Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Day 1

6:57 P.M.

“Testing, testing.”

“Mulder.” Scully smiles as she presses the phone to her ear. “Enjoying your tour of the place?”

“I can’t think of a few square meters I’d rather be confined to for a month. Who knew the FBI kept an entire hotel floor just for mystery quarantines?”

“You, probably.”

She hears a chuckle from the other end of the line.

“At least the phone works,” she adds.

“It’s practically luxury. We’ve even got balconies.”

“The plastic sheeting around them is a nice touch. Very cozy.” She sits down on the bed, the sterile white sheets still fresh. “There’s no way I’ll go stir-crazy in here.”

“I’m just a few inches of drywall and a phone call away.” As he says this, Scully hears a knock on the wall behind her head– his rhythmic shave-and-a-haircut. She knocks back: Two bits.

“You’re going to get your wish, Mulder,” she says after a moment’s silence.

“What?”

“I’m taking some time off. I don’t think this is how you meant it, but…”

He clicks his tongue. “The things it takes to slow you down, Dr. Scully.”

“Well, maybe we both need it. You’ve been stretched pretty thin yourself.” Truthfully, a break from work is the last thing Scully wants. She can only imagine he feels the same, but seeing as they have entirely no choice, optimism seems the best route. “Hold on, someone’s at my door. I think it’s the books and clothes I asked for from my place.”

Day 2

2:53 P.M.

“Hey, neighbor.” He picks up the phone the second it rings, glad to look away from his notebook for a minute.

“Mulder, what are you doing right now?”

“Working on my case report. Why?”

Scully sighs on the other end of the line. “Can I copy your notes?”

“Alright, but if you get in trouble, don’t tell anyone it was me.”

She chuckles, and he can picture her on the other side of the wall, phone up to her ear, just as exhausted as he is in front of another case report, wondering how much longer she can take it. He leans against the headboard, imagining she must be doing the same.

“I can handle this one, Scully. Don’t worry about it. They only need one, anyway.”

“No, I should. I need to report what I saw in the autopsies and the blood tests, and… what happened to Jesse. When you weren’t there.”

Mulder looks down at his own case report, detailing what he’d found Trepkos doing in the tunnels– though leaving out the fear he’d felt at the smell of gasoline and roar of the fire.

“I’m sorry I left you there, Scully. I would never–”

“Mulder, it’s fine. You were doing your job, I was doing mine. And we both made it out: that’s all that matters.”

“Barely,” he argues. “We shouldn’t have gone anywhere alone when we didn’t know how the parasite was spread, how the symptoms manifested, what effects it had on the victims’ behavior– you were seconds away from getting taken by a throat-ripping p–”

“And you were seconds away from being shot and burned. Or infected yourself, if Trepkos hadn’t beat you to the shot.”

She’s right. Based on the infection timeline, Ludwig could have given over to the parasite at any time in those tunnels if Trepkos hadn’t intervened, and he would have been right in the path of destruction.

“We were quick on our feet and we were lucky. Quite frankly, a lot more of it is pure luck than I’m really comfortable with.”

“How lucky can we be?” he jokes back. “We still have to write these reports.”

Day 3

1:03 P.M.

“Scully, does it occur to you that putting a glass up against the wall and taking turns shouting would be just as effective as this?”

“Maybe, but this way I can take you into the kitchen.” Though with the mini-kitchen being all of five paces from her bed, the extension cord doesn’t get much use.

“What a treat. What’s for lunch?”

“From my extensive options of canned and frozen foods… ravioli and broccoli.” She adjusts the phone against her shoulder as she reaches for the can opener. “And seeing as I only woke up two hours ago, I think this is technically breakfast.”

“Well, my last meal was three eggos at four in the morning, so I think you’re doing better than me.”

“Quarantine won’t protect you from scurvy, Mulder.”

“Well, if you insist. I can’t argue with doctor’s orders.”

“Really? You usually have no trouble with that.”

“I’m feeling generous.”

She shakes her head, though he can’t see it. “Eat something that grows outside, Mulder.”

Day 4

4:23 P.M.

“Scully, did you know we’ve got cable here?”

“As it happens, I did.”

“I don’t even have to miss Monday Night Football.”

“Next you’re going to tell me you’ve got a pay-per-view,” Scully says dryly, and he laughs.

“Do you think I could bill it as a work expense?”

“Tell me if you find out.”

“Hmm, I’d hate to interrupt Maury.”

“Well, you’ve caught me in the middle of a riveting nature documentary. Did you know how old some sharks are?”

“No, tell me more.”

Day 5

10:44 A.M.

