Title: Rainbow Umbrella (MSIV) Words: 11,061
Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21756451
Tags: MSR, fluff, family, angst, hurt/comfort
Takes place in my MSRChat universe.
The water danced and swirled as it drained away, taking with it the contents of this morning’s breakfast. The little nourishment she had so diligently forced into her body, rejected once again. She fell haphazardly backwards onto the bathroom floor, curling herself forward and resting her head against her knees. Her eyes focused on the old tile lying beneath her – cracked and coming undone, much like she felt at this moment.
She felt ill. She’d felt ill for several weeks now. Headaches. Nausea. Vertigo. She had dismissed her symptoms, reckoning that they were the temporary byproduct of a common contagion. Or perhaps instead they were manifested by the post-traumatic stress of seeing her grown child lying in a body bag with a gunshot wound to his head. Those were both plausible and rational reasons for what she had been experiencing.
But as she sat there – for the first time – she forced herself to examine another possibility. An idea that before now she had only allowed to pass through her mind for fleeting moments, before vehemently pushing it away.
She was frightened. She was fearful to hope. She had loved two children before and had them torn so cruelly from her life. Even the vague notion of living through that pain again was enough to trigger another wave of nausea that travelled from her stomach to the back of her throat. Her stomach made no response though, having nothing left to relinquish.
She had found herself in a place of acceptance and had made peace with the next stage of her life. She had embraced the idea that she and Mulder would live out the rest of their lives together, and that that was enough. After so many years doubting and fearing that they wouldn’t come through this separation stronger, or even intact, being with him again felt like it was more than enough. For better or worse he was the one to whom her soul was bound.
Just a week ago she stood next to him on an alter and professed her wish to come home – to him, to them and she vowed silently before God that she would not waiver this time. No matter how difficult it should become, she would not flee again.
It wasn’t possible. It shouldn’t be possible. But she had lived the past twenty-five years of her life standing beside a man who had challenged every belief she had about what was possible. Extreme possibility – that’s what Mulder pursued with passion and relentlessness, and what he often longed to embrace. But would he embrace this as a possibility? Would he still if it became a reality? Would he embrace one more chance at fatherhood if it were offered to him?
https://archiveofourown.org/works/21756451
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