Title - I Know What You Did . . .
Author - Nicky
Rating - PG
Classification - TRA
Keywords - Mulder/Scully Romance, Angst, Charlie Fic
Spoilers - The Sixth Extinction: Amor Fati
Summary - Mulder and Scully help her brother Charlie and end up with more trouble than they bargained for.
Disclaimer - The characters don't belong to me. I'm just borrowing them for my own therapeutic purposes. They will be returned relatively unharmed to Chris Carter, or whoever wants to borrow them next, when I'm done.
Chapter 13
The look on his face almost stops her heart. And him using her first name is a bad sign. His words echo in her head. 'Dana, it's bad'. How bad, she wonders silently before voicing the question out loud.
"How bad, Sir?" Her voice sounds stronger than she's feeling right now.
"You were taken from your home and we all were led to believe that you were dead," Skinner starts. She almost interrupts him to tell him she knows all of this already, but she lets him continue at his own pace. "Mulder didn't . . . well, he didn't handle your disappearance well. Which I guess in hindsight was a good thing. He would have been arrested for your murder if he didn't land himself in the hospital first. He was there for about three days before he came around. And despite his grief, he figured out that you weren't really dead. He immediately began the search for you.
"Nothing turned up until about a week later when the Gunmen were able to pinpoint your location using your implant. Mulder and your brother Charlie went in to get you. But something happened when they breeched the security of the facility."
"A bomb," she whispers, remembering the feeling of the building trembling around her before the doctor attacked her. "There was an explosion and Krycek said it was because of a security breech. That's when the doctor tried to kill me. I fought him, but he was able to hit me and knock me out. I don't remember anything after that."
"Mulder and Charlie were near the device when it blew," Skinner continues.
"Charlie's fine," her mother assures her. "He carried you out of the building mumbling something about green alien goo."
"Both of you were treated for exposure to a toxic green substance the Gunmen tried to convince me was alien blood," Skinner takes over again. "That was three days ago. Charlie's exposure was limited, so his treatment didn't take long. Yours was a bit more complicated with the babies and all."
"And Mulder?" she asks, wondering why they keep skipping over him.
"Mulder pushed Charlie to safety when the bomb exploded," Skinner finally tells her. "He was buried under some falling rocks. By the time the rescue team got to him, he was hurt pretty badly."
"H-how badly?" she stutters.
"A lot of internal damage. Several cracked ribs. One lung collapsed. Some intercranial bleeding. They doctors don't know how he made it through the explosion, but he did. He was even conscious for a while. Charlie spoke to him. He said Mulder's the one who told him to get you into the cooling bath that saved your life."
"And how is he now?" She can only manage a whisper.
"He's been in and out of surgery," Skinner confesses. "They ended up removing his spleen because it couldn't be salvaged. But they think they have fixed all of the internal injuries."
"So he's alive," she says with a sigh of relief at the small glimmer of hope, either not noticing or choosing to ignore the looks again between Skinner and her mother.
"He's alive, Honey," Mrs. Scully says. "But just barely. They're still concerned about his head injury."
"But he's alive," Scully repeats, putting more conviction into her words. "That's all I need to know. He'll be fine."
She thinks she convinces them that she believes what she's saying. She almost convinces herself. But reality tells her that she can't be sure. And despite her intentions, she fears the worst.
"I want to see him," she yawns, cursing the doctor when the sedative hits her harder than expected.
"Dana, you need to get some rest," her mother insists.
"I need to see him," she says drowsily. "He needs me. I need him."
Her last words are slurred as sleep begins to overtake her.
"I know you do, Sweetie. You'll see him soon," she hears her mother promise before sleep finally claims her.
* * * * * *
She closes her eyes for a moment as the numbers she's looking at start to blur together. She's been at this for too long. But, sitting next to Mulder's hospital bed seemed like the perfect time to catch up on her paperwork. Even though they haven't been on a case in months, that doesn't mean there isn't any work to be done.
She rolls her head around to stretch the kink developing in her neck. She arches her back to relieve the constant ache she's learned to live with. She's gotten so big this past month. After getting out the hospital, she was still restricted to bed rest for another week. She's only just recently been allowed back to limited desk duty. She goes into the office to pick up any paperwork that needs to be done and brings it here to the hospital so that she can sit with Mulder. He still hasn't regained consciousness since the bombing. But she stays by his side anyway, never losing hope that someday he will wake up.
