A Winter's Tale, Part 5
Dec. 26th, 2007 12:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anjouficTitle: A Winter's Tale 5/21
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
comice aka Anjou (Anjou@rocketmail.com)
Posting Date: December 2007/January 2008
Rating: R for language and sexuality; M for Mature readers
Classification: Mulder/Scully, UST/MSR, AU
Archive: No archival until the story is completed, please. I'll be submitting to Ephemeral and Gossamer myself.
Spoilers: Through Two Fathers/One Son (S6), then AU. In other words, no Arcadia and beyond. Mytharc-y.
Disclaimer: All X-Files personnel belong to 1013 and Fox. All other elements are mine.
Author's Note: Daily posts can be read on my fic journal:anjoufic, as well as Ephemeral and other XF fic sites. The whole tale will be archived at my website, No Other … , maintained by the generous dtg, when it is completed.
As always, thanks to my sister and editrix, Suzanne, for her support.
Summary: Cast your memory back to the dark days of Season 6, to the period immediately following the confrontation between Mulder and Scully in the Gunmen's Office. It is late winter, dark and cold, the landscape obscured and transformed by snow and ice. One must step carefully, for the very ground can be treacherous. This is a lesson Mulder and Scully have already learned when the pristine snow in Antartica yielded a long-buried secret. But the winter can hold many secrets, and could tell many tales, if it so chose.
This is but one.
~*~
By the time Mulder and Hannah left the room, she was already close to sleeping, watching from under her eyelids. She supposed that she must have dozed during part of the time that she was watching them get ready, only half-remembering Mulder patiently negotiating with Hannah about appropriately warm clothing. And surely, she must have been dreaming Mulder awkwardly but gently brushing Hannah's hair while she chattered away, waving a hairband around in the air.
But if she had been dreaming, it didn't explain why it was that Hannah was wearing that hairband, hours later, while she rode in the back seat of Mulder's rental as he led them to where they'd return her own rental. She had slept for a couple of hours, but instead of feeling refreshed, the sleep had left her muzzy-headed and lost, wondering if she was still dreaming, wondering when she'd wake up in her own bed in Georgetown, still waiting for the phone to ring.
From one car length away, she caught sight of Mulder watching her in his rear view mirror while they waited for the light to signal all-clear for left hand turns. She supposed that she should smile reassuringly, or wave, or do something to acknowledge his concern, but she was too weary to do anything more than stare straight ahead. She could barely focus on anything more than just following Mulder's car mechanically, trying to puzzle out what in the name of hell was going on, where they were going, and to what purpose. It was all so exhausting that she couldn't even think about it, and found her mind occupied with mundanities instead.
For example, Mulder had put the hairband too far forward on Hannah's head, and he hadn't caught the hair underneath it on both sides, so only one side was turned back. As much as it bothered Scully to look at it, she had successfully resisted the urge to adjust it. She hadn't touched Hannah except for that once when she'd held her small hand for a few seconds, and even though her palms itched with the desire to fix her hair, or to adjust the waistband of Hannah's stretchy pants where it had rolled over upon itself, she hadn't done it. If she touched Hannah, she'd be confronted with the physical evidence, the bodily solidity, of what might actually be happening. For now, she was much more content with just letting that potential reality slide right on by her.
She wondered why it was that she never let herself think about the fact that there might be more of them, more children like Emily. It's not like she needed to be told that the potential for more existed, what with the harvesting of hundreds of her ova. But she also knew that she excelled at not thinking about things, purposefully avoiding that which was too painful or disturbing. She'd spent years pushing away the dim memories of her gruesomely distended belly, and other nightmare images. She'd convinced herself that they were the result of reading too many of Mulder's files, or Magic Bullet hypotheses seeping into her subconscious, until a year ago, when Emily had appeared. Now that she's no longer sure that those images weren't just the result of fevered imaginings, she had no idea what it all meant. Did she bear something – not a baby, certainly – but something foreign and horrendous during the three months that she was gone?