“Scully, is there a painting on the wall to the left of your window, about two feet in width and one foot in height, uninspiringly muted in shade, and frustratingly irregular in perspective and shadow, as if in a non-space where the laws of physics are not wholly consistent?”

“It’s uncanny, Mulder,” she replies. “It’s like you're in here right now. You must’ve found the secret behind all those psychic links in your case reports. How ever did you do it?”

“It’s a secret fraught with peril and subterfuge. Anything I tell you could be a danger to both our futures–”

“Or have you simply seen enough mind-numbingly mediocre hotel room art to realize that they come cheaper by the dozen?”

“That could be a factor.”

“I’ll be sure to put that in my case report.” As has become her habit during their (at least) daily phone call, she adjusts to a more comfortable position and leans back against the wall for a long chat. “What’s your painting?”

“A glass of wine and a bowl of grapes with their shadows all going different directions. Scully, I can’t for the life of me figure out where the light is coming from.” He says it with all the dead seriousness with which he would present her an x-file. “What have you got?”

“A cup of tea and a wilted flower. Much less subterfuge with the light. You must have a more experimental work by our tortured painter.”

“Maybe there’s a disco ball out of frame to throw all the light around like this,” he suggests. Then, “No, not even that would explain it.”

“You miss the office, Mulder? Your posters and sticky notes and pictures of skulls and UFOs?”

“Maybe my pictures weren’t rational by your standards, but they were rationally lit,” he agrees. “It’s not exactly the corner office, Scully, but I was looking forward to being back in it, with Skinner reopening the x-files.”

“So was I. It was nice to walk in there and not break in, for one day. Then… back to business as usual.” Because that’s what this was, really, for them. Just another job and its consequences.

“You know I still think some time off is a good thing,” Mulder says gently, trying not to be too forceful, but he still hears her heave a sigh of frustration on the other end. “Not like this, but maybe not right back to business as usual–”

“Mulder, I told you, I don’t need time. I need business as usual. I know it must sound strange to you, with all the time that passed, and everything that you went through, but I really don’t remember any of it. I… I remember being very frightened, and calling for help–”

Mulder, I need your help! Mulder! yes, he can still hear it echoing in his ears.

“And then the hospital. Nothing in between. It’s… it’s not comfortable, looking at the calendar and wondering what happened to all those days, or having to call my mother every day to reassure her I’m still alive, or any of it, but… it’d be worse to have all that and be treated like I couldn’t be the person I was before it all happened.” The well of anxiety only grows in his stomach the more she talks about it. “I’m not broken, Mulder. Physically, I’m fine. Mentally, I’m… there’s nothing to get over. It’s all gone.”

“Mulder, I don’t know what you went through when I was… gone. I’m sure it was hard. I’m sure it was painful, and I’m grateful for everything you did, but… I think maybe you’re the one who still needs to recover from this. I think you’re the one who’s having trouble moving forward.”

“I didn’t do anything, though,” he says hoarsely, quietly, and he almost wonders if his voice can carry through the phone like this. “I didn’t find you in time. I couldn’t protect you, I couldn’t save you, I couldn’t find a cure for it– I was useless, Scully, I–”

Oh. She’s right. He is the one still reeling from what happened to her, he is the one struggling to face moving forward in a world where these things can happen and he can do nothing to prevent them.

He is the one who needs to learn to go back to normal.

“Mulder? Are you still there?”

He nods, then remembers they’re on the phone. “Scully, I just want you to be safe.”

“I’m as safe as we can be in this line of work, Mulder. We have the x-files back. We can work together again. It’s better than how it was before. That’s enough for me. It has to be.”

“Business as usual,” he repeats. “I’m not sure there’s any going back from what happened, Scully. Not… not just Duane Barry, but everything with Deep Throat and Purity Control and–” And every other step towards darkness since then.

“There’s no going back,” she agrees. He worked on the x-files for long enough before Scully came along, but her arrival brought a new intensity and desperation to the work, and with it someone else to look out for. He certainly can’t go back from that, and she says as much: “There’s only going forward.”

Mulder opens his mouth to respond, but nothing comes, and Scully keeps talking.

“Sure, a month-long quarantine for a volcanic parasite-monster is a good day for us,” she laughs. God, what have I brought her into? “But you don’t want to take a break, do you?”

“No,” he finally has the breath to reply. “Of course not, never.”

“So you understand why I can’t either.”

“We can’t stop,” he agrees. “Not without knowing the truth.” Even as we drift towards danger, he thinks, but she insists on drifting into it with him, and that is the normal in front of them.

“There’s the Mulder I wanted to hear,” and he finds himself smiling. That’s the Dana Scully he needed to hear.

Day 6

2:10 P.M.

“Hey Scully, turn on your TV, Wizard of Oz is on.”

