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“Dana, it’s your mother. Open the door.”
Scully pulls the blanket over her head and curls up tighter on the couch. Within her mind, the words GO AWAY sharpen like blades on a whetstone. She wishes them out, flying through the room, through the door and embedded into her mother’s forehead.
Matricide. Small potatoes.
“Dana! I know you’re in there.” Her mother’s voice is strong, yet laced with anguish. She aches for the woman, but cannot face her.
I gave him up, mom.
Next comes the scraping sound of a key rattling against the lock. Scully’s fingers clench on the blanket even though she knows the door won’t open. She had the lock changed as soon as she came back, ten days ago. She’d known her week long vacation excuse would not hold much longer.
The jangling stops. Her mother curses, making Scully blink at the outlandishness of it.
“DANA!” A fist squarely hits the door this time.
Scully presses both heels of her hands against her ears and shuts her eyes so tight she can feel the skin of her forehead stretching like dry vellum. She swallows once painfully.
Everything tastes like ashes.
***
She doesn’t know how long she remained like that, curled up like a frightened hedgehog - taking almost no space at all on the wide expanse of her couch. But when she’d tentatively removed her hands from her ears, everything was quiet again.
She knows her mother’s next move must have been to find the super, but Scully left him strict instructions, which she was certain he’d follow to the letter. There had been no need to voice threats or warnings. She just had to hold the man’s gaze just a little longer than necessary. He knows who she works for.
She lifts herself from the couch, shoving the blanket aside. All her muscles are aching as she stands up. She kicks aside an empty Lean Cuisine container with her bare foot and heads wearily for the kitchen. Her stomach feels taut and empty as a drum skin, but the knot in her throat makes eating difficult. Her foot catches on something soft and she looks down. A crumpled tank top this time. She was wearing it when -
Scully snatches the top, runs to the bathroom and throws it into the hamper with so much force she scrapes her hand on the edge. The lid cracks when she slams it shut. She turns towards the sink, her breathing short and painful, her vision blurred by the unbearable pressure of grief within her skull.
Her ears pick up the ghost of an echo lingering in the room. The shout of frustration that just escaped her lips must have been the first sound she’s made in several days. Her fingers curl up into fists like fern shoots.
She hasn’t cried yet.
She grips the edges of the sink, staring blankly at the silver ring of the drain. The white porcelain soothes her palms where the imprints of her fingernails throb in Morse code. Her hands feel empty and raw and itchy all at once.
Her whole body shouts at her what she once was and is no more. Her arms remember the exact weight of her child. Her breasts ache with the phantom pull of nursing. Her ears bleed from the silence coming from the nursery.
She slowly lifts her face to the mirror, knowing perfectly well who is about to greet her. Her present reflection is no stranger. She’s seen her before, this unwelcome relative, with her lifeless hair, drawn face and haunted eyes. She turns up when things go bad, when sisters get shot, when tumors grow, when partners die. Scully hates everything she stands for, the weakness, the defeat, the loss of control.
Pull yourself together, Dana. Come on, you always do. This is no different.
But it is.
She knows what would help. She drags a stool near her bathroom closet and climbs onto it to reach the top shelf. Her fingers close on a brushed metal box. Sitting back down on the stool, she sets the box on her lap, opens it and stares at its contents. These are the drugs she was prescribed in the terminal stages of her cancer. The morphine, the Percocet, the Tramadol, among others. They're well past their expiration dates, but she's quite certain that even an aged opioid cocktail would still pack a wallop. They could help her make things easier for a while. She could sleep, she could eat, her muscles would stop feeling like the strings of a badly tuned cello about to snap.
Go ahead, drug yourself into oblivion. What’s one more betrayal, Dana?
The box goes back on the top shelf, its contents untouched.
She doesn’t deserve easy.
Besides, what she’s feeling now is all she’s got left from him. Her rational mind protests weakly but sorrow slams the door in its face.
You had no choice.
You’re a coward.
Scully splashes some cold water on her face before returning to the living room. Light the color of skim milk filters through the closed curtains, puddling around a couple of dirty mugs on the coffee table. In a corner, her hibiscus is shedding dry leaves and buds have fallen before having bloomed. Shards of white china are scattered on the floor. They glint like polished bones in the twilight.
She’s been clumsy.
She hesitates for a moment before returning to the kitchen. She opens the fridge. Most of her fresh food has gone bad. She still has some frozen vegetables, but can’t be bothered. A package of fuzzy green samosas catches her eye. She’d been planning to make William try one.
She closes the fridge abruptly and goes to lie down in her bed. Her sheets smell of old sweat and despair, but she doesn’t have the energy to change them. She stares at the ceiling and doesn’t sleep.
Night falls. Her room sinks into darkness, except for a few shafts of yellow street light streaking the wall in front of the bed, catching the edge of her mirror.
