By the Window Hearing Light by Jesemie's Evil Twin eviljesemie@yahoo.com or jesemie@hotmail.com Summary: Is it so small a thing to have enjoy'd the sun, to have lived light in the spring, to have loved... -- Matthew Arnold Disclaimer: Not mine, alas. Category/Rating: Oddness. Angst. Spoilers: Through the first scene of "DeadAlive". Feedback: Please and thank you. eviljesemie@yahoo.com or jesemie@hotmail.com 22 April 2001 - - - She ties back the curtain and takes in the view. Bronze dawn arcs through low fog, makes the lake glow. He comes out of the bathroom. She turns to show him the morning, to point out the flock of brown geese and green ducks mingling on a long deck off the end of the lodge. "There are more today than there were last--" She breaks off. He has paused, enthralled, water glass held in midair. "Listen," he says very quietly. She cocks her head. "What?" "Come here." She steps away from the window, confused. "What?" He walks to the bassinet on the couch. He scoots away the chair they had used to block in the wickerwork bed. She moves toward him, straining to hear. At first there is nothing but the normal white noise of a motel; when the delicate tuneless notes reach her ears, she stops, holds her breath. "Scully." The awe in his voice brings her forward. He sits down next to the bassinet, and she spoons up behind him, her chin hooked over his shoulder. She wraps her arms around him and he strokes her hands. They watch their infant daughter hum herself awake. "You hear?" he whispers. Her throat tight, Scully says, "I hear." "She's singing." - - - It's a lie, of course. The glossy road unravels. She feels the car skid for a second. Her mother does not blink. It will be night when they arrive at the cemetery. "He wouldn't want you to feel this way," Margaret Scully says. Scully doesn't respond. I didn't just want a child, Scully says to him without speaking. I wanted a child with you. I never told you. I never said. We never... Her head hurts with the weight of it. She feels bruised inside, everywhere the baby isn't. I'm sorry, she tells him. I'm sorry. - - - She doesn't want to leave them alone too long. She's done what she came out to do; tiny bags of dirt are stuffed in her jacket pocket. The woods are full of guides, parents and kids, a few loudly unhappy. Laughter twines itself through low limbs and underbrush, but unfamiliar forests have harmed her in ways she doesn't wish to remember. She's farther in than she realized, not able to see past the dense, zigzagging lines of trees, and the old panic starts to rise in her, greasy and bitter. They're not safe. They're not safe. Oh God-- They're already gone, aren't they? She forces herself to slow down, to focus. She follows a group of amateur spelunkers back to the lodge. Her arms feel watery and strange as she pulls open the glass door to the lobby. Her hands shake as she removes the bags from her pocket and goes to the front desk. She puts on the old persona for show. The clerks have never had FBI stay at the lodge. They are solicitous, precise. Their expressions are curious but they do not pry, and Scully is appreciative. She begins to relax. Nothing bad could happen at a camp like this. A few minutes later she seals an envelope and leaves it and instructions with the head clerk. Wipes her hands on her jeans and notices that she still has diaper rash powder on the band of her wristwatch. Her sneakers are filthy, as muddy as the feet of the rowdy, sweaty nine-year-olds yanking at each other in line for the canteen. It strikes her that if there were ever a lodge where going around barefoot in the lobby were acceptable, Clintwood is the place. She takes off the shoes and walks down two flights of carpeted stairs to the floor where they are supposed to be waiting. In room 301, the plain double beds are empty but the back door is open. He has his feet propped up on a wiry deck chair when she steps out onto the balcony. Overhead, bulky clouds clot together. Beyond the thin sandy shoreline, graying light refracts off serrated lake water. She takes a deep, silent breath and smells lotion, grass, salt, soap, heat. The balcony's wooden floorboards are tepid, humid. His eyelids are smooth and still; he isn't asleep. The little girl is, though, a soft seashell curled on his chest, and his right hand covers her entire back like a protective starfish. Scully bends and pulls up the child's cotton cap to kiss her tiny ear. He opens his eyes. "Nice hike?" "Very. Got all the soil samples too. The St. Louis field office is supposed to have a courier out here by six." He nods, pleased. The baby opens one small fist and splays her fingers against his throat. "Have you had any trouble?" Scully asks. "Nope. She's been asleep for about thirty minutes. We've just been out here enjoying the sun." He looks up. "Well, we were enjoying it." "It's supposed to storm tonight." "The one weekend we decide to take a quick vacation. Figures." But he smiles. A sharper breeze tousles his hair. Scully smiles back, shy, thinking of darkness and sparks, his skin exposed under her hands only in flashes, his mouth tasting of rain. The little girl kicks out her left foot and sighs. He studies Scully, eyes tender. "You okay?" "Yes." It isn't the right answer, but it will do. "How late is it?" "Five o'clock, I think. Why?" "No reason. Just wondering