“I wouldn’t have pegged you for a Judy Garland fan.”

“In a way, it’s one of the first UFO movies. She gets taken up in the tornado and transported to somewhere new, in color…”

“And the Munchkins are aliens who abducted her?”

“UFO sightings are common around funnel clouds and tornadoes. Especially in the Great Plains region.”

“Well, she’s not in Kansas anymore,” Scully says as the TV turns to Technicolor.

“Only eight years from Roswell, Scully.”

“I wonder what Judy Garland had to say about that.”

Day 7

“Scully, step out onto your balcony.”

“And get up?” she sighs.

“I’ll let you get back to your important business soon, I promise. Just come out for a minute.”

She picks up her phone and walks out to the balcony, bracing herself slightly at the change in temperature.

“Isn’t it nice to get some fresh air and sunshine?”

“Through the plastic sheeting?” It’s transparent, but though the wind is making it flap, none of the cool air actually reaches her.

“Look to your right,” he says. As she turns her head, there he is, smiling and waving through her own clear plastic sheeting. “It’s nice to see another human face. I was close to making conversation with the water stain on my ceiling.”

She waves back. “Good to see you too, Mulder.” She places her palm up against the sheet in some vain hope that some of the freshness of the outside air will somehow transfer through to her stale little bubble, like the touch of her skin could somehow break the walls of a quarantine room.

Across the gap, Mulder mirrors the gesture, his hand now directly opposite hers like some invisible line connecting them through the layers of plastic.

For a moment, the air does feel different.

Day 8

11:53 P.M.

“Scully?”

“Mulder, you woke me up– is everything– what’s going on?”

“...My throat hurts.”

Scully bolts upright in bed at what would have, under any normal circumstances, been an annoyingly inconsequential late-night call, but no circumstances of theirs are normal. “Do you have any other symptoms? A cough? Have you called Doctor–”

“No, no, no,” Mulder says, sounding breathless, though whether from illness or panic is unclear. “If I’m infected I’m already dead, Scully. Everyone out there was dead within hours of first onset of symptoms–”

“And onset of first symptoms was within a day of exposure,” Scully continues. “It’s been more than a week. I think you’d be out of the woods by now.”

“Not necessarily,” he argues. “If I was exposed to a small quantity, it could take longer to incubate– first onset of symptoms being later, milder–”

“It’s possible, but it doesn’t seem likely, Mulder,” she insists. She believes, but if she is being scientifically, objectively honest with herself, she needs it to be true. “If you were exposed, I was too. I feel fine.”

“You weren’t in those tunnels with Trepkos, with Ludwig. Anything could’ve been in there, his body could’ve released something when he was shot–”

He’s speaking so quickly that he’s barely breathing between words, and sick or not, she knows it can’t be good for him. “Mulder, stay calm. It’s probably… I don’t think you’re infected, not if your symptoms don’t get worse. It’s going to be okay, Mulder.”

Day 9

12:00 A.M

“I just don’t want to be alone.”

His breathing is slowed, his words calmer, but with a fear that is less panic and more a creeping, bone-deep dread.

“Can you… Can you stay on the line?” he asks, his voice almost pleading. “If I really am infected… hours from first symptoms. I don’t want to be alone if anything– if it happens.”

She knows what she is supposed to do. Quarantine procedures clearly instruct that they are supposed to alert the medical staff immediately if anyone presents any symptoms. They should have done this at the start of this conversation. But he’s right– if he’s infected, he’s already dead, and no doctor can do anything, and he is alone in a dark, empty hotel room. What can she do but keep him company through these long, lonely hours?

“I’m right here, Mulder,” she promises, and gently knocks on the wall next to her. Shave-and-a-hair-cut.

His knock comes back in answer: Two bits.

“And drink some water. You’re probably just dehydrated, or something.”

“It’d be just my luck to find an unknown-to-science silicon parasite hiding in a volcano and come back with a normal, earthly cold, huh?”

“That sounds like pretty good luck to me, Mulder.”

“I wouldn’t complain if I made it through the night with my throat intact.”

Scully winces slightly while laughing. “I wouldn’t either.”

“Although, I can think of some people who might not be heartbroken.”

“Well, they and I can’t both get our way, and I don’t know if you’ve heard, Mulder, but people say I can be somewhat stubborn.”

Mulder laughs, deeply and wholly, and she smiles, priding herself on having distracted him for at least a minute.

“I can’t imagine. Who’d say a thing like that?”

3:27 P.M.

