Title: Reunion
Author:
Fandom: X-files
Pairing: Mulder/Scully
Warning: Post-season 7 AU.
Rating: SFW
Summary: ‘At first he thinks he has the wrong house.
Notes: A “this is how I would have done it” kind of thing.
At first he thinks he has the wrong house.
They brought him here just minutes before, waking him from a dreamless sleep to let him out of a nondescript black car onto a nighttime street. The clothes they gave him are too big and they forgot to give him shoes. He took a limping step and looked back at them, unsure, certain they would pull him away and tell him it was a mistake.
But they told him, in that silent way they had, that she was here, she whose name he had cried out in his sleep and his pain and his fear.
In the dark bedroom he think he knows the sweep of her hair and the point of her nose, but he does not know the creature who sleeps against her bosom, pale as moonlight and foreign as a changeling.
He touches her bright hair and the child’s downy head. They breathe the same pattern as they sleep. They cling to each other, tiny hands to a warm breast, strong arms around the small body. They are beautiful. He does not want to wake them.
It will keep until morning, he decides, and lies down carefully at her side, on top of the covers, assured by their serenity. She breathes, and he knows her name.
It has been a very long time since he was here last, he thinks. He knows the scent, though, even with the talcum powder and milk odor of Baby. He knows the softness of these sheets. He knows that he has slept here before, that they have lain in this bed and talked the night away, that it is a place he has been dreaming of all those missing months.
After several more minutes he understands one more change, in addition to the darkness and the weight of his limbs. The voices are gone. It is only himself in his head now.
He feels himself smile. His eyes stay closed.
He starts up when the air is pierced by a thin cry. It is almost like pain but there is no fear, almost like want but there is also expectation. It continues for a moment, and then there is movement and a murmuring sound of soothing and comfort. “There, there, Mommy’s right here . . .”
The light turns on and they all pause.
Scully’s eyes are very wide and dark, and she stutters for a moment or two. The baby stares at him solemnly, without fear.
“She has your eyes,” he says, and reaches out towards the child. The baby, as if she knows him, and allows herself to be taken from her mother’s numb hands. They inspect each other. The baby has a round, pale head like an egg, covered with sparse dark hair, and large blue eyes. Her nose is small, her hands are plump and her lips are pink. She wears a fuzzy sleeper, yellow with a pink bunny embroidered on the chest. Her fine, pale brows furrow as if she has trouble placing his name, and in this gesture he most sees the influence of her mother.
“Mulder?” Scully whispers. She, the only she who matters, runs trembling hands over her face as if trying to wake herself up. “Mulder—I’m dreaming.”
“Then we both are.” The baby smells like freshly-laundered flannel. She pats his face experimentally, and then lies her warm head on his shoulder. He is in love.
“Mulder.” Scully gets up onto her knees, puts her hands on his shoulders. She touches his face too, tilts his head up and stares into his eyes. “Is it you? It is you. It must be you. Oh, God. Tell me it’s you.”
“It’s me.” He strokes the baby’s strong back. She is so tiny! So supple and wriggling, so solid and real. He can feel her rapid heartbeat, the sheer heat that a small body generates. She looks at him again, her head wobbling on her neck, and lets her head fall forward to suck on his cheek in what he assumes is a newborn’s kiss.
Newborn. Yes. Not many months old, two or three. Has he been gone so long? Long enough for this child to come into being. He is crushed that he missed so much. No teasing Scully about her belly, no giving the swimming embryo a nickname no one else would understand, no lying awake in wonder with the baby turning beneath his hand. No pregnancy, no labor, no choosing the name or the furniture, no holding her hand while listening to the beat of their baby’s heart.
“I missed it,” he says sadly, and Scully sobs aloud and throws her arms around him. The baby squeals and Scully laughs, wetly, kissing the baby and kissing him, touching his face again and again and pulling back to look at the two of them.
“Mulder,” she says, the most eloquent woman he has ever known. “Mulder.”