With one last stretch, she decides it's time to get back to work. Just as she lifts her pen, she hears a muttering from beside her.
"Mulder," she gasps as she turns to look at him. Half the papers fall from her lap and flutter to the ground in the wake of her movement. She doesn't give them a second thought. "You're awake."
"I swear this wasn't a trick just to get out of doing that paperwork," his raspy voice is barely able to whisper. Comatose for a month and he wakes with a joke. Typical Mulder, she thinks to herself.
"That's okay," she says, gazing at him with teary smile. "You haven't missed much around the office anyway. Skinner has me on desk duty because of the pregnancy." She sets the rest of the papers on the bedside table and takes a hold of his hand with one of her own, the other stroking gently through his hair.
"I'm sorry. I guess I let the cat out the bag. I told him about it when we were searching for you. I know you wanted to remain subtle about your pregnancy and keep it as much of a secret as you . . . " Her laughing both interrupts and confuses him and he finds himself just staring at her.
"Sweetie, nothing about me is neither subtle nor a secret these days," she giggles. With a little bit of struggle, she hefts her rotund body from the chair and stands in profile for him, hands on her back and proudly sticking out her large belly.
"Scully, you're huge," he says with a shocked gasp before he realizes what he said. "I mean, you look beautiful, but you're . . . "
"Huge," she finishes for him while returning to her seat. "I heard you the first time, Mulder."
"I didn't mean it like that," he says, biting his lip, trying in vain to hold in his tears. "I just didn't realize I had missed so much."
"Oh, Mulder," she sobs, unable to stop her own tears. She grabs his hand and places it firmly on her belly, placing hers on top. "I'm so sorry."
"I'm sorry, too," he whispers. She rests her head on his chest, allowing him to drop a light kiss on her forehead. "I wanted to be there for every moment. From your first craving, to their first kicks, and all the way up to when I cut the cord."
"Mulder, you have almost five months to make up for the one month you missed," she tells him gently. "And you didn't really miss anything, aside from that one week I didn't want to eat anything but funnel cakes."
"Funnel cakes? Seriously?" he asks, amused at her un-Scullylike craving. "Deep fried dough? Powdered sugar?"
"Yep, I ate them hot out the frying pan," she smiles. "Frohike is an excellent funnel cake maker, by the way."
"That should have been me," he says sadly. "I should have been the one . . . "
"Mulder, don't do this. We still have plenty of time to enjoy this pregnancy."
"I want forever," he says suddenly, making her sit up abruptly and just stare at him. She doesn't seem to understand him, so he repeats himself, clarifying his intentions. "I want forever . . . with you. And with them," he says, giving her stomach a gentle pat. "I want to be a father to them. And a husband to you, if you'll have me."
"Mulder, are you proposing to me?" she asks, halfway in shock.
"I think I am," he grins. "So is that a yes?"
"This is just so . . . unexpected. So sudden," she stalls, looking nervously around the room.
"Sudden? Scully, you'll be lucky to waddle down the aisle without giving birth," he chuckles. "I don't think anyone will consider this marriage 'sudden'. Just in the nick of time? Maybe. About time? Definitely. But not sudden."
"You're serious about this," she says. "You don't have to do this. These are your children. I won't stop you from being a father them. If that's why you want to marry me, then . . ."
"I want to marry you because I love you, Scully," he says, interrupting her. "I'm in love with you. I have been for as long as I can remember. When you were gone, it almost killed me. I don't want to risk spending another day without you."
"When you were in your coma, I made vows to you, to God, and to myself that I wouldn't let another day go by without letting you know how much I love you too, Mulder," she says tearfully, stroking his stubbly chin with the back of her hand. He's so beautiful, he takes my breath away, she thinks to herself.
He mistakes her silence for reticence and begins to wonder if she's pushing her too hard and too fast. But he has to know what she wants to do one way or the other.
"Scully, I can't read minds anymore," he says, breaking the long silence. "You have to tell me what you're thinking. The suspense is killing me."
"I'm thinking how I probably *will* end up waddling down the aisle. And how my stomach will reach the altar five minutes before the rest of me does," she smiles.
"Does that mean what I think it means?"
"Yes. I will marry you, Mulder," she says happily, unable to hold back both the laughter and tears of joy. "I would love to be your wife."
"You have made me beyond happy," he tells her with a yawn. "Happier than I've ever been. Believe that. So don't take this personally when I tell you that I don't think I can hold my eyes open another second," he admits with a sleepy little laugh.
