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slippinmickeys · 14 days

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Okay if you feel like this is interesting for a Proof of Life fic...

just little windows into their first pregnancy, lounging and being happy, traveling for work maybe, and then meeting the baby for the first time or something.

1. He is staring at her face, but he doesn’t care. He is clocking every shift of her eyes, every microexpression; dying, dying to know if he’s done well, if he’s done the right thing.

She stopped next to the real estate SOLD sign and is studying the outside of the house. It is modest, especially for this neighborhood, but it has nice lines, and verdant hydrangea bushes out front weighed down with so many pink and blue blossoms that you can hardly see any green.

“It’s got great curb appeal,” she says, and Mulder lets out an enormous sigh of relief.

“Let me show you the inside,” he says, digging deep into his pocket for the set of keys the realtor had handed him only that morning.

It takes two tries to get the door open, and Scully stands there wearing a patient smile, her hands resting on the soft swell of her stomach.

“There we go,” he says, and he stops halfway over the threshold. “Do you want me to carry you in?” he asks, turning back toward her. He doesn’t want to fuck this up.

“Let’s save your back for the boxes,” she says. “I’m afraid you’re on your own for all the heavy lifting.”

“Roger that,” he says, and reaches out instead to grab her hand, pulling her into the small foyer.

“A front closet,” she immediately observes. “That’s good. And room for a bench and shoes.”

With every nice thing she says, pounds upon pounds of weight lift off his shoulders.

She was in Haiti far longer than either of them anticipated, and he offered to fly back to the States to start looking for a house for them to settle into once she was done. She’d given him a long list of requirements, and he’d kissed a lot of frogs before finding this house–a mid-century modern ranch in Alexandria with three bedrooms, two baths, and a check mark next to everything she’d requested. When he’d looked at it the first time, he’d felt it was right, and his realtor told him that if he wanted to put an offer down, he shouldn’t wait.

“There are fifteen offers on it already–I mean, at this price, in this neighborhood?” She’d said. “But it’s an older couple that’s downsizing and they want it to go to a young family. I may have mentioned your wife’s condition and there’s a possibility I showed their realtor your picture from the Pulitzer ceremony.” She had glanced at Mulder with a look that screamed I hope I did the right thing. “They’re waiting on an offer from you. If they don’t get one today, they have another buyer picked out.”

And so after three phone calls to Scully’s cell phone that all went unanswered or were met by a recorded voice telling him the number he is trying to reach is unavailable, he put in an offer, which was accepted twenty minutes later and by the time Scully called him back, they were homeowners and she hadn’t so much as seen a picture of the house. Mulder had been there for the inspections, and escrow closed while she was still on Hispaniola.

He likes the house. He hopes she loves it.

“The kitchen is through here?” she asks. He nods and follows her in.

“Wow, the appliances look new,” she says, and he simply smiles at her.

They are new. Brand new. He’d bought them himself and had them installed before she got back to the States. The ones that came with the house were archaic–avocado green monstrosities with abysmal energy ratings. But the kitchen layout was great, and the countertops and cabinetry were acceptable and could be improved or replaced in the future.

She runs her hands along the mantle in the living room, peaks out the window to look at the spacious backyard. She wanders into the master bedroom, complimenting the closet space, and when she gets to the back bedroom, she stops in the doorway.

“The nursery,” he says quietly, putting a gentle hand on her lower back.

The room is painted a soft yellow, and in the corner stands an enormous stuffed giraffe with a large bow around its neck.

“From James, and the crew at the We clinic,” he says. “They say his name is Twiga.”

She turns to him with tears in her eyes. “Perfect,” she says. “It’s all perfect.”

2. “I can’t believe the only piece of furniture you own is a coffee table,” Scully says, putting her feet up on said object.

Mulder is in the kitchen fiddling with the various bags of take out, assembling plates for them both.

“You’re lucky I had it,” he calls to her over his shoulder. “Seeing as how Ethan got everything in the divorce.”

“Don’t even joke about that man,” Scully says, reaching down to adjust her wedding and engagement bands, making sure the small Indian diamond Mulder got her is perfectly centered. “When I moved in with him, he had nicer furniture, so I got rid of all mine. You know this. But even my old coffee table was better than this one. It’s hideous.”

Hideous might not be the right word, but it is certainly not to either of their tastes. She doesn’t know furniture styles all that well, but it looks practically colonial, with wooden legs that round into clawed feet, and nearly all of it is covered in intricate carving. It’s like a miniature version of the Resolute Desk. With feet.

