EIGHT THINGS THAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED IN OREGON
by Stephen Greenwood
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: AU through the Pilot, blink-and-you'll-miss-it reference to seasons eight and nine.
Disclaimer: Chris Carter doesn't share his toys.
With thanks to Beth and Mack.
1.
Mulder's abducted.
The car's dials spin and the radio loses its signal as they head towards Bellefleur, and she blames it on a dodgy rental, for when the bright light fades the engine is silent and they're not moving. But then she glances at the driver's side and discovers he's missing. The keys are still in the ignition; his seatbelt remains buckled. There are scorch marks on the upholstery and surely she only imagines the stench of burnt human flesh.
She calls to him from inside the car and out, accuses him of playing a cruel practical joke and that she'll leave without him if he doesn't come back right now. Ultimately she does go, but she waits an hour first and examines every inch of the vehicle in search of his escape route. She doesn't find one. Her knuckles are white against the steering wheel. She can't remember anything about the journey.
She files a missing persons report. He's never officially found but she thinks she sees him eight years later, although it's from a distance and she shrugs it off. She thought she was long past glimpsing him on every street corner. She spends a couple of days convincing herself it wasn't him because he looked exactly the same as he did when they first met, and that's just impossible.
She never sees him again so she doesn't notice how his vertebrae have changed.
2.
Scully disappears.
He goes for a run and when he comes back she isn't there. Her door is unlocked and there's no sign of a struggle. Her laptop lies closed on top of the desk; her clothes are still in her suitcase, cosmetics in the bathroom, reading glasses on the bedside table. The sheets are creased and there's an imprint from where she's been sat on them but otherwise the bed looks unused.
He decides to wait, reasoning that she could have run out to the vending machines or answered a call and discovered bad reception. He dials her number himself after fifteen minutes. Her phone buzzes at him from three feet away.
He questions everyone at the motel and then starts knocking on other doors, growing increasingly frustrated when nobody admits to seeing anything. He ends up punching a wall and refuses to go to a hospital even when the knuckles swell and turn purple; he figures it's only right that he brandishes physical scars to show his pain to the world because only he can see the mental ones, and that's not fair.
It's Samantha all over again, except he's only known Scully for two days and not eight years, but that doesn't matter. They all leave him eventually.
3.
Neither is taken and they wind up having sex. It's only a couple of mosquito bites but it could have easily been something else, and she can't stop herself from clutching at his shoulders as the relief floods her body. From there it's one step away from pressing her lips to his, two for him to put the candle down, and four until they tumble onto the bed, teeth clicking together as they both fight for dominance.
It's hard and it's rough and it's possibly the least gentle but most mind-blowing sex either has ever had. She'll ache the day after and he'll find scratch marks on his back, bruises the size of her fingertips grazing his hips. The scent of her, of them, lingers on the sheets and there's one of her hairs lying on his pillow.
They bear the marks of their encounter but deny it ever happened. They sit through an awkward morning-after breakfast, forcing smiles and conversation, and when he tries to talk about it she cuts him off and tells him it's okay, that she never intended something like that to happen and could they just forget about it? He quickly agrees and they're able to move on and get through the case without mentioning it again.
She requests a transfer when they arrive back in D.C.
4.
They have sex and Scully gets pregnant. She doesn't tell him it's his kid and he doesn't ask, although it doesn't take him that long to guess. It's another in a long list of things they don't talk about.
She moves to Quantico and he stays in the basement. He goes to see her, sometimes, brings her lunch until he isn't sure what will trigger her nausea and then it's safer to fetch nothing at all. They sit on a bench near the Lincoln Memorial and discuss work, the weather, her family. He never attends her OB/GYN appointments; she doesn't tell him when they are but he knows regardless.
He isn't told when she goes into labour and only gets a phone call after the baby's born. He takes a gift to the hospital, sneaks a peek through the window of the nursery, has no say in naming the boy. He sees his son occasionally, either when he stops by out of the blue or when Scully invites him over, but he's never Dad.
When he dies after being shot on a case, the boy is too young to understand why Uncle Fox left him everything in the will.
5.
Mulder dies.
Jay Nemman has a gun and a temper, and Mulder is in the firing line. It's a discussion Nemman sees as an interrogation, and afterwards Scully thinks she should have stepped in when his nostrils flared and he started yelling and making stabbing motions with his index finger. If only someone had done something before he reached for the gun, because as soon as his hand touched the metal the outcome was inevitable.
No amount of medical attention would have saved him, not with how the bullet hit, but she still believes she let him down. He was her partner, and partners look out for each other.
She should have had his back. Should have, but didn't.
6.
Mulder lives and Scully goes to him and drops her gown. Mosquito bites, he says, but they aren't.
7.
He should have had her back, but didn't.
8.
They don't have sex but he does tell her about his sister. She's surprised but he's more shocked when she stays, not just for a few minutes but for a few years. She writes up her report on Billy Miles and then hundreds of others, too, and they return to Oregon a couple of times but never to Bellefleur. Every time they go to the Beaver State Mulder pretends to be wistful and calls it their Casablanca.
It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. They dug up graves. They looked on as everything went up in flames at the motel. They lost nine minutes.
Mulder thinks he's been periodically losing time ever since because he can't quite remember how they wound up at a little church in Virginia, him in a new suit, her in a white dress and veil. His hands are clammy and his chest feels tight and he's tongue-tied. She smiles when she sees him waiting for her and he returns it automatically.
"You look incredible," he says, and ignores the tears that well up in her eyes. "Ready?"
She takes a deep breath. "Yes."
He barely hears the music as he walks her down the aisle. When they reach the altar he leans down and presses a kiss to her cheek, murmuring, "Congratulations, Scully."
"Thank you, Mulder," she whispers, not trusting her voice. "For everything."
He smiles, a touch sadly, and says, "We'll always have Bellefleur."