From: Amory20@aol.com
Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2001 15:26:16 EST
Subject: New: Reality Check by JLB
Source: xff


TITLE: Reality Check
AUTHOR: JLB
CLASSIFICATION: MSR, Angst
SPOILERS: *Okay, big fat spoiler warning here so please read carefully.* This 
story contains spoilers for episodes *post* TINH.  If you aren't spoiled 
rotten, as I am, and do not want to be, please, please do not read this.  Now 
if you are spoiled, please note that this story addresses things in a 
slightly different way than it seems CC will.  Sorry, but I like my version 
better. 
FEEDBACK: Amory20@aol.com
SUMMARY: Confronting reality
DISCLAIMER: M&S belong to CC, 1013, and FOX.
NOTE: Thank you to Michelle who asked for this story, and who, along with 
Laurie and Sheri, wouldn't let me give up when things got a little rough.  
Thanks guys.  Also, a big thank you to Amy at the Haven, who provides me with 
the means to be spoiled rotten on a daily basis. 


Reality Check by JLB

For some reason, she can't bring herself to wash the dishes.

It wouldn't require more than a few minutes of her time -- a quick rinse, 
then some soapy scrubbing, another quick rinse, finishing it all off with a 
gentle swipe of the towel.  That couldn't be more than five minutes, seven 
minutes tops, of mindless drudge work, but she'd have to go all the way to 
the kitchen, take those twelve or so steps from where she stands, silent and 
still, in Mulder's living room.

She can't do it.  She can't will herself to move.

A few weeks ago, she couldn't stand to be here, couldn't stand to be among 
his orphaned things, all patiently waiting, as if they expected him home at 
any moment.  It killed her to wipe away the dust, the spider webs that had 
formed in dark corners, because she worried that there might be a part of him 
still there, a strand of hair or a flake of dry skin lying loose in the mess.

Now, a month later, everything is different.

His apartment, in the cool darkness of late afternoon, seems to be a living 
thing. The walls throb wildly like an excited heartbeat, and the floor 
pulsates beneath her bare feet as she stands in his living room.  She stares 
at her surroundings in awe, at the amber flakes of fish food floating atop 
the surface of the aquarium, the fish swimming slowly but happily through 
their bright underwater world after a full meal.  On the coffee table, there 
are a couple of empty glasses, and a chipped plate with the remnants of a 
turkey sandwich.  If she wanted to, she could study the small bit of bread 
sitting in the creamy puddle of mayonnaise, and analyze the pattern of 
Mulder's bite marks, the small, sharp markings of his teeth, maybe find a 
trace of his saliva still clinging to the soggy bread.  

Proof, she thinks wildly.  Proof that he's been here, today, just an hour or 
so ago.  Proof that he is alive and well, leaving smudged fingerprints on 
juice glasses and broken crusts of bread on old, cracked china.

Scully tries to pull the knowledge inside her as a means of reassurance.  It 
is a purely deductive process after all, one that she is more than familiar 
with.  A dead man can't leave fingerprints behind, can't toss tiny fragments 
of his DNA here and there like bits of confetti. At least that's what the 
rigid, scientific part of her brain asserts whenever she stops to listen.  

Over the years, though, she has slowly learned not to trust her own senses, 
not to rely on the scientific process to be infallible as she once did, when 
she was a young doctor, a green FBI agent.  Too many times, she -- and it -- 
have been proven wrong, arrogantly and recklessly wrong, and she refuses to 
play the fool again.  Especially not when it comes to something this 
important.  

Because, despite all her second guessing, all the self-imposed doubts, she 
feels Mulder, senses him within the shadowed quiet of his apartment.  Not 
with her eyes or ears, or even her wonderfully logical mind, but somehow more 
deeply and intensely, in a place that ached for months without him.  That 
feeling cannot be wrong, she tells herself.  Not after all this time.

Mulder is alive.  Mulder is alive and well, just down the hall.  

