Drift of Eastern Gray
RATING: PG.
GENRE: MSR.
SPOILERS: all things, FTF, Field Trip.
DISCLAIMER: You're no longer using them, Chris, and they're just too pretty to die.
SUMMARY: My take on what happened after Scully fell asleep in 'all things'.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I know everybody and their Reticulans have done it, but the more the merrier, right? I'm moving away from my usual angsty fare. Well, sort of. Consider it a gift for the X-Files 20th anniversary. I will be back to abject misery in no time. More notes at the end.
THANKS: to the wonderful idella, for one of the most efficient, thorough, no nonsense and yet amazingly kind beta I've ever had the pleasure to benefit from. It's been a true asset having you working with me on this. Thank you for kicking my dodgy punctuation into shape and for accurately spotting all the things that didn't work so well. I've learnt so much.
Behind Me - dips Eternity
Before Me - Immortality
Myself - the Term between
Death but the Drift of Eastern Gray
Dissolving into Dawn away
Before the West begin
~ Emily Dickinson ~
****
Scully wakes up disoriented with a somewhat stiff neck and the coarse edge of a blanket scratching her chin. She blinks sleepily at her surroundings, taking in the greyscales of Mulder's living room, the moon streaks over the hardwood floor, the soft bubbling sound of the fish tank with its little flying saucer gently bobbing up and down. Dusk has evidently come and gone. How long has she been asleep for?
She cannot remember how their conversation ended; she remembers however the growing stillness inside her - her inner Sisyphus allowed to sit down and rest for a time. She'd known it would not last. Life would soon come rolling back, a great big boulder of chaos and unpredictability which she would have to start pushing again. But sitting next to Mulder that evening, lulled by the warm, familiar tones of his voice, she felt - no, she *knew* - she was exactly where she was supposed to be.
She stretches, yawns, runs a finger along the collar of her sweater, massages the back of her neck. And where are you supposed to be now, Dr. Scully? She squints at her watch: 1:21 am.
You should be in your bed.
Her eyes fall on Mulder's bedroom door. She doesn't feel like driving. Should she call a taxi? Go back to sleep on his couch?
The door isn't shut; she opens it further with a slight push of her fingertips. She does not remember standing up.
His bedroom is not as dark as she expected it to be. Street lights dance through the moving trees outside, shimmer seeping through the blinds with a fluid, underwater quality. Mulder lies in the middle of the bed with his eyes closed like a discarded Christ, a gray comforter twisted around his waist, long limbs sprawling boneless. She breathes in wood, fabric softener, the faint hint of dusty bookshelves, the warm bread scent of sleep. Inside her head, data briefly emerges about toxin elimination and sleep patterns before fading away.
Her mind is strangely blank. She is neither happy, nor sad. She just is. Here. Now.
“Scully?”
The sheets rustle a little as her partner props himself up on both elbows, blinking off sleep to look up at her. Her mind circles briefly around the question 'what woke him up?' then loses interest and wanders back into the quiet.
“I fell asleep,” she tells him, her voice barely above a whisper.
“I know,” he whispers back.
Silence stretches between them. She leans her hip against the door jamb. There is no awkwardness or apprehension on her part. The stillness lingers inside her like fog over water, slowing her down.
“Scully?” Mulder repeats softly after a while.
“Hmm?”
“Are you going home?”
“No.”
“Okay,” he ventures after a beat. She catches his underlying puzzlement and studies it like she would a firefly in a jar.
“Can I sleep here?” she asks him eventually, with a flick of her chin towards his bed.
“Sure,” he answers, pushing the sheets away and getting up.
“What are you doing?”
“Being a gentleman and leaving you my bed,” he replies, tucking a blue pillow under his arm.
“There's no need. Stay.”
His eyes meet hers. He tilts his head to the side, no doubt wondering what kind of a curve ball this is. He lets the pillow drop back onto the bed. “If you say so” he shrugs.
“Can I use your bathroom?” she asks him.
“Sure.” He scratches the stubble on his cheek. “There are clean towels in the basket by the door,” he adds before lying back down.
Scully returns briefly to the living room to fetch the travel toothbrush she always keeps in her bag. She enters the bathroom as the first drops of rain hit the window. Outside a strong wind is picking up. She doesn't switch any lights on; the semi darkness suits her mood. She picks up a towel as well as a threadbare Oxford t-shirt from the laundry basket. She leaves her work clothes neatly folded on the towel rack beside her and slips the washed-out blue t-shirt on. She washes her face, brushes her teeth and walks back into the bedroom.
She approaches the edge of the bed. Mulder has already scooted over to the right side to leave her some room. Scully lifts the comforter to lie down next to him, her movements unhurried. She rests her head on a pillow, closes her eyes and exhales deeply.
“This is new,” Mulder comments, turning in the bed to face her, one elbow cushioning his head.
“It is,” she replies evenly.
“Is this a follow up to your epiphany?” She hears the implied speech marks.
She lets out a low chuckle, “I fell asleep during my 'epiphany'.”
“That you did.”
Her smile lingers for a little while. Mulder rolls over onto his back and closes his eyes as well. “Can you believe it's the first time we've shared a bed in six years?”
“This isn't the first time,” she replies.
“You drooling on my shoulder during stakeouts doesn't count.”
“You were unconscious at the time.”
Mulder's eyes open wide. He turns his head towards her. “I was? When?”
“Antarctica.” She lifts herself a little against the pillow to meet his curious gaze. “When the chopper that rescued us arrived at Casey station, I was apparently so out of it, I refused to let go of you and became quite... agitated when they tried to separate us.”
