Delectation 2/6
Mulder stirred restlessly, pinned inside his body. Where am I? He whispered aloud, his voice was stretched along and carried away on an invisible breeze that made him imperceptible. He frowned and glanced around, he remembered the portal, and going through it, but after that...there was nothing but darkness.
"Mulder..." Scully's voice penetrated the fog that seemed to surround his mind. "Mulder, I don't know if you can hear me, but I need to tell you..."
He frowned, "Scully?" He held his hands out, trying to break through the inky mist that swirled about and through him. But try as he might, he could not break through, not even for her. He could do nothing but listen.
"Mulder, we have been through so much these past few years, and in the beginning, I didn't trust you at all. You were out there, you were well, 'spooky'..." Mulder smiled a bit at this, he could hear the tear filled grin that permeated his partner's voice. The old nickname meant nothing to him anymore, he had once been bitter upon hearing it, Scully had convinced him that the people who called him spooky were just jealous that they were not as brilliant as he was.
In retrospect, Mulder suddenly wondered if his partner had been serious, at the time he had thought she was joking but he had always taken her kind words to heart.
Scully's voice came again, a breeze heard more with his heart than his ears which could hear nothing but the oppressive stillness around him. "But that all changed, I don't know how, I don't know when. But I discovered that you were the only one I trusted. I meant it then and I mean it even more now. You were my partner, but you were so much more. My best friend, my soulmate."
Mulder's breath caught in his throat, he barely noticed that he stopped breathing. He didn't seem to need air wherever he was. "Scully," he called out softly, "Oh, Scully..."
"When I found out that I might not be your soulmate I was crushed. I hid it well, but I hated that woman who said she was your soulmate. I heard somewhere that we have many soulmates, but only one true one. I knew then and I know now, that you are my true soulmate."
Invisible tears pricked at Mulder's eyes as he remembered the case she spoke of. He remembered standing in the field where he had died, feeling lost. And when he looked up, Scully had been waiting for him. She had always been waiting.
"Dana..." he whispered, for some reason compelled to use her first name, as if she could hear him. "She wasn't my soulmate, it was you. Always you."
"I lied when I told you I wouldn't change a day, Mulder. I would have changed only one thing, I would have told you a long time ago how I felt. Instead of letting it build up until we were here, now that I'm pregnant and you are in a coma."
Mulder rubbed his temple with his fingertips, trying more to ease her pain than his own. A sharp pain reverberated through his soul as he heard her say she was pregnant. He should be there, with her, instead of here...He threw a tortured glance around the bleak landscape, shrouded with a dark mist that, he suddenly noticed, was gradually growing lighter.
"Mulder, I trusted you with my life, because you were the only one I could trust. Then I trusted you with my soul, time and again, you pulled through. Now I am trusting you with my heart, because the only reason it is still beating is because these past months I knew you were alive, and I knew I had to find you, for me and our child."
Mulder bit his lip hard at her words, 'our child...' and suddenly felt the urge to run screaming through the dark mist, despite where it might take him, as long it held the chance of leading him back to his Scully and his unborn child, it was a chance worth taking. Slowly he let the words sink in and he looked up, as if he could see her if he tried hard enough. "A child? My child?" He knew it was possible, he frankly didn't think it could belong to anyone else. He had just assumed that the child had been another experiment by them to hurt the two of them, he had never dared to dream that the child would be normal and healthy...and his.
Mulder stared tearfully around once more, not allowing the unbridled joy that grew in his heart to overtake him until he heard the rest of his partner's message.
" And I knew that I had to tell you what you mean to me, you were always my friend, and my partner. And somewhere along the line, Mulder, I fell in love with you."
Scully's final words to him came through clear as day, breaking through the dark fog. Mulder choked on a sob, that was twice he had heard her confess her love for him, and yet he had never told her how he felt, and she did not know that he knew she loved him.
Well, that wasn't completely true. He mused for a second, there was that time in Bermuda, but she thought I was on drugs at the time...
His heart constricted painfully at her tear filled confession and he could practically hear her sigh, and then there was a ghost like caress on his skin, his forehead, Scully had kissed his forehead. And he had felt it.
