Sweet Nothings for the Numb by Amalnahurriyeh, commentary by Wendelah1, Part 3/3
Title: Sweet Nothings for the Numb
Author: amalnahurriyeh
Fandom: The X-Files
Commentator: wendelah1
Anything that was originally posted under flock or in email has been quoted here with the permission of the author.
"Sweet Nothings for the Numb", without commentary.
III. Facts and Conclusions
Scully wakes to his voice speaking her name, quietly. His hand brushes her cheek. "Hey, Scully."
She opens her eyes, not connecting to where she is for a moment, wondering why Mulder is on her hotel room. Then she breathes in, and last night comes flooding back to her, the taste of him in the back of her throat, the pressure of his lips on her back. Oh my god, she thinks. "Mulder?"
"Morning," he says with just a touch of awkwardness.
"What time is it?" she asks. She starts to sit up but then realizes she's naked under the sheet. Oh my god.
"It's almost noon. Our flight's at two, but I figured you'd want to shower and eat first. I got breakfast." He gestured to a tray on the table. The flower was wilted. He must have been awake for hours. "I was just going to go running." So she didn't have to walk across the room naked on front of him. "Is that okay?"
"What? Yes, of course." She could barely look at him. "Have a good run."
"I'll be back in a bit." He stood, patted himself for his key, smiled back at her quickly, left.
Whereas Part I is entirely from Scully's POV, and Part II is all Mulder's, in Part III, Amal has written us a denouement that gives voice to both characters. First, we get to hear Scully sing her morning after the night (two nights actually, wasn't it?) before blues. Come on, you know she would regret having fallen apart in front of Mulder.
She lay in the bed for five full minutes after she heard the snick of the door. Oh my god. Once was bad enough. And she had been taking from him, making him do what she needed; all he had contributed was acquiescence. But last night she had crawled into his bed and turned herself over to him, had let him do whatever he wanted.
Almost anything. She had been blissfully writhing beneath him, unconscious to anything but the nerves firing, but the thought of him fucking her had brought her back to the night before in a sudden rush, and she had felt stabbed again with an unpronounceable grief. She couldn't remember when she had passed out, just that his mouth had been fierce against her skin but his hands gentle. Almost reticent.
That's why she stopped him, why she didn't want PIV. It reminded her of the night she pretended he could get her pregnant, which reminded her that she couldn't get pregnant, which snapped her back into grief.
She forces herself into the shower and stands under the water, trying to make some sense of the past two days. Fact: she had initiated all the sex. Mulder had seemed as detached as someone actively having sex could be, though not cold or hostile or unwilling. Fact: he was barely touching her when she had her clothes on. Fact: he was going out of his way to be helpful and solicitous, without seeming to have any opinions of his own. Conclusion: she'd spent the past two days getting pity-fucked by a man who, she was pretty sure, was in love with her.
I think this is right. Definitely a pity-fuck, though not something Mulder regrets doing for her. Maybe Mulder got his wish after all. This is a very Scully-like logical sequence.
She knocks her head against the tile softly, twice. She is such a fucking idiot. He'd do anything she asked, so she asked for the most fucked up thing possible, and probably ruined their friendship, not to mention any actual chance for a relationship. Which she didn't want, she was 95% sure, but didn't necessarily not want either. That was it. She would have to apologize for falling apart like this, for letting her emotions get the best of her. No matter how terrible she felt, she was entirely out of line. She never should have entertained her little fantasies of his magic sperm, certainly never should have crawled into his bed and let him soothe her with his tongue. She would apologize, and that would be that. She turns off the water.
Denial, thy name is Dana Scully.
Clothes are set on the vanity. She didn't bring them in here. She stares until she connects that this means he is back, that he didn't want to see her naked, that he brought her clothes to try to make it better. She nearly starts crying again. No. Clothes on, teeth brushed, out of the bathroom and on with the day.
This is the Scully scene that got to me. Oh, honey.
He is sitting on the bed, next to his suitcase. He's pulled out clothes to fly in, but the rest is packed. Her suitcase is on her bed, opened but still neat. He surveys the outfit he had picked out. "Nice threads."
She takes a deep breath. "Thanks for bringing them in. I must have spaced out."
"I just didn't want to get slapped. Do you mind if I shower? I don't think anyone wants to be in coach class with me right now."
"It's all yours," she says, and stands in front of her suitcase to repack her toiletries case. He passes by her so close she smells his sweat, feels his heat, and she remembers his body under hers, the glorious abandon, the struggle and raw nerves. She has to apologize. She had no choice.
