#well! here's the unruhe post ep

[baronessblixen]

Your Voice At Night

A huge thank you to the anon who asked if I would ever write Scully speaking German as well as the awesome peeps who re-watched “Unruhe” with me. This is a post-ep for that episode. With apologies to the prompts in my inbox and to Heinrich Heine. 

Tagging @today-in-fic

The cursor blinks at Scully provokingly, waiting for her to go on, to finish her report. Mulder asked her if he should write it. Take the case out of her hands and Gerry Schnauz out of her mind. As if he could do that. But he asked. In fact he asked several times. Each time she declined, at first softly, then firmly. She could do this. She reminded him that she'd been there. She'd been the one in the trailer, sitting in front of him, talking to him. This was her job. Mulder had nodded, bitten his lip and kept quiet. She sighs, stares at the screen. Her fingers are poised over the keyboard when the phone rings.

"Scully." She answers even though she knows who it is.

"It's me," Mulder says in a gentle voice, "I was just calling to see how the report is coming along." It's the weekend and he's never cared before. They've never handed a report in too late – thanks to her. The report is an excuse, but Scully grabs it, turns away from the screen. It can wait a moment longer.

"I'm almost done." She says truthfully and takes off her glasses. Her eyes burn, her temples throb. Yet another headache. She's been having them a lot lately. Too much work, she thinks, plans to do nothing the next day. If Mulder leaves her alone, anyway.

"Good. Cause I need someone to cure my unruhe." Mulder chuckles and Scully rolls her eyes.

"That's not funny, Mulder."

"Not even a little bit?"

"Not even a little bit."

"I'm sorry, Scully," his voice turns serious, darker, "I've just been thinking a lot and… I don't really care about the report."

"It's good to know you're taking our job so seriously."

"That's not what I meant." There's a crackling sound, some mumbling. Scully is about to ask what Mulder is doing when he starts speaking again. "I called to, you know. Ask you. How you were… how it was coming along."

"Nothing you just said made any sense, Mulder." Again, he's quiet and Scully is not in the mood. She's tired, she's agitated. She needs to finish the report, as much as she doesn't want to, and then put it behind her. The whole experience. Howlers, the man with the crazy eyes had said. Unruhe. There's no unruhe inside of her. She'd know.

"Why did you take German in college?" Leave it to Mulder to throw a curveball. After all this time together Scully should be used to this. To him jumping from topic to topic without a stop in between.

"Does it matter?"

"Humor me." He says, waits. "Please." He adds when she doesn't answer.

"There was a guy and I-"

"You learned German for a guy?"

"There was this guy," she repeats, louder this time, "and he was taking German and yes, I liked him."

"Who knew that German was the language of love." Mulder chuckles again and Scully sighs deeply, hopes he hears it loud and clear.

"Does that answer your question?"

"It does. But wait! What was lover boy's name?"

"I don't remember."

"Come on, Scully." Mulder pleads.

"I really don't remember." It's the truth. She knows he had a cute smile and that's it. He might have been nice to look at from a distance, but their conversations were shallow and tedious. An acquaintance best forgotten.

"I make you a deal. You tell me his name or you say something in German."

"You don't speak German, Mulder."

"I just want to hear you speak it." There's the distinctive sound of a sunflower seed being cracked open. Mulder has time. He knows she's not going to just hang up on him. She would, but she fears that if she did, he'd jump into his car and drive over. So it's either this phone call or a Mulder who keeps her awake while staring at her from her couch. She can do this.

"You don't speak any German, do you?"

"Nope." Another sunflower seed.

"All right," Scully closes her eyes, tries to remember the words, "uhm, ich bin… ich bin gluck-glücklich," the words twist her tongue, feel foreign against her lips, "dass du mich gerettet hast. Ich kann mich immer auf dich verlassen. Du wirst mich immer retten. Manchmal… rette ich dich auch." She stops again and waits for Mulder to comment, to make fun of her accent. But he's quiet. Way too quiet.

"Go on." He says finally, softly. Scully stares out the window, watches a car pass by, wonders. Poetry. One of the things she loved most back in college was the way her teacher read out poems to the class. A native German with gray hair and stern eyes he often seemed scary (and was made fun of a lot), but once he read the words of poets long gone, everything about him softened, lit up. She doesn't remember much. Can't recall a whole poem, but there are a few lines that come to her, seem to have settled deep within her.

"Sie liebten sich beide, doch keiner wollte es dem anderen gestehen," Scully blushes even though Mulder has no idea what she's telling him, "sie sahen sich an so feindlich und wollten vor Liebe vergehn." Her breath catches, her heart pounds.

"I was wrong." Mulder says.

"About what?" Does her voice sound strange? She can't tell. Does Mulder have any idea, any idea at all, that she just more or less admitted her love for him? Something she's barely admitted to herself?

"German is, or can be, a language of love."

"Any language can sound lovely, Mulder. You just need to listen."

"Hmm. What did you say anyway?"

"It's just something I remembered from class," she lies, "It might have been a poem. Mulder, I appreciate you calling me, but I really need to finish this and go to bed." He is quiet and for a moment Scully wonders if maybe he's just hung up.

"Are you sleeping all right? No nightmares?" That's the reason he called. It's only taken them twenty minutes to get here. Scully can't help but smile.

"No nightmares, Mulder." She says and means it.

"Good. That's… good. So uhm, how do you say good night in German?"

"Gute Nacht." Scully tells him.

"Gute Nacht." Mulder repeats and he sounds as if he's in pain. Scully chuckles and then, without another word, hangs up. She returns to the screen where the cursor is still blinking at her. She puts her fingers on the keyboard, but she doesn't type. She thinks of the poem, thinks about what she told Mulder. How she's thankful that he's once again saved her and how she knows that he always will. How she saves him, too, sometimes. 

And the poem. She makes a mental note to look up the whole poem tomorrow. Not tonight. Tonight she only repeats the words in her head. Two people in love, unable to say the words. Two people who exchange hostile glances but dissolve in love. She blushes again and then smiles. One day Scully will tell him. Recite the whole poem, explain to him what it means. Only her version will end with two people in love. Full stop.

#have some german #i am not sure what to think of this thing #but i wanted to share anyway #msr #xf fanfic #my writing #my fic