Author's Note:
MSR. Scully takes Mulder home from the hospital. It's nice to have him back, isn't it?
Chapter Nine
Scully washed her face in the bathroom attached to Mulder's private hospital room and straightened her clothes in the small rectangular mirror. The fluorescent light above the mirror cast a light that made her reflection appear ghostly pale. She was displeased by what she saw. She had half moon shaped blue rings under her eyes from lack of sleep, and she uselessly tried to remove them by pressing her fingers cooled by the water from the tap against the discolored skin. It was no wonder she looked unwell: she had slept fitfully, dreaming of Mulder in a train car full of dead bodies.
The doctor was speaking with Mulder, as she had done a few minutes previous. She had set up some tests to be run the following week. Mulder was filling out some release forms, and she was going to be able to take him home. Troy had arranged for her car to be dropped off at the hospital and it was waiting for them outside. Outside of this hospital lay the real world, where she would be forced to tell Mulder all the things she was holding back. She swallowed some water from the plastic cup that was resting on the sink's edge and went back into the room.
The nurse was helping Mulder up and into a wheelchair.
"Scully, please explain to Nurse Gene that I can walk."
Scully simply cocked her eyebrow in response and took hold of the handles.
Mulder was wearing a black knit sweater and blue jeans—items that she had sent Troy to get earlier in the morning from Mulder's apartment. Without it being asked of him, Troy had also gone to Scully's apartment and returned with a blue pants suit, which Gabriella had selected from the closet packed with one suit after another.
Scully wheeled Mulder out into the hallway and towards the elevator. Scully punched the white button with the arrow pointing down, so that it lit up. They stood alone in the hallway before the silver door of the closed elevator, totally silent. Scully was trying to think of a way to begin setting up her introduction of William. The elevator dinged and the doors slid open. Scully pushed the wheelchair forward. In turning the wheelchair around, so that it faced outwards, Scully brushed Mulder's leg against the wall of the elevator.
"Careful. This thing doesn't have power steering," Mulder protested.
"I'll try to remember that," Scully said leaning forward to press the first floor button.
They were quiet for a few moments as the second floor passed them by, their progress indicated by a cheery ding.
"Mulder, I want to take you over to my apartment before I take you home, if you feel up to it. I need you to meet someone, and then I'll take you back to your apartment if you want."
Scully couldn't see Mulder's face, which displayed a pained expression.
"Sure, you're in the driver's seat today, Scully," he responded flatly.
"For once, huh?" she said as they exited the elevator and she rolled Mulder out into the bright and bustling entrance lobby of the hospital.
At a stoplight Scully pulled out her cell phone and called her apartment. "Gab, this is Dana. I'm ten minutes from home. Everything been all right?"
She turned the corner, and Mulder watched out the window as familiar scenery passed by. To him it seemed like it hadn't been very long since he'd been driving to her apartment, but he had been told that it had been a year. A year. How do you count the time spent lost in such agony? How do you begin to make up for everything that you've missed?
"I'm bringing someone home with me, Gab. I was with Agent Mulder last night," Scully said somewhat anxiously.
On the other end of the line, Gabriella dropped the phone from shock, succeeding in hanging up on Scully. Scully heard the dial tone and shook her head, putting the phone back down on the console. She glanced over at Mulder, but he was staring out the window.
She wished that he would say something, instead of being so silent. It would have been easier, if he had been more typically Mulder and launched immediately into a discussion of the details of the case—the case of his disappearance. Or if he had began quizzing her about the state of the X-files. Or about baseball game scores. Anything but this interminable silence that hung between them. If he acted more like himself, she would know better how to handle him.
They pulled into Scully's apartment's parking lot, and Mulder snorted and shook his head, as if pondering a private joke.
"What's so funny, Mulder?" she asked, turning off the car and grabbing her purse.
"I'm wondering how you'll carry me inside, since we don't have a wheelchair handy," he explained as he pulled on the door handle.
He sounded rather embittered to her.
"You've been through a lot," she said as she slammed the driver's side door shut.
Mulder did the same. "No kidding."
"I just want you to take it easy—that's all. Try not to let your manly macho nonsense get in the way of realizing that people are merely concerned," she said, as she walked up the sidewalk to the building.
He managed to make it to the door of the building before her and held the door open for her.
'Nonsense? It's not nonsense to try to save yourself from abject humiliation. First you're being wheeled around in a wheelchair, and then you're being told that you've been replaced by a newer model…a better looking model…a saner model. You're getting the easy let down.'