Scully wakes up with the late-afternoon sunlight streaming in through her window and her phone buzzing on the bed next to her, the line dead. As she comes to she remembers it all: sitting up on the phone with Mulder all night, listening for any changes while they talked about whatever they could think of to pass the time, until they’d gotten so tired they went entirely quiet and she only listened to his steady, slowing breathing. She doesn’t remember falling asleep, but she must have at some point, and Mulder…

She grabs the phone and punches in the numbers for his room in a sudden rush to know, to hear his voice, to hear– even as much as she doubts he could be infected– that he made it through the night.

“Mulder?”

A small groan comes through the phone. “Scully? You woke me up–”

“You’re alright.” She breathes out a sigh of relief. “Your throat?”

“Fine,” he yawns. “Probably just dehydrated, like you said. I’m sorry I bothered you last night, Scully, keeping you up. I–”

“I’m just glad you’re alright, Mulder.”

“No ‘I told you so’? That I couldn’t be infected?”

“I thought I’d let you wake up first.”

“What time is it, anyways?”

“It’s half-past-three. Look, I’ll let you get back to bed, I need to shower, I just… wanted to check in.”

“Thanks.” Scully reaches to hang up, but his voice comes through the line again. “...Thank you for keeping me company. For staying.”

His tone is heavy, with something unsaid lingering under it, something she can’t take under the weight of everything else that’s happened. She brushes it off as she acknowledges it with a soft, “Any time.”

Day 10

“They’re already putting us back to work, Mulder. Did you get one of these too?”

“A stack of receipts to verify, sign, and compile? Yes.”

“I can’t believe we’re doing their accounting for them,” she bemoans. “Usually we can just submit these.”

“To be fair, the head of accounting did tell me our department’s financial reports were some of the ‘most disastrous and vague’ he’d ever seen.”

“Sorry I don’t know how to bill banshee-hunting equipment, Mulder,” she grumbles. “Is that not good enough of an answer for them? Because it’s all you’d tell me.”

“Frankly, Scully, I think it explains itself.”

“Then your receipts should be no problem.”

Day 11

“This had better be important, Mulder, I smudged my nail polish picking up the phone.”

“Well, it can’t have been more important than that. What color?”

“Light pink.” She reaches for the bottle to fix her smudged nail. “Why, did you want to match?”

“Is this a sleepover or something?”

“Truth or dare?”

“Dare.”

“I dare you to tell me where you’re going before you run off one of these days.”

“I change my mind. Truth.”

Day 12

7:53 P.M.

“It’s late. I was wondering when you were going to call me.”

“Could’ve called me first,” he replies.

“I didn’t have anything to talk about. And I tried to think of something, believe me.”

“Now, now, I tried to call you the other day and the line was busy. You’ve got other people to talk to.”

“My mother. No need to be jealous.” Mulder laughs. “She said to give you her best.”

He smiles, remembering Scully’s mother and her unnecessary kindness to him in their moment of need, bringing him into the intimacy of the family sickbed, and making him feel like a part of one of those elusive things for the first time since his own family had shattered. Giving her his best doesn’t quite seem sufficient.

“Tell her I said hello.”

Definitely not sufficient.

“Next time she calls.”

“I’ll wait for the next time I get a busy signal.”

“You’ve got to have someone besides me who talks to you.”

“Oh, the Lone Gunmen called me the other day to try and get me to do an article about the Firewalker. I told them I’m trying to keep my name clean for now.”

“That’s not like you, Mulder.”

“I think I’m on thin ice. I’ll save my wiggle room for something a little more important.”

“Prioritizing. You’re learning.”

“You’re a bad influence, Scully.”

“If that’s what it takes.”

Day 12

12:02 P.M.

“Listen to this answer they just missed on Final Jeopardy, Mulder. You’d be crying–”

“If it’s the one about the first modern UFO sighting, I already am,” he laments.

“Kenneth Arnold, Mount Rainier” she confirms.

“You do me proud,” he sighs. “Unlike that librarian from Arizona.”

“You should’ve been on that podium.”

He chuckles. “Do you remember staying home sick from school and watching game shows? The Price is Right?”

“I barely stayed home sick,” Scully sighs. “I had to be so ill I couldn’t sit up for my father to let me stay home from school, and that happened maybe twice in my life before med school.”

“Not me, I was a sickly kid. Bronchitis, flu, you name it… I was on the couch with Family Feud and Little House.”

“Little House, hm?”

“Doesn’t seem my style?”

“I never know what to expect from you, Mulder.”

Day 13

3:09 A.M.

“Mulder?”

“Scully?” He bolts up in bed and presses the phone to his ear. The panic of the late-night phone call is instant as he runs a dozen hypothetical scenarios of what could have happened to her to have her call him at this hour of the night. “What’s wrong? Are you alright?”