He appears from the doorway that leads from their kitchen to the living room carrying two plates laden with at least five different kinds of Chinese takeout.

“That one has history. It has provenance. There’s a reason I kept it.”

He kept nothing else. He’d had a small storage unit in Boston with the coffee table and twelve boxes of photography equipment.

He sets his food down on the aforementioned artifact and hands her the plate he made up for her, along with utensils, a cheap paper napkin, paper-wrapped chopsticks and a fortune cookie. She dumps the chopsticks and fortune cookie on the table next to his and balances the plate on the enormous rounded drum of her stomach.

“You don’t even need a table, Scully. You’ve got one built-in.”

She has to admit it is handy. It is next to impossible to pull up to a dining table (not that they had one) with the enormous mass of her stomach, so couch eating, using her stomach as a platform makes for a comfortable, tidy solution. Unless the baby kicks, then all bets are off.

She gives him a look and continues to gaze at him. “If there’s provenance, I want to hear it.”

“My dad had it in college,” he says, taking an enormous bite of egg roll that he has to fully chew before he can go on.

“So far I’m unimpressed,” Scully says, turning to look at the table and then her plate. The plate is absolutely laden. She doesn’t know where to start.

Mulder wipes his mouth and continues. “Dartmouth. One of his roommates was this super rich guy from Hyannis Port. Grew up next to the Kennedys. Rose was particularly fond of him. When he moved off campus in college, she found out and gave him a shitton of furniture from one of the Compound rooms she was redecorating to outfit the new digs. When Dad’s roommate graduated, he took everything but this.”

“I can’t blame him for leaving it,” Scully says, winding a bite of lo mein onto a fork. “It’s awful.”

“It’s interesting,” Mulder corrects her. “Probably three generations of Kennedys have put their scotch down on that table. It’s historic Americana.”

“I bet the Kennedys used coasters,” she says. “This piece of historic Americana,” she gestures to the table. “Looks like it was made from the captain’s berth of a whaling ship and is sporting what looks like at least five different water rings from Dartmouth Pabst.”

“At least one of those rings is mine and it was iced tea,” he says, standing up. “Speaking of…you want one?”

“Sure.”

“Captain’s berth or not, this is what we’ve got for now,” he says, coming back into the room and handing her a cold Snapple. “Once we add a few more water rings and the dazzling crayon stylings of Scully Jr., we’ll donate it to the Smithsonian.”

“All I took from what you just said was that we can eventually get rid of it.”

“Fair enough,” he says. “But please keep in mind that the only furniture we currently have is a mattress still in plastic, the couch we’re sitting on which is on loan from your brother until his next posting and the Dartmouth Pabst Americana coffee table.”

“Hey, that’s a lot for two people who mostly lived in tents the last half decade.”

“And how,” he answers.

Scully takes one more bite of food and slides the plate onto the only table they own.

“You okay?” Mulder asks, instantly tender. “You barely ate.”

“If I eat more than five bites I’ll be up all night with heartburn,” she explains.

Mulder obliviously wolfs down the last three bites of his own food and sets his plate down.

“Here,” he says. “Swing your legs up here and I’ll rub your feet.”

Scully doesn’t hesitate and Mulder is digging into her aching arches before her head even hits the arm of the couch.

She lays there blissed out for a moment. “Want to split a fortune cookie?” she asks after a moment, reaching for the one she set on the table.

They break it in half like a wishbone and Scully gets the half with the fortune in it. She pulls out the little piece of paper and takes a crunchy bite of the cookie. Heartburn be damned, she can’t resist.

Mulder raises his eyebrows. “So?” he says. “What’s our fortune?”

“You will soon find yourself in a Pottery Barn,” she reads.

3. It’s the first time he’s been away from her overnight since she’s been back in the States. He hates it. She hates it. They both hate it. But they have a month to go before the baby is due, and he’s still looking for a full-time job. When he got a call asking if he wanted to be a part of a week-long photography symposium in California for a decent amount of cash, it was an opportunity he couldn’t turn down.

He calls her as soon as the plane’s wheels touch down at National. He can’t wait to hear her voice.

“Hey,” he says when she answers. “I just landed.”

“How was the flight?” she asks. Her voice is a little breathy, like maybe she was walking up a set of stairs.

“Not bad, all things considered. A little weather over the Rockies. Are you out and about?”

He really hopes she isn’t. All he wants to do is go home, plant a massive kiss on her lips and then fall into bed with her in his arms and sleep until next Tuesday.

“No, I’m home,” she says.

