Five Times Scully was Late (and when she finally got the timing just right).

For mmeadowlarkk in the 2021 "Five Times" Exchange!

ONE

It was usually one of two things that woke her up: the sound of a drill or feeling like someone was shining a light into her eyes. Neither was actually happening of course, but she'd start up in bed, sweat covering her body and a scream caught in her throat.

It had been like that since she returned home. Granted, that was only five days ago, but even in the hospital her sleep was always restless. In total, she'd been out of her coma for two weeks, but it was hard to tell with how trapped she felt in her own body.

"Are you okay?"

I'm fine.

"How are you?"

Fine.

"How's recovery?"

Going fine.

Fine was all she could manage during the barrage of questioning she received every day from seemingly everyone in her life. It seemed to placate her mother, her sister would smile in response, but Mulder's eyes would bore into hers while he searched for the real answer within their depth.

It was when he looked at her that she realized just how absolutely not fine she was. While her family and the doctors saw a shocking story of recovery, Mulder could see she was struggling. The title of survivor had been bestowed on her before she could even process the extent of her victimhood. She didn't even have a full understanding of what she was a victim of.

With a shaky hand, Scully drew back the dampened covers and sharply inhaled as her bare feet touched the cold, wooden floor. She padded over to the bathroom, flicking on the light before discarding her sweaty clothes. When she turned, she caught sight of something she'd been avoiding for a while now: her reflection.

However, in the soft lighting of her bathroom and the full length mirror precariously tucked in the corner, she couldn't look away when she caught sight of the woman on the other side, for surely that couldn't be her.

Walking over on unsteady legs, she stood on uneven ground with one foot on the linoleum and one foot on the plush bath mat as she took in the sight. Her skin was ghostly pale barring the ruddy flush of her cheeks. She could see the blue spider web of veins spreading like a grid underneath her skin, cobwebs in an empty shell.

Her face looked different than it had for the past few months, as if her slight, lingering baby fat had been taken from her but her face had yet to compensate for its loss. She was thinner when she came back, she knew that when she looked at her chart. Within three months she'd lost enough weight that the doctors had to monitor her intake so she didn't overdo it and make herself sick with the sudden adjustment.

Even though she'd lost the weight, her stomach looked slightly different to her, slightly swollen and tender to the touch. There had been a sharp pain in her lower belly that over time had become just a dull ache.

It felt like a menstrual cramp, like her uterus was screaming at her.

Like every other aspect of her life, she wasn't certain if her menstrual cycle was still regular since she had yet to get her period. Scully hadn't gone back on birth control since her return, partially because the dull pain was concerning to her and she didn't want any dependent variables taking away from her ability to monitor her body's recovery.

She knew from the test run by her doctors upon her admittance that she wasn't pregnant. It was a relief, but it was only one concern addressed with a hundred others still unanswered.

After admitting her discomfort to the doctor at the hospital, they'd both reached the conclusion that, while odd, nothing appeared to be wrong. He offered to do a more in-depth pelvic exam since they'd been too worried about keeping her alive when she first arrived to try and gather evidence of anything, but she refused. She didn't want anyone else touching her.

And she knew she had been - much like her hair had been maintained to stay the same length over all these months, her pubic hair had also been trimmed, a detail she'd kept to herself.

Scully felt a wetness on her sternum and she looked up to see she was crying with a shell-shocked expression on her face. She raised a shaky hand and smeared the tear into her skin and rubbed her eyes.

She was alive. Scully knew she should be grateful for that miracle, but she'd lost a lot more than three months when she was abducted.

A sob escaped her throat as she flicked the lightswitch off and walked over to her boudoir, grabbing an old grey sweater with "FBI Academy" embroidered on the space above her left breast. It was slightly scratchy from being mass produced for all the Quantico trainees, but it would have to do. Her favorite University of Maryland sweater was retired to an evidence bag covered in Duane Barry's blood - another loss.

She slid the matching oversized sweatpants up her legs, satisfied when her body was shrouded and hidden from her own view. An irrational part hoped the polycotton blend could act as a metaphorical cocoon, and when she shed it off later maybe she'd come out a different person. But she knew from past nights' experience that it wouldn't happen.

Knowing she was too worked up to go back to bed, she made her way to the living room. While she knew it hadn't been a drill or blinding light that woke her up, she couldn't help but hear the similarities between her nightmare and the storm currently brewing outside. The wind sounded sharp against the side of the building, and every two Mississippi's the cracking of nature's whip would follow a bright lightning strike.

It hadn't stormed this hard since-

"Mulder! I need your help! Mulder!"

The sound of glass shattering ricoheted through her mind, and she took a sharp breath as she told herself that no one was breaking in. It was just in her head. Looking over, she could see the spot it had happened, the weather outside macabrely setting the scene.

Scully felt her heart hammering in her chest as what once was her sanctuary quickly became her mental prison. She wanted to be better. She was tired of this affecting her in this way, but she couldn't help it. For what felt like the thousandth time since she'd been back, she felt the overwhelming, albeit irrational, panic that someone was going to come and take her again. She didn't feel safe.

She hadn't even processed she'd moved. One minute she was breathing heavily in the middle of her living room, and the next she was pressing her back into the crevice where two walls met while she held her phone in trembling hands. She was rubbing the number two with the pad of her thumb, and in her state of hypersensitivity, she felt like she could feel the grooves of her thumbprint catching against the silicone of the button. The printed numerical "2" felt like braille against her thumb, but it also felt like a life preserver and she was drowning. If she pressed that and the accompanying nine other digits she knew by heart, she knew she'd be safe.