how much more light we'll have before nightfall." "Hours." "Good." The baby snuffles as if in agreement. Scully sits down, her shoulder blade against his shin. She stretches out her legs, points and flexes her toes. Her ankles crack. Sun alternates between clouds like a spotlight searching for something to illuminate. His hand is warmth moving over the back of her neck, through her hair. He gives a short chuckle, and she looks up at him. He has spotted something. He jerks his head in the direction of the rowboat docks down by the camp playground. "Recognize that woman?" Scully stands up at the balcony edge and leans out, staring. "Is that my mother?" The brunette waves. "Yep." She turns. "You invited my mother?" "I didn't invite her. She offered to come. To baby-sit for an evening. She must have just arrived." He's beginning to look a bit flustered, like he knows how Scully is going to react but only just figured it out. She says it anyway. "What's wrong with us baby-sitting? We're the parents." Scully takes the girl out of his arms and tries to tamp down the sudden feeling that she's been duped, tricked into a whole weekend of chasing down forest hobgoblins. Just going to collect a little dirt, my ass, she thinks. She walks the perimeter of the balcony and listens to the baby breathe. The wind picks up. He stands after a few minutes and pulls her to him, one palm on her back as it had been on their child's. He nuzzles the baby's peach- fuzz scalp and then kisses Scully, an almost chaste kiss on the lips that nevertheless surprises her. He pulls back, holds her stinging eyes with his and lets her see. Neither blinks against their own tears. "We need some time, Scully," he says. "I knew you wouldn't leave her behind, so I figured having your mother here was the next best thing." "Time?" she whispers. "We were close...I mean, we hadn't... Before I was taken." He pauses, as if unsure. "Oh," she breathes. They feel the same thing. It's you, she thinks. You're here with me, with her. We're here. A knock at the door preempts her next words. He kisses her forehead and goes inside to answer it. Fat plops of rain start to splatter down, leaving dark splotches on the wooden rail. She's stepping into the room when her mother comes through the interior door, giving him a speedy hug and spotting Scully. Margaret Scully seems to fly to her, deftly grabbing the baby. "You look lovely, Dana," she says. The little girl wakes and fusses, and her grandmother pays it no mind. "Hi, Mom." "I'll just be getting out of your way for the evening. Is her bag packed?" "Mostly, but you don't have to--" "I'm sure we'll be fine." In mighty maternal mode, the older woman makes quick work of the random items on the large sink; one-handed, she flings a pair of miniature socks, two travel packets of wipes and an alien-head rattle into her purse. The baby stops gritching. "I'm two doors down if you need anything, you two, and I'll come back for the bassinet later." A flurry of bags, and the door shuts, leaving Scully panting and childless. He whistles low and shakes his head. "You okay?" he asks kindly. She sits down on the end of her bed. "Well, that was all rather...fast." "Sorry. Before we left I didn't really tell your mother anything except that I wanted to have you alone for a few hours. I can't imagine what she thought about that, but she was awfully good-natured about it." He coughs, nervous but attempting to cover it. "I think she was using the ripping-off-a-Band-Aid approach here. We can go have dinner with them later. And dessert." His voice is low and deep, the voice she needed most desperately to hear for seven long months. Worse than the unthinkable horror of never hearing his voice again was the thick, sticky fear that she might someday forget it. She places her bare left foot on his bare right one. She leaves a smudge. She laughs a slight, shivering laugh, and bites her lip. He holds her hand and they look at each other. His eyes are open and clear, every emotion shining through them undiluted. He is asking for nothing and giving everything, and he sees it in her face when she makes her decision. They smile. She stands, steps into his arms. He says, "We don't have to do anything. We can go get her right now if you want." His mouth is sweet and hot on her jaw, behind her ear, finally her lips. "No," she says, breaking the kiss for a second. "Not for a while." - - - Her cheek is pressed to freezing glass when the car stops. Golden threads of sleet run the night through, catching the glare from the headlights. She stumbles out onto the hidden grass, makes her way blind through the graves. She ignores the stiffness in her lower back and legs. She ignores the phantom smears of red in her mind, the violet shades of his wounds. (The shrill screams of the drills were deafening. Someone held him down with straps and nails.) She ignores the expanding things inside her, waiting to claw themselves out. She refuses the pain just under her ribcage, where the monster lashes out once. The sharpness jars her. She halts, reaching out to steady herself against a rusty cross- shaped marker. Wake up. She'd thought she was prepared for what her body would undergo, but she thinks now that she relied too much on the hope that he would be there to help her, to make her laugh when she was feeling unsettled, to