This is my first writing of anything in a really long time. No idea where I'm going with this but I knew if I didn't post it, it would never see the light of day.
It took 6 years, but when it happened, it felt like only 6 days.
She was walking William home from school (Andrew, his name was Andrew now, she reminded herself) when she saw him sitting on a park bench under a tree. Jeans, long sleeved shirt under a black bomber jacket, trying so hard to look casual and failing miserably.
Their eyes met and she thought she’d forgotten how to breathe. Andrew was pulling on her hand so she let him lead her back to the apartment. He pushed off the bench and slowly followed. She let him, allowing him to catch up at his own pace.
He maintained the distance, a slow shadow deciding whether to return to their world or slip away. She held the building door open, waiting for his decision. A half second’s hesitation in his step made her heart clench in panic, to have him so close yet still out of her grasp. Then he approached and she exhaled.
Late that night, after Andrew (William now, he could be William again) had chattered himself to sleep mid-sentence, did they talk.
“That was the point.” She had disappeared as an absolute last resort, cooked up during a desperate intervention. Her few loved ones still alive and present, trying anything to prevent her from making a decision they were sure she’d regret forever.
She had hated them in that moment, had screamed insults at each of them, the worst at her mother who took it all stone faced as she tried to break the final bonds of love and friendship so they would walk away.
It had been her brother, of all people, who had convinced her to run.
“There is no one else in the world who can understand what needs to be done to protect William,” he told her quietly. “No one else knows the dangers out there. You do this-“ he couldn’t even say the word “-and you think he’ll be anonymous and protected? How? You yourself have said they can find anyone anywhere. Use your resources and experience to protect yourselves.”
So she did. She thought several steps ahead of every decision she made, thinking of what “Normal Scully” would do, what “Panicked Scully” would do, what “Rational Scully Trying to Shake Off a Tail” would do. Then she did something else entirely. She changed her appearance, gaining weight, changing her hair, wearing drug store makeup in garish colors, and never touching a pair of her formerly signature heels again.
“Is it really over?” She asked.
“So far as anyone can tell. No guarantees, of course, but you can go home.”
“And you?” <Nowhere is home without you, don’t you know that by now?>
A soft exhale. An almost imperceptible loosening of tension in his shoulders. And then, the hint of a smile before he said, “Wherever you want me to be.”
She reached out a hand, but he was the one who took it, stroking the soft back of her palm in a way she thought she’d never feel again.
“Let’s go home,” she whispered.
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