Classification: Ep-related, takes place in the middle of "Sein Und Zeit"
Summary: He's nobody's son, nobody's father, somebody's friend.
***
The light was dim within and without, the apartment lit by the false phosphorescence of street lamps through the haze of a dusty window. Scully saw an eerie nimbus around Mulder as he stood near that window, looking not at the pale gray view but rather at his fingernail as it scratched ineffectively against a remnant of masking tape.
Scully's back and neck ached. Post-autopsy tension, she was quick to diagnose, her mind bringing back unwelcome visuals of the body of Teena Mulder on the steel table. Opening the body of her partner's mother was more than an academic or even forensic exercise. Scully had longed to squeeze memories from the woman's brain or one word from her heart that would ease the suffering of a son, but instead had to content herself with findings that would bring such discontent to Mulder.
Lacing her fingers together, she stretched her arms forward and let out a small yawn. Mulder turned slightly toward her. "You must be tired, Scully. Why don't you sit down?"
She chose to perch on the edge of his desk, close enough to brush her hand against his sleeve. "Can I get you anything?" He shook his head and turned back to the window pane, scraping the sticky residue into tiny gray balls and flicking them to the sill. "Mulder, have you given any thought to...arrangements?"
"She asked to be cremated. No service. Couldn't be easier." His back muscles bunched visibly under the smooth fabric of his shirt. "Mom was always so thoughtful."
"Mulder..."
"I mean, she certainly considered my feelings when she knew she was about to be murdered."
"Mulder, she had cancer. A very painful and disfiguring form. I know it's hard to imagine a parent..."
He turned to fix her gaze with eyes the color of ash. "I don't have to imagine, Scully. I saw her. I saw the house, saw what they made it look like." Leaning over, palms flat on the desk only inches from where Scully sat, he stared at her as if daring her to continue.
She took the dare. "Mulder, I wouldn't want to believe it, either. But the facts are there. You've said more than once that you rely on me for hard evidence. I'm giving it to you. Do you think I'm enjoying this?" Her voice rose in pitch and she felt her throat constrict. "I spent hours going over every detail, hoping I could back your theory, but I just can't. I looked everywhere, exhausted every possibility one by one. And when I looked into her eyes, I saw your eyes looking back at me."
Mulder flinched, obviously distressed by the image her words produced, as he faced the window again. "That's interesting - Dad always said I had her eyes."
"I have my grandmother's jaw and my grandfather's teeth, and my orthodontist sent his kids to college on turning them into my mom's smile." Scully peered up at him and was rewarded with a slight huff of a chuckle.
"I'm sorry, Scully," he said, so softly that it was almost lost in the scratching of his fingernail against the glass.
She reached around him and stilled his hand, pulling it away from the cold window and chafing it between her fingers. Mulder turned and let himself fall into her embrace. "It's okay, it's okay," she assured him in a low, sibilant whisper.
She was thankful that he did not break down as he had before, but simply rested his cheek in her hair, his breathing regular and calm. His hands were steady as they kneaded the stiff muscles of her shoulders. "I remember when my parents brought Samantha home from the hospital. Mom showed me my sister and I was so disappointed because she'd promised me someone to play with and instead I got this boiled-looking little screaming thing."
"Yeah, I had the same reaction the first time I saw my brother Charles. I think I assumed that Mom would bring us a fully-formed tyrant like Bill."
"The Bills of the world are born, not made," Mulder groused.
"He's not so bad, really."
"Tell me," Mulder said as Scully pulled slightly back to look up at him, "how the same set of genes could produce you, Bill, and Melissa."
Scully lowered her forehead to Mulder's chest so that he could not see her eyes fill. "Dad said his kids were like a potluck dinner - it's all good, but you never know what to expect."
"Scully?" He only had to touch her chin to get her to lift her face. "You still miss him, don't you?"
"Of course I do. In a way, we had a lot in common with you and your mom - so many things left unfinished, unsaid."
"It's weird," Mulder said as he scrubbed at his raw, stinging eyes with a knuckle. "I know I should want to ask her about Samantha and my father and a lot of important things, but right now I just want to be tucked in bed with her bringing me tomato soup and putting that greasy goopy menthol stuff on my chest."
Scully laughed and squeezed his hand. "I understand better than you know. Sometimes, when I've had a hard day..."
"A hard day? With ME?"
She rolled her eyes. "When I've had a hard day or I'm sad, I find that I'm not comfortable anywhere. I get up and sit down and move over and over, and then I realize that the only thing I really want...what I'd..." The stinging tears led to a dull thickness in her throat and she had trouble choking out her next few words. "I'd give anything to sit in my daddy's lap again and have him hold me."
"Aw, Scully." He enfolded her in his arms and rocked her slightly.
"I know it's silly and childish, but...I just..."
"Ssh, ssh. I feel the same way sometimes. I think we never really get over being someone's child. It's how we define ourselves from our earliest years and it's a hard thing to get past. I've always been someone's, you know? Someone's son. Someone's brother. First I lost Samantha and I wasn't anybody's brother anymore, and now I'm nobody's son."
A cold rush of thought made Scully shudder, the idea that someday she would be nobody's daughter, and her eyes teared up for her fate and Mulder's alike. His next words chilled her to the bone.
"I was somebody's husband, once."
Oh, God, Scully thought as she tried not to shiver, it's true.
"But she left me."
She tilted her head back to stop the tears from falling as Mulder added, "And now she's dead."
"Diana," Scully whispered, and Mulder's head drooped.
"Did you know?"
"I...suspected."
Nodding, Mulder continued. "I was young and lonely and stupid. It only lasted a few months. Never even got into the computer. By the time someone from HR got hold of the license, Diana was halfway around the world and I was burying myself alive in the basement."
Scully picked a piece of lint off her sleeve with undue interest. "You could have told me," she said, surprised at how tenuous her voice sounded.
"At first I didn't think you'd be around long enough to care, Scully. Then...I don't know, it just never seemed important." He folded his hands and took a seat beside Scully on the edge of the desk. "So I'm not a husband anymore, and I'll never be a father."
"Mulder, don't be melodramatic. You're not even forty yet. You could still be a father."
Without looking at her he reached for her hand and laced his fingers through hers. "I'll never be a father," he repeated, and Scully felt hot effervescence course through her, rushing past her ears as his words took her breath away.
They sat like that for several minutes, motionless except for their caressing thumbs. Scully tilted her head and Mulder took her up on the silent invitation, fitting his stubbled cheek against the yielding ivory curve of her neck. Staring straight ahead, Scully continued. "You're nobody's father or husband or brother or son," she murmured, clasping his hand tighter, "but you're somebody's friend."
"Just 'somebody's?'" Mulder drawled, his eyelashes tickling Scully's cheek.
She smiled into his hair as she dropped a kiss on the crown of his head. "Mine," she amended. As the room grew dark she wrapped nobody's son in the arms of nobody's mother.
***
End
***
For my father.
***
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