Chapter Text
Chapter 17: The Constant
She walks alone on a beach, feeling the sand between her toes, the breeze gentle against her face, the waves crashing onto sand. Crystal blue water. No blood. No boils. No locusts. She closes her eyes, enjoying this: the solitude.
Loneliness is a choice.
At first there is no one around, but then a man appears. Kind, familiar, he approaches and gives her a warm smile.
“Where is Mulder?” she asks the man.
Albert Hosteen doesn’t answer her question, instead only gazes at her with wrinkled, soulful eyes, imploring her to grasp the things that are beyond her understanding.
“I have a message for you,” he then says. “From someone you love.”
“What?” she asks, confused. “Who? What message?”
Please, not Mulder, she thinks. Please tell me he isn’t with you yet. Somewhere deep inside she knows Albert is either dead or close enough to talk to the dead.
“Your sister,” he then says, much to her surprise.
“You- you’ve spoken with Melissa?” she asks hesitantly. This is a dream, just a dream, she thinks.
He nods solemnly. “She told me to tell you... that great change is coming for you and your partner.”
Scully pauses, reflects. These are the same words Albert spoke to her at Melissa’s funeral, so long ago. It hadn’t meant anything then, but now…
"What kind of change? When?” Please don’t tell me he dies, please…
“You must help him,” Albert continues. “You must save him. But then... change. Change that you desire.”
Change that she desires… could he mean…?
She glances around the beach and feels it palpably: loneliness. The loneliness she’s chosen for most of her life.
She suddenly knows he must mean what she thinks he means, what she wants him to mean, because that’s how dreams work.
“How will I know?” she asks. “How will I know when things will change? How will I know when it’s right?”
She wants it to be right for them now, but it’s never right for them now.
Albert doesn’t answer but again, as he did so many years ago, responds by simply pointing a weathered brown finger directly at her heart.
***
Scully awoke on the floor of her apartment to the sound of rustling at her door. Her eyelids could barely open, so deep had her sleep been.
She got up to investigate the noise and saw that something had been slid beneath her door. It was an envelope, unmarked. Inside was a keycard for a building operated by the Department of Defense.
Her first thought was Kritschgau; that perhaps he’d been a party to what had happened to Mulder all along. Perhaps it had been him keeping Mulder captive, letting the life drain away from him as it got Kritschgau closer and closer to his revenge. Closer to his proof. And maybe he’d finally hit his limit; perhaps his conscience had finally got the better of him.
But when she found a note nestled inside the envelope she couldn’t have been more surprised at who’d sent it; at whose conscience had actually gotten the better of them.
She unfolded the note and read.
Agent Scully-
I want you to know you were right.
I should have fought harder. I’m not excusing or justifying anything I’ve done over the past several years of my life, but suffice it to say, I’ve made difficult choices; choices Fox never knew about.
I did send you that book. I thought if you understood why I did what I did, you might understand that I believed I was doing the right thing. I believed Fox would understand as well- that he would accept the work I was doing was for the good of everyone, for the world. But I was deceived, and now I have only myself to blame for my own foolishness.
I owe Fox an explanation I’ll never be able to give him. And I’ll never forgive myself for betraying him. All I ask of you is to please understand that harming him was never part of my plan. I hope you can believe that I did everything I could to save his life, and I’m sorry I couldn’t do more.
Please take care of him, Dana. I know you will.
D.F.
Scully stood in her doorway, stock still, trying to process what she was reading. At the bottom of the note was a D.O.D. address that would, ostensibly, lead her to Mulder.
She knew she had precious little time to get to him but she couldn’t move. What was she to make of this? Was it a trap? What would she find when she arrived? A dozen guards with guns? The cigarette smoking man, ready to pounce?
A dead Mulder?
She wasn’t exactly sure what she wanted to believe anymore, who she could trust, what she should do. But there was something about this note, about the other woman’s words, that struck a chord somewhere within her heart.
She suddenly remembered Albert Hosteen being here with her in her apartment, remembered them kneeling down to pray for answers, and then everything that had followed.
Had it only been a dream?
Her first instinct was to question her own sanity. Had he really been here? Or had her lack of sleep over the past few days caused her to hallucinate his presence? There were a number of external factors that could have caused the visitation.
