CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR:

Los Angeles General Hospital
March 11, 1986
Tuesday

"Why is it that we always find ourselves in this situation, Mr. Mulder?"

He couldn't help the smile on his chapped lips as he heard the familiar grungy voice behind him. The Director shrugged his shoulders, feeling a ton lifted from it, after tucking his nimble fingers into his pockets. "Why is my medical insurance raising the roof, Mr. Byers?"

Byers came to stand beside him, staring into the semi-transparent glass of Emily's hospital room. Inside, his daughter was delicately tucked under the hospital blankets, her stomach noticeably flatter than before (maybe hollow was the right term), and the rims under her eyes too evident for Mulder's liking. Jeffrey was striking up a sleepy vigil at her bedside, watching each drop of second, losing himself in the striking silence between him and his wife.

"You look like shit, Mulder," his friend observed, ironically without looking at him. Mulder shrugged again, brushing the padded creases of his jacket against his earlobe. That wasn't exactly the most arguable statement of the century.
Byers placed a hand over the cold glass, as if tracing Emily's begotten outline through the separation. "And that's just preliminary. How's she doing?"

Mulder raised his eyebrows, both for an answer and an attempt to keep his eyelids from dropping. "Stable. Maybe it's not only the medical bills that will put a hole on the roof this year, I'm thinking also the therapist's bill." He removed one hand from his pocket, running it through the back of his neck. "They … they put the baby in this jar - you see, and it's already human: it has fingers, mouth … it kind of looks like Emily. And it's a boy." Mulder's voice caught in his throat, "I mean, why Emily? She wanted this baby like death. If there was a reason for this, someone better speak up now."

Byers kept quiet as Mulder vocally exorcised his demons. It had already been a long day. After Scully left, he was jaded of what he wanted to feel. He wanted to rant out - to find someone and shoot the crap out of him. He wanted to call Scully and tell him that he's sorry, even though he understood that it wasn't his fault … as much as wasn't it hers. He wanted to tear the whole hospital apart, ask why the hell this happened to his daughter and not to his wife back then. Then again, that wasn't a question he was prepared to hear the answer of.
Instead, he was reduced to a silent ball of recoiling and simmering Mulder. He sat down at the hard wooden waiting benches, staring off into the cracks of the wall, fighting the urge to doze it all of. He needed to know Emily's condition as soon as she's done through the operation. That would be the only time he's going to surrender to exhaustion.

Soon after Emily was out of harm, Mulder was still on his feet. No one could sleep after seeing his supposed grandson in a bottle of antiseptic. How could anyone do so?

After a few minutes of sharing stuffy silence, Byers finally spoke, his voice scratchy and noticeably strained. "I bought your things from the Manor -"

"Thank you. I really appreciate it."

"… And I discovered more than I wanted to know."

Uh- oh.

Thank God Mulder's mind was too tired to actually process the intensity of this claim.

Mulder kept his best poker face on as he raised an eyebrow toward his friend's direction, afraid to take a peek - his eyes could easily give him away. He had to act innocent, had to show Byers that he had nothing to be guilty of. Nothing at all.

"Mulder, stop it. Stop pretending. It's fine, I know all about it … well, I was forced to know about it."

He wished Byers sounded as fine as he wished to be.

Mulder cleared his throat, tonsils scorching hot against the back of his tongue, forcing him to face his friend. For the first time that day, they looked at each other straight in the eye. Byers appeared as shocked as he was. Or even more.

The Director scratched at an itchy spot over the day-old stubble he's growing, feeling out the sharp strands of hair, then twice noticing how much he felt naked. "How? Did she tell you?" he conveyed, his voice slightly shaking.

"No, not really. I came over at your house," Byers broke off their eye contact, his hands coming up to straighten the dark green tie he had on, "… when I got there, Spunk was crying. She was huddled up on the couch, clutching the pillows. I asked her what was wrong, but she didn't say anything. She just directed me to the Master's bedroom …"

Mulder waved a hand in front of the man, dismissing this with a forgiving sneer. "You can't tell our relationship from seeing Scully cry, Byers. You don't know her like you know me." Their eyes met and his friend was able to give out a nervous laugh.

"Fine. So I didn't know it that way."

"How?"

"I … I came upstairs to collect your bag … but it seems that Spunk forgot some details to clean off of your bedroom floor. Specifically … your entwined underwear."

