1997

When he was a boy, he'd stumbled across a mess of blood on the snow.

It had been just past sunrise, the neighbourhood still and quiet with the hush of new snow and the drowsy torpor of the holidays where no one had anywhere in particular they'd needed to be, and certainly not at this hour. He'd always been an early riser, eager to see what the new day held, and he'd left his parents and Samantha sleeping inside to venture out into this fresh white wonderland that had appeared like magic overnight. The footprints and tracks from the car tires in the road, the snow angels, the remnants of yesterday's snowball fight had all been wiped clean, ready for them to start again.

So, it had stood out, the vivid splash of crimson by the tree.

He had just stepped out onto the front porch, relishing those first few crunchy squeaks of brand new snow beneath his boots, and it made him pause.

He stopped.

The crisp winter air stole his breath away, like at that second everything else had frozen, too.

He was drawn toward it, the wooden stairs creaking as he made his way down, one careful step at a time. There was a small brown lump in the center, and he swallowed. A small rabbit? A mouse?

His footprints left a path across the pristine canvas of the lawn.

As he drew closer, he realized that it was a bird. A tiny sparrow, flecked with chestnut brown and ivory feathers and a chest that had been torn open, leaving the spatter of blood and viscera that had drawn his gaze. He crouched down beside it, taking in the ridiculous bend of its little legs, sticking up like twigs; the somber pebble of its unblinking eye. One wing was splayed out, and he pulled off his mitten to stroke the longest flight feather with the tip of his finger.

It seemed so delicate, so inhumane, this innocent life that had been snuffed out at the whims of a cat or an owl or a hawk and left here for him to find. There was nothing that could be done. No way to fix it, no way to put it back together, to breathe life back into it and watch it fly.

He couldn't remember now, what he had done afterward. Had he buried it? Simply left it there? He remembered going back inside, taking off his boots and leaving them lined up neatly on the mat so that the melting snow wouldn't leave puddles on the floor and make his mother angry. He'd hung up his jacket, tucking his hat, his scarf, his mittens, into the pockets and sleeves. Then he'd gone back up to bed and stayed there, long after everyone else was awake, lying on top of his blankets and thinking.

Mulder watched the drop of blood roll down from beneath her nose before she could catch it with the crumpled tissue she held in her hand.

He handed her a fresh one from the box on the corner of the desk without speaking.

He wasn't supposed to see, wasn't supposed to notice. That's what she wanted, anyway, but it was getting harder and harder to hold up his end of the pretense.

"I just need to use the washroom, and then we can review the notes on the Waterson case, okay?" He hated the forced brightness in her voice, but he nodded regardless.

"Sure, Scully. Whatever you want."

She disappeared with a clicking of her heels on the concrete floor and the squeak of the door opening and closing.

Let's all pretend that she was going to the washroom because she'd had too much coffee this afternoon and not because there had been blood draining from her nose, drop by drop, relentlessly for the last hour. Let's imagine that she wore dark coloured blouses because they were flattering, not because they hid the drops she missed before they splashed down onto her chest. He scowled as he stood up, pushing his chair back with more force than was necessary, and grabbed a handful of tissues from the cheery floral patterned box.

He swiped them across the surface of her side of the desk, the one he'd been overtly trying to share with her since Philadelphia. Not that it mattered. She still shut him out, pushed him away. Sometimes, he let himself wonder if this was better or worse than when she'd been missing. Of course it had hurt to wonder where she was, if she was okay, if he would find her… but spending every day watching her grow more insubstantial was some special sort of hell he wouldn't have wished on anyone.

Tossing the tissues in the trash can with the others, crimson spatters on crumpled snow swept landscapes, he wished he didn't feel so fucking helpless. Why was it that you couldn't truly comprehend how much something had come to mean to you until it was about to be taken away? He'd convinced himself, after Duane Barry, that he would tell her how he felt about her, how his feelings had started to run deeper, how they had burrowed into the rich soil of his heart and taken root there. Even if she'd told him she didn't feel the same, or if they'd decided it wasn't the right time, or even if there was never going to be a right time, at least… at least he would have said them. Speaking words out loud gave them power, kissed them and sent them out into the world where, if you were very lucky, they might come back to you some day.

But he hadn't.

And the days had crept by and normalcy had returned. The words were still locked up tight in his chest and the roots grew around them, twining and curling and waiting.

Waiting for the perfect moment, the perfect time, that was never going to come.

While those roots were growing, something else was growing, too. The tumour in her head that was killing her right before his eyes, making him watch as it took a little more of her each and every day until there was going to be nothing left to take.

He scarcely noticed when she returned, still sniffling and pale, to take the seat opposite his. At this point, he wasn't sure which one of them was less alive.

Two ghosts, playing pretend.

1999

Mulder shifted his weight from foot to foot as he stood outside her door. It was Christmas Eve and she'd unexpectedly invited him over, the ringing of the telephone having woken him from an unintended nap earlier that afternoon.

Her voice had been soft, almost adorably unsure, although she would have murdered him with a glare had he ever dared to say that out loud and to her face. He'd agreed — of course, he'd agreed! — had wrapped up the small box containing the gift he'd bought two years ago but still hadn't given to her, and had trudged out into the Washington sleet.