She knows this because she sent him to bed herself, just an hour or so ago, 
not knowing what else to do.  In the many text books and medical journals she 
has read, at the lectures by world famous physicians and scientists that she 
has attended, she's never come across the protocol for dealing with someone 
in Mulder's condition.  He is a marvel of medical science, Scully knows, and 
so she is left without a clear method of treatment.  

He could use some rest -- that much seems obvious -- so she sent him to bed 
for a long, afternoon nap, trying to pretend that it's all business as usual, 
that he decided to turn in, sleepy and full, after a particularly satisfying 
lunch.

It's silly, but she has to find some way to distract herself.

When she closes her eyes, standing in the thin slant of gray light from the 
window, bright, haunting visions assault her, terribly real images that are 
so graphic, she feels herself shaking under their force. They are not safe 
and remote like nightmares, those horribly vivid dreams that kept her tossing 
and turning on damp sheets while Mulder was gone. These scenes that play 
themselves now are guesses, logical assumptions about what he's gone through 
based on the physical evidence at hand, carefully constructed hypotheses 
about all the terrible things he must have endured.  

Behind closed eyes, she can still see him in the cold, dark interior of a 
space ship, in the black, airless prison of a coffin, buried deep, deep 
beneath the earth. She thinks about it for a moment too long, and suddenly 
finds it difficult to breathe. Her hand moves to her stomach in a thoughtless 
gesture that has become second nature lately, and she tries to ground herself.

Dear God, she buried him.  She put him there, closed the lid, and watched as 
the groundskeeper dropped the first shovel-full of dirt atop it, a rich, dark 
cascade of soil as it fell. 

She gave up then, too quickly, too easily.

In a careful, deliberate movement, she turns to face the quiet hallway that 
leads to his bedroom, walking the path in her mind.  It seems so long ago 
since they were last here together, since she stood in his apartment knowing 
he was just in the other room, and as crazy and selfish as it sounds, part of 
her wishes that they could go back to that old life, to those people they 
once were.

There were days when they sat together on Mulder's sofa and ate popcorn and 
drank beer, neither one of them wanting to be the first one to give in, to 
lose the hands-off battle.  There were nights when she fell asleep on his 
shoulder, in the midst of mindless paperwork, and he walked her to his bed 
like a drowsy, cranky child, so she could sleep beside him soundly, deeply.  
And there was that first, wonderfully strange night when she tiptoed into his 
bedroom, and he held the blankets back to welcome her into the warmth of his 
bed, where he touched her with reverence and ease, a place she hated leaving.

Less than a year ago, but it might as well have been a decade.  In that time, 
she received her miracle, and Mulder disappeared, only to turn up dead, then 
rise again.  All of this in less than a year.  Who's to say, she thinks, that 
it all couldn't be taken from her, couldn't disappear as quickly as it all 
appeared.

He's just in the other room, she reminds herself again.  He's in the other 
room.

Right now, the thought alone is no comfort.  Like in those early days when 
she and Mulder were just getting to know one another, she needs to see it 
with her own eyes before she will believe, and even then, there are no 
guarantees.

Slowly, she walks the hallway to his bedroom, a hand braced against her lower 
back to massage it gently.  Her shoes are off, so she doesn't make any noise 
as she pads across the floor, her stockings catching on the hard wood floor 
once or twice.  The bedroom door is open, and she slips inside, as gracefully 
as a very pregnant woman can.

In bed, with freshly washed sheets and a brand new comforter, Mulder is fast 
asleep.  He is on his left side, the blankets pulled up to his shoulders, and 
his mouth hangs open, his jaw jutting out almost crookedly. He must have 
turned the small beside lamp on before he fell asleep because now it casts a 
soft, golden light over the top of his head, his glossy dark hair. Every so 
often, she can hear a slight snore, and it is a strangely beautiful sound, 
after all those months without Mulder when the world seemed to go entirely 
silent. She welcomes the flat droning of Mulder's snores now, as if it were 
music, careful key strokes on a piano.

He's alive, she tells herself.  He's alive.

Again, the idea alone is not enough.  She has to feel him before she'll trust 
it.

