This takes place in the duration between 'This is Not Happening' and 'DeadAlive', so Scully believes Mulder is dead. Only spoilers should be for TiNH.
Scully felt like she was loosing her damn mind.
Oh, she'd been told before by girlfriends and her mother (in a completely joking manner) that women tend to lose their sanity while pregnant. But this, this was not what they had in mind.
It wasn't pregnancy hormones. Pregnant women--even grieving pregnant women--didn't hallucinate. At least, that symptom had never been covered in her med school classes. And, Scully was quite sure she was suffering from full blown sensory hallucinations--as in affecting multiple senses.
It started a week ago, when she woke up in the middle of the night to hear a delicate cracking noise. The same quiet cracking was repeated at almost regular intervals, and was as familiar to her as the sound of a brush going across teeth. It was the sound of intense concentration, of insomnia striking, of a subconscious effort at comfort, and of a beautiful mind working to unravel a puzzle.
Mulder. It was the sound of Mulder. And, god help her, she missed it; hell, she longed for it. Well, she'd had it now on and off for an entire week. How many women can say they were so aching so desperately for their dead lover that they started hallucinating his less-than-endearing habits?
It started with the sunflower seeds--no, not true. It started in Montana, when she saw him in her hotel room. That was almost three weeks ago. So...she was so insane with grief for those two weeks of normalcy that she was actually sane?
Shaking her head, Scully turned the stove up a tick willing the kettle to start boiling. 1:15 in the middle of the night, and she was making a cup of herbal tea. She never cared much for herbal tea, but her mother had given her in a box of 'this will help with this miserable pregnancy symptom' goodies. She couldn't remember what the tea was for--heartburn maybe?
Any anti-psychotics in there? Witch doctor? Exorcist maybe?
Anything to stop hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, and feeling her dead lover all around her? She felt him in the air, but so far, she hadn't touched him, or him, her. But, everything else, it was unmistakably Mulder.
The past two mornings, she'd woken up with his taste on her lips. They hadn't been intimate long, but the little time they'd had wasn't something she'd forget soon. Rather, she was grasping onto it as if it were the glue holding her shattered heart together. And damn it, she knew what he tasted like. Waking up to that had startled the hell out of her--it was as if he had just kissed her.
Dead men do not crawl out of their graves in the middle of the night to give their lovers smooches. Unless maybe Mulder had become an Incubus after death. If their ever was a man that could tempt innocent women into pulling off their panties for him, it was Fox Mulder at his most charming. If that was the case...well, she was in serious trouble.
A sharp whistle cut-off all naughty thoughts of her partner's beautiful body. Noting the warmth in her cheeks with a self-deprecating smile, Scully straightened her back and grabbed her mug. She quieted the kettle, and poured the hot water into her cup, letting the tea bag soak. Once satisfied with it's color, she drain it, and tossed it in the trash.
In her living room, Scully drew her legs up underneath herself, and set her tea on the coffee table. She picked up the copy of 'What to Expect When You're Expecting' (which said nothing about hallucinations, she'd checked) that she'd left there, and began to finger through it. Her mother bought it for her two months ago, but she'd refused to pick it up. She barely acknowledged her pregnancy (baring the required check-ups and understandable alien-fetus panic) until two weeks ago, something that had troubled her mother terribly.
She couldn't understand it. No one could understand it.
Her hand strayed to the small swell of her belly, the child that she both loved and hated. If it was a real miracle, there was a little piece of him left in the world. The only proof she had that they'd loved each other, of how much he'd meant to her. In her darker moods she scoffed at that concept--a little piece of him? And, that's what? A fucking consolation prize from God? You're time is up with Mulder, but here, have his baby instead?
The baby kicked hard as if to admonish her of her dark thoughts. She circled her hand around him, whispering, "You know I don't believe that."
The bump settled, conceding to the truth in her statement. He'd only begun to kick the last couple weeks, and that first kick was filled with enough joy and pain to force her from the depression she'd sunk into after Mulder's funeral. That's when she'd opened the book for the first time, though her eyes had watered so badly and so fast, she couldn't read it. It took a couple of tries before she was able to see the words.
Now, she didn't go to her bookmarked page, but flipped toward the end where she'd shoved a 4x6 photograph right in the start of 'Part 5: For Dads'. They were standing together in the photo, obviously at work, but both smiling. Her face showed amused disbelief, while he wore his trademarked, 'aren't I charming?' grin. She wondered, not for the first time, how she'd resisted that particular look for seven years.
