Hi everyone :) This is my first X-files story. I started watching the show in March (I'm currently halfway through season 9) and I loved it. What I didn't like was the tons of cute, romantic, even friendly moments between Mulder and Scully that were regularly left unsaid. So yeah, this work is basicaly my mind having a good time trying to fill in those gaps.
It's a series of one shots, there will be seven in total (already written) and I'll add the wordcount at the beginning each time, but they have a theme in common so I decided to treat them like chapters of a regular fanfic.
English is not my first language, so you may spot some mistakes. Feedback is always very welcome, here, on AO3, or on my new Tumblr, otto-tis-eratai dot tumblr dot com.
Enjoy :)
I. In The Dark of the Night (Post Irresistible)
Wordcount: 3149 words
She hated this. She hated how everyone would now think of her as a victim. She hated that she was sore all over, and she hated that the level of adrenaline in her body was still so high that she could actually barely feel the pain.
But most of all, Scully hated how Mulder gently raised her chin with delicate fingers, forcing her to look at him in the eyes, making all of her barriers tumble down. How was a woman even supposed to recompose herself, when her partner looked at her like that. Before she could rationally realise it, her lips began to tremble, and a sob escaped her mouth. To reach for him and crash her head against his chest was almost an instinct, driven by her shock and by his evident and not misplaced worry for her state of mind. She should have had the paramedics take a look at her, but of course she realised this too late.
He wasn't expecting it. He could sense she was not fine, as opposed to what she kept repeating over and over again, but he hadn't expected her to fall apart like this. He welcomed her in his arms nonetheless. He cared about her, probably more than it would be considered normal for work partners, and he hated the thought that something bad could have happened to her. The persistent fear of losing her was already a constant in his life, that came along with her very presence. He remembered the fear, the despair that filled his days while she was abducted, always wondering if he would ever see her again one day, and he wanted to experience that as little as possible. So when she started sobbing against his chest, wrapping her arms around him, all he could do was hold her close, soothe her, stroke her hair, kiss her head, and whisper "it's all right" so silently that only she could hear it. He felt an outburst of tenderness for this tiny woman in his arms, momentarily forgetting how strong she really was, and at first he tried to push this feeling back, because she wouldn't want him to think of her like that, but eventually he stopped. He just wanted to take care of her, protect her, help her feel safe.
"It's okay, you're safe now," he whispered against her head.
It's okay to let go, he meant. He wanted to tell her that it's okay to be human. It's okay to be scared and to let it show, it's okay to ask for help, no one is invincible. He wanted her to know that he was fine with this, they were partners after all, and as such they had to help each other.
He never voiced any of that.
Soon her sobs and sighs became less frequent, less strong, and she slowly freed herself from his embrace. At first she kept looking down at her shoes, slightly embarrassed by the situation. Looking that vulnerable in front of him was exactly the thing she'd wanted to avoid all along.
"When is our flight home?" she asked with a still broken voice.
He recognised her attempt at changing topic, ignoring everything that just happened, and although he thought it would have been better to talk about it, he respected her choice.
"I don't know yet, I'll call in a minute and see what they have," he replied, happy that she at least raised her head to look at him while he spoke. Her eyes were red and puffy, there was a bruise on her chin and one on her forehead, and he couldn't even imagine how many more were hidden beneath her clothes. Oh Scully, what has he done to you.
"I'll go talk to Agent Bocks, in case he has questions," she said. Then she walked away from Mulder. He saw her blow her nose and take a deep breath before approaching the other man on the other side of the room.
She already didn't look like the fragile thing who soaked his shirt with tears anymore. He suspected it was just a cover, he was sure of it in fact, and he had to fight his instinct to grab her hand and take her away from this damn house, take her somewhere where she would feel safe, telling her she could talk to the agent tomorrow after a night of rest and recovery.
Once again instead, he respected her choice to be strong, and walked outside to book two seats on the earliest plane to Washington DC.
In the meantime, she answered all Bocks' question, even the toughest ones, trying to give as much detail as possible. That made her proud of herself. She was good. She was strong. She could do this.
"Thank you for your help, Agent Scully. I'll call you if I have any more questions, but for now we are done," Bocks said, and she nodded. The fight was over, she won. She turned around and looked for Mulder, who was leaning against a wall. They could go now. Everything was over, Pfaster had been caught, she was safe. He wouldn't get to her again.
She kept repeating that to herself during the car journey to the motel. She stared out of the window, thankful that Mulder was just driving and not trying to start a conversation about what happened earlier, and while she rationally knew that everything now was fine, her brain kept replaying the images of what happened, and she could do nothing about it. She knew she was safe, but she also knew it would take a while to actually get over all of this. She would feel better in the morning, after a shower and a night of rest, when the light of the day would make everything seem more distant, she told herself.
