A series of vignettes starting at DeadAlive with gradually altered storyline into an account of what may have happened had they made different choices with their relationship and their son; how things may have been different for them, and how history may have found ways to repeat itself. Will publish in several parts, but I'm not done writing. Review with your thoughts if you like.
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It's odd, he thinks, how out of place some things feel; small comforts that once belonged solely to him now seem foreign, jarringly displaced.
Or maybe it's him that no longer fits. After all, a body tends to acclimate to its surroundings after a while. He supposes that perhaps he'd taken on the shape of the coffin in a sense, the weight of it. A dead man is a peculiar puzzle piece to try to cram back into the already-completed landscape of the living world.
Nothing feels stranger, though, than the prominent curve of her stomach, the swell of soft, warm body beneath her shirt. Not that he has felt it, physically. But it's there between them all the same; proof that another person, however small, had moved in, scrambling the puzzle. Another life that began growing even as his was taken away from her, from them.
It's hard not to feel hollow when there is a tiny head nestled beneath her ribs, encompassed by her heartbeats as he stands five feet and a mile away, certain that he'll never feel grounded in his own body again, let alone hers.
He tries to find something to say as he watches tears gather in her eyes, but all he can do is turn away, a bitter taste creeping from the back of his tongue. His mouth and lungs and heart are embalmed with his absence, his empty gut packed with sawdust and the things he'd have told her months ago, before he was taken, before she buried him. She waits but the words stay stitched inside him, festering. They've lost their meaning, now.
XXX
"It's yours, you know."
She regards him carefully from across the couch, legs tucked beneath her and hands resting on the mound of her belly, giving it shape beneath folds of oversized sweater. He sits uncomfortably at the other end, not facing her. She'd been watching him pick despondently at some small scrap of paper from his coat pocket for several minutes before getting up the nerve to speak.
"The baby."
He raises his eyes to hers, still silent.
It's still more of a response than she's gotten in hours, so she continues, speaking softly.
"To have all my attempts fail, and then to learn I was pregnant just after you disappeared….it scared me. I started to wonder….how. As soon as the baby was developed enough for the procedure, I tested him against your DNA, just to be safe."
He studies her for a moment, something sparking in his hollow eyes.
"Him?"
Closing her eyes, she scoffs a tiny laugh at her slip. Hearing his voice has yet to stop making her heart falter.
"Or her," she corrects, though in her mind the boy already has his father's hazel eyes.
He holds her gaze, searching her eyes for something, his own expression unreadable.
"I know," he says finally, simply. "I knew."
She relaxes a bit, thankful for his stability.
"You've been so distant all week," she says quietly, reversing their roles and dropping her gaze to the hem of the sweater as she starts to pick at it. She can feel him watching her carefully.
"I thought maybe you were worried that I'd started seeing someone. That I had... replaced you."
"No," he breathes, though she can hear in his voice that it's not entirely the truth. He'd harbored doubts for just as long as it took him to do the math.
He sighs, and she thinks that maybe it is the sound of the shell he's been building up ever since his resurrection starting to crack.
"I'm sorry I've been so shut off to you, Scully," he murmurs, and her eyes are drawn back to his. It's the first time he's used her name in days. The shell cracks a little more.
"It's like…." He struggles with his words for a moment, brow furrowing slightly as he tries to think of how best to explain himself. "It's like walking into a movie theater halfway through the film. I feel like I have to sit back and watch for a minute to figure out what I missed before I can even begin to guess at what comes next."
She holds his gaze steadily for a moment, trying not to show how his words break her heart as they sink in.
"Does that make sense?" He asks softly, thinking that if anyone can possibly understand, it's her.
"Yeah," she says, giving him a teary smile. "It does."
XXX
She's moving around her apartment in the cold morning light, as fast as she can and missing the taste of coffee, when her phone rings. She frowns at the caller ID before answering.
"Mulder, I'm late for my appointment," she says distractedly as she looks for her keys. "What is it?"
"Well, that's what I was calling about, actually," he says nervously on the other end. "I'd like- I was wondering….Would it be alright if I went with you? To your appointment?"
She stops in her tracks, a little surprised and unsure how to answer.
"I mean- well, no, I wouldn't have a problem with that, I just don't have time to wait for you to get here," she says quickly, having found her keys and starting for the door.
"That's alright," he says, and hangs up.
"Muld- oh, damn it," she mutters, feeling like a bit of an ass. She'll call him back and apologize later. She hurries out the door, locking it behind her.
As she hurries out of the building, he intercepts her on the steps.
"I can drive, if you like," he says with a shy smile, jangling his keys in the air.
She bites back her own smile, shaking her head slightly at his calculated presumptuousness.
His face falls slightly. "You want to drive?" he asks quickly. "Or you'd rather I don't come?"
"No, I was-" she backpedals, feeling like an ass again. "I was just- Damn it. Yes, you drive."
XXX
He takes a copy of the sonogram, absently thinking that he'll pin it up somewhere in the office. It isn't until later, back at his apartment, that he remembers that the office isn't his anymore.
He flicks the little black and white photo restlessly between his fingers as he looks around his living room, but it doesn't feel right.
The white walls and battered furniture hold no weight with which to anchor the grainy little blob of his child growing in his partner's womb. He barely spends time here anymore anyway; it had stopped being home when it became a monument to his disappearance, to his death.