“I’m okay. I just… I had a nightmare.” He lets out a sigh of relief. “It’s silly, I shouldn’t have called, I just–

“Didn’t want to be alone. I know. Not silly at all,” he does his best to reassure. “We all have nightmares, Scully.”

She’s quiet on the other end of the phone. “...I don’t like feeling frightened of things that aren’t even there,” she admits. “There’s enough out there without my imagination.”

It hurts to picture her, sitting alone in her hotel room trying so hard to be strong, to be stoic, to not let the full force of what happened touch her– let alone anyone else. Not even knowing the truth or extent of what happened, and her unconscious mind filling in the blanks with terrors. Lord knows he’s been there. The truth is hard to handle sometimes, but the absence is almost inevitably worse in the end.

“I feel shadows when I’m alone in my room,” she admits. “I’m always looking over my shoulder. What do I have if I don’t have my instincts anymore, Mulder? The ability to trust what I can see?”

“I trust you,” Mulder says. “All we have is that, Scully. You know the shadows aren’t there when you turn around, you can trust that, and if it comes to that, I’ll be here to tell you to trust in it. It’s all we can do to trust in our instincts and trust what we can see. Trust each other.”

“I trust you.” She laughs a little, and he’s not sure there’s much humor in it, but it’s still reassuring.. “I don’t always believe you, Mulder, but I always trust you. I can’t lose that.”

And oh, he prays to the powers that be that she never does.

Day 14

1:03 P.M.

“Can you hear the rain outside?”

“It’s pounding,” Mulder confirms. “The weatherman says there’ll be lightning later.”

“It’s nice to have something to listen to outside. It makes the world feel a little bigger and a little closer.”

I feel shadows when I’m alone. “I don’t like thunder.” The rain and wind causes all kinds of creaking and unexplained noises that make him jump with nerves.

“Maybe we’ll get lucky,” she suggests.

Now he wonders if he can’t see the shadows too. “Maybe.”

“Are you alright, Mulder? You seem… quiet?”

Did I tell her the truth? Can we trust our eyes, our instincts?

“I’m fine,” he brushes past. “It’s the air pressure change. These sudden storms, yknow?”

“I guess,” Scully says.

I’m always looking over my shoulder.

“You’ll tell me if anything’s wrong, Mulder?”

“Right as rain.”

Day 15

2:43 A.M.

“...Mulder? You woke me up.”

“Scully, have you checked your room?”

“What?” She’s still groggy.

“For… bugs, taps, cameras, any monitoring device. Did you check your room? This line, should I even be…”

“Mulder, slow down. Did you find something?”

“No,” he admits, sitting on the floor of his hotel room surrounded by lightbulbs and gutted electronics and turned over furniture. “I checked my whole room for bugs, but–”

I feel shadows.

“We’re on their turf, Scully, it’s crazy to think they wouldn’t try to keep an eye on us.”

“We’re in quarantine, Mulder–”

“The perfect time to get something to use against us!”

I keep looking over my shoulder. He should’ve told her to trust those instincts; maybe there is someone there.

“Mulder. Stop shouting. I’ll look, just in case, but… Mulder, I think you might be worrying about nothing here. They put us back together, they put us back on the x-files. The enemies of the x-files, they wouldn’t be able to reach us here in a quarantine arranged under their auspices.”

“We have no idea how high it could go.”

“I’m looking. But where did this even come from, Mulder? You didn’t find anything–”

“It’s crazy to think that the people who did what they did to you would give up that easily!”

“Oh.” And he can feel the shift in Scully’s demeanor over the phone when he finally says what’s been on his mind: the disappointment, the frustration, the weariness. “So that’s what this is all about.”

“It’s about keeping you– us– safe.”

“I can’t be an outlet for your paranoia, Mulder. I get nervous.” I keep looking over my shoulders. “My mind wanders. I know the risks but I know it’s worth going back out there every day. And I know that if I’m going to do that, I can’t be frightened of every shadow and sound I think I hear. I have to just press forward.”

“You don’t remember it,” Mulder snaps back, knowing as he says it that he’s going to regret it, knowing that it’s wrong. “It wasn’t just shadows, it isn’t. I still remember every minute of it, Scully, and I don’t know that what I hear isn’t real, not anymore. You just don’t–” You just don’t know what it’s like, to remember every crash and every scream, every drop of blood on every shattered piece of glass, every fading heartbeat and every single breath as I was losing you. “You didn’t have to listen to the second worst day of your life on tape a hundred times,” And it was only the second worst day because you came back, Scully, and I can still barely believe you came back.

“You think I don’t know my life?” Scully snaps. “You think I don’t know how serious what happened to me is? Because it happened to me, Mulder, not you. It happened to me. And I don’t need you to keep reminding me of what happened. You’re my partner, you’re supposed to help me move forward, not pull me back.”