"Yes," she finally admitted, if only to the air, "You were very charming, Mulder."
She stared at the photo, and sipped her tea, willing it to loosen the aching knots in her stomach. He was dead, and the finality of that after he'd been missing for months kept slamming into her like a sledgehammer, leaving her soul trembling with the bruises.
He was dead. Smack.
She was never going to see him again. Or talk to him. Smack. Smack.
He would never see their child. Ever. Smack.
Their child would never know what an amazing person it's father was. Smack.
Mulder would never again press a kiss to her forehead, lean too far into her personal space, and tell her to stop being so strong. There would no longer be any of the subtle touches, chaste kisses or whispered words that had marked their friendship almost from the begining. None of the time she'd taken for granted, time with the one person who'd broken through her defenses, who understood her like no one else ever had, could or would.
That blow, when it came--and it had already come more than once--packed enough force to send her to her knees.
She set down her empty mug, and let her fingers drift toward the picture. The tips just barely touched the photo finish as she traced along his face, along features she'd long ago memorized, but after so long apart seemed almost foreign. So long apart. Before he was taken, they hadn't gone more than a week without seeing each other since their first year working together. When they'd been split up after Deep Throat was murdered. They'd always talked during those weeks too, ignoring any thoughts that might pop into their heads about co-dependence.
Scully didn't realize her eyes were drifting closed until she had to suddenly yank them back open.
Greasy take-out. Coffee. Ink. Sweat and leather. The familiar scents swirled together and assaulted her nose, dredging up memories of heated intellectual debates, and exhausted laughter. In both of their apartments and a thousand and one hotel rooms, she could almost hear their voices trailing through her head. Evenings working late, that's what those smells combined meant to her. Mulder didn't wear cologne, at least not with any regularity, but whether from his couch or his jacket, he always smelled faintly of leather.
She didn't bother to look around. He wasn't there, no matter how desperately she wanted him to be. Instead, Scully replaced the book on her coffee table, and took her mug to the sink, preparing for bed once again. She changed her pajama top to one of the t-shirts she'd liberated from his collection. One of the gray tees that he favored, pulled off his body months ago in one of the few nights they'd spent together as lovers. Too few. It obviously didn't smell like him anymore, but nonetheless brought her a sense of comfort as she smoothed the soft cotton over the small bump of their child.
It was close to an hour before Scully's eyes began to drift closed, she was curled on her side, one hand on her belly. Sleep had been difficult since Mulder had gone missing, and more so after they found him. Her body continued to vibrate with disbelief, ready to charge forward at the first sign of a lead. But now, it was exhausted into quiet. Her eyes finally slipped shut, just as the bed dipped gently behind her, as if someone had climbed in.
Scully didn't startle, but opened her eyes. She'd felt the same sensation last night, but when she'd turned abruptly to see, the sensation disappeared. Her invisible night-time visitor had left. Tonight, she angled her body in the beginning of a slow turn, though she knew even if she got a look, no one would be there. As she began rolling over, the sensation began to dissipate. Her visitor was leaving again.
"Wait," her soft voice pierced dark emptiness of her bedroom like a foghorn. "Please don't go."
It settled, the invisible figure sharing her bed like a lover. Scully remembered the few times she'd shared a bed with Mulder, and the surprising security of his body beside hers. It was unlike any other time she'd shared a bed with a man, there was an innate comfort between them. It just felt right.
She suddenly felt cold air behind her, and gave a jump and a gasp when an icy cold, like a snowball, hit her hip. The snowball traveled toward her waist as the air behind her seemed to warm. By the time it got to her shoulder, the snowball was almost hot, and Scully's heart was galloping. It traveled then, the pocket of heat, brushing her breasts before landing on her hand, cradling her unborn child with her. It settled there, and sent heat rushing through her body, elliciting another gasp from between her lips.
Scully was surrounded in a gentle, almost nuturing warmth, and at that moment she could smell, taste, and feel Mulder all around her. She pursed her lips to stifle a sob that came out anyway, and turned her face so the pillow could catch the tears leaking from her eyes in a slow, steady stream.
He hadn't left her.
Okay, you can look as this any one of three ways. Either Scully is literally insane with grief and imagining it all, or Mulder is dead and haunting her, or (and my personal preference), his 'death' is more like a 'near-death experience' and rather than just hovering over his body, his went home, or rather, to the person he thinks of as home. Anyway you chose to see it, I hope you enjoyed reading it. Thanks, and please review!