***
She sits in an uncomfortable plastic chair and watches the planes taxi back and forth out the window, next to the blinking sign informing them their plane is delayed. She checked her luggage, and so doesn't have anything to occupy her hands but her purse. Mulder is sprawling in the seat next to her. Neither of them are looking at each other.
He stands suddenly. "I'm going to get a pack of gum. Do you want anything?"
Yes, my daughter, you to love me, to crawl into a hole and die. Her mouth is dry. "I don't have anything to read."
He nods and wanders off towards the little shop. Her brain is slow and incapable of clear linear thought, so she finds herself wondering what he's going to bring her. Really, it could be anything. Her brain circles endlessly back to the night before. She can't remember anything visual, just the sensations of his skin on hers, his lips chasing up and down her body, the feel of his hands holding her in place. She shifts in her seat. God, she was such a fool.
He appears again, and holds out a stack of magazines to her. She flips through them: The Economist; Nature; and Vogue. She holds up the copy of Vogue, and arches an eyebrow at him. He reaches over and snags it from her hand. "That's for me," he says casually, crosses his ankles, and opens it to a random page. If she didn't know what he actually looked like when he was interested in something, he would have been doing a very credible impersonation of someone who was deeply engrossed.
She opens the copy of Nature, and ignores him until their plane is called.
***
She had flown out of Baltimore with her mother, and Mulder had booked them into National, which meant that he is driving. She had tried to argue that it would be easier for him just to go home, that she could take a taxi, that he was driving twenty minutes out of his way to take her home, but he just picked up her suitcase--when had he started doing that?--and started walking to the parking shuttle. She didn't have the energy, anyway.
This is a nice little bit of continuity--Scully wondering when he started carrying her suitcase.
He pulls into a parking spot down the street from her apartment building. "You want me to carry your bag up?" he asks quietly.
She wants to say no; she wants to tell him to go the hell away, because if she spends any more time in his presence she might touch him again, she might need him more. Instead she swallows. "Sure." She steps out of the car and shrugs her winter coat around her shoulders. San Diego had been warmer, she knew this, but she felt better with her coat on, felt more like herself. She started walking towards her building without looking back at him.
Scully does wear her coat a lot, even in places where you would think it would be uncomfortably warm, like Arecibo. heh.
The sun has set, leaving the sky a dirty purple, and there is a gray crust of slush on the sidewalk. She unlocks the door to her building and holds it for him. He stomps his feet on the steps to avoid tracking slush onto her entryway. She calls the elevator without speaking.
Her apartment smells still and empty as she steps in. The red light on her answering machine is blinking; someone hadn't gotten the memo that she was away, or had expected her back five days ago. She glances around. It is emptier than she remembers; nothing here but her quiet objects. God, she doesn't even have a cat, couldn't have one, it would starve to death, no wonder she didn't deserve a daughter. Mulder's presence behind her is somehow steadying. She takes a deep breath of the stale air and walks across to her dining room table. She drops her coat across the chair, starts pulling off her gloves, and listens to the rattle of him putting the chain on her door. She wants him gone. She wants to curl up in his arms for a week. She drops the gloves on the table.
No time like the present to do what needs to be done, and she turns to him. He's still wearing his coat, but he wants to stay, he wants to know what he can do. "Mulder," she says quietly. He puts her suitcase down and steps towards her. He always stands so close, close enough to smell, close enough to feel the heat of his body, but she can't right now, he smells like stale airplane air, his heat is trapped in his coat. It's like talking to Mulder's ghost, and she resists the desire to peel his clothes off him before she starts talking, because if she does that they'll just fuck forever and she'll never get free of this, never. She folds her arms across her chest and stares at his feet. "Mulder, I need to apologize for my behavior over the past two days."
"Scully--"
She rushes past him. "I had no right. I know you acted out of friendship, but I was out of line. You've been more than generous with me, and I know you appreciate the extremity of the circumstance, but I asked you for things I had no right to ask you for. And I'm sorry I put you in that position."
He laughs. She is shocked for a moment, but when she manages to look at his face he is staring off over her shoulder, and he doesn't look at all amused. "I can't decide which part of that to argue about first," he says.
So don't argue, she thinks, but that'll never happen.
Mulder not arguing with Scully is a sure sign of the apocalypse.
He is avoiding her eyes as he starts talking. "Scully, you could ask me for anything. Contract killings, de-grouting the shower, date on command for family weddings and high school reunions, whatever, I'm there. So, that's not, that's not a thing. You can always ask." He looks up and suddenly their eyes meet, and it might be the first time today. "You have the right. And it wasn't--" He swallows. "It wasn't a hardship." He drags his eyes back up to hers, and she thinks she can see straight through him to his burning heart.