This woman never ceased to amaze him, he didn't take note that this had been the first time he had felt his own heart beat since he had been in this place. This purgatory...
His heart beat faster as her words swirled around him, and disappeared into the abstruse fog. He wondered how she couldn't hear it, it was beating so fast.
"Scully!" He cried as loudly as his sore vocal cords would allow him. "I love you too! Scully!" The fleeting hope that she could hear him whirled into the haze around him along with his words. There was silence for a long moment, and Mulder was struck by the sudden fear that she had left him, until he heard her once more. This time her voice was brimming with an astonished happiness, one matched by what he felt in his own heart, despite his pain.
"I love you. Are you hearing me? I love you! Now fight this and come back to me!" Mulder could hear the relief in her ethereal voice and he allowed himself a broad grin at the belief she could hear him. "I promise I'll make it worth your while..." was her final benediction, Mulder laughed, a jarring sound in the silence that almost scolded upon his joy. But he didn't care, his partner loved him! His soulmate had been by his lousy side since day one, and she loved him. That was all that mattered to the man at the moment, not anything else, not even his own detached spirit, hovering outside his body.
"Oh, my sweet Scully, I'm sure you will," he whispered as he welcomed the oncoming darkness, mocking it with his pure delight.
~ ~ ~ ~
Scully paced the halls of the hospital restlessly, waiting for the Lone Gunmen to arrive. Skinner had convinced her to go to the cafeteria to get something to eat. She had refused at first, she couldn't bear to be apart from Mulder for so long. But Skinner had persuaded her to go, with the argument that Mulder needed her to stay strong, for him and for their baby that was growing inside of her, the baby needed food.
Scully glanced down at her swelling stomach and cursed her thoughtlessness. She was a doctor, she should know better. She smiled, practically hearing her partner's voice in her mind. She had returned to find that they had taken Mulder for some more tests, she had received this news with a grimace. Is this what they had done to her when she had returned under such mysterious conditions? Scully made a mental note to ask Mulder if he woke up. No! Scully admonished herself. Not if he wakes up, when he wakes up. She started at a touch on her arm which interrupted her musings. She turned, half expecting her partner to be there, but instead she saw Langly pulling his hand away from her arm, Frohike and Byers in tow.
She sighed in relief, grateful that it had not been some overly concerned doctor and yet irrationally disappointed that it wasn't Mulder.
"I'm glad you guys are here," she said, gesturing to Mulder's empty room where they would have privacy. When inside she shut the door, avoiding looking at the empty bed where her partner should be. She faced the three silent men and smiled inwardly as they each marveled at her quiet strength and dignity. "Now," she said, interrupting their respective thoughts. "I know you guys were here for Mulder when I was returned. And I need to know... how did they bring me back?"
The three exchanged concerned glances. "You mean, Mulder never told you?" Langly asked. Scully shook her head, "He told me he didn't really know, I don't think he wanted to talk about it much," she was dreading the answer she was sure she already knew.
"It's actually somewhat of a mystery how you came back to consciousness, Agent Scully." Byers, ever the truthful one, informed her. Scully felt her face fall, she was afraid of this. "We never pressed Mulder for details, he simply told us that he thought you were the strongest person he knew to come back from
near death, and that you must have had a good reason to give up the afterlife and return to this one."
Scully glanced to the empty bed and bit her lip at the memories that assaulted her, "I did..." she murmured softly, averting her face from their prying gazes. Inhaling sharply she decided it was time for plan B.
"Well then," she turned back to the three of them again. "Since I'm not as patient as Mulder to just wait around for him to wake up, we are going to find a way to help him."
The three nodded simultaneously and Scully repressed a smile. "We're on it," Frohike informed her. Scully smiled slightly, of course they were, weren't they always?
"Well," she said with one last remorseful glance towards Mulder's empty hospital bed. "Tell me what we've got."
~ ~ ~ ~
When Mulder opened his eyes again, he felt utterly alone. He knew, somehow that wherever his physical body was, Scully was not with it. He closed his eyes again and cursed under his breath. Where could she be? He wondered. Maybe she was looking for a way to bring him back to his body, that had to be it, Scully was out probably risking her life and their unborn child's life for him.
