Archive of Our Own ^beta

At 7:15 on Monday morning, Mulder arrived at the Hoover building. He was a little bit nervous as he rode the elevator down to his- to their basement office. Scully was going to chew him out for being late, especially since she had been in a bit of a funk lately. No, it wasn’t a funk, it was more of a mood, although no one would ever hear Mulder say that to Scully’s face. Or behind her back for that matter. The thing was that she had been icing him out since the Leonard Betts case and the worst part was that Mulder couldn’t put his finger on what he had done wrong. He thought he had been supportive, told her to be proud of herself. Although he hadn’t said he was proud of her, he had meant it.

Mulder hurried through the door and pressed the button for the elevator. He was pretty sure he hadn’t done anything wrong with Betts, but then there was the Ed Jerse… Incident. Debacle was actually his preferred term, or disaster, or catastrophe. He could admit that he could’ve handled that with more grace. They were both frustrated, he at his forced “vacation” and Scully at… well he wasn’t quite sure. She had come back with a fresh tattoo and a new mention of her name in the X-files because of a man she had engaged with who had turned violent. He didn’t know how far it had gotten or how far the violence had escalated or even how she got there in the first place beyond what was in the damn report because she wouldn’t talk to him and he wouldn’t ask because he felt their partnership like an elastic band stretched too tight. 

The elevator door opened and he was relieved to find that he was taking the trip down to the basement alone, anyone else with any business down there had arrived at work more promptly than he. Since Jerse, Scully had seemed tired after that, he often found that she had files strewn across her desk (because yes, Mulder had gotten her a desk in hopes that that would solve whatever problems they were having) that weren’t the ones he had given her to go over. Whenever he asked about them Scully got all cagey and said it was a ‘personal project’. Mulder wasn’t above snooping, however, he didn’t get the chance, Scully guarded her files like a hawk and he couldn’t figure out why. The Brooklyn case had been a little better, it seemed like they were on firmer footing, but something still seemed so off with her. 

The elevator reached the basement level. When Mulder thought about it, the same could be said for all their other cases in recent months; she had been less outright disagreeable but not all there. They hadn’t had a movie night in weeks and he hardly ever heard from her on weekends anymore. She seemed pale and she hardly ate and she journalled all the time. She’s a doctor he had been telling himself for two weeks, she knows how to take care of herself, she’s fine, but he still wasn’t sure if he believed it. 

The door opened and Mulder took a moment to collect himself, he was already late, what could be the harm? He straightened his most agreeable tie that he had picked out in hopes of a good day with Scully. Mulder hadn’t needed to worry about her chewing him out though, because when he arrived at the officer her desk was empty. Her coat was not hung on the hook by the door or on the back of her chair. Her bag did not rest on the floor beside her desk and their shared mini-fridge was absent of pollen and yogurt and pomegranate seeds. Maybe he was safe. Maybe there were freak traffic delays in Georgetown and Scully was going to burst through the door any minute, cheeks flushed with indignance and hair all fluffy from running down the stairs rather than waiting for the elevator. 

That had to be it, any minute Scully was going to burst through the door. Aaaany minute now. Maybe he should call her. But what if she was right outside the door? She might say he was overreacting or something and brush him off. Better not.

Mulder waited ten more minutes before the temptation of a phone conversation with Scully grew too strong. He dialed her number without even looking, because that’s what she was to him: second nature. The phone rang once. Twice. Then it clicked off. Huh, that was odd. Mulder tried again, this time the first ring had barely started when it was harshly cut off. Very odd. Maybe she was in the bathroom or something, she’d be in any minute. 

An hour and a half later Mulder was out of pencils to throw at the ceiling and his mouth was getting dry from the sheer number of sunflower seeds he had eaten. He had tried Scully’s phone twice more since he had determined that she was certainly just in the bathroom. He sighed and picked up his desk phone, dialing the extension for Skinner’s office. He almost laughed at how the tables turned, him calling Skinner to ask for a meeting. 