She wants to sleep so badly but is too exhausted to do so. Her eyes are dry and burning, shrunken inside their sockets. The needle of her thoughts is stuck in a relentless groove, making her relive the same scene again and again in a maddening loop. Every time she closes her eyes, William is in his car seat, squeezing her pinkie with his tiny fist and looking up at her with his serious grey-maybe-blue baby eyes, a spit bubble on his bottom lip. She sees herself pulling her hand away and closing the door of the navy blue Subaru. The driver, a thin, kind man in a worn tweed jacket, gives her a small nod before pulling out onto the road. She remembers how her legs had wanted to propel her forward in a mad run. How her lungs had urged her to scream her son’s name until she had no voice left.
She remembers how she had done none of these things.
“Dana?”
Scully starts and scrambles madly to open her bedside drawer. A tall shadow has appeared at the bedroom door. Light floods the room just as her hand closes on her gun. She aims it at the stranger, her breath coming in terrified wheezes.
“Whoa! Dana. Calm down, it’s just me.”
“Bill?” She lowers her gun, her hand shaking badly with the adrenaline rush. “How did you get in?”
“Fire escape. I owe you a window.” He twirls a glass cutter in his right hand.
She gapes at him. “You broke into my apartment?”
“You bet your ass I did.”
Scully shoves her gun back in the drawer and props herself up against the headboard. “You could have knocked.”
Bill huffs. “Yeah, mom told me how successful she’s been with that.”
Scully slips her legs off of the bed. “Is that why you’re here?”
“What do you think?” Her brother takes a few steps inside the room. The smells of night air and leather accompany him.
Scully sighs and shakes her head tiredly. Her soft grey t-shirt hangs on her thin frame like a shroud. “Go home, Bill.”
“Where’s my nephew?”
She whips her head towards him and for a fleeting second he catches a glimpse of the dark, all encompassing rage boiling inside her. Then her neck seems to wilt and Bill watches her gaze drop to her hands. She doesn’t answer.
Bill comes closer and kneels down by the bed besides her. “Dana, what happened?”
“I had to do it,” she whispers.
Bill waits but she doesn’t volunteer anything further. He grabs his sister’s arm roughly. “Dana! What did you do? Where’s William?”
She lets him shake her, doesn’t even try pulling away. She does start talking again though, her voice distant like fevered dreams. “There was a man in his room. He injected him with something. They were all after him. They kidnapped him once already.”
Bill’s eyes open wide. “Kidnapped him? When on Earth did that happen? And why?”
His sister shrugs. “They think he’s important, that he can save them.”
“Save them? What in God’s name are you talking about Dana? This doesn’t make an ounce of sense! Who’s *them*?”
She coughs a bitter laugh. “I wish I knew. UFO cult members, former FBI agents and others…not like us. Take your pick.”
Bill clenches his teeth. In other words, Mulder’s playmates; he doesn’t know how to interpret his sister’s insane rambling, but he knows one thing: whatever happened here, that bastard of a partner is responsible for it.
“They were there when he was born, you know?” she continues. “They were all around watching me while I gave birth, but they didn’t take him. I never understood why they didn’t just take him then.”
She’s lost it. His irritatingly bright, smartass sibling - the apple of their father’s eye - has definitely, completely lost it. There is no other explanation for all this crap. She’s pushed herself too far, and now she’s gone crazy.
An ominous chill runs down his spine. He thinks of Andrea Yates and tries not to imagine the lifeless body of his nephew face down in the bathtub.
He needs a direct answer from her.
Bill kneels down, grabs both her shoulders and levels his face with hers. “Dana, where is your son now?”
Her gaze is unfocused and grey like winter sea mist.
“I don’t know.”
“Bullshit.”
“That was the whole point,” she adds quietly.
“Damnit Dana! Will you stop talking in fucking riddles and tell me what the hell happened?”
She tenses under his fingers - something of her old defiance flashes briefly in her eyes. “I gave William up for adoption.”
“YOU WHAT?” Bill releases her shoulders abruptly. He stumbles backwards before recovering, scrambling to his feet, “Dana, you couldn’t have! This is nuts!”
His sister stands up and walks to her bedroom window. She lifts the curtain to stare at the drizzle lightly beating the window pane. “I have, it’s done.”
Bill runs his hands over his face. “I am not hearing this.”
“I don’t expect you to understand.”
Bill marches towards her and forces her to turn around. He grabs her collar and pulls her to him, the grey fabric wadded into his fist. “You wanted that child more than anything in the world. I cannot believe you would abandon him, just like that,” he hisses in her face.
Dana’s right hand closes over his fist. The strength of her grip rattles him. He remembers her with pigtails and scraped knees, light as a feather on his shoulders, pointing and laughing at zoo animals, drumming her little heels on his chest with excitement. He tends to forget what she has become, that his sister is essentially a federal weapon.
