to go home and enjoy a relaxing Sunday afternoon. Maybe go to yoga. Maybe take a bath. Seeing Mulder would almost certainly mean more emotional upheaval. The very opposite of the relaxation she needs.

But she’s always had such a hard time saying no to him.

Meet me at 3 at the cafe across from the hospital.

There’s a pause before he responds.

Okay. At 3.

Scully shoves the phone out of her sight, turning her attention back to her laptop. There’s still enough time to get ready. Her mind reviews her to-do list. Annotations, crosscheck with Amsterdam study, and then a quick overview of all of her notes.

But now her mind is distracted, wondering what Mulder wants.

Staring at the spreadsheet in front of her, full of all of the data she should be going through, she thinks a dangerous thought—one that will almost certainly come back to betray her.

Maybe he wants to give her a birthday present. Maybe he wants to do something nice for her birthday.

It’s so stupid of her. So adolescent. So ridiculous to even consider. It will only disappoint her later. Why would he do that? They’re not together anymore. And she knows he’s still struggling with their break-up, and she knows she should help give him space, so that he can recover and get better, get healthy. Even the idea is selfish.

She just can’t help but to imagine that kind of pleasant surprise. Like the old days. Maybe he has a present. A book, chosen just for her. A little bracelet, something exactly her tastes. A card he’s written tenderly for her.

The fantasy is irresistible because no one on earth has ever known her mind, known her heart, known her body like Mulder has. Being known to your core like that is a heady feeling, utterly addictive. She will never, ever stop wanting to experience it again.

She doubts she will. She can’t imagine any of the smarmy visiting surgeons who ask her out ever really knowing her like that.

Another idea pops into her mind, an even more foolish idea that reaches even further into her past.

Maybe he’s coming to her with a good old-fashioned slide show. With some bizarre monster to hunt, a spooky lead to track down, a haunted mystery to solve. Maybe he’s going to try to convince her to come with him on some wild goose chase.

That idea shouldn’t thrill her, it really shouldn’t, but it does. She longs for it in places she typically represses.

To be in some rental car with him, side by side, headed out to face grim small towns and sticky-table top diners and buzzing-sign motels. Her and him against the world. Partners against the darkness, ever and always.

She laughs softly, bitterly at herself. Jesus, she knows so much better than this.

These Mulders she’s longing for—the Mulder who remembers her birthday and painstakingly selects the perfect gift, the Mulder who gets caught up in the excitement of a case and coaxes his partner to be at his side—those versions of Mulder don’t exist any more.

Those versions of Mulder haven’t existed for a while, and that’s exactly why she had to leave.

She looks away from her laptop, massaging her forehead with a single fingertip, and takes another big drink of her coffee. Just take a break for five minutes, she tells herself. Get yourself together.

Her eyes drift back to her phone. She brushes past Mulder’s last message, and goes to scroll through the day’s headlines for the distraction.

Politics, entertainment, local news: she swipes through quickly. The phone offers so much convenience, but it brings something frenetic into her life, too. She sometimes misses the simple, tangible delight of having her hands on a paper Washington Post. Maybe she’ll pick one up today to read in the bathtub, if seeing Mulder doesn’t throw her too much for a loop.

There’s a national news story that catches her attention because of the words “Eighth grader” in the headline. This year, Scully’s attention is grabbed by anything mentioning eighth graders. Last year, it was seventh graders. Next year, it will be ninth graders, which makes her heart ache. High school. So old. He’s very possibly taller than her now.

This particular headline is rather upsetting: “Wyoming Eighth Grader Who Allegedly Shot Parents Still At Large.” Scully clicks on it and looks at the accompanying picture, a smiling school photo of a sweet-faced brown-haired boy who doesn’t look at all like a killer, which she knows from experience means exactly nothing. She decides not to read the story. Stories about killer eighth grade boys will upset her, and there’s no cause to upset herself.

The detour into the news is enough of a reset, though, for her to stop thinking about Mulder.

She turns back to the spreadsheet, her focus back. Only twelve minutes left now until her call. Scully lets herself shut the doors to everything but work.

***

Farrs Corner, Virginia February 22, 2015

“You ready?” Mulder says. He’s sitting in the driver’s seat, peering out the open passenger door with a too-bright smile.

Jackson climbs reluctantly in, reaching for his seatbelt. “I look stupid.”

“Not true.” Mulder says encouragingly. “You look like a kid who is being smart about not being recognized.”

News stories with Jackson’s photo have been making the rounds on the cable news stations, so Mulder has decided they can’t take risks. It seems like a long shot that someone would identify him on the roads of rural Virginia, but Jackson supposes it’s better safe than sorry.

So he’s wearing a worn old Yankees cap and a pair of dated oversized sunglasses. In Jackson’s opinion, the sunglasses make him more obvious, because no one under forty would ever wear sunglasses like that if they were not trying to disguise their identity.

The clothes he’d been wearing before were getting a little overripe, so Mulder has also made him borrow a pair of jeans and a black sweater. Like the sunglasses, they are really old—“vintage,” jokes Mulder—-and apparently from when he was a smaller size. But they’re still way too big for Jackson, who is skinnier and shorter. They hang off of him, even with the cuffs of the jeans rolled up and the sleeves of the sweater pushed back.

He looks like a kid playing dress up. Mulder is trying not to look at him. I hope he didn’t hear me think that. Jackson sighs a long, loud drawn-out sigh to let the man know he did.

They’ve now spent a full day together, him and Mulder, waiting for the DNA results to come back. It’s gone okay. Strange, but okay.

Yesterday morning, Mulder made him swab his mouth and drove the sample to drop off with some friend in the FBI. While Mulder was gone, Jackson snooped around, picking up every framed picture, opening drawers and cupboards. He didn’t find anything too interesting, except for a lot of evidence that Mulder didn’t clean up much.

By the time Mulder had returned, Jackson had decided to try to put all those piles of books back on his shelves, attempting to organize them by section. Mulder watched him in fascination for a moment and then joined in. It took them three hours to finish that project, mostly because Mulder kept going on tangents to tell him things about different books.

This book, which describes a fascinating incident with a wendigo, helped me solve a case once… I bought this paperback from a professional shaman in Brooklyn in 1989… This is a theoretical physics text about the practicalities of space travel Scully bought me as a joke.

Jackson didn’t hate it. Mulder was funny, mostly. And smart. He was definitely really smart. But he was intense, too, so eager to show Jackson things, so eager to impress him. Jackson’s shine wearied after a while.

That evening, they tried to watch TV, but turned it off when they saw a snippet of a news story with Jackson’s face. After that, they played chess. Mulder pointed out that telepaths had an unfair advantage in chess, but Jackson promised not to use it, and he really didn’t. Mulder won.

This morning, Mulder got the call about the DNA test, and while he didn’t say it in so many words, Jackson didn’t even need his shine to read the result from the man’s glowing face: it’s a match. You’re the daddy, like the talk shows say. Mulder obviously considers this great news.

Which means, of course, that it’s time to meet the other half of Jackson’s genetic equation.

“Okay,” Jackson mutters, clicking his seatbelt in place. “You said we’re going to a Starbucks or something?”

Mulder starts the engine. “We’re supposed to meet her at a cafe,” he says, maneuvering the car up the drive. “I’m not sure I like having you in public right now though, even master of disguise that you are. So we’ll convince her to talk elsewhere.”

“Hmm,” nods Jackson, the hat slipping over his face a little. He pushes it back. He feels Mulder stealing looks at him, and he wonders if Mulder has any idea how anxious he feels about meeting Scully. He makes a point of looking out the window, trying to make things seem more casual. “You know I could appear as someone else, right? If you want me to.”

“That might be useful,” Mulder says. “But I want Scully to see you as you are. Don’t you?”

Jackson doesn’t answer, keeping his gaze out the window. “On our way, are we going to drive by anywhere interesting? Like the White House or the Washington Monument?”

“Unfortunately, today we’re not leaving Virginia,” Mulder says. “But I promise, not too long from now I’ll take you to D.C. and show you the sights.”

Jackson lowers his stupid sunglasses and gives him a dubious look.

“What? I will.” Mulder protests. “Wait, hold on.” Mulder puts the car in park and hops out to open the gate. Jackson’s eyes follow him closely over the top of the sunglasses as he unlatches the gate and then slides back in.

“A lot of security,” comments Jackson. It seems like a pain in the ass to open and close the gate every time you leave. He wonders how often Mulder does leave. “This is because of those people you and Scully worked with?”

“More or less, yeah,” agrees Mulder, steering the car through the gate, then putting it in park again with a little jerk. He scrambles to hop out again, jogging back to close and latch the gate up.

At least, Jackson thinks, he didn’t grow up having to worry about all of this. He can’t imagine doing this all the time. Although, he thinks with a sudden sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach, maybe he should have. Maybe if he and his parents had done all this, they would still be alive.

Mulder slides back in the car again. “You all right?”

“Yeah,” Jackson manages.

Mulder nods without expression and drives the car onto the road. “Want to turn on some music?”

“That’s okay.”

“What kind of music do you like?”

Jackson smirks. “Do you really think you’ll have heard of it?”

“That depends,” Mulder says. “If you say you like Prince, or the Stones, or the Clash, then sure.”

“I like those,” Jackson says coolly. “I’m really into Bring Me the Horizon and Fall Out Boy?”

“Nope.”

Jackson gives him a withering “I told you so” look. He turns to face the front windshield, thinking about his mom singing along to When Doves Cry as she unloaded the dishwasher.

“What kind of music does Scully like?” he wonders.

“Oh,” Mulder sounds surprised. “Well, when she was young, she went through a rebellious phase. She liked punk, New Wave. All the music that would annoy her parents.”

“She didn’t get along with her parents?”

“No,” Mulder says. “She did, actually. She still does — her mom is still around. It was just teenage identity stuff. You know how it goes.”

Jackson nods seriously, making note of the existence of a living biological grandparent.

“Now, I think she still likes all that eighties music from when she was young,” Mulder says. “And sixties and seventies hits, too. She listens to that whenever she’s working out or doing something high energy. But she also likes classical music. She listens to a lot of classical music.”

“Is she, like, good at music? Does she sing or play an instrument?” Jackson and Louis had been talking about starting a band, and Jackson had been trying to learn guitar.

“No,” Mulder says. “Not really.” He smiles apologetically. “She’s really, really good at all kinds of other shit though, Jackson. Like being a scientist and a doctor and an F.B.I. agent.”

“She’s pretty, too,” comments Jackson.

“You can read my thoughts, so I assume you know how I feel about that,” Mulder says dryly. “I’m trying not to feel weird about it.”

“I don’t read every thought,” Jackson replies defensively. “I’ve been doing this my whole life, so I have a good idea when I am about to see something permanently damaging.”

Mulder laughs, but looks at him curiously. “What about at school, though? Teachers? Other kids? Girls—or guys—you might have a crush on? It must be tempting, huh?”

Jackson tries to think about how to explain it. “It’s not as tempting as you would think. It’s usually more trouble than it’s worth. You find out things you wish you didn’t. You see people think things about you that make you feel embarrassed or upset. You know information that’s hard to pretend you don’t know, and sometimes you mess up. I mostly don’t want to use my shine, if I can avoid it.”

“Your shine?”

“Oh yeah.” Jackson reddens. He’s only used the word with one other person before. “That’s what I call it. I call it ‘using my shine.’ I guess I mean like a light?”

“Okay,” Mulder says, nodding. “Interesting. Like the psychic boy in Stephen King? The Shining?”

Jackson frowns. “I haven’t seen it. Is there a shine in that?”

He doesn’t even know what I’m talking about. Jackson's mind tunes into Mulder’s thoughts like a radio. Don’t tell him. Too disturbing.

Instead, Mulder throws him a playful look. “Or like ‘Shine on, you crazy diamond.’ That’s an old Pink Floyd song.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard of that,” Jackson says with a little tolerant nod. “But … yeah. It can make me feel weird to use it for no good reason. I mean, I’m not saying I have never tried to see answers inside a teacher’s head or anything like that. But mostly I just want to feel normal talking to other people. You know?”

“You do seem to be able to control your shine considerably better than other people I’ve known with this kind of ability,” Mulder comments. “It’s the kind of thing I would have been really interested in, back when I worked on the X-files.”

“You’ve known other people with this ability?”

“Oh yeah,” Mulder says. “Several people. I even… well, I don’t want to get into it all now. But I can talk to you about this in detail whenever you want to.”

Jackson is quiet. “I wish when I was little I knew that there were other people with these abilities. It would have been easier. Made me feel better.”

“I’m sure,” Mulder says quietly. “I wish I could have told you.”

There is a heavy pause.

“I go to therapy for anxiety and depression,” Jackson tells him.

“You do?”

“Yeah,” Jackson says. “What about you?”

“No,” Mulder says. He gives him a strange look. “But maybe I should?”

“Yeah,” Jackson agrees, thinking of several details he’s observed. “Maybe you should.”

“You’re in a position to see, I guess,” Mulder muses. He's silent for a beat.

“I read an article about how sometimes a baby, when they’re still in their mom’s womb, can sort of soak up her stress and trauma and then grow up to have problems with anxiety,” Jackson says. “Do you think something like that might have happened to me?”

“You read an article like that?” Mulder asks, scowling. “Why?”

“That’s the kind of article kids with closed adoptions read,” Jackson says, lowering the sunglasses again, an edge of dark humor. “If you're a big nerd like me, anyway. You sort of wonder about everything.”

Mulder raises his eyebrows. Then he seems to consider Jackson’s question.

“I mean, it’s possible,” Mulder says heavily. “It’s possible something like that happened to you when you were in utero. It’s also possible you have anxiety and depression because, each year since 2000, the number of children and teens diagnosed with anxiety and depression has gone up, and you’re just one of those kids.”

Jackson makes an impressed face. “You just happened to know that?”

“Scully read an article about it,” Mulder says. “The kind of article birth mothers with closed adoptions of kids born after 2000 read. If they’re big nerds like Scully, anyway.” He pauses. “It’s also possible you have anxiety and depression for any other number of reasons that have nothing to do with any of that. Like having these abilities you have to hide and deal with, for one.”

“Yeah,” admits Jackson.

“Hey, do me a favor, and please don’t mention reading your ‘anxiety forming in utero’ article to Scully. Okay? Never.”

Jackson’s brow furrows. Not having met Scully, it’s an easy promise to make. “Yeah, okay.” He looks over at Mulder. “Is that something that would bother her?”

Mulder nods emphatically. “Let me put it like this. You know how some families like to have Scrabble competitions? Or fantasy football? In this family we like to compete in feeling guilty for how we’ve hurt people we love.”

“Oh good,” Jackson deadpans. “I’ve been training for that.”

Mulder chuckles bitterly. “You really don’t understand your competition.”

Jackson hadn't even been aware his shine was active, but suddenly he's overcome: a painful onslaught of incoming information. There’s a rapid-fire series of images from Mulder’s mind, so fast Jackson feels his head thump back dramatically against the headrest, closing his eyes. He gasps loud enough that Mulder looks over.

“Whoa, whoa. You okay there?”

“Yeah,” Jackson says breathily, opening his eyes. “I just…” He feels like he got kicked.

“Feeling dizzy?”

“I’ll be okay.”

“Did you drink water today?”

“It wasn’t dehydration," Jackson murmurs.

Mulder’s face changes. Jackson sees that he has realized.

“Oh,” he says. "It was me, wasn't it?" A pause. “God, Jackson, I’m sorry about that.”

“Not really your fault.”

“You… what did you see?”

Jackson scrunches up his eyes to try to remember each detail. “I didn’t understand much of it,” he says. “There was a little girl, brown braids, bright light?” He looks over at Mulder, and Mulder nods tightly. “All these different people crying because they’ve lost someone, mostly people I don’t know. But Scully lots of times. Scully crying again and again and again.” Mulder presses his lips together tightly. “A baby crying in a crib. Me?”

“Yep,” Mulder says. “You.”

“You feel guilty about me?”

“Yep,” Mulder says. He doesn’t add any more detail.

Jackson takes that information in. He’s tempted to use his shine again, to add some context and see why, exactly, but again it seems a little too much for him to cope with. Better to take all of this information in in tiny bite-sized chunks.

He thinks of something else he’s kind of been wanting to ask instead.

“Am I the only kid you guys ever had? Or did you have others?”

“Just you,” Mulder says, his voice melancholy now. “You weren’t supposed to be possible. She wasn’t supposed to be able to get pregnant at all. We thought you were a miracle.”

Jackson chews on that thought, staring out the window at the passing late winter Virginia landscape.

***

[sisterspooky1013]

Shine On (3/16)

Read on AO3 | Tagging @today-in-fic

Chapter 3: Might Be My Fault

Farrs Corner, Virginia February 20, 2015

The knock on the door makes Mulder jump and sit up abruptly on the couch.

His first thought is that maybe Scully forgot something, but even as he’s scanning the room for anything of hers, he’s realizing: he hadn’t heard her car come back up the drive. 

He hasn’t heard any car come up the drive.

For thirty seconds he’s in bitter disbelief that danger could possibly be at his door right now. When he’s sitting here with his heart in pieces, his whole world in shambles. 

Then again, if there’s one thing Fox Mulder knows all too well, it’s that life will always kick you when you’re down.

He stands up slowly, moving silently to his desk drawer where he keeps a weapon just in case. He sticks the gun in his waistband, safety on. He’s careful not to make too much noise.

No need to overreact. It could be nothing. There are a few neighbors around—although they’re a bit of a hike away—and it could be someone coming to his house on foot for perfectly innocent reasons. Still, his experience, his training, and his instincts tell him to be prepared. 

Some very dark, small voice inside his mind tells him something else: All your training assumes you don’t want someone to strike you down. That you have something to live for. But that’s not an accurate assumption in this case, is it? Why do you bother? She’s never coming back.

He shakes his head. He can’t think like that. Besides, there’s comfort in just slipping into g-man mode, something he knows how to do without thinking. 

The curtains in his front window are drawn, so he can just peer out from the side. There is someone standing there, but Mulder can only see the back slope of their head and back. A man, he thinks. He’s standing too close to the door for Mulder’s vantage point. If this guy would just take one little step back, Mulder could see him perfectly.

Almost as if he could hear Mulder’s request, the figure takes a step back, stepping precisely into Mulder’s frame of sight. 

It’s not a man. It’s a boy. A  young teenager, facing the front door expectantly.

Mulder lets out a deep breath. All right. This is more likely a neighbor request then. Probably a kid selling magazine subscriptions for the junior high track team or something. 

“Hi,” Mulder says, opening the door with a tepid, friendly smile. “What can I do for you?”

The boy stares back at him, and Mulder’s investigator instincts snap back into place. This doesn’t look like a kid selling magazines. This looks like a kid who is very, very anxious.

“I–” The kid stops, bites his lip, looks at his feet. “Somebody, uh, told me to come talk to you.”

“To me?” Mulder scratches his head. He tries to wrack his brain about why a local kid could be sent to talk to him. He knows some of his neighbors probably think he needs help with keeping up the yard. “Oh. Uh, is it about those downed trees on the edge of the property? I know sometimes people pay kids to cut wood up and haul it away or whatever. Were you … interested?”

“No, no,” the boy says. He’s got brown hair, straight, and he runs his fingers through it nervously. “It’s not like that. I came here … for your help.”

“For my help,” repeats Mulder. His eyes scan the yard, the road beyond, looking for signs of a car that could have dropped the kid off. 

“Yeah,” the boy says. He clears his throat. His eyes land, just for a moment, at the handle of the gun visible at Mulder’s waistband. “I need help. Somebody told me you could help me. Fox Mulder, right?”

Mulder nods. “Yeah, I’m Fox Mulder,” he says. He rubs the bridge of his nose. “Listen, I used to be an F.B.I. agent, but I’m not anymore. I’m not really someone who can…help people.”

The boy is undeterred. “I think you can help me.”

Mulder looks him over. He has a lightweight jacket on, but his shoes look dirty. He’s shifting his weight from foot to foot. There’s something sad about the kid, like he’s carrying an invisible burden. 

Mulder has the oddest sensation, just for a moment, that he can actually feel the kid’s sadness. That he’s experiencing the same heavy sensation blooming in his chest as the kid is.

The feeling fades away quickly. Probably just one depressed guy feeling empathy for another.

Why the fuck don’t you try to help him? What else do you have to do?

“Okay,” Mulder says with a sigh. “Sure. I have a lot of questions. But come inside. I’ll see what I can do.”

The boy follows Mulder obediently. His eyes, sharp and observant, fly all over the room, taking in every detail. He stares at the piles of books on the floor, the same perturbed expression on his face that Scully had.

“I’m reorganizing my books,” Mulder explains halfheartedly. “Why don’t you come sit at the table with me? More room over here. What’s your name?”

“Jackson,” the kid says, sliding into one of Mulder’s kitchen table seats. 

“Are you hurt, Jackson?”

“No,” he says. 

“Are you hungry? Thirsty?”

Some muscle twitches in the kid’s face, and Mulder can see that yes, he definitely is hungry and thirsty. He wonders how far the kid has walked today. So many questions, but experience has taught him to take care of basic needs first. 

“I’m okay,” the kid says with a modest lift of his shoulder.

“I was thinking about ordering a pizza,” Mulder says. “If I get one, will you eat it? It would be a favor. I can get more if you share it with me.”

“All right,” Jackson says, watching him closely. “I like Italian sausage.”

“Hey, that’s my favorite,” Mulder says pleasantly. “What a coincidence. Let me order, and then we’ll talk.” 

Mulder picks up his phone to call. There’s only one place that delivers out here in the boondocks, and he has their number saved. As he gives them the order, he watches Jackson rise from his seat and wander around the room, examining Mulder’s belongings, picking up books and pictures on the shelves. Mulder realizes with bemusement that for a few minutes the mystery teen has managed to entirely sidetrack him from his own troubles.

An intriguing case could always do that, he thinks.

“Who are they?” Jackson asks, when Mulder is off the phone. Jackson is holding up a framed black and white photo from the sixties, a relic from the intact days of his parents’ marriage that Mulder has only recently had framed.

“They’re my parents,” Mulder says. “A long time ago, when they were young.”

“Are they still alive?”

“No,” Mulder says. “No, they’re gone.”

Jackson nods seriously, looking at the photo. “I’m sorry.”

“Thank you. It’s been some time now.”

Jackson tilts his head thoughtfully. “Can I ask you… do you sometimes feel bad that they died? Like it was your fault?”

Mulder frowns, startled. “How would you—why would you say that?” 

“Sorry,” Jackson says, his face flushing. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to … My parents are dead, too.”

“Oh,” Mulder says, his tone changing. “I’m sorry.”

“They were murdered,” Jackson adds in a monotone. “They were shot. Just a few weeks ago.”

Mulder lets out a breath. “Oh, wow,” he says. “That’s recent. That’s a lot, Jackson.”

Jackson puts the photo down and walks back over to his seat at the table. He makes unsettling direct eye contact with Mulder, and when he does, Mulder can see that his eyes are wet. 

“Is the reason you came here to see me …. something to do with that?” Mulder asks. “Something to do with your parents?”

Jackson nods, but can’t seem to say anything else, his lip quivering. Some tears stream down his face. Mulder recognizes signs of trauma all over the kid and knows not to push, even though he definitely wants to know more. 

“You want something to drink?” Mulder says gently. “I have spiced apple cider. That good kind from Trader Joe’s. You want some of that?”

“Okay,” Jackson says, sniffing. Mulder stands to get the cider. “I don’t know what Trader Joe’s is.”

“Oh, it’s just a grocery store,” Mulder says, opening the fridge. “There’s not one near here, but I go to the one in Alexandria sometimes and stock up. Maybe you’ve seen one before if you’ve gone into DC.”

“I’ve never been to DC,” Jackson says. “I’m from Wyoming.”

Mulder turns around from the counter to look at Jackson, surprised. “You’re from Wyoming?”

“Yeah,” he says. “This is the first time I’ve ever been this far east. Really the first I’ve been anywhere except Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho — and my uncle Wyatt’s in Minnesota.” 

“How did you get here? To Virginia?”

“Someone drove me. To see you.”

Mulder’s puzzled. “Someone drove you? Who drove you?”

Jackson looks down at his hands on the table. “I can’t tell you that.” He swallows, looking ashamed. “Is that okay? I just … can’t tell you.”

Mulder shakes his head in bewilderment. “Yeah, well, of course it’s okay,” he says. “Tell me whatever you want. I’m just trying to figure out what you need from me, Jackson.”

The microwave, which has been humming, now dings, and Mulder lifts two mugs of cider to the table, placing them in front of Jackson and himself. He notices that Jackson never stops staring at him, taking in every detail. His eyes are intensely green, bright, constantly shifting at everything around him.

“All right,” Mulder says. “What do you need me to know?”

Jackson sips his cider, sitting up very straight and stiff. He bizarrely reminds Mulder of Scully sitting on the couch before, sipping her tea and refusing to let her guard down. 

The kid sets down his cup. “They think I killed my parents,” Jackson says. He stares meaningfully at Mulder. “They think I woke up and shot them, then went to school like nothing happened. They’re trying to arrest me.”

Mulder stares back at him, blinking. “But you didn’t shoot them.”

“No.”

“So you’re on the run? From the police?”

“Yeah,” Jackson says. “I left my school. I snuck out. I’ve been running since.”

“And somehow, you ran all the way from Wyoming to Virginia,” Mulder says. “To see … me.”

Jackson scowls slightly. “I can tell you don’t believe me all the way. That you’re suspicious,” he says. “But that’s the truth, I swear.”

“I’m not exactly suspicious,” Mulder says, although he is, just a little. “I’m just trying to figure out how I might be of help. I mean, I’m not a lawyer, or even a private investigator, Jackson.” He cradles his cup of cider, appraising the boy. “Back when I was an F.B.I. agent, my partner and I, we dealt with cases that had to do with unusual circumstances. The supernatural. Is there anything about what happened to your parents that might be … unusual?”

“They were shot,” Jackson says, monotone again. “It wasn’t supernatural.”

“Why do the police think that you killed them?”

“I don’t know,” Jackson says. His stoic face crumples. “I don’t know the answer to that. I wish I did. They seemed really sure.”

Mulder studies him. He’s experiencing a strong feeling of certainty that the boy didn’t kill his parents. It’s a feeling probably derived from his rusty profiling skills, but right now it feels more like a pure feeling. 

“Hey,” he says impulsively, reaching for the kid’s arm. “Whatever happened  …  it’s not your fault, Jackson.”

The boy draws away. “No,” he says, his voice tight. “That’s the thing. I think it might be my fault.” 

Mulder sits back in his chair again, then slowly crosses his arms. “I don’t follow.”

“I didn’t kill them,” Jackson says. “I loved them.” He swallows. “But I think they were killed because of me. I can’t think of any other reason why. That’s why I’m here.” He licks his lips anxiously.

Mulder waits a moment expectantly, but Jackson doesn’t continue. “Why do you think they were killed because of you?” he prompts.

Jackson’s staring at the table, not looking up. “I think it has something to do with my birth parents,” he says, so quietly Mulder can barely hear.

Mulder’s mug had been halfway to the table, but he now freezes in place. Gradually, he becomes aware of the sound of the clock on the kitchen wall ticking and finds himself moving again.

“You’re adopted?” Mulder asks in a careful, precise voice. He sets his mug down.

“Yeah,” Jackson says. 

“How… how old are you?

“I’m almost fourteen.”

Mulder has to stop again. Almost fourteen. Born in spring 2001. The boy is watching him closely, a curious expression on his face. 

“Do you…know who your birth parents are?”

“I know who my birth mother is,” Jackson says. “Not her name. I don’t know her name. But I know who she is.”