Arlene answered and told him that Skinner was actually free right now if Mulder could be quick. Mulder assured her he would be, not even bothering to pull his suit jacket back on before pressing the button for the elevator. The floor counter at the top read “10”. Mulder sighed and swung open the heavy door to the stairs, taking them two at a time. The sound of his shoes slapping the concrete echoed through the stairwell as he practically raced for the third floor. When he got to the top (blissfully uninterrupted by other agents) he took a moment to steady his breath and pushed open the door to Skinner’s room. Arlene nodded at him when he entered and he entered the office proper. Skinner was leaning back in his chair, arms crossed behind his head. He already looked tired for merely an hour and a half in a day. Or perhaps he still looked tired, as if he was in a perpetual state of exhaustion. “Agent Mulder, take a seat.” Skinner intoned, gesturing towards the chair across from him.

“No thank you, Sir. I don’t plan on being here long. I was just wondering if Agent Scully called out, I haven’t been able to get a hold of her all morning,” Mulder said. Skinner’s expression turned into a grimace, well, more of a grimace than it usually was. It set off alarm bells in Mulder’s head. 

“Mulder,” Skinner said, and then he sighed, long and… sad? “Please have a seat.” Mulder slid into the seat slowly, he grasped the armrests tightly. “She’s not hurt, Mulder,” Skinner said before Mulder could start catastrophizing. “However, she is sick and the nature of her illness is something I cannot in confidence elaborate on.”

Mulder’s pulse spiked, so much for not panicking, “What is that even supposed to-” 

“Agent Mulder, I am going to give you the rest of the day off, you should go see her. She’s at John Hopkins.” Skinner directed and patted Mulder’s arm in an almost fatherly manner. Mulder managed a tight nod of appreciation before he exited Skinner’s office quickly and quietly. 

He didn’t even try the elevator, he just took the stairs down to grab his coat and keys from the office before running right back up them. 

Fortunately traffic was light at mid-morning. Unfortunately, Mulder had started off very sure of where he was going, then got turned around, and eventually had to pull over to ask for directions. It was embarrassing, he had lived in DC for nearly ten years. He ended up outside a little Mom and Pop flower shop. The bell dinged pleasantly as he entered the shop, his senses were assaulted by the smells and the bright colors of the flowers. He looked around the shop for an attendant. “Sir, can I help you?” came a voice from behind him. Mulder whirled around to find a young woman with short hair and tattoos tracing up her arms as far as he could see. 

“Yeah, I just needed some…” Mulder glanced around the shop and changed his mind, “Flowers, can I get some flowers. And directions! My friend is uh, well she’s in the hospital. I need to go see her and then I realized I didn’t know how to get there and then I wound up here and it thought, well- I don’t know what I thought. I guess, I thought flowers might be nice, she might like that sort of thing.” He finished weakly. The woman stared at him for a moment and then mimed taking a deep breath. Mulder followed her, rolling his shoulders out and doing his best to relax his stance. 

“Sure thing, flowers can really help people in times of pain or stress. Any idea what she might like?” Mulder glanced around the shop but he was drawing a blank. The only time he had ever seen Scully with flowers was after she had mysteriously returned from her abduction. It seemed like every man in the hoover building had brought her a bouquet. Holly from accounting had also brought her a vase, she kept that one on her side of the desk. They barely had room to move with the flowers taking up every inch of their space. Eventually they just started throwing out the older ones. Try as he might, Mulder couldn’t remember which ones she actually liked. 

“I don’t have a clue,” He told the woman with a sheepish grin. She smiled back, and the expression was almost motherly despite the woman not having more than three years on him. 

“Well, what can you tell me about your,” the woman paused and seemed to consider him for a minute, “friend or the nature of her illness?” 

“Well, I can’t tell you much about why she’s in the hospital. I didn’t even know she was until half an hour ago. But she’s… brave. She’s caring. She’s a total badass, she’s a medical doctor with a degree in physics and works for the FBI. She’s very firm in her beliefs, which I admire even when they are the complete opposite of mine.” Mulder wasn’t sure where all that had come from. The woman mercifully did not comment on his praising description of his totally platonic best friend and work partner. Who was probably totally fine, by the way. She probably just got the flu or something. 

The woman bustled around the shop and returned with a blue and yellow bouquet. Light blue hydrangeas took up a majority of the space, dotted with smaller sunflowers and blue and ivory peonies, shot through with baby’s breath to even everything out. “Think she’d like something like this?” The woman asked, but Mulder was already pulling out his wallet. 

“How much?” The woman took him to the cash register and paid and she gave him directions to the hospital as well. As he was about to leave she stopped.

