#and forgotten baby monitors
The fourth series reads as follows:
Apple Balancing…Potential…The Newbies…The Dessert…Dinosaurs and Cannibalism…Sassy Sprinklepants…The Secret Vault of Mudlerness…Taco Night…Neckhole Wrestling…The Onesie…Multiplication…Catching On…Thanksgiving…The Funeral…Midnight Libations…Stockings were Hung…Mama Walter…Jesus, Mary, and Joseph (Skimmer-style)…Official…Memory Lane…Tartan Tablecloths…Auntie V… Birthday Surprises…Routines…Worry…Again…Betsy…Sam…Anything for Five Minutes…Batteries …but I’m not…
To catch up: First series…Second series … Third series
&&&&&&&&
Mulder dropped Sam off at his house, hugging him tightly before sending him off to take a nap, their draining afternoon catching up to his still-recovering body quickly. Joanna looked at Mulder critically, “did he do okay?”
“He did great. He didn’t say much but I wasn’t expecting a deluge anyway.”
“I don’t need to know what he said but as long as you tell me he’s alright, I’ll believe you.”
Just wanting to go home and cry, he gave he a smile, “he will be all right.”
She hugged him then, sending her love home to Scully and the kids, setting a time for the next Saturday before waiting until he’d gotten in his car and waved, to shut the front door.
Mulder, for his part, felt like hell and was truly grateful that Scully didn’t ask anything except, “you doing okay?”
“I’m doing okay.”
&&&&&&&&&&
The phone rang at 12:30am and Scully, already awake and feeding the babies, grabbed it on its second ring, utter terror freezing her insides, especially once she saw it was Dave’s number, “Is everything all right? What’s wrong?”
Sam’s voice, small and quiet, “whenever I fall asleep, I see the arms moving over me, from while I was on the table. How do I stop seeing them?”
Still in panic mode, “one second. Are you okay? Do you need help?”
“I’m okay. I just woke up from a nightmare and already had the phone in my hand and the idea to call you.” She could hear the tears on the back of his words, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called you.”
“No. Nononono, Sam, it’s fine. I was awake with the twins anyways. I just want to make sure you don’t need any help over there, first. I’m fine to talk … as long as you like.”
“I should go. I’m sorry.”
“Samuel James, do not hang up the phone.”
Full name business now.
“But it was stupid. I should have just called you in …”
She blew right over him, her voice drowning out his small one, “I still have that dream. I see instruments and needles being passed over me while I stare up at the ceiling and can’t move, can’t push the hands away.”
It was silent for almost a minute, but she could still hear him breathing so she waited, patiently, her heart thudding entirely too regularly for such an irregular conversation, especially one with a 12-year-old.
“They won’t ever go away?”
“I don’t know, but I’ve learned that when I have that dream, I think to myself, in the dream, that I’m not really alone. Uncle Mudler is sleeping next to me and I just keep telling myself that, until I finally wake up and see Uncle Mudler, drooling on me, and everything is okay.”
“But the dreams are so real. I wake up feeling their hands on me, feel the spots where they held me down.”
“In the beginning, yes, they seemed so real that I didn’t want to go to sleep, ever, but then, after a very long time, I decided to tell myself, over and over again, before I went to bed, that I was safe and happy and whatever I dreamed wasn’t real. Over and over, repeating and repeating, that it would just be a dream.”
“Do you still do that now?”
She had never told anyone about the mantra or what she was about to say as well, “every night. Every night I pray that everyone I know and love will be protected and then I fall asleep thinking, ‘whatever I dream, isn’t real.’”
Sam, sitting in the living room, having no idea how he got downstairs in the first place, “did you hear sounds, when you came back?”
Scully simply nodded her head, realizing she was telling her nephew things she had never even told her husband, “I did. I heard train whistles, real faint but definitely whistles. I heard ticking clocks and random high-pitched buzzing. I don’t hear much anymore but occasionally, I’ll hear a thudding thump that I can’t explain. Like I’m hearing a second heartbeat in my head but I have no idea what it is.”
Jumping subjects with ease, “My mom dropped a handful of silverware after dinner and I was just coming down the stairs and I … I peed my pants.” His embarrassment came through the phone clearly, “I didn’t … I didn’t tell anyone. I just went and changed.”
She could feel him clamming up, closing off, about to flee from the conversation because of his confession of indiscretion. Pulling him back in her quiet way, “you want to hear something?”
Hesitating, ready to say ‘goodnight’ and go stay awake until morning, “yeah.”
“On our birthday, your uncle woke me up and scared me with one of those pink coconut Sno-Balls. He just wanted to wish me ‘happy birthday’ but instead, I had to throw up because of the twins and because he scared me and I had to move fast, I didn’t have time to tighten my muscles and … you can never tell anyone this, do you understand me … I peed my pants, too. I was throwing up and peeing and it was a nightmare that we will never speak of but I survived and so will you and we don’t have to talk about me or you peeing ever again.”
While not laughing, she could hear his smile, “we kinda have our own weird, little club now, don’t we?”
“I guess we do. We’ll need t-shirts.”
“Maybe they can have toilets on them.”
Smiling as well, “they most certainly can.”
Another long pause later, he yawned, “I’m sorry for waking you up.”
“You can always wake me up, you understand? Always.” Listening to him yawn a second time, “are you going to go to bed now?”
“I think so.”
“They’re just dreams, don’t forget. Your mom and dad are just down the hall and I’m right here if you need me. Take the phone with you, if you want to, so you can call right away and we can talk pee again.”
Quiet on his end.
“I love you, Samuel James Scully. Don’t let anybody tell you different.”
“I love you, too.”
&&&&&&&&&
Scully settled the twins back down, then, turning off lights as she went, found the bed in the dark with her knees, then crawled in, Mulder, in his Mulder way, shifting to find her. In a voice entirely too clear and awake for having been sound asleep a moment before, “need some hugs?”
The first tear was already rolling down her nose, dropping between them with the faintest of sounds as it hit the sheets, “yes, please.” After being shifted and squeezed to the proper level, he continued to hold her close, “I forgot about the baby monitor.”
“It’s okay. I have promptly forgotten everything I heard. Your secrets are safe.”
Her breath dampened his neck as she spoke, the sound warm and muffled, “they really shouldn’t be secrets in the first place. I’m trying to get Sam to tell me what happened when I realize I still haven’t told you.” Pushing her nose into him, face smashed in a futile attempt to get closer to him, “it was so bright in that room, my eyes throb just thinking about it.”
Hand now moving over her back, finding skin under shirt, “you don’t have to do this … at least not now.”
“Yes, I do.”