Mulder finds he can’t speak. He sits there staring at the boy, trying not to observe a hundred new things about him. The texture of his hair. The color of his eyes. The shape of his face. His tendency to lick his lips when he is nervous.

“How do you know who she is?” Mulder manages finally.

“You said you’d worked supernatural cases, right?” Jackson asks. “Well. I’ve seen her… in my mind. In these flashes. That’s something I can do. I’ve seen her calling for me. Crying for me. A few times in my life. I sort of figured out that was who it was.”

Mulder runs his hands down his face, trying to absorb this.  “Okay,” he says. “Okay. I have questions about all of that, but okay.” He steels himself. “You said you knew who she was. Who—who is she?”

Jackson looks up directly at him, with a pointed expression, like he thinks he should have figured this out already. “The woman who was here before. Who you fought with. The woman who drove off. With the red hair.”

Mulder closes his eyes. He keeps them closed for a moment, searching desperately for some idea for what to say or do next. 

He opens them and nods slowly at the boy.

“All right,” he says in a rough voice, running his hands together. “All right then.”

He folds his hands on the table.

“Then first off,” he says, “you should know you have been to DC before.”

***

[sisterspooky1013]

Shine On (2/16)

Read on AO3 | Tagging @today-in-fic

Chapter 2: Nice Catching Up

Farrs Corner, Virginia Eighteen days later February 20, 2015

Mulder meant to finish the job before she came over. But it got away from him, like everything seems to these days.

So when she finally comes back—the long-anticipated visit home—there are still stacks of books all over the living room, all these untidy towers of hundreds of books. Cryptid encyclopedias, profiling and behavioral analysis monographs, texts about mythology and religion, science, art, language, history. They’re everywhere, chaotic, precariously balanced, piled, heaped, stacked.

“In the middle of a project, Mulder?” she asks as she walks in, gazing blankly around the room.

“Yeah,” he says with forced enthusiasm. “I’m finally reorganizing the books.” He says this like reorganizing the books is something they’d long planned to do, instead of a recent, impulsive middle-of-the-night idea. “I’m organizing them by topic so I can find things more easily when I need them. Good idea, right?”

“Sure,” she says, staring warily at the piles. He hopes she’s not noticing how many of her books still remain in his collection. “Good idea.”

The way she says this chills him, because it’s just so polite. The same distant tone of voice she used sometimes way, way back, when they were brand new partners in the Hoover building.

“Can I take your coat, Scully? Did you want something to drink?”

“Oh,” she says, running her palms anxiously down the front panels of her sleek pale blue coat. “I don’t think so. I don’t mean to stay long. I just need that box of bedding.”

“It’s right there,” Mulder says, gesturing behind a tower of books. “Behind the psychology section.”

“Right,” she says, craning her head to see it. Her eyes meet his again, and they’re soft and reluctant. “Then… I should probably go.”

“No,” he calls out quickly. A furrow appears in her brow. “I mean … please. Scully. Just stay and have a drink. You haven’t been home in so long.”

“It’s not my home any more,” she points out softly.

“I know,” he replies. “Really. I’m not confused about… anything. I just want to talk to you. Sit down for a bit. I have tea. Or that apple cider from Trader Joe’s you like.”

She seems to hesitate. “There are books all over the couch.”

“I can move them. Hold on.” His voice is calm, but inside he’s churning. He moves to the couch, begins moving books. “Just stay a while.”

Her lips lift into that small, closed-lip smile he’s missed so much. “Okay. Just a little while.”

***

She’s clutching her mug of tea, telling him about work, and he can’t help but notice how physically straight and formal she is right now. It almost looks like she’s bracing herself, worried the couch is going to trap her somehow, like it’s going to try to bundle her up in his Aztec blanket and hold her there.

Mulder doesn’t like this body language. It looks too much like she doesn’t live here anymore.

“So things are really much the same at Our Lady of Sorrows,” she finishes. “Some good days, some bad.”

“It sounds like overall you’re still satisfied at the hospital then,” Mulder says.

“Yes,” Scully says, nodding. “I’d say that’s accurate. I wouldn’t rule out doing something else someday though.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, Mulder,” she says, another tiny smile. “But you know. You have to stay open to extreme possibilities.”

He returns her smile. “And uh… all the other parts of your life are good, too?” He can’t bear to ask her any more directly than that. He picks up his own mug and takes a sip to give himself something to do.

She bites her bottom lip. “Yes,” she says. “Yes, I have a nice new house. Very contemporary. I get together with friends from work occasionally. I see Mom regularly.”

He wonders what she means by “friends from work.” He knows what it meant back when they were “friends from work.”

“What about you, Mulder?” she asks. “What are you doing these days?”

“I told you,” he says. “I’m reorganizing the library.”

“Besides that.”

I miss you terribly everyday. I spend hours cataloging each one of my mistakes. I ponder all the big questions, like: is there any future where I might be with you again? Is there any alternate reality where I could have made you happy? Is there any world where we have our son and live together as a real family, and that grief that’s always in your eyes isn’t there?

“I write articles,” he says. “I’m thinking about a book.”

“That’s great, Mulder,” she says. Again, that false encouraging tone.

If she still lived here—if she was still his Scully—she would have considerably more to say about these messy piles of books and this aimless underemployment. She would have some dry comment. She would be suggesting constructive ideas. She would be pushing him to do better.

This Scully sounds like a stranger. Like she has no place in his life to have an opinion. Like she has no place in his life to care.

There is an awkward pause.

“Well,” she says. “I think it’s probably time I take off.”

“Oh yeah?” he says. Don’t beg, he tells himself. “You sure?”

“Yes,” she says, looking around for a coaster on the coffee table and setting her mug down. She stands up, smiling courteously. “It’s been very nice catching up with you, Mulder.”

The innocuous sentence hits him like getting socked in the stomach. He feels his face flushing red hot. He swallows, unable to politely respond.

“Okay,” he says, too shortly. He stands, too. “Sure. Ever so nice.”

She’s lifting her coat from the coat rack, but turns around to regard him stoically. She seems to debate asking her next question. “Is there a problem?” she says carefully.

Mulder hesitates. He knows he shouldn’t say anything else. Just let her go. Let the visit end pleasantly. “No,” he says with effort. “I … guess not.”

“Did I say something wrong?”

“No, it’s only …” No. He just can’t hold it in. “Look, I’m sorry,’” he snaps. “It’s just … it’s fucking hard to hear ‘nice catching up with you, Mulder’ come from your lips.”

“It is nice catching up with you.”

“We didn’t used to be people who ever had to catch up,” Mulder says bitterly. “We used to know everything about each other, we used to be everything to each other, and excuse me if I just can’t stand talking to you like we’re old college chums.”

“You invited me to stay and have tea.” Her pitch has dropped a full octave. “You suggested we talk. I was doing what you asked me to do.” Her voice breaks midway through her sentence, and he realizes she’s got tears in her eyes. She closes them, evidently trying to calm herself. “I have to go, Mulder.”

“Yeah,” he says, his voice trembling. “Yeah, okay.”

“I… I’ll see you, all right?” she says, practically a whisper.

“Will you?”

Someday there will be a last time, he thinks. A time visiting him will just be too much trouble. A time she’ll decide her attention is better spent on other things, on other people.

“Of course,” she says. She walks over and picks up her box of bedding. “Of course I will. I always will.”

He watches her turn and hurry out the door. He remains frozen in place near the couch. He doesn’t trust himself to do anything to respond. Not to say good-bye, not to walk with her to the porch, not even to wave. He might do something unbelievably stupid, like tell her he still loves her. Or try to stop her from leaving. Or shout obscenities at her in anger.

Instead, he focuses all of his energy on listening. He listens as her car door opens and closes, her engine starts. There is the rough clatter of her tires down the gravel drive. Faintly, he can hear her car door opening and closing again as she lets herself out the gate and closes it up again. Then finally there is the sound of the motor of her car growing gradually more distant. Far away from him again.

Mulder lets himself sink down again on the couch.

In a flare of angry self-hatred, he kicks the towering pile of novels nearest him. They tumble sloppily into a messy heap on the floor. He watches this destruction morosely and thinks about how good she smelled.

He wishes he’d remembered to wish her a happy birthday.

***

About thirty feet outside, between two bushes, Jackson sits, hugging his knees, his back pressed uncomfortably against the wooden frames of the side of the farmhouse. Between the branches of the bush he has a clear view of the red-headed woman driving away.

It’s not a very good hiding place. All day long, since he arrived this morning, he hasn’t had to worry too much about hiding. The man inside—the man who lives here— has been distracted, concerned about the woman’s visit, thinking almost nonstop about what she’ll say and do. Jackson’s been able to circle around the house cautiously, trying to examine everything with his eyes and with his mind.

Which is good, because he’s nervous.

Just now, if the red-headed woman had looked up towards the house as she rushed out the door—if she’d turned back to give it one last careful look—she’d easily have seen Jackson there, crouched, watching furtively at the side of the house.

But she didn’t look back. Not even once, quickly.

She only wanted to get in her car and go, go, go. Her mind was so loud Jackson didn’t even have to really use his shine. Her mind broadcast inside his brain without him trying at all.

Jackson watches her car closely, holding his breath, until she’s completely driven away, until he can’t see any sign of her car anymore.

She’s pretty, Jackson reflects, even for a mom-aged lady. Her car is nice, fancy, like she’s got some money. And even though she’s not a kid, even though she’s an adult, with an extremely complex mind— it’s easy to know her thoughts. The easiest it’s been for anyone he’s ever met.

What’s really weird, though, is that with her, it’s really more than thoughts. Something strange was happening with Jackson and her feelings, too.

He felt these little explosive bursts of her emotions, wracking his own body unexpectedly like fireworks and then quickly fading. That’s never happened before. It’s interesting, but it’s also upsetting, like having your own emotions pushed aside by someone else. Her feelings fade, but they don’t entirely go away. They leave a kind of residue for a minute or two.

And just now? She was very, very upset, in about fifty different ways Jackson can only barely sort out. She was angry, for one—angry at the man inside for not being fair to her. She was really guilty, hoping she’s doing the right thing by leaving. She was sad, so sad, wishing she could go back inside and be with him again. Jackson wonders why she doesn’t just go back. He felt her wishing hard for something she thinks is gone now. She’s grieving it. Almost like you grieve for parents that have been shot.

And mixed up in all of this, Jackson feels how much she loves the man inside the house. That’s just this big, enormous feeling, like a tsunami of emotion. More than he can cope with, really. It makes his head hurt. He rubs his temples slowly, trying to massage the feeling away.

Jackson knows who the woman is, of course.

He recognizes her, at least her mind. He wonders if that’s why he is able to feel her feelings and see her thoughts so easily.

It feels weird, seeing her. He always thought that if he ever met his birth mom, he’d want to talk to her right away. But he doesn’t have any urge to chase her down the driveway and introduce himself.

He’s just so afraid. It’s hard to understand, because closed adoption or not, he thinks she’d want to talk to him. In his visions, she’s usually calling for him—not his name, but a name he somehow knows is supposed to be him. So he thinks she wants to see him. She seems to want it very badly, at least sometimes.

But what if when she looks at him, it’s with the same huge sadness she’s feeling about this man inside the house? What if it isn’t what he imagines, meeting this woman? He doesn’t want all that right now. He can’t handle it.

Besides, he’s not supposed to see her. That isn’t why he came. She wasn’t the name he was given.

He doesn’t recognize the man inside, the man she fought with a few minutes ago. When he reaches out to poke his shine into this man’s mind, it’s like a forest at night: it’s dark, disorienting, full of paths that lead unknown directions. He sees a few things he understands: the woman’s face, their conversation just now, the man’s devotion to her, his anxieties. But he sees lots he doesn’t understand, too. The man is very complicated. And broken, Jackson thinks. He has cracks that make his thoughts difficult to follow.

He knows the man’s name. Fox Mulder. He wishes he knew more about who he was, exactly.

Because that’s the man he’s supposed to see.

***

[sisterspooky1013]

Don’t sleep on this one! All the feelings!

Shine On (1/16)

Read on AO3 | Tagging @today-in-fic

Chapter One: Vandy

Rawlins Middle School Rawlins, Wyoming February 3, 2015

“Vandy.” Louis slams into Jackson with the force of his entire body. It’s an affectionate body slam, but also hard enough for Jackson to lose his pencil and nearly his armful of books and binders. “Did you hear? I hope it’s true. It better be true.”

“What are you talking about?” Jackson bends over to pick up the pencil, trying not to get knocked over again by the continual current of students on their way to third period.

“The police came to shut the school down. We’re getting out of here, bro.”

Jackson looks up at his friend skeptically. “Louis, what are you talking about, seriously?”

“Second period we could see the police coming into the building.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m positive. And I heard it was because there was a bomb threat and they’re going to close school right after lunch.”

“If it was a bomb threat, they wouldn’t wait to close school,” Jackson points out. “They’d close it right away.”

“Maybe it’s not a for sure bomb threat,” Louis replies. He looks suddenly doubtful. “Fuck, it better be true. I haven’t finished my essay yet.”

“What did you plan to do if there wasn’t a bomb threat?” Jackson asks curiously.

“Hey Vandy.” Delia Rich suddenly appears next to Jackson, and he quickly straightens his posture. Delia is so pretty: brown hair, bangs, pink cheeks, round behind. “Did you hear about the girl in seventh grade?”

“No, I didn’t,” Jackson says. His tone is considerably more polite all of a sudden. “What about her?”

Delia leans toward him seriously and lowers her voice. “She killed her parents and herself and the police are here to question everyone.”

“Naw, the police are here for the bomb threat,” Louis says dismissively, shimmying to the side to avoid a group of loud and oblivious sixth grade girls walking past them.

“Who told you about that?” Jackson asks Delia, frowning.

“Hannah R. in 8C,” Delia says, shrugging. She seems to think of something else. “Oh, Vandy.” Her eyes widen and roll dramatically. “Did you study for algebra? Oh my god, it was awful.”

“Yeah.” Jackson nods, but he’s distracted, even from a conversation he would normally be thrilled to be having.

“I spent three hours last night on quadratic equations,” Delia says. “I’m not even exaggerating. I should have asked you for help.”

“Because he’s such a fucking nerd?” Louis adds helpfully.

“No, because he’s really good at helping with math,” Delia says to Jackson, bumping into him a little. “Can you quiz me before class?”

Over Delia’s shoulder, Louis begins to raise his eyebrows up and down significantly like a maniac. Jackson studiously ignores him.

“Yeah, but I, uh, gotta stop in there first,” Jackson says, gesturing vaguely behind her.

“Stop in where?” She looks around the hall.

“Restroom,” Jackson says, irrationally embarrassed.

“Oh, right.” Delia turns back around. “I’ll see you in a few minutes then?”

“Yeah,” Jackson says, attempting the most winning smile he can muster as she darts across the hall into the classroom.

Louis immediately shoves his shoulder. “What are you doing, dumbass? I thought you liked her.”

“I do,” Jackson says pathetically. “But I have to use the restroom. For real.”

“Jesus, you have absolutely no game.”

Jackson decides not to bring up his friend’s own unsuccessful record with girls. “I’ll talk to you later, Louis.” He begins to make a beeline for the boys’ room.

“Wait, are we playing GTA after school?” Louis calls as Jackson begins to walk away.

“Uh, no,” Jackson calls back. “I can’t today. My parents stayed home to meet the guy delivering our new washer and dryer.” Jackson’s mom hates Grand Theft Auto, so he can only play when she’s out of the house.

“You’re a loser,” Louis responds good-naturedly. “See you later.”

Jackson flees, weaving in and out between students hurrying to make it to class on time.

As soon as Jackson is inside the restroom, he heads directly for the third stall, the only one with a fully functioning lock on the door.

By some miracle, it’s unoccupied. Actually, the whole bathroom is empty. He hurries inside and fastens the latch as quickly as possible.

And then for a moment he stands there, clutching his books and trying to catch his breath. He stares at the back of the stall door. It is covered in scrawled “suck my dick” and “turrrn uuup” in black marker.

Jackson’s not sure why the news of the police coming to his school has him so worked up, but it does. He can still feel his heart racing. Every muscle in his body is tense.

Calm down. Calm down.

He places a hand on his chest and counts to four as he breathes in, then holds his breath for a count of seven, then breathes out. It’s a technique his therapist likes to recommend to him. He’s slightly skeptical that it really works, but he tries it anyway. When he’s getting worried or irrationally fearful, when his emotions start to betray him, he wants anything that will help.

After a minute, the bell rings. Now he’s officially late for algebra. And they’re having a test, one he’s prepared for.

He should leave this bathroom.

He should go to class right now, take his tardy gracefully, sit down, smile at Delia, get out his pencil, and take his test.

Still, he doesn’t move. He doesn’t even begin to move. Every instinct is telling him not to move.

Instead, he closes his eyes and empties his mind.

Hesitantly, he begins to push out cautious little tendrils to probe around him in the school. He doesn’t really want to do this, but something deep inside tells him it’s important. That he needs to.

People’s minds feel different, have different textures to them. Right now, as he shines into people, as he gently touches the minds closest around him with his own, he can tell that most of them are kids, his friends and classmates. Kids’ minds are usually sort of bright and loud and flashy, like commercials for kids’ cereals. Every once in a while there’s a kid mind that’s very sad, unusually sad, but even then it’s sad in stark, dramatic colors, clear and tragic and obvious. Kids don’t hide things well.

But he brushes against adult minds in the school, too: teachers, mainly. Adults’ inner lives are so much more complicated than kids’. Harder to get into. Some of them are complex and curlicued, like honeycombs, and others are like smooth stones you find on a riverbed. Some are like an animal carcass rotting, full of holes you don’t want to shine into too deep.

It’s because of adults’ minds that Jackson doesn’t like shining into people’s heads very much. He’d prefer to stay out of other people’s minds as much as possible.

He peeks into the teachers’ minds just enough to identify them, to see their memories: their own faces in the mirror, their classes back up at them, bored faces staring from desks. He’s not looking for a teacher, so he moves along quickly. He doesn’t want to see any of their secrets.

Finally he’s found something different: the front office, a group of minds clustered together, a cloud of anxiety shared among them. One of them he recognizes must be his principal, Mr. Werther – he can see in his memories speaking into the intercom for the morning announcements today. Mr. Werther is feeling very troubled about something right now. His thoughts are racing. He’s wondering what the right decision is. He’s wondering whether he will be blamed if something goes wrong. His mind feels like a soda bottle shook up, ready to burst.

Quickly, Jackson switches his shine to another mind in the group, someone calmer. This mind is sharper, metallic-feeling, and he realizes that it’s a police officer, someone in charge, someone named Davis. He pushes further into Davis’s mind, into his current consciousness, and he sees that Davis is trying to explain the situation to Mr. Werther, trying to assure him that everyone will be safe, trying to let him know that there is back-up waiting right outside the school. Davis doesn’t think Mr. Werther is very smart.

Dimly, Jackson is aware that he is tightening his grip on his books, his anxiety rising. Something is very wrong here. He feels it in Davis’s thoughts. He sees flashes of himself.

He prods the shine deeper into Davis’s mind, pushing back thin layers that seem a little like aluminum foil.

In Davis’s recent memory, there is an image of something horrible: a crime scene. Bodies, shot, a man and a woman. Lying on their kitchen floor in a pool of blood, their faces vacant. Davis stands over them, shaking his head, writing notes.

The bodies’ faces are familiar. They’re Jackson’s parents.

Jackson feels himself start to breathe faster.

As though seeing light behind a dirty window, he starts to see what Davis thinks happened.

He thinks Jackson shot his parents before he went to school that morning. Davis pictures it happening: Jackson, shouting, lifting a gun and shooting first his father and then his mother. Davis thinks he possibly has a gun on him now, at school. The police want to apprehend him safely, with no one being hurt.

“We need to consider him dangerous,” Davis’s voice is echoing through his thoughts. “But we can do this in a way that makes sure no one gets hurt.”

All at once Jackson opens his eyes, falling back into his own consciousness, feeling short of breath.

He realizes he’s trembling. Mom. His parents.

Are his parents really dead? How could they be? He saw them just this morning. His mom had reminded him about his therapy appointment tomorrow and his dad had told him to stop leaving lights on. He hadn’t kissed his mom good-bye. He had been in a hurry.

Jackson feels sick. Mom. Mommy.

It’s impossible. He doesn’t want to think about it. He wants his mom. He wants to throw up.

There is a crackling sound echoing through the bathroom, and then the sound of a tinny voice speaking over an intercom. “Students and teachers, please pardon the interruption. Jackson Van De Kamp in eighth grade, would you please come to the main office? Jackson Van De Kamp in eighth grade, come to the main office.”

Jackson tenses his whole body behind the door of the bathroom stall, ready to push through, an instinctive defensive maneuver.

They’re really going to try to arrest him, he realizes. They really think he killed his parents.

He feels panic rising in his stomach, seriously threatening to make him lose his breakfast. They think he’s a killer.

You don’t have to worry. Not you. You can protect yourself. Stay calm.

He closes his eyes again and carefully shifts the perception of all minds around him, giving himself a thirty foot perimeter of altered reality.

It’s a big effort for him — bigger than his usual modest experiments — but he doesn’t feel any headache. Maybe it’s the adrenaline.

Walking like he’s in a dream—like he’s in a nightmare, really—he cautiously steps out of the bathroom.

Anyone looking in the hall simply sees Louis.

Jackson, as Louis, walks down the hallways of his school at the same slow pace, so as not to attract attention. It’s an effort to keep the minds around him altered and his own posture casual and unassuming. He walks past classrooms, watching all around him with his peripheral vision and the little fingers of his mind. Louis, please don’t happen to come out in the hall to use the restroom at this exact moment. Please.

He heads towards the entrance of the school, which means passing the front office. As he approaches, he sees that now there is actually almost no one around the front office at all. That seems weird—usually there are tons of students and teachers congregating near it.

Just keep walking, he thinks. Hopefully you’ll be unnoticed.

As he’s stepping past the door, two policemen emerge, moving quickly.

“Where are you headed, son?” From a quick tap of his mind, Jackson recognizes this man as Davis, the officer apparently in charge.

“My mom’s car. Dentist appointment,” Jackson mutters.

Davis glances out the door, where there is fortunately a car in the parking lot that looks plausibly like a waiting parent. “All right, go quickly. Don’t hang around. We need all students out of this general vicinity.”

Davis waves him out, and Jackson eagerly follows in the direction of his gesture out the door.

The February temperature hits him like a slap in the face. Regretfully he realizes his good winter coat is in his locker, back inside the school.

He keeps walking casually down the steps of the school and down the driveway, already beginning to shiver uncontrollably.

When he gets to the road, out of easy eyesight of the school, he drops his books on the ground and begins to jog. The school is on a wind blown, gray, desolate-looking Wyoming road, with little traffic except for those coming to the school. He drops his Louis perception filter. There’s no one to see.

And after he does, he discovers to his surprise that he’s crying.

He has no idea where he’s going now.

He has a vague idea that he should get out of town—maybe to a big city, like Cheyenne or Denver—but he isn’t sure how to get there. He has no money. He could hitchhike, but the idea of hitchhiking scares him, which makes him feel ashamed.

It’s just he’s too familiar with the kinds of things that adults think about. And after all, someone just killed his parents.

Why did someone kill his parents? Who would do that? His parents never did anything to anyone. They weren’t drug dealers or thieves. They were Lutherans. His mom made casseroles, and his dad carved wooden ducks. They were cheerful, optimistic, the type of people to see the good in everyone. Sometimes Jackson felt like he didn’t have much in common with them— like they saw the world very differently from him— but he loved them. He could never have hurt them. And he hates to think of what they thought, in the moment they died.

He finds himself crying harder as he jogs. He shouldn’t do this now; it’s too cold for tears. He tries to wipe them off with the sleeve of his sweater. But it’s hard to stop crying once he’s started.

He tries to jog faster. Turns it into a run. Maybe this will snap him out of it, clear his head. He’s always been good at running. At the very least it will warm him up.

Just keep running, he tells himself. He smiles a little, because it reminds him of a line from one of his favorite movies when he was a kid, Finding Nemo. Just keep swimming. His mom would repeat the line to him as a joke when he was learning to swim.

He blinks back the tears again and runs harder.

He wonders if Louis will think he really did kill his parents. He wonders if Delia will. He wonders if the other kids at school will all talk about it: Jackson Van De Kamp, the psycho kid who shot his family and was planning on shooting up the school. If they will make up stories about why he was going to do it.

A car passes on the road, and he quickly slips a filter into the driver’s mind: he’s a nice old lady picking up trash along the side of the road.

When the car passes, he continues running and considers his options. He doesn’t have a phone. His parents were waiting until high school to get him one. Even if he did, he couldn’t use it now anyway—the police would track him.

Shelter is an immediate problem. There’s a Frontier Museum in downtown Rawlins. He wonders if he might go inside and find a place to hide overnight, at least until he has a better idea. But the museum costs money to get a ticket, and he doesn’t have money.

He could try to contact his Uncle Wyatt to see if he would help him. But what if Uncle Wyatt believes the story and thinks Jackson killed his parents? Uncle Wyatt has always found Jackson annoying, ever since Jackson threw that basketball into his flatscreen TV when he was six. He could very well decide to turn his nephew in.

Then there is his birth mom. Jackson wishes he could ask her. He thinks he’s seen her, once or twice, in his occasional visions that come in fast and bewildering flashes. At least he thinks it’s her. It’s a woman he has some very close connection to, a red-headed woman, who is always very sad. He wonders if she would help him. He likes to think she would. But that’s a childish fantasy, because he has no clue where to find her. He can’t reach out and try to shine every mind in the whole world to try to locate her. He needs to stick with practical ideas right now.

He’s been walking and running for three miles, the wind biting incessantly into his clothes, when he hears another car coming down the road. With the fingers of his mind, he reaches out towards the driver’s mind to tweak their perception.

But strangely, he finds he can’t. Something in the driver’s mind is pushing back, keeping a wall up so that Jackson can’t change what they see.

He feels a stab of panic. He didn’t know this was possible. He’s never seen this before. Some paranoid part of him wonders if this is the person who killed his parents.

The car is sleek and black, with mirrored windows. It slows down right next to him. Jackson looks wildly back and forth for somewhere to run and hide, just in case there is someone inside with a gun—but there is nothing around him but open land, no possible shelter for miles.

He finds himself doing nothing but standing there stupidly, an open target, his eyes widening as the window rolls down.

“Jackson Van De Kamp?” a female voice says.

“Yeah,” Jackson manages, his voice scarcely a whisper.

It’s a woman: a surprisingly young woman wearing mirrored sunglasses, her blondish hair pulled back in a ponytail. She doesn’t look like a killer. But Jackson knows very well that evil people don’t always look evil.

“It’s come to my attention that you might need some assistance.”

He can’t think of anything to do but bob his chin up and down in a nod.

“Why don’t you get in the car, and we’ll talk?”

It looks so warm inside. He has nowhere to go. She dangles the promise of information, something important he doesn’t know.

Still, some sense of self preservation keeps him from stepping forward. Desperately, he tries to noodle a shine into her mind, trying to see what she’s all about. But he can’t. It’s like it’s boarded up.

She smiles a little at him in a guarded way, not showing her teeth. He has the weirdest feeling that she knows exactly what he is trying to do.

“W-who are you?” he says hoarsely. “Do I know you?”

She sighs, as if she expected this. “If you get in the car, I promise I’ll explain, Jackson.”

He hesitates. Then, taking a deep breath, he starts to make his way toward the passenger door.

Really, what other choice does he have?

***

[sisterspooky1013]

It’s Saturday morning here, so here’s a podfic version of @sisterspooky1013’s absolutely perfect angsty little Never Before.

Now when you go to the gym or grocery store or whatever you do, you can be listening to something dark and steamy, too.