Mulder grinned sadly, not hiding how this much affected him. Scully usually was keen on cleaning, she would clean the whole of America if only the State allowed her to … but hearing how she missed those important details only told him how much her heart was broken by their argument. He's a fucking asshole for hurting her that way. Guilt's knife stabbed him in the heart and he could almost see his own blood spilling onto the white porcelain tiles of the floor. "She had no choice to admit it," Mulder whispered, one-third to himself, to his best friend, and to his guilt. Then on a louder note, "How is she, Byers? How is she holding? I mean … we had an …"

"Argument. She did a measurable amount of explaining, really. She told me all about it and … she's not all okay." Byers shuffled his leather shoes on the floor, creating stippling noises that clawed into Mulder's ear. He ignored it purposely, concentrating on what his friend had to say. "She was a mess. I've never seen her that way … I'm not sure if you had. How long have you been together, Mulder?"

"From this moment? A month tops."

"You're not very accessible about this, are you?"

In response, Mulder shook his head earnestly. No need to fucking lie about this. The subject about his relationship with Scully was as touchy as this death of his grandson was to Emily. It's that touchy AND ironically special.

Byers resigned, putting a hand on Mulder's left shoulder. "I understand … the consequences of what you entered. I understand the risks, the things you have to surpass. But I also understand how much you love each other and that's enough to justify the risks and consequences."

Mulder forced another smile on his dry lips.

"That's why aside from your overnight bag, I also brought another companion."

Damn it.

He didn't like the way Byers' eyes twinkled his seriousness, his determination. He didn't like his tone of voice when he said "companion," and most of all … he didn't like what he's about to walk into. No, he didn't like it at all. If they were in a movie that moment, the background music would've played something from Star Wars - the theme song whenever Darth Vader came on cam.

From the smile, he frowned and his eyes bulged from its sockets. "God fuck it, Byers … you didn't …"

"I had to. She really seemed lost. And it didn't take me much to bring her out of the house and here. Spunk did relent a little, but I directed her to the garden outside. She's shaky, but fine. And waiting for you. With your overnight bag."

He should feel like Han Solo, but he felt more like R2D2.

Clenching his teeth to keep himself from lashing out on Byers (his friend was only was doing what he thought was best), Mulder strode from him, each scrape of his rubber shoes against the tiles bouncing up to his ear. Byers didn't say anything more. Mulder also didn't say anything more.

What would R2D2 say in times like that, anyway?

It actually was a lovely day, lovelier than it should be. He expected darkening skies, turgid and sticky humid weather, incoming rain, even thunderstorms. But what greeted him out in the hospital's garden was a very energetic sun, fresh greenery enjoying the welcoming stirrings of summer, and a very lonely Scully propped up on a nearby bench.

She wore the same clothes - the violet sweater (despite the heat) and black ¾ leggings. Her hair was scrunched up into a side ponytail, the soft auburn curls splaying gently on her left shoulder. As he walked towards her, shielding his very photosynthetic eyes from the sun with his hand, he took note of how her hair was longer - compared to the first time he met her. She was all Spunk and angst those days … with that shoulder-length hair and dancing that could kill anyone watching her.
Right then and there, when he drew closer, Scully looked tired. She seemed defeated - her eyes rimmed with large eye bags, shoulders sagging … and visibly, she had been in a crying match just a few minutes ago. Another round of guilt tore through Mulder, accompanied with an extreme jolt of strong affection.

What the hell was he thinking, saying those things to her? He's lucky enough to have her in his arms, to have her give her all to him. She's his, as much as he was hers. That should be their norm.

His hand over his eyes faltered, and once the sun hit his eyes, he groaned his pain. He was exhausted too. Exhausted, stuffy, dirty, and he was about ready to force his head on Scully's lap and sleep. Sleep until Eternity himself died. Even his steps echoed triple-time in his ears. And maybe in her ears, too … because when he was about five feet away from Spunk, she inexplicably stood up, rubbed her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater and faced him formidably.
He expected something like "Fuck you Mulder! Fuck you for ruining my fucking life!" from Scully, because she was Queen Spunk, All hail the Spunk Royalty. But what he got was otherwise. Her brows scrunched up in concern, hands leaving her hips, tooth coming over to rest on her lower lip. She cleared her throat, and to Mulder's beaten-down senses, it sounded like glass scratching against each other.

"Oh my Lord, Mulder … you look like absolute knackered shit."

He might have flies all over him if that's the case.

Officially, in the wee hours since they got to the hospital, he had been a bad Father, a stupid lover, an even more stupid friend, a wordless robot, and a broken grandfather. He had enough already. Oh, and he also was shit. Deep, smelly, piece of shit.