This brought me to tears. This is as close as he can come to declaring his feelings for her. Oh, Mulder.
She closes her eyes. She can't take this, can't carry his love for her next to her grief, can't hold all of this together. His hand brushes along her cheek, and she realizes just how close she is to crying. She inhales shakily and feels him step closer, and God, it just feels so right to have him so close. She tilts her head back without opening her eyes, and she feels him leaning down ever so slightly, until his lips brush hers. This is their first kiss, she realizes, or at least their first while dressed; he's licked every inch of her body but he never kissed her last night, and his dry lips on hers are warm and still, but she feels it through her whole body. He pulls away with his hand still on her face. She feels her desire to apologize draining out of her with her ability to stand up. She can't take much more of this, and she leans into his chest. He holds her up with a single hand on her back, and he must have memorized her back because he's holding her exactly over her tattoo, when he used to miss it by an inch and a half. This close she can feel his warmth, can smell him under the mustiness, and stands there cradled against his chest, not angry, not hurting, just tired, waiting.
He strokes her back gently, and she can tell he's about to ask if he should leave. She couldn't tell him to leave, can't ask him to stay, so she cuts him off. "Mulder, the other thing you have to tell me." She can feel him suddenly grow uncomfortable, but she keeps talking. "How bad is it?"
His hand is still on her back as he sorts out an answer. "There are ways in which it's very bad, and ways in which it's actually sort of good."
She pulls back and looks up at him. She is fairly sure that his fear is for himself. It's not that she isn't angry that he knew so much about what happened to her while she was abducted but kept his mouth shut, as that she is simply too exhausted to stay angry at him for very long. She needs him with her to fight this. If he would do anything for her, she will, eventually, forgive him for doing it. "What day is today?" she says.
"Thursday," he says.
"Are you planning on going to work tomorrow?"
He shrugs.
She nods. "Sit. I need a drink."
***
He watches her disappear into the kitchen, terrified, stomach twisted. Her little apology had broken him, but that she sunk into his arms right afterward gave him some hope. He has no idea how she is going to take this, but she wants him to tell her, and maybe that means something. He pulls off his coat and picks hers off the table, goes and hangs them both in her closet.
She emerges from her kitchen with a bottle of scotch and two glasses with ice cubes. Together, they sit on her couch as she pours. She hands him one of the glasses and clinks the rims together before she takes a long drink from hers. Does she really want to hear this? Why does Scully have scotch in her apartment? She sets her glass down on a coaster. He takes a perfunctory sip from his and sets it beside hers. "Tell me," she said steadily.
He has been thinking about how to finish this story, or how to begin to finish it, since he arrived in California, but he still doesn't have words. Instead, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out his wallet. The card is hidden behind a dozen for adult bookstores and paranormal researchers, battered and bent, but he knows exactly which one it is. He holds it out to her, and she takes it. Maryland Cryogenic Services, it says, and an address in College Park. She turns it over, but it's blank.
"Account number 4572934," he says quietly. "The name is Katherine Murray, which I know is obvious but was the best I come up with on short notice. The guys can get you ID in the name when you need it."
"What is it?" she asks, still staring at the card.
He watches her closely. "I'm fairly sure it's a vial of your ova." She doesn't react visibly. "As far as I know, they aren't fertilized and haven't been tampered with. The Crawfords let me take them, the night I broke into the Lombard Research Facility. They had more, but I wasn't thinking well enough to take them all. The storage unit they were in kept them frozen; the guys at the clinic were all over me to say where I had gotten the tech, but I thought it was better I not mention it." He cleared his throat. "I had them test them before I bought the space. They're viable."
She puts the card down on the table and picks up her drink. "They had them in vials."
"Yes. In a drawer. Not just yours; I recognized the names of other abductees." He swallows. "And a room full of clones outside it. It wasn't like Scanlon's; they were making adult clones, not altered children."
She take one long sip of the scotch, then another. She drains it with a third, and then, unceremoniously, throws the glass across the room, where it shatters on her wall, ice and glass landing on her floor.
He picks up his glass and hands it to her. "Thank you," she says, and drains it as well.
***
She sits in the silence with him, contemplating the melting ice in his glass. Her ova. He has them; he stole them back for her, was keeping them locked away while she was dying. As if there were any hope she would come back to him, any hope she would eventually be well enough to do something with them.