He figured if he had lost her while he was gone—if she'd ever been his to begin with—he might as well try to salvage some of his pride by convincing her that he was not completely helpless and not entirely emotionally destroyed. It occurred to him that he had no wish for her to know the power she held over him. The power to crush him, should she so choose. He'd play this defensively.
As they walked through her hallway, Scully felt her hands begin to shake and she fumbled through her purse for her keys so as to avoid betraying her appendages' uncontrolled movements. They stopped in front of her door, and Scully worried that the keys would drop right out of her hand, so she simply tried the door first. Mercifully it was unlocked. There had been a day when such an occurrence would have made Scully wonder if she should draw her gun before entering, but now she knew it was only Gabriella, anticipating her return home.
Scully hoped that Gabriella would not come to the door with William in her arms or with a bottle in her hand. She had to break this to Mulder herself—even if she had no idea how she would do it, she had to tell him herself—to do otherwise would be entirely heartless. No one was in the living room, and Gabriella had tidied up. Gabriella's things were already packed in her blue quilted bag, sitting on the small table by the door, and none of William's things were conspicuous. It looked as if nothing had changed since the last time Mulder had graced her apartment.
"Gab, I'm back," Scully called, and Gabriella emerged from Scully's bedroom, thankfully without the baby.
Mulder was standing in the doorway, having not come in or shut the door entirely, and while Gabriella glanced quickly in his direction, she did her best to appear slightly disinterested in the man about whom she had heard so much.
Mulder, on the other hand, was blatantly staring, trying to figure out why this blond twenty-something year old girl was in Scully's apartment and apparently quite at home there.
Scully tossed her purse down on the table and turned to Mulder. "Shut the door, Mulder."
He turned to do so, but Gabriella sprung forward. "No, I was just leaving. Hold it for me."
Mulder held the door, but slightly blocked the way with his arm: "and you are?"
Gabriella stood speechless, and Mulder continued to stare at her.
"Mulder," Scully said, "it's not nice to stare."
Mulder looked from Scully back to the mysterious woman, somewhat bemused.
Scully continued, "this is Gabriella, and she…mmm…helps me out."
Mulder almost laughed at Scully's unusual inarticulateness. What could be shaking her up so?
"And Gab, this is Agent Mulder. He was my partner in the FBI."
Mulder inwardly flinched at Scully's use of the past tense. Yes, she had a new partner now. She might have a lot of new things in her life for all he knew. He could very well be yesterday's news all around.
"Oh, right. FBI. Sure," Gabriella said. "Okay, well," she said, hurriedly ducking under Mulder's arm, "Bye, Dana. Nice to meet you," she called back over her shoulder as she half jogged down the hallway.
"She was in a hurry. Did you tell her all the bad stuff about me?" Mulder asked with a smirk as he nudged the door shut with his elbow.
"Yeah, something like that," Scully said, refusing to turn around again.
"Hey, you've got my fish tank," he remarked after glancing around her apartment.
"I got tired of going over there to feed them all the time, so I had it brought over here." 'I couldn't stand being in your apartment alone' she inwardly thought. Every time she'd gone there she'd ended up sitting silently in the dark, sometimes for hours, thinking she could almost feel Mulder there—almost. It had become a dark habit she had forced herself to break after she gave birth to William.
"Do I even have an apartment anymore?" Mulder asked with a half chuckle.
Well, she couldn't stand going over there, but she also couldn't stomach the notion of getting rid of it either: whatever remained of Mulder, even his dingy apartment, she'd wanted to hold onto. It was a shrine to his previous existence in this world, where she could call him, visit him, climb into bed with him…anytime she pleased. It still hadn't sunk in that he was here in the flesh. She could just hold on to him, if she wanted to. There was nothing separating them physically.
"No, it's still there. Pretty much as you left it. They did rifle through for evidence during the investigation, but it's not bad. You can have my extra key for now," she said, gesturing back at her purse and keys.
"So was that it?" Mulder asked, putting his hands on his hips.
Scully cocked her head. She hadn't been listening to what he was saying.
"What was that Mulder?" Scully asked distractedly.
She could feel her palms beginning to sweat.
"Well…she, uh, Gabriella is it? She isn't the one you wanted me to meet, right? If that's the case, I'm still not terribly well acquainted with…your friend…or housekeeper? I'm missing something," he admitted, running his hands through his hair.
"No…well…there's nothing to do but show you, I guess."