“Agitated?”
“I might have head-butted a doctor.”
“Scully!” Mulder exclaims, his voice a swirl of shock and pride.
She shrugs. “In the end they decided to put us in the same bed. Shared body heat being one of the best way to ward off the effects of hypothermia anyway.”
“Didn't they sedate you?”
“They tried, but it didn't work. My initial blood work came back with substances they could not identify-” she notices his stare and hurries to reassure him. “It went back to normal after a couple of days, it must have been a side effect of the vaccine you injected me with.”
“Wow.” Mulder shifts his legs under the comforter. ”You never told me this.”
“I am now.”
Silence fills the bedroom again. Her eyelids are growing heavy.
“Scully?”
She can't help but smile. “Yes, Mulder,” she answers patiently.
“Exactly how naked were we in this bed?”
“Very naked.”
“Damn.”
Outside, the storm is beginning in earnest. The sound of rustling leaves and rumbling thunder becomes louder; the shadows of moving branches brush elusive whip strokes against the ceiling.
Scully shifts on her side and lets her hand slide down the length of his arm. She links her fingers with his, feels them curl against her own in acknowledgement.
We ran. We made it back. We did not freeze to death. We did not die.
Later, she would be unable to say how long they remained like this, listening to the storm, darkness and light alternating in monochrome ribbons behind their eyelids whenever lightning struck, his thumb drawing unknown glyphs over the pulse at her wrist.
Her mind wanders to other occasions when they had made up for their emotional illiteracy in such ways. It settles on a memory, the both of them lying on stretchers in the back of an ambulance, covered in grime and earth and slime, their hands blindly reaching out for one another.
We made it out. Because I knew you. Because you knew me. I saved you. You saved me. We weren't digested. We did not die.
All this and so much more in the pressure of their joined palms.
Certain things need to be said though and she's ready now.
“Mulder. I haven't always loved you but I do now,” she tells him quietly.
His reply doesn't come right away, but when it does, she can't say she expected anything else.
“I bet you say that to all the men who rescue you from an icy death.”
The old Scully would have rolled her eyes in frustration but the one lying in this bed tonight, the one who is paying attention, understands her partner's defence mechanisms and his need to buy time to process her words. That's all right, she's not going anywhere. “All of them,” she agrees, “I even had plans for medals and bouquets but the overall turnout was disappointing.”
He doesn't ask “since when,” she notices and she suspects this is not so much due to lack of interest as it is to avoid having to discuss the first time he'd tried to change their partnership's dynamic. It had not been love back then - merely a panicked, last-resort gamble on his part to get her to stay - which explained why nothing had come out of it after they'd made it back home. He'd never mentioned what had almost happened between them that night outside his apartment and she'd refused to analyze how she felt about his attempt at manipulation. In the light of what happened right on the heels of this aborted move, it had been of little importance anyway. The work trumped everything else. It kept them sane, kept them focused, kept them united. It kept them strong. And back then, she'd needed all the strong she could get.
Mulder drops her hand to lift himself up. “Wait, are you telling me you weren't smitten from Day One?”
“Jesus, no!”
He shoots her a mock glare. “Tact, Scully. Is a concept you might want to embrace if you don't want to spend the rest of the night yonder on the couch.”
“I think we both know that is not going to happen.”
“You sound pretty damn sure of yourself, Sunshine.”
Her teasing smile softens. “I am.”
“You are.” The words come out of his mouth like a statement, a truth, solid and smooth like a river pebble. The shifting sands of their relationship are solidifying underfoot. He understands what this is.
A slight brush of his fingers against her shoulder is all it takes. Here Be Monsters she thinks as her body moves on top of his in one fluid motion.
It feels strange at first to be like this with him, to have so much of her skin touching his own. She had been far too ill to enjoy the sensation last time it happened. Awareness of her surroundings had been minimal, delirious with fever as she'd been, her throat raw and burning as if she'd gargled with sulphuric acid, her frostbitten fingers and toes so painful she'd wished for amputation. She only remembers feeling the slow drum of his heartbeat against her own chest and his life-saving heat that she'd craved like pure heroin as the nightmarish primordial cold that had spiked its way through her organs, muscles and bones gradually receded.
She is fully conscious now, aware of everything, enjoying everything, very much so and it becomes quickly obvious he is too. Their faces are inches apart. Not that this is anything new. Mulder never was a big believer in personal space where she is concerned.
“Hey.” He smiles up at her, pushes a strand of hair behind her ear, fingers following the curve of her jaw.
“Hey.” She smiles back, her own hands tracing cursives along his ribs.
His lips brush against her ear. A simple whisper. “You know.”
She does.
Words become unnecessary after that. There is only the storm and the wind and the rain and their hunger for each other.
We are alive.
We choose this.
Now.
The End.
*****
MORE NOTES: I didn't care for everything in 'all things'. I thought Scully's former love interest, Daniel Whatsisname was poorly cast - I never once believed Scully would have wanted to spend her life with this self-centered bore and the woman with the pony tail - was she supposed to be Destiny, or Fate? - didn't really work for me. But I loved the pace of the episode, I loved how Anderson directed it. I loved how she made Scully slow down and take stock of where she was at this point in time and *accept* that her life had led her there, now, with Mulder by her side. This story is an humble attempt at continuing in this path.
Ultimately this is about Scully choosing life (these words are never going to work post Trainspotting ever again are they?), when so much of her past has been about not dying.