Post-ep for Ghouli. I have had the hardest time getting this thing down, I don’t even know how I feel about it anymore, and I want it gone.
It’s kinda thinky, sorry. Mulder and I are doing a lot of processing.
Title is from Decks Dark, which I have been listening to nonstop.
When he opens his eyes it’s with a start, a wrench out of a dream in which they lost the flash drive. He can’t recall how – the details are already fading, but the panicked, slipping feeling remains.
He takes a few breaths, looking at the raindrops beading on the bedroom window, and lets his rational mind slip back into the driver’s seat. They copied it over last night. It’s on both of their laptops, and on two more flash drives, one of which is in the basement, wrapped in newspaper and placed in a rinsed-out peanut butter jar, and the other of which is in his work bag, final destination to be determined. Scully still has the original.
There had been a moment, yesterday in the gas station, when he had been seriously assessing whether it would be possible to rip the camera from the wall while Scully held the attendant off and make a getaway with it. It didn’t come to that: Scully, always the more tech-savvy in addition to being the cooler-headed, had pulled the flash drive, decorated in American-flag colors and equipped with a keychain to boot, from a bin near the register and placed it wordlessly on the counter. For $8.99 plus tax, and with the cooperation of the attendant who was only too happy to be rid of them, the video of Scully and their son – their son – was theirs to keep.
She held the flash drive the whole way back, her fingers curled carefully around it like a robin’s egg, looking down at it occasionally, stars and stripes and all. Some persistent, childish part of him had wanted, over and over, to demand a turn, as if it were unfair that she should get to be the one to carry it, this little piece of metal and plastic. However many steps removed from the reality of their living, breathing boy, he felt the urge to grab onto it, clutch it to his chest, never let go.