give her massages when their child practiced karate, to be amazed with her at the life they created. At the family they would have become. She walks to his grave slowly, gathering words. This child, she tells him, isn't all you gave me. - - - She closes drapes, turns out lamps, yanks blankets onto the floor, scatters pillows. Kneels on the bed and tugs at his hands, kisses him, drags her fingers along his body, makes them both naked. Feels the fading cut that dissected his torso and wishes she could have spared him the jagged torture of the saw. "They hurt you," she whispers. He doesn't deny it, but runs his fingers through her hair and kisses her instead of speaking. They rest in each other's arms for a few minutes, listening to the rain. "They hurt you," she says more strongly. "We're here, Scully," he says, stroking her back, her hips. Her voice trembles. "I know." "Is this okay?" he asks, moving his hands down to cup the sore weight of her breasts. She teaches him what she likes, what won't hurt her. Velvet milk beads over his fingertips as he relearns her. Memorize, she tells herself, breathing against his chest. He seems to be thinking the same thing. Their pace turns more possessive, and they sway and catch each other. They start to laugh, careful solemnity becoming delight. They kiss, bite, suck, scratch, soothe. She gently eases his hand between her legs, where she has not been touched except by herself and doctors in so long, where she has been torn and healed but not claimed. Guides him slowly inside her. Watches his eyes as he watches hers. Insistent rain patters against the windows. All the shadows in the room flare and recede. Later, he caresses her abdomen and scoots down, the way he did in the last weeks of her pregnancy, when the baby would thrum and thrash as though conducting music. Laid next to Scully's inside-out bellybutton, his face was always transformed by strange, unexpected joy. "I love you," she says now, her hand on his shoulder. "I love you." He rises up and gingerly wipes her eyelashes with his thumbs. Kisses her. She thinks of all the poor, sacred words she was too scared to say, before. She isn't sure if he understands. "I love you too." He says it without caution or unease, as though he's said it a thousand times, and she thinks maybe he has. He knows her fears but also her heart: this is what she sees in his face as they touch, still hungry. He knows she almost died too. "We're here," she says, sounding dazed. He presses his body to hers. He holds her head in his hands, and tells her again, so she'll believe. "I love you." The warmth between them expands, like light. - - - The funeral snow has melted but is being replaced by new inches of ice. Her mother waits in the car with the heater running. Scully stands at his family's stone with her head down, and silently prays all the desperate prayers for peace she can recall. Cold, cold air slips inside her coat and taps its skeletal fingers on her skin. She was supposed to save him and didn't. Couldn't. She was too slow, too confused, too late, too weak. Months, and too many mistakes. I wanted to give you a family, she thinks. Her faith -- in grace, in mercy, in a place beyond earth's bounds where they might someday be reunited -- has been corroded, and she can't bear to fight harder for it now, when the possibility of failure is this high. I couldn't find you. I couldn't stop it. What if you never get to hold her, Mulder? What if you never know she's yours? She thinks she needs to be brave enough to say the words out loud. Finally she speaks, her voice raw and bare, and so soft that over the wind and sleet no one but a ghost would hear it. "I was at a lake in the Ozarks last week," she begins. "You would have liked it. I've pretty much decided the culprits were boggleboes and not hobgoblins, but Agent Doggett doesn't seem to agree. "Anyway, I, um, I pretended it was summer." She stops and quirks a grin at the ground. The expression doesn't last, and her face starts to crumple as she holds back tears. "It started to rain and you and I, we--" She exhales, chilled, shaking. "I have something to tell you. I guess I should've told you already. I guess I hope you already know." But she can't force her voice. Her hot eyes stare at the marble and the ice slides out of the sky more and more quickly. First the hard cold pain. Then the numbness seeping in. "Dana," Margaret Scully says, startling her. "Dana, you've been out here for an hour. The temperature's dropping. You need to be inside." "I know. Just a while longer, Mom." Scully closes her eyes. "We can come back in a few weeks. When the weather's better. Please." "I haven't..." Margaret places her hand on her daughter's swollen abdomen. Scully shrugs away, unyielding. "He knows," her mother says. "I believe he knows. Now you have to take care of yourself. And her." Scully wipes at her nose, nods. "Okay," she says. She will not let Margaret put an arm around her. They walk back to the car. Scully settles in for the drive. The baby presses hello from inside, and then calms. - - - After midnight, the clouds travel on. He and she and their daughter sit on the balcony, summer night surrounding them, and count uncovered stars. Mulder holds Scully as she holds the baby, rocking. The little girl gazes up, her wide turquoise eyes serious, as if she is