“Scully…”

“I’m back, Mulder. Call me again when you are.”

And the line drops with a slam and a click.

Chapter Text

Day 16

*

Day 17

*

Day 18

The number you are trying to reach is currently busy. Please call again–

Day 19

“Scully.”

“Mulder.”

“I wasn’t sure you’d pick up,” he admits. “...Scully, I’m sorry. That I tried to push you out, that I didn’t listen to you. I know you know what you’re doing. I know you can take care of yourself.” I just don’t want you to have to.

“I’m sorry I got so angry,” Scully returns, as if she has any reason to apologize to him. “I… Am so grateful for everything you went through for me. I know I can’t possibly imagine what it was like.” He feels unworthy of the gratitude after how he behaved. “But I am able to take care of myself now. I don’t want to keep fighting about it.”

“I don’t want to fight either.” He has never hated this little chunk of drywall more in these two weeks, as he longs so badly to put a hand on her shoulder and look into her eyes. He feels that it is only by her side where he can tell her at once how much he cares for her and her safety and honors her bravery and intelligence. The sentiment falls flat over the line and he can tell from her silence that Scully still feels unresolved.

She breaks the silence: “Missy called yesterday. So that’s why the line was busy, he thinks. “I haven’t heard from her since I was in hospital.”

“How is she?” He had liked Scully’s aura-channeling, crystal-wielding sister, who had her head in the clouds but her feet down to earth where it really mattered, a balance he himself could not manage.

“She’s well. Still… her.” She clears her throat. “She… made me remember some things that happened while I was recovering.”

There is trepidation in her tone. “We don’t have to go through anything you don’t want to.”

“It’s okay, Mulder. I do.” He is apprehensive to hear what she remembers, not being entirely proud of how he behaved in his panic. “When I was… in the coma, I had this– a dream, I guess it was. I was on a river, in a boat, tied to a dock… and I was out floating, away from shore. I was close enough to see it, but I couldn’t pull myself back. I saw you, I saw my sister, my mother, but you were just standing there. Silent and out of focus. I felt so far away. I could see you, but couldn’t reach you.”

How funny. He’d felt the same.

“And then… the rope broke. I was drifting away, farther and farther from shore. There was fog rolling in, and I was losing sight of you. Then I saw a hand, and you reached into the water and grabbed the rope, and started pulling me back. And I could finally see your face clearly.”

Mulder’s throat is dry hearing her relay the story. She had seemed as she described it, so far away yet close enough to touch. But he hadn’t been strong enough to bring her back.

“I… had another dream after that. My father was there, telling me I wasn’t ready to join him yet. But Mulder, Missy told me how she went to your apartment. How you were sitting alone in the dark, ready to kill the next person who walked in. She told me she worried you were too far into the darkness to be brought back. But… you came. I was drifting out, and you came and… Mulder, I don’t know what you gave up to be there that night. But you brought me back.” She breathes deeply. “You brought me back.”

He remembers what Melissa told him when he first came in to see Scully: that his anger and fear were blocking any positive emotions that could reach her. That’s what she saw when she came to his apartment, too– how lost he was in his fear and anger as he prepared to defend his knowledge with his life. The fear and anger were all he had left to live for.

But she talked him off the ledge and into the light. He left his fear and anger in the doorway of his apartment and gathered a much more elusive strength to be beside Scully. And maybe Melissa was right– finally, he gave Scully something more than the exhaust from his rage. Something more powerful was able to reach her.

Could he really have brought her back? It hardly seems possible.

“Mulder, are you there?”

“Still here,” he says hoarsely. “God, Scully, I think you give me too much credit.”

“You know I believe in the powers of science and modern medicine,” she says. “But as a doctor, I also know that there are miracles we can’t entirely explain through science.”

“So how do we explain those miracles, Doctor Scully?”

“We can’t. All we can do is be grateful to have been given a second chance.”

He has a second chance, he realizes, with Scully here and awake to receive it, to give her something more than his anger: his partnership. A chance to push each other forward. He won’t give up that chance.

Day 20

12:17 P.M.

“Mulder, I think I’m about to run through my books.”

“What do you have left?”

“I’m about to finish Mutiny on the Bounty. After that all I have left is The Decameron, which I’ve really been putting off.”

“Very topical.”

“Maybe a little too much.” She sighs. “Do you have anything besides flying saucers and saucy fliers?”

“Hey, for your information, I have very diverse literary tastes.”

“So you’d be happy to tell me what the last thing you read was?”

“Sure. I’ve got The Left Hand of Darkness on my nightstand.”

“And what do you have tucked between the pages?”