“Just like that? You think I did this just like that? You know nothing.” She spits at him, her nails digging hard into his fisted hand, “I did this out of love, Bill. To keep him safe from harm, so he could live like a normal child.”
“And what does his *father* think of all this?” Bill makes sure she hears all the venom he injects in that one word.
His sister’s grip falters and hurt blooms in her eyes like a weed. “He doesn’t know.”
He shoots her an ugly grin. “He’s going to hate you.”
“I know.”
This is not right. Bill suddenly feels ashamed at taking cheap pot shots at her. It’s no fun if she doesn’t bite back.
“Is he still hiding?” he asks more gently.
She just nods. Bill lets go of her t-shirt and averts his eyes awkwardly. “Dana…”
“What?” She murmurs.
He digs in his pocket, produces a big, blue, neatly ironed handkerchief and offers it to her. “Here, take this.”
Scully realizes there are tears running down her cheeks. “Damnit.” She snatches the handkerchief and wipes her eyes with irritation.
Bill walks to her dresser and picks up a mauve spun glass bottle. He wonders if Melissa gave this to her. It doesn’t look like something Dana would buy for herself. He’s at a loss what to do or say now. His righteous anger deflated like a badly roped wing sail at the sight of her grief. He feels exhausted and there’s a painful knot in his stomach at the thought of breaking the news to his mother. She’s the one who sent him here, nearly hysterical with worry. “Something’s terrible has happened and she won’t tell me,” she’d sobbed over the phone. He feels like he‘s been left in charge of picking up Mulder’s trash and it is seriously pissing him off. He now understands why his father didn’t want Dana to join the FBI. It wasn’t because he wanted her to be a doctor at all costs, but because he must have known what kind of obsessed and dangerous people she would be working with.
Bill sets the bottle down carefully and turns towards his sister, shoving his hands into his coat. His left one hits the small red Lego brick Matthew had given him to "play with on the plane". He follows the edges with his thumb. “But you will go and get him back, won’t you? When things settle down?” He asks her.
Dana rubs her upper arms as if she were cold. Her gaze drifts to the window again. “Settle down…I don’t know if things will ever settle down. Chances are he’ll never be safe around me. Besides how could I subject his adoptive mother to what I’ve just been through? How could I do this to anyone, Bill?”
But you will, he thinks. You will and you won’t care because he's your child and no civilized considerations or logical reasoning will stop you. “So what now? I go back to Mom’s and tell her she’s down one grandson?” he asks somewhat dejectedly.
Scully reaches out for him, her fingers barely brushing the brown leather of his sleeve. “I’m sorry.”
“I bet you are.” His anger is coming back and he has to go before it gets the better of him. He turns on his heel, crosses her dark living room and opens her front door. But as he steps outside, he makes the mistake of casting one last look over his shoulder. Their eyes meet and he takes her in, frail as a reed and pale as salt, back-lit by the bedroom lamp. He closes his eyes against the image, banging his head once in frustration against the doorframe, then rushes back in to engulf her in a bear hug. He doesn’t trust himself to speak, so he says nothing, just crushes her against his chest.
“Forgive me,” she breathes against his coat, voice thick as damp wool.
He sighs against her hair and hugs her even tighter before releasing her quickly. He knows what he can give and how much she can take. He does not search for her eyes again.
Scully watches him leave, hears his brisk footsteps down the hall. She doesn’t move for a long time; her circuit breakers have all tripped at once. There is nothing but white noise in her head.
Her legs fold underneath her until she sits on the floor. A broken piece of china catches her eyes, she picks it up, turns it between her fingers for a while. She then stretches her arm to pick another one, then another one. Soon, she is scrambling around on her knees collecting all the pieces she can find. When that’s done she stands up and heads for the kitchen, opens the trash can and drops the pieces in it. The clear sound they make as they fall and clatter against each other echoes her broken heart.
She then walks to the nursery door and closes it. The handle is rounded and cool in her hand. She wishes it would crumble like soft plaster between her fingers, that everything behind it would just turn to dust and disappear.
One day she will be able to walk in and sort things out. But right now she knows she will fall apart if she even tries - and after all, Mulder spent years with a virtually condemned room in his own apartment. Why can’t she do the same?
She curses under her breath for having let her thoughts drift in his direction. She can’t think of him now either. Can’t think how much she misses him, how cheated she’d felt to have him leave when they’d just barely found out what they could be to each other – like finding a secret drawer on an old, beloved desk. She can’t think how she will tell him.
Scully enters her bathroom, retrieves the metal box and, after some debating, washes down a couple of Percocets with a sip of water.
There.
Another part of her life that’s about to be torn from her book. But this time, the choice is hers and hers only.
Hush William, go to sleep, bye bye.
She lets her clothes puddle at her feet and steps into the shower. There under the spray, she can pretend the water on her face only comes from the pipes above her head.
She ignores the taste of salt on her lips.
THE END