Thank you, @audiofanficpod!

[sisterspooky1013]

Red-Handed, Chapter 28

Rated G | 1015 words | Read it here on AO3

“Please have a seat, agents.”

Scully throws Mulder a wary glance before they slide into their designated chairs across from Skinner’s desk. Their boss is characteristically stoic, but there’s something else there, too, that makes Scully nervous. She folds her hands neatly in her lap to avoid fidgeting and arranges her face into a neutral expression. 

“This is going to be an uncomfortable conversation,” Skinner begins, and her belly tightens. “My hope is that we get it over with as quickly as possible so we can all move on with our day.”

His eyes are on his desk, on the door behind them, on the arm of her chair—anywhere but directly on either her or Mulder, who himself looks more curious than worried. 

“What is it, sir?” she asks, and Skinner flashes his eyes up to her for barely a split second before they are back on the paperwork littering the surface of his desk.

“It’s been brought to my attention that there was a questionable charge on Agent Mulder’s corporate credit card from a motel in Grand Rapids, Michigan a few weeks ago,” he says. 

Scully waits for Mulder to reply, but when a beat passes in silence she looks over at him and finds his face to be completely expressionless, which immediately makes her panic. 

“Yes, Agent Mulder and I were in Grand Rapids for a few days recently,” she says, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. “I believe you signed our 302, sir.”

“Yes, I did,” Skinner says. “It was the amount of the charge that prompted Accounting to flag it, not the charge itself.”

She looks at Mulder again, intending to request (by way of a very dirty look) that he be the one to speak on this given that she has no context, but he’s still sporting that same emotionless thousand-yard stare, almost like he’s not even listening. 

“I’m sorry, sir, I’m not following,” she admits. 

“This might help,” Skinner says, avoiding eye contact as he leans forward and hands her a rumpled sheet of paper from a dot matrix printer with the perforated strips down the sides still attached. 

Scully quickly scans the page, which appears to be an invoice from their motel. Advanced mattress cleaning fee, eight missing towels, fitted and flat sheet replacement. She feels her face get hot and a wave of nausea rolls through her as she remembers a hard day in the field followed by a drunken evening, and Mulder assuring her that she needn’t worry about the mess they made. That he would take care of it. 

Scully clears her throat and tries to imagine what she could possibly say with a beet red face that wouldn’t give them away. Perhaps Skinner could be convinced that they procured a family-sized portion of chili and spilled it all over the bed. 

“That was my room, sir. Agent Scully has nothing to do with this,” Mulder blurts out suddenly, the first words he’s spoken since they entered the room. He snatches the page out of her hands and sets it back on Skinner’s desk, only the expanded whites of his eyes giving away his terror. 

Skinner sighs and sits back in his seat, his elbows on the armrests and his hands steepled. 

“Unfortunately,” he says evenly, “the investigation into the charge also revealed that only one of the two rooms reserved for you was checked into.”

Scully slowly pulls in a deep breath through her nose and lets it out through her mouth, then glances to the door leading to Kimberly’s office to verify that the resident trash can is still stationed beside it, just in case. Her heart is pounding against her ears, and she grips the arms of her chair so hard her knuckles blanch. Here it comes—the jig is up. It happened much more quickly than she’d anticipated. 

“There’s an explanation for that—” Mulder starts, but Skinner holds up a hand to quiet him. 

“Look,” he says, leaning forward on his desk and giving them each a pointed look. “I’m not an idiot, nor am I naïve. The only thing I find surprising about this is that you were stupid enough to only use one room and then try to get the Bureau to cover the cleaning fee. I’d expect better from both of you.” Scully’s cheeks are on fire, and she does her best not to sink down in her seat. “Policy aside,” he continues, “so long as you don’t bring personal issues into the workplace, what you do off the clock is none of my concern. But if word gets out that the rumors about you two are true, and there’s evidence that I was aware of it and took no action, it’ll be my career and reputation on the line, not just yours.”

“I apologize, sir,” Scully says meekly. Now she’s the one who can’t bring herself to look at him.   

“It won’t happen again, sir,” Mulder adds.

“It better fucking not,” Skinner grumbles. “I was able to bullshit my way out of this one, but next time you’re on your own. If you run into Angela from Accounting and she asks how you’re feeling, just tell her you’re doing much better.”

“Thank you, sir,” Scully says in a near whisper. 

“That’s all, you’re dismissed,” Skinner says with a wave of his hand. 

Scully stands slowly on unsteady legs and heads for the door. Mulder is beside her immediately, though the warmth of his hand on her back is anything but a comfort. He tries to catch her eye but she refuses to look at him, too sick with anger and embarrassment to trust herself not to scream. 

“Agents?” Skinner says, just as she’s reaching for the doorknob. 

The hairs on the back of her neck shoot up, and she and Mulder both slowly turn around. 

“Yes, sir?” Mulder asks. 

Skinner looks at them for a beat with a confusingly wistful expression.

“It’s about damn time,” he says, then turns away from them quickly, but not before Scully sees him lose the fight to keep the smile off his mouth. 

Tagging @today-in-fic

#the x files #x files fanfic #txf #dana scully #fox mulder #the x-files #xf fanfic #xfiles #thexfiles #x files

[sisterspooky1013]

Loved. Lost.

Rated T | 1319 words | Read it here on AO3

Content Warnings: Child Loss, Suicidal Ideation

She can’t escape it. It’s on her skin, in her bones, in every breath she takes. It envelopes her, suffocates her, doubling the force of gravity on her body and pinning her in place. If, for one fleeting moment, she does manage to forget, it comes roaring back with a vengeance, slashing through her gut and disemboweling her, and she falls to the floor in agony. 

She still smells him on her clothes, still feels the phantom weight of his head against her chest. Her lips still tingle from the brush of her final kiss to his forehead, her arms won’t stop aching to hold him. Her heart sits hollow in her chest, eating itself alive to fuel her grief. She feels lost in her own body, trapped by the enormity of what’s happened to her. She can’t imagine ever being okay again. 

William. Mulder.

How briefly she held them both. How abruptly she lost them, one and then the other. How alone she is. How unfathomably alone. 

She thought she knew loss. Her father. Melissa. The months where she believed that the image of Mulder cold and ruined in a grassy field would be her final one of him. Where she faced the reality of raising a child who would never have a chance to know his father. She was so confident that it could not possibly get any worse than feeling William kick against her rib cage as she stood beside Mulder’s open grave. She was wrong. So painfully wrong. 

She wishes she could run away. Somehow outpace the constant reminders of the impossible choice that she made. Somehow evade the eventuality of telling Mulder what she’s done, even as she longs to see him with every fiber of her being. She wishes she could forget the look on her mother’s face as she tried, unsuccessfully, to explain. Wishes she could accept comfort from the only person she has left, if not for the guilt that churns up bile in her belly every time the phone rings. Her breasts throb, begging her to nurse, and his unscented baby laundry soap still sits on top of her washing machine, and her mother won’t stop calling, and she wants to run away from it all, but she can’t. 

There is one way out. One darkened path that would end her suffering. In the days when William was still safe in her belly and Mulder was dead to her, it was only the beating of William’s heart that kept her earthside. A life without Mulder was not one worth leading, and yet the instinct to love and protect her child—their child—overpowered her grief. Now, her child is gone, and Mulder is as good as gone himself, and it’s becoming harder and harder to find the will to continue living a life where each breath feels like punishment. It’s only when she imagines him returning from wherever he’s gone and learning that she first took his child from him, and then herself, that she re-commits to carrying on. He’s already lost so much. 

And so from father to son and back again they have passed the baton of her survival. When was the last time she lived for herself? She can’t remember. It’s too painful to try. 

She wonders if this is God’s plan for her. Is her suffering a test of her faith? Job was rewarded for his unrelenting faithfulness with prosperity beyond his wildest dreams. It’s only now, as a mother, that she realizes nothing man or God could do would make up for the loss of a child. How Job’s wife must have hated him for his sacrifice, how she must have grieved every waking moment for her ten lost children. But her grief wasn’t even worth a mention, wasn’t even worth giving her a name. 

Whether it was God’s plan or her own free will that had her pass her defenseless, innocent child from the arms of his loving mother to those of a stranger, she feels betrayed by Him. Abandoned. Alone. 

And yet, His plan or His gift of free will brought her to Mulder. Brought her to a love she could never have dreamed of, never even knew was possible. A love so powerful it left her gasping for air, clinging to him for survival. A love that made sex feel like a miracle, pleasure so complete that every exquisitely designed cell in her body lit up and exploded at once. Love that defied science and created life where no life was meant to be created. Love that could only be explained by divine intervention. 

But the loss. Reaching for Mulder across the mattress and finding only cold sheets. Startling awake to the ghost of William’s cries and panicking at the empty space where his bassinet should be, her hammering heart sending her to her feet before she remembers and the grief takes her out at the knees. The phone is always about to ring, and the door is always about to open, and any minute Mulder will walk in and hold her, pick up half the weight of this completely unmanageable pain so they can carry it together. She feels William crying for her, across miles and mountains, and she paces the room holding a stuffed bear, patting its bottom as a proxy. Her shirt will be wet with tears and milk that won’t dry up when the sun begins to rise, which it continues to do as though her world hasn’t ended. 

Would she give it all up if it saved her from this? Would she go back and turn down the FBI recruiter, take the well traveled path? The thought horrifies her. What she would have missed. 

Mulder’s smile the first time she told him she loved him, the way something changed in him, like a long held vacancy had finally been filled. His contented sigh when he pulled her closer in the dark and kissed the top of her head, and the way their bodies fit together like puzzle pieces. Driving down a deserted highway at 90 mph blasting Queen and laughing until tears streamed down her face. 

She would have missed lying like parentheses around their infant son as he yawned and stretched his womb-bent legs, and the absolute look of wonder on Mulder’s face. She would have missed the overwhelming sense of pride at giving him something he’d been longing for since the age of twelve: a family. 

She would have never known the way William immediately quieted when he felt her touch, the way he relaxed against her like she was his safest place. She wouldn’t have heard the way his baby laugh was shaping up to sound just like Mulder’s, or seen her father looking back at her from his eyes. 

She wouldn’t have caught Mulder watching her as she nursed William back to sleep in the dark still of night. She wouldn’t have met his eye and smiled, and he wouldn't have smiled back, neither needing to say anything to understand that they were healing, her mother-wound and his both soothed by William’s satisfied grunts and his fist grabbing and releasing at the hem of her pajama top. It felt like magic, and it was. How could she possibly wish all of that away?

Unexpectedly, she finds solace in the fact that the depth of her grief is equal to the vastness of her love. How lucky is she, to have known a love that it hurts this much to lose. And when Mulder comes back, which she has to believe he will, she takes comfort in knowing that his love will also return to her. All is not lost. 

She answers her mother’s phone calls. After a time, she returns to work. She carries on, knowing that a life in which such a love exists is surely worth leading. 

It has to be. 

Tagging @today-in-fic

#the x files #x files fanfic #txf #dana scully #fox mulder #xf fanfic #x files #the x-files #xfiles #thexfiles

[sisterspooky1013]

Gaslight: You Send Me

Rated X | Read it here on AO3

Note: when I started writing this story, I knew that Scully was going to have a memory of Mulder that would come to her in a dream, tipping her off to the fact that there was someone important she knew before her accident but couldn’t remember. I needed to be able to “see” this dream/memory, so it’s the first thing I wrote. I figure I may as well post it, so here is that memory you’ve seen glimpses of in full.

Scully plunges her hands back under the hot, soapy water and sighs. Her belly is full of good food and good wine, her heart full of hope and the promise of something exciting and new. She runs a scrub brush around the perimeter of a pan and then lifts it out to rinse it with fresh water before setting it on the drying rack beside the sink.

She smiles to herself at the adolescent buzz in her bones, the expectant tightening in her stomach. She’d forgotten how it feels in the beginning: sickly sweet and terrifying, the best kind of fear. From that first tentative kiss it’s only gotten better with each passing day, and she’s found herself almost embarrassed by the way her belly tumbles when he catches her eye across his desk and holds it for just a beat longer than necessary.

Even the invitation for this evening, dinner at his apartment, felt loaded and thrilling. They’ve kissed dozens of times, made out until her chin burned from his stubble, and, most recently, his hand found its way under her shirt. Not since she was sixteen and still a virgin has a boy feeling her up over her bra been so incredibly arousing that she touched herself later just thinking about it. But it’s not a boy, it’s a man. Mulder. Her Mulder. Her partner, now something more.

He’s in the living room fighting with the CD player. The selection of decidedly romantic albums he’d pre-loaded into the eight-disc changer had been abruptly interrupted by the Beastie Boys during their meal, making him blush and her laugh, and he is now presumably ensuring that they don’t suffer any such interruption during whatever he has planned for the rest of the evening.

She feels a rush of heat to her pelvis at the thought.

She’s ready. More than ready, beyond ready. She’s wanted him for so long, she can’t quite decide if this feels more like an ending or a beginning. Perhaps that’s not his intention for the night at all—he seems to be set on taking things slow. But seven years is slow enough, in her mind, and if he doesn’t make the move to activities beyond necking like teenagers, she will.

She hears the CD player click and whir, and the slow wail of soul music floats into the kitchen.

Darling you send me. I know you send me. Darling you send me, honest you do.

She sways her hips gently to the music, running her hands over the bottom of the sink to find forks and knives. She doesn’t hear Mulder enter the kitchen, but suddenly he is standing right behind her, his hands resting on her hips. Her heart leaps, and she forces herself to lean into him rather than stiffen and pull away. Seven years of habits die hard. He moves with her, threading his arms around her waist. His body feels warm and firm against her back, solid as a rock. He is her rock, her safe place, her one reliable thing in a world that’s always changing before her very eyes.

Mulder removes his arms from her waist and wraps his hands around her forearms, sliding them down and under the water until his fingers are interlaced with hers. She lets go of the butter knife she’d been scrubbing and he lifts their joined hands out of the water, crossing both their arms around the front of her body as he walks them two steps back into the middle of the kitchen. Dishwater runs down her elbows, but it somehow feels romantic rather than obnoxious.

Letting go of one of her hands, he twirls her around to face him, then pulls her body flush to his. His free hand finds her waist, and hers his shoulder, and they begin a slow dance. She glances up at him, feeling both charmed and foolish, and sees him smiling down at her with that familiar impish one-sided quirk on his mouth. Her heart swells and she looks away, resting her cheek on his chest. She closes her eyes and breathes him in: the orange-vanilla musk of his deodorant, the warmth of his skin through his T-shirt. His heart pounds urgently against her ear and she smiles, relieved to know that he is also at least a little bit nervous.

He presses his lips to the crown of her head and then holds them there, singing along to the music as his voice vibrates in his chest and his breath tickles her scalp.

At first I thought it was infatuation, but ooooo it’s lasted so long. Now I find myself wanting to marry you and take you home.

A flash flood of every emotion shocks through her veins, heightening her senses. Fear, excitement, arousal, love. Of course she loves him, and she hopes he knows even though she’s never been brave enough to tell him. She hopes he can feel it, as intuitive as he is.

He drops her hand, touching her chin with his still-damp index finger until she looks up at him. His pupils are bottomless pits, his mouth slightly parted. This way he’s been looking at her, not bothering to hide his wanting, is as potent as a drug. She rises up, using posture and tiptoes to bring her mouth close enough to kiss. And he does, again and again. Sucking at her lower lip, cupping her bottom eagerly in his palms, arching his pelvis into her so she can feel him stiffening.

They walk clumsily to his bedroom, kissing all the way. She tugs at the hem of his shirt until he removes it, then touches the button on his jeans. He hums, deep and throaty, and she suddenly becomes aware of how wet she is. She can’t wait for him to discover her, to see just how much she wants this. She pulls off her own shirt, unclasps her bra, and his mouth is wrapped around her nipple by the time her bare back hits his bedsheets.

He takes off her pants, looking up at her as he tugs them off her hips, and she can feel her own heartbeat between her legs. His thorough inspection of her panties with his eyes, and then his hands, and then his lips, is agonizing and perfect. He’s so deliberate, so thorough, as he is with all things. She can’t bring herself to rush him, as much as she wants to, but when he drags her panties down her legs, bunching up the damp fabric in his hand and licking his lips as his eyes rake over her vulva, she sits up and reaches for him.

“I want you,” she confesses shyly, feeling his abdominal muscles twitch against her fingers as she pops the button on his jeans.

There is a flash of regret on his face, but it’s short lived—there will be time for that later. She pushes her hand under his boxers and squeezes him firmly, enamored with the way his entire body slackens in response.

He stands at the foot of the bed, she sitting on the edge with her open legs bracketing his, and pushes his jeans and boxers down to his knees. She leers at him, openly gawks as she runs her comparatively tiny hand over the thick length of him, and then looks up with a coy smile. He laughs nervously, running his fingers through her hair and cradling the base of her skull in his palm.

“You’re so beautiful,” he says reverently, and now it is she who laughs.

“Right this second?” she asks, flashing her eyes to his stiff cock hovering inches below her chin.

“Always,” he says with a sigh. “Though I will admit that I’m partial to this view, yes.”

She blinks languidly, considering taking him in her mouth, but that wouldn’t be entirely fair.

“Lie down,” she directs him instead, and he does.

She drapes her body over his, their bare skin hot and electric as she wriggles up until his shaft is nestled in the valley of her thighs. She rocks her hips gently forward and back as he cranes his neck up to kiss her, humming and sighing. She’s so wet, and they’re so ready, he finds his way inside her without the use of their hands. She pauses to acclimate to the sweet, stinging stretch of him, taking minutes to kiss between each added inch until she sits fully impaled in his lap.

Mulder sits up, cradling her face in his hands and kissing her firmly, urgently, as her hips begin to flex.

“Fuck, Scully. I love you,” he groans, and she feels herself rise up to meet him.

“Mulder,” she whimpers against his mouth, a plea and a proclamation and a confession all at once.

She kisses him back, just as urgently, just as firmly. Her lips feel swollen and bruised, and her fingers dig into his neck as her hips snap, grinding her clit against him on each thrust. It’s frenzied, but still somehow feels so romantic she could cry. Because he loves her, and she wants this so, so much, and she never thought it was possible for them.

“I’m gonna come,” she whispers, and he places one of his hands on the bed for stability as she unravels around him, their open mouths held against one another.

He gasps and arches up into her, and she can feel him, hot and forceful. They continue to rock against one another until the height of intensity has passed, and then Mulder slowly reclines back onto the bed, taking her with him.

She rests her cheek on his sweat damp chest, her heart rate slowing steadily. She notices the music again, the same song that must be playing on repeat.

You thrill me. I know you, you, you thrill me. You thrill me, honest you do. At first I thought it was infatuation, but oooo it’s lasted so long. Now I find myself wanting to marry you and take you home.

She lifts her head, propping her chin on his sternum, and finds him looking at her. He smiles at her and she smiles back, then crawls up his body until he slips out of her. She kisses him once, twice, three times, then tucks her face into the crook of his neck.

“I love you too,” she says softly, her heart hammering again.

She feels his smile widen by the way his cheek presses into her nose. His hands rub wide circles on her back, and a wash of contentment overcomes her.

You send me. I know you send me. You send me, honest you do.

Tagging @today-in-fic

#the x files #x files fanfic #txf #dana scully #fox mulder #xf fanfic #x files #the x-files #xfiles #thexfiles

[sisterspooky1013]

Gaslight, Chapter 48/48: Epilogue

Rated X | Read it here on AO3

May 29, 2001

Tonight we bring you an update on the conspiracy that continues to rock the States. Ten months after exposing the major players behind the now defunct Spurious Project, three men identified only as “The Lone Gunmen” were awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, with one of the three men being awarded the medal with distinction due to injuries sustained during an attempted assassination by Spurious operatives.  

As millions of Americans continue to line up to have microchips containing false memories of a global pandemic removed from their necks, the search continues for the individuals at the heart of the project: identified only as ‘subject 101-1’ and ‘subject 101-2.’ While their precise role in the project remains unclear, sources state that they should be considered victims. 

The Spurious Project is purported to be the largest and most well-orchestrated attempt to mislead the public in recorded history. Any Canadian citizen who visited the States between February and March of 2000, or who received a vaccination for the Manatua Virus, should see their doctor as soon as possible to be scanned for a microchip and have it removed if necessary. 

There’s a knock at the door, and Frenchie barks sharply as she skitters across the hardwood. Scully turns the TV off before hoisting herself out of her armchair, fruitlessly attempting to quiet Frenchie with verbal commands. Halfway to the door there’s another knock, and she calls out, “Just a minute!” as she shuffles the rest of the way, already out of breath. On the other side she finds a little boy with messy blonde hair and an RC car hanging from his fingertips, the remote tucked under his arm. 

“Can Zack play?” the boy asks without preamble. 

“Sure,” Scully huffs, then turns to shout down the hallway. “Bear! Micah’s here!”

A moment later Peter trudges down the hall, his own RC car in hand. Scully grabs him by the back of his shirt collar as he prepares to wordlessly walk out the door, and he stops and tips his face up to look at her. His body has softened in the intervening months, rounding out his face and padding his hips beneath his sweatpants. 

“Watch for the car please, okay? Daddy and Bunny will be back from the airport soon.”

Peter nods, and she takes his chin in her hand and kisses his forehead before sending him outside. She watches him walk shoulder-to-shoulder across the lawn beside Micah and tells herself that he’s a typical little boy. One who is fiercely independent because he subconsciously doesn’t expect the adults in his life to meet his needs. One who struggles to stop eating when he’s full because his body remembers a time when his next meal wasn’t guaranteed. One who hoards everything from Q-tips to granola bars in his room, just in case. But he fits right in with the kids in the neighborhood, and is excited to start kindergarten in the fall. Typical, considering all he’s been through, and she’s grateful for it. 

The oven timer beeps and she makes her way to the kitchen, the warm vanilla smell in the air making her mouth water. It’s just a boxed cake, nothing fancy, but she feels emotional as she sets it on top of the oven to cool and gets out supplies for decorating. 

Her life now would be completely unrecognizable to the person she was a year ago, a fact that both relieves and saddens her. As difficult as that time was, it wasn’t all bad. There were happy memories made, and there are people she still misses, as well as places. But the home they’ve made here is a permanent one, both for the sake of the children who have enough to contend with without another international move, and because the risk of returning to the States is simply not one they are willing to take. 

She hears the crunch of tires on gravel and her belly does a nervous little flip, which strikes her as silly. She can’t decide whether to meet them on the front porch, or in the driveway, or maybe just stay here in the kitchen. She’s still pondering this when the screen on the back door snaps and Abby walks in, eyeing Scully curiously as she examines the sweet-smelling cake.  

“Are you okay, Mommy?” Abby asks, and Scully forces herself to smile.

“Yeah, sweetpea, I’m just a little nervous,” she says, reaching out to run her hand through the child’s short-cropped hair, now devoid of blonde. Abby tenses reflexively at her touch, but Scully ignores it. “Did you have fun going to the airport with Daddy?” 

Abby nods, watching Scully’s face. She’s always watching her, measuring her mood and anticipating her reactions. The casual observer would deduce that they’re incredibly close, based on the way Abby never lets Scully out of her sight, but the truth is much more complicated than that. Abby can’t relax unless she knows that Scully is relaxed. She cannot feel safe in a place where Scully is present unless she has taken steps to prophylactically placate her. The outside world sees a little girl who dotes on her mother, but Scully sees a little girl who perceives her mother as a potential threat that she must constantly monitor. It gets better week over week, month over month, and Scully has faith that someday Abby won’t flinch when she reaches for her. 

“Oh my god.”

Scully turns away from Abby and towards the sound of her mother’s voice. She’s standing in the doorway of the kitchen, her hands held over her mouth and her eyes shining. 

“Mom,” Scully says, rushing towards her, tears already pooling in her eyes. 

They embrace awkwardly, both laughing, and just the smell of her mother’s skin, her laundry soap, her shampoo, makes Scully feel like a little girl again. She wishes she could crawl into Maggie’s lap and tell her how hard it’s been, and how much she’s needed her. 

“Look at you,” Maggie says, leaning away and laying a palm on the tight drum of Scully’s stomach. “You look beautiful.”

Scully laughs uncomfortably. “I feel like a whale,” she says. “Sorry I didn’t come to the airport. I can’t sit down for more than twenty minutes without my sciatica acting up.”

“It’s okay,” Maggie says, beaming as she looks between Scully’s belly and her face. “I’m just glad I was finally able to come see you.”

“How long are you staying, Maggie?” Mulder asks as he lumbers in with a bag in each hand as well as one under each arm. “I think you packed for the apocalypse.”

“Oh, half of that is gifts for the kids,” Maggie says, taking two of the bags. “I have a lot of missed spoiling to make up for.”

-

After dinner, Scully brings out the carefully decorated cake and sets it on the table. The mood shifts to something somber as she props up the only two photos they have of Cal against the cake stand: the one of the four of them that Maggie gave her that first day when she woke up in the hospital in Baltimore, as well as the ID Byers had created when they thought Cal would be traveling with them to Canada. She’d secreted them across the border in her luggage against Tom’s direction, unwilling to risk the children forgetting him completely, which she is now exceedingly grateful for. 

“Happy Birthday in Heaven, Daddy,” Abby says as Scully lights the lone candle. 

They sing a low-energy rendition of the birthday song, and the kids blow the candle out together. Their memories of Cal are hazy and don’t feel nearly as significant to them as they do to Scully, but she is steadfastly committed to ensuring that they never forget how much he loved them, all three of them, and that he is remembered for the good he did in this world. 

Scully does the dishes, smiling to herself as she listens to Maggie quiz the children on their lives in the next room. Despite losing their implanted memories of their grandmother, both Abby and Peter seem very comfortable with her, which is a relief. She hears Mulder’s feet on the linoleum before he steps up behind her, running his hands in wide circles over the sides of her belly. 

“Seems like everyone’s getting along,” he says, resting his chin on the crown of her head. 

She feels a flash of foolishness remembering how she cried to him the night before, terrified that the children would receive her mother as a stranger, or that celebrating Cal’s birthday would trigger one of Abby’s flashbacks, or a myriad of other things that would create tension and stress so close to the baby’s impending arrival. Pregnancy has made her feel like an imposter in her own body, betrayed by her unpredictable emotions, and Mulder has been exceedingly patient and supportive with both her and the kids as they adjust to their new circumstances. 

There are still holes in the patchwork of his memory, some pinpricks and some gaping. He’s himself, but a slightly less restless version than she knew before their lives were stolen from them and returned in increments. Still searching and endlessly curious, but not quite so tortured by the unanswerable questions as he once was. Still busy and preoccupied, but not to the degree that he can’t set his current fixation aside and be present with his new family. It’s difficult to say whether the change in him is due to how completely his life has been turned upside down in less than a year, or if maybe some of the memories he never recovered were the ones that haunted him the most. Regardless of the reason, she’s been pleasantly surprised by how easily he’s fallen into the roles of husband and father.  

He bends down a little, hooking his chin over her shoulder and slipping his hands under the water alongside hers. Scully smiles and glances toward the living room, then pushes her backside against him to the greatest degree that she’s able, given her belly and the obstruction of the countertop. 

“Are you trying to start something, Mrs. Manningham?” he asks playfully. 

Scully tilts her head to the side and Mulder kisses her neck. 

“At first I thought it was infatuation,” he sings quietly, brushing his lips across her skin. “But oooo it’s lasted so long. Now I find myself wanting to marry you and take you home.”

Scully closes her eyes and sways back and forth, feeling so happy it almost hurts. Then the tears come, as they are wont to do, running down her chin and leaving wet splotches on the gray cotton T-shirt stretched over her belly. Mulder doesn’t ask her what’s wrong or make a fuss over it, he just dries his hands and then her cheeks, then kisses her and tells her to go visit with her mom while he finishes in the kitchen. 

