Leaving the hospital at well past midnight, Scully let herself be led by him, her smaller hand held firmly in his larger one.
They didn't talk in the car, he didn't turn on the radio, they just drove. It wasn't how Mulder had planned on visiting Scully's city apartment for the first time; Maggie Scully had passed away just one hour previously, and her daughter's grief had turned quiet. The salt of her tears clung to his shirt. Mulder wished, selfishly, she would take a breath, fill her frozen lungs with air and shake her face into a grim smile, look at him as if to say something, anything at all, but she didn't. He pulled up outside her building.
Scully got out of the car before him, the shut of the door deafening in the aftermath of their silent journey.
At her door she stopped, fumbling for her keys, cursing quietly when she put the wrong one in the lock. She let him in, pulling off her coat and laying it haphazardly on a nearby couch.
"This is a nice place, Scully. Clean," Mulder attempted.
She gaped at him, and he smiled instinctively.
"Thanks," she said, still looking unconvinced, suddenly awkward.
They stared at each other from their respective sides. He wondered what she wanted, what would be too much for her.
Finally she blinked heavily, wiping her mascara-stained cheeks roughly, "I going to get ready for bed. You can leave if you like," Scully nodded, as if to convince herself of the sentiment. "I'm fine, Mulder."
His heart broke. Scully's famous last words indicated anything but 'fine'. She was fiercely protective of her inner turmoil, always had been, but it hurt all the more when he saw the regression; not one year ago they were partners, lovers? The word itself had never been important. They had shared a bed, a life, she had told him her darkest thoughts and she had held him when his body was covered in cold sweat and shaking after nightmares he couldn't begin to verbalise.
"I can sleep on the couch," was all he said.
He waited for a rebuttal but it never came, Scully simply shrugged wearily before turning to walk through to the bedroom she had made for herself. She left the door open ever so slightly.
In her absence Mulder let his eyes roam. His initial assessment was not much improved on: it was clean and a little cold. Even the throw pillows seemed orderly, as though she hadn't so much as looked at them since meretriciously placing them there.
He stretched, feeling his back ache in a way it did these days sometimes, bringing a twinge of bitterness with it. Something in this room had to feel familiar, this was where Scully lived.Did she come home from their new appointment on the X files and watch those corny old movies she loved, did she eat breakfast in her small kitchenette without him to push the issue? Did she think about the day she left him as often as he thought of her leaving? Where did she keep the photo of William he knew she looked at daily, no matter what?
Did she plan on coming home?
"Mulder?" Scully called from her bedroom.
He sensed she was crying before even seeing her face, and sure enough tears had left damp tracks on her cheeks.
"Here, Scully. Can I...can I do anything for you?"
Scully was perched uncomfortably on the end of her chocolate coloured duvet, white cotton pyjamas seeming cartoonishly large on her crumpled frame. He couldn't help but reach out for her hand, grateful when she squeezed his back ever so slightly.
"I'm ok," she said. "I just..." her lip threatened to tremble and she bit down on it hard.
"I understand," he replied. He remembered the night after his own mother had died, Scully had toughed out his emotional wreckage like a champ. Caring for him had always seemed to come naturally to her, and he wished now for her intuition in matters of the heart. What would Scully do in this situation? The answer was obvious when he looked at her:
She would stay.
He sat down beside her, opening his arms for her to collapse into them.
"My mom, Mulder," she wept, clutching his shirt, "my mom!"
He just held onto her, rubbing the small of back, murmuring gentle platitudes into her auburn hair. Her skin felt cold and he did what he could to rub life back into it.
"She's really gone, she's gone-"
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I've got you, Dana," he promised.
Her breaths turned ragged and she cried herself out of each one that tore through her body.
"Breathe love," the word slipped out in his concern, but she didn't seem to hear it. Mulder worried that she was heading for a panic attack, something he had so rarely seen in Scully it frightened him.
"Deep breaths, Scully, come on," he demonstrated them comically, but mercifully she responded, managing a shallow lunged imitation. Her inky black eyelashes were spiky with tears, but her blue eyes looked out at him steadily, determined. They breathed together until she shuddered to stillness.
