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She knew they were too close. Hell, everyone knew they were too close but no one saw how close the way she did. The fractured pieces that made up outside opinions—correct opinions, but incomplete nonetheless—could never compare to the full picture.
In college she’d taken a class about the physics of celestial objects. The way moons orbited planets and planets revolved around suns in galaxies that orbited each other too.
She wrote her final paper on binary star systems. A solar system with two stars, orbiting one another, held in place by their mutual gravitational pull.
Stars don’t usually begin in binary orbits. They can be born in nebulas thousands of light years apart and through the little-understood movements of the universe, they can find each other. Erratic orbits, gravitational or energy shifts, a million reasons why some stars find themselves pulled towards each other and others don’t.
When Blevins asked why she had joined the FBI instead of becoming a doctor she had made a quip about her parents to deflect. Yes, she wanted to distinguish herself but it was more than that. There was something she would never admit to because it sat in the realm of fate and gut feelings and coincidence and she doesn’t believe in any of that. But something called her to this line of work that wasn’t just purpose.
And she’ll never know what it was about her—her gender, her obstinate belief in facts, her medical background—that paired her with the previously unpartnerable Spooky Mulder. However it happened, almost the moment she knocked on the door to their basement office she became locked in orbit with the FBI’s most unwanted.
The stars vary in their closeness, some hundreds of light years apart and others barely able to fit in the distance between the earth and the sun. The latter are so close together they can feed off each other’s light and energy, a perpetual connection visible thousands of light years away. The term scientists use to describe such closeness is Cataclysmic.
Everyone see the way they obit each other—cataclysmically close—and the way each movement seems to pull the other closer. Each case, each moment of danger, each hour spent together. The way they can have conversations with barely a breath and know inner thoughts with nothing more than a glance. Their connection blindingly bright to those close to them and visible to any around them.
It’s still unknown what the deciding factor is regarding the future of binary star systems. Some are destined to spend an eternity together, solar systems forming around them. Others find their gravitation pull so strong the distance between the stars closes until they collide. When this happens, they die.
Most of the time, one star dies first; an explosion of gas and dust that can be seen thousands of light years away. The lone survivor will wrap itself in the shroud of particles that was once its other half, before it finally collapses in on itself under that weight and explodes too, sending the remains of both stars scattering through the universe.
Sometimes, she wonders which way she and Mulder are heading. There’s no denying the gravitational pull, the codependency, the closeness. The way they’d die for each other, or perhaps together, but being the lone survivor feels more unbearable than any alternative. They never voice it—how can they? The slightest wobble and it could all fall apart.
That fact was never more apparent than their most recent case, with Modell. How dangerously close they are to the collision that would kill them both and obliterate everything around them.
The gun to his head was the easy part, for him, she knows. For her it was a glimpse of a future shrouded by the last vestiges of her memories of him and the pink foam of his beautiful mind across every surface. She doesn’t want to think about what she might have done. The way she shattered before modell was testament to that. She, the stoic, logical, collected half of them screaming, crying, begging for his life.
The gun to her head was the easy part, for her. For him, she knew, it was an act unforgivable, so much so that taking his life alongside hers would not have been repatriation enough. Instead, a lifetime left as a shadow of himself wrapped in memories of her and her end and his part in it. He fought against modell’s control down to every cell in his body to save her. Gasping her name like even his lungs required her to work.
They had survived this near-miss, just barely. Lurching away right at the moment the space between them seemed to disappear. They’re closer than they were before this, of course. A new depth in the way they look at each other, the addition of handholding to their already unprofessional unspoken repertoire of acceptable physical touches. But they remain at a safe distance. Resuming their familiar orbit with one another as soon as possible—the banter, the casework, the usual arguments about facts and faith.
Their silence was another part of that orbit. The unspoken agreement to never acknowledge their cataclysmic closeness. But she can see it in his eyes when she catches him staring, the way she is sure he can in the reverse. She can feel it in every electric touch between them that they both pretend is nonchalant or accidental.
“Penny for your thoughts?”
She looks over from where she’d been staring at one of the many star-covered posters on the walls of their office. He’s staring at her with a look that twists something inside her she’d rather not acknowledge. His expression is too warm, too soft, his small smile too vulnerable. She smiles and hides behind a non-answer.
“I think they’re worth more than that, Mulder.”
His response is a noise somewhere between a laugh and a scoff, softened by the growing smile on his face. She looks away.
One day, she knows, they will learn how their story will end. A fate perhaps already predetermined by some force Mulder would likely believe in. A forever made of near misses and cataclysmic connections as they go around and around and around. A cosmic blip, a wobble, a gravitation error and it’s all over in a shower of molecules. But it wasn’t with modell. And it won’t be today.
With a sigh, she sets all of those thoughts aside. She can feel him studying her, trying to figure out exactly what she’s thinking.
With a smile, she turns to meet his eyes again. They hold each others gaze for a few, sizzling seconds. His eyes curious, hers secretive, both silent.
She jerks her chin slightly at the case open in his hand, breaking the moment.
“Anything interesting?”
“Actually, Scully,” he starts, sitting up straighter and leaning across the desk slightly towards her “there do seem to be some slight discrepancies…”
She sinks into the familiar embrace of his brilliant, unusual monologue, watching as he gets more animated about whatever phenomena he has stumbled upon.
Maybe one day, if the universe allows and when everything doesn’t feel quite so volatile she’ll talk to him about the stars. Though, as with everything else she’s never said, she’s pretty sure he already knows.