Mulder sighed his relief as he entered the tree's shade Scully was under, closing his eyes for a second before opening them, smiling weakly at his lover's blurred reflection in front of him. She was abstract: red, white, blue, pink, and dots of freckles.
Something about her comment made the mood lighten between them. They both felt it and no doubt about it, it could be what they needed to set things straight.

"There's something about you that always reminds me of my health, Scully." He blindly puckered his lips and kissed whatever he could reach. Judging from the small creases of worry under his lips, the indulgent approval from her throat, and the hand on his bicep … he was able to reach her forehead. Not a bad aim for reconciliation.

"I'll take that as a compliment," Scully whispered; voice soft, the hand on his forearm tightening and pulling him towards the bench. He began to sit down when Scully ushered him a few inches away. Apparently, he was about to sit down on his overnight bag. According to her, he wouldn't want to sit down on his shaving razor.

He let her tend to him. Her warm fingers positioned his head so that he could recline it a bit on the bench, his hands relaxed over his lap, his legs spread outright before him.

This was what they both needed. Time to get back to their respective roles in the relationship … even before they were intimate. He was the kid again, she the adult. The past month had been too crazy for their liking, too hectic for their expectations. Add this new kind of togetherness and it's a bowl of sour fruit salad. There had to be a way of making it sweet. And he'd go to the ends of the earth to find the right recipe.

Scully found her place beside him, gently resting her head on his right shoulder - not completely heaving her weight on him, but just enough to test the waters between them. Mulder grinned at the instant amount of security that blanketed his freelancing emotions. Scully's effects on him were incredible. He'd be crazy if he let this woman go.

"You know what," she started with her heady British accent, the one he had gotten to love. "When Byers pulled me out of that couch and told me to shape up and fix this mess once and for all … I was determined to give you two choices."

Mulder opened his eyes in panic, finding the sweet greenery of the old apple tree looming over them. Scully sensed his fear and snaked an arm around his neck, bracing him to her for assurance. He relaxed into her touch a little bit. Just a little bit.

"I wanted to tell you that it's either you take me as I am or I leave. It's either you take me as a woman without a past … or we go our separate ways," she paused, taking a deep breath. His muscles, under Scully's arm, tensed.

Jesus H. Christ … she really wanted him to make that choice? Oh God. That was like asking him whether he wanted to remarry Diana and keep Emily or to lose Diana and lose Emily. You wouldn't know which one was right or wrong. Especially when your choice involved someone you needed like you needed your next breath. He kept quiet, though, knowing that Spunk wanted his silence for her courage to push through.

"Then I thought about why I don't tell you much about my past. Why it isn't fair … and I discovered that I don't even know the answer to that. Why it isn't fair for me to tell you about my past? I don't know. God, I made this whole game up and I have no bloody idea on how to resolve it."

This time, Mulder spoke, slowly and softly. "It's not your fault, Scully … nor is it my business. If you want to keep things from me … then that's your choice. I shouldn't care."

"But you do. And that matters a lot to me. No one ever cared like you do." She inched closer, her weight becoming more evident on his side. This made Mulder crave more of her, but he restrained herself. There were more matters that needed attending. "I can't give you that choice, because if I was given that choice myself, I wouldn't be able to answer. I'd kill myself first before choosing between you and a past that virtually isn't that important. I can't make you do that.
"It's not you Mulder … it's me. Just because I can't tell you some things about my past it doesn't mean I love you less - it doesn't. I just feel as if I have to overcome some of my insecurities, before … I could, could… divulge, see?" She choked on her words, prompting Mulder to lift his head up and caress Scully's cheek. He blinked a few times for his vision to clear, to remove the stiff blueness from his sight, to be able to see his woman freely.

She was crying again. Tears were springing from her already beaten up eyes like a waterfall.

Mulder blinked again, this time for a different reason. His eyes felt watery, too. He loved this woman too damn much. He never cried for a woman before. Save for Emily … no one ever rendered him like this.

He wiped a large dollop of tear from her puffy cheek with the pad of his thumb. "I'm not going to force you anymore, Scully. It's your choice and it should be. I'm going to wait for you until you are able to tell me what has been bothering you all these time. I'm not going anywhere, I promise."

She snickered compliantly, as if telling him that what was happening between them was absurd. Here they were in front of the world and it's spinning, and rather than making the Earth dizzy - it was making THEM dizzy. Pressing his palm on her lips, she chastely kissed it, "You could wait that long, Superman?"

The next apocalypse could come and he would still be right beside her, waiting for her to tell him who her first boyfriend was. "I'm pretty sure 'bout that," Mulder assured her, letting one tear spring free from his eyelids. "I'm sorry for doing this to you, Scully. I really am … I was an asshole for being so self-centered. This is still new to me."