At his bedside, she approaches with caution, standing still when she reaches 
his pillow.  She does not want to wake him, and have him discover her, 
mooning over his prone form like some silly schoolgirl.  Her fingers twitch 
at her side, though, demanding a tactile exploration of his vibrating, 
sleep-heavy body. Without thinking, Scully reaches out to brush the hair back 
from his forehead, not because she thinks it's bothering him, but because she 
needs to touch him, to feel how warm and soft his skin still is, how strongly 
his pulse beats beneath his fingers.

It is like a dream, tracing the sleek topography of his face, his body, so 
she does it over and over again, trying to make it seem real.

As her hand skims across his neck, Mulder stirs, shifting without grace and 
mumbling incoherently in a deep, rusty voice.  She jerks her hand back almost 
as if her fingers had fallen upon a burning ember, afraid of being caught, 
afraid of Mulder witnessing her moment of weakness.  There is no sense in 
trying to flee the room, not when seven months of pregnancy have slowed her 
considerably, so she stands motionless at the foot of the bed, trying to fix 
her face into a mask of causal indifference.

Slowly, his eyes open, all squinty and dark, and he looks up at her, slightly 
confused.

"Hey," he rasps, in the hoarse, barely awake voice that she remembers so 
well. "Something wrong?"

He sits up against the pillows, the comforter falling loose around him, and 
tries to wipe the sleep from his eyes.  In the dim lamplight, his skin is 
honey colored, and his scars are barely visible, just faint white crescents 
on his otherwise smooth skin.

"Nothing's wrong," she tells him, embarrassed.  She can't help looking down 
at her feet in order to deflect his attention momentarily.  "I was just 
checking up on you."

He nods, his eyes falling to her belly.  "When do I get to check up on you?"

"I'm fine," she says quickly, almost dismissively, smoothing the blankets 
across the foot of the bed.

Cocking his head, Mulder smiles, a strangely knowing look darkening his eyes. 
 "I think I'd like a second opinion.  Com'ere."

After a moment of hesitation, she moves toward him, and Mulder leans forward, 
reaching his hand out -- carefully, hesitantly -- for her stomach.  He taps 
his fingers, mostly knuckles, against it gently, almost like he's knocking on 
a door.

"Hey," he says, moving his mouth so it's pressed up against her belly.  
Through her shirt, she can feel his warm breath, and it tickles her skin. 
"Everything all right in there?"

"Mul-derr," she groans in amusement, sliding a hand through his hair, rubbing 
the back of his neck.

With his chin resting on her swollen stomach, eyes wide and warm, Mulder 
looks exactly as he does in her memories, all those recollections she held 
close to her heart while he was gone.  If she weren't touching him right now, 
his body pressed warmly to hers, she would think he was just another flimsy 
incarnation of some long-ago Mulder, a mood and expression captured in time.

He blinks in a slow-motion way, like he's coming off his own trip down memory 
lane.

"Why don't you lie down with me for a while?" Mulder asks, sliding across to 
the other side of the bed, making room for her.  "I don't know much about 
pregnant women, but I'm pretty sure that you shouldn't be spending all that 
time on your feet."

With a tight, closed mouth, Scully smiles, then carefully eases herself down 
onto the bed, Mulder reaching out to help.  She sits up against the 
headboard, and stretches her legs, flexing her toes inside her stockings.  
Apparently, Mulder does know a thing or two -- her feet and ankles are 
swollen and sore, and it's such a relief to be off them that she almost sighs 
in bliss.  

But even better than getting off her feet, she's lying in bed beside Mulder.  
Not in some memory, not in a dream, but here, now, in his too-long-vacant 
bedroom, with his navy pajama bottoms gaping at the waist now that he's lost 
weight, the sheets smelling like Tide, clean and sun-dried, his right wrist 
stained with a light pink ring where his hospital bracelet had rested until 
this morning.

It's all so real.

"Better?" She hears him ask from somewhere beside her.  For a moment, she 
can't seem to look at him because she's afraid that he'll disappear as soon 
as her eyes touch him, fading like smoke in the air around her, and she'll be 
alone in his rumpled bed, clutching unwashed clothing in the hopes of 
conjuring his memory from the shadows of his apartment.