"Mulder..." she whispered his name, her face paled.
"Here, Scully," he held onto her shoulders tight. She shut her eyes, her forehead tightened and he realised what was about to happen. Scully bolted to the en suite, throwing up the toilet lid she retched loudly into the bowl.
Ten minutes later Scully was propped up on several pillows with a large glass of water and his hand on her forehead.
"Thank you Mulder, I'm really ok now," she humoured his anxiety by allowing him to mop her brow briefly with a damp washcloth. "It's passed," she said.
"I know you are," he said. He glanced at the alarm clock on her end table: one thirty five am.
Scully shivered. Despite the dark circles under her eyes she appeared fully awake.
"Are you hungry?" he asked, racking his brains to remember if she ate anything at all the bought from the hospital cafeteria, coming up empty.
"No, thank you," she said, pulling the duvet up to her armpits. "But maybe..."
"Yes? Anything, Scully."
"Would you run me a bath?"
He smiled, "sure, I can do that. Sit tight, okay? One bubble bath coming up."
Scully gave him a weak smile back, wiping an errant tear from her eye dismissively. "Thank you. I appreciate it. You don't have to do this," her eyes brimmed with tears again and she blinked them back, "You don't have to do any of this."
Exhaustion filled Mulder's body and he felt his own tear ducts threaten an appearance. "Scully, you don't have to thank me. Where else would I be tonight but with you?"
He patted her leg under the blanket gently and headed for the bathroom before she could reply.
As the water ran warm, Mulder rubbed his temple. He tried not to think of Maggie Scully, he tried to stop thinking about the woman he loved in the next room of the place she lived alone. He faced the mirror, it showed a wrinkled shirt and a tired face, middle aged and worried, though somewhat improved by his shave this morning (his first in months if truth be told).
Looking through Scully's hair products and various bath lotions he was reminded horribly of Donnie Pfaster, the death fetishist who had left Scully broken, bloodied and traumatised. He wondered, not for the first time, how she was still able to enjoy the act of bathing after the ordeal of almost being left dead and mutilated in one, not once but twice. She was not one to be held back by anyone, perhaps reclaiming this empowered her?
Still, he opted not to light any of the scented candles she owned.
Mulder peered around the bathroom door and finding Scully still awake he stepped out to face her.
"It's ready for you."
He turned to leave the room but Scully was already on her feet, "you don't have to do that," she said. "I trust you."
She opted against buttons, pulling her pyjama shirt straight over her head in one sweeping movement, revealing her bare torso. Her pants followed. She placed both calmly on her bed before meeting his eyes from across the room. "It's ok, Mulder."
Mulder closed his mouth, trying to gather his suddenly incoherent thoughts.
She disappeared into the bathroom. He swallowed loudly.
"Mulder?" She sounded sad again, and it kicked him into action; he headed in after her, cautiously.
Scully was lay in the bath, pulling her hair up into a hair tie. Bubbles covered the surface of the water but she made no effort to hide her breasts from where they evaded the it. She was breathtakingly beautiful, even now.
His brain went quiet once again. It had been a year, he thought. A year since she walked out of the front door, a handheld suitcase of belongings in hand. A year where the only time he had seen her body was in rushed, desperate sex that left only less resolution, less peace between them. A year since she told him she had to leave, for their own sakes.
"Are you ok?" she was looking right at him, those penetrating eyes seeing right through him.
"I should go," Mulder nodded to the door, "leave you to it."
"No," she licked her lips. "Please, just sit here, near me. Please."
His reserve faltered. This was Scully, he knew every part of her - she wasn't playing games with him. She wouldn't. He kneeled beside her, she pressed her face into his shoulder, kissing it softly.
"I know you loved her too." It was so muffled he was only half sure she said it. He kissed her hair.
"She loved you too, you know."
Mulder looked at the floor. His chest felt tight. "Yeah?"
"I know she did."