By the time the kitchen is cleaned up and the children are in bed, Scully is too exhausted to socialize any further, and she excuses herself to take a bath while Mulder and Maggie share a bottle of wine. In the tub, she wets a washcloth and lays it over her belly for warmth, more relaxed than she can remember feeling in quite some time. She hears her mother laugh from the living room and she smiles and closes her eyes. She must have started to drift, because her belly is suddenly cold and Mulder is crouched beside the tub, brushing his index finger down the bridge of her nose. 

“I thought we agreed to no sleeping in the bath,” he admonishes her lightly, the sour smell of wine on his breath. 

“I wasn’t sleeping,” she mumbles, sitting up and taking his hand as he helps her out of the tub. 

They both get ready for bed and he curls himself around her beneath the covers, one hand resting on her belly. 

“How do you feel?” he asks quietly. 

“Hmmm, tired,” she says on a yawn, hoping he takes the hint. 

“I mean emotionally. Having your mom here, Cal’s birthday. You holding up okay?”

With great effort she rolls to her back, her belly protruding towards the ceiling like a mountain summit. The baby squirms, jabbing her rib cage uncomfortably, and she grabs Mulder’s hand to lay it over the place where he might be able to feel movement. 

“I’m really good, actually,” she says. “It feels like…closure, maybe. Or something similar to that. Like we can finally start moving forward.”

Mulder nods, giving her three quick kisses before she rolls back to her side. She falls asleep quickly, no longer afraid that someone is about to break the door down and take away everything that matters. No longer feeling like her life is not her own. 

She dreams that dream again, the one with the green countertops and Mulder spinning her around in his kitchen. The one of a love so strong that neither man nor science could destroy it. The one that she simply wouldn’t forget, no matter how hard they tried to make her. 

Tagging @today-in-fic

#the x files #x files fanfic #txf #dana scully #fox mulder #xf fanfic #x files #the x-files #xfiles #thexfiles

[sisterspooky1013]

Gaslight, Chapter 47/48

Rated X | Read it here on AO3

The bottom floor of Tom and Lea’s house is set up as entirely separate living quarters, complete with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a full kitchen. Abby and Peter, given the opportunity to sleep in their own rooms for the first time in over a week, choose to share a room with bunk beds, and Abby agrees to let Peter have the top bunk if Frenchie can sleep with her on the bottom. Scully isn’t initially a fan of this idea, but Mulder is clearly so delighted that Abby has taken to his dog that she goes along with it, ideally only for tonight. The children take proper baths in the enormous soaking tub, Mulder reads them multiple books from Lea’s extensive collection, and it’s only when they are both tucked into bed that Scully realizes she and Mulder will have a room to themselves for the first time since leaving the safehouse. 

Mulder pulls the bedroom door closed and turns to give Scully a long look before approaching her and taking her face in his hands. 

“Alone at last,” he says with a small smile, then kisses her several times on the lips, one soft peck after another. 

Scully hums, running her hands over his waist. 

“I need to brush my teeth,” she tells him. 

“I need to take a shower,” he replies, but he doesn’t stop kissing her. 

His hands find their way under her shirt, the tips of his fingers brushing along the curve of her breasts. She hasn’t bothered wearing a bra as of late, support for her modest chest being the least of her worries. She feels the stiffness of his erection pressing into her belly, and her clit throbs. 

Mulder walks her slowly backwards towards the bed, stripping her shirt off along the way. When the backs of her legs hit the mattress, he gently pushes her down into a sitting position and then kneels at her feet before taking one of her nipples between his lips. Scully whimpers softly, working to keep her voice down as he spends several minutes showing her how complete his memory recall is when it comes to this. She rakes her fingers through his hair, kneads the tensed muscles in his neck, and flexes her hips against the mattress as her body begs for more. Finally, he stands and encourages her to lay down, then tugs her jeans and panties off her hips, leaving her nude. She almost makes a joke about the fact that he is still fully dressed, but the hungry look on his face as he pushes her thighs open quickly distracts her. 

He takes his time, just like he used to before all this. Before they lost each other. Before they found their way back. He grazes his lips over her inner thighs, kisses a trail along the seams of her legs, and nuzzles his nose against her clit before she feels the wet heat of his tongue on her lips. He knows as well as she does that the stress and tension of the last several days have her wound up so tight she’s bound to snap at the slightest provocation, so he licks her in long, languid strokes. Not too much pressure, not too much speed, just a constant soft slip like a gently lapping tide, urging her closer and closer in increments. 

She pushes her hips against his face, tugging on his ears for want of release, but he keeps her held at the edge until he’s ready. Until she’s quivering against his tongue and pulling on his hair, until her mouth is dried out from her silent cries. He takes her clit between his soft lips and sucks gently, and her orgasm overtakes her slow but steady, building and building and then shattering violently into his mouth. Her thighs clamp against his ears, pinning him in place, and he cups her ass cheeks in his hands, squeezing in time to each new wave. Her mind goes completely blank, the fear and worry that have plagued her every second of every day for weeks finally quiet, if only for a few minutes. 

When she goes lax, he crawls over her body, dropping wet kisses along the way to each of her hip bones, the scar on her belly, her breasts, her collar bone. She keeps her eyes closed, basking in feel-good hormones and the pleasure of his gentle touch. She feels the heat of his breath on her ear and she hums. 

“Is it a T.K.O.? Are you done for the night?” he asks light-heartedly, and she cracks a smile. 

“Not a chance,” she tells him, running her hand over the still present bulge in his jeans. “Get naked, G-Man.”

He does as instructed, standing and pulling his shirt off while Scully sits up so she can unbutton his jeans. The lights are still on and she isn’t inclined to turn them off, especially when she pushes his boxers off his hips and his erection swings free, thick and stiff and mere inches from her chin. She takes him in her hand and pumps slowly as she looks up at his face. His eyes are dark, his mouth hanging open in awe and anticipation. She leans forward and brushes the head of him across her wetted bottom lip, and his eyebrows shoot to his hairline. 

She wonders if he remembers this. If he already knows how much she loves it, or if she’ll get to surprise him all over again. She slips him into her mouth and moves her hands to his hips, pulling him in deep, and he makes a strangled little groaning sound just before she feels his fingers thread through her hair. She flashes her eyes up to his face as she pushes his hips away, drawing him out and then back in, and he closes his eyes, overwhelmed by the visual. Maybe this time, this second phase of learning each other, she’ll feel brave enough to tell him that she didn’t always love it. That it’s him—it’s the way he adores her, it’s how good he makes her feel, it’s how desperately she loves him that turned this into one of her favorite things. She sucks him firmly, cradles his balls in the palm of her hand, tastes the salt of his precum. She would happily take him all the way, until she feels him run hot down the back of her throat, but he stops her with urgent hands pushing on her shoulders. He has other plans. 

The bed creaks under the weight of both of them as she scoots to the middle of the mattress and he kneels between her open legs. He strokes himself absently as he looks at her body, and she squeezes her own breast just to watch his nostrils flare and his fist pump faster. 

“Come,” she says, reaching towards him with one arm, and he drops heavily down to his elbows, nuzzling his nose against her neck while he flexes his hips and slides his cock through the slickness between her legs again and again. 

He’s always loved the anticipation of it. Edging himself over and over until he can’t take it anymore. Delaying his own gratification until she begs him for it. Maybe he just never wants it to end, always afraid that this will be the last good thing he gets to experience. Always afraid she’ll disappear from his life as quickly as she appeared. And then she did, along with his memories of her. It’s a wound they may never fully recover from, but they have to try. 

She shifts her hips up and he routes inside, and she forgets to suppress the throaty moan that flies past her lips and directly into his ear. 

“Jesus, Scully,” he says reverently, hitching one of her legs up against his side. “You feel—”

She flutters around him and the rest of his words drift away. 

“Make me come,” she commands him, because they don’t need to make the most of this. They don’t need to treat it like it might be the last. She wants to believe that this is only the beginning, that there will be so much more of every good thing. Of sex, and love, and peace, and happiness. She has to believe it. 

He stays close, his breath hot on her cheek and his hips pressed tight between hers, the length of him stroking past her clit over, and over, and over. 

“I love you,” he says on a groan, brushing his lips over hers because he’s too worked up to kiss her properly. 

“I love you too,” she tells him, her hands on his jaw and her second orgasm on the tip of her tongue. “So much, Mulder.”

He comes suddenly with a surprised gasp, then stuffs his face into the crook of her neck to muffle his overwhelmed sputtering. She feels him throbbing inside her, feels the heat of him leaking out as he continues to thrust, and she, too, falls apart. She presses her lips to his ear so he can hear her quiet whimpering, then wraps her legs around his hips to keep him captive until she’s had her fill. 

Mulder sighs and she drags her fingernails over his back, blissed-out and sated. 

“I need to take a shower,” he says, muffled against the sheets. 

“I need to brush my teeth,” she mumbles, a smile on her mouth. 

They shower, brush their teeth, and crawl into bed feeling happy, and hopeful, but still afraid. One more day. They just need to make it one more day. 

-

“There it is, number four!” Peter screeches, his index finger shooting between the front seats of the Camry urgently. 

“Good eye, Bear,” Mulder says as he joins the line for lane four at the Peace Arch Border Crossing.

It’s not the shortest line, which he hopes doesn’t look strange. His foot bounces nervously against the floorboards and Scully reaches across the console to lay her hand on top of his thigh. He looks over at her and she gives him a nervous smile. They aren’t much comfort to one another, as on-edge as they both are, but they’re trying to stay calm for the sake of the kids. 

The sun is hot and high in the sky, and now that they aren’t moving the car quickly becomes uncomfortably warm and stuffy. Mulder rolls up the windows and turns on the A/C, straining to make out the agent he can see leaning out of the booth to hand documents to the driver of a pickup truck. Frenchie rests her front paws on the console and pants loudly in his ear, and he pushes her into the back seat for at least the tenth time. This is going to be a long drive. 

As they inch closer, the agent in the booth exits and walks to the rear of a vehicle to inspect the trunk, and Mulder recognizes Tom’s bald head glistening in the sun. 

“Positive ID,” he says quietly, and he hears Scully sigh with relief. 

They’re eight cars away from their turn to cross. Mulder flips on the radio and scans through local stations until one comes through clearly. 

You’re waiting for someone to put you together, you’re waiting for someone to push you away. There’s always another wound to discover, there’s always something more you wish he’d say. 

Mulder pulls in a deep breath and blows it out in a huff. The cars inch forward and they are sixth in line. 

He is everything you want, he is everything you need. He is everything inside of you that you wish you could be.

He watches the booth diligently while trying not to look like he’s watching the booth diligently, concurrently trying not to move his face so close to the window that the cameras will get a news-worthy shot of him. 

“Do they have cereal in Canada?” Abby asks, and Mulder lets Scully answer. 

Frenchie pops up onto the console again, her hot dog breath turning his stomach, and he pushes his elbow into her chest until she moves back. Fifth in line. 

He watches another border agent approach and speak to Tom. The other agent points toward the hub at the center of the crossing and Tom shakes his head. The other agent lifts and drops his arms in an exasperation, and Tom looks down the line of cars, squinting. Mulder’s heart begins to race as the men exchange a few more words, and then Tom steps out of the booth and walks quickly towards the hub as the other agent takes his place in booth four.

He doesn’t tell Scully right away. He just stares at the booth, willing Tom to come back. Fourth in line. 

The song changes to something more upbeat and electronic, and it makes him feel even more chaotic and on edge. 

What would you do to get to me? What would you say to have your way? Would you give up or try again if I hesitate to let you in? 

His lower back is damp with sweat, though the A/C is on full blast. Frenchie jumps up again and he shoves her back. 

If at first you don’t succeed, dust yourself off and try again. You can dust it off and try again, try again. 

He jabs the button on the radio to switch it off and begins to chew on this thumbnail. Third in line. He can feel Scully looking at him out of his periphery, but he doesn’t take his eyes off the booth. 

“Everything okay?” she asks. 

“Stay calm,” he prefaces, still looking ahead, and she sucks in a breath.

“What is it?”

“Tom left the booth,” he says evenly. 

There’s a heavy pause. 

“What do you mean?” she asks fearfully. 

“I mean that he left the booth,” Mulder answers, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice. “Another agent replaced him.”

“Why?” she asks. Realizing he won’t have the answer, she quickly adds, “What do we do?”

Mulder shakes his head. 

“Nothing. Just stay calm and do what Tom told us to.”

He hears her breath quickening and resists the urge to admonish her for not staying calm. Second in line. 

“We’ve been visiting friends in Seattle,” she says under her breath.

“Family,” he corrects her. 

“Oh god,” she says quietly. 

The vehicle in front of them hands their documents to the agent, who pores over them and asks several questions. Mulder can’t hear what he’s saying, but he’s fairly certain it’s more thorough than their country of citizenship and what brought them to the US. He’ll just have to make something up. It’ll be fine. 

“Hey kids, no talking when it’s our turn, okay?” he reminds them. “No asking questions or answering them. Don’t talk at all, got it?”

“We already know that,” Abby says in a sassy tone, and he clenches his jaw. Yelling at them won’t help. 

The border agent is passing documents back to the car ahead of them, and Mulder forces himself to take slow, measured breaths. From the corner of his eye he sees movement, and as the car in front of them begins to pull away Tom reappears beside the booth, breathing heavily. 

“He’s back,” Mulder says evenly, though his heart is in his throat. 

He slowly pulls forward and rolls the window down, catching only the tail end of Tom’s conversation with the other agent. 

“...told him I’d take care of it, and I will. Doesn’t need to be right this goddamn minute,” Tom is saying. Mulder keeps his eyes straight ahead. 

“Don’t shoot the messenger,” the other agent says, sounding angry. “Take your damn booth back, doesn’t make any difference to me.”

Mulder hears a door close. He swallows and slowly turns toward the booth. 

“Passports, please,” Tom says, holding out his hand. Mulder looks at the older man, who has streams of sweat pouring down the sides of his face and wetting his shirt collar, and hands him a neat stack of four passports. “Country of citizenship?”

“Canada,” he says hoarsely. 

“And what was the reason for your visit?” Tom asks as he leafs through each of their Canadian passports with not so much as a hint of recognition. 

“Visiting family in Seattle,” he recites. 

“Can you open the trunk please, sir?” Tom says, stepping through the door of the booth. 

Mulder uses the lever near the door to pop the trunk open, and waits as Tom does a visual inspection of its contents. When the trunk slams closed Scully jumps, and he reaches over the console to squeeze her knee. 

Tom reappears in the window and hands Mulder their passports, making eye contact for the first time. 

“Welcome home,” he says, and they pull forward, crossing into the Great White North. 

-

It’s dusk when they pull into a long gravel driveway, and Scully is jostled out of a light sleep. 

“Is this it?” she asks, looking around to see other nearby houses at the end of long driveways interspersed with trees and sweeping green lawns. It’s clearly an older community, based on the size of the lots. 

“I think so,” Mulder says wearily. 

They park beside a one-story lemon yellow house with white shutters and Mulder cuts the engine. Scully looks into the back seat to see that both children are sleeping, as well as Frenchie who is taking up every inch of space on the floor at their feet. 

They sit there for a few minutes, taking in their surroundings. There is no sound but the tick of the cooling engine and the huff of Frenchie’s breathing. 

“There’s the lake,” Mulder says, pointing beyond the back yard of the house to a patch of blue shimmering in the last bits of sunlight. 

“It’s so close,” she says in pleasant surprise. 

Again they are quiet. Instead of feeling relieved to have made it, Scully suddenly feels overwhelmed by what will come next. They have just a few day’s worth of Numerol left, and they’ll have to register the kids for school, and find them therapists, and she needs to somehow let her mother know that she’s okay, and check on Langly, and—

“Are we home?” Abby asks groggily, and Scully turns to look at her. At her dirty blonde hair that doesn’t suit her at all, and the lines in her cheek from where it rested against the seatbelt while she slept. So many things could have gone wrong, and they did, but somehow they still made it. She has the kids, and she has Mulder, and they made it out alive. 

“Yes, we are,” she says, her throat tightening. “We’re home.”

Mulder grabs her hand and she looks over to see his eyes shining and a pained smile on his mouth. 

“We’re home,” she repeats. 

“Bear, wake up, we’re home!” Abby shrieks. 

Peter wakes with a start, and Frenchie stands up and woofs. The children scramble out of the car and run through the fully furnished house, claiming bedrooms and chairs at the dining table, until Abby lays eyes on the lake. 

“Can we go swimming?” she asks excitedly, and Scully opens her mouth to say not tonight. 

“Sure!” Mulder tells them, and they tear off through the back yard, stripping down to their underwear along the way with Frenchie hot on their heels.

The adults follow after them, arriving by the shore just as the two children and their faithful dog run into the shallow water, kicking up clouds of mud. Mulder slings an arm around Scully’s waist, pulling her close, and they watch with matching smiles. 

“It’s good to be home,” he says.

She smiles up at him, her heart breaking and healing all at once. 

Tagging @today-in-fic

#the x files #x files fanfic #txf #dana scully #xf fanfic #fox mulder #x files #the x-files #xfiles #thexfiles

[sisterspooky1013]

Gaslight, Chapter 46/48

Rated X | Read it here on AO3

They arrive in Blaine, Washington to a drizzling summer rain that runs down the windows of the van in thick ropes. Driving alongside the rocky shore of a mist-veiled bay, Scully feels anxious and impatient. She wants to get where they’re going, but at the same time she’s afraid that something else will go wrong. 

“Is that the ocean?” Abby asks distractedly.

“It’s ocean water,” Scully answers, her nerves frayed beyond the point of function. “It’s called a strait.”

“What’s a strait?”

Scully sucks in a breath and Mulder reaches over the console to lay a hand on her forearm. 

“It’s a passage that connects two larger bodies of water,” Mulder explains patiently. 

“Is that the beach?”

“Yeah, it is,” he tells her, running his hand down Scully’s arm and interlacing his fingers with hers. 

“Can we go there?”

“Maybe,” he answers honestly, stealing glances at Abby in the rearview mirror. “We’ll have to see if the rain lets up.”

Scully squeezes his hand and he squeezes back. It’s been a blissfully uneventful final two days of their cross-country drive, but the lack of action has only heightened her constant awareness that the other shoe may still be poised to drop. With the Smoking Man and Diana both dead, they could easily make the mistake of assuming they are no longer in danger, but the project was so far-reaching there are bound to be others who are motivated to kill them simply for knowing what they know. Every door slamming down the hall at a motel, every stranger giving them more than a passing glance, every police car behind them on the highway has her heart racing and her palms clammy, and she just wants to go home and feel safe. 

But home is a place she hasn’t been yet, and safe is a concept that feels as foreign as her new identity. She has Mulder, and the kids, and a dog who reeks of river water, and that just has to be enough for now. 

Mulder slows and watches the house numbers until he finds the ones that match the address Byers gave them, then pulls into the driveway of a powder blue two-story house situated a stone’s throw from the water. It has the characteristic low roofline and aluminum windows of 1960s architecture, and something about it immediately sets Scully at ease. Mulder kills the engine and looks over at her, watching the side of her face while she takes in the beachfront home. 

“Are we here?” Abby asks, unbuckling her seatbelt and leaning between the front seats for a better look. 

“I think so,” Mulder tells her. “I guess we’ll have to knock and find out.”

Before they have a chance to get out of the car, a door on the side of the garage opens and someone steps out cloaked in an ankle-length, bright yellow rain slicker. Scully feels a little flare of nervousness again as they approach the driver’s side door and rap on the window. Mulder rolls the window down and the person lifts their head, revealing the smiling face of a man in his late sixties with a graying beard and friendly hazel eyes. 

“You must be Steve and Lisa,” he says brightly, sticking his rain-soaked hand through the open window for Mulder to shake. “I’m Tom. We were expecting you yesterday and we were just deciding whether we should worry or not, so I’m glad you finally made it. You can go ahead and pull your car into the garage, just give me a second to open it.”

Tom disappears back through the same door, and a moment later the garage rolls open. There’s a vehicle already parked on one side that’s concealed beneath a heavy gray cover, and Mulder pulls into the empty space beside it. The garage door closes behind them, and Scully’s stomach tightens. 

Tom reappears, his slicker discarded and his bald head shining under the yellow garage lights, and Mulder steps out of the car. 

“This is what you’ll cross the border in,” Tom says, patting the other vehicle. “She’s got B.C. plates and is already registered under your new pseudonyms.”

The men continue to talk as Abby and Scully watch. Frenchie jumps over the middle seat and forces her head between Scully’s seat and Abby’s waist, and Scully can hear her tail thumping against something. 

“Who’s that guy?” Abby asks. 

“He’s going to help us get to our new house,” Scully says. “He seems nice, doesn’t he?” She says it just as much to reassure herself as Abby. 

“How come he doesn’t have any hair?”

Scully laughs and reaches up to touch Abby’s cheek. 

“I bet he’ll tell you if you ask him.”

Peter whines from the back seat. 

“Y’okay, Bear?” Scully asks, craning her head around to see him. 

“Frenchie’s hitting me with her tail,” he complains, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He looks around, confused by the change in their surroundings. “Is it night time?”

“Nope. We’re just parked inside a garage right now. We’re going to stay here tonight and then tomorrow we get to see our new house. Isn’t that great?”

“I’m sick of driving,” Peter grumbles. 

“Me too,” Scully says with a sigh. 

She startles when the passenger door pops open, then turns to give Mulder an irritated glare.

“Sorry,” he says with a grimace. “You ready to head inside? I’m gonna take Frenchie out for a bathroom break.”

“Okay,” Scully says uneasily, then adds in a near whisper, “Everything seems okay?”

Mulder nods and squeezes her thigh. 

“No alarm bells,” he says quietly. 

She pulls in a deep breath and nods, trying to settle her overstimulated nervous system. Mulder gets Frenchie on her leash, then puts on Tom’s rain slicker and disappears through the side door of the garage. 

Scully helps Peter out of his car seat and takes each of the children by the hand. Tom is standing in the open door to the house, a warm smile plastered to his face as he waits for them. She wonders how many times he’s done this and for what kinds of people. He certainly seems comfortable enough welcoming fugitive strangers into his home. 

“I assume you like dogs since you have one, but get ready for the furry welcoming committee,” he says as he steps aside and allows the three of them to walk into the house. “You’ll be staying downstairs, but let’s head upstairs first so you can say hello to Lea.”

Scully ushers the children up the stairs ahead of her, and as they near the top a cacophony of yips and barks begins to reverberate off the walls. Abby stops and covers her ears, turning to give Scully a wide-eyed look of worry.

“It’s okay, sweetpea,” she says, laying a hand on Abby’s back. 

“Lea!” Tom hollers from behind her. The boom of his voice makes both her and Abby jump, but he doesn’t seem to notice. 

“What?!” a female voice hollers back. 

“Restrain the hounds!” he shouts through cupped hands. 

They wait a moment, listening to the skitter of claws on hardwood and high-pitched pleas for compliance. 

“The coast is clear!” the female voice announces, and they continue the rest of the way up the stairwell. 

The smell of grilled onions and garlic fill Scully’s nose, and her stomach growls loudly. The stairs empty into a busy living room full of mis-matched furniture and knick-knacks, nearly every square inch of the bright blue walls covered with kitschy art and framed photographs. One wall of the room is almost entirely windowed, affording a sweeping view of the bay that is currently obscured by the heavy rain. 

Tom steps around them and guides the way to the kitchen, where an older woman is standing in front of the stove pushing something around in a pan. She’s stout and well-wrinkled, and her hair is short-cropped and purple. Tom kisses her cheek and she smiles, then turns to look at Scully and the children. 

“These are the Davenports,” Tom says. “Well, minus one. They’ve got a lab with ‘em, too.”

“Welcome to our home,” the older woman says warmly, not moving from her station in front of the stove. “I’m Lea. What should we call you while you’re with us?”

“Not your legal names,” Tom interjects. “We prefer not to know.”

Scully lays her hand on top of Peter’s head. 

“This is Bear,” she says, then moves her hand to Abby’s head. “And this is Bunny.” 

“Well hello, Bear and Bunny,” Lea coos before addressing Scully. “And how about you and your husband?”

Scully resists the impulse to correct her. 

“Steve and Lisa is fine,” she says. “Thank you so much for helping us.”

Lea’s smile shifts into something a bit pained that makes Scully’s throat tighten, and she looks away. They hear the snap of a door opening and closing, and then the wet ruffle of a dog shaking rainwater out of its fur. 

“That must be Steve,” Tom says, ducking out of the room to show Mulder and Frenchie around. 

“You guys don’t like watching TV, do you?” Lea asks the children with a skeptical squint. 

“Yes!” they say in chorus, jumping excitedly. “We do!”

Lea reacts as though this is mind boggling information, then sends them into the living room to explore the hundreds of channels on offer via satellite. Scully moves to follow them, but Lea stops her, then gives her a long appraising look. 

“Are you okay?” she asks. 

Her expression is so open, so genuine, so maternal, that Scully feels as though she could drop to the floor at her feet and tell her everything. In the days since leaving Ellicott City she’s barely had time nor brain space to think about her own mother and how worried she must be, but suddenly she’s overcome with the need for comfort and reassurance, and she finds that she can’t bring herself to lie. Not trusting herself to speak as she feels her bottom lip begin to tremble and her eyes blur with pooling tears, she just shakes her head. 

Lea switches off the burner on the stove and walks toward Scully with open arms, a gesture that she would typically not find helpful. But she allows Lea to hug her, and is comforted by relaxing against the softness of her body as Lea pats her back and tells her she’s sorry for whatever they’ve been through. Scully cries quietly, letting tears slip from her cheeks to the shoulder of Lea’s pink housecoat. She feels a hand on her back and turns to see Mulder behind her, the front of his hair dripping wet and a look of alarm on his face. 

“Did something happen?” he asks, and Scully shakes her head and wipes her eyes, feeling embarrassed. 

“Moms need mothering too, sometimes,” Lea says, giving Scully one more gentle pat to her shoulder before she turns to address Mulder. “Steve, I take it?” she says, offering her hand to shake. “He’s quite sexy, isn’t he?” she adds, looking him up and down, though it’s unclear to whom the comment is directed.

Mulder throws Scully a bemused smirk and shakes the older woman’s hand. 

“Lea, I told you to stop sexually harassing the guests,” Tom says in mock seriousness, then gives Lea a slap to her ample backside. 

Scully can’t help but smile. She feels safe here. She trusts these people. Mulder wraps an arm around her shoulder and gives her a questioning look and she nods. She’s okay. Okay enough to make it one more day. Okay enough for now. 

-

The rain clears up in the blink of an eye. One minute it’s coming down in sheets, and the next the clouds are receding to reveal a brilliant blue sky and the gently lapping waters of Birch Bay. Lea informs them that dinner will be ready in an hour, and the kids beg to go down and explore the beach. 

Mulder looks over at Scully and sees her shoulders slump with resignation. He’s worried about her, but he knows that expressing this sentiment will only result in her making a more concerted effort to hide her exhaustion. He knows this because with each passing day he remembers more and more. The details are still hazy, but the feelings are sharp as knives, some of them cutting so deep he almost wishes they’d stay forgotten. He knows that he’s made many mistakes, and he’s been responsible for her being hurt—both physically and emotionally—many times. The more he remembers, the more protective he feels of her and their relationship. 

“I can take them, why don’t you go downstairs and rest?” he tells her, and she immediately opens her mouth to object. “I know you’re fine,” he says, taking the words from her mouth, and she levels him with a deadpan expression, “but did you happen to see the giant bathtub down there?” 