“Tell me more about The Decameron.”

Day 21

3:23 P.M.

“Who were you on the phone with earlier? Line was busy again. You’re popular.”

“It was my sister-in-law. Can you believe she won’t accept being in a government-ordered quarantine as an excuse to not go to a baby shower?”

“Scully, the minds of others are an impenetrable mystery to me.”

“You’re a criminal profiler with a psychology degree.”

“So I would know best.”

“Mulder, you’re an impenetrable mystery to me.”

Day 22

4:04 P.M.

“E5.”

“Miss. A6?”

“Hit. Dammit, that’s my aircraft carrier,” Mulder grumbles.

Scully smirks. The recent discovery of Battleship boards in their coffee table had proved an excellent way to pass the time over the phone in these creeping days.

“A9. That has to be a hit.”

“Another miss.”

“You’ve got to be cheating.”

“At Battleship? I may be competitive, but not that petty.”

“I simply find it statistically difficult to believe that while you have my submarine, aircraft carrier, and Battleship, I only have your patrol boat.”

“My father was in the navy. Maybe I just have a good mind for these things. C7.”

“Another hit. Are you sure you don’t have some kind of latent telepathic ability?”

“Are you sure you aren’t just bad at Battleship?”

“Not fair. B7.”

“Hit. It looks like your theory’s been debunked, Mulder.”

“Not debunked, just discouraged.”

Day 23

“Mulder, what’s the first thing you’re going to do when you’re out of here?”

“Get a haircut. I’m going crazy over here.”

“That was quick. You’ve thought a lot about that.”

“Well, what are you going to do?”

“Go to my café on the corner and get a decent cup of coffee.” She looks down at the mug in her hand. “I just can’t do this much longer.”

“It’s pretty grim,” he agrees. “And I’m not sure I’ve ever been more excited to go back to the office.”

“Anything but these receipts.”

“Who knows what we’re dealing with after this, but I’d take just about anything.”

“Just about.” She has slightly more trepidation, but she misses the x-files more than she ever would have thought a year ago. The closeness of her release is almost unbearable. “Not long now.”

Day 24

11:54 P.M.

“Mulder? Are you alright? It’s late.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” he says. “I hope I didn’t wake you up.”

“You didn’t, it’s fine.” She sits up. “Anything in particular?”

“I’m thinking about Jesse.”

“Poor girl.” Scully shakes her head.

“She thought she was getting the opportunity of a lifetime.”

“She thought she was getting a chance to be with the man who loved her. And to impress someone she looked up to,” she adds.

“But instead she got… something too horrible for a dozen lifetimes.” Something that took away who she was by the end.

“It was horrible down there,” she agrees. “But… does it help to dwell on it?”

But Mulder worries. He worries about being like Trepkos; being so obsessed with his beliefs, his goals, that he loses sight of the safety of the people around him, those whom he cares about most. Every Jesse makes him fear what he might be leaving in his wake. But he can’t say any of that to Scully. He can’t let her know how much he worries.

How much I care.

Day 25

12:00 A.M.

“I try not to think about most cases too long after,” he agrees. “We know what comes with the territory. But sometimes…”

“I know what you mean.” She has her own unforgettable faces, her own ghosts that haunt her. It’s not a job that’s well suited to holding too many of those. “I think about her too. It’s easier when we’re moving faster.”

“Slowing down makes you realize how much you’ve left behind All the bodies that get forgotten.” He clears his throat. “But that’s what it takes to keep more from piling up, right?”

“That’s why we do it.” But so rarely do they get to see the faces of the people they’ve saved; more often, it’s their failures. Their Jesses. “Shame we don’t get to see it.”

“I should let you go to sleep,” Mulder says, sounding a little shaky.

“Will you be alright?”

“I’ll put on a movie,” he says nonchalantly. “Really. It’s how I always sleep.”

“If you’re sure–”

“I am. Thank you, Scully.”

“Good night, Mulder.”

“Sleep tight.”

Day 26

10:02 P.M.

“Can you hear that too?”

“The dog downstairs? Yes,” Scully says.

“That shouldn’t be allowed. It’s worse than smoking, honestly.”

“I don’t mind dogs when they’re trained. They’re sweet.”

“This is a very different matter, Scully.”

“She has to go to sleep eventually. No animal can go forever without sleep.”

“Always reassuring me with the soothing serenade of science, you are. I’ll sleep tight tonight for sure.”

“You know I’m always happy to help, Mulder.”

Day 27

7:03 A.M.

“Daylight savings is going to kill me, Mulder.”

“Look on the bright side, you’re getting back into the habit for work.”

“What is this, back-to-school?” She groans. “I’m sleeping with the blinds closed tomorrow.”

