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She woke up with a dry throat and the same feeling she had when her and Melissa would go into town and drink a few too many margaritas.
She was hit with a pang of nostalgia when she turned around and Melissa wasn’t passed out next to her, smelling of cigarettes and regret.
Well the smell of regret was there.
She was made aware of her nakedness and it took her a slow second to piece together the puzzle. Scully slowly tried to blink the intrusive thoughts away.
Women’s intuition is fickle this way. One second your gut is telling you to let loose and have fun and the next second it’s punishing you for it.
She raised herself up on her elbows and took a look around the room exhaling slowly...She hadn’t noticed she had been holding in her breath. She wasn’t home but she knew that before she opened her eyes . She noticed her clothes were all neatly folded on the chair next to her. She didn’t know if she hated that she did that or that someone else would have done that. But seeing her clothes neatly folded on a chair after last night made her queasy.
She knew she wasn’t hungover and she started having flashbacks from the night before and she pushed pushed pushed those thoughts out of her mind. There was a time and a place and right now she just needed to do this one step at a time.
Get up, get dressed, don’t pee. In case, don’t pee. In case.
Getting up made her woozy but she was used to that from years of being on the go and not feeding her body enough food.
She picked up the clothes from the chair and looked around the room to make sure she was alone. She still decided to get dressed in the bathroom. The hotel bathroom was cold and as she entered she shivered. She quickly got dressed and left the hotel.
Once outside she closed her eyes as the warmth from the sun hit her face. She basked in it for too long, contemplating her choices. Home or hospital. Home or hospital. She had the sudden urge to cry and then laugh. This was bound to happen she thought. This may have happened before she thought.
She had a pull between knowing better and being able to push things so far deep in her mind that she knew she could deal with this just fine if she just put it in that little box called “trauma”. It was her favourite box to ignore. It would have been so easy. And yet, and yet, and yet. Her duty to protect others was overwhelming.
She went into the hotel lobby and saw a cigarette vending machine. She got a pack of menthols as they would at least make her feel like she brushed her teeth cause she knew she wouldn’t be able to brush her teeth for a long time.
She asked the front desk clerk to call her a cab. She went outside to wait and lit up her menthol, slowly dragging the smoke in her lungs. Pushing pushing pushing the memories away. Not now not now not now.
At the hospital once her exam was done they asked if anybody could come pick her up. Like she was a fragile little thing. I’m an FBI agent she thought. I’ve been through worse. I’ll go through worse.
The police had asked her the required questions and due to her being a federal agent it now fell into federal jurisdiction. She anticipated that, of course, and also noticed the line of questioning from the officers went from indifferent to nervous when she said she was an FBI agent.
Once she got home she threw up in the toilet. It was almost dark and she had to go to work tomorrow. She contemplated taking a personal day, not for her of course, for fear her profiler partner would see right through her cool exterior. Skinner no doubt would be getting wind of this from those police officers if he hadnt already. No she would go to work and play it extra cool. Cool cool cool.
She had no trouble sleeping that night.
Scully walked into the bullpen before Mulder would be there. Power move. She took a breathe through her nose and began her work day. 15 minutes later profiler extraordinaire walks in. He knows she thinks. Play it cool.
“Hey Scully, what did you get to this weekend?”
“Oh you know the usual.” It was almost the usual for her. Taken, hospital, bruises, trauma. Give or take a few details.
She suddenly had a flash of a hand coming to rest on top of hers at a loud restaurant. A flash of a face, that belongs to that same hand, as she looked up and it was so close to her own face moving in and out of her line of vision. A flash of breathing, a flash of her thinking she should have brought her gun. A flash of her peeing at the hospital and getting a whiff of latex when she opened her legs.
“Scully are you ok?”
“I’m fine Mulder, just tired”
She put her head down and worked worked worked. While his eyes burnt into her.
“Scully let’s go for lunch, I wanna tell you about this case that’s happening in Ohio.”
Inward groan. Gotta keep up appearances. “Ok let me grab my coat”
He puts her coat on her and they head outside. “Scully what’s this? when did you start smoking?” She had left the menthols in the front pocket of her coat. “Oh that, I just bought them yesterday, was feeling nostalgic. I’ll throw them out.”
He frowns his eyebrows and she looks away. He often profiled her and that’s why she was such a closed book with him. Well she was a closed book with everyone but especially with him. If only he didn’t see her as another sister. Another victim. Another woman to put on a pedestal.
At the shawarma place Mulder can’t stop talking about this case in Ohio and he’s going on and on and Scully is tuning out, suddenly, she notices he must have stopped talking because he’s looking at her. They sat on a ledge outside the restaurant to eat side by side and as always he wasn’t giving her any personal space. God is he that good he can smell another man on me like a dog marked it’s territory. Without breaking eye contact he reaches two fingers into her crisp white collar and slowly pulls the fabric of her shirt and coat down as Scully swallows hard. His eyes go to her neck and she must have missed a bruise or hickey there with her makeup because his eyes momentarily go big and return to his usual size because he can also play it cool.
He looks at her like he’s gonna break their code of silence but he looks in her eyes with a questioning look and a soft face.
He’s hurt, she thinks, he’s thinking I have a life outside of him and the x files and he’s scared I’ll start living this life exclusively and he will, once again, be all alone to find the truth.
I meet his gaze and barely shake my head that he’s got nothing to worry about. However, I’ve misread this. He’s taking this hard personally and not professionally. He doesn’t understand what my head shake meant and he decides to break our code of silence .
“What did you really get up to this weekend Scully?”
She detects anger, curiosity and jealousy in his tone. She can profile too.
She decides to go ahead and play into it without revealing too much.
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“Did you get another tattoo, Scully?” He doesn’t break eye contact.
Condescending
She decides she’s gonna pull herself down from that damn pedestal that she hates so much.
“Truthfully Mulder, you may hear this from Skinner. There was an incident this weekend where I went out for a drink with this guy I met and I woke up Sunday at the Hilton with no recollection of the events that transpired the previous night. My tox screen came back with traces of Flunitrazepam and there’s an open investigation.”
He bites his lips and blinks
“Scully...”
“I’m fine Mulder.”
His two fingers are still on the fabric of my collar and he gently brushes the back of his two fingers against the broken capillaries of my neck. My walls break down for a second and I slowly lay my head on his fingers. We stare at each other for a minute before I close my eyes and enjoy the feather like strokes on my trapezius. I Inhale sharply and get up.
“You coming Mulder?”
He nods and gets up. Following me back.
In this moment I appreciate our code of silence, as we walk back to the bullpen, noticing his hand hasn’t left the small of my back since we left the restaurant. I appreciate he isn’t being too protective and intrusive. Of course, if I asked him he’d hunt this man down and empty his clip in this mans throat. But we both know we’d prefer if I was the one emptying my clip in said mans throat.
Maybe we could do that tomorrow.
We walk by Karen Kosseff’s office as I make a mental note about making an appointment this week to see her and I decide that maybe that little trauma box could use some dusting off after all.