Title - While You Were Sleeping

Author - Henle Girl

Rating - PG

Classification - VRA

Keywords - Mulder/Scully Romance, Scully Angst

Spoilers - Empedocles

Summary - What happened between 'Three Words' and 'Empedocles' to cause the sudden attitude shift in Mulder?  Scully gives him an earful when he can't seem to comprehend what she went through when he was gone. 

 

Disclaimer - The characters don't belong to me.  I'm just borrowing them for my own therapeutic purposes.  They will be returned relatively unharmed to Chris Carter, or whoever wants to borrow them next, when I'm done.

 

While You Were Sleeping

 

The day after your funeral, I went back to work.  I walked around that office for an hour before it really hit me.  You weren't coming back.  Never.  Not ever.  You were dead.  I buried you.  And with you, I felt like I had buried my soul.  I was nothing more than a shell.  Merely an incubator for the life growing within.  I felt nothing.

 

The only thing I felt was the intense need to get away.  I couldn't stay in that small room.  That tiny basement office where I first met you and learned all about life and love.  It was now known to me as the room where I realized I was dead.  You weren't there.  You would never be there again.  I couldn't be there either.  So I left.  I walked out, not knowing if I would ever return.

 

I passed agent after agent in the hallway, each giving me looks of pity or words of condolences for my loss.  Loss?  I didn't lose you.  You were taken from me.  And then you were returned to me.  Dead.  That's not loss.  That goes beyond loss into a territory I cannot even begin to define.  Beyond abyss.  Beyond black hole.  Beyond the sinking darkness sucking the breath from my lungs, the light from my eyes, the will from my very being.  Loss doesn't do that.  Loss doesn't leave you feeling like a walking corpse.  That's what I had become.

 

I must have yelled this out loud because the next thing I knew, a crowd had surrounded me, their eyes wide with shock and apprehension.  How ironic that the ice queen was having a meltdown.  They all kept their distance, though.  Everybody but one.  His familiar arms wrapped around me and lifted me off of my now useless legs.  They weren't the arms I craved, but they were the arms that had supported me throughout the whole ordeal.

 

"I'm taking you home, Scully," he whispered in my ear.

 

No need, Walter.  I was on my way anyhow.  The words echoed in my head, but all that came from my mouth were gut wrenching sobs.  The tears followed, drenching my face as well as Skinner's shirt.  He would have to change it, I thought to myself as my tenuous grip on my sanity finally broke, sending me spiraling into a world of darkness.

 

* * * * * * * * * *

 

For six weeks the darkness owned me.  I couldn't do anything but cry and sleep.  But in my sleep, I'd have nightmares of you and would wake up crying again.  Day after day the cycle continued.  Until one day I ended up in the hospital.  I'd be released just to end up there again a week or two later.  I had so many scars on my arms from IV's that they had to move to my hands that last time.  I didn't even feel it.  As painful as hand IV's are, it didn't faze me.

 

The IV's were necessary, though.  For the baby.  I was too out of it to make sure I ate properly.  I didn't pay attention to my health.  Or to the baby.  I don't think I even thought about the baby until . . . well one day, the baby made sure I thought of him.  He kicked.  For the first time ever, I felt him move.  It was the first thing I had felt in over a month.  Despite all I was going through, he was still strong.  Still thriving.  No thanks to me.

 

From that moment on, I made a vow to my baby.  I vowed to do better for the both of us.  You were . . . gone.  And I had to accept that.  I had to learn to live without you.  I had to learn to live without the very essence of my life.  But we figured it out, the baby and I.  We gave each other strength.

 

A few days later, I was able to return to work.  Back to the halls we once dwelled.  This time, I didn't feel so alone.  Because I had a piece of you with me.  I was able to walk into that building, my head held high and my belly proudly stuck out.  There were stares.  There was whispering.  I became the hottest topic around the water cooler.

 

"Did you see Agent Scully?" they would say.  "Looks like old Spooky knocked her up and took off."