“I gave my best friend some flowers similar to those once.” Mulder smiled politely, not sure where she was taking this. The woman held up her left hand, a simple golden band gleamed on her ring finger. “She’s been my wife for almost eight years now.” Mulder carefully positioned the flowers in the passenger seat, Scully’s usual spot, and followed the woman’s direction to John Hopkins. He cradled them like something precious as he walked into the building, waiting at the visitors' desk behind a balding man in his forties. “Excuse me, I’m looking for Dana Scully.” The woman at the computer nodded to herself as she searched.

“Room 463, oncology ward.” She told him with a sympathetic smile. Mulder froze halfway through thanking her. “You didn’t know, did you?” Her dark skin crinkled around her eyes and she patted his hand. “Dana’s been coming here for a month or two, I have to warn you before you go in: it’s not a pretty sight. Are you her brother? She mentioned having brothers.”

Mulder opened his mouth but all that came out was a croak. He cleared his throat and tried again, “No I’m not her brother, I’m her partner at the FBI. What’s wrong with her?” The woman gave him another pitying smile.

“I’m sorry, I can’t disclose that information, HIPAA oath and all that. You’ll see her soon enough, right down that way.” Mulder thanked the woman and tried to relax. The lowers he had been so tenderly holding were all but crushed in his grip. 

When Mulder entered the room Scully wasn’t in a bed. She was all but slumped over in a chair, a file in her lap. Mulder watched from the doorway as she lifted a paper with shaking hands. “Hey,” He said, “I uh- I stole these from some guy with a broken leg down the hall, he won’t be able to catch me.” he said, presenting her with the flowers. It was a testament to how awful she must’ve been feeling that she didn’t even try to sit up straighter. 

“Mulder, what are you doing here?” She asked, frowning. Her lips were chapped and grew bloody with the movement. She sighed angrily and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Her voice was thick as molasses and scratchy.

“I could ask you the same thing. You didn’t come into work today and I got worried. You’ve been a little off for weeks, Scully. Please don’t think I didn’t notice. I did, I just wasn’t sure how to approach you about it.” Scully patted the chair next to her and sat. He took the file from her lap and placed it on the table next to them. She moved to stop it but changed her mind and put her hands back in her lap. Mulder took both her hands in his, his voice nearly as hoarse as hers, and said “Please, just tell me what’s going on.”

“I have cancer.” She said it like an admission of guilt: quietly, glancing up at him with near pleading eyes. “I have a naso-pharyngeal mass, it’s a small growth on the wall between the superior concha and the sphenoidal sinus. A tumor nearly identical to the ones had by all of those women I met in Allentown, all of whom-” She paused for a minute and stared intently into his eyes before glancing away. Mulder rubbed the protruding bone of her wrist next to her watch. “All of whom have since passed away except for one: Penny Northern.” Mulder stared at her uncomprehendingly. Then he leaned forward and hugged her tightly.

“But it’s curable, right? I mean, you wouldn’t be going through treatment if you didn’t think it would do anything.” Mulder had read her fatigue for what it was. Cancer didn’t do that to you, chemo did. She nodded into his chest, he was still holding her tightly, the arm of the chair wedged between them.

“I didn’t think so at first, but then I started looking up the women from the MUFON- Mutual UFO Network- group I met. As I told you they had all passed away except for Penny,” she said the name with a warm smile but her voice had changed. No longer was guilty or sad, it was the same detached tone she used when talking about a particularly gory case. “One of the other women, Betsy Hagopian, was the only one receiving treatment: from an oncologist named Dr. Scanlon. Betsy passed just a couple months ago unfortunately, but Penny was receiving treatment from the same doctor. He says that he would’ve been able to do more for Betsy if he had caught it earlier, he has been able to do more for Penny. She has been a very dear friend to me since I was admitted as Doctor Scanlon’s patient. He hopes that through a combination of aggressive radiation and chemotherapy he might be able to knock down my system enough to attempt gene therapy on P53.” The words ‘hopes’ and ‘might’ and ‘attempt’ jumped out at him in startling contrast to the otherwise hopeful sound of her treatment. 

Mulder pressed his nose into the top of her head and inhaled. Tears traced down his cheeks and soaked into her hair. Scully stood up and pulled him up with her. He pulled her tighter to him now that they weren’t separated by the chairs, taking nearly all of her weight now that she was standing. “How do you feel?” He asked finally. She laughed humorously into his chest. 