She turned the corner behind Mulder, watching the silent movie interplay between him and Hannah as they talked in the car ahead of her. Hannah had already picked up some of Mulder's mannerisms, her head and hand movement aping his as she spoke soundlessly. Whatever she said had made him laugh, and Scully watched his eyes crinkle warmly in the rear view mirror, only half-thinking about more things that she wanted to forget. She had been so bloated and heavy when she'd been returned from her abduction, and hormonally, she was a mess. She'd had her period for three weeks after being returned, which her gynecologist had attributed to the stress of what had happened to her. No thought was given to the fact that it might have been post-partum bleeding, as she hadn't been gone long enough to have given birth. Her rape kit had been negative, as well, which wasn't too surprising, as there was barely any physical evidence of what had been done to her, aside from the bloating, the branched DNA and her never-ending period.
Besides, it wasn't as if it hadn't happened before, which made it easier for her to write-off as a result of stress. Back when she'd been in med school, she'd once bled for an entire exam period, spotting every day after the heavier flow of her period had ended, ultimately bleeding for almost a month. Her then-gynecologist had believed that her body wasn't ramping up to produce enough FSH to start the ovulatory cycle over again, and had urged her to go on the pill to regulate herself.
She'd stayed on the pill for years, until the chemotherapy had required her to come off of it. It's not like she was trying to prevent a pregnancy anyway, and if she survived the cancer, she was likely to be forced into perimenopause by the effects of the chemotherapy and radiation. At a certain point during her illness, she'd lost so much weight that her periods had stopped entirely.
She'd spent considerable time wondering what to do about her hormones after she'd recovered from the cancer. She knew that having had cancer once, even if it had been provoked by the removal of her implant, adding extraneous hormones to the chemical mix of her body could have disastrous results, even if her cancer hadn't been hormonally based. But the idea of being menopausal at 34 was a little hard to accept. Then, of course, there was the implant, and its unknown effects upon her. She wondered now if its presence was responsible for her periods starting again after she'd regained most of the lost weight. Three months was all it took for her to cycle again, and this time, her previously erratic period was as regulated as it had been when she had been on the pill, starting precisely on a Wednesday, and ending the following Saturday. Her gynecologist had wanted her to have her blood drawn every few days for a menstrual cycle to chart her hormonal levels, but she'd demurred, saying that she wasn't expecting to start a family any time soon, and so didn't see the necessity. The truth was that she hadn't wanted to know what was going on.
She pulled into the busy car rental lot at the small local airport in Columbus, OH and returned the car, waiting outside in the cold air for the shuttle to take her to the airport. Once there, she got off at the main terminal and walked in the door, only doubling back to meet Mulder and Hannah after she'd changed her coat and put on a wig in the bathroom. Her bag, which she'd been carrying by a long strap, was now wheeled behind her as she exited the terminal and walked in the direction of ground transportation. Mulder pulled up and popped the trunk, and she put her bag in it. He was wearing a short-brimmed all weather hat that was remarkably hideous, and large, concealing sunglasses. When she got in the car, Hannah was dozing in the backseat, her kingdom of stuffed animals spread out around her. She roused a little when Scully closed the door, but dropped back off to sleep before they exited the airport.
She raised an eyebrow at Mulder, surprised that Hannah was sleeping in the middle of the day, but Mulder just smiled.
"Car coma," he said quietly. "Didn't you used to pass out on long car rides?"
She smiled briefly, and buckled her seat belt. He knew very well that she often fell asleep in cars. It was one of his main excuses for doing the lion's share of the driving. "Where are we going, Mulder?"
"Near Rochester, Minnesota," he answered.
She knew it was useless to press him for more information with Hannah in the car and likely to wake up, so she nodded and turned her head to look out the window at the grey landscape. The Mayo Clinic, she thought, and let the rushing images outside her window blur into nothingness. Despite the uncertainty facing her, knowing that Mulder was here with her allowed the tension to leave her body, and she let the world outside fade away, as the song of the wheels against the pavement lulled her to sleep.