<center>***</center>
Scully lets him hold the baby, whom she introduces as Hannah. “Hannah Jane Scully,” she says, stroking the baby’s head. “I thought about calling her Mulder but it felt dishonest, us not being married and all.”
“I wouldn’t mind.”
“We’ll worry about that later. Oh, Mulder, so much has happened, I don’t know where to start. I didn’t even know I was pregnant until after you disappeared. I thought I might be but it seemed like so much wistful thinking.”
“She’s so beautiful.”
“Yes.” She gazes tenderly at her daughter. “Everybody says so. She’s a sweet baby. She’s so . . . loving.” Scully’s voice breaks and she looks at him with brimming eyes. He smiles at her and leans over to kiss her.
“Don’t cry,” Mulder whispers, and again she laughs a tiny in-between laugh. She puts her hands on his neck.
“I’m trying not to. Really. I just—everyone told me to give up. Officially, unofficially. Even our friends wanted to give you a wake and move on. They said it’s not healthy for me to keep hoping when there’s no hope. Even my mother said it wasn’t good for the baby. I was starting to think they might be right.” She presses her palms against his chest, his waist, his face. “Are you really here? Am I awake? I don’t want to think. How did you get here?”
“They brought me.” He frowns. “There was a car. They told me you were here, and got me inside. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I’m glad you did.” She kisses him. “I’m so glad you did.”
There is room enough for both of them in his lap. He shifts Hannah to one arm and takes Scully in the other, and she curls up against him. Her toes are cold through his pants.
“Do you need anything?” Scully says after a moment of this. “Are you hungry? Should I take you to a hospital? We really can’t be too careful.”
“I’m all right.”
“I have some of your clothes in the dresser. I let your apartment go, Mulder, I couldn’t pay both our rents. Most of your things are in storage but I kept some around I had to have some things to help me remember. To help me tell Hannah about you.” She puts her finger in the baby’s hand, which closes around it reflexively. She strokes the baby’s hand with her thumb. “I told her about you from the very first. She’s heard every story already, though she won’t remember them. I told her about everything.”
“I hope not everything,” he says softly, and Scully smiles.
“Everything suitable. Everything about her brave, handsome, strong daddy. Everything I could think of to be sure she’d know who you were even if you never came back.”
“Thank you,” Mulder whispers, and they lean foreheads together. His memories of her are, for the most part, tender, and he is glad she feels the same. He wants to stay like this forever, or at least the rest of the night, his two girls in his arms.
But Scully unwinds herself from him and gets off the bed. “You must be starving. Why don’t you take a shower? I’ll make something for you to eat. We can talk in the kitchen.”
“But—” He can’t remember the last time he ate. He thinks it may be a while before he can handle real food again. More than that, he is reluctant to let go of Hannah, to lay her in her crib and leave her in another room.
Scully says, as if she knows exactly why he’s hesitating, “Just for a few minutes. I’ll put Hannah in her carrier.”
“I don’t need anything. Really. Maybe in the morning. I just want to hold you a while, Scully. Both of you.”
Slowly she nods, and turns to the dresser and opens a bottom drawer. “You’ll be more comfortable in these.” She holds out pajama bottoms and t-shirt.
Here he can yield to her, and hands over the
baby long enough to change the ragged clothes on his back for the clean ones she gives him. They get into bed together and hold the baby between them. The sheets are cool, and softer than he remembered.
Scully whispers, still touching him lightly here and there, “Do you think you’re back for good? Is it over, Mulder?”
“I don’t know.”
She closes her eyes. “All I’ve wanted is to have you back.”
“All I’ve wanted is to be back.”
“I can still hardly believe it. I imagined all sorts of dramatic scenarios. I thought maybe you’d burst into the delivery room just in time to see Hannah born.”
“That would have been suitably dramatic.” They both chuckle.