"Of course, Sweetheart," she says with a gentle smile. She presses a kiss to his lips and he only has the energy to moan contently. "You rest now. I'll be right here when you wake up."
I'll be right here forever, she promises silently as he finally loses his battle with fatigue. His eyes drift close and she finds herself smiling at the look of pure joy on his sleeping face. It matches the pure joy she feels in her heart. For the first time in a long time, things are working out for her. All her wishes have been fulfilled and all her prayers have been answered beyond anything she could have ever dreamed. She always hoped for this fairy tale ending. But now that she has it, she realizes her happily ever after is only the beginning.
Epilogue
He's drifting again. The feeling of free floating used to be scary. It used to remind him of that awful time he woke without her. The time when they took her from him, right from out of his arms. He used to panic, but not anymore. The drifting is good now. He's used to it. He's used to his feet never touching the ground anymore. Because now, he's in love. And not with just one woman, but with three.
"Mulder, why haven't you come to bed," a sleepy Scully yawns behind him. "I just got them to sleep. If we're lucky, they'll stay down for a few hours."
"I can't help it," he smiles, staring down into the bassinets at his twin daughters. Identical physically, but already starting to develop their own personalities. "They're so beautiful."
"They are, aren't they?" she sighs, running her fingers through their curly reddish brown locks.
"They look so much like her. Like Samantha. I remember when my mom brought her from the hospital. She looked just like this," Mulder reminisces. "And I loved her so much. Even when she was all red from crying. I didn't think I could ever love anyone that much again. But I do. I love these little girls twice as much as I thought I ever could. And I love you, Scully. For giving them to me."
"I love you, too," she whispers, tears marring her voice. She wraps her arms around her husband and kisses him deeply. "Let's go to bed."
With a smile, he follows her to the bedroom eagerly, happy even for just the cuddling that she's only able to do right now. They climb into bed, their bodies instinctively curling around each other. He lets out a contented sigh and with one last kiss to her forehead, allows his eyes to close.
He's drifting again. But it's not from any drugs. And it isn't a dream. This is his life. His wonderful reality. And it's better than anything he could have ever imagined.
The end.
Author - Nicky
Rating - PG
Classification - TRA
Keywords - Mulder/Scully Romance, Angst, Charlie Fic
Spoilers - The Sixth Extinction: Amor Fati
Summary - Mulder and Scully help her brother Charlie and end up with more trouble than they bargained for.
Disclaimer - The characters don't belong to me. I'm just borrowing them for my own therapeutic purposes. They will be returned relatively unharmed to Chris Carter, or whoever wants to borrow them next, when I'm done.
Chapter 13
The look on his face almost stops her heart. And him using her first name is a bad sign. His words echo in her head. 'Dana, it's bad'. How bad, she wonders silently before voicing the question out loud.
"How bad, Sir?" Her voice sounds stronger than she's feeling right now.
"You were taken from your home and we all were led to believe that you were dead," Skinner starts. She almost interrupts him to tell him she knows all of this already, but she lets him continue at his own pace. "Mulder didn't . . . well, he didn't handle your disappearance well. Which I guess in hindsight was a good thing. He would have been arrested for your murder if he didn't land himself in the hospital first. He was there for about three days before he came around. And despite his grief, he figured out that you weren't really dead. He immediately began the search for you.
"Nothing turned up until about a week later when the Gunmen were able to pinpoint your location using your implant. Mulder and your brother Charlie went in to get you. But something happened when they breeched the security of the facility."
"A bomb," she whispers, remembering the feeling of the building trembling around her before the doctor attacked her. "There was an explosion and Krycek said it was because of a security breech. That's when the doctor tried to kill me. I fought him, but he was able to hit me and knock me out. I don't remember anything after that."
"Mulder and Charlie were near the device when it blew," Skinner continues.
"Charlie's fine," her mother assures her. "He carried you out of the building mumbling something about green alien goo."
"Both of you were treated for exposure to a toxic green substance the Gunmen tried to convince me was alien blood," Skinner takes over again. "That was three days ago. Charlie's exposure was limited, so his treatment didn't take long. Yours was a bit more complicated with the babies and all."
"And Mulder?" she asks, wondering why they keep skipping over him.
"Mulder pushed Charlie to safety when the bomb exploded," Skinner finally tells her. "He was buried under some falling rocks. By the time the rescue team got to him, he was hurt pretty badly."
