From: ephemeral@ephemeralfic.org Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2011 18:21:08 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Shards by Elizabeth Rowandale Source: direct Reply To: bstrbabs@gmail.com DISCLAIMER: Mulder and Scully and the search for the truth all belong to Chris Carter and Co. I'm just borrowing them. I promise to return them in no worse condition than Chris would. TITLE: Shards RATING: R KEYWORDS: Mulder/Scully UST, Post-Episode CATEGORIES: SA SUMMARY: The aftermath of shooting a necrotizing fetishist in one's own livingroom. Beta thanks to the always wonderful HelenHighwater and the lovely Talia SHARDS by Elizabeth Rowandale Copyright (c) 2011 "Tell me if I'm wrong Tell me if I'm right Tell me if you need a loving hand To help you fall asleep tonight" --"Cold Coffee " by Ed Sheeran The actual effect doesn't set in until night three. The first days she's too busy having an existential crisis about angels and devils and whether the greater battle of the universe has been lost or won by her hand. It's not until the second time she tries for sleep that the part about violation and horror sets in. ** It's all about mirrors and glass and she's pretty sure there's some sick twisted symbolism tangled up in those shards. She's had her head cracked open on mirrors before, and the crash always hurts her ears as much as the glass tears her flesh. She crossed an unspoken line in her own safe living room. She and Mulder have been crossing a fair amount of those lines, lately. Maybe she has gotten in a slippery habit. He pushed right through her closed bedroom door without a knock. Just like Pfaster, except he didn't turn her inside out. She wasn't surprised by his boldness, even with all the cops watching. She wasn't surprised, and maybe that is a red flag right there. She could have been changing, of course. But things like that don't matter so much, anymore. Maybe they haven't for a while. ** People die in her homes. Guns make sporadic appearances. People around her are drawn into violence. She once pulled a gun on Mulder in her mother's front parlor, near the Peruvian china and the carousel horses her father sent Missy from Germany. She didn't fire, that time. Dana Katherine just wanted to distinguish herself, do something for her country, jump in amongst the movers and shakers who were leaving a mark on their generation. She never wanted greedy hands on her skin and a gag in her mouth. She loves her job. She tells herself it's all part of what she does. The necessary evil for all the good. She told herself the same thing when she sat hollow and scorched at Melissa's deathbed. And next to that she tells herself one nasty encounter with a bad guy means nothing. She is still alive. But maybe dragging herself through broken glass, grinding blood into her bedroom floor as she fights for her last slim chance at life... maybe it matters more than she's giving credit. ** She did not lie to Mulder. She was fine with the case. Five years since Donnie Pfaster fucked with her head, and she has been through hell and back again in the time away. She is older and stronger and has hold of her place. She really was okay with the investigation. She was working step by step and rung by rung. Right up until the blood on her warmest pair of pajamas. ** Dana Scully is second to no man in the agency. She is no one's pawn. She is never a blind believer. She is not a victim. She is not a bitch. She has spent so much time trying to prove who she is not, maybe she has forgotten to assert who she is. She needs to stop trying so hard to be practical and grow her hair out a bit. She likes it when Mulder plays with her hair. ** Dana always loved vanity dressers with the pretty curved mirrors. Missy got one first, and their parents said the girls could share, but it never worked out that way. Missy always took so long Dana didn't get a chance before they had to leave for school or turn out the lights for bedtime. Dana spent hours and hours arranging the books and trinkets on her bedroom bookcase. The china horse from her Aunt Kathy is missing a leg, now. Dana Scully got the crap beaten out of her and her insides shaken and her safe haven shattered and torn, and the little china horse just can't be fixed. ** It's after 1:00am when she knocks on his door, but he is awake and munching a microwaved burrito and she's not surprised and neither is he. He doesn't ask. She just asks if she can come in, and he motions her forward with his half-eaten burrito like she dropped by to borrow a cup of sugar. She is standing in the middle of his living room in the comfortable hum and glow of the fish tank in this place that is maybe almost as much her home as the one from which she just ran, and Mulder asks if he can get her something. She clears her throat and says, "No, thank you. I'm...," she meets his gaze and hooks her hair sloppily behind her ear, "...fine." The double meaning crackles on the current from grey to blue. She wonders where he put his burrito. "Okay." The fish tank hums and she registers Al Pacino on the television. Mulder steps closer. Too close. Always. Careful fingers draw down an aberrant red curl (*she'll keep it red, he won't win, she'll keep it red*) and Mulder whispers, "Okay." It's his words, now, with the double meaning, and her knees quiver. "It's also okay if he scared you," Mulder says over the fish tank and Al Pacino. Scully closes her eyes. She has on her high-heeled boots, but she is too tired for heels. "You handled yourself like a professional, Scully. You never lost your rational assessment of the situation. You performed like the utterly detached and capable agent I know you to be." "I killed him," she whispers, because it needs to be said. Out loud. "You defended yourself," he says. And she lets that stand. Because she knows he knows what happened. And maybe this is what he needs to call it. To make his world make sense. Her fingers are playing with her cross. She wishes she could hate herself for what she's done. But right now she just wants to be the girl who got smashed into the mirror of the vanity she always loved and had to pick up the pieces of that china horse from her Aunt Kathy before the broken bits got ground into the carpet and cut her toes. She's been quiet too long, and Mulder has to fill spaces with words. They're here so fast, in the thick of this conversation and she thinks maybe they started long ago. "Scully...you've proven you can handle yourself. You've proven you could take down even your worst nightmare before he took you down. You've proven your professionalism and your strength." His restless fingers tangle up with hers where her hand hangs limp at her hip, and his voice lowers to that register that wiggles and shimmers through her skin, along sinew and marrow and bone. "But in this room, Scully...there's nothing to prove. Except maybe that you trust me." She winces. She closes her eyes again and breathes him in. "You know I trust you, Mulder. You *know* that." "With your life, yes. With your secrets, mostly. But with your fear? Your pain?" The fish tank bubbles. Shattered glass and a gunshot ring in her ears like a distant parade. Crying is not so bad when it's Mulder all around her. It never has been, she found that out round about five years ago, and the simplicity of it confuses and scares the hell out of her. She expects to feel like shit after it all falls apart, but it's so damned palatable when it's Mulder collecting the pieces. She's not sure how much later, she's sitting on the couch and she knows her eyes are red and her voice is scratchy, but she says with a hint of Dana back in her tone, "Can we just watch a really bad movie?" The smile at her shoulder lights the shadowy room. "Woman, you have come to the right place." The sparkle reflects on her skin like a mirror. ***