~*~
It was full dark by the time they got to the motel in Springfield, Illinois where they'd be bunking for the night. Mulder had grinned at her raised eyebrow and she rolled her eyes in answer. He'd been trying to get them to come to this town for years. Despite the number of Springfields throughout the United States, Mulder maintained that this small city was the home of the fictional Simpsons, a longtime favorite of his. "Land of Lincoln, Scully," Mulder said, getting out of the car. "It's educational." She yawned and stretched as she stepped out of the car, but otherwise ignored him.
The recipient of said educational benefits didn't seem in the least interested. "Are we finally there yet?"
"Yes, we are," Mulder said, scooping her up out of her car seat. "Now, what do you say about going in and putting our stuff away, and then …" Mulder drew out his voice as Hannah pouted. He turned dramatically and pointed across the street to a small park with swing sets and other kid paraphernalia. "We go play for a while."
"Can we?" Hannah asked with shining eyes.
Scully felt herself frowning, even though she recognized that Hannah had been cooped up in the car all day long. "Mulder," she warned, "it's awfully dark and cold."
"We won't stay out long," Mulder said, "just long enough to get some fresh air. Right, Hannah?"
Hannah had clambered down from Mulder's arms and was gathering all of her stuffed animals. "Right," she answered, then looked at Scully. "Please …" she pleaded, "I loved the swings when Mulder took me on them before."
Scully felt her heart constrict at the idea that this child had never played outside until Mulder had stolen her from wherever he'd found her in the first place. "OK," she said softly, "but just for a little while."
"Yay!" Hannah said brightly, flinging her hippo in the air. Mulder laughed and caught it, then cheered with her, gathering all of their things and opening the door to the small, clean room in front of their car.
Scully walked in behind them and looked at the two double beds and the ubiquitous pressboard bureau and TV stand, then closed the door to reveal a small café table that stood between two hard plastic chairs. She put her laptop from home on it carefully. The Gunmen had assured her that they'd made it impenetrable to malevolent sources, but it had been an act of faith for her to stow it in the bottom of her shopping bag.
"Wear a hat," Scully instructed Hannah as she began pestering Mulder about going out again, before he'd done much more than heave their bags onto the luggage racks at the ends of the beds.
"Oh," Hannah said, her face crumpling, "do I have to?"
"Yes," Mulder answered mildly, "remember what we talked about?"
Hannah pouted and dug into her suitcase, pulling out a knit cap with an orange pompom that clashed violently with her hair.
Scully pursed her lips against the laugh that was struggling to come out. "We'll buy you a new hat tomorrow, Hannah," she promised, ignoring Mulder's offended 'hey' at Hannah's look of relief. "I'll let you help me pick it out, OK?" She had turned away to open up her suitcase, so she couldn't help the start of surprise when she felt Hannah press against her legs, briefly hugging her. "Oh," she said, reaching down to push Hannah's hair back with one hand awkwardly. "You should take your hairband off before you put the hat on," she said in a flustered tone, "it'll hurt if you don't."
"OK," Hannah said agreeably, handing the hairband to Scully. "Are you ready to go, Mulder?" she asked plaintively, jamming on her silly hat.
Mulder cleared his throat before speaking, but his voice was thick with emotion. "Just let me take my tie off," he said.
From the corner of her eye, Scully could see his discarded suitcoat laying on the open case at the foot of the other bed. She could feel his pointed regard of her, but she couldn't raise her eyes to his, no matter how hard she tried. Instead, she found her eyes fixated on the slim gold band on the third finger of his left hand. Her breath caught painfully at the sight and she felt herself flush, and turned away from Mulder to hide it.
She heard him cross the room to the door and tell Hannah to wait on the motel sidewalk for him. "Scully," he said quietly. He had a clear view of her now, and she wouldn't turn around again so as not to face him. She wasn't that much of a coward.
'I'm fine,' she wanted to say to him. 'I'm just fine.' The words, usually the first to come to the fore in speech for her, would not come. She raised her eyes to Mulder's, but dropped them almost immediately at the nakedness she saw in his glance.
