This is an answer to a couple different anon prompts from a long time ago mixed together. One with Maggie finding Scully’s journal and seeing what she’d written to Mulder. The other prompt was for Mulder to spend a lot of time at Scully’s place after “all things.”
tagging @today-in-fic
*
Margaret Scully considers herself to be a great many things in life. She’s a conservative woman of God who has quietly voted democrat since the day she said “I do.” A loyal navy wife who has worked her slender fingers to the bone as a stay-at-home mother of four; a stickler for rules who occupies her time spent alone with a well-kept home; a grandmother who loves to spoil her grandbabies with cookies before dinner and always reads “just one last story, Grandma” at bedtime.
She also considers herself an excellent judge of character and has learned over the years when not to pry in the private lives of others without invitation. Though she cannot say she has never let curiosity take over and wishes her children would invite her in to visit those hidden recesses of their minds once in a while.
But blind is one thing she is not.
Arriving at Dana’s for a quiet Mother’s Day brunch after church today has only confirmed her long-lasting suspicions of the current relationship status between her daughter and Fox Mulder. One look at Dana’s flushed cheeks and swooning smile as she utters her partner’s name across the kitchen table would have been enough to satisfy Maggie’s curiosity about whether or not her daughter has finally embraced what lay within her heart.
Yet, there is much more to be seen here than a meaningful smile and pink cheeks.
And Maggie sees plenty.
A pair of men’s running shoes - size twelve - sit snugly by her daughter’s size sevens. A large leather jacket that smells of familiar cologne is slung over the coat rack by the door, only partially hidden by the sweater she’d gifted Dana four months ago on her first birthday of the new Millenium. There are two mismatched mugs resting next to the coffee maker, two toothbrushes inside a cup in the bathroom - bristles touching in comfortable ease - and two towels hanging dry over the shower door. The entire bathroom smells of men’s body wash.
A new development seven years in the making.
Maggie dries her hands at the sink and shuts the bathroom door, smiling warmly as she goes.
“You need help cleaning up, Dana?”
“No.” She shakes her head and turns the water off in the kitchen sink, soap bubbles rising above the dirty plates as she wiggles her rubber-gloved fingers. “I’ve got it, Mom, today’s your day. Why don’t you take a seat in the living room? I’ll make us some tea and we can talk.”
It’s her day, too, Maggie thinks, but will never say. There will always be an ache in her heart at the thought of her child unable to raise one of her own, yet her pain is one she soothes regiously on her knees come Sunday morning.
“If you’re sure…”
“I’m fine.”
Maggie eyes the paired coffee mugs once again and taps each one with her manicured nail, giving her daughter a chance to open up if she so chooses.
“Do these need to be washed, too?” she asks, knowing good and well that they do not.
Dana’s blue eyes widen as they flick to Maggie’s but replies with a casually dismissive, “No. I cleaned them this morning,” before resuming her scrubbing. This time, Dana does so with a renewed flush and a bitten lip.
“That’s good, honey,” Maggie says with a reassuring squeeze to her daughter’s shoulder, but cannot resist adding, “It’s good to spend mornings with those you care about,” as she turns to leave her with her thoughts.
As Dana finishes with the dishes, Maggie allows herself to admire the intimate details of her daughter’s home - now that she knows for certain with whom she’s been sharing so much of it lately. Her slender fingers trail along the bookshelf, scanning the titles of anatomy books, several science journals in which Special Agent Dana K. Scully, MD has been published, and some classic novels she recalls her freckled nose being buried in over the years. All are in alphabetical order. So very Dana.
She chuckles and her eyes catch on a leather book that is not neatly tucked in line with the rest. It’s black with golden letters etched on the cover that simply says “Journal.”
Curious, Maggie holds the journal close and contemplates on whether she should peek, selfishly hoping that more than just the surface-level emotion her daughter allows her to see might reveal itself.
Yet, the thought of betraying Dana’s trust unnerves her. Her daughter trusts so few these days.
As she firmly decides to return such private thoughts to where she found them, she notices a piece of yellow paper slipping out of its back pages. Maggie quickly tries to nab the square bookmark so Dana wouldn’t lose her page due to her mother’s intrusion when the spine flips wide open, fanning out words of heartache her eyes simply cannot unsee.
And every word is intended for someone else.
To whom it may concern,
To my family,
Dear Mulder,
I feel time like a heartbeat, the seconds pumping in my breast like a reckoning. The luminous mysteries that once seemed so distant and unreal, threatening clarity in the presence of a truth entertained not in youth, but only in its passage. I feel these words as their meaning were weight being lifted from me, knowing that you’ll read it and share my burden, as I have come to trust no other…
“Oh, Dana,” Maggie exhales through her fingertips, hesitantly scanning the pages scrawled in intimacy with watery eyes.
...Mulder, if the darkness should have swallowed me as you read this, you must never think there was the possibility of some secret intervention, something you might have done. And though we’ve traveled far together this last distance must necessarily be traveled alone...
Months spent watching helplessly as the bright light of life burning within her daughter slowly faded more and more each day was the hardest thing she as a mother had borne. Watching and waiting for what many thought was the inevitable is something she would never wish upon anyone. And here she is, sneakingly seeking some sort of deeper understanding of what her baby girl has endured.
