Only One
Mulder has many images that have never left him; while so much of his life now lies in gaps, there are parts that echo in his dreams and waking hours.
Samantha's smile, abduction. Samantha in starlight.
And of course, there are so many from the torture. From watching Cancerman beat him and the moments he thought he was defeated.
Then there is Scully.
He barely remembers meeting her, and has the few fleeting images of her from the early days—Scully smiling, Scully with barbeque at the side of her mouth, Scully by his side at Christmas time.
Scully in the hospital, Scully dead.
After the apocalypse, he remembers Scully walking through the dead lands, charred remains surrounding her in heaps. Mulder remembers the dark piles of ash and the crackling flames of skyscrapers that hit the ground, smoke filling the eyes and the mouth, while they and Skinner and a few stragglers coughed and struggled over the burning landscape.
He remembers Scully taking off her gold necklace, and believing that right then, she was finally going to discard it.
He remembers feeling horrified.
But she did not.
Mulder sees Scully as she holds the gold chain in her grasp, dangling the cross out of her dirty palm. Now, she walks head down, and he thinks she may be crying. But he never confirms this to be true.
Scully crosses the deadlands eyes closed, head down, swinging the gold pendant from side to side, as if to christen the damned place.
He remembers how she never stumbled and never spoke, but swung the cross from side to side, and never coughed again.
And in that moment, and the others in which he continues to remember the event, Mulder is speechless with wonder and emptiness. For a moment, he embraces the fact that there is nothing left, and that maybe that's a good thing.
And in another time, Scully coughs up blood later and he forgets his forgiveness.
But not now.
Their mountain community is tiny, but they persevere. On shifts, they journey to the valley below, to monitor the few scientific instruments they have, to check radio logs.
Silence is essential; no one has ever known the aliens' true capabilities, and in a dead world where speech is often lost and the majority of everything is gone, sound travels for miles unrestricted.
Sometimes, when he dreams, Mulder imagines everyone singing in unison, or screaming, shouting "Hello!" and he smiles and thinks the world would connect and struggle could end. But such thoughts would only be relevant if this wasn't the end of the world.
There is never anyone, never any danger. But they are still careful, afraid, and quiet.
It is here Scully begins to scream.
"MULDER!"
She's shrieking his name and he jumps over rubble in an attempt to find her. There are too many pieces of buildings and he can tell she's in pain but all he can think to say is 'SHH!'
"I'm coming Scully hang on! Hang on!"
She's writhing by a collapse park bench, breath hitched and ragged and she groans and digs her nails into the solid ground beneath her. The sun is going down and drowning in the land, and Mulder is dragging her, half carrying her, trying to move her as she kicks and claws because she can't control her movement anymore, and he can't hear anything now but the rushing of blood in his own ears.
They collapse in a small building, but he keeps going, trying to find a room with a door, or a room more insulated, less out in the open. It is dark now—no moon—and he's fumbling, fumbling with the lantern, with the backpack with emergency water and food.
And Scully, she's almost growling, moaning and screaming at the same time. Teeth clenched so hard he thinks her jaw will lock she's gasping and twisting in his arms.
Now he's practically dropped her, he's holding her pressed against the ground, face up, and she's arching upwards as he pins her wrists and tries to keep her still.
"SCULLY! You've got to…you've got to…try to stay still, calm down! Please, Scully…oh my god…Scully tell me what's wrong! Scully!"
"Mulder! My back oh god my back Mulder make it stop oh please please make it stop…!"
Her last word trails off in to a whimper and another shriek. She's sobbing and gritting her teeth so hard, screams bouncing in her throat, hoarse already, but she's trying to be quiet, just a little.
"MULDER"
"I'M TRYING! I'm trying!"
Rummaging through the backpack, hands hitting metal and tupperware—he switches the lantern on—find the small towel and he uncurls her. She's digging her nails into her hands—"Oh god Scully, you've got to hang on on I'm trying I'm trying"—and her knees, he stuffs the washcloth in her mouth so she'll have something to bite. He doesn't even know what's wrong.
Unceremoniously, he rolls her over peels off her shirt. The lantern is dim and she still twisting under him, groaning and crying and Mulder can barely stand it. Her flesh is rolling, her shoulders are shaking—No, not that's not right, her shoulders, they're different and the flesh is twisting and the bones look like they're collapsing in: Oh my god something's trying to get out, he thinks, but it makes no sense.
"Scully!" He screams, trying to keep her still, "I don't know what's wrong, your shoulders, they're…changing…?"
Mulder can think of no better word as she trembles and shudders against him. He's practically sitting on her, trying to keep her semi-still, and he hopes that there is no ship for miles and miles because by god they might as well be dead.
He's holding her hand and he thinks he will break.
And then he's forced to the side because it is like Alien only from Scully's shoulders, OH MY GOD, and then there is twisting columns of sinew and muscle, it is so bright even without so little light, and Scully is shrieking with new found strength as bindings snap forth out of her and into the blackness around them.
Suddenly, it is over.
"Mu-Mulder?"
"Scully?"
"I can't…something…everything, all the pain…it's gone."
"Sorry, the lantern, I'm trying—trying to find the lantern."
"I can't feel…no, no, I can feel. Something's strange Mulder, something's strange."
Her voice is high, terrified but there is something calm in it too. He doesn't know what has just happened but he can tell from her breathing that something is different.
"Mulder?"
"Just stay still Scully, just lie there for a second, ah here we go here it is—"
The lights goes on and he can see her, red hair glinting in the darkness, eyes turned towards him, and oh god—
He gasps and moves towards her if only to see, he doesn't think he'll ever understand.
"MULDER?"
"Calm…calm you're okay, Scully, you're okay, Scully just lie there for a second, 'k?"
Mulder can no longer control his own breathing and he's gasping quietly for air; from Scully's back there are protrusions that look like wings—covered in blood and perhaps made from leather but they look like wings—
He empties the canteen onto the washcloth, and begins to stroke...them, he thinks he's cleaning off—yes it is blood.
Scully's shivering, he can tell she can feel the sensation but cannot identify its origins, and he's touching and washing the blood from them. They're wings and they're made of leathery muscle and skin, pieces of ivory bone and…he almost laughs—pale, red feathers.
"Wait Scully, wait."
He knows it is wishful thinking, but he is looking for a mirror, maybe there is a bathroom with an unshattered mirror, perhaps the last in the world.
The last unbroken mirror and it is here.
He leads her, without words, only with reassuring hands on the shoulders, to the tiny room and holds the lantern up as he turns her around and carefully guides her head to look back towards the mirror.
"Scully…I don't—"
She gasps and starts to fall, because what she sees is something so impossible that for a moment she does not remember Emily or the poor girls she tried to protect so long ago. Mulder catches her, and tries to catch her tears in his palms, and she starts to sob, not from happiness or sadness.
"I don't understand."
"Shh, shh, I don't either."
He guides her to her feet again, and she stands the same way, gazing at her back through the mirror.
He moves his hands to her back, under the wings and massages gently.
"But Scully?"
His touch turns to whisper of breath and fingers against her skin, she shivers, and her wings unfurl into molded structures of fire and strength. She is gasping, tears in eyes, unable to speak or to comprehend, only to see and believe truly for once in her life.
"I think you're beautiful."
And she is kissing him, kissing him furiously through her tears because she does not know what else to do.
A/N: X-Files not mine
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