The Possibilities of the Impossible: a post MSIII fic
A pop, a release and the hot flood of liquid. It spills and spills in crimson waves. Dark, rotten blood oozing. Eyes wide, mouth gaping open and shut, mimicking life even in the throes of death. A rattle.
“It’s over,” she says, pulling on his shoulder. “It’s over, Mulder.”
“You had a flashback. A nightmare.” She’s sitting up now and he feels the tickle of her hair over his skin. Crossing his arm over his chest he rubs a lock between his fingers, the russet bright in the glow of the bedside lamp. He’s damp with sweat but chilled. His heart is racing, erratic. His body aches, his bones ache. She kisses his shoulder.
Her eyes are puffy, the bruises marring the side of her face. She must ache too. Her muscles, her bones, her very essence. He pulls her to him as they lie face-to-face. The taste of hate is pitted at the back of throat. The energy of it is rushing through his veins. It is a pure force, lightning-hot. But tempering it all, tamping back the motivation to strangle the life out of that walking cancer, is William. Their son.
“What was it like, Scully?”
Her breathing has slowed and her voice is thick and slow. “What was what like?”
There’s a moment of silence. “It was in my head so I can’t describe the sound, but I knew it was him, know it is him.”
He tries to imagine the connection, a bond that runs so deep it’s impossible to separate one from the other. As a younger man he always thought he would know if Samantha was dead, he spent years telling himself that he would feel it, and because he didn’t, that meant she had to be alive. He sees now how easy it was for hope to trick his mind, to control it. He feels foolish now, in the wake of Scully’s visions. His connection to his sister was simply guilt-fed.
He hears a small chuff, a low strangled sob. She hasn’t cried yet. He drops a kiss on her head and she sniffs. “The images were blurry. The pain…the pain was intense. Like a birth, burning and splitting my mind. But I saw him. I heard him. He’s in there, Mulder. Our son. He’s with us. He’s always been with us.”
“I want to feel him, to see him. Why can’t I do it? Why isn’t he in my head?”
Her chin rests in the crook of his shoulder. “He’s going to find us. It’s something I know. Just like I know how to breathe, like I know how to love you.”
She pulls away from him and sits up, brushing her hair out of her face. He props a pillow behind her, takes her hand in his. Squeezes. For a brief moment, he wonders if he closes his eyes, if he truly believes, that he’ll see William too. He’s overcome with the urge to laugh. The irony that he’s spent a career trying to expose the arcane and the inexplicable only to be sitting in bed next to the most perfect case study.
“It’s just in me,” she says, kissing his knuckles. “And if I could share it with you, I would, Mulder. I know how much you want this. But just know that he’s coming. William is coming.”
“I killed a man, Scully. I slit his throat. What have I become? What would William think of me?”
She turns, her mouth open slightly, brows dropped. “I don’t need to remind you that the man you killed was strangling me. But maybe I do need to remind you that you are, and always have been, a brilliant man, passionate, empathetic, driven.” She rolls her lips together and looks away a moment. “I told someone once that our relationship was impossible. But that’s not true. For 25 years you’ve shown me nothing but possibilities, everywhere, in everything. I was infertile, Mulder. And you told me to never give up on a miracle.” She places their joint hands on her chest and he feels the movement of her bones under her skin. Solid, reassuring.
“William is our miracle and we’re going to meet him and…Fox,” she whispers, raising her mouth to his, kissing life back into him, “he already knows you are the best father he could ever have hoped for.”