Scully headed for the bedroom and paused to look back to make sure Mulder was following her, his footsteps made undetectable by the carpet runner. She entered her bedroom, which was doubling for a nursery, since she was crowded for room in her apartment. Her wooden double bed took up most of the room, along with her bookcase, desk, and a table that she had converted into a makeshift changing table. The crib was sitting alongside her bed directly opposite the door as you entered under the window. The shades were pulled shut, since Gabriella had put the baby to sleep before they arrived, and it left the room rather dark even though it was a sunny day outside.
In a few steps, she was around her bed and at the crib, lifting William out, asleep with heavy lids and bright pink cheeks. She pressed him to her shoulder. Her heart had risen into her throat and she could feel a deep flush creeping up her neck and into her cheeks. She turned to face Mulder, who had followed closely behind her. She had been afraid to imagine this moment in all the time since William had been born—afraid that what she would dream of would never come to be.
Mulder was only inches away from her, staring at the child with absolute confusion written on his face. She could plainly see that Mulder did not miraculously guess the nature of the situation; she wouldn't be saved from having to explain who William was to him. She looked from the baby on her shoulder to Mulder, gathering strength to speak.
"Mulder, he's ours," she said softly as she reached out with one hand to touch Mulder's chest, not wishing to jolt Mulder or the baby.
She watched Mulder intently, ready to read any sign that might appear on his countenance. She didn't have a script ready and she knew he wouldn't have anything prepared either. They would have to be honest. Whatever his reaction might be, she could count on it being genuine.
Mulder brought his gaze from the baby to Scully's face with his brow knitted together.
Words rushed through his mind but refused to form themselves, and all he could manage was a pathetic, "how?"
"I don't know," she said pressing the baby closer to her breast.
Mulder reached up a tentative hand and brushed the baby's cheek with one finger.
"He's ours…he's mine?" he whispered hoarsely.
Scully nodded 'yes.' "He's yours and he's healthy…perfectly healthy, Mulder. Nothing is wrong with him," she said as large tears began to trail down her cheek.
"Scully," he said with empathy, drawing out her name as was occasionally his habit before leaning over to capture her mouth with his own.
He quickly pulled back, afraid he might have inadvertently been crushing the baby. He wiped the tears from her face with his thumbs.
The baby's bright blue eyes slowly opened and he mewed contentedly, which brought about a broad smile from Mulder. Scully saw his evident pleasure at the child and she felt immediately more at ease. Maybe everything would be alright. Maybe they could be a family. Maybe no one would get sick. No one would go missing again.
"This is your father, William. He's come home," Scully said using her motherly tone of voice.
"William?"
"William Mulder," she said handing the baby over to Mulder, who looked decidedly awkward with the bundle. "After your father…and mine."
"You gave birth to him?" he asked, moving to sit on the bed so as to feel more secure as he held the small worming bundle.
The child smelled of baby powder and its little blue wooly sleeper felt warm to the touch. Scully stood in front of the both of them, taking in the sight and placing her hand on Mulder's head and lightly running her fingers through his hair. He felt abuzz with pleasant stimulus unlike anything he'd felt in ages. The knot of nerves that had begun to form itself in the back of his neck as they'd left the hospital started to loosen as he realized that this was what Scully had intended to show him. His child. That was as unpleasant as it was going to get, and there was nothing unpleasant about this moment.
"Yes. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just a routine delivery."
No test tubes. No tanks. No unwilling surrogates. Just his Scully giving birth to their child. That seemed just as surreal. He squinted at the baby in his arms, trying to make out what features looked like Scully and which might look more like him.
"I wasn't there," he said looking back up at her.
She shook her head, 'no,' sitting down next to him and resting her head on his shoulder. "My mother was with me."
She stroked William's downy head. His hair was getting darker, and she thought it was starting to resemble Mulder's medium brown floppy mane. He might have had his mother's blue eyes and light complexion, but this small detail that reminded her of Mulder had pleased her immensely in his father's absence. It was another bit of Mulder she could hold onto.
"He's four months old now…I was almost two months pregnant when you…when you…"
Scully had to stop to catch her breath. Was this really Mulder here beside her with their child?
"Mulder are you really alright?"
He let go of the baby with one hand and looped it around Scully's waist. "I'm fine now."
She had been afraid to ask him if he remembered anything: he had pressed her when she returned to share her memories, but now that Mulder had returned, she wanted to hear nothing of his trauma. For the moment she just wanted the nightmare to be over. To pretend as if it had never happened.
"Were you…hurt?" she asked in a strangled voice.
She asked, but she didn't know if she wanted him to answer.
Mulder kissed the crown of her head, but remained silent.