She got a room at the motel, a different one than the one she had the previous nights. Mulder walked her right in front of it, not saying a word.
"So, our flight is at 1 pm," he said eventually.
Scully just nodded. "Great, thanks."
"Sure you're going to be fine?" he asked. He was still worried for her, and he just hoped she would fall asleep quickly and sleep through the night.
She looked down, and he immediately knew she didn't like his question, he knew she didn't like her little display of vulnerability earlier that night and that he had just reminded it to her, but he had to ask, just once, just to be sure that she still fully intended to keep her mask on.
"I'm good," she replied, "Good night."
He nodded. "You know where my room is, if you need anything. Good night."
He began to walk away, but suddenly she realised she didn't have anything with her, so she stopped him.
"Wait!"
He turned around, a hopeful look in his eyes.
"By any chance, did you get my overnight bag from the car?" she asked.
"Uhm, no, sorry, I didn't think about it, I just wanted to…" reach you in time and make sure you were still alive, he was going to add, but didn't. "Do you need something?"
"Just some antiseptic, and band-aids, if you have any."
"Sure. I'll be right back," he said, then walked away.
She got in her room, and closed the door behind her. Then, she locked it. The darkness and the fact that she was now alone didn't help her feel safe at all. She pulled the curtains closed, and switched all the lights on. Light was good.
She was already undressing when a couple of minutes later, there was a knock on her door. She instinctively jumped in fear, her heart starting to beat faster, her hands getting immediately sweaty.
"Scully, it's me, I got your stuff," Mulder said from the other side of the door.
She sighed in relief. Right, of course, the band-aids.
She opened the door and he handed her a bag with the few things she'd asked for.
"Thanks."
"Do you need anything else?"
She hesitated for a moment. There was a very small part of her that was tempted to ask him to stay. Not for long, just while she had a shower, or until she fell asleep, but then again, she'd already shown him enough weakness for one day. Now the danger was gone, she could survive the night by herself.
"I'm fine thank you. See you in the morning," was her final reply, before locking the door again.
She took a hot shower, scrubbing her skin hard with the small motel soap bar, trying to wash away the dirty feeling of Pfaster's hands on her. Accidentally she removed the scab that had formed on one of the bruises she had on the leg, and it started bleeding again.
"Fuck!" she hissed. She violently hit the wall with the hand that wasn't holding the soap, and cried. She could cry as much as she wanted, now that no one could see or hear her. She cried because that bastard had hurt her, because she didn't deserve this, none of those women, brutally murdered and mutilated, deserved this. She cried because he was pure evil, and didn't deserve to live. She let out the pain and anger she was feeling inside, she let her tears flow, without barriers or concerns, and let the water from the shower wash them away together with the blood on her leg.
She stayed there until the water became warm first, and then cold in a matter of minutes.
After wearing again her dirty bra and panties, she disinfected her wounds, put a band-aid on the one on her chin, elbow, and leg, and checked out the other reddish bruises that were forming on the rest of her body. Some of them hurt quite a lot, especially when she tried to touch them, and although she had nothing broken, she realised she was going to feel that fall from the stairs for days.
She had no other clothes with her, so she decided to sleep in her underwear, putting an extra blanket on the bed to avoid getting cold. She wondered if she should have asked Mulder to get her one of his t-shirts. He was much bigger than her, it would have worked well as a nightdress, but then again, wearing one of his t-shirt to bed was an undeniable act of intimacy that she wasn't sure would be appropriate.
She sighed in a mixture of pain and relief when she finally settled under the covers and switched off the light. Much to her surprise, she was so exhausted that she fell asleep in a matter of minutes.
Unfortunately, Pfaster was there waiting for her, just on the other side, on the edge of her subconscious mind, in a parallel universe where Mulder never came to rescue her. She kicked, and screamed, and cried, trying to get away from his grasp, but he was huge compared to her, and there was not much she could do. She tried, though. She bit his hand that was covering her mouth to muffle her desperate sounds, she bit it so hard that she drew blood, and promptly took the escape way that had opened. She ran up the stairs, without knowing where she was going, when suddenly she realised she wasn't going anywhere. She ran and ran, but the stairs kept pulling her back, like an escalator, and he was waiting for her at the bottom, an evil grin on his face. Suddenly, his whole body transformed, turning into a black demonic figure, and he gripped her ankle. She screamed.
She woke up panting, bathed in her own sweat, her heart pounding so hard against her chest that she could feel it in her ears.
It was just a dream, Dana. Just a dream. He's not coming back. He's not going to hurt you.
