Title: Here In The Dark
Author: TLynn
E-Mail: fallingsky@comcast.net
Feedback: Yes, please
Distribution: Anywhere, just let me know so I can 
visit
Rating: PG
Category: MSR, angst
Spoilers: post-ep of sorts for 'Three Words'
Summary: If she can believe, he can believe.

Disclaimer: Not mine, never have been, never will be.

Thanks: To Carol for the beta and some of the best 
encouragement a girl could ask for. To Circe, also 
for the beta, for her sharp eye, and for hosting me 
at her lovely site: http://tlynn.invidiosa.com

And to Vickie Moseley, for a recent e-mail conversation 
that led me to give this story the focus it needed. 

* * *


Everything was the same, but different. The coffee table 
seemed further from the couch than he remembered, the 
windows seemed larger. It was indeed cleaner than he'd left 
it, but the lamplight seemed unnaturally bright and the 
refrigerator seemed unusually loud. He turned the TV on 
more out of an old habit than a desire to watch it, but all 
it had to offer was static and snow; he hadn't bothered to 
turn his cable back on. Rhythmic pulses of soft light washed 
over the apartment walls, reflected in his eyes as he stared 
down at the screen.
 
"Mulder, what happened in there?" she had asked as she drove 
away from the Census Building, casting a long glance in his 
direction.
 
Her voice had been small, almost afraid. He'd hated that 
there was even a small part of her that might fear him and 
his reaction to anything she asked. But he didn't know how 
to reassure himself of anything right now, let 
alone his partner.
 
"The FSC is now a dead end, that's what happened."
 
A heavy sigh had told him this was not the answer she'd 
been looking for. She'd kept her eyes on the road, but 
glanced in the rearview mirror with enough consistency to 
make any paranoid proud.
 
Neither spoke again the rest of the way. She'd stopped her 
car in front of his building and turned the engine off, 
effectively amplifying the silence between them. She'd 
opened her mouth to say something when he spoke instead.
 
"Goodnight, Scully," he'd said. "Go home and get some 
sleep. I'll call you tomorrow."
 
He'd closed the door with a little more force than he meant 
to, but didn't turn around to apologize. She'd restarted 
the car and driven off before he'd taken even a dozen 
steps.
 
He'd felt an ache in his chest then, one that mirrored the 
ache he felt now, staring at nothing on his television 
screen. He was exhausted, but restless; his body was weary, 
but his mind energized not only by the events of the 
evening, but also by the events of the last several months.
 
Everything was the same, but everything had changed. Only 
one thing had remained consistent: his pursuit of a truth 
and the men responsible for covering it up. He felt a 
strange comfort in that as he wandered into his bedroom, 
stripping clothes off his body as he went. A glance at his 
bedside clock told him it was nearly 3 A.M. 'Scully should 
be home and in bed by now,' was his last thought as he 
collapsed onto the bed and into a fitful sleep.
 
* * *

The images are shattered in his mind, but they are 
clear: gleaming metal, long needles, blades and restraints. 
The feeling of panic is just as clear. 'Why?' his mind 
shouts. 'Why is this happening? I need to get out of 
here.' His heart threatens to beat clear out of his chest. 
He can't move. Panic. He can his skin being pierced, 
His body invaded even before the blade reaches him...

He wakes with a start, sweat beading from his brow. He 
throws the covers from his body and tries to calm his 
breathing. The dream -- the memory -- is already fuzzy, but 
the intensity of it remains, throbbing in time with his 
still-quickened pulse. That's when he hears it. He knows 
it's her key that's turning in the deadbolt, can recognize 
her soft footfall on his hardwood floor as she enters. He 
hears the soft 'click' of the door closing and focuses his 
eyes to watch her as she passes through the threshold of his 
bedroom. The light from the streetlamps outside is 
negligible, so all he can see is her silhouette, swaying 
slightly with her pregnant waddle as she walks.

Pregnant. Scully is pregnant.

He thinks he remembers screaming her 
name while in restraints, while blinded by lights shining 
from above, while a blade sliced through him.

She makes her way to the end of his bed and the mattress 
sinks beneath his feet as she sits. He can make out her 
profile now, but her head is bowed slightly so her hair, 
longer than he remembers it, covers much of her face. He 
likes her hair long like this, he thinks absently. He needs 
to remember to tell her that.

"Are you awake?" she asks. 

Though anticipating it, her voice startles him slightly. 
Here in the dark, without any distraction, it's loud, 
demands his attention, and carries with it a distinct 
frustration and a profound fatigue.

"I'm awake," he tells her.

She doesn't speak for so long, he wonders if she ever will.

"Look, if this is about tonight--" he starts.