“Doctor Scanlon told me I was going to feel like dying. Logically, I knew that, I’d learned about chemo- and cancer- in med-school. The first treatment was fine, no side effects other than a slight headache, I was fine by the time I had to go into work Monday. My most recent treatment, Friday after work, was different. I was fine Saturday and Sunday but when I woke up this morning well- I learned what he meant.” Mulder rocked her back and forth in his arms. They stayed like that for a few minutes, him crying quietly, her standing in arms: comforting him. She might be sick but she was coming to terms with it, he had just found out that he could lose his best friend.

“Scully?” He said finally. 

“Yes?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He could barely get the words out. Scully pulled back from him, he sobbed harder. 

“Oh, Mulder.” She cooed, and pushed him back onto the chair. She let him wrap his arms around her waist and ran her fingers through his hair. She pressed a kiss to the top of his head.

“Did you not trust me? Were you ever going to tell me?” He hugged her tighter.

“I was going to tell you it was just… hard. I was still figuring everything out and it was hard to figure out what to say. Mulder, you’re so passionate. If I had told you sooner you would’ve thrown everything you had into finding answers. I appreciate that about you, but this is a matter of medicine. If I had told you you would’ve beaten yourself up over it, run yourself ragged, when you didn’t find anything because this isn’t an X-File. You would have pursued my answers at risk to your own health and I couldn’t let you do that. Plus, I was, am , still trying to sort out my feelings about all this, and I didn’t want to tell you till I had a real prognosis. Everything is still up in the air right now, we don’t know what to expect.” 

Mulder absorbed this information slowly. They were all good points. He would’ve wanted to find answers for her, he still did now. He itched to find out who, or more likely what, did this to her. To make them fix it or at the very least make them pay. It seemed that she had done well enough finding answers on her own though, after all she had found Dr. Scanlon and Penny, who was apparently a dear friend. He liked to think that he would’ve stopped if Scully asked him, but he wasn’t in the habit of denying his nature. He knew she was right, he did get like that: obsessive, pursuing leads at personal risk. He knew he shouldn’t fault her for wanting to find peace with it before confiding in him. A selfish part of him still screamed that she should’ve told him.

Even more so with the outcome so unclear, would she have just waited until one day he showed up to work to find out she was in critical condition? Hooked up to beeping machines, pale as a bed sheet, and on Thanatos’s door step. After all he had been through he didn’t exactly think that was fair. “Why did you tell Skinner?” He asked quietly.

“I knew this,” she gestured vaguely around the room, “would happen eventually, and if I was going to be missing work with any frequency the bureau needed to know and Skinner is my direct superior. He’s been very sweet about it though, I’ve asked him not to tell anyone he doesn’t have to and I haven’t heard a peep from anyone. He insisted on driving me home from my first treatment too, even though I felt absolutely fine. I think he knew someone who died of cancer, a sister or an aunt or perhaps a wife. I’m not sure. Please know that it was out of necessity and never because I trusted him more than you.” Mulder nodded, that made sense. His crying had slowed, all but stopped. He hicuped.

“Does your family know?” He immediately chastised himself for asking such a stupid question, of course her family knew. Unlike his own family the Scully's were very tight knit. 

“Actually, they don’t.” Scully inhaled and then exhaled slowly, “Bill has had a plan to see mom this week for a while, so I invited Charlie up too. I’m going to tell them this weekend. God I-” her voice catches, the first time she has seemed upset through this whole ordeal but maybe that’s because he had only been there for ten minutes of it. “I wish Missy were here. I miss her so much.” She cleared her throat, “I’m sorry, I don’t know where that came from. I guess I just can’t imagine their reactions when I tell them and I think Melissa would’ve made it better, easier, in a way.”

“Hey, don’t be sorry. None of this is your fault and I’m sorry this is happening and I’m sorry I got so upset earlier.” A visible shiver ran through Scully. Mulder realized that she was cold, he put a hand to her forehead. She wasn’t cold to the touch. She was warm, hot even, but now her teeth were chattering uncontrollably. Mulder gently took her by her upper arms and led her to the bed on the other side of the room. He peeled back the covers and gestured for her to lay down. He grabbed her hands, pulling them up to her chest and then tucking the blankets tightly around her shoulders. He knew she hated the feel of the scratchy sheets against her nails so he enveloped her hands in his. 

