Work Text:
“Scully!”
Mulder’s voice is frantic among the myriad of gunfire raining down on them, the swell of panic creeping in his chest as the smoke of grenades invades his lungs. He crawls to her, his eyes never leaving her motionless form. His shaking hands pat down the length of her body, checking for wounds and injuries.
“Mulder,” she answered in a faint voice.
Their eyes meet, and the world around them fades into nothingness. He has to get them out of here, but he can’t think. He can’t think when all he can focus on is the red puddle spreading on her side. The weight in his chest grows heavier. He holds pressure on the wound, flinching as she groans in pain.
“Why are you still here?” he asks. “You were supposed to evacuate with everyone else.”
“I couldn’t leave you behind.” Her sincerity crushes his heart. Of course. Of course she did it for him.
“You should have.” He wants to be angry at her but when has he ever truly been?
“Loving you wasn’t just about the day we met,” she whispers. “It’s always been all the days after.” Her words have a sorrowful purpose he doesn’t want to acknowledge. It's too soon.
He feels her shudder against him. “I’m here, love. Stay with me.”
The floor they’re on suddenly feels too empty. Where did all the people go? He calls out to anyone who might hear his pleas, prays for the God she passionately believes in, but the smell of death seems to linger in his voice. His words falter, tears at the corner of his eyes. And then there’s more blood.
It’s on his hands, slipping through his fingers, soaking their clothes like watercolor on an empty canvas. The sight of it steals a strangled sob out of his tightens throat. Mulder’s clinging to her while the blood gushes out, taking her life with it as it turns the corridor floor into a horror movie. And he’s terrified.
“How bad is it, Mulder?”
He doesn’t trust his words, so he pulls her closer to him.
Scully feels exhausted and drained of her energy. Her eyelids shut a little longer every passing second, her body slumping against his frame. She fights against the darkness, refuses to leave into a universe that will no longer let her exist alongside him. Her hope breaks and then mends and shatters again.
The sickening smell finally hits her weakened senses, the harsh metallic tang lingering in the dense air. Scully can’t breathe against the stench of it mixed with dust and gunpowder, coughing every time her lungs beg for release. In her feverish state, she thinks— No. She knows his face will be the last one she sees, and she is happy with it. She has made peace with that thought a long time ago.
“It’s my blood, isn’t it?” One cannot fool a medical doctor, certainly not one like Dana Scully anyway, so he didn’t try to deny it, to give her hope, for he didn’t have any to spare. If she was to die today, monsters under his bed would come back; he would never be able to fight them off. Not without her.
“I’m sorry,” he apologizes, unsure what for—maybe everything she had to endure because of him, maybe everything she had to renounce to stay with him—, and he hates the silence that follows. “I’m so sorry.”
“Agent Mulder, is that you?” a voice calls behind him a few minutes later.
Walter Skinner appears over his shoulder, face grim with dirt and gunpowder smeared over his cheeks. He doesn’t see Scully at first, because Mulder shields her from view, then his gaze falls on the blood. It’s pouring out from her faster than her body can replace it. Skinner kneels down in a heartbeat.
“It won’t fucking stop.”
“Agent Mulder—”
“Why won’t it fucking stop?”
If he was any other man and her any other woman, maybe he could have let go of her hand — of her. But she was the light and he her shadow. As long as she’ll live, he’d follow her through thick and thin. What would happen if she didn’t survive today was another story. No one should know such a pain.
Skinner has seen their love grow and flourish over the years. He’s seen them circling around each other. While they never ran out of things to bicker about, every argument, every sign of anger were born out of love and care. It is easy to fall in love with Dana Scully, and even easier to fall in love with Fox Mulder.
It starts slowly and it happens in silence, with no fuss and no warning. And when you finally notice it, when you finally realize you can’t bear seeing him in danger, it’s too late. You’re stuck with a protective heart and an infinite softness for the lost boy Mulder never ceased to be deep down his very soul.
In another life, Skinner thinks there would have been no aliens threats, no governmental fraudulences and no planet-wide evil shenanigans… In another life, they could have been happy. There would’ve been children running around, and laughter that never stop. There would’ve been warmth, and peace.