He was standing outside her door and thinking he should just knock already and now he was the one who was unsure.

Before he could second guess himself, he raised his free hand and rapped on the door three times.

It took a moment before he heard Scully on the other side, fumbling with the locks, and then she was swinging the door open.

"Come on in, Mulder. Your timing is impeccable."

The ready smile on his face dropped away as his heart turned to dust, as all the scars that had healed over broke open and began to bleed.

She had a dishtowel pressed to her face and there was blood, she was bleeding, and it had seeped through the pale blue linen in multiple places.

He was going to be sick.

The present fell from his hands, his fingers opening and closing mindlessly.

She was still talking to him, her head partially turned away and pointing towards the kitchen, but he couldn't hear anything over the roaring in his ears.

It was back. It hadn't worked. It had all just been lies and more lies, anything to cause them more pain.

The chemoreceptors in his brain began to klaxon and his body forced itself to draw in a shuddering gasp of air, and the sound made Scully turn to look at him in surprise.

"Mulder? Mulder!"

She caught him as he took a staggered step towards her, his knees buckling. It was a slow collapse down to the floor with her arms wrapped around his chest. She'd dropped the towel and now it lay bunched up between them, a memento he'd never asked for, never wanted.

Her concerned eyes were on his, her hands brushing the hair back from his forehead. "Are you all right? Were you feeling faint earlier or just now?" Always worrying about him, not thinking about herself.

It was hard to get the words out around the wooden dull lump of his tongue. "Why didn't you tell me?"

She shook her head lightly as he tried not to stare at the smear of blood near her upper lip. Her fingers were pressed against his carotid artery, glancing down at her watch as she checked his pulse. "Tell you what?"

His mouth just wouldn't work right. "That it was back." Each word was a boulder he had to scrabble up and over to get out. He picked up the towel and turned it over in his hands, unable to meet her eyes and see the truth there.

"Oh, Mulder." Her voice was soothing balm as she forced his face up. "Weren't you listening? I was telling you how I accidentally left the one of the upper cupboard doors open and then walked into it. This," she gestured at her, now that he looked more closely at it, obviously swollen nose, "was just due to my inability to watch where I was going. God, what you must have thought when I opened the door…" She threaded her arms around his neck and hugged him. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you like that. I didn't even think you—"

"Scully." It came out as a moan of relief as he embraced her back, holding her to him as tightly as he dared. His fingers found the bump on the back of her neck, found the chip that had cured her, that was keeping her alive, and he couldn't stop running the pads of his fingers over that spot, again and again as he blinked away the dampness forming in his eyes.

They sat on her floor for a few minutes, for half an hour, for a lifetime, as he held her, and she held him back.

"I should probably close the door before my neighbours call the cops, considering everything else that's happened here over the years," she said at last, with a touch of dry humour. "You okay?"

He pulled back, wiping his hands across his face before looking at her. "Yeah. You?"

"Well… my nose hurts."

"I'll bet. You did quite a number on it." He touched the faintly purple lump on the bridge of her nose, trying to be gentle, before carefully wiping at the now dried blood below it. "You've, uh, still got some there."

She wiped at it just as ineffectively and he shook his head to indicate that it her ministrations hadn't improved the situation. "Let me go get a washcloth. You get the door."

She groaned as she stood up and he could hear the vertebrae in her spine crack as she stretched before reaching down to pick up the bloody towel. "Not as young as I used to be."

"You can say that again." His knees made a few complimentary popping noises as he, too, rose to his feet.

Scully vanished in the direction of the bathroom as he scooped up the present he had dropped out in the hallway before shutting her front door and locking it.

"There's wine on the counter," she called from the bathroom. "Help yourself."

Mulder went into the kitchen and found a bottle of red wine, already open, and two wine glasses on the counter next to an open cupboard door. He carefully closed the potentially guilty culprit and then poured two generous glasses of the wine before heading for the couch in the living room. It was as neat and organized as always, but there was a small artificial Christmas tree set up in the corner of the room, twinkling with multi-coloured lights. There were a handful of wrapped gifts beneath it, no doubt waiting to head off with her for the Scully family festivities in the morning, and the room smelled like holiday spices, oranges and cardamom and cloves, thanks to the three-wick candle flickering in the center of the coffee table. He set the present he'd brought down on one of the couch cushions just as Scully re-emerged.

"Thank you," she said as he handed her one of the crystal glasses, standing beside him to look at the tree. "Merry Christmas, Mulder."

"Merry Christmas, Scully."

They touched their glasses together and drank. He thought about putting his arm around her shoulders, but he didn't.

"So, I thought we could order in dinner — the Chinese place is open until nine — maybe watch a movie?"

He didn't care. He already had everything he needed. "Sounds good."

"Hey, what's this?" She pointed at the small badly wrapped parcel on the couch. "I thought we'd agreed to no gifts this year."

He sat down, making himself comfortable in the spot opposite the gift. "I didn't buy it this year, for this particular Christmas, so it technically doesn't count."

Scully pulled a coaster out of the holder and set her wine glass down on top of it before picking up the present and sitting down in its place. "But you're giving it to me this year, so your argument is invalid."