“Mulder,” she said through the chills, “you don’t need to be sorry either. You care, and I’ll never fault you for that. It seems to me like we’re both doing a whole lot of apologizing and it’s getting us nowhere. Can we talk about something else?” Scully asked. She sat up in the bed, still shivering, Mulder wrapped the throw from the end of the bed around her shoulders and rubbed her back soothingly. She looked so tired, so drained. Mulder cursed himself for not noticing it before, but then again she said it hadn’t been as bad the first few treatments. The flowers lay forgotten on the floor next to her chair. He left her side for only a moment to pick them up and present them to her. 

“Do you like them?” He asked. Scully scooped them into her lap and cupped the petals in her hands. She stared at them for a long moment before a smile split across her face like the sun breaking through the clouds on an overcast day. Mulder wouldn’t have been surprised if the sunflowers in the bouquet turned to face her radiance rather than the sun’s. 

“Mulder,” She inhaled the flowers’ scent deeply then let out a content breath, “Did you know that peonies are my favorite flower?” Mulder shook his head, speechless. The woman at the flower shop really knew her stuff apparently. Maybe she was psychic. 

“I had no idea, I guess I just got lucky,” Mulder didn’t miss the way Scully reached for her golden cross.

“It’s the small things, I guess.” For once, Mulder kept his mouth shut. Eventually Scully’s shivers subsided and she leaned into him where he sat with one leg crossed on her bed drowsily. 

“Would you like to go home, Scully. I can take you, get you anything you need?” Scully hummed into his shoulder while she thought about it.

“Yeah? Yeah.” She said more firmly. She sat up a little straighter and said “The only symptoms I’m experiencing right now are fatigue and some pain,” she coughed, then rolled her eyes, “and coughing. I’ll check with the doctor but I think I should be fine. These are all fairly normal side effects.” She hit the button on the side of the bed that paged the doctor. A nurse came in almost immediately and within fifteen minutes the doctor made it to the room as well. By that time Scully was almost asleep leaning against Mulder’s chest. Mulder was very awake. 

He explained Scully’s symptoms to the doctor why she breathed deeply tucked into his side. Dr. Scanlon agreed that these were all perfectly normal symptoms but she should have someone stick around and take her to the hospital if anything got worse or she developed any new symptoms. He also gave them a list of appropriate painkillers for her to take.  

Mulder offered to carry her to his car and she rolled her eyes. She could walk, Scully insisted. She peeled back the covers and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She stood up and walked nearly two steps before her legs started to shake and she fell into Mulder’s chest. Mulder made a distressed noise and she held up one hand to silence him, her head pressed into her hands gripping her shirt fiercely and her head buried in his chest. “Just- just give me a second for the dizziness to pass. I can’t see anything, I shouldn’t have gotten up so fast.”

Mulder traced soothing patterns on her back while she rocked back and forth. She took a deep breath and drew back. “Okay now?” He asked. She nodded, but took the arm he offered to her. In his other arm he scooped the flowers off the bed spread. He walked her to the lobby where he left her to check out while he pulled his car up to the door. 

She fell asleep on the way back to her apartment, one hand tucked under her face against the window, the other in Mulder’s. He holds onto it like a lifeline. His leather jacket that was in the back seat was covering her legs where they were pulled to her chest and she was wearing an Oxford sweatshirt she found on the floor. At some point he slipped his hand out of her sleepy grasp and felt her forehead. It was warm. Not burning, but warm. He wondered if he should’ve encouraged her to stay at the hospital. He makes a mental note to look into chemo and radiation side effects when he gets to his computer.

 Mulder switched off the radio and listened to the sound of her breathing accompanied by the rain that had just started to fall. It was less than an hour ago that he had found out that she had cancer, potentially terminal cancer, but the fact that the sound of her breathing was the most soothing sound in the world to him was nothing new. He roused her gently when they reached her apartment. She grunted, then turned the same delicate shade of green of an under ripe blue berry when she tried to sit up. Mulder rushed to her side of the car and opened the door. He knelt on the wet pavement next to her door as she leaned down and screwed her eyes shut.

“Scully, what’s going on? Do you need to go back to the hospital?” He asked in a panic. With her mouth forced into a tight line she shook her head and gripped his shoulders tightly.

“No, nausea is a common symptom of chemo, it’s not anything to worry about, I just don’t want to throw up in your car.” Mulder scoffed at her and started to help her out of the car. She promptly threw up all over his shoes. Mulder pursed his lips and stared at the greenish yellow sludge. Scully had sagged against him and was wiping her mouth with the sleeve of his sweatshirt.