She nods, just as her vision blurs, but Mulder remains still.  He doesn't 
reach for her -- it's almost as if he understands what's happening -- and he 
breathes very quietly.

In the silence, she tries to fight off the tears.  It is absurd how easily 
she falls apart these days, but the effort required to hold it all together 
is beyond her.  She can feel Mulder looking at her, and she knows that he 
doesn't have any idea how to deal with her like this.  Little by little, she 
inches her way down the bed, trying to lie flat on her back, sighing a bit as 
she maneuvers herself on the mattress.

"What is it, Scully?" Mulder asks, as he helps her lie down.  He positions 
her so she's on her side, close to him but not so much that she feels 
trapped.  She buries her face in the curve of his neck, and it doesn't even 
matter that the sharp antiseptic smell of the hospital still clings to him 
faintly. He's so warm and smooth against her. 

"I'm being ridiculous," she tells him quietly, her lips pressed to his throat.

"You, Scully?"  She can hear the silly smile in his voice.  "You are never 
ridiculous."

When she pulls her face from his neck, Mulder is biting at his lower lip.  
For the first time, she notices how dry and chapped his lips are, as if he's 
spent too much time out on the ski slopes without Chap Stick in his pocket.  
His tongue passes along his lip while she watches, and then it's all shiny 
and wet, smooth again, almost swollen. 

She turns away, not trusting herself to speak and look at him at the same 
time. 

"I'm afraid..." she tells him in a hushed voice, watching Mulder's hand as it 
flutters against the sheets. "I'm afraid to let you out of my sight for even 
a minute.  I'm afraid that if I go as far as the kitchen, you'll be gone when 
I get back.  Or you won't be breathing.  It's so ridiculous..."

He strokes the back of her head, massaging her scalp, and then his lips are 
hot against her forehead.

"It's okay," he says softly.  "I understand."

There are no assurances that he is back for good, no promises that he'll be 
at her side forever, no guarantees that their life together will be easy and 
happy.  All she hears is quiet understanding, which, right now, means 
everything to her.  That's what she's missed most all these months without 
him, someone who understands, who doesn't try to protect her because he 
thinks he knows best, someone who doesn't hide the truth because he thinks 
it's too painful for her to deal with, too much for her to handle.  

He holds her against him, and understands.  For a moment, she doesn't need 
anything else.

"I've got an idea," he tells her, his voice deep with humor.  He tilts her 
head back so he can look in her eyes, so she can see the bright, teasing 
glint in his.  "Break out your cuffs, Scully.  And we'll throw away the key."

She laughs lightly, though her eyes feel watery and tight, because she knows 
that he expects it, not because of any genuine emotion.  She runs a hand over 
his side, tracing the hard lines of his ribs.

"It's always been a fantasy of mine actually..." he trails off purposefully.

She knows what he's trying to do.  In typical Mulder fashion, he's lightening 
the mood, hiding all his own pain and doubts with humor, trying to coax 
another laugh out of her so she doesn't remember how confused and unsure she 
feels.  It has never really worked before, and now it only seems to highlight 
how bizarre their lives are, how alone she feels, even with Mulder beside her 
and a baby moving inside her.

So she doesn't laugh, doesn't even smile.  Her nose is running, and her lips 
feel wet and salty.  Words have always been difficult for her, especially 
when it comes to Mulder, and now without a single precedent to follow, she is 
lost.  Mulder's hands move in slow strokes on her back, grounding her, 
reminding her once again that this is not some dream, some fantastic illusion 
brought about by too many nights of prayer and wishes.

Without warning, Mulder goes still beside her, alarmingly so, and when she 
looks up at him, he is shaking his head, staring beyond her at the window.  
She turns to see what he's looking at, but there is nothing but dull gray 
sky, crisscrossed with heavy black power lines.  

His eyes are serious and dark, and she sees a world in them, more complicated 
and beautiful than anything outside the window.

"Mulder?" she whispers, trying to push herself up so she can meet his eyes.  
"Are you all right?"

