The house didn't seem right. On the air, cinnamon mingled with the faintest breath of fruit. She squinted. Light fixtures painstakingly doused the surroundings in an overbearing lemony-light. Wait, was that apple pie? In the most pavlovian way, she found herself drawn to the kitchen by the alluring scent. A gasp escaped her lips.
An uneven grey paneling of newspaper clippings tacked by tiny red pins checkered the kitchen walls. A picture frame graced the space above their-no-his oven. She clenched her fists, then sighed. The syrupy humidity had messed up her hair that she had spent all morning on, and now in its place, wet, salty clumps lay in swirls on the back of her neck. She attempted to finger a strand, but was met with pain, as it tugged away from her in a frizzy knot. She had even cut her hair short again.
Was this really worth it? She thought. A limp strand of red fell into her face, and the woman tucked it once more behind her ear. It was 2009-the year of the ox. She felt as stubborn as an ox.
Her antique house phone's panicked ring still echoed through her mind. She should have called him back that January. But instead of hushing the incessant ring by listening for his baritone in the receiver, she fought prickly ice flakes and listened for the wind. She had spent more nights sitting on snow drifts than her own couch that winter. Not that she would ever admit that. And eventually, the ringing tapered off into a hot silence.
The kitchen linoleum boiled her feet.
Mulder had tried screaming for her the way that he remembered she liked, but all that left his mouth was pure star breath. Traces of Milky Way, Andromeda, and Messier 81 collapsed from him in large sums in sheer animalistic panic. We are eternal, Dana Scully. Of course, he never said that out loud-it sounded too cheesy. It also sounded too similar to that romance novel he had found smuggled inside her pillow case that one time. But that's all he ever wanted to talk about with her. He longed to tell her that they were the stars that trace the sky at night for all eternity. Their relationship was not over. It could not be over. For every star, there is a supernova. She couldn't walk away before the explosion. The darkness would abate if she would just be there for it.
Scully knew they should talk. This was not something to hint at in vague gestures between the crackle of eggs, not slight suggestions to be made during intimacy, and not to be uttered in a harsh whisper in the produce aisle. She clenched her jaw again, paining her molars. A prickle of anxiety steeled itself between the ridges of her spine. Her eyelids clamped shut to trap a tear. She could feel his arms enveloping her in a warm embrace again if she thought hard enough.
He was ushering her away from the alien brightness and appley scent of his home, and back into his old apartment. They were holding hands now. The leather of his beaten sofa creaked beneath her weight as she fell into it, her face bathed blue by glow of his fish tank. A weak table lamp shined in the corner. His place was dark, like him. A faint smell of dust and fresh paper would permeate the air, floating behind the consistent hum of the tank. In his apartment, he had wept with her when his mother died. In his apartment, she had initiated their first time. And in his apartment, she had been there when he had told his landlord that he would be moving out. Scully removed herself from the cushiony thought, and faded back into the kitchen. The need to talk to him had called her back here. She took a deep breath.
"Mulder?"
A languid silence shrunk the room. Scully fidgeted. Despite being only 5'3, she felt like a huge monster tramping on daisies. She tried to reassure herself: I'm not trespassing. This was my home at one point, too. A thin smile creeped up on her. Monster. She was an X-File to be investigated. To be interrogated. Mulder loved those cases. He loved her.
Scully jumped.
A sharp scrape against hardwood ripped through the apple and cinnamon. The screen door clattered shut followed by heavy footsteps. A figure lumbered itself behind her, wielding an old baseball bat. "HEY! I WON'T LET YOU STEAL ANY OF OUR-" The baritone ceased, as his eyes fell upon her. "Oh…" The bat slipped from his grasp, thwacking painfully against the wood a few times, before settling. It rolled silently and met her painted toes with a small tap. "Sorry, I thought you were another…"
"Mulder," Scully croaked, inching the bat away from her toes with a foot. Her eyes widened noticeably, and a pink tint dusted her cheeks. He shaved and cut his hair. She maintained eye contact.
"Taking roll call, are we?" Mulder casually said, stroking a non-existent beard. He looked towards his thick boots to kick the bat beneath the black leather sofa. He couldn't tell if it was the heat or Scully's eyes on him that caused a trickle of sweat down his neck. Slowly, his green irises settled on her once more.
She sighed and bit her lip. "What's that smell?"
"I was uh...making something for the neighbors," He chuckled. Scully's forehead furrowed into little creases. He blushed. "I mean, for um, the b-birds, y'know. I had some stuff left over from my baked oatmeal scramble. Figured they might like it." As if on cue, a little group of birds tweeted happily on the porch. "Think they can smell it from here? You're a doctor." He smiled.
She cocked her head slightly. "Yes, doctor. Not a vet, if you remember correctly," She said, as if she were reciting a bible verse. Her voice reverberated coldly off the walls. She looked to the newspaper again, and felt that same betrayal that had washed over her earlier when she had first found it. "What'd you do to the kitchen?"
A worried look crossed his face. Scully thought she saw his hands tremble a bit. But before she could further prod that idea, he stole them away behind his hulking back. His green eyes slowly drew back to the wall, and onto the old highlighted clippings and marker streaked pages. He grunted.