Now, in the afterlife, home is Scully.
He folds the picture carefully and tucks it in his wallet.
XXX
In the confusion of coming back from the dead to find his basement office occupied by strangers, to find himself half of the genetic code responsible for creating a child, and trying to delicately figure out the future of the bizarre little family they would be, Mulder had thought that maybe he was off the radar for a bit, that perhaps They had lost interest in him, now that he was no longer an immediate threat.
There were signs he could have seen if he'd been less distracted, but he doesn't put the pieces together until he tries to call Scully one afternoon. The chilling realization that they are still being watched comes with the barely-noticeable click behind the phone's ring, the telltale sign of a wiretap.
He's called her multiple times on her cell phone and several at her apartment, worry gnawing in the pit of his stomach. A call to the office reveals that Agent Doggett saw her this morning doing paperwork, but she must have taken a long lunch because she hasn't returned yet.
The uneasiness grows, coiling in his gut as he drives first to her apartment, then to the office. The apartment is locked and empty.
At the office, he brushes past his dislike for Doggett, questioning him about their recent cases, what had happened that morning, if Scully mentioned a doctor's appointment. Catching the barely-veiled note of panic in Mulder's voice, Doggett promises to make some calls. Mulder leaves with a curt nod of thanks.
As he waits for the elevator, he runs his hands through his hair, starting to feel frantic. For years, nothing had scared him more than the thought of losing her. But now the stakes are higher. Now, there is the double jeopardy of the life she carries as well as her own.
When the doors open, she walks right into him, then pulls back, startled. Instinctively, his hands find her shoulders, steadying her.
"Mulder, what are you-"
Before she can finish, he pulls her to his chest, hands clutching at her back in desperate relief. The swell of her abdomen is an awkward hindrance to the embrace, but he holds her tightly anyway.
"Scully," he breathes into her hair, inhaling deeply to calm himself. Her scent is cinnamon and strawberries and hibiscus tea and he thinks it might be the only thing keeping him from slipping from the earth's gravity and reeling into space.
XXX
He doesn't know how he knew how to find her, and as he waits in the uncomfortably sterile little room his mind wanders to homing devices and alien technology and the chip in her neck, and it makes him anxious so instead he thinks of intangible human connections, of Scully's seemingly unshakeable faith, and how somebody once told him that souls are like magnets.
Somehow he must have done alright because eventually mother and child are checked out with no issues, abnormalities, or assassination attempts.
She rides in the backseat with the baby carrier, unable to part with the squalling infant even by inches.
Over the mingled residual terror and exhaustion that threaten to consume him, he knows that he should want to hold the kid, to look down at his squished little face and tell Scully he's got her chin, or something, but right now all he can think about is getting them home.
In her apartment, he can't tell if she wants his help, his company, or if she'd just rather be alone with her son. Their son.
Standing by the door, ready to flee at a moment's notice if dismissed, he watches her flit about the apartment, studying her carefully. It's hard to catch, but he knows her too well to be fooled; she has no idea what she's doing, either. The thought makes him relax a little.
"Mulder," she calls softly from the bedroom, and he goes to her, unfrozen by the sound of his name on her lips.
She lies in the semi-darkness, pajama-clad above the unrumpled covers. The baby lies next to her, awake but silent, mesmerized by her face.
"I know how you feel, kid."
He hadn't meant to say it out loud.
Scully gives him a questioning glance and a smile, patting the empty other side of the bed.
He kicks off his shoes and climbs on the bed, scooting close enough to wrap his arm around her waist and press a kiss to her forehead. Together they form a cocoon around the child, and he turns his round blue eyes to Mulder. Or maybe they're green. For one fleeting moment, he thinks he might know what happiness is.
"Hey, buddy," he murmurs, tracing his finger over a satiny cheek. With somber eyes, the baby blows a spit bubble at his father before trying to cram a tiny fist into his mouth.
They both laugh, a breathy, beautiful sound in the darkness.
"William," she says softly, watching his face as he tries the name, testing to see how it feels in his mouth.
It's not conventional, by any means, but as she watches them she thinks they're all she's ever wanted. Her next words burn in the back of her throat.
"Are you going to stay?"
He looks up, knowing what she means, knowing there are a dozen other questions behind it.
He remembers the hollow feeling from when he'd been one degree removed from dead and she'd been pregnant, overflowing with life while he tried to remember what it felt like to breathe.
"Tonight," he replies softly, and he hates himself for having thought, those short weeks ago, that he couldn't possibly feel worse.
They lie in silence, clutching each other tightly where they can reach across the little body between them, as if their desperate love can pass through him, imparting on hours-old William the knowledge that yes, for this one night, he had a whole family.
When Scully begins to drift, the weariness of childbirth taking its toll, she tells him tiredly that he can't leave the baby in the bed while they sleep.
He presses a kiss to her jaw, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, and tells her that he doesn't intend to sleep. He watches her until her eyes droop closed and her breathing slows, then rolls onto his back, lifting the also-sleeping baby onto his chest. William coos a sleepy sound and nestles into his father's warmth, one tiny fist curling around Mulder's finger.
Too soon, morning comes.
Souls are like magnets, he thinks, and if Scully's is strong enough to drag him unknown miles across the surface of the earth, William's pulls with enough force to tear away a part of him as he leaves. The moment he shuts her door behind him, he is less than half of whom he had been.