reading her own future in the patterns of starlight. Her hands pat at Scully's face, and when Mulder kisses one sweet palm, she laughs. Scully croons some nameless music to her until they are all drowsy again. "Do you remember when you told me about her, Scully?" he asks, his face turned into her hair. "In the hospital?" "No," he says. "After they found me. But before the hospital." Scully goes very still. She doesn't answer. The baby wiggles and drifts asleep. "You said it once when you didn't think I was listening," he says, and Scully can hear the smile in his voice. "What did I tell you?" she asks, almost stunned. "It was so dark and I was so tired, Scully, and I wanted to sleep and never open my eyes again, but your voice... I could hear you, and you told me... You whispered to me, 'We made a soul.' And then I woke up." - - - "Honey." Her mother leans over her to unsnap the seatbelt. Looking down, Scully is startled at the alien roundness of her own body. Behind her eyes she sees herself: her stomach a concave gush of bloody pulp, burnt tissue, twisted gristle; her foot crushing a fist-sized skull of soft, foreign bone, and sizzling lime-colored fumes rising in her lungs. "Come on. We'll get you inside." Scully does not say goodnight to her mother. Does not let her help her out of the car, does not look down the street. She takes deliberate steps when going up the path to her apartment building and tries not to wake up the neighbors when unlocking the door. The apartment is chilly and dark. She tosses her dripping coat over a chair. She finds a clean towel in the hallway laundry hamper and blots her hair. She's soaked through, and strips in her bedroom. She looks at her changed body in the mirror. The baby flutters on the right side of her abdomen. Scully places her palms on that spot and imagines the child's heartbeat, an echo of her own. She puts on her worn cotton housecoat and wanders back to the living room. On the couch is a blanket wrapped in tissue paper. She picks it up and can almost picture him, standing in some cluttered, lilac-scented shop, some out of the way antique store in some pokey oceanside town. He would be waiting for her to finish up with an autopsy or paperwork or apologies to the local sheriff. He would be between interviews with victims. He wouldn't be shopping, not really, but it would be raining and he wouldn't have an umbrella because she'd have the car. She tucks herself into a corner of the couch and unwraps the impossibly soft pale turquoise blanket. She'd found it in a plain brown paper sack in his closet, a barely legible handwritten receipt stapled to the front. When he'd bought it, there had been no IVF attempt yet. He agreed to be her donor but she knew there were hard decisions to resolve; both of them were careful with each other, and the most important question was never asked. She had lain with her feet in stirrups, thinking, He's my best friend. That's enough. Oh, but she knew better. Even then, she thinks, I knew. And I still didn't... Icy rain blows against her windows, having followed her home. With dulled-feeling hands, Scully folds the blanket neatly and does not imagine him wrapping their child in it to cradle her, to keep her warm. - - - Alone again, thanks to Margaret and the baby, who sleeps through the jostling hallway exchange. The room is silent as they cling together in their nest of blankets and pillows. He'd pulled Scully's panties off as quickly as possible, his voice fraying with need: "I have to taste you." Now his hands stroke the backs of her thighs while he pushes up her legs, pushes deeper inside her. There is so much to say but they are stealing each other's voices. Afterwards, before sleep, she wipes tear tracks from his face. "You saved me," he says, watching her. She kisses him and thinks, In the morning, Mulder, I promise I will tell you everything. I promise. - - - She tries from her bedroom window but cannot say it and cannot say it. The room is empty. The cemetery is miles away, and covered in ice. He is gone and she is a coward. There will never be enough words. The clouds have left. Moon patterns and star shapes hit the glass with blue-white light, and bring no warmth. Their child moves inside her, dreaming her own sky. - - - An End. - - - ...Nothing of this is true, but will you let me have it, Imaginary? ...Because even if it is not true, I need something to look back to, in order to say: I have been sudden in the sun's perfection, I have had blood rise like light, my hands have answered, my memory is a bush of grown flame. It is a kindness you can do me, to have been there at the center of summer, yourself the attack of summer, and to have made all that light out of being young. I need to have loved you. I need to have told you so. -- William Dickey - - - Author's Notes - Huge thank yous and copious sums of chocolate to Micole, Shari and Renee, who helped hammer this into something resembling a readable story. All remaining incoherences are my fault alone. For example, I'm not at all convinced "incoherences" is a word. - If you think the camp in this story seems familiar, well, you're right. - The title of this story is taken from a line in a poem by Anne Marie Macari. For she whose penname means "protector from the sea" and whose real name rhymes with "hairy". (At least in the Midwest. )