He can see that she’s considering it. Her mouth screws up to one side, her eyes slightly narrowed. Lea comes around the corner from the kitchen, a bottle of wine in hand. 

“I’ve got about twenty different flavors of bubble bath and a tall glass of shiraz to sweeten the deal,” she says, and the corner of Scully’s mouth quirks. Mulder can tell that she’s fond of the older woman, and he’s grateful for it. 

“Okay, you’ve convinced me,” she says reluctantly, then adds a quiet, “Thank you.”

He kisses her cheek, and is surprised when she follows it by kissing him on the lips right in front of Tom and Lea. He pulls away and looks at her for a beat, and while neither of them says anything, he feels optimistic for the first time in a long while. 

The beach is littered with smooth rocks and jagged shell fragments that completely obscure the sand, and there’s a line of dried out seaweed marking the boundary of high tide. Mulder sits on a log with Frenchie beside him and watches the kids as they squeal at dead crabs and throw rocks into the water. Across the bay there’s a long stretch of land with blueish mountain peaks rising up beyond it, and the air smells wet and clean. It’s peaceful here, and he tries to give himself permission to relax. 

It’s hard for him to fathom how much his life has changed in the span of a couple weeks. He can barely remember the person he was before and the way that he felt when he thought his life with Diana was one that he chose. As much as his true self felt like a stranger to him when he first reunited with Scully, the version of him that Diana and the Smoking Man created now seems like an apparition. It only reinforces for him how little Diana really understood him, much less loved him. She suppressed the parts of him that are most intrinsic to who he is, and tried to mold him into the man she wanted him to be. It was Scully who sought him out, who reminded him who he is and what he stands for. It was Scully who set him free. 

Frenchie rests her head on his thigh and looks up at him with worried eyes. He runs his hand down her back and pats her rump, and her tail thwacks loudly against the log. Scully isn’t the only one who saved him. Despite everything, he feels like the luckiest man alive. 

“Daddy, look!”

He follows the sound of Peter’s voice and sees him standing beside a precarious tower of rocks, sticks, and shells as tall as his waist. 

“Good job, Bear,” he says fondly, his heart tightening when he sees the look of pride on the child’s face. 

A strong gust of wind pushes in off the water and the tower topples over, and Peter lets out a long, agonized whine. 

“Hey, it’s okay,” Mulder says, wrapping Frenchie’s leash around a jagged end of the log and trotting down to where Peter is pouting over his wasted effort. “You can fix it, I’ll help you. We’ll build it again, okay?”

Peter nods sadly, his bottom lip puffed up and trembling. Mulder crouches down beside him and rubs his back. 

“Just start again,” he says, and Peter huffs a sigh before he sets about re-building his tower. 

Another strong breeze runs up Mulder’s back, making him shiver, and he’s hit with a wave of deja vu. He looks over at Peter, then to Abby a bit further down the shore, attempting to skip rocks. 

Just start again. 

He smiles, though he also feels like crying. He is one lucky bastard, there’s no doubt about that. 

-

Lea, unsurprisingly, is a fantastic cook. They sit around a large oval table and watch the sun begin to sink towards the horizon as Lea serves them enchiladas with homemade salsa and cheese quesadillas for the children, as well as strong margaritas with generously salted rims for the adults. Frenchie has integrated herself into Tom and Lea’s pack of four dogs—ranging in size from a chihuahua to a standard poodle—and the five of them sit patiently behind the children, ready to snatch up any dropped food. 

For an hour or so, Scully forgets what brought them here. Tom tells them stories of ill-fated border crossings, speaking in thinly veiled euphemisms as he describes discovering a trunkful of dildos in a car being driven by two nuns in full habits. Scully laughs so hard she thinks she might wet herself, and Mulder won’t stop smiling at her. 

“Looks like it’ll be a five-star sunset tonight,” Lea observes, her eyes on the horizon and her hand laid over the top of Tom’s on the tabletop. 

They all turn and look at the yellowing sky and the way it highlights each layer of the landscape in a different shade of burnt orange. It looks unreal, like a painting. 

“See those mountains way back there?” Tom asks, pointing with his free hand. “That’s where you’re headed. The Great White North.”

Scully sighs and slips her hand onto Mulder’s thigh under the table. Close enough to see, soon close enough to touch. Home. Freedom. A fresh start.

“Have you helped many people cross?” Mulder asks, and Tom closes his eyes briefly, nodding. 

“Over a hundred,” he says, opening his eyes and looking over at Lea. “You’ll be our last, though. Time to close up shop.”

“Really?” Scully asks. “Why’s that?”

“I’ve been putting off retiring for years so we could keep it going. Seems like the big man upstairs finally decided to force my hand and see to it that I’m needed at home more than I am at the border.”

Lea gives him a sad smile and turns to address Scully. 

“A few months ago I found out I have breast cancer,” she says matter-of-factly. “My prognosis is decent, but I’ll need a lot of help after my mastectomy. Tommy’s gonna be promoted to nurse maid.”

“Greatest honor of my life,” Tom says, lifting their joined hands off the table and kissing the backs of Lea’s knuckles. 

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Scully says, half memories of her own battle with cancer drifting through her tipsy mind. 

“I’ve had an amazing life,” Lea says as she stands and begins to clear the table. “If I get another ten years, great. If not, I’m still one lucky bitch.”

Abby gasps and they all look over to see a devilish smile on her face. 

“You said a bad word,” she informs Lea cheekily, and they laugh. 

Lea takes the children downstairs to show them all the toys they’ve amassed over the years while Mulder and Scully stay at the table with Tom. He retrieves a large manilla envelope from another room and his demeanor shifts from lighthearted and jovial to stoic and serious, which makes Scully nervous. He sits across the table from her and Mulder, the sunset framing his bald head, and puts on a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. 

“I’ve done this more than a hundred times over the last thirty years, and I haven’t been busted yet. That said, I need you to pay close attention to what I’m about to tell you. I haven’t been busted yet, but that doesn’t mean that everyone we’ve tried to help has made it across. If you deviate from my instructions and something goes wrong, I can’t help you. I won’t risk rotting away in jail while Lea goes through cancer treatment alone to save your asses. I don’t mean any offense by that, but if it’s me or you…it’s me. We clear on that?”

Scully looks over at Mulder and sees him nod confidently. 

“Okay. First things first, you can say goodbye to Steve and Lisa. We always set you up with a new identity just before you cross over in case anyone’s been tracking your current pseudonyms or anything went sideways on your way here. You’ll take the Camry in the garage with you tomorrow and leave the van here, and we’ll get rid of it for you. Sorry we don’t have a bigger vehicle; we didn’t know about the dog.”

Tom pulls a set of keys out of the envelope and puts them on the table. 

“From here on out you’re Jack and Bella Manningham. The kids are Ruby and Zack. This has directions to your new place, and here are the keys for that,” he continues, depositing another set of keys on the table. “Everything else you need to get started is in here, your birth certificates and all that shit. Passports too, which you’ll need to have ready tomorrow. I’ll take your other documents and shred them. Anything that has details about your previous identities needs to be out of the car and off your person when you cross the border, got it?”

He stops and meets their eyes, one at a time, and waits for an affirmative answer. 

“Once you cross over, you’re on your own. You might have other folks you can contact, and whether or not you feel safe to do so is on you. But I’m not going to give you my contact information and I ask that you don’t try to look me up for any reason. I get you over the border and that’s where our relationship ends, capiche?”

Again, he stops to get a clear sign of understanding from each of them. 

“My shift starts tomorrow at 8:00 am. I’ll give Lea a call on my break around 10:00 and let her know which lane I’m working. I’m usually on lane four, but every now and then they move me and it’s very important that you go to my lane. If you end up in someone else’s lane, I can’t help you. Could you cross in another lane? Maybe. But I’ve seen your faces on the news, and that means other border agents might have too. You should wait until Lea gets my call, and then head up to the crossing.”

“What if we’re directed to another lane?” Scully asks, margaritas churning in her belly. 

“You won’t be,” Tom says confidently. “Get in lane four, and stay in lane four. When you get to the window, I won’t give any indication that I know you, and you should do the same. I’m going to ask for your passports, country of citizenship, and reason for travel. You’re going to tell me that you’re Canadian, and that you’ve been visiting family in Seattle and are headed home. I’ll look over your passports, and then ask you to open your trunk. Use the button in the car to open it, okay? Don’t get out of the car; that will just give better video footage of you to anyone who's looking for it. I’m going to take a look in the trunk, then give you your passports and send you on your way. Do you have any questions?”

“What’s the purpose of checking the trunk?” Mulder asks. 

“Makes it look like I’m doing my job,” Tom says plainly, and Mulder nods. “I don’t mean to scare you,” Tom says emphatically, leaning in. “I just need you to take this seriously. Do exactly what I said and you’ll be fine. Okay?”

Scully sits back in her chair and pulls in a deep breath. 

“Okay. Thank you, Tom.”

“You bet. Now let’s make some more margaritas and go watch that sunset.”

Tagging @today-in-fic

#the x files #x files fanfic #txf #fox mulder #dana scully #xf fanfic #x files #the x-files #xfiles #thexfiles

[sisterspooky1013]

Gaslight, Chapter 45/48

Rated X | Read it here on AO3

Welcome to North Dakota

Mulder blinks rapidly in an attempt to moisten his weary eyes, making the tail lights on the cars in front of him explode into streaky starbursts. It’s dark, past 10:00 pm, and he feels drunk from too many hours watching the white blur of the fog line whip by in his periphery. He yawns and rubs one hand roughly over his stubbled cheek, then looks over at Scully. 

She’s asleep again, as she has been on and off throughout the day. The kids have been clingy, and he hasn’t been able to get her alone for long enough to hear what, exactly, happened at the hospital. He just drives, never going more than 10 mph over the speed limit, taking them as far away from his blunder as possible. Gratefully, Peter seems to be okay, but Mulder can’t shake the feeling that Scully’s confidence in his ability to keep the children safe has been damaged beyond repair. His confidence in himself certainly has been. 

A roadside sign indicates a cluster of motels at the next exit, so he changes lanes and gets off the freeway. The shift in motion and cessation of the hum of high-speed rubber against pavement rouses Scully from her nap, and she looks around, disoriented, as he pulls into the parking lot of the Riverside Inn. 

“Where are we?” she croaks, reaching into the console for a bottle of water. 

“Fargo, North Dakota,” he says quietly. “I can barely keep my eyes open. If you want to keep going, you’ll have to drive.”

Scully shakes her head as she swallows a mouthful of water. 

“No, let’s stop,” she says on a sigh, looking into the back seat where Abby and Peter are both sleeping. “It’s been a long day.”

Frenchie woofs from the back of the van, and Abby’s eyes snap open. 

“Are we home?” she asks absently. 

“No, sweetpea,” Scully says with a thin smile. “Not for a couple more days. But we’re going to stop here for the night.”

“I have to go potty,” Abby mumbles, her eyelids heavy. 

Scully turns back to Mulder. 

“Why don’t you take Frenchie for a walk, and I’ll get us checked in?”

He nods, watching her face for signs that her feelings for him have changed, but she just looks tired and distracted. 

He walks Frenchie towards the sound of rushing water, looking back over his shoulder to watch Scully carefully extricate Peter from the van and drape his sleeping form over her torso. His head lolls around on her shoulder and she expertly shifts her weight to prevent him from slumping out of her arms before holding her hand out to Abby. She’s so natural with them, so intuitive, it makes him feel both in awe and frustratingly inadequate. 

Frenchie tugs on the leash and he allows her to guide him down a darkened path. He closes his eyes and pulls in a deep breath, letting the burble of running water and the chirp of crickets drown out his self-loathing, if only for a few minutes. 

-

“Come on,” Scully says, hoisting Peter up and then offering her free hand to Abby as they walk toward the motel lobby. “Spy names only, remember?”

Abby nods mutely, then drops Scully’s hand and runs ahead to open the glass door to the lobby. A bell above the door jangles, and a white-haired man seated behind the desk lifts his head and removes his glasses, a delighted smile spreading across his face. 

“Well, hello there,” he coos, and Abby moves behind Scully, obscuring herself from the man’s view. 

“We need a room, please. Just for the night,” Scully says with well-practiced detached politeness. 

“Of course,” the man says, putting his glasses back on and clicking around on his computer. “Two beds?”

“Yes, please,” Scully says as she places her ID and a stack of twenties on the counter. “We’ll be paying in cash, if that’s alright.”

“Oh,” the man says with a befuddled frown. “Just one moment, let me ask the boss if that’s okay.”

He disappears behind a chipped wooden door, reappearing a few minutes later with an older woman whose hair is pinned up in rollers, a pink quilted housecoat pulled tightly around her.

“We don’t normally take cash,” the woman says, her face pinched and dour. “The credit card is for incidentals, in case there’s any damage to the room.”

Scully hikes Peter up higher, her arms aching under the weight of him. 

“I understand, but we don’t have one,” she explains, wishing Mulder had selected a seedier motel. “I can assure you there won’t be any damage. We just need a good night’s sleep and we’ll be back on the road early tomorrow morning.”

“What’s your name?” the old man asks Abby, oblivious to the conversation Scully is having with his wife. Abby presses her face into Scully’s lower back, her fingernails digging into Scully’s hips. 

The bell above the door chimes, and they all turn to look as Mulder enters the lobby, sans Frenchie. Abby ducks away from Scully and gloms onto Mulder instead, standing on the tops of his feet as he makes his way over to the counter. 

“They don’t take cash,” Scully says with an edge of frustration, an unspoken request that he take up the task of negotiation. 

The old woman is studying Mulder’s face, her eyes narrowed disapprovingly. 

“What if we put money down for damages?” he suggests. 

Before she can answer, Peter lifts his head off Scully’s shoulder and looks around the lobby, blinking at the fluorescent lights. The woman stares at him with wonder as though he materialized before her very eyes. 

“I have to go potty,” Abby reminds Mulder, tugging on the hem of his T-shirt. 

“You’re gonna have to wait a few minutes,” he tells her as he runs his hand over the top of her head. 

“I have to go potty, too,” Peter whines, and Scully heaves a sigh. 

“They can use our bathroom,” the woman says, her tone terse though her offer is kind. “We’ll make an exception and let you pay cash.”

“Thank you,” Scully says, setting Peter on the floor. 

The children each take a turn using the bathroom behind the counter, and the old woman sits on a stool with her arms crossed over her chest while the man finishes booking the room. The way she watches them, following the children with her eyes as they explore a rack of pamphlets, makes Scully uneasy, and she wishes she would have left them in the car. 

“Please don’t touch anything, guys,” she says over her shoulder. 

“How old are they?” the woman asks gruffly. The dissonance between her demeanor and her apparent interest is confusing at best.

“Four and six,” Scully says, offering a placating smile. 

“Hm,” the woman says ambiguously, her eyes roving back over to the children. 

“Is there a river here?” Abby asks, holding up a pamphlet that says The Red River across the top. 

“Yes there is, just a few hundred feet away!” the old man says brightly. 

“Can we go swimming?” Abby asks hopefully.

“We won’t have time for that, kiddo,” Mulder says, and Abby’s shoulders sink. 

“You wouldn’t want to go swimming in Old Red anyway,” the old man says, pushing a receipt across the counter towards Scully. “She looks calm, but the current is strong, and there’s all kinds of junk hiding under the surface. It can be dangerous, even for strong swimmers.”

Scully scrawls Lisa Davenport across the bottom of the receipt, feeling the old woman’s eyes on her the entire time. 

“Stop it, Peter!” Abby screeches, and all the adults whip around to see her shove Peter forcefully. He stumbles and then falls hard on his backside. 

“Hey!” Mulder says firmly, and Abby startles, then regards him with wide eyes. He walks over to Peter and helps him up off the floor before turning back to Abby. “What was that about?”

“He pinched me!” Abby says indignantly, holding her arm. 

“No I didn’t!” Peter says, his bottom lip trembling. “It was a accident!”

“Come on, let’s go,” Mulder says, ushering them both to the lobby doors. He throws Scully a significant look, and she nods. 

The bell jangles, and the lobby falls silent as the overtired and under stimulated children exit into the night. 

“Do you need two keys?” the old man asks, that same oblivious smile on his face. 

“One should be fine, thank you,” Scully says. 

She feels the old woman’s eyes on her again, and she slowly turns her head to meet them. 

“Beautiful family,” the woman says flatly.

“Thank you,” Scully says, uneasy. 

She takes the key from the old man and bids them both a good night. As she passes through the doors, she takes one last look at the woman, still perched on the stool with her arms crossed. The woman nods once, and Scully nods back, and though the evening is warm she feels a shiver run up her spine.

-

Mulder is steadily learning that the amount of energy a child exhibits can have an inverse relationship to their level of exhaustion. Not ten minutes after running giggling laps around the motel room—replete with a trampoline by way of the second bed—both Abby and Peter are out cold, a now-requisite row of pillows between them to prevent the younger from kicking the elder in the ribs all night. 

Mulder looks at Scully, only now realizing that he’s spent the entire day waiting for this moment with bated breath. She pushes her mouth into a weak smile and sighs, then walks toward him. He’s anticipating some kind of connection, some shred of affection at the end of such a harrowing day, but she walks past him to her duffle bag and begins to rummage around. 

“I’m going to take a shower,” she says, and his heart sinks. 

He lies in bed and listens to the rush of the water, the plasticky tick of her toiletries and the scuff of her toothbrush. He waits, as he’s been waiting all day, to learn whether they are okay—both their relationship and their safety after whatever happened at the hospital. 

The room is dark when Scully emerges from the bathroom, feeling her way to the other side of the bed and slipping under the covers. He doesn’t reach for her, subconsciously afraid of being rejected, so when she wriggles up beside him and lays her palm on his chest he’s hit with a wave of emotion. He lifts his arm and she replaces her hand with her head, then drapes one leg over his. When he kisses her wet hair she tilts her chin up and he feels her hand on his cheek, guiding him to her lips. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, speaking the words directly into her mouth. 

“What for?” she asks, her fingernails audibly scratching at the hair on his cheek. 

“What happened at the hospital?” he asks instead of answering. 

Scully settles her head back on his chest. 

“In terms of the anaphylaxis, nothing out of the ordinary,” she begins. “He was given epinephrine and it had the intended effect. But there were some questions about the sutures on his neck, and they called the social worker.”

“They thought he was being abused?”

“I don’t know what they thought. But Peter being Peter, he told them all about his adventures in the VW bus with Hickey, Dryers, and French Toast, among other things. In explanation of the sutures, he said that I cut a bug bite off his neck.”

“And they believed him?”

“God no, thankfully. I told them that his father just passed away unexpectedly and he’s having a hard time processing it, hence the fantastical stories. I think the stories were just wild enough that my explanation sounded more plausible than the truth.”

“So they discharged you?”

“It took a while, but yes,” Scully says, her words stretching out into a yawn. 

Mulder sinks deeper into the mattress, tension draining from his muscles. 

“Thank god,” he says, running one hand over his face. “I’m sorry, Scully. I should have remembered. I could have killed him.”

Scully lifts her head, and he feels her eyes on him in the dark. 

“But you didn’t,” she says gently. “He’s okay. It could have just as easily been me.”

“No,” Mulder says sternly. “You wouldn’t fuck up like that; you’re a great mom.”

She’s quiet for a moment. Mulder can hear Peter’s noisy breathing in the next bed, and a train whistle blasting nearby. 

“I couldn’t do this without you,” she finally says, her voice achingly vulnerable. “And I think you’re doing remarkably well, considering that you’ve only been a father for about four days.” Mulder grunts noncommittally. “Did I tell you that I slammed Abby’s hand in the car door once?” she asks. 

“Don’t make things up to placate me, Scully,” he grumbles.

“I’m not making it up,” she insists. “It was maybe a month after I came home from the hospital and she was just starting to warm up to me. Thankfully there were no broken bones, but I felt like the worst mother on earth.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” 

“Does it?”

“A little.”

“You know what?” she says, rolling on top of him and tucking her face into his neck. “I actually think this officially makes you a parent.”

“Nearly killing my kid?” he scoffs derisively. 

“No,” she says, her breath hot on his neck. “Feeling guilty about messing up. Welcome to parenthood.”

He smiles and runs his hands up and down over her back. 

“At least I’m in good company,” he says, and she chuffs a sleepy laugh against his chest. 

He doesn’t speak again, and neither does she. Abby wakes twice that night, and though Scully tries to comfort her, she won’t stop screaming until she hears Mulder’s voice beside her.   

-

It’s a pleasant, lemony morning. The rising sun drenches the awakening world in warm yellows that reflect brilliantly off the dew-soaked grass, and though there’s a chill in the air Mulder feels cozy and buoyant as he watches Abby practice tricks with Frenchie on a paved path that runs alongside the river. 

As described, the river appears placid, and its waters are ruddy and brackish. A few hundred feet in width, its depth is indiscernible due to the opaqueness of the water, and the banks are tree-bound and mostly inaccessible. Even if not for the fact that they need to keep moving towards their final destination, it’s not a body of water that inspires the urge to swim. 

“Sit!” Abby says sternly, and Frenchie obediently plops her rump onto the pavement. “Good dog,” the child says, holding out her hand so Frenchie can lick a single Froot Loop off her palm. Not the healthiest of treats, but they’re making do. Mulder checks his watch. 

“We’ve got about five more minutes, Bunny, then we gotta hit the road,” he tells her. 

Scully and Peter will be waiting with the van packed up and the room checked out. If they avoid traffic and don’t take too many breaks, they might be able to make it to Bozeman before they stop for the night—especially after they cross into Montana, where the speed limit is more of a suggestion. 

“Shake!” Abby says to Frenchie, holding out her hand, but the dog turns away from her, ears pricked up. “Shake!” Abby says again, but Frenchie is focused on something in the distance. 

A deep rumble vibrates in Mulder’s feet, and he follows Frenchie’s sightline to a slowly approaching freight train. 

“Grab her leash,” Mulder instructs the child, who dutifully picks the end of the leash up off the ground and watches the train engine roll by before it passes over the river on a small wooden trestle. 

The sound of the cars rattling on the track makes Mulder feel a little queasy as the imminent fear and danger of his last train ride are called to the forefront of his mind. He looks down at Abby, who is somberly watching the train pass, and wonders how much she remembers about the man who was her father for just a few short months. He’d ask her, but he doesn’t want to risk calling forth her own painful memories. 

A smile stretches across Abby’s mouth. “There’s the caboose!” she says with delight, pointing to the red car that brings up the rear of the train. 

Her innocent delight at something so simple makes him smile as well, and he wraps one arm around her shoulder, giving her a squeeze. They watch together as the caboose approaches and then passes by, trailing over the river and out of sight. 

Frenchie stands up and growls. 

“Easy,” Mulder says, looping his fingers through her collar. 

“There’s a lady over there,” Abby observes, pointing to the grassy area on the other side of the tracks. 

When Mulder looks to where Abby is pointing, his blood runs cold and his heart skips two beats. She’s dressed casually in jeans and a sweater, her hair pulled back into an uncharacteristically messy ponytail, but it’s unmistakably her. She lifts one hand and waves a small, unobtrusive wave before she begins to walk toward them. Mulder scans the surrounding area in a panic, expecting to see snipers camped out in the bushes, but she appears to be alone. Frenchie lowers her head and the fur along her spine stands on end. 

Mulder instinctively pats the waistband of his jeans, though he knows he’s unarmed. It was just supposed to be a quick walk to get Frenchie’s energy out before they hit the road. He hadn’t given it a second thought. 

“Take Frenchie and go back to the room,” Mulder says to Abby, and she looks up at him with a mix of confusion and fear. 

“I don’t wanna go by myself,” she says, shaking her head vigorously. 

“Abby, go,” he says severely through clenched teeth.

“No,” she says despondently, grabbing his forearm tightly. 

“Hi,” Diana says brightly as she steps over the tracks. “You must be Abigail.”

Abby steps behind Mulder, Frenchie’s leash still wound around her wrist. Frenchie herself is low to the ground, ears pinned back and a deep warning growl sounding continuously from her throat. 

“Stop right there,” Mulder says, holding his palm out. Diana stops, though by her expression he can tell that she’s mildly offended. 

“Nice to see you, too,” she says facetiously before addressing Frenchie. “Hi, Frenchie girl,” she coos, and the dog snarls, baring her teeth. 

“What do you want, Diana?” Mulder asks bitingly, and she pulls in a deep breath. 

“I just want to talk,” she says with a shrug. 

“I don’t have anything to say to you,” he tells her. 

Diana crosses her arms over her chest, her posture deflating a little. 

“I understand why you’re upset with me, Fox,” she says contritely, digging the toe of her shoe into the soft earth beneath her. “But there are things you don’t know that might change how you feel about what I did. Just give me five minutes, and if you still feel the same way I promise I’ll leave you alone.”

His curiosity is piqued, but so is his anger. He bites his lip painfully hard, aware that whatever Abby bears witness to will only deepen the trauma of this entire experience. He crouches down beside her, pivoting his body so that Diana never leaves his sight, and speaks to her in hushed tones. 

“I’m going to walk over by the train bridge and talk to this lady for a few minutes,” he whispers, and Abby nods. “Stay where I can see you, and if anything happens I want you to run back to the motel and find Mommy, okay?”

“Okay,” she warbles. 

“Hold tight to Frenchie, okay?”

Abby nods, and he slowly moves toward Diana. 

“Don’t come too close,” he says when she starts closing the distance between them, and they walk two arms lengths apart until they are just shy of the trestle before they stop and face each other. Now that she’s closer, he can see the deep purple bags under her eyes and the dry, cracked skin on her lips. She looks like hell. 

“I can’t believe I actually found you,” Diana says with a secretive smile, like he ought to be proud of her. “We got so many tips from all across the country. A daycare center in Decatur, a baseball game in Oakland. But something about the way this woman described you…I just knew it was really you.”

“Well,” Mulder says, crossing his arms over his chest. “Let’s hear it. Please tell me the totally justifiable reason that you destroyed my life.”

Diana scoffs, mirroring his posture. 

“I hardly destroyed your life, Fox. Don’t be dramatic.”

Anger so acute it makes his ears ring floods through him, and he clenches his fists.

“You have five minutes,” he reminds her, and she softens. 

“You don’t understand,” she implores, her eyebrows knit. “I didn’t have a choice. They were going to kill you.” Her typically measured, stoic demeanor is entirely absent, replaced by a desperate, harried version of her that he can’t recall having met in the past. 

“That would have been a preferable option,” Mulder says, and her mouth falls open. 

“I love you,” she says emphatically, and Mulder shakes his head. He should have known that she had nothing new to share. Just lies on lies on lies. 

“I was happy, Diana,” he says levelly.

“I know,” she says, taking one step forward before he holds out his hand to stop her. “I was happy, too. We can be happy again, you just have to trust me. I can fix this.”

“I was happy, and you stole that from me,” he spits at her. “You took my memories, my work. You took Scully from me.” Diana’s demeanor shifts, her contrite facade falling away as her jaw sets and her eyes narrow. “You don’t love me, Diana. You never did.”

“You have no idea what I’ve gone through for you,” she says tightly. “You have no idea what I’ve had to do. You should be thanking me.” 

Mulder barks a derisive laugh. 

“Thanking you?!” He throws a glance to Abby and lowers his voice before continuing. “Which part should I be thanking you for? For making me think I cheated on you so you could use my guilt as a weapon? For forcing me to stay in a job that made me fucking miserable? For making me forget about the most important person to me in the world? Thank you so much, Diana, for turning me into your Stepford husband. It was a blast. But if you’ll excuse me, I have a family to get back to. I hope the rest of your life is just as unbearable as you made mine.”