Mulder cursed himself and the self pitying mood he was in today. He had realized a few days ago that he was not his physical self. His physical self was lying in a hospital room, with Scully or Skinner looking over him. He knew that now, now that he had been trapped in this damn purgatory for who knows how long. He had lost track of the time, if time even existed here. There was no way to tell. The mist continued its perpetual swirling and shifting. Sometimes colors appeared in the fog, this was how Mulder knew, whether he could hear her or not, that is when Scully was with his body.
His body, out in the world where he longed to be. Instead , he was just a floating soul, searching for a way home.
~ ~ ~ ~
"We're not sure exactly how to help Mulder ourselves," Langly was telling Scully as she peered over his shoulder at the computer screen. "That's why we have been looking for someone who can tell us," Byers continued. Scully noticed the way the three of them could finish each others sentences with an unconscious ease that came from years of working together and being friends, a pang of bittersweet memories swept over Scully for a split second as she recognized this ease between the Lone Gunmen was almost as comfortable as the rapport between herself and Mulder.
"Spender?" Scully asked, having been listening to the continued conversation with one ear, despite her musings. Frohike shook his head, "That's the thing, we can't find Cancerman anywhere in these files. He has been completely erased."
Scully shifted uneasily at that and one hand fluttered down to rest on her stomach, the child inside instantly soothing her fears and concerns. "I don't like the sound of that. Have we heard from either Krycek or Marita anytime lately?" She asked with barely concealed disgust for the two informants who had disappeared when Mulder had.
"Negative," Langly replied. "Think they are where we should start?"
"Its as good as any place," Scully agreed. She settled down in a chair Frohike had brought her while the three got to work on the computers. "Is there anything I can do?" she asked, instantly feeling drowsy. The three heads shook concurrently again and Scully didn't bother hiding the grin this time. "Well I'm just going to rest for a bit, wake me in an hour," she murmured, half asleep already. The three computer hackers exchanged worried but smiling glances with each other as they let Scully sleep the night away.
~ ~ ~ ~
Scully shifted into an uneasy sleep, aware that the Lone Gunmen were watching out for her in case she had nightmares again. For a moment, in the back of her mind which was still semi conscious, the knowledge that Mulder was not there to hold her if she awoke from a nightmare crying struck her painfully. God she missed him, she wanted him back so much, she wanted him to hold her in his strong, sheltering arms and tell her he loved her. She wanted him to kiss her and be amazed and happy about this miracle child of theirs that grew inside her.
But instead he was laying in a coma in a hospital, and she was not there. Scully's last conscious thought was to be able to see him.
And so she did.
~ ~ ~ ~
Mulder's first conscious thought was of her, and wondering when the hell he was going to wake up. He was beginning to feel like he had no control over his own body, like it was someone else lying on that hospital bed, not him. Not Fox Mulder, federal agent and brilliant psychologist, the expert profiler who had lost his sister when he was twelve years old and gone off the deep end afterwards, Fox Mulder the all around spooky guy as everyone saw him.
That's not who Mulder was anymore. No, he was just Mulder, Dana Scully's partner and best friend. Mulder, the man Dana Scully loved. Mulder, the father of her child. That was the Mulder he was inside, who he loved being.
Mulder wondered when he had started getting philosophical.
He knew if he stayed here any longer, in this damn black mist, he would go insane. He almost smiled at the thought, he could practically hear his partner turning to him and asking, "You're going to go insane? I think you crossed that path a long time ago, Mulder."
He smiled, god he missed her.
He had started walking a little while ago, into the mist, the fog. He had walked until he couldn't anymore, it had gotten him nowhere.
He remembered something Scully had told him about while she was in the hospital after her return. She told him she had remembered water, a lake of some sort. He had been there, standing in the distance, waiting for her. Melissa had been there too, but she had stayed longer, apparently Mulder had been too skeptical to stay.
Mulder's heart had caught in his throat at the picture she had painted with her words. He remembered when he had first met Scully's sister, she had been so spiritual, so believing. So unlike his Scully. He would have believed what she was saying at the time for any other case, but not for this one, he had been too afraid for Scully.
