Elegy AU cont/ 3/3
She jerks upright, staring sightlessly for a second until her eyes focus and recognise him. ‘I saw the fourth girl in the bathroom before you came to get me,’ she blurts out. She ducks her head and fists her blankets, her natural instinct to hide and deny rearing its head but he cups her chin and tilts it upward. Her tired blue eyes are brightened with fear, only this time the monster is in her, not her closet. A single tear trickles down her cheek until, stroking her jaw softly, he catches it mid-descent. That is her final undoing, and with a stifled wail that makes him want to scream at her God to save her, please just save her, she breaks down in his arms. Pulling her tightly to him as if it’s the only way to tether her to this earth, he prays into her parting, ‘S’all right. S’all right.’ Maybe if he says it enough, it will be true. I do believe in Scully. I do believe in Scully. I do believe in Scully.
The shrill beeping of the IV breaks them apart as the blood transfusion announces its completion. He half-fancies he can see revival, redness in her cheeks, but really it’s just exhaustion.
Departing, the nurse nudges his shoulder. ‘Visiting hours are over,’ she murmurs, but he ignores her, stroking Scully’s hand, and she doesn’t push further and makes her exit quietly.
‘I’m so tired,’ Scully murmurs, but her eyes move restlessly beneath her closed lids.
‘Tell me what you need,’ he implores. She opens her eyes, back to piercing sapphires, but there’s hesitancy in them now too, and he hates that.
‘Can you,’ she bites her lip but holds his gaze, ‘can you just hold me?’
He exhales with relief at the simple ease of it, even as his heart hurts at how reluctant she was to ask, as if his answer would be any other than ‘Yeah. I can do that.’
Once again, he slides in beside her on the mattress he’s come to see as their marital bed, and he honestly wouldn’t mind if it were, if only he could get to see the ‘In health’ part of his vows. She curls into him, and whispers, ‘Thank you.’ He almost laughs. It is he who should be thanking her. His saviour, his touchstone. His constant. Instead, he is silent, savouring the feeling of her breath, hitched but warm on his neck. Where there is breath, there is life. ‘Sleep, Scully,’ he thinks, and he’s reminded of something Albert Hosteen said during his coma, ‘Sleep is healing.’
He had been healed, and so would she be. She has to be. Please God. Please.
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