He turns on his heel and stalks back toward Abby, who has been watching the exchange nervously while Frenchie holds an uncomfortable-looking position beside her, hackles still raised. He just wants to get back to Scully and Peter and get the hell out of here. Maybe they’ll need to change course, or contact the Gunmen for a new set of identities, but right now his only goal is to get as far away from Diana as humanly possible. 

“I’m not going to let you do this to me, Fox,” Diana says loudly from behind them.

Mulder keeps walking with his arm around Abby’s shoulder as she drags a perturbed Frenchie by her leash. Abby, prone to curiosity more than cautiousness at the tender age of six, looks back at Diana and shrieks. 

When Mulder turns to see what she’s reacting to, the bright morning sun glints blindingly off polished gunmetal, disorienting him for just a split second. In that split second, a terrified Abby drops Frenchie’s leash, and the snarling dog charges Diana. Abby screams again, this time worried for the welfare of a dog that she’s only just begun to like. 

Diana doesn’t have time to react, much less shoot. Frenchie is on her in an instant, jaws snapping and sharp white teeth bared, and whether by chance or strategy, her first bite is to the forearm of the hand in which Diana holds her weapon. 

“Frenchie!” Abby sobs, abject terror in her eyes, and Mulder forcefully turns her away from the scene and into his torso, burying her face in his belly. 

Diana is clambering backwards towards the river as Frenchie tears at the flesh of her ankles, painting the bottom of her jeans bright red. Diana lifts her foot and delivers a sharp kick to Frenchie’s skull, and the dog lets out a piercing yelp. Having temporarily stunned her attacker, Diana unsteadily gets to her feet and runs onto the trestle, though her gait is slowed by multiple injuries to her legs and feet. Frenchie follows after her, and Mulder’s initial surprise fades enough that he has the wherewithal to take action.

He grabs Abby by the shoulders and looks at her face, which is bright red and wet with tears. 

“I need you to go get Mommy. I know you’re scared, but I need you to be brave.” Abby chokes out a sob, but she nods, and he points her toward the motel a hundred yards or so away. “Run as fast as you can. Our room is the one next to the ice machine, remember? Go!”

Abby takes off at a terrified sprint, her arms pumping furiously. Mulder turns back to the trestle where Diana and Frenchie are an indecipherable blur of blonde fur and blood-stained cotton, wrestling their way further and further out over the river. As he races toward them, he passes by Diana’s abandoned pistol in the grass, and he kicks it into the edge of the treeline along the river. 

When he reaches the trestle, he steps carefully and quickly over the ties, his eyes on the looped end of Frenchie’s leash dragging along the tracks. Diana is on her back, her arms held defensively in front of her face and her heels braced against the wooden ties as she tries to evade Frenchie’s snapping jaws. Her initial loud cries of pain have subsided into muted wails and grunts, and she is no longer trying to fight back.

Frenchie herself is unrecognizable to Mulder. His typically gentle, mildly protective dog looks crazed and vicious, her muzzle wet with blood and her eyes wide and wild. Her continuous guttural bark echoes off the banks of the river, and she pursues Diana with something akin to blind rage, snatching a mouthful of flesh before she backs off and goes in again at another location. 

Mulder gets close enough to smell the hot, metallic stink of Diana’s blood, and he loops his hand through Frenchie’s leash before sitting down and bracing his feet against the track for leverage. He’s not even sure if his goal is to protect Frenchie from Diana or protect Diana from Frenchie, he just needs to put an end to the violent, bloody scene before him.

Diana scoots away quickly when she realizes that her attacker has been restrained, and Mulder pulls with all his might as Frenchie continues to snarl and lunge at her. For a moment they just sit there like that, Mulder struggling to hold Frenchie back and Diana panting with a shell-shocked expression on her blood-smeared face. She looks at Mulder and he meets her eyes, and Diana’s face crumples as she lets out a devastated sob. She starts pawing at her ankle then stands abruptly, swaying under the effects of blood loss and adrenaline.

She looks past him, anger, grief, and frustration contorting her mouth into a grimace. When she raises her arms and he sees the weapon in her hand, he looks sharply over his shoulder and sees Scully standing a few yards behind him, gun drawn. 

“Scully!” he shouts, but there isn’t time to say anything more. 

He lets go of Frenchie’s leash and she lurches forward, teeth bared. There’s the crack of a bullet, and Diana’s body twists from the impact to her shoulder just as Frenchie pushes up onto her hind legs and slams them into Diana’s belly. Amidst a spray of blood, Diana tumbles over the side of the trestle and Frenchie follows, down and down as though in slow motion, until one strikes the smooth surface of the river, and then the other. 

Mulder watches, gobsmacked, as Diana’s inky head surfaces and then disappears under the ruddy water. He spots her again a short distance further down the river, hair plastered to her face as she gasps for air before slipping back under. He continues to watch, holding his eyes open, for long enough that Scully makes her way to him, but he doesn’t see Diana come up again. 

“Are you okay?” Scully asks breathlessly, crouching down beside him and taking in the blood-stained trestle. 

“Yeah,” he says flatly, still watching. 

“I just clipped her shoulder,” she says, visually scanning the river. “She could have made it to shore.”

Mulder shakes his head slowly. 

“She can’t swim.”

Scully is quiet, and when he’s absolutely sure that Diana has not emerged from the swath of the river that he can see, he turns to look at her. Her expression is curious, and a bit concerned. She’s unsure whether Diana’s death is cause for celebration or mourning. 

“She can’t hurt us anymore,” he says, caught off guard when his throat tightens and cuts off the end of his words. 

Scully closes her eyes briefly and then loops her arm around his neck, pulling his head to her chest. He breathes her in deep, allowing the steady beat of her heart under his ear to calm his nervous system. 

“I’m sorry about Frenchie,” she says softly, and Mulder heaves a sigh before pulling away. 

“Where are the kids?” he asks, getting to his feet. 

“In the van. We should get out of here before the cops show up,” Scully says, already headed back down the trestle towards the motel. 

As they cross the grassy field that separates the riverfront park from the motel, Scully stops abruptly and lays her hand on his forearm. 

“What?” he asks, his stomach dropping out. 

“Did you hear that?” she asks, flashing her eyes up to him. 

He holds his breath and strains his ears. There’s a thin, watery bark far off in the distance. 

“It’s probably not her,” he says, tempering his own hope. 

“Probably not,” Scully agrees. 

They start to walk and he hears it again, a little bit louder than before. Mulder stops and turns in the direction of the bark, his hands cupped around his mouth. 

“Frenchie!”

Another woof, this one of a more optimistic pitch. Scully calls her name as well, and they wait. 

“Mulder,” she says, pointing into the brambled tree line beside the river. 

He sees her there, a sopping wet muddy yellow blob, hobbling through a tangle of blackberry bushes and twigs. His heart swells with relief and joy, and he takes off running as his faithful companion limps into the grass, tail wagging and a smile on her panting mouth. When he reaches her, he drops to his knees and scoops her up, and she licks his face as her fur soaks his jeans and t-shirt. 

“Good girl,” he says, scratching her ears. “You did a good job, French Fry.”

He’s overcome with emotion, and Frenchie licks away the tears that wet his cheeks. He can’t bring himself to feel any sadness for the loss of Diana; whatever he thought they once had, he now knows that it was never real. He was a possession to her, a thing she felt entitled to. She’d rather have seen him dead than happy without her. What she felt toward him was the furthest thing from love imaginable. 

Now that she’s gone, maybe he can finally find some peace. 

Tagging @today-in-fic

#the x files #x files fanfic #txf #dana scully #fox mulder #xf fanfic #x files #the x-files #xfiles #thexfiles

[sisterspooky1013]

Gaslight, Chapter 44/48

Rated X | Read it here on AO3

Mulder watches Abby from across the small table in their motel room as she eats a bowl of Frosted Flakes, her newly blonde hair hanging in a tangled curtain over half her face and her one visible eye glued to the TV.

She woke at 6:00 am, as she seems naturally inclined to do, and asked him what was for breakfast, giving no indication of distress despite the sleepless night they suffered. He hands her a vitamin and she wordlessly pops it into her mouth, smiling a secretive smile at the antics of the cartoon character on the TV screen, and he feels something warm blossom in his chest. 

Nothing about this situation is ideal. He can’t rightfully say that he’s glad Cal is dead—that seems inhumanely callous—and the stress that Scully is under is painful to watch, but playing the role of “dad” has only confirmed for him that this is something he wants. The chance to do it with Scully, even in these objectively fucked-up circumstances, is, in some respects, a dream come true. 

He looks over at the bed where she and Peter are still sleeping, her dirty blonde hair splayed out over the pillow and Peter’s leg flung haphazardly across her hip, and he feels it again. That warm pull. That sensation of rightness. If it feels this good now, he can only imagine how incredible it will feel when they’re no longer in danger, when they can enjoy a lazy morning and then take the kids to the park. His mind is quickly filling up all the empty spaces left by his stolen memories with dreams for the future—a future that will begin in just a few short days. 

Thinking about what’s to come helps distract him from his anger towards Diana. When he allows himself to think about her, his jaw tenses and his muscles quake with hatred so intense it frightens him. Each day brings new revelations regarding the depth of her deception, and the lengths she went to in order to deny him his own reality and erase Scully from his life. If she walked into the room right now, he might just throttle her with his bare hands. He might just enjoy doing it. 

Mulder shudders, shaking the thought away, and he hears a familiar sound from the bed that makes him smile. Scully lets out a disgruntled little groan and carefully moves Peter’s leg off her hip before she rolls to the edge of the bed and sits up, her lighter hair momentarily catching him off guard. His head aches as a collection of memories burble up: snippets of Scully tired and grouchy early in the morning or in the middle of the night, snatching a cup of coffee out of his hand with an irritated glare. 

“Morning, sunshine,” he says brightly, not even attempting to hide his smile when she turns her head and levels him with that very glare. 

“You’re chipper,” she croaks flatly, then gives Abby a long look. “How is she?”

“Seems fine,” Mulder says with a shrug. “She doesn’t remember anything.”

“That’s good, I guess,” Scully says, then yawns. 

She slowly stands, wincing at her sore back. Hours in the car and muscles full of tension from constant stress aren’t easy on the body, and he’s noticed that she isn’t eating much. 

“The tub’s pretty nice, given the establishment,” he remarks as she crosses the room stiffly and steals a bite of his gas station danish. “You should take a bath.”

Scully grimaces, perhaps at the low quality pastry, or perhaps at the idea of taking a bath in a questionably clean motel tub. After a quick glance at both of the children, she leans down and kisses him on the cheek. 

“That doesn’t sound terrible, actually,” she says. “Will you be okay with the kids?”

Mulder looks at Peter, who is still asleep, and Abby, who is giggling at the TV, and then back at Scully. 

“I think I’ve got it covered,” he says lightly, and she smiles a grateful smile. 

“Thank you,” she tells him, squeezing his shoulder before she disappears into the bathroom. 

When water starts pounding loudly against the bottom of the tub, Peter sits up and looks around. 

“Morning, Bear,” Mulder calls out to him, and the little boy turns on his belly and slides off the side of the bed, then heads straight for the bathroom. “Your mom’s in there,” Mulder warns him, but Peter pushes the door open anyway, and Scully lets out a surprised shriek. 

“Jesus, you scared me,” she admonishes him. 

“I have to go potty,” Mulder hears him explain.

When Peter returns from the bathroom, he retrieves his stuffed blue dog from the bed and climbs onto the chair beside Abby. 

“What do you want for breakfast?” Mulder asks him, peeking into the double-layered paper bag that serves as their traveling pantry. “Cereal, Pop-Tart, muffin,” he lists off. 

“What’s a Pop-Tart?” Peter asks, and Mulder feels a surge of joy at the idea of getting to introduce him to something new.

“You’ve never had a Pop-Tart?” he asks incredulously, already tearing the shiny foil wrapper open. He sets one of the frosted rectangles in front of Peter and keeps the other for himself. Peter examines it closely, scratching off one of the multicolored sprinkles with his fingernail, and then takes a cautious bite from the corner. “The good stuff’s in the middle,” Mulder tells him, breaking his own Pop-Tart in half and showing Peter the filling. 

Peter does the same, breaking his Pop-Tart into two, and then takes a hearty bite from the open edge. His eyebrows lift and he gives Mulder a thumbs up, and again Mulder is struck by the dichotomy of his emotions. He ruffles Peter’s hair and takes a bite of his own Pop-Tart, feeling so completely normal it’s almost obscene. 

He watches TV with them for a bit, unsuccessfully attempting to follow the plot of a little girl with a football-shaped head who carries a talking backpack and asks her audience to repeat things back to her in Spanish. There is an occasional splash from the bathroom or a clatter of voices on the sidewalk outside their room, at which Frenchie stands from her post in front of the door and growls menacingly. 

“Easy,” Mulder coos at her each time, and she walks in a circle before settling again. 

“Is there more Pop Parts?” Peter asks, and Mulder looks over at him to find the child rubbing his knuckles against his eyes firmly. 

“I think there might be,” Mulder says, rifling through the pantry bag. “You okay?”

Peter pulls his hands away and looks up at Mulder. His eyelids are slightly puffy, the skin red from his aggressive rubbing. 

“My eyes are itchy,” he complains, squeezing one shut. 

“Did you get something in them?” Mulder asks, tearing open another package of Pop-Tarts. 

Peter shrugs and descends on his second tart. Mulder’s mind is beginning to wander when Peter groans. 

“It’s hurting,” the child complains, and when Mulder looks at him, he’s surprised by the significant increase in swelling around his eyes in the space of just a few minutes. 

“Come here,” he says, taking the Pop-Tart from Peter’s hand and setting it on the table. “Let’s go rinse your eyes out.” 

He guides Peter to the bathroom door and knocks lightly three times, waiting until Scully grants them permission to enter. He pokes his head in and his eyes immediately go to her naked body beneath the water. By the time they wander up to her face she’s smiling at him coyly, her blonde locks piled on top of her head. 

“Can I help you?” she asks teasingly. It’s clear that the bath is improving her mood. 

“Bear got something in his eyes,” he explains. “Can we sneak in and use the sink?”

Scully’s eyebrows furrow and she sits up, wrapping her arm across her breasts. “What’s in his eyes?” Mulder pushes Peter in front of him, and Scully’s mouth falls open. “Oh my god,” she says in a tone that makes Mulder nervous. “He wasn’t like this when he woke up, was he? I didn’t notice anything when he came in to use the bathroom.”

Scully holds out her hand and motions Peter closer, and he stands at the side of the tub while she gently pulls his eyelids open with her wet fingers. 

“No, he was fine when he woke up. This just popped up in the last ten minutes or so,” Mulder explains. 

“My mouth feels funny,” Peter says mournfully, and the color drains from Scully’s face. 

“Did he eat something?” she asks, standing up and reaching for a towel. 

“He had a Pop-Tart,” Mulder says helplessly as Scully steps out of the bathtub. “Why?”

“What kind?” she says even as she’s leaving the bathroom, heading straight for the pantry bag with Mulder hot on her heels. 

It hits him like a punch to the chest, making his ears ring. Scully turns around and holds up the empty box, her mouth slightly open and her breath coming out in pants. Strawberry. He bought strawberry Pop-Tarts. 

“Fuck,” Mulder says loudly, and Abby’s head snaps over to him. 

“That’s a bad word,” she announces. 

“I forgot. I didn’t even think about it when I bought them,” he says, crouching down in front of Peter, who is looking increasingly puffy and uncomfortable. “What do we do?”

“I’m taking him to the ER,” Scully says levelly, and when Mulder turns to look at her she’s already half dressed. “I don’t know how severe the allergy is, and he’s already in early stage anaphylaxis. He needs epinephrine.”

“What if someone recognizes you?” Mulder asks, and the dirty look she shoots him makes him feel like absolute shit. 

“The reaction could be fatal,” she says, sitting on the edge of the bed to pull her shoes on. “We don’t really have a choice.”

“Where are you going?” Abby asks. 

Scully pulls in a deep breath and her demeanor shifts slightly. 

“Your brother isn’t feeling well and I need to take him to see a doctor. You can stay here with Fox and Frenchie, okay?”

“I don’t want to go to the doctor!” Peter objects, and Scully again inhales deeply and lets it out slowly. She rises from the edge of the bed, crouching down beside Mulder without looking at him. 

“I know you don’t, Bear,” she says with a sad smile, taking the child’s hand. “But your body is really upset right now and we need some medicine to help you feel better. I’ll be right there with you the whole time, okay?”

Peter nods, his swollen eyes wet and his bottom lip sticking out. 

“Do you want me to get him dressed?” Mulder asks, and Scully barely glances at him before she stands and picks Peter up. 

“No, it’s fine,” she says curtly, retrieving her purse and the keys to the van. “Hopefully we won’t be gone too long.”

She moves toward the door and he follows after her, feeling useless and guilty. He should have remembered. It’s his job to remember these things now. 

“You have your new ID?” he asks, grabbing Frenchie by the collar to keep her from following them. Scully nods. “What if I need to reach you?”

“The burner cell is in the glove box. I’ll take it with me,” she answers, stepping through the open door and into a blue sky morning, Peter on her hip. 

“Sc—” he starts, then catches himself. She turns around anyway, her jaw set and a blonde tendril hanging down the center of her forehead. “I’m sorry,” he says meekly, and she sighs, then hikes Peter up a bit higher. 

“I know,” she tells him, her tone a touch softer. “It was an accident. I just need to take care of him right now, okay?”

Mulder nods, and she holds his eye for a beat before loading Peter into the back of the van and pulling out of the parking lot. He watches until they disappear around the corner, then pats Frenchie’s hip and ushers her back inside. 

In the motel room, Abby is still watching TV, too young to appreciate the gravity of the situation. Frenchie trots over to her, tail wagging, and butts her nose up against the child’s leg. Mulder opens his mouth to call the dog away, but to his surprise Abby plucks a soggy frosted flake out of her bowl and holds it out for Frenchie to lick from her fingers. 

“Ew, her tongue is wet!” Abby says with a smile, scrunching up her nose. 

Mulder sits heavily on the edge of the bed, overcome with tiredness as the adrenaline begins to fade. 

“You wanna take her on a walk?” he asks wanly, and Abby nods.

-

Scully approaches the front desk in the emergency department, her nerves a jumbled mess. Justin Davenport, Justin Davenport, she repeats in her head over and over, terrified that she’ll call him by the wrong name. 

The young woman behind the counter lifts her head and gives them a perfunctory smile that doesn’t reach her seafoam green eyes. “Hi, how can we help you today?” she asks, smoothing her hand over her jet black hair, which is tied up in a bun on top of her head. 

“My son is having an allergic reaction,” Scully explains, and the woman looks at Peter’s face and frowns. “He’s allergic to strawberries and he inadvertently ingested some about thirty minutes ago.”

She resists the urge to explain the stage of his anaphylactic reaction or dictate what kind of care he needs. Both because this woman isn’t in a position to provide care, and because Lisa Davenport is not a medical doctor. Scully doesn’t want to draw any unwanted attention. 

“Oh no, buddy,” the woman says to Peter, whose face is swollen and uncomfortably tight. He’s not yet struggling to breathe, though his constricted airway is audible by the slight whistle he produces with each inhale. “Let’s get you feeling better, okay? What’s his name please, mom?”

“Justin Davenport,” Scully recites flawlessly. 

“And do you have your ID and insurance information, please?”

Scully wrestles her British Columbia ID out of the back pocket of her jeans and watches a flash of irritation cross the woman’s face before she self-corrects and smiles thinly. 

“Is this address up to date? We’ll need to mail you an invoice for the cost of treatment.”

Scully has no idea whether the address on her ID is accurate, but she nods nonetheless. 

“Okay, Mister Justin, I’m going to give you this really cool bracelet,” the woman says, holding out her hand to Peter. 

Peter moves his mouth close to Scully’s ear and whispers, “You telled her my spy name.”

Scully flashes her eyes to the woman, who quirks her head at them curiously.

“Let her put the bracelet on,” Scully encourages Peter, pulling his puffed-up arm away from her waist. The woman secures a plastic hospital bracelet around Peter’s wrist, and he examines it closely. 

“Does this say my spy name?” he asks, and Scully resists the urge to chastise him. 

“It says your legal name,” she explains, offering the woman a smile that she hopes conveys that children say the darndest things. 

“Do your mommy and daddy call you something else?” the woman asks, leaning forward on her elbows, and a spike of adrenaline rings in Scully’s ears. 

“We’re big on nicknames,” she explains curtly. “Should we sit down or do we go directly to triage?”

“You can sit right there in those yellow chairs and the triage nurse will be with you in just a few minutes. You should be seen pretty quickly for an allergic reaction,” the woman says with a bob of her head towards a small cluster of chairs upholstered with mustard yellow fabric. Scully begins to turn away when the woman speaks again, directly to Peter. “What do your mommy and daddy call you, honey?” she asks. 

“I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t want to delay his treatment,” Scully tells her, and the woman’s face sinks into a chagrined smile. 

“Of course, sorry,” she says meekly, and Scully breathes a relieved sigh as she walks away. 

She sits in one of the ugly yellow chairs and sets Peter in the one just beside her. There are a handful of other people littered throughout the expansive waiting room in various stages of distress, including a man in a dirty bomber jacket who is clutching his stomach and groaning loudly. There’s a familiar antiseptic smell to the air, paired with stale cigarette smoke and body odor that clings to the upholstery on the chairs. 

“How are you doing?” Scully asks, resting two fingers over the pulse point on Peter’s wrist. “Are you able to breathe okay?”

Peter nods, though he looks miserable. His eyes have been reduced to slits and his mouth hangs open to accommodate his swollen tongue. 

“You telled her my spy name, Mommy,” he lectures her, his nasally voice rounding out the consonants. 

Scully gently pries his eyes open to check the dilation of his pupils. 

“Remember what Daddy said? We only use spy names when we’re around other people,” she reminds him. “Your real name is the one that’s a secret,” she says quietly, though there is no one else sitting in the triage area. 

Peter looks at her for a beat and then smacks the heel of his hand against his forehead. 

“I forgot!” he exclaims, smiling though he looks like a bloated marshmallow. 

“Justin Davenport?”

Scully turns to the triage nurse, who has skin the color of henna and long box braids pulled into a high ponytail. 

“Here,” Peter says, holding up his hand as though she’s taking roll. 

The nurse smiles a wide, pearly smile and holds her hand out to Peter.

“Hi Justin, I’m Cynthia,” she says brightly, taking Peter’s hand and shaking it while he looks at her bemusedly. “You look pretty uncomfortable. Let’s see what we can do to help.”

Scully stands guard in the corner of a curtained-off area while Cynthia takes Peter’s vitals and asks him a series of questions. 

“So what did you get into, Justin? What was for breakfast today?” she asks as she presses her stethoscope to his back. 

“Tart tarts,” Peter says, then sucks in a big breath, per her direction. “My daddy gived it to me.”

“It was a strawberry Pop-Tart,” Scully elaborates. “My husband forgot that he’s allergic to strawberries.”

“Let’s try and have Justin answer for himself,” Cynthia says firmly with a warm smile. “I’ll let you know if I need more information.”

Scully nods and swallows, flop sweat dampening the underarms of her T-shirt. 

“Open up your mouth really big like an alligator,” Cynthia tells Peter, then shines a penlight down his throat. “Definitely looks like an anaphylactic reaction,” she says to Scully while she palpates Peter’s lymph nodes. “The doctor will likely treat it with epinephrine, and then we’ll need to monitor him for a few hours to be sure the reaction has subsided.”

A few hours. Standard protocol, but they don’t have a few hours to waste. Scully wants to get out of this city as soon as possible. 

“We have a plane to catch this afternoon,” she says, trying to keep the panic out of her voice. “Is there any way I can monitor him myself?”

Cynthia gives her a long, appraising look. 

“Boarding a plane would be relatively irresponsible,” she says coolly. “If his reaction worsens, you’d be stuck at thirty-thousand feet with no way to treat him.”

Again, Scully nods and swallows. 

“What’s this?” Cynthia asks, leaning forward to look at the back of Peter’s neck, where Scully knows there are two small sutures over the site of his exorcized chip. 

“It’s—” she begins to explain, not even entirely sure what she’s going to say, but Cynthia holds up her hand. 

“Please let Justin answer,” she says sternly, and Scully clamps her mouth shut. 

“That’s where Mommy cutted my bug bite off,” Peter says, and Cynthia raises her eyebrows, throwing Scully a quick glance. She bites her lip to resist speaking.

“Mommy cut your bug bite off?” Cynthia repeats incredulously. “Why would she need to do that?”

“We drived in the van aaaaaall night,” Peter says in his thick, nasally voice, miming his hands on a steering wheel. “And a bug bited me, but just a small one, and Mommy cutted it off.”

Scully waits, her heart hammering, and finally Cynthia turns to her. 

“What’s the story there, mom?” she asks, making a note on Peter’s chart. 

“He did have a bug bite,” Scully explains. “He wouldn’t stop scratching it and it became infected. His doctor decided to treat it with surgical debridement, but I did assist with keeping him still. That’s likely why he thinks I performed the procedure.”

“No,” Peter says, shaking his head with a confused frown. “Hickey’s not a doctor.”

“Hickey?” Cynthia asks, and Scully heaves a sigh. 

“It was rather traumatic for him, and now we’re dealing with this,” she says with some frustration. “Justin has a very active imagination.”

There’s a beat of silence. Cynthia looks at Peter, and then at Scully, deciding whether the child’s seemingly fantastical story is worth closer examination. Scully holds her breath, her heart pounding in her ears, and waits. 

“I’m going to move you to an open bed,” Cynthia says. “The doctor will be in shortly.”

“Thank you,” Scully says, closing her eyes briefly as tension drains from her shoulders.

-

In the three hours since Scully and Peter left the motel, Mulder and Abby have walked Frenchie five times, played enough Tic Tac Toe to cover the front and back of half a dozen sheets of paper, and made a blanket fort. 

After lunch, Abby falls asleep on top of the bed with a book in her hand. While she naps, Mulder takes every item out of the pantry bag and scours the ingredients for strawberries, burying the empty Pop-Tart box at the bottom of the garbage can so he doesn’t have to look at it. He keeps waiting for the phone to ring, or for Scully to come through the door. Without Abby to distract him, his mind turns to worst case scenarios. 

The second-to-worst case scenario is that they’ve been discovered somehow. Maybe someone recognized them, or maybe Scully called Peter by the wrong name and aroused suspicion. If the police were called, they could be in custody. Scully could be on her way back to Washington. He shudders to think what would happen to Peter. 

The worst case scenario is that Peter is dead. If he is dead, it is categorically Mulder’s fault. Scully would never forgive him, and even if she did he would certainly never forgive himself. Abby would lose her father and her brother in the space of just a few days. The trauma of her new life might start to rival that of whatever came before. 

He feels anxious and nauseated, hungry but too worried to eat. He calls the front desk and asks for a late checkout, buying them another hour, and then crashes onto the other bed and manages to fall into a fitful sleep. 

She looks pale, even for her. Her skin has a slightly gray cast that reminds him of her battle with cancer, when her hugs were so weak it felt like embracing air. He watches the flash of her heartbeat on the monitor, the rise and fall of her chest, and reminds himself of what the doctor said. A long road to recovery, but she’ll be okay. She’s strong. 

Her eyelashes flutter and he springs out of his chair, sending it clattering against the sink behind him. When her eyes open, he’s right beside the bed, her small hand wrapped up in both of his. 

“Hi,” he says with a smile. 

At some point this became their standard greeting for hospital bedsides, though they never discussed it. 

“Hi,” she rasps, then grimaces. He fetches her a cup of water and helps her take a drink. “I’m alive,” she says, her voice still rough. She sounds surprised. 

“Yes, you are,” he says as he perches on the edge of her bed, raising her knuckles to his lips and dropping a chaste kiss to each rounded joint. 