“I’m sorry.” She said quietly. Mulder closed the car and managed to get her all the way upstairs before the shivering started again. Mulder set the heat to high and wrapped every blanket he could find around her while she sluggishly tried to push him away and insist she was fine. 

“C’mere.” He said, finally content that every blanket in the house was wrapped around her shivering body with her thermometer in hand. He sat with one leg on the couch and pulled her between his legs, her back flush against his chest. The thermometer beeped, “Open up.”

“Mulder, no.” she groaned and tried to sit back up, but with her fatigue and the weight of the blankets it didn’t take much for Mulder to keep her seated.

“Come on, G-woman, I just need to take your temperature. I’m starting to think we should’ve stayed at the hospital.” Scully sighed but opened her mouth, her head tipped back onto his shoulder. Mulder stuck the instrument under her tongue and waited for it to beep again. When he removed it the little screen read 100.03°F. Mulder frowned. “You have a fever. We should go back, I’m sorry I even recommended discharging you-”

“It’s probably just the cold Skinner had last week or something floating around the hospital. Chemo can make a person more susceptible to little illnesses like that because it fucks around with your immune system. I’m fine Mulder, I promise.” Mulder didn’t answer because he didn’t think she would appreciate hearing him tell her that he didn’t believe her. He could practically hear her telling him that she was a doctor.  Instead, he grabbed the remote and clicked on the TV. Some movie was on, must’ve been a chick-flick or something, there were four girls sitting on a field together. He almost changed it, then the girls started talking about witchcraft. When Mulder turned to Scully to ask her if it was okay if he left it on she was already dozing on him. 

 She woke up again around the same time Nancy crept into Sarah’s bedroom. They watched together, her head tucked under his chin, as Nancy dissolved into bugs and snakes. Scully watched with sleepily rapt attention as the move came to an end. Mulder had a distant thought that they were going to have to watch it together again some time. Scully was something of a horror movie buff, she would’ve enjoyed it. 

Muder unwound his arms from around Scully’s back, he intended to get up to use the restroom. Instead, when he relinquished his hold, Scully turned to lie on her stomach on top of Mulder and was asleep again in seconds. Mulder smiled, not a happy one, the kind of tight-lipped expression one smiles when they are desperately trying to hold back tears. There Mulder was, with his best friend, the woman he loves more than any before and will probably more than any that would come after, in his arms, finally , and all he could think about is that he just found out she has cancer. She was in danger and this time there is nothing he can do about it. 

***

Three days after they both fell asleep on Scully’s couch they were sitting through a meeting with Skinner and a few other agents. There was a big case, something that required agents from a few different departments. Mulder couldn’t focus, all he could think about were the files that Scully had finally let him look at. The ones about the MUFON group her friend Penny belonged to and their battles with (and subsequent losses to) cancer. 

Mulder didn’t trust Scully’s doctor and he couldn’t put his finger on. He had shifty eyes. Penny was getting worse. He feared that Scully was too. There was no way to tell at this point, she had only had three rounds of chemo and he didn’t know how fast it was supposed to work or how long Scully had if it didn’t. She didn’t tell him, she wouldn’t. He had asked only once and she shut him down. He felt extremely guilty after, worried that he was just stressing her out more.

He was thinking about having the gunmen do some digging on Dr. Scanlon. If they didn’t find anything that was good, Scully was in great hands. If they did? Well, Mulder would handle it. What he really wanted was a way to talk to the cigarette man. This whole ordeal wreaked of smoke. It couldn’t possibly be a coincidence that all those women died after being abducted and Mulder had long suspected CSM’s involvement in that, even if he hadn’t outright admitted to it. At the very least he could probably help Scully, even if it wasn’t his fault. 

Damn Skinner refused to set up a meeting for him, and the light from Mulder’s window had been ignored. 

“Agent Mulder?” Skinner’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts.

“Sir?” 

“You were asked a question.” 

“Was I? I’m sorry, I must’ve zoned out for a second there.” Mulder flashed Skinner a ‘ silly me’ kind of smile. Skinner glared back at him.

“I asked-” Scully suddenly stood up from the table, hand in front of her face and headed for the door.