But… no , she shook her head determinedly as she held Fowley’s apologetic confession in her trembling hands. She thought of Ahab, how he had come to her once in the night as well.
This meant something.
She was so confused, not knowing which way was up and which was down anymore, but she remembered Albert pointing a gentle finger towards her heart.
There are more worlds than the one you can hold in your hand, he’d told her before she’d fallen into a deep sleep. It was so hard for her to see that, to understand that some realms were beyond her understanding.
Some truths were not for her.
Diana Fowley had been wrong in so many ways, but there was one thing in the end she and Scully had in common: they both cared about Mulder. She was being sincere, Scully knew it in her gut, and even if it was the first time she was being so since the day they’d met, this was when it mattered most.
That thought pushed every other from her mind as she found herself moving with purpose towards her hallway, towards the street, towards her car. Towards this address, wherever it would take her. She would go wherever he was.
She felt ill-equipped at the moment to make this decision with her brain. She would have to make it with her heart.
In this moment Scully chose to do what Mulder had asked her to do for months.
She chose to trust Diana Fowley.
***
Scully...I knew you’d come.
There had never been a doubt, not really. Even while stuck in his nightmare vision he knew at some point Scully would arrive.
He’d waited, and waited. He’d seen the life he might have had if Diana had stayed, if he’d never found the X-Files. If he’d abandoned his search.
If he’d never met Scully.
I knew you’d come.
“Mulder, you’ve got to get up,” he heard her voice. “I don’t know how much time we have…”
He wanted to, but he was stuck. He tried to break free of his mind prison, of whatever was keeping him tethered to the wrong path. She was the right path.
She was the only path.
Get up, he heard her saying in his dream.
He wanted to get up, to obey, but his mind was engulfed by thoughts and dreams and memories. He felt adrift, and he searched for something to cling to, something to hold onto. His mind was screaming so loudly to get free.
“You’ve got to get up, Mulder,” her real, actual voice was saying.
He saw her face materialize like shoreline breaking through fog and all he wanted was to go to her, to go with her. To leave this place. But he couldn’t move.
He couldn’t do it alone.
I don’t want to do this alone.
“No one can do it but you,” she continued quietly. But she was wrong; she was the one he needed, she was the one who could help him. She was the only one.
I need you, Scully, he said, every part of his body paralyzed, but she couldn’t hear him.
“Mulder, help me…” she whispered.
He could feel her drawing nearer and in his mind they were in the forks of West Virginia again, clawing at the dirt, uncovering truth.
Help me, Scully.
“Please help me…”
He’d been all of the things she’d accused him of: a traitor, a deserter, a coward.
A traitor for trusting Diana over her.
A deserter for abandoning her, for leaving her behind in this nightmarish fantasy; for leaving her in the dark, something he’d sworn in that trainyard he would never do.
A coward for not telling her all the things she deserved to hear from him: that she was the only thing in his life worth living for.
But she was here for him, still, in spite of everything.
He felt wetness on his cheek, a real tear that wasn’t his own. And through that single tear he felt her desperation, her dedication.
Her love.
His eyes opened.
Help me, Scully.
“You... help... me...” he grunted, his arm finally breaking free, wrapping around her neck.
And she did, just as he knew she would.
2630 HEGAL PLACE
HALLWAY OUTSIDE APT 42
ALEXANDRIA, VA
(ONE WEEK LATER)
Mulder had survived his ordeal, which Scully had to convince herself was the most important thing. The appropriate tests had been run and his memories and brain function seemed to be back to normal.
Even with all of her medical training she had no particular expertise on the brain and was nervous he might have permanent damage. There was no way to know what exactly had been done to him in that operating room, not for sure. All the doctors could do was let him rest, and heal.
After a few days he was given a clean bill of health. She could only hope he would be okay.
She brought him home to his apartment and tended to him in his semi-conscious state. She stayed by his side, quite literally, and watched over him. After a few days he was well enough for her to go home, but not before apprising him of the things she’d discovered while in Africa, and her encounter with Albert Hosteen.
She didn’t mention Diana Fowley. She still wasn’t sure what to say, or if the woman actually deserved any kind of explanation as far as Mulder was concerned. Scully had never intended to keep Fowley’s involvement concealed from Mulder forever, but when Skinner called to inform her Agent Fowley’s body had been discovered after a neighbor reported a bad smell seeping from under the door down the hall, it changed things.