Melissa had asked him why he was so afraid to believe, if it would help Dana. Mulder had heard his own words come out of her mouth, he had said that to Scully, in many different ways, over the course of their partnership.
Where he stood now, in a black haze, in an unholy purgatory, he wondered why he hadn't gotten at least a nice kind of oblivion, like Scully had. Why hadn't he gotten the lake and the boat?
He grinned, God probably knew he got seasick.
His musings were interrupted by a slight lightening of the mist around him. A golden tendril slipped through and Mulder felt the tension leave his shoulders.
Scully was here.
~ ~ ~ ~
Scully frowned and glanced around her, swirling black mists surrounded her, shifting gently around her, whispering at her red hair, the only color in the spot of darkness.
She wondered where she was, how she got there. Then she turned around, and saw him.
Mulder stood behind her, a small frightened smile on his face. Scully suddenly remembered another time, when she had believed he was dead years ago. He had appeared to her then, like this, to tell her that he was alive, that she had to believe in him, that she could not give up.
But he wasn't dead this time, Scully knew that...didn't she?
"Oh God," she whispered, a thousand terrified thoughts running through her mind suddenly. What if he had taken a turn for the worse after she left? What if...
Mulder's touch, his long fingers spectral on her skin. She stared down at his hand for a long moment, then up at him. It was Mulder, her Mulder, and he was here.
"How?" was all she whispered, struck by the emotion she could see in his eyes. He shook his head and reached out to touch her again, his hand hovering over her vibrant red hair. "I don't know. I'm not sure I know anything anymore. I don't know where I am, how I got here, how to get out..." he trailed off and Scully's eyes burned bright with unshed tears. His gentle hand lingered over her head, unwilling to touch her for fear she might disappear and leave him again.
Scully sensed his hesitation and heard his words impressed upon her soul, she had said words so much like those to him months ago. She could practically hear her tear filled confession from then hanging in the air, 'I don't know what to believe anymore... I don't know what the truth is, I don't know who to listen to, I don't know who to trust...'
Mulder remembered too, he remembered when he looked into her eyes, he could see his own response there. 'Scully, I was like you once. I didn't know who to trust, and I chose another path, another life, another fate, where I found my sister. The end of my world was unrecognizable and upside down. There was one thing that remained the same: you were my friend, and you told me the truth, even when the world was falling apart, you were my constant, my touchstone...'
'And you are mine...'
The memory hung between them, solid and unyielding, until Scully spoke. "Mulder," she took his hand and a look of fear passed over his face until he realized that she was still there. She squeezed his hand gently, amazed at how solid and real it was. "I was like you once. I didn't know who to trust. I was young and naive, and I had been paired up to work with a pariah, a brilliant crackpot who told me the sky was falling," A flicker of a smile flitted across his face as he gripped her other hand as well. She smiled back and the tremble in her voice would have been evident to no one but him. "Little did I know that the crackpot would be a prophet," She squeezed his hand affectionately and Mulder leaned in, closing the gap between them and resting his forehead against hers, the need for physical closeness overwhelming after all this time. He searched for words for a moment then grinned against her skin.
"I never told you the sky was falling Scully, I always hated that story. Foxy Loxy?"
Scully chuckled softly, "Sorry, I forgot." She pulled her hands out of his and instead wrapped her slender arms around his waist, he hugged her back, placing one hand on the back of her head as she leaned it against his chest.
They stood in comfortable, long missed silence for a long time. It could have been minutes, it could have been days. The two of them could have cared less, they could have stayed together, in the others arms forever. Their mental communion was complete, whole, like the way they were when they were together. The silence was breathtaking, broken only by the sound of their two hearts beating in sync.
"I could hear you," Mulder whispered, breaking the beautiful silence with his soft confession. Scully wrinkled her forehead and shifted slightly to look up at him, his hazel eyes searching her blue ones for the truth. She had hoped as much, her the skeptic, had wanted to believe that he had heard her declaration of her love. "When?" She asked, knowing the answer.
"In the hospital, when you told me you loved me," his voice was monotone as always, but she could hear the emotion in it. "Did you mean it?" He dared to ask.
She was surprised he could even ask her that, she knew he was a tad insecure but how could he think that she didn't love him?