"H-how badly?" she stutters.
"A lot of internal damage. Several cracked ribs. One lung collapsed. Some intercranial bleeding. They doctors don't know how he made it through the explosion, but he did. He was even conscious for a while. Charlie spoke to him. He said Mulder's the one who told him to get you into the cooling bath that saved your life."
"And how is he now?" She can only manage a whisper.
"He's been in and out of surgery," Skinner confesses. "They ended up removing his spleen because it couldn't be salvaged. But they think they have fixed all of the internal injuries."
"So he's alive," she says with a sigh of relief at the small glimmer of hope, either not noticing or choosing to ignore the looks again between Skinner and her mother.
"He's alive, Honey," Mrs. Scully says. "But just barely. They're still concerned about his head injury."
"But he's alive," Scully repeats, putting more conviction into her words. "That's all I need to know. He'll be fine."
She thinks she convinces them that she believes what she's saying. She almost convinces herself. But reality tells her that she can't be sure. And despite her intentions, she fears the worst.
"I want to see him," she yawns, cursing the doctor when the sedative hits her harder than expected.
"Dana, you need to get some rest," her mother insists.
"I need to see him," she says drowsily. "He needs me. I need him."
Her last words are slurred as sleep begins to overtake her.
"I know you do, Sweetie. You'll see him soon," she hears her mother promise before sleep finally claims her.
* * * * * *
She closes her eyes for a moment as the numbers she's looking at start to blur together. She's been at this for too long. But, sitting next to Mulder's hospital bed seemed like the perfect time to catch up on her paperwork. Even though they haven't been on a case in months, that doesn't mean there isn't any work to be done.
She rolls her head around to stretch the kink developing in her neck. She arches her back to relieve the constant ache she's learned to live with. She's gotten so big this past month. After getting out the hospital, she was still restricted to bed rest for another week. She's only just recently been allowed back to limited desk duty. She goes into the office to pick up any paperwork that needs to be done and brings it here to the hospital so that she can sit with Mulder. He still hasn't regained consciousness since the bombing. But she stays by his side anyway, never losing hope that someday he will wake up.
With one last stretch, she decides it's time to get back to work. Just as she lifts her pen, she hears a muttering from beside her.
"Mulder," she gasps as she turns to look at him. Half the papers fall from her lap and flutter to the ground in the wake of her movement. She doesn't give them a second thought. "You're awake."
"I swear this wasn't a trick just to get out of doing that paperwork," his raspy voice is barely able to whisper. Comatose for a month and he wakes with a joke. Typical Mulder, she thinks to herself.
"That's okay," she says, gazing at him with teary smile. "You haven't missed much around the office anyway. Skinner has me on desk duty because of the pregnancy." She sets the rest of the papers on the bedside table and takes a hold of his hand with one of her own, the other stroking gently through his hair.
"I'm sorry. I guess I let the cat out the bag. I told him about it when we were searching for you. I know you wanted to remain subtle about your pregnancy and keep it as much of a secret as you . . . " Her laughing both interrupts and confuses him and he finds himself just staring at her.
"Sweetie, nothing about me is neither subtle nor a secret these days," she giggles. With a little bit of struggle, she hefts her rotund body from the chair and stands in profile for him, hands on her back and proudly sticking out her large belly.
"Scully, you're huge," he says with a shocked gasp before he realizes what he said. "I mean, you look beautiful, but you're . . . "
"Huge," she finishes for him while returning to her seat. "I heard you the first time, Mulder."
"I didn't mean it like that," he says, biting his lip, trying in vain to hold in his tears. "I just didn't realize I had missed so much."
"Oh, Mulder," she sobs, unable to stop her own tears. She grabs his hand and places it firmly on her belly, placing hers on top. "I'm so sorry."
"I'm sorry, too," he whispers. She rests her head on his chest, allowing him to drop a light kiss on her forehead. "I wanted to be there for every moment. From your first craving, to their first kicks, and all the way up to when I cut the cord."
"Mulder, you have almost five months to make up for the one month you missed," she tells him gently. "And you didn't really miss anything, aside from that one week I didn't want to eat anything but funnel cakes."
"Funnel cakes? Seriously?" he asks, amused at her un-Scullylike craving. "Deep fried dough? Powdered sugar?"