Scully still couldn’t believe that Fowley had done a damn thing to help either one of them. But she had. And now she was dead. The petty jealousy Scully had felt over the past several months felt trite and insignificant.
Mulder deserved to hear the truth, and she would give it to him.
She knocked on the door, steeled herself for this task. At first he was playful, lighthearted, and while part of her was relieved he seemed like himself again, she prepared herself to deliver the grim news.
Mulder had other plans, however.
“Scully, I, uh-- I was comin' down to work to tell you that Albert Hosteen is dead. He died last night in New Mexico. He'd been in a coma for two weeks. There was no way he could've been in your apartment.”
This news shocked Scully. “He was there. We-- we prayed together,” she insisted.
He eyed her and with a single look they were dancing once again. She could tell from his eyes what he was thinking, almost as if she had acquired his mind reading skills.
A visitation. A ghost. A spirit.
See it, Scully.
“Mulder, I don't believe that. I-- I don't believe it. It's impossible.”
“Is it any more impossible than what you saw in Africa?” he inquired. “Or what you saw in me?”
The truth was she probably did believe it, because she had no choice anymore. She knew as surely as she was standing here now that an alive and well Albert Hosteen couldn’t possibly have been in her living room when she’d thought he was. That she’d been dreaming, or hallucinating. Or maybe what she could intuit from Mulder’s look that he believed was right, and she’d seen a ghost.
“I don't know what to believe anymore,” she admitted, as tears started flowing.
She sensed Mulder nodding as he stepped closer to her, prepared for their usual dance. He’d anticipated this, surely. But she was tired, so tired of these well-trodden steps.
“Mulder, I was so determined to find a cure to save you that I could deny what it was that I saw.”
She’d seen the craft on the beach, the sea of blood. She’d seen the locusts and the shaman. She’d seen all of it. It had all led to Mulder. She would have believed anything to get to him, accepted anything to save him. And that knowledge scared her.
She could feel herself beginning to break down already, but in his eyes she saw patience and understanding.
“...And now I don't even know… I don't know what the truth is, I don't know who to listen to, I don't know who to trust.”
Her own faith in everything she knew, in science, in God, in all of it, had been so shaken during this ordeal; she truly felt a bit unhinged. She’d thought she could trust Skinner, and she couldn’t. She’d thought she couldn’t trust Diana, but in the end she had. Everything felt upside down.
She decided before this went any further she’d have to simply rip the band-aid off. It was the best way to deliver this kind of news, the way she’d been trained, the way he’d been trained. Both as a law enforcement officer and as his friend.
“Diana Fowley was found murdered this morning,” she said with no preamble.
His eyes lifted to hers in what seemed like resignation, as if he was surprised and somehow expected this all at once. She didn’t want to talk about Diana Fowley any longer than necessary but Mulder deserved the truth of how she’d helped him in the end.
“I never trusted her, but she helped save your life just as much as I did,” she revealed. “She gave me that book. It was her key that led me to you.”
Mulder looked unsure of what to say, how to react.
“I'm sorry. I'm so sorry,” Scully said, genuinely upset by the conflicting emotions rolling around in her mind. “I know she was your friend.”
She reached out to pull him into an embrace, partly for comfort, but mostly because she couldn’t bear to look him in the eyes and watch him break down over some other woman.
But he didn’t. His next words weren’t about Diana Fowley at all.
“Scully, I was like you once,” he said, wistfully, pensively. “I didn't know who to trust and I-- I chose another path, another life, another fate where I found my sister.”
He was speaking softly into her ear and she could feel each hair on her neck standing at attention. “And even though my world was unrecognizable and upside down, there was one thing that remained the same.”
She knew how he felt; unrecognizable and upside down was an understatement.
He took her face in his hands and caught her eyes in a gaze so intense she’d never seen anything like it before, and they’d shared several such gazes. His determination in this moment to get something important across was evident.
He was here, right in front of her, and in a single moment as she felt his touch, she was snapped back to reality.
She thought of Diana Fowley, and how she’d died for Mulder after everything. I know she was your friend, Scully had told him. The words echoed inside her head like absolution she hadn’t intended to give.
“You were my friend,” he clarified, almost in answer to her last words to him, “and you told me the truth.”
