#xf spoilers
by: mldrgrl
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A sequel to Unexpected and also kind of a post-ep for MSIV, but more like an epilogue.It’s hard to pinpoint the moment that things changed, if there was a moment at all. If Mulder thought it was a matter of postpartum depression, he could deal with that, but the truth was, it started during the pregnancy and has just extended itself past the birth. Outwardly, for all intents and purposes, nothing seemed to be amiss, but he knew better. Something was wrong.
When Scully told him she was pregnant, it took awhile for the reality of it to sink in. It was a confusing time. They had just lost their son, and if that wasn’t bad enough, Skinner was dead, and Monica Reyes was also dead. The body of that cigarette smoking bastard was pulled out of the water and only two days later, as Mulder watched, burned down to a pile of ashes that would sit unclaimed in the office of a crematorium for the next year to be buried en masse with all the other unclaimed bags of ash.
As there was no one else to see to it, Mulder took charge of the arrangements for Skinner, burying his boss in Arlington amongst other noble and fallen heroes. When Kersh showed up, an act Mulder knew was purely out of duty and not heartfelt condolence, he took the opportunity to throw both his and Scully’s badges at the deputy director’s feet in lieu of a formal resignation. Both were lock-jawed and silent, their cold stares at each other said enough.
It was easier than Mulder thought it would be to stop working. He had more than enough money from the liquidation of his parents assets to support himself, Scully, and the baby. If neither of them held a job again, they would still be financially secure. The clippings on his desk went untouched and gathered dust. His interest in the unexplained and the conspiracy theory du jour came to an abrupt halt.
They waited for news of William’s body, but it was never recovered. For weeks, Scully jumped every time the phone rang, but it was always doctors calling about appointments or robots calling about refinancing the mortgage they didn’t have. She was the first though, at the end of her first trimester, to roll over and face him in the middle of a sleepless night, and tell him that for her own sake, and for that of the baby, she needed to let go. Because, despite what she had said on that pier, William was all she thought about.
After that, they stopped tiptoeing around happiness. Mulder didn’t know it at the time, but he had been waiting for Scully’s permission to move out of his own grief and start thinking about the baby.
Summary: The porch lights are on. That’s the first thing he notices. | post-msiv, angst & eventually an improbable infant | part 1/4
in spring
—
Eventually, he runs out of clean clothes.
It’s stupid really. He is terrible at doing his laundry. Terrible at sitting in the warm orange plastic chairs at the laundromat, all fluorescent, the doughy scent of warm sheets burning like smoke. Terrible at paying the knock-off Zoltar with spare change and pocket lint and waiting to feel big.
Last time he went, he turned his last white shirt red. Last time he went, the penny prophet told him it was out of fortunes. Come again later. He’s gotten good at taking invitations to say as warnings to go. Come again later. He didn’t.
Plus, the Bay stays cold and gets colder. He’s been hanging around Chesapeake for a month or two. Living in the sea air, the salt, because nothing else does. March brought the freeze and April held it between its dull teeth, wrung it out into a humid little spring.
For a while, he’d considered California. He’s never seen it. But its far from the coast he’s been circling, and it turns out a couple thousand is only a lot of money if you’re buying video games, or had a Bar Mitzvah, or are seventeen and stupid and so alone that your girlfriend thinking you’re cool, fanning bills, sounds like salvation. It’s only a lot of money if someone else is keeping you alive. He’s worn into his last pair of jeans. Stealing is easy but exhausting. Everything he owns smells like dust and brine.
So. He’s never really had a lot of options. He just liked to think so. It’s not like murder is really a marketable skill. At one shit motel, he gives his name as Henry Hill. At another, Bickle. Durden. And when he’s not feeling like a complete asshat: Luke Skywalker. No one ever blinks. Anonymity clings; he curls up in it.
Mid-April. He drives one last stolen car with a hand out the window, and as he moves into Virginia the air stops smelling like the Bay’s primordial preserves.
It takes him three miles past the state lines to realize the new smell is dirt and rain. The dead come alive. In spring, things rise again. Glory, glory, hallelujah.
The radio plays static and snatches of song.
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.