"Yep, I ate them hot out the frying pan," she smiles. "Frohike is an excellent funnel cake maker, by the way."
"That should have been me," he says sadly. "I should have been the one . . . "
"Mulder, don't do this. We still have plenty of time to enjoy this pregnancy."
"I want forever," he says suddenly, making her sit up abruptly and just stare at him. She doesn't seem to understand him, so he repeats himself, clarifying his intentions. "I want forever . . . with you. And with them," he says, giving her stomach a gentle pat. "I want to be a father to them. And a husband to you, if you'll have me."
"Mulder, are you proposing to me?" she asks, halfway in shock.
"I think I am," he grins. "So is that a yes?"
"This is just so . . . unexpected. So sudden," she stalls, looking nervously around the room.
"Sudden? Scully, you'll be lucky to waddle down the aisle without giving birth," he chuckles. "I don't think anyone will consider this marriage 'sudden'. Just in the nick of time? Maybe. About time? Definitely. But not sudden."
"You're serious about this," she says. "You don't have to do this. These are your children. I won't stop you from being a father them. If that's why you want to marry me, then . . ."
"I want to marry you because I love you, Scully," he says, interrupting her. "I'm in love with you. I have been for as long as I can remember. When you were gone, it almost killed me. I don't want to risk spending another day without you."
"When you were in your coma, I made vows to you, to God, and to myself that I wouldn't let another day go by without letting you know how much I love you too, Mulder," she says tearfully, stroking his stubbly chin with the back of her hand. He's so beautiful, he takes my breath away, she thinks to herself.
He mistakes her silence for reticence and begins to wonder if she's pushing her too hard and too fast. But he has to know what she wants to do one way or the other.
"Scully, I can't read minds anymore," he says, breaking the long silence. "You have to tell me what you're thinking. The suspense is killing me."
"I'm thinking how I probably *will* end up waddling down the aisle. And how my stomach will reach the altar five minutes before the rest of me does," she smiles.
"Does that mean what I think it means?"
"Yes. I will marry you, Mulder," she says happily, unable to hold back both the laughter and tears of joy. "I would love to be your wife."
"You have made me beyond happy," he tells her with a yawn. "Happier than I've ever been. Believe that. So don't take this personally when I tell you that I don't think I can hold my eyes open another second," he admits with a sleepy little laugh.
"Of course, Sweetheart," she says with a gentle smile. She presses a kiss to his lips and he only has the energy to moan contently. "You rest now. I'll be right here when you wake up."
I'll be right here forever, she promises silently as he finally loses his battle with fatigue. His eyes drift close and she finds herself smiling at the look of pure joy on his sleeping face. It matches the pure joy she feels in her heart. For the first time in a long time, things are working out for her. All her wishes have been fulfilled and all her prayers have been answered beyond anything she could have ever dreamed. She always hoped for this fairy tale ending. But now that she has it, she realizes her happily ever after is only the beginning.
Epilogue
He's drifting again. The feeling of free floating used to be scary. It used to remind him of that awful time he woke without her. The time when they took her from him, right from out of his arms. He used to panic, but not anymore. The drifting is good now. He's used to it. He's used to his feet never touching the ground anymore. Because now, he's in love. And not with just one woman, but with three.
"Mulder, why haven't you come to bed," a sleepy Scully yawns behind him. "I just got them to sleep. If we're lucky, they'll stay down for a few hours."
"I can't help it," he smiles, staring down into the bassinets at his twin daughters. Identical physically, but already starting to develop their own personalities. "They're so beautiful."
"They are, aren't they?" she sighs, running her fingers through their curly reddish brown locks.
"They look so much like her. Like Samantha. I remember when my mom brought her from the hospital. She looked just like this," Mulder reminisces. "And I loved her so much. Even when she was all red from crying. I didn't think I could ever love anyone that much again. But I do. I love these little girls twice as much as I thought I ever could. And I love you, Scully. For giving them to me."
"I love you, too," she whispers, tears marring her voice. She wraps her arms around her husband and kisses him deeply. "Let's go to bed."
With a smile, he follows her to the bedroom eagerly, happy even for just the cuddling that she's only able to do right now. They climb into bed, their bodies instinctively curling around each other. He lets out a contented sigh and with one last kiss to her forehead, allows his eyes to close.
He's drifting again. But it's not from any drugs. And it isn't a dream. This is his life. His wonderful reality. And it's better than anything he could have ever imagined.
The end.