She remembered being in that train yard, their bond having felt so broken and battered, and how she’d fought for him. Her truest friend.
“Even when the world was falling apart, you were my constant, my touchstone,” he declared.
Her tears fell freely at this as she smiled in relief. When she looked into his eyes everything felt put back into its proper place, their trust intact.
Here they stood again in Mulder’s hallway, the do-over she’d so desperately wanted now within her grasp. But even though she was free to try again, to kiss him properly, it felt like this moment was too big; it seemed to transcend all the complicated, messy feelings of the last several months.
This wasn’t about a kiss, not right now. It was about this moment; this opportunity to tell him what he needed to hear, what she wanted him to know. The same way he had all those months ago when she’d been headed out the door.
This moment wasn’t about what they might become. This moment was about what they were; here and now, to each other.
Constants. Forever.
“And you are mine,” she responded.
It was naked, uncomplicated honesty, finally.
He smiled and nodded in return, his eyes bright in absolute understanding.
She then leaned forward to kiss his forehead, in his hallway, just as she’d done all those months before. She held his face between her hands as she remembered what Albert had told her.
There are more worlds than the one you can hold in your hand.
The meaning wasn’t lost on Scully but she had a fleeting thought that the world she was currently holding in her hands was the only world she ever wanted to be a part of.
Her thumbs slid down his face and danced softly across those beautiful lips that she still hoped to press her own against.
She would, someday. Great change was coming for them, and soon. She could feel it.
Loneliness is a choice, she remembered thinking not so long ago. It had been a time when things were confusing between her and Mulder; a time when her love for him had been clouded by doubt.
She’d always believed there was nothing in her life more constant than her own faith: in herself, her science, her rationality. But she knew the truth now more than ever before: above all else, her faith was in him. It always had been. And no matter where their lives might take them, no matter what twists and turns they would encounter, and no matter how much longer it took them to get there, she knew for certain loneliness was no longer her choice.
***
He climbs the mound of sand- his sandcastle, his spaceship- and soon he is joined by the young boy once again. They build together, laughing and smiling. After a while the boy looks up at him, taking his hand.
“I want to show you something,” the boy says. “If you’re ready to see.”
Mulder nods, smiling. He’s been waiting for this, wanting this answer for a long time. The real answer, not the one the smoking man had shown him.
And suddenly the boy is Scully. She is right here next to him. It’s been her all along.
She is with him, holding his hand, and she sees the spaceship.
She sees.
“This is ours, Mulder,” she says. “Yours and mine. And we built it together.”
He nods, knowing the truth. This has always been the truth, will always be their truth.
“Let’s keep building, then,” he replies with a smile.
They kneel down in the sand and build.
Epilogue
A tiny cry pierced the air and Mulder’s eyes flew open. He felt Scully shift in the bed next to him, and he leaned over to kiss her temple.
“Stay, I’ll get him,” he said softly.
He slid out of bed to scoop their son up out of his bassinet. William instantly quieted as Mulder held him over his shoulder, carried him to the changing table, and changed his diaper.
When he returned to Scully she was sitting up in bed, turning her bedside lamp on. She reached her arms out as he handed her the baby.
“You can leave the light off, you know,” he smiled.
“I know,” she said, as she got William to latch. “But I want to watch him.”
Mulder slid back into bed next to her and touched their son’s soft head as the newborn nestled into Scully and began to nurse. It had barely been a day since he first laid eyes on William in Democrat Springs but after a whirlwind of activity they’d finally come home from the hospital.
He knew he should probably go back to sleep and take advantage of William’s current state of silence but in this moment he could only agree with Scully. All he wanted to do was watch, so he did.
He watched Scully look at the baby, their baby, and she absolutely glowed. Everything about her as a mother felt right, and although he’d entertained the possibility in the past, seeing it in the flesh made him believe it even more fervently.
He had a fleeting moment of self-awareness as he realized what Diana had said to him in his fever-vision all those months back had been right: looking at his family now, everything else seemed unimportant. Silly.
Childish.
He knew, however, that he hadn’t been wrong. Having a child with Diana would never have been right. It could never have felt the way he felt right now. Even before, when he and Scully had only been friends, he’d been prepared to have a child with her because he knew, absolutely knew he was bound to her forever, no matter what.