Scully felt a flare of anger snared inside herself poke the lining of her stomach. She pursed her lips, and her jaw clenched even harder, as did his. Mulder sweated profusely. They held eye contact for a good minute or two, eye-fucking. Mulder used to do this with Scully when they were at work at the bureau, when a kiss or hug could not be risked. However, this was not the good type of eye-fucking that he used to willingly partake in. No, he was helplessly shackled to her now, through Scully's bubbling, pent up rage. The monster trampled over more flowers. He crumbled.
"No, no... Scully. Dana. This isn't what it looks like...I'm not…" He trailed off. A hobo? A bizarre conspiracy-driven loner who makes home decor out of news clippings? "I'm redecorating the kitchen...it's just," He deflated. "I'm sorry. I figured if you ever came back, you wouldn't want to see the same dark place. I'm painting the walls, hence the newspaper. I've gotta find a green outlet for all this old paper I've accumulated, right? It does not mean anything to me now. I don't value it and paste it over a cork board. I don't examine it for hours on end. It's merely scribbled and highlighted scraps now," He gestured to the kitchen again. "I'm painting it yellow. The brightest color there is. I've installed new, more eco-friendly lights, which just happened to be brighter, as well. An added bonus," he said, taking her hand.
She squeezed his damp hand back. It felt like a soggy, quivering leaf. A tear slid down her cheek. "Mulder, we need to talk."
They shared a long, lustful but teary glance, this time both of them not daring to break eye contact at all. The tweeting of the house sparrows that surrounded the house ceased. And beneath his worn boots and her tired feet, the beaten wood gave out. A mesh of icy ivy, frozen oak, and dead willow entwined around their forms like the weaving of a fragile fabric. They didn't bother squinting against the glare of the white. The red-head's feet no longer burned, and she looked into him deeply. She stood on her toes now, receding into him like climbing ivy, her small arms tightly wrapping around him. Cold tears dampened his gray t-shirt.
"I've known that I've wanted to see you again, but I had no idea how to," Scully whispered in a forceful hush into his shirt, white clouds dissolving from her cherry colored mouth. A teardrop fell from Mulder and plopped in the center of Scully's scalp. He was performing an autopsy on her now, stabbing at her brain with a teary scalpel. Her head pulled away from his shirt, and she gently pet his forearm, up and down. His dark beard and disheveled longer hair glimmered in the brisk air like star dust. She laid the back of her right hand against it. Scratchy beard.
"I'm sorry I couldn't shield you from the darkness." Mulder stifled a sniffle, and looked into the sea of orange that gracefully flowed down her tiny porcelain frame. "I know you hate that. I brought it back. We left the bureau, we were on the run. I was the darkness, Scully. I'm so sorry. And-and I made you give up our son."
Her head whipped up at him further than he thought was possible. "No you didn't! It was what we had to do. This guilt you feel, it's uncalled for. Unreasonable. I'm sorry that you feel it. I feel it sometimes, too. You think I don't think about him sometimes? Well you're bat-crap-crazy," Scully said, letting a tinge of humor ease the thick tension. "I think we both think about him a lot. But he's still out there. You know it, I know it. Mulder, listen to me. We both feel guilty, it's normal. But we shouldn't dwell on that too long. It's not healthy."
Mulder swallowed past knives. She stroked his cheek again, a few beard whiskers fell out.
"I've been taking my medication like you insisted."
"Good."
"But I still made you walk away from me. I'm sorry. I didn't know what to do. I felt lost. I had my work taken away from me, I was...abduc…" His frosted lips wouldn't form the word.
"It's okay. I felt lost too. I buried myself in hospital work, I...that wasn't the healthiest thing to do, either. I see that now. I just tend to work excessively instead of being emotional with you, I often found that hard. I still do."
"Why?"
"That's how you learn to act in a boy's club. I grew up around a number of men, more than women. I worked in a place where women were few and far between. You can't let weakness show. That means any tears. It's a toxic notion that I have internalized, yes, but…I'm learning to be better. To break away from that ideology. I'm glad you are, too."
She relinquished her left hand's grip on his upper arm, and rested it on his heart. A surge of warmth vibrated between them like the notes off a record player. Mulder cupped her cheeks, and squeezed them together, giving her red fish lips. A grin began to glow beneath strips of chestnut beard. She stroked his face, more whiskers falling off at the contact of her flesh.
"I'm here," Mulder whispered.
"So am I," Scully breathed back, a blue fire blazing in her eyes.
Finally, they pulled apart, and accepted the overbearing white around them. Wind angrily whipped, batting chestnut and coppery strands every which way. Twigs snapped and branches shattered. She squinted up at him while spitting hair out of her mouth, the light bouncing off his bare face in the most attractive way. His hair was not long and messy. Her hair was short again. Just as it should be.
Finally, the fruity scent crept back into frame. The ivy, oak, and willow withered away, retreating into old, unremarkable floorboard. A warm sunset filtered in between them through a window.
Without saying anything, they had said everything.