He wished he had a sensitive, witty retort, but his shoulders sagged and he felt the urge to cover his face. He let the memories fill his mind: Maggie Scully telling him about her youngest daughters childhood, trusting him with her talisman the cross necklace, treating him with the kind of innate respect even his own mother hadn't given him.
He remembered being invited to thanksgivings and Christmases with the Scully's, being seated between Scully and the family matriarch when he could face attending, even after their years on the run, not even her over-protective brother could dispute his attendance when it was with Maggie's blessing.
He remembers the weeks after Scully left, Maggie, already sick with cancer, visiting him in the unremarkable house on her own whim, ensuring the freezer was stocked and the house was warm in the unforgiving winter.
He knows she loved him, and he lets the tears fall freely at last.
Scully stroked his arm. "You were her family as much as any of us, she cared for you a lot."
"She was a great lady."
"Yes she was," she paused, then said, "I'm so tired, Mulder." She admitted it like a sin.
"Do you think you can sleep?" he asked.
"I'm sorry, it's so late. You can go, Mulder," she started crying quietly, her face turned away from him.
"Scully, no." He put a hand under her chin, making her look back, his own tears wet hot on his skin. "You're the strongest person I know, strongest person I ever met. I know you can take care of yourself. But I-" his voice cracked. "I need you. Let me help you."
Her soft, wet hand palmed his cheek, and they looked at each other for a long moment. Scully touched his lips.
"I didn't mean to make us both cry," her voice was husky.
Mulder laughed despite himself. "You know me," he shrugged, "I'm a crybaby."
She laughed, and the sound was honey to him. Leaning into his face she kissed a tear away, lingering where it had fallen, causing them both to hold their breath momentarily.
"Mulder?"
"Yes?"
Scully grinned shly, "Pass me a towel?"
When Mulder awoke, it was to Scully. Drained, they had fallen into her queen sized bed together, no question of the couch from either party. No reservations, he held her in his arms, and she had buried her face in his bare chest.
"I'm sorry, I don't have anything for you to wear," she had said, changing back into her oversized white pyjamas.
"I'm glad," he'd teased, stripped to his boxers got into bed.
Scully climbed in beside him and hunkered down. "I'm glad you're here," she said to his chest.
Mulder stroked her hair. "Shh, sleep."
Neither of them wanted to say what hung in the air, an elephant in the room. Neither of them had to. This was one night: a ceasefire. There was more work to be done between them to fix the mess they had created and suffered from.
When Mulder looked at Scully's sleeping face, bathed in morning light, he didn't feel bitter, angry or hurt. The numb pain that had encompassed him for years waited outside the door, he knew, but it didn't crush him this morning, it didn't pin him painfully to his bed. He had Scully on his side, no question, after all these years. They still made a good team.
Getting up to make coffee, Mulder thought that maybe the apartment was not so cold, so rigidly clean after all. It wasn't his home any more than it felt like hers, but he could bear it. It was just a pit stop.
Somebody rapped on the door, three times, sharp, to the point. Glad he had chose to throw on yesterdays shirt and pants before making coffee, Mulder strode to the door before more knocking could disturb Scully's much-needed sleep. He threw it open.
"Good morning Agent Mulder."
AD Skinner stood, dressed in his office best, holding a bunch of mismatched gas station flowers, looking utterly unsurprised to see him in Scully's apartment.
"Um, good morning," Mulder ran a hand through his bed hair. "What brings you here, sir?"
"I heard about Mrs Scully," Skinner said gruffly. "How is she?" he nodded in Scully's general direction.
"Oh, right, of course," Mulder looked behind him to her closed bedroom door. Skinner had always had a soft spot for his partner, but who could blame him. "It's been a rough night for her, but she's going to be ok."
"Yes she will," Skinner said, pushing the flowers into Mulder's hands, "You make sure of it."
"I will, sir."
"Well," they looked at each other and Mulder had the strong feeling he was being appraised. Skinner smirked, shaking his head slightly. "Don't fuck it up this time Mulder. See you Monday."