Baby Cries
Post Emily | Words: 2055 | Angst | Warning: Tiny bit of borderline child abuse | AO3 |
How Scully deals with Emily’s death post funeral.
My angsty Emily fics never do as well but this post got me thinking. Don’t let the warning put you off reading I just thought it was important that I said something about that bit (which you will understand if you read it) I hope you like it :)
@today-in-fic @mypanicface @impulsive-astrophile
- - -
He brings flowers. Carries them in his arms much like a mother would carry a new-born baby. It just makes her cry.
When he hands her the flowers to remove the lid of the coffin to reveal a box full of sand, she cries even harder. Her gold cross stark against the dimmer yellow.
She looks down at the cross, then at the altar, wanting to curse the god- her god- that would take her baby away.
But God gives and God takes away; he gave her a child, then took that child away.
Mulder takes her hand and guides her out of the church. In the distance, Matthew whines and it creates the strangest sensations within her. An instinct which should have died with her daughter remerges, tugging at her chest. In her fuzzy-grieving state she hears Emily’s cry.
All baby’s look the same at that age. All baby’s sound the same at that age.
.:.:.:.:.:.
The wake is small and quiet. Much like the funeral, only the family attend. The family and Mulder.
His whiskey sits before him, going stale with each passing minute. Bill Jr. eyes him from the kitchen but even he’s smart enough to know that now is not the time to pick a fight.
Mulder’s attention is trained on Scully. There’s the quiet murmur of a conversation between Bill, Tara, and Mrs Scully. It’s Scully who sits alone on the two-seater table, the wine bottle in front of her, downing wine glass after wine glass.
His eyes flick to the clock on top of the fireplace.
Can I buy you a drink?
It’s 2 o’clock in the afternoon, Agent Mulder.
Another glass.
It’s 2 o’clock now, Agent Scully.
He takes a glance behind him, her family looking on towards Scully from the kitchen doorway as they continue to converse softly, their words low enough to be inaudible from here.
It makes Mulder uncomfortable. He has an urge to remove Scully from the room, take her somewhere more private away from prying eyes. He knows they’re her family and yet they should be the last people being judgemental.
He downs the whisky in one gulp, not as courage but more necessity- it would be wasteful after all- and is about to move from his seat when there’s another cry from Matthew.
Whatever trance Scully had found herself in with her wine is broken at the sound. Her head snaps up towards the direction of the noise and she stands as if about to go up there herself.
“It’s okay, Dana,” says Tara softly as she enters the living room. Matthew and his presence has become a touchy subject. “He’s just hungry.”
Scully sits back down, a dazed look returning to her face as she looks to be repeatedly blinking.
Mulder pushes himself off the couch and walks towards her, extending his hand out.
She looks at it, then at him, confused.
“Where are we going?” she asks childlike.
“I think a lie down would do you some good,” he answers.
She looks towards the bottle and Mulder’s eyes follow, sees it’s almost gone.
“Come on,” he says gently. She takes his hand and much like in the church, she allows him to guide her out.
Upstairs, they hear Tara tending to her son and Scully’s stopping suddenly has her yanking on his arm, her hand tightening in his.
“I thought it was Emily,” she says, tears beginning to form in her eyes once more. “Mulder, why do I keep thinking it’s Emily?”
She searches his face for answers but he has none to give. He feels dumb, inadequate to help her. He opens his mouth but the words don’t come out.
He closes it and sighs as she looks down to the carpet, realising he doesn’t know himself.
“Come on,” he says again.
.:.:.:.:.:.
Her bedroom here is the same one as the one from her childhood only it’s cold and devoid of her things. A suitcase lies on the floor, half packed, reminding her of a flight she should have taken days ago.
But then she found Emily and then Emily got sick and then there was Emily’s funeral.
“Can we go home tomorrow?” is what is asks.
Mulder is bewildered. “Scul—”
“Please!” she begins to beg. She never begs, only ever done it once when she was dying. She feels like she’s dying now, wilting away like the flowers at Emily’s coffin, wilting away like her daughter’s stolen body. The thought makes her beg some more.
“Please, Mulder,” she asks, grabbing at his shoulders, clinging to his arms. “Please, take me home. I want to go home.”
She crumbles against him, falling against his chest, the weight of her body knocking him off balance momentarily as he catches her. Saying nothing, his hand touching her head, fingers in her hair as she splutters her anguish into him.
His cheek resting against the top of her head, wrapping his arms tighter around her.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he says.
The answer is enough, it has her calming down, her weeping turning to sniffles.
She’s sleepy against him. Wined-drunk and exhausted, snuggling into his chest, snotting all over his shirt. She wipes it away with her sleeve.
There is still a persistent ache in her chest. The wine and exhaustion doing nothing to send it away. She wants it gone, she thinks. Wants to numb it until she can’t feel it, until it’s a distant memory. She wants a distraction; work or…
She has work in her arms: Mulder, her partner, her best friend, her one companion.
She lifts her head up, rests her chin on his chest.
“Mulder…” she says.
He looks down and Scully rises onto her tip-toes, stretching up for her lips to touch his.
And it’s not enough. This mere contact between them, she needs more. She pushes against him, tongue poking between his lips seeking access. Her hands moving from his waist to the top of his neck to press harder.