"This isn't about tonight," she says, cutting him off. "I 
need you to know something, Mulder." 

His chest constricts anew at her words, though with an 
altogether different intensity, not sure he wants to hear 
what she has to say; with all that's happened in both of 
their lives, anything truly is possible. As evidenced by
her still-growing belly.

She hasn't moved, her gaze still cast downward as she 
speaks to him.

"Something you said the other day has been weighing on me," 
she says. "You said you didn't know where you fit in--"

"Scully," he interrupts, sitting up. "I just--"

"No," she says, and he stops. 

"How could you not know where you fit in?" she asks, 
finally turning her head to look at him and even in the 
dark he can see the tears glistening in her eyes. "After 
all we've been through, how can you not know?"

He doesn't know how to respond, so he doesn't. He doesn't 
know how to tell her he doesn't recognize himself in the 
mirror anymore, even with the scars healing. He doesn't 
know how to express that he feels like a stranger in his 
own home, in his own life. He doesn't know how to tell her 
he feels helpless sometimes, that the disorientation hasn't 
quite left him, that it frustrates the hell out of him that 
he can't remember anything but a light in a forest and the 
shrill frequency of a drill boring into his flesh. How can 
he tell her that the only thing he can focus on right now 
is getting some answers, that part of him wishes she'd just 
go away until he gets his bearings back? How can he tell 
her he feels betrayed by her, by her trust in John Doggett, 


that he knows how unwarranted that feeling is, but that he 
can't help it? He can't tell her. So he doesn't. Instead, 
he listens.

"I don't discount anything you went through," she 
continues. "In fact, I think I, better than anyone, may be 
able to understand some of what happened. But I need you to 
know what I went through while you were gone. I need you to 
understand. I buried you. I watched your coffin being 
lowered into the ground. I need you understand that your 
being alive now, laying in this bed, is more than I could 
have ever hoped for. I prayed for your safe return, 
prayed for one more chance to see you, to feel you, to hold 
you. I understand your need to find out what happened to 
you, to find out why it happened, and to make sure it 
doesn't happen to anyone else. I don't begrudge you that; 
it's what fuels you, what has always fueled you. But don't 
ever question your place in this life, not where the X Files 
are concerned and certainly not where I am concerned. The 
powers that be may want you gone, but Skinner and I -- 
and John Doggett -- will do all we can to get you back in 
the Bureau."

She pauses for a moment then, seemingly to collect her 
thoughts.

"And yes, this is *our* child. Part of me still 
can't fathom that or the fact that you're alive. But it is 
and you are and I'm so grateful. I need you to see that. 
And I need you to see how scared I still am and how much 
I've needed you these past six months, how much I've needed 
you to wrap your arms around me and tell me everything's 
going to be okay. Even if you don't believe it. I need the 
safety of your arms, the safety of your beliefs. I've been 
shaken to my core, Mulder, and I need you. How could you not 
know where you fit in?"

She lowers her head again and a heavy silence fills the 
air.

He finds it remarkable that her voice never once rose. So 
stoic, his Scully. Her tone was verging on conversational 
as she sat here in the dark and confessed her deepest 
thoughts and feelings. Theirs was a relationship of things 
unspoken and she seems undaunted by turning it on its 
head.

Then he notices; the emotions fueling her words may have 
been absent in speech, but that calm, even tone is belied by 
the trembling of her hands.

He goes to her, swings his legs over the side of the bed 
and presses his thigh into hers, wraps his arm around her 
shoulder and pulls her against him. Her head rises only to 
fall upon his bare shoulder and he buries his nose in her 
hair. She smells different than he remembers and it 
suddenly strikes him it was she, this new Scully, he was 
smelling on the cotton of his bedsheets since his return. 
This new Scully, heavy with emotions that ran as deep as 
his own, heavy with fear of yet another unknown, heavy with 
hormones and a child. Their child. The thought still made 
his head spin.

"Everything's going to be okay," he says softly. He doesn't 
know if he believes it.

Her breath hitches and she turns to him, wraps her arms 
around his neck and holds him tight against her. Her belly 
presses against him and is as soft and warm as the rest of 
her. He holds her, too, and feels the wet of her tears on 
his neck. 

She pulls away and when his body instinctively moves to 
follow her, he thinks it's a good sign that he's coming 
back to himself. Her hands cup his face, her touch so 
gentle he can barely feel it, and her eyes find his. She 
nods her head and he thinks she believed him when he said 
it was going to be okay. He thinks maybe it will be; he 
thinks maybe if she can believe, he can believe.

Here in the dark, he's not quite the man he used to be. But 
he's on his way.

* * *
end