"I wanted you to have it. If it makes you feel better, I can take it back and give it to you for your birthday." He reached forward, as if to take it, but she pulled it into her lap and put a hand over it possessively.

"No, it's fine. I can open it now, if it means that much to you."

He didn't even try to hide his self-satisfied grin, the overwhelming sense of relief bubbling up inside him making him bold.

"I might have got you something, too. Just a little something. Not even big enough to be considered a gift, really." She glanced up at him almost shyly as she slid her finger along the bumpy edge of the tape.

"Now who's making an invalid argument?"

She set the gift down in her lap with a huff and gave him his favourite eyebrow arch. 'Do you want it or not?"

"Oh, I think you know I want it." He raised an eyebrow right back at her and she laughed.

"Shut up, Mulder. Got get it then. It's under the tree."

She had unwrapped her gift down to the nondescript box by the time he had finished peering at all the tags written in her precise feminine scrawl to find the one with his name on it. He couldn't help chuckling when he saw it — how had she managed to wrap it so neatly? "I think I already know what this is."

"Don't act so smug."

He held it up for her inspection. "I dunno, Scully. Looks pretty round. Dare I say, bouncy?"

"Maybe I'm hoping you'll take up soccer," she said evenly.

He flopped back down on the couch, a little closer to her this time, and paused to take a sip of his wine. "This doesn't look very little either. Unquestionably big enough to fall into the 'gift' category by anyone's definition."

"You're right. I'll just save it for your birthday. Or…" She tapped her lower lip pensively. "Maybe Bill might like it?"

"Shut up, Scully. I'm opening my present."

He pulled at the wrapping paper eagerly, showing no mercy for the perfection of her wrapping skills to reveal what was, as he'd suspected, a basketball. He settled his palms around it comfortably. "Thanks, my old one is getting pretty beat up, so it's the right time for a replacement."

She looked away from him to grab her wine glass and take a sip. "I don't think you'll want to take that to any of your pick up games."

"What? Why not?" He gave her a puzzled look and watched curiously as her cheeks flushed with a hint of pink.

"Turn it over."

There was an unmistakeable signature on it in black marker and he looked over at her in surprise. "Patrick Ewing? I don't believe it. How did you—?"

She gave him a coy grin. "I have my ways. I can't tell you all my secrets."

"This is really… wow. Thanks, Scully. Let's agree to not give each other gifts more often." He bent one leg so he could rest the basketball in the hollow he'd created. "Hey, you haven't opened yours yet."

Scully looked down at the box in her lap and worked open the flap to reveal a crumpled mass of lavender-coloured tissue paper.

"Hopefully it didn't break when I dropped it earlier."

She pulled the entire mass out of the box with a little difficulty and set about removing the layers surrounding the object at the center. Mulder leaned in closer to peer over her shoulder, the foot of his bent leg jiggling up and down. Would she like it? He'd never given her what could be considered a real gift before, and his gaze flitted between her hands and her face, trying to gauge her reaction.

"Stop it, you're making me nervous."

He put his hands over his socked foot to try and keep it from moving. He mostly succeeded.

Finally, she unfolded the last layer to reveal his present to her — a tiny porcelain figurine of a sparrow, miraculously whole and unbroken from its inadvertent flight.

She lifted it gingerly out of the tissue paper nest, cupping it in her palm, and then met his eyes cautiously. "It's beautiful."

He'd bought it on a whim just before she'd been released from the hospital, a serendipitous discovery in the hospital gift shop late one night when he'd gotten turned around looking for the vending machines after too many sleepless nights. Then, despite his intentions to not waste the unexpected boon of her life being returned, the box had sat collecting dust on the top shelf of his bedroom closet.

"It made me think of you." He ran a finger over the shiny finish of its back. They were side by side now, her thigh pressed against the warmth of his own.

"Thank you," she said softly, and the fingers of her other hand brushed against his as she stroked down over the splay of tail feathers.

He put his arm around her shoulders leaning down to press a gentle kiss to the crown of her head, sighing contentedly as he felt her relax against his side. "It's almost the new millennium," he murmured into her hair before resting his head comfortably on top of hers.

Scully hummed in agreement. "It is. Depending on how one defines the starting value for that measurement. Still, I suppose you could say that the start of any new year is momentous in and of itself. A time for introspection, for a renewal of purpose." She was quiet for a moment. "For change."

The implication beneath her words settled over them like a dusting of fresh snow, but he wasn't afraid. He was ready. They were ready. This wasn't a new path, just the same one they had been walking for years now. They were simply getting close to arriving at where they had been headed all along.

His stomach took that moment to let out a loud grumbling noise, and Scully laughed, her head shaking underneath his. "Hungry?" she asked.

"Starved."

"Then let's order some food." She wiggled away from him and stood up, then paused and leaned down to kiss his forehead. "I'm glad you're here."

"Likewise." She had no idea how much, but hopefully she would someday. Someday soon.

Written for the X-Files Secret Santa Fanfic Exchange (2018). Super special thanks to my beta, Josie Lange, for whacking this around with her beta stick of doom. :)