“Sorry sir, I have to use the restroom, I’ll be right back.” A few of the other agents stared after her, bewildered. Skinner’s glare softened as his eyes followed her out the door. A look of understanding passed between Mulder and Skinner. 

“Agent Mulder, I asked if you had completed your profile on the suspect. If we suspect that we might be able to get him separate from the rest of the group but I don’t want to send agents in there without confirmation that he is the so-called ‘weak link’ we think he is. I- Mulder, are you even listening to me?” Mulder made a vague noise of affirmation, eyes trained on the door, waiting for Scully’s reemergence into the conference room. Skinner pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. Loudly. “Agent Mulder.” 

“Yes sir?” 

“You’re dismissed. Go take a walk or something, I don’t want to see you until you’ve resolved whatever is so obviously distracting you.” The words and tone are harsh but Mulder understood the message. Where the other’s heard a reprimand Mulder heard ‘go to her’ clear as day. 

So he did, he left the room and did his best to appear flustered. He offhandedly hoped that there was no one in the women’s bathroom. When he swung the door open Scully was standing next to the sink with her head tipped back and streaks of blood all the way to her chest. Tears pricked at her eyes.

“Shit- Scully are you okay?” As far as Mulder new nose bleeds weren’t typically painful. Scully gave a frayed laugh.

“I’m okay Mulder, it’s just a nosebleed triggered by the tumor. I’m just really annoyed.” Blood started soaking through the paper towel onto her finger tips. Mulder grabbed a wad of brown paper from the dispenser and passed it to her, throwing the blood soaked one in the trash. 

“You’re crying… because you’re pissed that your nose started bleeding?” Mulder clarified, still concerned that she was in pain of some kind. 

“Well when you put it like that you make me sound stupid.” She sulked.

“Hey, you’re not the one who just got publicly reprimanded by the assistant director for not paying attention during the meeting.” Mulder joked, he took Scully’s free in his and laced their fingers together. He started rubbing his thumb against her wrist.

“Well, you weren’t paying attention.” Scully said. After a few seconds she spoke up again, “Mulder, I’m alright, you know that right? It’s not a harbinger, it's just a nosebleed.”

“I know you’re alright. But I think I might not be. It feels really selfish, I’m not the one-” he broke off, not wanting to say it.

“You’re not the one dying? It’s not selfish Mulder, you just care. And besides, we don’t know that I’m going to die. I think the treatments are going well.” Mulder took a deep breath and removed his hand from hers. He grabbed another paper towel and ran it under the water till it was damp. He whipped the blood off her chin and lips with gentle motions. He had to use his nail a little bit near her cupid’s bow.

He followed the red line down the column of her neck, down the high opening of her white blouse where a few drops of blood had pooled between her collar bones. He could feel the bump of her chemo port where his wrist rested against her chest. Mulder barely heard the door open. When the woman cleared her throat Mulder and Scully sprung apart. Scully turned her head to look at the woman, her hand moving from her fast in her haste to insist that “Oh my God, it’s not what it looks like!” Her nose bleed, which had been slowing down, returned with a passion. A deluge of red made it all the way to her neck before she tipped her head back and Mulder wiped at it with his paper towel. 

“It’s that.” Mulder said dryly. The woman smiled sympathetically as she stared at them. 

“Mulder, I think she’d like you to leave the women's restroom.” Scully deadpanned.

“But you’re-” 

“Fine. I’ll be back in the meeting room in a minute or two.” She gave him that stare that said she was done indulging him, albeit it was slightly funny with her head tipped back all the way. Mulder sighed but conceded, leaving the women’s room. He slipped into the men’s room and splashed some water on his face, he tried to collect himself like Skinner told him but found he was having trouble. It took him so long to settle his nerves that Scully was already sitting back in her chair next to his when he returned.

There’s not a speck of blood in sight.

 ***

Two weeks later Mulder walked into the office, on time. He was a bit traumatized from the last time he was late, even though Scully now notifies him whenever she has appointments. It made him nervous to be there after the hour even though she calls him every time she gets out of the hospital. Nervous because a week ago she called him at 2 am and asked him to bring her to the hospital because her fever spiked to 103 ℉ and she was experiencing sharp chest pains.  Miraculously her hair hadn’t started falling out yet. Mulder knew that was going to be rough for her. He could already tell that she had started wearing more make-up. It wasn’t that she changed the style or that it was more dramatic, she looked the same as always from far away. Sometimes though, she shared his desk with him, mostly when they were eating lunch (although Scully hadn’t eaten much more than a few pomegranate seeds in front of him in the past two weeks) he could see the extra product under her eyes. 

