Work Text:
are you coming to get me now?
I’ve been waiting for you to come rescue me
Sia, “I’m In Here”
--
“Agent Scully.” The voice on the other end of the line comes through, anxious and out of breath before Dana has the opportunity to speak. Her hand, her arm, feels heavy holding her phone to her ear.
“I’m sorry, who is this?” She exhales. She doesn’t care.
“I apologize, Agent Scully. I have to admit that I was surprised you answered at all. This is Monica Reyes. How are you?”
“I watched my partner laid to rest less than two weeks ago, Agent Reyes. I’m not sure that is an appropriate question.” Dana rakes a hand through her hair, closing her eyes hard against the florescent lighting.
“I--” Agent Reyes goes quiet on the line. Good, Dana thinks, and slips her thumb against her cheek to end the call.
--
“Agent Reyes,” comes after the second ring, slightly out of breath. Distracted.
“Agent Reyes, this is Agent Scully.” Scully pauses, a bottle of vitamins in her hand. She wonders why her first instinct was to pick up the phone, and why she called who she did. “I got your package.”
“Oh!” The delight (and Dana is taken aback by it, startled by the warmth that settles over her insides) is palpable. “I certainly hope you find it useful and not presumptive.”
“I think,” begins Dana, “that as a medical doctor the selection of prenatal vitamins would be one area I was fully qualified to take care of myself.” The words a harsh, perhaps, but she finds herself uttering them with warmth, echoing Agent Reyes’ tone back to her.
There is silence between them for a brief moment, and Dana shakes the bottle against her knee. Tapping. The sound is joined then, by a sound Dana hasn’t heard in weeks: laughter. Agent Reyes is laughing. Dana thinks she should be angry, or irritated at least, but only finds herself smiling.
“Oh Agent Scully, I hardly meant it as an imposition on your obviously superior medical prowess. If you’ll dig a little deeper, you’ll find that those vitamins were merely a prelude to some bags of herbal teas and remedies a local woman assured me would take care of any ailment you might be suffering.” She pauses, and odd; Dana can almost hear her smiling. “You did say you’d be open, Agent Scully.”
“Yes,” Dana replies, dropping her head to her shoulder and staring into the middle distance. “Yes, I did.”
--
“I won’t pretend that I know what you’re going through, at least not in a practical sense, Agent Scully, but John said -- he said you were having a rough go of it.” She laughs, and the sound is crisp, brittle. “Not that anyone would expect you to turning cartwheels.
“And I know this might be unwelcome, or even inappropriate, but Dana, I’d like to offer you my ear, my time, if you ever need to talk.
“And I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if you needed someone and I didn’t offer.”
Dana is in the office with Agent Doggett when she gets the message, wholly conscious of the look on her face. The stiffening, relaxing. The attempt at a smile. She licks her lips and sets the phone down on her desk, shifting.
“Something exciting, Agent Scully?”
“I’m not sure yet, Agent Doggett.”
--
“What’s it like, Dana?”
The phone, on speaker, is lying open on the coffee table. Dana spreads her fingers wide and feels for the throbbing heartbeat of the life inside of her. “I’m afraid you’ll have to be a little more specific, Agent Reyes,” she says, as always on the verge of a smile.
“Being pregnant. Carrying a life inside of you that isn’t your own. It’s supposed to be some kind of universal female experience, you know, the process of bearing, birthing, and rearing a child, but if that’s the case then I’m missing out on something big.”
Agent Reyes’ voice fills the air near Dana, covering her like a blanket. Warm and rich, like cinnamon. Safe, and clean.
“I don’t know that I have the words to properly describe the experience, but I will tell you, Agent Reyes, that I don’t remember a time when I’ve eaten so much and so constantly.”
Agent Reyes hmms into the silence the blossoms up. “Were you very sick?”
Dana considers the question, moving her hand back and forth. She feels the baby stir. “I haven’t had an easy time of it, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“No, Dana, you certainly haven’t.”
--
She, as a rule, doesn’t spend much time considering the thin lines between partner, friend, lover, family. They are, after all, just words, and the meaning of words is something constantly shifting. Not solid.
(“Dana,” she says brightly, the quiet sound of traffic in the background. “I was hoping to hear your voice today.”)
And it doesn’t matter, Dana thinks, the exact verbiage of two people (or three, or more). She knows that putting a label on something, as comforting as that can be, doesn’t make any real difference.
(“You sound tired. Have you been drinking your tea?”)
But it means something -- maybe not something that can be pinned down in words -- when she dries her skin, warm from the shower, and lies on top of cool sheets with the telephone tucked between her cheek and shoulder. It means something that she doesn’t get impatient when the conversation turns to childhood catastrophes, or dinner preparations, or the easy rhythm of a case.
(“I’m afraid I haven’t let you get a word in edgewise, Dana. Here, you probably called to tell me something about your day and I’ve just gone off. I hope you’ll forgive me.”
“No need to apologize, Monica. I-- It’s been nice.”
“Nice? Hmm.”
“There’s nothing wrong with nice. Really.”
“No, I don’t suppose there is.”)
It means something that Dana isn’t sure she could find the words for, even if she insisted on using them.