On numerous occasions, Skinner has seen them sitting side by side and holding hands. They would say nothing, do nothing but share a moment and it would be enough. A peaceful painting in that basement of theirs. As long as they have each other, everything is fine. Companionship in its most beautiful form.
“Mulder,” she calls so low he barely hears her.
The sound a heart makes when it breaks echoes in the almost empty office, for he knows she is dying in his arms and there is nothing, no one to save her. Not even him. She is dying in his arms and all he can do is watch. Her chest rises and falls with a painful languor; she struggles to draw air in her lungs.
He can feel her slowly slipping away. His heart is bleeding too. He wants to believe they can save her, but he can’t. It makes no sense wanting to believe without her grounding him to reality. It makes no sense when his person doesn’t answer back with her sharp wit and scientific knowledge. And faith.
He is the believer, but she has faith. Her faith is the source of his strength, and without her he’d be like a lost man in the desert. He’s been blinded by his quest in the past, and then she came into his life and kept him grounded. Well, she tried to… when she wasn’t instigating irresponsible actions herself.
“Can you hold me?” she asks. These are words she has spoken before. Asked too many times to count. She asks even though they know he would never deny her the simple pleasure of them being together. He doesn’t listen when she tells him not to jump on a train, but he would give up everything for a kiss.
Words of love are stuck in his throat, and it hurts so much he can’t bring himself to kiss her on the lips. Not yet. Not when he doesn’t know if she’ll make it. To kiss her now, soft and slow to his heart’s desire, sounds too much like a goodbye. He isn’t ready for that. He leans down to press his lips to her cheek.
“Always.”
Her lips are turning blue, her already fair complexion growing greyish. The heavy silence consumes him until someone brushes past him, John and Monica nearby, soon followed by more doctors and nurses. A small crowd is forming around them. Scully lies in a pool of blood. He wants to pray for a miracle.
Mulder breaks under the strain of his emotions. He’s in love with her. He loves her. Does she know?
“Mulder?” someone asks.
Monica’s voice is muffled like he’s underwater. Her hands reach out for him, but he barely feel them. He doesn’t move, he can’t. If he closes his eyes for too long, he’s afraid she will disappear, slip away. His quest costs him the ones he loves the most. A quest for answers he doesn’t need, doesn’t want anymore.
“I need you to move,” a nurse says apologetically. “Agent Mulder?”
Her voice is soft and motherly but it takes Skinner and Doggett to finally pull him away.
His chest aches, heart heavy as his eyes meet Doggett’s; the other agent looks helpless, crumbling at the sight of her body. Mulder never fully understood the friendship Scully and John shared. They didn’t start out great, the opposite as he recalls. And yet, in their darkest hours, they leaned on each other.
“I can’t do it without her,” Mulder admits, his voice hoarse.
Grieving Samantha was impossible.
Watching Scully die is even worse.
The nurse starts the compressions again. She can feel their eyes on her. The chances are slim, too slim, but it’s not her first rodeo. Her face is a mask of professionalism. One minute blends into the next and it feels like a lifetime before she turns to Mulder, her face void of hope, shoulders slumped in defeat.
“Don’t stop! Don’t fucking—”
“Mulder,” Monica starts but he cuts her off.
“I can’t lose her too, your hear me? I can’t…”
Mulder sees himself losing his temper and John has to reach up to prevent him from stepping a line he wouldn’t forgive himself for crossing. He cannot bear to look into the sorrow clouding his friend’s eyes. Mulder has the sudden urge to run, to run to the closest church and beg God to spare her life.
“She is my constant,” Mulder says softly; it sounds like a prayer to something that will never come. “My touchstone.”
He falls on his knees. He’s lost and she’s his lighthouse. Except the lighthouse is never meant to break, not like this. Never like this. It’s getting dark outside now, the moon is hiding behind steel-grey clouds. Has it been any other day, Mulder would’ve taken the time to admire the view.
It’s a beautiful night, and his world implodes.
For her hand no longer holds his.