Work Text:
"Looks like it's gonna be a long night."
Scully sighed. Her and Mulder had been sitting on her living room floor for God knows how long, chipping away at a drudging, mind-numbing task. Although organizing files and writing up reports wasn't number one on her list of Thursday night activities, she wasn't completely opposed to the idea of another late workday. Still, she overdrew her exasperation and clung to every vowel that she spoke. For Mulder's sake, she deliberated. It was obvious he hadn't been sleeping well, and although the work had to be done, she didn't want to drag him through anymore trouble than she already had. She held a small laugh in her nose. Trouble. As if her abduction was just another minor nuisance.
She pried herself from the floor and removed her reading glasses as she made her way to the kitchen. "I'm gonna make some coffee," she offered. "We'll need it if we plan on finishing all this for tomorrow. How do you take it?"
"None for me, thanks," he muttered. "Don't need it."
Scully pursed her lips and her brow furrowed. She stood a ways behind him, watching as he tirelessly sorted through the files strewn across her living room table. His hands wouldn't stop; stacking files neatly into sections, scribbling sloppy notes in margins, and then shuffling the papers up again. It was an obvious act and they both knew it, but she didn't say anything because she knew he was doing it for her.
She stretched her mouth to a yawn, and her mind wandered back to the coffee. The floor creaked beneath her steps en route to the kitchen and the cupboard door hinges squealed as she retrieved a mug. Even with Mulder only a room away, the frightening solitude she found in being away from him instinctively amplified her senses and got her heart working overtime. The dishes from their dinner a few hours ago were still left abandoned in the sink, so she absent-mindedly began to wipe them clean; the repetitive, circular motion she made as she scrubbed was relaxing, mindless, soothing in a way that she knew her teenage self would laugh at. She let the sounds of the bubbling coffee machine and the running tap wash over her. Or, she forced herself to let it. She gained very little of her lost time back, and what she did manage to remember was almost all completely auditory. There were bright lights, and she didn't want to keep her eyes open, but all else she could remember were the sounds; high-pitch drilling or air escaping from a small hole. Or the whispering. The damned, incessant, deafening whispers.
She remembered her father's voice. She couldn't see him, or at least she didn't remember seeing him, but his voice hung in her ears like the ringing after a church bell. A beautiful discomfort.
She wasn't sure how long she'd been scrubbing the same plate, and she was even less sure of how long she'd been humming, but she caught herself on the bridge of 'Beyond The Sea' when she felt something near her. She clumsily dropped the plate into the sink as she whisked herself around to face the doorway.
Mulder was standing there, shoulder leaning on the door frame with his hands in his pockets. His eyes drooped at the edges in exhaustion and his hair stumbled across his forehead, but a sweet, smitten smile chiseled his lips and Scully could swear he had been tapping his foot.
"Bobby Darin, huh," Mulder chuckled.
"It's uh, an old childhood memory," she explained tremulously. She felt the heat in her cheeks dance across her face as she wiped her hands off on the dishtowel. Time to change the subject. "C'mon, then, we're nowhere near done."
Scully began to make her way back to the living room, but Mulder grasped her shoulder to stop her as she tried to pass him in the doorway. His hand cupped her shoulder almost completely, and the warmth emanating from his palm sent a contradictory shiver through her.
They stood together for a while, terse inches between them. She felt Mulder's gaze washing across her, filling her open wounds, cleansing and renewing, though she still self-consciously wanted desperately to wipe herself dry. She turned her eyes upward to meet his, and she could feel the tears collecting behind her waterline.
He brushed his hand through her hair and tucked it behind her ear. His smile hadn't faded, but his lips parted slightly as he ran his fingers slowly down the back of her neck, and across and back to her shoulder.
"I never stopped looking, you know," he mused. "The minute that I lost sight of you, I never stopped." He hesitated, licking his lips. "I was terrified. It was all my fault, and I was scared I'd lost you for good."
"Of course I knew, Mulder," she started. She finally let a small smile and a breathy giggle.
***
-tentative end, WIP