"Why don't you come with us?" he asked. "The fresh air might do you some good."
She opened her mouth, but her head was already shaking 'no'. "I'm going to take a bath," she said, but in her head she was pleading with him to understand as she raised her eyes to look at him again, afraid of the pity that she might see in his gaze. Mulder's expression was full of sorrow, but she could feel his compassion as he regarded her for the measure of a few heartbeats.
"We won't be long," he said. "I'll take first watch." Part of her wanted to snap out of her stasis, to move her leaden limbs toward him and seek the solace in his arms that she knew he was offering, but she was frozen in her grief and fear, unable to break out of the silence that had fallen between them for the past few weeks.
She nodded in mute frustration, and as he waited, still watching her. When he moved, it was to step gracefully backward through the open door. He pulled it closed, watching her until she couldn't see him anymore. Hannah's excited chatter was muffled as they moved away.
She crossed over to the window and watched Hannah dancing around Mulder as they moved across the parking lot, his dark overcoat billowing around his legs in time with his long strides. He was laughing as he scooped Hannah up and swung her over a pile of snow to stand on the sidewalk, letting her press the button to get the walk signal. He held her hand as they waited. She was gesturing with one mitten-clad hand, and bouncing up and down with excitement. Halfway across the street, they slipped into shadows and she was surprised to find herself straining to see them, hands against the cold glass. She drew back in surprise as the stones on her left hand glittered in the room's light.
When they'd stopped for their last gas and bathroom run before getting to Springfield for the night, he'd stopped her before she got out of the car. Hannah was dozing in the backseat again, and Mulder kept his voice low. "I thought we'd have some time this morning to talk by ourselves, but it didn't work out that way." He pulled a small box out of his pocket. He sighed. "It'll be easier for us to pass as a family if we look more the part."
He opened the velvet box. Inside it was a thin platinum band crusted with diamonds, and a matching old-fashioned looking square-cut diamond surrounded by smaller stones that diminished into a trail of diamonds around the band. She knew that she was staring at him with her mouth hanging open. "Please, Scully?" His voice was quiet, but there was no mistaking the tone. Fox Mulder was begging her to play along. "I promise that I'll explain when Hannah's asleep for the night. Can you just trust me for now?"
Her eyes were heavy with tears when she reached for the band, and her fingers trembled as she slid it on. It was a perfect fit. She stared at it for a minute, starting when the diamond ring appeared in her line of vision. She could see that Mulder wanted to put it on her, but he had hesitated to touch her since she had flinched away from him earlier. She extended her finger, and he slid it gently down past the first joint, careful not to touch her. His care made the situation even worse. When she went to move the ring the rest of the way down, he withdrew his hand swiftly. If she hadn't known better, she'd think that he'd done so to wipe at his own eyes. She wasn't sure what he had to cry about, although her eyes were filled with tears. This whole situation was just so wrong, almost like a mockery of what might have been.
When Mulder went out to put gas in the car she blew her nose and wiped her tears, watching him move around at the pump. It was only then that she noticed that he'd conjured up a gold band for himself from somewhere and put it on. At the diner later on, they'd looked the perfect family, with Hannah enthusiastically calling Mulder 'Daddy' every chance she'd gotten. She had yet to once call Scully 'Mom'.
Dana Scully looked at the rings sparkling in the cheap light of their motel room. Were they real? Or were they just another part of the roles they were playing: Mommy, Daddy and Hannah makes three. The tears were hot beneath her eyelids again when she pulled the curtains closed and went to turn the taps on in the bathroom and then to collect her things. Although she could have taken the rings off, now that she was securely in the room for the night, she did not.
She didn't think about what that meant, or allow herself to dwell on why exactly it was that she fought back her tears in the too-small motel tub.
*~*
Part 6
Author:
comice aka Anjou (Anjou@rocketmail.com)Posting Date: December 2007/January 2008
Rating: R for language and sexuality; M for Mature readers
Classification: Mulder/Scully, UST/MSR, AU
Archive: No archival until the story is completed, please. I'll be submitting to Ephemeral and Gossamer myself.