“Ritter?” she asks, narrowing her eyes. 

“Unfortunately, yes,” he tells her. “But you won’t be working together again.”

Scully’s eyebrows raise in an attempt at a disappointed expression.

“Pity,” she says lightly. 

“Cryin’ shame,” Mulder echoes, holding her hand against his cheek. 

She considers him for a long beat. 

“Are you okay?” she finally asks, and he scoffs. 

“I’m not the one who needed six units of blood to stay earthside,” he says, reaching out to tuck her hair behind her ear. “I’m fine. Just worried about you.”

Scully sighs and blinks a slow, sleepy blink. “I’m exhausted,” she says, her tongue thick. 

“Get some rest,” he says, standing. “I’ll get out of your hair.”

“No,” she says, tightening her grip on his hand and then wincing at the exertion. “Will you stay?”

He’s struck by an odd feeling of elation. Odd because he didn’t expect to find it here, in these circumstances. 

“Of course,” he says, dragging over his abandoned chair and sitting at her bedside. “I’ll be right here.”

She smiles weakly and squeezes his hand. He watches her eyes fall closed, and quickly her breathing becomes shallow and even. She doesn’t wake again for another three hours, and he’s right there the entire time, listening to the steady beat of the monitor measuring her heart rate. It’s the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard. 

-

Scully taps her shoe against the weathered linoleum floor and checks her watch again. It’s been two hours since Peter was given a shot of epinephrine, and while the skin around his eyes is still red and raw-looking, the swelling in his face has subsided. He’s currently asleep, curled up on his side with his hand tucked under his cheek as a pillow. 

She knows that Mulder must be worried, but there is absolutely no cell reception inside the hospital, and the curtained area that serves as their room doesn’t have a phone. She’d have to ask permission to use the phone at the nurse’s station and call the front desk of the motel to be connected to the right room, then speak to Mulder with an audience. Alternatively, she could leave Peter alone and exit the building to see if the burner cell can find service outside. She’s already nervous regarding their interaction with Cynthia, and she just can’t bring herself to risk arousing further suspicion. 

“Knock knock,” coos their new nurse, Megan, as she pulls the curtain back and pokes her head in. “How’s our star patient?”

“Just sleeping it off,” Scully says with a weak smile. “I’m hoping we can be discharged soon. My husband and daughter are waiting for us back at the motel.”

Megan averts her eyes uncomfortably as she approaches Peter’s bedside and checks his vitals. She’s middle-aged and short-statured with graying curly hair and an ample backside. 

“Doctor G should be doing rounds soon,” she says, a friendly smile plastered to her mouth. “You’ll have to ask him about that.”

“Of course,” Scully says, unsettled by Megan’s clear discomfort. 

Peter opens his eyes, squinting at the fluorescent lights overhead. 

“Well hello there, Justin!” Megan says brightly. “You’re looking much more like a kid than a puffer fish!”

“I’m hungry,” Peter whines. 

“That’s a good sign,” Megan tells him, throwing Scully a wink. “Mom can order something for you from the cafeteria. Just fill out that form there and bring it to the nurse’s station,” she says with a nod towards a small table covered in pamphlets. 

Scully orders macaroni and cheese with a side of applesauce, and with each bite a bit more of Peter’s personality comes back to him, though he is still lethargic and weak. They roll into their fourth hour since leaving the motel, and nervous energy mounts and mounts until she begins pacing the small curtained area like a caged animal. 

“Mrs. Davenport?”

Scully wheels around to see the chief resident, Dr. Gerlick, standing in a gap in the curtain. He’s tall and blonde, thirtysomething, the kind of chief resident she used to resent as a first year, because her cohorts spent more time flirting with him than applying their education. Beside him is a woman in a blouse and slacks who bears a striking resemblance to Diana, enough so that Scully’s heart skips a beat before she realizes it isn’t her. 

“This is Eugenia,” Dr. Gerlick says, gesturing to the woman. “Justin is just about cleared for discharge, but before we do that Eugenia is going to talk with him for a bit.”

Scully’s eyes flash to the badge pinned to the waistband of the woman’s slacks. Eugenia Parker, Social Worker. A wave of nausea hits her so hard that she rests one of her hands on Peter’s bed to steady herself. 

“May I ask why?” she asks gently. 

“It’s standard procedure for accidental injury,” Eugenia says, stepping forward to offer her hand. “Nothing to worry about, we just need to make sure that Justin will be safe after we discharge him.”

Scully’s mind begins racing as she tries to recall what kinds of questions these hospital social workers usually ask, and how Peter might answer them. She realizes that Eugenia is still standing there with her hand extended, her megawatt smile slowly fading. 

“Sorry, I haven’t eaten in a while, I’m a little out of it,” Scully says, accepting Eugenia’s hand. “Am I able to be present while you talk with him?”

Eugenia’s eyes dart over to Dr. Gerlick. 

“Let’s step right outside, Mrs. Davenport,” Dr. Gerlick says, gesturing to the other side of the curtain. “I’ll provide discharge instructions for Justin while Eugenia chats with him. We’ll just be a few feet away.”

Scully hesitates, but, seeing no other option, she leans over the bed and kisses Peter on the forehead. 

“Be good,” she says, offering him a smile. 

They step through the curtain and Dr. Gerlick pulls it closed, obscuring Peter and Eugenia from view. Scully tries to keep one ear on Eugenia and one on Dr. Gerlick, which is challenging. 

“It will likely take a couple days for Justin to fully recover,” Dr. Gerlick tells her in that patronizing way that male doctors speak to women. “He’ll need extra rest, and extra fluids.”

Scully nods. On the other side of the curtain, she hears Eugenia ask Peter how he ended up eating strawberries. 

“My daddy gived me a tart tart for breakfast,” Peter says matter-of-factly. 

“Is your daddy a nice daddy?” Eugenia asks. “Does your daddy ever hurt your body when he’s upset?”

“...anaphylaxis is essentially an out-of-proportion immune response,” Dr. Gerlick is explaining, and Scully nods along, only half listening. 

“How about this ouchie on your neck, how did that happen?”

“...for an allergy as severe as Justin’s, I’m surprised that you don’t carry an epipen,” Dr. Gerlick says, frowning at her. 

“We do,” she interjects. “We just forgot it. Of course the one time we forget is when we need it,” she adds with a self-deprecating laugh. “We certainly won’t make that mistake again.”

She strains to hear Peter over Dr. Gerlick’s lecture regarding what might have befallen him if they’d not been so close to a hospital. 

“...and me and my sister Bunny had to ride in the van with Hickey, Dryers, and French Toast. And we drived aaaaaall night while Daddy and Motor looked for Mommy on the train. A bug bited me, and Mommy cutted the bite off.”

“Wow. Did that hurt, when your mommy cut the bite off?”

“Nope, but when Mommy cutted Bunny’s bite off, it hurted a lot. Hickey and Dryers had to help hold her, and Motor too. I mean Daddy.” 

Scully begins to feel lightheaded. 

“I’m sorry, Dr. Gerlick, I think I need to sit down,” she says, and the doctor ushers her into a chair beside an empty bed adjacent to Peter’s. 

“Let me get you some juice,” the doctor says before hurrying away. Through the curtain, Scully can hear Peter divulging every sordid detail of their perilous trip. 

“We all have to be super spies now, with secret names. And I have a rainbow hat so nobody can know I’m me. And Bunny got new hair so nobody knows she’s her. And we’re going to Camada to swim in a lake.”

“Oh my,” Eugenia says. Scully can hear the scritch of pen on paper as she takes notes. 

“Here you go,” Dr. Gerlick says. Scully takes a small bottle of apple juice from his hands and cracks it open, downing the sugary liquid in a few gulps. She figures her next stop is the police station, and it will be a long while before she has a proper meal. 

The doctor is now kneeling on the floor in front of her, his fingers pressed to her carotid artery. 

“Are you sure you’re okay, Mrs. Davenport?” he asks, his soulful blue eyes showing genuine concern. 

“I’m fine,” she says weakly. “I just didn’t have a chance to eat breakfast with everything going on with P—Justin.”

On the other side of the curtain, Peter is telling Eugenia that his daddy died in a terrible accident. 

“I thought you said your daddy was the one who gave you the strawberry Pop-Tart?” Eugenia asks. 

“That was my other daddy,” Peter explains. 

“I’m going to be sick,” Scully says urgently. 

An emesis bag is placed in her hands. She doubles over in the chair as the apple juice passes over her tongue a second time, still cold from the fridge but sour with acrid bile. 

“Is somebody throwing up?” Peter asks. “My sister throwed up all her Easter candy once.”

Scully dry-heaves into the bag, tears in her eyes and knots in her stomach. 

-

Someone is knocking on the door. 

“Housekeeping!” 

Mulder bolts upright and looks around. Abby is just opening her eyes, similarly confused and disoriented. 

“Who is that?” she asks, pushing her abandoned book off her chest and sitting up. 

The door snicks open and Frenchie lowers her head and growls a low, menacing growl. A middle-aged woman begins backing into the room, pulling a cart behind her, and Frenchie, identifying her as a stranger, charges the door with her teeth bared. Mulder grabs her by the collar as the woman startles violently, turning to face him with her hand pressed to her chest.

“Sorry, we’re still here,” he says, holding Frenchie tightly as she continues to snarl. 

“Jesus, you scared me,” the woman says, somewhat angrily. “Checkout was at 11:00.”

“I know, we asked for a late checkout,” he explains. 

“It’s almost 2:00,” she says, propping a hand on her hip. “You’re gonna have to pay for another night.”

He looks at the nightstand to confirm the time. He and Abby have both been asleep for hours, and Scully and Peter still aren’t back. His heart sinks, and his throat immediately becomes tight. 

“I’ll call the front desk and let them know,” he says, and the woman glowers at him as she begins to push the cart back over the threshold. “Sorry,” he adds, and she shrugs. 

“One less room to clean. Don’t bother me none,” she grumbles. 

He’s reaching for the phone when Scully appears in the still-open doorway, Peter asleep against her shoulder. 

“Oh my god,” he says, rushing across the room to meet her. “Why didn’t you call?” he hisses, quickly shifting from worry to anger as he takes Peter from her arms and lays him down on the bed. “I’ve been worried sick.”

“I just want to get out of here,” she says, and he notices how depleted she looks, like she’s been through hell. “Let��s just go, please.”

“Is Bear okay?” Abby asks, and Scully nods. 

“Yeah, he’s okay, sweetpea,” she says as she bends down to pet an overly-excited Frenchie, her tone softening. “He’s going to be extra sleepy for a bit, but he’ll be okay.”

They quickly pack the room and check out, and when Mulder explains the situation to the woman at the front desk she takes pity on him and doesn’t charge them for a second night. They stop at McDonald’s for Happy Meals, and to his surprise Scully asks for a cheeseburger and wolfs it down in four bites. He steals glances at her as they get on I-94 and continue west toward St. Paul. 

“I don’t want to talk about it right now, Mulder,” she says, twisting in her seat to look at Peter, who is munching on a french fry with weary, reddened eyes. “I just need a minute.”

She rests the side of her forehead against the window and sighs. He desperately wants to know what happened, and whether they are at additional risk. He desperately wants to tell her how sorry he is, how badly he fucked up. How he’s afraid that he’s not cut out for this parenting thing. But she’s already fading in and out of consciousness, and he can’t bring himself to cajole her into conversation. He reaches behind his seat and grabs a sweatshirt he picked up in Indiana, then sets it carefully in her lap. She opens her eyes and gives him a questioning look, given that it’s over 80 degrees out. 

“To use as a pillow,” he says, offering her a smile. 

She smiles back, reaching across the console to squeeze his thigh. 

“Thank you,” she says, carefully folding the fabric into a square which she wedges between her head and the door jam. 

She falls asleep quickly, and the children are surprisingly somber and quiet in the back seat, watching the midwestern landscape rush past their windows. Mulder turns on the radio, keeping the volume low so it won’t disturb Scully. 

Desperate for changing,

Starving for truth.

I’m closer to where I started,

I’m chasing after you. 

They drive, and drive, and drive. Each mile brings them that much further away from danger. That much closer to home. 

I’m living for the only thing I know,

I’m running and not quite sure where to go. 

And I don’t know what I’m diving into,

I’m hanging by a moment here with you.

There’s nothing else to lose,

There’s nothing else to find. 

There’s nothing in the world, 

That can change my mind. 

There is nothing else. 

There is nothing else.

There is nothing else. 

Tagging @today-in-fic

#the x files #x files fanfic #txf #dana scully #fox mulder #xf fanfic #x files #the x-files #xfiles

[sisterspooky1013]

Gaslight, Chapter 42/48

Rated X | Read it here on AO3

“Mommy?”

Scully startles awake, opening her eyes to find Abby standing at her bedside in the dimly lit room. The clock on the nightstand reads 6:00 am and Mulder is curled up behind her, his hand snaked up under her shirt to rest on her bare belly.

“Good morning, sweetpea,” she whispers, carefully extracting Mulder’s hand before she pulls the covers back and sits up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. Abby looks at Mulder, and Scully can see the little gears turning in her head. “Did you get good sleep?” she asks, tucking the child’s tangled hair behind her ears.

“Peter kicked me,” Abby says flatly.

“Not much fun to share a bed with your brother, is it?” she says sympathetically, and Abby shakes her head.

“Hey,” Mulder says in a creaky baritone, and Scully turns to look at him.

His hair is sticking up in all directions, only one of his eyes cracked open. He stretches his arms up over his head and makes a little grunting sound, and she has an overwhelming urge to kiss him, which she ignores.

“Good morning,” she says, offering him a smile. “How’d you sleep?”

“Like a log,” he says, returning her smile with an impish, innuendo-filled one of his own. Scully feels herself blushing and she looks away.

“What’s for breakfast?” Abby asks, and Scully sighs.

“All we have in the room is crackers, I’m afraid,” she informs Abby, who scrunches up her nose. “We can stop and get something more substantial on our way out.”

“I can go grab something,” Mulder says as he throws the covers back. Frenchie rises from her post in front of the door and wags her tail aggressively. “Right after I take French Toast for a walk. What do you like to eat for breakfast, Bunny?”

Abby smiles at his use of her new nickname, and something concurrently lovely and painful twinges in Scully’s chest.

“Chocolate chip pancakes with whipped cream?” Abby says hopefully, testing the waters to see what she can get away with.

“How about a muffin?” Scully counters, and Abby shrugs.

“Sure.”

“What about Sleeping Beauty?” Mulder asks, gesturing to Peter with his chin while he slips on his shoes.

“You don’t need to do anything elaborate, Mulder. Just no strawberries; Peter’s allergic,” Scully tells him.

Mulder takes Frenchie out for a short walk, then deposits her back in the room and grabs his wallet and the keys to the van.

“I’ll be back in a bit,” he says, walking purposefully towards Scully and leaning down to give her a kiss.

Scully’s eyes widen and she leans back, and Mulder freezes.

“Bye,” she says awkwardly, and he straightens up.

Abby looks between the two adults skeptically, her child’s mind able to discern that they are behaving strangely, but not yet holding the context to understand why.

“Catch you later, Bunny,” Mulder says to the child, holding up his hand in request of a high five.

Abby slaps her palm against his. “Catch you later, Fox,” she mimics.

Mulder leaves, and Scully considers Abby for a moment.

“How are you feeling today?” she asks, and Abby shrugs.

“Okay.”

“You don’t feel strange at all? Or different than you did yesterday?”

Abby shakes her head.

Scully tries to think of something she could ask to gauge the impact of removing the chip on Abby’s memory, but it’s difficult to come up with anything. Scully has no memories of her own to reference, and a six year old isn’t likely to recall the details of something that happened three months ago regardless. Perhaps that is what makes Abby’s experience different from Mulder’s or Cal’s: the long term memory of a child is already fuzzy at best.

She realizes that now would be the ideal time to tell the children about Cal, and her stomach immediately twists into knots. She doesn’t want to give them the opportunity to ask about him again, and it’s probably best that Mulder isn’t present for the conversation. While she might like to have him there to support her, to the children he’s a practical stranger.

She sends Abby to the bathroom to brush her teeth and get dressed, then sits heavily on the bed beside a still-sleeping Peter. The child jostles, but doesn’t stir, and she hauls him up off the mattress, holding him in a cradle carry like an enormous baby. His long, dark eyelashes flutter, revealing a sliver of white before falling closed again.

“Wake up, sweet boy,” she says quietly before kissing the tip of his nose.

Peter sighs, and feeling the weight of his little body in her arms, looking at the plump apples of his cheeks, she is struck with the knowledge that there was a time when his most basic needs were not met. A swell of emotion lodges itself in her throat imagining him thin and dirty, neglected and hungry. It’s unfathomable.

“Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater,” she coos, dipping his head back. Peter smiles and opens his eyes. “Good morning,” she says brightly.

When the children are both dressed and Peter has mourned the fact that Blue’s Clues is not available on the motel TV, Scully sits them down on the bed they slept in, so nauseous she’s at genuine risk of vomiting. Frenchie sits beside the bed and rests her head on Scully’s thigh, and Scully gives her a few pats before shooing her away.

Though she’s given an enormous amount of thought to how to tell them this terrible news, when she looks at their innocent little faces she’s not sure she can go through with it.

“Is Daddy coming today?” Abby asks, and Scully’s throat immediately closes up. She shakes her head.

“No, sweetpea,” she says hoarsely, reaching out to take the child’s hand. “That’s what I need to talk to you about.”

“Where is he?” Abby asks.

Scully pulls in a breath, trying to calm her own emotions.

“Daddy got hurt very badly,” she says carefully, looking between the children’s faces. Abby’s eyebrows scrunch up, but Peter’s expression remains neutral. “His body wasn’t able to get better, and he died.”

Her voice catches on the final word, and she prays that she won’t have to repeat herself.

“Why?” Abby asks, her chin puckering.

Scully shakes her head solemnly.

“It was an accident, sweetpea. Daddy didn’t want to leave you. He loved you so much.”

“Wait a minute,” Peter says, trying to fit this information into an existing schema in his brain. “Is that like the squirrel at the park?”

“A little bit,” Scully says, giving him a sad smile.

“How’s he gonna go to work?” Pete asks.

“He’s not, sweetheart,” Scully says as a tear slips down her cheek. “He’s not coming back.”

Peter seems confused more than anything, while Abby is staring at the bedspread vacantly, her breathing shallow. Scully still has hold of her hand, and she squeezes it gently.

“Sweetpea?” she says softly, and Abby snatches her hand away.

“I want my daddy,” she says insistently, her voice quavering.

The emotional pain is so acute that Scully feels it aching in her bones. Out of nowhere, she remembers learning the news of her own father’s death. The thin warble of her mother’s voice coming through the phone, and the murmur of an infomercial on the TV. We lost your dad. He’s gone.

“I know,” she says tightly. “I wish he could be here, Abby, but he can’t. I’m sorry.”

She reaches out to comfort her and Abby stiffens, twisting her body out of Scully’s reach.

The door handle turns, and the three of them look as Mulder enters, along with a blast of sunlight. Abby springs out of the bed and runs toward the door, and Scully scrambles after her.

“Abby, no!” she yells, too loudly, just before the child crashes into Mulder, wrapping her arms around his hips and letting out a sob.

Mulder looks up at Scully helplessly, a takeout box in each of his hands, and she feels herself unraveling.

“Daddy’s dead,” Peter informs him.

Mulder turns to set the takeout boxes on the table, then pries Abby loose and picks her up. Her arms go around his neck, her legs around his waist, and he rubs his palm over her back, murmuring platitudes. The raw grief in Abby’s wailing makes Scully wish that she had died instead.

“I got pancakes,” Mulder says sadly, and Scully escapes to the bathroom.

-

It’s an oppressively hot day, which does nothing for Scully’s mood. Even with the air conditioning in the van on full blast she’s sweaty and irritable, and she feels guilty that Mulder is stuck trying to placate both her and the grieving child who won’t so much as look at her.

“Try not to take it personally,” he’d counseled her when they stopped to use the bathroom near Toledo. “Kids handle loss differently than adults do. She’s likely just associating you with it because you had to deliver the news. She’ll come around.”

Peter seems wholly unaffected, which makes her feel both relieved and sad. They stop every few hours to stretch their legs and walk Frenchie, Mulder and Scully driving in shifts. As they near Chicago, Peter lets out an exasperated sigh.

“This is too boring!” he complains. “When are we gonna get there?”

“Where are we going anyway?” Abby comments despondently, her eyes cast out the window.

Scully twists in her seat to look at them.

“We’re going to Canada,” she says, her tone falsely upbeat. “We get to live in a house by a lake. You can go swimming.”

“I wanna go swimming!” Peter says emphatically, wriggling in his seat.

“We won’t be there for a few more days,” Scully informs him, and he lets out a disappointed groan.

“We’re going to pass right by Lake Michigan,” Mulder says quietly. “We can stop for an hour or two.”

Scully gives him a long look.

“Is that a good idea?” she asks nervously.

“We can’t expect them to sit still in the car all day,” he counters.

Scully looks back to the children. They’ve already been driving for over five hours, and it’s barely afternoon.

“Would you like to go swimming, sweetpea?” she asks, and Abby looks at her for the first time since Akron.

“Today?”

“Yep,” Scully says with a smile.

Abby smiles and Peter whoops, and Scully looks back to Mulder, feeling grateful.

“There’s just one thing we have to talk about before we can go swimming,” he says loudly so the kids can hear him. “Do you know what a spy is?”

“I saw Harriet the Spy,” Abby informs him.

“Great,” Mulder says. “Do you think you can pretend to be a spy for the rest of our trip?”

“I probably need a notebook,” Abby says.

“We can get you a notebook,” Mulder says. “What about you, Bear, can you pretend to be a spy with us?”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” Peter says plainly, and Mulder laughs.

“To be a spy you have to pretend you’re someone else,” he explains. “We’ll use pretend names so nobody knows who we really are.”

“Is it a disguise?” Peter asks.

“Kind of,” Mulder says. “But just a disguise for your name. Your spy name is Justin, or we can also call you Bear, your animal name.”

“What’s my disguise name?” Abby asks.

“Your spy name is Amanda,” Mulder tells her. “Or Bunny is okay too.”

“Amanda,” Abby repeats, sitting back.

“It’s okay to call your mom Mommy,” Mulder continues. “But you can’t call me Fox while we’re being spies. My spy name is Stephen, okay?”

The children nod, and Scully reaches over the console and squeezes Mulder’s thigh briefly. He glances at her, eyebrows raised.

“Thank you,” she says quietly. “You’re really good with them.”

Mulder smiles sheepishly, and she detects a hint of pink on his cheeks.

They stop just before crossing the border into Illinois to buy swimsuits and several changes of clothes, as well as sunscreen and dog food. Mulder holds up a microscopic bikini and wags his eyebrows at Scully, and she shakes her head with a wry smile. By the time they make it to the register there are also beach towels, sunglasses, and two little plastic buckets with matching plastic shovels thrown into the cart, and twenty minutes later they are parking near a sandy beach the color of Frenchie’s fur. The white surf capping the waves and the absence of a visible landmass on the horizon give the impression that they are looking at the ocean, and Scully pulls in a deep breath, relaxing a little for the first time in days.

The beach is not very populated in the middle of a weekday, which gives them a sizable slice of the shore to themselves. The children set up near the water’s edge and begin digging a network of holes in the sand while Mulder and Scully sit a few yards away and supervise. Mulder allows Frenchie off her leash and she moves back and forth between the children and the adults, supervising in her own right. Abby has progressed from shrieking anytime Frenchie comes within arm’s reach of her to simply ignoring the dog altogether, and Scully is grateful for one less thing to worry about.

The strong breeze coming off the water makes the heat much more tolerable, and the sounds of screeching gulls and the hush of the waves are like a lullaby. Scully yawns, and Mulder reaches over and rubs his hand over her back.

“You should take a nap,” he says, and she closes her eyes briefly, savoring his touch.

“I wouldn’t be able to sleep,” she says, opening her eyes. “I worry about the kids near the water.”

“I’ll keep an eye on them,” he tells her, and she smiles warmly.

“I know you would,” she says, scooting just a little closer to him on the towel. “But I’d still worry.” She watches the children for a few minutes as they run to the edge of the water and fill their buckets, then race back to the sizable hole they are attempting to make into a bathtub. “I remember when I was a child, my father would always tell my mother not to worry about us. ‘You worry over those kids too much, Maggie, just sit down and relax for once.’ And she would tell him that it’s a mother’s job to worry. I think I finally understand what she meant.”

“I don’t think my mother worried too much over me,” Mulder says without much affect, and Scully looks over at him.

There’s two days worth of stubble on his cheeks, though he looks more well rested than he has since they reunited. His bare torso is already bronzing under the sun, and his hair is just this side of shaggy, giving him somewhat of a beach bum appearance. She glances at the children, who are completely absorbed in their bathtub project, and then reaches up and touches Mulder’s cheek. He turns his head and she kisses him, seemingly catching him off guard by the little surprised sound he makes. But he kisses her back, and when she goes to pull away he kisses her again, and it feels so good to kiss him with her toes in warm sand and ocean sounds filling her ears, and the knowledge that her children are safe.

“Mommy, look!”

They break their kiss and turn to look at the children, who are standing knee-deep in the hole they dug, beaming. You’d never guess that they learned about their father’s death mere hours ago.

-

After a couple hours in the hot sun, the children are sufficiently worn out for the second leg of the drive, and they do their best to brush the sand off everyone before piling back into the van and continuing on towards Wisconsin. Abby and Peter both fall asleep quickly, and Mulder kisses the tips of Scully’s fingers while she drives, whispering about a recently-recalled memory wherein they visited a beach in California, then spent the evening making love in a well appointed hotel room. Scully glances in the rear view mirror to confirm they don’t have an audience before filling in the missing details, including a disastrous movie premier and a shared bubble bath, and the rug burn on her knees that didn’t fade for weeks. They arrive in Wisconsin Dells around dinnertime and stop at a gas station for supplies before they find a motel for the night.

“Okay, super spies, remember to use spy names only,” Mulder says, meeting the children’s eyes for emphasis. They both nod gravely, taking their assignment as spies very seriously.

Inside the gas station market, a bored looking teenager sits behind the counter reading a book while the evening news runs on a TV hung from the ceiling overhead. Scully shakes her head as Mulder buys the children corn dogs and potato wedges, and a myriad of other junk food that she hopes they won’t expect to be a part of their continued diet after they get settled in Canada.

Peter finds a display of little water guns, and he turns toward Mulder, his mouth opening and closing like a hungry fish as he tries to recall Mulder’s spy name.

“Um…um…,” he struggles, his eyes scanning the ceiling for the answer. “Daddy,” he finally says, and Mulder slowly turns to look at him.

“Yeah, Bear?” Mulder asks, giving Scully an uncomfortable glance.

Scully looks at Abby, who is watching the exchange curiously.

“Can I get one of these?” Peter asks, holding up a yellow squirt gun.

“I don’t think so,” Mulder says, patting the child’s head. “Maybe another time.”

Peter moves on, and Scully approaches Abby, who appears to be deep in thought.

“You okay, sweetpea?” she asks cautiously, afraid that the child might shut her out again.

Abby slowly looks up at her, slightly dazed.

“Is Fox our daddy?” she asks, her eyebrows pushed together.

Scully is unable to conceal her surprise at the question. Could Abby have forgotten Cal so quickly? It makes her both sad and hopeful to consider the possibility.

“Would you like him to be?” Scully asks, and Abby looks beyond her distractedly.

Suddenly Abby’s expression changes, a bemused smile quirking the corner of her mouth.

“How did you get on TV, Mommy?” she says, and Scully follows her eyes to the TV behind the counter.

