He slips away and down the stairs, the word yes still lingering on his tongue like candy. He closes his eyes and savors it—this is what it tastes like to make her happy, he thinks.
Driving away, a grin bursts its way across his cheeks almost violently, just at the thought of her swollen belly, just at the chance of what could possibly be.
Hours later, when he slinks back through his door, the grin is there again, tight across his teeth and crinkling at his eyes—it's been there all night, flashing on and off like a firefly.
Just one word— just three small letters—has spun their lives deliciously askew. How many times has he answered yes to her before this night? Hundreds? Thousands? It doesn't matter. Because tonight's yes could change everything.
He tries not to call her. Really he does. But when she hugged him earlier, she left her scent around his neck like a scarf. A Scully scarf, he thinks, and the grin slips across his face once again. The phone is in his hand before he even realizes it.
"Mulder, it's past midnight," she greets him, her voice warm and rumpled and tickling at his ear.
"I know. I'm sorry. I just…. We're really doing this, aren't we?"
He's sure he hears her smile, though he knows logically that's impossible.
"Yeah," she chuckles quietly, "We are." Her soft breaths whisper across the line, and it's so incredibly intimate, listening to her breathe in his ear just hours after telling her yes. The moment sinks in as languidly as a stone sinks through water.
He thinks she may have fallen back asleep, but she begins again, detailing what she knows of the coming procedure in that drowsy, drunken voice of hers. He's intoxicated by her. She talks about dates, times, temperatures, while he fidgets with his hands at his desk. He should be listening, but he's tearing off bits of tape, absently pasting them to the window, picturing the flush of her pink cheeks seven months in, the look in her eyes with a baby in her arms.
The stupid grin is still plastered across his face. Helping Scully achieve happiness is a drug of the very highest potency, it appears.
Her voice winds down, spinning slowly and more slowly, like a projector in school when the film's run out. "I'm tired, Mulder," she mumbles, "Let's talk tomorrow, 'kay?" He tears off another piece of tape and imagines the glowing embers of her hair, soft and silky against her pillow. He wonders whether she'd burn if he kissed her.
"Yeah, okay…," he murmurs, "Night, Scully…."
She hums her reply as she disconnects, half-asleep already.
He sticks the final piece of tape to the window, barely even aware of its presence on his finger. Most people phone-doodle with pen and paper. He uses masking tape and window glass—go figure. He's never been one to do things the easy way.
Slipping off his dress shirt, he turns out the light, then curls himself into the welcoming leather arms of his couch. He imagines cradling a baby there someday.
Yellowed streetlight sweeps through the darkened apartment. It throws shadows across his coffee table—the tic-tac-toe board of window panes, the silhouette of a computer monitor, the filtered haze of a lampshade, the outline of a heart…
He sits upright. There's a damn heart on his window, made from torn-up bits of masking tape.
He flops back onto the couch and laughs, the sound fizzy against his tongue like soda pop.
This is what it tastes like to love her, he thinks.
He covers himself with a blanket and he sleeps.
….
Never give up on a miracle. The words sting his tongue like hot sauce, even hours later. He wonders whether the burn will ever go away, whether there'll be scars left on his taste buds from such a futile attempt at consolation. This is what it tastes like to fail her, he thinks.
He wishes he were still there, holding her and loving her and absorbing her pain like a kitchen sponge. Would he be physically capable of soaking up all her pain? He imagines himself, bloated and dripping, so full with it, he'd rupture from even the slightest pressure.
Still, he'd welcome it. If it meant she wasn't hurting anymore.
But she sent him away with a whispered I'm fine and a look in her eyes that made his stomach turn.
Sitting on his couch, he tries not to think about the hole that exists now within him, a hole the precise size and shape of an infant boy (or girl perhaps, but he's always pictured a boy). He pretends to read—Extraneous Beings or some other pretentious bullshit—something, anything really, as long it's not about failing the only person in your life that means anything to you at all.
He closes his eyes. For weeks now, they've existed in some alternate-reality dream-world—a place where hope is actually tangible, a place where maybe, just perhaps, happiness is a possibility. How fucking foolish.
He should've known the two of them aren't allowed dreams anymore. They're not allowed happiness. They're only allowed nightmares and despair and heartache.
He barely opens his eyes when a knock at the door invades his silence—he has no interest in anything but his own misery right now.
But a jangle of keys and a twist of the knob tell him it's her.
"Scully, it's past midnight," he quips from the couch as she enters, parroting words she's uttered too many times to count.
"I know. I'm sorry. I just…," her voice is limp and tired and fading away, like old dishwater swirling down a sink drain.
She drops her bag to the floor and tilts her shoulders so her jacket slips down, too. The messiness of her actions scares him.
She's in a tank top and pajama bottoms and slippers—he's never seen her like this—so raw and so un-polished. So defeated. She looks at him with red-rimmed eyes and tearstains drying down her cheeks. "I couldn't sleep… I couldn't…" She sounds so plaintive, it hurts for him to listen.
He's about to rise, but she's already drifting, already floating across the floor in his direction. He is her anchor and she is his wayward raft—he has no choice but to reel her in. She stops before his knees and sways—back and forth, back and forth. Her chin quivers as she whispers, "Help me sleep, Mulder… please…"
He raises his arms, and though he only means to hug her, she melts into his lap like cake batter, fitting herself around his body in much the same way she's fit herself around his life over the years—trustingly and precisely. The last of her to meet him is her head, and she rests it against his heart so softly, it brings tears to his eyes.
A shuddering breath slips from her lips—it skids across his chest like a flattened stone across water. He wants to collect every one of her sad skipping-stone-breaths. He wants to keep them in a jar until she's happy, until she's finally rid of all the hurt.
"Scully…," he murmurs, and that sting is there again on his tongue— he knows his words will never be enough to heal her.
"I just need… just hold me, please," she whispers.
He rests his hand upon her back, and he holds her.
He concentrates on his breathing, on taking mouthfuls of her pain inside and down his throat. It's bitter and it's sour, and it coats his tongue like medicine. He doesn't care. He'd take it all in if she'd let him.
This is what if tastes like to love her, he thinks again.
She falls asleep, and his eyes trace the masking tape heart on his window until they close.