Spoilers: Through Two Fathers/One Son (S6), then AU. In other words, no Arcadia and beyond. Mytharc-y.
Disclaimer: All X-Files personnel belong to 1013 and Fox. All other elements are mine.
Author's Note: Daily posts can be read on my fic journal:
anjoufic, as well as Ephemeral and other XF fic sites. The whole tale will be archived at my website, No Other … , maintained by the generous dtg, when it is completed.As always, thanks to my sister and editrix, Suzanne, for her support.
Summary: Cast your memory back to the dark days of Season 6, to the period immediately following the confrontation between Mulder and Scully in the Gunmen's Office. It is late winter, dark and cold, the landscape obscured and transformed by snow and ice. One must step carefully, for the very ground can be treacherous. This is a lesson Mulder and Scully have already learned when the pristine snow in Antartica yielded a long-buried secret. But the winter can hold many secrets, and could tell many tales, if it so chose.
This is but one.
~*~
By the time Mulder and Hannah left the room, she was already close to sleeping, watching from under her eyelids. She supposed that she must have dozed during part of the time that she was watching them get ready, only half-remembering Mulder patiently negotiating with Hannah about appropriately warm clothing. And surely, she must have been dreaming Mulder awkwardly but gently brushing Hannah's hair while she chattered away, waving a hairband around in the air.
But if she had been dreaming, it didn't explain why it was that Hannah was wearing that hairband, hours later, while she rode in the back seat of Mulder's rental as he led them to where they'd return her own rental. She had slept for a couple of hours, but instead of feeling refreshed, the sleep had left her muzzy-headed and lost, wondering if she was still dreaming, wondering when she'd wake up in her own bed in Georgetown, still waiting for the phone to ring.
From one car length away, she caught sight of Mulder watching her in his rear view mirror while they waited for the light to signal all-clear for left hand turns. She supposed that she should smile reassuringly, or wave, or do something to acknowledge his concern, but she was too weary to do anything more than stare straight ahead. She could barely focus on anything more than just following Mulder's car mechanically, trying to puzzle out what in the name of hell was going on, where they were going, and to what purpose. It was all so exhausting that she couldn't even think about it, and found her mind occupied with mundanities instead.
For example, Mulder had put the hairband too far forward on Hannah's head, and he hadn't caught the hair underneath it on both sides, so only one side was turned back. As much as it bothered Scully to look at it, she had successfully resisted the urge to adjust it. She hadn't touched Hannah except for that once when she'd held her small hand for a few seconds, and even though her palms itched with the desire to fix her hair, or to adjust the waistband of Hannah's stretchy pants where it had rolled over upon itself, she hadn't done it. If she touched Hannah, she'd be confronted with the physical evidence, the bodily solidity, of what might actually be happening. For now, she was much more content with just letting that potential reality slide right on by her.
She wondered why it was that she never let herself think about the fact that there might be more of them, more children like Emily. It's not like she needed to be told that the potential for more existed, what with the harvesting of hundreds of her ova. But she also knew that she excelled at not thinking about things, purposefully avoiding that which was too painful or disturbing. She'd spent years pushing away the dim memories of her gruesomely distended belly, and other nightmare images. She'd convinced herself that they were the result of reading too many of Mulder's files, or Magic Bullet hypotheses seeping into her subconscious, until a year ago, when Emily had appeared. Now that she's no longer sure that those images weren't just the result of fevered imaginings, she had no idea what it all meant. Did she bear something – not a baby, certainly – but something foreign and horrendous during the three months that she was gone?