“Oh,” he says. “Good.”

“You’re taking the Metro home, right?” she asks. “You left your car at the Kiss & Ride?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I didn’t want you to have to come and get me.”

“Okay,” she says. There’s an odd quality to her voice that he can’t place, but forgets about it when she says “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too,” he says, his own voice going soft.

The woman in the seat next to him looks at him and smirks, but he doesn’t care.

“Listen, we’re about to pull into the gate. I’ll see you soon. Love you, Scully.”

“You too,” she says on a breath and then disconnects the line.

The next hour is a pain in the ass. His luggage takes forever to come in and his hard case of camera equipment is dented on one side, so he has to go through each piece of equipment one at a time to check for damage. Luckily everything checks out. Outside, it’s a rush hour mob scene and the rain makes the train cars humid and smelling of funk and he’s half soaked by the time he makes it to his car. It’s not a long drive from the lot, and once he’s on Fort Hunt Road the traffic has finally thinned, but he has to stop for gas. By the time he pulls into their driveway, it’s dark, and he’s exhausted. He half hopes Scully’s asleep so he can just slide into bed too and lose himself to oblivion.

He enters and kicks off his shoes, leaving his luggage by the door. The house is quiet and the lights are dim. He tries the master bedroom first, but she isn’t there.

“Scully?” he calls out.

There’s a noise from the living room. When he enters, his stomach falls into his socks.

Scully is half on the couch and half off, her arms resting against the cushions as if they're holding her up. It looks like she has maybe fallen. He cannot see her face.

“Scully!” He skids to her side on a bright burst of adrenaline and she turns to look at him weakly.

“What happened? Are you okay? What’s-” The words all tumble out of his mouth one after the other and she reaches over and squeezes his arm, shutting him up instantly.

“I’m fine,” she breathes. “It’s just…” She clenches her teeth, unable to finish, and Mulder instantly reads the situation. She’s in labor. A whole damned month early.

“How far apart?” he asks her, breathless.

The contraction seems to have passed and she gives him a weak smile. “Not very.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“You got teleporting abilities I don’t know about?” she asks, and he helps her move up and onto the couch. “I didn’t want you to worry.”

“You should have called your mom, you should-”

Another rough grab of her hand to his arm. “I’m not doing this—any of this—without you.”

4. They’re not left alone, the three of them, until they’ve been moved out of the spacious and plush Labor and Delivery ward and into the small, confining cell of Recovery. When at last the on-call nurse leaves the room with a smile and instructions on how to use the call button, the room descends into peace. A quiet, hovering peace.

The baby is asleep, nestled into the crook of Scully’s arm, warm and oddly heavy.

Mulder still has a dazed and exhausted look on his face and is wearing the same clothes he traveled in yesterday, rumpled and a little bit worse for wear. He also hasn’t stopped smiling. A single, gentle click punctuates the silence and then he sets his camera down on the bedside table.

He is as quiet as the room itself and leans over the bed, staring at the baby. He only moves his gaze once, to flit his eyes to Scully’s, running a soft hand through her hair.

“You did it,” he whispers.

“I did,” Scully says happily, tiredly, following his gaze to look down at the small miracle of their child.

The baby has a button nose, orange peach fuzz, and eyes that so look like Mulder’s that Scully can hardly look away herself.

“Can I hold her?” he asks tenderly. “I don’t want to wake her, but…”

He’d cut the cord, he’d gotten to shout “It’s a girl!!” He’d held her while the nurses helped Scully into the wheelchair to move floors. But he hasn’t yet had the chance to commune with the life he helped create, and Scully knows that’s what he wants and she knows it’s something he needs.

“Of course,” she says, immediately moving the tiny child up and around so that Mulder can take her, tubes trailing down from the IV line taped to the back of her hand.

His hands are gentle and tender as he lifts her, and big, so big that the baby practically looks like an egg in a baseball mitt.

“Hi,” he says to her once she’s settled in his arms. He wears a big smile, brushing eyes with Scully before staring back down at his daughter. “Hello Emily,” he says, like he’s trying on the name. The baby snuffles, settles.

Beyond the walls of the hospital, airplanes cross and fly overhead. Beyond the walls of the hospital, are arguments, traffic accidents, war. People are kidnapped. People are killed. Beyond the walls of the hospital is everything else.

Mulder settles into the chair in the corner of the room, his daughter laying snuggly in his lap, and he doesn’t move for a very, very long time.

#the x-files #fanfic #my fic #msr #au #prompt #proof of life universe #are you guys sick of these yet?

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