 

Skinner set up a daily recurring meeting in his office around lunch time to be sure I ate at least one proper meal a day.  That started more rumors.  They would claim that Skinner and I were having an affair the whole time.  And that once he got me pregnant, you couldn't handle it and disappeared.

 

There were so many more cruel, vicious rumors.  But I just ignored them.  I focused on my work.  I focused on my baby.  Pretty soon, despite my ever increasing girth, interest in my situation died.  Word got around that one of the new recruits was having an affair with the Deputy Director and everyone soon forgot about me down in my little basement office.

 

The days passed.  And I thanked God for each one I made it through without you.  But there was a part of me still waiting on that phone call.  The phone call that would tell me of your mysterious arrival at the hospital, suffering from unknown injuries but otherwise fine.  Imagine my surprise when I actually received that call.

 

* * * * * * * * * *

 

It was the middle of the night.  I was already in the bed.  But I was up and dressed and at the hospital in record time.  Agent Doggett tried to hold me back.  He tried to tell me that there wasn't any hope.  But you were dead.  And all of a sudden, you weren't.  If that wasn't cause for hope, then I didn't know what was.  Despite what he said, despite what the doctors were telling me, I knew you were going to be fine.  Under all those tubes and wires, I finally felt what I had been missing those months you were gone.  I felt your heart beating.  Beating in perfect time with my own.  We were together again.  And no one was going to tear us apart ever again. 

 

I sat by your bedside.  I held onto you with one hand and the baby with the other.  And I truly believed you'd come back to us.  When you finally opened your eyes and cracked that stupid joke, I just knew everything would be okay.  Little did I know that it wouldn't be just anything keeping us apart.  It would be you.

 

* * * * * * * * * *

 

"You were so distant.  You gave me lame excuses about not knowing where you fit in.  I tried to understand.  I really did.  But to me, your return was nothing short of a miracle.  It was the miracle I prayed for with my every breath.  And you just treated it as if it were just some kind of curse."

 

Tears that I didn't think I'd ever cry again begin to roll down my cheeks, dropping softly onto my shirt.  I wipe them away and look back up at him, hoping he can see the ultimatum gleaming in my eyes.

 

"I don't know if you'll ever understand what it was like," I tell him, repeating again my words from earlier.  "But maybe what I told you tonight will give you some kind of idea of what I went through.  Mulder, I found your dead body.  I had to put you in the ground.  All the time wishing I could go with you, but knowing that I couldn't because of . . ." 

 

I look down at my swollen belly and gently stroke it, a small smile coming to my face when the baby kicks at my hand.

 

"I'm sorry that life passed you by while you were sleeping.  But we had to learn to live without you," I whisper.  "But you're back now and it's time for *you* to learn to live *with* us.  You have to wake up, Mulder.  You're here, but you're still asleep."

 

I have to fight my instincts to touch him.  Instead, I just turn and waddle away.  Out the door.  Possibly out of his life forever.  Will things change?  I wonder.  I leave Mulder's feeling better that I got my story out, but not sure if it will make any difference to him.  He's so desperate to find out where he belongs in life now.  I just hope he can see that it's with me.  And with our baby.

 

I get home and change into my comfortable pajamas, not sure if I want to shower, eat, or sleep.  My rumbling stomach decides for me and I pick up the phone and order a pizza.  I hope that cute pizza boy brings it.  He usually takes awhile, so I decide to shower while I wait.  But those plans get put on hold with a knock at the door.

 

I open it and to my surprise it's Mulder.  And this time, it's really him.  The light is back in his eyes.  The smile is back on his face.  And he's teasing me about my apparent fondness for the pizza guy.  I think we're going to be okay now.  I had to go through so much by myself while he was sleeping.  But now, that's all over.  I won't have to be alone again.  Mulder has decided to take his life back.  He's finally decided to wake up.

 

The end.

 

 

   

X-Files Stories

HOME