"It's so strange," he says, looking around the room, his eyes never settling 
on any one spot for too long. As far as Scully can remember, she didn't move 
a single item in his bedroom, didn't even put his running shoes, lying 
lopsided and untied in one corner, in the closet.  "It's all... Everything is 
different--"

"Not everything," she affirms.  "Not everything."

"No?"  He pushes a strand of her hair, longer than when he last saw her, 
behind her ear.  "It feels like everything."

She closes her eyes, and feels him touching her stomach with whisper-soft 
strokes, so tentatively that it makes her eyes tear.

"Things have changed, Scully," he whispers in a low, aching voice.  "Whether 
we admit it or not."

When she opens her eyes, Mulder is studying her with intense concentration, 
with those bright, burning eyes, in the same way he has done hundreds of 
times over the years, a way she forced herself to ignore for so long.  Now, 
she stares back, afraid of what will happen if she doesn't.

"No one expects you to just pick up where you left off, Mulder," she tells 
him, her voice cool and flat.  "Take all the time you need."

He smiles, soft and sad, and his hand pats at her stomach again, more firmly 
this time.

"It would seem that there's a certain time table at play here."

She lays a hand over his on her stomach, stroking the back of his hand, 
feeling the short hairs there tickle her fingers. 

"This doesn't have to factor in, Mulder.  It doesn't have to force any of 
your decisions."  She pats his hand, pressing it more tightly against her 
body, the pale pink of her nail polish strangely bright against Mulder's dark 
skin.

For a moment, he looks dumbfounded, like it's the old basement days and she's 
pointed out some unthinkable hole in one of his theories. Then he shakes his 
head, his mouth fixed in a grim line.

"Of course it does, Scully." He looks down at their hands, twisted together 
on the swell of her belly.  "You've wanted this for so long."

She bites her lip, hard, though she doesn't know if she's doing it to keep 
from crying or to stop herself from speaking.  Whatever the reason, it 
doesn't help.  The tears escape and she finds herself jabbering away, in a 
breathless, broken voice.

"I never wanted it without you."  She turns her head into the pillow, drying 
her tears on the cotton.  "I don't want it without you."

This is what Mulder has returned to, Scully thinks.  A world where she cries 
at the slightest provocation, and has to touch him constantly for fear that 
she'll lose him if her grip isn't tight enough.  Of course, he thinks 
everything is different.

"Hey," he says, and it sounds like he's calling out to her from far away.  
"Hey, Scully ... you've got me."  He runs his thumb along her lip, and tilts 
her chin up.  "I may be a little worse for wear these days, but I'm here."

"What does that mean?" she asks him, unable to stop herself.  

Seven months ago, she never would have pushed.  She would have held the 
question back, wondered about it later when she was alone in bed, imagining 
the panicked look in Mulder's eyes as he tried to formulate a response.

"Scully," he says, and her name, in that deep, rich voice, is the sound from 
a thousand dreams. "It means that you're going to be a mother."

Through a haze of tears, she nods, trying to hide her face against the 
pillow.  Since the moment that Mulder woke up in the hospital, she's been 
expecting this, trying to prepare herself.  After all he's been through, she 
can't ask too much of him, can't make the same demands she would have before 
he disappeared, before he died.  She has to accept him as he is now because 
no matter how she looks at him, no matter what angle she comes at him from, 
he's not the same man who made commitments to her all those months ago, he's 
not the same man who tried to give her all he had left in the world. 

"And I think," he continues slowly, just barely penetrating the roar inside 
her head.  "I think it means that I'm going to be a father."  He tilts his 
head back, and chuckles softly.  "Scary thought, huh?"

The world shifts around her, almost like it's snapping back into place after 
months of misalignment, and she takes a deep breath, trying to disguise her 
relief, trying to remember what the old Scully would do, say.

"No," she says, in a low, serious voice.  "Not at all."

He touches her stomach again, cupping it with both hands. 

"I thought it would be soft," he tells her, moving his hand and making her 
shirt shift against her skin.  "Spongy or something.  I didn't expect it to 
be so hard."