These thoughts of his past with Diana were clouding his mind, and he had a strong desire to focus on the task at hand, his task, which was being present for his family. He knew he had to tell Scully what was on his mind to banish the thoughts forever.
To be free of Diana Fowley, once and for all.
He sat up in the bed to face her. “Scully, I need to tell you something.”
She looked up. “What is it?”
“I want to be with you, really… be with you.”
“Well, I just had your baby, Mulder, so I certainly hope you do,” she said playfully, cooing at William. But Mulder wasn’t in a playful mood right now. He was serious.
“I think...in order to do that, I need to be completely honest with you.”
She looked up from the tiny infant and her brow furrowed. “What is it, Mulder?”
He sighed. “I should have told you this years ago, actually,” he said uncomfortably, his hand on the back of his neck. “But it’s… been difficult, for obvious reasons. And it’s been weighing on me more heavily lately.”
“Okay.”
When he looked into her eyes, telling her the truth felt like the only thing to do, although he had no idea how she would react when he revealed it.
“I was married once. Before you and I met.” Her eyes flashed. “It was a long time ago.”
The “M” word hadn’t been uttered by either of them up to this point. And he may very well have gone to his grave with this secret. But as he looked at her now, holding what was essentially living proof of their unassailable bond, he knew complete and utter transparency was the only course.
“Oh,” she said. Her eyes dropped, and he could tell she was disappointed to hear this. On what level, he wasn’t sure.
He waited, and she said nothing for several seconds. As he watched her he could practically hear the gears in her head turning, piecing it together. He knew what would come next, inevitably, as if he’d activated Richie Lupone’s Rube Goldberg machine, and the noose was tightening around his neck.
“Diana Fowley?” she asked, with an air of veiled trepidation.
“I was young, and it was a mistake. But I just… wanted you to know,” he affirmed. “The whole truth.”
She nodded back, thoughtful, then turned her gaze back to the child in her arms. The child that was half his, half hers. She smiled as she gently stroked the infant’s cheek.
“Thank you for being honest with me, Mulder.”
He moved his head lower to better catch her gaze. “Are you upset?”
She looked at him tenderly. “Of course not. How could I be upset about anything right now?” She smiled, indicating William. “Nice job on the timing, by the way.”
“It wasn’t intentional, I promise,” he chuckled softly.
“How long… did it last?” she asked.
“About two years,” he admitted.
She nodded thoughtfully. “But I’ve seen your FBI profile,” she said suddenly. “It has no mention of a divorce.”
“Yeah, that’s what happens when you’ve got Langly for a buddy,” Mulder explained. “Most guys take you out for beers to cheer you up. He took me for a good scrubbing.”
She laughed softly, and reached out to hold his hand. She didn’t say anything for a while and he knew she was processing it all.
“I suppose if Langly scrubbed it, it never happened, then,” she pointed out.
“Even so,” Mulder said, “I still wanted you to know.”
She thought a moment. “It explains a lot, to be honest," she admitted. "Why haven’t you told me this before?”
He’d wondered that too, for years. The answer was obvious. “Because I didn’t want you to know, Scully,” he sighed. “I knew how you felt about her. Not to mention how I felt about you, and how it made me sick to think about revealing that to you.”
“But… later? Even after she died? Why not then?”
He thought about everything that had brought them here together. If he traced it back, oddly enough, Diana was the one who had set the ball rolling. If she hadn’t persuaded him to unearth the memories of his sister that spurred him along this journey in the first place, he and Scully might never have met.
He closed his eyes and thought of all the events that led them here; the moments that had defined both of their lives. He remembered every step that had led to he and Scully taking that ultimate one: how they’d been each other’s constants, how he’d kissed her at the New Year’s ball drop at midnight and waited for her so patiently to be ready. Months it had been, until she’d finally let him in: body, heart, soul. How the rain had pounded against his bedroom window that night as their bodies had moved together, slowly and reverently. Finally.
How love hadn’t meant what he’d thought it did before that night; not at all.
Every choice he’d made, every fork in the road had led them both to each other, right here and now. And as he looked down at their son and up to her he knew why he’d never said anything.
“I guess I’d convinced myself that telling you would somehow lessen what we have together,” he confessed.