She thought the other night that he could get her pregnant. She didn't realize that, for all intents and purposes, he already had. I would happily put this scene into canon as a replacement for the lame one in the elevator (!!) the writers gave us in "Per Manum."
"Thank you," she says quietly. She feels him shift next to her, and looks over at him. He is still waiting for her to whip out her gun and press it to his temple, or to demand he does it himself. "For not treating them as evidence," she clarifies.
He shudders visibly. "You're not evidence."
She puts his glass back on his coaster. "You will never, ever keep information about me from me ever again. Are we clear?"
"Yes." He sounds genuinely contrite. Whether he is capable of following through on this promise is debatable, but at least he's willing to say it. Scully is nothing if not a realist about Mulder. She thinks of his hands bracketing her face on the floor of Bill's living room, just like in the hallway in Allentown, calling her back to him, calling her back to the fight. The clock above her VCR whispers that it's the witching hour, time for horrible things to come out and play. "I'm tired," she says.
He doesn't say anything. She stands and starts walking to the bedroom. "Come on."
**
He follows slowly, hesitantly. He had thought they had moved past this moment, that they could talk again. If they fuck more, will she apologize more? In the moonlight of her bedroom, she is pulling off her shirt, unsnapping her bra. He watches her from the doorway, unsure of what she wants. There is a faint bite mark on her shoulder. She pulls off her jeans and drops them and the shirt into her hamper. The edges of fingerprint bruises are visible, peeking out from her panties. She turns to him, watches him stand in the doorway, waiting. She is so beautiful, in the moonlight and faint sodium streetlight through her windows, that he doesn't know what to say.
She walks to her dresser, and pulls out a pair of his sweatpants that he must have left here at some point, and throws them at him. He runs them through his hands and watches her breasts swing as she bends down to pull out a pair of her own pajamas.
He thinks he can do this, as he unbuckles his belt, pulls off his sweater and then his t-shirt, because her apartment is always too warm, kicks off his shoes and lets his pants fall to the ground.
Mulder has his shirt off. Yum. Okay, I'm shallow.
"Don't just leave them on the floor. At least put them on a chair or something," she says, walking past him to the bathroom.
She must be feeling better, she's getting bossy.
He puts his clothes on the chair where he waited for her, steps into his sweatpants. She comes back into the room a moment later. "Bathroom's yours."
He doesn't have his toothbrush, but will live without it, he thinks as the toilet runs. He splashes cold water on his face, just like yesterday morning, but dries it with one of her towels. He swears he could find clothes washed in this apartment by smell alone. Back in the bedroom, she is curled under the covers on the far side of the bed. She opens her eyes and looks up at him as he enters. He peels back the covers, slides in next to her. She has one hand palm up in between them; he reaches out, takes it in his, pulls it to his lips and kisses her knuckles. It's not so much that she smiles, as that her face softens, and she tightens her grip on his hand for just a moment. "Good night," she whispers, as if there were someone to hear.
"Good night, Scully," he says, and watches her as her eyes close. She is still holding his hand, even when he finally falls asleep.
They do get to talk, a little, about the ova, but they never talk about what happened between them. This, unfortunately, is exactly what they would do. They would talk about the physical stuff. Scully, I have your ova, they're in a freezer, here's the card so you can retrieve them when you want them. Mulder, don't ever hide anything from me again. Yes, Scully. Mulder, I'm sorry I made you pity fuck me.
Like that's going to make it all go away.
The scene at the end with them holding hands is so very sweet, plus it allows for the possibility of intimacy. Eventually, in a few years, maybe.
I am so glad that Amal didn't stop with Part I, that she continued on and gave us a hint of resolution for the characters. Though, in a sense, they are right back to where they started; it's always one step forward, two steps back, for our Moose and Squirrel.
I should acknowledge that Hurt/Comfort/Angst is probably my absolute least favorite genre of fic. Since I rarely buy into the sex and almost never buy into the comfort, it is a tribute to Amal's talent that I love this story as I do. It probably helps that the hurt/angst component is canon, rather than a plot created for the sole purpose of getting the characters to acknowledge their feelings (atths). This is a much more realistic post-ep than most, especially for that pair of episodes.
Amal is the caliber of writer who would be garnering accolades and podcasts and ten pages of comments were she writing in a fandom that was less of a back-water than The X-Files has become. This is a moving, beautifully written story; moreover, it is a brave one. We are fortunate indeed that she fell in love with Mulder and Scully and The X-Files; may she write many more such wonderful stories for us in the days to come.