She turned the corner behind Mulder, watching the silent movie interplay between him and Hannah as they talked in the car ahead of her. Hannah had already picked up some of Mulder's mannerisms, her head and hand movement aping his as she spoke soundlessly. Whatever she said had made him laugh, and Scully watched his eyes crinkle warmly in the rear view mirror, only half-thinking about more things that she wanted to forget. She had been so bloated and heavy when she'd been returned from her abduction, and hormonally, she was a mess. She'd had her period for three weeks after being returned, which her gynecologist had attributed to the stress of what had happened to her. No thought was given to the fact that it might have been post-partum bleeding, as she hadn't been gone long enough to have given birth. Her rape kit had been negative, as well, which wasn't too surprising, as there was barely any physical evidence of what had been done to her, aside from the bloating, the branched DNA and her never-ending period.
Besides, it wasn't as if it hadn't happened before, which made it easier for her to write-off as a result of stress. Back when she'd been in med school, she'd once bled for an entire exam period, spotting every day after the heavier flow of her period had ended, ultimately bleeding for almost a month. Her then-gynecologist had believed that her body wasn't ramping up to produce enough FSH to start the ovulatory cycle over again, and had urged her to go on the pill to regulate herself.
She'd stayed on the pill for years, until the chemotherapy had required her to come off of it. It's not like she was trying to prevent a pregnancy anyway, and if she survived the cancer, she was likely to be forced into perimenopause by the effects of the chemotherapy and radiation. At a certain point during her illness, she'd lost so much weight that her periods had stopped entirely.
She'd spent considerable time wondering what to do about her hormones after she'd recovered from the cancer. She knew that having had cancer once, even if it had been provoked by the removal of her implant, adding extraneous hormones to the chemical mix of her body could have disastrous results, even if her cancer hadn't been hormonally based. But the idea of being menopausal at 34 was a little hard to accept. Then, of course, there was the implant, and its unknown effects upon her. She wondered now if its presence was responsible for her periods starting again after she'd regained most of the lost weight. Three months was all it took for her to cycle again, and this time, her previously erratic period was as regulated as it had been when she had been on the pill, starting precisely on a Wednesday, and ending the following Saturday. Her gynecologist had wanted her to have her blood drawn every few days for a menstrual cycle to chart her hormonal levels, but she'd demurred, saying that she wasn't expecting to start a family any time soon, and so didn't see the necessity. The truth was that she hadn't wanted to know what was going on.
She pulled into the busy car rental lot at the small local airport in Columbus, OH and returned the car, waiting outside in the cold air for the shuttle to take her to the airport. Once there, she got off at the main terminal and walked in the door, only doubling back to meet Mulder and Hannah after she'd changed her coat and put on a wig in the bathroom. Her bag, which she'd been carrying by a long strap, was now wheeled behind her as she exited the terminal and walked in the direction of ground transportation. Mulder pulled up and popped the trunk, and she put her bag in it. He was wearing a short-brimmed all weather hat that was remarkably hideous, and large, concealing sunglasses. When she got in the car, Hannah was dozing in the backseat, her kingdom of stuffed animals spread out around her. She roused a little when Scully closed the door, but dropped back off to sleep before they exited the airport.
She raised an eyebrow at Mulder, surprised that Hannah was sleeping in the middle of the day, but Mulder just smiled.
"Car coma," he said quietly. "Didn't you used to pass out on long car rides?"
She smiled briefly, and buckled her seat belt. He knew very well that she often fell asleep in cars. It was one of his main excuses for doing the lion's share of the driving. "Where are we going, Mulder?"
"Near Rochester, Minnesota," he answered.
She knew it was useless to press him for more information with Hannah in the car and likely to wake up, so she nodded and turned her head to look out the window at the grey landscape. The Mayo Clinic, she thought, and let the rushing images outside her window blur into nothingness. Despite the uncertainty facing her, knowing that Mulder was here with her allowed the tension to leave her body, and she let the world outside fade away, as the song of the wheels against the pavement lulled her to sleep.
~*~
It was full dark by the time they got to the motel in Springfield, Illinois where they'd be bunking for the night. Mulder had grinned at her raised eyebrow and she rolled her eyes in answer. He'd been trying to get them to come to this town for years. Despite the number of Springfields throughout the United States, Mulder maintained that this small city was the home of the fictional Simpsons, a longtime favorite of his. "Land of Lincoln, Scully," Mulder said, getting out of the car. "It's educational." She yawned and stretched as she stepped out of the car, but otherwise ignored him.