“But that’s not true,” she said with a smile. “I didn’t know you then, Mulder. You can’t change your past. And even if you could, why should you? Everything you’ve gone through has made you the man you are today.” She reached out to lay her hand against his cheek and his eyes closed.
He covered her small hand with his larger one. They fit together so perfectly. “I know. I know that now, and that’s why I’m telling you.”
She smiled down at their son, then looked back up at him. “Is there anything else you want to tell me?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Only that I love you,” he said, meaning those words more than he ever had in his life. Maybe he’d never meant them at all before her. “Diana was in my past, and that part of my life is over. The love I feel for you, though... that love is endless, Scully.”
She closed her eyes and brought his hand to her lips to kiss it. Her eyes peered at him over his own fingers and he watched them actively changing in hue: aquamarine, cornflower, cerulean. Scully. How did they do that?
She brought his hand down and a smile spread across her face that put every truth he’d ever searched for to shame. The truth they both knew; this love they shared that they could no longer deny. That he no longer had any desire to deny.
“I’m in love with you too, Fox Mulder,” she said.
His insides fluttered in an inherently Scully-induced manner. He would never tire of hearing her say the words.
“I think I have been since I met you,” she continued. “I only wish I’d been brave enough to tell you sooner.”
He sympathized with her admission; how much heartache and shame they could have avoided if they’d both been braver.
“I wanted to tell you in Antarctica,” she revealed to his great surprise. “I was about to say it but you found that gas can and then… life intervened, I guess. I lost my nerve.” She looked him right in the eye. “I regret that.”
He shook his head. “I have so many regrets, Scully… things you know I’d change if I could.”
His list of regrets was long, especially when it came to Scully. Countless mistakes that, especially during the time Diana had been in their lives, had hampered their progress towards the inevitable; towards each other.
But there was one regret he held higher than any of them.
“That goddamn bee,” he chuckled. “How many things that would have changed if we hadn’t been so rudely interrupted. How many times I’ve wished for a do-over of that moment.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” she said softly, and he believed her.
Their smiles mirrored one another’s, understanding that now was not the time for regret. Now was the time for action.
“There aren’t any bees in here, are there, Scully?” he grinned.
“No, there aren’t,” she replied.
He took her face between his hands and leaned in, so grateful to not be afraid, to not be confused. To know with such certainty she was his and he was hers, and there were no more questions anymore.
Their lips touched and he felt it again; that feeling of absolute bliss that occurred every time he was lucky enough to kiss her. That feeling he suspected would never, ever go away.
He knew the way she kissed by heart now; the taste of it, the softness of her rosy lips, the tiny sighs of satisfaction she probably thought he couldn’t hear but he could, always. Her unoccupied hand combed through the hair at his nape, twirling softly.
Two days postpartum he knew the kiss couldn’t lead anywhere, but it didn’t have to; it was everything, all he could ever want in such a full, perfect moment.
He suddenly felt a sharp pinch at the back of his neck and he reeled backwards, eyes wide, looking for another arthropodal interloper. No fucking way.
Instead he saw only Scully, eyebrow raised, a mischievous look in her eye.
“I had you big time,” she said, barely containing her glee.
They shared a laugh as William fussed in protest. Mulder reached out to comfort him.
“I’m not used to sharing you, Scully,” he chuckled as he stroked the infant’s head.
After a moment, a slight smile appeared at the corner of her mouth. “Wow, Mulder. Marriage.” She shook her head. “I never pictured you as the marrying kind.”
“Oh?”
“It’s just so... ordinary.”
"I might be more ordinary than you think,” he laughed. He looked at her earnestly. “Is… that something you’d consider? Someday? Maybe?”
She smiled in surprise. “Someday. Maybe. Do you think you and I could dabble a bit in the ordinary?”
“I think we could,” he replied honestly, looking down at the tiny baby nestled in her arms. “I really think we might even be good at it.”
She nodded, her eyes shining, and he kissed her again softly. She reached out to turn out the light as he laid his head on her shoulder and closed his eyes, the quiet sounds of William nursing a pleasant symphony to his ears.
***
He’s on the beach again, the wind blowing through his hair, the waves crashing onto the sand; only this time there is no spaceship. There is no mission.
There’s only him, and Scully, and their child.
It’s nothing less than extraordinary.
THE END