...Mulder, I feel you close though I know you are pursuing your own path. For that I am grateful, more than I could ever express. I need to know you’re out there if I am ever to see through this...
Maggie sighs and swipes at a tear hovering along her lashes, hands shaking as she adjusts the book to replace it, when the piece of paper floats to the floor.
Bending down to retrieve it, the journal pages flutter open across her lap to another time in Dana’s life. Maggie’s chin quivers at the words displayed before her.
Dear Mulder,
There was a time in the not so distant past when I told you I was throwing this journal out. That I chose to leave my moments of weakness in the past. But the time has come to admit to myself that losing my only child, my daughter that was never meant to be with you by my side, only confirms that the ache of what lies within my heart is meant for you to bear along with me. That this time, the distance must necessarily be traveled together…
Maggie gasps at the strength and conviction laced within her daughter’s words. The raw heartache Dana must still feel after burying a piece of herself is a familiar one Maggie does not have the strength to re-expose.
But her baby has not experienced it alone; she’s had her partner, and that has been enough.
Her eyes burn and a hot tear rolls down the swell of her cheek, splashing onto the next page before she can stop it. Pinching the tear-stained paper between her thumb and index finger, she waves it through air in hopes of drying the smeared ink before she shuts the book. As she does, Maggie turns the page fully and sees a single sentence hastily written over and over with what she recognizes as fierce emotion pouring from her child’s fingertips.
Dear Mulder,
Personal interest is all that I have. Personal interest is all that I have... Personal interest: it’s something I’ll always have, even if I should not.
“Oh, goodness.” She should not be reading any of this. If Dana wants her to know what secrets lie in her heart, she will tell her.
Maggie picks up the yellow paper next to her feet and immediately realizes it’s more than merely just a bookmark. It’s a note addressed to “Scully” that’s written in fresh ink and time stamped for today’s date.
I never imagined you’d invite me to see your private thoughts you’ve kept so well guarded over the years. I’m truly grateful; for your loyalty, your trust… for you, Scully. More than words can ever express.
Sniffling and riddled with guilt, Maggie slips the note meant for her daughter to read in private back behind the journal’s last written entry. This time, Dana’s greeting to the man she’s clearly been loving from afar for years is a very different one.
To my constant, my touchstone...
Maggie quickly shuts the book and stands, heart racing at her lack of self-control as she places the leather bound memento back on the shelf.
She has known for years that her daughter loves her partner a great deal, and that he loves her just as fiercely in return. She’s not an oblivious woman and never has been.
No, she thinks, as her eyes scan the room once again to land on a lone photo of Dana and Fox standing close together at a crime scene, staring into one another’s eyes, blind she is certainly not.
“Mom, I have tea brewing if…” Dana enters the room and stops a foot away as she takes in the likely overwhelming expression on her mother’s face. “What’s wrong?”
Maggie swallows a lump in her throat and smiles softly at her daughter across the room. Suddenly she sees the tomboy with wild red hair and dirty knees; then the teenage girl with freckles and braces kissing a boy on their front porch. She sees a proud Dana graduating with honors and jumping head first into med school, only to be eagerly recruited by the FBI. She then sees that pride and determination focus on a quest that Maggie will never truly understand, but she doesn’t need to.
No, Fox Mulder is the reason Maggie now sees a real and fulfilled happiness on her daughter’s face for the very first time.
“Nothing, honey. Nothing at all,” Maggie assures, and she means it.
Dana cocks a brow - just like her father used to - and points to the kitchen. “Okay, well I’ve a kettle on the stove if you want some tea.”
The house phone rings before Maggie can respond and Dana stares at it carefully, as if considering whether or not she should pick up. At the fourth ring, she gives in and answers with a breathy, “Yes, Mulder?”
Maggie smirks, silently moving about the living room to gather her things.
“The audit has been moved up? To tomorrow?” Dana huffs with her back turned, tapping her nails along her desk. “Isn’t this a little short notice coming from Skinner?”
Walking into the kitchen with her purse and sweater slung over her arm, Maggie removes the teapot from the burner before it screams for attention. She pours her daughter a cup the way Dana likes it and sets it on the dining room table as she finishes her call.
“Yeah... yes, I can do that,” Dana murmurs, failing to fight off a smile before swiftly hanging up. “I’m sorry, Mom I-”
“Have to go?”
“Mm,” she confirms and darts her gaze out the window. Maggie knows the summer sun is only partially to blame for the glow on her Irish child’s porcelain cheeks. “Something like that.”
“Fox needs you.” A question isn’t needed this time and both Scully women know why.
“Yes,” Dana draws a deep breath and nods. “It looks that way.”
Maggie has seen more than enough today to know that it’s always been that way. And when her daughter finally looks at her again, Maggie is staring at her gleefully.
“What, Mom?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
Dana runs her tongue across her upper lip, expectant. “You may as well.”
Maggie shrugs nonchalantly, openly grinning now with a motherly confession perched at the tip of her tongue.
“I may be near-sighted, Dana, but I’m not blind yet,” she teases, reaching up to cup her daughter’s reddening cheek. “Not blind at all.”
*
side note: Mulder leaving evidence of his weekend sleepovers at Scully’s is a little slice of head canon happiness I like to cling to pre Requiem. I do however believe the evidence shows he moved in with her after he came back in “deadalive,” just not beforehand.