Mulder would answer.

She looked down and pressed the buttons, the key tones sounding deafening in the silence as the pitch went up and down with the different numbers.

202-

The sound of something tapping against her window made her jump and she looked up and saw a shrub outside was being knocked against the glass in the storm. Mulder had gotten the windows replaced while she was gone, and it would be nearly impossible for someone to shatter them as easily as Barry had. He'd invested in her safety because he knew it would come in handy for when she returned. Because for Fox Mulder, it had always been a matter of 'when' and not 'if'.

Her eyes were drawn to a blinking red light on the opposite side of the room, and she realized it was past three in the morning. Her confidence in her plan faltered as the landline started beeping from the rest of the number not having been entered.

She was too late.

During one of the first times Mulder visited her at the hospital, she'd been chatting with her mom while Mulder and Melissa sat in seats against the wall. Apparently she'd gotten too wrapped up in the conversation because by the time she looked back to Mulder, he was out cold, slouched in his seat next to Melissa who was trying not to laugh at the way his mouth gaped open with his head resting on her shoulder.

"Mul-" she'd started, intending to wake him up only to be hushed by her mother.

"Let him sleep, Dana. I'm quite certain that man didn't sleep once while you were in your coma," she chided.

"I don't think he slept since you disappeared," Melissa corrected, her eyes widening comedically as Mulder snored loudly.

When she asked him how he'd been doing a few days later, her insomniatic partner even himself said, "I've been sleeping better this past week than I have my whole life."

Because she was safe.

Scully couldn't bring herself to call him and shatter that illusion. She couldn't think of him laying sound asleep on the other side of town, only to be woken up to her sobbing, causing him to rush across town to be with her. Because that's exactly what he would do and she knew it. Mulder was concerned about her now, but she played it off as him worrying too much. If she confirmed his fear and admitted that an hour hadn't gone by that she hadn't been scared, he wouldn't be able to rest until she felt better. She didn't know if she could promise she ever would.

Part of her considered calling her mom or Melissa, but the same concern was still there. They wouldn't be as relentless with the information as Mulder would be, but she knew if she called them now at this low point, she'd have to field questions down the line. She'd have to be fine even more than she already was.

Heat started burning uncomfortably on her face as she thought of someone she wanted to call who wouldn't have made her feel fragile. Who would have told her Scullys can get through anything, and she was one of the toughest of the bunch.

She wanted her dad to hold her and make everything better.

A hot tear slid down her cheek as she felt more alone than she had in her entire life. Every sniffle and whimper she made echoed against the walls of her large apartment and it made her feel small. She'd come back to the people she loved and she was too stubborn to let them in.

Her chin trembled as she made her way to her couch, tripping slightly when plastic caught her foot. Scully regained her balance and looked down to see she'd gotten caught on the brown plastic sack Mulder had given her. Bending down, she took out the VHS tape that lay inside. Superstars of the Super Bowl.

A small smile erupted on her face, her cheeks protesting as the tear tracks that had dried against her skin shifted uncomfortably. She stood up with the bag and VHS in her hand, popping the latter into her VCR. Scully listened to the clicks and whirs of the machine starting as she turned on the television, basking her couch in an indigo blue haze.

Scully pulled a blanket from the back of the couch and wrapped it around her, sitting cross-legged on the middle cushion while the roar of an audience filled the empty space, making her feel a little less alone. Her hands found their way back into the plastic bag as she sifted through the miscellaneous other presents Mulder had brought to her over the stint at the hospital.

She chuckled as her hand came in contact with what she was looking for, and she pulled a bright pink Hostess Snoball out of the bag. These were her favorite treat to indulge in, and during one particularly long road trip with Mulder, fueled by period cravings, she'd picked up three at a gas station and eaten them all within an hour. Mulder had been so tickled by it that any time he picked her up for a road trip, he grabbed her a pink fluffy cake to go alongside her rootbeer. When she lamented that she only could indulge once in a blue moon, he'd scoff and tell her she deserved to have one every day if it made her happy.

The memory lightened the thick miasma that had brewed around her, and she wiped the remaining wetness from her cheeks. The coconut ball had been dented by the corner of the VHS tape, but it was delicious all the same. Scully watched as men wearing various colors of spandex ran around the field. She didn't even know what team Mulder rooted for, she thought he was more of a baseball or basketball guy if anything, but watching this silly tape he probably pickled up at a bodega made her feel close to him. She reached back into the bag to pull out another snack, but as her fingers grazed the bottom, she felt something had spilled. She scooped it up in one hand, pulling it out and looking at her palm. Sunflower seeds, little tokens of Mulder left in his stead.

Scully picked one up between two fingers and brought it to her lips, the salt burning the part of her lip that was raw from her worrying it between her teeth. She moved the seed around her mouth tentatively, not having the same dexterity Mulder did. After a few seconds, she cracked the shell and the meat of the seed fell onto her tongue.

She continued that with the next few seeds and she started to find a groove with it. Her worry and anxiety started dissipating as she got lost in the comfort of the game on television, she felt like she was just a member of the crowd like the people on screen. It made her feel less alone than she had backed against the corner of her living room, despite nothing really having changed. Mulder was just somehow able to make her feel better, even without physically being here.

For an hour, she continued imbibing in Mulder's brown plastic bag of gifts, and she felt connected to him in a way she hadn't anticipated, and it made her feel strong and unafraid. After all, he had been brave for three months, she could be brave for tonight.