But he realises what it is she’s doing, begins pulling away.
“Scully, no…” he starts. “Not- not like this.”
“Yes like this,” she answers, seeking him once more, chasing after him, following him like she always has done, like she always will.
But his finger is at her lips, preventing her from getting any closer.
“Not like this,” he says, looking into his eyes. In them she sees it, the gentleness, the understanding, the want but the restraint. This isn’t a rejection, he’s telling her. It’s just not the time.
She slinks away, back to her natural height, and turns away to the bed.
“Will you stay with me?” she asks pulling back the covers, looking towards him.
He nods. “I’ll stay,” he answers moving to the chair.
.:.:.:.:.:.
She wakes and he is gone.
She wakes and there is crying.
She’s slept a full twelve hours if the clock is right.
I’m coming, baby, she thinks. Emily is crying. Emily needs her.
She makes her way to the nursery, her eyes on the cot and the baby that squirms around in it.
She is smiling. It feels foreign, as does the heaviness in her breasts but she goes to the cot away, to the baby who still whines.
But when she reaches it, realisation hits her. Her hands touching the rail of the cot has her remembering.
She has no baby. Her Emily is dead.
Instead lies Matthew staring up at her with curiosity.
She stares down at it with disgust.
Matthew, she thinks, reaching down to pick him up. His head hangs back.
He smells. A scent coming off of him, the low-hanging diaper the cause of what woke him.
“Why did you get to be born while Emily died?” she asks him. “Was this the price? Tara’s baby for mine?”
Matthew has no answer and Scully has the urge to shake him until she gets one but no, instead her hands find themselves squeezing his side. The baby begins to whimper and the harder she presses the more his cries break through until he’s screaming.
It’s release. The baby screaming is her screaming. It’s doing the thing she can’t do. It’s also doing it because she’s hurting him.
A bright light is on just as she realises, releasing her grip on him.
“Dana?” Tara’s voice has Scully spinning around to the four people standing in the doorway.
“What are you doing?” Her sister-in-law’s voice in equal parts curious and in denial. They all know what she was doing. She sees that knowledge in Mulder, the way he looks down at the floor.
“I’m sorry,” she says, handing Matthew back to Tara. She leaves briskly, pushing through the small gap between everyone, down the stairs, towards the door, grabbing Mulder’s car keys as she goes.
.:.:.:.:.:.:.
He can’t say what he saw exactly.
Scully holding Matthew, Matthew crying. It could’ve been anything.
“I don’t know why she was holding him like that,” Tara says sounding scared. She holds Matthew close to her, protecting him.
“She’s grieving, Tara,” says Mrs Scully.
Yet Bill Jr. is fuming.
“It’s not Matthew’s fault the girl is dead,” he says his voice full of quiet anger.
Mulder leaves, intending on finding where Scully ran off to and leaving the family to figure it out.
Through the window by the stairs, he sees her sitting in his car. Her head bowed down. This is not somebody who needs to be berated right now.
He puts on his shoes and opens the front door. She doesn’t see him when he reaches the car so he taps on the window, alerting her. She looks up and smiles sadly. He smiles back slightly, opening the car door and climbs in.
They sit in silence for a while and Mulder looks over to Scully, to her hands that tangle together and how glum she looks, staring out the window, her eyes wet.
“I was gonna drive off somewhere,” she says finally. “But I didn’t know where to go.”
Mulder nods. “I’m glad you didn’t.”
Scully let’s out a breath, followed by a quiet, “Are they angry with me?”
He thinks to Bill, his seeping anger, his lack of understanding.
It’s not Matthew’s fault the girl is dead, he said. That’s her daughter, Mulder thinks. She wasn’t just a girl.
“They don’t understand what you were doing,” he answers. “I don’t even understand what you were doing,” he admits then looks to her. “And I don’t think you understand it either.”
She shrugs and he has no idea what to make of it.
“I thought it was Emily crying,” she tells him. “Then I realised it wasn’t and I just got…so angry.” She lets out a breath before she continues. “I started asking him why he was alive and she wasn’t. Then I squeezed him and he started crying and then screaming and it was what I needed, someone to do what I wanted to do and just as I realised what it was I was doing the lights switched on and everyone was there.”
He digests what she’s said and reaches over to still her hands. It brings her attention away from them, to him.
“I found a direct flight for 10am tomorrow,” he tells her. “But if you want, we can go to the airport now and see what’s available.”
Scully looks to the road then to the house and Mulder waits as she weighs up the decision of whether to apologise to her family or make a fun or it.
She choices the former. Shaking her head.
“No, I think I best apologise.”
Mulder smiles, removing his hand. “Okay.”
They climb out of the car and walk back towards the front door.
“I’m not gonna sleep for the rest of the night.” She looks at him as if what she’s about to ask is selfish. “Do you mind staying up with me?”
He doubts he’d be getting any more sleep himself tonight. He had been awake to hear Matthew cry, awake to hear him scream.
“Of course,” he says, taking her hand as they walk side-by-side up the driveway. “I know a good infomercial we could watch together.”
She smiles, her hand tightening in his, and Mulder’s just glad he could put a smile on her face.