The recipient of said educational benefits didn't seem in the least interested. "Are we finally there yet?"
"Yes, we are," Mulder said, scooping her up out of her car seat. "Now, what do you say about going in and putting our stuff away, and then …" Mulder drew out his voice as Hannah pouted. He turned dramatically and pointed across the street to a small park with swing sets and other kid paraphernalia. "We go play for a while."
"Can we?" Hannah asked with shining eyes.
Scully felt herself frowning, even though she recognized that Hannah had been cooped up in the car all day long. "Mulder," she warned, "it's awfully dark and cold."
"We won't stay out long," Mulder said, "just long enough to get some fresh air. Right, Hannah?"
Hannah had clambered down from Mulder's arms and was gathering all of her stuffed animals. "Right," she answered, then looked at Scully. "Please …" she pleaded, "I loved the swings when Mulder took me on them before."
Scully felt her heart constrict at the idea that this child had never played outside until Mulder had stolen her from wherever he'd found her in the first place. "OK," she said softly, "but just for a little while."
"Yay!" Hannah said brightly, flinging her hippo in the air. Mulder laughed and caught it, then cheered with her, gathering all of their things and opening the door to the small, clean room in front of their car.
Scully walked in behind them and looked at the two double beds and the ubiquitous pressboard bureau and TV stand, then closed the door to reveal a small café table that stood between two hard plastic chairs. She put her laptop from home on it carefully. The Gunmen had assured her that they'd made it impenetrable to malevolent sources, but it had been an act of faith for her to stow it in the bottom of her shopping bag.
"Wear a hat," Scully instructed Hannah as she began pestering Mulder about going out again, before he'd done much more than heave their bags onto the luggage racks at the ends of the beds.
"Oh," Hannah said, her face crumpling, "do I have to?"
"Yes," Mulder answered mildly, "remember what we talked about?"
Hannah pouted and dug into her suitcase, pulling out a knit cap with an orange pompom that clashed violently with her hair.
Scully pursed her lips against the laugh that was struggling to come out. "We'll buy you a new hat tomorrow, Hannah," she promised, ignoring Mulder's offended 'hey' at Hannah's look of relief. "I'll let you help me pick it out, OK?" She had turned away to open up her suitcase, so she couldn't help the start of surprise when she felt Hannah press against her legs, briefly hugging her. "Oh," she said, reaching down to push Hannah's hair back with one hand awkwardly. "You should take your hairband off before you put the hat on," she said in a flustered tone, "it'll hurt if you don't."
"OK," Hannah said agreeably, handing the hairband to Scully. "Are you ready to go, Mulder?" she asked plaintively, jamming on her silly hat.
Mulder cleared his throat before speaking, but his voice was thick with emotion. "Just let me take my tie off," he said.
From the corner of her eye, Scully could see his discarded suitcoat laying on the open case at the foot of the other bed. She could feel his pointed regard of her, but she couldn't raise her eyes to his, no matter how hard she tried. Instead, she found her eyes fixated on the slim gold band on the third finger of his left hand. Her breath caught painfully at the sight and she felt herself flush, and turned away from Mulder to hide it.
She heard him cross the room to the door and tell Hannah to wait on the motel sidewalk for him. "Scully," he said quietly. He had a clear view of her now, and she wouldn't turn around again so as not to face him. She wasn't that much of a coward.
'I'm fine,' she wanted to say to him. 'I'm just fine.' The words, usually the first to come to the fore in speech for her, would not come. She raised her eyes to Mulder's, but dropped them almost immediately at the nakedness she saw in his glance.
"Why don't you come with us?" he asked. "The fresh air might do you some good."
She opened her mouth, but her head was already shaking 'no'. "I'm going to take a bath," she said, but in her head she was pleading with him to understand as she raised her eyes to look at him again, afraid of the pity that she might see in his gaze. Mulder's expression was full of sorrow, but she could feel his compassion as he regarded her for the measure of a few heartbeats.