"You still are learning our relationship ..."

"I am … like you are. I'm forty fucking years old and I'm still learning this. I had been ridden of a significant other for so long I have forgotten that when you have someone, you solve problems together … not individually. I'm so sorry," he repeated, in case she didn't hear from her extreme concentration of halting the tears from gushing out of her system. He had a lot in his tired mind, and he didn't want to quit, not when everything seemed clearer than ever. "I believe that us in extremes … not having a middle ground … makes our relationship work. I'm-I'm going to make this work even if I have to bleed myself dry, okay? Trust me on this."

Scully nodded once, pressing a kiss on his bottom lip. "You don't have to ask twice."

That was all the encouragement he was waiting for. His hand on her cheek cupped the back of her neck, drawing her to him. Their lips got reacquainted delicately, starting with a ginger press, until his tongue plied her mouth open and he plunged deep within her cavern. And there was her flavor again … that distinct taste of her and of toothpaste, and the stickiness of crying so hard. It was Scully and it was him. He needed this. They both needed this. It was a kiss that sealed an unspoken promise. When they drew apart, they beamed that promise at each other.

Scully ruffled his hair, and for the first time ever, he didn't care whether it was coarse or oily or sticky. She let the strands run through her ridges of her fingers, watching them glow under the sunlight. "I asked you that question … about Emily, because I had this fear that I was a replacement. Something to divert your attention from losing your daughter."

He shook his head at once, dismissing this. That was ridiculous.

An auburn eyebrow darted at him, making him stop his head shaking, making him rethink.

Scully could shake reason out of him anytime, anywhere. With that truth dawning to him, he rethought his initial answer.

"Maybe at first, I did need you in some way. I needed you because I needed someone beside me, someone to stop me from feeling… lonely. But over the time, you dug your own little hole within me and you created your own space. Emily has her own, and you also have yours. Both equal and both are what I hold precious right now. You are different from Emily, Scully. My love for both of you is in the same degree, yet in different planes."

She grinned, looking at him straight in the eye, finally allowing him to read her. And he liked what he read within the misty pearls of opaque blue.

"It's from hiking up the woods in Wales."

"Huh?" he responded dumbly, tilting his head with the shift of their conversation.

"The scar here," she stressed out, taking once again his hand in hers and pressing it against her stomach. Then he remembered. The scar he was so adamant about that morning, the one he had played with until Scully pushed his hand away. "I was with my brothers Bill and Charles. Charles and I were always at odds and we were fighting about something I don't remember the way back home. We began pushing each other and he got carried away. He told me that he was going to kill me with his bolo and I began to run from him. I cowered towards Bill, but Charles slipped on a stone and the bolo he was holding struck a jagged line across my stomach. A few more inches down, deeper and I'd have died. At the sweet age of nine."

Mulder pictured the scar in his head. It was already fading, but the length and girth of it, let alone the way that it still was visible after sixteen years, bothered him. It must've been a bad one. "How long did you have to stay in the hospital?"

"If I am correct, I endured twenty stitches and two months out of school." She shrugged, her corner-of-the-mouth dimples showing. "It wasn't at all that bad: I got to watch a lot of Bewitched." They both shared a laugh, and her expression turned serious. "I do want to try, Mulder. I really do. I hope this isn't a bad start."

Amidst this, he noticed the crowd of pleasant albeit dazed old people moving out from the nearby "home-for-the-aged" program (an affiliate of the hospital) in thick packs. They were chattering in soft whispers dulled by time, crisscrossing around the garden, tilting their heads up at the sky. Children played around the fountain, tossing stray quarters into the pristine blue water. A little boy skidded the cemented birds of the fountain's edges and pulled his slightly older sister's brunette hair.

Mulder took hold of Scully's hand and intertwined their fingers together, settling it over her knee.

"Emily's baby was a boy."

The wind blew through them, caressing their skins fervently. Scully tucked a loose strand of curly hair behind her ear. "Is a boy. He'll always live in your hearts."

Mulder gazed down at the fury of auburn hair, contrasting perfectly with the paleness of her skin and the sudden pinkness of lips. She was his future. He should immerse himself within that abrasive contrast and lose himself in this fucking world. Then, he cleared his throat just for effect, before asking back," Was that a bad start?"

Understanding flooded her eyes, and that lilies and carnations grin that always tore and healed a part inside of him. "No … it was good, Mulder. It was perfect," she replied densely, moisture once again flooding her eyes. This time, she didn't stop it from coming, and this time, he didn't stop himself from kissing her tears away.

It couldn't get any better than that.

END OF CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR