final gift for a_is4addiction
Title: Sun Must Rise
Author: _onlyconnect
Pairing/Character: Mulder/Scully, Scully/Doggett
Word Count: 1,779
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers/warning: Mulder is dead!
Summary: There is an emptiness in her now that time is trying to fill.
Note: For a_is4addiction. I am so sorry this is late!! I hope you enjoy it anyway!
Sun Must Rise
She liked to fall asleep in front of the TV. Since Dana Scully & Fox Mulder had met him eight years ago, her sleep cycle had slowly morphed into needing the soft blue flicker of bad crime dramas to lull her to sleep, that or the soft orange flicker of street lamps through Venetian blinds or a rental car window. That’s what comforted her.
Gone where the days where she drew the shades tightly against the intrusive city light, the television off. She needed the distraction. She needed to slip into sleep by surprise, without letting the demons of the X-Files find their way back into her subconscious. Of course, she preferred the drone of Mulder’s monotone to the muffled gun shots of Law & Order, but on the nights when they retired to separate apartments or motel rooms, late night cable would have to do.
She drank more. & often. It was a de-stressing kind of mechanism. Usually just a few beers with Mulder over a case report or a crappy movie or a glass of wine as she poured over a medical journal. She had come to a point where she needed a little extra help at night to get the mighty-morphing aliens & flukemen out of her head. Eventually, it didn’t stop there. Jim & Jack, tucked behind the pitcher & salad bowl for “emergency” reasons, got tapped into more often than not, & it only took her four or five trips to the cupboard to realize that she would need to take one of those trips to the liquor store.
She was rarely ever alone. It happened accidentally as often as it happened intentionally. Whether it was a case file review that turned into dinner, which turned into a movie, that turned into two seasoned FBI agents falling asleep in front of the television or whether it was Mulder in a heather tee shirt fixing her leaky water faucet or pulling a chair out for her at lunch, he just always seemed to be only a stone’s throw away.
Then too, there was the 24 hours a day they spent at work. She told herself, in the rare moments that she was truly alone, that she still had her independence, but when he called her just to say goodnight, she couldn’t help but think otherwise. She couldn’t help but think about the comfort she took in knowing he cared about where she was.
She liked it. She had liked being worked to the bone, toiling by his side. She liked falling asleep with her head on his shoulder, in car in an unnamed township in a state made mostly of grain. He made her feel important, like she was a part of a greater good, like her sacrifices necessary for triumph, that she had made the right decisions, despite the consequences.
So they did everything together. She restocked his shower with shampoo & made sure expired orange juice was thrown out. He changed light bulbs in her apartment before she could object. He made up excuses like his comforter smelled funny, & watched her fall asleep as he lay next to her in dirty dives on the road.
Intimacy through codependency. A ghost told her that once. & it took a full year for her to realize the validity in the statement, as she sat next to Mulder watching black & white Christmas movies again, his arm loosely, non-possessively around her shoulders. It was the holidays after all, & while he limited their physical interactions to the lower back & the face in times of need, he wasn’t averse to clinging to her a little more during times of celebration. During times when their isolation from the normal circumstance of civilization felt the most acute.
They were, for seven tears, like two heavenly bodies orbiting each other. Opposing forces. The scientist & the spirited conspirator. The holy vestibule & the damned. He was affected by her presence like a planet orbiting the sun, forever kept at arms length, forever trapped by the laws of physics, forever burned by her blaze & cooled by her shadow.
It was their complete unwillingness to secede from the roles they played for each other that kept them stranded in limbo. An endless purgatory where they looked but never touched, touched but never felt & felt but never said a word.
But the first time she took off her blouse for him, the first time he traced the swell of her hips with his hands, he felt those stone walls shake the earth as they tumbled to the ground. & for a few stolen months, for the briefest of flashes, they were granted the relief of a perfect match. Of the heat of his body, the weight of his promises, the thunder, the lightning, the bedside clock that blinked 3:16am. Of the color of her eyes, her halo of fire, the chill of crystalline tears, gypsy rains & a plane ticket to Oregon.
& when the news of his disappearance came blowing down the sterile hospital hallways, she felt nothing at all. Just the rush of the devastation as it ripped everything she knew away from her & then kept taking & taking & taking until all she had was a tombstone with his name on it. Just the empty spot in her chest where her heart used to be. Just a ghost that followed her wherever she went.
How unjust this end was. For Mulder to die was a simple & cruel way for the fight to end. Too definitive & final. How could she have the strength to continue the X-Files with a stubborn ex-Marine as a partner who made her look like a wild conspiracy theorist? How could she look back & find meaning in the quest that took his life? How was she supposed to face the emptiness he used to fill? How could she surface from the grief she was drowning in? Where was God in all of this?
But like after every great heartbreak, the universe refused to stop & kept spinning on & on, turning the present into history, relics into dust & the greatest love story ever told into an unforgettable tragedy. & like after every great tragedy, its end endeavored to lead to an inevitable new beginning, as sure as the sun must rise.
So she pretends to be interested in the game for a few minutes for his sake, but to be honest, men in shoulder pads were never really her thing. She was more of a baseball kind of girl, that is, she had become a baseball kind of girl. Scully wasn’t entirely sure of the intentions of the ex-marine that eyed her warily on the seat cushion next to her, but she knew, whatever they were, she wasn’t going to say no.
They once sat side by side on the sofa a few weeks earlier, too close for partners. Not as close as she & Mulder used to sit, but she could still feel Doggett shift as they sat transfixed to the screen while a Stanley Kubrick movie played on the TV, too nervous to be anything but fully engrossed. Is that what it was like? She asked him, she wanted to know. Her ex-marine, her partner now; how much like real life was this portrayal of service on the TV screen?
But now, as the faux-crowd cheered in the stands, she lets him kiss her, & the crowds are suddenly cheering for them, not the multi-colored players that dot the field.
For seven years she had blinded herself to the need of physical contact. For seven years she pretended that the way Mulder looked at her was enough. The gentle guidance of his hand or the intensity in his voice when he said her name, that that was enough. But once she opened herself to the galconda of possibilities, to his touches & to his promises, his absence ripped a thousand holes into her heart. & for the first time ever, she wonders what it was going to take to mend those holes. She wonders what it would be like to make love to a marine.
Except that one year with Mulder, with his possessive hands & his chapped lips, weighed more than seven years without, & her dear John Doggett, so full of good intentions, did nothing but make her heart ache. & as the ex-marine’s hands, skilled in war & killers of man, gently travel down her back & his lips gently test, she feels only an impostor begging to take Mulder’s place, she sees only blue eyes & confusion looking back. & none of that would ever be right.
His hands dropped defeated to his sides in a mannerism that was unquestionably unlike Mulder, for he would still be holding on, letting her go but keeping her close the whole time, his eyes needing her desperately.
But there is no more Mulder. All that she has left in the world is the ghost of her past that keeps the sun from rising. That keeps her suspended in tragedy that clouds her future.
Tears swelled under her blue, blue eyes as the ex-marine fumbles over apologies & reaches for his jacket. Instead of stopping him, instead of taking the blame, of belaying the guilt, she just lets the tears fall onto her open palms, onto hands that will never get to feel the weight of a lover again.
In her grief, & for the thousandth time, she pleads with God for Mulder next to her, black tee shirt, conspiratorial smile, one arm reaching across the back of the couch towards her. But when she blinks, he wavers in & out of focus like a dream & vanishes, like always.
There is a lock without any key, she realizes, imprisoning her broken heart for the rest of time without him, muffling the sound of its thunderous pounding, like the wings of a captured bird, begging for freedom. She wonders if, with age, it will become easier to ignore the burning cacophony of her own distraught, impossible desire. She wonders if she can convince her exhausted heart that there is still reason to beat on, alone & hopeless, seeking salvation in the bitter clarity of a winter night & the beauty in desolation & darkness only a setting sun can understand.
The clock on her mantle needs winding. It sits poised to strike midnight, to celebrate the dawn of the new day with the chiming of bells. Instead, the hands remain frozen, refusing to acknowledge the passing of time. For Dana Scully, it will forever be 11:59.
--------------//
a_is4addiction, I really hope this met the requirements of your wishlist! I haven't written fanfic for five years, so I'm a bit rusty, & I'm no writer, so excuse my gross misuse of commas & my inability to stick with one tense. Happy holidays & happy new year!
Author: _onlyconnect
Pairing/Character: Mulder/Scully, Scully/Doggett
Word Count: 1,779
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers/warning: Mulder is dead!
Summary: There is an emptiness in her now that time is trying to fill.
Note: For a_is4addiction. I am so sorry this is late!! I hope you enjoy it anyway!
Sun Must Rise
She liked to fall asleep in front of the TV. Since Dana Scully & Fox Mulder had met him eight years ago, her sleep cycle had slowly morphed into needing the soft blue flicker of bad crime dramas to lull her to sleep, that or the soft orange flicker of street lamps through Venetian blinds or a rental car window. That’s what comforted her.
Gone where the days where she drew the shades tightly against the intrusive city light, the television off. She needed the distraction. She needed to slip into sleep by surprise, without letting the demons of the X-Files find their way back into her subconscious. Of course, she preferred the drone of Mulder’s monotone to the muffled gun shots of Law & Order, but on the nights when they retired to separate apartments or motel rooms, late night cable would have to do.
She drank more. & often. It was a de-stressing kind of mechanism. Usually just a few beers with Mulder over a case report or a crappy movie or a glass of wine as she poured over a medical journal. She had come to a point where she needed a little extra help at night to get the mighty-morphing aliens & flukemen out of her head. Eventually, it didn’t stop there. Jim & Jack, tucked behind the pitcher & salad bowl for “emergency” reasons, got tapped into more often than not, & it only took her four or five trips to the cupboard to realize that she would need to take one of those trips to the liquor store.
She was rarely ever alone. It happened accidentally as often as it happened intentionally. Whether it was a case file review that turned into dinner, which turned into a movie, that turned into two seasoned FBI agents falling asleep in front of the television or whether it was Mulder in a heather tee shirt fixing her leaky water faucet or pulling a chair out for her at lunch, he just always seemed to be only a stone’s throw away.
Then too, there was the 24 hours a day they spent at work. She told herself, in the rare moments that she was truly alone, that she still had her independence, but when he called her just to say goodnight, she couldn’t help but think otherwise. She couldn’t help but think about the comfort she took in knowing he cared about where she was.
She liked it. She had liked being worked to the bone, toiling by his side. She liked falling asleep with her head on his shoulder, in car in an unnamed township in a state made mostly of grain. He made her feel important, like she was a part of a greater good, like her sacrifices necessary for triumph, that she had made the right decisions, despite the consequences.
So they did everything together. She restocked his shower with shampoo & made sure expired orange juice was thrown out. He changed light bulbs in her apartment before she could object. He made up excuses like his comforter smelled funny, & watched her fall asleep as he lay next to her in dirty dives on the road.
Intimacy through codependency. A ghost told her that once. & it took a full year for her to realize the validity in the statement, as she sat next to Mulder watching black & white Christmas movies again, his arm loosely, non-possessively around her shoulders. It was the holidays after all, & while he limited their physical interactions to the lower back & the face in times of need, he wasn’t averse to clinging to her a little more during times of celebration. During times when their isolation from the normal circumstance of civilization felt the most acute.
They were, for seven tears, like two heavenly bodies orbiting each other. Opposing forces. The scientist & the spirited conspirator. The holy vestibule & the damned. He was affected by her presence like a planet orbiting the sun, forever kept at arms length, forever trapped by the laws of physics, forever burned by her blaze & cooled by her shadow.
It was their complete unwillingness to secede from the roles they played for each other that kept them stranded in limbo. An endless purgatory where they looked but never touched, touched but never felt & felt but never said a word.
But the first time she took off her blouse for him, the first time he traced the swell of her hips with his hands, he felt those stone walls shake the earth as they tumbled to the ground. & for a few stolen months, for the briefest of flashes, they were granted the relief of a perfect match. Of the heat of his body, the weight of his promises, the thunder, the lightning, the bedside clock that blinked 3:16am. Of the color of her eyes, her halo of fire, the chill of crystalline tears, gypsy rains & a plane ticket to Oregon.
& when the news of his disappearance came blowing down the sterile hospital hallways, she felt nothing at all. Just the rush of the devastation as it ripped everything she knew away from her & then kept taking & taking & taking until all she had was a tombstone with his name on it. Just the empty spot in her chest where her heart used to be. Just a ghost that followed her wherever she went.
How unjust this end was. For Mulder to die was a simple & cruel way for the fight to end. Too definitive & final. How could she have the strength to continue the X-Files with a stubborn ex-Marine as a partner who made her look like a wild conspiracy theorist? How could she look back & find meaning in the quest that took his life? How was she supposed to face the emptiness he used to fill? How could she surface from the grief she was drowning in? Where was God in all of this?
But like after every great heartbreak, the universe refused to stop & kept spinning on & on, turning the present into history, relics into dust & the greatest love story ever told into an unforgettable tragedy. & like after every great tragedy, its end endeavored to lead to an inevitable new beginning, as sure as the sun must rise.
So she pretends to be interested in the game for a few minutes for his sake, but to be honest, men in shoulder pads were never really her thing. She was more of a baseball kind of girl, that is, she had become a baseball kind of girl. Scully wasn’t entirely sure of the intentions of the ex-marine that eyed her warily on the seat cushion next to her, but she knew, whatever they were, she wasn’t going to say no.
They once sat side by side on the sofa a few weeks earlier, too close for partners. Not as close as she & Mulder used to sit, but she could still feel Doggett shift as they sat transfixed to the screen while a Stanley Kubrick movie played on the TV, too nervous to be anything but fully engrossed. Is that what it was like? She asked him, she wanted to know. Her ex-marine, her partner now; how much like real life was this portrayal of service on the TV screen?
But now, as the faux-crowd cheered in the stands, she lets him kiss her, & the crowds are suddenly cheering for them, not the multi-colored players that dot the field.
For seven years she had blinded herself to the need of physical contact. For seven years she pretended that the way Mulder looked at her was enough. The gentle guidance of his hand or the intensity in his voice when he said her name, that that was enough. But once she opened herself to the galconda of possibilities, to his touches & to his promises, his absence ripped a thousand holes into her heart. & for the first time ever, she wonders what it was going to take to mend those holes. She wonders what it would be like to make love to a marine.
Except that one year with Mulder, with his possessive hands & his chapped lips, weighed more than seven years without, & her dear John Doggett, so full of good intentions, did nothing but make her heart ache. & as the ex-marine’s hands, skilled in war & killers of man, gently travel down her back & his lips gently test, she feels only an impostor begging to take Mulder’s place, she sees only blue eyes & confusion looking back. & none of that would ever be right.
His hands dropped defeated to his sides in a mannerism that was unquestionably unlike Mulder, for he would still be holding on, letting her go but keeping her close the whole time, his eyes needing her desperately.
But there is no more Mulder. All that she has left in the world is the ghost of her past that keeps the sun from rising. That keeps her suspended in tragedy that clouds her future.
Tears swelled under her blue, blue eyes as the ex-marine fumbles over apologies & reaches for his jacket. Instead of stopping him, instead of taking the blame, of belaying the guilt, she just lets the tears fall onto her open palms, onto hands that will never get to feel the weight of a lover again.
In her grief, & for the thousandth time, she pleads with God for Mulder next to her, black tee shirt, conspiratorial smile, one arm reaching across the back of the couch towards her. But when she blinks, he wavers in & out of focus like a dream & vanishes, like always.
There is a lock without any key, she realizes, imprisoning her broken heart for the rest of time without him, muffling the sound of its thunderous pounding, like the wings of a captured bird, begging for freedom. She wonders if, with age, it will become easier to ignore the burning cacophony of her own distraught, impossible desire. She wonders if she can convince her exhausted heart that there is still reason to beat on, alone & hopeless, seeking salvation in the bitter clarity of a winter night & the beauty in desolation & darkness only a setting sun can understand.
The clock on her mantle needs winding. It sits poised to strike midnight, to celebrate the dawn of the new day with the chiming of bells. Instead, the hands remain frozen, refusing to acknowledge the passing of time. For Dana Scully, it will forever be 11:59.
--------------//
a_is4addiction, I really hope this met the requirements of your wishlist! I haven't written fanfic for five years, so I'm a bit rusty, & I'm no writer, so excuse my gross misuse of commas & my inability to stick with one tense. Happy holidays & happy new year!