She kept repeating this to herself over and over again, like a mantra, and she knew it was the truth, but the darkness of the room and her still half asleep state didn't allow her rational mind to fully kick in. She tried to relax and doze off again, but in that moment, in the dark of the night, as dark as his house and the closet he'd kept her in, every sound terrified her, every sound reminded her of him. She could hear a couple of cars passing by, and wondered if it could be him coming for her, to get his revenge. She could hear steps coming from the floor above her, and she wondered if he was already here, looking for her. Maybe she couldn't see him in the darkness, but he was already in her room.
Suddenly, she heard a thud coming from somewhere. That was the moment she decided she wasn't going to stay there alone a minute longer. She had to get out, run away. Mulder's room was fairly close, he could help her. He could protect her. She still had a hard time admitting it, but she felt so safe in his arms, earlier that night.
She quickly wore her shoes and her brown coat, grabbed her room keys, and stormed out.
As soon she stepped outside, she felt even less safe than before. The parking lot in front of her room was desert, only a few cars here and there, one of them was white, while the closest street lamp blinked, from time to time. There was a man leaning against one of the cars, with a bottle of beer in his hand. It looked as if he was checking her out. She realised her jacket was hanging open, revealing her semi-naked body underneath.
She gasped, closing it around her body with her hands, and walked away as quickly as she could, directed towards Mulder's room. It was on the second floor. She found the stairs and she climbed them two steps at a time, while the images of her dream overlapped with reality, giving her the impression that someone was following her.
Once she reached Mulder's room, she used her whole fist to knock loudly on his door.
"Mulder! Mulder it's me, open the door!" she yelled, her breath heavy, as the feeling of being observed wouldn't let her be.
After a few seconds of loud thumping, a confused and concerned Mulder opened the door.
"Scully, what…"
He couldn't even manage to finish his sentence that she had already run inside. It was a weird feeling, the one that struck her as soon as he once again asked "is everything okay?". It was a mix of relief for finally feeling safe, and also a little embarrassment, because her rationality was finally kicking in, and as the seconds went by and he kept staring at her waiting for an answer, it became harder to explain even to herself why she'd been so scared.
"I'm fine," was her automatic reply, but she knew this time it would be very hard to believe.
As a matter of fact, he didn't. Not that he had before, he always knew she wasn't fine at all, but this time something had made her run out of her room, in the middle of the night, wearing only her coat and shoes, and he had to know what happened. He had to help her.
"Scully?" he prompted her softly, walking towards her, gently placing a hand on her shoulder.
She shivered at the contact. The night made everything harder, including pretending to be strong and invulnerable. She knew she'd been tricked by her own mind, she knew there was no one harming her, but she still didn't want to go back to her room. She tried to explain it to him without completely losing her dignity, but only a series of incoherent stuttering came out of her mouth.
As if he could read her mind, he smiled gently.
"It's okay, you know," he said, as she looked up to meet his eyes, "it's okay to be scared."
Her lower lip quivered at the sweetness in his voice. "Is it?"
"Of course it is, Scully, this situation would scare the crap out of me too."
He didn't know if it was supposed to be a giggle, the short sound she made, but he did know that whatever it was, it was evidence that he was saying the right things.
"I would be terrified of spending the night alone," he continued, "I mean, maybe not in my own house, but here, in this motel… I would be."
As he raised his hand from her shoulder to cup her cheek, she swallowed her pride and found the courage to ask him what she'd wanted to ask him all along. "Do you think I can stay here until morning?"
"Sure you can," he replied, his thumb delicately stroking her cheek. "Take the bed, I'll get the couch."
He removed his hand from her face and turned towards the couch, but she stopped him before he could actually move.
"Wait, at least let me take the couch."
He knew this was yet another way of proving her strength to him, and probably in any other situation he would have agreed to her request, but right now she was visibly sore all over, no way he would let her aggravate the situation by sleeping on something uncomfortable, even if it was just for a few hours.
"Scully, you're hurt, just take the bed, alright?" he said softly.
You can stop being the warrior for tonight. Let me help you, Dana.
She wanted to retort something, but the sleepiness and the cold that were starting to creep up her bones eventually made her drop the argument.
"Thanks," was all she said.
He took a pillow and settled on the couch, while she took off her shoes and coat before slipping under the covers. She didn't care if he could see her in her underwear, there was no shame in that. Besides, it had already happened.
The sheets were still warm from the presence of his body, and she let herself enjoy the feeling against her cold naked skin. She could also smell him on the pillow. She'd never say it out loud, but he did have a nice smell, very masculine, she liked it.
As he tried to find a position on the couch that he wouldn't regret in the morning, he heard her breath becoming deeper and more regular, and he smiled to himself. He was glad she let him help her. Maybe tonight they did take a step forward in their relationship.
He woke up in the early morning with a sore neck, and the sunbeams enlightening the room. His bed was empty, Scully was gone.
He got up and headed to the bathroom.