"I did," she whispered, reaching up to caress his face. "I still do, every word."
A look of relief, and happiness washed over his normally blank features. His eyes danced in the darkness and she smiled at him, his eyes were so full of love.
Mulder blew out a breath of relief and pulled her head to his, her lips and kissed her forehead. "I love you too, so much Scully, it hurts when you're not with me," he moved lower, kissed her cheek. "I have loved you for so long," his lips found her other cheek. "I don't want to lose you," he kissed the tip of her nose tenderly.
Scully stared at him, her heart screamed for him to kiss her, for his lips to meet hers. "You won't lose me, never, I'm not going anywhere Mulder. I just want you to come back to me."
His lip trembled slightly, "I don't know how," he whispered. He frowned, "They told me to make a choice, between my life...and you. I think they would have given me all the answers if I had not chosen you." Scully's sharp intake of breath was expected. "You gave up the truth, all the answers we had searched so long for, to come back to me?" He nodded, mutely, not meeting her tear filled eyes.
Scully shook her head in disbelief and she punched his chest softly, "Bastard," she whispered. Mulder hung his head and Scully chuckled despite herself. "You arrogant," her voice grew soft. "Sweet, loving bastard. I'm not worth it."
He shook his head, "You are Scully, you see, you are my life. You are everything to me. On my list of priorities, the search for my sister used to be first, after you were taken. You became first on that list, making sure they never touched you again," he chuckled shaking his head at himself. "I may not have done so well sometimes but you were all that mattered to me, the most important thing was you. The truth came second. I told you that our last night together in Oregon, I told you it wasn't worth it."
Invisible tears slipped down her face now as she pulled him even closer. "God, I love you," she whispered. He smiled and bent to kiss away her tears. "I love you too, so much Scully..." He trailed off as he looked up into the distance, Scully could feel his body tense against her own. "But you have to go now," he whispered, his voice full of regret. Scully glanced at him curiously and then around, the mist was closing in on them. She turned back to him, her eyes wide with fear. "I don't want to go," she insisted. "I won't leave you!" she gripped him and pulled him close, he buried his face in her hair and pressed her to him for dear life. "You have to, Scully. You can't help me here. Go..." but even as he spoke, she looked up at him, she was already fading. Mulder forced a smile as he called out to her one last time, "I love you!"
Scully's face was the last thing he saw before the darkness enveloped him as well, the last thing he heard was her sweet voice echoing his own words, "I love you!"
And then, for the both of them, there was nothing but darkness.
~ ~ ~ ~
"Scully! Scully!" Dana could hear her name being called from far away. "Mulder?" She murmured, remembering her vivid dream and his arms around her. With difficulty, she managed to pull herself out of the darkness. She blinked her eyes open, forcing herself awake. "Mulder?" She whispered again as the room struggled to come into focus. She shook her head violently, combating her grogginess and snapped awake, to find the Lone Gunmen hovering over her in concern.
"What?" She asked as they stared at her with worry. Frohike placed a restraining hand on her arm as she attempted to stand. "Do you remember what you were dreaming about?" he asked.
Scully stared at him, tempted to break his arm, until she saw genuine concern in his eyes. She softened and drew away with a frown. Dreaming? Slowly, her dream, vision of Mulder slid back into her mind and her eyes burned with sudden tears at the memory.
"You were calling out for Mulder," Byers informed her. She nodded slowly, "I dreamt about him," she said softly, ignoring the knowing looks the three men exchanged. "He is trapped in some sort of purgatory, and he can't get out. He doesn't know how."
"It was just a dream," Frohike reassured her, wondering when the skeptic had started to believe in the significance of dreams. Scully shook her head, "It wasn't, it was so real guys. He came to me like this once before when I thought he was dead, he assured me then that he was alive, and he was." She insisted, growing frustrated again under their concerned gazes. She blew out a breath of ire and turned away from their eyes, seeing the light pouring in from a small window. They had let her sleep all night, damn it. She shook her head again, not really all that mad and nodded towards the computers. "So why did you wake me?" She asked. The three hurried back to their computer stations and Langly glanced over at her. "We found them."
~ ~ ~ ~
End part two