She smiles in spite of herself, and the prospect of teasing him pulls at her 
hard.  If he can make her laugh and smile in the face of so much uncertainly, 
it only seems right that she return the favor. 

"There is an actual baby in there, Mulder." She strokes a hand through his 
hair.  "I didn't just hit the Twinkies too hard." 

He smiles up at her like a little boy, easy and amused, and for a moment, she 
wishes desperately for a son, a baby boy with those same bright eyes and 
crooked smile.

"You sure, Scully?  I think maybe--"

They are interrupted when the baby decides to test its limits again, and 
kicks, a firm, hard jab just under Mulder's hand.  He freezes, stares at her 
stomach for a moment, then up at Scully, his eyes wide and delighted.

"Wow," he smiles.  "Wow."

"Told you so."  Scully can feel tears pricking at her eyes again.

"How long have you been waiting to say that?"  His hands slide around her 
stomach, pressing his fingers inward.  "Will it happen again?"

"At some point, yes."

For a moment, they are both still, waiting for another show from the baby.  
Mulder's head is bent over her stomach, and she studies the short spiky cut 
of his hair, the way it seems to lay flat in some spots and juts up perfectly 
straight in others.

The baby shifts, not the sharp, quick movement of its earlier kick, but there 
is enough motion that Mulder can feel it, his hand trembling against her.  

"You see what I mean?" he asks quietly, suddenly so serious.  "Everything 
*is* different, Scully."

She wants to deny it, and tell him unequivocally No, We're the same people 
we've always been, exactly the same.  But that feels to much like a lie, too 
pat and perfect to be true.  And yet, it's not true to say that they're 
entirely different either, that their lives are no longer recognizable.  It's 
more like evolution, Scully thinks.  Changing enough to keep moving forward, 
but not so much that they can't see where they've been, what they'll always 
be.

That is a truth.

"No," she says again, more firmly, and shakes her head.  "No, Mulder.  Not 
everything."  

She runs her thumb across his lower lip, the dry, chapped skin scraping 
against her, and he smiles under her finger, her thumb moving with his mouth.

"Maybe not." He takes her hand and holds it again his chest. "You still 
disagree with everything I say."

With a sigh, Mulder closes his eyes, leaning back against the pillows.  His 
heart beats under her hand, steady and even, and she hears rain begin to hit 
the window.

She slides closer, moving awkwardly because of her stomach, and kisses him, 
softly and slowly.  His lips are warm against hers, and she feels a bit of 
his breath bleed into her mouth, hot and fast. It is Mulder who finally pulls 
back, sleepily nuzzling her neck.  Slow and lazy, his mouth moves against her 
ear, tickling her again with his panting breath. 

"That's still the same," he whispers roughly.  "Still so damn good."

He slides his cheek against hers, his stubble like fine-grain sandpaper 
against her face.  His eyes are still tightly shut, and if she listens 
closely, she can hear how deep and even his breathing has become.

He's alive.

"You're still tired," she says, as if it's a revelation, something he might 
not know himself.  She watches him nod with eyes still closed.  "Get some 
sleep."

He nods again, turning onto his side, and presses his face into the pillow.  
She arranges the blankets around him, and he doesn't stir, already 
half-asleep.  

Mulder has never fallen asleep this quickly before.

There are still glasses and dishes to wash, sitting on the coffee table in 
the dark living room.  By now, the bread is probably rock hard, the mayo 
starting to congeal, thick and yellowy-white, and the residue of orange juice 
crystallizing in bright streaks on the bottom of the glasses.   

It's a mess.

But she forgets about it.  There will be all the time in the world to clean 
up later.

Reaching behind her, she shuts off the lamp, and adjusts herself in bed.  It 
is more difficult to get comfortable these days, but when her belly bumps up 
against Mulder's warm chest, she thinks she's found her place.  


the end.


NOTE: Can you say "SAP?"  I know, I know, but I worry about these poor kids 
in the hands of CC so I just wanted to put the idea out there, the thought 
that they might be more concerned with one another and the baby after 
Mulder's miraculous resurrection than the X-files or Doggett or Kersch.  Hope 
you enjoyed it.