My thanks to Amal, for giving permission for me to write about "Sweet Nothings for the Numb" and to the moderators of dvd_commentary for creating this terrific community.
Author: amalnahurriyeh
Fandom: The X-Files
Commentator: wendelah1
Anything that was originally posted under flock or in email has been quoted here with the permission of the author.
"Sweet Nothings for the Numb", without commentary.
III. Facts and Conclusions
Scully wakes to his voice speaking her name, quietly. His hand brushes her cheek. "Hey, Scully."
She opens her eyes, not connecting to where she is for a moment, wondering why Mulder is on her hotel room. Then she breathes in, and last night comes flooding back to her, the taste of him in the back of her throat, the pressure of his lips on her back. Oh my god, she thinks. "Mulder?"
"Morning," he says with just a touch of awkwardness.
"What time is it?" she asks. She starts to sit up but then realizes she's naked under the sheet. Oh my god.
"It's almost noon. Our flight's at two, but I figured you'd want to shower and eat first. I got breakfast." He gestured to a tray on the table. The flower was wilted. He must have been awake for hours. "I was just going to go running." So she didn't have to walk across the room naked on front of him. "Is that okay?"
"What? Yes, of course." She could barely look at him. "Have a good run."
"I'll be back in a bit." He stood, patted himself for his key, smiled back at her quickly, left.
Whereas Part I is entirely from Scully's POV, and Part II is all Mulder's, in Part III, Amal has written us a denouement that gives voice to both characters. First, we get to hear Scully sing her morning after the night (two nights actually, wasn't it?) before blues. Come on, you know she would regret having fallen apart in front of Mulder.
She lay in the bed for five full minutes after she heard the snick of the door. Oh my god. Once was bad enough. And she had been taking from him, making him do what she needed; all he had contributed was acquiescence. But last night she had crawled into his bed and turned herself over to him, had let him do whatever he wanted.
Almost anything. She had been blissfully writhing beneath him, unconscious to anything but the nerves firing, but the thought of him fucking her had brought her back to the night before in a sudden rush, and she had felt stabbed again with an unpronounceable grief. She couldn't remember when she had passed out, just that his mouth had been fierce against her skin but his hands gentle. Almost reticent.
That's why she stopped him, why she didn't want PIV. It reminded her of the night she pretended he could get her pregnant, which reminded her that she couldn't get pregnant, which snapped her back into grief.
She forces herself into the shower and stands under the water, trying to make some sense of the past two days. Fact: she had initiated all the sex. Mulder had seemed as detached as someone actively having sex could be, though not cold or hostile or unwilling. Fact: he was barely touching her when she had her clothes on. Fact: he was going out of his way to be helpful and solicitous, without seeming to have any opinions of his own. Conclusion: she'd spent the past two days getting pity-fucked by a man who, she was pretty sure, was in love with her.
I think this is right. Definitely a pity-fuck, though not something Mulder regrets doing for her. Maybe Mulder got his wish after all. This is a very Scully-like logical sequence.
She knocks her head against the tile softly, twice. She is such a fucking idiot. He'd do anything she asked, so she asked for the most fucked up thing possible, and probably ruined their friendship, not to mention any actual chance for a relationship. Which she didn't want, she was 95% sure, but didn't necessarily not want either. That was it. She would have to apologize for falling apart like this, for letting her emotions get the best of her. No matter how terrible she felt, she was entirely out of line. She never should have entertained her little fantasies of his magic sperm, certainly never should have crawled into his bed and let him soothe her with his tongue. She would apologize, and that would be that. She turns off the water.
Denial, thy name is Dana Scully.
Clothes are set on the vanity. She didn't bring them in here. She stares until she connects that this means he is back, that he didn't want to see her naked, that he brought her clothes to try to make it better. She nearly starts crying again. No. Clothes on, teeth brushed, out of the bathroom and on with the day.
This is the Scully scene that got to me. Oh, honey.
He is sitting on the bed, next to his suitcase. He's pulled out clothes to fly in, but the rest is packed. Her suitcase is on her bed, opened but still neat. He surveys the outfit he had picked out. "Nice threads."
She takes a deep breath. "Thanks for bringing them in. I must have spaced out."
"I just didn't want to get slapped. Do you mind if I shower? I don't think anyone wants to be in coach class with me right now."
"It's all yours," she says, and stands in front of her suitcase to repack her toiletries case. He passes by her so close she smells his sweat, feels his heat, and she remembers his body under hers, the glorious abandon, the struggle and raw nerves. She has to apologize. She had no choice.