"We won't be long," he said. "I'll take first watch." Part of her wanted to snap out of her stasis, to move her leaden limbs toward him and seek the solace in his arms that she knew he was offering, but she was frozen in her grief and fear, unable to break out of the silence that had fallen between them for the past few weeks.
She nodded in mute frustration, and as he waited, still watching her. When he moved, it was to step gracefully backward through the open door. He pulled it closed, watching her until she couldn't see him anymore. Hannah's excited chatter was muffled as they moved away.
She crossed over to the window and watched Hannah dancing around Mulder as they moved across the parking lot, his dark overcoat billowing around his legs in time with his long strides. He was laughing as he scooped Hannah up and swung her over a pile of snow to stand on the sidewalk, letting her press the button to get the walk signal. He held her hand as they waited. She was gesturing with one mitten-clad hand, and bouncing up and down with excitement. Halfway across the street, they slipped into shadows and she was surprised to find herself straining to see them, hands against the cold glass. She drew back in surprise as the stones on her left hand glittered in the room's light.
When they'd stopped for their last gas and bathroom run before getting to Springfield for the night, he'd stopped her before she got out of the car. Hannah was dozing in the backseat again, and Mulder kept his voice low. "I thought we'd have some time this morning to talk by ourselves, but it didn't work out that way." He pulled a small box out of his pocket. He sighed. "It'll be easier for us to pass as a family if we look more the part."
He opened the velvet box. Inside it was a thin platinum band crusted with diamonds, and a matching old-fashioned looking square-cut diamond surrounded by smaller stones that diminished into a trail of diamonds around the band. She knew that she was staring at him with her mouth hanging open. "Please, Scully?" His voice was quiet, but there was no mistaking the tone. Fox Mulder was begging her to play along. "I promise that I'll explain when Hannah's asleep for the night. Can you just trust me for now?"
Her eyes were heavy with tears when she reached for the band, and her fingers trembled as she slid it on. It was a perfect fit. She stared at it for a minute, starting when the diamond ring appeared in her line of vision. She could see that Mulder wanted to put it on her, but he had hesitated to touch her since she had flinched away from him earlier. She extended her finger, and he slid it gently down past the first joint, careful not to touch her. His care made the situation even worse. When she went to move the ring the rest of the way down, he withdrew his hand swiftly. If she hadn't known better, she'd think that he'd done so to wipe at his own eyes. She wasn't sure what he had to cry about, although her eyes were filled with tears. This whole situation was just so wrong, almost like a mockery of what might have been.
When Mulder went out to put gas in the car she blew her nose and wiped her tears, watching him move around at the pump. It was only then that she noticed that he'd conjured up a gold band for himself from somewhere and put it on. At the diner later on, they'd looked the perfect family, with Hannah enthusiastically calling Mulder 'Daddy' every chance she'd gotten. She had yet to once call Scully 'Mom'.
Dana Scully looked at the rings sparkling in the cheap light of their motel room. Were they real? Or were they just another part of the roles they were playing: Mommy, Daddy and Hannah makes three. The tears were hot beneath her eyelids again when she pulled the curtains closed and went to turn the taps on in the bathroom and then to collect her things. Although she could have taken the rings off, now that she was securely in the room for the night, she did not.
She didn't think about what that meant, or allow herself to dwell on why exactly it was that she fought back her tears in the too-small motel tub.
*~*
Part 6
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Date: 2007-12-26 10:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-27 04:46 am (UTC)your writing is, as always, wonderful. and i just ache for Scully. Mulder, too, but mostly Scully as, i think, you mean us to.
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Date: 2007-12-27 10:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-27 07:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-27 10:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-27 10:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-27 01:38 pm (UTC)Edna- Rio de Janeiro - Brazil
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Date: 2007-12-27 10:28 pm (UTC)And yes, you're right -- Scully is very stunned and afraid. Considering what happened with Emily, I think that's only logical on her part.