“Nothing healthier than waking up with the sun, Scully.”

“I don’t need a lecture on Circadian rhythms, I need the sun to go back down.”

“Science hasn’t figured that one out yet, I’m afraid.”

“I’ll call you back when we do.”

Day 28

11:02 P.M.

“Scully, step out onto your balcony.”

She rubs her eyes as she sits up in bed. “Now? It’s so late.”

“Just trust me. It’ll be worth it.”

She sighs, but trusts him and pulls her robe over her shoulders and steps out onto the balcony, taking the phone with her. She turns her head to Mulder’s balcony, and sees him, but he points out in front of them.

“Alright, what am I looking at?”

“Watch the sky for a minute. Let your eyes adjust.”

She wonders vaguely what kind of nonsense Mulder could be pointing her to, what kind of aerial phenomenon or far-off lights he thinks he can convince her to believe in, but it’s a beautiful cool night out, and there’s barely a cloud in the sky, so she’s willing to turn her eyes up to the stars and listen to his ramblings.

“Oh!”

Mulder chuckles over the phone as a little dart of silver streaks across the sky.

“There’s a meteor shower tonight,” he explains. “Worth getting out of bed now?”

Scully fixes her gaze on the sky, waiting for another dash of light. Truth be told, even as a scientist, she mostly keeps her eyes trained down on Earth. Of course she had learned about the planets and stars cradled in their solar system, but her focus was on humans and bodies, animals and diseases, flesh and blood and those things they call “real life”.

It takes someone like Mulder to remind her to look up at the stars. To forget petty human concerns and train her gaze upon the grandeur of the expansive darkness above. The stars that look no bigger than pinpricks are really hundreds of thousands of miles wide; knowing this makes her feel small. Maybe that’s why she doesn’t look up very often: she would rather be anchored in a web of life connecting everything from a fungus to a whale than precariously clinging to a lonely little speck of blue.

Mulder, she thinks, must feel the opposite. For someone who feels so much pressure, so much scrutiny from the world around him, there is a privacy implicit in smallness. He is invisible in the shadow of a million-kilometer ball of gas. No wonder he looks up so often– stars are less judgemental companions than humans.

She watches shooting stars until she loses count, remaining in rapt silence though the phone is still pressed to her ear. The plastic seems to dissolve, and they are together beneath the unobstructed sky.

“Next one’s for you, Scully. Make a wish.”

“What’d you wish for?”

“Don’t you know that’s not how it works?” He laughs. “I can’t tell you or it won’t come true.”

Day 29

12:00 A.M.

Besides, he thinks. I already got my wish.

Several minutes pass without another star coming into view. “I think that’s it. Did you get your wish in?”

“I must’ve gotten the last one. Is that good luck?”

“We can say it is.” He leans his back against the cold glass door. “That was really something, huh?”

“It was definitely worth staying up for,” she agrees. “You don’t get to see something like that every day.”

“You know,” he says, “Meteor showers are one of the peak times for UFO sightings.”

“Are they now,” Scully says, amused.

“Really makes you think.”

“Think that a lot of people who don’t know much about meteors panic when they see stars falling out of the sky, maybe.”

He laughs– she would say that. “Can you blame them, though? For thinking there’s someone else out there? Watching something that breathtaking happen so far away… doesn’t it make you feel like we aren’t alone in this great big universe?”

“It makes me feel very lucky, Mulder,” she replies. “That against the brutally unforgiving odds of physics, biology, evolution, and timing in this great big universe… I get to be alive now, on this planet, at this moment in time, with the people I get to share it with… to watch the stars get a little closer.” She breathes deeply. “I can’t feel alone with such spectacular chance.”

“Well, Scully.” Mulder lowers his eyes from the sky, with all its promise that he may not be alone in this universe, and turns them towards the balcony to his left, to the person with whom he has conquered all the unforgiving odds of physics, biology, evolution, time, and whatever other forces are working against them, to watch the stars get a little closer together. “When you put it like that.”

Day 30

“Mulder?”

“Scully.”

“Doesn’t it feel weird to be packing our suitcases after all this time? Not to say,” she adds, “That I’m not sick of these clothes.”

“I can’t get it all in my bag fast enough. Like it’ll make these last few hours go faster.”

She smiles. “I feel the same.” She sets her last shirt on top of her pile of clothes. “I have a funny feeling this isn’t the last time we end up in a place like this, though.”

“Well, don’t jinx it.”

She would not like to do that– but she’s also learning to be realistic about what they’re up against the longer she goes on.

She’s still learning to face the slew of emotions that come after.

“Mulder.”

“Scully?”

“If it does happen again… go ahead and pick up the phone.”