***
She sits in an uncomfortable plastic chair and watches the planes taxi back and forth out the window, next to the blinking sign informing them their plane is delayed. She checked her luggage, and so doesn't have anything to occupy her hands but her purse. Mulder is sprawling in the seat next to her. Neither of them are looking at each other.
He stands suddenly. "I'm going to get a pack of gum. Do you want anything?"
Yes, my daughter, you to love me, to crawl into a hole and die. Her mouth is dry. "I don't have anything to read."
He nods and wanders off towards the little shop. Her brain is slow and incapable of clear linear thought, so she finds herself wondering what he's going to bring her. Really, it could be anything. Her brain circles endlessly back to the night before. She can't remember anything visual, just the sensations of his skin on hers, his lips chasing up and down her body, the feel of his hands holding her in place. She shifts in her seat. God, she was such a fool.
He appears again, and holds out a stack of magazines to her. She flips through them: The Economist; Nature; and Vogue. She holds up the copy of Vogue, and arches an eyebrow at him. He reaches over and snags it from her hand. "That's for me," he says casually, crosses his ankles, and opens it to a random page. If she didn't know what he actually looked like when he was interested in something, he would have been doing a very credible impersonation of someone who was deeply engrossed.
She opens the copy of Nature, and ignores him until their plane is called.
***
She had flown out of Baltimore with her mother, and Mulder had booked them into National, which meant that he is driving. She had tried to argue that it would be easier for him just to go home, that she could take a taxi, that he was driving twenty minutes out of his way to take her home, but he just picked up her suitcase--when had he started doing that?--and started walking to the parking shuttle. She didn't have the energy, anyway.
This is a nice little bit of continuity--Scully wondering when he started carrying her suitcase.
He pulls into a parking spot down the street from her apartment building. "You want me to carry your bag up?" he asks quietly.
She wants to say no; she wants to tell him to go the hell away, because if she spends any more time in his presence she might touch him again, she might need him more. Instead she swallows. "Sure." She steps out of the car and shrugs her winter coat around her shoulders. San Diego had been warmer, she knew this, but she felt better with her coat on, felt more like herself. She started walking towards her building without looking back at him.
Scully does wear her coat a lot, even in places where you would think it would be uncomfortably warm, like Arecibo. heh.
The sun has set, leaving the sky a dirty purple, and there is a gray crust of slush on the sidewalk. She unlocks the door to her building and holds it for him. He stomps his feet on the steps to avoid tracking slush onto her entryway. She calls the elevator without speaking.
Her apartment smells still and empty as she steps in. The red light on her answering machine is blinking; someone hadn't gotten the memo that she was away, or had expected her back five days ago. She glances around. It is emptier than she remembers; nothing here but her quiet objects. God, she doesn't even have a cat, couldn't have one, it would starve to death, no wonder she didn't deserve a daughter. Mulder's presence behind her is somehow steadying. She takes a deep breath of the stale air and walks across to her dining room table. She drops her coat across the chair, starts pulling off her gloves, and listens to the rattle of him putting the chain on her door. She wants him gone. She wants to curl up in his arms for a week. She drops the gloves on the table.
No time like the present to do what needs to be done, and she turns to him. He's still wearing his coat, but he wants to stay, he wants to know what he can do. "Mulder," she says quietly. He puts her suitcase down and steps towards her. He always stands so close, close enough to smell, close enough to feel the heat of his body, but she can't right now, he smells like stale airplane air, his heat is trapped in his coat. It's like talking to Mulder's ghost, and she resists the desire to peel his clothes off him before she starts talking, because if she does that they'll just fuck forever and she'll never get free of this, never. She folds her arms across her chest and stares at his feet. "Mulder, I need to apologize for my behavior over the past two days."
"Scully--"
She rushes past him. "I had no right. I know you acted out of friendship, but I was out of line. You've been more than generous with me, and I know you appreciate the extremity of the circumstance, but I asked you for things I had no right to ask you for. And I'm sorry I put you in that position."
He laughs. She is shocked for a moment, but when she manages to look at his face he is staring off over her shoulder, and he doesn't look at all amused. "I can't decide which part of that to argue about first," he says.
So don't argue, she thinks, but that'll never happen.
Mulder not arguing with Scully is a sure sign of the apocalypse.
He is avoiding her eyes as he starts talking. "Scully, you could ask me for anything. Contract killings, de-grouting the shower, date on command for family weddings and high school reunions, whatever, I'm there. So, that's not, that's not a thing. You can always ask." He looks up and suddenly their eyes meet, and it might be the first time today. "You have the right. And it wasn't--" He swallows. "It wasn't a hardship." He drags his eyes back up to hers, and she thinks she can see straight through him to his burning heart.
This brought me to tears. This is as close as he can come to declaring his feelings for her. Oh, Mulder.
She closes her eyes. She can't take this, can't carry his love for her next to her grief, can't hold all of this together. His hand brushes along her cheek, and she realizes just how close she is to crying. She inhales shakily and feels him step closer, and God, it just feels so right to have him so close. She tilts her head back without opening her eyes, and she feels him leaning down ever so slightly, until his lips brush hers. This is their first kiss, she realizes, or at least their first while dressed; he's licked every inch of her body but he never kissed her last night, and his dry lips on hers are warm and still, but she feels it through her whole body. He pulls away with his hand still on her face. She feels her desire to apologize draining out of her with her ability to stand up. She can't take much more of this, and she leans into his chest. He holds her up with a single hand on her back, and he must have memorized her back because he's holding her exactly over her tattoo, when he used to miss it by an inch and a half. This close she can feel his warmth, can smell him under the mustiness, and stands there cradled against his chest, not angry, not hurting, just tired, waiting.
He strokes her back gently, and she can tell he's about to ask if he should leave. She couldn't tell him to leave, can't ask him to stay, so she cuts him off. "Mulder, the other thing you have to tell me." She can feel him suddenly grow uncomfortable, but she keeps talking. "How bad is it?"
His hand is still on her back as he sorts out an answer. "There are ways in which it's very bad, and ways in which it's actually sort of good."
She pulls back and looks up at him. She is fairly sure that his fear is for himself. It's not that she isn't angry that he knew so much about what happened to her while she was abducted but kept his mouth shut, as that she is simply too exhausted to stay angry at him for very long. She needs him with her to fight this. If he would do anything for her, she will, eventually, forgive him for doing it. "What day is today?" she says.
"Thursday," he says.
"Are you planning on going to work tomorrow?"
He shrugs.
She nods. "Sit. I need a drink."
***
He watches her disappear into the kitchen, terrified, stomach twisted. Her little apology had broken him, but that she sunk into his arms right afterward gave him some hope. He has no idea how she is going to take this, but she wants him to tell her, and maybe that means something. He pulls off his coat and picks hers off the table, goes and hangs them both in her closet.
She emerges from her kitchen with a bottle of scotch and two glasses with ice cubes. Together, they sit on her couch as she pours. She hands him one of the glasses and clinks the rims together before she takes a long drink from hers. Does she really want to hear this? Why does Scully have scotch in her apartment? She sets her glass down on a coaster. He takes a perfunctory sip from his and sets it beside hers. "Tell me," she said steadily.
He has been thinking about how to finish this story, or how to begin to finish it, since he arrived in California, but he still doesn't have words. Instead, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out his wallet. The card is hidden behind a dozen for adult bookstores and paranormal researchers, battered and bent, but he knows exactly which one it is. He holds it out to her, and she takes it. Maryland Cryogenic Services, it says, and an address in College Park. She turns it over, but it's blank.
"Account number 4572934," he says quietly. "The name is Katherine Murray, which I know is obvious but was the best I come up with on short notice. The guys can get you ID in the name when you need it."
"What is it?" she asks, still staring at the card.
He watches her closely. "I'm fairly sure it's a vial of your ova." She doesn't react visibly. "As far as I know, they aren't fertilized and haven't been tampered with. The Crawfords let me take them, the night I broke into the Lombard Research Facility. They had more, but I wasn't thinking well enough to take them all. The storage unit they were in kept them frozen; the guys at the clinic were all over me to say where I had gotten the tech, but I thought it was better I not mention it." He cleared his throat. "I had them test them before I bought the space. They're viable."
She puts the card down on the table and picks up her drink. "They had them in vials."
"Yes. In a drawer. Not just yours; I recognized the names of other abductees." He swallows. "And a room full of clones outside it. It wasn't like Scanlon's; they were making adult clones, not altered children."
She take one long sip of the scotch, then another. She drains it with a third, and then, unceremoniously, throws the glass across the room, where it shatters on her wall, ice and glass landing on her floor.
He picks up his glass and hands it to her. "Thank you," she says, and drains it as well.
***
She sits in the silence with him, contemplating the melting ice in his glass. Her ova. He has them; he stole them back for her, was keeping them locked away while she was dying. As if there were any hope she would come back to him, any hope she would eventually be well enough to do something with them.
She thought the other night that he could get her pregnant. She didn't realize that, for all intents and purposes, he already had. I would happily put this scene into canon as a replacement for the lame one in the elevator (!!) the writers gave us in "Per Manum."
"Thank you," she says quietly. She feels him shift next to her, and looks over at him. He is still waiting for her to whip out her gun and press it to his temple, or to demand he does it himself. "For not treating them as evidence," she clarifies.
He shudders visibly. "You're not evidence."
She puts his glass back on his coaster. "You will never, ever keep information about me from me ever again. Are we clear?"
"Yes." He sounds genuinely contrite. Whether he is capable of following through on this promise is debatable, but at least he's willing to say it. Scully is nothing if not a realist about Mulder. She thinks of his hands bracketing her face on the floor of Bill's living room, just like in the hallway in Allentown, calling her back to him, calling her back to the fight. The clock above her VCR whispers that it's the witching hour, time for horrible things to come out and play. "I'm tired," she says.
He doesn't say anything. She stands and starts walking to the bedroom. "Come on."
**
He follows slowly, hesitantly. He had thought they had moved past this moment, that they could talk again. If they fuck more, will she apologize more? In the moonlight of her bedroom, she is pulling off her shirt, unsnapping her bra. He watches her from the doorway, unsure of what she wants. There is a faint bite mark on her shoulder. She pulls off her jeans and drops them and the shirt into her hamper. The edges of fingerprint bruises are visible, peeking out from her panties. She turns to him, watches him stand in the doorway, waiting. She is so beautiful, in the moonlight and faint sodium streetlight through her windows, that he doesn't know what to say.
She walks to her dresser, and pulls out a pair of his sweatpants that he must have left here at some point, and throws them at him. He runs them through his hands and watches her breasts swing as she bends down to pull out a pair of her own pajamas.
He thinks he can do this, as he unbuckles his belt, pulls off his sweater and then his t-shirt, because her apartment is always too warm, kicks off his shoes and lets his pants fall to the ground.
Mulder has his shirt off. Yum. Okay, I'm shallow.
"Don't just leave them on the floor. At least put them on a chair or something," she says, walking past him to the bathroom.
She must be feeling better, she's getting bossy.
He puts his clothes on the chair where he waited for her, steps into his sweatpants. She comes back into the room a moment later. "Bathroom's yours."
He doesn't have his toothbrush, but will live without it, he thinks as the toilet runs. He splashes cold water on his face, just like yesterday morning, but dries it with one of her towels. He swears he could find clothes washed in this apartment by smell alone. Back in the bedroom, she is curled under the covers on the far side of the bed. She opens her eyes and looks up at him as he enters. He peels back the covers, slides in next to her. She has one hand palm up in between them; he reaches out, takes it in his, pulls it to his lips and kisses her knuckles. It's not so much that she smiles, as that her face softens, and she tightens her grip on his hand for just a moment. "Good night," she whispers, as if there were someone to hear.
"Good night, Scully," he says, and watches her as her eyes close. She is still holding his hand, even when he finally falls asleep.
They do get to talk, a little, about the ova, but they never talk about what happened between them. This, unfortunately, is exactly what they would do. They would talk about the physical stuff. Scully, I have your ova, they're in a freezer, here's the card so you can retrieve them when you want them. Mulder, don't ever hide anything from me again. Yes, Scully. Mulder, I'm sorry I made you pity fuck me.
Like that's going to make it all go away.
The scene at the end with them holding hands is so very sweet, plus it allows for the possibility of intimacy. Eventually, in a few years, maybe.
I am so glad that Amal didn't stop with Part I, that she continued on and gave us a hint of resolution for the characters. Though, in a sense, they are right back to where they started; it's always one step forward, two steps back, for our Moose and Squirrel.
I should acknowledge that Hurt/Comfort/Angst is probably my absolute least favorite genre of fic. Since I rarely buy into the sex and almost never buy into the comfort, it is a tribute to Amal's talent that I love this story as I do. It probably helps that the hurt/angst component is canon, rather than a plot created for the sole purpose of getting the characters to acknowledge their feelings (atths). This is a much more realistic post-ep than most, especially for that pair of episodes.
Amal is the caliber of writer who would be garnering accolades and podcasts and ten pages of comments were she writing in a fandom that was less of a back-water than The X-Files has become. This is a moving, beautifully written story; moreover, it is a brave one. We are fortunate indeed that she fell in love with Mulder and Scully and The X-Files; may she write many more such wonderful stories for us in the days to come.
My thanks to Amal, for giving permission for me to write about "Sweet Nothings for the Numb" and to the moderators of dvd_commentary for creating this terrific community.