She seemed to be going through extremes of constant fatigue and insomnia. Whenever he went over to her place after treatments all she could do was sleep. They had something of a routine: Mulder picked her up from her appointments, he drove her home, she cited that she was tired and he should leave, he would insist to stay and watch over her, and she would crawl under the covers of her bed while he sat on top of them with her head in his lap as he reviewed a casefile. Other times Mulder would visit her out of the blue and find her kitchen littered with an assortment of different mugs. Coffees and sleep inducing teas, a sight Mulder was all too familiar with. 

When he came into the office with an extra coffee for her in hand he knew it was a good choice. Scully stood at her desk typing something on her computer that he couldn’t make out. She looked all but dead on her feet.  Mulder sidled up next to her, he reached an arm around her to place her coffee on her desk and rested his head on her shoulder. “Whatcha workin o-” Scully jerked and closed out of the file before he got a look at it. “Scully? What is it?” Scully just grunted and pushed away from him, coffee in hand. “Scully, come on, you promised you wouldn’t hide anything from me anymore. If it’s about the MUFON cases I can help, I actually have something for you about Scanlon.” It had been eating him up since he and the Gunman broke into the Lombard Research Facility. He had wanted to call Scully that minute but didn’t want to risk interrupting what little rest she seemed to be getting these days. 

“This isn’t about the case it’s-” she stammered for a moment, searching for the right words, “It’s personal Mulder.” Mulder stared at her for a moment as he tried to figure out what she could possibly be doing on the computer at work that was too personal to show him her best friend. She had seen him looking at porn at work for God’s sake! His eyes flicked between her and the computer before lunged for the mouse.

It wasn’t hard to keep her away from the computer as he navigated to the tab she had just closed. “Mulder, Please-” Mulder felt a flicker of guilt, but he had already opened it. It was a directory for-

“A funeral, Scully?” He asked, bewildered. The coffee cup shook in her hands and she nodded. Mulder made the connection a split second later. “Oh- Scully.” Mulder enveloped her in his arms, the coffee cup forgotten between them. “I thought you said the treatments were going well,” He said. Scully shook her head into his chest. 

“They- they don’t like the way it’s looking. It could still turn around but-” She let out a small sob, “Penny passed away last night. And I just thought,” another sob, “That if I’m going to go soon, like her, the least I can do is make sure that as little stress as possible is put on my mother, Bill, Charlie, and you.” Mulder rubbed her back, shocked into silence. After a few minutes her breathing evened out, her tears had washed away the make-up beneath her eyes and he saw the dark purple circles that had taken up residence under her eyes. He cupped her face in his hands and studied it.

“Scully, I think you should go home.”  Scully pulled away and walked across the room. 

“No.”

“Scully-”

“No! What am I going to do at home that I can’t do here? Besides, you said you had something to tell me about Dr. Scanlon,” She said. Mulder’s blood ran cold, he really wished he hadn’t brought it up. 

“Well, I didn’t trust Scanlon so I had the Gunmen look into his background, please let me finish before you call me crazy. We found something about a Center for Reproductive Medicine in Pennsylvania, all Scanlon’s patients who were also abductees were on record for being treated there, even you. Now you can correct me if I’m wrong but I’m fairly certain that you were never treated for infertility in Lehigh Furnace, Pennsylvania. Anyways we thought that was odd so we looked into it more. It led us to the Lumbard research facility, where I saw Dr. Scanlon at the facility, wherein we found files on all the women who were part of Penny and Betsy’s MUFON group, and you,” He took a deep breath, “Inside the facility we also found ova cells extracted from the women on file using high radiation to activate what they called superovulation. ” 

“They?” 

“ I also saw multiple individuals identical to Kurt Crawford, if you remember we met him a few weeks ago with Penny’s direction. They claimed that they were human-alien hybrids which were created in part using the ova of the abducted women. They were trying to stop the project. All this led me to believe that-”

“That Dr. Scanlon was involved in my abduction, and that his treatments are doing more harm than good,” Scully breathed. 

 “Yeah… are you- okay? You’re taking this surprisingly well, I mean if I were you I’d be-” 

“I think I’m going to take a personal day Mulder, I’ll see you tomorrow.”