Work Text:
Mulder's roughened hands cup hers from underneath and expertly intertwine their fingers. "Breathe, Scully. Get a whiff of that air." He lifts her arms slightly in an inhaling motion. He tilts his head back towards the sunlight and breathes deeply, enjoying the warmth on his face and the warmth of her hands. He rubs her ring with one of his fingers and thinks back on the day they exchanged vows.
Old habits die hard.
He smiles at the blue above, and she considers it an unusual gesture for a man who has shaken an angry fist at the sky for as long as Mulder has. She beams hopefully at the hairpin curve of his lips, enjoying his lax countenance. She doesn’t know he is smiling beyond the sunshine, thinking back on the day she finally agreed to marry him.
He had asked her once when they were partners, in jest, and then afterwards on scattered, seemingly random occasions. Every time he asked he meant it a little more.
On a Sunday, she handed him his coffee in a mug that said GEOLOGY ROCKS! and “marry me” had slipped from his mouth, a statement rather than a question. Mulder’s face had the confident openness of a man who was sure of his future, pillow marks on his left cheekbone, eyes still lidded with sleep and satisfaction. Scully had blinked twice and ran her tongue over her lower lip. She took the mug from his hands, and gently set it on the scuffed wooden table. Wordlessly, she had pulled on his hand and led him to their bedroom. It was a yes.
In bed, afterwards, Mulder and Scully layed on their backs, feet touching. She had lifted her left hand between them and he marvelled at how impossibly small it was. It was not lost on him that her almost childlike hands could kill and cure with equal ease. He reached out for it and squeezed. “Do you know the story behind wedding rings, Scully?” he asked. She knew the question was rhetorical, but answered anyway.
“I believe they’re a symbol of eternity, a promise of never-ending love.” She blushed slightly at the sound of this statement, the kitchen proposal still on her mind. Mulder nodded knowingly and pulled her hand down to his chest. He turned his head to face her:
“The hole in the center of the ring also has a meaning, Scully. At least it did for the Egyptians almost 5,000 years ago. It wasn’t thought of as just a space, you know. It was a gateway, a door that would lead to the known and the unknown.”
“A single gateway that leads to two opposite abstracts, Mulder? That’s absurd. And the known and the unknown of what, exactly?” Mulder feigned an exhasperated sigh and kissed her fingertips. “Go with it, Scully. Think about it as a metaphor for us.”
She gently brushed his lower lip with her thumb. “You know, Mulder, the Romans gave women rings, not as a symbol of love but one of ownership. They were made of iron.”
Mulder looked smug. He had anticipated this retort from her. “That may be so, but they also wore their wedding rings on the fourth finger of their left hand as a tribute to love. There is a vein there, that connects the ring finger to the heart, called the Vena Amoris. Their rings would bind their heart to each other.”
“Mulder, I’m telling you this as a scientist and as a medical doctor: There is no such thing as the Vena Amoris.”
Mulder had groaned. “Woman, you’re killing me here.”
Scully looks at his face, skimming his features like the pages of a favourite book. Her gaze lingers at the shadows his eyelashes make, brushstrokes against the hint of purple underneath his eyes, years of sleeping disorders catching up with him. She looks at the lines of his face and feels like she can trace them like the roads of maps.
She remembers sitting shotgun, reaching for the glove compartment for the papers that would somehow indicate to her where they were going, where they were coming from. She had studied those maps to will herself into thinking those car rides had a purpose or at least a destination.
Now, her eyes can travel the lines on his face and name the memories behind them like the bones in his body. She has kissed every wrinkle. She loves every one. She gazes at him, overwhelmed by how much she loves him and is appalled by how similar tenderness and heartbreak feel. You’d think she’d know this by now, after William.
He doesn't see how she leans towards him and inhales his earthy scent instead.
He is still her favourite smell.
Mulder opens his eyes, still smiling, and looks at her. “Stay,” he whispers. Again a statement. She wishes she could put his coffee down and lead him to the bedroom. She wishes she could say yes like that day, years before. Instead she answers, barely: “You know that I can’t.”
She unlaces her fingers from his and gives him a last squeeze before breaking contact. She still looks at his eyes, which have darkened visibly. She finally has to stare at her shoes, and hides behind closed lids, her throat tight.
As she turns to walk away, she can feel him staring at her. The sun shines but now without warmth. She clenches and unclenches her left hand. She hopes that perhaps this way she can quiet the rapid flutter in her chest; as if squeezing this mythical Vena Amoris in a slow and steady rhythm will whisper some peace into her heart, and act like the string tying the opposite ends of the tin telephones she and Melissa used to play with as children.
The doctor and scientist in her know that there is no such thing as the Vena Amoris-- but she wants to believe, at least in faith if not in science. She wants to believe that their connection is there, unbroken, somewhere between promise and heartbeat. She wants to believe that the hole in them is indeed a gateway and not a chasm. She wants so badly to tell him that she now understands how the known and the unknown can coexist.