“It wasn’t an easy pregnancy,” Scully says after a moment, and he turns his attention to her fully. “I was pulled from the field early on. Luckily the man they assigned to the X-Files—”
“They replaced me?”
“Temporarily. He’s a good man, Mulder. He kept me informed, he took the work seriously. When I was too sick to be of any use he still made certain I knew what was going on. He made sure everyone remembered I was the one in charge. He knew finding you was my first priority. He respected that.”
Mulder stares at the ceiling. Another man took care of her. Mulder hates him already.
“You’ll like him, Mulder,” Scully says, touching his cheek, and he turns his face to her hand and kisses her palm.
“If you say so. Tell me about Hannah.”
*** *** ***
There is so much to tell each other. They talk until Hannah informs them of her hunger, and Mulder watches, fascinated, as Scully opens her nightshirt and feeds the baby from her breast.
“So that’s what they’re for,” Mulder murmurs, and wonders at the brilliant smile Scully gives him until he realizes he’s made a joke. He smiles too and plumps up the pillow beneath his head. “Do you take her to bed with you often?”
Scully nods slowly. “When I feel particularly lonely. I try to keep her on my chest, so that I don’t roll over her or she doesn’t get caught under a pillow.”
He watches the baby’s lily-soft fist pulse against Scully’s breast. Open, close, open, close. Tears sting his eyes. “It’s not fair.”
“What’s not?”
“All of this. I should have been here. You shouldn’t have gone through this alone.”
“I wasn’t alone, not completely. I had family, friends. Skinner’s been wonderful. John—my partner—I told you how helpful he’s been. I always had the hope I wouldn’t be alone for long.”
“Who was with you when you gave birth?” He is trying not to feel jealous. Honest.
“My mother.”
He can live with that. If it were Skinner or the faceless partner . . . Still . . . “It should have been me.”
“We can’t change the past, Mulder.” It is a gentle admonition. She does not blame him, he can see it in her eyes. She has been longing for him and now she has him, and is satisfied.
So many years he was afraid that she would be snatched away from him again, and he knows, as he watches his lover and his child, that she will carry that fear forever too. He strokes her kneecap with his thumb. “We can change the future, Scully.” She raises her brows at him and he elaborates, “Do you think we’re safe here? The three of us? I imagine certain factions have been very interested in Hannah—”
“No. Don’t say it, Mulder. No one has raised a hand against me or the baby, no one has tried to take her, there never was a moment of doubt that she wasn’t one hundred percent human and one hundred percent ours. She’s an innocent, Mulder.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Do you think we have something to be afraid of?”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to tempt fate by staying where we shouldn’t be.”
Scully lowers her head and shakes it, side to side. “No. I won’t. I can’t run away, Mulder. There’s too much left undone.”
He says nothing to this. He wonders if he’ll ever be able to sleep peacefully again.
Scully says, gently, “It’s not just our future that’s at stake, Mulder. If we leave and let the world fend for itself, everyone will suffer. I’m no hero—”
Mulder makes a sound of protest at this, and Scully pauses long enough to kiss him.
“You know what I mean. I don’t think I was meant to save the world but dammit, if it’s to be done I’ll do it. I accept that destiny, if it’s offered to me.”
“And if no one can save us?”
“Then running away won’t make a difference.”
He had thought she was strong before, but he can see now how their separation has affected her. She is more than strong. She is invincible. She knows the heights of her own power. He feels, not for the first time in her presence and not even for the first time in this bed, that she is something better, something more, than any person who has ever lived.
“Yes,” he murmurs. “If anyone can save us, it’s you.”
Again she smiles. “Enough melodrama, Mulder. We need to sleep. We’ll talk about it in the morning.” She lifts Hannah to her shoulder and pats and rubs her back until the baby belches. “That’s better, isn’t it, love?” she says, and the baby yawns.
When Scully turns out the light again and they lie together, the three of them, Mulder allows his eyes to close. He does not think he will sleep tonight. He listens to his family sleep and hopes they will still be together in the morning.
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