A flash of fear makes adrenaline ring in Scully’s ears when she sees her own face displayed on the grainy screen, and then Mulder’s alongside it.

“Mu—Stephen,” she says quietly, too shell-shocked to yell, and Abby pokes her head into the next aisle to find him.

“Daddy,” she calls out, as though she’s addressed him as such a hundred times. “Mommy needs you.”

She feels Mulder’s presence beside her as her eyes stay glued to the TV.

Two Children Kidnapped In Washington DC the chyron reads, and the screen changes from side-by-side photos of Mulder and Scully to a picture of a smiling Abby and Peter. Scully’s heart is pounding in her ears, and she looks down to the clerk sitting right beneath the TV, relieved to see that they are paying it no attention.

The picture of the children is then replaced with a video of Diana standing behind a lectern swiping tears from her eyes. Scully steps closer so she can read the captions running across the bottom of the screen, her stomach in knots.

…taken by my husband and his mistress right from our home. Jeff, I beg of you, please don’t hurt our babies. Please bring them home safely. They’re all I have.

Mulder touches her arm, and she looks up at him. His jaw is set in anger, his gaze intense.

“We need to change our appearance,” he says, and she nods absently, unable to think. “I saw some hair dye over there,” he tells her, gesturing with his head, and slowly her mind begins to get back on the rails.

“Okay,” she says, visually scanning the small market. She spots a rack full of souvenir trucker hats. “You and Bear can wear hats,” she says, and Mulder nods.

They corral the children, speaking in low tones so as not to draw any additional attention. Scully selects two boxes of blonde hair dye, and Mulder lets Peter pick out a hat with a rainbow on it. They pile all their purchases, plus the corn dogs and the potato wedges, on the counter and steal glances at the continuing news story on the screen while the teenage clerk obliviously rings them up.

“D’you need a bag?” they ask flatly, and Scully forces herself not to look at the faked photo of Diana embracing her children as she answers yes.

The bell above the door rings, announcing the arrival of new customers, and Mulder and Scully carefully keep their backs turned. Peter pokes Abby in the ribs and she swats him.

“Stop it, Pete!” she hollers, and Scully grabs Peter by the shoulders, ushering him into the small space between her body and the counter.

Mulder hands a twenty dollar bill to the clerk, and the other customers step up in line behind them as the clerk makes change.

“Oh my gosh, that’s awful,” a woman’s voice says emphatically, and the clerk stops and twists their neck up awkwardly to look at the screen.

“Oh damn,” the clerk says, and Scully feels like she can’t breathe. She stares at the countertop, waiting for the moment of recognition.

“It’s okay,” Mulder whispers, and she looks over at him. He flashes his eyes to the screen, and she looks up to find that the images of Diana and the children are gone, and the chyron now reads Three Confirmed Dead in Dells Boat Tour Accident.

-

That night, Scully is unable to sleep. She thinks back over every place they’ve stopped since leaving Maryland, every person they’ve interacted with who might have later recognized their faces on the evening news. Will Diana learn that they were just in Indiana? Will the McDonald’s drive thru worker in Akron remember the family of four who argued about milkshakes? Should they veer off their intended path for the remainder of the trip?

She can smell the developer still clinging to her hair, which is now dirty blonde. Abby’s natural hair color made hers turn out a bit darker, almost brown, but still different enough from their typical appearance not to be recognized at first glance. Mulder’s coloring is close enough to Peter’s that they don’t look conspicuous; the children could easily belong to them biologically. Still, knowing that they might be recognized puts a pit of worry in her gut, a nagging feeling of impending doom.

Mulder sighs next to her, and she rolls to her side to face him in the dark.

“Are you awake?” she whispers, and he turns on his side as well, his nose inches from hers.

“I hate her, Scully,” he says, shame in his voice.

“Rightfully, I’d say,” she tells him, resting her palm on his hip.

“I keep thinking,” he says, his breath warm and familiar against her cheeks, “if I’d believed you sooner, we would have been long gone before they ever found us at the safehouse.”

“Don’t do that,” she says. “None of this is your fault.”

“I know. I just keep thinking about everything. How it could have been different.”

Scully sighs and scoots closer, kissing him and then tucking her head under his chin. She feels safe, for the moment, wrapped up in his arms. Sleep suddenly feels like a possibility.

Frenchie stands up and whines, and Mulder rolls to his back.

“What is it, French?” he asks.

Frenchie whines again, her tail tucked and twitching nervously. On the other side of the room, Abby lets loose a blood-curdling scream.

Scully is out of the bed in an instant, feeling around in the dark to locate Abby’s flailing arms.

“No, no, nooooo!!!!” Abby yells, hitting and scratching Scully’s forearms, pushing her away. “Stop, Mommy, please!”

A light comes on, and Scully can now see Peter sitting on her and Mulder’s bed, confused and gape-mouthed, and Mulder standing beside him.

“She’s dreaming,” Mulder says, coming around to where Scully is unsuccessfully trying to bring Abby back to reality.

Abby’s eyes are open, but it’s clear that whatever she is seeing is in her mind. She doesn’t look at Scully, but through her, her nostrils flaring and her mouth contorted in agony.

“Mommy don’t,” the child wails, her arms held out in front of her defensively. “I’m sorry. Please don’t.”

Scully looks at Mulder helplessly.

“Do you think it’s my hair?” she asks, and Mulder shakes his head with a shrug.

“Turn the lamp off, Bear,” Mulder directs Peter, who does as he’s told.

The room plunges back into darkness, and Abby’s protestations subside into whimpers.

“Hey, Bunny,” Mulder says, his voice indicating that he’s moved to the head of the bed. “It’s okay, you’re safe in your bed. I’m here with you.”

“Daddy?” Abby warbles, and Mulder hesitates only a moment.

“Yes, I’m right here. You’re safe,” he says softly.

“Don’t leave me,” Abby says, her voice so tiny and afraid that it brings tears to Scully’s eyes.

“I won’t leave you,” Mulder assures her. “I’m right here.”

Abby continues to cry for a few minutes and then falls back asleep, her arms wound tightly around Mulder’s neck. Scully feels her way back to the other bed where she finds that Peter has already laid down on her pillow, so she takes Mulder’s side instead. Abby wakes again around 3:00 am, this time settling quickly when she hears Mulder’s voice beside her.

Scully needs to keep her children safe, and she’s so afraid that she’ll fail. She sleeps fitfully, dreaming of Emily and a little boy with glasses whose name she can’t recall.

Tagging @today-in-fic

#the x files #x files fanfic #txf #dana scully #fox mulder #xf fanfic #x files #the x-files #xfiles #thexfiles

[sisterspooky1013]

Gaslight, Chapter 42/48

Rated X | Read it here on AO3

They’re flying down a two-lane highway, pastureland flanking the van on both sides and midmorning sun sparkling on the dew-soaked grass like glitter. It would be beautiful, Mulder thinks, if not for the circumstances that brought them here.

“LiminalLurker reached out to us last night,” Byers says from the passenger seat, twisted around so that both Mulder and Scully can hear him. “She’s gathered quite a bit of additional information about the project and what exactly was done to you.”

Scully, who is sitting in the middle seat between the two sleeping children, turns her head and gives Mulder a significant look. He pushes Frenchie’s head off his lap so he can lean forward and drape his arm over Scully’s shoulder, and she holds his hand against her chest as Byers continues.

“The science is a bit beyond my understanding, but my hope is that when you’ve reached your final destination I can get all the documents to you, both for your records and so you have it in the event that it becomes medically relevant.”

Scully squeezes Mulder’s hand and he squeezes back.

“There seem to be two elements to the project,” Byers continues. “Suppression of memory, and prevention of memory recall. This means that none of your memories, or ours, were truly removed or deleted—they’ve simply been manually repressed in much the same way as can occur naturally when someone experiences significant trauma.”

Mulder looks at the tops of the children’s heads, each tilted towards Scully, and wonders whether it’s possible that they won’t be able to remember what happened to them before they ended up with Scully and Cal. Some memories are best left forgotten. Perhaps even some of his own.

“The Manatua virus and the subsequent vaccination program were a cover that allowed them to bring mass swaths of the population in for memory manipulation. The degree of participation in the project correlates to how well someone knew you. Take your college roommate, for example. They may have had their memories of you suppressed, however the project may not have needed to replace those memories because suddenly being unable to recall your college roommate’s name could easily be chalked up to forgetfulness. For us, however, suppressing our memories of you without replacing them would have left large and frequent gaps, which is where the chip comes in.”

“The chip contains replacement memories,” Scully says absently, and Byers nods.

“Anyone you had a significant relationship with likely received a chip that contains replacement memories. The existence of those new memories also reduces the possibility that someone will actively try to recall information—because they don’t realize it’s missing—and that helps keep the memories suppressed.”

“What about the Numerol?” Scully asks. “Abby missed just a couple days and she started to remember.”

“The Numerol is very important for preventing memory recall,” Byers says, glancing at Abby. “Memory recall is extremely context dependent. You see, or hear, or smell something, and it ties back to a stored memory. Without the Numerol, all it might take for someone to start recalling those suppressed memories is to see you, even with a chip. The closer the relationship the person had to you, the more important the Numerol would be.”

Byers pauses and looks at the children, then at Scully.

“I think it’s relevant to share that in the bags Cal packed for the children, there’s a bottle of vitamins. I recall you mentioning that that’s how the Numerol was administered to them.”

Scully looks back at Mulder again and holds his eye for a beat.

“How much?” Mulder asks Byers. “How many are left?”

“The original quantity was sixty, and it looks to be about half full,” Byers answers.

“That’ll at least get us through a couple weeks,” he says quietly to Scully, and she nods, then heaves a sigh and turns back around.

“We took the liberty of having documents produced for the children under the assumption that they’d be traveling with you to Canada,” Byers says, handing Scully a manila envelope.

Mulder watches over her shoulder as she looks through the contents, some of which he has already seen. British Columbia driver’s licenses for Lisa and Michael Davenport bearing his and Scully’s photographs, a marriage certificate, and birth certificates for them both. There are now also documents for the children, Justin and Amanda Davenport. When Scully comes to a driver’s license with Cal’s photo, she looks at it for a long time before slipping it back into the envelope.

“We were also able to recover your bags from the VW bus, Agent Scully,” Byers says. “So you’ll have some clothes to change into.”

“Thank god,” Scully says on a sigh. “I could use about a hundred showers.”

“What’s the latest with Langly?” Mulder asks, and Byers smiles.

“He’s doing well. He’s in stable condition, and they were planning to transition him out of intensive care today. He has a long road ahead, but he’ll be alright.”

“Please send him our well wishes,” Scully says, unmistakable guilt in her voice, and Byers assures her that he will.

“We suggest you drive at least as far as Ohio before stopping for the night,” Byers continues. “You’ll need to make it to Blaine, Washington, which is a city on the Canadian border. We’ve made contact with a border crossing agent who’s part of a network that ensures safe passage for people escaping political persecution. It should take you three or four days to get there, and then you’ll need to cross through his lane and he’ll allow you in.”

“How will we know which lane is his?” Mulder asks.

“You’ll meet up with him the night prior so he’ll know your faces and you’ll know his. Once he arrives at work, he’ll call his wife and let her know which lane he’s working, and that’s when you’ll cross.”

Mulder’s hand against Scully’s chest rises and falls with her slow, deep breath in and out. He brushes his thumb over her wrist and she relaxes a little.

“Do you have any indication as to whether anyone is looking for us?” he asks.

“Who’s looking for us?” Abby asks, and Scully startles and turns to the child, releasing Mulder’s hand.

“Nobody, sweetpea. Are you feeling okay?”

She runs her knuckles down Abby’s cheek, and Mulder can’t help but smile at how natural she is with the children. His smile falls as a dull ache sets off above his ear, and he reaches up to press the tips of his fingers against his scalp, momentarily disoriented. Frenchie, sensing his distress, sits up and whines.

“I’m hungry,” Abby says good-naturedly, and Scully wraps her arm around the child’s shoulder and kisses the top of her head.

“We’ll get something to eat soon.”

They pull into a used car dealership that seems out of place in the otherwise rural area, and Frohike parks at the back of the lot.

“You all stay here, I’ll be right back,” he says, then disappears into the small office building in the middle of the sprawling lot.

“Is Daddy in there?” Abby asks, and Mulder looks away as Scully gives her a vague answer that couldn’t accurately be classified as a lie.

Frohike returns with a set of keys and leads them to a blue minivan with North Carolina plates.

“Yeowch, never pictured myself behind the wheel of one of these,” Mulder says, patting the hood of the vehicle.

“You’re a family man now, Mulder,” Frohike teases, dropping the keys into his hand. “Godspeed, friend.”

Mulder suddenly realizes that it’s possible they’ll never see the Gunmen again, and he pulls Frohike into an awkward hug.

“Thank you for everything you’ve done for us,” he says, and Frohike pats his back twice, then pulls away.

“Be good to my girl,” he says playfully, though his eyes are shimmering. “And if she ever gets sick of you, tell her to look me up.”

“Will do,” Mulder says, clapping the man on the back. Frenchie woofs, and Frohike crouches down to scratch her ears.

“Yes, you’re my girl too, Frenchie.”

Scully makes use of the empty van to change into clean clothes, and when the children are all buckled in and Frenchie is settled in her makeshift bed in the back, the adults stand at the rear of the vehicle and say their final goodbyes.

“To answer your question,” Byers says, “we aren’t sure if anyone is looking for you, but we think it’s best to operate under the assumption that they are. Even with Spender dead, there are other players in this that wouldn’t want to risk you potentially exposing the project.”

“We’ll be careful,” Scully says.

“There’s one more thing,” Byers says in a low voice, looking between them with some trepidation. “Liminal was also able to obtain the children’s files, as well as Cal’s. The details are…to be frank, they’re a bit disturbing.”

Mulder looks at Scully and watches the color drain from her face.

“What happened to them?” she asks, and he reaches for her hand.

“Prior to entering the project, Abby had recently been placed with a foster family,” Byers says, watching Scully’s face raptly. “The reason for removal was significant physical and emotional abuse at the hands of her mother.”

Scully closes her eyes and Byers stops speaking. After a beat, she opens them again.

“And Peter?” she asks quietly.

“Peter was in a group home and had been living there for some time,” Byers says. “His file spoke to neglect and malnutrition.”

Scully nods, and a tear slides down her cheek.

“And Cal—” Byers begins.

“No,” Scully interrupts, swiping the tear away. “Whatever it is, I’d rather not know. I’d like to remember him as I knew him, if that’s all right.”

Byers dips his head.

“Of course.”

There are more hugs and promises to get in touch when they’ve made it safely, and finally Mulder climbs behind the wheel and starts the engine.

“You and me back on the road, Scully,” he says, attempting to lighten the mood. “Who woulda thunk it?”

Scully shakes her head with a wry smile. “Not I.”

“Ready to roll, guys?” Mulder asks, twisting around to look at the children in the back seat.

The children give him unenthusiastic thumbs-ups and he puts the van in drive, watching in the rearview mirror as the Gunmen fade into tiny specs behind them.

They make their way to the interstate and head west along with the rising sun. Between stopping for snacks and bathroom breaks, arguing over what type of music to listen to, and playing several rounds of eye spy, it all starts to feel relatively banal, and Mulder can see in Scully’s demeanor that she feels it too. The tension in her shoulders begins to relax, her smiles come more easily, and he lets himself begin to hope that they’re going to make it out of this okay.

Somewhere outside Pittsburg both the children fall asleep, and Mulder and Scully speak in hushed tones across the console, agreeing to continue giving the children Numerol until they arrive in BC and then wean them off of it. He reaches over and rests his hand on her thigh, and she smiles a conspiratorial little smile that he can’t quite read.

“What?” he asks, his eyes flashing between her and the road.

“I never used to let you do this,” she says, laying her hand over the top of his.

“Do what?”

“After things…changed between us, you would try to hold my hand in the car, and I never let you,” she says, stroking the backs of his fingers. “It felt terrifying for some reason. Maybe it was just too normal. Too real.”

“Well,” he says, turning his hand over so she can interlace her fingers with his, “can’t get much more normal than a roadtrip with two kids in a minivan.”

He feels his whole heart light up when he glances over to find her grinning at him.

“Sure, if you discount the whole ‘evading government operatives’ thing,” she quips, and he considers pulling over just so he can kiss her.

His head begins to ache again, and he remembers something from earlier.

“Who’s Emily?”

The smile falls from her face so quickly it sends a little shock of panic through him, and he almost wishes he hadn’t asked.

“You remember Emily?” she asks, her fingers strangling his.

“I remember you with a child, and that name came to mind. Is it significant?”

Scully nods and turns to look out the window.

“She was my daughter, medically speaking. She died,” she says in a detached monotone.

Mulder squeezes her hand and she turns back to look at him, her eyes wet.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it was a sensitive subject,” he says.

Scully shakes her head.

“It’s good that you’re remembering,” she says tightly. “And it’s logical that you’d remember things that were difficult or emotionally charged more easily. I know that it was difficult for you to see me go through that. You felt a lot of guilt.”

“Guilt?” he asks, his brow furrowing.

Scully pats his hand and leans against the seat back.

“That’s not something I’d like to remind you of,” she says. “Maybe it’s something you can finally let go.”

He has questions, but he doesn’t ask them. He trusts that she knows what’s best.

“Mommy, I have to go potty,” Peter whines from the back seat, and their little bout of privacy comes to an end.

The hours stretch on, and the kids and Frenchie run circles around rest stop picnic tables to let out their energy before piling back into the van. Finally, they reach Akron and decide to call it a night.

They check in to a cheap, but not seedy, motel using their newly acquired identities and paying in cash, and he senses that Scully is making a concession when she agrees to McDonald’s for dinner. Mulder hovers awkwardly around the periphery of the children’s bedtime routine and occupies himself with petting Frenchie at length, feeling concurrently impressed by how seamlessly Scully tends to their needs and uncomfortable about what role he should take, if any. When Scully finds a stack of paperback picture books in the bag Cal packed, Peter plucks one off the top and marches over to Mulder, his hair still wet from his bath and a stuffed dog under his arm that matches the one printed on his pajamas.

“Will you read this to me, Murder?”

Scully snorts, then tries to hide her laughter behind her hand when he throws her a playfully irritated glare.

“It’s not Murder,” Abby lectures her brother, one hand on the hip of her Little Mermaid nightgown. “It’s Motor.”

Scully, unable to contain her laughter, walks quickly into the bathroom where he hears her let out a completely unrestrained guffaw. Even at his expense, hearing her laugh is immediately the best part of his day.

“You know what, Pete?” he says, lifting the child onto the bed further from the door before sitting down beside him. “I don’t usually let people call me by my first name, but I’ll make an exception for you. You too, Abby,” he says, looking at the elder child.

“What’s your first name?” Abby asks, sitting on Mulder’s other side.

“Fox, which I realize is a silly name.”

“Like the Fox and the Hound?” Abby asks, her head tilted with interest.

“Sure,” Mulder says with a shrug.

“I wish my name was a animal,” Peter says, suddenly disappointed.

“What animal name would you like to have?” Mulder asks.

“Probably Bear, ‘cause bears are strong and they can scare you,” Peter says, holding up his hands as makeshift bear claws and growling loudly.

“Solid choice,” Mulder says. “I can call you Bear, if you want.”

Peter laughs like he’s just gotten away with something.

“Can I have an animal name?” Abby asks in a grating whiny pitch that Mulder wonders if he can get used to.

“Sure, why not?”

“I want my animal name to be…” Abby thinks for a very long time, long enough that Mulder looks over and catches Scully watching them from the bathroom door, clutching a hand towel to her chest. He smiles at her and she smiles back, a kind of sad, hopeful smile. “Bambi,” Abby finally says, and suddenly Scully speaks.

“Abby, if you choose something else I will give you five dollars,” she says emphatically, and Mulder throws her a questioning look, which she just shakes her head at.

“I want five dollars!” Pete says, incensed, and Scully heaves a sigh.

In the end, Abby chooses Bunny for her animal name, and the children stash their five dollar bills under their pillows before Scully tucks them into bed. Mulder sits at the small table near the window, again feeling like an interloper, and pretends to read the children’s picture books to give Scully some privacy.

“Will Daddy be here tomorrow?” Abby asks, and Mulder winces, but doesn’t look up.

“I would really like it if we saw him tomorrow,” Scully says evasively. “I know you miss him, sweetpea.”

“He telled me I could have more M&Ms after dinner,” Peter says, and Scully sighs.

“Hey,” she says, “how about you tell me your very favorite memory of Daddy? Something you’ll never ever forget.”

Mulder stands abruptly. He shouldn’t be here for this; it’s not his loss to mourn.

“I’m going to take Frenchie for a walk, is that okay?” he asks, and Scully stares at him briefly, trying to read him, before she nods.

“Sleep tight, Bear. Don’t let the bedbugs bite, Bunny,” he says as he puts Frenchie’s leash on.

“What’s a bedbug?” he hears Abby ask as he pulls the door closed, and he hopes that he didn’t ruin the moment.

The evening is mild and the sun is still peeking up over the horizon, bathing everything in pinks and oranges. Mulder walks the perimeter of the motel property, allowing Frenchie to stop and sniff around as often as she’s inclined to, which is frequently. He thinks about Cal bleeding out in the bunker, and Scully hunkered over him, sobbing and devastated. He has a flash of an image of Scully lying on the floor covered in blood, reaching for him, and he shakes it loose.

He wonders if Scully loved Cal. If she told him she loved him. The idea makes him feel sick, and sad, and insignificant. But then he reminds himself of the lengths that Scully went to find him, to make him remember her, and he knows that if there were a choice to be made, she chose him. That does bring him some comfort. But what if he can never be the husband that Cal was, or the father? What if he can’t create the kinds of memories they’re sharing in the motel room? It’s like he’s being held to a model that was created in a lab, the literal definition of the perfect husband and father. He realizes he’s terrified that he’ll never live up to a dead man’s memory.

After they’ve done several loops and enough time has passed that he thinks the children could be asleep, he creeps back to the motel room and quietly unlocks the door. It’s dark inside, and the sliver of light he lets in falls across Scully’s face where she’s lying on the bed closer to the door.

“Hey,” he says quietly, taking off Frenchie’s leash and setting it on the table.

“Hi,” she whispers, smiling at him weakly. “They just fell asleep. I was gonna take a shower.”

Frenchie lays in front of the door, which she’s always had a habit of doing, and he’s suddenly grateful for it. Scully takes her bag into the bathroom but leaves the door open, and Mulder follows her, standing in the doorway as she takes out her toiletries and searches for clean clothes.

“We might have to make time for a laundromat,” she says absently. “Or maybe it would just be more efficient to buy new clothes instead of washing the dirty ones.”

“You okay?” he asks, and she looks up at him, saying nothing for a long while.

“I don’t know,” she finally answers.

He watches her brush her teeth, feeling incredibly inadequate, and before she turns the shower on she asks him to come the rest of the way in and shut the door, which he takes as a good sign. She strips and tosses her clothes on the floor, not looking at him, then quickly slips behind the shower curtain. He should probably leave and give her privacy, but something in him feels so untethered that it makes him want to stay. He leans against the wall near the head of the shower and speaks to her through the curtain.

“You’re doing a great job,” he says, and he really means it. “You’re a good mom.”

She doesn’t respond, and he pulls the edge of the curtain back so he can peek inside. She’s facing the showerhead, the spray hitting her square in the chest, and though her entire face is wet it’s still clear that she’s crying. She slowly lifts her eyes to his face, and he’s afraid he said the wrong thing.

“Do you want to get in?” she asks, and he’s as surprised as he is elated.

He piles his dirty clothes on top of hers and pulls the curtain back at the far end of the tub. The sight of her naked backside makes him feel some kind of way, but he averts his eyes higher to the tattoo on her back and the scar just above it. The sex they had at the safehouse was rushed or veiled in darkness, and looking at her naked body sends his brain into a tailspin as emotions course through him like a flash flood. Anger, fear, lust, love. He can feel it all, even if he can’t remember the experiences. He steps up behind her and wraps his arms around her waist, and she leans heavily into him as they bask under the uncomfortably hot spray, neither of them speaking for several minutes.

“I don’t want the kids to see us kissing or holding hands,” she says after a time, weaving her fingers through his. “It’ll confuse them.”

“Okay,” he says, and she sighs.

More silence. More heavy contemplation as he holds her up, or she holds him, or they hold each other. All he knows is that neither of them could do it alone.

“The memories they shared were all recent,” Scully says mournfully. “Real memories, not implants.”

“That’s good, right?” Mulder says gently.

“Yes,” she whispers. “It’s good because they won’t lose them. But…I think part of me was hoping that they’d forget enough that it would hurt less, and I’m not sure if that will be the case.”

He bends down and hooks his chin over her shoulder.

“Whatever happens, we’ll get through it,” he says, and she goes a little limp in his arms. “How are you doing?” he asks, already nervous about her answer. “You lost someone too.”

“I don’t even know,” she says. “I don’t think I’ll have the capacity to process that until we’re through all of this. Right now it feels like a dream.”

There’s a beat of silence.

“I don’t want you to feel like you have to hide your grief,” he says. “I know the situation with you and Cal was very different than me and Diana. I know you…cared about him.”

Saying her name aloud makes Mulder realize that he’s hardly given more than a passing thought to Diana all day.

Scully turns in his arms, pressing the front of her body against his, and reaches up to take his face in her hands. She just looks at him for a moment, her eyes searching and her eyebrows knit. It makes him feel raw, the way she’s looking at him. Like she’s seeing things he doesn’t even know are there.

“I do miss Cal, and I did care about him,” she says in a careful, measured tone. “But whatever you’re thinking, and whatever you’re worrying about, don’t.” Her eyes fall to his chest briefly, then wander over to his shoulder. She touches the smooth pink skin where he now knows she once shot him, and then looks back up at his face. “You told me once that I was your one in five billion. The only person on this planet who would believe you.”

“That’s a good line,” he says, his chest incredibly tight, and she cracks a tiny smile.

“You’re my person,” she says. “My one in five billion. You don’t need to worry.”

She reaches up again and tugs on the back of his neck, pushing up on her tiptoes, and he bends down to kiss her. She tastes like mint, and salt, and home, and one kiss becomes two, and then three, and then dozens. She wraps her hand around his balls and he groans, then pushes it away.

“The kids,” he says quietly, and she reaches for him again.

“You’re going to have to learn how to be quiet,” she whispers in his ear, and his knees nearly buckle. “I just want to feel good for a little while,” she adds, her tone much more melancholy, and he knows he won’t deny her.

They get clean before they get messy again, making washing one another’s hair and body into an erotic act that will hold nostalgia for him for years to come. Her slippery fist tight around his erection nearly takes him over the edge, and he makes quick work of rinsing the suds off before he hoists her up against the wall of the shower and pushes into her.

Scully gasps, bringing her lips to his ear so he can hear her whispered declarations of how good he feels, how much she loves him, how much she missed him. She makes him believe that he is the only person she wants with her fingernails digging into his back and her heat tight around him, and her desperate plea that he finish inside her. She comes like shattering glass, suddenly and explosively, her legs tight around his hips and her mouth on his, and for that brief moment in time the rest of the world fades away.

When they are dried and dressed, they crawl under the covers though it’s barely past 9pm. Scully rests her head on his chest and slings one of her legs over his, and the weight of her body calms him. She falls asleep almost instantly, and as Mulder’s eyes begin to adjust to the darkened room he can make out the forms of the children in the adjacent bed, and Frenchie curled up by the door. As hopeless as it all is, as dire and dangerous and terrifying, he feels markedly happy. He has something that he hasn’t had in a very, very long time. Something he only recently realized just how much he wanted.

He has a family.

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